A good night, a hot day

I really enjoyed last night's show at the comedy club. I'd done a bit of rehearsal yesterday (not really enough in my mind to feel comfortable) but I spent an hour sat in Starbucks staring at a blank wall, and that seemed to set me up properly.

My staring at the wall and zoning out was interrupted by the arrival of Dorsher, with news that my letter to HK magazine, correcting their grammar, had been published. This pleased me immensely: I'll scan it in tomorrow to show off my appearance in print. I'm sure it will make my mother proud.

If she's filled with pride to see her son taking people to task for incorrectly conjugating obscenities, that is.

That's not all that Dorsher had to tell me. Apparently there's a guitar factory in China knocking out cheap Les Pauls for a fraction of the price of a legit one. (Imagine that - cheap products from China? Wonders will never cease.) The only flaw, apparently, is that they weigh twice as much as a regular guitar (exactly what kind of special wood are they building them out of?) but this calls for an investigatory trip to Shenzhen. And then scoliosis for the pair of us when we try to play these deadweight instruments.

But then healthcare is cheap in Hong Kong, so we'll still be ahead.

(I went to a musical instrument shop today, and was gobsmacked at how cheap instruments are; there was a rather decent Yamaha 6-string bass for only 8,500 HKD - I remember them costing more than that in London almost twenty years ago.)

Finally, a Starbucks employee appeared and opened a locked door. Dorsher tried to persuade her to let us see the palace of delights hidden beyond, but she refused, saying it was just a big pile of freeze-dried mushroom pockets and paper bags. We know better; there's probably an entrance to Narnia and all the Turkish Delight you could eat in there.

After that, we went to the club, to perform in front of five paying customers and some comedians. Everyone had a great set (even if Kay Ross did demonstrate an inability to distinguish men from women at one point) and I managed to recover from being heckled twice - once by Jami turning the music on while I was talking, and once by God sening a thunderclap while I was talking about plastic buckets.

There was one uneasy moment where I started asking a man about his new girlfriend, but I managed to skid away from offending him. I left that to the others.

Today we spent a bit of time shopping; I now own a bed, a foot stool, and some hummus, in descending order of durability. I also went to the gym (3k in 15 minutes, including about 4 minutes at 13 kph, 4130m on the rowing machine and 20 minutes sweating on a bicycle, before staggering back home.

It's ghastly hot in Hong Kong this weekend; like being trapped in Jason Statham's armpit. But happily, I've managed to repair my broken dehumidifier, so the apartment isn't any mouldier than it was a week ago. (I don't want to boast about my mechanical aptitude, as the way I fixed it was to put in in the cupboard when it stopped working and leave it for six months, after which it seemed fine again - but I suppose even inanimate objects need a rest some time.)

This does mean I have two dehumidifiers now. Being a gracious kind of guy, if anybody wants me to come and dry something out for them, I'll happily pop round with either Terence (my first dehumidifier) or Little Terence (my second dehumidifier) when I get the chance.