“What a great song. It really encapsulates the frustration of a Sunday, doesn’t it? You wake up in the morning, you’ve got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you’ve got to mow the lawn, wash the car…”
I’M ALAN PARTRIDGE 1997
So here we are again. Hello, whoever you are.
Another pint, another laptop, another crumpled pack of Camels.
It’s Sunday lunchtime. Just after noon. Which I assume is how the afternoon got its name.
I swear to God that’s never occurred to me before. What Neal “Johnny Marr” Doran would call a Karrimor moment.
KARRIMOR MOMENTS: The split second of joyful realisation of a pun or wordplay or portmanteau that you’d been happily saying or reading for years without getting the joke, Named, of course, after the moment Neal stood on a London Underground escalator behind a tourist with a big backpack. The backpack was made by the company “Karrimor.” Which just looks like the name of a quaint village. Until you say it aloud and realise it means “Carry More.”
In the Understudies days (early 1990s) when we were young and “clever” anything a bit wordy and smug and, let’s face it, Stephen Fry-y or Wodehousian, would make us wriggle and giggle self-consciously into our mugs of PG, this stuff was golden. You could dine out on a good one for a couple of weeks. Can’t remember ANY of them now.
Anyhoo, its Sunday. A nice one though.
My lovely Claire is sat at the big table in our home, headphones on, studying hard for her qualification to become a counsellor in the “Psychosythesis” discipline. Which means the flat is virtually out of bounds. I don’t mind this because I am
- A huge fan of all self-improvement
- It’s an amazing skill and talent and future career to have and she’s great at it and it makes her happy so who am I to insist she does it in the spare room so I can eat toast and watch Demolition Man on Netflix
- An emotionally troubled and terribly high-maintenance boyfriend, but one who knows what nice gesture is.
So I have awaited noon and packed the ole’ Dell into my Dr Martens leather satchel and thrown myself up Ewell Road to the nearest nice pub garden to get some work done.
This, dear reader, is the work.
So we’re in The Prince Of Wales pub in Surbiton this afternoon. Nice enough little Fullers boozer. Outside its sun-baked, splintery benches and crusty table umbrellas. A tiny stereo is sort of dryly chopping out some kind of James Taylor acousticky Americana vibes.
All is fine with the world.
I’m a bit tired as we both sat up ‘til midnight screaming and punching the air at the Women’s US Open Tennis final. But I got the luxury of a lie-in as I only have this to do today. Claire has 8hrs of concentration and study.
As I say, I’ve left her to it.
I’m enjoying a lunchtime pint of fresh summery bitter. The fags are out again (will quit soon).
And I have 2 things to talk about. Well, three if we’re being accurate.
The Stand Up Course. Which might be why you’re here. It’s certainly why I’m here.
It was 6 days ago now, so I can – with the help of my now freshly-typed-up notes – means I can reflect.
Firstly, the host. Erich. Thoroughly nice chap. Wiry and beardy. Desert boots and plaid, Nice US twang. Clearly knows his stuff. I won’t do his biog. But he’s a pro comic. Which these days I think means he gets enough gigs to pay half his mortgage and runs enough Clubs in pubs as a compare/MC/host to boost up his paycheque. Seems to be the way to do it.
When I was a comic back in the 90s I remember reading with teeth-gritted envy, of comics who ran their own comedy nights. Seemed to be cheating a bit, I thought back then. I mean, a guaranteed weekly gig? Your own stage. No worries about booking agents or open-mic spots or anxious phone calls to bookers to try and plead your case. Eddie Izzard – who was a HUGE influence back when Comedy Was The New Rock N Roll (copy write The Guardian) – ran his own club in Soho called Raging Bull, so he got about 3 years of weekly gigs to learn his craft without having to impress a new club owner every set. THAT’S how you get stage time, I thought. Dammit.
Comics now, looking back on those heady days, talk with wincey fondness on his impact on the stand-up scene. How EVERY open-mic 5-miniter got up and Izzarded his way through his sets thinking all you had to do was “uhhmmm” and “errrr” through your set and you were an improv genius. It makes me blush now how much I just ripped this technique off. A compare at Downstairs At The Kings Head called me out on it once after my open spot. Cringe.
Anyhoo, Erich is a lovely chap. He has a keen eye for the market and seems very keen on us earning how to become ACTUAL jobbing stand-ups, not just art-centre have-a-goes. He talks about expectations and business and audiences and techniques and the hard-graft sheer practicality of it all. And this I like. I don’t need help knowing what a joke is. I need help knowing the difference between being the quippy bloke in the pub and in front of the telly…and being someone people enjoy watching on stage. That’s what I’m here for and he’s up for it.
