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I woke up in Ealing. Which is lucky because that's where I went to sleep. I'd slept OK, but did not get the lie-in I had hoped for, because my stupid body wakes up at 6am now wherever I am!
I had breakfast at a French restaurant I found called Pret a Manger. It was fine. Luckily I'd finished my food when a woman at a table four feet away decided this was an appropriate place to apply hair spray. Cos nothing goes with food like the air being full of chemicals. I thought about saying something, but even though I was in a Pret, the Pret was in Ealing, so there was still a chance of being stabbed.
I found it both ridiculous that someone could be so insensitive to others and also that nobody in the place (including me) said anything to her. She didn't look scary or anything, but no one wanted to create a scene or risk an incident. You don't have to look scary for something to segue into violence and I guess our brains were thinking that if a woman is capable of spraying hair spray into an environment where others are eating, they're capable of anything.
Nice to be back in Ealing where I had briefly worked (for less than 2 months) in 1989, but that maybe four month period of doing temp jobs - before getting fired (from a different job) and deciding to go on the Enterprise Allowance scheme and become a more or less full time comedian (despite earning very little) - feels like a significant time in my life. I'd just moved to London, I was going to try to be a comedian, I had little to no money and only a vague hope that I could make things work out.
I remembered discovering I'd won a competition in Empire magazine whilst crossing the high street here. I briefly took up smoking in order to get extra breaks from the BT job (and I think to hang out with a girl I fancied). On Fridays we'd have lunch in the pub and I'm not sure if we even went back to work.
The phone book that I was writing (or collating if you prefer) was just moving over from a hand-written card system to being computerised (which really makes this sound like a story from a century ago) and a load of us had been employed to input the data. A few days in my superior came over to talk to me saying I'd manage 80 entries in a day and made 5 mistakes. I thought I was in trouble, but they said that the average was something like 6 entries a day and they were basically offering me a promotion. I can't believe I've remembered that right. Were the other people doing less than one entry an hour and still keeping their jobs? We did spend most of our time looking up rude names on the ex-directory computer - Dr Wank and Mr Cunto were my favourite ones. I also got Neil Kinnock's number and I think even once drunkenly rang him on the night he lost the election. But he didn't answer. In hindsight he might have been out.
I prepped for my RHLSTPs and killed some time before the drive across time, half-watching the Lionesses whilst having a coffee. I thought staying in Ealing would save me some tiring driving - and it's true I didn't have to do the 75 minute drive home last night, but I still had to drive to Angel and it took me longer than it would have taken to to drive from Hertfordshire. This is something I am constantly pointing out to my wife, that some journeys across London take longer than us driving into London. Sadly she wasn't in the car for me to prove that I was correct.
I still made it to the Bill Murray in good time and recorded two fun podcasts with Paul Sinha and then Alison Spittle for the Edinburgh Fringe run. The place was around half full, so that made it feel like a real Edinburgh Fringe experience too.
Back Sunday for two more (
still tickets if you want to come and as today I'm giving away a programme, a free Emergency Questions book and RHLSTP Trump card game to everyone who makes it down, so you'll actually be in profit as the stuff costs £20 on line and the tickets are only £10.50).
