I left the office last night intending to get to my gig early. I was down for a 10+ minute spot, which I was going to use as an opportunity to run in some spoken material, some of which I wanted to re-write after my last couple of bouts with an audience without the aid of my guitar.

That was the plan.

As I hit the M3 and masses of traffic, two things became very clear. Firstly, I wasn't quite going to be on time, and secondly, my need for the toilet was greater than my ability to wait until I reached my final destination, or even one of my official motorway service station stops.

After about 20 minutes in a 4 mile traffic jam, I was back in business. I went to KFC near Bracknell. This seemed to be at loggerheads with my own major plan of the day. I've decided to get back on the wagon. I'm going to eat healthily and try to lose weight. So, a trip to KFC, with the alluring smell of frying and spices, is not really the best approach to weightloss. However, I wasn't going to start my diet and immediately go to KFC. That would be taking the piss. It was taking the piss in a different way which brought me to the house of the frying buckets. I threw money enough for a coffee at a staff member and headed for the upstairs toilet while he was converting my money into a hot drink.

Equipped with an empty bladder and a capuccino, I returned to my car and got back on the road.

After a fairly uneventful journey, accompanied by the radio, a gig recording of me part doing well and part dying at a gig without my guitar, prompting me to do the rewrites in my head that I'd planned to do after that gig, I arrived in Kidderminster. I then proceeded to have trouble with the one-way system and the poor parking arrangements. For some reason there were about 4 spaces directly outside the venue which were 15 minute waiting period only with no return within 2 hours. These spaces didn't have a time boundary on their restriction (e.g. rules only apply between 9 and 7 or something). So I had to drive around a bit.

Then, with nothing but a watch, a notebook and a pen, I headed to the venue.

I had anticipating a little backroom in a little pub with maybe an audience of 15. Floundering through a few blethered bits of stand-up would be inauspicious, but not that much of a problem. The point, in my head, was to use this unpaid spot, for my own purposes - to sharpen up something I'm not so good at.

Then I saw the room. Oh my god. It was lovely. A proper music venue with a proper stage, nice lighting rig, jammed full of tables. There were plenty of people gathering. There was a buzz in the room of good humour. The owner of the venue was up for it. The nice looked like it could be a cracker. I felt like I was standing at the world snooker final, equipped with a straw, rather than a cue... and, to flog this metaphor further, I felt like I had a laser-guided power cue in my car, in the shape of my guitar.

I changed my approach. I asked for a bit more time from the promoter. I went to get my guitar. We sound checked it and it was sweet. I then planned to stick in a few of the newer bits into my set, assuming there was time and it was going well enough.

Why not push myself? Well, I think I just wanted to have a good gig. I wanted to have an audience laughing heartily. I wanted to see if I could do more of the sort of performance I'd done while jet-lagged at my gig in Shrewsbury. Somehow, the necessity to rise above the challenges of tiredness and no lead for my guitar (at that particular gig) had made me really perform my way through the set. It had been great. I want to really perform and interact with the audience at gigs, and maybe I felt like this gig in Kidderminster was the right place to polish that skill.

I sort of wanted an easier time, but maybe it was also a question of choosing the right performance for the gig.

However, for every thing that appears to make a gig easier, there's something to make it tougher, or at least potentially tougher. I made a sort of mistake. The running order originally had me on first - I'd volunteered when everyone went quiet on the "who wants to go first?" question. The running order also had another act on at the end. When this was shown to someone else, they were curious "Why aren't you on last, Ashley? Why is he?". I recalled that this particular act wasn't especially a closing act and that I'd seen them bomb last time they performed... not that I'd done much better at that gig.

I'm not sure if it was a case of me saying "come on, if you need a headliner, then it should be me" or a case of me saying "I'm not sure that this act will flourish in this particular spot", but I diplomatically suggested to the promoter that the running order be revised. I was promoted to last. The act in question was moved to another place in the show and the opening act job went to a fine bunch of men, with bananas.

I've now made my role harder. There are 8 acts and an MC on this bill and I'm on last - after the audience have seen a lot of comedy. I also watched, and laughed, as the act who was due to close, went on and stormed the gig. They loved his furry backside to bits. So, now I have to go on last to a tired audience and not bomb, or I'll look like some evil prima donna figure.

The act before me is someone I love and adore. The room didn't get him. Perhaps he was running a bit too quickly, I think he looked visibly nervous. Perhaps the room were too quick to take him at face value, rather than as a character act. I don't know. He's always made me laugh, but I watched him have to work hard to break even with this particular gig. In this situation it either bodes really well or really badly. If the act before you struggles, then maybe the room has gone beyond being amusable and tamable as an audience, OR maybe it means that their departure will leave the room with lower expectations - easier to grab than if they're still lusting after the last act's schtick. Perhaps the fact that the act before him had done so well was the reason he had it tougher. I don't know. It doesn't really matter.

Anyway, I went on. I was there to do a fat 10, I'd agreed that it could be upped to 15, the promoter said "or maybe a little more if it's going well", I asked, while on stage, if I was okay for time, which is code for "can I do a bit more". The audience were cheering me to continue at that stage. I came off at 25 minutes with them calling for more - though I'd cheekily put the idea in their head, as is my cheating method for telling them to maybe encore me.

I didn't do an encore, which is probably for the best.

I did two newer jokes. One written in the car and one which I'd written in the car before a different gig and had only tried out a couple of times.

The set worked. My change of plan was the right thing to do. I didn't end up looking like an egomaniac, trying to overpromote himself.

I'm pleased to say that, as I was returning to my car, some of the audience members stopped me and said they'd enjoyed both my stuff and that of the guy who was "relegated" by my interference. So, he came out looking as good as he may have done if our roles were reversed. I hope so. I don't think I was really playing prima donna. Maybe I was being a bit selfish... or maybe I was just being genuinely confident that I could use my guitar to follow anything that had gone before with less risk than any other act might have.

Pass.

I had a good gig. I was "being funny". That's what I set out to do, even if I used different tools to achieve it than first planned.

Somehow I've managed to be busy enough not to find time to write up my thoughts in the last couple of days. This doesn't please me since, although I've no plans to become a "must blog every day" person. The whole point of writing something is to keep a handle on where I am. Welcome to my twisted world of words.

The reason I've been busy is that I returned from holiday with the intent of trying to get the plan at work sorted out. I couldn't do this single-handedly. In fact, I barely did anything except get everyone else to do it while I acted as the medium through which it all flowed (flew?). This is not quite placebo progress. I think I came in from a suitable distance and could both rise above and sink low into the detail of what was required.

Where, before going on holiday, work seemed like an insurmountable mass of intractable problems, it now seems like an insurmountable mass of intractable problems with a few manageable and meaningful tasks sitting atop the midden, waiting to be plucked out, washed off and dealt with. Progress.

To make progress slower, we've now got new computers. Theoretically, they will make life easier. In fact, the twin monitors and the must faster CPUs, bigger memory, more hard disk space... yes, these machines will be a lot lovelier to work with. Having said that, the effort to set them up has meant that I've been absorbed with silly things like which background picture to use for best effect across two screens.

My background picture is this:



Nice, isn't it?

The house also requires a lot of time. I have a couple of free nights to devote to it and I will. I was going to do something constructive (literally) on Tuesday, but I ended up moving some stuff around to make it possible to do work in one of the rooms and ended up turning my bedroom into part-bedroom/part-office. This isn't ideal. Not in the least. Anyway, I then took the opportunity to do some paperwork that's long been overdue. This was a good move. In one fell swoop, I managed to sort out a fair number of annoying issues that feel like they've been hanging over my head.

In fact, I've just discovered, this morning, that I've finally sorted out my PayPal account. This has been suspended since February when I was the victim of some internet fraud. At the time it struck me as ironic that the only person who didn't seem to be able to screw around with my account was me. I had a bit of effort to get the money back and then get the currency adjustments sorted out so that I was refunded the actual number of pounds that were stolen, rather than the number of US Dollars, which were worth fewer pounds than were taken, by the time they got round to dealing with everything.

However, the problem of not having account access resulted in there being about £600 sitting in my PayPal account that was my money, but I had no way of spending it or transferring it anywhere. They wanted me to prove that I was who I said I was. This involved receiving letters (each of which took about 10 days to arrive) to both my old house and then, after that one, my new house. Then they wanted me to add more credit cards to their system. I couldn't re-add my existing card, or take it off their system. Annoying. They wanted to see a faxed copy of bank statements, credit card statements, utility bills... I mean, I applaud their making the effort to verify my veracity, but they seemed quick enough to allow $2000 or so to be plundered from my account in the first place. Horse? Stable Door? Bolting?

Still, it's all sorted out now and I can start selling all my possessions on eBay again. Given that I discovered that I bought the same DVD twice recently, I can now start putting that right.

So that's good.

There's more to life than paperwork...

... whiteboards!

Unfortunately, I had to take down my whiteboard and pinboard when I started wrecking the kitchen. Shame. Still, the kitchen has moved on a little since I was away. The new backdoor is in place, as is the new kitchen window. I need to start thinking seriously about plastering. I suspect the deadline will move further back.

Oh, and finally, on the whole sorting things out front, I had been worried about money and the potential cost of my Gas Boiler installation in Newcastle. It's on a knife edge there. It's either going to be £7000+ (boiler and redecorating after) or it's going to be significantly less. The heating engineer who will ultimately do the new boiler install, went along to see if the problem could be fixed. I paid him about £120 by cheque yesterday, and the problems are sorted... for now. That's a lot less stressful than it seemed when I was getting reports about how bad things were while I was on holiday.

In fact, gas and electicity have been behaving quite well this week. I rang in my meter readings to the power company, who had threated to put my monthly payment up to £130 from £80. They told me that they wanted to drop it to £50. Neat. See. Meter readings really do help.

So, a lot of bitty things have been getting sorted out. This is good.

It has kept me away from writing, but I'm back for now. Maybe I'll write up some gig stories later on.

There are a couple of ways I might have died between the last blog entry and this. I might have been in a plane crash. I wasn't.

I might have been in a car crash, given that I managed to get no sleep before my flight between Jerusalem and Amsterdam, about 20 minutes dozing between Amsterdam and Manchester, and I didn't get to bed at home until about 43 hours after my last proper sleep. But I didn't crash my car. I had a tough final 20 minutes of the journey, as my system started to anticipate bed and stopped its suspension of exhaustion. But no crash or death.

I suppose I could even have metaphorically died on stage in Shrewsbury at my gig. There was no means of plugging in the guitar, the journey to the venue from my car had been stressful, and I was knackered. But I didn't die. In fact I gave a fairly assured performance.

So. I'm still here. There may be more to say about the events of the last couple of days, but the overall point is that I'm back to my world. Let's see how long it takes before I decide if I really want to be here.

I've no idea why, but being here in Tel Aviv airport has felt like a bit of a wonder. I suspect it's because I didn't manage to get any sleep before my taxi came to pick me up and then I watched with amusement as the taxi had to go past the airport and swing back round a complicated route, owing to some twat in the inside lane not letting him get off the motorway.

Things are bound to fill me with wonder at this time of the day. It's 1.48 in English money, 3.48 in Israeli, and I've no idea where my body clock is. That's AM, by the way, not PM. If it were PM it would be nothing. But I've not slept and things feel a bit strange - I'm already exhausted and if I'm to do my gig and then drive home before my next sleeping session, there's 24 hours of being awake still to do.

Anyhoo. Things feel odd, that's for sure.

I think the fact that there's free wireless internet here and the airport is an amazing work of engineering and design has something to do with it too. There's this massive fountain in the central lobby, leading to all the different gates. It's a fountain where the water comes from a massive rotunda in the ceiling and drops into a pool. It's only droplets of water, but it looks like a perpetual light rain. Very impressive. What's more surreal, though, is the people sitting next to it, just ignoring it. How could you ignore something like that!? It would, for me, be like going on a safari and catching a glimpse of a Cheetah and going "meh - so it's a cheetah".

Weird.

So. Blogging in an airpot. I've nothing to say except "hello".

Hi.

Bye.

You can add "The Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby to my list of books read on this holiday. I spent the entire day in the company of his cast of characters - a bunch of suicidal self-deluding types who discover something over the course of some 257 pages of narrative.

I think I probably most fear being self-deluding. If I'm not clear about my own mind and real life around me, then what chance do I have? It's something which I think I've prided myself upon. The constant taking stock of the situation. Constant reviewing of where I am and where it can be improved. However, writing this now, I know that that's not entirely true. I know that I often get an assumption locked into my head and refuse to shift it long beyond its natural end. Here's an example. Despite all the evidence to suggest that it's not the optimal plan, I still believe that I'll stay in my current bedroom when I come to rent out my house. I'm starting to doubt that at the moment, but it's an example of why I probably do give head-space to ideas that are not necessarily the right ideas, not necessarily the solutions I'd produce have given all the facts now at my disposal, yet I still believe these ideas to be perfect.

I think I'm big enough to change a decision once it's been questioned properly.

I know I believe better of myself than is probably justified.

Here's the problem, though. Do I do a constant fundamental reality check all the time and end up crushing my spirit with some of life's harsher realities? Or, do I give myself the scope to foster some slightly ridiculous aspirations in the hope that I might actually achieve more than seems possible? I quite like the latter approach, maybe tempered a little by knowing the difference between the stuff I think I can do and the stuff I KNOW I can do.

I often look at the story of Don Quixote for inspiration. I'd like to say that I read, digested, dissected and otherwise imbued myself with Cervantes' original text. Given that it was in Spanish, perhaps I should claim that I devoured the English translation. In truth, I got about 100 or so pages into it and got lost. However, I'm a fan of the musical adaption of it - "Man of La Mancha". So let's assume that the basic essence of the story made it across to the musical vesion of it. Let's assume that, in the story, a storyteller starts to explain how an old man goes a bit mad and adopts the manner of a knight, that he sees a simple shaving basin as a helmet that will give him strength and that he sees a wretched wench as a refined lady. Let's assume that he's "cured" of this and then, as he lays on his death bed, the woman, whom he saw as a lady, wishes he could be uncured, so that the optimism his condition brought with it could be restored. The moral of the story - sometimes seeing the world as you wish it were could be better than seeing it for what it is.

I forget whether I've harped on on this blog about this theme before. I think I'm amazed when I meet people who behave in what is termed a "Quixotic" manner. It turns out that, if you have a strong enough idea, people are often loathe to challenge you. As a result, you can sometimes succeed when an impartial observer might reasonably deduce that you couldn't possibly succeed. In fact, they may even judge your success as a failure by any reasonable standard, yet somehow it's a success to you.