The other 5 at the course…too early to say. But from 2.5 hours in their company, here’s some thumbnails I confidently expect to be disproven in later blog updates:
MIKE: Charming chap. As I mentioned, something of the aging roadie about him. Has done loads and loads of community work gathering errant youths into ragtag groups and getting them interested in performing, taking teenagers up to Edinburgh and putting on shows. Seems earthy and honest and a man with a million stories. Many of which might be about care homes and Prog Rock.
JACK: The youngest. Blokey boysy type. A plumber. Mid-twenties. Clearly the funny one in his group of friends, of which – by his amiable manner – I imagine he has dozens. He likes his oldies, his vintage Tommy Cooper/Laurel & Hardy clips and has grown up watching YouTube and Live At The Apollo and just genuinely wants to have a go. Will be amazing to watch him grow.
SARAH: A black woman from California, a smile the size of Southampton. Bright, smart, granny, energetic and a gifted ad-libber and improviser. Lights up the stage and seems born to it in a way the rest of us shuffling amateurs can only marvel at. Big, broad on-stage presence and going to charm the fuck out of any crowd before she opens her mouth. Would love to try some improve with her just to feed of her boundless energy.
IMAN: (Possibly IMAM? Don’t know and can’t possibly find a way of asking). Prob thirty-ish, Asian (as in Indian, not as in Japanese – still don’t know what the woke way of distinguishing these are. Is that just me?). Very modern, has lived in multicultural Britain long enough to know there is a huge amount of angry comedy to be had about the world and how it treats immigrants and women. Not quite Shappi Korshandi, but there’s a whiff of that shtick.
Anyhoo, so we spent 2.5 hours together last Monday. As we will again tomorrow night.
And it was terrific. Real nuts and bolts stuff.
There was the usual “getting to know you” intros but we didn’t spend too much time on that, which was good. I didn’t need to spend £75 hearing about where everyone was from for an hour.
We jumped in then with the state of the union. About working as a new comic. About clubs and opportunities. About the rise of something called “Bringer gigs”
BRINGER GIGS: A new type of open-mic night where comics can perform based on an agreement of how many guests they bring with them. Blimey. Don’t bring guests? NO SOUP FOR YOU! A way, I assume, of meaning a booker can run a night guaranteed that
- There will be an audience
- That audience won’t all be water-sipping open-spotters waiting to go on.
- Someone will buy a fuckin’ drink.
Caused me to muse on the way home how often my dear, dear friends would be dragged across London to hear me do the same tiring, ill-rehearsed 5 minutes at amateur hours throughout the Britpop years.
These still go on. There is an article about them here. I don’t expect you’ll read it:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/22/standups-who-bring-their-own-audience
We then dug into, well, the biggest problem I ever had with stand-up comedy. Or at least, my clumsy attempts at it.
The Fourth Wall.
THE FOURTH WALL: The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this “wall”, the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot.
Erich’s point – one I could have done with someone screaming at me when I was 19 years old – is that stand-up removes the 4th wall. It HAS TO. If there’s a wall between what you’re doing and the crowd, then what you’re doing is fucking THEATRE. Or POETRY.
Stand up HAS to have the audience as part of the act. You’re talking WITH them. Not AT them.
Now this was my biggest fear and issue when I first started.
I wrote my jokes on a battered Underwood typewriter/cheap Olivetti, alone in my room. On green paper my mum got free (stole) from her work. I knew a good pun when I heard one. Here’s one from way back then:
“I used to work as a vivisectionist. But I got fired when they caught me one night in the basement trying to fit a V8 rocket engine onto the back of a baby deer. (Beat) They told me I was clearly here just trying to make a fast buck.”
Okay. Not exactly Woody Allen’s moose. But a solid enough pun and when delivered with a gesture and an awkward “Julian Clary” mouth wince, pretty much a crowd pleaser.
And I would write a dozen of these, and then put them into some kind of order that made a “story.” (Work/dating/school/hobbies/parents) grouping the similarly themed ones into clumps.
And then I would pick up an old microphone (my dad’s) and pace the bedroom reciting these lines. Over and over. And over and over and over. Just learning the words. Like it was a play.
No thought to the audience, no consideration of effect or response. Just learn the fucking jokes.
