The London trip so far

Ashley and I have been having full on fun – the first night we got here I was doing my opening night at Soho Theatre. I had cracking fun, Twitter certainly is the tool for marketing shows!

It was lovely to see so many twitter folk come down and see them in the flesh. The Soho Theatre is just awesome and despite it being Bank Holiday Weekend we got good audiences.

Then I got some odd press, as I forgot that in my press release I mentioned that back in 1993 when Gordon Brown as a shadow chancellor came into my bar and I managed to obviously over-charged him and he did nothing about it. The press loved that and it got mentioned all over the place as there was some Gordon bashing going on. The election takes place the day I leave for America and I want Gordon Brown and the Labour Party to win as the Conservatives here in the UK are horribly homophobic and love killing foxes.

Do you know what else is amazing? I got to meet up and have dinner with Paul and his gorgeous man John, two guys I met through a blog site 6 years ago! They are in London living here now and it was just cracking to meet them and finally seal the friendship! They have an awesome flat in Finchley where I expected to see Mrs Thatcher tottering about in a fur coat and shiny handbag, but she doesn’t live there anymore. Ashley and I even checked the local bar ‘Destiny’ in Finchley and she wasn’t in there either. We gave up and instead ate dinner in a posh flat with smart furniture.

I really need to think about giving my flat a make over and giving it some fashionable furniture, but I don’t have the interest in that….does that make me lazy?

My mate John Fleming had his film premier for ‘Killer Bitch’ the film he produced and it is being slated by the press as awful rape scenes and there is no rape in it, just gratuitous sex scenes and Jordan’s husband Alex Reid being odd and trying to deny he is in it!

Anyway, I got to see Monica my best pal and hang out with some mates over the week in London. Ashley meanwhile has taken up a penchant for the cocktail Sidecar and after three she was giggly and ate a bag of Maltesers and listened to the Ricky Gervais’s podcast till 4am. That wasn’t so much fun for me.

Also on a more touching note I did a benefit gig at The Hospital Club for my pal and fellow comic Jason Wood who died back in February, it was just sweet seeing all his family in the front row and a pleasure to make them laugh, I just felt Jason near as I was onstage. I still miss him.

I am missing husband and Ashley and I are off to Atlanta this weekend for some gigs, we were told that ex-president Jimmy Carter does some preaching near the hotel and we can go meet him, but I decided not to do that in case I said something inappropriate as I am want to do, he is lovely man though and don’t recall him parading as an evil super being when he was President of the USA.

It’s amazing how London changes you, the first days in Soho I was engaged in the homeless people’s plight, listening to their long stories and giving them some cash. Then after three days of being constantly begged on by the same three people, I got grumpy and asked them to stop interrupting my phone calls as I stood outside a club trying to speak to people. They didn’t care; they simply waited till I finished my call then expected more cash. One night my cousin who drives a cab in London actually spotted me on Dean Street and drove up, shouted me over and chatted. We hadn’t seen each other in years and the ‘Soho poet’ (who isn’t a poet but a big hairy burly man who screams poetry and demands cash) was talking over the top of out long lost relationship. “Go away mate” I asked and yet he threw limericks and disjointed words into our conversation till I finally screamed “Shut up poetry man” and he didn’t. Then he simply said “Give me money and I will let you both chat”

What he didn’t know was my cousin and I are quite Glaswegian and don’t tolerate mild threats, we both shouted “Fuck off” at the same time in the same accent and he finally walked away. Now bear in mind this dude had gotten enough cash out of me during the week, I am not mean to the homeless but there comes a point where they cant threaten your social life in exchange for cash.

Today I set up a direct debit for the Shelter and that made me feel better about screaming at the homeless man.