Sat on a train this morning from Derby to Crewe I was enjoying the sunny scenery when two teenage girls sat down opposite me. They were very young, probably about fifteen or so, and needless to say I ignored them because any sort of chatting would constitute flirting and therefore make me a sick, sick old man (I didn’t find them attractive, let me make this perfectly clear) but as we approached Stoke On Trent station they were discussing how to kill twenty minutes before they caught their train to Manchester.
As the train slowed towards the station we passed a warehouse with a big sign saying ‘Tile World’. “Let’s go to Tile World for a bit!� one of the girls said, being humorous, and the other girl sarcastically agreed this would be great fun.
“Don’t go today, it’s only good at weekends� I found myself saying to them, out loud, to which they both laughed in a giggly way.
This was the first thing I’d said to them on the whole journey and I suddenly felt awkward that I’d chosen to say something that I considered humorous, which could only have meant I was trying to impress them in some way and make them think I was cool. Was this the case, or was it simply that I was being friendly by commenting on something they said, and it didn’t make any difference if it was a pair of very young girls or an elderly couple? I like to think I would have said “Don’t go today, it’s only good at weekends� if it had been a couple of pensioners sat opposite me, but even if this is the case, it still doesn’t take anything away from the fact I am a man who’s almost thirty making an uninvited comment to young girls.
Perhaps there is a part of every man that can’t resist showing off in front of girls, even if he were to consider it, his random comment might be seen as inappropriate? I think this is probably the case, even though when they got off the train I was glad it was an empty carriage and no-one was looking over at me thinking ‘You sick prat, trying your weak attempts at humour out on young girls. You repulse me.’
Fortunately the Transport Police did not board the train as it continued to Crewe, looking for someone making inappropriate conversation with juveniles, and for today I am still free to walk amongst the innocent public. Doubtless as I have now published by perverted activities on the internet I can expect my front door to be smashed in, but for now I officially innocent in the eyes of the law.
Although that was again put under thread at a show tonight in Ormskirk. It was in a lovely theatre called The Rose at Edge Hill University, meaning the audience were entirely made up of students. I did about half an hour before saying “So what are we doing after the show? Is the student union open later?�
I then started mocking myself saying “Look at me! When I say ‘what are we doing later’ I obviously mean ‘so what are the girls in here doing later’. I am nearly thirty, and here I am trying to find out what the eighteen year old girls are up to. I am a paedophile.�
This was all greeted with laughter, but I do find it slightly unnerving that I was making a very conscious effort to find out what these teenage girls were up to. You can say one thing about me, and that is that I’m clearly not ageist. Ageist people revolt me.
The show was concluded by me doing one of the most forced encores in the history of comedy. I made a hurried exit off stage into the wings at the end, which is normally a way of engineering an encore, and said to the compere Danny Deegan as I past him “I’ll do more� but as I walked to the dressing room I couldn’t really hear any great call for more (although the speaker in the dressing room through which you can hear the crowd had been turned off) and so assumed that I’d made a hurried, and therefore inappropriate exit. But then I heard Danny getting the audience to slow-clap for more, i.e. them being forced to get me back on, and I walked out and back to the microphone to express the fact this was the most engineered encore ever, and that I felt sorry for them. As it turns out, Danny had said “Do you want more?� to a cheer as I left the stage which I didn’t hear, and my non-appearance just left everyone feeling awkward.
So Danny and I decided just to tell our favourite pub joke, to see which was better. His was. It was a strange end to an enjoyable show.
Danny and I both went to the Student Union and stood in the corner feeling old and awkward, even though he is only 24. But equally as sick as me. God help me if I’m behaving like this in my thirties. In Tile World.
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