8028/20969
I barely slept last night, partly because of all the mayhew swimming round in my mind and partly because I knew I had to get up early. But I was over to the old house by 6.30am and lit fires, put on heaters and tried to get the central heating working (there was a tiny bit of warmth in the radiators). by the time the decorators arrived the house was four degrees warmer than yesterday and the two rooms they were working in had been heated with the portable heaters. One of them complained (jokingly I think) that the room was now a sauna. All my stress and 90 minutes of sleep had been worth it. They could finish the job.
I was worried that I would be in no fit state for anything though.
Which was a problem as we were heading into London for Comedy For Kids in North Finchley this afternoon and as usual before we go anywhere both kids were reluctant to leave the house, especially Ernie. I told him that I could guarantee that he would enjoy this journey more than anyone enjoyed anything in the world and of course I was 100% correct. He was jumping out of his seat from the start and shouting out stuff whenever he got the chance, begging for attention. Where does he get this?
Early on MC Abigoliah (
who you can listen to on RHLSTP) asked if anyone was here celebrating and one kid had a birthday next Friday, but all the others tried to get on board and one kid said he was celebrating Christmas, another pretended it was their birthday (though it turned out it was in June), Ernie managed to interject and say he was celebrating the show, which Abigoliah liked. I thought about pointing out how he didn't want to come. When the audience was asked for suggestions he kept shouting "chicken nuggets" which got incorporated into an improvising elf's routine. Other kids found this funny and a few of them would shout "chicken nugget" too. His comedy chops were being established. Phoebe was enjoying things too, but was a lot shyer than her mouthy brother (and maybe trying to be cool).
There were a lot of kids there and a couple of times that a volunteer was needed. I knew Ernie would love to do this, but thought it was unlikely he'd get picked. The elf didn't choose him, but when a magician came on next and asked for assistance, Ernie was immediately jumping out of his seat as others just raised their hand and his enthusiasm led to him getting picked.
This kid (who didn't want to be here) strode on to stage with all the over confidence of '`Peter Kay, acknowledging the applause. He answered the magicians questions without a shred of nerves. The magician said he was going to do a trick called the Cup and Ball trick and asked Ernie what he thought that might involve. He expected Ernie to say "A cup and ball?" which would have probably got a laugh, but that was too hack for a Herring. Having already seeded his catchphrase earlier in the show Ernie confidently replied "Chicken nuggets" and got maybe the biggest laugh of the afternoon. The magician was confounded (that takes some doing) and wearily replied, "It's because you've got a cup and inside the cup is?"
I don't know what he was expecting this time, but he'd certainly set up the response, "A chicken nugget?" replied Ernie to an even bigger laugh.
He then asked Ernie to look into the disposable coffee cup, "Can you see anything in there? asked the magician. "Err, I can see paper" replied Ernie. "Cos the cup's made of that," explained the magician before adding, "We have a tricky customer here."
Luckily Ernie didn't derail the show too much and played his part in the trick well and even played ball when the magician tried to pretend he'd made a tomato disappear, but just handed it to him.
It's a lovely show and the audience are the stars or at least an unpredictable element that the comedians have to deal with without resorting to swearing. Ernie was in his element and we saw today a terrible vision of a potential future. I now have to acknowledge that both my kids are funnier than me.
When I asked Ernie if he'd enjoyed the show despite his protests he replied that it was "medium".
The comedians had spotted me in the crowd and came over to say hi to us after. So Ernie got to show off more. Phoebe was impressed that the comedians all knew me telling me I was more famous than she thought, though a bit annoyed with Ernie for stealing the limelight.
I think the acts had felt like it was a difficult gig, but the audience absolutely loved it and part of the fun is seeing these acts, stripped of their weapons of profanity, having to deal with the random stuff that comes up. Abigoliah likened it to playing to a room of drunks.
It's a brilliant hour for anyone with kids. Especially anyone with kids who want to show off. Probably don't turn up without kids.
Make sure no children who love Santa read this next bit!
Thanks very much to Google for coming pretty close to ruining Christmas. Ernie wanted to know how old Santa was so I googled that. He's 1754 years old this Christmas if you believe, as I do, that he is literally St Nicholas of Patara. As I had the answers up on my phone, Phoebe noticed the "People also ask" section and the final questions was "How old to tell kids Santa isn't real?"
She's nearly 10 and so obviously has had some questions and doubts, but we've navigated our way through this issue and were hoping for one last Christmas of belief for her. She had tears in her eyes. Had we been just lying to her for a decade? Were the rumours true? Did the parents just put the presents there?
Ernie seemed to be turning a deaf ear to all of this, but Phoebe was distraught. I spent some time explaining how not everything that gets asked on the internet is true - Catie pointed out that a lot of people think the Earth is flat, even though people proved it wasn't using maths thousands of years ago and I explained that there are people who don't believe in Santa and was able to cross reference with Elf (which we watched again last week and which had a bit which had made Catie and me look at each other with worry) about how that lack of belief can dent Santa's powers. I think we just about got away with it, but it's a huge crack in the massive lie and I would much rather we'd had to face that in January rather than December. Come on Google - it can't be hard to ring fence the Santa searches and not have this happen.
Ernie pointed out that if you don't believe you just get a piece of coal for Christmas, so hopefully that will be enough for us all to keep up the pretence a bit longer. There comes a point where you probably don't want your kids to still believe in Santa (for me personally it was when I turned 28 years old), but Ernie is so into everything right now that it would be a shame if he was disillusioned and lost the magic.
