The Replacement Arm

Oh God, I've been lost in thought over something fucking ridiculous again.

It started about 6 (ish) weeks ago when a random arm pain turned from being a minor irritation to actually entering my conscious as something which I felt should have gone away long ago.  This pain, which was throughout my left arm and onto a bit of my chest, became known as  my 'heart attack arm'.  I complained about it bitterly without taking any positive action.

Well, recently the sharper pains have subsided to simply leave a constant dull ache unless I move my arm in a certain way.  The sane part of my brain tells me it's just a strain or something, the insane part of my brain tells me that the only possible answer is cancer. 

Arm cancer to be precise.

Of course I know you can't have localised cancer of 'just' the left arm so I haven't been thinking about it too much.

THEN, this morning I had a 3:30am visit from the Tidiness Nazi who wished to inform me that she'd been woken up by my car alarm going off.  The car was parked along the main road and it was pissing down with rain.  In short, I went out to the car and, well I can't be bothered to go into the entire story but the incident ended with me in a massive temper pushing the car on my own and trying to get enough speed so I could jump into it and jump start it into life.

..which I did.

I returned to bed at around 4am, soaking wet and pissed off but couldn't sleep.  It's those 4am moments when you start to *think* that's the real killer.  My hypochondria knows no bounds when it's 4am and I've got a random pain which should have gone away weeks ago. 

I shared my catastrophising with a work colleague who understands the joy of hypochondria.

Me (miserably):  So, I reckon I've got some form of arm cancer or an arm rottening disease but the pain is right up high past my shoulder!  They'll have to remove so much of me that I might not be able to wear a prosthetic arm 'cause there won't be anything to fit it on to.  AND as I'm so broke at the moment, if I DID get a false arm it's likely to be a cheap comedy pre-moulded rubber one that just hangs there.  It'll be an NHS one so it's likely to be an institutional kind  of blue colour and it'll be just that bit too long.....

Colleague: You'll just have to stick a twig in the hole then.

Me (perking up): Like a snowman?

Well that was it.  I was lost in thought about my snowman arm just jutting straight out of my body with 3 little stick fingers at the end.  I forgot about my impending doom and allowed myself to laugh heartily at the vision.  I told my colleague I'd have to find a watch with a very small strap to put on my little jutty-out arm.  I thought about going out in public and how people would be too polite to say anything to my face.  That's something which always makes me laugh - the politeness of the British in the face of something fucking ridiculous.  I'm still giggling like a moron at the picture in my head which, fortunately, has replaced the dark thoughts of this morning when I was doom-laden with images of me trying to write with my other hand and wondering whether I'd be allowed to keep my detached arm so I could get it cremated and put the ashes in with my Mother.  That'd be something - the cremains of my mother, her cat and my arm in one container. 

I even wondered whether she'd get my arm in the afterlife before I got there to join it.  That'd piss you off wouldn't it - having to care for a detached arm in the hereafter.

Still, you could look down and enjoy your daughter's new replacement snowman arm!

In the event of my death...

I'll admit that at times I've been a bit of a hypochondriac though I usually keep the thoughts of my horrible impending death to myself.  These thoughts only come after some sort of unusual and persistent new symptom.  A new ache or twinge somewhere unexpected? Cancer.  If it's not cancer then it's obviously Necrotizing fasciitis and my insides are turning to mush. 

I've had a weird point of pain in my throat for days now.  It feels like a mouth ulcer but down my throat.  Can you get throat ulcer?  Probably not so it's clearly cancer.

....or necrotizing fasciitis and my throat is turning to mush.

Another consideration is that due to my shit digestion and my near constant burning acid reflux my insides are being eroded away.  I sat miserably wondering whether, the tumour, mush or acid burn would result in me having to have surgery which would leave me with a  gigantic gaping hole in my throat to which I'd have to put a microphone to speak.  No one would understand me and all my friends ('ALL', she says) would shy away from me 'cause they would no longer understand a bleedin' word I said.  Hell, I know they'd feel guilty but truth is, they would be repulsed by my metallic, nonsensical way of speaking.  I'd sound like a train station announcer ALL THE TIME.  I'd have to give up work as the public would be terrified of me and my giant neck hole and I'd never do stand up again as the audience would be both repulsed and clueless as to what was going on.  On reflection, I'd probably do really well on those BBC or Channel 4 'right on' comedy shows. I could be one of the 'box ticker' comedians.  Not funny but inclusive.  

Faaaaaack.

