I was in the right mood for laughing yesterday - put it down to too much caffeine and not enough sleep, but I was a giggly little fool for a lot of the day. This worked in my favour - I was feeling funny when I went on stage and I had a good gig last night. I felt like I knew what I was doing and like I was really communicating with the audience - perhaps one of the best gigs I've done in the last 10 or so. I simply enjoyed it and didn't feel under too much pressure (once I'd broken the ice at least).

On the train on the way to the gig I watched one of my favourite films - Top Secret!. This is full of hilarious set pieces and running gags. I know the jokes before they're about to happen and, watching it, waiting for my favourite bits, aware of the time, I was again impressed with the economy of its writing and editing. It just cruised between well executed moments and did so under the 90 minute mark (a good length for a movie). Some extra scenes on the DVD were good fun and worth watching... they were also worth cutting from the movie (distracting from rather than continuing the action). I had to put my face in my hands to stop screaming the train down - I could easily sit down and watch the whole thing again tonight when I get home. It's a great movie!

Today I tried to ring my bank. I got a call centre and someone who really couldn't help me. It was quicker to walk to the branch and talk to them then it was to go through their polite but useless call centre. I'm assuming it was an Indian call centre - the lady had an Indian name and accent, but she was lovely... just really unable to do anything of any use. What we need is local staff who know what they're doing. This "call centres full of the powerless who can't help" attitude is futile. My assistant even relied on my knowing sort codes of the various branches we were talking about - good job I had the website up at the same time.

Craziness!