Once again I had totally forgotten how exhausting touring is (I think it's mainly down to the driving, so hopefully it won't be such a problem from now on). I slept in til the afternoon (having not gone to bed until 3am) and woke up feeling like half my brain had been replaced by candy-floss. And it was candy floss that was trapped in my skull so I couldn't even eat it and get a sugar rush. I had no option but to take the day off, even though most of it had already gone.

The wife and I went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant and I so I decided to pretend we were in Rome and drank a couple of Campari and Sodas. This wasn't going to help my brain sharpen up and focus, but as it didn't need to I thought we should make the most of it and keep seeing the world as if through a gauze dipped in chloroform.

I overheard a man at the next table whisper to his dining partner that the man at the next table (ie me) looked exactly like Gerard Depardieu. Which was a bit of a punch in the face. Of late the film star I am most often compared to is Brad Pitt (who has tried to rip off my look, but isn't handsome enough to make it work), so this was a bit of a comedown. And it depends on which Depardieu he's talking about, the young, only slightly fat and unattractive one or the current bloated old one. My wife wondered if this meant that Brad Pitt would start to look like Depardieu as he got older.

Tonight we went to the cinema (me and the wife, not me and the man who thought I looked like Gerard Depardieu - he's blown his chance with me) to see "This is 40", the film version of my 2007 show Oh Fuck, I'm 40. I don't know why Appatow bought the rights for this as the finished film is nothing like my stage show. He's replaced me with a woman for a start and put kids in it and stuff and doesn't even include a bit where someone has a rubbish fight with a University lecturer. But this is the Hollywood process and I am happy to keep the massive cheque they gave me for the idea. The film is a bit sprawling and long (as many of Apatow's movies seem to be) and it loses direction towards the end, but there's plenty of funny stuff in there and it's satisfyingly unHollywood in the way things turn out. There are a couple of times when the central characters are so unsympathetic that you lose a bit of interest (and it's hard to get too het up over the fact that their financial problems might mean they have to move from their massive luxury house to a slightly smaller luxury house), but it's worth a watch and a whole lot more entertaining and better observed than "I Give It A Year". Plus me and my wife took in sweets and a bottle of water that we had bought from the supermarket, thus saving ourselves about ten pounds. So the evening was a winner for me.

[ Email this edition of Warming Up to a friend ]