Pacing, turning, pacing turning, pacing turning, up and down and up and down the room. Past my bed, past the desk, past the old Star Wars figures in a shoe box, past my Fender Telecaster leaned against the woodchip wallpaper. Over and over.
Which meant I had an act.
Not a show. Christ, it wasn’t a show. There was no SHOW. Just 25 one liners, loosely linked with painfully crow-barred segue ways.
Which mean when my name was called out at the comedy night, I stomped up to the stage, moved the mic stand and proceeded to stomp up and down the small raised area repeating the routine. No eye contact, no acknowledgment, no reactions, no interaction. Just BANG BANG BANG.
And if the crowd liked a tortured pun…(My brother and I both had terrible inferiority complexes. (beat) His was obviously MILES BETTER than MINE) I would get laughs and call it a success.
The fourth wall was made of Kevlar.
All fine of course for a sweaty 19 year old for which all expectations were low. But when the audience wanted to “join in” or “talk back” or – God forbid – “heckle”, the show was over.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BEDROOM!? FUCK OFF! I’VE GOT 20 MORE OF THESE TO DO! SHUT UP!!!
I had a lot to learn. I present this Roger Waters style Wall Building as one of the biggest reasons I was a lousy comic. Oh I got gigs. I got rebooks. I got quite far. But it wasn’t stand-up. It was theatre. It was a comedy monologue. It was – shudder – poetry.
Being in a room last Monday with 5 people learning this was a huge moment.
We then dealt with (and I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d designed the course myself) the idea of status.
STATUS: The establishment of power. Who is in charge? Who has high status, who has low?
The comic’s job is to have the highest status in the room. They are the boss. No matter what.
And if the “character” you play is a humble, bumbling, awkward, traditionally low-status person (Emo Philips, Woody Allen, Jon Richardson, Simon Amstell) they CANNOT give the status to the audience. Somehow – and here is what I needed back then – they have to be clumsy and awkward and STILL the most powerful person in the room.
There is an art to this.
Erich suggested I watch a comic called Peter Brush, who he says has this down pat.
In fact. In the spirit of taking this seriously and being teacher’s pet, I’m going to take a breather now, get another pint and find him on you tube…
Oh he’s very good. VERY GOOD. Here you go.
Right. So Peter Brush has that thing. His on-stage persona is an awkward, shuffly, second-guessing twitchy outsider. Very much the kind of gags and observations I was striving for. First thoughts is that when I tried this act 30 years ago, I was more manic and hyper. Shouty, jerky and oddball.
But what Brush (I’m sure he won’t mind me referring to him this way) is NOT someone you would heckle. And I’m sat here in The Prince Of Wales in Surbiton, watching his act on my little phone, trying to analyse why.
It’s a subtle thing. He seems shy but somehow incredibly sure of his shyness. Like, “I’m shyer than you and I will stab you if you argue. With my smarts and my mind and my wit. So back off, I’m in charge.”
I can imagine this “character” (which, for all its construction, it clearly is) has taken years of skin-thickening. But I get it. He’s bumbling. But he’s in charge.
That’s what I need to learn, if I’m going to do a “what the hell is the world about” act.
Fascinating.
Anyhoo, to check we got the concept, Erich got us to pair up on stage and act out a twisted “high/low status” double act bit of improve.
I was paired with the lovely Jack. He played the high status driver, I was the low-status policeman.
We bumbled through 2 mins of improve in front of the group, on stage, under the lights. No microphones. Just us.
Some thoughts on this.
- Fuck it’s hard. On stage, in front of your tutor and 3 other people you don’t know. Aside from “they know you think you’re funny.”
- Playing low-status comedically is difficult, because every instinct is telling you to take charge. Be louder, more confident, smarter, funnier, more bossy.
- My “timid traffic cop” stumbled and fumbled and I had to fight every instinct to go full Blackadder “sarky official,” Jack gave it full balls-out wanker driver. I and stood apologising and fluffing and trying to be empathetic to his speeding.
- When someone says “don’t try and make it funny, just establish the status,” it fights every instinct you get when standing on stage.
But we got the point. Despite Jack being the driver, and me being the cop, it was his show.
I’ve just been for a much needed wee. Have come back with a pint, some twiglets and some mini cheddars. Coz it’s Sunday afternoon and …well, that.
I’m going to munch these while I watch a comedian called Lewis Schaffer.
I can’t remember why Erich said he was worth watching. Maybe status? I figure I’ll get it once I watch him. Here it is:
Ahhhh, now I get it. Now THAT is status.
