Andrew Collings came round at lunchtime, slightly sulking because I had blown him out on a date tonight because I'd had a last minute offer to appear on Radio 4's "The News Quiz". He doesn't get out much. I was in a bad mood because of a couple of tour related issues, including the fact that another religious leader is
protesting against the show without having seen it. Funnily enough, as with Lowestoft, this complaint comes from a gig where I have hardly sold any tickets, so it only provides me with some publicity, but it's not the kind of publicity I want. Come and see the show before you complain you stupid idiots. You'll still find stuff to complain about if you really are insistent on it. Funnily enough this minister claims he doesn't want to give me publicity, whilst giving me publicity (a protest at a gig won't lead to ticket sales, but a report in the papers might). Although he is also trying to publicise his own event that's on on the same evening, so maybe that's what it's about. He calls me "childish and juvenile", which I can't work out if that makes me a sophisticated infant or an immature teenager. I am hoping it's the latter.
Anyway, talking to Andrew Collings about Bin Laden's severed cock cheered me up a bit. Pretty much everything I said was unacceptable and it was certainly not good practise for the News Quiz, where I doubted they would want me to claim that everyone in the Middle East is a paedophile, but it was fun to vent and nice to see my bean-faced old mucker again. You can listen to our efforts
here.
I was a bit nervous about the News Quiz. I had done it once before
in 2003 and it had gone so well that I had not been asked back for 8 years (actually they did ask me last year but I couldn't do it). I felt a bit more confident this time as I have done a whole lot more of this kind of thing in the interim and the line-up of Sandi Toksvig, Jeremy Hardy, Rebecca Front and Susan Calman was one I felt a lot more comfortable in. It's unusual but not unwelcome to do a panel show where the men are in the minority, and I sensed, correctly, that the atmosphere would be a lot more pleasant and less competitive than these things can be when they're packed with male stand ups.
I did a bit better than last time and at least managed to get some laughs before the show began, which I had failed to do last time. Though I slightly derailed myself early on by confusing David Milliband and Ed Milliband (which is easily done) which was a little bit embarrassing and I wasn't quite as lucid as I hoped. I am sure it will edit down fine and everyone else was very witty and I hope that Susan's nutty stories about her life make it in. It's good to see a relatively new comic doing well and having made a slot for herself in such a Radio 4 institution. She's certainly one to watch (or listen to) for the future. I thought I struggled to get many laughs, but maybe I am being unfair on myself. I thought about bringing out the Osama Bin Laden's severed cock idea, but restrained myself, though did nearly say "fucking" towards the end, but amusingly managed to swallow it, only for Jeremy Hardy to say, "Just say fucking, they can edit it out afterwards". Anyway you can judge for yourself on Radio 4 at 6.30pm on Friday or on the iPlayer or the podcast.
I think I may feel a bit brighter once I've got through the next five days. It's going to be a rather gruelling leg of the tour and certainly involves the most travel (and looks like being the most poorly attended run as well). I have an overwhelming amount of stuff to get done and have been feeling very tired. But hopefully I can snap out of the funk and get on with it all.
