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I hear the man who created IKEA has died. His funeral will be a sombre occasion, but hopefully the feelings and privacy of his family will be respected.
A man came over to take my photo so that he can draw a picture or me. I don’t know why he needs to draw a picture when he has a photo. Perhaps he believes that it will last longer. I hope to be hanging on the wall of a stately home, centuries after my death and that some unfortunate being will fall in love with me,
Anyway, he seemed to be a very nice man, which was lucky as I had trusted him with my address, simply because he was able to draw stuff really well. And that’s probably not a great indication of character. On the same criterion I might have invited Hitler to paint a picture of my house. Nah, that’s not fair, this guy was a much better artist than Hitler and probably only half as evil.
As he took my photo he told me mine was the ideal kind of hair to draw. Blonde hair can be difficult and brown hair can become a bit of a mass, so my browny-grey hair made his life easier. He also told me how kids and young people were harder to get a likeness of too, as their faces aren’t properly formed yet. So he was basically telling me that me being old and fucked up was going to make his job easier.
He also noticed that I had a bit of green paint on my forehead and glitter in my moustache. I thought that might add some character, but he told me he only works in monochrome. What kind of artist is that? Anyone can draw in black and white. It’s when you get the colours involved that it gets tricky. Unless you’re doing paint by numbers.
It’s a long process. He’s planning to enter this portrait into a competition in 2019, but his other work looks amazing. I am in awe of anyone with this kind of talent. I know you have probably seen my T-shirt designs and think there’s a bit of false modesty going on here. But sometimes I doubt if can really call myself an artist at all.
It was my first gig on 2018 and first bit of stand up for a while, as I headed to North London to do 20 minutes at the Troy Club. Back in the noughties when everything was simpler, I played this club, run by the incomparable Andrew O Neill, when it was in a terrifying bar off of Charing Cross filled with people with piercings and tattoos and gender fluidity who had all probably taken at least one drug in their lives. I was as scared as I was aroused. But when you’re a comedian not fitting in means you’re fitting in.
A decade and a bit on Andrew is relaunching the club and though he admitted that many of the acts who used to play there are too successful to return, he was happy to have me along. In my blue jumper (he was wearing a rather fetching dress). I anticipated the gig being bad for me. It’s always hard to get your stage legs back and I had done zero prep, hoping that I’d just remember about 20 minutes of the tour show that I am going to have to perform in its entirety on Thursday. And unusually it all came together pretty quickly. I didn’t feel out of place or confused. I remembered most of the things I wanted to say. People laughed. I closed on an old joke as I had two minutes left to fill, but realised that I had started talking into my water bottle rather than my microphone and ad-libbed a more satisfying routine about how I had wasted so much money on expensive mics when a quarter full bottle of water was just as good an amplifier. Other kooks and freaks from the comedy world were waiting to go on after me, but I was keen to get back home. The club’s running monthly in Tufnell Park and it’s well worth your time.
