The Leaving of London

I had a late night Saturday. My mate Elaine and I headed off to Oxford Jongleurs, it threatened to be evil. There were nasty stags all congregating and being cuntish. I quickly got them ready for the first act, I was the fastest, microphone mistress in the world.

Susan Murray went on first and slayed them, her no holds barred attitude won them over, we were all pleasantly surprised, and the crowd were fine. Then Anthony King went onto have one of the best gigs that I have seen him do! I love his quirkily intelligent wordsmith creative act and the potentially annoying crowd LOVED him as well.

The whole night was topped off with the energetic Richard Morton, the crowd carried on being lovely and responsive, which goes to show that first impressions aren’t always good to judge things on.

Elaine and I went straight from Oxford to Groucho Club in London’s West End. Elaine had yet to be introduced to the Groucho and she walked straight into the enigmatic Bernie Katz dancing wildly to ‘More than a Woman’ in the reception. “Dance or leave” Bernie shouted. Elaine danced, we laughed and Bernie hugged and kissed ‘members’ by members I mean club members not penis’s which Bernie would happily kiss at any given moment.
I love his madness.

We ended up drinking and dancing and finally getting home at 3am. Both of us are on the wrong side of 40 for that kind of high-jinkery!

This morning I got up at 9am, husband and I had packed and got ready to leave London. Fuck, I was tired…husband snickered at my groggy grumpy state.

We got on the Piccadilly line and I sat sleepily on the first seat I could find. Opposite me sat a well dressed Oriental man who decided to really dig into his nose, I mean fucking really dig into that beak of his, he was pulling out slimy snots and eating them. I was disgusted and people just averting their eyes. He sat there in tweed coat, fine woollen trousers and shiny leather shoes eating finger full’s of crusty snot! He then bent his head back and got his pinkie up there as he knew there were tasty morsels yet to be pulled down for noshing.

“Oh fucking stop it now!” I eventually shouted at him.
People around me looked at their feet. I had had enough, I wanted to have a snot eating free journey and that wasn’t too much to ask was it? He looked at me and sat there staring. His finger was slightly poised “Stop picking snot and eating it will you please? It is a Sunday morning and I really don’t want that to be what I see today, so fucking stop it please?” I yapped into his staring face. I noticed him whisper across the aisle to a woman, she was saying something in a language I didn’t understand and won’t guess at in case it will sound racist. It could have been Cantonese, Japanese …I really don’t know but it sounded like angry wife berating nose picking husband in public. She gave him some verbal abuse and he aggressively snapped back at her whilst pointing at me. I don’t think he has been reprimanded in public about his beak picking antics. He was annoyed at me, she was angry at him and he finally stopped eating the contents of his nose. Husband finally caught my eye from the seat on the other side of the carriage. We were separated by the entry space and doors area, husband gave me a look that asked “what’s wrong?”

“That man kept picking his nose and eating it” I shouted down the carriage, the oriental man sneered at me, his wife tutted at him and everyone sat uncomfortably. But at least we didn’t have to watch him eat groggy snotters. People in husbands’ end of the train craned their neck to see snot choffing man.

We finally got to Heathrow, got on a plane and ran into a hug from my daughter Ashley in Glasgow. It is her 23rd birthday and we missed her so much. We got her a Warren Zevon vinyl LP (she is a fan), a book about producer Stanley Kramer, a book about Coen Brothers, a DVD box set of Party of Five (she loves 90s TV) and a bottle of vodka. She was delighted at our obscure gifts.

Am happy to be home, I go off to LA on Thursday and then onto NZ for the comedy festival.