The cold tap on my bath keeps turning itself on by itself. Either there is a mechanical fault of some kind or, more likely, my bathroom is haunted by an unimaginative ghost with a paucity of ambition. He doesn't even turn the tap very far, just enough to get a gurgling trickle of water going, but in some ways that is scarier and more sinister than loads of water coming out. The ghost also tends to do this when one of the other taps in the house is turned on or off. Which is quite clever of the ghost as it would make the cynical mind think that the gurgle is down to some problem with the pipes rather than the actions of an invisible ghostly hand.
Ghosts are sly. That's part of the job description. Only a terrible ghost gets seen for certain or worse photographed. It's all about casting doubt and mild fear and thus the trickling tap is prime ghost behaviour.
The question is do I call a plumber of an exorcist or do I do what I do with most of the problems with my house and call no one and just try and make do? And then when the house is finally properly falling down just move.
It's fun having a mildly mischevous spirit in my bathroom. As long as he looks away when I am doing a poo. It would explain the strange ectoplasm in the shower. If my girlfriend is reading, that's the reason for that. And those strange sulphorous smells too.
I have been staying on top of my diet, though as usual, the initial drop in weight has been followed by a long plateau where my weight goes down a bit and then inexplicably up a bit but staying roughly the same. It's frustrating, but the key is to carry onwards and not get disheartened. One's stupid brain thinks - blimey if I am making all this effort and not losing any weight then I might as well not bother and eat as much as I like. When in fact, of course, the logical step would be to eat less. But I was determined tonight as I made the way to the Lyric Hammersmith gig not to pig out on the show rider (there's usually some crisps and biscuits and some dips and stuff).
Yet once it was in front of me my resolve totally broke. There was a bit plate of salt and vinegar chip sticks and I thought I could risk a couple, but once I had started my hands kept grabbing them and pushing them towards my mouth. I tried to move my mouth away, but it was like my hands could read my mouth's mind. They knew exactly where the mouth was heading and adjusted their trajectory accordingly.
I don't know what it is about free food, but it is the hardest of the foods to resist. I think this impulse partly goes back to the days when I was a struggling and poor writer and any buffet was a source of free nutrients, but also I am just greedy.
I realised I either had to stop myself eating the rider right away OR I could attempt to eat it all before any of the other acts arrived and just hide the plates and pretend there was nothing there. Luckily for my diet I managed to more or less bring my gorging to a halt and I totally resisted the fridge full of beer.... until the second half got underway, then I had a couple of those too. Still as long as I am good for more days than I am bad then the diet should still work and it's no bad thing to have the occasional minor pig out.
Though obviously the rider is the most important thing, the night went well too. There were a couple of hundred people in, which left a lot of empty seats, but these people were very much up for it and they got 90 minutes of quality comedy, with me making rubbish up in between. I had a crack at a couple of bits from the Edinburgh show for the first time in a month and it was, as usual a weird feeling. If I thought too much about it I had no idea what came next, but if I just emptied my mind then the words came out more or less in the right order. Luckily, for once, I did remember to tape a couple of the Fringe shows, so I should be able to ensure that nothing important is forgotten once the tour gets underway.
Stewart Lee is headlining next month, so
do book ahead.
