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Slowly easing into almost doing some work now I can't play poker any more and have gambled my remaining money away on Blackjack and Roulette (I was briefly £200 up and thought I might be able to become a professional gambler, but after two days I had frittered it all away - don't gamble kids).
I'm back doing some work on Impossible Questions From Kids which I might try and do as a podcast and a book (I did get a deal to do a book a couple of years ago, but they weren't offering enough money to make it worthwhile - so I've decided to do it unpaid instead and that's the kind of logic that will make you as rich as I am).
I also had a go at producing a very rough pilot episode of Rich and Ally's Craven Newsround - a daily podcast in which me and a 134 year old ventriloquist dummy try to put the important news stories into a digestible form. I am pretty sure that this idea will be too time consuming to do regularly and also ironically too rushed to do well, but maybe I can find a sweet spot where I can do it fast and make it funny enough to be worthwhile. Or maybe it's just another distraction from real work.
I will put the pilot up under the paywall for Substack readers and in the badgers' secret area. Don't worry if you don't pay. It's not very good and is heavily based on yesterday's blog so you're not missing much. Please don't share it with anyone important or the chances of me reviving any kind of actual career are doomed.
I then had to dash off to get my dry-cleaning, go to the supermarket and pick my kids up from school. The dry cleaners is in town and there's a few parking spots outside that are free for 20 minutes, but you can't rely on getting them. They're also just off a busy corner with traffic coming both ways so it can sometimes be tricky to get into a space without holding everybody up.
There was quite a big space when I got there, but I just about had to reverse in, but aware of other traffic users I was too hasty in my attempts to get in and made a right balls up of it and was about three feet from the kerb, so had to come out and go in again. Luckily not many cars were around, but it was an atrocious bit of parking. At least the first time - the second time was perfect.
Arthur Smith used to say that the best kind of fame is mild fame as you get some of the perks of being known, whilst still being able to live a normal life. He is right. If I was properly famous then I probably wouldn't pick up my own dry cleaning and would have someone to drive me around, but if I worked in Waterstones (which I'd like to) and parked badly then people would just think I was bad at driving and move on.
The curse of being mildly famous is that if you parallel park badly people might tweet about it (also if you're the kind of person who gets flustered in situations like this anyway, it makes it worse that you're worried about being recognised). Being a bad parker is hardly the worst crime of modern day celebrity, but I got home to find that I had been observed by someone who let me know they'd seen my shame on Blue Sky
Ms Paulie said "Saw the best display of parallel parking outside dry cleaners today" with some sarcastic laughter, car and applause emojis.
I don't mind really and it's good to live in a modern world where women can sarcastically applaud a man's bad parking (that's equality) and look I making a living from detailing my tiny daily humiliations. But I do that so that I am in control. If I am the one talking about my failings then I own them.
She'll have gone home and told her family that the guy from Channel 5's Celebrity Game Night has fallen so far that he doesn't even have someone to take in his dry cleaning for him and it also takes him two goes to parallel park. How the mighty have fallen.
I am lucky she didn't see my Newsround pilot. That would have been really embarrassing.
My guest for the Leicester Square RHLSTP on 23rd February will be Jameela Jamil. I did her podcast last year and she's so open and honest and self-mocking that I know she will be a terrific guest. This should be an all-time classic.
