Why I'm not a comedian...

You know sometimes I wonder, I really do.

I’m quietly making a list of things that I might like to become, just for fun, simply to pass time and my other half (not the other half that resides in the black room at the bottom of my soul, but the other half as in what we have started to call ‘my partner’ these days so as to avoid any annoying stereotyping) says in an incredulous voice as she peers across my shoulder and brushes my hand away so that she can more clearly see what I am writing.

‘Comedian? On your ‘Things I Would Like to Be’ list is comedian? You want to be a comedian? (well, it is on the list dear) A comedian who tells jokes, a joker? (Well, yes that’s the general idea if you're a comedian). But you aren’t funny.’

Not funny? But, isn't it all about being able to make a woman laugh, the way to her heart, or would that be a carving knife? Either way it seems to explain the wilting look I'm getting. So I'm not funny (my informed audience has spoken), but I am a fool like all jokers, and that’s a start. With great restraint and despite wanting to tell her that if I'm not funny neither is Michael McIntyre (he manages to make her smile just a little - smug git) and that even I can shout whilst pacing quickly up and down the stage whilst skipping, and being very tempted to prove my funniness by the slight breaking of wind (which always brings a smile to my face) I don’t; instead I just give her a funny gurning faced look at her as she continues (goes on).

‘Comedian. You? Don’t make me laugh.’

I only wish I could, and by the way that comment rather negates the point of being a comedian, a comedian is meant to make people laugh, so a request to not make someone laugh isn’t really much of a request to a comedian, it’s a bit like asking a concert pianist to play ‘chopsticks’. Not that I do requests anyway (at least in my head) and not forgetting that according to my wife, I’m not funny even though it’s on my ‘rather foolish list’ as she went on to call it.

Foolish? Probably. Rather. Raaather! As Terry Thomas, with an excess of nudge-nudge, wink-wink, would say.

I didn’t want her to read my list anyway, in fact I don’t want anyone to read my list. Comedian is probably one of the jobs that I've listed that I could do at least a bit - if only I had some jokes, a few funny mannerisms, a catch-phrase, a natty blue suit with a cerise shirt, a few cutting remarks and that other thing, now what is it? Oh yes……………………Timing.

Thinking about it I do have a couple of those things – the funny mannerisms, the cutting remarks, a face just made for gurning (in fact I gurn without moving a facial muscle). No sharp suit or cerise open-necked shirt, but then I might as well wear a jester’s hat given that so many people think that they can treat me like a fool. Anyway, I’m not sure cerise is my colour and what would my catch-phrase be? ‘If you’re expecting a comedian, you’ll be disappointed then’ or ‘I’m not funny, my other half says so’ or ‘I’m warning you, laugh or I’ll break wind’.

If she’d (sorry my partner of no indicated gender) had seen the other things on my list she’d probably buy me a joke book and book me into a comedy club. After all, I don’t think I’m ever going to be a pop star, a pilot, a priest, a politician, pirate, puppeteer, puppet - and that’s just taking the P’s.

Maybe that’s’ another one for the list - P-taker. I could probably do that. It’d be nice to be the ‘taker’ rather than the ‘taken’ for once. Oh well back to the Punch and Judy stand. Which will it be this time puppet or puppeteer I wonder?