Genius Bowlarama

Making Genius for the wireless has largely involved a team of 6 or 7 people. For the tellybox Team Genius expanded rapidly. Suddenly we had production accountants, production coordinators, production managers, an art-department, a set-designer, a director, an executive producer or two (or three) and so on. These are all jobs that needed doing and they were all done by people that were naturally welcomed into the bosom of Team Genius.

With so many new people involved we decided early on in the production to have a night out as a bonding exercise. This was when our work was largely office-based and before we started recording the shows; before the whole working into the early hours schedule really kicked in.

So Team Genius went for a night of fun and frolics. And competitive bowling. Fun was had by all. Luckily - and I really was lucky - I won. As a reward, I was allowed to host the show. It could all have been so different; Gemma (Team Genius, Non-Bearded Division) came a very close second.

Anyway... when the series ended we wanted to have a wrap party and because various members of TG were working on other projects we had to wait until this last Friday to do it. Now that we'd been in the studio, membership of Team Genius had swelled further still as there are people who only join a production at that nuts and bolts stage. Opinions were canvassed but there was no real debate. Bowling had somehow become the official sport of Team Genius. So a second Team Genius Bowlarama was arranged.

Of course this put the pressure on me. I knew that my job was on the line. Winner = host. It's as simple as that. In the first game of Bowlarama II, Gemma (TGNBD) equalled my score but we were both left in the shade by a fine game-winning performance from Paul (TGNBD(WTF)). I knew that in the second game I had to step it up. Not only did I need to win, if I wanted to continue hosting Genius I needed to do it with a score higher than Paul's first-game-winning total.

It was a close call. It was difficult to keep track because Team Genius were spread over three lanes. It wasn't just Gemma (TGNBD) and Paul (TGNBD(WTF)) I had to worry about... a newly competitive Alison (TGNBD) was bowling well also... with her and Paul ahead of me for most of the game.

With two frames to go I was in deep trouble. If either Paul or Alison hit strikes I was out of it. And I needed not one, but two consecutive strikes to put me back in contention. I love hosting Genius. I couldn't let someone steal my job from under my nose. I dug deep. Strike. Strike.

My job is safe ladies and gentlemen... I, Dave Gorman (TGBD), am the Two-time, Team Genius Bowlarama Champeen. Get in.

Any Other Business...

So... first off, some things you ought to know - or at least things I ought to tell you - on the Genius front.

I'm going to go to work on the next series as soon as this tour is done and dusted but Team Genius have already assembled and are beavering away, filing and categorising the ideas we've received so far. (This is why it's a bad idea to send your ideas directly to me and a good idea to send them to the show! I'm a busy fool whose head is elsewhere.)

To make it even easier to send ideas in to the show Team Genius are now on Twitter. They're @bbcgenius and there's also now a facebook page for the show too. You can sign up for it here: www.facebook.com/bbcgenius.

I'm really enjoying chatting to people after the shows on tour and one of the things I hear a lot is, "I'd love to send something in to Genius but I never have any ideas!" Well, this is where the twitter/facebook side of things might help. Because while ideas just come to some people, sitting down and trying to come up with an idea can be a bit too abstract. But Team Genius are going to be offering challenges to people and that might well inspire you. Yesterday at lunch time they asked twitter folks to tell them what a Genius Biscuit might look like and later in the day they asked for Genius suggestions of genetically modified animals.

There were loads of ideas for both. Personally, I liked @jimmyshoey's suggestion of a mug made out of Hob Nob, with choc-coated inner lining. That way, you finish your tea and the mug is not only edible but also pre-dunked. Sounds like Genius to me.

Meanwhile @_Blaggins suggested crossing dogs with people and also cats with people in order to better distinguish between, um, dog-people and cat-people. You see? You don't. I see. I think.

Well anyway... get along and follow @bbcgenius and see if you can answer any of the challenges. The more the merrier. And making merry is after all what the show is really about.

Now... after my two-days-of-rest-that-wasn't-really-two-days-of-rest-at-all-because-I-had-to-do-five-days-worth-of-admin-and-meetings-and-stuff(I'm-not-complaining-just-saying) it's back to the tour with the run of gigs: Cheltenham, Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Brighton.

One of the things I'm being asked on Twitter a lot myself is "what kind of sadist is scheduling your tour?" The journeys rarely make a lot of sense. But the truth is, this is what most people's tours look like. When I did the cycling tour, I don't think many people realised how much work went into the logistics. Simply finding gigs that were 50-60 miles down the road in the right direction each day was an incredible feat. It's also why several venues I wouldn't normally play were on the schedule. Sometimes, playing a village hall or a smaller theatre was the only way of keeping the momentum going.

It stands to reason... venues aren't all standing empty just waiting for my agent to call. If we agree to do a gig in Town A on a particular Friday night, there's no reason why the appropriate venues in Town A+50 should be available on the Saturday that follows it.

