For those of you that don't know, #PreciousLittle (hashtag used on twitter) is a comedy podcast by Michael Legge and James Hingley, see their website here I have been a listener since the beginning last September. Michael calls us fans of the podcast, Podophiles and we often have #ListeningParties where we all listen together and write on twitter. For more about #PreciousLittle see my previous blog The idea behind the events of the 11th of July were to do the podcast with an audience of 40 podophiles, as it was the 40th podcast. It also happened to be my 30th birthday which suited me very well, thanks Michael. So that is the background, here is what happened...
Vicky (@tainted_harmony) and I met up with Neale (@ColonelHitch) to head over to Euston to our hotels (more hot tube journeys). We had a lovely breakfast in the sun (lining our stomachs), checked in and then set off towards the secret venue. Oh, that is not quite accurate, we then searched 6 shops down lots of back streets for a pineapple, but I will come to that in a while. We met up with a few podophiles before the podcast in a pub nearby, it was nice to break the ice in a smaller group, although I had met a number of them before at Los Quattros Cvnts gigs. I think everyone was as nervous as each other walking into a pub and asking a group of strangers if they were podophiles. But soon we were all giggling about the gifts and contributions we had brought to the recording. At this point Neale (@ColonelHitch) revealed the pineapple (see the photo), we had joked that he was the hardest person to recognise as his twitter avatar is of a pineapple in a bow tie, so we recreated it and Neale carried it around all day (until in began to get rather mushy later). We then realised that Graham (@GDLockuk) had a similar avatar of a pint of lager, hence the photos above of them meeting for the first time. We had a drink and a chat, the lovely Neal (@Neal55) gave me a brilliant birthday present of lots of American candy, and Ashley (@waytowastetime) gave me more chocolate. The ice broken we headed across the road to the venue.
At the venue there were more podophiles already waiting, some were recognisable, some were not. We all mingled and said hello, and I was very grateful that Sarah (drunk Sarah @misswiz) had sent everyone a badge, as it was my task to give them out, another great ice breaker. They were also very funny badges which said "I am a pair of bastards" on them, this does make sense if you listen to the podcast. There were too many podophiles to mention but some of the ones I speak to more regularly on twitter were there making it not too awkward to chat (@howlieT, @AndyMcH or Jingle Jim, @BarrySkellern, @The MightyBlackout, @Neal55, @waytowastetime, @GDLockUK, @tainted_harmony or Vicky Harsehole, @wllmtnnnt, @GordyODT oh and many more, sorry if I missed you off this list). Finally we went into the basement for the recording.
Pre-recording Michael had a bit of a funny rant at James due to the microphones being in pint glasses... "I asked you to do one thing... set this whole thing up!" which had us all giggling ready for our treat of a warm up act Mushybees. As podophiles we all know Mushybees does the voice of Pam Ayre for Ayres Rocks, where we send in poetry to be read out. It was great to see Mushybees do her own material and she wonderfully chose William Tennant (@wllmtnnnt) to hold her flip chart and turn it when promtped. Do go and see his work here. The set end with rather a lot of Madeleine McCann material which had me in stitches and William struggling to hold up the chart.
Then it was podcast time. I do not need to go through it in detail as you can go and listen to it yourself, episode 40 of Precious Little is on iTunes now or available from the website here. I will point out some of the highlights for me though. At the beginning of the podcast they played the theme tune by Ian (@IanReentrant) as always, but James was obviously shocked that we all sang along! Of course we did. IN some of the chats with the podophiles we discussed how they all get stuck in your head like little earworms. We did sing other jingles too, my favourite being in the mini podcast, so I can't mention it as it isn't out yet. Michael seemed to bounce off the crowd's reactions as I would have expected but it was great to see and hear James get so many laughs and stand his own ground. Sadly Misha's (@HowlieT) friend Lauren couldn't get in as she was only 17 years old (although another 17 year old did get in), as sorry for her as we felt it did lead to rather a lot of the podcast being dedicated to her in a sick and twisted way, leading to Bunky (@mushybees partner) bringing a barely 18 porn magazine for Michael in the interval. The whole show felt very warm (in the good way) and comfortable, I'm not sure Michael and James would agree with this. Michael did of course look beautiful in his grey t-shirt (which he blogged about here). They seemed incredibly touched that we had a whip around for some beer money for them, the gig was free after all! A wonderful idea from Andy/Jingle Jim (@AndyMcH). I laughed too much at the use of the wanker sign throughout the recording, especially when both Michael and James did it to each other when the other turned their back, a visual catchphrase on a podcast brilliant! Imagine that is what is happening for all unexplained laughter in the podcast. The Gentleman's Review finally joined Michael and James on stage and were almost buried in biscuits from the podophiles (they then had to carry them around all day, there were loads). They were as always very funny, when they could get a word in over Michael, thankfully they do speak more in the mini podcast. Lots of us also brought postcards for the last ever Fuck A Thing, but it will not be heard until the mini podcast later in the week so I won't spoil it, but there were prizes and another live jingle.
During the interval I gave Michael his present from my twin sister, which was a book "The 100 World's Greatest Podcasting Tips", we thought it was appropriate. Michael read some of it out while we waited for people to return, it is obviously the work of a genius and should greatly improve the podcast.
After the podcast we had more booze and chatted, although as always happens I was sad to not get chance to chat with everyone. We also ate my birthday cake, made by Misha. And we skype called Wet Sarah (@h2osarah) in Canada so that she could see all of the podophiles, although we did struggle to hear her on my phone and the picture was a bit rubbish for her, at least we tried. Then followed more booze and more chatting, it was great to meet Andy (@DrBobChoco) and Martin (@Martinwolfenden) from The Gentleman's Review. There was one casualty of the night, a blue ukulele, but it is too upsetting to talk about *sobs*.
A brilliant day/night thanks to everyone involved, I couldn't have had a better 30th birthday.
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