Norwich in the South East? Norfolk in chance.

Jane Seymour, bursting into tears when the blindfold falls off and she finally see's her new husband...

So with the dust barely settling on the Holy Family School in Benfleet, his Royal Sagaciousness was up at the crack of dawn and out of the front door of Amanda's house and on the road to Norfolk.  I had mentioned to some friends that I was in the South East for the week for shows in Benfleet, Norwich and Wickford, for which my friends had snorted and said, since when was Norwich in the South East?  Well, when you live in Somerset, everything to the east of London appears to be the South East.  Sort of... Depends on which way you face and where you start from.  Oh shut up.  I don't care.  I knew what I meant.  And anyway, it wasn't even in Norwich, I was returning to Martham on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth.  Yes, Great Yarmouth, or how I still refer to it - AAARGH!!!  Not my favourite place on Earth.  I am not a big fan of seaside resorts, and let me tell you, Great Yarmouth is THE last resort.  Anyway, it doesn't matter as I was in Martham, which is a lovely little area and nothing to do with Great Yarmouth at all.  Norfolk has this reputation for having a population full of people dressed in smocks throwing turnips at old ladies that they think are witches, to paraphrase Charlie Brooker, but the children and staff at Martham are always really on the ball, and this year was no different.  It was a big group as ever, well over 100 children, but we had a fantastic time, great response and loads of laughs from all the children and staff.  It's a long drive to Martham, but days like this make it worth it.  The jousting was deafening, unsurprising considering the size of the group, and ended in a massively important win for the Ladies!  And so the score clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 8.5 LADIES

So the ladies strike back after a good recent series of wins for the gentlemen.  

I got home to Amanda's place and had lots of cuddles from my lovely son, James.  Always makes the day worthwhile when that happens.  The following day, the Thursday, luckily I was much closer to Amanda's place with a return visit to Wickford School in Essex.  Wickford is a lovely school, and is always a delight to come along to. Yet another warm welcome and yet another group of fabulous kids.  All the teachers were great fun as usual, except for one very dour Welsh male teacher who spent the entire day with his arms folded, a resigned look upon his face somewhere between pain and utter disinterest.  This was a challenge, and so during the afternoon stocks session when my shows get incredibly silly, I kept haranguing him and dragging him into my routines.  But I'll give the old leek muncher his due, he resolutely refused to raise a smile for the entire day.  I was for once, defeated. Diolch yn fawr, as they say in some of the more refined sheep shearing parlours in upper Gwent.  I prefer O leiaf yn ceisio gwenu, rydych yn ddiflas git Cymru.  But please yourself I say.

Another fabulous jousting tournament in the afternoon culminated in a stunningly easy win for the ladies, again!  This is much more like last year!  Our score goes on to:

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 9.5 LADIES

So daylight once more splits the two teams.  And this is our score as we moved into the half term period of this scholastic year.  Any thoughts of an evening of rest was soon scuppered as I was asked to go along with Amanda and James and see their latest rehearsal for the play they are appearing in - Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  James is playing the street urchin that Scrooge encourages to go and buy the big turkey for the Cratchitt family at the end of the play.  He has learnt his lines brilliantly, and just needs to slow down his delivery a bit and he will be a big star.  Amanda is playing an old hag who pilfers Scrooge's belongings after he has died.  I refuse to mention the words "type" and "casting" at this juncture as I rather like my cobblers where they are at the moment.  All in all, the play itself looks like it is going to be a stunner, and speaking of stunners, so is the lady playing the Ghost of Christmas Past.  I must go to the first performance and sit in the front row.

Half term saw James and I head down to Wales for a few days in the pouring wind and rain that appeared to be Newcastle Emlyn and my parents house.  To be honest some of the weather forecasts we got at the start of the week were a tad biblical, but the plague of locusts and boils did miss us on the whole and we had a lovely few days away.

Next stop for the King - an appearance at Hampton Court Palace on Monday doing a corporate event for BP.  My first Hampton Court show - I can't wait!  Watch this space for more.

Hartland and the Holy Family

Good King Hal clutching Natalie Dormer and very
shortly going blind...

I had been doing a lot of rushing around lately, and when I finally sat down in my office and looked at the up and coming shows I had to do, I was delighted to see that all that was left for the end of this week was a half day at a school in Devon.  I had enquired of the school roughly where in Devon they were, and was delighted again to hear the word "north".  Super, surely they would only be in Axminster or somewhere close by like that.  About 36 hours before I was due to be at the school I decided it would probably be prudent to actually have a butchers at the maps and see where this place was.  Ah.  It wasn't Axminster.  It wasn't Tiverton.  It was a bit further than that.  It was in Hartland, near Bideford - next stop Nova Scotia.  It wasn't a long way, it was a sodding long way.  It was about 100 miles door to door, so I ended up having to leave in the wee small hours and hack off down the M5 and then cut off on the road to, and then past Tiverton and all points west.  It is a lovely road, but by God it's a slow road.  There aren't many passing places and when you're stuck behind a lorry, you are well a truly stuck behind a lorry.  But I got to the school just after 8am and was very warmly welcomed.  The kids were lovely and the teachers charming, and the morning just seemed to zip past.  It was such a pity it was just the morning, just a half day.  We finished just before midday with a rip roaring jousting tournament which was won by a very competent Gents team, which does their annual score the power of good. It now makes it:

GENTLEMEN 6.5 - 7.5 LADIES

As close as it has been for a long long time.

My drive back to Somerset was lovely, through late autumn sunshine, but the early start and excessive driving was starting to get to me and I could feel myself getting dangerously tired.  I am old enough, and wise enough to recognise these warning signs now, and so I pulled off the main road, parked up and had a little snooze in my car - only about half an hour, but it made all the difference and I felt refreshed and ready for action and continued the drive home.

After a very nice weekend of not doing a hell of a lot - OK I went round a few charity shops, but that was the limit of heart racing excitement - I was off on the Sunday evening for a drive back to Essex and a few days with Amanda and James.  As ever it was so nice to see my little boy when I got there, even though he was spark asleep and snoring like a good un on my arrival, but he looked so angelic!  I had the Monday at leisure in the sparkling metropolis of Basildon before getting up relatively early on the Tuesday for a trip to a new school for me again, the delightfully named Holy Family Catholic School in South Benfleet in Essex.  It's funny, I am always slightly wary of going into Catholic schools, simply because of Henry's track record, but I am always rewarded with a warm welcome and usually some fabulous kids.  And today was no different.  Some of the loveliest teachers I have met in a long time, really they could not do enough for me which was very sweet of them.  The kids were great as well, only about 30 of them, but full of beans and much fun.  We had such a good morning, and an equally entertaining afternoon.  The jousting crowd was boosted by all of years 3, 4 and 6 joining the year 5 I was already with, so the hall was packed to the rafters with very excited children.  The first ladies semi final was a scruffy affair, with one team in particular going out of their way to seemingly smash most of my jousting kit to pieces.  But the final was of high quality as ever, and deafeningly loud with such a big crowd, and culminated in a win for the Gents again!

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 7.5 LADIES

And so we are back where we started.  But well done to the Gents who have fought right back this year and could perhaps take the lead mid year for the first time ever!  Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow I am off up and early in the wee small hours again for a return visit to Martham Junior School near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.  So wish me dry conditions, an empty road and pleasant kids - mind you, they're usually brilliant at Martham, so I am hoping that will continue.  Night night!

North By North West. Then South a Bit. And East.

Good King Hal treating yet another child with the same respect he always does. 

Tights.  Don't you just hate tights?  They are the bane of my life sometimes.  For instance, on Monday just gone, I was at a school in Taunton during the day, and then at a small village just outside Yeovil in the evening for a visit to a WI group.  I wore the same tights for both shows, but they might as well have been completely different items of clothing.  During the day, they were a delight, fitting perfectly and staying in place.  In the evening they took on a totally different persona and were hell bent on heading south as fast as they possibly could.  Ladies, I know exactly what you go through.  Sometimes the damn things are so keen on falling off that you almost feel like you want to nail the bloody things in place to keep them there.  Perhaps stockings and suspenders are the way forward for me.  I'd better not.  I might have a heart attack half way through a show and die one day and then.... oh, the shame of what they discover when they get me to the hospital.

