I am now officially in my late thirties. I hit the thirty-seven and a half mark yesterday (and it's been approximately thirty years since I've taken any heed of my half birthdays) which assuming that thirty to thirty-two and a half is your early thirties and thirty-two and a half to thirty-seven and a half is your mid-thirties, one must conclude that thirty-seven and a half up to forty is definitely late thirties. Today was my first full day as a man in his late thirties. I expected to discover a new maturity in myself, perhaps exemplified by an ebbing away of my desire to design ever more complicated, space consuming and expensive urinals, but I actually felt exactly the same as before. In just two and a half years time I will be in my early forties. Shit, I better get on with things.
Tonight I did a gig at the West Ruislip Golf Course Clubhouse. There's an old saying in the showbusiness world - "You play the West Ruislip Golf Clubhouse twice in your career - once on the way up and once on the way down."
This was my second time here.
The first time was on Tuesday. I tell you, it's been a whirlwind three days for me. Wednesday was amazing. I spent the whole day snorting cocaine off of prostitutes's breasts, a dead bummed man was found in my swimming pool. It was incredible. But it all slipped away so fast, but man, what a ride.
Actually I think maybe I've got funnier since I reached my late-thirties, after that fallow mid-thirties period where I got so little done. Because on Tuesday I felt a bit stilted, and though I got laughs I still felt a bit uncomfortable and out of place. Tonight I was in command, getting big laughs, playing with the audience, managing to ad-lib new bits in material that I have done maybe 200 plus times. I almost felt like a proper stand-up comedian. Those extra two days of experience have turned things round for me clearly. Getting old is cool. I am rather looking forward to the many other gigs I am doing now.
Plus tonight was all for charity, raising money for the Tsunami relief. I was amazed when the host Omid Djalili told me that it only costs £50 to build a new family home in Indonesia. "And we must be raising, what, two or three thousand pounds tonight?" I replied, "We are going to be able to build one really great fuck-off house for one of the survivors with that, aren't we? Just some random fella will be getting a mansion. All his neighbours looking at him, wondering how come he got the palace with the satellite TV and the snooker room and the ball-room. All thanks to us at the West Ruislip golf course."
See I am even funny off stage too.
