Warming Up

5559/18579

It was my wife and I’s 11th Valentine’s Day together and by the contract we entered into I should have bought here 1024 Ferrero Rocher chocolates. But luckily the last decade has served as a kind of Ferrero Rocher aversion therapy and she now no longer likes the testicle-shaped sweetmeats and has released me from all my commitments (which I am taking to mean includes all the crazy forsaking all others guff that we went through at the wedding).  A decade ago (and blimey I remember that first Valentine’s we shared so vividly and cannot believe ten years have passed) my wife gave me no gift and no Valentine’s Card and upheld her own exponential expansion by giving me no card or gift today either. 

I left it til the afternoon to pop out and get her some flowers, non-ferrero chocolates and a card and also picked up some lobster tails and the ingredients for a Thai curry and some mojito mix, so I could prepare her a romantic/drunken meal. We are forced to have Valentine’s at home due to our stupid children, but actually it is much better this way. More intimate, more caring, much cheaper and you’re not crammed up against loads of other couples who left it late to book so are eating at 4pm, all trying to pretend that they are the most in love people in the room.

The man at the checkout at the supermarket took especial interest in my purchases, especially the Mojito mixture. I told him I’d be happy to him to come back and sample the drink, but my wife might be less keen. Although maybe we need a slightly inappropriately interested check out man in our relationship to spice things up a bit. It was no “Someone Likes Yoghurt”. Would have been nice if Valentine’s Day could have given me the gift of a new routine, but I guess the only gift I am getting is a happy life with a brilliant woman and two mainly lovely children.

I am utterly filled with love for my family, so even if the chocolates no longer grow exponentially my heart does. I should probably see a doctor about that.

We drank too much and then just to wreck all the hard work I’d put in to romance my wife, our son woke up and I had to go and look after him. The fruits of our love doing their best to make sure that no more fruits end up appearing. Which to be honest, I am happy with.

And I appreciate his attempts to make my life into a crappy sitcom episode. But be nice if he would put in the work to give me some comedy I could actually use. I mean, I’ll use this anyway of course. But it would be good if he could do something that would help me write something less predictable.

Thankfully he woke up every 45 minutes for the rest of the night and made me wish that I hadn’t mixed those mojitos and vow to give up drinking again. I was sober enough to look after my son, but drunk enough to make this an additionally unpleasant burden.

At least it’s St Skeletor’s Day tomorrow! Weirdly that might end up being my comedy legacy. So much humour round this part of the year.

Tom Forde has written this nice retrospective of TMWRNJ which is apparently now 20 years old. Weirdly that feels like a lot longer ago than that in most ways. The long-eared rabbits joke and its effect on Tom’s gran, made me laugh a lot. But ultimately I do feel it was a positive thing that the show remained a secret, as nice as it would have been to get press like that at the time. It’s all worked out for the best.

And there’s another RHLSTP up for you and it’s not for the squeamish (so I won’t be listening) with Adam Kay

And my stand up set was on Matt Forde's Unspun XL tonight. I suspect you can pick it up on some kind of website somewhere.