So inevitably touring journeys are between the venues that were available on those days rather than the venues that are the most convenient to travel between.

On my bike ride, I did 32 gigs and cycled just shy of 1600 miles. On this leg of the tour I did over 1600 miles in the first ten days. It was much more efficient by bike. In every way.

Still at least this week offers something more sensible.
I'm off to Cheltenham tonight - that's not too bad. See you there. Then Cardiff on Thursday. Quite a sensible stretch. See you there. Then Cardiff to Birmingham. Very doable. See you there. Brum to Manchester for the Lowry Centre. Easy. See you there. Then... oh... Manchester to London overnight in order to do the Absolute Radio show on Sunday morning? Oh.

Oh dear. Oh hell. Oh help.

See you in Manchester. Tune in on Sunday morning to hear me pressing all the wrong buttons. If ever a man was going to take the station off air by accident... this'll be it.

And from there to Brighton for the Sunday night. Yep. That's okay. I'll go by train. If I fall asleep - I will fall asleep - at least it won't be a train that goes on beyond Brighton so I can't miss my stop.

So yeah... Wednesday Cheltenham, Thursday Cardiff, Friday Birmingham, Saturday Manchester, Sunday: Absolute Radio and then Brighton. Easy.


Oh... and by the way... thanks to everyone who's been downloading the podcast (it's here if you're an itunes bod or here if you're not) The number has increased in the last few weeks... which might be down to people becoming more aware of it because I'm touring, or, in the last week it could be down to Absolute Radio's poster campaign... with it's oh so flattering picture:


Lovely.

Team Genius Needs You

I'm really delighted to say that a new series of Genius is in the offing. The dates for the recordings aren't sorted out yet but the series is confirmed and that means we're on the lookout for new ideas of genius. If you have an idea for the show, take a quick trip to the Genius website and send it our way.

Unfortunately not everyone seems to be able to follow that simple instruction. This morning I received an e-mail from someone saying, "Hi Dave... I see that you're looking for new ideas for Genius and I have one. I didn't want to send it to the BBC address, I thought I'd cut out the middle man and send it straight to you..."

Oh dear... I'm afraid this is a surefire way to guarantee that your idea doesn't make it on to the show.

There are many people in Team Genius (they all have beards and so are deemed trustworthy) but I am probably the least organised of the lot. The chances of me interrupting my work (have I mentioned that I'm writing a book?)(slowly) to read your e-mail and then send it on to the rest of the team are slim to nil... especially when you've spurned the chance to send it to the team in the first place. I think it's probably a self-editing process mind... I mean, if you are a genius, you can probably work this out for yourself right?

There was an advert on TV earlier. I'm sure I heard the tagline "The whole world has a pulse... now, so does a toothbrush." How are we supposed to make Genius when this actually exists in the world? �

Genius 3

One of the things I've always insisted on with Genius is that we don't only rely on comedians to be the guests. Having a few in each series is fine but we should be confident enough with the format to know that it will still be a funny show whether or not our guest is a professional comic.

I also love it when the guest has enough years on the clock to mean they're invested with some believable wisdom. All of which means that this weeks' guest: Jonathan Pryce was right up my street.

It's nice when someone else recognises there's some merit in these thoughts. This weeks' Time Out has (another) nice piece about the show:
...Genius is so pointlessly silly that it remains enjoyable, and the celebrity guests are deftly chosen. Actor Jonathan Pryce leaps headfirst into every given situation, presenting the weather forecast in regional accents and advertising a new, symmetrical Isle of Wight that's better for tourism...

It was properly exciting for me having someone as well regarded as Jonathan Pryce in the chair.
He's a Bond villain. He's in Pirates of the Caribbean. He's the star of Brazil; one of the best films ever. And he was a brilliant Genius guest. Completely in the spirit of the show. Funny funny, but also funny simply for taking the ideas quite so seriously. A real star.

Incidentally... I see that Piers Morgan managed to get a half page in The Sun for saying that he's banned David Beckham from his chat show. How the hell did that happen? Do you think David Beckham was ringing up begging to be on the show? No. If the show had asked him do you think he'd have said yes? No. You can't ban someone from doing something they were never going to do anyway. It's completely meaningless.

It's almost as if Piers Morgan has some uncanny knack for understanding the tabloid agenda... although quite how the former tabloid editor would learn that sort of thing is beyond me.

Still, half a page in the Sun is not to be sniffed at. So as host of Genius let me tell you that Nelson Mandela is banned from the show. As is Bill Clinton. And I'm banning Angelina Jolie from my bedroom too. And Madonna is absolutely 100% forbidden from adopting me.

