So watching a motorcyclist fly into a fence wasn't exactly the best start to a Goddess Tori day.

I'd just turned off the dual carriageway onto the little country road leading south towards town, and thought "hey, there's a lot of bikes around" [was there a rally?]. Slowing down for an upcoming uphill right-hand blind corner, I watched the blue-and-white Suzuki – and the blue-and-white-clad rider – appear from the corner, fly across the road, and into the wooden fence two metres off the other side of the road.

I immediately pulled over and called 999; the driver behind me had stopped and went to see what was going on. Miraculously, the biker had escaped with only superficial injuries: the wooden fence had cushioned his impact. If it had been a different material – or, say, had concrete posts…

Once it was established that the ambulance wasn't needed, and that whilst the bike may not have been driveable at least the rider was, I left – and it's at that point, after one is needed, when the adrenalin/shock kicks in. Aaaaaaa…

Given the amount of miles I've done and still do – professionally and otherwise – I've seen a few cases of people and metal flying across roads. Whichever Gods there may be grant that I continue to see them and not feel them…

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And so, after much delay on the east side of London, into town: I managed to get to our meeting point about 4:15, only to find Max was similarly delayed by railway smeg-ups on the west side. It was pushing 6 by the time we met.

Finding that the restaurant we'd originally set our sights on wasn't open yet, we ended up in Ask [ok Italian chain]. Not bad pizza, except that eating it with cutlery that's blunter than a Charlie Brooker column on football is a bit of a challenge.

And so to the theatre. The Apollo Victoria is the home of "Wicked!", the offshoot musical from The Wizard of Oz. Quite why Tori had got herself into the place remains a mystery, but seeing her in a 500-seat theatre rather than a 3,500-seat concert hall would be a bonus.

The support act sounded from the foyer like an identikit dreary bloke with a guitar, so we skipped it. Little merchandise – the T-shirts were all last year's "Sinful" stuff – so at least that temptation [and strain on wallet] was avoided.

photo from here

And so to the show. The Goddess herself in blue and gold – shhh, don't mention the Botox – by herself, in contrast to 2007.  Set list from undented:

• Bells For Her
• Precious Things
• Silent All These Years
• Dragon
• Northern Lad
• The Power of Orange Knickers
• Marianne
• Space Dog
• Beauty of Speed
• Virginia
• Rattlesnakes [Lloyd Cole]
• Yes, Anastasia
• Me and A Gun
• Garlands
• Hey Jupiter
• encore
• Desperado [The Eagles]
• Personal Jesus [Depeche Mode]
• Take To The Sky

Okay, so I did spend the first two songs just sobbing like a big girl. But, hey, c'mon, talk about a double whammy…

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I liked being in the presence. I loved hearing the music straight from. But, I'm afraid, I'm getting increasingly misanthropic amongst crowds of anybody – even fellow worshippers.

Like: you've paid somewhere around £40 a ticket for this, right? How about you try watching the show, rather than watching yourself film it on your bitchenly amazing iPhone? If you have to use a flash, can it actually be a "flash", and not a blinding searchlight as used in Escape From Colditz?

Like: can we actually hear the music, and not some arse whooping in my ear?

Like: shouting "I LOVE YOU, TORI!" is, at least in this context, a little redundant. Out of the 500 or so present, how many would have said that they don't?

I conclude that as much as I appreciate seeing "live" artistes, I'm getting too old for this shit. Paying top dollar and negotiating Central London, to sit amongst people I'm becoming increasingly misanthropic about [at least when they're a crowd], is getting less and less attractive. Nor are you getting me to "Billy Elliot" over the road. Even if it has got the woman from "Prisoner Cell Block H" in it.

I guess, though, sometimes on special occasions like this was…

Happy Birthday, Max*.

* [only a month late, but who's counting?]

Subjects included:

Career counselling [and dance counselling for those like me with very low self-esteem when it comes to that sort of thing]

Being interrupted

Tanzania

Foot shrinkage

Little plastic pots of jam

Public urination

Funding, and possible lack of thereof in near future

Where to put your begonias

Public health work

Leopardskin brassieres

CIF trolls

Anal tampons

Yep, just another afternoon in town with Max…

[The French brasserie was very nice, even if the tajine de legumes was just a bit too legume-ish for my taste...]

[not their tajine, but a tajine]

Thank you, sweetie.

I just changed my "Relationship Status" setting on Facearse.

Monday mornings are not usually the places for "hurrah!" of any nature, although one of the joys of shift work is that I don't actually have any fixed "Monday morning" back-to-work feeling, since both work and sleep patterns tend to wander all over the place like a drunk on the A12 with one leg longer than the other.

And whilst there's not a lot of actual "hurrah!", there are things I'm content with, things that have made it okay to be alive at 10am this day.

In no particular order;

- The heatwave has abated [a bit]. It's gone from the uncomfortable around-thirty to a very bearable low-twenties-with-a-breeze. All activities – sleeping, eating, sitting at the computer, walking, driving, pointing in the general direction of Armenia – become pleasurable again, instead of a sweaty mess that makes you want to stick your head in an igloo for a month. And the blisters on my right arm might die down.

