Normal people stay in bed when their head feels like its pumped with steel cotton wool and their voice sounds gravelly when they talk. What do I do? I get up ridiculously early for a Saturday (well, 9am) and drive to Ramsgate to see Pete. I've been meaning to see him for ages and I'm not gonna let some pesky 'flu bug stop me. At the petrol station I fill my car with unleaded and my bag with tubes of Lockets. Throughout the entire drive I do nothing but eat one after another of honey and lemon Lockets; they taste vile but oh, boy do they work! I sound more bluesy when I talk now and not so raspy. I can sing Nina Simone songs with surprising accuracy.
It was cold and rainy all day as it always is in Kent when I'm there. I never quite shook off the 'Rainmaker' nickname... Pete was pretty upbeat as per normal and happily whisked me to Whitstable. The town is dead and boring but tourists think it's 'quaint', which is not a word I would normally associate with an ex-fishing town full of weirdos. Anyhow, Pete is part of the production crew at the Playhouse, the brightly-violet-painted theatre on the high street. We go up to the sound booth and have the perfect view of the audience and stage. Pete is in his element, doing checks on the sound effects he's gonna need for the performance and gladly explaining what every single switch and button does on the switchboard.
People start to file into the theatre and a girl joins us in the booth, setting up the spotlight she operates and checking the colour filter. The pantomime started and it was good fun. I got to follow the script which was covered in bright orange post-its to mark where Pete had to use a sound effect. It was mostly thunder for when the bad guy came out but it was cool as sound effects go. In the second half, while kids from the audience were singing She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain up on the stage, we got to shoot water at the audience with tiny plastic water guns, which was probably the highlight of the afternoon!
The panto ended at 5pm and I bootlegged it back to London, just in time for my brother's birthday meal out. We hit a crowded restaurant in Grange Park and calmly ask for a table for nine. Orders for food and drink are fired at the hapless waitress who appears to be short on a few brain cells. As the evening wears on I feel more and more like crap. Instead of dessert, I have hot chocolate. I know! I skipped dessert! Me!! What annoyed me was the drink was supposed to come with frothy foam, chocolate shavings and café sticks, and all I got was a lame layer of bubbles. No foam. No chocolate shavings. No freaking café sticks! If I wasn't ill I'd make a fuss. But I'm too groggy. So I drink up, wrap up, and hit the sack in a phlegm-filled haven of duvet and pillows.
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