you've got to laugh eh

Last night witnessed the second outing of my boyfriend's foetal career as a stand up comedian. Previous attempts have revealed him to be adept at both telling jokes and standing up. By 'adept' perhaps I should say 'prolific', and by 'jokes' I should probably say something like 'talking', and for 'standing up', no, actually, I'll leave that one.

Two large glasses of wine inhaled by 8pm meant that I had to concentrate to not giggle at the wallpaper, and so I feel entirely justified in my self-appointed position as key critic of the evening. There were about twelve or so slots to fill, with each Christian given five minutes in front of the lions. I'm leaving that in as I think it's a nice fitting analogy, but truth be told, it was Crouch End, and so tabby cats would have been a more apt comparison.

I can't remember the first one, although I have a hazy memory of people laughing, and so I conclude that he told some jokes with the end result of creating amusement in the audience. The second flailed about like a madman and told a story about having sex in a library, which wasn't very funny, and between you and me, I suspect to have been a fabrication. The third was a large woman in a big knitted cardigan who, I can only assume, is not entirely sane. Her salt-of-the-earth shops-in-the-salvation-army demeanour lead to the crowd really wanting to like her, reaching out with their tiny little alcohol-soaked minds and trying to give her a hug by means of a chuckle. But it was impossible. She wasn't funny. She wasn't lucid. She was a puzzle wrapped up in an enigma served on a plate of bewilderment.

And then it was my boyfriend.

He strode on stage to the sound of whooping, swirling around in an atmosphere still haunted by confusion. He grabbed the microphone and spoke to the crowd, confidant, composed, northern. He did what any discerning connoisseur of popular culture would do. He talked about Countdown.

I thought that he was brilliant. His poise was compelling, and his banter was fluid and engaging. He was less convinced. "They were silent the whole way through it," he interjected, before downing most of his pint, chain smoking a packet of fags, and trying to control the spasmodic shaking that was juddering his entire body. "I am never doing that again."