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Monday 19th November 2018

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It’s today guys. Look busy.
I have some plans for next International Men’s Day, but this one was mainly about just relaxing and being proud to be a guy. We’re not too bad fellas. Let’s be better though. I am quite getting into the idea of IMD now. I don’t know who indoctrinated me. But as always no women complaining about its existence, except with irony and none of the men who ask where it is on March 8th bothered to do anything. Next year will be different.
Another multi-podcast day.
Stone Clearing Chapter 2 launched, complete with new theme tune composed by my best man Mike “Devon” Cosgrave who fulfilled my brief to perfection and the mystery voice of the stones- but who is he?
Are you strong enough to listen to 45 minutes of this every week until I die? 
Then into town to take part in Robin Ince and Josie Long’s Book Shambles podcast in which we talked about quiz shows, Monty Python and my ill-judged attempt to do shocking comedy at the Fringe in 1988.
There was time to prepare for my own podcast recording, the final shows of series 14 and the 199th and 200th RHLSTPs (we do two in a week, don’t tell anyone). I was nervous about meeting Terry Hall and finding out if he was short like I thought or tall, like one previous guest asserted. No spoilers here.
I enjoyed looking back at his varied career though and was interested to talk to him about the dynamics of a band (a heightened version of a group of friends as discussed in my play Punk’s Not Dead) and how it feels to create something beautiful that does not get the recognition it deserves, except from one person who thinks it’s the best ever. Which I think is just about me with Terry’s mid-nineties solo album, Home. I was going to encourage everyone to buy it on the week the podcast is released, but it’s seemingly not commercially available any more. I listened to it on iTunes though and then watched the Lightning Seeds’ similar but slightly inferior version of the best song on the album, Sense and wondered if in another universe Terry Hall was on the Three Lions single- it turns out that he sort of was in this Universe.
I was less nervous about interviewing Adam Buxton for the fourth time, though as it wasn’t that long since he was last on had more or less made the decision to free form. Which he made incredibly easy as he had come prepared with lots of great ideas that he could have used in his own podcast but had generously bestowed on mine.
It was a packed Leicester Square Theatre and there were apparently 500 people on the waiting list for the show. 
And it was a good if nerve-wracking show. I am not a muso which is why this is the first dedicated musician that I’ve ever had on the show, But I love Terry’s work and his poetry and have always found him very funny, despite his reputation for never smiling. I think we had fun, though there were some very serious bits too. Hall is a complex individual and I don’t think I was likely to get to the bottom of what has made him the man he is, but I chipped away at it a little.
I faded a little towards the end of the Buxton podcast, but Adam stayed pretty focused and was brilliant. Even his ideas which didn’t quite fly were worth a go! I think we are probably equally delighted by the success we have both made of our podcasts. We have a similar career trajectory and comic sensibility and I am delighted that he is my most frequent guest.
But there was little time to wallow in this remarkable achievement as we had to get out of the theatre and take our show chairs home (at considerable expense) so I spent the next two hours loading up a van with two giggly Eastern European men and driving fairly slowly home. It was better than the rollercoaster ride that I’d taken with the chairs on the way in 8 weeks ago, so I probably shouldn’t complain that these guys weren’t trying to kill me. It was not the showbiz glamour, private helicopter ride that I had expected I’d be entitled to. But my expectations are ridiculous and as with so many late night journeys home, I was pressed up against a stranger, who didn’t get out of the cab with me.


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