I have long suspected that Andrew Collings' weekly invitation to have me talk about the newpapers on his show was building up to something. Then finally after about six months of shilly-shallying around pretending to be interested in me talking about the news and deliberately pointing me towards the more sexually explicit stories he got round to the inevitable and asked me out on a date. He tried to hide this under the veneer of us just now being friends and so maybe we could socialise outside of office hours, but no-one was falling for that. He was going to take me to a show, ply me with booze and see where things led.
So tonight we got a taxi from the studio after the show to the swanky Riverside studios in Hammersmith to see the show
Vega$m. Alas it was the last in the run,
but you can get a slight idea of what it might have been like by looking at this website. And if you get a chance to see the real show any time it is well worth it as it is a very entertaining and original hour. I have been a fan of the people behind this show for many years. They used to do little shows out in the Pleasance Courtyard, but have gradually built up to putting on amazing and complicated full length shows. My favourite character tonight was a woman who had a cancerous tumour in the shape of Tom Jones growing out of her stomach. I particularly liked the fact that it had little arms and a chain around its neck. Maybe you had to be there.
Then me and Andrew went out for a nice Thai meal. I insisted on paying for this, not wanting to give him the impression that I "owed" him anything. I was surprised at the end of the night when he shook my hand and went his own way without making any clumsy attempt to kiss or grope me (so many other men I have been out with think that one date means they own you), but perhaps he sensed that I was not the kind of person to put out on a first date or maybe he wanted to give the impression that he was a gentleman. It can't be that he didn't fancy me - that would be just weird. Nor that he was honestly just asking me out as a friend. Surely.
