Banter

I took part in a recording of Radio 4's Banter last night. It was recorded at The Drill Hall in London which anyone who has been will tell you is every bit as glamorous and exciting as New York's Radio City Music Hall.

I think it was the first thing of its ilk that I'd done in ages. I must have done far less other shows in 2007 than I normally do. I have to if I'm writing a book.

Normally when I'm writing I start each day by re-writing the stuff I wrote the day before. I find it helps to keep the tone consistent, gets me back into the right frame of mind by the time I start writing new words and helps me to pick up a few silly mistakes made through tiredness the day before.

But if I take a day off I have to go further back and instead of spending the morning picking through the last day's work I end up spending a day revising the last couple of days. If I'm forced to take a week off I virtually have to go back to the beginning. I end up getting far more done in five uninterrupted days than I do in ten days spread over, say, a month.

Which is why I said no to almost everything else last year - including lots of things I'd normally say yes to. I reckon with Annually Retentive, the editing of America Unchained, Genius on the wireless and the one-off tellybox episode I had more than enough distractions from the writing as it was.

Once Genius was out of the way in November I basically went into hibernation and committed every day to writing full time. I was amazed by how productive I got. It was strangely manic and exciting to do but also strangely debilitating at the same time. In six weeks I don't think I travelled more than half a mile from my front door which is just odd. So now I feel like a pit-pony blinking as it emerges into sunlight for the first time in ages as I try to remember how the world works when it isn't just me, a computer and the sound of typing.

With the film going out last Tuesday and the DVD being released today I eased my way back in by promoting the film hither and thither but Banter was the first show that I was doing purely for its own sake. It's hosted by Andrew Collins and last night's panellists were Richard Herring, Russel Howard, Dillie Keane and myself. I was feeling rusty beforehand and was slightly regretting saying yes to something where I thought I might be found out as the underprepared fool that I was but when it came to it the show was great fun and far more to do with conversation than with prepared material. Which is as it should be given the name, Banter.

They probably record about 90 minutes worth of material during each show with an hour of it being far too scurrilous (or downright rude) for broadcast. They're recording four more shows and I'd recommend it as a cheap (free) night out if you're down London way. You can get tickets from the inappropriately named tvrecordings.com who should have thought about the fact that it wasn't just TV when they started.


In other news, I saw a finished book cover today. Always an exciting moment and it's a nice way to be reminded that the hard graft involved in writing 120,000 words isn't in vain. It's real and in April it'll be out there... looking like this.

Commercial Photography

This is a picture I took of two stools in Taylor's Soda Fountain in Independence, Oregon.

There's very little point in taking photos like this. They're not the kind of thing you send to your Mum or e-mail your mates.

Showing them to people demands a reaction. It makes sense to send your Mum a picture of you at the Grand Canyon, say, in a way that sending her a photo of two stools in a diner just doesn't.


This is a picture I took of a remote gas station in Echo, Utah. Again it's not the kind of thing I'd ever send to anyone but it does bring back a lot of memories.

I took a lot of photos on that trip and although I flick through them from time to time they don't serve any great purpose.

Which makes it satisfying when someone sends me a copy of this ad for the Monday DVD release. It'll probably be appearing in a Sunday paper near you.

Suddenly my click-happy photo habit doesn't seem quite so lacking in purpose. Well, I can pretend.

I've been quite bowled over by the reaction to the film. It hasn't been purely positive but then nothing ever is. But the majority of reviews have been kind and the viewing figures were so above and beyond our expectations as to be frankly ridiculous.

Somehow we managed to get more than six times the channel's average figures for the slot. Which is just silly. I hope some of those people come back to the channel in the coming weeks to watch other documentaries in the series. There are definitely films there that will reward the effort.

More 4. Tuesday. 10pm.

This is a picture of Frances and Dennis and their giant beagle shaped Bed & Breakfast. It's in Cottonwood, Idaho and in the unlikely event that you ever find yourself in that part of the world, I can recommend you stay there.

They're in the documentary that airs tomorrow night on More 4.

I've been really surprised by the amount of press coverage the film has received. And flattered too. Documentaries aren't exactly the most written about of genres and More 4 - brilliant as it is - isn't exactly the most written about channel so when you've got a documentary on More 4 you don't exactly expect a blitz of press. But there's been far more than I expected.

