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Oh my Lord. My wife’s turn to get up this morning and I slept in until 8.50. EIGHT FIFTY. I can’t remember the last time I had such luxury. And for the rest of the day I felt like I was made out of Lucozade. Man that extra couple of hours makes a world of difference. It was a shame, in a way, that I had decided that today was a day off because I would surely have got some work done, but screw that - it was a great time to have a day off too. And given this could be the last day of civilisation as we know it, I wanted to have some fun.
I took my daughter to football club as usual. She was a bit grumpy to begin with, but I managed to turn things around. I gently mocked her for being in a bad mood and after a few seconds I saw her trying to hide her smile. She knew I’d got her and she found it funny and was trying to conceal the fact that that had happened. What a wonderful moment in human development. And then the frostiness gone, she embraced the comedy and I pulled funny faces at her and she laughed along. She’s a tough comedy nut to crack and obviously out of all the audiences I face she’s the one I most want to approve. So getting five minutes of solid laughter for my brilliant gurning made everything right in the world, whatever might be coming up.
And after a flaky post clock-change session last week where Phoebe had been very distracted, she was right into everything this week and aside from one bit where she was annoyed we weren’t playing the game she liked and sat down like a grouchy gnome and refused to join in, I was amazed at how much she is learning and how quickly. She calls every colour “blue” but this week she seemed to finally understand which coloured cones belonged on which pile. She still can’t jump, but her attempts at trying are much more enjoyable than her actually doing it.
This evening I did a gig for Stand Up for the Refugees. Backstage the comedians speculated about how the US election would turn out. I was pretty certain that Hillary was going to take it, but there was a general air of pessimism despite the positive polling. We’ve been here before of course and the feeling was that people said one thing to pollsters and did another because they were ashamed of their choices. In a secret ballot you do not have to worry about personal shame. I think Brexit was carried, more than anything by about half a million people who were just curious to see what would happen if we made a drastic change. And I can understand why democracy seems to be returning so many apparently self-defeating results. If you think the system is rigged against you then why not fuck it up? You might come out better in the wash or at least bring some of the smug fuckers down to your level.
But surely everyone was just voicing their fears. It’s like saying you’re certain your plane will crash - if you predict it then it can’t happen, right?
I stayed up to watch the first couple of hours of coverage. It looked close but the pundits seemed to think it was going Hillary’s way. I mean, yeah, I know that happened on Brexit night too, but come on. Common sense would surely prevail. I went to bed, anticipating waking up at 4am to see what was happening, but I dreamed that Hillary had won by a landslide and it seemed so real and so obvious that that’s what would happen….
And now have all guests confirmed for this series of RHLSTP
14th November Susan Calman and Tourettes Hero
21st November - an S and M special with Sarah Millican and Simon Munnery
28th November David Baddiel and Lucy Porter
Book tickets here.