Anyway, the week opened last week with an early start on the Monday and a drive up to Bromsgrove in Worcestershire and two days at the lovely Aston Fields Middle School.  I was very warmly welcomed on both days and had a lovely time.  I had also managed to find a Travelodge to stay in that was (a) very nice, (amazing, I know) and (b) closer to the school I was appearing at than any other I have ever been to.  It was less than half a mile from the school gates.  Marvellous!  On the first day the children were a little restless and lacked a little bit of focus early on, but they came along wonderfully as the day went on.  By the end they were ready for a jousting tournament, and they were great!  Loud and frantic, it was a great tournament which a gents team just managed to win by the shortest of heads.  Our score for the academic year shifts on to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 5.5 LADIES

Close.  The closest our tournaments have been for years.  I went back to the very nice Travelodge and settled in for an early night (and a glass of wine or two...).  Well, you have to...

Wednesday and my second day back at Aston Fields.  It was a different group of children and teachers today, but the welcome was as warm and inviting as the day before.  The children were a bit more attuned to the day from the word go on this morning and the day really moved along with a comfortable swagger.  Plenty of laughs all round, and one of the most bizarre answers I have ever received during my years on the road.  I asked the group if they knew the name of Henry VIII's second wife - and a young lad put up his hand like a rocket and blurted out "STEVE!"  There was a stunned silence for a couple of seconds, then a huge explosion of laughter.  It was akin to the old Monty Python sketch about where do Penguins come from.  BURMA!  Why did you shout Burma?  I panicked.  Perhaps this young lad did as well.  Anyway, after a fine lunch the joust proved to be every bit as competitive as the previous day, only this time the ladies just managed to snatch victory.  So the score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 4.5 - 6.5 LADIES

Has normal service been resumed?  We shall see...  I was not to be heading home, it was back onto the motorway system for a drive up to the outskirts of Preston in Lancashire as my next Tudor day was at St Mary's Catholic School in Leyland.  It was supposed to be about a two hour drive from Bromsgrove to the Travelodge I was next staying in, but with heavy rain and rush hour traffic, it took me closer to four hours.  As I climbed out of the car a chill wind howled round me.  Blimey, where did that come from?  It has been so warm for so long I had almost forgotten what cold weather felt like.  Well, that was one hell of a reminder I can tell you folks.  As I walked up to the main door into the Travelodge, an elderly lady sat outside in the cold smoking a fag and coughing in a desperately unhealthy rasping way.  Nice.  As I walked into reception she followed me in spluttering and wheezing.  She walked straight round behind reception and immediately said:  "Good evening, (choke hawk wheeze) can I 'elp yer?"  That's what I call a welcome!  This was a proper Travelodge with spattered carpets, gruesome looking smears in the bathroom and a stunning view out of your bedroom window of the side of a hill approximately 15 feet away.  I fully expected to find the Gideon Bible chained to the bedside drawer.

Great day at St Mary's School in Leyland.  Absolutely lovely teachers - friendly, gorgeous and great fun.  The kids were a lovely group to work with as well and it turned out to be a truly memorable day.  I was also inundated with requests for photos from the teachers during the lunch break!  I was more than happy to pose with all these lovely ladies!  The jousting was another belter, closely fought up to the final leg, when the gents team simply strolled away to a great victory.

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 6.5 LADIES

This year is certainly proving to be a lot closer between the two teams than has come to be expected.  I packed up my stuff and then hit the road to head back down to Somerset.  I was dreading the journey, but it was actually OK.  I was going to use the word "a delight" but that is an epithet I could never hang on the M5 of an evening.  It was so good to be home.

Monday morning found me heading up to Taunton for a first visit to Norton Fitzwarren, which is a state primary school and not some long forgotten Victorian tragic actor.  I was there for the morning only with a group mixed up of years 3, 4, 5 & 6, which was fabulous, but means I won't be visiting them again for at least 5 years!  It was one of the most fun mornings I have ever had, loads off laughs, a great group of kids and some more delightful teachers.  A fantastic school.  The ladies won a pulsating joust that produced so much noise it damn near blew the roof off the school hall!  And so:

GENTLEMEN 5.5 - 7.5 LADIES

When I got home in the early afternoon it wasn't the end of my day.  In the evening I was booked to appear for Marston Magna (again, not a Victorian actor) WI group as their evening guest speaker.  I love doing WI groups as the ladies are all delightful and usually love a nice saucy laugh.  Well there was plenty of those!  I didn't get on until after 8pm, but the talk went really well and the ladies seemed to really enjoy themselves.  After I was changed I was asked to judge a competition of ancient relics (not the members of the WI before you all say it) but a collection of heirlooms and old items that members of the club had brought in, and I had to choose my three favourites.  Third place I went for a coachman's truncheon, carried by a coachman on the London to Plymouth stage coach in the early 1800's.  Second place I gave to an early almanack type of book dated from 1764. But for first place I chose a certificate of teaching competence awarded to a lady who had worked at Highbridge School, and then at Barrington School!  Wonderful stuff.  Next it was time for a cup of tea and a chin wag with some of the club members and then I was on my way home.  It had been a long day and a long week, but very satisfying.

Billericay Dicky and the Tudor Revels

An early version of the Tiller Girls.  Not a raging success.

After all the ridiculous hammering up and down the M4, it was nice to spend a couple of slightly more restful days in Essex with my ex wife Amanda and my lovely son, James.  They have both been offered roles in an am dram production of "A Christmas Carol", with Amanda playing one of the old crones who sells off all of Scrooge's wares after he has died in the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come bit (and I refuse to make any comments about type casting, really), and James is playing the little boy that Scrooge asks to go and buy a turkey for Bob Cratchitt on Christmas morning.  I helped them with a couple of read-throughs before their latest rehearsal, and they were both near word perfect already!  James is going to be a star, I can tell, and his Mum isn't too shabby in the acting stakes either!

The Friday morning had me returning to one of my favourite schools in Essex - South Green Junior in Billericay.  I was warmly welcomed as ever by the lovely staff, and had another pleasant experience shortly before I was due to start my show by the appearance of my dear old friend Kevin Rowley!  He runs a company called Comprehensive Piano Services, and one of his jobs is to look after the servicing and tuning of all the pianos in the state schools of Essex and beyond.  He was there to re-fit a pedal on South Green's upright which had come off at high speed during a particularly violent interpretation of Grieg's Piano Concerto.  This is of course completely made up, I have no idea how the pedal came off, but off it was, and Kevin was the man for the job.  We had a little chat, but just as we really got cracking the children arrived for their morning and Kevin had to shoot off.  Well we had a great day with the children - tremendous fun, full of laughs and much noise.  Lunch was as ever served by the charming lady at South Green who does the food there - what a nice person she is! And then we were back for a mad afternoon, culminating in a very loud joust which the boys managed to win.  So our score clicks over to the slightly surreal score of:

GENTLEMEN 3.5 - 5.5 LADIES

I packed my stuff away and headed back to Amanda's house.  I offered to take James out to dinner that evening with his Mum, anywhere that he wanted.  The choice was his.  The Ivy?  Claridges?  The Fat Duck?  Nope.  He chose - Pizza Hut, as ever.

