The Day We Nearly Didn't Watch QI

Tuesday was an exciting one. I know, I know – every day should be exciting, but Tuesday was extraordinarily so! I was lucky enough to procure tickets to a recording of QI! I had tickets for two seatings, 3.45, and 6.30, on the 30^th April. I was actually slated to watch a dance show at the Warwick Arts Center, which I’m sad I missed, but the opportunity to watch QI was too good to be true. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are two of my all-time favourite comedians, and of course Laurie is an amazing Gregory House, too.

So, come Thursday morning, I headed down to London after doing a bit of work. I had to pack a Pikachu onesie, of all things, so anyone searching my bag would think I was absolutely mad! I wasn’t carrying it as a random “oh, I may need this!” - I’m a Student Progression Ambassador for my university, which means I teach once a week in a local school. I have eight students, and essentially, what I do is to give them tips and tricks on getting into Higher Education. This isn’t to say that I force university dreams on them – I don’t think that university is necessarily the right choice for everyone, although I certainly think it’s a worthy pathway for many reasons – but that I teach them about the different options that they have, and what they need to do to achieve each one. It somehow slipped out during one of these lessons that I own, and have worn around the university, a Pikachu onesie. I have in fact, worn it to the Birmingham Christmas market, joined by one of my best friends as a panda. That, however, is a different story.

My head looks slightly detached from the rest of my body

Anyway, having discovered my secret Pokemon identity, they wrangled a promise out of me to wear it on our last lesson together. I hadn’t the time to go back to the university and pick up my outfit, so I took it down to London with me, a huge yellow and brown bundle that occupied half of my bag. Luckily, I wasn’t security checked. I’m really not sure how I would have explained it.

My brother James was supposed to accompany us, but he pulled out at the last minute due to an exam. Pfft. Exams. Who does those things? Instead, I put out a call on Facebook to ask if any friends wanted to take up his place, and an old classmate from a Japanese course stepped up, Jon. After a delicious lunch at Borough Market, we met him at London Bridge, and made our way towards the London Studio. Jon pointed out that QI is a BBC program, yet the studio was staffed with ITV people! Odd, that. Jon’s an actor, a Tae Kwon Do teacher, and freelance promotional. He was my next choice for the World Book Night Book:

"Can I use the book to hide my face?" -"No."

We weren’t quite sure of our directions, so we took a few detours on the way. By the time we got there, it was about three. As we approached, my heart sank. The line stretched along the studio wall, did a U-turn all the way towards the Thames, and then some. We marched ourselves to the end of this snaking queue, and tried to calculate our chances of getting in. Soon, a runner came along to explain it all to us. She had already been along the line, giving stamps to those who were first. Anyone without stamps, such as ourselves, were on standby. We waited hopefully in line, and gradually inched our way forwards for three-quarters of an hour. At 4pm, with a mere ten people in front of us… we were turned away.

As you can see, the line stretched all the way down the road, and then back again

Gutting. We walked away, disappointed. Strolled along Thames and saw this:

Unusual beach art

I threw in about five coins, missing every time. Clembeans’s father tossed one casually, and got it in, first shot! His explanation was:

“I’m an accountant. I’m used to throwing money away.” Best explanation I've ever heard!

Unfortunately, Jon had to leave to teach the next generation how to defend themselves, so the magic tickets I had for the next screening at 6.30 were useless to him. But not to me! Yes, indeed, I had tickets to two filmings on the 30^th, both afternoon and evening. You can’t stop me! And for this second one, I was in there, two hours early. We were very definitely in this time, stamps on our hands, raring to go.

So, the series that’s being filmed at the moment is ‘K’. Our audience word (kibitka) can be found on Fry’s Twitter account. Photography and filming is forbidden, so I’m using stock photos. Usually, I’d risk something sneaky on my phone, but there was no way I was going to jeopardize my chances to watch QI.

(image credit)

I’ve seen Alan Davies during one of his live performances – Life is Pain, near on half a year ago. He seems much more comfortable on QI – he works well with Stephen Fry, of course, and as a regular panelist, he knows the kind of pace they want to set. There were two ‘newcomers’ – two very lovely jokers, whose humour I have enjoyed via iPlayer recordings of Mock the Week. They were Katherine Ryan and Josh Widdicombe. The final panelist was the fantastic Phil Jupitus.

Alan Davies at the Warwick Arts Center during his Life is Pain tour, signing autographs

Even QI XL is judiciously edited – the whole recording was nearly three hours! It was really fascinating to see the ins and outs of it all. The audience really does laugh that much – no laugh tracks required, and the studio fits nearly 600 people! Before the show started, QI elves kept us entertained with random facts and tidbits, displayed on TV screens by the side of the set. The most memorable ones for me were “did you know over 50% of koalas have chlamydia?” alongside “Ostriches can be trained to herd sheep. [next slide] Sheep cannot be trained to herd ostriches.” The elves also put up shoutouts to the audience, obviously people who were friends with various members of the production team.

It was the first time I’ve ever been at the live recording of a TV series (although I have been in front of the camera for a game show, but that’s something that I hope never gets put up on YouTube!), and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I’m probably shooting myself in the foot here, but the tickets are absolutely free, and you can sign yourself up on the mailing list here. They give out tickets for other shows, too; if Mock the Week or Graham Norton gets filmed any time soon, I’ll be applying. For every. Single. One.

