Comedying on my arse

Ploggers, it has been a while since I trod the boards of stand-up. When I did my last stand-up gigs, smoking had very recently been banned in pubs, and everyone was a bit befuddled by the atmosphere.

Having said that, I prided myself in thinking that I still know my routines pretty well. So that if anyone should ever say, "Perform me ten minutes of very average comedy or I'll shoot you in the face," I could have come up trumps. Sorry for anyone who thinks stand-ups ad-lib the whole thing. They don't. None of them. Some make a decent pass at 'faking the moment' and some are genuinely gifted with audience interaction, but by and large, most of it is a carefully-honed routine, where, like a poem, even the word order of every sentence has been tweaked and pulled for maximum comic effect.

So I am tidying the flat at the moment. The flat will soon be Very Tidy. In so doing, I came across a lot of old papers. In my early days of stand-up, I used to make notes about what I was planning to talk about; I didn't take the notes onto the stage (though I sometimes wrote key words on my hand just in case), but I'd use it as a memory jog before I left home.

I found one of these notes today, definitely from the early days and in my own handwriting. It looks like notes for a ten-minute set. I am ashamed to say that I recognise practically none of this as my material. So a challenge for you, Ploggers. From the below, please create your own jokes. I have typed this up exactly as the note reads.

• (Teachers)
• Knackered - tosser - sticky
• Sky
• Mum
• (Grandma)
• Back to work - does it really matter?
• Single - hair - religously - Sunday school project
• Name - number - dirty bitch - blow jobs - pick a pencil up - Dad - are you proud of me?
• Speed dating. Apparently he's a regular at Liverpool Street
• Drawback - sharing a flat. Petty
• Stranger
• Lost my security money. All worked out fine though - I kept her boyf's deposit.

I'm beginning to see why I gave it up...