Sun 1st Aug 2004 Bournemouth K1 Bar
This was my first trip in a car with a bunch of comedians to do a Mirth Control gig believe it or not. I met Kevin Shepherd who was driving and Terry Frisby at some Clapham rail station or the other and off we went. It was a pretty nice day and I hadn’t met Terry before who was a really sound bloke and I enjoyed his stories. He told us loads of debauched tales of being on the road with a bunch of comics in New Zealand. I liked the story of how he and a bunch of comedians were offered part of their fee by use of the prostitutes that was part of the comedy club. Comedy and prostitution? From what I hear about some of the agencies this is probably closer to the truth than you realise. The problem with sitting in the back with them at the front was, I wasn’t able to hear too well and spent most of the journey worrying if I was being a bit of a rude bastard. We got to the venue and it was a really cool joint that had a huge bar, enthusiastic staff that knew all about the comedy night and a barbecue. I was hungry, so I was sweet as pie to all the staff and introduced the team and then sweetly asked in a confused manner, how do I get some food. Of course I then got it for free. We were missing Ian Stone who was headlining. I was a little bit worried about him for two reasons. One, I really rate him highly as an MC. In fact he’s one of my inspirations as an MC. Two, the only time he’s seen me, I was really, really awful. But room was lovely and it had a cordless mike, which I love coz it means I can go on a serious walkabout. We had a look the tables and noticed there were names of companies like Lunn Polly and Virgin Mega Store, then on one very small table with only two chairs was a reserved sign that read Top Trainers. This was either a small company or too many tight bastards in the company not wanting a night out. While waiting outside, two traffic wardens made everyone move their cars from the parking bay next to the bar. What they were doing there at 8pm on a Sunday, fuck only knows. It’s hardly Camden council, which incidentally is run by a bunch of ruthless cunts. The room was full of young attractive people and I thought the town was cool. I found out that it was the third biggest gay population after London and Brighton. I’m looking forward to playing the fourth biggest as I love the top three. The gig was great fun to do and I barely did any material and was a little nervous about playing in front of such a big crowd as a professional comedian. But after Terry’s great set and halfway through Kevin’s I relaxed a bit and stood at the back watching the show. People passed me and said they were enjoying the show and I relaxed and felt really good. I really felt like a proper comic and I looked around at my domain and felt cool. We came to bring a few laughs to this town and we did it. We were the comedy equivalent of the Magnificent seven. We came, we made them laugh, hopefully inspired some of them to be comedians and then left taking our cash with us. Ian Stone arrived later and before he came on I was getting on well with the audience. I got them to sing a chorus of Car Wash due to the fact that there was white guy with an Afro bigger than I would have if I fluffed my greased down hair out. Ian then did an inspired 40 minutes. He had the audience in the palm of his hand and it was so effortless. We all had a congratulations chat in the green room. OK, an unused area of the club and we signed our papers and collected our cash. On the way out of the venue we made our way to the car, but just before these two cute girls came up to me and started flirting with me. I put my arms around both of them and said, “I’ve got to get my lift, so if this conversation is to continue, I’ll have to crash at your place.” They said OK. I really wasn’t too sure what to do as the guys had gone by this point. I laughed, gave them a kiss and said goodbye. I had to run and catch up with the guys. The car journey home was fun as we swapped stories about gigs that we’d done and some of us had a spliff. Ian told us about this documentary about stand up comedy that was made years ago. They were all asked who is the worst act they know and they all said Linda Tryouts and in it they asked he how she did after a particularly bad performance and she talked about how badly she’d done. The beauty of it was, she’d done the interview before the gig. I used to be into stand up so much years ago I’ve actually got this on video somewhere. The whole journey home was great and we slagged off loads of people and had a lot of fun in the car. Eventually we were all dropped of and I was pleased that I’d had a gig and the whole night went well. Although as I went to bed I couldn’t get those two cute nubile cock hungry girls out of my mind. So I knocked one off.

Mon 2nd Aug
I read in the paper today that women from seaside towns are twice as likely to get pregnant sleep with people who just come to the town for the day. I could have wept. So I knocked two off.

Tues 3rd Aug 2004 Headlining at the Aardvark
I got to the Aardvark a bit late because I was trying to avoid the terrible rain that came from the open skies and a terrible comic that would be opening the show. I finally got to meet Tony Cowards whom I’d had a load of fun with on chortle, however he embarrassingly pointed out that I’d met him before, I just didn’t remember. Anyhow the gig was great fun and it was nice to see how well Nick Pettigrew was doing as an MC. Dave Gorman was in the audience and not one of us had the balls to go up to him and say hi, although I said to Simon and Nick that they should ask him if he’d like to try out a bit of new material. I really think Nick will do well in a couple of years, especially as I’ve started to notice his adlibbing/MC skills have started to creep into his act which is cool. I was filming the night because Simon and Phil wanted their performances recorded. For some reason Simon had a ukulele with him and when I asked him what he was going to do with it, he said, “I don’t know”. So he went onstage, did his normal set and like MC Hammer, he never touched it. Phil and I were double headliners and I filmed Phil and he filmed me. Phil did his entire set without using the mike, which wasn’t too good, as personally I found the room too big for that sort of thing. I went on and took the piss out of the stage for looking like a dubious xenophobic sitcom. Then when I did a bit of a silly joke, some guy in the audience went, “bdum tish”, so I deliberately told some bad jokes and got him to do the drum effect after every joke. I really enjoyed myself and had a lot of fun doing this gig for two reasons. One it was really nice to be requested to do a 20min set and two, I was pleased that Simon and Nick were in charge of such a lovely gig. After the gig I saw Dave Gorman in the toilets. He nodded at me and I nodded back too scared to say anything to him. So how cool am I? I met Dave Gorman. The great thing about the gig was, nothing mad or weird kicked off which I was pleased about considering I caused (as Cecilia like to call it) the great riot of Bethnal Green. When I saw Phil after the show he said that he didn’t film the first section of my show because he didn’t know how to use the camera. Personally I know he was too busy chatting and forgot to point the camera as I handed it to him while it was still filming, so how you can forget to film is beyond me. I’ll have to see the footage and report back.

Weds 4th Aug 2004
I met Cecilia for a drink and something to eat before we saw Fahrenheit 9/11 As we left the cinema she said to me, “did that make you piss boil?” I could barely speak for a few minutes after I left the cinema. I thought it was brilliant, but was a little disappointed about a few sections that could be nit picked at by the Daily Mail types who just want Michael Moore to be denounced as a fraud, a liar and a shit stirrer. Yeah, like the media never does that. Saying that, it was a fantastic reaction to the biased news reports I saw from CNN and Fox when I was in Prague. Especially the image of an Iraqi man kissing a picture of Bush in slow motion. His film pales into insignificance to some of the bare faced manipulation of the coverage of the war and the presidential campaign. Go see it and make your own mind up. We went for a drink and discussed the film and life in general. It was great to be hanging around this sunny day and chill out before the gig, especially with her being pregnant and like myself having the days free. While sitting in the sun having a drink we were accosted by a drunk Irish bloke who preceded to tell us a string of bad jokes to get money off us. For the first time in ages I gave a filthy drunken old beggar some money. One, because he was an up and coming hot starlet and two, he was Irish. I gave him my business card as well.

