‘Start at the start’ they say – well I can confirm to you ahead of time that is simply not going to happen. I don’t do linear and the chronology of this blog is going to be bouncing about all over the shop – fore-warned and all that. Having said this, I will be endeavouring to steer stuff on a roughly even keel, (even when mixing metaphors) and, in the event of tangential amnesia, (Just where the bloody hell have I gone with this? Where?) I honestly will try to claw my way back to whatever the point was before my brain derailed (It… happens. Not infrequently, I’m afraid). There’s a rocky road ahead, but dig deep, soldier! (Those mixed metaphors – Jesus…)

Anyway – to London. ‘How does one move to London with aspirations of doing stand-up?’ Good question and I’m not certain I have anything resembling a sensible answer that wouldn’t sound jaded. I could tell you that London’s a rampantly over-priced shithole, but that would sound like I’m making excuses as well as stating the obvious. For a town that will kill you in a heartbeat it’s strangely endearing sometimes (so basically Stockholm syndrome… Wait, does Stockholm have London syndrome? And would that just involve driving like an arsehole at all engagements?). Focus. Details, details… August. 2007. House-share. Four other bods. Haringey – Wood Green to be precise…

So – the Wood Green house. How do you describe Wood Green to those who need a reference? Affordable? Yes, that’s it… We’ll go with ‘affordable’… I would say ‘up and coming’, but then we’d be in the language of estate agents and no-one wants that – not even estate agents. ‘Shithole that’ll do with a tube and a night bus’ – any better? And not just any night bus, kids – the N29: bendy bus of hellish urban legend. Second to my mind in the ‘Jesus, that’s a gnarly bus’ stakes only to the 18 from Euston, but that is just Sodom and Gomorrah with wheels – never mind ‘the atheist bus campaign’; all number 18s should have ‘There probably is no God’ written down the side of them…

(I’m presently looking at the TFL email stating that ‘From Saturday the 26th November 2011, double deck buses will replace the bendy buses currently on routes 29 and N29’. They’ve missed a trick haven’t they? Surely they should be implementing them on the 29th November…)

Moving to anywhere new you always end up with a list of niggling complaints; top of mine for this house would be cockroaches. Who it turned out would only be a problem in the winter months because for the rest of the year, the mice would take care of them. Nice one, my squeaky incontinent chums. ‘Up and coming’, etc… That was a cold bloody house in the winter time, though – have you ever been somewhere that has managed to pull off the curious effect of being colder inside than it is out? I kept expecting to see homeless people peering through our window going ‘Oh, look at those poor buggers – I wouldn’t want to be in there at this time of year…’ You get the picture: seriously Hoth-like hovel. One in a stretch of North London terraced anachronisms that the Germans somehow missed (where was your legendary efficiency then, eh? What, you’ll vaporise Coventry, but Haringey gets left untouched? Next time prioritise, you vorsprung douche technik under-achievers…). Buildings so riddled with damp that bringing your own wetsuit and breathing apparatus would have constituted nothing less than solid forward-planning. Hence the roaches. Have you ever woken up at half two in the morning to the sensation of something crawling in your hair? I have. I should point out that there was quite a difference between the reactions of the half two me who got up and dealt with it and the me who got up four hours later for work. I was quite impressed by the half two me; the half two me just went ‘The fuck is that? Oh.’ Scrunched it and flushed it – just blasé, like ‘it’s happened before..!’ The half six me, who was clearly that little bit more compus, kind of woke up, reflected and shuddered the biggest ‘Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh’ skin-crawl I’ve ever done.

Numero dos on my list of sanity-eroding grievances in that household would be having my room next to the bathroom and living with a couple. Because when they decide it’s splashy-sexy-bath-time, I’ve yet to find the album capable of drowning them out. And believe me there’s a lot of metal in my collection. Either you stick something on to drown them out, or you go in there and just drown them because by that point, nothing’s gonna shut them up. I worked through Metallica, Ozzy, ‘Maiden – I felt like ringing up Bruce Dickinson and going ‘Bruce, you’re entirely ineffective against them, do you have any suggestions? What d’you mean ‘Have I tried Six Music’? Hello? Hello..?’ Nothing worked. The whole time my brain was screaming ‘Seriously, shut up, before I kick the door down, suggest a threesome and shut your mouth with something more substantial than a quiet word.’

Alors, less than ideal and that’s before I get to the ever-expanding chapter motherload that is ‘housemates’. The trouble is there just isn’t a great deal that London hasn’t seen before, and it couldn’t really begin to give shit one about your continued survival. It’s killed a whole lotta people before you and there’ll be a whole lot more to come with no real signs of it slowing down. In fact I sometimes get the impression it’s run out of original ways to snuff human beings and is now becoming visibly bored at only having so many methods of doing someone in at its disposal: rape, murder, mental illness – been there, done that, sent the postcard and purchased the appropriately pedestrian t-shirt, cheers. You mark my words: if London thought it could up its rapey killy game to Jo’Berg levels of insanity, it’d be there like a cockney shot (quite possibly with Bow bells on…). There’s a person under a train? Course there is, darlin’ – why the surprise? (For some reason my inner monologue has London anthropomorphised as a Dickensian villain – I’m sort of bang on, aren’t I?) Life does wanna kill you – bear that in mind at all times. London just happens to be in a permanent state of ‘up for it’.