Sausage on a Fork

Warming Ups

8110/21030

I went into London to pre record an episode of Elis James and John Robins' radio show. Always lovely to see these guys and I am a huge admirer of how they effortlessly fill their shows with highly amusing chat, though I was disappointed to discover that Robins is an advocate for easy Wordle and thinks that that is more of a challenge rather than playing the game with stabilisers like a fucking baby.

They showed me the bill for the Reading Festival 1991 in which my name improbably features alongside Nirvana, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth. I think they were hoping for exciting memories of the incredible line-up, but obviously I wasn't interested in the music. I have very limited memories of the event at all. I vaguely recall being booed and have a snapshot (as much as someone with aphantasia can, so a basically an invisible and unreliable one) of bearded men in leather jackets being particularly vociferous about how bad I was. It might not be real, but I am pretty sure I died. And when I think about it all I have is a residual feeling of fear and believing I didn't belong. I was not enjoying stand up at the time and I was not a good fit for this event. I did my time and (I assume) went home. I had remembered being on with Jerry Sadowitz (though the bill suggests not) so maybe it was Dennis Leary. I once closed a gig for him at a college because he had to dash off and did better than he did. But that was one of my rare triumphs. I wasn't very good and I wasn't confident enough for a festival gig (which are often pretty much impossible even if you're good) and I can't say I had imposter syndrome. I was an imposter. There were way better acts than me in 1991 that should have had this gig.

I was in a bad place personally as well: paranoid and worried about how things were going. I recall I had a spare ticket that I was going to give to my muso friend Simon (who would definitely have been up for watching all those amazing bands), but for some reason I got panicked or spooked or something when waiting for him at Paddington. There were no mobile phones and we failed to meet up. Maybe he was late (I don't think so though) or maybe I was worried I wouldn't make the gig in time, but I think I might just have left without him. I can't explain why. Sorry Simon. I know he was very upset and confused by my oddball behaviour.

Me and some forgotten performers in about 1991

I am still awkward in social situations but I bail less than I used to. But I am sure that after my useless gig at the Festival I didn't want to hang around with the other acts and just ran for it. I still have that. I can't stand feeling like a spare part and so if I am being ignored or just not spoken to for a bit, my instinct it to go home. That's how I ended up watching myself on Hootenanny as New Year struck.

So many people would love to time travel back to that festival, and yet I was there and failed to take any of it in, apart from Richard Herring dying on stage. So many experiences missed out on because of massive self-consciousness and fear of crowds and general cowardice. But I knew myself. I wouldn't have enjoyed watching Nirvana back then. And knowing my luck I'd probably have been on at the same time as them anyway.

Sorry to everyone who would have loved to have been in Reading that weekend instead of me. Especially Simon. I am also a useless person to be documenting our times. Samuel Pepys with his back to the Great Fire of London.

And paid subscribers might have noticed Mark Lamaar on the same bill on the same day as me. Perhaps that was the day that I did something to upset him. My memory's are so limited and vague that there's no way of knowing.

You'd think after all this blogging that I'd know myself better, but I haven't learned a thing and have no idea who I am. I had a lot of fun chatting to the boys though, much of it about my other bizarre and obsessive behaviour. It's out on Tuesday.

Then I was off to Luton for another preview of Ball Back. I did one here last year, so it's maybe not surprising that the place wasn't full (I only have 150 fans in any town and most of them had seen it last time). With the other two previews I've wondered if I could do my shows without a tour manager, but tonight was very stressful. No one in the venue even offered to help me load and unload the car (though they did sometimes hold the door open for me) and when it turned out there was no HDMI cable in the projector box they told me that they didn't have one in the building. This seemed unlikely to me, but the lads setting up the show were pretty friendly and nice, so I guess it was true. Or maybe they'd read my many negative comments about how everyone in Luton is scum and decided to teach me a lesson.

Anyway, luckily there were only around 60 people in, so I could just use my computer monitor as a screen for them and they could more or less see the slides (though somehow I put up a really old version of the slideshow which had some slides missing and some extra ones that I didn't need any more - though I did that bit of material anyway!)

