7755/20696
I woke up at 2.30am and couldn't get back to sleep. I needed to be up at 5.30 for the flight, but could have done with those extra three hours. But I definitely have more stamina recently and got to the end of a long day before flaking out at around midnight.
I thought I might sleep on the plane but we were sat behind a raucous if jovial group of friends who had already had some drinks and maybe some nose cocaines before 9.30am and who were looking forward to a weekend of further oblivion in the Irish capital. I doubted they would remember a thing about it. But they shouted and laughed their way through the flight.
I felt sure that they would be everywhere we went this weekend, making crude jokes and threatening to lick each other's arseholes and repeating the same joke six times in a row, but luckily we didn't see them again. What's the betting they are on the same flight home as us?
I took solace in the fact that if the plane crashed and killed me, at least they would all die too. But they were so out of it that they'd probably not notice and carry on screeching.
Ah, they were affable and just up for fun and maybe I was once like that, but I could have done without it. Drunk people - you are much more stupid than you realise. I was once one of you.
We were in Dublin's fair city where the girls are on average as pretty as the girls in any other town, but shouldn't really be judged by that metric, too early to get into the hotel, so I went to do my research in a cafe.
When I finally got into the hotel I almost had a nap but instead listened to York City imploding and teetering on the brink of relegation, being outplayed by one of the worst teams in the National League (so what does that make us?).
Then over to 3Olympia for one of my biggest ever gigs. An amazing 900 strong crowd whose roar as I came on stage almost knocked me over. The acoustics were fine for the crowd and the record, but as sometimes happens in big theatres the echo meant it was quite a strain to hear the guests and the first one, Neil Hannon had a blocked ear to add to the confusion. But both interviews were great and I didn't even feel tired at all. Neil did not remember the time in the 90s when Stew and I had interviewed him in the Fringe incarnation of TMWRNJ (he was there with his daughter and first wife, who remembered it better than either of us), and he was on medication for bad teeth tonight so may not remember this one either. But luckily we recorded it this time. He's a top man and we are probably related as my grandad was a Hannan. And that's nearly the same name.
Delightful to see Tommy again and though I could hear him a little better, he couldn't really hear me, but it didn't matter too much as he did most of the talking. It was very funny and interesting stuff about comedy and mischievousness and the battle of the generations and we both enjoy creating comedy from nothing and the fear of the unknown. It's such a privilege to get to chat to artists like Tommy and Neil, both of whom have done whatever they want to do in their careers.
But what a wonderful welcome in Dublin and I think a better night than the people from the plane would have been experiencing! Their puke shall line the streets of Dublin, cockheads with muscles, alive alive o (sadly, but hopefully we'll all die in a plane crash on the way home).
