On yesterday’s journey to and back from a gig that did not turn out as expected, Paul Byrne brought the best journey chat I’d been company to in some time. Journey chat is very important as it a) keeps me awake and stops me from crashing and b) stops me sitting in awkward silence as there is nothing to say and therefore contemplate crashing of my own accord. Over the years I have been privy to some excellent passengers with good chat all of their own, but yesterday’s was banter of the highest accord and so I thought with today’s blog I would open up some discussion points based on the most important topics:
CYBORGS
After deciding that I am now definitely a cyborg as I have a diabetic pump, we began to discuss just what bit you would get enhanced if you were to become part robot. We both went for a bionic arm. Just one, as that’s all that’d be needed. That’d be the one arm that opened jars and lifted up cars while you got the £1 you dropped from underneath them. Or used for arm wrestles. All those important things. I said I’d like robot legs so I could run for ages and ages. Paul said what if the legs broke down, but I argued that I’d quite like to call the AA to come out and repair my legs. You could say phrases like ‘I need a leg up’ or ‘help me, I’m legless’. I’m sure the humour would run out after waiting for four hours unable to move, but I don’t think that far ahead. Having robot legs led to the discussion of where the line between robot and cyborg human lies and that perhaps it would be better to have just robot joints and keep your own legs. That’s robot joints as in knees and things, not as in spliffs made of gasoline.
Paul opted for the eyes, which I found wrong. He liked the idea (or eyedea. Arf) that you could have eyes that zoom and analyse (or analeyes. Tee hee) just by looking at stuff. You could record, take photos and switch on night vision and heat sensing. In principle, this is pretty cool. However, the downside is that you would have to have your actual eyes removed and I don’t like stuff to do with eyes being removed. Personally, if no one ever had to have their eyes removed, I think the world would be a better place. They are too squishy, look like lychees (the worst of all the cheeses) and you’d have to, even if unconscious, (with the only exception being blind people) see something coming towards your eye to remove it. That is the worst bit. Any other operation, you can just not look. Eye removal, you don’t really have a choice. So I backed away from such things, hoping that they would just bring out contact lenses that do similar things. Or visors like in the movies. Paul was not having this and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want bionic eyes.
Conversation time = 27 minutes of chat
EYE LICKING
On the same theme, Paul asked if I’d ever had anyone lick my eyes or had I licked anyone’s eyes. I responded with an exasperated ‘no’ as I’m sure many of you would. Later Paul would ask the same question to Tim Fitzhigham who would respond in exactly the same disgusted way as I did. Paul’s reasoning was that its an excellent way to get grit out of your eye. I have never had a huge problem with grit in my eye before, and when it has occurred the last thing on my mind would be to get someone’s tongue lunging into my eyeball. This combines two things I’m not a huge fan of: a) things going in my eye. Yes I can happily prod my eye, or rub it. But other things entering it is wholly wrong. And b) licking. While I’m not going to go into it, licking in certain places is more than fine. But other places, like when people think its fun to just lick your face I’m not a fan. Yes, that does happen to me more than I’d like it to. I console myself with the thought that I must have a very tasty face. But still this does not mean in any way I’d like to have tasty eyes. Paul again, could not understand this. He has licked several eyes and had his eyes licked. When questioned, it was not for any sexual reasons, but more training incase he was to get grit in his eye and needed to be prepared when someone had to lick it for practical purposes. I would argue that just wearing goggles all the time might be a better way to avoid eye grit. Paul offered to lick my eye to show me. I declined as, with all due respect, were it ever to happen, I wouldn’t want him to be my first. I am now left with sheer fear at the thought and at the same time know I will be drink at some point and curious.
Conversation time = a staggering 35 minutes plus extra time later when it was brought up again and again
SPIT TRAINING
On the journey home, Paul excelled in sweet buying and got both types of Refreshers sweets, some love hearts and something else he didn’t share because he’s selfish. The conversation arose after I decided to test my diabetic pump to its limits and eat a lot of them, about how, when we were at school, you would specifically eat certain sweets to make your spit fizzy. This would be used as a boost in certain spit competitions such as ‘best distance’ or ‘spitting things off walls’. Were spitting an Olympic competition athletes would probably be tested for such substances as Refreshers and banned for such performance enhancing substances. We then discussed how now, as adults you rarely spit, and when you do, its only really for necessity. Burping too, while still enjoyed amongst male company, is no longer practiced like it was in the playground, with the aim of spelling words or saying phrases. We discussed whether or not this was indicative of adult life being less fun or whether we were disgusting kids. The former won.
Conversation time = 22 minutes
The gig itself was at a small festival for 200 people called Hole In the Wall in Kidderminster. Take that Latitude goers, I knew where the party was at. Fo’ sho’. Sadly, for the comedy, only 8 people turned up and that very very slowly grew to about 20 by the time we started. It was ok, mainly due to me asking a six year old boy what the rudest word he knew was and he shouted very loudly ‘bugger’. That meant all further swears were replaced by ‘bugger’ which nearly worked till I commented that ‘a groan is as good as a laugh unless of course you’re shagging someone in which case a groan is preferable.’ I stopped at ‘of course’ realising that replacing ‘shagging’ for ‘bugger’ would not really help that gag become any more child friendly. Tim Fitzhigham closed the show with some excellent banter and songs and as he did lots of campers in camouflage gear turned up to fill up the tent a bit. I could see them, but I’m a ninja, so not sure anyone else did so for Tim the tent probably looked the same.
Incidentally Tim’s show in Edinburgh this year will include a story about fighting off wild dogs in the West Indies using a guitar and cricket strokes. If for no other reason, you should really really go and see his show for that.
I am previewing in Surrey tonight at the Arc in Caterham, and tomorrow I’m previewing in Cardiff at the Institute. Should you live near either of those, please come along. I promise I won’t lick your eye.
