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I can’t remember the last time I was told that I was “flying low”. It was possibly 40 or so years ago. But thanks to the Jubbly Platypus I have been told again. I was returning from the loo with my son after a slightly stressful visit (let’s just say I had a pair of dirty 4 year old’s pants in my pockets partly wrapped up in a Sainsburys receipt) and a man sitting on the grass on the recreation ground where the village celebrations were happening said something to me. I didn’t catch it so I smiled and gave him a non-committal greeting. But he said something again and I didn’t hear properly so had to ask him to repeat it. “You’re flying low,” he said. And in my haste to leave the bomb site that was the toilets I had indeed neglected to do up my jean buttons.
I thanked him.
But if the Red Arrows are allowed to fly low to celebrate 70 years on the throne, then so should I.
Nice to hear the phrase again though. Hope that’s not the last time. Not that I want to be walking around with my pants on show. And anyone who says I do is lying.
It had been a tricky event to dress for. The morning had been cloudy and a bit rainy, though the sun occasionally shone (because we live in the UK), so to be safe the kids wore waterproofs and I had a jumper and a jacket we all put on wellies lest the field was a quagmire. But the afternoon was mainly sunny, though occasionally blustery (this is the field where we successfully flew kites) and some stalls nearly blew away. We were overdressed and I had to carry the kids coats and also the jubilee crowns they made. It was mildly uncomfortable.
Later I’d be hugging my poorly son on the grass, when he shifted to get more comfortable and booted me with his welly right in the ball. I did get hit by a football at my daughter’s birthday in February, but that was quite a glancing blow, but this was a full on target debilitating palpable hit. It was the kind of pain that as with the flying low thing associate with school fields 40 years ago, when someone would deliberately or accidentally kick or knee you in the balls. Malcolm Hardee did it to me at the Glastonbury Festival in the 1990s (very much on purpose) because this was the kind of thing he thought was funny. It was bullying though. He recognised my insecurity (and didn’t like me, I think) and greeted me with an unexpected knee in the groin. He would have been in his forties at this point. He’s heralded as a comedy legend and not unreasonably, but if you weren’t in the gang then he could be somewhat of a cunt. I wasn’t the only person he did this to. It was a joke of his. But I think he chose his victims based on perceived weakness or unpopularity.
My balls have taken a battering (one of them especially) and there’s a chance that trauma has been a catalyst in the cancer, so maybe there was an additional gift from that “gag”.
It’s not surprising that I was somewhat suspicious of the comedy circuit - bullied at the Edinburgh Fringe as a student (in fact Malcolm was one of the panel on the BBC2 show where I went to defend the Oxford Revue after Keith Allen had sabotaged our show - which turned out to be just a second round of bullying - Allen criticised us for being public school toffs, though four out of the five people in our show went to comprehensives and Allen himself went to public school I now know, the fucking cunt) and this kind of thing happening in the 90s. I am pleased to say that the stand up generation that I finally felt comfortable in, from 2004 onwards, never attempted a physical assault on me. Maybe that’s why I like them more. I am not saying there are no bullies left in comedy but in 1990s they were nearly all bullies. Me too probably.
Anyway, that’s by the by. I can’t list all the times I’ve been twatted in the bollocks. It’s more than average I reckon, so some of the fault may rest with me. Now I am down to one ball I am understandably protective of the remainer and somewhat paranoid about what’s going on down there. I don’t mind losing one ball, but if they both go that will be more problematic.
As I rolled around in pain and my son apologised saying it had been an accident (which it really was in this case) I felt a mixture of worry and relief. In some ways it’s almost reassuring to know that my one ball still works. It hurts like it should do. I discuss in the book why this excruciating pain is mainly seen as funny and I still found it amusing even as I experienced the queasy nastiness of it all. I also worried that it might have twisted or detached or that this whack might, in time, lead to this one going rotten as well. But mainly it felt like a positive experience. I was a man. Prick me and I bleed. Kick me in the ball whilst wearing a welly and I will roll around going “ooo ooo” and groaning and laughing simultaneously.