I wish I had such cockiness to plough ahead with this sort of blatant disregard for the facts. To be a stand-up comedian, I have to plough onto the stage with enough optimism to make the audience laugh, even though I may well have looked at them and come to the conclusion that it's impossible to relate to them. So maybe I have some of these techniques. Maybe my aspirations in relation to my comic "career" are all about selective blindness to my limitations on stage. Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I would have gotten further if I were more pushy and more capable of telling people amazing things about what I'd do for them if only they'd capitulate and let me prove myself.

Thing is, I hate high expectations - they're seldom met in my opinion. Better I should cause a drop in expectations and then hop over the small box hedging that results, rather than build the expectations like the unassailable of a well-guarded castle. The similies and metaphors are running away with me here, but you get the idea.

So, there has been much time for reflection as I've sat around in Jerusalem doing various shades of bugger all over the last few days. I've contemplated what the hell I'm doing in life. I've thought about work, home, family, stand-up, plumbing (this wasn't entirely my choice), money, successes, failures and what I want out of life.

I wish I had more answers than I started with. In truth, I think I have fewer. I think that I'm a bit more aware of the brutal truth that I, in general, lead quite a privileged life. I'm aware that this life of privilege is linked intrinsically with my line of work and that I'm not incredibly satisfied with anything in life at the moment. I know that everything I want is a hotbed of contradictions. For example, I don't want to be alone in the way that I am as a single man living alone, but I don't really want to be living in a massive house-share - the one I'm racing to create, nor do I particularly want the absence of a girlfriend, nor the demands on my freedom to do what I do that the average girlfriend would... what? impose? that's not it... cost? that's closer. Everything in life comes at a cost, and I think I want things for which I'm not prepared to pay the cost.

That's a problem. Being the exception to the rule is not actually available to me. I'm not any more special than any of the people I know. I may do things that make me stand out in some way. I'm probably one of the very few computer-programmer/landlord/stand-up comedian/musical-writers in the world. So what? I can't have it all without it all conflicting in some horrendous way.

On top of this is the extra dimension of family. It's good to have a family. It's good to make a fuss of my 18 month old niece. It's good to sit around at my father's expense in nice hotels getting meals and company. Yet... well, I can't imagine any of my girlfriends past fitting into the environment I've flitted into these last few days. I can't imagine choosing a girlfriend on the basis of her resilience to this environment and I don't know if I might ever meet, at random, someone who would. In fact, I don't know that the sum total of all my neuroses, activities, commitments and interests could ever either appeal to, or avoid alienating any other living human being asked to join their life with mine.

It's different being a friend. You can be there for friend-time and don't have to be there alongside the rest of the stuff.

Life partners are for life, and maybe I can compromise, or reduce, my involvement with certain things which might act as a barrier to a relationship, but all of it? or completely? I don't know. I think I'm too selfish. I want it all...

Everything in life comes at a cost. Sadly, it would appear that the principal cost of the life I'm heading into is the absence of partnership and my own sanity. That's sort of sad. At least my lunacy will be entertaining for me (and hopefully other people who get to see me as I float between venues doing what I call comedy). However, it seems like my attitude towards relationships - I'm a serial monogamist - is at loggerheads with my attitude towards life - do it all and do it now.

If I could write a shopping list for everything I'd look for in a girlfriend, it would be full of contradictions. Moreover, I think I'd probably instantly dislike anyone who fit the bill. More probably, they'd not find me worth the effort. This is, itself, a contradiction, since item one on the list would be "someone who really really likes me and thinks I'm worth the effort". Damned contradictions.

If ever there were a better argument for the use of prostitutes - don't worry, I'm still fundamentally against that (as far as I myself might be included in such a thing - the wider debate is nothing to do with me) - I haven't seen one. It seems like there are several versions of me co-existing in the same life. Each one needs a different sort of partnership and they're all contradictory. So, a series of prostitutes with specialities, might suit... and could be diarised like I diarise gigs.

Or maybe a series of open relationships with open-minded women... who would have to be available when I need them... To agree to such a thing, these people would clearly be unhinged and that's going to get messy.

So. No.

In summary, having no delusions sucks. I'm going to die alone at some point.

I'd better make the most of the time before that happens. This probably means playing this year according to the nearest thing I have to a plan, and then doing some serious assumption-reviewing around September/October. The lot. Maybe something will occur to me in the next few months. Maybe I'll have an idea of what's the next thing for me to do.

I can tell you this. Things can't continue as they have been over the last few months indefinitely.

Although this particular bit of blether started with reference to a book about some people who had considered suicide, I'm at totally the other end of the spectrum. Though I'm concerned about my long-term future, I'm concerned about making it a good one, not ducking out. It pains me to believe that I've no room in my life for wife/kids/domestic bliss, but I think I may just have to accept that for now. It's certainly not possible this year and I can't see how it could ever come without so many conflicts that it destroys one or other of the two key adults involved.

As a selfish surviving sort of a fellow, I'm rather keen not to be destroyed myself. I quite like myself. I could try harder to be a better me, but generally speaking, I'm not too bad an egg.

Or maybe I'm kidding myself.

Self-delusion stand-up comedian kids himself. It's a good headline and maybe a good closer.

In summary. Life's weird.

Taxi for Frieze!

I can really read on a holiday. So far, though, I've not surpassed myself. I've managed to read the NewsPox book, the complete scripts to Porridge and The Great Train Robbery. Perhaps it's time I went and read some more.

I had planned to do some writing while away, but it seems I haven't.

So much for holidaying. The news from Newcastle (newscastle?) is that my boiler is not working. This is bad news, even worse for the guy living in the house. With no boiler there's no hot water, and the tenants, when they first moved in, replaced the water-heating shower with one that uses hot water from the boiler. There were good reasons for this, the lack of water pressure being the prime candidate, but the end result is that everything in the house that's wet is also cold. Cold and wet - two words that sound bad together, except when used to describe a nice beer.

So, yesterday, having pittled around on the internet for an hour, I had to order another hour's internet access in order to pittle around some more working out how to start getting the boiler progressed from off-due-to-condemnation towards fully-working-due-to-non-condemnation. It's easy to condemn the boiler, but it's not its fault. The fault lies with the small gas leak - I wondered why the gas bill was so high, some ventilation (oooh, smelly) and the need for a switched, fused, spur, rather than a junction box. None of these should be a big deal. Except the gas leak, which could be the big deal of the year.

Oh, one small thing... if any of the operational parameters of the boiler change too much, and it fails... then there's no repair and a £6000 (count 'em) replacement cost for the entire heating system. Oh the happy times are here again.

So. It's nice and relaxing here on my holiday.

Wake up. Eat. Go online to sort out emails. Go to the pool and read. Have a shower or sleep. Eat again. Sleep again. Another day on holiday has passed.

Up for breakfast and then I took a walk into Jerusalem with my father. Those are words which look weird written down, especially by a self-confessed lapsed Jew with a number of big issues on what to do with the conflict between the religion practiced by his family and his own ambivalence about that same religion. Still, a walk, via some shops into an ancient city is just that. Something to do that's a bit more of a way of burning off breakfast than sitting getting hot under an umbrella by the pool.

We even went to the western wall. That probably needs capital letters. It wasn't a non-event, it wasn't an event. It was a wall.

We returned to the hotel and then did our stint by the pool. I managed to graduate into the actual scripts of "Porridge".

My sister, her husband and my niece were all back from their trip to his parents' place. So, my vision of being at a poolside with an 18 month old child was pretty much a reality. I was on full "Uncle Ashley" duty. It was fun. Between us, we managed to keep an eye on the child and have someone to follow her if she decided to go off for a wander - the sort of wander that might end up in her absconding with someone else's shoes, or falling in a pool. I'm not sure which is the greatest faux pas, but neither happened.

For dinner, we were back at my brother's place. This time there were loads of us. His catering is very accomplished and we had about 900 courses, all of which were very nicely presented and good tasting. I managed to get the end of the table with his friends on it, so I had people to talk with over dinner, which is nice. I'm not suggesting that nobody else present was capable of conversation, but there's a time and place for each sort of conversation that one might have with each sort of person present. I preferred the dinner conversation in my part of the table for the occasion I was enjoying.

So good.

We walked back to the hotel. It's about 40 minutes or so to do this. This is because the whole of Jerusalem is now celebrating the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which is the festival that has something to do with something or other. Apparently, I could get up at 4am and go back to the wall to see a lot of people seriously celebrating some important aspect of the event that they're commemorating. Apparently, that would be a big deal - 9000 Jews in one place thinking something or other simultaneously.

It might not mean much to me, but it's fair enough that someone gets it.

The walk was probably a good contribution towards the burning off of the 9000 calories that I consumed today. Good cooking requires good eating.

Tomorrow there'll be relaxing to be done. I think I'm up to the job.

Note: today's entry was written today, the last few days' entries (19th-22nd) were also written today. Apologies for the changes in tense. It's easier for me to write it as it occurs to me to write it. If this ever gets published as a book, maybe I'll edit it more carefully than both the books I've read so far on this holiday.

The day was shortened by the late wake up, which was more lunchtime than morning. I unpacked and went downstairs to the pool with my book - a combination of the history of and scripts of the TV series "Porridge". Though I read the book very hard, I didn't manage to finish ploughing through the often repetitive "inside story" of the show. They had done a lot of research and managed to cobble together lots of words about the programme. If only they'd managed to edit it to the interesting bits and avoid the regular repetition of random facts, it might have read easier.

My brother came for lunch by the pool, which is where I sat reading for the afternoon. In the evening we went to his place for an evening meal, which was shared with a friend of his. Good food, good company. Not much else to say.

Going on holiday doesn't have to come with the pressure to do something. You need time to unwind. I was unwinding.

As a bizarre aside, I was asked over dinner, by my mother, if I had "Sampled any of the produce in Amsterdam", which is as good a way of saying "So, did you get stoned, then?" as any. No. You do not turn up to family holidays stoned.

That's a fact.

I got the airport transfer coach to the airport. I guess that was no surprise. I checked my baggage in and the kindly lady at the check-in desk said she'd get me extra leg-room on the Amsterdam-Israel leg of my journey. Neat. For some reason she pronounced the name of my final destination - Tel Aviv - as "Tellaveee", but I didn't argue. Who cares. Well... I care, but I didn't have the need to illustrate that. I was on holiday.

I mooched my way into the departures area and got myself a coffee/breakfast in Starbucks. It turned out that the gate was next to Starbucks, so there was no pressure to do more than have my coffee, croissant and panini while reading my book. Easy work.

I had missed an evening meal the previous evening, so it was a breakfast I'd been looking forward to for a while. The company of the book helped a fair bit. I later finished this book - the Newspox blog in book form - on the plane to Tellaveeeeey.

I breezed onto the plane at some point and found myself sitting next to a young woman from Leeds. We chatted for the brief duration of the flight, during which I managed, while talking energetically with my hands, to knock coffee all over myself. I sort of didn't care. I mopped it up and continued unabated. We had an interesting conversation, why let a cup of coffee spoil it?

The woman turned out to be muslim, which turned our conversation into a "So a jew and a muslim get on a plane" set up for a joke. The punchline being a bit of a let down "and they had an intelligent conversation on a variety of topics, including being offended on someone else's behalf". It's not a keeper of a gag.

Arriving in Amsterdam, we parted company and I had to go into Amsterdam. I'd not thought this through. My English arrogance took over and I sort of breezed my way, via an English-"speaking" ticket machine, onto a train that was bound for Amsterdam Centraal, which I sort of guessed was a railway station somewhere useful in Amsterdam for tourism purposes. After the first stop, I realised that I had no indication of how long the journey might take, how many stops it would be, or where I was. The signs at the stations were not as clear as I was expecting from my arrogant British attitude that everything would be as I expected from my experience of travelling at home and that everything would be signposted in English.

I asked a man who looked like a railway guard about where the central station stop was. He told me clearly and then sat down. Just because he was dressed in a manner which looks like an English railway guard, doesn't mean he's a railwayman in Amsterdam. In fact, he was just some guy. Oops.

Anyway, it was easy enough to work out how to get off the train at its last stop and go into Amsterdam. I left the station by a door marked as an exit and was near a canal in something Amsterdam-looking-like. I wandered aimlessly for a bit, decided to go on a boat on the canal, bought a ticket and sat on the boat for an hour or so as we were taken around various random places where there was something touristy to tell us. It was pleasant and relaxing. It's not a bad way to break up a long-ish journey.

As I got off the boat they were putting out the cards they made from the digital photo they take of each person as they get on the boat. I stayed around to see what mine looked like. I looked good. It was a nice photo of me. I almost bought it. Then I cursed myself for my narcissism and stopped myself from buying something I had no use for whatsoever. One point to me, I think.

I was hungry, so wandered round in search of lunch. I was trying to work out what might be a suitably authetic Amsterdam thing to eat. I couldn't. I wandered some more and eventually went for a steak at an Italian restaurant on a side street. It was ok. Nothing special. The salad tasted like it had been dressed with Dulux. I didn't eat so much salad.

As I was leaving the luncheon place, it started to rain. I had no particular need to be around Amsterdam, so considered returning to the airport, rather than get wet. First I got an ice cream and wandered around a C&A, feeling like I ought to maybe have more shirts than I'd taken with me in my suitcase. I decided C&A was not my thing, nor particularly nicely priced. So I left.

The train back to the airport was easier - I had experience of trains in Amsterdam now. I like the fact that they're double-decker. Neat.

I somehow killed some time in the airport with food and then made my way to the gate. There was a mini-check-in at the gate, a full-on security check, and I was early for that. In fact, even that time was two hours prior to the flight. As luck would have it there was an Israeli guy chatting with a young german woman and I joined in the conversation, which lasted us until we reached the plane.

At some point we got to the bit about religions. The german girl was a christian and myself and the Israeli were both jews. She didn't get it. "We're jews, you know, jewish?". Nope. It didn't register. How do you quickly tell a german what a jew is? "Don't you remember? Your people killed about 6 million of them?" We didn't say that. In the end, she got it. We were three people communicating in English, though her English wasn't very easy for her and the Israeli guy was also communicating in a second language (asking me occasionally for the right word or phrase to describe something). It's not a surprise that a particular word didn't register for her. I guess that if we'd pointed to some of the black-hat wearing brigade with long beards and curly hair and said "Jews" she'd have known what we meant. Me and the other guy were just dressed in jeans and shirts. We don't look like a caricature of a jew might.

Anyhoo, during the conversation the gate opened and we went through security checks. I was slightly fazed by the way the person questioning me talked about my arrival in Israel in the conditional form:

Her: If you get into Israel, how will you get to your final destination?
Me: (If?) I'll get a taxi. (If they exist!)

