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As we arrived at the Northampton Derngate a barrier stopped us getting into the venue and Giles went to get someone to let us in. Unbeknownst to be some waiting fans saw the people carrier and began coming towards it like sex-starved zombies. It's one of the perils of being a sex symbol. Luckily Giles got back in time to stave them off. Uncharitably (and I suspect with more than a little jealousy) he suggested that these had actually been fans of Shane from Westlife who was playing the bigger venue, who had been unable to see it wasn't him due to the blacked out windows on the car. But I know they were after me. Well bad luck girls (and middle-aged women) I am taken.
I wouldn't have thought there was much crossover between Westlife and me - Sofie Hagen might be the only person who has seen us both and she'd definitely choose to see Shane Westlife (they're all brothers right?) over me. Though after the show a fairly drunk (or extremely starstruck) man came to my merch table to tell me how cross he was that he'd been forced to see Shane by his girlfriend rather than come to see me. Perhaps I should tour along with Shane and all the ladies can go and see him whilst their disgruntled boyfriends come and see me. It's rude for the women to take the men they married because Shane didn't want them to see the true object of their affections.
There was a bra on the stairs between the two venues and there was some debate over whether that had been left by one of my or Shane's fans. I guess we will never know. I noticed that Shane didn't come out to sell his own merch like I do though. Who does he think he is?
It was the trickiest show of the tour so far, though I am not sure whether the acoustics in the room just made it feel like some of it was a bit flat. Certainly plenty of people afterwards said they'd enjoyed it, though a “reality†search (it's really not a vanity thing when you search for your name) showed a couple of disgruntled punters (possibly they had come to see me accidentally wanting Shane). You can't please all the people and I have given up worrying too much about that, but I am always a bit sad if someone has wasted their money and seen something they didn't get much from.
I thought I did a pretty good performance and although it wasn't a sell out the stalls were full and there were people in the circle, so I think I did better for numbers than last year.
We were anticipating getting home by midnight and I was properly exhausted after four consecutive nights of performance and four consecutive early mornings with the baby. But late night roadworks saw us delayed for an hour in a jam on the M1, which is always more dispiriting late at night when it feels like this kind of thing shouldn't happen. But the motorway went suddenly down to one lane and people either didn't realise this was happening or chose to think their journey home was more important and drove past us as we waited impatiently in the left hand lane. We edged forward very slowly but more cars were passing us all the time. And then some started coming along the hard shoulder too, which could not be an accident. I thought about filming them and sending their numberplates to the police, but a lorry driver, aggrieved by their illegal rudeness straddled the hard shoulder and stopped most of them getting through. It was fun passing a few of those these selfish idiots trapped behind an AA van, with nobody prepared to let them edge back in to traffic.
It was very frustrating for me, but worse for Giles who was heading home to Norwich after he'd dropped me off. It felt like we would never get home. But the delay was only an hour (though then the North Circular was closed too). Some people tweeted me to let me know my tweets about the delay were boring them. I felt sorry that they didn't understand that this was their fault for choosing to follow me or that there was a way out by unfollowing, so I kindly blocked them. It's for the best, because if they think a few late night tweets about traffic jams are dull then they're really not ready for the rest of my feed.
