Harald and us

For his last birthday Matthias had asked for tickets to be in the audience of a television show. We got him tickets to see Harald Schmidt. There was a catch though. He wanted all of us to come along. I am not keen on being on telly, but he is an old friend, so tonight we met outside the studio in Cologne. That is, all of us met apart from Matthias and his wife. They were nowhere to be seen and he did not answer his mobile phone.

We got slightly neverous, because the ticket system is bit strange. One order can only be for up to 4 tickets, but a person can place more than one order for the same show. There were 7 of us in total, so Thomas had ordered a set of 4 and a set of 3 tickets. If you don't pick up the tickets personally (you really need to bring identification) by 5:45 pm and bring everyone else along, they are given to someone else. Time was running out and Thomas had already picked up the set of 4 tickets. At 5:40 we decided to lie and tell them the other 3 had also arrived and were waiting outside in the sun. I went along, so at least one other person's face would support the story. It work and when we reunited with the rest, Matthias had finally arrived. They had been stuck in traffic. Why he did not pick up his mobile phone remained unclear.

It feels like the recording was over before it even started. Everything went so quickly. You go inside, sit down, someone points out escape routes in case of emergency and gives other general information. The band arrives one by one and then Harald Schmidt appears for bit of "warm-up" chat. The show is 30 minutes long and recorded in one go, apart from a mini break to bring in the guest's instruments. (The guest tonight was someone called Peter Licht; never heard of him before; didn't care much for the song either.)

Afterwards we had some dinner and drinks. Some of us used to work for the same company, so conversation quickly turned to old collegues, business etc. Must have been incredibly boring for the others.

The show was broadcasted later tonight and I have recorded it. We were sitting at the back and if you don't know where we are, you will not recognise us. *phew*