Sockless

I laughed my socks off the other night.

Or I would have done had I been wearing any!

I was at Lulu's for their 'Funny Wednesday' evening. This happens once a month but July's was special - English comedy, with English (speaking) comedians, I make that qualification because 2 of the 3 were American and so can only loosely* claim to speak English.

The evening started badly.

Temperatures had hit 35 degrees here during the day and then the around 6pm the sky darkened and the wind started to build and the dog started to follow me around the house, sticking as close to my ankles as he could. Only when the windows had all banged themselves shut did the thunderstorm actually hit, knocking out the satellite TV at the same time.

We'd planned to walk down into Kettwig, but that idea was thoroughly quashed by the gewitter**, fortunately Muna had to drive anyway so she acted as our taxi service, managing to park nice and close to Lulu's but at the same time picking up a ticket (at least you didn't get towed we said!).

We were onto our 2nd Mojito before the comedians started - not their fault they were late, they had to come along the autobahn in the middle of the storm and the Germans hate driving in the rain, they always panic and slow down to a snail's pace, and I guess trees throwing their branches onto the road didn't make it any easier!

First up was the leader of the pack the self styled 'Johnny Hollywood' who claims to have been one of the 2 cowboys in the Marlboro Country ad that used to be shown in cinemas before the main feature back when smoking wasn't such the socially disgusting habit that it is today. Johnny also does the German comedy circuit, reporting that the grammar gestapo can ruin his jokes very quickly when their heckling points out that he called a table female when it should be male.

The 2nd guy turned out to be from Rugeley (about 5 miles down the road from where I'd lived in England) which was bizarre and I think he could be really funny in that dry, caustic way the English have, but last night his material didn't quite work, maybe it was the crowd, small in number and maybe a quarter to a third German, who probably didn't appreciate his bitchy (but true) comments about German service.

Then last but not least (although in retrospect he was fairly diminutive) came a guy from San Francisco, who was very keen for us not to think him gay and who had so many nervous habits (constantly running his hands through his white hair and hitching his black trousers up) that I was surprised he could actually bear to be out front talking to an audience. Andy was however, very funny, talking about the German dating/flirting scene and how Germans just don't flirt, Muna later confirmed this to me, German men don't flirt, they take dating (as with the rest of life) very seriously as do the women, they want (allegedly) a man with a serious/sensible job (accountants are top) a good health care plan and a pension, anything else is a bonus...I thank my lucky stars I have a good, honest Brit for a husband whose ability to make me laugh is endless.

It was a great evening and the best news is that we get to do it all again in November (I think) as they want to make the English comedy night a quarterly event, can't wait!


* what a weird looking word, then I tried it without the double 'o', still didn't look right, so then I googled it, which is why it's writ as it is.

** gewitter = thunderstom