When I took the booking to appear at the Oxford Truck Fest it was quite a bad phone line. I thought it was going to be something else entirely. I never get invited to the fun stuff. Still trucks are almost as good as what I'd been anticipating, so it was annoying to discover that there weren't really any trucks there either, just loads of tents and marquees and bands and comedians.
I enjoyed the drive to Oxfordshire. The sun was shining and the sky was full of proper Simpsons' clouds. It was the perfect day for lolling (in both senses) in a field and I wished I had come down for the whole day and wasn't driving so I could sit drinking beer on the grass.
But I would look out of place as I had deliberately dressed up. I hate to conform and I knew everyone else would be in shorts and T shirts and sandals, so I wore a suit and my fancy shoes. Sometimes you have to be square in order not to conform.
But once I was wandering around the fields I felt a bit hot and a bit of a prick, but everyone else was chilled out and didn't care. And my gig was lovely. The tiny comedy tent was full and people stretched into the distance (and started shouting me at the start because they couldn't hear me), so I whispered into the mic "I hate the people at the back, they're cunts." Luckily the family crowd were up for rudeness and it seemed that I was speaking loudly enough, but it is fun having to negotiate the potential minefield of a mixed age audience. I just ploughed on and then commented on my own inappropriateness. I spotted a young lad sitting right by the stage about halfway through the set. "Have you been there all the time?" I asked, "Or are you just an elf that only I can see?" He smiled back, but it made me feel old and I discussed the fact that he was probably born in a different century to me, telling him that I had been alive in the 1960s and that from his perspective this must have been like being spoken to by a ghost.
As with Latitude I was surprised to find that the stuff from the new show went even better than the shorter jokes. They were up for listening. It was proper fun. I closed with the joke about my small hands (not the full very rude version, just the bit about judging penis size by hand size). I was able to demonstrate how tiny my hands were, by asking the young lad to hold up his own hand for comparison. And though he was a wee little pixie boy his hands were very slightly bigger than mine. Ah the delights of live comedy. I might make a family entertainer yet. But only for quite broad minded families.
But like the suit wearing professional that I have seemingly become, once I was off stage I didn't hand around to enjoy the evening sunshine or the Go! Team's unique blend of nerdy men and jumping women. In hindsight this would have been a great place to have spent the day - in spite of the lack of trucks and fucks. I had a nice ice cream though and at my old age that is enough for me.
Perhaps I wasn't there at all. Perhaps I am just a ghost from the 20th Century, continuing to live my life without realising. You'd think I would choose to imagine that I was performing in stadium gigs, but I think I've made a good choice. It would be hard to have a more enjoyable gig than the one I imagined I did today. I got home to find my milometer on 111555 - not quite as good as the 111111 I had coveted. But it made me realise that I will probably still have the car when it gets to 118118. How brilliantly funny that will be. I might put on a big moustache and shout "I've got your number" out of the window. And then when it gets to 118 500 I can feel deep shame at having had to witness those embarrassing "Give me five hundred" ads. I think I will deliberately crash my car to escape the shame.