We got to the Pear and greeted Anthony. I helped put the curtain up and surprisingly people were arriving early. In fact it was nearly full by the time the show started. As usual there were the awful acts and fuckwits. But there were also some good acts as well. One of the acts I can’t remember was introduced by Anthony and suddenly everyone went mental so Anthony stopped him from coming on stage, called the audience cunts and told them that he wouldn’t put this act on until the 2nd half otherwise they’d all fuck off. We both had asked the audience continually why they’d turned up and they were being coy. It wasn’t until this point that I realised that they were there to see one of the acts. Went to the Phoenix, got pissed and left at closing.

Thurs 5th Aug 2004
Woke up in the incredible hot and sweaty and little did I realise that this was basically what I was going to do all day. It was a horrible humid day and I was pleased I decided to not go back to being full time in order to wrestle on the tube every morning for a bunch of ungrateful cunts that can’t use the Internet. Instead I had a children’s show to do which was much more fun to do, but by the time I got to the show, I looked like I just came out of a shower I was sweating that much. It was pretty revolting. I can understand why I see comedians with a change of top before they go on stage. There weren’t as many kids as last time. But that didn’t bother me as there were far too many last year and they got out of control and they ran around and bashed into my guitar putting it out of tune. I forgot my song sheet so had to try and remember how the songs went, as I hadn’t been bothered to commit them to memory over the few years I’d been doing the children’s shows. All in all it went well and I was drenched by the time I finished. I made sure they all went home with a balloon so I was hoping that the feedback sheets they gave out would be positive so I’d be able to get more work. I had some Marilyn Manson on my MP3 player and blasted that out as I walked home to counterbalance to the niceties of doing a kid’s shot. are you mutha fuckin’ ready, for the new shit? On the way home Neil Black called me to ask me if I could MC a couple of gigs for him. He’s the first person I know who’s actually checked my web site to see if I was available to do a gig. So that was another booked for Aug, which brought it up to 24 gigs in August. Who needs the Edinburgh festival? I got home and got an email from Martin Evans about getting me to film him at the Clapham gig. It’s good to help someone out and it also meant I’d be able to drag my camera out and do some more documentary work. I went home, watched some more episodes of Sex and the City, slept and sweated for a bit. Then I went out again to see more of my adoring public. I got to the gig and was pleased to see Dave Griffiths as I always was and he seemed a bit dubious about the gig. There were barely any people in the pub and only about 4 to watch the gig. I though this was strange as it was always packed when I played it in the past. When I went to get a drink I could see why the pub was so empty. They only had Guinness on draft and everything else was in bottles. Apparently another brewery was taking over the pub and the current landlord couldn’t be bothered to get any more beer in. So I got a Guinness and hung around with Martin as we watched gorgeous woman after gorgeous woman walk into the room. Eventually for some reason the place was packed by the time the show started. I went on first and didn’t think I did too well. I started chatting to the audience but I wasn’t inspired and did a mediocre set that I wasn’t too happy with. I filmed Martin and decided to go after watching Christian Riley who was excellent. However as I was at the bar getting a drink, loads of people came up to me to say they thought I was really good. This cute woman called Lucy said she enjoyed my set and said she’d seen me there before. I actually started to believe them and thought perhaps that I was being a bit hard on myself. So I went home not feeling too bad about the night.

Fri 6th Aug 2004 Feeling Hot Hot Hot
Worked from 9-8 in an incredibly hot library, but left in a fairly good mood as the dreaded free Internet does have its uses. It brings in cute scantily clad women needing to read their email. I decided I was going to do some newish material at the Upstairs at the Queens Head but when I arrived they told me that their headliner, the wonderful Wil Hodgson was in Edinburgh. There must have been some cock up with the booking, because even I knew Wil was going to be in Edinburgh and he's not the kind of act to let you down. So I was asked to headline which was cool, as I’d been feeling that I needed longer stage time recently and funnily enough, it was being offered to me more and more. It was sooooo hot in the Queen’s Head so I decided to pop to The Ship and meet my mate Charlie for a quick drink. It was lovely to see him again and he mentioned the fact that my ex I was so obsessed about got married about a month ago. It was so strange. I thought that when I heard the news I would go into a major depression and feel sorry for myself, but I felt nothing. I almost felt annoyed with myself for not being more self-indulgent. However I realised from watching far too may episodes of Sex in the City that she was my Mrs. Big. However it made me realise that the true test of lack of feelings would be able meeting her without leaping into bed for another 48-hour sex marathon that we were so prone to and the drop of a hat and the rest of clothes as we tore them off each other.

For those of us who can’t find love, is this because we all have the spectre of our Mr or Mrs big that continually hangs over us? Do we use this as an excuse to not move on?

I felt a glad and sad that I had left my am dram group because from all accounts it had got too petty and full of self importance and the fun seemed to have disappeared. I felt like we were Stephen Tin Tin Duffy and Duran Duran. Stephen Tin Tin Duffy was the original singer of Duran Duran and they went on to have a great career and he was a one hit wonder. I feel like Duran Duran and they are Stephen Tin Tin Duffy.

I got back to the Queen’s Head and it was so fucking hot in there. The audience wasn’t as full as usual, but it looked like the audience hadn’t dwindled at all. Mike Manera and Scott Denyer were to go on and then there was going to be a break. I said that they shouldn’t do that, as it was better to charge through and let the audience leave early. It was really fucking hot, but I was determined to go off the script at the first opportunity as I could tell that I would need to get their attention ASAP. It didn’t take long and I had a great sweaty time in from of the fan-waving crowd. The mike cut out halfway through the gig and I got some recognition for carrying on without it. I weaved in and out of material and banter effortlessly and some guy in the audience shouted out a great heckle. I asked him if he was cocky when he first hit his punch bag and he replied that he didn’t hit it with his cock. The room erupted incredibly loudly with laughter. I went into the middle of the room screaming that them all to stop laughing as I was the comedian and he was the audience. It was a lot of fun and by the time I finished I was so sweaty I felt like I’d just come out of the shower with my clothes on. Mike Manera told me I did 23 minuets, which I was well chuffed with as I only did around 8 minutes of material. I had a chat with some of the audience afterwards and then we went down the Phoenix. I didn’t stay too long as I had work the next day, but I felt strangely calm and happy. I was a little worried as the last time I started to feel happy everything started to turn into shit, so I didn’t want to get myself to comfortable with my current state of non misery.

Sat 7th Aug 2004 Piccadilly
I have no idea why, but the crowd for this week’s show was so much nicer and in a better mood than last week’s crowd. They were great fun to collect the door money off and some of them were chatting to us before the show started. We sold out, but without the stampede of last minute complainers. Everyone was great and I was pleased to have the lovely Rob Deb pop down again and do a good set. In fact everyone commented on how nice the crowd were. Phil was looking… well a bit normal for a change. This could have something to with the moisturising oil I bought for him the day before. He was meeting his girlfriend later and I suppose he wanted to look nice for before he buggered off to Edinburgh. Liam Mullone was his usual brilliant self, as was Pete Jonas, Johnston and Johnston and Gareth Berliner. They all walked away saying it was a lovely crowd. This is what I found when I did a ten minute set at the end and had loads of fun with them. And finally it was great to have Robin Cousins, back doing what he does best by adlibbing and working with what Phil and me kept shouting out at him. Phoenix afterwards and more drinking and fun to be had. Phil’s girlfriend turned up and he actually tied his hair back and started to look a bit cool. Was this the same scruffy gut I made friends with at the Purple Turtle Camden? The man with worse hair and dress sense than myself? The man that couldn’t stay too long because he had to go for a walk with his woman? Looks like it. Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine. The cunt actually looked happy. I had an excellent bitch with Pete Jonas, but eventually everyone left early. Edinburgh was certainly having an effect on the London comedy circuit already.

