The older I get the more that returning to Oxford makes me feel strange and slightly maudlin (Or Magdalen - ha ha, a little joke for all the privileged Oxford wankers reading this. I particularly like it as the joke does not work for privileged Cambridge wankers). It reminds me of the fleeting nature of youth and how mine has gone and makes me think of all the wasted opportunities and wish I could have a second crack at being young. Which I am doing, until I am 40, but it's not the same as actually being 21.
The place is full of pretty, clever young women on bicycles, without a care in the world. Pretty, clever women (on or off bicycles) are my weakness. Them and actresses. And funny women. And pretty, stupid women. And ugly, clever women. And biscuits. I have a lot of weaknesses. Most of them involve women. Only the ugly, stupid women are safe in my company. But then beauty is so subjective.
So I drove into town with a strange melancholy tugging at my heart, but also a sense of excitement at the start of my tour proper (I was staying over tonight, not driving home. That's proper touring). And also lechery tugging at my testicles as my dirty old man head turned to look at yet another impossibly beautiful girl cycling by.
My gig was at the Old Fire Station, which I believe had just opened when I was a student and used to be mainly a cafe. Maybe it was also a venue too. But I only remember it being quite a cool and cheap place to go to lunch. With all thes confusing feelings of nostalgia and regret clouding my head it seemed an apt venue, as I suddenly remembered bringing a girl here on a lunch date in 88 or 89.
I never really went on dates back then and was as nervous as a QPR supporter in a tube carriage full of Luton fans, with no police support. Shamefully I can't remember her name, though even if I could I would not put it on here. She might have teenage children by now, who could be reading this! Oh God.
She was though, one of these impossibly beautiful and clever women that I am talking about and the only reason I had dared to ask her out was that a mutual friend told me that she had seen me in a play and that she really liked me. So I took a chance and asked her out and when she accepted I took her for a jacket potato at the Old Fire Station. I was nothing if not a classy young man.
She must have been disappointed. I had indeed been very witty and inventive in an ad-libbed part in the Woody Allen play "God" and yet in real life I was a bumbling, red faced idiot with nothing to say. I don't recall much about the date, though ridiculously I was put off her a bit, because she was wearing a Native American style jacket, with little tassles on it. For some reason I didn't like this. God knows why. I was hardly an expert on fashion and yet this seemed to be something that put me off. Probably it was just an excuse because I knew I had screwed it all up. She really liked me, she was interested in me and attracted to me and yet still I managed to put her right off me in the course of half an hour and a filled baked potato.
If I had my time again I wouldn't have been worrying about a jacket or taking her for a jacket. If only I could Sam Beckett jump back into my body for that afternoon, who knows what memories I might have to recount. Though I wouldn't be telling you then. This blog is here really to document my failures. And I shall continue to project this false image of incompetence, in spite of my general personal and professional successes. Because I am a manipulative liar.
Anyway, I walked the young lady back to her college, and we bade each other an uncomfortable farewell. And that was pretty much the last I saw of her. She didn't put out and I had bought her a baked potato. That's just rude.
I did invite her to an Oxford Ball a month or so later, but she wrote to me telling me she was out of town that day. Embarrassingly on the day of the ball I was walking down the road and saw her coming towards me. She had lied to avoid any more contact with me. Even though Oxford Balls were hot tickets that people would do almost anything to go to. I must really have ballsed that up (no pun intended). I hate the younger me. What an idiot.
It was an enjoyable gig. I had popped across the road for a pizza just before and some people at another table were coming to the show and invited me to join them. They then proceeded to discuss anal sex for about five minutes which I thought was rude. But it was nice to have some company and I thought that maybe I could do this at every gig and charge people for the pleasure of dining with me and if they wished discussing unnatural sexual practices.
After the gig I had a drink in the Slug and Lettuce and a chat with some of the audience. I would like to give special mention to Karina, mainly because I feel sorry for her for having to put up with her flat-mate who drunkenly and continually insisted that I mention his friend in the blog. I suppose it worked. But at what cost?
Then I walked back to my hotel and drank a whisky on my own in the bar, remembering how lonely touring can be. But it seemed apt, given that I had just been at the Old Fire Station, that I should be returning to my room alone, with a slight sense of shame and embarrassment.
