Goywonder

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Do you ever just feel really… old?

Well that’s how I’ve been feeling lately. And by God is it depressing.

I guess it’s inevitable. Just over a year ago I was twenty-one – that magic age.

I mean, twenty-one isn’t a number: it’s an excuse. It’s okay – he’s twenty-one.

Twenty-two is just a drag. It’s as if YHWH has said “Happy birthday. Here’s a bucket-load of new worries, aches and responsibilities.”

Am I over-reacting? I don’t think so. I really have felt so ancient and exhausted lately.

Take Fridays, for example. On Friday evenings, I should be out there enjoying the best Norwich has to offer.

Instead, I’m too knackered for all that. I’d much rather soak in the bath or watch a marathon run of The Shield.

It’s less TFI Friday and more TFI Bedtime. And if you get that joke you really are old.

But tonight, after weeks of feeling shrivelled and old, I got a lovely dose of relief.

There I was, walking past McDonalds in Great Yarmouth, when all the sudden a shrill pulse tore through my ears.

‘Oy vey. What’s that?’ I asked myself. Then, as I backed away from the siren, it dawned on me.

It was one of those new mosquito devices – specially designed to scatter nuisance teenagers.

The devices emit a high-pitched sonic boom, audible only to the ears of youngsters.

As I clapped my hands over my ears, I rejoiced. I felt young again.

Deafened, persecuted and confused – but still oh so young.

Now let’s just hope it lasts.

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I have this theory on Cheryl Cole that I’ve been wanting to air for a while.

She’s billed as the sex symbol of X Factor and has just scooped a multi-million pound L’Oreal deal.

But I, myself, am pretty indifferent to Cheryl. In magazines, I find she looks tacky, almost like a porcelain doll. In person, she is spindly and lifeless.

Most of my male friends think the same. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who really fancies her as such.

I think Cheryl is one of those people that women think that men like. When, in reality, we’re pretty nonplussed*.

There are a few others in the same camp: Keira Knightley, Carla Bruni and Beyonce Knowles, to name a few.

While they might have symmetry, stature and other things the sisterhood desire, they just don’t have that verve or sexual appeal.

Anyone else agree?

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* Facebook, that esteemed judge of all things human, says that 9 of my friends are ‘fans’ of Cheryl Cole. 6 of them are female. 2 are gay males.  

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Who says women aren’t funny? Well, apart from Christopher Hitchens anyway…

Yesterday I found out that Louisa Theobold, a Norwich comic I’ve been plugging for ages, has won the first ever Guardian Stand Up Award.

I’ve gigged with Louisa a few times in Norwich, and I’ve always thought she was a cut above.

Her YouTube routine has to go down as the most scathing yet loveable skit I’ve ever heard.

“Remember: whenever you see a woman on YouTube, remember she is on tenterhooks wanting to know if – and how – you’d fuck her.”

Want to see how good she is? Click here.

Still, my favourite funny femme right now has to be Victoria Coren, star of Radio 4’s Heresy.

Last week, she shared her tips on how to find that special person.

“What I do is I sell something I really like on eBay – a favourite book or film – then, when someone buys it, I tell them they have to come pick it up from my house.”

Now that’s wisdom.

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As I explained last month, earlier this year I was a judge from the Miss England semi-final.

It’s something lots of people are curious about, so I thought I’d blog on it tonight.

As judges, we were asked to grade on three things: looks, attitude and talent.

As you can imagine, the looks criterion was easy enough.

Although, saying that, the organisers had rather sweetly added some explanatory notes about what to look for.

I don’t like to use too many idioms, but there’s a rather handy one about OAPs sucking eggs.

Attitude, the second criteria, was a big one.

We were asked to look for a girl who could walk across the world stage without fraying with nerves.

We had a nice little trick for this one: when the girl entered the room we’d stay deathly silent, without rising to greet her.

Any girl who stayed calm, and took the lead in introducing herself, scored big points.

But the most fun part of all had to be the talent criterion.

