It was with some relief that I walked off stage having completed my last gig of 2012 in Nottingham last night.
Comedians hate this time of year. Christmas gigs are the most horrendous experience. Loads of office parties, from which only the person organising really wants to be there, mean that the Christmas period is usually made up of a series of gigs that you make you genuinely consider alternative career options.
One year, for example, for the entire duration of my set, a member of the audience just kept shouting “Bud Bud” in an Asian accent every few minutes. I was so desperate to get through the gig I just ignored it and carried on. His mates patted him on the back every time he did it like he was some sort of hero. I admired him in a way. Although this might have been racism, it had a kind of retro charm. He’d gone old school, and I think that is something that he deserves credit for. Obviously I hope he’s dead now.
Another time, the audience had had a full turkey dinner before I went on, and then bloatedly sat in complete and utter silence for the entire time that I was on stage. I did my time, walked off to almost no applause. During the interval one of the other comics said “You hear that mate? They’re having more fun in the interval than during your spot.” Unbelievable.
This year has been much better. I have had a couple of problems though.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a gig in Milton Keynes. The gig was nice. I then had to get a train back to London. The train was running slow, and then I got into Euston after the last tube had gone.
Any normal person would have been fine in this situation. Maybe a taxi or bus to Victoria, and then train home. Unfortunately, I am a twat. I wondered off to get a nightbus. I waited for 20 minutes and got onto a bus. What a little adventure I was having.
It must have been twenty minutes into the journey that I realised that I had indeed got the correct bus, but going in the wrong direction. I had spent 40 minutes getting further away from where I was supposed to be. What a prick.
I got off the nightbus (it was now 1 am) and waited 45 minutes for a bus going the other way. An hour after I had originally left, I eventually passed Euston again.
I arrived at Victoria at 2.15am. The next train was due at 3am. For those of you unfortunate enough to have travelled through Victoria at this time, you’ll know that the station is locked between trains, so you have to wait outside. So that meant I spent 45 minutes stood listening to shitloads of office workers on their way back from work Xmas dos. People who are undoubtedly normally nice people, but all have the “bell end” switch very definitely in the “on” position. So there I am, stood amongst them, listening to their drunken bollocks while reading texts from my wife saying things like “Ha Ha you stupid bastard.”
My understanding of train stations is to provide shelter from the elements while you are waiting for your train. So why does it therefore make sense to close it during the coldest hours of the night?! Because the train station does not trust members of the public to behave themselves at a train station at night. The fact that paying customers accept being kept outside until five minutes before the train is due to depart, before running like mental sheep to get onto the train before it goes, is incredible. I don’t know whether I am angrier with the train station management, or the multitude of shitheads whose drunken twattiness has meant that the station is locked and I have to stand outside in the middle of the bloody night.
Anyway, 3am arrives and we all pile into the station as expected. I sit myself on the train and am thankful that the ordeal is nearly over, and I settle off to sleep.
It was 45 minutes later that I woke up and realised there was a problem. Had I gone past my stop? No of course not, that would have been stupid. What had instead happened was that the train had in fact been cancelled. I had been asleep while everyone else left the train and got the alternative service.
The anal wart icing on this dogshit cake was that as I got off the train, a member of staff there turned to me and said: “This train was cancelled, didn’t you hear the announcement?”
Why yes I did hear the announcement. But I thought that, instead of getting on the train home, I would rather remain on the platform for almost an hour! I’m mental aren’t I?
I really have no idea whether these places deliberately employ the rudest ball bags they can find but if they do, they are doing a bloody wonderful job.
The story ends with me arriving home at 5.30am, a mere six and a half hours after leaving my gig at a venue that was an hour and a half’s drive from my house. What a travesty of a prick of an evening.
The other thing that happened was last night. I did the gig which was lovely, and then got battered. So far so normal. But when I got back to the hotel, drunk, I discovered that, for some reason, I was unable to remove my right shoe. It had somehow become too small to take off. Every time I jiggled it around, the knot became tighter and the shoe became increasingly in love with my foot. It was a lot like a girlfriend I had in sixth form except it didn’t split up with me and tell everyone in the year group that I had a small knob.
I spent ten minutes trying to take it off without success. I was drunk, and so getting quite frustrated and emotional about all of this, plus I had taken off all of my other clothes and so was sitting in my boxers only wearing my right shoe. There was a Kit Kat Chunky in the room which I wanted to eat, but I decided I would have to remove the shoe before eating it, because I couldn’t think of anything more pathetic than a drunk man in his underwear eating a Kit Kat Chunky while nearly crying because he couldn’t get this shoe off.
I broke two teaspoons and damaged the TV remote without having any luck, and it was at this point that I contemplated contacting the hotel staff to help me. Fortunately, even in that state, I visualised what that would actually mean: me in my boxers with a receptionist trying to pull my shoe off.
I also contemplated sleeping with the shoe on. I pondered a life where I permanently wore the shoe, buying only left shoes, and choosing outfits that matched my new foot. I thought about what I could do with the extra time given to me by only having to cut one set of toenails. It was a magical, but ultimately frightening few minutes.
The solution came from my house keys. I took them from my trouser pocket and used the key as a hacksaw, cutting through the shoelace and prising apart the shoe in turn.
I am not going to recommend that you become so drunk that you cannot remove your shoe. What I will say, is that I finally got an idea of what is was like to be Mo Farah, as after the blood sweat and tears of exertion I experienced the triumph and success that had made the previous ordeal worthwhile. I have never tasted a Kit Kat Chunky like it. And it wasn’t even a Peanut Butter one.
BYE!
R