My Big Night Out

I spent 8 seconds saying Hello to one of my all-time comedy idols last night. I was doing warm-up for 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Vic Reeves said "Nice work" after I'd done my intial warmings-uppings. I spent the remainder of the next 8 seconds wondering why I'd chosen this very moment in my life to become speechless. I'm not very good at meeting people I admire. For instance, I've pissed off all three members of R.E.M in three different ways on three different occassions, I've terrified Morrissey and, to this day, Robyn Hitchcock hates my guts. After the show I avoided Vic easily, mainly because he didn't want to speak to me. Also I'd fallen into the company of Ben & Ben who work for a company that keeps an eye on Grolsch's image. It's an odd job. They have to go around events were Grolsch is being drunk making sure kids aren't drinking it, making sure no-one is driving while drinking it and generally making sure that no-one gets a bit violenty angry rapey while drinking it. The show itself was a lot of fun. Warm-ups are tough, laborious, thankless tasks where you go on 70 times a night after every break, set change and line fuck-up to "entertain" an bunch of free loading, joyless bastards who only want to look right through you on the off chance of seeing a genuine celebrity like Robert Lindsay or, God forbid, Ralph Fucking Little. Not so at 8 Out Of 10 Cats where warming up an audience is slightly a piece of piss. They are there for comedy, the room is set up pretty much like a comedy club and they seem to want to laugh no matter who you are. Even me. A bit of a weird thing happened last night that I'm very happy about. Jason Mansford very kindly pointed out to the audience that they should read my blog but then about 10 people laughed in recognition to my references to the Justin Lee Collins one. Are some people really reading this? Thanks! Shit, am I getting big headed now? Fuck, that's the beginning of the end then.

Unfortunately, I can only imagine that most of the really great stuff will be edited out of 8 Out Of 10 Cats because, well, you know, it was too good. Jimmy Carr's off the cuff remarks were fantastically scathing and Vic Reeves giving an example of how a severed head would run in the Paralympics was hilarious. In fact, Sean Lock and Vic Reeves make a fantastic double act and some bright TV executive should give them their own show very soon. Oh... I mean... They were fucking shit and some bright TV executive should go nowhere near them (there, that should work). 9 year old comedian Jack Whitehall was very good too. He's new but I think he'll give the comedy circuit's other "yoof" TV stars, like Greg Burns and Mark Walker, a run for their money.

On the way back from the gig I got this incredible feeling of how it was when I first started in comedy. Not so much the gig or the hanging out with other comedians but more the 3 hour cunt of a bus journey home. The central line, surely the most Martine McCutcheon of the underground lines, had broken down again and couldn't work. I got the night bus. I was dreading it because the night bus is full of mental. Wherever you sit, the worlds biggest mess of mad will want to sit next to you and scream in your face about how they used to own the sky. I wasn't happy. But then, I thought, well, all the antics that go on in an average night bus is bound to fill my blog with much hilarity the next day. It goes without saying that mine was the one journey in Night Bus history where nothing happened. Ever. But, fuck it, it still made it to the blog. Sorry.

I'm doing the 99 Club tonight. Twice! Never done it before but I'm looking forward to it. Any good?