I didn't back-chat as indicated. I just answered the questions, a bit worried that a wrong word might suddenly disbar me from being allowed on the flight, or, at the very least, earn me a rubber glove up the bottom. She quickly stopped asking and let me go through.

The flight was uneventful in the end. I had extra leg-room and a rather oddly behaved religious English girl from Salford at the other end of my row. In the end, she disappeared and left me on the row on my own. Loads of leg-room, no company. I was in a good place. I had my book, which I finished, and my mp3 player, which managed to feed me "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" until we landed.

Landing I went through passport control, a few easy questions, finding my bag, which proved to be easier than with my previous suitcase - a very anonymous and hard to identify creature. The fact that I had a matching ruck-sack really helped me to remember what this bag looked like. Good trick.

Then I found a taxi to take me to my hotel. I agreed a fixed price with him. It turned out to be more of a trek than he'd hoped, but I turned out to have paid more than the perfect going rate for such a journey. So, swings AND roundabouts.

I got to my bedroom and was impressed at the lavishness of the hotel that my family had chosen to put us all up in. I can cope with such treats, I think. I don't think I've very often treated myself to such a class of hotel - certainly not for extended periods of time, like longer than a night. (I've never booked a hotel by the hour, not even in Amsterdam).

It was 4am and I had to sleep. So I did. I dreamed that my hotel room was a mistake and that I was going to be transferred to a grimy cellar room with a dirty duvet.

I was due to do a gig in Chester. It had originally been scheduled for January, but I had hopefully had it rescheduled for May 19th. I say "hopefully" because I wasn't sure that I'd be able to do the gig when I booked it. At that point, I was expecting to take quite a few months off stand-up until the house was sorted. Is it sorted? No. Am I living in there with a girlfriend who would consider any form of gigging as some sort of desertion? No. The plan had changed when we split up, which is why I've been gigging solidly since February.

Anyway, plans change. In fact I was offered another chance to reschedule the gig in April when I was called up asking if I could, in fact, "come tonight instead". I was happy for the gig to remain on May 19th, especially as I've planned a holiday around it.

On Friday night, I was chatting to a friend and he suggested that I could head up to Leeds that night and buy him a pint. Though this was tempting, I realised that I had far too much organising to do to enable me to get everything sorted AND be in Leeds in time to be useful. All it would have done was steal time from sleeping and make me forget something.

So, it was decided that I would not do any last-ditch DIY on Saturday (which I would probably not have done anyway) and would head to Leeds in time for Lunch. Then I could, after Lunch, head over to my gig in Chester and everyone's a winner.

I spent Friday night doing something which I know to be deeply narcissistic. It's okay. I'm aware of it, so therefore it can't be a total act of self-admiration. What I did was produce a "best of" CD of some recent gig highlights. The purpose of this was to provide a friend with something amusing to listen to. The other purpose, I suppose, was to audit my stand-up set. How much do I actually have? The answer varies, depending on whether you're after rip-roaring quality or just quantity. The CD ran to an hour. Some of it was bankable material, some was just some stuff that happened to me at a gig once.

There was a lot to be learned from the process. I'd also received a DVD in the post on Friday of a gig I did back in March. I had felt like that gig didn't go too well, and that a particular moment was cringeworthy. Though I also had an audio recording of that gig, seeing what I do in motion was useful, and the sound picked up by the video recording was more generous.

What I'm saying is that on Friday night I managed to pack up both my stuff for holiday and also my feelings about where I'm at with my stand-up. I have an idea of how I do well with an audience and also why. I also know what doesn't really work so well, and I like the idea of the challenge to improve on that.

Saturday I set out reasonably early, for a Saturday morning, and made it to Leeds in time to take my friend out for lunch. We followed a pleasant lunch with a trip into town for some pleasant coffee. I was making comments about lesbians. I have nothing against lesbians, indeed, I have lesbian friends. I just like the word - "lesbian" - it has a lovely sound to it. I was making some silly comments revolving around the word, rather than particularly besmirching the concept of lesbianity. Then my friend suggested that the two girls in front of us in the queue might be lesbian. I then started trying to say more about lesbians in order to add to my silliness a possible slant that might demonstrate I didn't really harbour oppressive or bigoted thoughts about lesbians. I could feel myself digging deeper. So I gave up.

After an enjoyable afternoon. I headed over to Chester. I arrived in plenty of time and spotted one of the other acts in the courtyard outside the venue. The headliner was due to arrive later. Bizarrely (or not) the three of us were a large part of the bill of a gig I did back in July 2003 which was really the first time I'd ever gotten big laughs out of an audience. It was the Buzz club in Chorlton back then and I had a set which went up and down. It was the second time I ever pulled George and Zippy out of the bag to impress an audience, and the result was electric. A formative gig.

Anyway, Chester was a different experience to last time. There were fewer people in the audience which dropped the pressure a bit without dropping the ability for the audience to give their all and laugh heartily. There were a few bits of banter, some of which worked. There were a few moments where I dropped the threads, but I picked them up again and gave a fairly assured performance. I won't be writing much more on the subject - I feel like I'd learned a bit from the previous night's CD compiling and that I'd also managed to put my last gig behind me quite some. I'd been a bit worried about the fact that my previous gig had been a real stinker (in my opinion, and speaking comparatively). Now I could go on holiday on a reasonably good note.

The other acts were good and I stayed until the end. The last act had a routine which, when he revealed the punchline, made me laugh giddily almost to the point of being sick. Had I been drinked I would have spat my drink out. However, I wasn't drinking. I had nothing in my mouth. The best I could have done was be very sick, but I'm sort of glad I didn't do a sick. It would have been a big compliment, but might have precluded my return to the club. Nobody wants to book vomit-boy back. "He's funny enough, but the cleaning costs are dire."

I drove the act, whom I'd met at the start of the night, to where he was staying, which wasn't too far from the hotel I'd booked for my pre-check-in/parking requirements.

I turned in at a reasonable time in a reasonably uncomfortable bed in a room with a damp patch outside of the bathroom. On the up side, they had free broadband in the lobby.

The following day I would be heading off to Israel via Amsterdam. I'd managed to think my way up to the point of getting to the airport, soon to happen. I also had managed to think my way beyond the holiday to the point of returning and doing the necessary gigs and return journey home.

Everything else was left unwritten.

A family went on holiday. They went across the road from their apartment for dinner, leaving a four year old child and a couple of younger children unattended. This was, assuming that it is what actually happened, a tragic mistake. The child was apparently abducted. The media are really homing in on the story. People want to do something about it. The parents of the child have worked closely with the media in the apparent hope that it will somehow help bring the child back.

There's something very wrong. A charity has been set up. There are missing child signs in my office, as though someone here may have seen the abduction and not thought to report it. There is a sort of hysteria surrounding the case.

I'm away soon on a family holiday where my niece will be with us. She's a young child and I can sort of see how this case can resonate with any parent or family member who believes that their loved ones should be safe on holiday. It's a hell of a responsibility.

But I still find this particular case and the reaction to it to be unsettling. I wonder what really happened. Sadly the over wrought bullshit that people call journalism these days is unlikely to help us truly understand.

The rule of three states that there will be three items in the list and the last will be the surprise. For example "My wife, is thin, blonde and a racist". The third is a kicker because you weren't expecting it. By the way, I'm not suggesting that that line is funny, or that I have a wife, or that I'd marry a racist.

So it was that I had three different experiences with female members of the opposite sex last night.

Women On A Train
I noticed, as I got onto the train, headed for London, so I could see Evita, which I'd been looking forward to seeing, that the two women at the back of the train were painted up to look like cheap hookers. They weren't quite dressed as provocatively as that, but they looked really ghastly. Why do women dress themselves like that? Is there no such thing as self-respect?

I had my mp3 player and I tried to focus on Michael Bublé. The smell of their perfume and occasional bits of yakkety yak filtered from their seats to mine, but generally I managed to stay out of their way. I was slightly depressed by them, but I was much more miserable in general, so I barely noticed it.

In fact, I was so miserable that I deliberately tried to push the misery buttons on myself by building a mini playlist on my mp3 player of miserable songs, which I thought would really allow me to indulge in misery. As it happens, the songs were so good and so miserable that I sort of became less miserable as a result. I'm beginning to understand Goths.

Arriving at the far end, I hastened to the theatre and realised I was early. So, I hung about a bit, got something to eat, got to my seat, in a good stalls location, and hung around until the show started.

The Three Witches
People filtered into the theatre. Eventually, running quite late, three women came into the row behind. One of them was huge. The other two were gaily painted. As the overture began, their rustling of sweet wrappers and their murmurs, along with those of some of the rest of the audience, didn't subside.

Now I know I've said this before, but I'm going to fucking well say it again. If you want to go and see a musical, don't make noise over any part of it. The musical is a combination of sights AND SOUNDS! The overture isn't the boring bit before stuff happens - it's an essential element of the show, a series of textures and flavours that are being played, live, by a fucking ORCHESTRA. It's not like going to see a live band, with a couple of people who are there to make you excited and make some noise. It's a thing of beauty and subtlety; it's included in the ticket price, and if you disrupt it, then you're stealing from my enjoyment of something I paid to see.

I realise that this isn't helping much.

Still, the show got going and I think my particularly raw mood meant that I was really enthralled and much more likely to be emotionally affected by what was happening on stage. Whether it was an emotional moment, or just something I thought was well executed, I could feel my heart straining in all sorts of directions, influenced by the performance. Metaphorically, of course. This is part of what live theatre is supposed to be about.

There were still some disruptions around me, but I did my best to ignore them.

Interval arose and the three harpies went out for a bit. I relaxed. I didn't move. They returned towards the end of the interval and we had a bit of banter. They were in good spirits, had had a couple of drinks. I thought that perhaps, having spoken to them, that I'd maybe be able to tolerate them more, or maybe be able to influence them to be quiet more.

As Act 2 started, it was clear that they were still going to rustle and crinkle their way through the show. Bitches. What's the point!? I turned round a couple of times to wave them to be quiet. It didn't help.

The point is that the emotive music and the performance can heighten one's senses. I was trying very hard to immerse myself in the show and sometimes I was so hyper-aware (as I am when I'm on the stage) that I could hear everything going on around me, from the twat next to me biting his nails to the three witches behind me, whispering and giggling every so often.

To be honest, if you can't behave in a theatre, then I say you shouldn't bloody go.

I was incensed.

After the show had finished. I asked the three witches whether they were listed in the programme? Where are you in here? Where does it say "director's commentary provided" by you? Are you on the CD?

They didn't take it well. They suggested I was a miserable bastard. A sad wanker who should get out more. I explained that I'd not paid to hear them chat over the show, that I'd had a bad day and had looked forward to enjoying a musical. The chief witch said that "if I was paying attention enough, I'd not have noticed anything but the show". Oh, how I wanted to lay into the three of them. Oh how I wanted to reduce them to tears, by insulting them, rather than attacking their behaviour... but I couldn't. It's not what I do. I may appear to them to be someone who needs to "chill out and get a life", but maybe they left the theatre pissed off. Maybe they left with some of the irritation that I'd gotten from them. If so, then good.

To be honest, making an arse of myself with other theatre patrons wasn't enjoyable. I'm not really into confrontations. I hate it. I realised that when I started. I was just annoyed and slightly miserable and taking it out on the protagonists wasn't helping. It wasn't just them to blame and I didn't see the point.

In the tube station, there was a woman talking about emailing another woman - she pretended to be typing in mid-air. I copied her gesture back at her and it made her laugh. That's me.

I took the emotional baggage of the argument I'd sort of lost in the theatre with me. I fumed my way to the railway station. On the train were a couple of women who'd seen The Drowsy Chaperone and they were more than happy to tell me that I must go to see it. They also had seen Evita, so we had a bit of a chat about that.

I also had a chat with another woman on the train - because I like chatting. I even managed to contain my irritation at the guy who sat pissing about with his electric fan for a few stops. Only just. Why do people have to be irritating!?

I'm not particularly thrilled with people at the moment.

A Comedy Chum
Then I drove home chatting to a comedy chum, who happens to be female. She wasn't dressed as a tart. Her every word didn't annoy me. In fact, far from it. She was sympathetic, entertaining and a racist. Not the last one. That's a callback. Rules of three aren't enough in comedy.

Anyway, I actually ended the evening with some positive conversation with women, rather than ending the night feeling the whole "aren't women overpainted harridans?" vibe.

Thank goodness for that.

Lovely Ladies?
A bit of musicals geekery in the title. The song "Lovely Ladies" in Les Miserables is sung by a bunch of overpainted tarts, who are anything but lovely. I think the absolute truth is that some women are lovely. And some aren't. Why did the ones that weren't have to spoil my last chance to see Evita while it was still on the West End. I bought the CD today. I'm pretty sure they won't be on it.

Another helping of the random bletherings from my brain.

Labels: Friday200

I read blogs. I should know better. I know what my blog is like, but somehow I still get drawn into the world of other people through their writings. And you really do get to know someone quite well when you read their blog pretty much daily. That's how it works. I've recently met someone whom I'd only previously known through his blog and he met my expectations head on.

The problem is this. The more you read a blog, the more emotionally invested you can become. Even if you and the other person haven't met in real life, their daily grind gains an importance. At least this is my experience.

Yesterday I read a blog entry of someone I know in real life, albeit not very well. It filled me with a great deal of sadness that someone whom I know in passing had so much hurt and injustice to write about. Life can be very cruel, and though I appreciate that it's both very brave and cathartic to write about these hurts, reading that blog filled me with a deep sense of powerlessness. What can I do? I sent a note, but that was about the most I could practically do and even then it was hard to find the words.

There are a pair of blogs I've read on and off, the second one a result of the first. The bloggers were a couple. Today I read that they're no longer a couple. Again, I've been party to someone else's heartbreak. In this case I really have no connection with either party, so I feel a bit of a voyeur... it's not good. It's not good to vicariously experience a complete stranger's pain in such a personal way.

Having said that, maybe it's not meant to be good. Maybe it is something which somehow enriches the human experience these days. Everyone is online and you can share your thoughts with the world. And maybe someone is listening. And maybe they're not.

This blog is clearly an offender on the whole "being a bit miserable and gloomy" front, with the occasional flashes of hilarity or heartbreak. Sorry if it's given you a bit of a downer. I'm supposed to be using this to exercise my brain to commentate on life as I see it. As a pretender to the role of comedian, I need to do this. It's how comedians operate. Yet sometimes, this is just my brain dump - a place to whinge.

I hope my whinges can be seen as laughable if not, at least, funny. Compared to other things I've read recently, my problems are trivial.

Well, maybe not quite poetic, but this particular bit of writing of mine is still as true now as it was when I first penned it.

Typed it.

It's brief, which isn't like me.

I woke up this morning broken. I had been feeling a bit off key last night before I got to sleep, despite having a reasonably productive attempt at sorting out the essential things that need sorting out before my trip away this weekend. However, it became apparent to me as I returned to bed that I wasn't quite on the top of my form.

This morning I woke up in the form of a puddle of myself (figuratively, not literally - I'm still not wetting the bed) that lay inert under the covers, unable to move more than the hands that work the snooze buttons. I contemplated whether I was just being lazy. I wasn't. I knew that I wasn't just being morning-slow, either, as I was clearly waking up - I know this because I started to realise how loud the alarm clock really is.

I couldn't move.

I considered ringing in sick.

I couldn't.

I'm going to London after work to see a show. If I play then I work. That's the deal. No taking a sickie, only to go out for the evening. It's not about fear of being caught, it's about fairness.

So, I'm going to see Evita, 9 days before it closes for good at the Adelphi. That's reason enough to try to muster some sort of muscular reaction from the heap of cells that I'd melted into. I sort of managed it.

My toothbrush, which had been charging in my bedroom overnight, filling the room with mini flashes of light (brighter than the energy saving lightbulbs I use, probably) like a landing helicopter might, was the most energetic item in the house when I eventually swaggered up to the mirror in the bathroom and attempted to use it to clean my mouth out.

I mustered enough momentum to get myself through the clothing process and into the car. Driving doesn't take much effort, especially with a good CD blasting away on the stereo. I was in the office about 5 minutes before the first meeting of the day.

I couldn't get out of the car. I didn't have the energy.

Well, I found something, obviously, or I'd still be there.

I ambled through the car park, across to the office building and headed straight for the lift. I couldn't even be bothered to get coffee, fruit, food, whatever. In fact, I was feeling slightly nauseous, and it wasn't, for once, work-oriented contempt bringing such a sense of nausea.

So, I'm now sitting in my seat in the office with a bunch of things to do before I leave, in the vain hope that I'll be able to complete them and that my team will be able to make sense of it in my absence next week.

Really, I'd prefer it if I could just curl up and die for a few hours. I'd like to come back to life in time to see Lloyd Webber and Rice's offering this evening.

Thank you.

It's double helpings this week of the Friday 200. I'm doing this one to cover my holiday next week.

Labels: Friday200

So, I lost my recording of a really cracking gig. I lost it because I accidentally caused it to be deleted while trying to move it around between folders on different hard disks that I then synchronise with each other. Oh yeah. I'm a geek. Oh yeah, I'm a gig who gets stuff wrong.

Cue the saviour in the form of Brian Kato's restoration program. You just run it and it finds the file you lost and you get it back. Simple. It does exactly what it promises to.

I have my recording back. I didn't just forget about it and give up. So that's good.

Admittedly, my case was one which might enable the most chance of recovery, given that it was a disk that is only written to when I'm changing files and I hadn't added anything else to it. A system hard disk is changing all the time and every second you leave it running makes it more likely to end up recycling the file you just lost. The above program is small enough to be run off a floppy or memory stick, so at the very least, you could try using it.

I don't feel as much a sense of loss as I was doing.

I tend to record most of my gigs. I like to listen to them to see what really happened. Like the gig last night, which wasn't brilliant, but wasn't quite as bad as I thought... though there wasn't nearly enough room-sized laughter.

Occasionally I will re-listen to a bit of a gig for some reason. I re-listened to the Taunton gig a few times yesterday, partly to learn some new material I'd tried out and got reasonably right first time. I tend not to write spoken material down in full, so the first outing can be a bit improvised, based on comedy instinct, rather than calculation. If it works, you need to know how it worked... that's my excuse. I wasn't just listening to myself, on reasonably good form, doing one of the best gigs I've ever done from the point of view of being on the ball, if not audience response.

Like a twat, I just accidentally deleted the Taunton recording forever. I've still got last night's, the one where I went from 40 minute headliner to 10 minute shit open spot in less than 24 hours.

Oh, how pleased am I!?

Wow my bed is comfortable. I couldn't move out of it this morning. It was too comfortable. Maybe this is a matter of contrast. The previous night's 4 hours' sleep on a floor in my sleeping bag was nowhere near as restorative as about 8 hours on my actual bed.

But I weighed heavy this morning. This might have been a result of having a crafty beer and some even craftier convenience food from the station. I had walked to and from the station last night, which is, at least, some sort of exercise. Indeed, I've been walking to the station a fair bit recently. I tend to eschew the bus. Walking back from the station was a rare joy. I was on the phone with a friend, so the time passed quickly.

My brain drifted in and out of wakefulness this morning. I was having a bizarre dream that seemed to be an alternative-reality version of the TV show Lost, merged with War Of The Worlds. Pointless and weird.

Today is my slack day. I have to use today to pull my life into gear, in preparation for the rest of the month. I say toDAY. I mean this evening. There's work to do first. Obviously.

Like a bad hangover, the events of last night wore heavy on my soul as I walked to the car from the house. Luckily it's only a few feet. Then I was on the way to work with the CD to lighten my mood and the urgency of arriving on time to keep my thoughts away from the dark places. What do I remember from last night. Like the flashbacks from a drunken bender, little moments returned to me.

• Getting to the area behind the London Palladium and not being able to find the venue
• Finding the venue eventually - it was right under my nose, and underground
• Going to the toilets at the base of Carnaby Street and realising that the guy at the urinal at the door wasn't so much pissing as looking hopefully at everyone who came in while standing around with his penis out
• Getting OUT of that toilet...
• ...After washing my hands
• Chatting to the comedians before the show
• Chatting to the reviewer before the show
• Wishing the reviewer hadn't been in
• Telling myself not to care about the combination of reviewer and lack of my comfort zone and just play to the audience
• Coming off stage and not really being able to make eye contact with anyone
• The walk away from the gig in the middle break, with another act, in mutual consolation mode
• We knew we'd been shit
• Taking the piss out of a cello in the tube station - describing its case as the container for a giant magnum lolly
• Comfort eating at Paddington station
• Chatting to the engineering lady on the train
• Making a comment about a Jewish comedian for her to tell me that she was Jewish, down her mother's side of the family, so I should watch out what I say about jews
• Her missing the bit where I said "Yeah, me too"
• Her thinking that she was failing to convey humour and friendliness in this warning, because she'd not heard my reply
• Me eventually explaining that she was the one digging, not me - "This is the jew table" I proclaimed

Where does last night leave me? Well, it leaves me tired, with a rough voice, and a house that's not progressed further. Perhaps it also gives me the opportunity to get a poor review on my official record. Perhaps not. I can tell you what I didn't really get last night.

I didn't get a confidence boost on the stand-up... though my confidence is still riding fairly high. The confidence in non-guitar based stand-up is a bit lower than it was, but maybe I've enough excuses about why last night didn't work - like the words having a little fence to jump over between my brain and my mouse - no idea why (probably exhaustion and too much coffee). Random encounters with strange half-jewish-half-catholic women on trains leave me no further forward in my quest. Yes, I'm on a quest!

So... yeah... Bunch of Flowers!

Tonight there's packing to get ready to do, with the possibility of running round trying to buy missing items. Maybe there'll be ironing and TV. I will rest. There's a little time on the weekend for some extra DIY bits. I would like to come home to a house that's moved on in my absence, so I don't want to obstruct that.

Ok. Enough for now. My brain just turned to mush... better do some work.

I love comedy. It can build you up and it can knock you down. Last night, headliner, solid 40 minutes in front of an attention-deficit disorder crowd, constantly able to find some way of dealing with them and constantly being funny. Not necessarily very funny, but in the moment and making 'em laugh.

I listened to the spoken bits of my material as I walked to the railway station and I was smiling so much that I must have been radiating gay vibes - some gay student lad, kind of leaned out of his in-group, walking past, to flirt in my face. I didn't react. It was weird.

Anyway, I'm the big-man, the big headliner in Taunton. I am their king. They like me. I could have done more...

Then tonight, without guitar, I drop into the basement of a bar in London's West End - pretty much one which shares a sewer with the dressing room where Connie Fisher of the Sound Of Music probably does her poos. I do 10 minutes, it's not going especially well, the principal reviewer for Chortle is in. I feel a fool.

I leave. I'm an open spot again.

My career progression comes full circle.

Still, if I'm going to get reviewed, it's probably best that I first consider my own performance to be shit. Then if the review is shit, I can be like "told you so" and if it's in any way positive, then I can be like "wow"... of course no review would be preferable.

The shitty thing is that I'll probably be peeved if there is no review. I almost need to be some reviewer's bitch. I'm weird.

Just a quick burst of statistics first. Here are my monthly averages of gigs for the last few years:

2005 - 8 or 9
2006 - 4
2007 - so far - 8

I'm excluding Edinburgh gigs from this. In fact, in 2005, I had a 14 gig month. That's tough. This year, I had a month where my rate of performing was, pro-rata, about 20 gigs, but half the month was idle, so it was still under the 10 mark in total.

The point I'm demonstrating is that I appear to be gigging at a much higher rate this year than last. As a result, I'm growing as a performer again, and I'm wearing myself down a bit with the effort. A lot, in fact. Stand-up comedy, especially with a day-job, but even without one, involves a lot of late night driving and stressing about getting to gigs on time. Usually, I've only myself to coordinate and this makes things easier. In fact, that's a weird part of comedy. It seems like it's such a social pursuit, with rip-roaring nights out, but the comedian truly understands the meaning of loneliness. It can be lonely up there on stage, but more so, the travel to and from the gig, can be very isolating.

If you tour, with public transport, maybe you won't have a meaningful interaction with anyone over the course of the day as you step between conveyances in one giant comedic conveyor belt that crushes your soul and makes you wonder if it's worth all the effort. Traveling alone, maybe staying in a city where you either don't know people, or don't have long enough available to use to spend time with your friends, can be very boring. Comedians end up going to the cinema to kill time.

What I'm saying is that it's better to have company for gigs. There are, I think, three sorts of company for a gig.

1. Other comedians
2. Friends
3. Partner

I would have to say that the partner thing is a novelty (for the other person) that soon wears off. The friend thing is nice, but you can't take the same friend to see you too many times, that gets old a lot quicker. Other comedians is fine, provided you need to travel together. Choosing to do weird routes just to pick up others is no end in itself.

Given that I'm single and found that my (now ex-)girlfriend was increasingly less involved in my gigging life (which was fine - I think I'd done with trying to impress her), I can't really say I've recently had, or am likely to have the partner option of gig companion. In fact, in some ways, that's the worst, since you want your partner to be supportive, particularly after a gig - if you've done well you want to celebrate; if you've done badly you want sympathy. It's too precious. In fact, though, the worst sort of comedian's partner is the sort who is basically a fan of anything and everything. That's terrible. If I wanted someone to lick my arse, I'd pay like any normal pervert. I personally want a partner who will be simultaneously supportive and unimpressed. It's too much to ask. I think I'll die alone. But anyway...

In the last couple of evenings, though, I've had the other two sorts of occupant in my car. My gig-drive has never been so social. Really. It's been a blast.

Sunday - Eastbourne
I drove to Basingstoke to pick up a friend on Sunday afternoon. Running early, I dropped into a coffee shop with a book and sat chuckling over some pages and some caffeinated drinky. Very nice. Chucklesome.

I then picked up the friend in question and we headed to Eastbourne. The sat nav did a good job of getting us directly to the venue, despite my best efforts to ignore it. Idiot.

We got Sunday dinner at a very sparsely populated cafe/restaurant, which was nice, and then went to the venue.

I was doing an open spot for the promoter. The idea of doing an open is to demonstrate one's wares and secure further paid work. For some bizarre reason, though, I already had the booking from the same promoter for the following night. Now, if I were depending on stand-up for an income and sliding into poverty from it (it's not stand-up that's draining my resources so much at the moment, so let's forget blaming that for my slidage), I would have said something like "if you're already prepared to book me for paid work, why do the open?". Except I'm not and I didn't and I didn't mind. A gig is what I have to do to be a comedian. I'm a comedian for the time I'm on stage - outside of that I'm just a bit stupid and badly behaved. Plus, I do believe in proving oneself and paying one's dues.

I asked how long a spot the promoter wanted and he said, essentially, whatever I wanted. I decided to do a 10-15 for him, thinking that's what he wanted me to want to do. In fact, when I went up there, I got a bit carried away and did a 20. Sometimes, it just needs doing.

The gig went well. The middle two acts were both new acts and both brought something interesting and well-crafted into the mix. I'm seeing a lot of good new acts at the moment, which is nice. It reminds me of why I like comedy... it also reminds me that I can't afford to be complacent - there's always going to be some young hopeful ready to take my place if I don't keep pushing my way into the comedy throng.

We stayed until the end of the gig, I chatted to a girl called Shemane - never heard that name before - whom I'd done on of my routines at during the show. She didn't seem scared of me. I was worried about it being too scary and intimidating during the show and had backed off from the front row, while doing it, to make it seem less real. I'm worried about upsetting audience members. Not that I'm sensitive, it's just that upsetting people isn't what I set out to do. Ever.

Then the long drive back. Eastbourne isn't so very far away from anything. It's not so amazingly near either. I managed to get to my bed before 2, and I was even up in time for a shower the following morning, which was nice.

The in-car company was very nice, especially since it was demanded that I should play the Phantom of the Opera on the journey back. That I can do. And did. And it was good.

Monday - Taunton
Here's a secret of comedy. Sometimes the bill of a comedy night is composed out of the convenience of who can be fit into a single vehicle making the journey to the venue. This car-share plan is definitely good for the environment. It's not necessarily what you'd imagine would be the principal criterion for assembling a bill. Surely, you'd think, they would take some comedians whose style was complementary, and maybe consider experience as well. You wouldn't think that it's just "we need a driver, someone cheap and a couple of people who happen to be free that night to go along".

It's not quite that bad. But it sort of could be, if it were not for the goodwill of all involved to make these car-loads of comedians into a living breathing comedy night. As it happens, I've never done one of these since I've lived down south. I've generally eschewed the whole "you've got to drive to London before you even set off for the gig" thing. It seems like a lot of effort. But there was this gig offer hanging in the air and it seemed to involve a nice fee for me, some petrol money on top, and a night out in Taunton. Not that I particularly imagined that I MUST go to Taunton, but I find it hard to have reasons NOT to do gigs. In the end, it seemed like the sort of offer which I could only see as a good thing.

So, the stress began. You see, I find it more stressful getting to the gig than actually performing the material. Sure, about 10 minutes before I'm due to go on, I might pace the floor a bit, trying to arrange my thoughts into a sensible shape in my head. Sure, I might worry a bit about sound checks before the gig, but generally, I'm quite unworried about the gigging. The getting there, however, is always the biggest risk. What if I break down, hit traffic, hit another car, don't find the venue, arrive too late? etc etc etc. With the entire bill's worth of acts in the car, this risk gets bigger. I won't say it gets bigger exponentially. That's not true. I'm not sure that 4 comedians in a car is 4 times the risk. Maybe it's 12 times the risk. I'm not sure of the exact correlations here.

Anyway, the extra complexity of this arrangement was how last minute it had been put together. I knew the name of the MC and another act. I knew that a particular act who had been enlisted wasn't coming. I knew the MC was due to bring a friend. Everyone had been emailed my number, but nobody had called. I'd prompted them for their numbers. I had the MC's number, but it wasn't a valid mobile. Basically, at about 2pm yesterday, I didn't know whether anybody would turn up at Richmond tube station - my chosen meeting point, being about on the apex of where I could reasonably get to in London before having to change direction towards the actual gig, which might have been better reached had I taken a less London-centred route (though London wasn't a huge detour).

I had texted the act whom I'd heard was on the bill. The MC was apparently bringing act 4. Let's say I was act 2, so it's act 3 we're missing. Mr Act 3 replied to my text saying he wasn't coming. Who was the replacement? We had only 3 of our 4 people. What do we do? I tried ringing the promoter, no answer.

I'm due to leave the office at 4, I'd finally got the MC's phone number - he emailed me a corrected version, but there's no act 3 and I feel like we have an incomplete bill. I was closing the show and had planned to do something bigger than normal, but there was a hole.

I decided to take it upon myself to call a friend in to help. She'd have to jump on a train to meet us en-route to the venue. So, despite the fact that I work in Farnborough and live in Reading and was driving to London to get to a gig in Taunton, I had to suggest to someone in Southampton that they might get a train to Bristol to be picked up via a minor (in the grand scheme of things) detour. This was getting complicated. In the absence of guidance from the promoter, myself and the MC decided that this was a plan, and I rang the comedian in question up and basically said something akin to "run Forrest run".

Now I'm driving to London, wondering about traffic for me, tubes for the two London boys and the train journey for Southampton girl. No gig stress at all then!

I arrived in Richmond in plenty of time and ended up sitting in the car for about 40 minutes, needing a wee, and waiting for my two gig colleagues to arrive.

I could tell from first words on the phone with the MC that I liked him. It turned out I really liked his mate too. This was the friend who was to go on to do his 3rd ever gig that night and totally storm the room. They were both naturally funny and inventive people. We jammed, comedically, in the car on the way to the gig and made each other laugh. It didn't even feel like a "who's got the biggest willy" contest, which was nice. We were just sharing jokes. Lovely.

Stopping in Bristol it was time for some serious weeing. Weeing was done. Then we continued, with our act 3 in tow, to the venue, arriving 2 minutes before my guesstimated arrival time of 8.30pm. Conversations included discussion of the futuristic adventures of "Buck Lazerquest" with his arch nemesis "Darth Racist", along with in depth discussions of "birds you might shove up your arse". I know. You had to be there. Thing is, we were.

At the venue, the sound guy was reluctant to plug my guitar into his desk as he'd have to run a wire across a room. I didn't push the point. I just brought my new practice amp in from the car and made that work.

Then the gig was underway. The material we'd workshopped in the car, for the most part, probably didn't work. How many audiences are going to understand that you can't shove a swan up your arse? It's illegal. Only the queen can shove a swan up her arse... Oh dear. Still, it wasn't me delivering that material, so it wasn't my problem.

All the acts did well over the course of the night.

I took to the stage with a rowdier crowd and had 40 minutes with them. That's a long set by my standards. I essentially crowbarred in about 15 minutes of spoken stand-up surrounded by music and a fair bit of banter to keep them the right side of under control. I did a lot of ad-libbing, some of it was crap, some was hack and there may have been a couple of lines in there that I might consider using one day again. I borrowed my favourite mobile phone answering heckle put down. So I think I owe GD a pint. It's pretty much public domain anyway, so I guess I can't feel too guilty. You basically answer someone's phone and pretend you've found it at the scene of a road accident. The audience fell for it hook line and sinker. I'd cancelled the call on the way from picking the phone up from the guy. I'm not a total bastard. The audience were loving it, so I was enjoying it too.

Note to self: invent something funny on the spot, don't just borrow.

Note to self: there was something about how all shepherds are trying to do Rolf Harris impressions... weird.

I had a lot of fun. I was concerned about running out of energy and voice. 40 minutes is not twice the effort of a 20 minute set, but I managed to keep it funny until the end and people were very complimentary of me, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

Then the late night drive back. We spent a lot of the journey looking for toilets, heading to Wimbledon in London - a good 50 minutes from my bed. Still, I suddenly stopped the car, after I'd spent a certain amount of the journey giggling almost uncontrollably at the silliness around me as the comedians kept jamming - and I told the lads to get out. We were in Wimbledon. The night could have gone on longer and I would much have preferred to forget about the following day and just go get beers and giggle myself into oblivion with these chaps, but real life is not like that.

Then I headed back to my house, with the lady I'm referring to as Act 3 in tow. We got in, I gave the "the grand tour ending in the bedroom", but then stopped her entering the room until I'd emptied my bin, tidied up a bit, changed the bed, gathered my things (for spending the night in my sleeping bag in the other 1st floor bedroom) and finally unveiled the room as the "guest facilities".

I got a shower, got into my jim-jams, and then got into my sleeping bag. At some point around 4ish, the floor finally stopped being obdurate and moulded into the shape of my body. Next thing I knew the alarm was going off and I didn't feel as tired as I'd imagined I'd be.

A drive to work was taken via the railway station where my house-guest was able to get her train back to her real life. It had been an amazing night out and I had a very good time. Given that I left the office at 4pm and got to sleep at around 4am, I think we can say that it's definitely a double-life I'm leading at the moment. Half man, half imbecilic wannabee comedian.

It's fun when you've company.

I had plans for this weekend's labouring. After a late night in the office on Friday, I went to B&Q to buy timber. That's manly. I didn't buy wood. I bought timber. TIM-BAH! I also bought my first ever big sheet of plaster board. Oh yeah. And I bought a saw and a set square. I was going to be manly with my timber and my saw. I had been reinvigorated by the previous weekend's labour at my friend's house, where I was shown the correct usage of the saw, and actually sawed through a fair bit of timber (TIM-BAH!).

I also bought a shower, some tiles, and some extractor fans from B&Q. I've nearly bought enough for my builder to install. The fact that I've not seen him in the last 9 or so days doesn't worry me too much. I had a date with a plasterer for Saturday, and the plastering is on the critical path of this whole project.

My shower screen, for the bath, was waiting for me in Homebase, so I went to get that.

Home, I did some more rubble creation - chipping plaster from the walls, and then set about using my timber and plaster board to board up the fireplace - a fireplace that I myself had unboarded in the first place. I built a timber frame for the purpose. I even had a small wooden subframe within it, that I could affix a vent to, so that it wouldn't get too damp in there or something. I'm not quite sure.

Anyway, I did a reasonable job of building and fitting the frame. I even cut the hole for the vent nicely and put the vent in nicely.

It was later that I reviewed the height of the vent from the ground and concluded that there was no room for the skirting board. D'oh! I'll be redoing that, then.

That was my friday night. I had achieved something, even if some of it might need to be redone a bit.

On Saturday, I continued the DIY, after a late wake-up. I had my roofing man coming to finish some stuff off and get the last of his payment in the afternoon. I also had my date with the plasterer. For some reason the impending plasterer visit made me go into my 1st floor spare room and pull off some of the ceiling tiles to see what the condition of the ceiling underneath is like. It's like... ceiling papered. So there'll be wallpaper stripping in there before I can get it replastered. It may not need particularly serious replastering, maybe just a wee patch. As in a small patch, not a patch where wee has come through the ceiling. That would be just plain wrong. Nobody should be weeing upstairs on the top floor. There's no toilet up there. I guess that's why it would be coming through the ceiling. Except it didn't, because it's not that sort of wee patch.

So I made a mess in a room I'm using. I really need to clear that room out, but when I do that, it will really come home to me how little space there is in the room I will have as my sole dominion when the house is rented. Maybe the smallest bedroom will become my study and I'll just reduce the number of tenants - that way madness lies. We'll see.

Getting back to the main task in hand, I think I chipped off the last piece of wall that I'm going to chip off. I'm not sure. Maybe I need to do another area. Advice is definitely required.

While I was doing my DIYage, I had one of my two new Michael Bublé CDs playing. I put it on a loop, rather than listen to the second one too soon. I wanted to savour the Bublé. He's good. It's just what Frank Sinatra would be doing now if he were MB's age. And not dead. But there's nothing wrong with seeing a well understood style done well. In fact, it's very enjoyable. Even if it may well be classed as "mum music".

The roofer and I chatted. We chatted about the bits of roof he hadn't quite finished. Then he finished them. Then we chatted about his work ethic. He got a bit descriptive about multi-culturalism, and it was at loggerheads with my more liberal-minded views. I would like to think that his opinion wasn't so much opposing as orthogonal. It wasn't racism. At least, not in the category of a recent London cab-driver I spoke with, whose attitude to immigration was to "line them up and shoot them". Extreme.

The plasterer never came.

I substituted for his absence by plaster boarding some lintels above windows. I first drove some spaxes into them to make sure they were well fixed. Then I attached the plasterboard. I like cutting plaster board. I like DIY. I'm just not very good at it.

Saturday night was an evening out. Saw Spiderman 3 (bollocks) and had some food. It was very pleasant.

On Sunday I was going to do some more DIY - maybe sort out that stupid vent error. In the end, I decided to do my ironing and continue watching Peep Show, which had kept me awake for an entire first series' worth of watching, Saturday night after I got home from the night out. So, 3 episodes of series 2 were enough to enable me to complete my ironing.

On Sunday night I had a gig, so the DIY ended there. I had achieved something over the weekend, except receiving the visitation of a plasterer. It's his 3rd attempt at standing me up. Or at least, it's his third standing-up of me, and I think it's going to have to be three strikes and you're out. Sigh. If only the stuff I chipped of the wall had been that easy.

Typical isn't it. You plan to go on holiday and the process of getting ready to go becomes so very stressful that you need a holiday by the end of it. It's so typical it's a cliché. It's such a cliché that the very process of writing about it adds to the stress - "Oh my god, this whole writing about thing it is so cliché" and that too increases the need to write about it.

So, to avoid these circular references (and I so wanted to write "circular saw" there) going too far up their own bottom (or mine). I'll just tell you straight. I'm tired, I'm in a haze of confusion and I need to put some more time into the week before I'm in a place where I can safely get into the car to go on holiday safe in the knowledge that every piece of my holiday puzzle will engage and result in my arrival in a distant location with items enough to enjoy being there.

Part of my holiday preparations involved buying luggage. I need something for hand-luggage within which I can store my laptop without it being totally destroyed. Although I have a few suitcases, some of which are not in Newcastle, my big suitcase was destroyed by the last holiday I took. It's good enough to have in the house to store things in, but it wouldn't last another flight. So, on the weekend, I went to Argos to look at their luggage.

Why!?

Why Argos?

Why did I feel the need, before even going into Argos, to go to MacDonalds for a milkshake and a muffin? I think I was trying to give myself a chav innoculation. You do something vaguely chavvy that you might like (and Maccy D's is not something I normally would go for, but I always like calories and fat in me) and that gives you a heightened tolerance. Entering Argos, I perused the "laminated book of dreams" (thanks to Bill Bailey for that reference - I can't go in there without that in my head) and decided that I couldn't fairly judge the quality or size of the cases from the pictures. I gave Argos up as a bad job.

In Tesco, I bought something vaguely bag-shaped for each of my requirements. It was more expensive than I might have liked, but it was "job done" and that was really the aim of the exercise. £10-£20 here or there will probably pay itself back with the extra longevity of a case that looks like it might actually survive the car trip home from the shop.

I can't complain about going on holiday. I need a break. I need a break from the relentless series of challenges that life and, more accurately, my own gluttony for life, keeps throwing at me. Let's hope it's a relaxing time and that the post-holiday come-down is not too extreme.

Time is ticking along, but that's its job. If it didn't, then we'd never do anything, and life would be dull, but we wouldn't even notice.

A lot of life could be seen as a race to get head and shoulders ahead of something. Perhaps some people are racing to get ahead of other people. Perhaps there's a massive heap of shit on your head, and you're clawing your way up it to get to some fresh air. Maybe it's just a matter of racing into the gap between your achievements and your potential. Maybe this last one is the fairest. I don't know.

I'm feeling a bit of all three at the moment. As a potential landlord, there's a whole heap of worries on my head. As a comedian, I often feel like I'm in a race for spots against other people. As a person, I know that, whatever I do, I should be just aiming to get ahead against my own scale. This means learning from the past, and pushing into the future.

Last night I had a gig in London that was cancelled. I used the opportunity of meeting new people at a gig to chat about stuff I'm passionate about: comedy, musicals, whatever. In fact, I even chatted a little about what appears to be a recognised technique for one-night-stand evaluation. Apparently you should prompt a girl to mention her boyfriend or absence of same within the first 10 sentences. Really!?

I could tell the conversation had been friendly, and we'd shared a laugh together. As the gig was cancelled, the promoter was asking people if they wanted to reschedule. To put things in context, the gig was a 5 minute spot, with a low-probability of audience, with the vague promise of getting a better open spot at the club in the future. This is not something I'm quick to put my name down for. At the end of the day, I am no prima donna, but I have some sense of self-worth. A bit of chutzpah can get you somewhere. So I said "On the strength of this conversation, can you not recommend me for the better gig?". Bizarrely, this seemed to work. I think we'd done the usual comedian willy contest, where you work out whether the other person is a noobie, or if they're battle worn and experienced. I've been doing stand-up for a good 4 years and 5 months, so I guess I don't look all fresh-faced anymore.

Whether I'll get any gig on the back of it is a totally separate matter.

Getting to go home at 9pm on a gig night was some flavour of fun I'm not entirely sure about. On the upside, I was in my bed, all showered and washed, at around 11pm. I still couldn't wake up this morning, but that's not a surprise.

This weekend appears to promise a series of appointments. I've got places to go and people to see. There are workmen, DIY tasks, women and gigs. None of these are sexual. Well, the DIY always gives me some sort of thrill, but that's a matter between me and my conscience.

I think, on balance, I'd prefer to curl up in bed with a pizza and a lover, but I don't always get the choice. In fact, I don't think anyone does.

If I could go back in time right now, step through the door into a day in my past, I think I would either walk into last weekend, which was totally brilliant, or onto Wednesday night, which was similarly brilliant, but a lot more compact. Any further back and I'd have to go through a lot of crap again that I can't be bothered with.

I might like to do a remote viewing of some events in my life, just to see how they differ from how I remember them. That's a whole different ballgame, though.

Right. This day has gone on long enough. It's time to return to my alternative life, where I'm switched on and motivated enough to complete household tasks.

This didn't happen. Not like this. Not at all.

Labels: Friday200

Life is not a rehearsal. Yet sometimes in life something happens that you think has occurred to somehow prepare you for the future, or teach you what the outcome of certain actions can be.

Work ennui and me don't mix well. As a result of this, I posted a message on the internet comedy forum - Chortle - yesterday. It was a spoof of the frequently seen "Has someone got the number for so and so, I have an old one that ends 206, is this still right?". My particular joke involved posting a random sequence of digits, meant to look like a mobile number and asking "Does anyone have the name that goes with this number? I used to have one ending in 'lly' but I'm not sure."

Now, the purpose of this was simply to pervert a familiar thing in a ludicrous manner. However, some people replied, suggesting I ring it. Were they in on the joke? or did they think I was being genuinely stupid? Then someone posted to say that they'd received a call from an unknown number recently and perhaps they should ring their unknown caller to find out who that was. Then they said that they'd rung the number and that it was some woman who apologised for their mistake. Then my ex-girlfriend told me that she'd just received a call from a comedian she mistakenly rang from my old-phone (which she now uses) which still has my phone book in it, though a new number.

So, I was able, on the forum thread, to resolve the genuine mystery phone call, and also to admit that I'd been taking the piss with the original request.

This was, in my opinion, an end to it, until another friend, Okse, pointed out that I'd just posted a mobile number on the internet, somehow making it the focus of prank calls. He suggested I had breached someone's confidentiality and might get into trouble through the Data Protection Act. I said I hadn't compromised anyone's personal details since that number was just a randomly chosen bunch of digits, not a real person. He then pointed out that there are some nutters out there who will ring a number for a laugh. I considered this a tangible problem and so removed some digits from the number online and told people not to ring it.

After work, I took a bus to the station, took a train to London, hot footed it to my gig and sat around waiting for it to happen. It was cancelled. No audience arrived. As I was about to leave, the phone rang. I answered it to an irate woman who was demanding to know why I'd posted her number on the internet.

Now I truly understood why someone should not do this sort of thing. The woman had been the recipient of a number of prank calls that day from people "making fun of her". She was complaining of it adding to the real stress in her life and she was telling me of it affecting her ability to work and how she was in need of her phone, but unable to use it because of the pranks.

In this situation there's only one thing to do. A full and frank apology, along with an explanation of the lack of intent to do damage, was the order of the day. Oddly, she wasn't listening to any apology, nor any suggestion that I could somehow make reparations for my mistake. In fact, she kept pushing. I started to wonder how this neurotic woman thought. I wondered if, perhaps, this was fate, thrusting a random woman into my life and whether I should try to apologise over dinner - maybe this would be the story we'd tell our grandchildren. "Well, grandpa put my mobile number on the internet, we met up so he could say sorry, and before you knew it, he was conkers deep in my lady pocket". If I'm starting to sound a bit unkind, don't worry. This story goes somewhere else.

The woman started talking about Data Protection Act and I thought of my earlier conversation with Okse and it also flashed across my head that this woman sound like an actor. She was too confident. I was on the backfoot in the conversation and I really needed to get her to burn out her anger so I could start to steer the conversation somewhere productive. She threatened me with police action for harrassment. I tried to wrongfoot her by suggesting I'd cooperate with any enquiry.

At this point Okse burst into the conversation. It had been a wind-up phone call. I knew, at the moment he spoke, that it was probably him. The Data Protection Act thing had been a massive clue. However, I also couldn't quite hear the other end of the line. He explained himself and then told me he'd be putting the clip online.

It's here on YouTube.

They got me. At least it wasn't real. I think I would have genuinely been sorry if someone had received a bunch of prank calls just because of a silly joke of mine getting out of hand.

It's a sad indication of my state of mind, though, that I seriously considered turning the call into a potential dating scenario.

"Not like that, like that", Tommy Cooper
"That's the way, aha aha, I like it", KC and the Sunshine Band
"You don't want to do it like that", Harry Enfield
"Like a virgin", Madonna
"It's my way or the highway", Some Americans

I cannot continue to do what I know to be stupid indefinitely. It hurts my brain and it makes me very angry.

I am the master of my own house. So when I slave away at home I've only myself to blame. When I arrived last night, the aerial installer was still hard at work. In fact, he continued to work hard until around 8. There's putting in the extra time for you. Had it not have had homo erotic undertones, I might have suggested that we go somewhere for me to buy him a pint, but he'd clearly looked uncomfortable when I'd asked if he had a girlfriend waiting on his return, so I cut my losses and paid him. The point about the girlfriend was that, in her mind, he would have been letting her down, coming back late, yet in my mind, he was completing the job, no matter how much effort it took. Anyway, I got to watch some broadcast Tv last night. First signal received in this house. Tv licence is finally paying off. I watched about 15 minutes of some Tv and then went to radio. I was otherwise occupied. I could have seen Peep Show, but I didn't get round to it. Today I bought the first three series on Dvd. I will watch and learn.

In my own efforts, I was quite successful. I was removing plaster and I removed a lot of it. It had been damp, and so smelled of mould, which is not nice. It also took a lot of hitting with my hammer and chisel. There's more to come off, but I feel like I made good progress. My arms ache a bit, but That's labouring. I also decided to build a little stud wall to block off my chimney. I'm inspired. I'm also out for the next two nights, so it will have to wait.

Last night I watched "The Musical!" totally unaware that it was on the exact 3rd anniversary of its debut. Given how anal I am about dates, this is totally not like me.

I can't always stop myself. Give me a bit of time to myself and I might just start admiring my own ingenuity. It depends on what I'm admiring and when I do it as to how destructive this truly is. Last night, I think I managed to be on the right side of self-appreciation. Okay, that's already sounding a bit onanistic, I'll explain in detail, purely to avoid the reader getting a totally twisted impression of what I was doing in bed last night.

For reasons of my own, I found myself with a copy of the DVD of "The Musical!" in my hand. I thought that I'd just check to see if it played on my computer. An hour later, I'd finished watching it. There. Self-praise is no praise indeed, but I applauded some of what I saw. Literally.

I was also horribly critical of some of the performance and writing, but I didn't let that spoil my enjoyment, which may be because I was watching my own stuff, or may be because I can't help loving the show we put so much time into crafting, or may even be because it's not actually that bad. I've no idea.

I heard last night that Jack Dee once said that you never laugh as much as you did when you were at school. That that unbridled side-splitting laughter never hits you as an adult. I think I know what he meant. Having said that, I have laughed so much that it's heard as an adult. Often with old school friends. Maybe that's a lucky thing to be able to do. Maybe it's something I can occasionally tap into - a vigour of funny that I can enjoy perennially.

I don't know.

I do know that I laughed last night, despite knowing the next line throughout the performance and having to confront all the shortcomings of an individual performance of a shwo that I knew could be done better. I didn't laugh a huge amount, but there were some moments of enjoyment. And if I can still appreciate something that was, effectively, the love of my life for a good year, then that's probably a good thing.

I should also probably look to the future, rather than keep re-appreciating a past that I have no intention of repeating... unless I dust off the radio adaptation of it...

I ordered a coffee and made a joke. It happens. In this case, the other customer in the queue was amused where the girl serving wasn't:

Her: That'll be £2 please.
Me: [hands over the money]
[pause]
Her: Right. £2. Ooh yeah, you already paid.
Me: Well, I know I paid you pretty well, but I think in this case a lap of honour wouldn't be appropriate.

In the lift after this moderate exchange of Ashley-silliness, the other patron said the he felt she didn't appreciate my sarcastic wit. I said I wasn't being sarcastic. I was being sardonic. I like a nice bit of sardonic. I suspect that it means the same. But my word is better.

I got a new credit card through the post the other day. I mean that I got a new edition of a credit card I already held. It was one I got a couple of years ago to take advantage of a balance transfer rate. Its balance has been zero for a while and receiving it was a big reminder to get the thing cancelled. I've gone through the stage of having a lot of credit cards on the go and have come to the conclusion that it's not a good thing. Now, I have more credit cards than I want, but I'm slowly and surely cancelling them. I've got a good credit rating, as far as I can tell, and credit cards is the least efficient way to use this rating - excepting the 0% balance transfer game, which is too easy to get wrong in a costly way, though I will still try.

So, I rang up.

I'd like to cancel my credit card. Well, I'm not using it, and its existence is a risk of misuse, so I'd rather cancel it. No, I don't have any balances to transfer at 2.9%, rather than your stock rate of 18.9%, no I don't want to keep it as a "backup". Yes, cancel it. No, I don't want it. Stop the card. Stop it. Now. I've destroyed it. I'm destroying all evidence it ever existed. Thanks. Thank you. No, I have no further requirements. Thanks. Bye. Bye Bye. No, you can't twist my arm to get into debt, even cheaply. Thanks. Bye now. Bye. G'bye. No. You hang up. No you. No you. Ah sod it!

I went to get a haircut at lunchtime. This was not irritating.

I listened to the Jeremy Vine show at lunchtime. This is usually irritating in the most comical and easily-satirised of veins. In this particular case they were talking about a child-abduction case in Portugal. They were going into needlessly alarmist detail over international pedophile rings and it was not very nice to listen to. It wasn't irritating, though. It was tragic.

I went to the bank to pay in a cheque. That was irritating. There were two people serving and the two people being served seemed to want a myriad of attentions. One was asking for ludicrous numbers of small services - like a mini statement, and change in 1 pence pieces, and other trivialities. A small bank branch hasn't the capacity to get much throughput. The other guy was trying to pay cash into his son's account without any means of identifying the account of the son, or the son's address so that they could work out what it was. Maybe the bank could have been more helpful. Maybe the guy should have come into the bank with the accurate account number of the account he wished to pay into. He muttered something about it being a waste of his time as he left. Clearly not his fault, then!

Eventually, I was served and the lady was apologetic about my delay. I asked if the cash machine took deposits - I know it doesn't. She said it didn't. I said it might help if it did. She told me where there was one that did. I think she missed the point. Given that the two people most held up in the queue, with the shortest amount of transaction to perform were me and the guy in front of me, who just gave over a deposit slip, maybe she could have realised that I was trying to tell her that a cash machine that did more would allow us normal people to pay in our cheques from the outside, and leave the nutters who want to change their old ha'pennies for twenty pence pieces to go inside without bothering us.

No such luck.

Annoying.

Not as annoying as the light which is glaring in my eyes at work. Health and fucking safety. Seriously, if being blind is what the office wants from me, then they should continue shining lights in my eyes and giving me a wealth of non-commital requirements with no particular focus, so that my caffeine dependency increases to the point where all I can see is a blur which moves with my increased pulse and blood pressure.

Thank you for the money, but is this really necessary?

Sunday morning was very easy. So I must be pretty easy too.

I could stop it there, but perhaps I should detail the journey my life took between leaving the office on Friday and returning to it this fair Tuesday morning.

Friday evening - the journey
As is increasingly common, I was in a foul mood following work. The working week is turning me into a hunchback, full of misery and disappointment. I was very wrung out in the car and even the Michael Bublé CD wasn't doing its job. I wasn't sure how to break the mood.

An atmosphere hung over my head in the car on the way up North. First I dropped into my house to send an email I'd forgotten to send beforehand. I got the bill for my roofing, which DIDN'T cheer me up, though it contained no surprises.

What to do on the journey up North? In the end, I resorted to calories. The combination of sugar and chocolate buzz that I took into my system did contribute a little to my sense of being perked up, though it somewhat disappointed my "sensible eating" resolve. Still, sometimes you have to self-medicate.

Friday evening - the food
I arrived at my friend's house in reasonable time. The journey had passed by quickly enough, with company from the radio and CDs. It took a few seconds of my friend's company for me to get back into giggly schoolboy mode, which really lasted all of the weekend. This is something to appreciate.

We went out for food and beers at a favourite food/pub venue and the food was good and the beer was good. Even the waitress was good, taking time to chat with us, rather than just throwing food at us and sodding off.

Friday evening - get a room
After kicking out time at the foody-pub we went to Malmaison for another pint. The hotel bar appears to be open beyond the closing time of where we'd left. Somehow, our two-way conversation gained a couple. I had said something typically Ashley-like along the lines of "I would have to say that a girl's inability to spell would make her less attractive in my eyes" and the Swedish girl next to me, overhearing this, decided to join in the conversation. She turned out to be 1 year in England, yet able to speak English with a perfect working-class Leeds accent. Talent. We chatted with the couple at great length and they were nice people.

At some point they suggested we get more drinks. By this stage, the hotel bar was unable to serve members of the public, though if you had a room at the hotel, you would be able to get served on room service. The Swedish girl went off to get a room. I tried reasoning with the staff that they could, theoretically, rent us a room for an hour at, say, £5, and that I'd just give them the cash. This method of bribery, for some reason, didn't work. I believe the reason is called licensing laws.

The idea of a couple going out of their way to take a room in a hotel in order to continue drinking with us was somewhat mind-boggling. Luckily it didn't happen. Equally, the suggestion that we go back to their place for Vodka didn't happen. I'm sure it was more about innocent drinking fun, than a young 20-something couple wanting to pick up a couple of 30-sometime men. Anyway, we got a taxi back and I think that was probably the wisest move.

Saturday labouring
First job was to mix some sand and cement to lay a section of floor. This was fun, and hard work. To be honest, I'm not very good with huge physical acts of moving building materials around. Still, I got to contribute what I was up to doing. I also got to wash the tools. I'm well and truly capable of washing up.

We laid the concrete floor and then I pointed out the benefit of filling in a hole in the wooden floor. We did that. Floored!

Then there was some pointing.

Tasks were completed, but we didn't exactly labour into the twilight hours, nor did we break any backs. We just did stuff. It was good. Low pressure, high satisfaction.

Saturday night with the lads
After food, we headed into town to meet the lads over some drinks. Though we arrived long after they'd started drinking, the benefits of Gin and Tonics were soon felt and we were soon holding as many sheets to the wind as our counterparts.

Stories were told, laughs were had, and we even ended up merging tables with a couple of ladies, adjacent to where we'd been sitting. In the absence of our chief womaniser, who went off to get cash and then disappeared, I was left to apply the flirting techniques which had been passed onto me by this man just before he skedaddled. Like I needed telling how to be a social manipulator. Still, it amused me to play the game as instructed and watch the effects. I should point out that this was, at all stages, a purely verbal game and didn't progress into what I'll tenderly call a contact sport. Very silly.

Sanding Sunday
Sunday morning, after another late bit of waking, there was a trip to buy a random orbital sander, which is definitely the tool of the moment. Coupled with some scraping, the sanding was applied to the exterior paintwork of the bay window at the house. This largely involved me, dust, a platform/ladder and lots of bits of paint and silicone frame sealant.

There was also time spent inside, when the weather wasn't at its fairest, attaching huge pieces of wood to the inside of the stone work. This involved "biscuits". This means nothing to you, dear reader, but it meant something to us at the time.

Time for lunch was taken, and being surrounded by pretty young student girls turned out not to be an imposition in the slightest. Even the blushing till girl at Wilkinson didn't seem to bother us. She sold me a barbecue, which was my contribution to the future house-warming of the venue of our labouring.

Sunday Night Barbie
The barbecue provided us a means of cooking a late night meal - emphasis on the late. Perhaps there wasn't enough charcoal, or maybe we started cooking too late, but there was little chance of cremating the things that would have, at least, enjoyed being seared. In fact, the barbecue turned itself into a gentle and moderate cooking device, which isn't quite how they work. However, the food was excellent and went down in quantity.

Monday's Child/Grandchild
I took a trip to the parents/grandparents on Bank Holiday monday. About an hour at each. Lunch with the parents, discussing the forthcoming holiday, which they're generously paying for. Then post-lunch coffee with the grandparents. My DIY senses were operating and I fixed a door that was coming off its hinge. It'll be off again by tomorrow, since the screws need replacing with thicker, longer ones, as the existing ones have worn the holes out.

If only I carried Spaxes with me at all times.

Monday afternoon project
Then, back at the house-project, following a trip from my friend's nephew, who came to try to smuggle as much dust as possible out of the place in the fabric of his clothing, using the crawling-everywhere-to-gather-dust method, we set about building a wall. With many challenges relating to getting it level and square and rigid, combined with my novice sawmanship, we constructed something that I think one could be proud of. I'm certainly pleased with what we made.

Returning home
The journey home seemed to take a lot longer, despite it going without a hitch. It was 3 and a half hours and was accompanied by Michael Bublé and then, latterly, by Frank Sinatra. There's no faulting Frank. Davina, who did fault him, must die. Painfully. She called his singing "cringeworthy" stupid ignorant vacuous bitch! Though that's old news.

Anyway.

I needed to be home and to get myself back in control of the house and back into what is, apparently, my real life.

I got home and bought some more Michael Bublé CDs. Ah. Back in the driving seat.

Workmen
I managed to wake up reasonably on time and feeling reasonably coherent. I was even up and ready in time to play a little piano and then meet the workman who is doing the TV aerial installation in my house today. I scooted off to work, taking the keys to my new back door, hopeful that I might have to come in through it tonight. This is possible, but not a guarantee. It'll be a suprise either way.

I should probably do some labouring of my own tonight. Plus, I have a plasterer to show around.

The rest of the week
There'll be musicals to watch, gigs to play and other fun to be had. The book that is this week hasn't yet been written. It may or may not be a page turner.

Well, the scales may be telling me that "I is fat man" but I'm not so sure what I want to believe. I may have the stature of a Silverback gorilla, but I do feel relatively sprightly at the moment. Let's pretend that I've gained muscle mass from all the labouring I've been doing. This is, of course, total horse doody, but it's a convenient pile of steaming horse doody.

I don't really see myself in a positive light at the moment. Something that's the cross between the Phantom of the Opera, the Beast of "Beauty and the" fame and maybe an RAC operative. Well, there's got to be some sort of up side to being me, and the ability to turn up and fix problems has definitely got to be an up side. Having said that, despite the self-criticism, I can see that I'm improving various things. My stand-up is of disproportionate importance to me. Or maybe it's the only thing in proportion and everything else is a distraction. I don't know. Given my success in the comedy industry, it feels like it's the first, but maybe I'm on the brink of the next growth spurt. We'll see.

Feedback from last night has been good, so I can't complain too much about the whole thing. Last night's post was "I'm feeling a bit precious cos I'm tired", which is fair enough. I knew that at the time and I still know it now. I still had fun last night, and I managed to get some thinking time together today to review the newest joke and how to make it more effective. This is really the whole purpose of doing gigs like that - i.e. for no money and with no expectations as such. If you can learn from the gig and recognise that, perhaps, there would have been a time when you couldn't have done that and now you can. Well, there's something to learn.

I was quite harsh about another act on the bill last night. I'm afraid I have an aversion to anger-comedy. Anger has to have a twist for it also to be funny. Ranting can be funny. Maybe some of my newer spoken material has a ranting aspect to it... it's certainly got pressure points in it... but just talking about bad things is not inherently amusing.

There. I've said it.

I'm going to work until the point when I feel like I've completed something appropriately worth starting the weekend on. I think I know the task which is the head of the to-do pile. So, that should be a laugh.

There hasn't been much talk of the house in the last few posts. The builder has installed a hole in the side of the house where a door will go. He's filled the hole with a door, though the door is not a functional item yet - it's held closed with battens. Next week it should be functional. It's a nice door. I'm pleased.

I've been a lot less pre-organised this time than I was. As a result the builder has a few points where he can go off an multi-task. This is not necessarily bad for the job, though it requires more organising that if he's working linearly for me. So, I must get off his critical path. This will mean some burst of work or other - probably next weekend.

Despite being stood up by the plasterer the other night - well, he rang to cancel - I'm going to get my plastering sorted out. The chap will be coming on Tuesday to discuss it all and then I'll have some sort of plan for the walls of the house. That's good. Maybe a burst of activity in the house in May will make June seem clearer for me. Lots of decorating if things have gone to plan. There is the small issue of only having a single sink in the house - the bathroom sink - at the moment. This makes a lot of things difficult. I suspect I'll have to install a temporary sink solution.

Yes, another blog post where I think out loud. At least I'm not sharing every single thought that's crossing my mind. There's all sorts of stuff going on up here that I don't think I want to commit to posterity. Some of it is very cheeky indeed.

My mood today is generally lighter than it was. Listening to the recording of last night's gig, which I did on the way in, made me smile a lot. I should have pointed out the main reason the gig worked. The audience. They were good people. They wanted to have a laugh. I spotted "friends" in the crowd and they were very spontaneous laughers. Crowd "friends" are, in fact, strangers. They're just obviously paying attention and laughing at your stuff. So you can sort of play to them. Except you shouldn't focus on them. However, if the rest of the room is looking uncertain, you sort of acknowledge your "friends" with a quick glance, and they seed the laugh and set the room off. It's how I feel about it, at least.

Indeed, one of my "friends" had the look of a particular comedian about her. A comedy looky-likey that only I would probably have understood. Still, it was a pseudo-familiar face in the room.

So, the generous nature of the audience, who were happy to play along if I looked like I know what I was doing. I can fake these things.

I don't know now whether the tension across my back and shoulders is physical or stress related. I know that I could seriously use a back massage. There's even a lady who comes to the office, but that seems a bit weird. Personal services at work. No thank you.

So, I'll hope that it's stress related and that a car journey with Michael Bublé is what I need. I mean that I'll be singing along to his CD - lustily. Ah. Lust. Well, it is spring.

Enough of this bumbling. I'm feeling optimistic today. So what if life is a bucket of shit - my bucket is half full!

Today's contribution to the book nobody will publish.

Labels: Friday200

Boy it's a weird one for me today. I had a slog at work, but I think it was almost productive. Then, running out of momentum, I left and drove to my gig. The Michael Bublé CD was a great mood turner in the car and I sang along, warming my voice up and cheering myself up no end.

I arrived at the gig exceedingly early. About 7pm for an official 8.30 start, which really meant sometime after 9. I chatted in my usual extremely chipper way with the promoter as he set up the gig. I helped him with the sound check. I then sound checked my own guitar and got spotlight frenzy, as I found myself on a stage with a guitar and so had to play up. Some punters for the night had arrived and one was keen to play guitar - I lent him mine and he turned out to be a good musician and played some. He was later to play on stage, as the gig was an open mic night, which allows for "floor spots" to play their stuff if they agree it with the promoter.

Anyway, the promoter was setting up a drum kit at the back of the stage and this chappie, after I'd had a lack lustre go on it, decided he wanted a go. With him drumming and me strumming, we formed a small rhythm combo and sang a few songs. He had the habit of getting over excited during the song and doing ridiculous drum fills and rhythms, which made me laugh. It was very silly.

My gig radar was telling me that this was a middle class pub which would fill up easily with nice gig goers. I was wrong. The pub gently waxed in numbers until it was fairly empty, save for the few kids hanging around the pool table. I wasn't entirely sure where the comedy would come from in that environment. I worried a bit.

The night started and I worried some more. The musicians were good, but there's a convention that people can talk over music. As a musical comedian, I've got an issue with this - if they don't listen from the off, then how will they ever notice it's funny. I contemplated how to cope with this. There was also the issue of the fact that the second act on the bill was very good and very upbeat - musically, next to him, I'd look not so good. Ah yes, all the insecurities started bubbling to the surface. A room with kids in, fear of musical inadequacy, people generally either not present or not paying attention. I was starting to worry a little.

But, there are some tricks up my sleeve. I've been doing this a few years and I've been in myriad different environments. I had a few devices I'd used before, and I even ran through some alternative material, which I don't do any more, but which might help me react to a failing gig. I didn't go out that to screw up. It was an open mike night, granted, near to home, so little risk, but I don't set out to fail. There's no job satisfaction in failing, I know that all too well.

So, I bolstered my confidence with planning and then the promoter said to me a couple of useful things. He said not to worry about the presence of the kids - they shouldn't be there, so I should act as if they weren't. I disagree with this in some respects, but for him to say that to me gave me license to do a set that didn't have to be family friendly. Ok, some material came online that I was seriously considering resting. Then he also said that he thought I'd do well. That counts for a lot, despite the fact that he hadn't seen my act... though he had listened to my recordings online, by the sound of something he said later on, after I'd been on stage.

There was a musical act before the comedy which really set me worrying - they were exceedingly laid back. Very good, but not a barnstorming sort of act. Their music encouraged you to relax and let it wash over you - without paying too much attention to it. Great for a Sunday pub lunch, but not a warm up for comedy. Now, this is not fair. I'm not the main act. I'm one of many acts. The point is that I'm trying to see how to hook into a room, so I have to treat everything that goes before as part of the room that I'm about to launch myself into.

How thrilled was I, then, when the other comedian, on before me, who had done 3 gigs by the END of his set, turned out to be the sort of comedian that he did. He was so new that he'd forgotten to write punchlines for much of his opening material, and was so interested in the concept of stand-up that he opened with a synopsis of everything he was doing wrong in his fledgling stand-up career. He was heckled, he was not in control, he was brash and ranting, and the room got odd. I was watching this, contemplating my own set, and felt like I was dying up there with him. Not good.

However, from manure flowers can grow. Sorry if you're reading this, by the way, old chap, I'm just writing it the way I saw it. The guy's set ended better than it started and he had, in some ways, borne the brunt of a disinterested room, turning it into more of an interactive dialogue of a room, one where he received some ribbing, but one where he, eventually, received laughs regarding something filthy and vaguely satiric. Again, if you're reading, sorry... but I'm not a bad judge of comedy and I think "filthy and vaguely satiric" is a quoteable review for you. Good luck.

So, I ditched plan B and went back to plan A. Plan B was to try to engage the room at first with a song not intended to be funny. This is an old Ashley trick to turn a non-comedy environment round. It's the "double de-clutch" maneuvre. Not necessary. I went up there and did my thing. It worked. I even did the joke I wrote in the car. That worked too.

In the end the only tricks I needed to use was the opening where you do nothing - which was foisted upon me by the need to sound check the guitar again before song 1 - and the bit where you take any audience heckling on the chin and say SOMETHING that's on the ball. I even managed to make the whole "there's children in the room thing" perfectly acceptable by acknowledging the presence, making it clear that it wasn't quite right, but would be harmless. I even interacted a little with them, which was more for my own benefit, since their pool playing, directly to the left of me, was quite distracting.

Not a death for me, then. I was asked for my contact details by one of the other acts, for a night he runs. Nice. The promoter was happy. Very nice. I was pleased with my reception, turning the faked smile which hit my face when the comedy "started" (which the promoter took as good cheer and I had to explain was an instinctive mask) into a genuine feeling of goodwill. It was definitely a good move to use the local joke place as a target for a joke, and it was definitely a good move not to do the straight song first. In fact, in song 3, I really started to find myself funny, which helps.

Anyway, I got off stage and the come-down started. Physical exhaustion, a late stage exit (11) and not having eaten all added up to make this a bad come-down.

I stayed for the next act - three excellent musicians whom I really enjoyed and then set off home. My emotions were all over the place. It's just the product of the post-gig euphoria having nowhere to go and being met with exhaustion and caffeine. I listened to Mr Bublé some more and the emotions in his music were getting to me, pretty much at random. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not bi-polar, but random events in life are, at the moment, and I've few defenses against life right now. D'oh!

As I approached Reading I had an inner dialogue on the subject of food. I was hungry. Healthy food is a long way away, so I thought about saying "sod it" and going for a takeaway. I believed that I'd been eating healthier over the last couple of weeks, but my most recent weigh in was about 5 or 6 pounds heavier than my previous one - albeit partly affected by the difference between nude and non-nude weighing. I considered that a takeaway, with its particular brand of comfort eating, might improve my mood and energy levels. Then I considered that it might not affect my obviously failing weight control. Then I considered that my clothes seem to fit well at the moment and I've been feeling thinner in myself - so body image is not about facts - no shit! Then I considered other stuff I can't remember.

Then an annoying maternal voice popped up in my head - "if you want food, there's healthy stuff available 24/7 from Tesco". Damn. I couldn't justify unhealthy eating. I was starving - having had a small lunch from Tesco earlier - but I couldn't bring myself to go to the takeaway and another petulant voice in my head was saying "well, if you're going to be all nanny-state on my ass, then I'll just go without". So I drove home.

Missing a meal is no big deal. I've missed a few recently and it's had no effect on me - nor my weight, apparently. So, I got home, mood coming to a stable mediocre, and packed for the weekend.

