4751/17410
Tonight I was honoured to be co-presenting the Mother and Baby Magazine Awards, still the only awards ceremony in the UK with three distinct awards for breast pumps. I say that that is not enough breast pump awards, but it’s a start. And it’s three more than BAFTA give.
Nights like this can be a tough gig for a comedian as you have to perform to loads of people out for a big night out, getting drunk, who are much more interested in whether they’ve won an award for their breast pump or not, but I relish the challenge and am grateful to be paid for something for once in my life. And having spent so much on the products of all the people in this room, it felt right to get something back. And tonight, as a new father I was genuinely interested in the results (and more than prepared to fix the winners in return for free product - sadly no one took me seriously). I pitched them my feeding bottle chin suction cup (allowing you to continue using your smart phone whilst bottle feeding your infant (Phoebe has learned to hold the bottle herself now) and my stalactite of frozen urine pram umbrella, but none of them took me seriously. I said I’d show them and that I would be back next year, sweeping up all the awards. And they wouldn’t be laughing then. To be fair they weren’t really laughing much now either, but as long as I got through the 42 awards by 10.45pm then I didn’t care what happened. This is one of my real skills, corporate event organisers - I am excellent at keeping the energy going and the show moving along. Please do book me for your events. About one in fifty people will be very excited to see me and the other 49 in 50 will just wonder who the slightly weird man on stage talking about breast pumps too much could possibly be (I talk about breast pumps at all my awards).
We were in a swanky central London hotel and my dressing room was one of the bedrooms. Once I might have been excited about the possibilities of a free mini bar and whatever else I might get up to in the convenient bed (almost certainly a menage a un) but today, still tired from Phoebe’s illness (in spite of my wife doing last night’s tough stint) I just saw the delicious opportunity to sleep. But there wasn’t really time. We had to do a run through and then I worked on my “joke†in the room. I had been told I could be as full on as I wanted to be, but I am wise enough not to take organisers up on this kind of offer. Because they don’t really know how full on I can be. I did a bit of my “Happy Now?†birth story material, but kept a close eye on how people were reacting. The raciest I got was when I introduced the award for the best double breast pump by saying, “Because you never know when you’ll want to milk two women at onceâ€. As I announced the manual breast pump award I said that manual was the only way to go. But when I did the electric one I told people to move into the future and forget the pumps of the past. I bet people who work with breast pumps don’t find them as amusing as I do, but I’d like to thank them for reminding us, with a bit too much perspective, what breasts are actually for. Pumping.
It wasn’t just breast pumps though, there were awards for potty-training devices, pushchairs, bath toys and wipes. A small voice in my head shouted about what had happened to my career as I read out some of the categories and products, but actually that part of my brain is a snob and should piss off (except I need it to write most of my material). If actors can have awards for pretending to be other people and saying stuff someone else has written for them, then by God, the designers of the best wet wipe deserve recognition too. At least they have created something of genuine use. Believe me.
This was one of the most glamorous awards I’d ever been to and I am including the TV and theatre ones in that. There is a lot of money in baby products and all the winners looked fabulous and one of the men smelled so good that I had to comment on it and invite the rest of the audience to sniff him if they got the chance. And though early on I thought it might get out a bit out of hand, they stayed focused and polite even after they had won or lost their own awards.
I got through it, thanks to some excellent co-presenting from the editor of the magazine and a really efficient team running the event. I brought this baby home with 15 minutes to spare. I didn’t have time to lie down in my bed, partly because I had to get home to care for my own baby and partly because the hotel had sent staff to clean my room even before I’d vacated it. I wasn’t sure who would be using it at 11pm, but maybe I don’t really understand the hotel business at all. Any plans I’d had to ring my wife and tell her all transport had closed down were ruined. I went home and impressed my wife and a couple of her friends by going straight upstairs to comfort my daughter who had just woken up and get her back to sleep. Lucky they weren’t around to see how badly things would go for me for the rest of the night.
RHLSTP with the hilarious Sarah Kendall is now out on audio here (and on iTunes)
and on video on youtube and iTunes and vimeo
And if you want to hear me being interviewed by Scroobius Pip then it’s your lucky day - (I return the favour in a few weeks time on RHLSTP
