Shear Madness

You know you are feeling knackered when you spend a good 5 minutes accidentally calling your home phone from your mobile and then picking up the ringing house phone and wondering why no one is on the end of it. I managed to do this three times before it clicked that I wasn't calling my parents number I was infact calling myself. This combined with me leaving a teabag in my cup of tea for over 5 minutes and creating a brew that could kill a horse, has already listed today as a write off. I'm wondering if I should just get back into bed and cancel today. I know that if I continue to attempt things I will no doubt hurt myself if not others through dozy stupidity. Unfortunately one of the many things I have to do today is cut back the ivy at the front of house. A job that is bad for two reasons. One - it is excessively dull. Two - I have to use a pair of shears, and on a day like today, I'm sure that means I might lose a finger/arm/face. It has to be done today because our 'probably a paedophile' upstairs neighbour (see http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/01/lost-post.html) has asked if we can cut it back before it takes over the entire front entrance of his house. He rang our doorbell at 10pm on Thursday night stinking of booze just to tell us this. He did not seem to think that 10pm was an unacceptable time for doorbell ringing, nor that his boozy breath would be deemed uncouth. So in such circumstances we should have said 'actually we want the ivy to grow all over your front door so you'll be trapped indoors and never able to harm kids again paedo Terry!'. Instead Layla just said I would do it on the weekend. So if I cut off my face, its all her fault.


My preview in Cambridge was good fun last night. I was told earlier in the week that 17 people had booked tickets. I thought that was a nice amount for a preview and so had completely prepared, or rather unprepared, for 17 people, thinking it would be a fun chatty, work through my show type evening. When I arrived, just in time to see Jim Smallman's show, the room was packed. Completely sold out packed, standing room only. I did not expect that at all and it threw me somewhat. I'd managed to leave the only props I had at home and really hadn't gone through my show enough. Jim's show was brilliant. Really really good and if you are at the Fringe this year then I highly recommend going to see it. It has a great arc to it, lots of funny stories and some very nice gags. He had also learnt it all of by heart and performed it all in his usual charming way. In short, Jim is a bastard, as my show was nowhere near as prepared. The crowd left his show feeling happy and content. As a result about 15 of them never made it back upstairs for my gig. I wasn't displeased about this as I thought, well thats 15 less people to disappoint. The room was lovely, if a little hot, but the crowd were a little knackered from watching both Jim's show and the show before it. I started wobbly but it soon picked up and they were actually brilliant. Apart from one group of drunken twats at the back. Jim didn't get drunken twats. The bastard. Everytime I asked if anyone was or had done anything, they would point at their friend and say that he did it because it was his birthday. This meant that he had both shat on the floor (not part of my show, but the sort of comment these arseholes brought up themselves) and was also diabetic. He wasn't diabetic but apparently that was the birthday treat his friends had bought him an illness. What a lovely bunch of people. How will they top that present next year? 'Happy Birthday you've now got AIDS!' They were horrible. I dealt with them several times by being horrible back and eventually they left, making the audience relieved and also highly distracted. There was some very fun banter with a member of the audience who wanted to achieve sleeping with Liz Hurley more than anything else in life. I asked him by what age he wanted to do that and his response was 'before she's dead', which is considerate of him. Another member of the audience wanted a Blue Peter badge as his girlfriend had two and he was jealous. We concocted a plan to make something really good and say he was 8 so he could win loads of badges, pin them to his body like a 'punk that I'd made earlier' and declare himself Blue Peter. I'd be lying if I didn't say it wasn't fun, but the ending was still ropey and I need to pull my finger out and take my show to the next level. So far its on the ground floor, somewhere in the mezzanine looking a bit lost. Damn Jim.



The hair on my chin is not growing as fast as the hair on the rest of my face. I think this is because it hasn't had to grow for some time. What it means is that it looks like I have giant farmer-like sideburns and no beard. I hope this ratio evens out before I get too tufty. I hope my whole beard growing plan hasn't gone horrible wrong and I end up having to pretend I actually want the facial stylings of Gaz Top. No one wants the facial stylings of Gaz Top. Not even Gaz Top. He wanted a beard but had the same predicament as me. Poor poor no more career stupid hair Gaz Top. I like to think he wonders around his house (if he's not now homeless) just explaining how things like the kettle work and weeping quietly, before someone walks past his window, points at his stupid facial hair and shouts and points.


Must go deal with ivy. The plant, not some lady who won't get out of our front garden. Although I'm sure shears would get rid of her too. Must remember not to itch beard face with shears.