I was up early the next morning for the drive from Essex down to Southampton and my appearance at the event called "Meet the Ancestors" run by a local historical group in Southampton called The Tudor Revels.  I was bound to get the coffee one.  I was due to give another outing to my "Henry's Horrid History" show. I set off round the M25 in high spirits, but it was bound not to last.  Warnings began being broadcast on the radio stating that the M25 was shut in both directions by the M23 due to a massive pile up and traffic was at a standstill.  I plumbed in a detour route on my sat nav, but the stupid machine kept trying to take me back to the M25.  Anyway, I ended up cutting right across country in grey lowering weather, with pretty much everybody else appearing to try the same thing as I got held up in ever slower traffic jams on what I would imagine are normally quite charming A roads.  Arundel looked nice, if gridlocked, and I made a note to pop back and visit sometime when I wasn't in a hurry.  In the end a two hour drive from Basildon to Southampton ended taking nearly 4 hours.  I had been given directions to a nearby primary school to the venue where performers could park their cars in safety.  I arrived at the school two hours late to find the gates securely locked and not a sign of any one in sight.  I drove round to the little Tudor side street where the event was taking, nearly wiping out the town crier and the wise woman on the bonnet of my Mazda.  One of the organisers popped over to the car park and let me in, which was very sweet of her.  I had told lots of my old Skandia friends that I was appearing in Southampton (Skandia Life being a company I worked for in Southampton between 1998 and 2003 - just in case you haven't read past blog entries), and I was delighted to see some familiar faces!  First off there was Camilla Kennedy, who I hadn't seen since I left Skandia, then there was Kathryn Lee, up until this point the only person from my Skandia days to see me perform as Henry as she, her mum and her daughter came out to Barrington Court one weekend a couple of years ago to see me, which was really sweet of her!  And then there was the lovely Tracie Callaway-Sayce, her husband and two kids, again, someone I had not seen since 2003.  You can see the four of us all together in the Tiller Girl pose in the photo above.  We are, left to right, Camilla, Kathryn, Some old Tudor ruin, and Tracie.  Then I bumped into the gorgeous Sarah Morris, who was there at the show giving a talk about her books and signing copies.  Great to see her again.  Such a lovely lovely lady.  Well I was doing my show in St Julien's Chapel (not Sandy's) and we were packed out!  Staff on the doors were turning people away which was a shame for them, but most gratifying.  The show went down a storm - I chose Camilla to play Anne Boleyn and took great delight in chopping her head off - only pretend of course.  When I finally finished the show and went outside all three ladies were waiting to see me, and I was roundly hugged and congratulated.  Then along came dear old Graham Orris (Or Goff as we know him!), again late of Skandia, with his wife and children - they had been one of the groups who had arrived too late to gain access to the show.  Poor lad.  After some lovely goodbyes from the Skandia crew, I walked back to the car park with Sarah Morris, had a cuddle and goodbye from her, which was very nice, and then began the long slog back to Somerset.  The drive back was fine and I finished  the evening with a nice bottle of wine and some lovely memories of seeing such lovely old friends again.

About the most exciting things that have happened this week have been getting my car MOT'd, which amazingly it passed (!!!!!!) and then getting some of my costume repaired by the sainted Judy Hares in Martock.  Back on the road again this week with visits to Bromsgrove and Preston.  Thank God for that MOT.

Tilehurst and Lots and Lots of the M4.

Good King Hal, admiring the gear change smoothness on his Tudor Car.  He decided instead to get a four door car.  (Tudor?  Two door?  Geddit?)

So, where is Tilehurst, eh?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Never mind.  I assumed, with a name like that it must be somewhere in Kent.  Wrong!  It is just to the west of Reading in the County of Berkshire.  I was lined up for a morning at Park Lane Junior School in this fine town.  I drove up the A303 in thick fog, then up the A34 and finally on the M4 briefly before cutting up to Tilehurst itself.  The school is a big old red brick Victorian building, but there is no parking on the site, however I was lucky enough to be allowed to leave my car just inside the school gate and tucked up next to the door into the main hall.  I was very warmly welcomed by some lovely teachers and staff.  It was an odd morning in that the school had worked out their own timetable for me.  This started with two sessions with the main groups, just in a question and answer situation.  When this was done I was back in the hall with the first group again, this time with the Six Wives talk, then a bit of music and finally a quick frantic joust.  This first joust was incredibly close but was won by a very good ladies team.  If we add this to our scores we have:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 5 LADIES

The second group then came back in and I whipped through the Six Wives talk again, which was a bit of a mind bender doing it again so quickly.  My brain was constantly screaming "YOU'VE ALREADY SAID THIS!" but I managed to keep going.  The second jousting tournament was a lot louder but infinitely more confusing.  Despite frequent repeats of the rules, both teams really struggled as to what the hell they were doing.  Quoits flew everywhere, some riders roared off to the other side of the tilt where they shouldn't be and confusion ran amok.  In the end, with the clock zooming round towards midday and time for me to go, I called a halt to the tournament and declared it a draw, which seemed to please no one!  So I suppose I can only give half a point to each team, which makes our score now look a bit odd.

GENTLEMEN 2.5 - 5.5 LADIES

As I was about to go and get changed, one of the dinner ladies approached me.  "I'm parked behind you." She said.  I nodded and said, OK, I'll get changed and we can sort it out.  But she stopped me in my tracks and repeated, "but I'm parked behind you."  I looked at her for a second or two, nodded slowly and repeated what I had said previously.  There was a slight pause, and she repeated "But I am parked behind you, out there!" and she pointed as though to convince me to go and look.  I finally had to ask her what she was so worried about.  "Well I've got to serve dinner in a moment..." she began in a panicked little voice. I assured her that someone would, surely, allow her a minute to let her ladle have a rest while she moved her car.  And I was proved so right!  I packed what I thought was everything away and headed off down the M4 towards Wales and a visit to my folks.  I was taking them to the airport again, something I used to do a lot when they lived in Essex but haven't done as much since they moved to Wales.  The trip down was fine and they greeted me warmly and then, very nicely, took me out to dinner at the Emlyn Arms Hotel in the town of Newcastle Emlyn where they live.  We had a fabulous meal and returned home to burp loudly and sip brandy.  Splendid.  I discovered to my horror the next day that I had left one of my Tudor musical instruments at Park Lane School in Tilehurst.  I blamed the dinner lady for distracting me.

After another fine day with my folks it was time for a very early get up of 3.15am, and then a drive up the M4 to take them to Heathrow for their main holiday for the year - a trip to the USA.  Lovely.  We got to the airport and I dropped them off, but this was where my fun was now starting.  I then had to drive back down the M4 to Newcastle Emlyn and drop my father's car back at their house and collect my car, before then driving back UP the M4 to Essex and a visit to my ex-wife Amanda's place and a visit to her and my lovely son James.  It was an incredibly long day, made slightly longer by on the first journey back from Heathrow I stopped off at Park Lane School and picked up my errant musical instrument.  But it was good to have it back.  

And so to Essex, and tomorrow I have a return visit to South Green Junior in Billericay for a full day.  Always a lovely school to visit, it should be fun.  Then on Saturday I am in Southampton for the Tudor Revels event - Meet the Ancestors.  I am on at about 3.30pm in the afternoon doing my Henry's Horrid History show.  Come one, come all.

Autumn Action.

Good King Hal and friend suddenly notice the paparazzi.  Swines.

More driving around the country, but this time with a very last minute booking.  I got several calls and texts from Shillingstone School, near Blandford in Dorset desperate for me to come to the school before half term. I had visited Shillingstone twice before - once when they were in their old premises. This was an old Victorian building and with absolutely no parking near it.  My abiding memory was of dodging thundering lorries and cars whistling about 5 inches from my head as I unloaded all the props from my car in front of the school gates.  They have moved now, as I discovered on my last visit, to a brand new purpose built, state of the art school building  It is stunning, with great views all round it.  A wonderful school with fabulous teachers, lovely kids and great facilities.  What is not to like?  The drive down is pretty idyllic too, taking you down through Sherborne, past open fields full of deer racing around in herds and little cute hamlets (not moody teenage Danish Prince's having naughty thoughts about bumping people off...).  The morning was great fun, with lots of laughs as usual, and we finished with a quite magnificent jousting tournament that went right to the wire, but the winners, almost inevitably, were the ladies.  So once more they leap on to:

GENTLEMEN 1 - 4 LADIES

Same old same old!  Tired was not really the word when I got home.  It was more a case of "oh my God, everything hurts, I cannot move another inch in any direction as I think I am going to die".  Which might sound a tad over reactive, but then that's the kind of mock Tudor monarch I am....  A Chinese takeaway made me feel a whole lot better.  God bless that MSG.

On the Thursday I drove up to Lutterworth in Leicestershire, so I was nice a close by for a return visit to Orchard School in Broughton Astley.  No.  No I won't do it.  You can't make me.  I have done it on every other visit to this lovely school but I refuse to this time.  I will NOT make a joke about Broughton Astley being Rick Astley's little brother.  DAMMIT!  I just did.  The drive up was OK, but I was only staying at a Travelodge, so I wasn't in a hurry to get there to be honest.  Lutterworth itself is quite nice - as you enter the town there is a big model of a Gloucester Meteor in a real comic book take off position, as this is the birthplace of Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.  Well just past this big stainless steel sculpture there is the Travelodge.  I drove past it to see if I could find a nice cheap supermarket where I could buy some food for the evening.  I had a quick look but all I could see was a Waitrose - expensive, but there seemed little other choice.  I actually asked someone in the car park if there was anywhere else nearby and he told me there wasn't.  He was a complete liar, because when I drove 200 yards past it the next morning there was a bloody great Mace store.  Git.  I bought some food which came to just slightly less than the GDP of a small African country and went out to the car park.  As I went to reverse out of my space an old chap strolled straight behind my moving car.  I stopped suddenly and waited for him to move.  He didn't, he simply slowly started lighting a cigarette.  I waited and waited and finally he moved.  He gave me an absolutely filthy look as I pulled out - not sure why.  I wound down the window and called out to him: "I'll get you next time Usain".  He made a well known rude gesture.  How nice.

