Days Without Drinking (why I said comedy initially I have no idea!) 49. In the past it has been my great pleasure to get totally wasted with the people at the Frog and Bucket after my shows, so it was a novel experience to stay sober after the gig. But not a bad one. It was the first time this year that I was staying in a hotel after the gig and was concerned about winding down and sleeping and how I would feel back in my Travelodge room alone trying to come down from the adrenalin rush. But it was actually much more manageable without a drink and I slept easily, after having had fun chatting with some of the audience. So another tick for sobriety. It was also, I think, the best gig I have done with this show. An appreciative sell-out crowd encouraging me to be playful. It's great when an audience laugh heartily at a subtle joke early on and you know that they're really going to get EVERYTHING. I love this venue.
I had taken the train up to Manchester - I made this decision before my recent prang, though was pleased to have done so, as I was still very tired and it is a LONG drive. In my head I had made all kinds of plans to work on my sitcom on my way up - in my head I imagined that the train would be fairly empty and quiet and I'd be able to work easily and comfortably, with plenty of room to spread out, on the mahogany tables with large desk lamps. Somehow I thought that I would be traveling on the Orient Express.
I don't know how I could have been so unrealistic - it's not like it's been years since I was on a train, nor have my recent experiences been good - but I genuinely felt that going on the train would be more relaxing and productive than driving. What an idiot I am.
The train was, of course, jam packed and I don't think I am imagining it, but on Virgin Trains at least real reductions have been made in both seat size and luggage storage space. I had brought a big suitcase with my programmes and skateboard and props in it. It was incredibly heavy and I was already cursing my decision to train it before I had got anywhere near the station. The car is so much more convenient and I really have a little bit too much stuff to carry.
By the time I was on the train and had luckily grabbed the last space in the tiny luggage rack at the end of the carriage and was wedged into my seat next to another slightly chunky man, I was considering paying the extra £15 for a Weekend First Upgrade. But the first class carriages were at the other end of the train and it would be too much hassle to move now, so I stayed where I was, wondering if I could even fit my computer on to the fold down table, which looked like it might have originally been a maid's tray in a child's doll house.
A child in the seat in front was playing his gameboy with the sound on, but I didn't feel I could complain as he had a hearing aid and I didn't want to appear like some kind of evil monster, making things even more difficult for him. I was, in any case, too knackered by all the aggravation to even think of settling down to write, so I just watched more Seinfeld on my iPod instead - thankful that I had such a small screen to use in the minimal space I had been allocated for my 63 pounds.
Inevitable delays added to the stress and there was also a slightly scary man with a big dog and a hyperactive child who started talking to me as I queued for the toilet. He'd obviously been in some trouble with the guard already as he told me that if anything like that (I don't know what it was) happened again he would be throwing someone (I don't know who) off at the next station. He was affable, but I sensed at any moment with a twitch he might change to being an ultra-aggressive berserk, like a character from Trainspotting. He was cross about the smoking ban and said, "I take it you're a smoker too," so rather than irk him I said, "I have been known to have the odd cigarette," which whilst being accurate (I maybe had about ten of them when I was 18) was an incredibly odd thing to say, making me appear like some kind of weak occasional smoker who could know nothing of his suffering. What kind of person has the occasional cigarette? Whoever they are they must surely be viewed with more suspicion than a non-smoker.
He told me that he still smoked at work, even though it was illegal and no-one complained. But then he did work nights so he could get away with it. "Does anyone work with you?" I asked.
"Yes, John."
"Does he smoke too?"
He did and I argued that that was probably why he was getting away with it. I was willing whoever was in the toilet to get on with their business before I accidentally slighted this man and he sent my head smashing into the train wall, or held it out of the window until I was decapitated. Thankfully at this point the door opened and I went in, the man still continuing this unrequested, eerily friendly conversation. He told me that the police had come into work one night and he hadn't got into trouble and that one of them had in fact asked for "a fucking light". "So if the police are doing it, then I can't get into trouble can I?"
I laughed in a false matey fashion and closed the door. When I came out he was there still wanting to continue.
"Here's the best part," he said, "I never told you what I did. I'm a security guard."
I didn't understand why this was the best part, but laughed anyway and tried to make a comment about no-one wanting to mess with him, though it came out as a garbled mess of words and I slunk back to my tiny seat hoping he wasn't going to follow me and give me the story of his life before ordering his dog to bite my face off.
Fortunately he didn't.