Glad I cleared that up. Something else which needs clarifying is the schedule for Genius. If you're in England or Scotland it's on tonight (Friday) at the regular time of 10pm. If you're in Northern Ireland however this week's show has been moved to a different time. It's on Friday night... but so late as to be Saturday morning: 35 minutes past midnight. Thanks Northern Ireland schedulers... what have we ever done to you? In Wales the show doesn't even have a regular time. Three weeks running and the show's been on at a different time on each occasion. The first week we were moved to Saturday night. Then for week two it was on the Friday night like everyone else. Now this week, we're back to being a day later than the other regions and twenty minutes earlier. Wales: 9.40pm. Saturday. Criminy... 10pm on Friday was meant to be a great slot... I had no idea how much the regions were going to screw us around. But enough of the harumphing... it's a good'un, enjoy!

Oh... by the way, I'm getting a lot of e-mails (and Tweets and the like) from people with Genius ideas. I'm the worst possible person to send them to. I'm an idiot. I'm disorganised. I remember that we had an idea but I lose the e-mail. Or I forward the e-mail but we don't get a phone number for you and then when we try to get in touch your e-mail address fails and we're left with nothing else. That's no use to anyone. You really have a far better chance of getting your idea in the hat by sending it in via the show's website: bbc.co.uk/genius Go on. You know it makes sense. Sort of.

Book Readings... and the Tellyboxing of Genius

I fly to Galway tomorrow for the start of another week of book-readings. As well as Galway I'll be visiting Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. The details/venues/etc are here. Hopefully I'll see some of you at some of them.

In the meantime... here's some rather jolly news. We made a one-off tellybox episode of Genius last year and it's no longer going to be a one-off. We're going to make a series of the show for BBC2 (as well as making more for Radio 4)

Of course, when we're going to make a new series we always need to have a fresh injection of potentially genius ideas... so get your thinking caps on and send them along. Don't post them here though and don't send them to me - I'm sure I'm the least organised member of Team Genius and I can't be trusted with important things like that. No, e-mail Team Genius at genius@bbc.co.uk (including your name and telephone number) or visit the Genius website.

Two thirds...

Genius seems to be happening remarkably quickly now that we've started filming them. It feels like we've only just started but we've already got four out of the six shows done. Crikey. It's exhausting... but at the same time it's giving me an adrenaline rush and I think one is cancelling the other out. I expect I'll collapse into a heap the day after the sixth show.

This Tuesday/Wednesday our guests were Stewart Lee and Frank Skinner respectively. They were both brilliant. They also, both took really different approaches to the show which is one of the things that makes the job so exciting for me... it shows no signs of ever becoming routine.

There are so many variables in a show like this. It's not just the guest genius, there are also the members of the public who pitch their ideas, and of course the ideas themselves. The end result is that every show feels really unique... while at the same time, the series seems to have a really strong identity binding it all together. I hope that comes across on screen as well as it does in the studio.

Once again, our pitchers (for want of a better word) all seemed to have a good time. On paper, Genius could have been a show that chewed people up and spat them out and I'm really proud of the fact that we don't do that. Without exception they're always really beaming at the end of the night and whether they were deemed a genius or not, they're always happy that they took part. Before the show I always tell them that they're going to enjoy it... and I can tell they don't all believe me... but afterwards they always tell me how much fun it was. Which makes it all the more fun for me.

This time next week I'll be part way through recording the fifth show... and by the end of Friday night, the series will be over. Lorks.

By the way... a few people have asked a few questions about the show... so here are the answers:
1) It'll go out early next year some time. The dates will be on my site as soon as I know them.
2) Simply because we get loads more ideas from men than we do from women. Of the ideas we receive, something like 19 out of 20 come from men. We'd love to have more female pitchers too - get thinking ladies...
3) Yup, the ideas for this series are locked and loaded... but we're always looking for more. But I'm not the person to send them to. I'm the least organised member Team Genius... so visit the Genius website instead.
4) Yes, he is real and yes, his name really is Thorin.

Telly Genius

Alley Telly, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

We're making a one off episode of Genius for the tellybox later this year.

It'll be towards the end of November... I'll let you know more about it and how to get tickets to come and be in the audience nearer the time. (If you want to be the first to know, sign up to the mailing list - the link is on the right)

But for now, all we know is that if we're making a new show we want to hear more of your ideas. If you've heard the show you'll know the kind of thing... although having said that, we don't want to have a load of ideas that are a-bit-like-the-ideas-we've-already-discussed... we want to hear your ideas that are brand spanking new and y'know, genius. Think outside the box and we might well ask you to appear on it.

Don't send your ideas directly to me mind... I'm an idiot with a book to write so I'll only go and lose them somewhere on the way to Genius HQ. Send them direct to Genius HQ instead:
e: genius@bbc.co.uk

When Genius Comes To Life

Hosting Genius means I get to hear an awful lot of very silly ideas. I love the ingenuity that we find in the Genius inbox but it goes without saying that they generally aren't the kind of ideas you ever expect to see in real life.

But then last weekend I did. Sort of.