Orchard School was lovely the next day.  Great to see everyone from my previous visits, including the jolliest caretaker you could ever wish to meet.  It was a superb day, great fun, lots of laughs and two of the biggest prima donna's you could ever wish to meet.  As if to prove my predictions wrong, the gents this time stormed to a well deserved victory over the ladies, thus pulling our score back to:

GENTLEMEN 2 - 4 LADIES

Nice and close.  The journey back on a Friday afternoon affected M5 was not pleasant, but the weekend has been nice and relaxing.  Tomorrow morning I am up bright and early for a visit to Tilehursst near Reading in Berkshire, and then after the morning with them I am shooting down to Wales to see my folks again.  Can't wait!

Back on the Road Again. And Again. And Again.

Good King Hal, inflating a new author by blowing in her ear in front of the Houses of Parliament.  And why not.

And so we knew summer was over as it started chucking it down with rain, the winds started howling, central heating got turned on again, and all the people who had been moaning about it being too hot during the summer immediately started moaning that it was too cold.  What a joy the people of England are some time.  Another sure fire sign that summer was over was the imminent re-opening of the schools and my endless trips round to the to be King Henry VIII.

My first port of call for this academic year was to West Leigh Junior School near Southend-on-Sea in Essex. I had visited this school several times previously and it was a delight to be back with Bella Garrett and her lovely pupils.  It seemed a little strange being back in schools after a long summer of jousting, but it felt good as well.  Admittedly I was a little rusty having not done a full day since about mid July, but after having done this show well over 700 times it soon came back to me.  It was a big group for the first day back - about 135 year three children, but a very rewarding group none-the-less.  The morning did seem to zip past as I performed in the small inner hall.  After lunch we hiked over to the dining hall - much bigger - and got ready for the jousting.  It was a fine old tournament, amazing noise from all of the pupils and a really closely fought contest.  Amazingly, our first winners of the new scholastic year was..... THE BOYS!  I know!  Will wonders never cease?  So, like the first Premier League table of the season, this may not mean very much in the long run, but our score is:

GENTLEMEN 1 - 0 LADIES

Would it last?  Well, you will find out very shortly...  Also at this time we were all waiting for the results of our filming efforts at Hever Castle to go "live" on line.  Doug Bolton, the sainted Darlene Cavill's son, had done a marvellous job with the filming, rendering and editing and I was dying for our efforts to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  But we would have to wait for just a little bit longer.

On Monday the 9th, I was back in Somerset for a return visit for the first time since 2009 to Long Sutton Primary near Langport.  Lizzie Reynolds, late of Manor Court School in Chard, is still the head at this lovely little school and it was so nice to see her again.  We had a fabulous day - Long Sutton is a brilliant school and very welcoming and friendly, and we had a superb morning with plenty of laughs from the children and some great joining in.  The jousting was, like West Leigh, very hard fought, incredibly noisy and a close run thing.  But getting things back to normal, the ladies simply walked off with the win in the final.  It seemed almost too easy for them.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 1 LADIES

So, normal service resumed?  Read on dear intrepid Tudor nonsense fan, read on... I had about 12 hours to gather my thoughts and some clean underwear and hit the road for the long trek up to Cumbria and an appointment at Ashfield Junior in Workington.

I had asked my lovely friends Andy and Kate Blundell of the Phoenix Antiques Barn in Temple Sowerby near Penrith if I could stay with them, and they very kindly agreed.  So I headed out onto the M5 and pointed my car at the North Pole and began...  It was actually a very pleasant drive up - when you get to North Lancashire and Cumbria some of the scenery alongside the M6 is possibly the most dramatic you will find by any motorway in Britain, unless of course the big wind turbine near the Madjewski Stadium in Reading next to the M4 is the kind of thing that floats your boat.  I was blessed with brilliant sunshine as well, which as it began to slowly fade at about 4pm, looked stunning against the rugged hills and peaks of the Cumbrian landscape.  I got to the Phoenix Barn to find Andy holding his bank manager in a head lock, so I joined in with a couple of rabbit punches and a kick to the goolies and sent him on his way.  It was great to see Andy and he took me on a tour of the latest acquisitions in the Barn.  As ever some lovely stuff and definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area.  We headed back to their house where I got a big bone crushing hug from Kate, and it was good to see their lovely kids Daisy and Dylan again.  We went out to dinner at a local pub, and then headed back to their place to drink far too much wine and sit in the garden watching the satellites silently gliding above us in the black inky night sky.  Lovely.  I headed off early the next morning after demolishing some croissants Andy cooked and drove over to Workington.  The drive over itself was lovely - past stunning countryside and more dramatic peaks and lakes.  Workington itself is...ahem... a little on the plain side, but Ashfield School was lovely - hugely welcoming and roughly the same size as the TARDIS inside.  I got lost on numerous occasions, even when just trying to find the loo.  We had to begin the day with the jousting as we only had access to the main hall for the early morning.  It was a long loud tournament but very bravely fought by both sides.  Predictably enough, the ladies romped to a victory so normal service IS resumed.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 2 LADIES

On finishing the show I headed back towards the M6 and the 340 miles back to Somerset.  The weather was no longer my friend, and it poured with rain, the wind howled and the traffic was dreadful.  But I made it back and walked into my flat at about 9.45pm.  I was tired out of my brain, but any thoughts of a rest and a long lie-in would just have to wait...

The alarm went off at "WHAT?" o'clock and I stumbled out of a bed that I didn't want to leave.  Back on the road again, this time in cold foggy conditions, back up the A303 to the A34 and another return trip, this time to the lovely Kingsclere School in Berkshire.  This is such a lovely school with some of the nicest teachers you would ever want to meet or work with.  Loads of laughs throughout the day, plus plenty of offers of wedding cake and other goodies from various just missed festivities.  And I bet you can't guess what happened in the jousting???  Yes, the ladies won - AGAIN.  History is repeating itself quite obviously and the same pattern emerges year after year.  I feel sure some research scientist somewhere could look into this and discover something very deep and meaningful about the entire human condition.  But to be honest I am too bleedin' knackered to bother asking him, so it will just have to wait.  Along with those other all consuming questions we should be striving to find an answer for - such as, how does the snow plough driver get to work in the morning?  Or if you unscrew your belly button does your bum fall off?  Or who on Earth actually finds Miranda Hart funny other than about three BBC executives?  All this and much more will NOT be answered in the next blog.

GENTLEMEN 1 - 3 LADIES

Oh, and after all that - yes, the video we made IS "live" now on both the Hever Castle website and on You Tube.  Have a look, enjoy and share it with as many people as you know.  Let's go viral folks.

I'm Ready For My Close Up, Mr DeMille...

The King finally discovers the reason why men wear cod pieces.  This was a mere 37 seconds before someone invented the hat stand.

I'd only just finished another weekend at Hever Castle, so guess where I was on the Wednesday and Thursday?  Yes!  Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.  I jest.  Of course I was back at Hever Castle, but this time to film the long awaited and promised comedy short "The Six Wives of Henry VIII in 2 Minutes and 19 Seconds".  I had put together a script and Hever had sorted out some ladies to play some of my wives, but it was down to me to sort out the final few.  I called in the lovely Zarrina and Louise from Tudor Gowns, naturally I had the wonderful Michelle Coda and her other half Matt on hand, plus there was the lovely Katherine Miller who only lived up in Greenwich with easy access to Hever.  My final choice for a wife was a bit surprising.  It was my old mate Ian Weston from Portals to the Past - he was to play Anne of Cleves, and he did it marvellously.  Vivien from the Hever Marketing Department was on hand to help out with any problems we might encounter, plus of course we had Doug Bolton from Maveryk TV as our camerman/lighting engineer and soon to be editor and sound effects wrangler.  Well we had two fantastic days to film our little epic and it was such a fun time.  I can honestly say I have never had more fun or been more knackered at the end of a Tudor related event.  It was lovely to work with a group of people where there was no egos, no delicate personalities and no squabbles or back biting.  We just got on with it and had a terrific laugh in the process.  The photo above shows the lovely Helen Reeves from Hever Castle with her friend Charlotte (also from Hever staff) with Matt Rentell as the Priest and yours truly as Henry VIII in a scene we shot early on the second morning, of Arthur and Catherine of Aragon's wedding, followed very swiftly by the marriage of Henry to Catherine of Aragon just after Arthur pops his clogs.  Even Ian Weston, a veteran of numerous film shoots for cinema and TV said that the two days had been the most fun he'd ever had on a shoot, and this from a man who has worked with Ridley Scott!  Take THAT Ridley!  So thank you Hever, thank you Vivien, and a massive thanks to Zarrina, Louise, Katherine, Michelle, Matt, Ian, Helen, Charlotte, all the staff who work at Hever and helped us out so much, and most of all, to Doug Bolton for his genius with a camera and his help and advice in making this dream a reality.  Watch out for when we post the finished item here.  And anyone I have forgotten to thank here - SORRY!