I’ve never seen this bellowing New York maniac before. Furious, resentful, bitter, snarky…
But in all that, tragic. Unloved, unwanted.
This isn’t Eddie Murphy RAW, this isn’t Bill Hicks screaming about Kennedy. This is exhausted pleading. You KNOW he’s in charge. But somehow, somehow, the character is desperate. The jokes are dark (9/11, Maddie McCann, child porn) but all screamed in rage against an empty universe.
Blimey.
(Oh, but my favourite bit is the first 10 seconds when he thanks Stewart Lee and refers to him as “Bridget Christie’s husband.”)
BOOM
Havin’ another fag now. (I’ll quit soon)
Oh, as I was working here (working? Ha!) Claire popped down to the pub garden on her lunchbreak. We hung out a bit and she talked about her course. Sadly, I’m so “stand-uppy” in my head right now, barrelled along by the mood and the attitude, I could offer little but snappy puns. Christ I’m exhausting.
Ohhh and now the internet has suggested I watch the take down of Ellen DeGeneres. Which, obviously, I’m going to do. So pint and fag, here we go…
ASIDE: There’s probably a heckle put down here. “Yes, I seem nice. But I’m an evil vindictive cunt deep down. It’s not easy to do. Ask Ellen DeGeneres.” Does that work? I guess if a heckle put-down gets aggressive I could have it as an “apology” in the back pocket.”
Right. I’m back. Its 14.39 now. I have a couple more hours here.
Some top advice came next, ripped from sports psychology. But valid. Not sure how I’m going to use this practically, but it’s more of creating a mind-set about what we try and do:
VISUALISE SUCCESS – Know what great looks like. Picture it.
CONSEQUENCES – Remove the element of surprise by anticipation of most likely outcomes
RELAX – Be open to what can happen in the room. Don’t fight it. Let it be.
FOCUS ON OBSTACLES – What is stopping you relaxing and enjoying yourself? Forgetting lines? Running over? Heckles?
RECOGNISE & CELEBRATE VICTORIES – no matter how small. What went well?
PAUSE…BUT NOT FOR TOO LONG – take a breath, but not so long as to over analyse
Some obvious but good stuff there. I think the idea of “obstacles” is a good one. What MIGHT happen? What MIGHT the audience say? How MIGHT they react. Best to plan these n advance, rather than trust the stand-up comedy Gods to give you a killer come-back on the night.
Read more here:
A break when I had a fag and a shandy, and then we were back. And this was great because Erich talked about the practical side of things.
Having only done one “how to do stand-up” course before (Jackson Lane, Archway, 1994) it was amazing to have actual practical advice about performing open spots. Such as:
NEVER sit in the front row. You will pop up suddenly when your name is called and throw the tempo off. Often also startle the compare.
NEVER HECKLE – no matter how tempting. Support support support
ACT LIKE A STAR – from the moment you arrive, in the bathroom, at the bar, in the crowd – act like you belong there. You are a PERFORMER, not a punter.
STAND AT THE BACK IN YOUR SECTION – if you know you are on after the break, leave the audience and stand at the back at the interval and wait to walk on.
TIMING – It is everything in comedy. Not just in delivery. Arrive punctually. Take your spot as given. Get a watch/phone that buzzes quietly. Set it to let you know you’ve got 1m left, or 2m left, whatever your last bit is. Do not over-run. Do NOT assume there will be a red light bulb to warn you when time is up.
Then we got to something I never dreamed we’d discuss. Which is the minutiae of stage craft.
The microphone and stand are all you have. Well, that and your act.
Fuck up the practical (mic/cable /stand) management and you are just MR NEWBIE.
Some great tips here I share.
Oh, BTW, this is not my way of getting you to skip the course. DO THE COURSE. Am just sharing my feelings and takeaways. For whatever they are worth. This blogging process helps me focus on these things.
And Erich is right. Fumble and bumble the microphone/stand/cable bit ad it screams amateur. Like a musician tuning up on stage or forgetting a guitar strap. It just takes away the show.
Some great tips – and ones I hope will become my “pre show” checklist =
- Check the height of the compare compared to you. Be prepared to adjust the mic stand
- If you have a tendency to pace too much or wander about too much, leave the mic in the stand.
- If the gig has been set up by musicians, the mic cable may be wrapped around the stand. Be prepared for this. Don’t spend your first 30secs unwinding it.
- How you move the mic stand away will say a lot about your status. Polite? Slam! Aggressive, Slowly, quickly?
- All microphones distort. SLOW DOWN your speech. Relax. Take your time.