It's a fishtank/toilet cistern - an idea we discussed in one of the radio shows some time ago.

If I remember the idea was supposed to have two benefits. 1) you no longer have to change the fishes' water because that happens whenever you flush. 2) as the water empties the fish panic and swim against the tide only to be reprieved when the water level rises once more: thus receiving exercise and excitement. Hmmm. I can't remember which show it was in so I've no idea what the Guest Genius made of it.

Anyway... this example (it's in a bar on Broadway Market) is purely cosmetic - the fish tank is mounted directly in front of the cistern and isn't really affected by the flush... but even so... it was a pleasant surprise to see something that manages to be utterly strange and utterly familiar at the same time.

Moments later I saw a man walking his pet miniature elephant down the road but I failed to get a picture of that.

Incidentally... I spent part of last week making trails and stuff for Genius so I expect I'll have a broadcast date for you soon. Ish. I'll be sure to let you know...

A Non-Broadcast. And A Broadcast.

On Tuesday night we ran a kind of workshop performance of Genius with a small audience at the Drill Hall in central London. The point of the show was to try out some new things and solving some of the problems that are thrown up now that we have to think about filming the show instead of just taking the sound.

We're pretty confident that we know how to best handle the heart of the show - the ideas sent to us by potential geniuses - it's the stuff around it that we needed to experiment with. But there's no way of just trying out that stuff... we obviously needed to run a proper show as well. If you were planning to build a wall and you knew what bricks you were going to use but had yet to make your mind up on the mortar... you wouldn't be able to test the mortar without using a few bricks as well.

I'm very grateful to the people who came down to pitch their ideas - especially to a couple of people who stepped in at short notice after two of our intended idea-pitching-potential-geniuses had to pull out.

We videoed proceedings so that Team Genius could review it later and see what things looked like from number of different angles. But because we were recording it we had no choice but to turn the noisy air conditioning unit off. Rarely have I performed in as uncomfortably hot space... which isn't me complaining... indeed it's the audience I felt sorry for. It's can't be easy sitting in a sauna and watching a third variation for an ending to the show you've already seen reach a satisfying conclusion. But they stuck with it and continued to give us some really valuable feedback right to the end. They really couldn't have been much nicer. (With the possible exception of one person who seemed very happy but really wanted me to be performing something he'd already seen me do 8 or 9 years ago... sigh.)

Still, it was a very satisfying night on the whole. If you came along: thanks for the feedback and sorry for the almost unbearable heat.

Team Genius spent Wednesday deconstructing what had happened. To be honest it wasn't too hard to work out which bits were going to survive and which weren't. Laughter is unequivocal like that.

Aerials, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

On Thursday I was just round the corner from the Drill Hall at the BBC Radio Theatre for a recording of Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive. I've done the show a couple of times before and it's always been a pleasure but this time I turned up feeling a bit underprepared.

Because I'm in production on something like Genius it starts to occupy my every waking thought. I'm in the office five days a week - and because of Tuesday's workshop I worked through the weekend too, getting the ideas straight in my head, tweaking scripts and so on. But I needn't have worried... it's such a self-assured show and the best things to come up always emerge out of the conversation anyway. In the end it didn't feel like work at all.

And the theatre was pleasantly cool too. Which was a relief.
It goes out today (Friday) at 6.30pm.

Genius 5/6

In the second series of Genius there were a couple of nights where the guests weren't exactly cooperative and I had to work hard to keep the ball in the air. It's always been a fun show to make but those nights are more exhausting because my focus has to be more intense and I end up feeling like I've done a job of work. When it's easier and the conversation just flows I don't have to think too hard and I get carried along by the show's energy. Or something.

If there was one show this series that I was trepid about it in advance it was the one we recorded last night. The guest was Germaine Greer who I confess to being a little scared of in advance. (Does that say more about me or her?) Would she enter into the ridiculousness of the show? It's not like we have many ideas in the series that would actually work. This is one of the things that I like about the show... that everyone maintains this strange internal logic and takes these ridiculous proposals "seriously." Of course if you take them seriously (as opposed to "seriously") it can fall apart because it's unlikely that you'll discover any actual genius there. (Whereas if you take them "seriously" you might well find "genius") (Obviously, it's all about the "")

We had a brief chat before the show and I still couldn't get a read on how playful she would be with the ideas. But when the show started she turned out to be just about the perfect guest. I think it's the atmosphere created by the audience that does it... there's more of them than anyone else in the room and they seem so tuned in to the show's tone these days that I think they create an irresistible force. She's such a strong personality and has a great (and funny) way with words so maybe I shouldn't have been worried about it in the first place... she was always going to be great.

Hello

I haven't posted anything for a while. I hadn't realised it but I think I've been on holiday. Not that I've gone anywhere - although I have popped down to the seaside briefly - just that I haven't been doing any proper work. Which has been lovely. And probably much needed too.

