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2016 continues to be an arse wipe of a year. I am sure some good stuff has happened somewhere along the line, but there’s usually a sting in the tail. As I found out this afternoon, when the owners of the house we were hoping to complete on in the next couple of weeks suddenly withdrew from the sale. They had reasons which might be genuine or might be spurious, but that doesn’t really make anything feel any better. Not only had we spent a fair amount of money on surveys and legal fees, we had wasted a lot of our time (and the time of other people) sorting everything out and even begun arranging removals lorries and cancelled subscriptions. But worst of all we’d had a couple of months imagining our new life in our new home and readying ourselves to go and we’re back to square one. I wrote about how the decision of where to move to would impact on our lives and especially our daughter’s life, but now the decision of someone else has done the same. It’s unlikely we’ll find a place we like in the same village, so we could end up anywhere. It’s hard not to be angry with the vendors and I am quite angry with them. It looks like we will be staying in London for a few more months anyway.
And as if it couldn’t get any worse someone did a horrible fart on the tube on the way in (for once it was not me) and I realised as it lingered that there was nothing I could do. If I reacted or moved up the carriage then everyone would wrongly suspect me of having committed the crime (even though I hadn’t made the rhyme), so I just had to stand in the sphincter gas of the real criminal. But who was it. A woman gave me a look that suggested she suspected me. Or was that look just her own way of deflecting attention from herself? Miss Marple couldn’t have solved this one. Though even she could not be above suspicion.
But as annoyed and put out as I was, an evening with my RHLSTP guests made me forget my troubles (and you know, on a sliding scale getting to buy a house is not the worst thing that’s happened this year). I always love hanging out with Sarah Millican and she’s a cheerful and positive force (and she’d had similar house buying issues) and she helped me process the unexpected news. We were less rude to each other than usual in the actual podcast, but loads of interesting chat about bullies, horrible hotel rooms and workaholism. And then I got an hour or so with avant garde comedy genius Simon Munnery, who was nicely refreshed, but extremely funny, unpredictable, a little bit scary (I thought at one point he might actually deck me) which culminated in a battle to prove who was the strongest. What I love about RHLSTP is that no two episodes are the same and that it allows the personality of the guest to guide it in direction and tone. Simon had some fabulous stories about stand up in the 80s and 90s and how he met his wife. If there was any justice he’d be acknowledged as the Spike Milligan of our generation (He even resembles him a little bit, whilst as a younger man was the spit of Steve Harley), but he remains the underground figure, that perhaps real comedy mavericks have to be to be truly maverick. I can not compete with his brain, but was I able to compete with his brawn?
You’ll be able to find out if you watch the podcast, which should be out in January 2017.