Each contestant had a choice: she could either bring a DVD of her talent or she could perform for us live.

Needless to say, a handful of prima donnas opted for the latter.

Chris Fountain, our celebrity judge, took a particularly cruel line with this.

Each time one of the entrants burst into song, he’d mime pressing the famous buzzer from Britain’s Got Talent.

Still, amidst it all, we got to see some pretty quirky talents – which scored big points with me.

Brownie points went to the girl who gigged as a stage hypnotist (which I thought was the kookiest hobby ever – until I met a cute wrestler).

Here’s the girl I eventually picked as my winner.

For my second choice, I picked the sexy and eloquent Jessica Chai, who even reads this blog sometimes…

dg

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Earlier this year I rented a house with some friends of mine, one of whom was a drama graduate.

Over the tenancy, we got to know each other a bit better – well enough for me to let slip my love for Doctor Who.

“Oh Christ,” she interjected. “Don’t mention that show to me.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Matt Smith was a classmate of mine at drama school,” she said, taking a long slug of red wine.

I understood her bitterness. It was three weeks since Matt Smith, the baby-faced UEA graduate, had been chosen to supersede David Tennant as the eleventh doctor.

It was a million dollar gig. Matt’s face was splayed across every newspaper and magazine in the land.

On the other hand, my poor housemate hadn’t been on stage for months.  Instead she was stuck doing shift work at a local hospital.

“But it gets worse,” she said. “There’s more.”

I braced myself.

“We dated for a bit.”

I winced. The poor girl. Imagine watching your ex-boyfriend become the most desirable man in television.

She flinched slightly. I sensed this wasn’t over yet. I arched my eyebrows and told her to go on.

“I was the one who broke it off,” she confessed, staring straight down at the table.

Oy vey. Well, we all make mistakes. They’re just rarely that big.

I reached for the wine and poured us both a hefty, medicinal glass. This one was going to take a while.

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Ah, it’s done. My full wrestling interview is uploaded here. Have a read of it. And don’t forget the typos policy.

For your literary pudding, read George Szirtes’s ode to British wrestling here.

If you want something else to read, check out this awful blighter from last week’s Guardian.

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As I mentioned, I spent last night watching WAW, a Norwich-based wrestling company, and meeting some of their wrestlers.

Here’s a preview of what happened. I’ll be posting the rest tomorrow.

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It’s half past seven on an August Sunday evening in Great Yarmouth.

All along the town’s Golden Mile holidaymakers walk by, waving cameras, stuffed toys and bags of candy floss.

In the amusement arcades, pimple-faced teens clutch pots of copper coins, as In the Navy rings out from a nearby karaoke bar.

Meanwhile, amidst it all, twenty-one year old Angus Sinclair lies writhing on a nightclub floor.

As two hundred people watch on, his adversary leaps into the air, crashing down onto Angus’s rib cage.

Angus wheezes and snarls, his face twisted in pain. He drapes his arm across his wounded chest.

We – the observers – whoop and cheer. We stamp our feet. We crane our necks for a better view.

This is nothing new: amateur wrestling has been part of Great Yarmouth since the 1960s – well before Angus was born.

Tonight’s entertainment comes from Norwich-based WAW, a family-business run by husband and wife Ricky Knight and Julia Hamer.

WAW has been running since 1993, and currently boasts over 40 wrestlers on its roster.

There’s Judas (6”4 with a slasher-movie beard), ‘Delicious’ Danny Blaze (pinched from a Scissor Sisters video) and – my favourite – the ever-acrobatic Zebra Kid.

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Tonight, we get six matches, each around fifteen minutes long and packed with pulverising action and pantomime charm.

Take the final showdown: a tag-team (two on two) showdown featuring wannabe-rappers London Inc.

With the referee distracted, the boys from the capital break the rules, ganging up on one of their opponents.

As they toss him and back forth like a tethered ball, the crowd roar for the referee to turn around.

By the time he does, the attack is over. The victim is dazed, pinned to the mat by half of London Inc.