There are a couple of things to say... one of which is probably quite boring so I'll start with the not-boring bit. Somebody sent me a link to this clip someone has made using the sound from one of the ideas on Genius... and I really like what they've done.

Maybe this is what we should do for the TV version. Instead of making it in a TV studio, maybe we should just get them to add still pictures to the audio. I really like it.

But then again, maybe not... I think people will have a reasonable expectation that they'll be able to see the actual show. The filming dates for the series aren't finalised but I expect it to happen in September/October. I'll be sure to let my mailing list know as soon as the tickets are released.

More importantly, we need more people like Stephen Elsby of Swindon to get in touch with their ideas. We can't make a series of Genius if potential Geniuses don't send in their ideas... personally, I think everyone has a genius idea in them, so visit bbc.co.uk/genius and let us know about your particular brainwave...

Now... the boring bit.

I don't really understand how these things work but for many years there's been a forum on my website. I don't pay it an awful lot of attention but one of the things I like about it is that isn't meant to be a place for people to discuss me... it's just a place for people to chat.

But in the last few weeks it's been attacked by bots. Like I say, I don't know how these things work and with most things relating to my website my understanding expands to take in just as much as I need to know and nothing more. What I do know is that just as some people make a living by bombarding us all with spam, so some people make a living by trying to improve the visibility of their websites. I suppose that if your website sells something or makes ad revenue or whatever then the more people that find it the better. So they try to con search engines into thinking it's a more relevant page than it is by creating lots of pages full of links to their sites.

The forum I was using on my site was quite old and insecure and it meant that computer-bots could automatically sign up for accounts. Even though it needed a real life person to completely authenticate an account and post something in the forum, they could automatically get far enough to enable them to send messages to each other via the forum... and I suppose each message meant a new page of the internet existed.

So I would find these bots were signing up for 20 accounts overnight - all using e-mail addresses with Chinese domains, and then they would send hundreds of messages to each other... until the servers crashed under the weight of the activity.

I got quite good at fighting them off, blocking the IP addresses of the computers they were using and banning the domain names they were using to sign up but they would come back the next day with new domains and using different IP addresses. Mostly they were based in China or Korea but occasionally they were in the States, or Brazil or Holland or Germany...

While I could fight them off in the short term it got to the point where I was spending an hour each day tidying up after their little sorties and I simply don't know enough about the software to patch up the security holes. So eventually I had to nuke that forum and start another from a different company entirely. I'm quite amazed that I've been able to understand it sufficiently to set it up and transfer over all the existing conversations and usernames etc. So far it appears to be spam free. Famous last words.

Anyway... for those who are interested... the shiny new forum - or, as the regular users christened it - the Gorum - is here.

And with that, I'm back on holiday... which involves going to see a lot of gigs.
Two (admittedly London-centric) recommendations for your weekend:
Comedy: Todd Barry at The Soho Theatre.
Music: Dead Dog in Black Bag at the Monto Water Rats .

Variety

I did cycle to the poker game on Wednesday. I lost money. Not a serious amount of money - less than you might spend on a night out - and then cycled home in the rain. I was happy doing this. I'm not sure why.

The people who make Genius (or Team Genius as we like to call ourselves) had our first proper meet up yesterday to start work on the new series. The process starts by going through the ideas we've been sent looking to see if they spark conversation between us. There was a very hight strike rate and we didn't get anywhere near to getting through everything that has been submitted. (Feel free to send more though - we enjoy reading them) Team Genius had four beards yesterday. I am very happy sitting in a room with three other bearded men working on a Radio 4 show... I feel sure that this is life as it should be lived.

I have a week of early mornings starting on Monday when I'll be a panellist on a week's worth of The Wright Stuff. I will spend my mornings talking about what's in the news and my afternoons discussing potentially genius ideas with bearded men. And my evenings thinking about opera. I'm looking forward.

My London to Brighton bicycle ride, British Heart Foundation sponsorship took a huge stride today... largely because of an e-mail sent to my mailing list last night. Total so far: £3081.77

Poor Anna Ford

I've had an odd few days after the brief illusion of time-off finally evaporated. I've attended the wedding of a stranger, watched some people go through a ballet lesson and learn to rap. I've had my jacket stolen by a Shoreditch twink, written a chapter of something that might or might not one day be and been soaked to the skin in a pair of tight jeans and a t-shirt for a Guardian photoshoot which will inevitably make me wish I was thinner.

I also recorded several trails for the new series of Genius which is very encouraging as it seems Radio 4 is really going to get behind it. I had a message today telling me that there was a preview of the series in the new edition of the Radio Times. Ah... I may have missed out on the Edinburgh Fringe but I still got to walk to a newsagents, worrying about what a journalist had made of my show so I guess I sampled a tiny fraction of the paranoia that seeps into performer's veins during the festival. I'm glad to say it's very nice.

