I hate knowing that somewhere in the night an hour went missing. It happened on my way home. At one point I looked at my phone and it said 00.43. Then stuck at traffic lights half an hour later, I checked again and it was suddenly 2am. I had forgotten that is was the night for doing this and spent a few minutes wondering where that hour had gone. Had I gone through some sort of temporal time rift? Or worse had I just fallen asleep at the wheel for a bit? Or maybe, just maybe I had gained the superhuman ability to go faster than time, or like the man in Heroes just stop and start time at will? Then it clicked that it was none of these things. Instead, quite simply, science and reason had stolen an hour of my life. I will get it back of course, but I’ll get it back when its all cold and I don’t really want it anymore. I feel like I’ve missed out on my extra hour of sleep today. Its like a tiny version of jet lag. Just without the jet bit, or the lag, and instead just me being moany.
I needed extra sleep after my really long day yesterday. It was a good day but a long one, starting with a kids comedy show in Lee On Solent in the afternoon. Like most kids gigs it was a lot of fun and the kids and parents were a great crowd. Unlike most gigs the children were handed large bags of sweets on entry to the show. This was slightly dangerous and almost like lighting a very long dynamite fuse leading to an inevitable sugary child explosion. I’m not sure if you’ve seen a child on sweets but its not unlike watching someone at a rave who’s taken too much speed for their own good. Their eyes go slightly and then they almost shake a bit with energy as though at any moment they might fizz up. The sweets were topped up constantly and there was also a special deal at the bar for ‘kids cocktails’ a pink concoction that appeared to contain sugar plus liquid sugar mixed with sugar. Staring out into the crowd was like watching popcorn cook. Different kids would just suddenly start getting restless. I was almost tempted to grab and shake one of the smaller ones to see if they would launch into space. Luckily I had a really fun gig, and I escaped during Steve Day’s ace set, which is when I assume they probably all went nuts. I hope Steve survived. He had brought two of his kids along and had to endure taking them to Burger King on the way home after they’d eaten lots of sweets. I can only imagine that if he managed to escaped the 100 glucosed up children that his car journey home may have been the last straw.
I never really know what to do with a three hour gap between shows and so rather than relax I decided to spend it driving to Brighton and then wander around the city aimlessly. Well there were two small aims which was to waste time and hopefully find a nice veggie cafe to eat it. The thing is that the last few times I have been to Brighton it has been to do the Komedia where they feed you, so I normally park up and head straight to the gig. As a result I had forgotten where any nice places in Brighton were and spent 40 minutes weaving between the weird locals, a mix of students, punks, bohos, chavs and a few that looked like a combination of all four. I ended up getting cold and going back in Red Veg where I always go and felt like a failure to explore more exciting avenues. Still, I got onion rings.
The gig was in a pub called the Quadrant, a building that looks like Tim Burton would make if he made a film about a pub. If he did that film would have Johnny Depp in it as the landlord and at some point someone would enter with no head. These events did not happen yesterday, but I’m sure they will soon. The show happened in a small room upstairs with a small but prfectly formed crowd of about 30-40 people. I was down to headline which terrified me. I’ve only ever headlined somewhere once or twice before and still don’t feel of headline standard. Shazia Mirza was meant to be the closer and it did nothing for my confidence when audience arrived asking if she was on, and when it was pointed out that I was on instead they grunted and left. I shall have to work on my female muslim woman appearance.
The show was good fun. I had a nice set and met the head of a diabetic group in Brighton which may mean that I can go and do obscure jokes about HBA1 levels to some people that might actually laugh at them instead of yawn. All the rest of the acts that night were really good too with a great opening set from Jim Smallman, followed by some lovely stuff from new acts I haven’t seen before including Carly Smallman (of no relation to Jim, but they seemed to be overjoyed at meeting each other due to surname similarity. I was jealous. The chances of me meeting another Douieb on the circuit are slim), Rachel Anderson and Richard Rycroft, and it was all very nicely MC’d be Sajeela Kershi.
Then I finally got home at 2.30am because time was stolen from me. Luckily tonight heralds the end of a very long few weeks on endless gigging. I’ve only got two gigs next week which is both worrying money-wise but brilliant in terms of sleeping and maybe seeing Layla and my friends. Tonight’s gig isn’t usual stand-up fare, as its a storytelling night. I never remember good stories when I need to, but I think I might recall the tale of last week’s horrors in Epsom. It doesn’t have a great ending though so I may pretend Terry Saunders was killed as we tried to leave. I’m sure he won’t mind.