I spoke to my pal Bison tonight.  We've been 'abusive pals' for years now.  If either of us said anything nice to the other I think our friendship would implode.  I asked him whether, due to my probable impending death, he'd come to my funeral.

BISON:  [impolite pause] Erm......well, it depends on where you're having it really.

Me: You utter bastard.  We've been friends for years and you won't even commit to coming to my funeral?  You only live at the other end of the country!

BISON: Well, you have to get a ferry.....do you know how much the ferries are?  They're wicked expensive aren't they.....then again, there's excellent fossil hunting in your neck of the woods.  I could make a holiday out of it and kill two birds with one stone.  

Me: [silence]........make a holiday out of my funeral?

BISON: [on a roll] Hell, those fossils aren't going to find themselves; do you think the Tidiness Nazi would let me stay over for a bit?

Me: Yeah, it would be in my room though.  THE ROOM I'LL HAVE INEVITABLY DIED IN.  You can sleep in my bed next to the stain of me that I left behind.  There'll probably even be an imprint of my smiling face in make-up on the pillow so you can feel close to me in death.

BISON: .......yeah, I'd probably bring a sleeping bag.

Me: [incredulous] You have really thought this through haven't you?  Actually, while you're there, I'm leaving you all my crap that no one else would want.  You'll be able to lie there and take stock of all of your new and shit belongings.  Together with my collection of contact lenses, you even get my 'interesting pants' collection which has the added bonus of not just being a pile of interesting underpants, they'll also have been next to my vadge!

BISON: WA-HEY!  Can I try on your bras too?

Me: [starting to believe he wasn't taking this very seriously] You could turn up to my funeral wearing my clothes if you really want

BISON: I'll just tell everyone it's what you would have wanted.....  

So you see, I can't even get any sympathy from dear friends in the face of real potential, maybe serious disease.  Probably.  I'm glad now that he's getting some of my most crap possessions.  In case my possibly imagined terminal illness turns out to be real (hey, I'll be right one day!), here is a list of items I want recorded that I SPECIFICALLY want Bison to have:

1) The metal wind-up chicken
2) The platypus finger puppet
3) The 2 cat statues and crystal ball on a metal stand which were splattered with red wax after a candle in a glass jar exploded all over them.
4) My hippy rug which bore the brunt of the white paint which I spilled all down me and my belongings whilst trying to get the lid off carefully.
5)  The terrifying bald head which is at my flat and which is currently wearing a pink wig and swimming goggles.
6)  I know you want it but you can't have Dave the skeleton, currently zipped into a suitcase and in the loft space of my flat which I am secretly hoping will fuck with any police investigators looking into my disappearance should I disappear. Dave has been reserved for my former colleague Amy's small child who has no clue he's getting it.  
7) A small statue of a duck which has just hatched from it's egg but is mysteriously wearing a Traffic Warden's uniform.
8) The metal picture of the Beatles with googly eyes stuck over their actual eyes.
9) The godawful plate you gave me depicting 2 kittens and a puppy playing with a tremendously out of proportion shoe
10) The lollypop you gave me of Freud's head.  It is still in the plastic wrapper so it looks like he's died from some sort of auto-erotic asphyxiation.

On a final note.  After being told he was not a good friend, Bison tried to redeem himself by helpfully suggesting that as I am in BUPA (private health care), if there really WAS something wrong with me then I wouldn't get butchered and end up with a gaping hole in my throat.  I'd end up with a nice metallic voice thing similar to Stephen Hawking.  When I'd said I didn't want to sound like Stephen Hawking he said that, like a modern day sat-nav, they'd be able to get someone like Ozzy Osborne to voice me.

.....cheers pal.

The Rules of Prostitution

I'm going to apologise for this blog entry in advance.  I've done some quality over-thinking in a sort of 'out of the box' kind of way and it has lead me into a bizarre and inappropriate direction.

Again, sorry.....

Basically I am absolutely stony broke at the moment.  Depressingly broke in fact.  I had somewhat of a tantrum this morning as I left the house, and yelled up to my Tidiness Nazi of a house mate that I may just have to become a prostitute.

I've said it in grumpy jest before but today, in a full on grumpy mood and driving to work, I started to over think the implications of the major life shift I'd so casually bandied about in conversation.   How does one just become a prostitute any way?  I reflected that I could just hang around the docks, only the local ferry workers will have only been at sea for half an hour.  I'm guessing that this wouldn't therefore make any of them desperate enough to want to pay the likes of me.

...and how much would one charge any way?

