Just moments before beginning the composition of this post, I was swearing (to myself) with considerable invective. It was that level of swearing. I’m in THE café, with my wireless mouse which regularly plays up in this place. I do have a wired mouse at home, but it can take up too much space on the table here, so I’ve left it at home. All of which makes for an unmemorable start to this post.
I am quite tired despite having a fairly restful day yesterday. I was pretty much recovering after a hectic end to last week. My uncle was again admitted into hospital on Friday night, and I hurried there after my show in Finsbury Park that evening. It wasn’t that difficult to get to the hospital via a couple of buses, but I knew what I’d be walking into on a Friday night in A&E so there were no surprised during the four hours I spent with one of my cousins and his dad waiting for my uncle to be admitted.
Now, I’ve said before. I’m not the NHS’s biggest fan. That personal view goes back a quarter of a century and is based on my own experiences with them. The issue is their admin is shocking and they need to recruit better, probably mirroring the Civil Service recruitment process. Instead, they seem to recruit the same kind of people you often find manning council phone lines and service desks at the Town Hall. Yes, I believe nurses should certainly be paid more and I’m full of admiration for the jobs they do under difficult circumstances. But the admin, good grief. It never gets better.
But where the ordinary people could do better is not make their very difficult job even harder on a weekend night by predictably turning up smashed off their faces with injuries triggered by copious amounts of alcohol. That is, predictably, what I saw on Friday night. Inebriated guys with facial injuries, some from fights, some through no faults of their own, women with bloodied heads and expensive dressed. We are just not a country that can drink sensibly, and I don’t see how that ever changes. I’m just surprised that when alcohol is so expensive now in a pub or a bar that our high streets are still rammed at the weekends with drinkers.
I’ve been picking my gigs carefully once the Euros are underway, particularly the weekend shows. I don’t want to be gigging when England are on because that will inevitably be peak-idiot night.
My uncle is a bit better now, fighting off an infection that was bad enough to have the GP come out for him twice last week. His regular hospital admissions always seem to happen on a Friday, a result of him usually, stubbornly, leaving it until the last minute before admitting he’s unwell. I’ve just come from there now. His bed is positioned right by the only toilet and shower cubicle on the ward and well, let’s just say if at some point in the future, I end up in some hospital gown that’s way too short for me, located by the only loo on the ward, that isn’t going to work for me.
In a bid to try and wade through this severe writer’s block and general malaise that has overwhelmed me this year, I’m at a writer’s circle tonight having a piece read. The piece was originally conceived for TV last summer, but I just need to be among other writers right now, hoping that the workshop process helps me and for tonight, I had to adapt a 10-page sample for the theatre, which I’ve no problem with. I’m looking at other writing groups to jump in on as I try to attack this block, but the problem is I’m gigging about 15 nights a month, so I don’t have that much free time.
I had a decent run this morning, maybe a minute out from my usual time for a 6.5k, running through some brand-new material in my head. I spent two hours yesterday rehearsing it then this morning, I recorded it on my phone. It’s funny how certain lines stick but you forget other lines. Sometimes you think, ‘well, if certain lines aren’t sticking, then maybe they’re not worth using’, and that usually holds true, but not in this instance. They were good lines. Very unusually for me, I found myself having to play the recording to myself, as if I was listening to a voice note, which I suppose I was, albeit my own, while running, just so I could run through the lines in their entirety. The run, on a (finally) spring day, was more satisfying than it has been all year, though the park was still flooded in the usual areas. It has been a long winter. I am feeling the foot injury for the first time in some weeks today, perhaps as a result of being back to my usual 3 runs a week before the injury started causing me massive problems in the final weeks of last year. My steroid jab is booked in for the final Friday in May and I’m keen to maintain my fitness until then before the inevitable break for a week or two from the exercise.
Then after a quick visit to my aunt’s, I wrote another few lines to include in this new material.
I have a very busy week of gigs. Tomorrow (Tuesday), I’m doing an open spot in Kentish Town, guesting on a Fringe Preview. On Wednesday night, I am appearing at the gig below. This is a very strong bill, with some very fine comics appearing and I’m looking forward to this.
Thursday night I’m back at Downstairs at the King’s Head in Crouch End, one of London’s oldest comedy venues and at the moment, I’m unsure whether I’ll have learned this new 5 spot of material in time.
I’m just trying to think positive at a time when my disposition is far from sunny. Which is probably a positive. It doesn’t help my mood that Liverpool’s title challenge predictably faltered in the last few weeks.
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