I have accidentally had a mid-day pint today which has thrown everything else I was meant to do off-kilter. I was having a meeting with Suze who has been responsible for our awesome Tea and Cake posters in previous times, and discussing what to do for my Ed show posters this year. I am adamant that I want something zombie-esque as the show will be called ’28 Days Later’. She pointed out quite rightly that my show isn’t about zombies. Then we had a beer and compromise was made that I am quite happy with. Its amazing how a beer creates compromise. More beers in war I say. Although then thinking about what happens in Wetherspoons after lots of beer it could also create further violence. I suppose that wars would be less bloody and just full of drunken fools swinging at each other and missing, with the occasional smack with a chair, cowboy film style.
Last night’s gig was ok. Ok is all it was even though it was very nearly lovely. It was a nice venue. There was a large and friendly crowd. We were looked after and the bill of acts was great. What wasn’t great, and in fact was very far from great, less Alexander the Great and more Ethelred the Unready was the sound system. Half of it didn’t work, the left half and that meant that the enthusiastic crowd became less enthused when they realised they were just watching some people mouth words they couldn’t hear. That’s rarely funny, unless its the Queen and you see her mouth the words ‘fuck stick’. I didn’t realise the sound only half worked until after I had come off stage which made me realise that was perhaps why no one laughed when I was speaking to the lady who had broken her arm by falling over while dressed as Smurfette. I quipped that if her arm was already blue, what colour did it go? It was either that they couldn’t hear that, or that it was just a really crap quip. The situation is unlikely to arise again so we will never know.
During the interval they managed to make the audience move towards the right of the stage by using the most powerful bribery tool for students: Free Booze. Students appear to do almost anything for booze. This is a theory that remains completely untested, but I’m sure is an Endemol television vehicle waiting to happen. It would be called ‘Brewniveristy’ and involve such challenges like ‘For one free pint will you let your family be mauled to death by dogs?’. ‘No’, ‘Two pints?’, ‘Two pints! Fuck yeah go on! Woo! Beer! Beer beer beer beer beer! ….Sorry dad!’. So they moved and that slightly solved the problem with the lack of sound for half the room. Then the second problem of the evening occurred. His name was John, he was a bit of a rudeboy and he sat in the second row at the front using his phone throughout the entirety of the show. I picked on him at the top of the show, and he seemed genuinely shocked I was having a go at him but it did not deter him from continuing to use it. I Twittered the problem and received a lot of responses telling me to do a Lee Hurst. I had thought about it but I couldn’t afford the £60 fine and he had an i-phone so it would probably be even more expensive. So instead I really made a point of it in the second section but again he remained unperturbed and even brought out a second phone and used that at the same time. It was amazing, and even though it really wasn’t disturbing the evening it really bothered me.
Marcus Birdman who was closing the show pointed out to me that maybe he was shocked that I picked on him because he can pay attention to the show and play on his phone at the same time. Maybe its a generational thing and he is very used to using technology at the same time as watching something else. I hadn’t even considered this. Its quite possibly the next evolutionary step and the beginning of the end of gags about men’s inability to multi-task. I’m envious of this. Only a couple of minutes ago I temporarily stopped writing this blog to eat something and in trying to do both got some sweet corn and salad on the keyboard. I was hoping in the future that we would have incredible powers to read minds and breathe in space but it appears instead we all become rudeboys who can use more than one phone at once, while watching a show and studying Real Estate Management. How scary is that? And yes, he was actually studying real estate management which means its highly likely that part of course involves conning a family to live in a Portuguese villa and spend lots of money on it, only so they can turn up and find some rubble and tears.
Feeling a bit sniffly today. Not sure why I have a cold again, but can only assume its the fault of seemingly nice people Tom Craine and Josh Widdicombe. Both of whom I have recently shared car journeys with and both have complained of cold/flu like symptoms. I think that under the guise of funny, nice people they are actually plague carriers. If you see either of them be sure to wear a face mask and spray yourself with disinfectant.