I am a Stand Up so am hardly naive but I really don't know how much prostitutes charge and whether they have a going rate which adjusts to being down South.  I mean, I'd expect to charge one thing for a bit of a fiddle and something completely different for something more, erm..... 'involved' but y'know, you've gotta be competitive within the market.

How would one carry out market research into the working operations of one's competition?  I mean, I couldn't just go up to random blokes in the street and do a survey. I guess it would be even worse if I approached random women to ask if they were or had ever been a prostitute.  I was talking to my 'mental health twin' work colleague about it and was strangely comforted when she said she had considered and worried about the same issues (we're so alike it's frightening, it really is....)

...actually, I have to say - my mental health twin work colleague horrified me recently by getting cured!  There I was enjoying a bit of  hypochondria expecting her to join in with stories of lying awake in the wee hours just waiting for death due to some random and bizarre head twinge or something but she didn't!  She'd had CBT and had been taught to stop 'CATASTROPHISING' everything!  How rude - the biggest part of my existence is made up of over thinking pretty much everything to one of two final ends - my death or eventual ruin.  I am comfortable with these fears and actually once had a jolt when I realised I had nothing in my life to worry about.

...fortunately this only lasted for about 12 seconds before I remembered something.

So, back to becoming prostitutes.  Mental Health Work Colleague (MHWC) said that she thought she'd be able to do something with the 'Yummy Mummy' type market.  Being short, strange and a bit shit I reflected miserably that I'd have to try to appeal to a more specialised market.  My former Gym Buddy work colleague (of the headless, 3 legged cat skeleton) said that I could advertise that I was new to the game and therefore 'clean'.

Erm, cheers....

I then added that as I hadn't been able to pull for bloody ages I could advertise the non-bucketness of my 'love tunnel'.  The three of us nodded in agreement that this was a definite plus point when working out my potential prostitute tariff/advertising campaign.

With a face twisted with disgust I quietly asked MHWC whether we'd be expected to (cough) give oral sex to strangers.  Leaning forward she contemplated the prospect

MHWC:  ...well, if it was clean looking I might.

Me:  Would we be allowed to spray it or wipe it over with anti-bac hand gel or anything?

MHWC:  That'd sting it wouldn't it?

Me: Well you're the one with the boyfriend - can't you road test it with some and report back the results?

MHWC (uncertain): Erm......dunno really, I'm not sure he'd like it.

Me: Would we be expected to......y'know...

MHWC: What?

Me: Y'know!

MHWC (oblivious): No, what?

Me (whispering and with a traumatised expression): SWALLOW?


MHWC: I guess so, if that's what he wants.  I suppose you charge extra for that

Me: Sounds like we need to design some sort of comprehensive menu or something.  Is that what they do?  I really don't get it.  I mean, it's difficult isn't it?  If some old ropey slag does all that for 10 quid, is anyone going to pay for my prime, sort of unwanted, practically healed up 'lady garden' facility?  I keep it pretty neat but saying that, I did nick it shaving a few nights ago so it might look a bit damaged and scabby in parts...

MHWC:  The only problem is, you'd have to talk to people and take your clothes off and we all know that those are two things you hate doing.

Me (lost in thought): Yeah, 'cause remember that time I had my own aromatherapy business that I closed down?  That was because I didn't like people enough to touch them.  I really don't like people that much and if my punter wanted to chat or touch me in any way I'd probably go a bit strange and get that appalled look on my face, a bit like the shrunken headed hunter in Beetlejuice.  Me screaming, smacking his nob and running off would no doubt ruin his prossie experience and would prevent me from getting some extra dosh to see me through my current financially embarrassed state wouldn't it?

Former Gym Buddy:  I guess you could just do some more gigs and make some cutbacks.

Me: .....

Sigh, how much do prossies charge any way?  I'm still wondering.  It seemed such a good idea when I was in a bad mood this morning.  Hell, I even had my business logo planned.  Of course, a big part of me suspects the punters just jump on and have a good bang.  I don't think they'd appreciate me discussing my menu no matter how nicely set and printed it was.  I guess they'd appreciate the feedback form even less.

My Inner Arsehole

I've mentioned it before, I'm mentioning it now and no doubt I'll be mentioning it again in the future; I have an incredibly unhelpful and frankly unpleasant inner voice/voice of my sub-conscience/inner arsehole.  In fact, a lot of the time I think it purposefully works to undermine me in an attempt to turn me into some sort of mental cripple. I came to realise that rather than leave the school yard bullies behind, I've got one living inside my own head!

