This blog was going to be about my dismay at yesterday’s poor attempt at a veggie roast. I had in my head about 15 complaints about the exact lack of effort that was put into throwing my poor selection of vegetables and two non-crispy roast spuds with an overly spongy Yorkshire pud onto my plate and garnishing them with neither gravy, accompaniments or care. I wanted to tell you all how with any actual attempt at the ‘roast’ part of a veggie roast, being completely absent from the dish, that it was like a culinary spot the ball competition where the ball was something I really really wanted to eat. I was going to go into in depth detail how the actual veggie option was a stuffed pumpkin which sounded quite nice but due to the pub being hugely incompetent they had run out so offered me the choice of risotto or the bland collection of drabness they gave me, and how risotto is not an option for Sunday lunch. Its not. Its rice. No one needs rice on a Sunday. Unless its accompanied with curry. There was all sorts of wrong and I left lunch with our friends and unhappy man, having to consolidate myself with a krispy kreme donut, which led someway to regaining my cheer. But then, as I was planning such blogographic exploits, something else happened yesterday night that I felt deserved more of the final word count than tales of food neglect.
Richard Sandling’s gig in Southend is lovely. Really really lovely. Its in a nice room, within a pub which to all intents and purposes is nice bar a very sticky floor and power rangers painted on the toilets. I know some people may get excited by such prospects, especially if they are 8 years old. If they are 8, then they wouldn’t be allowed in the pub in the first place. I however, think the power rangers are dicks. I won’t give much reasoning here as that is a blog for another time but you can tell my disregard for them by the fact I refuse to put capital letters on either part of their name. Aside from that, it was all great, and with a lovely crowd too. I wouldn’t have driven to Southend if it wasn’t, as Rich had already stated it was not great dosh and I had had a roast, even though it was a crap one. Those two factors combined usually mean I have little motivation to leave the house. But Rich is a top man and I was very happy about heading to the beaches of Essex for the eve. The show started really well with a great set from James Acaster, but two minutes before he finished, something happened. When I say something I mean ‘three arseholes’ and when I say happened I mean ‘walked in and started disrupting everything’. You can tell people are going to ruin a show from the second they stroll through the door and shout ‘3 please’ to the ticket man, without paying any attention to the fact that a show is happening next to them or having any discretion about what may be going on around them. Instead James picked up on it and their pathetic response was loudly saying to each other, ‘Oh I bet he’s not funny’. There were two who looked like pathetic henchmen with spiky hair and shirts, while the ringleader wore a beany hat, with a beige suit jacket, shirt, wasitcoat and tie and baggy skater jeans and trainers. It appeared as though he had taken fashion tips from one of those children’s flip books where you could swap people’s heads, torsos and legs. These were the sort of people I expected to live in Southend. Its bad to judge a place before you get there but I find by doing that you are often pleasantely surprised when its better than you thought. I for some unknown reason, had odd memories of Southend being the sort of place you go swimming in the sea in order to get a rash and spend days eating over salted chips while watching 12 year olds get addicted to gambling. Its not like that at all, its actually quite nice. I must’ve been thinking of Clacton-On-Sea. These three chumps weren’t even from Southend which made the area rise in my estimation again. Rich had some words with them inbetween the acts but they continued to pipe up throughout Joey Page’s set, despite being put down by him several times and Rich gave them an ultimatum at the interval that if they left then, they would get their money back. They decided to stay and be quiet, but they were never really quiet and by then the damage was done, the room was more tense than it had been to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my set but as I did it I could see them whispering to each other and play fighting like children while I addressed the rest of the nice crowd and it did throw my off a tad.
I just once again fail to see why people like that would come to a gig. It was a Sunday night. No one should be that shitty on a Sunday should they? What on earth caused these people to decide that they would attend a quiet gig and talk through it, despite knowing the crowd had little to no respect for them at all. Their excuse to Richard at the end of the night was that when they go to clubs in London, the acts want hecklers. Now I don’t know if any acts want hecklers, but if they do, please can you stop encouraging it now? I’m happy to deal with a few heckles, but when its ingrained in the minds of dickheads that that is their job for the evening then something is going horribly wrong in the audience world.
I realise as this blog trails off inconclusively that it has been one big rant fest with little to no mirth. Sorry about this but it is my day off and so as with a lot of days off I try to do as little comedy as possible. If I’m really relaxing I won’t even laugh. Not once. My plan is to spend the rest of today listening to Leonard Cohen while watching Requiem for a Dream and looking at my bank statements.
