Days without alcohol 27.
At a gig in Gypsy Hill tonight and the comics who were on were congregating around a table football game in the pub, as the venue was packed with people and there was nowhere for us to go. We weren't playing table football, just using it as a place to stand. The landlady was excited about having us down, pleased the gig was a sell out and very accommodating, and noticing that most of us were drinking water she brought us a big jug across along with some polystyrene cups so we could help ourselves.
During the final interval the audience were milling around the pub, buying drinks and sandwiches, that some cool looking young people were selling from a basket beside us. A woman stopped at the table football table, put down her beer, then without saying anything to us picked up a cup and poured herself some water and then headed back into the venue.
The other comedians and me looked at each other with slight disbelief. Sure, it was just tap water and it was there on a table outside the gig, with cups piled up beside it and maybe she thought it was there for public consumption. But I think I might have been tempted to check first, maybe just politely ask if it was OK to have some. As I was about to go on next I joked with Matthew that I should have shouted at her as she went about her crime, "How dare you steal my water? What were you thinking? I don't get anything but that water for doing this gig and then you thieve it off me without so much as a by your leave!" It would have created a nice tense atmosphere for my set!
Luckily we were all amused by this encroachment into our territory, though equally surprised about it, none of us knowing what to say and reduced to just pulling faces and smirking at each other as it happened.
As we enjoyed the slight consternation, another punter came up to the table and helped himself to a glass. It was hard to stifle our giggles now. The water had been free so it wasn't exactly theft, and we could get some more. It was just the presumptuousness of two people in a row that a drink in a pub might be for public use, rather than, as seems more probable, something to do with the people entirely surrounding it.
It was a tiny bit rude. But nothing more. We all enjoyed it and wondered if there was word spreading round the crowd that there was free water outside and it was running out fast!
The gig was run and I was playful and wrong (I dedicated my anal sex/spit joke to the memory of Heath Ledger, as it was the memorable incident int Brokeback Mountain that had inspired it). I even tried out the hubris bit from yesterday's blog, which went well with the people who knew what the word hubris meant (a minority). I took a drink from my polystyrene cup and then said, "That's my water, but if anyone fancies some, just help yourself - no need to ask," which made Matthew laugh at the back of the room, but of course confused everyone else (though two people might have got the slight dig, but I doubt it).
It was fun to do a joke for one person. And if you were there, now at least you understand that gag. And maybe the hubris one now if you have looked in the dictionary!