Sun 8thth Aug 2004 Five go mad at GCHQ
I popped down to the ex Angel Comedy Club now called GCHQ and opened. There were only 5 in the crowd, but we went ahead anyway. I mainly did new material and found that I got a few decent jokes out of riffing with the audience. I more or less left straight away and met up with my pal Clare. We had something to eat in Pizza Express and she told me some incredible stories of Ghana and the problems she had with having to bribe everyone she came into contact with. I crashed over at hers and we sat up till around 2am chatting and working out how she going to sell all her stuff on eBay she can’t take with her. I’m going to miss her when she goes to Ghana, but I will visit her and bring stuff over.

Tues 10th Aug 2004 Glass of Champagne
I felt really cool at work today when a package, OK an envelope arrived for me by courier and no one else was able to sign for it. It was my Time Out article notes and listings. I’d written most of it already, but this was just to work out who I’d also mention.

I turned up and gave Jim Woroniecki (James D’ Chapeau) a hand with setting up the 99 Club at the Red Lion. Then I stood outside the pub to entice people in just the same way the dodgy women in mini skirts entice unsuspecting stag parties into strip clubs and the gentlemen outside Barcodes entice other gentlemen to join them for a drink and more besides. Fancy a good time love?

I was please to say it was packed and a lovely gig. I went on first and did OK, but I do think the audience wasn’t really sure what to make of it all as it was free and they weren’t really expecting to go to see comedy. Alexis Dubois did a nice job as MC and no one died so that was important. By the end the audience had a really good time and everyone left in a good mood. However, there was an American couple called Vicky and Paul who really loved the show and asked us if they could join us for a drink after the show. Of course we said yes and they went downstairs and returned a few minutes later with two bottles of champagne and a load of glasses for us all. That was one the nicest things an audience member has ever done and it was particularly nice as we were a bunch of comics that weren’t in Edinburgh. After all the weird and mad things that have happened to me while gigging it was great to have a nice story to tell. Maybe this was a new beginning and no more would there be the curse of Belgrave. Saying the, I had the Pear the next day. Bollocks.

Weds 11th Aug 2004 Pear Shaped
I got up in the morning and tidied up my Time Out article for Comic’s Choice. I popped into the offices and dropped it off at reception. I then popped over to Cecilia’s and could see how more pregnant she was looking. We sat around chatting about online trading, eBay and how it was cool to have time off in the day to slob around doing bugger all. We always have a great time hanging out together. I made my way to the Pear and there wasn’t much of an audience. However, we had a great time and me and Miller spent the whole night, running down each other, the club and the acts. As usual Alan Wilde turned up and we put him on. We fucked off to the Phoenix after and got thrown out at closing time.

Thurs 12th Aug 2004 Not Troying Hard Enough
Okse met me at work for lunch, as we didn’t seem to be able to gig together. We were out in the street enjoying ourselves when he said to me that Andrew Lloyd Webber was across the road as we spoke. Suddenly Okse shouted out, “Lloyd Webber!” at the top of his voice, which made me cringe. The bastard found this hilarious. We gassed away nicely for the whole hour then he had to bugger off to Plymouth for Mirth Control. He was chuffed with this as it meant that he had a room to stay in and he was getting some cash.
I went to the new Troy Club and was a but dubious about it as I’d not heard anything from Andrew even though I’d put a call out for him on chortle and had called him, James and Josie. All I knew was, the acts were supposed to perform between bands. Never a good idea. How little did I realise I was underestimating the situation. As I was walking to the gig I got a text message from Andrew saying there was no acts booked due to Edinburgh and I had to do the show on my own and somehow fuck about on my own between the bands. As I walked down the street it horribly reminded me of the kind of places I used to go in Hoxton with Mrs Big. This wasn’t a good thing as this area and the place in Hoxton seemed to cater for large groups of people to go out, drink, eat and chat. When I got to the venue, there were these massive shaved head bouncers on the door. Thankfully they were incredibly polite and friendly and seemed to want to do nothing else but be as helpful. Then I met woman who seemed to think a stage with a piano, a plant, no PA, no audience, no publicity and no comedians should impress me. After calling Andrew a few times and the people in the club not know their arse from their elbow, I decided to call it a day and leave. Shit happens, but I was gigging so much I needed a night off. I really didn’t appreciate spending my nights off like this. I cancelled the rest of my gigs I was booked there to do. I decided to call some normal mates that night and book some quality time for the remaining Thurs.

Fri 13th Aug 2004 Queen’s Head
I met my mate Eileen whom I used to do amateur dramatics with. She’s a lovely old girl and we are the oddest couple in the world. She’s a white in her 60s very theatrical South African woman with a scarf and beret. We basically used to get pissed together on a regular basis when I lived in Pimlico. There was one evening we were so pissed I could barely walked home due us ending the evening on double vodkas for the last half-hour. However, we just had a great chat and got a bit pissed. We talked about the plays I’d written and she’d directed and the plays I’d love to be in and she’d love to produce. I realised how much I missed having her company when I lived in Pimlico. She’s such a cool woman. I gave her back the costume I borrowed from her plus a pair of pinstriped trousers that I found in a charity shop that suit the costume perfectly.
I went to the Queen’s Head and went out flyering for the gig. I was really getting into flyering as it gave me an excuse to flirt with women in the street. It was also the first day of working closely with Manera, which I was seriously looking forward to. We get on so well as a rule it couldn’t fail and our first night was a success. While out flyering I chatted to 7 women that were having a night on the town. They said they needed something to eat and so I directed them to the road that the Queen’s Head is on for restaurants. I met this really annoying bald bloke and his girlfriend who sounded like she was from Iceland. He was incredibly annoying and kept trying to be funny with me. He said, “if it’s not funny, can I come back and smash up your sign.” I replied, “you can do what the fuck you like mate, I’m not flyering next week.” I tried my best to be as unhelpful as possible as this guy was harmless, but clearly annoying. He then tossed up a coin in the street to decide between the gig or eat as much as you can chicken nuggets. I never heard the outcome but I certainly wasn’t going to encourage him. I got back to the gig about an hour later and guess who was sat on the front row? Bald bloke with his Icelandic girlfriend. Also arriving at the door was this guy I know from uni. I’d been trying to keep it quiet from my fellow students and tutors when I accidentally forwarded an email that had my web address on and people started to talk. I even introduced myself as Michael to keep it distant. Eventually I let people know and this guy came to the club by coincidence. He went on to get excited and tell all his friends how funny I am. However, the only proof he had of that was of me arseing about and making wise cracks in the classroom. I really felt the pressure to be good now, which I wasn’t too sure about as I had bald man and ice woman to contend with. Basically bald man heckled all evening, but on the whole he was OK as he laughed really loud every time he was insulted back, which was quite frequent. By the time I went on, the room was cooking. Everyone was really enjoying themselves and Manera and I were really enjoying working together. Every time he went to ask me to do something I’d already started doing it and he was really pleased that I could let him relax and get on with the MCing. I had a lovely gig even though bald man kept interrupting and his girlfriend had a really funny laugh and so I put the mike up to her mouth so that the whole audience could hear her laugh and this just made the audience laugh more. I spent most of my set insulting the bald guy, but credit where credit’s due he took it all in good humour. Vicki Bell turned up to watch and made some comment about not being good enough to do the gig and basically talked through the entire show and during the interval talked to bald man which seemed to make him think we were friends or something. He actually proved to once again be harmless, but rather tedious. Grisha the Illegal Russian immigrant was wonderful and the audience loved him. During the interval a bunch of guys Manera kept referring to as the football team left and the seven women I flirted with in the street turned up. As the were coming up the stairs I heard them say, “I wonder if Mike’s still here.” I let them all in for a tenner and they took the place of the football team. I told Mike to refer to them as a combination of Sex in the City and Charlie’s Angels. He looked at me confused and I told him to trust me. He did it and it worked. John Mawer went on at the end and done a really good headlining spot. He did most of it really camp and kept going on about the condition of his hair. This was great as the guy is an impro master and you know he was making all of that up as he went along. All in all a great night and I had to put up with a very excitable baldy man which stopped me from chatting up the magnificent seven. When Manera and I finished clearing up I noticed that someone had left a dozen white roses at the gig and as the pub was just about to close I did the pikey thing and took them. When we left we discovered the magnificent seven outside the pub and I gave them all one each. Rose that is (more’s the pity). They told me that they were on a night out because one of them was emigrating to Australia and that the show ended their evening just right. Then they got someone to take a photo of all of us together. Manera and I gave them loads of luvvie kisses goodbye and then went to the Phoenix. I asked Manera why we didn’t invite them to the Phoenix and he went no way. Bloody spoil sport. I said that he could invite any blokes he fancies back to the Phoenix after a show. The Phoenix was a bit weird. I had a nice chat with Grisha, which I was really pleased about because Manera was running backwards and forwards with various women wanting to talk seriously with him. Tears were involved and everything. Then just when the night couldn’t get any better, Caroline Burgess turned up with two women she’d just met. It was obvious that everyone was only interested in the thin attractive one. Caroline introduced us as top comedians. If you didn’t know better you would think that we were top-notch professionals. Half way through the night Caroline mouthed the words, “do you fancy a snog?”. I decided to decline this time around, as even that would have even been too gratuitous for me. By this point Manera had enough and fucked off to play poker. I eventually left and had to give the larger of the two my number, praying to a god I didn’t believe in for her not to be too stupid to call me because I didn’t think much of her personality either. I have got into trouble a few before for my journal and reading over this last passage I can se why. Then again I know that’s why people read it.