(and then I got food poisoning. Also another story. Bleurgh.)

World Book Night - The first book

I’m still waiting to send off my health certificate and my IPCP – the International Child Protection Certificate, so I’m not officially a JET shortlister yet. Still, I’ve started to prepare for my trip, and the idea is both daunting and exciting. This is going to be a blog about my journey – around Japan, wherever I’m placed, and how I deal with living and travelling in a new culture.

In the meantime, however, I still have to study and work! I’m at the end of a degree at Warwick University, so hopefully the tales of my travails in Coventry will keep you entertained until I leave. One of the more interesting things I’m involved in at the moment is the World Book Night 2013. I applied for, and successfully became a World Book Giver this year, which means I have 20 copies of my chosen novel to give away. I selected Rose Tremain’s The Road Home. It’s a fantastic book, by the way. I read it in a day. My batch arrived at the local pickup point last week, and, since it was only a slight detour to the route I was taking that day, I decided to pick them up.

As I approached the library, I began to feel a little wary – it was out of the way, on a dusty looking road; something that Google Maps had failed to tell me. I recognized a road nearby, just about, which only made me realise I had managed to take the long way around, adding a ten minute walk onto my sweaty journey. A park – or rather, a desolate looking field, ran unhappily by the side of the road. A chap cycled past me, sitting upright, unwrapping a Subway sandwich with both hands. A useful skill.

The Canley Community library is a sorry sight, a building the size of a small bungalow, plonked unceremoniously on some sorry looking patch of lawn. It looked glumly run-down, with typically colourful abstract art painted in bright colours on one wall. It looked one scribble away from graffiti, the kind of art some poor “community artist” bangs out to get a living wage. There were bars on the windows. I wondered: what kind of people need to be kept out of a library? How desperate would you have to be? (The answer is, obviously, people that are desperate enough not to care, so it’s a moot point, but a sad story all the same). Or perhaps more humorously, what kind of people need to be kept in?

The doors were closed. In all honesty, it looked like a garage. There was only one other person around. He was dressed in a deep navy track suit. A black cap rested on his shaven head. His sling bag, as dark as the rest of his clothing, rested on one hip. I stood behind him, bored. He leaned back on an empty cycle rack. I echoed this posture on the rack behind, cool in the surprisingly hot day. Don’t talk to strangers. I pretended to text a friend (maybe I actually did, or maybe I just made a big show of it). There was some gum rattling around in my bag somewhere, so -

“They said they’ll be open at 2pm.”

I looked up from my gum-search and thanked him. 2pm? I had other, more important things to do! Well, not really, but I did need to meet a friend. Fortunately, I rang up the office, and the helpful librarian bought my box of books out. She headed back inside, waiting for electricians to fix up their lighting – the reason they were closed was that someone had busted the lights. I slung the box down and started to distribute the contents between my rucksack and a small sling bag I had bought along for this purpose. I managed to stuff about half a dozen in the rucksack, sweating profusely as the sun beat down on my back. I paused to unceremoniously wipe beads of perspiration from my forehead (and my armpits). I glanced up, smiled – the other gent was watching.

“Got some new books?” he commented. Now here is the thing. I have lived in a country where racial awareness was a very Big Thing, and not always in a great way. BLACK MEN are dangerous (unless they’re in suits, for some reason, then it’s fine). But whilst I’ve grown up with that stereotype, I really hate living my life with these rules. So, sorry ma, but I started up a conversation. I explained why I wasn’t really just a huge criminal stealing 20 copies of The Road Home from this little library, but what World Book Night was. A thought struck me –

“Are you much of a reader?” I asked. He hemmed and hawed a little, and agreed. Whatever his answer, my reaction would have been the same. I passed him a copy. “Here. A new book.”

“It looks like the sort of thing I’ll read before I sleep,” Lloyd (for indeed, Lloyd was his name) told me. I was ridiculously pleased by this idea – whether it’s true or not, I’ll never know. But I gave him the book, and that’s the most I could do. Lloyd needed to use the library for the computer – he didn’t have one at home. He had just got a new job, in the warehousing sector, he confided. He used to work in security, but the hours were too unsociable. And so, with that, he popped it into his sling bag. I finished repacking the books. We shook hands, and I left, off to meet my friends.

And that’s why libraries like Canley exist, as small and run-down as they look. It is why writers as huge and prolific as Neil Gaiman campaign to keep them alive. Because libraries are important. Because people who can’t afford computers probably won’t bother with buying books either, they’re too busy trying to stay alive. Libraries provide a public service that we all need to be aware of and respect, because where would we be without them? I’m lucky enough that my university carries all the books I need, and ten times the amount of books that I don’t. The knowledge in there has carried me through my degree.

I’ve given another four out, to students, but I think I’m going to carry them in my bag a little longer and wait. I don’t want to give it to people who normally read, like me. I want to find those who I’ve never had to chance to speak to before. Maybe when I’m next at the bus stop, with a grandmother who’s dressed in a cardigan and her salwar kameez, or the bartender at the local pub. I’m connecting through books, writing my own adventure. It’s not The Road Home, but it is a road to somewhere. It doesn’t just start when I move to Japan: it starts now.