On Saturday the Times made it the cover of their TV coverage and had this feature written by the Reverend Billy, which I thought was a novel way of approaching it. The Independent on Sunday gave it the cover of their TV coverage also and the Daily Mail's Weeekend magazine gave it a prominent preview and four stars saying, "Is it possible to drive across the US without staying at a chain hotel, eating at a chain restaurant or refuelling at a chain gas station? We won't spoil Dave Gorman's film by saying. His route follows its own peculiar logic, free from the carefully choreographed quirkiness that would be present in a more thoroughly researched travelogue, and this produces some real moments of magic - especially the closing 'mom and pop' soda fountain store, and a beagle shaped hotel which is in a class of its own. At one point Gorman rather loses it when his director is forced to drop out with a bad back, marooning him in a dead-end town. Towards the end it gets a touch repetitive - but the sense of adventure, warmth and Gorman's charm makes it work."

I honestly wouldn't have expected the Daily Mail to have noticed it existed let alone reviewed it. Given that they have, I'm really glad they appreciated the subtlety and could see what the film wasn't as well as what it was. (I can live with them saying it's "a touch repetitive" towards the end.)

The Scotsman was nice too. Mind you, the Daily Record seem to think I'm a Scotsman. Which I'm not. Still, at least he liked the film.

I'll be popping in to The Geoff Show on Virgin Radio tonight, The Wright Stuff on Channel 5 Tuesday morning and Richard and Judy on Tuesday also. And just to prove that I do leave the house for other reasons I'm taking part in an episode of Radio 4's Banter on Sunday. It's recoded at The Drill Hall in central London and if you want to get hold of some free tickets to come along you can get them here.

But all this aside, there are two huge honours being bestowed on the film that no one could ever have predicted. Apparently, the people of Britain are going to celebrate the screening by devoting the whole day to eating that most American of foodstuffs: the pancake. Thanks guys. That's a pretty amazing gesture. I won't forget it.

In America things have gone even crazier. The film isn't even being screened on US TV and yet the media over there have dubbed the day 'Super Tuesday!' How nice is that? I mean documentaries aren't exactly the most written about of genres and More 4 - brilliant as it is - isn't exactly the most written about channel so when you've got a documentary on More 4 you don't expect the country the film is about to declare the day of the UK broadcast to be especially super.

Enjoy your pancakes. Have a super Tuesday. I hope you like the doc.

RSA

We had a screening of the film at the Royal Society for the Arts a couple of nights ago. It was lovely. And nerve racking.

I'm not used to watching myself. And I'm definitely not used to watching other people watching me either. Normally when there's an audience involved I'm on stage and locked in the moment. That means things come out slightly differently each night as you adapt the words and timing to suit the mood. Or not as the case may be.

As a performer there's a strange powerlessness to the idea that an audience is watching something that can't be changed. Once someone's pressed the play-button the film will just start rolling and it will be the same regardless of whether they're liking it or not. (I know it happens all the time but I'm not normally there to witness it. I'm not in the habit of going round to a stranger's house to listen to Genius with them (no matter how many times he e-mails) so it doesn't affect me in the same way.)

Luckily it went down well and the Q&A session at the end was interesting and fun in equal measure as were the bar-conversations that followed. If you came along - thanks for helping to make it such an engaging night.

I spoke to a couple of people in the bar afterwards who registered their surprise at the film. They weren't surprised by a particular part of it (or at least, not that they told me) but they were surprised by it as an entity because, in their words, "It's not what we thought you'd do..."

I asked them what they'd expected from me and they didn't really know. Which is where this slightest of anecdotes becomes slighter still. Sorry. I'd love to give it more definition but it just wasn't there. Either they didn't know what to expect or they were too embarrassed to explain.

It brought back echoes of a thought process I was having nearly a year ago when the release of the Are You Dave Gorman DVD made me consider what might have been had I set off on a path of doing-what-people-expected-me-to back in 2001.

I don't know how different things would have been if I'd taken the shilling and pretended to be the namesake-obsessed goon that the pound signs were telling me to be... but I know it wouldn't have led to the same place I'm in right now. My guess is that it would have run out of steam a few years ago. That's a guess. I can say with certainty that it wouldn't have made me happy. I can't imagine More4 giving him the opportunity to make a bit of proper grown-up telly for instance. I'd much rather be me than him.

So... anyway, the film goes out on More4 on the evening of February 5th and is released on DVD on February 11. It isn't what two people were expecting it to be.


PS: It does have some bad language in it. Either that or I was wearing my 15 certificate shirt on the day of the photoshoot.

Vase

§, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Doorstop Boasting

Now that they've shown the programme I'm allowed to show you this.

I haven't decided what I'm going to spend my winnings on yet.





Maybe a carpet.

Late Night Poker

Piggy Bank Polaroid, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

The episode of Late Night Poker that I took part in last October will be aired on Monday. Well, for the last five minutes of Monday anyway... and then most of it will be on Tuesday.

Monday. 11.55pm. Channel 4.