Sat 14th Aug 2004 Piccadilly
The problem with the Piccadilly is if I don’t write down what happened I can’t remember what the fuck went on. All I know is, Anthony Miller, Rob Deb and robin Cousins were great and that we’d put on a whole show for the audience as we all knew each other. Mike Manera MC’d and he was really happy with the way it went. My mate Frances came down towards the end of the show and was seriously unimpressed as she used to go and see Eddie Izzard when he was an up and coming stand up comedian many years ago. Well at least she was honest and I adore her terribly. We rushed to Victoria and got the train to Brighton. I was to be staying with her for a few days and I had a gig to do up there.

Mon 16th Aug 2004 Be Right On and Smash da Piano
I’d been having a really boozy time in Brighton with my mate Frances and was slightly fragile, but in a good mood. The venue was excellent and the room had a really nice smell about it. I just couldn’t explain it. It just had an artistic air about the place. It was a lovely big room above a pub that any small promoter would die for. The only other room I’d performed in that was this cool was Fat Tuesday. I’d walked the half-hour walk on my own from Frances’ house to clear my head to get there early and I met Christine Edwards. We had a drink and a nice chat then made our way to the room. I loved Christine’s performance as she mainly talked to the audience and personally this in particular really improved her since I’d last seen her. I really loved the way she went up to young men in the audience and embarrassed them by being sexual towards all the male members. Literally. In the interval an old mate of mine called Russell came up to me. I hadn’t seen him in ages. He was still doing music and had a few CDs released and was doing really well working for Sony. I told him I was a fuck up and had nothing going for me apart from the odd bit of stand up. As he was a real mate I’d lost contact with, he gave me his email address and wanted to keep in contact anyway. My performance went OK. I was a little put out because I felt I was in a London audience as opposed to an out of town audience. They were cool, but usually out of London the audiences are much better. Then again, they do say that Brighton is like London by the sea. My favourite act was some silly arse called Mr Naughty. Basically it was the guy that used to be a Teletubbie, but got sacked for being too camp. He was dressed in a black suit with a dickey bow and he had a red nose on. His act revolved around him looking at the audience for ages doing nothing then jumping up and down. For some reason that made the audience including me laugh and cheer. I have no idea why. Then he went to climb ono the piano and as he mounted it, the whole piano crashed to the floor and was in bits. I knew for a fact that this wasn’t supposed to happen, but we were all killing ourselves. He looked at the piano for a bit, then at the audience for a bit and then took a hanky out of his pocket and tried to cover up the piano with the hanky. It was sheer genius and I loved it. For some reason he then started to dismantle one side of the PA system then left. He must have been up there for 15 minutes, but it was wonderful. I caught up with Russell and some of the other acts after the show and eventually left and walked back home with Frances. I’d had a cool time and enjoyed getting my arse out of London.

Tues 17th Aug 2004 Time Out Article
The first thing I did when I got back from Brighton was my Time Out Comic’s Choice. I was pleased as punch although it did bring home about the fact that I only went into comedy was to prove something to Mrs. Big. Out of the many things I mentioned to Time Out about myself, they opened with this fact left nearly all of the others out. But it was cool article and looked forward to the onslaught of punters that the article would entice.

Weds 18th Aug Pear Shaped
So this was my first gig with the Time Out article plugging it. Everyone at work looked at it and either congratulated me or took the piss, but it was quite fun to be passing the library copy to everyone all day. However by the afternoon it absolutely pissed down with rain. This didn’t bode well for the gig as most people would probably want to make it home and not get caught in the potential flood that had been happening in parts of London. I got tot he gig and lo and behold there wasn’t any punters. In fact there were barely any comedians as usual. We were unsure if the show was going to go ahead and Miller pointed out that I referred to the comedians at the Pear as “Appalling”. Cecilia turned and did a funny joke based around our recent obsession with selling things on eBay. It was a little bit sad doing the gig as I had high hopes about the gig being well turned out due to the fact that it was in Time Out and there weren’t many comedy clubs running at the moment. Most people died on their arses, but Miller and me had a good time. As usual Alan Wilde turned up and did his usual nonsense, which I’m slowly getting to enjoy. The fantastically sexy Jo Romero was our headliner and the vast majority of her was met with silence when though she put a shit load of effort into it. Ray Presto got some laughs for some silly joke about Bling Crosby and in the interval he asked Miller and me if Brian came to see the acts that perform there. He was under the misapprehension that Brian was some kind of vortex into the upper echelon of the comedy spectrum. I went to the Phoenix afterwards and was having a nice time with Miller, Romero and Wilde when Verity and her tedious boyfriend marred it. He spent the whole evening trying to be funny and failing miserably. Then when Jo mentioned that she’d like to have a child at some point he kept saying that he could have child with her, he had great sperm, he’d been to university. In other words he a completely annoying cunt who was making a disappointing night at the pear seem like Alton Towers. Which made Jo leave and then me soon after. I came out of the toilet and saw that Miller wanted to leave too. On the way out he told me that Verity said that she’d like to have sex with him and I said you’ve got to be kidding, but he said he could do with the shag. Fair enough, but it would probably be like throwing a chipolata up a dustbin. So much for the rock and roll of Time Out.

