Before our pre-gig dinner I popped into the Gala to pick up tickets and who should be stood at the box office, non other than the man himself. John Bishop. We had a brief chat. Mainly me telling him I’d heard good things. Him suggesting I see a movie instead. Me telling him I’m from Southport. Him commenting at least there will be two people in the audience that understand him (he’s a Scouser).

The show was brilliant. My cheeks hurt before he walked on stage (it makes sense once you’ve seen the show). He is the most natural comedian. His ad-libbing was even funnier than the routine, and the routine was bloody good. I was in stitches. It seemed you didn’t just have to be from Merseyside (or the edge of Cheshire where he grew up) to find him hilarious. His funny translates. It is rare to find someone who seems to have comedy running through his veins. He puts the likes of Michael McIntyre and Ed Byrne in the shade. If you only see one stand-up comedian this year make it John Bishop.

I can’t lie to you. After seeing John Bishop I was worried. I’ve wanted to see Dave Gorman live for years. My expectations were high. Back in 2001 I became addicted to ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ on BBC2. I’ve read ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ and ‘Googlewhack’ many many times, mainly when I’m having a moment I feel insane and I know Dave’s words will make me feel like I’m more well adjusted than at least one other human being. He has become one of my comedy heroes. In my early days of blogging Dave Gorman inspired one of my first blogs (reading it might explain why I like Dave so much, but excuse the writing, it was in my raw unpolished days of blogging!). I’d had an amazing time at John Bishop just 48 hours earlier.  Here I was seeing one of my comedy heroes live for the first time and I was worried that he wouldn’t be as good as the bloke I’d bought tickets for on a whim after 5 minutes on TV.

I can’t believe I doubted Dave Gorman. I should not have worried. In the past nine years not once has he disappointed me. Scared me at times. Disturbed me. (Just watch Googlewhack!) But never disappointed. There is room for more than one brilliant comedian in this world. There is even enough room for two of them to be in the North East in one weekend.

Dave was brilliant. I will never doubt him again. I don’t want to ruin it so I won’t say too much. But there are things that may happen in my life where I find myself bursting into spontaneous fits of laughter as a result of Sunday night. Having worked for Royal Mail there were parts of the show that really tickled me even more than they would normally. Dave’s style is different to John Bishop’s. Even in stand up he’s a story teller and he uses anticipation so well. If you don’t get to see it live then buy, borrow, but preferably don’t steal, the DVD (which I presume will follow shortly!)

And I got to meet him after the show, a less informal affair than bumping into John. Such is Dave’s fame that it involved buying something for him to sign. And some queuing. But he was kind enough to smile in a way that looks like he was pleased to meet me – or perhaps that is a look of get this crazy fan away from me – I will let you decide!

I started reading it on Monday. It was my second reading of it. My first was after buying it because I saw it in a bookshop and remembered how much I had loved the show (the mpdg – that’s ‘miles per dave gorman’ had appealed the mathematical side of me,or perhaps it had just been the general randomness). Anyway I had picked it out on Monday because I needed something to take my mind of something else I was waiting to be resolved. Unfortunately ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ made me think more about the unresolved thing and so I stopped reading it until later that evening when the thing got resolved (I know it sounds all very mysterious… it’s not really, it’s just a whole other story that is probably not appropriate to be shared in a blog right now.)

Anyway once the thing was all resolved I started reading it again, and have now, within 48 hours finished it (and found time to also do the pub quiz and go to work… sleeping time has been slightly down). I do worry about this. I have read a new Harry Potter book in a similar length of time… but that is ok (well for some people it still isn’t, however there are a few thousand people that will agree that reading the new Harry Potter book within 48 hours of release is the actions of an almost sane and normal person). However I have read ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’ before – I know how it starts, I know how it goes along and I also know how it finishes… In fact reading the book again I always knew what was coming next. But the strange thing is that I read it in a manner I would read a very exciting NEW book where I didn’t know what was coming next. My only conclusion is that I can identify with Dave, I may not be male, or called Dave Gorman, or have ever gone on a quest for Dave Gormans, or indeed any of my own namesakes (I believe there are a few in this country, but I’m not about to go looking for them) – but I have been in the position of doing something that is seemingly silly and pointless, but that is very fundamentally important for an unknown reason. In fact I realise that being of my family name is a special thing (we’re a ‘special’ and individual bunch), we all seem to have this ability to become obsessed about things that really don’t seem to merit obsession.

I do also identify with Danny as I have also been the one being dragged along not quite sure how I got involved in something, or indeed finding myself encouraging odd behaviour I am not quite sure I approve of. But that’s why I love my best mate to bits… as described above sometimes I’m a Dave Gorman, but over the years (we’ve known each other since we were 11) her actions have allowed the Danny Wallace side of me to surface. I like variety.

Anyway it is now 4pm and I have just spent far too much time reading a book that I intended to put down about two and a half hours ago whilst having a quick break from work. I intended to spend lots of my afternoon doing work, which means now the rest of my afternoon and evening will be spent doing work, but at least I can’t get distracted by the book anymore. I think about an hour ago I decided to just finish the book so it would no longer be a distraction.

Can you see a flaw in my plan yet? This book has not stopped being a distraction. I have now managed to write over 600 words about this book instead of doing work. And between finishing the book and writing this I went onto the archive of Neighbours episodes I had bookmarked a while ago (I knew it would come in useful at some point) to find the episode on the 27th November 2001 with Dave Gorman in it (not THE Dave Gorman, just a character in that one episode they named after Dave Gorman). Obsessed with random stuff I shouldn’t be obsessed with? Moi?!

Ok that’s enough of me writing about Dave Gorman… just before I go – thought I should let you know we came 4th in the Pub Quiz (2nd week running we haven’t been in the Top 3, it’s a disgrace… at least I wasn’t there last week). I didn’t feel too responsible. I had made some definite contributions – ’8 B’s in a B?’ 8 Bits in a Byte of course! They call themselves animators (or technical directors or whatever) on a daily basis, and me having not been a proper computer geek on a daily basis for three years I was frankly disappointed in them that I was the only one to get that one (I also got ’3 W in M?’ – I’ll leave you to ponder the answer). I was disappointed in myself for not joining in a conversation I should have joined in during the questions being asked stage… It wasn’t until the answers stage I realised that my knowledge of the Mr Men could have bagged us an extra point and put us joint 3rd , so I suppose I am somewhat responsible after all.

I also realised that on not quite three pints I get a tad tipsy. Walking down my road I looked ahead and thought ‘well at least the idiot parked behind me made an even worse job of parallel parking than I did today’. I then realised that the badly parked car was actually mine, and then realised that as there was no longer anyone parked behind me I could perhaps go in, get my car keys and manoeuvre the car into a better position. I then in my head rewound to the point where I had started thinking about my car, and how drunk the conversation with myself in my head sounded, and realised that I had perhaps leave the car badly parked as it was.