I was feeling quite hairy last night. I usually have my hair trimmed down to the level usually found in the photo to the right. However, it was much more bushy than that. This makes me look quite scruffy and also gives facial itching. Never a good thing. This lunchtime I went out to get myself trimmed down and I now feel more myself. Given that I never used to get my hair cut so short, it's interesting to find that I now consider it "more me" to be trimmed down. I guess this is part of the legacy of being changed by my ex-girlfriend, and an appreciated legacy too. Perhaps she'll remain in her role as my "style guru" a personal Trinny/Susannah if you will.

Talking of hairy, and this isn't some convenient aside, as much as a contrivance to shoehorn two subjects into the same post, last night's gig was quite something. To put things into context, my last gig was December 7th. It was a spoken gig. I didn't do my musical stuff, nor take it especially seriously. So, the real last gig before my break was at the end of November. I had a similar two-month break last year. The first gig back is always going to be tricky, and this particular gig in Grantham was a first night and in a room which did not help the comedy atmosphere. Listening back to the gig, though I felt on the ropes at the time, I cheated my way into the audience's affections and managed to keep it going. It was by no means a barnstorming performance, the likes of which I'm capable of turning out when I've got a following wind and a lot of practice in. However, it was vaguely credible.

I made the mistake of dropping my usual opening in favour of something which I think is quicker to the funny, but is actually a bit of a groaner, which I can get away with, once an audience are used to me. As a result, my opening foundered a bit. I want to ditch my usual opening, but if I'm honest, I still haven't got anything better to put in place of it. I need to work on that. Work on it, I shall!

I also had some weird response to the usually bankable material on Bernard Manning being a racist. Basically, the word "racist" was an instant silence to the room. It was a longish room with a high ceiling, which made it seem very silent when it was silent and made the back of the room hard to reach with laughs. However, I'm experienced enough not to let the occasional silence get me down too much. Once I got into the ruder stuff, the audience really started to play along. Though it didn't start out that strongly, I acted as though it was going well, which seemed to help. The opening gag got a half-laugh/groan, which I leaned on and then added "I see I've found your level" which was, in fact augmented in my head by "and it's not this".

I've been missing gigging and I'm glad to be back on the horse, if not as firmly as I've been before. The late night drive home was a good opportunity to think about DIY. How sad is that!? I didn't get back too late, though the 140+ mile journeys are going to take some getting used to again. It seemed to take a very long time to get back home. I suppose that the loneliness of an empty house might get to me too, but I shall, hopefully, be in a position to bring in tenants in a few months' time. These long lonely car journeys will give me the time to think about how I can expedite that.