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Good news. In series 8 of New Tricks Amanda Redman is back in the last shot of the opening titles. Whatever the schism was in series 7, it was over the next year. Though I think there's a bigger schism to come.
This year's birthday (12th July if you're thinking of getting me a present) has been creeping up on my unnoticed.
Two years and nine days to 60. If I survive and keep writing this crap I will be very nearly at entry 9000. And all being well I should have my next stand-up show more or less ready to roll. Not making any assumptions though. No point in writing any jokes for it yet, just like Barry Cryer didn't bother buying green bananas for what was probably the last 40 years of his life!
There's no getting away from the fact that 60 is ridiculously old. No one is saying "Life Begins at 60" are they? No one is getting better looking or smarter or finally getting called up for the England World Cup Squad. I fear my brain will not be able to process it when it happens. If you thought my mid-life crises were fun then wait til have my very-much-towards-the-end-of-life one.
I am not only unable to accept that I will die, I also seem to be under the impression that when you get to a certain age, everything resets and you're 30 again. Though I'd rather be 40. Which is ironic given that was the first of my Oh Dear, I'm Now A Multiple of 10! show.
I didn't know how lucky I was. I wish I was 40. I am doomed to only appreciate my life retrospectively.
At the moment Oh Shit I'm 60! will be 55 minutes of me shouting "No" followed by five minutes of stuff about my hairy, dead penis.
I've just been listening to Hannah Fry telling me (admittedly via the medium of BBC Sounds rather than her in person) that humans are almost at their most content in their 50s and 60s. I think that can only be because all the people who had proper fun in the rest of their lives are dead by 49. Of course if you've lived a dull, sexless, drugless life then not having to worry about have a fun sex filled, hedonistic life will seem comparatively good. But all the happy people died when their head exploded at a coke-fuelled orgy that was parachuted out the back of a plane.
I am not one for adrenaline. The other day my daughter spun me on one of those swings with the circular net thing instead of a seat and I screamed like a baby and she had to stop it because I was scared I might faint.
Not that I have to worry about turning 60 right now, as I am a youthful 57 and I can't see that changing any time soon.
I would have loved to live in the world where this one got commissioned. It might have failed, but it would have been a magnificent failure. I feel confident I could have nailed this and Fleabagging would have been known as Rasputining. Because no one had addressed the camera before Fleabag.
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