Westward How?

This week’s road trip was down to the West Country for gigs at the Bath Komedia and Bristol Comedy Garden.Again, I was accompanied by the man they call Old Dog Nuts, Mr Lloyd Langford. I can’t verify that with photos as weirdly he’s stopped showing up on film so you’ll have to take my word for it. Or ring him. Or get a life.

Bath is not a bad place to gig, Bristol is a good place to gig, so things were shaping up. Before we’d even arrived we were planning what carnage we could cause in the downtime.

Oh, as a side note on the way in, I took a photo from the car whilst driving (HIGHLY ILLEGAL BUT VERY EXCITING) – the cursive writing on this sign makes it look like this hairdressers is called ‘Hair Like Sick’. Mmmm. Smelly. ‘Would sir like to see the back in a mirror?’ ‘Sir would like you to pick the chunks of sweetcorn of sir’s head actually.’

Anyway. The trip didn’t turn out as rock and roll as we’d planned (they never do). We watched Harry Potter then went on a brief tour of the sights of Bath. I imagine Kurt Cobain would have done exactly the same thing. Harry Potter was fine, but I d0n’t really follow it and don’t really know who the people are and don’t care about what happens to them. So it was never going to be amazing. I bought a hot dog and we discussed gently slapping the bloke in front on top of his head with it, then when he turned around appear to be doing up your flies. A good trick if you can pull it off (no pun intended – and don’t go that far, you’ll definitely end up in prison).

Oh, in a junk shop window I saw a couple of dolls. These dolls. What kind of fucked-up parent buys this for their kid? ‘Go to sleep Jimmy or I’ll get the dolls again!’ ‘NOOOOO!’

So. The sight seeing tour was pretty average, they always are. The main sight was these two chumps, who on a blazing hot day had decided to dress up like badly disguised paedophiles.

The worst part of it was that after a couple of seconds trying to get the right shot, he clocked me. I ran away. I didn’t want to explain that I was taking his photo because he won the prize for ‘Most Enormous Tosspot of the Day’. He was drinking Stella, and I didn’t want to get beaten up by a man in fancy dress. Still, it would have been great if he’d been arrested and had mugshots done.

So Bath done and dusted, the gigs were meh, and onwards to Bristol. I left Old Pooch Plums (Lloyd, not the bear bloke) in Cardiff (it’s what he would have wanted) and sodded off to Bristol.

For the evening, I went for a Chinese because Hot and Sour Soup is the most incredible liquid ever invented. Plus you get the added benefit of fortune cookies. My fortune wasn’t so much a fortune as a boast.

I took it to heart, and tried to do a Jedi mind trick on the waitress. Looked her straight in the eyes and said ‘You do not want us to pay for this meal. You do NOT want us to pay.’ She didn’t know what was on my fortune cookie, so she said ‘I’ll get the manager’. Awkward.

The long weekend finished at the Bristol Comedy Garden, which is basically a massive circus tent that’s landed in the middle of the City like a Carnie UFO. It’s pretty impressive stuff, and the gig was blinding too. Here’s a link to a review if you’re interested. And if you’re a festival nerd, you’ll appreciate this – a view of the backstage area. OOOOOOOH! Note all the Red Bulls so that comedians can appear to be happy go lucky whatever their mood.