Tuesday, 18 December 2007

Last night, I made a list of jobs that needed doing – a few letters (proddings and thank-yous), a few orders to be placed, a few system changes finalised, a few meetings planned. Armed with my little list of jobs, I arrived at work about 6:30 am. Apart from a few minor distractions, I worked through until 12:30 pm, and managed to tick off every job on the list. How very satisfying.

Meanwhile, everyone else here had been preparing for the annual Thank You lunch for our trustees and volunteers. There was a good turn-out and everyone enjoyed a very good spread, a few words of thanks from our Chair Pam Handley – and a few words of thanks from me to the irreplaceable Pam Handley. I also introduced my Big Surprise – a Christmas Cake made and nurtured with my own fair hands (warily supervised by Jackie) as a Thank You to all the wonderful trustees, volunteers and staff at Watford CVS. Everyone was very kind about it – perhaps more out of shock than anything.

After a few more hours of work - some tidying up, others like me bashing away at keyboards – we staff met up for our Christmas dinner at Jongleurs Comedy Club on Watford High Street. Our table was right up by the stage so we spent most of the evening on the edge of becoming part of the entertainment.

The Compere for the evening was a pretty amiable chap. Comic #1 was clearly inexperienced and made some unbelievably crass “jokes” about Islamic terrorists. Comic #2 was a bit more confident – but made jokes about fantasy “gypsies” abusing their dogs. Have we somehow rewound to the horrors of the 1970s? Has Bernard Manning risen again? Is it now acceptable to create and mock evil racial caricatures? Comic #3 was far better and genuinely talented and funny - even if he did pick on my lovely colleague Sha-Lee. But I'm sure he at least was sufficiently wise and kind-hearted to know that there are two types of comedy: the funny and the bad.

Jongleurs run a well-oiled comedy club machine: the food was surprisingly edible, and very efficiently distributed to the 400 diners. But occasional good natured hecklers were targeted with venom rather than tolerated with humour. And there were regular pre-recorded announcements reminding people not to talk when the comedians were performing. And there were posters on the walls: We all like to hear a good gag but not from you – if you insist on talking, we’ll insist you leave. I found these rather chilling.

I returned to the office about midnight to learn that Spurs had contrived to win again this evening - that's now three wins on the trot after a record breaking run of 493 consecutive defeats. I must get home now and sleep.