I’m about to go and eat three tons of molokhia (pronounced as though you are coughing up some serious phlegm) and fatiya (pronounced ‘Tiernan’s favourite Arabic dough parcels’) at Layla’s parents house. I love their feasts and they have that typical Mediterranean/Arabic intention to not let you leave until you have eaten just about everything. I’m very good at feigning at politely saying I really don’t want anymore before stuffing my face so full of grub I feel sick. I love Sunday eatings. Despite being completely nonreligious, I do like to think that Sunday is a special day in some sense, if only because it should be saved for serious eating. This then allows you to build up enough energy to keep you going through the week. It’s what Jesus would have wanted. To be fair, even if he didn’t want it, I couldn’t care less and would happily dance with the Devil if he promised mega food Sundays. As well as food, little else should be done and part of me is very sad we have to drive to the food. Ideally, the food would arrive at our flat so leaving pajamas need never be an option. I long for the days of teleportation. Although I know that when it arrives I would horribly mistreat it. So many thoughts of appearing onstage next to Mika with a big mallet and just giving him a smack around the face before disappearing. Or temporarily appearing infront of moving cars before disappearing again to make the drivers go nuts. Or even better, teleporting inside a lion’s cage at the zoo for a photo then getting out again before you get growled at. Or worse, get wee’d one by one of them. Apparently lion’s wee contains so much ammonia you would have to burn your clothes if they got wee’d on as the smell would never ever leave. Although if you are close enough to a lion to get wee’d on, there are probably more important things to worry about. Ultimately, I would not be allowed to teleport.
Last night was very very lovely. I’ve known Louise since the beginning of university which is frighteningly ten years ago now. Her and Kieran have been together for quite a while and they seemed so happy to have finally tied the knot yesterday. The wedding was in one of the best settings I’ve seen in sometime – Fort Amherst. A bizarre maze of caves that were the underground passages to areas of a Napoleonic fort. The caverns were atmospheric and while I was very much enjoying being there, everytime I went into an area where not too many people were about, I did find myself getting very worried about ghosts. Quite a few Most Haunted’s have been filmed there and there is definitely meant to be some scary activity going on. At one point myself, Brendan Pappy’s (for that is what he shall be called in this blog) and his lovely wife Lo, were all looking for somewhere to put wedding cards. We were told there was a box ‘upstairs’, but not sure where, and as we ascended staircase after staircase, through windy corridors and arches, there came a point where we could no longer hear the music or chatter from downstairs. I felt it was my duty to tell Brendan and Lo that this is exactly how horror movies start and so we descended with cards still in hand. There were several people there who I hadn’t seen in ages and ages, and it was really nice catching up. In particular I chatted for about an hour and a half with Oliver Double, the world’s only doctor of comedy and the man that persuaded me to do stand-up in the first place. We chatted about many things, but he brought up how myself and Jimmy McGhie were the only two students that had done his stand-up course and pursued it as a career. Odd really, and a shame too. I can only assume that all those other students had decided they wanted some sort of regular income and a job that did not require ever having to do the Hyena in Newcastle. Both Ollie’s sons are diabetic and he was telling me the merits of them having an insulin pump. I have always slighty objected to the idea of having something constantly attached to my body, like a robotic conjoined twin, but Ollie has almost persuaded me to give it a try. All I need to do now is convince my brain it would make me a bit like Robocop, only if Robocop had a problem with handling glucose intake.
So many people I know are getting married. It does feel like I’ve suddenly entered a certain area of adulthood where this happens. I spent ages talking to Brendan and Lo about their wedding and I had a real moment of clarity that none of us are 18 anymore. Next everyone will have babies, the retire, get arthritis and die. Terrifying. I say terrifying but its actually all pretty awesome and it made me feel all a bit soppy watching Louise and Kieran having their first dance and looking stupidly happy. I was also forever be jealous that Lou had arranged for Kieran to arrive to the wedding in the Knight Rider KITT car. So so jealous. The night would only have been made better had I drank my face off. Being designated driver that wasn’t going to happen, but it did mean I refrained from any terrible dancing, accidentally saying something really offensive to someone I didn’t know or trying to catch the bouquet. I think maybe I shouldn’t drink at weddings more often.
Before I leave this blog for Sunday gluttony, I MC’d the Comedy Club 4 Kids yesterday at the Soho Theatre. It was a really great gig with a very full audience and great sets from David Morgan, Holly Walsh and the two ‘kid’ (they’re both teenagers really) acts Frankie and Preston. However, one moment in particular completely tickled me. A small girl who must’ve been aged 7, was sat on the front row and said that she liked school. Her name was Tara and I asked her why she liked school. Her answer was that she liked school ‘mostly because of one subject really, which is art.’ Expecting the answer to be sticking pasta to sugar paper, or doing hand prints in paint, I enquired what Tara’s favourite type of art was. Her reply, ‘Surrealism and Cubism’. I almost fell over backwards in shock. Who says the education system is failing?