Enthralled, we yell along with the referee’s count – “ONE! … TWO! …” – then – WHOOSH – the underdog springs back to life.

Evil has been thwarted once more. We whoop with relief. This is Star Wars all over again.

 

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Once again, I spent a hefty chunk of Saturday doing a spot of charity shopping.  

I didn’t find any treasures this week, but I did notice a few things as I sifted through the shelves of second hand books.

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1. Atonement

Did anyone else deliberately buy the edition of Atonement without Keira on the front?

Ha. I knew it. You all bought the older edition too.

And apparently we’re not alone. In British Heart Foundation, I was told that the so-called ‘literary cover’ edition sells much quicker than its ‘Hollywood cover’ rival.

We readers are a vain bunch, aren’t we?

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2. Obama

Remember last summer when everyone had their nose in a Barack Obama autobiography?*

Well, now we’re seeing the backlash.

It started a few months ago, when I noticed the first dog-eared copy of The Audacity of Hope in Oxfam.

Since then, they’ve been popping up all over the place.

In fact, give it another month and charity shops will be full to the brim with extra copies.

They might have to do a Dan Brown and stop taking them in.

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As well as charity shopping, I spent Sunday evening with WAW, one of Britain’s largest touring wrestling federations.

I wanted to find out more about the sport – and what life is like as an amateur wrestler.

I’ll be posting my full account tomorrow night.

* Not me, incidentally. With election coverage everywhere, I was sick to the teeth of reading about Obama.

Read his biography? I felt qualified to write the damn thing.

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Sometimes nights out bring the weirdest of surprises. This Thursday was a prime example.

When my friends and I arrived at The Workshop to watch a comedy night, the last thing I had planned was to end up on stage myself.

As it turned out, I had little choice in the matter.

“Sorry, you can’t come in without ID,” said the barmaid once we arrived.

I froze. I lost my driving license a few months ago. What’s more, I knew that neither of my friends had proof of age with them either.

Suddenly, I had a brainwave – an off-the-wall idea that might just get us through the door.

“I’m one of the performers,” I said.

Sure enough, the barmaid stepped aside and let us head through to the back room.

Taken aback by my chutzpah, my two friends turned towards me, mouths agape.

But was it really that crazy an idea?

There was an open-mic slot, where anyone could perform. And having performed once or twice in my university days, at least I had some experience.

Still, it wasn’t enough to hold back the nerves. As I stepped up to the stage, I had enough butterflies in my stomach to crash a foreign eco-system.

Once I’d won my first big laugh, I felt a huge surge of relief. I ploughed on, recalling lines from my student days.

Luckily, my set went nicely. As I left the stage, the audience gave a hearty whoop.

Still, with all the nerves involved, I won’t be rushing to do an encore any time soon.

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Do you ever gaze into and mirror and think to yourself, ‘I’ve lost too much weight’?

If you’re one of the few people who do, then you should be able to empathise with my situation.

At the beginning of the summer I decided to quit drinking. I wanted to put an end to hangovers – and save some extra cash too.

What I didn’t realise is that I’d be slashing my calorie intake too (I didn’t even realise Merlot had calories – let alone 200 of the buggers).

Then there were the collateral calories: the guilty KFC before bedtime, the famous fried breakfast and the to-hell-with-it high-carb lunch.

So after 85 days of abstinence, and a nasty bout of swine flu,  I’ve lost fifteen pounds in weight. Ten of which, to be honest, I really need back.

I’ve always been skinny. I was a skinny child, a skinny teenager and – hey presto – a skinny adult too.

But, lately, I worry it’s gone a bit too far.

Today, a colleague of mine told me I looked a bit gaunt. A civvie friend,  free from the binds of office diplomacy, told me to ‘sort it out’.

And, looking at myself in the mirror, I think they were probably right.

I mean, tight abs are one thing, but sunken cheeks and junkie collarbones – no, thank you.

I think it’s time to start enjoying a few extra portions. And hopefully filling my frame a bit.

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