Lack of sleep was making me extra grumpy today - but I have been venting my anger in lots of ways, mainly by breaking my new year's resolution at the earliest opportunity and being awful to Andrew
on the Collings and Herrin podcast. I can only defend my actions by claiming that it is all a sophisticated theatrical conceit like something Samuel Beckett would do. But that's still a better excuse than the one supposedly offered by
one of the writers of the Frankie Boyle show. Now that is weak. But it does at least mean that no joke is now unacceptable.
But venting seemed to work up to an extent today for me. My threats on Twitter to gun down Stewart Lee's capacity crowd for having the audacity to go and see him not me, seemed to confuse a few people. Including me. I think it would be a very optimistic person who wouldn't have been a little miffed by actually finding it difficult to leave the theatre because of an ex-double partner's crowd blocking the stairs. Especially after I had performed to another select group of comedy connoisseurs who don't just go to see stuff because it's got someone off the telly in it.
I am joking, but you can imagine my frustration. You don't need to imagine it. I think I have been demonstrating it quite well. I've had a couple of comments about how lucky I am, with people explaining how their life is worse. I don't need to be told this. I know I am lucky and I will be out of this hole again soon and be bubbly and effervescent I am sure. But it's human nature to bemoan your own situation and if we're not allowed to do that simply because there is someone in the world in a worse position, then none of us can do that, especially the fortunate people with computers who live in Europe. Somewhere out there is the unluckiest person in the world who everything is terrible for. I wonder who it is. I bet they don't complain at all, ironically. Maybe they aren't capable of moaning, as my guess is they are probably comatose or mute. But yes, I know I am in a brilliantly lucky situation. But then so are you. We should only judge ourselves against ourselves, but I am actually pleased to have this opportunity to take stock of my situation. And I have to say that if there is a God He has an excellent sense of humour. This is a much better punishment for me. Especially as Stewart is probably the more extreme atheist. Bravo Jahweh, very nice work.
My most fun venting though came on the tube journey to the theatre. It was right in the middle of rush hour and when I got to Tottenham Court Road the platform was jammed almost solid. Trains had arrived on both platforms at the same time and the exit tunnel to the Northern Line is also the way in for people coming to the Central Line. There was practical gridlock. And then another central line train arrived just half a minute behind the one I had got off. We were all anxious to get where we were going (and I was running late for a meeting with another potential tour manager) but it was clear that there was nothing to do but wait. As always there was the inevitable jostling, which is understandable. The person behind me though didn't seem to realise what was going on. She bumped into me and stepped on my heels a couple of times and I ignored her, because of the difficult circumstances. I had bumped into the person in front of me once, apologised and then realised it was better to wait and shuffle. As long as everyone did that we'd get through this, slowly, but in an orderly fashion.
The third time the bargy woman bumped into me, I turned round to give her a look as if to say, "Is there any chance you could stop doing that?" I didn't say it. I just looked with enough exasperation to suggest that maybe she should stop doing it. She was obviously a little tense as well, because rather than apologising politely for her indiscretion, she just barked, "It's not me. I am getting pushed from behind." Now that was probably partly true, but if she had added an apology or just said it in an apologetic tone then it would have been fine. I wanted to say to her that in that case, maybe she should inform the person behind her that there wasn't any point in pushing as it wasn't helping. Though I was being pushed by her (and it felt to me more like her doing the pushing rather than being pushed) and I was managing to not fall like a domino into the next person.
My suspicions that the woman was the pusher rather than the pushed were quickly confirmed, when withing 30 seconds she took it upon herself to attempt to overtake the gridlock by moving to her left into the flow of people heading in the other direction. Which was pretty unhelpful, selfish and stupid. She got about a foot in front of me with her genius plan, whilst elbowing and jostling other people. "Oh, it seems like it might be you doing the pushing this time," I remarked with a somewhat sarcastic tone in my voice. She pushed onwards, now making no pretence that she wasn't a barger. She was now maybe two people ahead of me, fighting against the flow, like a salmon. She had angered me and let's face it I was already pretty angry. "We've all got places to be," I added. But none of this was registering. My reasoning and sarcasm were going over her butting head. So I added a loud, "You stupid cow."
I know that in many ways this put me as much in the wrong as her. It's not nice to be impolite to strangers, even if, as in this case they have actually proven themselves to be a stupid cow. But satisfyingly I saw that this remark actually hit its target. She turned her head and pulled a face and thought about responding, but then I think something in her dim brain must have kicked into action and said, "That is actually fair enough. You are being a stupid cow at this moment. Even I think so." And she just turned away from the confrontation. I felt a bit better than I had before. Because venting at people who deserve it, is a lot more satisfying than venting at someone like Collings who doesn't (even if there is a joke behind it all because of the lack of motive).
Funnily enough though, although her barging skills did get her a little bit further ahead than she might have been, she only really ended up about three feet in front of me and I realised that there was every chance that once we'd got through the bottle neck at the bottom of the stairs we would be practically side by side. This would make my outburst more embarrassing. It's the kind of thing you can shout at someone if they are in a car driving away, but if you are walking in a congested space then it may mean you have to go through the aftermath together. Even if this would only go to prove how dumb she'd been as her selfish behaviour had only earned her about a second of time on her journey. There was then another crush at the Northern line platform and I thought it would be quite typical if I stepped into a carriage and had to stand face to face with her until the next stop. You really want "stupid cow" to be a parting shot.
Luckily I had hung back a little bit to avoid all this and never saw the stupid cow again.
But hopefully I can channel this frustration and anger and (relative, though not actual) failure into my comedy, because I think when you get them right these are three of the funniest things there are. I will keep listening to the voice that tells me I am the greatest comedian ever and it's just the public, critics and awards panels who haven't realised it yet. And I'll stop listening to the voices that tell me otherwise. What do they know? With their logic and facts?
Let's hope I don't go crazy just yet, because whilst it might be funny to suggest machine gunning rival comedians' audiences, I am not sure exactly how funny it would be if I snapped and did it.
Well, maybe if it was Paddy McGuinness's crowd.
