According to the papers today is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year or the day that people are the most depressed. I am hoping I have got my most depressed day of the year over with in the first week and I actually felt pretty chipper today, though my mood was lifted by an 80 minute gym session. It seems that my exercising days are not yet over and it was a good work out which should hopefully propel me towards the kind of weight loss I achieved back in 2008. But I was buzzing from it all afternoon and happily running up steps and practically skipping along.
I headed over to the British Library to firstly meet up with my new tour manager Pete (who so far exhibits none of the arrogance of Simon Streeting - one for long time fans of the blog there) and then to do a gig in the same lecture theatre where
I was heckled by my oldest ever heckler.
I was thinking about my Tubeman idea and how just with other superheroes the line between just and unjust retribution would be blurred in the case of someone trying to police crimes against politeness. So much of it is a matter of opinion and it would be hard not to allow your own personal grumpiness influence your superhero duties. Many cases of impoliteness are close to 50/50 calls and both parties can end up feeling aggrieved that they have been the slighted one. I think Tubeman might start off dealing with cut and dried rudeness (though who is to really say that playing your music loudly on a train is definitely wrong - I am) and then as the power goes to his head it starts becoming less clear cut and more unreasonable and more personal.
As if to illustrate this point as I arrived at the King's Cross station and exited the barriers, a group of tourists with bags had plonked themselves down, with typical lack of consideration right at the point between those barriers and the stairs, forcing commuters to have to stop and bump into each other as they negotiated round. Tubeman would have been furious and used his powers to disperse them. I tried to toe the line of least resistance and skirt around them with as little diversion as possible, but as I did so one of the men picked up his bag and swung it behind him. We bumped into each other and I pushed my way by, annoyed that he was standing there and then moving his stuff around without checking that there was no one behind him. But he was annoyed because from his perspective it was me who was in the wrong for walking into him. He shouted after me, "You're supposed to say "Excuse Me"", which made me a little bit cross because I could easily have said the same to him and I shouted something of that effect to him. But if he were to write a blog and we heard the story from his POV then it would be me who was in the wrong. Tubeman would find himself in all kinds of difficulties. He is only a man and prone to make mistakes. With moderate power comes great responsibility.
The gig at the British Library went off without any geriatric heckling, though for a minute or two I wondered if the elderly lady in the third row might have been my nemesis (it wasn't though). Although it wasn't the most conducive atmosphere for comedy, with the audience dispersed throughout the room in comfy, sleep-inducing seats my fellow comedians and the compere Doc Brown did an excellent job of rousing the academics from their slumber and I had a lot of fun. In fact many of my cleverer and more wordy jokes, like the hubris one and the pomme de terre routine, went down better than they almost ever have, which probably shouldn't be surprising. Maybe I should do all my gigs in libraries. Then again they seemed a bit more shocked by my uses of the word "cunt" and "paki", but as I was part of a season based on language I thought it was important to do these routine, though I sensibly bailed out of closing on elaborating on my 7 year old girl hands.
I do love the British Library and I am keen to get back into the habit of going there to work. I will be there tomorrow (Tuesday) taking part in
a panel on offensive comedy.
The Stewart Lee shirt auction was won by John Reynolds who kindly gave SCOPE £100 in return for this tatty garment, so it was definitely worth rescuing it from the charity shop bag.
Today's auction comes
c/o ridetrader.co.uk who sell motorbikes (don't know if they do the clothing too!) and who have my old signed skateboard that featured in "Oh Fuck I'm 40) was given away in a How Not To Grow Up competition. They have kindly agreed to post it to the highest bidder (time limit is the stroke of midnight at the end of Tuesday 18th). Either bid by email herring1967@googlemail.com or on Twitter to @Herring1967. A sharp-eyed tweeter saw it was coming up and has already offered £100, so that's the price to beat. The winner will need to donate the money at
my justgiving page (feel free to leave a donation if you're not interested in the skateboard) and then email me their address which I will pass on to the good people at ridetrader.
Might make a daily feature of these auctions if they continue to go well. At least for a short while!
