A Moore in the Loire - France - page 2

John may even have to be woken up before he went on. 'Look at him,' he said to Chris, point-
ing at me, 'look at him. Look at the way he's dressed! If his tie was crooked or he had fluff
on his sleeve it would ruin his gig for him. He's a mod. Have you not seen Quadrophenia ?
They're never happy!'
He had a point.
While mods have a well-deserved reputation for impeccable dress sense, with very English
sharp suits and matching patterns, they also have something of a reputation for po-faced,
standing-in-a-corner-trying-to-look-cool detachment; possibly also very English. If mods are
anything, they are stiff upper lips in well-ironed trousers.
'Nothing wrong with perfection, John,' I said, putting on my 1960s Michael Caine Ipcress
File mac, 'you should try it some time.'
Striving for perfection eats away at you though and the yawning, goatee-bearded man in the
audience bothered me, and what bothered me more was that it bothered me - and a four-hour,
late-night and solitary drive home is no place to try and shake the demons.
I was in a hurry to get home. I'd been away performing in Manchester since Wednesday and
now it was the early hours of Sunday morning. I wanted to get home and wake up in my own
bed, next to my wife Natalie; to feel the warmth of my beloved Jack Russell, Eddie, at my
feet and hear my three-year-old, Samuel, quietly breathing in the next room.
Only… did I? Did I really?
Firstly, the constant driving was beginning to get to me. I had been up and down the mo-
torways of the UK as a club comedian for six years now - that's 40,000 miles a year, mostly
driving bleary eyed through the night. There were times when I had got on a motorway in the
North and a few hours later would suddenly realise that I was nearly home, the drive having
been done almost subconsciously while my mind was elsewhere. Like a fighter pilot who had
been on too many missions, I felt lucky to be alive, but also convinced that disaster was just
around the corner. It had got to the point where Natalie almost had to talk me into the car to
go to work.
And secondly, where was I actually going? Yes, I was going home to my family, but we
lived in Crawley in West Sussex, and even if you love your family (which I do) and you are
used to travelling (which I am), if your final destination is bland, concrete 'New Town' Craw-
ley there's always going to be a part of you dragging its feet.
We'd moved there from South London seven years previously 'to get more for our money'
and to help me to turn professional as a stand-up - for a couple of years Natalie commuted to
London every day, supporting us as I built up my career. It didn't take long for me to get the
lie of the Crawley land. A local pub was advertising a 'comedy night' and I went in to offer
my services.
'Oh, sorry, mate,' said the landlord, 'we knocked it on the 'ead. Got too violent.'