Floody Hell.

Just popping into Chard for some baked beans.

I had a strange experience the other day on Facebook.  No, it wasn't abuse, it was instead a series of messages from friends of mine around the country and the World enquiring as to whether I was alright or not.  I wondered why they were suddenly all so concerned about my welfare, but then the dreaded word that they were all focusing on became apparent.... Somerset.  Somerset, it seems, is now considered the most dangerous place to live on Planet Earth.  Soweto?  Hah!  Beirut?  Piffle!  Syria?  For girls!  Chatham?  Well, that is pretty f***ing ropey, but apparently Somerset is now considered more of a threat to humanity than Medway towns full of arse-faced chavs with the mental capacity of a burrito.  And it was all down to the flooding everyone was seeing on their TV sets every night.  Hour after hour you'd see welly wearing Londoners who work in "meeee-ja" and who had not even the vaguest idea of where Somerset was except they'd heard from their old University pal Briony that it was something to do with the Glastonbury Festival.  These bland news reporters were plonked in front of cameras showing angry damp people shaking their fists at various politicians, each of which was trying to be more contrite than the last one, as huge dodgy looking pipes pumped prodigious quantities of water away from the flooded plains.  If my house was to be flooded I would have to be quite spectacularly unlucky and there would have to be one heck of a lot more rain.  Crewkerne, where I live, is built on some hills, I live halfway up one of these hills on the third floor of an old converted Victorian dairy.  If I do happen to pull back the curtains one morning and see fish swimming past the window, then, and only then, would I panic.  So to all my friends who have phoned, texted and sent me Facebook messages desperate to know if I was dry, safe and un-drowned, the answer is yes, to all three of your questions.  You really don't have to go far from where I live to see the land turned into a sea, but I am pretty sure I'll survive where I am.

I was up in Norfolk the other day for a return visit to White Woman Lane School in Norwich.  This is a great place to visit, fun kids and some of the grooviest teachers you could ever wish to meet.  There is also a very high preponderance of Americans teaching in this school.  But then, they are all gorgeous and friendly so I personally encourage this special relationship.  It was a biggish group of kids, in fine form and some terrific costumes and we had a splendid day all round.  The joust was loud in the extreme and guess what??  The ladies won AGAIN.

GENTLEMEN 12.5 - 20.5 LADIES

The journey back wasn't so bad, but just south of Long Stratton there had just been what appeared to be a horrendous crash involving two lorries and two cars.  One of the cars and one of the lorries had piled through the large expensive looking brick wall of a posh house next to the road.  Paramedics were working on one of the cars with screens placed around it, which didn't look good.  I only hope anyone involved with this accident are all now OK.

I had some time with my lovely James, before heading down to Kent to see Michelle Coda and Matt Rentell, and of course the lovely Elaine!  Smashing!  After this brief pleasurable interlude I was back on the road back down to Somerset (with my water wings pre-inflated, just in case).  I saw a lot of my old mate Pete Flanagan and even attempted an evening out with Matthew Applegate at the Rose and Crown in East Lambrook. We met over there on the Wednesday evening, only to discover the place was closed for no apparent reason.  Rather stumped at what to do next we headed back to Barrington to try out the new re-vamped local pub "The Barrington Boar", formerly for many hundreds of years known as the Barrington Oak, or the Royal Oak at Barrington. Why do people have to change things like this for no apparent reason? Anyway, the pub is very nicely turned out, the beer is perfectly adequate and the restaurant was pleasingly packed out for a midweek evening.  So I will be trying it again.

I am now in Essex again as it is half term and I am spending some lovely times with my gorgeous son James.  We went bowling yesterday, where predictably enough he thrashed me.  Then today we have been to see the "Lego Movie" which was tremendous fun and so inventive, and then had a most pleasing "Ruby Murray" for lunch.  James is my pride and joy and we are having such a fun half term, and there is much more to do!

Also during this period I had a great meeting with Doug Bolton and Sarah Morris about future film and TV projects, and speaking of such things - our movie from Hever Castle is now on the Internet movie database (IMDB.com) - I am officially a director, actor and writer.  Never been so proud of myself.  So if you want to see our entry on IMDB, then just click on this link:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3541544/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1  You know you want to.

Brass Monkeys In Norwich and West Wimbledon

Three Little Maids From School Are We, sung in middle English and with baggy tights on. It was never really going to bother the charts, was it?

