Predictions of the end of my Flumps dependence proved to be hubristic. I thought I would just have one more so popped into Sainsburys on my way to my gig tonight, but when I got there there were just two Flumpses left (it seems I am not the only Flumps addict in W12) and it seemed wrong to leave one poor Flumps all on its own. So I bought them both and had wolfed them both down before I had even got to the tube. It's a step backwards, but hopefully I have learned my lesson and will not be tempted by a Flumps again. I have bought a big bag of heroins which should help me get through the cold turkey. Ah so tempting marsh mallow, so more difficult to resist than the land and sea mallows.
The new show is progressing slowly, but steadily. It's going to take a little while before I know exactly what I want to do, but I am still fairly confident that it will work out OK. Tonight I was in an unusual venue, a Masonic Temple, hidden away on the first floor of a hotel by Liverpool St Station. The room was decorated with Masonic paraphanalia. There was a gigantic throne on the stage, which was a nice touch, though I didn't elect to sit on it during my gig, being more concerned about trying to remember what I was going to talk about.
It's not the first Masonic Temple I have been in - not that I am a Mason, though I would say that if I was one, so maybe I am one. Though if I was one I wouldn't say that. Unless I wanted to make you think that I wasn't one, when in fact I was.
Anyway, in my first year in Edinburgh in 1987 I stayed for two months in the Masonic Lodge in Johnstone Terrace with two or three dozen other members of the Oxford Theatre Group. Although we slept on the floor below the actual temple, being young and adventurous students we couldn't stop outselves from exploring the whole building, looking in the non-locked cupboards and turning on the lights that looked like moons and stars in the spooky hub of the building. In the basement we discovered a weird box, not entirely unlike a TARDIS, though it wasn't a police box, just a weird police box like thing. I don't know if this means that the Masons spend their nights travelling through time and having adventures. I would like to think they did. Though I suspect they actually sit around drinking tea, enjoying the opportunity to be away from their wives for a little while. But still they have done their best to make the places where they drink their tea some of the most sinister and weirdo rooms in the world. Oddly it sort of worked as a comedy room and apart from having to cope with the egginess of performing half-formulated ideas I enjoyed the experience. The comedy club is called Sabotage if you want to go and see where the Masons do their stuff and then speculate on what they get up to.
On my way home on the tube I enjoyed some real life theatre as a businessman opposite me who may have had a little too much to drink, but who was certainly rather weary, kept almost falling asleep. He would slump to his right each time, but the motion would wake him enough to right himself, but not enough to become aware of what was happening. Seeing this cycle repeating over and over again made me laugh. I wondered if I should wake him properly in case he missed his stop, but he seemed to come to at Notting Hill and didn't seem concerned, so I left him to it. It was a funnier sight than pretty much anything I had done that night. Which is a sobering thought, but not sobering enough to wake up the drowsy businessman.