I felt in quite a bad mood before the show and some vestigial part of me wanted to bolt (but I'd never do that when people had paid to see me). I thought the show might be a disaster, but man those 60 or so people were an excellent crowd (I presume they'd all travelled in from outside Luton) and didn't try to smash anything or fight any York City players in the vicinity.

I still sometimes feel like an imposter and sometimes I still maybe am, but as a stand up, I think, when I feel this, it is now just imposter's syndrome and not actually true. I am pretty good at this. Better than a lot of comedians who will sell more tickets. Now THEY are the imposters!

And making 60 people laugh is harder than making 3000 laugh and it's a great joy to me to be able to make them laugh. Even if those people are from Luton.

I don't know who I am, as much as I suspect that I am a fucking idiot. But I am mainly a happy fucking idiot.

RHLSTP Book Club about Centrist Dads with comedy writer Nico Tatarowicz is now up here

Here's a clip

Some have asked if that’s Me1 and Me2. Comedy writers are a certain breed.

8111/21031

How can Grange Hill be 48 years old? Fucking Hell Tucker

It feels like my childhood memories of school are mixed up with the plots of this show and so something like this feels like a home video. Look at this for example. So true. I am pretty sure Pogo Paterson was at the Kings of Wessex. If not, the fashions were. And aside from House of Fun, I am not sure any song other than True sums up school discos more.

It was a day of birthdays though, all of them confounding my broken sense of the passage of time.

Phoebe is 10 on Monday and had her party this afternoon. When will there be a party for people who have been parents for 10 years?

And if you want an indication that the kicking that being a parent gives you, check out this video that according to my blog I recorded 10 years ago today. And see how youthful and beautiful I was. I had two balls, my arm didn't hurt and I only got up at 6am on very rare occasions.

It's very hard to believe I've been a parent for almost half of the 22 years of Warming Up or that the period of blogged time before I met Catie was only 5 years. The pact with the devil that I made to make my wife improbably fall in love with me clearly involved time begin sped up. Or my memory being wiped. Someone has sucked out my hypothalamus and if it wasn't for this blog I'd believe that I was at worst in my early 40s.

The party was in our house and my job was cooking the pizza, chips and nuggets, which was, I have to say, the easy bit. Party games and shouting and tears and laughter filled the house. Ernie was a bit overwhelmed with the unfairness of it all, perhaps forgetting that he'd had a birthday in October. He's 100% going to be one of those "When's International Men's Day?" idiots. And you can't say I am one for wanting a parents' party. Because you don't get those. And you should.

The thing that upset Ernie the most was that one of Phoebe's friend had given her cash in lieu of a present. Ernie loves money more than anything in the world - accruing it, but not spending it, I am sure he's going to be a billionaire who never gives a penny away. He was annoyed that no oneThough I like the idea of telling people at his next party to not bother with presents and just give hime the cash

Then the kids went to stay with their grandparents and Catie and me went to a friend's 50th birthday party in London. There were no party games and no one cried because the birthday girl got more presents than them (though I did resent it). Perhaps it was because I'd spent the afternoon with under 10s or perhaps it was because this was a group of people that I only see very intermittently, but I was conscious of how old we were - a woman who I'd known through mutual friends but maybe not seen for twenty years looked twenty years older (surely I didn't)- and I thought about the fact that one day everyone at this party will be dead and I wondered who the last person left breathing would be. As one of the older people there, I don't think it will be me. Unless I dedicate myself to wiping the others out.

This was just a passing thought in a delightful evening of chatting with interesting people, one of whom is a paid subscriber of this blog so I have to say that he hadn't changed at all in the decade or so since I'd last seen him (and if you become a paid subscriber I will flatter you with lies as well).

Middle age and Covid has made me content not to socialise and even before that self-consciousness and the desire to bolt when I rightly or wrongly felt like I was not wanted meant I needed to get drunk to hang around. Perhaps we left before the booze kicked in or perhaps people were not drinking to excess, but my sobriety didn't even cross my mind tonight and no one noticed or mentioned that I was on alcohol free beer, so I didn't have to talk about it either.

It was nice not to have to rush off too quickly for once (we stayed til after 10pm which is pretty racy for us), but we did still have the drive home to contend with. Harder to self-consciously bolt when your wife is relying on a lift home. Nice to have someone at a party who HAS to talk to you because they promised to before God in their wedding vows (I think). Though Catie usually uses parties as a chance to get away from me for a couple of hours and who can blame her?