Fer chrissake......

On the whole though, I've learned to ignore my inner arsehole and just carry on with my head held high.  When I was young it told me that everyone hated me and advised me to set traps and to hide places in order to catch people out!

....yeah, I know.

Listening to this arsehole, I even shut myself in a wardrobe whilst on a school trip.  The wardrobe was in a dorm of 2 bunk beds and I asked one of my 3 room mates to tempt the other two in and then try to persuade them to start slagging me off - WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? What the hell must SHE have thought? Turns out, disappointingly, they didn't have anything bad to say about me - I had planned to jump out of the wardrobe dramatically shouting 'A-HA, I HEARD EVERY LAST WORD YOU SAID!' when in fact, I had to slink out as if it was totally normal for me to have been standing silently in a wardrobe for an hour.  The other thing I learned was, it is really difficult to shut a wardrobe door from the inside.  You have to try and get some pulling speed and then bring your fingers in quickly.  Unfortunately I didn't get my thumb in quick enough and sort of split the skin (yuck!) so not only was I standing in a wardrobe for an hour, I was standing in a wardrobe in pain and covered in blood.  Fucking mental and that's what happens when you have an inner arsehole who you listen to.

I tell you, my inner arsehole was really pissed off when I came to the conclusion that I couldn't give a shit what people thought of me and if they shunned me it actually made life easier and more pleasant.

My arsehole then tried to tell me that monsters were a reality and that when I was out late at night I shouldn't be scared of murderers or rapists, I should fear the unknown and ancient evil.

....again, I know, I know....

My inner arsehole, in more recent years, has concentrated on telling me that every last twinge, ache, strange mark or pain equals my untimely and ultimately painful death.  Yep, hypochondria is the thing I am battling the most at the moment.  Y'wanna hear what this bastard has been saying to me?

Inner Arsehole (I.A.): Hmmmmmmm, you've had that painful gum thing going on for a few days now haven't you?


Me: Yeah, so what?


I.A.: Well, you've probably got some kind of infection which means that all your teeth will need to be pulled out from that side of your head.  It's that or jaw cancer.  Yeah, it's probably jaw cancer and they'll not only have to pull all your teeth but also remove that side of your jaw.  You'll have to have your face reconstructed and it'll never look the same.  You'll be a social pariah and you'll never be able to do stand up or work where people need to look at you again.  You could do stand up with a sort of Phantom of the Opera mask thing on your face only you probably won't be able to speak properly so no one will understand you.  You'll just have to concentrate on comedy writing and you know you procrastinate so rarely get anything serious written.  You are FUCKED girl.


Me: Oh fucking hell......

I.A.: Yeah, well I'm only trying to prepare you.  Oh yeah, I meant to mention your eyes too...


Me: Oh God, don't mention my eyes. It's the contact lens thing isn't it?  You're going to say something about the contact lens thing aren't you?

I.A.: I'm only trying to be helpful and prepare you for the worst.  That weird thing that keeps happening to your contact lenses - the thing where you blink and suddenly you can't see out of one any more?  That deposit that just suddenly forms? The one that looks like an opaque snowflake across the lens?  Well, clearly that's calcium and your eyes are just over producing it.  You've got CALCIFIED EYES lady.  You are going to wake up one day and discover you've lost your sight.  You'll have some freaky yellow covering over them and it'll frighten people who see you.


Me: Yeah, but 'Bakes' (my sister from another mother/my cousin) works at the University Optician Training place and the lecturer type person she spoke to didn't think it was anything serious.

I.A.: So, it's a new disease is it?  Perhaps they'll name it after you.  Oh yeah, I meant to mention that other thing I've been niggling at you about too...


Me:  The dog.


I.A.: You got it!


Me:  So, the dog has randomly started to follow me around and has been uncommonly loving and clingy to me for the past few days.  So what, what can you POSSIBLY make out of that Inner Arsehole?

I.A.: Dogs know y'know.  They KNOW!


Me: Fuck off, Inner Arsehole.  You can't get me on THIS one....

I.A.: Ok then, ignore the fact that dogs can SMELL CANCER!


Me:  Noooooooo.......

I.A.: The dog is saying her goodbyes to you Lady, you've had it.  Wouldn't be surprised if yours isn't one of those stories you hear about when someone suddenly feels ill and they're dead within 2 weeks.  Just thought I'd mention it.


Me: I HATE you Inner Arsehole.  There's a big part of me that pays no attention to the poison you spread and 'sides, most cancers can be easily treated and cured nowadays!