- No further ill effects from the chilled-section curry, bought from Asda, which I was given for dinner yesterday, and which within three hours decided to reappear again at both ends. I'll save you any further description of the events.

- Ian starts his new job. Bookselling to hospital care is a bit of a leap, but I'm rooting for him. Good luck!

- London on Wednesday. I had other invites for both the weekend just gone and for next weekend, but work precludes them; instead, subject to confirmation, trains and life in general, I get another round of "person from Internet appears in actual 'meatspace' and hopefully turns out to be bitchenly amazing".

[Further details, such as who and where, withheld for the moment just in case some psychotic is reading this and decides to turn up at the restaurant at the same time...]

- No more sodding Wimbledon. If football matches can't go on forever and are only given half an hour of extra time before being forced to end up in the lottery of a penalty shootout, why are tennis matches allowed to take up five sodding hours of the telly and radio, cancelling other things?

The Ashes series starts on Wednesday, thank Gawd. [Don't worry, Pet, I won't be bringing a radio into the restaurant.] You may all yawn, but at least so long as you don't depend on Radio 4 LW it's easily avoidable, unlike etc. etc.

- Torchwood Week. The third season is five shows over five nights, starting 9pm tonight.

The bastards killed off my favourite character at the end of last season, so it remains to be seen how the slimmed-down triangular version will work. Teasers for the episodes so far have revealed a Midwich Cuckoos "kids get taken over by alien intelligence" theme, though their mantra of "we are coming" is perhaps slightly unfortunate…

Which, by the way, is another bonus of it not being quite so hot as it was…

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Today's Big Question: What are you happy about, or at least content with, this Monday?

Yay Day: I've spent today at Colchester Zoo, with Paula and her son. At four years old, he's just the right age for starting to stare with wonder at animals [even if he kept getting distracted and occasionally being more interested in sticks or hand-washing facilities].

Subjects discussed included trolls, Dada, Net meetings, "performance" and how to hit your bogies [the last was the kid's contribution].

Blurry out-of-focus why-is-that-gazelle-four-miles-away photos will probably appear on FaceArse later, if I don't fall asleep before I upload them.

It wasn't too crowded [unlike last time I went, when I was stupid/disorganized enough to take B. and crew on the Sunday of a holiday weekend] but was very hot. You'll find that all the animals pictured will be asleep under trees. Not even shouting at them that Ann Widdecombe was about to enter the cage and that it'd be a good opportunity to commence feeding time seemed to rouse them.

And I seem to have scarred the kid for life [or at least condemned him to social pariah status next year when he starts school] by teaching him the ancient Basil Brush catchphrase "Dirty Gertie from Number Thirty".

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Meh Day: Luckily, being out all day means I've missed the news output of television, radio and Interwebz. Including all the "OMG!!!" FaceArse updates, Twitters, etc.What? There's a whale in the Thames called John Peel already? Was it driving a Mercedes in Paris?

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Nae Day: A phone call at 10:30 from director J…., telling me the disappointing news that Henry Vee will be held over until 2010, citing pressure of time [five weeks between now and curtain up]; though another phone call from friend and fellow thespian M… later blamed the postponement on [districtcouncil]'s mess-up in double-booking the ruined castle that was to serve as our theatre.

Whichever, this of course means that the denizens of Suffolk [and further abroad] will miss the opportunity to see me in kilt and full Scots dress, reciting unintelligible semi-medieval prose in a bad Hamish and Dougal voice.

I [and the kilt] am, however, still available for weddings, funerals and Bar Mitzvahs…

[yes, this appears to be real.]

Remember that drama workshop I went to last year? When I thought it was the start of my acting career then nothing really happened?

I just got an email from M. – Henry V comes to [nearbytownwithcastle] for six nights end of July / start of August, and would I like to be a couple of minor Lords?

Subject to work clearance, I've said yes, of course.

I thought they'd changed their play for this year to the Shrew, but it turns out the women in the company are doing an all-female version of that [with women playing the male roles, not as an updated lesbian set-in-Wentworth-Prison version as I suggested] whilst the boys get to do some serious history instead.

My post at the time expressing doubts about the English nationalism of the Henry V play seems to have disappeared [I think I had a small database crash about that time last summer] – after all, this is the play whose most famous line in Act III is "Cry God for England, Harry and Saint George!" – but I'm sure if I do my lines in a Billy Connolly accent it'd balance it out…

[Geez. Who'd want to be my director?]

Details may be given out to people who really want to come see, nearer the time. After all, I know there's quite a few of you who won't want to miss out on seeing Fish's codpiece…

The piece of cod which passeth all understanding.

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Today's Big Question: What was your greatest starring role, or most notable stage achievement? [Yes, we're counting school plays and stuff, so just about everybody's got one somewhere in their history.]