Thursday 14th May 2009, 12:20
Any way the wind blows
I know I'm due a blog post about the rest of the wedding (since the Hello magazine deal fell through, there's nowhere else to report it), but a) I've been manic catching up on all the work I meant to do while on honeymoon, and b) I had to share this conversational nugget from yesterday...
After a daytime gig yesterday, in which I was basically there to plug my stand-up comedy wares to all who were there, one fella approached me afterwards. He waited two minutes while I finished a conversation with someone else (there were lots and lots of lovely people there, I should point out - all positive and supportive and nice), and when I was free he came up to me, I thought for a leaflet I was handing out. But no.
In the brief set of a few minutes ago, I had done a joke referencing rock band Queen. So he took me up on this...
HIM: One thought before you go. Who's Queen?
ME: Who's the Queen?
HIM: No. Who's Queen? You mentioned Queen there on that stage. Who's Queen?
ME: Oh. Well they're a band from the 70s.
HIM: Yes I have heard of them. But I might not have done. In which case, joke's lost on me. Don't get it. In which case I'm not going to book you.
ME: But you have heard of them?
HIM: Yeah, but I might not have done. In which case, you've wasted your time. I'm not bothered.
And off he walks.
Well he makes a good point. You can't take anything for granted. And at all future gigs I shall remove all and any cultural references, on the off-chance that the audience haven't heard of such up-and-coming new young people's bands like Queen, or that they have heard of them but just as easily might not have done, and then where would be? Joke's lost on them. Or would have been if they hadn't heard of them, even though they had. In which case I've wasted my time. To be honest it's just as well I didn't do my Beatles joke.
Friday 8th May 2009, 19:23
From bachelor to husband
Scuse me. Before I begin this blog, let me put my slippers on and throw on my favourite cardie. For oh yes, I am a married man, and am therefore now resigned to a life of comfortable footwear and woollen tops that will disguise an ever-increasing paunch, as I undo all the dietary goodness from before the wedding and let myself go entirely.
Alright, early days for that, but yes, I have returned from honeymoon and a three-week blog absence. A blog post can't really do it all justice - a lovely, lovely wedding day, with sun and everything, and a brilliant honeymoon. So given that I can't do it justice, allow me to try and do it justice in bullet-point form. I may enlarge on some of this in future posts, but for now, here are the highlights as they occur to me...
- Thu night before Sat wedding - 3 hours sleep.
- Fri night before Sat wedding - 4 hours sleep. Everything from redoing table-plans to racing around the county delivering menus, picking up cakes, practising first dance, etc etc before the wedding rehearsal on the Friday evening. Then a fine slap-up meal with the parents before theoretically early to bed. Of course nerves (and last-minute editing of a surprise video we were playing in the next day) got the better of me, and sleep was limited.
- The day itself. Arrived at the church in good time, and ooh - is that a pub down the road? Well if you insist, just a quick whisky to settle my nerves. Saw half the wedding guests down there. Nice to be cheered along pre-ceremony.
- Bang on the dot of 1pm, the music starts, we all stand, and my lovely bride appears at the back of the church. A wonderful moment I'll never forget. It all went a bit hazy there for a bit.
- The service continued marvellously and lovelily, with a wonderfully delivered sermon by the vicar we 'flew in' due to the church's vicar's holiday time. His sermon consisted of apt and useful advice for us as a fledgeling married couple, as well as various insistences that his own marriage was doing fine, honest. Like listening to the Rev Alan Titchmarsh. A veritable good egg.
- It was a ceremony of friends' talents - we had friends who played the organ, did the readings, did the prayers, and even Zoe's friend Daniel from off of the London West End stage sang a beautiful rendition of You Raise Me Up. There were vows (learnt, oh yes), much joyous relief when signing the register (during which Liz the organist played, among other others Huey Lewis's The Power of Love, and Roxette's Almost Unreal from the Super Mario Bros movie), and then we walked out of the church to a wonderful piece of music called Leo Hac Nocte Dormit, by Titus Phiti. Let me know in the blog comments if you've worked out what that is.
To be continued, with the reception...
