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Oh wow, slept in til 9.15 and then stayed in bed and somehow two and a half hours disappeared (I must have gone forward in time- I literally did nothing and looked at my watch one second and then the next and the morning had gone) and I had to leave. So good to relax for a morning though.
We headed down to Wales, stopping off at
Gloucester Services for a roast lunch. I don’t know why all service stations don’t employ the kind of model operated by Tebay who own this and other farm-shop style service stations. Customers are treated like people, the food is great and reasonably priced, everything looks clean and welcoming. It made a nice change not to have an M and S salad for lunch, although I ate way too much food, so maybe it’s good that these places are rare.
It was lovely to be back at St David’s Hall and still clinging on to the big room by the skin of my teeth. Last year with lots of publicity and a couple of hundred tickets given away in a competition, we managed to get an audience of 800, which might well end up being the biggest solo crowd I will play to in my career. Tonight there were around 330 in. Just about enough to justify not being in the bar instead and still playable. It was mildly irritating, but I prefer to remember the times when my audiences were really tiny and how pleased I’d be to get so many and be in this big space. A part of me hoped that one day I might be able to fill this 1200 seater venue, but another part of me wondered if I’d be prepared to trade my current lifestyle for the one that would allow that.
I wasn’t thinking any of this in a depressed or negative way, just wondering. What is it that makes one comedian wildly popular and able to fill every room they play and another not reach those heights. Talent, obviously, but even absenting myself from this discussion, there are plenty of brilliantly funny comedians who never find that kind of following and a few lazy and shitty ones who do. All I can do is keep on trying to do the best I can and hope that people catch on. Or not. Depending if I actually prefer the relatively anonymous life I enjoy now to one with the kind of fame that would fill St David’s Hall.
It’s strange to look forward and back and with a job like mine it’s impossible to know what the future will bring. Is the best yet to come? Or is my career behind me? Luckily as I was never really very successful I can claim that, despite not being on telly, my career is going as well as it ever has. But in ten years… as I prepare for Oh Shit, I’m 60… or as I begin my longest gig of all, facing the void between my death and the end and restarting of the Universe….. well who knows where we will be. Ten years into the future seemed like a ridiculously long way away when I was doing Oh Fuck I’m 40, but now look at me. My plans to conquer time have come to nothing and as this morning time will occasionally reward my hubris by skipping a couple of hours just to show that it can.
Turning 50 is not as damaging to my ego and self image as turning 40 was and I wonder what I will talk about in my new show. But it does seem to be a time for looking forward and back and making an assessment of how well I’ve done with my time on this spinning rock. I incorrectly feel I won’t die in my fifties, though I am aware that I am pushing ever closer to that moment, even though in my heart I am fairly certain that I personally will ever actually die. So ten years ago was a time for fights and the last death throes of my libidinous lifestyle and now, perhaps is a time to fill in a customer satisfaction survey in the hope that service can improve for however long I might have left. 50 though. Fucking Hell.
On the car on the way home I remembered that I’d had an email from a gambling website offering me some free money. It was quite a big chunk and I assumed that I had dreamed the email, but no. There was over £100 sitting in my account. A bold move from the company. I played roulette and black jack for the next half an hour and cashed in £240 and got an email from the company saying they were putting some more money in my account tomorrow. I don’t know if Donald Trump has taken over the company and perhaps they are themselves betting on me returning to their online casino again (I haven’t been there for a while). But as long as they keep giving me money to gamble with then I will certainly keep returning. So thanks Ian Blackjack for your confusing generosity.