It's been a long time since I laughed until I hurt listening to a radio comedy but the return of Dave Gorman's brilliant series is painfully funny.
For those who missed it first time round the premise is simple: Gorman invites Radio 4 listeners to submit ideas that he and his special guest will deem to be genius or not.
This week he is joined by Johnny Vegas whose surreal tangential humour is fed by the listeners' ideas to such a level of inspiration that they might as well have plunged him into a vat of his greatest love, Guinness.
The first suggestion, for example, is that to avoid the embarrassment and pleasure of metal detecting, one should strap the detector to the belly of a dog and then wire headphones through the its lead. This sends Vegas off into a world where pets can be used to disguise other moments of human awkwardness and he imagines getting polar bears to place our ageing mothers into old people's homes in the future. Fast, fresh and formidably funny - don't miss this, it's genius.

Team Genius have got to be happy with that. I know I am. What's more it's illustrated with a picture of me from 5 or 6 years ago. When I was thinner. It starts a week tomorrow. 6.30pm. Radio 4.

By the way... poor Anna Ford. That it should come to this:

Last Night's News... and Christmas Genius

Cor, last night was exciting wasn't it? The world feels like a different place already. It's obvious the man's a born leader.

No doubt about it... not everyone could have slotted home that 95th minute penalty, salvaging a draw and leaving Liverpool top of the group. Now... I ought to check the news and see what happened in those elections they were having in Americaland. I hope that Obama chap won. The Palin lass scares me.

Now... Christmas.

Retro Christmas, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

I know it's only early November... but these things need to be planned.

We're going to make a Genius Christmas Special for Radio 4 soon... and it would be fabbo if the show was jam packed with seasonal ideas. So if you think you might be a genius and you have an idea that relates to the festive season - whether it's Christmas, Hanukah or simply something that'll make the New Year go with a swing - then get in touch by e-mailing the show on Genius@bbc.co.uk.

If you fancy being in the audience... well, as I type this, free tickets are still available here.

The show will record on the evening of December 10th... see you there, yeah? Yeah? Great.

The Lyric, Newcastle & Lincoln

It's been a busy week. On Monday I was doing Frank Skinner's Credit Crunch Cabaret at The Lyric Theatre. I was a little bit concerned to be closing the show. The brilliant Ian Broudie had closed the first half and I was pretty sure we were occupying each other's slots on the bill.

It was also the first time I've ever had to follow a burlesque act (the really quite delightful, Missy Malone) but having dipped my toe back in the stand-up waters late last year and enjoyed myself and now having committed to an autumn tour... well, I guess it was time for a proper test. And a thousand people in a proper old West End Theatre is as good a way as any to find out where you are. I loved it. Those theatres are so much fun to play. I even sorted out a tiny bit of new material too. Hurrah.

(Of course, I do realise that nobody's reading this bit. I've invoked Blogging Rule #28: if you link to a burlesque dancer's site, don't expect anyone to read the rest of what you have to say. Oh well.)

I went out to celebrate after which proved to be a bit of a mistake because I felt the effects on Tuesday when I had to head to Newcastle for the next America Unchained book event.

As well as promoting the book I've been promoting the imminent arrival of Genius on TV and as part of that I've been writing a couple of newspaper articles on the subject. I was under the impression that one of them had to be delivered by the close of play on Friday... but late on Monday I discovered that the deadline had moved to Thursday which threw my plans out of whack somewhat.

Instead of spending Monday afternoon prepping for the gig at The Lyric I devoted it to writing but by the time I had to leave for the theatre the work wasn't done. I had Genius related interviews all Thursday so I knew I wouldn't have a chance to do any of it then and the Friday morning I'd set aside for the task was no longer of any use to me. So I took my laptop with me on the train to Newcastle and tried to get as much of it done as possible then. And a hangover - even though it was only a slight one - wasn't the best accompaniment to that.

I knew there wouldn't be time to finish it on the journey but I was pleased to get a sizeable chunk done. But it left me feeling frazzled and fragile when we got to the shop in Newcastle. The staff there were great though and there was a lovely crowd who were really up for it so I got a bit of an adrenaline kick and the reading ended up being really good fun.

It would have been lovely to spend a bit of time in Newcastle. In an ideal world I'd have brought my "proper" camera with me and set out into the darkness with a tripod to do some late night photography because the city's architecture and liveliness would be great for some night-shooting. Instead I headed straight back to the hotel to watch the football (glorious) and continue the writing (headachey) and contented myself with pointing my point-and-shoot snapper out of the hotel window instead.


The schedule that was laid out for the next day meant that the article simply had to be finished that night or I'd miss the deadline so I worked on, finally finishing it at 3am.

