It’s nearly 2am and I remain stubbornly awake. I’ve had a lot of manic energy the past few days, and also consumed too much caffeine, which strangely hasn’t helped.

So I thought I’d while away these dark hours by writing a post in the traditional “what I got up to this weekend” format, so beloved of lazy 1980s schoolteachers, when men were men and blogs were homework.

This afternoon I went to the gym, just to relax and use the shower, not to pump iron as I do usually. [1]

People who have known me a long time will be aware of my deep seated contempt of gyms, and will rightly call me a disgusting hypocrite for joining one. I joined for the pool and the sauna, but I must admit I do go on the cycling and rowing machines now. And so you see how easy it is to become everything you once hated.

I feel I have to earn the right to go and sit in the sauna, for reasons I haven’t quite fully figured out. But now I’m 47 or whatever I must admit, anything that helps me stay in shape is probably a good idea.

The culture in the sauna / steam room is fascinating and occasionally terrible. I’ve only really done public bathing / saunaing in more sensible countries like Japan or Germany, where there are rules that everyone explicitly or implicitly understands. The first time I visited an onsen in Kyoto, there was even a helpful manga style guide to save witless tourists from etiquette humiliation, the worst kind of humiliation.

The English don’t really have a communal bathing culture any more, and it shows, because the men – often the young men – do the worst thing possible, which is to talk absolute bullshit while everyone around them is just trying to relax.

This is often awful, but as a writer it is actually quite useful. The gym has kinda replaced the pub, and it’s become a great place for material, or to gauge what people are thinking nowadays.

This I tell myself, when really I’m just making the best of it and I’d much rather they just fucking shut up.

One of the troubling regular conversations is, basically, conspiracy theory. I don’t know if young lads into fitness and martial arts are particularly susceptible to it – though given the connection to Andrew Tate, I’m going to guess yes. Antivaxx madness and bullshit about Covid being a scam is a troublingly common topic, and on one occasion I complained to the management about a guy ranting a particularly anti-Semitic trope. The guy got banned from the gym (partly for an unrelated matter), but he’s not the only one doing it.

When I walked in, a bunch of meaty regulars had clearly just been talking about Israel / Palestine, and I am delighted to have missed their insights.

They then went on to say that “war is coming” and “we need to be ready”, and that people in the West are “soft”. “That’s why I work out, mate,” said one, as though having big biceps would be a big help when your house is being bombed.

It’s amazing that the old fascist trope of “what this country needs is a good war” is alive and well in 2023. Amazingly bad, I mean.

The conversation only went downhill from there. Next up was bemoaning people wearing masks, with muttered conspiracist undertones of systematic control, and about people being sheep and so forth. One person even saw a swimmer wearing a mask – imagine!

And this turned straight into a chat instigated by the chief lunkhead talking about his amazing new fitness regime – burning off a layer of skin and injecting frog poison.

At which point I burst out laughing and left the sauna.

My evening plan was to go to Extra Topping, Brighton’s best alternative comedy showcase, and I am absolutely not just saying that because Simon, who runs it, books broadly the same acts as me.

It’s a good job I don’t run a regular comedy night down here too, otherwise we’d have to become enemies.

I’m trying to go to more nights without drinking (see caffeine), comedy nights especially as I go to quite a lot of them for my work, and unlike say libraries or creches, there does tend to be a lot of alcohol consumption associated with going to pubs.

Simon always gets a good mix of acts, and tonight we were treated to CLOWN-IMPROV-CLOWN-SKETCH. All were excellent, and I was called upon to do lots of audience participation due to being in the front row.

The thing a lot of mainstream comedians don’t seem to understand is that audience participation can actually be fun, and not cruel. The kind of acts that populate nights like Extra Topping understand this, and so people called upon – even the shyer ones – got to join in with and add to the fun, not feel like they were being made the butt of the joke.

This contrasted with a show I went to the night before. I won’t name and shame, but the headline act at this particular night also had some audience participation, and not only was it obvious what it was going to be, it was clearly designed to rip the piss out of whoever was unlucky enough to be picked upon.

And it didn’t help that this guy’s “character”[2] was being an alpha male cunt, and so not only did the audience member have to do something stupid and unfunny, he had to be called “a fucking melt” and be subjected to some vaguely homophobic abuse while doing so.

Back in the lovely safe space of Extra Topping, over the course of an evening I was invited to name a balloon animal I liked [3], described my least favourite scary movie (Ghostbusters 2) [4], was held hostage by a water inspector, and had to be a sulky child who opened a fridge.

One of the acts even asked audience members for their pronouns before getting them involved, a lovely idea that may catch on.

Afterwards I had a good chat with Paggy, Hel and Dan, and Paggy’s friend, a chap called Ian, as well as getting to briefly check in with Thick ‘n’ Fast and Mikey before they fled back to London, a journey I know oh so well.

Cycling home through the cold, I reflected that I’m definitely carving out some kind of existence in this city, after 18 months or so of half living here, I’m lucky to have met some wonderful people, and that life can, on occasion, be pretty good.

[1] This is a joke or, as some insist calling it, a lie. I have never pumped iron, and if I ever catch myself pumping anything I will immediately reassess my life choices

[2] The problem here is the comedian in question doesn’t seem any different off stage, and also that just shouting that you’re a terrible person isn’t funny and is hard on the ears

[3] my brain went for ferret – “is that some kind of bird?”

[4] I had to describe the plot, which then became the basis of some trial-based improv (the act were called Judge Moody, and were very good). I said it was about a river of goo appearing underneath the city of New York, and some washed up ghost detectives had to come out of retirement to defeat the spooks that had appeared as a byproduct of said goo. They asked me what I didn’t like about it, and I said “it wasn’t realistic”.