Bad Arm

I've just recieved a text message from a friend, a fellow comedian on his way to a gig in Swansea. The message reads 'I have fucked my arm by falling over in Reading Station'. My immediate concern propelled me to write back 'Are you ok? Did you make it to the gig?'

'At gig, but Ow!' came the reply

Still, at least he will have something interesting to talk about when taking the stage. The old comedic cliché of "something funny happened to me on the way to the gig" if always avoided for fear of being "hack", was surely now a method worth employing.

Since I have a rather large gig on Thursday night in front of 300 or so people, looking down at my bank of material, I am considering going to Reading beforehand, hoping to lose balance.

To be honest, this isn't really possible - it's time to sit down and write.

e-pizza.

I ordered a pizza online last night from a well known pizza chain, paid on my credit card and once my order was complete I recieved an email from "the kitchen" which contained the soothing missive of "relax, it's on its way"

Not being completely convinced by the idea that the information on the type and style of pizza I required was being transmitted via small electronic pulses along a phone line towards a pizza restaurant in East London, I called them up after half an hour fully prepared to rant and to dismiss their e-venture as wildly ambitious and foolish, as my buzzer rang, and 5 mins later I was eating pizza.

It wasn't that good actually, my e-pizza. It tasted hastily prepared, as if it were assembled by the very person who built the technology which aided it's delivery.

I imagined a geek with jargonistic tendencies, winner of some IT company's "coder of the year" competition, winning a t-shirt featuring an iconic penguin, falling on hard times, ending up dropping mushrooms onto a circular bready base.

The idea suddenly didn't seem so clever...

My thoughts turned to e-babs.

I fell asleep

the importance of having butter

i've been driving for what seems like four days.

in fact, it is precisely that... four days of erm, driving up and down the country doing gigs of varying quality.

this is my last week as a full-time stand up before embarking upon a new career in er, advertising - one which ended four months ago, and is starting again mainly due to shortage of funds, and to learn my body that 1 in the afternoon is not a suitable time to get up.

the next few weeks are going to be testing.

my week started on sunday afternoon, with a long drive to paignton, devon (nr. torquay). having booked this gig whilst at the edinburgh festival thinking "oh, its only a couple of hours drive down the road", feeling slightly shattered and frustrated 5 and a half hours later when i arrive at the venue... late, had to go straight on stage to do my 10-15 minutes of aimiable northerness, get paid, then embark up on a 5 hour drive back to london, i suddenly feel slightly silly.

still, it was a good gig - i've never been so unprepared, but it felt really good. however, 10 hours driving is not good so i can safely say, it wasn't really worth the effort... well, it was but i won't do such a journey again.

i also got a parking ticket - a first for me. i've never even seen one before, indeed opening it up it doesnt make any sense whatsoever, safe for the fact that i have to pay fifty quid or i face being castrated by ken livingston - or perhaps he employs a specialist to do such menial tasks.

i woke up at 8 on monday morning (after getting back into london about 2ish), and decide to drive straight to manchester for a couple of competition gigs, both of which were awful, one for all the wrong reasons, one for all the right reasons - i'm not even go into the finer details - the one good thing is that i got to see a whole bunch of people i aint seen for ages... lovely.

wednesday (yesterday), i drove back from manchester in the morning and from london to leicester and back in the evening (yes, i know i am a foolish fool). i drove juliet myers there and back, which made the journey a little easier, even if she is the worst person in the world with directions, the number of times we got lost ran into double figures - i've no idea how I got home... so bloody tired... story of my life.

and after 1,200 miles of travelling for four gigs at different ends of the country, all i can think about is rest and relaxation.... i had no food in the flat at all today so went out to do some food shopping, and bought lots of lovely things... however, i've completely forgotten to buy some butter.

i've realised that butter is important...

i want a sandwich...

i can't make one.

i'm still tired.

beard

what is it with beards?

i tried to have one once, but it became mildly irritating; more so when i shaved it off and 75% of my lower face almost peeled off leaving some nasty red lumps.

so if you're thinking about growing a beard, then my advice is do not.

the most famous person in history with a beard was bluebeard, the famous pirate from that book which is a story about... um, pirates. i don't have a problem with bluebeard, he was a maverick and an early adopter of what was to come many years later...

...unfortunately, billy connolly was woefully miscast in my view. as to why he went with a royal blue (some would deem it purple) goatee-type beard thing in an advert for the lotto (some purists would deem it the national lottery... i'm with the purists) is beyond me.

if he thought that it would go in some way to making him look cool, or appear like the once legendary bluebeard then the plan to add an extra couple of pages onto his autobiography would surely seem ill-conceived.

as it happens, he just ended up having a wierd beard.

lost passions (happy-sad)

Many years ago I experienced something very special. So special, i've not experienced anything quite like it since... but although that moment is long gone, now at this very moment my feelings towards this special time is suddenly dragged right back into the present as I make a discovery which makes all those memories flood back.

Its a short sharp shock, and its affected me

I'm experiencing happy-sad. you know when you discover something genuinely good which involves someone you were once so close to? yet you feel sad because that particular person is no longer there, nor involved in your life anymore - yet you are happy because that person is living life to the full, and has the very best in security and happiness

I am a daft ambiguous bastard who needs literary hugs to keep him going.

