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Mitch's Podcast:
@dalekdoctor 2 things: most days I get the kids up & let @MsClara sleep in; also once she's got them in bed she doesn't have to go to work. (6 hours ago)
@sliderulesyou When I met him it was red with a white stripe down the middle. What colour is it now? (6 hours ago)
Done & dusted at the Wedgies. Trying to muster energy to leave. DJ playing my youth's greatest hits not helping. (6 hours ago)
@misswhiplash You can get really good ready made risotto in pots from the Covent Garden Soup Co. (11 hours ago)
dum dum dummmm
Monday 24th August 2009
SO I found the scales, dug 'em out, fired 'em up and I've put three pounds on. (21.2 to 21.5) Not surprised at all and thought it could even have been worse. What with losing the scales and the house move and just generally being insanely busy I had rather taken my eye off the ball recently and in particular the last week or so I have basically been eating motorway rubbish almost exclusively.
Clara wants me to blame Neil Gaiman for plying me with caramelised aubergines, but that seems unfair. I could have stuck to the sashimi if I'd wanted to.
The good news is, along with the scales I found my little Weight Watchers points calculator, so I can at least go back on the wagon in a methodical way. My tour begins in a little over a month and it's going to be a lot less arduous if a. I can get a little bit fitter by then and b. I can establish some healthier eating habits before it starts. You CAN do better than motorway rubbish, even when you're on the road all the time; it just requires a bit of organisation and commitment. If I can get that started now, it'll be easier to maintain then.
remember me?
Tuesday 18th August 2009
Sorry it's been so long - been moving house AND having the busiest time work-wise I've had in a while.
I'm ALSO sorry I haven't blogged my weight for a couple of weeks - and thanks to those of you who got on my case about this, as requested - but my scales have gone missing in the move. They're here somewhere, in some box or other (our new house, while brilliant, does still rather look like a cross between the home of one of those poor sods with OCD who can never throw anything out and that place at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark) and as soon as they turn up I'll get back on the case.
boxed
Saturday 1st August 2009
It's been an odd week in one respect; I hardly ever get On The Telly but this week I was asked to do two small telly appearances at very short notice. On Tuesday, The One Show asked if I could present another short bit (very short, as it turned out) which I did, and which you can see here until next Thursday (my bit starts at about 9m 25s); then today (well, Friday, so technically yesterday now) I was pottering around Richmond with Greta in tow, buying a new tax disc for the Multipla, when Channel 4 News phooned out of the blue and asked if I could do a short interview (very short, as it turned out) on the topic of Twitter, specifically these two embarrassing Twit-gaffes by sports stars. I agreed, which involved hauling poor Clara out to Richmond to pick Greta up so I wouldn't have to bring her all the way back to Ham before going into town to do the interview. It's no wonder Clara was so flustered by the time she got home that she managed to lock the Smart Car's key inside its own boot. The good news is, turns out, Smart Cars? VERY difficult to break into. The AA guy managed it eventually though.
It's all quite propitious, though; I'm being considered for a semi-regular TV job for the autumn (about which etc. etc.; sorry to be so tiresomely engimatic but I fear blurting this one actually would compromise my chances of landing it) so it's good to get a bit more presenting showreel, and it's just good to get on the telly a bit more by whatever means.
The thing is, I'm not in any way obsessed with Being On The Telly, not in the way people in my line of work are supposed to be - it would just be nice to Be On The Telly more if only so I could tour bigger venues. That's my fondest wish right now; to be able to generate enough money in a three or four month tour each year to be able to make that the bulk of my live work, and spend the rest of the year writing, fannying about on the radio and looking after the kids, instead of hauling my weary ass up and down the bloody country on a more or less nightly basis. There's also the fact that I've reached the slightly awkward stage in my "live" career where my continued presence on the comedy club circuit is now rather hampering the development of my actual tours - it's harder to convince people to shell out £12 or whatever for two hours of me, when they know that a couple of months later they'll get my best 20 minutes (and three other comics' best 20 minuteses) for a tenner...
In much the same way that rock bands used to tour to promote their
records but now put out records as an excuse to tour, comedians, who
once worked the live circuit to get on TV, now try to get on TV in
order to coin it in playing big live venues.
That's the only reason a bit more TV work would come in handy right now; the more you're seen on TV, the more comfortable those who produce TV are putting you on TV. It's cyclical, and it works both ways - while it's much easier to get on TV when you're on TV, it's a bugger getting on TV when you're not on TV. Only those people who are "on TV" are allowed on TV, if you see what I mean. It lacks a certain logic and is basically a classic Catch 22 conundrum but that does seem to be how it goes.
The OTHER aspects of being on TV I can take or leave, and to be honest a couple of them fill me with dread - right now I get recognised in the street just often enough to keep the old ego happy without being inconvenienced in any major way. I've been out and about with Properly Famous People Off The Telly and it looks to be a bit of a nightmare, being clocked by someone every few seconds, and having to make polite-but-firmly-distant conversation with a total stranger every couple of minutes (and knowing that if your patience fails you and you tell them to f--k off and leave you alone, you'll be pilloried for it in the News Of The World on Sunday morning).
Anyway, the Channel 4 bit is embeddable, unlike the BBC clip, so here it is: