Thursday, November 03, 2011

Read All About IT

Last Friday got off to an inauspicious start.
My trusty old Ford Mondeo broke down on the M8 and was later officially pronounced dead by a mechanic.
Unlike many people, I'm not a big fan of hanging out on the hard shoulder of a busy motorway.
The RAC man who came and towed me away told me that the organisation lose a man every year on hard shoulder recoveries.
You just want to get the hell out of there as quick as possible.
It's the general speed, your proximity to the vehicles, the mental tailgating which goes on and the fact that the drivers tend to look at you as they drive past rather than the road ahead of them.
It all fosters the fear that you could be inadvertently caught up in a big pile-up.
Nasty.
Then there was the gig in Glasgow.
Boom boom...good start...but then one of the front tables started shouting out comments to everything I said.
I tried to engage with them to shut them up.
I asked one woman what her favourite packet of crisps were as part of a funny joke thing.
She said "salt and vinegar" and I said "ah, "prawn cocktail", interesting you should say that...!"
Of course, I deliberately misquoted her for an intended comic effect.
It's the kind of thing that people who do stand-up comedy do.
The technical term is "fucking about".
Most people go with that,..
Not this lot...she and her friends kept shouting indignantly "She didn't say that! She didn't say that!"
It's weird because paralytically pissed post-menopausal women are very much my target demographic.
(check that impressive alliteration, huih?)
But not tonight.
I battled away, but it got to the stage that the venue staff had to intervene and escort one of them away from the table and out the room.
Of course, it's difficult to hold the audience's attention when everyone is rubbernecking the spontaneous drama of a shouty drunk woman being led out the room by security.
You can't compete with that.
My other shock was when a frankly idiotic routine advocating "votes for voles" (as well as all other animals) was deemed hugely offensive by another couple of tables.
It was an unexpected Sadowitz/Hicks moment in my comedy career.
I'm pleased to say that I finished reasonably strongly, but I knew that in spite of this I'd been sabotaged by the shouty ladies of old Glasgow toon.
I've gigged all over Britain, but it's always Glasgow that delivers gigs like this for me.
(although also some of the best as well)
I don't really understand it....
I'M FROM GLASGOW...I GREW UP THERE...THE GLASGOW HUMOUR IS IN MY FUCKING DNA
IT'S MY HOMETOWN GIG..WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME YOU BASTARDS??????
ARE YOU STILL ANGRY AT ME FOR LEAVING YOU TO LIVE IN EDINBURGH WHEN I WAS 8 YEARS OLD???
GET OVER IT!
I still love you though (blush).
I BELONG TO GLASGOW.
..and I still had fun at the gig though...it was just disappointing because I wanted to impress the management.
Jeezo...
Never mind.
On a more positive note, hats off to Helen Bywater and her fantastic new "Another Fine Mess" comedy club in Edinburgh last Sunday.
Great room, great crowd...a hugely enjoyable gig and the my battered old comedy mojo is back...oh yeah!
Down in Portsmouth, I've been ill all week.
I caught a bug on the plane on Monday morning...just felt my throat starting to get croaky.
Of course, I am a freelance worker which means I am never ill no matter how ill I am...it's been a rough few days.
I've been living in Hayling Island this week.
I don't want to seem uncharitable, but it can sink into the sea as far as I am concerned.
I think I'm going to try and live in the centre of Portsmouth to see how I get on there.
I'm going to see a room for rent above a "Dog Fighting Club" tonight (joke).
Rent seems reasonable...but I'll see what I think.
The work is good though...my IT work is storming it every day. so there.