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Today we went to the cafe I had wanted to go to all along. It was definitely better! It wasn’t brilliant, but it was better/ So I won. That’s Little Richy 1, Catie Herring 5432. But I am definitely on the comeback trail.
Hopes of rewriting my sitcom before the end of the festival are diminishing rapidly. I slept on the sofa when I got back in and then played Civilisation II in the afternoon. It was really all I could muster.
My wife called me and asked me if I wanted to go and see Lucy Porter’s show and I did, but unfortunately she isn’t doing Wednesdays so we went to the David Bann vegetarians restaurant instead for an early dinner. This had been a very good call. We also bumped into Al Murray’s daughter who turned 18 today, having been born during the 1999 Fringe. Again, further signs that I have somehow been in a waking coma for two decades. How can that be that long ago? My blog is nearly as old as this grown woman. Happy Birthday Ms Murray, hope you enjoyed my joke about you being able to finally have an alcoholic drink today. I am 50. This is what we do.
I found the show a bit of a struggle again. I have cut a routine so it is now coming in on time and I still have the room to mess around (it’s the one about the jacket potato, which I like, but which, it turns out, I don’t really miss). I am still not as anxious to go home as usual and am a little surprised and sad to find out that there are only 3 shows left (plus the podcast on Friday, with nominee John Robins and Tiffany Stevenson). I battled onwards, unable tonight to not be able to pass comment on the jokes that surprisingly didn’t work. But then other stuff that usually doesn’t get much, got loads. So there’s no predicting the way things will go.
Steph, who I was going out when Warming Up began was in the audience with her son, who I wrote about quite a lot in those early months. He is now 15 and six foot something. I joked that he was nearly as tall as me now. Hope he enjoyed that. I am 50. This is what we do. It’s not a great show to come to with a parent (especially a mother) as there are some rude and graphic moments, but he didn’t seem too mentally scarred.
On to Set List, via my first visit to the Loft Bar at the Gilded Balloon. I didn’t do as well at Set List this time, with the first subject flummoxing me and my tiredness making me feel like I was wading through muddy water. But “Noisy Erection” prompted me to quickly quip, “When you’re old,everything creaks.” The beauty of Set List is that doing well once or even a hundred times doesn’t guarantee you’ll smash it the next time. It was a score draw tonight. But I am happy enough in myself to know that it is not important either way.
I got a cab home. The taxi driver took me down the wrong street. I pointed this out and he snapped at me “Aye, I know where I am going.” It turns out he didn’t. He was taking me somewhere that I hadn’t asked to go. He was then apologetic, but I was just happy I wasn’t involved in a lame kidnap attempt.
