An amazing, packed out gig at the Lyric theatre fundraiser Ha Ha Hammersmith tonight. I was compering and amongst other things ended up giving a 12 year old boy a bottle of beer as his dad's eyebrows raised through the roof and encouraged a woman to give her platonic male friend a hand job just to see where it would lead - it would be make or break for moving their relationship to the next level. What a ridiculous job I have. Most of the first few rows were clearly there to see the headline music act, "The Feeling" and so I was not sure what they would make of my bawdy comedy, but luckily they enjoyed me and the other acts and got into the spirit of things. But once the Feeling were on the place erupted. The band were only meant to do two songs, but were getting such a good reception that they ended up doing five plus an encore. Whoever said comedy is the new rock n roll was talking out of their arse, because I don't think there's a comedian in the world who would get the reception that this band did. It was actually rather amazing just to walk on stage after they had gone off the first time to be greeted by hundreds of screaming people, standing up, with their hands in the air, like they were on a poster for Stewart Lee's favourite musical "We Will Rock You". I took the applause and the ovation and pretended it was mine, but even though I knew it wasn't it was still hard not to enjoy it and marvel at this kind of almost feral response. "This is about 80% for my compering work, isn't it?" I said to the crazed throng, but they just wanted more of "The Feeling". And they got some more.
It was exactly the right kind of act for the end of an evening like this, upbeat, life-affirming and singalong. I really like the lyric "You've got my heart in a head-lock".
They seemed like lovely guys, plus one of them is married to Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Life can't get much better than that. I think I might hate them after all.
I came home on a bit of a high, dangerously cycling the short distance despite having had a few beers. I was feeling pretty happy until I turned on the TV to see Nick Griffin's podgy Neanderthal face beaming from sweaty ear to sweaty ear as he stepped on to stage having been made an MEP (along with one of his colleagues in the BNP party).
What horrible, shitty news this is, made worse by the fact that the BNP didn't actually get many more votes than last time, it's just less people turned up to register their views, allowing them to slip under the wire. I don't have the figures in front of me, but it seems that it would only have taken a few thousand and maybe only a few hundred people to turn up to vote for anyone else and they wouldn't have made it. So it's voter apathy, plus those people who decide they are going to demonstrate their hatred of all politics by not voting that have let these fascist in. It is incredibly embarrassing for this country and I think we should consider changing our name for Britain to disassociate ourselves from these racist twats. I fired off an angry tweet saying, "If you didn't vote then this awful embarrassment is your fault. A few hundred people voting for ANYONE else and it wouldn't have happened." Predictably it got a few angry responses from people who don't feel culpable for their refusal to join in with the democratic process. But whatever you think of politicians and the way they are behaving at the moment, we really must do all we can to stop these reactionary and stupid people having any say in anything or representing us or taking our money to help spread their insidious and evil views. We dropped the ball this time, but hope we won't do it again.
Obviously the people voting for the BNP are a problem too, but they wouldn't be if the vast majority of non-racist and decent British people just got off their arses and went to vote for someone else.
I really can't envisage us ever allowing these fascists any kind of major power (but then again I didn't think they would ever win any seats at all), but do not let apathy or irritation allow them any further foothold. Much as democracy sucks at times, it is a hard won privilege and one that should not be wasted.
It wasn't just the people who voted for Hitler who have to take the blame for his rise, it's those who did nothing to stop him. Let's try and nip this one in the bud.
And I was going to shave down to a Hitler moustache tomorrow, but now I feel it is perhaps not the appropriate time. It is suddenly embued with new significance and different meaning. It doesn't seem so funny now that Britain has taken a step back seventy years.
Weirdly perhaps it adds a new relevance to my show and has certainly given me something to be passionate about. I had already had some ideas about the BNP, but suddenly they're not just a fringe group of nutters. They are representing our country in Europe and have a million voters and millions more who did nothing to stop them.
Of course it is your right not to vote if you so wish, but I hope you will take a moment and think about the consequences of your actions or rather your lack of them. We need to stand up to the Neanderthals. We came so close to wiping them out and yet here they are still making their presence felt.
Listening to those old guys on the radio last week who had volunteered to go to Spain to fight fascism and try to uphold a democratic vote in the 1930s shows how much people have given for democracy in the past. If they can go and risk their lives (and of course many others lost them) to fight fascism in a different country, then surely you can go to your local primary school and put a cross on a piece of paper.
It would take so few people to actually make the difference, so don't think it's nothing to do with you. And please consider your culpability in all this if you didn't get round to voting. And if you're happy with that, then fine.