I was back at Hever for Friday and Saturday for two more days jousting.  It was two pleasant days, aside from the near biblical flood we had on the Saturday.  Our costumes were drenched and poor old James, my lovely son, fell over twice on the rain sodden walk back to the Castle and promptly announced on our arrival back in our dressing room: "I WANT TOMORROW OFF!"  And so he did.

Sunday and Monday found me driving back up to Castle Hedingham in Essex for the final two days of jousting for this summer with the Knights of Royal England.  We had two lovely days in near perfect weather, but by now most of the jousters were running on empty and even the young ones seemed to be flagging.  But we put on two good shows on each day and got some tremendous feedback from all those that watched.  So another summer of jousting comes to an end and I have about four days to myself before the schools all start again and it's back to rushing round like a Tudor blue arsed fly!

Two Hever Weekends



Ronseal.  Just don't try this at home.

If it's a weekend in August then it must be time for some jousting at Hever Castle in Kent.  As usual a fun weekend was had with the Knights of Royal England, and it was as ever a delight to have Michelle Coda with me as Anne Boleyn.  We love doing the shows and despite moaning about how long it takes, we really enjoy our walk back from the jousting arena to the Castle.  We get stopped virtually ever two or three paces for photos with groups ranging from family groups with loads of children, to hen parties and bewildered looking Chinese tourists.  We also tot up how many times we get asked if we are hot in our costumes.  To save you time, everyone who might come to see us joust, yes we are hot.  Very very very hot.

James, my lovely son, is always at my side as the King's herald, but on the first of the two weekends, on the Sunday, his Mum Mandy came along and accompanied us after the show back to Somerset for a few days.  Somerset was where James was born back in 2002 and I always enjoy taking him for visits to his old haunts, keeping the memories alive for him.  We had a lovely time over the three days they were down, none more so than when we took James down to West Bay in Dorset, where the TV series "Broadchurch" with David Tennant was filmed and he enjoyed himself immensely catching crabs (steady) down at the harbour.  His patience, not good at the best of times, was tested severely.  We recommended that he should put his net in, leave it for at least five minutes before checking it.  His net was barely in the water for more than 30 seconds before he was hauling it out and cursing his bad luck without a crab in sight.  We finally persuaded him to leave the net in slightly longer and he promptly pulled out a crab of Brobdingnagian proportions, much to the chagrin of the other children similarly fishing around him.  The rest of his catches didn't really live up to that opening promise, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself.  We crowned a fine morning with fish and chips from the wrapper while sitting on the front.  Lovely.

We met up with Sue English and Ian Weston from Portals to the Past who were having a little holiday in Somerset.  We had a fine dinner with them at the Duke of York Pub in Shepton Beauchamp, which was just like the old days.  The next day we headed back to the south east so we could prepare for yet more jousting at Hever Castle.  We were lucky with the weather again and the shows seemed to be getting better and better.

And so this week I am down at (you guessed it) Hever Castle filming a quick promo video for them, then on the Friday and Saturday I am back at H***r C****e (fill in the blanks yourself) for more jousting before then heading up to Essex to visit Castle Hedingham for the Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday for the final two jousting days of the season.  It has been terrific fun, hard work and I can't wait till next season.

Accidents Will Happen

Good King Hal attempting to keep his tights in the standing load position.

So with only a few hours to catch our breath after finishing at Hever, the jolly old Knights of Royal England, plus a rotund Tudor King and his young Squire rolled into Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for three more days of jousting mayhem.  Blenheim is situated in the delightful little town of Woodstock just to the north of Oxford.  It's a place that had corpses being discovered at embarrassingly regular intervals in the whole world of Inspector Morse, but is as genteel and backwater a place as you can possibly find.  James and I drove up after a couple of days R&R in Somerset and I had promised James a breakfast at one of his favourite haute cuisine outlets - Little Chef to you and me.  But do you think I could find one once we got on the A34 north?  Not a chance.  I even resorted to typing it into my sat nav, which promised that there was one just two miles further up the road.  We drove there only to discover it had morphed into a Costa Coffee house.  We had two sausage baps, a cup of coffee and an orange juice and it really did Costa bloody fortune.  What rip offs these places are.

We arrived at Blenheim Palace and were warmly greeted by Jeremy, Kim and everyone else from the group.  The weather forecast for the first day was not brilliant, but we were treated to blazing sunshine and sun burn all round.  The first two shows on the first day passed with little or no big problems, and after a lovely meal at the Woodstock Arms hotel in the evening, James and I left the young jousters to their usual revels and headed off to our luxurious hotel.  (OK, OK, it was a Travelodge).  We arrived back at the Palace on the Saturday morning expecting to see the usual collection of hangovers, jousters slumped in chairs and not much movement.  But there was little or no sign of anyone around the horse box, most of the jousters were working like smoke over in the arena, getting everything ready for the show, and there was no sign of Jeremy, Kim or their Land Rover.  Sam's girlfriend, Vanessa then appeared at the door of the horse box.  We said good morning and I asked her if J and K were off in town doing some shopping.  No, apparently they were off at A&E at the local hospital with Mungo.  What had happened?  During some "hi-jinx" on the Friday night, whilst highly intoxicated (i.e. pissed out of their brains) an incident occurred that had somehow culminated in Mungo falling heavily against a parked car and breaking his shoulder.  Blimey.  I was glad we had left early.  Jeremy and Kim then returned with faces like thunder and it suddenly became apparent why all the younger jousters were beetling around desperately working their socks off getting everything ready for the two shows that day.  Just before the show Mungo himself returned to the site via a taxi with his arm in a sling and slightly sheepish expression on his face.  After all that the two shows had to be good, and they were.  We were hit with a little bit of rain during both shows, but nothing like the deluge of last year.  The apres show dinner at a local Chinese restaurant was very nice and also highly restrained after the previous nights shenanigans.

Sunday was the final two days of Blenheim this year.  Two more good shows went by, with all the incidents saved for our final tournament.  At the beginning of the second show, we do a gag where I address the audience about what qualities a person needs to become a great Knight - and all the while I am saying this, someone (usually Sir William of Antioch) mimes them behind me, with the final pay off being something they very obviously can't have.  In Sir William's case it is always a head of luxurious hair.  As Sir William was away, Dan was filling in, and his pay off was to be totally terrified of swords.  For this he was to leap onto the centre tilt, look at his sword, scream like a girl and then jump off the tilt.  Not exactly Emmy Award winning stuff, but a bit of fun.  On this day we had had a bit of a shower just before the show, and as Dan leapt onto the tilt, he didn't realise how slippery it was, and as I was about to deliver my line "but what a Knight needs most of all..." his legs shot away from under him and he fell down, completely cross-barring himself right in the old Niagara's.  Therefore I quickly changed my pay off line to: "What a Knight really needs is... (CRUNCH).... a pair of fully functioning cobblers.  So that's you out, Dan", which got the biggest laugh of the day.  And still our accidents weren't over.  Right at the very end of the tournament, during a skill exhibition by both teams, my son James who was sitting in the Royal Box to my right, was getting very excited and was jumping up and down in his seat.  I looked away to commentate on some action to my left, at which point there was an enormous crash to my right, which at first I assumed was a horse bouncing off the Royal Box, such was it's score on the Richter Scale, and the fact that it caused all of the flags around the Royal Box to collapse and fall apart.  What it was was James' chair falling backwards off the Royal Box and bringing all the standards with him.  It was a big fall and he could easily have been hurt, but thankfully he was fine, just with a very bruised ego.  We finally finished the show and made our way back to the car.  It had been a fine weekend at Blenheim, memorable for a lot of different reasons, but it was good to be on our way home. 

