Toad, and sometimes it's right to be paranoid

That was a very pleasantly childlike version of Toad of Toad Hall yesterday. Seeing intelligent people like Matt Lucas being 'offensive' in Little Britain has been annoying; how easy to make oneself lots of money by appealing to an audience who think they are being naughty by laughing at things their kids wind up their teachers with. But he was really good as Mr Toad. The snoring sequence reminded me of the Helen and the Horns tour manager, Rag, who we shared with King Kurt. Rag was Welsh,loud,large and fearless, that is, until we got to Pontypridd and boarded with Mrs Williams, a terrifying Methodist whose guest-house was two 1960s houses knocked together. After our drive of 250 miles she insisted that Rag should move the van to the other side of the road before he could have a cup of tea. She made me and Sally, who was our live sound engineer, sleep in one house, and the guys, including Rag with his monstrous snore, sleep in the other. After the gig, we all did more than our usual share of obnoxious imbibing, and were taken aback to find she'd waited up for us! She sat there in the living room of one house, while we sat in the other (they were joined but still separate, sort of) until we went to bed, just to make sure no rock'n'roll activities happened. When me and Sally went to our room, we made ourselves increasingly paranoid; what if she was outside our room blowing anthrax dust under the door? We started laughing uncontrollably and I decided to lock the door, just in case. So I tiptoed across the bedroom and barked my shin on my guitar case, which was in the middle of the floor. 'OW!', I yelled. 'Aha!', Said a voice from just outside the door,'I think you young ladies have been mixing with too many students! It's time you went to sleep, and I'll see you in the morning!. SHE ACTUALLY HAD BEEN LISTENING OUTSIDE OUR DOOR!!!
Fact: I played Toad in the school play. Deirdre had wanted to play the part, because she wanted to be an actress when she grew up, and I didn't. So she added lots of extra lines to her part, the Judge. It didn't matter though- I had a whale of a time. I made a Toad hat out of McMum's old green hat with two halves of table tennis balls for googly eyes. 'I am Toad, the terror of the highways!'. That's what I think to myself as I drive down the motorway to my gigs! No hip proto-Germanic autobahn thoughts for me, oh no!