Fri 20th Aug 2004 Kissing 18 Year Old Jenny
I had great as I was MCing the Queen’s Head for the first time ever. From the minute I walked on the stage I had a great time and the gig was packed. What was fun, was a bunch of 18-20 year olds who’d been before were in. I thought I recognised them. They turned up a bit late and when I showed them that the only seats available were the ones in the front one of them groaned and said they really didn’t want to sit there. Apparently the last time I was there I kept picking on one of their mates and she didn’t want to come this time. I had a chat with one of them at the bar and he said he really wanted to be a stand up comic purely on the fact that he’d been to the Queen’s Head a few times and really enjoyed himself. So I gave him loads of good advice, like it’s one of the most terrifying things you can do in the world, when you die it’s the most humiliating thing that you could ever inflict on yourself, you will lose all your friends and you shouldn’t do it if you want to get laid. It was really cool to have people coming up the stairs with copies of Time Out in their hands and recognising me. Of course I milked this fact for all I was worth and even got a copy off a member of the audience so I could show the others that hadn’t seen it. I had a great time MCing and the audience just seemed to be with me the whole way and I had my comedy puppet for the night in the shape of an 18 year old girl called Jenny who was incredibly cute with glasses and red hair. I spent the whole gig making illusions about how it would be cool to marry her and every time I mentioned her I stroked her hair. For a change I was being really sweet. Everyone had a great time and towards the end of the evening after picking on Jenny so many times she said, “well if you like me then buy me a drink.” So I put the next act on and went downstairs to get her a drink. When I returned with it, I got a huge cheer and handed it to her. Then some wonderful man in the audience shouted out that Jenny had to give me a kiss. I asked the audience to vote as to whether I should give her a kiss and when I asked for a cheer of no, a few people cheered yes. They were quite pissed. But when I asked then for a cheer of yes, the noise was deafening. So I went to give her a peck on the lips, but stayed there and carried on kissing her. This got cheers from the crowd as it continued for about a minute and then Jenny’s mate started hitting me to get away from her. Of course I had to say that I’m sure that Jenny can beat me off herself. Another triumphant night followed by another all night session in the Phoenix. I don’t even have to show my card at the door any more I go there that much.

Sat 21st Aug 2004 Love Me Two Times Baby
I had one of the best nights of comedy ever tonight. We didn’t want a repeat of the last time Piccadilly was mentioned in Time Out we ended up with us turning away masses of people, so Mike Manera decided to open up the Queen’s Head just in case we got too many people. The whole thing was well organised especially as we had Nick Pettigrew and Simon Douglass on board to help us out. The idea was to flyer Piccadilly, but as soon as it filled out, I’d call them all and then they’d flyer the Queen’s Head with specially made flyer I created for that night only. I knew it was going to work because we sold 8 seats before 7pm. Our first punters don’t normally arrive till after 8pm. By 8pm it was sold out and I had to halt the crowd coming in and call the guys to flyer the other gig. From then on I had to direct the rest of the crowd to the other room while talking to a pair of drunk women from Greenwich who were sweet, but one of them suffered from verbal dihorrea and kept interrupting me as I was directing. By 8.30pm Mike Manera called me to tell me not to direct any more people to the queen’s Head as that was full also. I called Simon and Nick and told them to stop flyering. How fantastic was that? We’d filled both venues in just over an hour. I turned another 15 people away and Mike told me he turned away 20. Well what can I say? I was on top form as MC again and had such a fantastic time. I was particularly chuffed as I’d asked Rob Deb and Robin Cousins to come down and do some sets. Robin opened the set perfectly and had the audience pissing themselves. There was a friend of some people in the front row who was called Hannah whom arrived late, but I was told of this in advance which made me start on her as soon as she walked through the door. I asked her why she was late and she told me that she was a solicitor and had to help a client who was arrested for using a stolen Boots card to get some make up. I just have to add that Hannah was another incredibly cute woman in the front row that I couldn’t help myself from flirting with and basically making an arse of myself with. But she was cool and quite enjoyed it. All through the show I told the audience how privileged they were for being let in and I told them there was another room where comedy was on, but it was an evil place and referred to it as Mordor for the rest of the night. Every time I did this the audience booed. As each of the comedians left to go to the other gig I bade them farewell like they were off to battle. They were one of the coolest audiences I’d ever played in front of. I loved the fact that they jeered at all my smutty innuendo, which just made me worse and did more. Nick Pettigrew did a great set, then ran off to Mordor and Michael Fabbri did a stunning set as he talked about the female volleyball that was being shown on TV downstairs. To prove his point he switched on the TV that was next to the stage to show the audience, which got a massive cheer, from the blokes. When he went to switch it off he got booed. He turned it off anyway and finished the first section off perfectly. Then we had the interval and a phone call to find out what we were up to. Acts were sent to the other gig and acts turned up from the other gig. I noticed Rob Deb was wearing a Superman T-shirt so I decided to play a trick on him. While he was out of the room, I told the audience that acts from Mordor had turned up and there was one in particular that I wanted to wind up. I told them to cluck like chickens when the comic with the superman T-shirt turned up. When the interval was over, I could tell the audience were having a great time as it was more like party atmosphere in there. They were all standing around talking and they’d all been to the bar. When I started I had to settle them down a bit. Someone thought it would be hilarious to put the TV back on. As I went to switch it off I was also booed, so I turned it into a panto, “I’m gonna turn the TV off boys and girls.” To which they all shouted, “Oh no you’re not”. Then James D’ Cahpeau went on and dealt with some twat who didn’t like his anti Iraq war material. This got a round of applause from the audience. Then Rob Deb went on and the audience booed when I said he was the first comic from Mordor, the dark side and I told them he has a great T-shirt on. This made them all laugh and as I introduced Rob, they all started clucking like chickens, including the arm movements. Rob came on in a Superman pose and ignored the fact that the audience was acting like chickens. He did a great set and when he finished I asked him in front of the audience why he didn’t react to the chicken noises and calm as a frozen boiled egg he said, “Mike , I’ve done your gigs before. I was just surprised to not see them naked standing on their heads.” Then some woman heckled Rob and shouted out, “your mum’s a chicken.” Then I joined in and said, “Your mum’s a superman T-shirt.”

I the interval I saw Manera and asked him why he wasn’t at the other gig and I immediately knew what was on his mind. So I ran over to the Queen’s Head to finish the last section while Manera finished of Piccadilly. The Queen’s was packed and hot and when I turned up on the stage, they were a bit dubious about what was going on. I made out that they were groovier than the other room as they were the late comers and the other room was the goody two shoes group. They liked this and I had so much fun up there I didn’t realise that I had done over 20mins and it was nearly 11pm. So I rushed Jim on and when he finished I said my goodbyes to the crowd and ran back over to the Piccadilly to clear it up. I must say I have never seen so many comedians in such a good mood. Everyone was buzzing and were saying that they’d had one of the best nights of comedy every. We did get a bit of criticism from this woman for not having any female acts on, but we tried to explain that every female act that we normally book was in Edinburgh this year. She kind of forgave us because she said she had such a good time.

Like triumphant soldiers back from battle we went to the Phoenix and got told off for counting the money that we’d made, as it looked a bit dodgy. The rest of the night was basically spent talking about how much fun we had and boring everyone. Every now and then Mel Barnes kept saying to one of, “are you still talking about that gig?” It was brilliant fun and we all talked about trying to arrange it again sometime. I went home pissed and incredibly happy.

That night I dreamt that I got a book from the basement of my library. It was all about the Pear Shaped and the many clubs it had all around the country. It was a slim volume published in 1968. I’m going to ask Brian what he thinks of this.

