Between 8 and 5

The sofa men are coming today. They are bringing our comfy new sofa and putting it in our living room so I can sit on it. I am looking forward to the new item of comfort being introduced into the flat, but I am a tad miffed that my entire day must be spent indoors until these people arrive. We were told that they might turn up anywhere between 8am and 5pm. Thats quite a large span of time in which they have given themselves to arrive. I'm sure it used to be 9 and 5 but they've added a whole extra hour at the wrong end of the day. I understand that they may get caught in traffic or take longer with some deliveries than others but they must have some sort of schedule? Or do they just sit in the van and randomly point their finger at a name until there are none left? Maybe they have a wheel of fortune application on their satnav? I feel like my whole day is ruined. Its not like I was planning to do anything in particular until my gig anyway, but if I was then I wouldn't be able to do it. The sofa men have ruined my possibilities. I could have been planning anything important for today, like I said I'm not and its unlikely I would have done, but I might've. Because these sofa men have limited organisational skills I have to sit in all day and wait for them as though its not a problem or inconvenience on my day. Which its not. But it still annoys me. Its only a matter of time before they start saying 'some point next week', or 'between 8 and 5 on a day within the next 6 months' and then the whole world will stop just waiting for the sofa men. Well those people without sofas would anyway.


I feel a bit complainy today. I'm in the process of sending a letter to our bank explaining that the only reason we go over our overdraft limit every month is because they charge us for going over which knocks us over the limit which they then charge us for. I'm sure they realise this and its all part of their evil plan. Well, I won't have it anymore. I am sending a polite letter which they can then read and ignore, then I shall return to the treacherous circle of bank charging once more. But I'll feel better about it all thanks to the letter. I don't even have any stamps to post a letter which would mean going outside to get one. I can't do that incase the sofa arrives. Even if I did have a stamp I couldn't walk to the post box incase the sofa arrives. Once again the sofa men control my day. I feel oppressed by furniture. This is technically house arrest, just house furnishings arrest.


Last night was one of those sort of gigs where backstage banter and journey was much more fun than the show itself. It wasn't a bad show but it wasn't a good show either. It was just there. The staff were lovely and the venue was great but we ended up performing to 50 people in a 200 seater venue. As its normally a music venue the stage was very high up and well lit meaning that you could very clearly see how empty it was. It was like being at a music gig for a failing unpopular musician who had no-one but his hardcore following there. Except in our hardcore following there were two women who talked all the way through and lots of people eating crisps loudly, just to make everyone seem really focused. Like I said it wasn't terrible. My set was made a little bit worse by being under the assumption I was MCing until 15 minutes before we went on and I was told not to MC but just to do a set. I'm sure many better comedians could switch in a second, but I have three main mindsets for doing a gig. One is being prepared for banter and MCing, one is a slightly structured set, and the other is the feeling I get when I'm a bit confused and don't really want to be there. Last night I ended up somewhere between all of them and just bumbled through it. Tom Wrigglesworth had a much nicer set with his tale of valour on a Virgin train and then we escaped early leaving Rufus Hound to deal with the un-hordes alone. The first two minutes we caught sounded like he dealt with them just fine.


On the plus side the venue paid for us to get some grub from the local Chinese and the backstage area was a whole apartment for the acts. This would have been even nicer had the venue manager not sat there the whole time and regaled us with tales of how he was bankrupt but turned the venue around. I'm never a fan of such tales but even less so when there is no audience. It must have been in minus figures before he 'turned it around'. I can only imagine there were several black holes appearing in the seating areas. Still, had a good journey with Tom on the journey there and back, where he taught me the evils of caffeine which has led directly to me not having a cup of tea this morning. At the moment I am missing that cup of tea, but I have been assured that later I will sleep better and enjoy it. This might be true although there is the possibility I might wake up lots dreaming about not having tea.


Bedford tonight which should be nice. At least there will be people there. Of course if the sofa hasn't been delivered I may never get to leave my house.