I’ve just had three nights off in a row which has been lovely. The one thing I really dislike about this job is the fact that it makes you lead a topsy turvy life. While most people work through the day and kick back and relax in the evening, I spend the day building up to working in the evening and then kick back and relax about midnight and get to bed at about 2am. It would be fine to live like this if I was young and single but the fact I have to be up at 8am to help get the kids to school leaves me walking about like a zombie. Oh well, maybe if I write enough of Omid’s new TV series I can take a month off!
Having these few nights off I’ve watched a lot of TV and realized that the very fact we have so much choice has turned me into a moron. As soon as one show gets at all boring, or goes to ad break, I flick to another. Often I end up trying to watch two shows at the same time. I’m sure this is why I wouldn’t do well at an orgy. Trying to have sex with lots of people at the same time is, in the end, much less satisfying than spending all your time concentrating on one – also, I know at an orgy all the good looking girls would gather round a couple of fine looking men and the rest of us would spend the evening trying to avoid eye contact with fellow unattractive people who should have kept their clothes on. Or maybe watching TV is just a reflection of our lives – there’s so much choice that we can’t help feeling that whatever we’ve chosen to do, somebody else, somewhere, is having a better time. I ended up spending far too much time watching ‘Ross Kemp on Gangs‘ rather than interesting looking programmes like ‘The Poles are coming!’ or ‘Ten days to War’. ‘Ross Kemp on Gangs’ really is rubbish! He swaggers around being tough and meeting tough guys – it’s a bit like the little mockney bloke (Danny Dyer?) who travels the world meeting football hooligans – you can’t help feeling that rather than ridiculing the sad men who end up in gangs and killing people at football matches, these programmes idolise them. Ross Kemp is always making clear his bravery in meeting these very dangerous people but he’s never criticising them, he’s just sucking up to them. He’s in absolutely no danger at all. I’d like to see Ross Kemp take on the things that really scare the majority of British men. How about ‘Ross Kemp on Feelings’, ‘Ross Kemp on Responsibility’, ‘Ross Kemp on Gays’! I’m sure TV producers will soon be beating my door down for these ideas.
Talking about tough guys, I’m off to Cyprus tomorrow to play some army gigs. Me, Brian Higgins and Ricky Grover will be spending a week out there entertaining troops who’ve just spent 6 months unable to drink and regularly coming under fire in Afghanistan. Amazingly, these guys are usually a great audience. After 6 months of war, most of them are in need of a really good laugh! The thing I love about an army audience is that, if the material doesn’t work, you can just take the piss out of them. Soldiers never seem to take abuse personally. Maybe, after you’ve been shot at, a comic talking about the fact you look 12 and have big ears doesn’t really hurt that much!