I'll eat and drink whatever this weekend. I'm celebrating. I'll have got through another really tough week... oh, and I know that being cheerful and nice to people actually does win them over more than anything else. That's my other stage trick - tell an audience how much fun we're all having... it's hard to resist someone telling you that they like you.

So I guess, I'll like myself a bit, then. I made myself laugh with the new joke. I made the audience laugh with pretty much everything, including the new joke. I had a good gig. I even played some things stronger than ever, perhaps influenced by my recent forays into gigging without guitar... in short, tonight went well, despite the song "Always on my mind" bringing my mood crashing into deck like a wasp with a heart-attack.

Nope, those similies are still tricky beasts.

Well, I'm the sort of idiot who buys a Joss Stone album with the opinion that it's probably good, only to remember that my opinion "anything by Joss Stone is bound to be good" was meant to be "anything by Norah Jones...". Having said that, Joss may be great. All I'm saying is that £10 worth of two of her CDs may prove to be outwith my actual tastes. I'll find out.

However, I'm also the sort of person who sets out to buy Michael Bublé's latest album at the first opportunity, buys it at the first opportunity and then finds the very sound of it to be the mood lift that I've been hoping for.

So, not a complete moron.

God I've been poor company of late. How attractive am I at the moment? "Ooh, I'm feeling fat", "Ooh, I'm feeling thin", "Ooh, work is boring", "Yah, I've got too much pressure on me", "Where does all the money go?", "Oooh, I'm doing brilliantly as a comedian!". If I were reading this crap, I'd probably say something like "Get a grip on yourself, get over yourself and STOP MOANING".

How self-oriented am I when I'm complaining about myself on my own blog!? Yep. We've reached a new line.

So, I can moan all I like, but I can't change the problems by moaning about them. I can work as hard as I like on one thing, but it won't necessarily fix all the other things around it. I have to have a serious think about the critical paths in my life plan and whether I'm presently dealing with issues that are on the critical path, or in some way tangential. I have no immediate answers. If I had answers, then I would probably be a lot happier. However, I'll have to get happiness from the pursuit of answers for the time being.

My general sense of control is quite low at the moment. I'm not feeling like I'm quite switched on about any individual issue that I have to deal with. There are gigs and other events imminent, including this bank holiday weekend, which I'm intent on not squandering, and I feel like I'm dealing with most things on a "just in time" basis, which is fine if I manage to get it all done, and would be totally horrendous if I didn't. I feel a bit like the work on the house could all go off track or off budget if I don't get the right things done in advance of my holiday at the end of the month, but I'm not entirely sure I know what the right things are, or whether I can fit them in around all the other crap I'm doing.

Sigh.

No. Upbeat. Be positive.

Well, tonight I have a gig. Which should be fun. It's more of a gig where I can do music stuff, so I'll do something musical, then. Good.

I need a beer. This weekend, I will have a beer. Good.

I wanted lunch, so I went to Tesco for Sushi and a wrap - low in calories and fat and among the things I like to eat. Also a bit of diversity in my diet. Good.

While at Tesco I indulged in some retail therapy and bought some CDs - a bit cheeky, but good too.

Yay. Positive times.

I'm I kidding anyone so far? No? Ah, go on. Go on, go on.

May 8th I'll have a plasterer visit and a TV aerial installation to look forward to. May 9th should be fun too. Realistically, there's fun to be had soon. Even more realistically, the weekend's pretty much here. I've a gig in a few hours, which is really the climax of any day, then there's the bit where I pack tonight for the weekend away, so, as my good friend pointed out on the phone last night, tomorrow morning is really the start of the weekend - a trip away via the working day in the office.

Yay for the British Work Ethic.

Having spent last night hacking plaster and other renderings off a wall using a mallet and chisel, and having managed to have only energy enough to shower, get into bed and veg out in front of Randall and Hopkirk (Vic and Bob's version), and MSN messenger, I've been something of a flopsy bunny for the last few hours. Basically, I've been harmless and fluffy, but not very active. On the up side, I did some good chippery last night and even managed to complete my ironing (also with R & H playing). On the down side, my physical exhaustion has a negative effect on my mood.

Still, I found some rubble in my bed, so it turns out that I've not been sleeping alone after all. I've had the company of rubble. Lovely rubbley.

Woke up this morning later than planned. Had to get into my dirty work clothes and shift a pile of bricks. I had to accept the reality of my aerial quote, though the aerial installation will be pro bono. I got to work later than I wanted to. I've been comfort eating (albeit healthy food) a bit. I haven't managed to get myself into any singular job, though the team's slack has been reduced a bit today by what I've been able to find out.

The day has dragged by and my stomach is dropping at the thought of a night in... but time is not on my side... too much to do. I'd much rather be out for drinks tonight. The chances of doing that are very small. I can think of someone to go drinking with, but then I'd have no means of getting home, nor anywhere to stay. Futile.

Plus I have a plasterer coming round tonight to calculate another depressing bill.

I just tried my cure for misery - the soundtrack to "The Musketeer" opening titles, at least. It cured me once before. It didn't help this time.

Though I've been more miserable than this of late. At the moment, it's more just tension - like I need a good work out. Perhaps I can take it out on some tiles or some walls or something, later on.

Oh, it's like a babbling brook, a running stream, a flood with the flood gates open, after the stable door has bolted the horse. Money flows out of my bank account. Oh yes.

Yesterday was a positive gain, in some ways. I had been to the bank recently and asked for the change of my correspondence address. For some reason, some smartarse had managed to use this as the opportunity to change the insured address for the buildings insurance for my house in Newcastle. Now, if you ask me, that's pretty stupid. You insure an address, not where you happen to receive mail. Especially given that this was the insurance I set up to cover a mortgage for a rental property in Newcastle, through the bank, who also arranged the mortgage, I would have expected all the ends to join together into a coherent whole.

I rang the insurance company and explained the error. They explained that they'd put it right, but then started asking me questions about the property that I was supposed to be insuring. I gave them the answers. Then they basically said that there'd be an effect on the premium. I asked them why. They said the risk address was changing. I pointed out that I didn't expect the policy to have changed since it was set up. There was much to-ing and fro-ing and I wasn't happy. Out of interest, I checked the original monthly cost of the policy - about £36 per month - not cheap, but not the end of the world. The policy had gone up to £45 per month when they incorrectly changed the address on it. I was expecting it, therefore, to go back down to £36 for the correction back to the necessary address.

The woman explained that, since it was a rental property, the policy would now cost £50 a month. I explained that the policy was originally £36 when it was arranged by the person who sold me the buy-to-let mortgage so the house could be used as a rental property. Essentially, either I was missold the original insurance (quite possible) or they were taking the mickey asking for an extra £14 per month for a policy which would have been fine if they hadn't incorrectly put it through their system a couple of times with new address details.

I explained that I realised that the lady in the call centre was just doing her job, but she had a choice. She could reinstate the original premium or I would cancel the policy outright. She tried to get help and came back and said it was £50 a month or nothing. I asked her to cancel the policy. While she was in the process of doing that, I was polite and kind in my praise of her for doing her best under the confines of the system. Where, at first, there had been some irritation as she was explaining her side to me and I was explaining my side (i.e. I just change my contact address and all of a sudden people want more money from me), the mood changed. She got a little giggly, a smile entered her voice, she was offering to help more. In fact, after I'd finished the call, she called me back to confirm that everything was cancelled. Very effusive indeed. I think I pulled. I doubt she'd come over from Bangalore just to date me, though.

Anyway, I rang up the insurer I used to get insurance for Reading. I now have a policy which works out at about £22 per month. Brucie bonus!

Of course, for every gift of a few hundred pounds, the monetary gods must make something else more costly by more. So, I may have gained some alleviation of my house-costs in Newcastle. I also have only one tenant and no clue of how to start advertising the property (my guess is that going online would help). But to top all of that, I had a man come to the house this morning to talk about TV aerials. The difference between my guesstimate of the costs and the cost he quoted (a quote I accepted on the spot, rather than dick about and keep scaffolding up longer than necessary) was, just over £300. D'oh!

Still, I might be able to watch TV next week, though I'll be too busy as I have a couple of trips to London organised.

It'll all add up someday.

I have a very dysfunctional relationship with the comedy forums of Chortle, the uk comedy website. I should go on there frequently and look for gigs and contacts. I do. However, I should not pay much attention to either the attention seeking people on there or the comments posted on the thread all about me. That's right. A comedian may get their own thread with people commenting on their act, or if they're very lucky, their personality. Yay.

Last night I did a gig that was fun. I made it seem like I was doing better than perhaps I was. I listened to the recording of it this morning on the way into work. I didn't die. In fact the music really raised the room. Then I stopped the music and things fell a bit. My confidence and accuracy with the spoken stuff wasn't quite there. In fact there's a long way to go with it. Yet still the promoter chose to give me a glowing review online. Nice guy.

Unless absolutely necessary, I won't respond to reviews directly. Luckily a fellow act, also on last night, posted a fair balance to the more glowing review. It was the points we discussed and agreed together during the gig. The two flavours of what I do don't quite blend and may not ever work like that. I call it the gear change. It's not smooth. If I'm to mix up two styles there either needs to be linking material or I need to choose which style to do for which gig.

I'm so sad that I reread all the comments about me from the first. They didn't affect me as much as when I first read them way back when they were written. Even the ones describing my contribution to comedy as a lift to the gig, by which they meant transport for the other acts. I'm the main critic I have to face, and I'm not going to give myself an easy ride.

Well, yes and no. I've not gotten round to it so far today, but I'm taking time out of my sleeping schedule to record some thoughts. Each is a mini blogette.

Wolverhampton Gig
The gig at Wolverhampton was a lot of fun actually. There was a small but enthusiastic audience, some of whom stayed until the end of the gig when I was on. I tried to mix my musical stand-up with some newer straight stand-up. I almost got away with it. In fact, the only person who really spotted the joins was me. Me and my trusty MP3 recorder. Still, it was nice to experiment.

I seemed a bit scatty at first, but I drilled into them and stood up to any challenge there might have been from the crowd. This was a young audience that needed to be shown that they would get entertainment from me and that their energy wouldn't deter me. I used some simple tricks I'm not necessarily proud of, like joining the effort to name check the official gimp of the evening, but I had them mainly where I wanted.

Bizarrely, the news about a comedian, who has suffered a long-standing illness that he's had to joke about at the start of his set to calm the audience, having been cured of that illness, was met with "Oh no, what about his jokes". A comedian's response. My response, I'm afraid.

Up With The Lark
Home. Bed. Alarm set for 6.45. I had a bathroom suite delivery to wait for. I dozed for much of the hour of 7, even though I'd been called, while I was en-route to my gig, to tell me they'd be there between 7am and 9am. I was worried I'd miss the delivery.

I got up and played the piano and some guitar to keep myself awake.

Nothing.

At 9 I rang them and was told they were stuck in motorway traffic.

Arrival of the postman
The postman delivered my prize from BBC Radio 2. The competition I won was real. It wasn't just a mishearing. I now own a digital radio a Joseph DVD AND, more importantly, a signed photo of Elaine Paige. Happy days.

The postman told me the story about how his family used to own the house. I told him the story of the cowboy roofing contractors that they'd hired, whose poor workmanship was costing me about £7000 - he stopped being so keen on the story.

Eventually they come
After chatting to my roofer for a bit, who was up there working, and after knocking about the house and even clearing my car. Indeed, after I'd contacted the office a couple of times to apologise for the lateness caused by this bathroom delay, my bathroom people came and delivered and then went.

I could go to work. Late.

Working out what's missing
A slightly fresher view on the work and I took the list of problems and shared it with someone. We came to some conclusions and I realised how little is really known... and also how much. It was, in some ways, cathartic, and in others, totally demoralising. Do this unknown thing using a method that is unknown, but non negotiable, and make it work by this time, which we guessed at. It feels almost like it's a guaranteed success/failure.

Cutting the gordian knot at B&Q
I had a gig in Gloucester to go to. I also had to work later to account for the fact that I'd arrived later. I also had to go to buy some door furniture - locks, etc. Had I gone to B&Q at lunchtime, I would have messed up my resolve to do the hours. Had I gone after work, each minute at B&Q would have cost me 10 in my arrival time in Gloucester. The dilemma.

The solution? Go to B&Q in Gloucester. Arrive there a few minutes before the gig and no traffic problem. See, I can solve a problem.

I did. I came. I saw. I bought locks. I should be a professor of a university. Yale. They were Yale locks.

Gloucester
I sat-nav'ed to near the gig and then asked a taxi driver for the last bit of the directions.

Me: Do you know where the guildhall is?
Him: Course I do. I'm a taxi driver. I know where everything is.
Me: Can you tell me?

Helpful!

I've run out of things to say about my gigs of late. I opened. It wasn't a gift audience. The music stuff worked really well from the off. The change of gear to talking wasn't very smooth - reason: I'm a different sort of comedian, different attitude, when I'm talking and not singing. Generally, I made it work. Then I closed with some music and used a different bit to link back from the talking to the guitar, which worked better than the night before.

You can rate a gig on a few things. Did the audience laugh? Are they coming up to you? Are they deliberately avoiding you? Is the promoter happy? Are the other acts looking you in the eye? Most importantly, you just know. I had a fairly comfortable time up there, though I need to work harder on developing the new stuff and maybe not try to mix and match - or at least not so bluntly.

You're an ugly fucker
Walking away from the gig, mobile phone in one hand, chatting to someone who had called while I was in the venue, guitar in the other, some youth, whom I had to circumnavigate, looked at me and said "You're an ugly fucker". I would have retorted had it been important. However, I decided I wouldn't gain much from dignifying it with a response - he was just looking for a fight.

However, the correct answer would have been - "I know I look different to you. Look. Shoes. Look. All my teeth. Look. Money and intellect". Ah vive l'espirit d'escalier, even if it could have made you morte.

The ironing is delicious
So, one day someone's blogging about how they hate the sort of act you do, subtext being the fact that they hate your approach to comedy because they think you're shit. The next day they're suggesting that you are a vital member of the group for getting a gig because your musical stuff is just what's needed.

Ah. People can be so fickle.

Not crashing
I believe that it is common, in this country, when turning left on a green light, to go into a minor road, to have right of way. Thankfully I was watching the oncoming car, who was turning right. It turns out that they can sometimes be driven by people who don't understand how roads work. She got a shrug from me, and she looked at me like it was me that was about to plough headfirst into the side of a car, without regard for road safety. Still, I only felt disbelief and a little pity...

...I must be losing my will to have road rage.

Shame.