8135/21055
I woke up early, but think it was the right decision to avoid the hassle of double travel. I am used to Luton Airport so expected a long wait to get through the security bag check, but there was no queue AT ALL in Heathrow. I was straight through.
The only hold up was with the suitcase that contained Right Bollock and my Rod Hull style jacket with the false hand. I thought this might attract attention to be fair. Though it was the hand that did it.
I liked the idea that I might be smuggling a human hand on to an aeroplane, despite knowing that they'd search my bag. But I suppose they have to work on the assumption that it might be a double bluff. If they assume that every hand shaped object can't possibly be a hand, then real hand smugglers would have a field day. I can't really imagine the circumstances where someone would take a real hand on a plane, unless there was a medical hand emergency and then I don't think it would be in a suitcase. Maybe Dr Frankenstein might do it, if he found a really great hand in England but his monster was in Ireland. Surely though he would be on the look out for a pair. Even an evil genius doctor would give his unHoly creation matching hands so it didn't look weird.
Of course, once the suitcase was opened up the security guy would also see Right Bollock, so I told him to prepare himself for something odd (in both senses) and he told me that he'd seen plenty of odd stuff in his job. I doubted he'd seen anything like this though.
He asked me what it was and I know that you must never lie to airport security staff so I told him that it was a puppet of a cancerous testicle and he admired it and said it was pretty good. He asked if I was doing a medical conference or something, which would be a pretty weird conference, so I told him the real reason I had it. Then I had to explain the hand as well. He asked me to throw my voice (for his own amusement I think, rather than as part of procedure, but maybe that's in the training - if anyone comes in with a puppet of their testicle and claims it's for entertainment purposes then make them prove they are an adequate ventriloquist). Had I failed with that part then I undoubtedly would have next found myself being probed in a back room, but if I was too good they might also have to look up my arse for the tape recorder they would assume I must have.
I was mediocre enough to pass.
A female colleague passed and asked what the bollock was. "You don't want to know," said the man. At least I hadn't had a female employee initially. That might have been more embarrassing and I might have had to pretend Right Bollock was a bomb to protect my dignity.
The man swabbed the case and my bollock (the puppet one) and checked it in the machine. "It has indicated something," he said. Had Richard Ison played the long game and given me a puppet that would explode at altitude so he could fulfil his lifetime ambition of murdering me and a couple of hundred innocent passengers?
I wondered if bomb makers and men who make puppets of testicles happen to use the same deadly ingredient.
He tested another swab and seemed satisfied that the world was safe and I went on my way.
I had a lovely welcome and a fun gig at the Sugar Club in Dublin. A couple walked out at the part where I get the call from the doctor (I presume they hadn't realised the show was about cancer and they had some personal association that made them uncomfortable). Another couple left just after the Trigger Warning about the operation. Not sure if that was just queasiness or if they'd had enough bollocks by that stage. I took the mickey out of them. I haven't noticed walk outs with this show before, but this is quite an intimate room and you can't easily leave without being noticed.
Aside from that though the audience seemed very much into it and I continue to have tremendous fun with this. Thanks to everyone who has come so far.
Loads more gigs to come 