Wednesday was already set to be an especially long and arduous day, but now, with a distinct lack of sleep it was only going to feel harder. I was doing another reading that day - this time in Lincoln - but the book's publicist and the Genius publicist had conspired to ensure I had seven or eight appointments to make before that. I did stock signings - which means I signed books but not as part of any event - in two Gateshead shops and two more in York as well as doing various phone interviews and popping into a local radio station along the way. It was one of those frustratingly bitty days where there was never a significant enough break in the schedule, just the odd twenty minutes here or there so that, apart from the hotel breakfast, there was never time to have an actual meal and we (that's me and Ed Publisher by the way) survived on snacks and sandwiches all day.

The magic recipe of a warm welcome and an engaged and interested crowd meant the dose of adrenaline was administered and the Lincoln event was just as much fun as the one in Newcastle. (The fact that all four recent events have been so different - thanks to the Q&A sessions - is what really makes these events enjoyable to me)

But the moment I came off stage (or rather, off-shop-floor) I felt my energy dying completely. Lincoln must be one of the few British cities I've never visited before and I really didn't know what to expect of it. It looked beautiful. But as with Newcastle there was no chance to really appreciate it... this time because my Thursday schedule of Genius-related interviews meant I had to be back in London for the morning.

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a direct rail connection between Lincoln and London and there certainly wasn't a railway route back home at that time of night so instead we had the extravagance of a car home. My head didn't say hello to the pillows til the wee small hours.

Five hours sleep followed by three train journeys, five cars, four stock signings, three interviews, one reading and no meals. That's not good. And at 10 the next morning I was in the centre of town for more interviews.

I think I slept for much of Friday. Instead of spending the day writing the article - as originally planned - I spent it recovering from the lack of sleep endured as a result of writing it on Tuesday night. Which should mean that everything kind of balances out in the end. But three nights without decent sleep followed by one long day of rest never quite does that does it?

Genius Approaching

We're a week away from recording the tellybox episode of Genius and I'm getting quite excited by the prospect.

For three series the core of Team Genius has been the same four people; Ali and Dave who thought up the show in the first place, Simon who produces it and myself. (We have had assistance from fantastic people like Marijke and Gertrude but their reluctance to grow beards has always troubled the core team.)

When we had our first meeting about the TV version a while ago we were joined by a head of production - another Ali - and a set designer - another Simon, making for a ridiculous six-way meeting with lots of Ali/Ali, Simon/Simon, Dave/Dave confusion. Since then more people have been added to the mix. Fortunately they tend to have different names.

In the past if we wanted a fingernail brush I'd sit up one night with a load of fingernail clippings and some superglue and make one. When we wanted a jacket made out of hoover-detritus, Simon would e-mail round the BBC asking for full hoover bags and with the help of a charity-shop-bought-jacket and some PVA, he'd make one. (And we had a lovely friend of the show, Bill who made lots of the more fiddly things also.) Now we have an art department.

Now someone asks me what I'm going to wear and the answer is supposed to be important. There are things we'd just go ahead and do on the radio that present health and safety issues in tellyland... but then there are things we can do in tellyland that we simply can't do on the wireless. Swings and roundabouts. For example. We couldn't have put a swing and some roundabouts in the radio show. We could do that on telly. Not that we are, it wouldn't be relevant to any of the ideas. But we could... and that's the important thing.

All in all though, while telly does inevitably make a few things more complicated, that's not such a big deal and I'm pretty sure we're doing a grand job of preserving the spirit of the show. The conversation will still be able to go wherever it goes which is really what it's all about. When we started the first series on radio there was a concern about whether people would send us enough ideas to make it work but the ideas keep on coming. We had so many great ideas to consider for this show that even agreeing a short list was really difficult.

But I think we've got them down to a final selection and I think it's a great mix. And we have a genuinely top drawer guest too. Hurrah. But perhaps the most exciting moment for me came as a result of the "what are you going to wear?" conversation. I was taken shopping yesterday. (Yes; "taken" and "shopping.")

"What size trousers do you wear?" asked the shop assistant.
"I'd love to say 32," said I. "I used to be 32. Then I put a load of weight on. But I've just lost a stone and a half so I don't really know..."
"Well these tend to be quite small for their size," said he, "so let's try a 34."
We did. Actually, only I did. But he saw the result. They were very big.
"We could take them in for you," came the helpful suggestion.
"I might as well try a 32," I said.
"They are very small 32s."
"Well, let's have a look."
So we did. Perfect fit. Mission accomplished. I'm now back to the same size I was when I was 19. Hurrah.

Post

The post round my way has often been a troublesome thing. A couple of years ago I had a postie who didn't even try to deliver parcels. I'd be in my kitchen making a cup of tea and I'd hear my letterbox snap. I'd wander over to the hallway to discover that there was a card saying "We tried to deliver a parcel but you weren't in" etc. etc. when clearly no such attempt had been made. I'd then have to wait two days before traipsing over to my local collection office to pick up whatever it was that the postman was too lazy to try and deliver. The collection office was a disorganised mess and often I'd have to return on another occasion because it could take over an hour to get to the front of the queue and even then there were times when they couldn't locate the parcel in question. Bah.
I even wrote a letter of complaint. But who knows if it was ever delivered? Another bah. That's two now.