Sun 22nd Aug 2004 Richmond
I went to Laughing Horse Richmond, which I got off the back of the Time Out article. I was going to mention it anyway, but Alex gave it to me as a thank you. It was great to see Nigel and Kevin again and they thought there wouldn’t be too many people in because of the Olympics, but there were enough people from Time Out that helped to fill the room. It was a nice gig, but a little bit of a comedown after the last two fantastic days when I was shitting comedy routines. It was cool to see Kate Smurthwaite again who told me she was approaching her 30th gig. Quite surprising really as she was really excellent and very confident on stage. Damn cute and sexy with it too. I opened the show and did an OK job. It was mainly my adlibbing that got the laughs, but the new additions to my boxing joke seemed to still be getting great laughs. They were a nice audience and really attractive, but no where near as lovely as the lovely Jenny. All in all it was a nice night and I stayed till the end having countless beers with Nigel and I told him how much fun Saturday was and how it would have been great to have him around. One disconcerting thing that kept happening was, every time the show was about to start, the music that they played tended to be something inappropriate. Nothing Compare 2 U and What’s Love Got to do With It where the tracks in particular.

Mon 23rd Aug 2004 Stratford Theatre Royal
I’ve always enjoyed this gig and tonight was my best ever. It was slightly marred by the mad woman at the station who shouted at the ticket inspector then went to shout at some woman for looking at her odd, calling her a fucking foreigner and then slapping her really hard around the face. I have to point out that this appalling woman was black and I felt ashamed of her stupid pathetic selfish behaviour. She was so angry shouting like a lunatic in the street she almost got run over, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing as cunts like that need to be eradicated from the gene pool. The gig however was a dream and the audience was lovely. I love looking at the old photos in the venue, especially the ones of Harry H. Corbet as a serious actor before he did Steptoe and Son. Latif Lovejoy was MCing and he did not a bad job. He started off really well, but his lack of experience and material started to show halfway through the night. But all in all for someone that hasn’t been going long he did a really good job. Jim Grant went on first and he had this brilliant story about a hard bloke being arrested. It had that great balance between being funny, but you was so interested in the story you also wanted to know what happened next. He runs this gig in Eastbourne and I was please to meet him as he’d asked me to gig for him a year ago and I stupidly erased his email and never got back to after saying, “yes I’d love to do your gig.” He was cool about it and thought that something like that must have happened. So were now in contact again. It was nice to Paul Karenza again and I took the piss out of his new D'Artagnan beard, but then he took the piss out of my new long curly locks so touché. Everyone had some really cool tune as they walked onto the stage. Latif had Thunderbirds. How cool is that? Someone else had Hawaii Five 0. What the fuck did I get? The Duke of Hazard. I walked on stage and said, “how come every one else got a cool tune and I get the Duke of Hazard? Do I look like a fucking red neck?” Then St. Bill Hicks put his hand on my head and helped me improvise lyrics to the tune of the Dukes of Hazard and I was impressed with what came out of my mouth. It revolved around being a old good old boy and being in the Ku Klux Klan. I got a round of applause and the rest of the gig was sewn up from that moment onwards. There was loads of mucking about and someone there had a kid in a pram that kept crying out and I answered back every time with standard heckle put downs. I did around 20 and Paul Karenza ended the night perfect. He was so fucking good even without his equations. After the gig I talked to the over enthusiastic but incredibly lovely Neil with weird beard and a bunch of people that really enjoyed the night. One of the blokes bought me a drink an introduced his to sister. He made a point of pointing out that his sister was single. I wondered whether he really paid that much attention to my set, because I would never offer my sister up to the likes of me, especially as I made a point of talking about paying for being beaten sexually and enjoying the company of pre op transsexuals. But this didn’t seem to stop him from offering her up as a sacrifice to the Witch Finder General of innuendo and double entendres. A great night out and it was free to get in.

Tues 24th Aug 2004 at the Bedford with my fans
I popped into the room where the comedy is normally held and noticed it was packed to the rafters. So I knew it was being held in the bar upstairs. I walked through the throng of beautiful people chatting each other up, discussing films, painting, music projects and passed the gorgeous woman singing jazz numbers with her accompanist on the piano. I said hello to Ed and the empty room. Eventually Dave Dynamite and Joe Wilkinson turned up and we talked about what gigs we’d been doing etc. The room slowly started to fill, then 8 people walked in and I recognised one of them and Ben Chan whom I‘ve worked with occasionally. He introduced me to all of his mates as the guy that was in Time Out. I was enjoying all this very minor media attention. I could handle this. I talked with Ben and his mates for a while who were a really nice bunch that didn’t mind sitting at the front. One of them said he recognised me from the Piccadilly on Saturday. Apparently I told him to go to the Queen’s Head and when they got there that was also full. It was a nice normal laid back gig for a change and when I went on, I mainly mucked about and adlibbed most of my set. I really had a good time and enjoyed myself. Ben seemed obsessed with taking photos from me all evening. It’s strange, I suppose for some people this is the closest they’ve ever come to knowing a celebrity before they became famous, so they want to see me perform now just in case they’re able to say, “I saw him before he made it and he was shit.” I think this all down to do with the Pop Idol society we inhabit and the fact that we are becoming more like the USA where celebrities are royalty. I popped downstairs to get a beer for Matt Tiller and me,had a quick chat with Andrew Bird who was working behind the bar and watched the gorgeous jazz singer for a bit. A water drinking Roddy Fraser turned up and did a really excellent set and we talked about gigs and how we were both enjoying going off the script whenever we could. PJ was there and I talked to him about his acts and venues he could have run and then left, saying goodbye to my temporary fan club. Big Head? Not moi!

25th Aug 2004, Getting Laid at the Pear (Laid Off)
Well this was my last stint at the Pear, which was shame. Miller and I had been playing a soap opera for ourselves and it revolved around Miller sacking me and getting me back at a later date as a subcontractor to save money. A new Time Out came out and Mary Bourke had decided to also mention the Pear. This was great as it basically helped to pack the room out. However, when I asked the audience if they saw the article in Time Out they didn’t bother to answer, but then they didn’t answer to anything much. I got to meet Simon Douglass’ new girlfriend again and once again I couldn’t remember her name. I’m under the impression that thinks I’m an irresponsible prick and she’d be right. My mates Sarah and Julia said that I was a complete bitch all night. However, this wasn’t a criticism as they found this hilarious. Apparently the look on my face during some of the awful acts was classic. I had no idea that I looked so bored. They said that was more entertaining than some of the acts. My problem is, when you’ve seen that many acts and you know that they’re going to come and go, why bother to pretend to find the stinking rubbish that comes out of their mouth funny? However there were some funny acts, Angelo Marco was particularly great and Rob Deb did a cool set. The first act started off with my pet hate at the Pear by running down the gig, but after that he pulled the rest of the gig off well. Scottish bloke, can’t remember his name, but considering he started the show he did really well. The place was packed and there was a cute girl with a short dress on in the front. Angelo mentioned this fact while he was on stage and even though I’d noticed before I really couldn’t keep my eyes off her legs. I told the audience and cracked jokes about it so that gave me more excuses to pretend to drop pens to look up her skirt. It was in the interval that I realised how desperate I was for a fuck and this really isn’t the way to go about it. I told off a couple of awful acts for talking very loudly at the back. I moaned about Miller laying me off and how when you normally leave a job you get a card and a cake. So he wrote “sod off” on a bit of paper, screwed it up and threw it at me. I then told the audience that this was offensive as he was assuming I enjoy the company of strange men up a dark alleyway. As an apology he wrote on another piece of paper, screwed it up and threw it at me. This one said, “fuck off you cunt”. The night was ended By Pat Ghallaghar, but I didn’t get to see much of the 2nd half as I wanted to bitch with Julia and Sarah as I hadn’t seen them for a while. All in all it was good night apart from some pushy open spot that me and Miller found dull and arrogant, “I spoke to Brian and he said I could go on.” Acts like that can go fuck themselves and I hope the only fame they achieve is starring in animal porn. After the show I went to the Phoenix with the gang. Simon’s new woman apparently fell over and wanted to go home, so I said OK. I was told I was highly unsympathetic, but my fellow witches. I never realised I was such a cunt. They loved it though. We all went to the Phoenix and were having a nice time. Jo Romero turned up and talked about my hair smelling nice and this extreme version of yoga she’s into. Alan Wild picked up some American woman that was quite cute, but I got a bored of her and Bob the poet trying to impress each other so left as Jo, Sarah and Julia had gone by this point. I had a great night and I love the Pear for giving me the gig while I had my Council Tax problems. Long may it live.