I.A.: ...but not yours and there's always that little part of you which quietly believes me and that's what makes my day.  Right, I'm off now to tell your 'Mental Health' work sistah/colleague that she's got arm cancer, Wisdom Tooth cancer and the BIG disease which we cannot name....


Y'know, I even 'heard' the newspaper report in my head which heralded the Tidiness Nazi and my untimely deaths in a car crash today.  I then thought about whether any of my internet based friends would come and visit me in hospital whilst I lay in the inevitable coma I'll find myself in (should I survive).  I started to worry that people will visit too soon and I won't have lost any weight from only being fed via a drip.  Hell, I need to be looking pale and tragic at this point, not fat and bloated.  I imagine myself to look like a Disney princess in my hospital bed.  Hey, I wonder if someone could get Aidan Turner from Being Human to come and talk to me - once I'd lost some weight and before my muscles go a bit atrophied of course.  It'd just be my luck that he'll fall hopelessly in love with me and I won't have a bleedin' clue.  Great innit?  The reality is, he'd have to have some weird fetish for short, strange, crap haired comedians to fall for me.  Oh yeah, talking about hair - mine is really curly and tangles really easily.  If the nurses brush my hair for the visit I'll have a dreadful frizzy 'fro thing.  Hang on - here's my coma contingency plan

Coma Contingency Plan:

• Ensure nurses don't brush my hair when it's dry.  It needs to be washed, heavily conditioned, given a quick spray of Frizz Ease and then left to dry naturally before being teased into shape with the fingers.  Oh God - the NHS would NEVER do that.  They wouldn't SHAVE it off would they?  I'd look like a frickin' biker.
• MEN - DO NOT READ THE NEXT POINT!  Sometimes, us ladies get a few stray facial hairs which need plucking out.  Please, someone check me over and fix my eyebrows before Aidan shows up.  If you can't get Aidan, Alex Zane would be my next choice; he'll probably be easier to get too as Aidan is in New Zealand filming The Hobbit.  Any way, what I'm saying is, can someone make sure I don't have a goddam BEARD when either of these attractive young men show up to try and wake me from my coma please?  No one wants to turn a handsome man gay after the terrifying realisation that women could be quite so repulsive.
• Could someone also ensure I don't have hairy pits or legs and perhaps put me in my favourite Cookie Monster underpants please?  Whilst they've never proved it to me yet, I like to think of them as my lucky pants.
• Ensure I don't have breath which smells like I've been eating shit all day.

That should do it.  Thanks guys.  I feel better now.

UPDATE: ALEX ZANE, VIA TWITTER, HAS AGREED TO COME AND TALK ME OUT OF A COMA IF NECESSARY.  HE SOUNDED RATHER SURPRISED BUT HAS INDEED AGREED.  I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!  

The Joy & Misery of being Winged

Y'know I've mentioned my 'mental health' work colleague (MHWC); the one who shares the same neuroses as me? Well, to be fair, I work in an office of crazies.  The only one who has genuinely been certified as being a bit nuts looked on and shook her head ruefully as we discussed our horror at one day being just 'gone'.  I'd also asked MHWC how her suspected arm cancer was doing as she hadn't moaned about it for weeks.

 She then blamed me for reminding her and the sudden subsequent re-emergence of the 'disease'. 

Of course, all this came after the enquiry about what the symptoms of scurvy were.  At least I've only got some kind of suspected neck sinew tightening disease which they might name after me, tooth ache and soul burning mortification still going on.

Y'know, I'm surprised that I didn't experience spontaneous human combustion after that thing that happened last Thursday; my face has been burning deeply and brightly ever since.  Y'know, had I combusted, all that would have been left of me would be half a leg with a slipper on it and a zimmer frame.  I don't know why, but the photos of people who've spontaneously burst into flames all seem to suggest that they just end up as half a be-slippered leg and zimmer frame combo...

...but yeah, I returned to a thought I often have which is how wonderful it would be to have wings. 

Unfortunately, I've learned that there are stages of madness I have to endure whenever I get a cool thought. 

Stage One: Smiling/nice thought:   My daydream starts off with me thinking of the joy at being able to fly everywhere.

... but then a troubling thought comes into play. 

How does one position oneself when flying; the traditional stretched out, straight arm with a fist leading the way stance?  

Bollocks, I know I wouldn't be bothered to do that!