But that wasn't the worst of it... I also had a postman-thief. I was contacted one day by some special Royal Mail Investigation Unit who asked me to confirm that a particular parcel had failed to arrive. I did. They had the parcel. It had been found in the flat of a postman alongside several hundred other unopened parcels going back months. I'd like to think that his crime had been uncovered through top sleuthing but as it happens he'd been stopped by traffic cops for some routine check and just happened to find a load of undelivered parcels in the boot.

Anyway, that was all a few years ago and things seem to have been sorted out these days. The service is much better. In that they deliver things and don't steal. What more could I ask for? Post before 11am? Now that's just fussy. The collection office is considerably nicer and more efficient than it was, too... I'm normally in and out in less than 10 minutes.

So, about a week ago while I was over at Genius HQ I got one of those cards telling me that they'd tried to deliver a parcel. As I'm working office hours at the mo', getting over to the collection office during their opening hours hasn't been possible until today. Today I was having the morning off because other commitments this afternoon made the trip to Genius HQ kind of futile.

So I duly scooted over to the collection office... to discover that there was a twenty strong queue in front of me. Damn. I'm guessing it's because of people sending Christmas presents and so on. I think a long Post Office queue might well be the first truly Christmassy experience of the year for me. Maybe it'll help me get into the Christmas mood for the Genius Christmas Special?

Anyway... I queued for 40 minutes to then be given my parcel. It contained four energy saving light bulbs. It had been sent by British Gas. I hadn't ordered them... they'd sent them as a thank you. Or a bribe. Or something. Anyway... they're very useful. Thank you British Gas. But it's a ten minute walk to the collection office and a ten minute walk back... so that's cost me an hour this morning... and all to collect something I didn't ask for and don't really want. Almost every bulb in my house is of the energy saving type already. I've never had to change one yet - they do seem to last forever. It might be ten years before I get to use my free gift from British Gas. Oh well, I thought, never mind.

Except that when I got back home I discovered that the postman had been... and tried to deliver a parcel... which I'd missed because I was at the Post Office collecting a parcel. I have no idea what this parcel contains or when I will be able to collect it. But that's basically another hour down the pan. Two hours of my life... for four lightbulbs. I'm not sure that's such a good deal.

I know I sound ungrateful when they're basically trying to give me some free stuff. But if someone stopped me in the street and said, "If you stand here for thirty minutes I'll give you a free lightbulb... make it two hours and I'll give you four." I'd tell them I had better things to be doing. Even if I was on my way to Lightbulbs-R-Us to be buy some lightbulbs.

Last Night's Genius

The Genius recording was a lot of fun. The nature of TV means it was a longer recording than any of the radio shows but the audience were great and stayed with it all the way. Quite right too, with such an illustrious trophy at stake.


Stephen Mangan was a superb guest. (I knew he would be because we'd met recently (at a poker table) and it was obvious then that he'd be a really good fit for the show.) As we were taking the show into a new environment it was really reassuring to have a guest that inspired 100% confidence.

More importantly we had some brilliant ideas from some brilliant people. They were all supremely confident and very ready to defend their "genius" ideas and for me, that's always what makes the show come alive.

Make A Date With Genius

So the studio dates for the new series of Genius have been firmed up and tickets are now available.

We'll be recording the six shows on May 24th and 25th, June 1st and 2nd and June 10th and 11th.

All the shows are going to be recorded at TV Centre, London W12. (I'll be there on Thursday too as I'm taping an episode of Frank Skinner's Opinionated. Looking forward to that.)

If you want to come along and be in the Genius audience*, you can apply for the free tickets here. I'll see you there. In May. And June. And then June again. Yeah? Yeah. Ace.







*seats pictured are not actual TV Centre seats. TV Centre seats might not be as plush as those pictured.

More Genius

I'm delighted to say that Genius has been recommissioned by Radio 4. We haven't worked out the dates for the recordings yet but there's definitely going to be a second series and that means we open up the search for genius ideas once again. Last series a few people e-mailed me direct with their ideas which just goes to show that they're not geniuses. The only way to have your idea considered by everyone involved in putting the show together is to send it to the show. The phone number and an e-mail form are here.

I'm sure you're all really enjoying my persistent pursuit for justice in the world of ebay so you'll be delighted to know that one month and six days after I paid for a Peep Show DVD that turned out not to exist I've managed to get a refund for it. I doubt I would have managed to do so if I hadn't published the e-mail address of the perpetrator on this page like the petty-vigilante I am.

Somebody else who read about the incident got in touch to tell me that they had recieved two copies of the DVD for their birthday and would be happy to let me have the other. It seems Series 1 DVDs are rare and valuable so I've sent them what we both thought was a fair price. There's a happy ending.