Just when you think you've managed to escape from the whole of winter with barely a frost bitten appendage to worry about and - WALLOP - Snow. Horrid, white, freezing, slippery, slidey, time consuming, ankle breaking snow. And some people pay good money to travel the world looking for the ruddy stuff. They want locking up. Now, down in Somerset we're very smart, we don't hold with all this snow nonsense. Even while the rest of the country at the beginning of the week was ranting and raving about snow storms and travel chaos, in Somerset it was a balmy 8-9 degrees, and also dry and sunny. I was due for a drive to the south east for shows in Norwich and West Wimbledon, and to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect.

To begin with all was fine. I drove up the A303 and there was not a sign of any snow or ice, and it continued this happy way until I reached roughly the Andover area, and then various bits of melting snow were spotted in fields. Then towards the end of the A303 there was more and more, clearly a lot had fallen. By the time I got to that mighty metropolis of the east (Basildon to you and me), there was loads of snow everywhere. There was little or no more snow promised, but by heck it was cold. After a nice cuddly evening with my lovely son, I was up at a piercingly cold 5.30am for a drive up to Norwich and return visit to White Woman Lane School. The journey was pretty awful I have to say, not because of the weather, but of the extreme cold and the pathological terror the mere mention of ice seems to breed in some drivers. Queues of slow moving traffic were everywhere, most of them stacked up behind petrified Ford Mondeo drivers, gripping their steering wheels with white knuckled hands and barely getting much above 35 MPH, even on gun barrel straight, well salted, ice-free roads. The two hour journey eventually took me much nearer three hours to complete. But it was worth it, as White Woman Lane School is just so nice! Wonderful funny kids, genuinely lovely teachers and a guaranteed warm welcomed whenever I go - and some of the staff came all the way down to Kent to see me perform Henry's Horrid History last February. Above and beyond the call of duty chaps, seriously...

It was a fun, loud and laughter filled day. A particularly popular gag I did was about a Tudor version of the Teletubbies, with characters like Choppy-Woppy and Leechy, however all the gags seemed to go tremendously well and the kids were genuinely eager to learn more and more about Henry and the Tudors. The apres-lunch stocks session was an absolute blast, and in the jousting we finally managed to secure a win for the Gentlemen, the first time it seems in ages. Our score after Norwich was therefore:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 18 LADIES

Originally I was then due to have the Wednesday daytime off and then travel to West Wimbledon and a visit to St Matthew's Primary School on the Thursday, but at the last minute St Matthew's decided to swap their day and go for the Wednesday. So I found myself once again rising at the crack of dawn in freezing cold weather and heading round the M25, then up through the frightfully pleasant Esher and into the Wimbledon area. I was welcomed by an absolutely charming young lady called Katie Barnham and introduced to this school I had never visited before. Again, as with so many schools I visit, the overall welcome from all the staff could not have been kinder, warmer or more generous. It genuinely felt like I was an old returning friend, not some first time visitor, particularly one clad in white tights. It was only a relatively small group on the day - 29 children, but their lack of numbers was easily out-weighed by their enthusiasm, noise level and enjoyment of the day. It was a real pleasure to work with such switched on, intelligent and well behaved children. Katie Barnham has a smashing class, and I don't just say that about everyone! Lunch was a truly delicious roast beef dinner and we had a slightly curtailed afternoon to let me get away and attempt to beat the M25 rush back to an appointment in Essex. And it worked! The jousting was great though, very exciting and loud, but won by a superb ladies team (again!), which brings the score back again to it's current position of:

GENTLEMEN 12 - 19 LADIES

Back in the old routine, eh?

I am in Essex now until Saturday, then will pick up my lovely son and drive him down to Somerset for the half term holiday. I am doing a private party in Weston-super-Mare on Tuesday, but the rest of the week I am all his, so I hope we have some great fun.

White Woman Lane School

It was just before the swimwear section that some members of the judging panel started to suspect Miss Ukraine was not all she was cracked up to be...

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS A BARELY CONTROLLED, ILL THOUGHT OUT CHILDISH RANT AND SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE...