Please send a stamped addressed email with your empathetic prose.

I'd been opening some recent gigs with talk about wanderlust. It's something thats really got me captivated - i love the idea of it, combined with spontanaiety that you can just fuck off anywhere, see the world, do stuff and just generally be at one with life, almost zen-like.

I spent 23 years living in Middlesbrough, moved away with work to live in Bridlington, worked away in Oxfordshire for a bit, before moving to London in 2000.

I've mainly had wanderlust for heavily concreted areas.

Places with lots of pubs in the square mile of the town or city.

With poor numeracy and literary standards...

... there was a shop in Middlesbrough called 'Wilderness Ways' which specialised in the retail of camping paraphinalia... One January they had a sale and placed bunting outside with a big sign saying 'Now is the winter of our discount tents'...

... and that's all I knew about Shakespeare before I went to University...

Anyway,

Now wanderlust has been brought home to me in the most beautiful way - seeing images of an almost forgotten love after a gap of many years, so happy and content with life - but more importantly doing stuff, has ignited feelings of happy-sad, yet I'm still feeling quite sanguine.

God what an emotional artichoke.

So I've decided to make some radical changes in my life...

I'm going to do something lifechanging tomorrow...

I'm going swimming.

gym

This has been the weekend of nothing.

I've done nothing - i'm good at doing nothing.

However there was some respite from my dull flat last night when I went to a friends birthday party, and ending up on a table of eight very sexy women all quizzing me about stand up comedy.

I don't like people asking about comedy with respect to "tell us a joke then..." but I was happy to allow some leaway in this situation . I guess I was just glad they weren't asking me how single I was (as luck would have it, they were all taken), and seemed impressed at my oft witty reposte.

I must have had too much to drink.

Today is Sunday (I am actually writing this early on Monday morning but don't tell anybody) and tomorrow is Monday (which is actually right now). Tomorrow (or today) I find out details about my new job... so thats exciting...

Apart from that, nothing much else to say... I'm sorry... this is the most boring blog entry ever written.

I might go to the gym tomorrow.

hahahahahahaha.

bandwagons

I hate bandwagons.

Today is a historic day - England stand on the bring of winning the ashes after a break of a million years. The irony (which isn't lost on Australia) is that they've never been allowed out of the UK, so we've always retained the ashes even though er, we've not actually retained them for ages.

Anyway, bandwagons... they remain in the cupboard or skullery gathering dust for many years ignoring all that they know nothing about. Then, suddenly they are re-ignited usually by a change in fortune or events leading to something that once was not cool, now is.

Suddenly everybody has gone cricket crazy, but 99% of them are just saying that to appear cool

I've watched cricket since 1988, and followed England mainly through misery through those 17 years, especially through the early 90's with a team of mediocrity.

Now we stand on the brink of something very special indeed - a series win against Australia.

Will it happen? I hope it does. If not, I will at least take some comfort in seeing the bandwagon losing its bias and tipping the new supporters into a rather large ditch.

"What's a googly?" oh, for fucks sake.

wrong way round (236 & 237)

Forgive me for I have been sleeping. Yes, it's my favourite thing, but why change the habit of a lifetime especially after travelling around 1100 miles in a day.

I went the wrong way round.

Sunday night I found myself in the idyllic setting of Hartlepool. I use the word 'idyllic' with a pinch of irony - there are some nice bits, but there are some rough bits as well - just as every good Northern town should be. It's a bit like a senile old woman in that it has good intentions, but always ends up saying the wrong thing (which isn't always its own fault).

If you're from Hartlepool i'm sorry. You'll understand that being from Middlesbrough, nowhere else on Earth could really be worse.

The gig is set in a lovely venue, mainly used for live music - but its perfectly set out for comedy with a nice big stage and the whole floor featuring nicely arranged tables, each with a candle in the middle. This is a comedy essential in my book, and doesn't happen enough at gigs I go to these days.

I go on in the middle to do my debut 10-15 minutes, and it does go really well. I suffer incredibly because of the massive amount of bright lights shining on me (which means I literally cannot see anybody), combined with my ability to sweat bucketloads whatever the ocassion.

Some friends from back home come to see me, and they are really impressed. The last time my mate Rich watched me, I played a big gig to absolute silence - this was when I was just starting out, so the level of improvement in his eyes must be unsummountable.

I did well. My mates enjoyed it.

I left Middlesbrough the next morning to head to London - as soon as I get there I go to Robin Cousins' house, get straight into the car and he drives us to Penzance... a five and a half hour journey.

I am shattered.

We get there early, and after some delays the gig goes ahead. Again, I go on in the middle and do really well. I feel so shattered that nothing affects me at all, and this is reflected in my carefree attitude on stage - I love it when i'm like that, i just wish it would come more naturally, and not rely on me being either a) pissed, b) stoned, or c) shattered.

We're both due to stay the night with Natalie who now runs the gig - it transpires that there will be a party later on which all the acts will be going to, along with lots of lovely girls (no, really).

Robin decides he wants to drive home.

After a perilous journey with Robin being so tired he can't decide what lane he wants to drive in, I get home about 5am in the morning - i've been up for 21 hours, travelling for most of the day.

As soon as I get in, I make the sensible decision to go to bed. Much more sensible than my gig planning...