At the end of the Southport gig tonight (sandwich rating 4 - it was fish and chips, which is usually better than any sandwich, but it wasn't a particularly nice fish and chips. The salad and fruit were, however, exemplary. Simon Streeting asked for vegetable korma, and when he was brought chicken korma, he arrogantly sent it back, for the somewhat spurious reason that he is a vegetarian. Surely you begin to see what I have to put up with. Surely you see how his arrogance manifests itself. At least no-one in Southport brought him any treats to eat in the car home.) I informed the audience that I would be making a collection for Scope as usual and I told them about my Marathon run. "In fact," I continued, "As soon as this gig is over I'm getting in a car to make the four hour trip home, because I have to get up at 8 tomorrow morning to do a half Marathon in Watford." I allowed them a moment to make a calculation about how much sleep I would be getting tonight before adding, "I thought I was playing Southend tonight."
This comment got probably the biggest laugh of the evening (and this was quite an achievement, as the show had gone very well indeed. We'd all had a lot of fun). After a few more seconds of Southportian Schadenfreude I blankly stated, "It's funny, because it's true."
It was indeed the case that when my friend Tony had suggested doing the Watford run I had looked in my diary, saw that I was doing Southport the night before and thought, "That's OK, Southport is just up the Thames. I'll be home by eleven." Only once I had paid my entrance fee did I realise that I wasn't going to perform for the recipients of all the cockney's effluent in Southend, but in fact making a trek up to Merseyside. I thought about pulling out of the race, but I didn't want Tony thinking I was making stupid excuses. Nor did I want him to find out that I didn't know the difference between Southend and Southport. And hey, how much sleep do you need before running 13.1 miles?
And the comedian part of me was left thinking that at least I got a great laugh out of it.
