This morning my father considered hiding my keys and my sat nav as a brilliant April Fool joke, but luckily for both of us he didn't or I would be spending the rest of my life in prison for patricide.
I continued my evolution into a living, breathing sit-com character. At breakfast I tried to pour myself a glass of pineapple juice out of a newly opened carton, but it had some tricksy or malfunctioning lip and the juice, with perfect comic sensibilities, arced over the glass and over the table. I mopped up the juice with a serviette and then picked up my glass. It was stuck to it's coaster, which again with the slapstick timing of Charlie Chaplin plopped off on to the floor just as the glass got close to my face. My girlfriend was in hysterics. I felt like I maybe needed a long, long rest.
But it wasn't over. As I loaded up my car boot, relieved that the key had been in my pocket this time. As I pulled the boot closed, somehow- and I really have no idea how I achieved this- I managed to slam it hard against my right nipple. Not to the extent that I got trapped in the closed boot like a cartoon character, but I had hit my chest pretty hard and was in some pain. I hope this is all temporary dementia and not the beginning of a sharp decline.
How can a man hit himself with a car boot? If that happened in a sit com you would sneer and call it unbelievable. Especially if he hit his nipple.
I worried I might have chopped it off it hurt so much, but no blood seeped through my T-shirt so all that was damaged was my pride. All that could have made this worse was if I now stepped on a rake or a toddler ran head first into my crotch.
Luckily my girlfriend took charge of the drive down to Cornwall. And it was a pleasant drive down the M5 and then onwards into the verdant countryside of the extreme south west.
I do love the west country and it's been a good while since I have been in Cornwall. I don't think I have ever been as far south as Penzance and when I finally got there I was only a hop and a spit from Land's End. It felt a shame not to drive that final ten miles, but I had a show to do.
Cornwall feels like a different country and of course the locals believe that it is, but the Cornish people seem like almost a different species. The streets appeared to be full of either frizzily wild-haired middle aged men and young piskie-faced women and no one else. Like some awful cull of children, young men and middle-aged women had taken place or that the county had been turned into a weird cult. Stew and me and a few friends had once attended a meeting of a cult who believed that God was an alien who lived in France and the other people there were all old hippyish men and slightly Gothy 18 year old women. There was a point where they told us that we had to leave as only official members were allowed to attend the last part of the evening. We suspected some rather tacky orgy was about to take place.
To my prejudiced and somewhat selective eye it seemed like the whole of Cornwall had a similar set up. So I resolved to frizz up my hair and move here as soon as possible.
It was also reminiscent of the people you see on Time Team, except without the pretence of digging up some old pots before the drinking beer and sexual abandon of the eventime begins.
Some balding men buy a toupee, others attempt a comb-over, but the best grow their remaining hair into a ball of fuzz, stop shaving, buy a rainbow jumper and move to Cornwall. And the spend the rest of their life eating magic mushrooms and hanging around with piskie women.
I really, really liked it here.
And the crowd who came to the show were terrific. For the third time in a week I I had technical issues with my microphone, but it only led to extra comedy. And the frizzy haired man in a colourful jumper who was manning the desk was apologetic but philosophical in the interval and I told him that none of it had mattered. He was keen to get off and have a cup of tea. I wondered if there might be special ingredients in the tea. It feels a bit like the people of Cornwall are allowed to so whatever they want and it's too far from anywhere for the authorities to be bothered to come and police the place. But there is a calmness and contentment to the place and the people that makes you wonder if it isn't good for people just to chill out and get on with their lives unfettered!
I know there are plenty of beer fuelled and aggressive idiots down here as well, but I was choosing to view it as a pastoral idyll filled up with pipe smoking hobbit folk for this evening.
I am nothing if not patronising.
And jealous.
It was certainly worth the long drive and although I haven't quite played the extremes at the end of the country I am glad to have performed from Perth to Penzance.
Tomorrow back to Cardiff to record the DVD of this show at what might be the ideal part of the tour. I am very excited about it. There were a few tickets left last time I checked and would be great if both shows were full so come along if you can. I can't believe I am down to my last ten performances of the show. I think I am going to miss it. Might keep the moustache....
