Our Venice trip was over much too soon. I now slightly regret withholding my discretionary contribution of 25p when
buying a Veneziana, though I have probably made up for it by making a non-discretionary contribution of £40 for a fish. I don't want to sound like your dad (but alas I am middle-aged and am exactly like him) but it is a very expensive city to visit. But in all but one case I enjoyed having my pocket-picked by the charming and lucky inhabitants of this beautiful city. At times I felt like I was in ancient Rome, at others in medieval Italy, at others like I was Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (the only game I played of hers was set in this city) and only about 95% of the time did I think I was in a 1970s advertisement for over-sweet ice cream.
We were back in London by 3 and I was off out to do some stand up and present some awards and fail to win an award (I was beaten by Bane from Batman who is a tough opponent) at the justgiving awards.
It was an inspiring evening with heart-warming and tear-jerking stories from fundraisers of all ages. I met a man who had done 366 new things in 2012, like wrestling against a heavyweight wrestling champion, having a spider walk across his face and (my favourite) putting a piece of bread on the ground at the exact same time as a friend in Australia to make a world sandwich. He should turn this into an Edinburgh show.
I had hoped that performing comedy to the most charitable people on earth would have been easy, but it was quite a tough gig (mainly I think because people didn't really want to see some comedy in the middle of all this inspiration). I tried to do a clean set (though accidentally said "fucking" in the first 30 seconds) and got a few laughs, but I made the correct decision of not hanging around too long
I knew that I wasn't going to win the award as the vote had been public and Bane's supremacy (after an initial lead for me) could not even have been overcome by Batman. But I had fun chatting with some remarkable people.
Tickets for the October London run of "We're All Going To Die!" are
now on sale. The London Talking Cock gigs are sold out, so don't miss out on these ones you cockerknees.
Also the first guest for my summer run of the (sony-nominated) Leicester Square Theatre podcasts is confirmed. Mr Chris Addison from off of the Thick of It will be joining me for show 1 on May 27th. Buy your tickets
here. Your support will keep this project alive. But also it's a really fun night out. The shows will be available to download as audio for free, but we might also be filming them this time round for a paid video download, so you can help keep us going and see what's going on even if you're not one of the cockerknees.
