Leicester Comedy Festival Part 1

Its Friday the 13th today. So far nothing particularly unlucky has happened to me today unless you count not having had enough sleep on account of Rosie (one of my cats) mieowing in my face repeatedly until I got up. She didn’t even want feeding, she was just being evil. I managed to get 30 minutes more dozing before she did it again for no reason. Now I am awake, she has decided to go to sleep. I am considering shouting in her face every 10 minutes as payback. Bella, the black cat, should be doing full Friday the 13th duties, and crossing lots of paths, but she is a lazy cow/cat and has been sleeping on top of our boiler all morning. I wish I could sleep on top of our boiler. It looks warm. I once slept on the luggage holding bits above the seats of a train but I think that is the closest I will get. I am not quite short enough for boiler naps. 

Yesterday was a long but awesome day. I put aside usual stand-up duties to do some presenting and interviewing for the lovely people at Comedy Demon. Jude, who was in charge of things, had only had one hour sleep due to house moving duties and so as she couldn’t really focus on bits of paper I got to write some of the questions. Writing questions is a lot more fun than you might think. Especially if you get as carried away as I did and insisted on as many puns as possible and asking things to Tim Minchin such as ‘If you were a lady would you be called Min Timchin?’ and ‘Do you have a minchin, medchin or maxchin?’ Sadly those two didn’t get asked due to time restraints but there are many others that are just as terrible. I also didn’t get to ask Minchin for my crepe back. He still owes me for last Edinburgh when, drunk and hungry, I was about to tuck in to a cheese and mushroom wonder. Minchin then grabbed it eat half and ran away. Despite all his musical talent, he still has to scrounge for food like a pauper and steal from hobbits. Its just not right. 
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when interviewing people. I had met all three people we were talking to several times before but I didn’t know if I would be static with them and just plough through questions or be able to chatter away. Luckily it was all a very relaxed fun affair with much nattering to Jason Cook, Milton Jones and the Minchin with hopefully some lovely stuff for the edit. 
After interviews we watched half of Minchin’s show which was excellent, and then raced to Jason’s show which was also brilliant despite the weird Liverpudlian man in the front. He was an old chap who decided he should keep talking all through the beginning of the show despite no one wanting him too. Less aggressive, more mental. Jason dealt with it superbly though and I was pleased I got to see his show as I was too busy being rained on and crying about my shows in Edinburgh last year. As well as all this I met two people (Lee and Hannah) in the face that I had only previously had interweb and phone contact with which was ace. Its odd how in this day and age you feel like you know people despite only ever having typed at them and had only the limited use of smileys for expression. Luckily neither of them were mental and instead were lovely so it was all ok. They were also the same ages they said they were and not a child/paedo granddad which was all good. 
The only error all day was my leather jacket. I was bought a leather jacket by Layla for my birthday this year. Despite being a veggie and opposing eating animals I love my leather jacket. I also don’t eat it, so as far as I am concerned my morals are shallow enough to make that ok. My leather jacket is very good at being a bit cool and making me feel a bit cool, but what it is not good at is tackling the snow. There was no expectation of snow yesterday and so despite continuing with interviews and tackling the adverse weather by jumping in lots of cabs, I got stupidly cold. This was then not helped by filming the final cut of the feature in the snow outside Demontford Hall. Lots of people walking past looking at me with pity while I stood still for 15 takes wondering whether I would get frostbite or not. Once again, there was little to no chance of that happening, and as I defrosted I imagined Ranulph Fiennes waving his fingers stubs at me and calling me a ‘pussy’. You may have your dignity Ranulph, but I have full fingers so there. Sad to say that yesterday was probably a point to snow. It now equals Snow 1 – Me 1. When will the next battle take place? Lets hope its not Bournemouth. If I get stuck there tonight it really will be the worst Friday 13th ever.