How are we?
All is good with me on this fine (yet slightly dull weathered) Tuesday morning.
Had a good 9 hours sleep last night. I was really tired. I finished recording at 6.15pm last night then Tony (remember Tony, my driver who I mentioned last week!) picked me up and brought me to Swansea which is where we open in Oklahoma! tonight. Any locals come to the Grand Theatre this week to see us. Every evening til Saturday 7.30pm and Wed, Thurs, Sat matinees at 2pm. That's the promotion bit done. haha.
So I had a good weekend. My last blog was Sunday morning after I had a lovely big breakfast in my nice hotel in Cowbridge. Then I had a long day 11am-9pm in the studio. It was good though as the entire Marcaroni cast got together for the first time to record and it was great to see who is doing what. I'm going to be working with such a cool group of laid back people, I seriously can't wait to have a real laugh this Christmas period. Who'd have thought that working on a new kids TV show could be so much fun!!! It'll be a lot of hard work though. I have someone coming to Swansea to give me the scripts for the first 26 episodes this week which I'll need to learn asap because in a couple of weeks I'll get the next 26 episodes. We're doing 52 all in all which means we're scheduled to film 2 episodes a day! So I think by February I'm gonna have smoke coming out of my ears and trying to focus on recording my album after that will be a task and a half!!!
Anyway, I got up Monday morning (yesterday) for my nice breakfast again and there was only one other couple in the restaurant as it was about 9am and they stopped serving at 9.30am. Now I admit the breakfast wasn't quite as nice as the morning before but - I have never heard such a moany miserable couple in my life. I'm ashamed to say they were talking Welsh (I like to consider Welsh people to be friendly and nice). She went over to the buffet and was winging at the 'pathetic selection of cereals' she then complained to the waitress that 'everyone had been dipping into the breakfast', I felt like saying 'well whadda ya expect you dumb a** it's a flamin buffet'. - She made the chef cook a fresh breakfast for her and her husband and didn't even say thanks and then on her way out, she walked past the pastry selection and said 'drycha ar y croissant's 'na'n blydi oer - ych a fi' which translates to 'look at those croissants, they're bloody cold, disgusting' - And I thought to myself, if that is the most important thing in your life to think about, then you need to go do a bungey jump or something because you are a boring old moany woman, get over it!!!
Rant over!
When I arrived my digs last night I dropped my stuff off, walked down a HUGE hill to Tesco to do a bit of a food shop for the week forgetting that of course I then had to walk back up the HUGE hill in the rain carrying my groceries!!! I didn't mind though as I'd been in the studio all day so it was nice to get some air. The landlady showed me a tin full of Welsh Cakes she'd made - I thought "Noooooo, I can't eat anymore Welsh Cakes' - On Sunday, Nia, the girl who is playing one of the fairies in Marcaroni brought in a box full of the most amazing Welsh Cakes ever, I think her Mum had made them. I warned her that this can't happen over Christmas cos I won't fit in my colorful, neoprene Marcaroni suit. Ha
People have been asking me about X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing in radio and press interviews recently and to be honest I watch more of the X-factor than Strictly, but on Saturday night, I caught Anne Wydecombe's dance. She was BRILLIANT!!! In the entertaining sense and not in the actual dance ability sense of course. I look at someone like her and think, you're amazing, you are so open and honest and you don't care what people think of you and she was very very funny. I would like to be her dance partner. Wouldn't it be great if we could all look at life in the way that she looks at dancing 'It might not go right but I'll give it a go' Anne to win I say. HAHA.
With regards to the X-Factor, I really enjoy it but only because I have now accepted that what they are doing is creating an entertaining T.V show and that it's actually very little to do with finding the best talent providing there are a couple of good ones in the mix to make the final. A lot of people get annoyed by that but I just think, well I enjoy watching it and think it's superbly edited and it has no effect on me weather the winner is eventually Cher or Diva Fever or even Jedward so why not just embrace the good things about the programme and be happy. I agree that Gamu is talented but she has still had great exposure from the millions who watch ITV so I'm sure she'll do well even though she didn't make Cheryl Cole's top three. (Has she gone back to Tweedy now or is she keeping Cole? I dunno)
Right I'm gonna head into Swansea town in a little while to suss it out as it's been about 5 years since I was here last. I have a meeting with John Quirke tomorrow who is the wonderfully talented man who is going to be the MD (musical director) of my album. How exciting.
Keep sending in your messages and comments guys. Always good to hear from you.
ANYONE WHO LIVES NEAR MANCHESTER - WE'RE HEADING YOUR WAY NEXT WEEK SO BOOK YOUR OKLAHOMA! TICKETS AT THE OPERA HOUSE!!!
Happy Tuesday to you whatever your doing and thanks for reading number 7!!!
Love your lives
Mark