Thursday 16th April 2009, 00:49
The Last Bachelor Blog
Three days from becoming Mr Young. Okay, so the groom's name-change is much less impressive. But still, tis the big kahoona, the rite of passage to end all rites of passage, the day of reckoning, etc etc. All just about sorted - did that thing of planning to get everything done 2 weeks in advance, so that come 3 days before the wedding, you've an outside chance of having most of it done. Still more to do, but isn't there always...
Anyway, nuff said for now. No more blogging for a good 3 weeks due to the aforementioned nuptials, and the ensuing moon made of honey. Blogging shall resume when (a) I am no longer a bachelor and (b) I can no longer feel my skin, having spent two weeks on the equator.
Thursday 9th April 2009, 15:07
"Have you been to a Harvester before?"
Am writing this in a Harvester, one of my favourite places in the world. Yeah, it's fake fake Tudor, and a once-mighty chain that seems to dwindle every time I go there, but you know what you're going to get when you go there. An eat-as-much-as-you-like salad cart. This is a genius invention of modern restauranteering, for this reason: You convince yourself you're being healthy, while at the same time stuffing your face full of pasta, potato, bacon bits, blue cheese sauce, bread rolls, and other foodstuffs pretending to be salad. It's also cheap, cheerful (alright, cheap), and you can always guarantee a table, and an ambivalent welcome.
An ambivalent welcome is actually what I want when stopping off on the road, cos I want to be able to get my laptop out and get some work done without being sat in a crowded bar where a local ruffian may either spill his drink on my 'puter or nick it. I want bland. Yet in a mock mock tudor setting. Thank you, Harvester.
Incidentally, may I use this blog to say I've had a bunch of gigs cancel over the next week, all for different reasons (I'm only glad that none have cancelled cos of (a) recession or (b) they've seen my name and reconsidered). These reasons stretch from flooded venues to double-bookings to a venue scared that local hoodies will siege the venue if they put on a comedy night (glad to know me and my laptop aren't the only ones to fear the local ruffian).
The upshot is I have a week of very little work, and a honeymoon in 10 days' time where I'd love some spending money. So: promoters, bookers, acts-who-may-have-to-cancel-your-attendance-at-a-gig... Anyone got a gig going? My availability is:
Thu 9th
Sun 12th
Mon 13th
Tue 14th
Thu 16th
All offers welcome.
Thanks, blog-reader. Or hey, if you don't run a gig but are rich, why not pay me to come to your house and speak words at just you? Chuck in a meal at Harvester and I'm sold.
Monday 6th April 2009, 12:32
I just want to swim
A jaunt in Nottingham. Gigs included a racist stag do being kicked out within five minutes of the show starting, or at least would have been but the bouncers were Asian, so they didn't quite obey straight away. Eventually. We could have done with the stag do dressed as superheroes from the next night to sort them out.
On Saturday I tried to swim. I know how to swim - that wasn't the problem. The problem was finding a leisure centre that would let me. Four, I tried. But I'm not part of a scuba class, a swim team, an uncle-niece only session or some such rubbish, or worst of all was 'Family swim'. I was refused entry because I didn't have a child with me. In front of me went a mother with a four year-old, and after her, two seventeen year-olds. Granted, the four year-old is a child, as are the seventeen year-olds, but it's hardly mother-and-baby class then is it? It's not differentiating too helpfully if there are teenagers and toddlers going in. What difference is a thirty year-old? Unless maybe I misunderstood, and it was the 'teenager-and-toddler' session. Looked like enough teen pregnancies around there to warrant such a thing.
So no swim for me. And I return back to Surrey temporarily homeless - I've moved out of my old place but am moving into my new place in a month when I'm back from honeymoon. So in the mean time I'm at my folks' place where I used to live - a fitting send-off into married life.
My clothes are in the new house, so I'm swapping clothes over whenever I visit. Trouble is, in my rush to leave my old house last Thursday, race to Nottingham for the weekend of gigs, race back to the new house for the day, race back to my folks' house for the night... I've packed and unpacked various things thinking that what I need will balance itself out in my bag. It hasn't. I have all boxer shorts. Nineteen pairs, I counted. I'm only here for twelve days. Nineteen boxer shorts, no tops... Expect an eclectic outfit if you see me before I've managed to amend this packing situation. I'm thinking one on each arm, like arm-bands. Oh I really wanted that swim...