- Don’t bring a drink on stage. Putting it on the floor is clumsy. Ask for a stool if you need one.
- Acknowledge the compare – handshake/elbows/fist bump? Covid aware!
- The audience will judge if they like you from the moment you begin your walk to the stage. So plan your walk. Look for a route/obstacles. See how other comics have done it.
- Your clothes will suggest your attitude character and status.
- Say your name at the end of the set and wait for the compare to return. This is your applause time.
- Put the mic BACK IN THE STAND before your last line if you can. Don’t hand it back to the compare.
I mean…it’s all obvious. We’ve all seen people do this and do it well. But SO well, we don’t consider it. These are the basics we have to learn to give our show a fighting chance
The audience can’t call you “Mr Mic Stand.” It’s the ACT. Don’t let the tech get in the way.
We ended on our exercise, as promised. The 2 Truths and a LIE
I was the first up I think. And I climbed up and took the stand. Did my intro. Moved the mic stand to one side, but a bit clumsy and didn’t know what to do with it as it got tangled in the cable.
NEVER have I been more conscious of a PA system.
Then I prowled the stage and did my facts.
Fuck, the lights.
I mean, Erich talked about many clubs having “showbiz lighting” which meant you could not see ANYTHING beyond your nose. Just screaming floodlights and silhouettes. And to be honest, in all my limited experience, I have never walked a stage with such audience invisibility. Seriously, I could see NOTHING. Only the white hot glare. The group could have all quietly got up and left during my bit and I swear I wouldn’t have been able to see it.
SO I had to guess where they were and attempt eye contact and engagement with darkness. HOPING I was looking at where they were. But I could have been 10 feet off and chatting to empty chairs for all I could see.
My 2 truths and a lie went okay. I avoided trying to be funny, as suggested. And just banged out the facts. To a small round of applause.
ASIDE: Nobody guessed right. Everyone thought I was lying about being a writer or a Jeff Goldblum impersonator. Take that either way. I either went into too much detail about The Tribe Of Toffs, or I keep my Goldblum close to my chest.
Felt unnecessarily proud for no reason.
Then we wrapped up talking a little about cancel-culture, and how NOTHING (in principle) was off limits at the course. People get cancelled because their material if not interesting or inventive. Not the subject matter.
I agree.
We were urged to watch Jon Oliver’s piece about the treatment of Monica Lewinsky by the media, so…
Wait. Fuck it. I’m going to see if that’s available now. Hang fire.
MONTAGE: Richard flicks through YouTube for 10 mins while sipping beer…
CUT TO:
Okay. Have found this. I think this is what Erich meant:
But now we get to the crux of the matter. Because I have homework.
Fuck. It’s Sunday night and I’m worrying about homework, it’s like the last 35 years never happened.
Tomorrow night we all have to get up, using good mic technique, under glaring lights, and do a “bit.” A “bit.”
Now for those not in the know, a “bit” is essentially a 1 topic three or four line piece. One subject. Some observations, a gag or two, a feedline and a big finish punchline. A bit.
Erich has told us “it doesn’t have to be funny.”
But we will be at a stand-up comedy course in front of a comedian and 4 other would-be comics. And we will be on stage in front of the lights. So I’m guessing, for better or worse, there’s gonna be some judgement. As this will be the FIRST time we will be delivering material pre-prepared. So, with respect lovely Erich, c’mon. You’re looking for funny.
The homework is to do 2mins or so on:
“Something I love to hate.”
Which of course is classic stand-up fodder. A rant, a shout, a complaint, a…thing. Well, a “bit.”
The guidelines are:
- Introduce yourself.
- State what you hate
- Explain WHY you hate it
- Show “how” you hate it, with a bit of theatrics or acting out or role play or something.
So. That’s what, in 28hrs, I will need to stand up and do.
No pressure.
So instinct here is pulling me 2 ways. Do I:
- Trawl through some existing material, rework it a bit for modern audiences (replace references to Teletext and VHS with Netflix and YouTube)
- Think of something new
What would YOU do?
I have PAGES of “bits” about things that annoy me. That I have delivered to or greater or lesser extent “successfully” in the past. But is that the spirit of the course? The idea, surely, is to work the comedy muscles and try and write something new?
I have, since last Monday, been religiously making a note of all gags and observations that have occurred to me, on my phone in a little “send text to myself” manner. These have (which will make no sense to you) included:
“In a pub quiz, I got this geography question “what is the name of the huge fault that runs for 600 miles through California. I didn’t get any points for Obesity.”