I am surprised that somewhere called White Woman Lane School is allowed to exist anymore. Surely it should now be called "Caucasian (though not exclusively Ethnic majority) Non-Gender Specific Though Definitely NOT Phallo-Centric Lane Educational Collective". Or am I just sounding a bit world weary and cynical? Hardly surprising with all this horrible stuff called "politics" flying around at the moment. I just cannot be bothered with it currently. I seem to be constantly bombarded with messages from well meaning friends these days, either as emails or on Facebook, urging me to support this, or protest against that, or leap out of a 4th floor window dressed as Cardinal Richelieu whilst quoting the complete works of Marcel Proust before you plummet into the pavement below. And quite frankly, what is the point? It is either smug right wingers telling me we've all got to tighten our belts, work harder and save money (except if you're a banker of course) or fire brand left wingers telling me that unless I save a rain forest or hug a Muslim before tea time then I am no better than a child molester. ARGH! Just leave me alone! It doesn't matter what I say, think or do, nothing will ever change! There will always be them and us, and they'll always be in charge and have us by the you know whats.

Right, rant over! It was a fifth (or was it sixth?) return visit to the above mentioned White Woman Lane School. This is a lovely school in the northern suburbs of Norwich and is always a treat to return to. The same familiar and friendly faces greeted me from the teachers and all the children (about 75 of them) had pulled out all the stops and come in a fine selection of brilliant Tudor costumes, a lot of which were home made. The journey up was nice and relatively easy, and the early morning start was more enjoyable than it sometimes used to be as Sarah Kennedy has been replaced by Vanessa Feltz on early morning Radio 2. Now this may sound like the equivalent of announcing that you are delighted that bubonic plague has been replaced with a raging cholera epidemic, but trust me on this - if you are ever up early at some point, Ms Feltz is a massive improvement.

The morning session at the school was a raging success, and things went from strength to strength with a loud and raucous afternoon. It culminated with another great jousting tournament in which a fine ladies team forged into such a huge lead that the gents team just packed up halfway through, knowing they were well beaten! This now makes the score:

GENTLEMEN 13 - 17 LADIES

Wonderful stuff. I am driving back to Somerset tomorrow as Thursday and Friday this week I am at Westonzoyland and Ashcott in that county. Watch this space for their reports - and no more shouty-crackers ranting - promise.

Stapleford Abbotts

Stapleford Abbotts School with a big reminder written on the road outside as to whether the Government should shut the place or not.

Back in Essex again, but this time to visit a new school I hadn't done before. The weekend before had been nice and restful and combined such diverse delights as a breakfast at Bilby's in Crewkerne, Manchester City sticking three past West Bromwich Albion and then the even more delightful news that Manchester United had been well and truly stuffed by Wolves. Ah, life is full of such little joys every now and then. Meanwhile, back to Essex. I stayed in Basildon on the Sunday night but was then up relatively early for the short trip over to Stapleford Abbotts, near Romford. Stapleford Abbotts is one of these places I have always been aware of (I was born and brought up less than 10 miles from it) but had for some reason or another, never been to. It is in that sort of no-mans land of not quite rural Essex and not quite desolate disgusting Romford drabness that for some reason is remarkably appealing to Premiership Footballers - a group of people Charlie Brooker so cleverly described as the World's thickest millionaires.

The school in the village was very easy to find and a warm welcome awaited me - and a cup of tea! The hall out the back of this school is brand spanking new and has fabulous acoustics. It was only a half day today and a smallish group of just over 30 children. They were a bit over excited a the start, so I told them some of my best jokes, and that soon quietened them down a bit I can tell you. One lad in particular was hugely knowledgeable and seemed very excited about history in general. He'll probably become a plumber. After a quick break I then had to race through the rest of the morning with embarrassing haste as a posse of dinner ladies (or lunchtime helpers or "ingesting median sojourn operative facilitators" as we probably have to call them these days) swarmed at the other end of the dining hall and cast disparaging looks my way. We still managed to get a really good jousting tournament in which ended with another win for the gentlemen! They are really coming right back into this now. Our year long score now reads:

GENTLEMEN 13 - 16 LADIES

There will be another chance for them to close the gap further tomorrow when I am up at the crack of dawn again to head back for another return visit to White Woman Lane Junior School in Norfollk.

March 25th this year sees the first of what could prove to be a regular Hoop Cricket Club reunion. I used to play for the Hoop between 1991 and 1998, so I am looking forward to getting back there and meeting such a large group of old friends, that is if everyone turns up as they say they will.