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Today I got the train into London to head to the Podcast Room studio near Great Portland Street to do three podcasts in four hours. It's quite an intense way of creating content, but it worked well, I think. I did two Book Club podcasts, which don't usually have an audience and most often are recorded remotely. But I got to look Johnny Ball and David Nicholls in their actual faces in a mildly stuffy subterranean room. Both were great value in very different ways. And then I did a regular RHLSTP with the wonderful Nick Helm, who has been through a bit of a tough time recently, but has emerged like a beautiful shouty butterfly and seems very content. It's a different podcast without an audience and I am not going to eschew live shows entirely, but I might ease off a little and just do one new RHLSTP a week and see what works, and maybe have a bit of time to do some writing again.
London was fun in the sunshine. I arrived at St Pancras and had some lunch at St Pancras as I finished Johnny's book. A large party of tourists sat at the next table and left their suitcases by the barrier a few feet away and some police officers came to warn them to keep them close, as there had been a lot of bag thefts. Welcome to London.
I walked up to Great Portland Street station in the sunshine. I passed a fireman cleaning his fire engine at the fire station. The soapy water poured out on to the pavement. I thought I might write about it in my blog so took some photos, as it struck me as weirdly beautiful or meaningful. I have no idea why now though. So there's the photos. The poetry came with the sunshine on my face and now the sunshine has gone, so has the poetry. Now I just think it looks like a big load of fireman spunk.
I was tired at the end of the intense podcasting in a windowless basement and worried that the room might smell of sweaty men or more accurately sweaty me. But no one complained. I walked back to St Pancras and because it was rush hour my train was packed (and also delayed as the driver hadn't made it to the station where he was meant to take over). My leg was hurting and I was exhausted and so I went and sat in the relatively empty first class carriage, even though I didn't have a first class ticket. I couldn't see a ticket inspector wanting to work their way up this packed train and I thought I'd probably be able to argue that I needed a seat and this was the only one available. But no one challenged me and I got away with my theft (and was able to write the blurbs for the podcasts at my table). When I finally got off at Hitchin (about 30 minutes late) I wanted to shout, "Ha ha, you suckers. I sat in first class but didn't pay the extra." But I figured that probably half the carriage were doing the same and also the man sitting on the next table was wearing a jumper indicating he worked for the rail company. So I kept quiet. It would have been a shame to blow it at the last minute.