Fri 28th Aug 2004 Low Life
It’s nights like this that remind you that being a comedian can be an incredibly odd, wonderful and bohemian existence. I spent most of the day with Cecilia who’s getting bigger and discovered that she was having a boy. She could swear it was going to be a girl, but she was still looking forward to having a boy. She plundered the DVDs for loan at the library and then we went around the corner for some tapas at Goya and then the heavens opened and it raining so hard we knew we’d even get wet going back to the library. We’d paid our bill but decided to stay and ordered some more coffees. I’m not sure if it was because I gave them a good tip, or because we were very polite and had a laugh with them, but they decided to let us have our extra coffees for free which was really cool of them. We walked through Green Park and made our way to Trafalgar Square where we had a drink in the Chandos and talked eBay and gossiped about people on the circuit. Then I made my way to the Queen’s Head when I met the lovely, but incredibly hung over Mike Manera who just got back from Edinburgh, literally. He told me that the gigs we’d been doing recently had paid for his entire trip in Edinburgh and he even had some money left. I’m not sure why, but this made me chuckle for the next few days with thought of all those people getting a 2nd mortgage for the privilege of a bad a liver a couple of two star reviews. He told me as much as he could and then Terry Saunders turned up to flyer and for some reason that I still don’t understand Rob Deb was flyering due to something James D’ Chapeau said the other day. Yeah, I was just as confused as you are, so Mike sent Terry back to James’ one off 99 Club at the Polar Bar. Mike wasn’t too impressed with this as it was basically encroaching on his territory. He was right as were to find out later. I went out and flyered and had to put up with the usual morons that couldn’t work out the basic directions on the flyers. I think I was in this belligerent mood because I’d already had a few pints in me. Then I got talking to these two cute girls and I flirted with them and was pretty sure they were going to come to the gig as one of them in particular seemed to quite like me. Then as they walked off the held hands in the way lovers do, so I realised that I got her completely wrong. Little did I realise that I’d just got that thought wrong also. I eventually went back to the Queen’s Head and there weren’t many punters in. We started the show around 9pm as most the seats had been taken up, but it could have done with another 20 people to get it at its usual capacity. When I walked to MC I got the usual cheer apart from 8 people who looked stony faced and refused to make any noise whatsoever. There were two mouthy girls from Essex, some young lad who obviously wanted to be a comedian and the two girls I’d met in the street that were a couple. All in all they were good fun APART FROM THE MISERABLE CUNTS IN THE CORNER. I had no idea what to do with them. They were determined to not enjoy themselves. They turned their back to me, talked and every time I tried to talk to them, they either muttered their answers so I couldn’t understand them or just failed to answer. I couldn’t work out whether they were just miserable cunts, boring cunts, stupid cunts or in bred cunts. I personally think they were all 4. I didn’t do a great job in the introduction, so I hadn’t warmed them up for Robin Cousins who didn’t go down too well. I looked over at the cunt family I swear they were forcing themselves to not enjoy themselves. Then some of them started talking, but not loudly enough to be too disruptive. I went on after Robin and actually made some a bit of an impact this time and they Essex girls and the wannabe comedian started to shout out and join in. Personally I liked this as at least they were into the show and wanted it to be fun. At one point the audience were really laughing and these miserable waste of skin and bone wanker bastard fucking cunting cuntish cunts were having a chat. I said them that the show was getting good and they were missing it. I then asked them what they were all doing there. I asked if was some kind of late Christmas dinner and I couldn’t believe it when the rest of the room started to jeer me. I couldn’t win. So put Johnny Morris on and he did really well and even a couple of the cunt family squeezed out a chuckle. I went on and really messed about with the audience and it started to get really riotous, which I love and still the cunts could just about look in my direction. By this point there were the odd smiles off them. Mike Manera closed the first half and he got about half of them laughing at some of his stuff. It was probably best laugh they’d ever had and ever will. I had more fun with Essex girls and started insinuating the fact with the one called Fiona that I would love nothing more that to fuck her and much she’d love and how grateful she’d be. However she gave as good as she got and always had a great comeback. I was going to say something sarcastic like, “I hope you enjoyed the first section and we look forward to seeing you in ten minutes. If on the other hand you can’t be bothered to enjoy yourself, please do us all a favour and fuck off to another pub. No refunds.” I’m glad I didn’t say this because they left anyway. On the way out, Nigel Taylor was just being polite as he heard familiar accent asked one of the women of the cunt family why they were leaving and she said they were leaving because the Essex girls were spoiling it for them. So well done Essex girls. I love them to bits. I went back on and basically the show went really well. When I mentioned the cunts were gone, the audience cheered and then we had a debate about why they were so fucking awful. Nigel Taylor was wonderful. He was such good fun to watch on stage and I knew he was having a good time because he told me he enjoys doing the Queen’s Head. Matt Green was wonderful. They really liked his stuff and by the end of the 2nd half we were all having a riot. I was being incredibly suggestive with Fiona by this point. It was like a shredded Carry On script in the wind. I was trying to get some tough looking bloke with tattoos to help me out and he joked that he didn’t want to get involved. It was the perfect response. Then I started chatting to the gay couple I flyered in the streets and they were a little embarrassed so I left them alone. In the interval a couple came up to me and told me they’d seen the previous Sunday at Richmond. So I was pleased to be MCing as it was completely different to what I was doing before. They seemed interested in where I gigged and how I wrote their material. They were a really sweet couple. Sometimes I don’t like chatting to the audience while the show’s still going, but the interval lasted longer than it should have because I was happily chatting to this charming pair. The great saint of comedy Bill Hicks smiled upon Aaron Counter. Aaron spent the first half of his set waiting for people to say things, just so he could rip the piss out of them. He was so good I even dragged Mike Manera from the door to watch him in action. It was pure joy to watch. Rob Deb finished the night and all in all it turned into a great night that we all enjoyed. We chatted to the audience and Fiona came up to me and started chatting me up. So I gave her my phone number. What did I have to lose? Nothing. What did I have to gain? A fuck. So we packed up and we all fucked off to the Phoenix. Mike Manera invited the gay couple to come the Phoenix with us and Nigel chatted to Ruth and I chatted to Eve. She was really nice, but I was confused. While we walked down the street she kept drunkenly brushing herself against me. When we got the Phoenix Mike and I impressed our guests by waltzing past the queue of people trying to blag in and kissing Carla hello and asking her how her holiday went. Mike and I split the door, which wasn’t much and realised how sleazy and dodgy we looked. So I kept shouting out random words while people walked by like Acapulco Gold, Thai Stick and Wack Baccy. We found a table, sat down and chatted. I was getting on really well with Eve. Too well in fact. If she didn’t have her girlfriend sitting there I could have sworn that she was coming onto me. Right down to the nod of the head that you do when you want someone to go somewhere with you. I must have looked confused because she said, “do you not understand body language?” and she got up and went to the quiz machine. We played a couple of games and we got closer and closer until I thought fuck, let’s see if she’ll let me snog her. And she did. For quite a while. She told me that she doesn’t normally like men, but she liked me. We eventually went back the table and by this point we were all bit pissed and tired. In front of a pissed off Ruth I kept kissing Eve and everyone else looked on wonder. When Eve went to the bar, Ruth told me she wasn’t pissed off with me, she was pissed off with Eve for being a hypocrite. Mike Manera told me this was the sort of shit he gets himself into. Then Eve came back and snuggled between me and Ruth and then we both rubbed Eve’s thighs and she took turns to snog each one of us in turn. I know that I am a sleazy bastard as I was enjoying this so much. I got a message on my phone and it was from Fiona saying that she wanted to meet up with me sometime. My mojo was back super charged with a vengeance. The conversation of going back together was brought up and Ruth said I couldn’t go back with them, as it was her aunt’s house as they were rat sitting of all things. I must confess that at this point I was feeling pissed, full of beer and tired. I mean don’t get me wrong, if these 22 year old ladies had given me the offer I would have bought 10 cans of red bull, a pack of 50 condoms and hired a taxi from outside the Phoenix to take me to threesome heaven. Instead we got the night bus home. Eventually that is. It took about half an hour to do a 3-minute walk as they constantly talked to people and asked them for cigarettes. We got on the bus and Eve asked people for cigarettes and a light and smoked on the bus and drank beer she sneaked out of the Phoenix. She kept asking if she could bring us home, but Ruth said no because her aunt was coming back the next day. I felt like she was talking about me like I was a lost puppy. Although the thought of a lesbian couple treating me like a dog did have a certain appeal. I got off at my stop, said goodbye to them both and gave Eve a massive kiss. I was so tired and beery, but still had time to knock one off before I went to sleep. Jeffrey Bernard’s articles in the Spectator were all about the Low Life and how much he adored it. I thought I knew where he was coming from, but I had no idea how much fun the Low Life could be.