This weekend we are back at Hever for another three days of fun jousting.  It will be nice to see Michelle and Vix again, but sadly Mungo is now out for the rest of the year.  Alcohol sales in the Edenbridge area are going to suffer, BIG TIME.

Inspected Wexford (geddit?), 50th bashes, jousting and no blogs (sorry)

The lovely, LOVELY Wexford at night.  I am the 572nd pixel from the left, pissed in a bar.

I had not had a proper full blown holiday for over four years, and I sort of reckoned I deserved one. But the question was where to go.  I had finally plumped for Ireland, a place I hadn't visited since about 1997 when I had spent most of the time over in Kerry dodging the rain that was hammering down.  I caught the ferry from Fishguard in Wales and took the three plus hours crossing to Rosslare.  I was going to stay in Wexford, a town I knew precious little about, but was willing to learn.  It would also give me an excellent opportunity to catch up with my old friend Emily, a lovely lass from Wexford who I used to work with up in London back in 1994.  Well the whole holiday was delightful - the weather was just perfect, almost too hot to be honest.  Em and her family were fabulous guides and looked after me magnificently, sorted out accommodation for me and even opened up various opportunities for new business.  They could not have done more for me.  Em's Dad, Noel took to referring to me as "yer man Cromwell" in deference to the famous Oliver who rather dented any opportunity of being voted "Most Popular Man In Wexford" by burning down the town and massacring the inhabitants.  I drove up to the Wicklow mountains and visited Glendalough (packed to the rafters with tourists) and the lovely Vale of Avoca.  I also got to visit Loftus Hall (the most haunted house in Ireland apparently!), the Hook Head Lighthouse (oldest operating lighthouse in the world), Kilmore Quay and ate more potatoes and drank more Guinness in seven days than I have in the previous seven years.  Marvellous.

When I got back to Wales I went straight to my folks house in Newcastle Emlyn for my sister Sue's 50th birthday party weekend.  It began on Friday 12th July with a surprise party for her at my parents place, with several old friends arriving earlier than she expected.  My sister, being my sister did of course phone in while we were all waiting for her to say she was running an hour late.  This meant by the time she did arrive most of the guests were virtually paralytic with drink, but it made for a most convivial atmosphere.  On the 13th Sue had her own party at her house near Cynwyl Elfed which was again bathed in beautiful sunshine.  A lovely day was spent sitting in her garden and drinking - not a bad way to see the day through.  It was a lovely weekend and nice to see so many old friends.
One week later I was on at Barrington Court for a walkabout at the old place.  Again the intense summer heat had continued.  We are never happy in this country.  For the previous five or six summers we have moaned and complained about the soggy miserable weather we have endured.  Now as soon as we get a hot one everyone is moaning again.  I can't wait for the tons of snow again come winter.  The day after Barrington I was up at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire for another of their Tudor Fun Days.  I was there with Zarrina, Diane, Justine, Louise and Sarah from Tudor Gowns, who all looked beautiful, and also Rachel from Tudor Roses who was equally stunning and fun to be with.  We had a lovely day wandering round, but even there the sun became so hot that we eventually capitulated at about 4pm and made a run for our cars and the haven of air conditioning.
The weekend of the 26th, 27th and 28th of July found me jousting at Hever Castle again in Kent.  The Friday was a normal joust featuring all the usual suspects, but the Saturday and Sunday were new "International" tournaments featuring teams of English and French knights taking each other on.  Franck and Manou were most definitely pukka French riders, but Matthew's accent was distinctly home counties!  They as the French team took on Jeremy, Sam and Ash as the English Knights.  Much fun and racial stereotypes later we had a show.  On the Sunday in particular we had a massive turn out for the show with the car parks absolutely rammed to bursting point.  Reaction to the shows was brilliant with so many laughs.  We must do this again!
I now have my lovely son James staying with me down here in Somerset and he and I are off to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire this weekend for another three days of fun jousting with the Knights of Royal England.  Be lovely to see you there. 

Dante's Inferno (aka Cardiff)

 Leader of Cardiff City Council, Gareth "Knobber" Jones, gets ready to explain to visiting pressman what he thinks of their jokes about Cardiff not being voted "City of Culture" again.

I have gazed into the depths of Hell this weekend.  I have witnessed all that is mad and bad about humanity, and funnily enough you can see nearly all of it within a stones throw of the august portals of the Travelodge in Cardiff next to the Walkabout Pub and not far from the Millennium Stadium.  I was working once more with the lovely Knights of Royal England, only this time for my first visit to Cardiff Castle.  We were booked in for three days on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and Jeremy Richardson, main man and top jouster had booked me a room for a couple of nights at the aforementioned Travelodge in beautiful downtown Cardiff.

Now if you have been reading this blog you will know I have had a bit of a week, with lots of travel up and down the country and to be perfectly honest I was exhausted before I even got to Cardiff, however, on arrival at the Castle it was nice to meet up with all the jousters again.  Cardiff Castle is delightful, definitely worth a visit and bears more than a passing resemblance to Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter movies.  On the Friday it was only one show - for school children mostly, all of whom had come in parties from their schools around the country.  They were DEAFENING.  Far louder than normal crowds, and great fun too.  However, I got very good advice from all the jousters - as soon as we finished the show they said "don't head back to the dressing rooms yet..." This was because such an action would necessitate traversing a field full of manic, over excited school children.  We waited to one side until they had all but cleared and then began our trek back.  I was at once swamped with kids, who's reaction to me ranged from cries of "Hello Henry!  We loved the show!" to "You're fat and ugly!", to simply trying to tear the clothes and props from my costume.  It was almost akin to something from a zombie movie.  Any of the little shits who called me names, if they were wearing baseball caps (as most of them seemed to be), I would simply tear the hats off their heads and try and throw them in the moat.  Go and pick that one out of the lily pads you little f***er.

After getting changed and getting ready to go and find the hotel, the jousters announced they were all going out for a meal that evening, but to be honest I was beyond it by now and the lure of a nice big comfortable bed and not doing very much for a few hours sounded bloody wonderful.  So I politely declined.  Frank, the mad French Knight was also staying at the same Travelodge as me, so I gave him and his suitcase a lift down there. After a little trouble we found it, but soon discovered our only parking access was in a public car park behind the Travelodge and next to the railway station.  We had no change for the exorbitant £9 a day rate, so I had to do it via my mobile phone which was apparently "Quick and Easy!" according to the details on the info board at the car park.  You had to enter the number of the car park you were in as a final detail, but of course, they didn't put this number on the board with all the other numbers you need when you phone their automated service.  Oh, hell no, they hide it on an obscure board about 20 yards away further down the car park.  Our first intimation that we were about to pass through the portals to the gates of hell came when we tried to book into the hotel.  There was a massive queue at the check in desk, consisting mostly of large sweaty men in rugby shirts, with thick South Wales accents, or perma-tanned giggly girlies in matching school girl outfits with "Lisa's Hen Night" emblazoned across their mini skirts, and all clutching partially drunk bottles of alcopops and shrieking hysterically at everything and nothing.  And this was at about 4.30pm.  It was going to be a long night.  After a small cock up (for a while it looked like Frank and I might be sharing a room - Hell, no) we were sorted and wound our way up to the third floor and our rooms. I lay on the bed, stuck on the TV and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up about 20 minutes later and nipped out to buy myself some grub for my self imposed exile from the rest of the group that evening.  Bill, Mungo and Frank all came to my door at some point or other to try and persuade me to come and join in their fun and games, but I was on the backs of my knees and a night of doing bugger all sounded wonderful. 