...and let's face it, you'd look a right sodding nob in your work clothes - not sparkly or superhero-ey in any way, in a Superman pose flying along.  I'm a lazy git and will it take more effort to reach height?  I won't be bothered to put in much effort in so I guess I'll end up flying at about 3ft off the ground, not stiff in any way and therefore with my shoes dragging along the floor and with my arms just flopped in whatever position gravity leaves 'em.  

Stage Two: A bit bloody concerned, actually:   I cried when I had to go to the gym (voluntarily) so what would it be like having to fly?  I don't particularly enjoy exercise and so would I be whining that my wings ached all the time?  

Would I be flying along weeping and getting lower and lower until I just hit the deck? 

What about the effort of going up stairs and needing to get the coordination right so I didn't bang my face up every bloody step or hit the back of my head on the ceiling?  I then started to worry about my clothes.  Does EVERYONE suddenly have wings or just me?  Where would I get clothes with wing holes cut out?  Nothing would look right would they? Wear massive, baggy things to cover them up which renders them totally useless or find something with massive holes in so they poke out properly?  OH MY GOD, don't say I'd have to be nekkid to fly about.  Think about gravity and the hang!  My face'd probably look like Deputy Dawg from below so god only knows what everything else would look like.  I'd have to strategically place bulldog clips around my body. I'd be the miserablest looking flying fucker in the history of ever.

Stage Three: The Horror of it all: Shit, what if the wings aren't feathered but are like.......INSECT WINGS!  I'd be in a constant state of horror and phobic madness screaming like Homer Simpson when he found that dead body.

...I recognise that I think too much.

Finally, this is supposed to be a diary to rival that of Samuel Pepys.  I wonder if he obsessed about having horrible insect wings (can they rip?) Clearly my diary is on the shit side compared to his, mainly because I forgot to diarise the recent riots all over the place.  Erm, so yeah, RIOTS........ALL OVER THE PLACE!  People are saying it's a symptom of 'Broken Britain'.  Not all people, just some people.  The police are pissed off because that nobber Cameron is bringing in an American to tell 'em what they should be doing. I'm pissed off because officially I am a Criminologist (...and a comedian.  A comedy criminologist?) and I can't be bothered to write a stinging piece on the situation.  Hell, I can't even be bothered to be stiff bodied when I fly.

I'm rubbish

Stoned

So I had a gig in Bournemouth last night. It was a stressful journey, driving in the dark and the rain with barely a clue as to where the bleedin' hell I was going. I'd of course printed off a route planner but hadn't even considered it'd be too dark to read the thing. I found myself lost for a goodly amount of time and only found the venue by accident through just driving about towards areas that looked a bit comedic. Sometimes I just love how the chaos theory works out...

When I arrived my chest felt tight and as I'm still recovering from Consumption (she said, full of hypochondria), I took 2 paracetamol extra before going into the venue to let the promoter know I was there. They were still setting up so I went back to the car for another quick run through of my set.

I started to cough so rifled through my bag to find the bottle of vile tasting Covonia cough medicine and took a massive swig. I'm not really certain what happened next, I sort of became a bit distracted, forgot a chunk of the set (I think I only remembered the first 2 minutes and some of that was a bit ropey) and became unusually nervous.

I went back in and learned that pretty much all of the audience were in fact fellow comedians and as the weather was closing in, there was little prospect of further 'audience-age'. Great. I find that mostly, other comedians tend to make for a shit audience. I suspect they don't like to laugh as they feel they are being disrespectful to their own comedy (unless they're friends with you and need you to laugh heartily at them in return).

As I sat and waited for everything to kick off I realised that my limbs were sort of light and were in fact floating away. I smiled. Then I realised my head was somewhere completely different and I felt good. Well, sort of good. I didn't really know anything and couldn't think. I hadn't a clue what my first line was going to be but still I sat there with something of a half smile on my face in a fuzz of happiness. I sent The Tidiness Nazi (best friend/housemate Steph) a text telling her that I thought I was stoned on Covonia. She helpfully pointed out that I'd taken 2 paracetamol extra tablets about 10 minutes before I'd swigged the cough medicine. Shiit, I'd forgotten about that.

Bleedin hell. Have I O.D'd on paracetamol and Covonia? It feels lovely but through the haze I did realise it wasn't the best state to be in with less than half an hour before I'm meant to perform stand up. Stilllll, it didn't matter, nothing mattered

sigh.......

Oh yeah, I'll have to drive home too.

Bollocks.

All I have to say is that I performed well under the influence of over the counter meds and made it home in one piece. I only got lost 4 times too!

All in all, mysteriously a success. Perhaps Covonia is the key!