29th Aug 2004 Piccadilly and King’s Head
I was shitting myself today. I had my first Saturday at Downstairs at the King’s Head. I made sure I rested all day, as I was tired and horny from the night before. I got the Piccadilly early to set up and found Mike Manera there. We set up the room had a great chat and Terry Saunders arrived. Apparently there’d been a serious misunderstanding with the night before and Mike apologised. We got a booking for 8 seats at 6.45, which topped last week’s early bookings. I left just after 7 to get to the King’s Head. I got there for 8 and was the first to arrive. I had a quick chat with Pete who said I’d obviously got his phone call. I hadn’t and suddenly realised that since I’d got my new phone I’d never got a message. I sneaked off into the opposite corner of the room to check and realised that my forwarding message function was switched off. I sat at the back getting back to text messages and eventually Richard Lewis walked in. We talked about what we’d been up to and I pointed out two women that were on their own and said we should try and pull them in the interval. However, he had a party to go which was unfortunate. Domonic Frisby was MCing. He did an OK job before putting me on. There was some huge bloke at the back that thought he was the funniest person in the room but was seriously deluded and boorish. But he was still far better than the cunt bunch from the night before. I did a fairly good set considering I was so nervous and I was on first. I did around 15mins and walked off happy that I was entertaining. I basically did material and waited for an opportunity to arse about with the crowd and so it worked much better than the last time. I fumbled over the odd sentence and probably spoke too fast as usual, but I was happy with that and knew I was behaving as professionally as I could. Richard Lewis started off with a new song that he’d written about his hair and brought the house down the bastard. It was fucking hilarious. I noticed that as he’d done a few Saturday there he’d suddenly been bumped up to 2nd on the bill whereas new boy had to go on 1st. We hung around for a bit, got our cash then buggered off, Richard to his party and me to the Piccadilly to clear up. Mike said that he had to call the flyrers in by 8.20pm so another sell out show. He said it was really rowdy, a bunch of comedians didn’t turn up, but Steve. N. Allen turned up and did a fantastic set full mostly of adlibs. We went to the Phoenix again and sat around chatting bullshit. It wasn’t as eventful as the night before, but it was still fun. We met some woman Nigel Taylor had pulled at Liberties and we were the last to leave.

Mon 31st Aug 2004 Bank Holiday Gong
Bank holidays can be really boring when you’ve got fuck all else to do. I was going to watch the gong show, but didn’t feel motivated to do anything at all. Not even cook, so I decided to brave sitting in a restaurant on my own and I had to walk for 20 minutes before I found anything that was open that was vaguely decent. I really couldn’t face another foot long meatball in Subway again. They were starting to recognise me and I wanted them to believe that the only reason why ate there so often was because I worked around the corner, not because I really can’t be bothered to cook at the moment. The best I could find was Café Rouge. I walked in and asked for a table for one. I don’t know why, but a cute girl showed me my seat and then some surly looking man that looked like the manager took my order. I suppose I was looking worse for wear, but this was some bland chain French eatery and not the fucking Ritz. I was going to order a bottle of house red, but I thought sitting on my own and being sized up by the waiter in a place I wouldn’t normally be dead sitting in was too sad to contemplate. So I ordered a large glass and worked out that if I ordered three of them then it would only be about 80p more than a full bottle anyway. I ordered the liver pate and toast. It was like that stuff you get at a party at Christmas when people believe their being posh just before they roll out the Faeroe Roche and hilariously shout out, “Ambassador you have fantastic balls”. This was followed by a medium steak with fried and garlic butter. I ordered this as it was pretty simple dish that even a moron couldn’t fuck it up. It was pretty tasteless and I wondered how much I could have saved myself if I just bought the ingredients and did it myself. The whole thing came to £27 including the tip. If the many curry houses on the way had been open I would have had a great dinner plus five largers for the same price and the service would have been ten times better. I made my way to the gong where I had to buy my ticket, as Cecilia wasn’t feeling too well. I bumped into Rob Collins and Toby Adams but no one else. Eventually I saw Robin Cousins, Mike Manera and Lynne from the Phoenix. Lynne and Mike were pretty pissed and they were talking quite loudly while the show was on, but this wasn’t too bad, as it was incredibly rowdy all night. Paul Thorne was MC and was fucking amazing as usual. However the show was weird as there was one person after another whom Robin and I had never heard of and most them had stupid stage names. We got a bit pissed and were shouting out for some of these useless wankers to get off the stage. In fact, by the interval no one had got through. Mike and Lynne then staggered off to get some food and Lynne came back really quickly with a plate of noodles and chicken, which she proceeded to spill over some guys in the row in front of us. Rob and Mike apologised even though it wasn’t them that spilled the food, but this arsehole started to threaten Lynne for not apologising. She was so pissed she just kept offering some of the food. The he took his jacket off to threaten her, which made him look pathetic for the following reasons. He was three times bigger than her, so he really didn’t need to take his jacket off, there was four men with her so he wouldn’t have got too far and finally the bouncers would have bounced his head off the pavement for hitting woman so small. However the kitchen staff came over and threw Lynne out. Basically she took the food off the bar and it wasn’t hers. The second half didn’t fare better with acts like Mr Underpants who did some nonsense about Miss Piggy. Then in succession, Rob Collins, Antoinette Bell and Toby Adams all got through one after the other. Rob Collins won and Robin and me went to the Phoenix with the Harrison sisters. Mike Manera was in there and he told us about Lynne getting thrown out. There weren’t many people in and Nigel Taylor popped in and we all chatted about acts we think are shit and took the piss out of each other. And this is how I spend my nights off folks.