At about 9pm I was almost ready for sleep, but decided a bit of fresh air would do me good.  I took the lift down to the ground floor and stepped outside into.... HELL.  The road the hotel was in, was blocked off at each end by crash barriers and Police vans.  Every single bar and shop along the street had at least one or two security staff on the door, with ear pieces in and a shifty look about them.  Even McDonald's had security staff on the door.  Vast hoards of men in fancy dress, ranging from pirates and convicts, to whole groups dressed in enormous onesies, staggered along the pavement, bellowing obscenities at each other, and belching like some sort of partially decomposing walrus.  Groups of orange skinned women, in mega high heels, deely boppers, angel wings, and virtually no clothes at all, tottered along between the male groups, cackling, shrieking and singing, all on their ways to various deafening night clubs. Now you have to understand my viewpoint on clubs.  I am about as much attracted to the idea of clubbing as a baby seal on an ice floe would be.  Even when I was young the idea of going clubbing was totally alien to me.  Why pay money to go into a god awful cauldron of cacophonous noise, mostly of music you hate, where the drinks are priced out of most people's ranges and all the beer is utter shite, where you can't talk to anyone as the music is so loud your nose starts to bleed and where, if you are unfortunate enough to look like me (i.e. fat, ginger and ugly) you immediately become a target for these groups of perma-tanned slappers/harpies, who upon your unenthusiastic entrance to this hell hole suddenly come running over to you screaming "my friend fancies you, can you go and give her a snog - cackle cackle cackle cackle...".  I usually just drop my trousers at this point and offer her somewhere to hang her tea towels.  When I was a teenager in Essex I would have had access to a whole pantheon of clubs - Zero-6, Tots, Raquels, The Pink Toothbrush, Dukes, Hollywoods to name but just some of the f***ing awful places you could go to meet a possible future spouse.  I gazed upon this street of carnage in Wales and I have to say it depressed me enormously.  Was this REALLY people's idea of a fun night?  Seriously?  Was this the limit to their imagination?  If their life expectations are that limited and not wishing to sound like a pontificating smart arse, then I really truly pity them.

Saturday was more of a normal day at the Castle, two shows, open to the public and with the wind blowing an absolute hurricane across the grounds at Cardiff.  We got through both shows and once more the invitation to join the jousters for a night out on the town cropped up, and this time I agreed.  I was to meet them at a restaurant/bar in Wharton Street called Barocco at 7pm.  I drove back to the car park behind the Travelodge and parked up, noticing first that the time was 4.30pm, and then shortly afterwards noticing the gentleman in the "KNOBBERS STAG NIGHT - TOTAL DESTRUCTION 2013" t-shirt, slouched on the wall opposite where I had parked.  At this early hour of the afternoon, he was leaning forward and was vomiting.  A lot.  A quite tremendous amount.  I was half inclined to check behind him to see if there was a hose going up his arse as he can't have drunk that much in a month.  The depressing part of this site was him doing this in broad daylight, on a street, as families with young children walked past on their way back from days out etc.

At about 6pm Frank, Mungo and I walked up to the Rummer Pub opposite Cardiff Castle to meet up with some of the other jousters.  We then made our way back down to Wharton Street and Barocco.  By this time it was 7pm and Cardiff was just warming up.  We were suddenly overtaken by a phalanx of young perma-tanned ladies dressed as angels and all clutching enormous dildos - as you do.  While a mass group of drunk lads accosted a busker with a guitar and forced the poor bastard to play various crude rugby songs which they bellowed out with as much vocal dexterity as Lemmy gargling with razor blades.

Barocco was OK - very glitzy, very loud, pounding music, a limited menu and shite beer.  So pretty much everything you would expect in a city centre restaurant.  We had a good laugh.  The jousters took much delight in nicking Frank's mobile phone and posting various extremely rude updates on his Facebook account.  There was mock wrestling at the table, mass paper plane fights, loads of cocktails drunk and much loudness.  A possible new commentator called Ian joined us for the latter part of the meal, and sat in the corner with a slightly terrified look on his face.  I surrendered when the music level was cranked up and the light level was turned down to "Read in braille only" level - at about 10pm and slipped away and began to run the gauntlet of the walk back to the Travelodge.  This walk did remind me a lot of some of the scenes in Mad Max 2.  As I delicately tip-toed my way through the hurly burly of Stag and Hen Nights, hell bent on a good laugh, come what may, and the various little piles of puke already decorating the pavements, suddenly the Travelodge took on this appearance as a sort of Shangri-La for me - my sanctuary.  And my God it was.  As I walked into the reception area, the music from the Walkabout Pub next door was pounding through the walls at a deafening level.  There was a sour faced little chap on the front desk.  "Doesn't this noise drive you mad?" I asked, in a friendly way.  "Vot?" he replied in a thick east European accent.  I repeated what I had said, and so did he.  "Say goodnight to the folks, Gracie..." I said, and was delighted to find the lift waiting to whisk me to peace and solitude on the third floor.

I met Bill and Mungo at the lift at about 9am the next morning.  Bill was quiet, whereas Mungo just looked flushed, still drunk and wearing sunglasses indoors.  Not a good look.  We had another fine day at the joust, two very good shows, lots of lovely people to speak to and the delightful knowledge that I would be home in my own bed this evening in Somerset with not a stag party or hen night in ear shot.  Heaven.

Good King Hal is going to be a bit quiet for a little while now as I am going away on holiday!  Yes, me!  On holiday!  My first one in 4 years and I cannot wait.  I am off to Ireland for a few days in County Wexford.  I just hope they haven't got a massive hen and stag party problem, in which case I will be on the first ferry back.

Oh and if you read Dante's Inferno, I can tell you right now that Judas Iscariot, encased in a block of ice for all eternity is NOT the pit of hell.  There is a hen party from Merthyr Tydfill just below him wearing "KISS ME QUICK BONK ME SLOWLY" hats and holding large inflatable penises dancing to pounding disco music while drinking industrial amounts of alcopops.  Just so you know.

Ferries, New Costumes and Bizarre Questions...

Good King Hal, shamelessly using his blog in yet another attempt to flog off tickets to see Michael Wood (left) give a talk at the Chalke Valley History Festival next Friday (28th June).  You know you want to... Contact the King via his website (www.goodkinghal.co.uk) if you do!

In many of my recent adventures and visits to the Isle of Wight, I seem to have made something of an art form of missing the ferry.  I have slithered to a halt on the dockside at Lymington at various different times of day, to see the backside of the ferry I wanted, steaming happily out into the Solent without me on board.  With another visit to dear old Vectis due, I was determined this was not going to happen again.  I got up disgustingly early, knowing that I had to be at the ferry terminal for the 6.15am sailing over to Yarmouth.  I got ready, half scalded myself on a hastily slurped cup of tea and scuttled off to my car.  I punched in the post code into my sat nav and waited while it worked out how long it would take me to get to the ferry terminal.  It's initial estimated time of arrival was 6.16am.  Bu99er!  I was NOT going to miss another ferry.  So I drove like smoke down to Dorchester, along the Troy Town bypass, hammered past Wimborne with my tyres almost melting and by the time I reached Ringwood I was approaching light speed.  The ETA on my sat nav was now spiralling backwards - this was almost like time travel!  But it seemed that I was going to arrive at the ferry with a good 10 minutes to spare before the sailing at 6.15.  I got a clear run over the final miles and arrived at a worryingly empty looking ferry terminal at 5.59am.  It was only then as I sat on a virtually deserted concourse that I checked my paperwork.  I was actually booked on the 6.45am ferry.  Ah.  So I now had roughly three quarters of an hour to kill while I waited for the official ferry and could have done the whole journey with much less hyperspace and screaming.  Well, we live and learn.

Simple pleasures like just sitting and sleeping in your car as you scoot over the Solent in only about a half hour crossing, are now not allowed.  Due to that scourge of modern society - "health and safety", drivers must vacate their vehicles and then allow themselves to be incarcerated in the moodily lit passenger lounge where Wight Link Ferries spend the entire crossing trying to fleece cash out of you.  They stop just short of letting heavily muscled stevedores give you Chinese burns until you succumb, but it is surely only a matter of time before they introduce this.  I disembarked the ferry and began the pleasant drive across the island to Ryde and a return visit to Haylands Primary.  This was a different Haylands though this time, located as they now are in a brand new purpose built centre.  It is a stunning building, even more impressive inside than it is outside.  We had a great day at the school - a whole load of laughs, and some really nice children in great costumes.  I took great delight in choosing one classroom assistant to be Anne Boleyn in the morning session as she looked like Madonna, circa "Who's That Girl" and gave me a good excuse to crank out some elderly jokes.

After a very nice roast pork lunch it was a rollicking afternoon session.  The children roared with laughter throughout most of the nonsense I peddle out.  We came to a brilliant jousting session which a very good ladies team ran away with in the final. They are virtually unstoppable at the moment.