The trains were messed up so we'd made a wise last minute decision to drive (one of the good things about my sobriety is I am always there as designated driver), but the electric car was on 30% (still 78 miles potentially, though in winter months it goes down quick) and Catie wouldn't risk it, even though I pointed out we could charge it in London where I believe they have a few charging points. I was worried we'd struggle to find a parking place right by Kilburn tube on a Saturday night, big enough for the people carrier. But much to Catie's entirely hidden delight there was a space right outside the pub. Why can't this woman ever be wrong?

8112/21032

Back into London for the third day in a row, this time for a little birthday excursion with just Catie and Phoebe. It's rare for both parents to spend time with just one kid (Ernie stayed at his grandparents) and I know Phoebe sometimes (to always) wishes it was always like this. I love Ernie's energy (as it is my own from the same age and I deserve this punishment) but it's interesting to be without it.

Obviously as a paranoid parent it's impossible to enjoy anything properly. As I drove us to London I forced myself to imagine the life that Ernie would have if the rest of us were wiped out in a car accident. What function does that serve other to turn joy to sadness by worrying about something that I very much hope will never happen.

The price of love is never being able to fully relax and enjoy it. What would that little idiot do without us? Where would he go?

I drove carefully just in case. But I think I would have done anyway, by dint of not wanting anyone to die if I can help it.

Phoebe is getting her first phone for he 10th birthday, which is an exciting and of course nerve-wracking prospect (to any parent who is crazy enough to expend energy on imagining his children being orphaned). It's possibly a little bit early and will surely lead to a world of pain eventually, but I think there's something to be said for doing it early, as for the moment we can control how and when the phone is used and hopefully prep her enough to avoid the dark side of humanity and it's a lovely acknowledgment that our little girl is no longer a little girl.

It was London rules still, so she had to stay close to us to avoid all the Artful Dodgers that roam the streets here. As we walked up to the phone store, Phoebe held my hand. That doesn't happen much any more and it might not happen again (at least for a bit, maybe on my death bed). Catie got a photo, so at least I have that. And yes, it won't be long before this young woman is towering over me.

All of these milestones feel all the sweeter because four years ago I thought I might miss them. I am very proud to be this girl's dad. She is funny, thoughtful, savage and a great artist and footballer. And luckily I didn't kill her and her mum in a car accident today. What a relief. Though the dark thoughts will haunt my dreams and be back first thing tomorrow. This is why parents deserve a party. Especially the dads who have done all the hard work right from conception.

The evening was taken up with trying to set up the phone and get Phoebe's Apple ID set up, which proved to be quite difficult as I was asked to prove that I was who I said I was through the three digit numbers on the back of my bank cards. Unfortunately my main account only had expired bank cards associated with it (due to Apple's inability to combine accounts my apps and music etc are connected to an older account) and so this involved a long phone call with a very helpful lady as we sorted out a way to get round this. Phoebe was temporarily convinced that I had broken her new phone. Parents get no credit. But then I do remember that when I asked for a record player for my birthday, my mum and dad got me one that was combined with a tape player and a radio and for some forgotten reason this made me furiously angry and rather than thanking them I just shouted at them for getting it wrong. Looking back it's quite embarrassing, especially as I was 28 years old at the time.

Parents get no thanks and no apology. As you will have noticed from that last story. It'd be really easy for me to finally say sorry for my lack of gratitude for everything they did for me. But look. I haven't.

I expect my kids to do better than me.

It's 10 years tonight since Catie's contractions began and she got in the bath whilst I tried to get some sleep, having inadvertently stepped in cat shit that had fallen out of the litter tray and carried it on my foot into the bed. I chose not to blog about that, but I told the story in whatever stand up show that was - Happy Now? I guess.

The biggest change in my life was about to occur and I had no idea what it would be like, or at this point, why there was a weird smell in the bed.

It's been an amazing decade, from what little I remember about it. She's an amazing girl. Her brother is great too in spite of the hard time I give him for being like me. Though he does claim to be half ghost, which is an interesting development, which doesn't assuage my fears of something going wrong.