Wow, I really have to start wearing make-up some more. For one of the first times in my life I got dolled up to go out and got way more looks from guys that I was used. Do note that the amount I’m used to is precisely none so it’s a bit of an alien concept to me. I mean, if I was vain enough I might go so far as to say that that was why Ed Byrne kept looking at me from on stage, though, to be honest, it was probably more to do with the fact that I was on the front row, slap bang in the centre. I think I’m getting slightly ahead of myself with all this so let’s start at something close to the beginning.

I went to the station to find that it had been decorated a lovely combination of black, silver/grey and lime green by taggers. They’re ever so thoughtful so as to have picked exactly the right colour to jar with the burgundy/maroon colour the station already was. Clearly these were different people than the ones I talked about last time because these ones understood the concept of irony slightly better and had sprayed over the anti-graffiti poster though I still felt they were missing a trick by just spraying some nonsensical “tag” across the four boards, of which this poster was one. I mean it’s blatantly obvious that they need to address this poster directly with the graffiti that they put on top of it. Why do people not love irony as much as I do? Ed knows where I’m coming from though, pointing out the irony in people being bullied for their anti-bullying wristbands.

This was a bit of a strange gig to me because I’m not used to going to ones that start at half seven. In fact, out of all the shows I’ve been to at City Varieties this has been the only one that didn’t start at eight. Odd to say the least. What else was odd about it was the music played between sets, etc. Last time I saw this show Ed had brought his own music along, which I mentioned in the Andy Parsons review, but this time we had some greatest hits of the 50s CD or something similar. I guess it’s understandable though seeing as last time it was part of a tour, whereas tonight’s gig was, as it was displayed on the posters, for one night only.

I’d expected a support act - then again, one night only - and so Ed bounded on to the stage. Well, maybe he walked. My memory’s a little hazy about that. So I’d seen the show before, like I said, but that was about a year and a half ago and so most of jokes had become lost in my memory somewhere, some being half remembered and others forgotten completely until Ed started telling them. I’d best state now that I will be ruining some jokes here but I feel fully justified in doing so seeing as tonight was probably the last time he’ll perform this show.

So yes, the tale that I guess got to me the most in terms of my memory was the one where he’s in Tesco in September and they’re selling mince pies for Christmas with an expiration date of November. Ed’s not wrong in thinking that Christmas is getting earlier, I’ll tell him that now because something similar happened to me in an Asda (mince pies, expiration dates) and at the time I remembered someone had pointed it out to me at a show and I couldn’t for the life of me remember who it was but tonight I shall sleep easily knowing that it was Ed.

I guess one of the reasons I love Ed so much is that I can relate to him quite easily. There’s another main one that I’ll talk about later but for now I’ll stick with this one. His annoyances seem to be my annoyances like ticket touts, who I agree are “c***s” and probably should be put in stocks for being thieves in disguise.

This disgust of ticket touts of his had been instilled when Pearl Jam, his favourite band, were playing at London Astoria and he couldn’t get a ticket cos they sold out within seconds (it’s only a small place), which brought him on to his new found elitism at that gig after he managed to pull some string to get tickets. He’d spotted a guy who was chatting up a girl throughout their set, which I’ll again agree is disgusting. If I pay to see a band play I’ll go and get right to the front and see that band play, not stand at the bar trying to pull anything in trousers. Ed pointed out that it was especially bad in this case as it was such a small and intimate gig so there were disappointed fans of the band who wouldn’t have been able to attend cos of the space that that idiot was taking up. He then decided there should be a quiz to ascertain who the real fans were so that people like him weren’t allowed in.

This tale struck a chord with me as before Ed had come on stage the people behind me were having a good old natter and some woman went on about how she’d seen Dara O’Brian several times. I couldn’t help but wonder if she actually knew anything about comedy. I mean surely if she’d seen Dara several times she’d know how to pronounce his sodding name. Or does he just not introduce himself as Dara O’Briain? Clearly she didn’t know anything about comedy. She asked if Black Books was still on the telly and didn’t know the name of the Irish guy in it (it’s Dylan Moran love; and no it’s not pronounced Mor-Ran). Hooray for being elitist!

Ed seems to be something of a stickler for the English language. In his arguably most famous sketch he pulls Alanis Morrisette up on the use of the word ‘ironic’, or rather her misuse of it. Tonight he did something similar but in regards to the lovely James Blunt, pulling him up on the use of a double negative in ‘You’re Beautiful’ and the contradiction within the lyrics. Anyone who does stuff like that is automatically a hero of mine.

I’d like to pause here and let out my inner fangirl because Ed looked hot tonight. A lovely smart suit and a t-shirt with the slogan ‘life is good’ topped with his glasses and medium (for Ed) length hair. The inner fangirl in me let out an inner squee when he started twirling his hair the way girls do when they’re flirting. He is taken though as he likes to point out during his shows. Tonight this statement was accompanied with a dance and song to the tune of the Pussycat Dolls’s song ‘Don’t Cha’ (I think this need to be looked into, after all, cha is not a shortening of the word ‘you’ and therefore looks really stupid) but with the words, “Don’t you wish your boyfriend was funny like me?” Whilst it was hilarious my immediate thought to it was, “But he is,” which brings me on to my other reason for liking Ed so much.

I saw parallels tonight, between him and my own boyfriend. The main one being that they’re both skinny Irishmen I guess, but there’s more than that. Whenever Ed goes on to the topic of relationships I can quite easily substitute one for the other. Some examples: us girls were told never to ask what a guy is thinking cos most of the time they don’t think about anything and Alick has said pretty much the same thing to me and Ed says that he loves pretending to be a spy and so does Alick, especially after watching too much 24. I’m just kinda hoping that when Alick hits his mid-thirties that he doesn’t resemble the string with a knot in it that Ed reckons he looks like.

So yes, I think that about sums up all my thoughts from tonight. It was fun and I got three posters in exchange for a donation that I was planning to make anyway, so they were essentially free posters I guess. Hooray!