“Went to a corporate do with work. Epsom horses. I tell you, for something called s corporate race day, it was mostly all fat white men.”
“We learn from nature. Green, maybe healthy. Plants, fruits. Red, dangerous. Fire, blood. Bright blue, not healthy. Mould, rot, Greggs.”
“Can’t drive. My entire experience of cars and streets is Grand Theft Auto for the PlayStation. That little controller is not quite gear sticks and pedals. So the one time I was allowed behind a wheel, which was about 10 years ago on a farm, just me and a friend in a huge field. My GTA practise I think put me in good stead. I did alright. Not Great. Only ran over three pimps and a hooker (etc.)”
“Do an office job. No good at it. Hate it. But too late now. Many of you may feel this way. But I am struck on occasion how not at all seriously I take things that other people seem to be very very invested in. Stats. Performance. Results. Quality. I’m just sat watching, faking it. Kidding around. Mucking about and pretending I’m one of the team. I’m Scrappy Doo essentially.”
“Mawkish = Morkish. Robin Williams reference. Mawkish can be used to describe someone or something that is overly emotional or sensitive. “
“DVD covers that spoil the movie. Planet Of The Apes = Charlton Heston bellowing at the Statue OF Liberty. Gone Girl – we are selfish cunts. Psycho / Empire Strikes Back / Sixth Sense / Usual Suspects / Se7en”
“What is a wank if not “Marie Kondo-ing your testicles.” Give em a good clear out. Nobody likes a hoarder.”
“Being the difficult generation – caught between Dad’s Benny Hill and Brother’s Ben Elton. Between the Black n White Minstrel Show and The Young Ones. Being there when it changes. Not having the luxury of laziness, of saying we’re too old to change, or saying we never knew the old days. The age where you have to scroll down twice when finding your year of birth on an online registration form. I’m 3 clicks now. And I’ve lost interest in a product in those 3 clicks.”
“Parent’s confused generation of just adding the letter “y” to words (Indiany, Colouredy, Asiany, Chinesey, foreigney)”
“Everyone has a number they’ve moved from phone to phone of an ex you still hope for. The one you want to contact out of the blue the weekend your partner leaves you.”
“Tab Newcastle clickbait is the worst. DO this and we’ll tell you this. E.g. Place an order in Greggs and we’ll tell you which Depserate Housewives star you’d marry.”
Right. What the hell to make of that shit. None of it jumps out as gold, At least not at this stage. It all is wet clay needing pummelling and fixing.
I am tempted to lean back on a 20 year old bit I wrote about tea. About the faff of ordering tea in a restaurant and just being brought the INGREDIENTS of the cuppa to make myself.
Does this genuinely annoy me? Still? 20 years later? Yes it does.
Am I likely to just rework this bit with some more updated references?
Truth? Yes. Coz it’s Sunday night and I’m tired.
Plus, it’s a good bit.
For your fascination, here’s how I delivered it 25 years ago.
“I don’t go to restaurants myself. Because I’m a tea drinker. I’m British. I’m a tea drinker. There’s a lot of us about. And be aware people – they don’t want you. Coffee after a meal? Fine. Go nuts. 10 different varieties all lovingly prepared. Froth, flavours, syrups, shots, whisky, chocolate. Sprinkles, finished, ready to go.
You order tea? You might as well have ordered the fucker flat packed from IKEA. “Tea is it? Here’s a saucer. Here’s a cup, that’s upside down, sort that out yourself. Here’s some hot water, careful, that’s hot, here’s a teabag, that’s in a paper sachet, sort that out. Here’s a spoon, here’s a jug of milk, a slice of lemon, here’s some strong hanging down, and that’s soggy. I’m surprised it doesn’t come with Swedish instructions and an Allen key. Why are we held in such distain? There are 100milions cups of tea made in the UK alone per day! But here you go, that’s all the crap you need, make it yourself, I’m not getting involved.” I always want to say the same thing. “Why am I MAKING THIS?” Burnt fingers soggy paper. And they say the same thing. “Well…we don’t know how you like it.” FUCK OFF! You’re trained. You’re a Barista! An Expert in your field. I mean the waiters don’t know EXACTLY how I like my soup either do they. But when I ordered it they didn’t bring me a pot of hot water and a chicken.” B-KAARKKK!!”
So Gimme 24hrs and I’ll share
How I reworked it
What feedback I got.
Until then, blimey it’s nice to be writing again. x
a novel approach 