GENTLEMEN 19 - 26 LADIES

I began the long trek home, managed to catch the correct ferry and got home, clutching a Chinese take away and yawning like a good 'un.  It really was time for an early night.

Wednesday 19th was a day off, but I was off over to see the multi-talented Judy Picton to pick up my newest addition to my costumes.  Judy has created a beautiful black flowing doublet, with garnets and silver fixings.  It looks absolutely wonderful.  Judy is an absolute genius, very modest, but she really shouldn't be.  Her skills are undoubted and if anyone should need a truly gifted seamstress, this is the lady to go and see.  Judy Picton of Martock - you heard it here first folks.

My new costume didn't have long to wait for it's first outing.  I was back at one of my favourite schools today - Paulton Junior near Bristol.   l love this place - you are always guaranteed a very warm welcome from all the teachers and a group of very sparky, chatty, funny kids - and as ever all in fabulous costumes.  And today was no let down, a real bundle of laughs, and one very bizarre question in the "Q&A" section just before lunch.  All the usual questions had come out: "how fat was he?" "did he have pets?" "when was his birthday?" etc., when one little girl put her hand up and asked me very earnestly "Who are you?"  I was a bit taken aback.  "Er... me or Henry?" I enquired.  She looked at me hard for a few seconds and then said "I don't know".  And on that bombshell it was off to lunch - lots of pleasant chats in the staff room with the nice relaxed atmosphere that pervades this lovely school, and then more utter nonsense in the afternoon culminating in a much needed win for the Gents in the jousting.

GENTLEMEN 20 - 26 LADIES

It is seriously closer than it should be.  The ladies have seemed to have held the whip hand since the start of the educational year, but the boys have hung in there.  It was very hot today - not sunny, but very close and muggy, and by the end of our session in the afternoon I was flagging badly.  Never was I more grateful to sling the last of my Henry gear in the back of the car and climb in and turn on the air conditioning.  I drove home, pausing only at Popular Motors in Merriott to replace my shredded windscreen wiper blades which were so awful today that I spent most of the period driving up to Paulton in braille.

Got home this evening and carried on trying to sort out a visit to Ireland in the next couple of weeks, for a much needed holiday.  Finally got my ferry booking sorted out.  Let's hope my arrival at Fishguard for the crossing will be a bit better organised than my recent efforts at Lymington.  But now is no time to rest on any laurels.  I am off out pretty early again tomorrow for a drive up to Cardiff Castle for three days jousting with the Knights of Royal England.  And the weather forecast is not exactly positive.  Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.

My Tipping Point...

Ben Shephard of ITV's "Tipping Point" ready to hand over all the money Good King Hal won on his visit to the studio.  Blink and you'll miss it...

The week dawned bright and clear again - summer was finally here!  The beginning of the week started with a trip up to Walsall in the midlands for a return visit to Green Rock School.  I had last visited two years ago - I was amazed they had even booked me in the first place as the first time they ever called me I was tremendously rude to them - not on purpose I hasten to add.  They had called me one day when I had been inundated with cold callers on the phone.  You know the sort, usually some poor faceless little twit in a call centre near New Delhi who phones you up and asks you such life changing questions as "have you ever considered altering your gas tariff?"  Well, I had received a stack of these calls that day, when the phone rang again.  This time on answering the voice at the other end said "Hello, I'm calling from Green Rock..." Assuming this was someone else trying to sell me insurance or a new mobile phone network I did the only thing a true British gentleman could do.  I told them to stick whatever they were offering up their arses and to go forth and multiply, and slammed the phone down.  They phoned back a few moments later and said in quiet scared little voices that they were actually a school and would I be interested in visiting them as Henry VIII.  Ah.  Massive amounts of apologies and humble pie later and I was booked.

Well here I was two years on heading back up to Walsall, that other Eden in the midlands.  We had a cracking day at the school - they were a very lively bunch of kids, but that always tends to make the day for me that much easier.  We had a fun morning with lots of laughs and some very good scores in the Tudor Quiz, before a much welcome break for lunch.  After this the afternoon went like clockwork and we finished with another very impressive jousting tournament with one particular lads team that was head and shoulders above the rest, so it was no surprise when they romped to victory in the final.  This clicked our score over to:

GENTLEMEN 19 - 24 LADIES

All that was left was for me to climb in the car and drive back to Somerset.  As it was the journey back wasn't too bad, for which I was tremendously grateful as I had a hell of a day to look forward to on the Wednesday.

I have often wanted to go on a TV quiz show and see if I could test my general knowledge against others and also to see if I could win some prizes and a bit of dosh.  I had seen the ITV daytime quiz show "Tipping Point" a few times - Ben Shephard asking semi difficult questions to a group of people who then place discs in a coin waterfall machine, the sort you used to play when you were a kid at seaside resorts many years ago, and for each coin you get out the machine you won £50.  And if you were lucky enough you could get right through the show to the finale and a chance to win £10,000 - an amount not to be sniffed at.  I had applied to appear on the show, and a couple of weeks ago I had travelled up to London for an audition, I had now been accepted and so here I was going up to the studios in Wimbledon to record the show for real.  This could be the big time.  I had been contacted by the production company the day before and asked if I could bring my Henry costume with me and wear it on the show.  I was more than happy to - no such thing as bad publicity.  I caught the London train from Crewkerne just after 9am and arrived at Waterloo just before midday.  The TV company had laid on a car for me to help transport me and the enormous suitcase my Henry costume was in to the studios in South Wimbledon.  Upon arrival it turned out I was the last contestant to get there.  The others were Sally, a nice lady from Surrey, Lea, a very bubbly blond lady from Brighton and Oliver a nice young chap from Leeds.  We sat chatting in the green room for a while before we got taken away one by one for a make up session - sadly when they finished I still looked like me.  We were then taken down to the canteen for some lunch.  There are plenty of shows still being produced at these studios, former home to The Bill.  Among the shows they are making there, aside from Tipping Point, they also film Episodes, the BBC comedy with Stephen Mangam, Tamsin Greig and Matt Le Blanc. As we walked into the canteen I immediately noticed Matt LeBlanc.  He didn't recognise me, swine.  After a delicious meal we were then taken down to the main studio and got ready to record the show.  I am not at liberty to reveal who won the show on any public media, which I kind of guess includes this barely read blog, so you'll just have to wait until they broadcast the episode to find out who took home all the dosh.  All I can say is I am still living in a dustbin.

A car picked me and my suitcase up from the studio and took me back to Waterloo.  The driver, a very friendly affable chap from Lithuania, nearly made me choke to death with laughter.  As we were driving through the thronging streets of south London and the myriad of races, creeds and colours you can see, he suddenly said: "You know vots wrong vis zis country - it's full of bloody foreigners..."  Oh irony of ironies.  Bless him.  My train didn't leave until 7.20pm, and was packed to the rafters.  I was crushed up in one corner next to a harrumphing businessman, who wallowed and snorted like a rather over pleased walrus and noisily ate a large packet of Cheddars biscuits, and guzzled a can of cider before burping quietly for a while.  He eventually moved when the carriage thinned out when we got west of Salisbury, and finally exited the train at Tisbury.  Bye! I got home late, about 10pm, and promptly fell into the coma sofa, and inevitably, a coma of my own.

I was due today to appear at Chard School, in the town of Chard just down the road from where I live.  I had agreed to arrive at the school at 8am.  I stirred in bed, lent over to check my clock and was horrified to see that it was already quarter to eight.  ARGH!  Wash, shave, glass of juice and then a quick plummet down the stairs and I was on my way.  I had last been at Chard School back in about 2006, when the head teacher looked remarkably like Scottie from the Star Trek series.  His dilythium crystals obviously cannae take the strain any more as he has retired.  This was one of the most fun days I have had in a school for years.  So many laughs, so many jokes and great knowledge all round.  The joust was amazing, so noisy, and considering there were only seven girls in the group of about 30 children, it was even more amazing that they managed to snatch a comprehensive victory in the final.  Great stuff.  So our score now clicks on to:

GENTLEMEN 19 -25 LADIES

I got home this evening and I now feel more tired than I think many a human being has felt in many a day, so tonight I am going to not bother with any alarm on the clock and just intend to sleep until I turn into Rip van Winkle.  You have been warned.  No early calls tomorrow.  I HAVE reached my Tipping Point.