Nicey.

What a fun weekend I’ve had. It was really weird too. I liked it.

On Saturday I co-presented the Collins & Herring show on 6music with Andrew Collins. Richard couldn’t do it so Andrew had to choose someone who would make the listeners really yearn for his return. He picked me. It was an incredibly joyful experience. My favourite bits were Hospital chocolate, Liz Kershaw getting Bjork mixed up with Iron Maiden and putting a Star Wars trash compactor into the Family Carriage of every train. By far my least favourite bit was recording the intro and outro to the podcast. Yeah. The podcast. The podcast that I listen to. The podcast that I’m a fan of. I never thought about the podcast when I said yes to this. I mean, anyone can get on the radio but it’s THEIR podcast. NO-ONE can “replace” Richard Herring on this. Who the fuck do I think I am? What an arrogant prick. Please send Michael Legge as much anti-him-on-the-Collins & Herring podcast hatemail as you can. That fucking wanker, who is me, shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. You can still listen to the full show on iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s41m1/Collins_and_Herring_17_04_2010/ but boycott the podcast until next week. Arrogant, arrogant prick.

Thanks obviously to Richard and Andrew for letting me do it. I didn’t break the BBC like I completely expected I would so hopefully they’re not too incredibly embarrassed of my contribution. Henry and Will at 6music are great and the fact that they let me play by beloved 28 Costumes means that they will always have a special place in my heart even if they end up killing my parents, bumming my wife and eating my dog. I thank them. It was also lovely to see so many listeners messages come through on the computer. They mainly consisted of "Has he sworn yet?", "I can't believe he hasn't sworn yet" and has he said cunt yet?"

Then yesterday Andrew and I did the first of our three Hen & Chickens work-in-progress shows and it was FUCKING BRILLIANT! If you came along then please know this: I love you.

We had an incredibly fun and supportive audience mainly made up of podophiles and members of the Nerd Army. Some of them were both. All day yesterday I stressed about learning all seven pages of my pointlessly wordy first attempt at my Edinburgh show for 2011 (yeah, I’ve given myself plenty of time) and I just could not learn it. Writing it out like a blog and saying it out loud are two very different things. While rehearsing I kept forgetting my place, forgetting lines, forgetting jokes, forgetting everything and I was starting to panic. Then I got the best advice I could have got.

Muki just looked at me and said “Yeah but it doesn’t matter”.

I hadn’t thought of that before.

It really doesn’t matter. I want the show to be good when it’s complete but now? It doesn’t matter now. I just need to do it and see what works and what doesn’t. A massive weight was lifted off my shoulders. Once again, laziness and a shoddy attitude to work had won the day.

Don’t get me wrong, I still went on stage with a setlist. And a script.

But I forgot stuff constantly and improvised constantly and it just didn’t matter. The audience were great and I had a truly great time thanks to them. Hopefully tonight will be just as good and I can get to the bits that I didn’t have time for last night (I only got through three pages). The story of the annoying girl in the wheelchair must be heard!

Plus, I forgot to even say the name of the show. It’s called Curse Sir Walter Raleigh. Is that a good title?
I don’t know. Come along tonight and tell me. You can buy tickets here: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user?region=gb_london&query=detail&event=374356&referral_id=s

My first blog for nearly a week and it’s all positive. How tedious. I’ll be blogging a lot more from now on. Just got a bit busy there for a while. I really need to tell you about arguing with a little girl on a bus and we need to talk about what we’re going to do about the Black Eyed Peas. Something needs to be done.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk