Peckham

[Boothby Graffoe, spoken]
You guys alright?
"No, we're not! That hurt!
You're horrible to us!"
No I'm not!
"Yes you are!
He makes us touch him
Shut up
We don't want to be on your body anymore!
We want to be on a body with titties!
Yeah, titties!"
You all in this together?
"I'm not, no
I oppose them"
Do you?
"Yeah
Thank you very much, I'm here all week
Try the fish"

Now, uh, you're all Brighton people, I presume
Aren't you, quite? Most of you are Brighton people?

[Audience, spoken]
Yeah!

Well done for living here
It's very nice, isn't it?

Aren't we great?

What?
What did you say? "Auntie Gray"?

You are great! You are
You are though!
You're great people
You should be proud of yourself, y'know?
I live in Peckham!
Peckham is the sort of place that makes
George Orwell seem like an optimist

I'm walking back home, it's not too long ago
Uh, it's about half past one in the morning
I've got the guitar case
And, uh, I've been out of town
Doing some gigs in London
I'm about half a mile from where I live
I'm just walking down Heaton Road
I've had a drink
I'm not drunk, but I've had a drink
I've got a kebab
So I'm drunk, essentially, is what I'm saying
I dunno
It's a benchmark, isn't it?
"Do I wanna eat that? Yep! I'm drunk"
"Jelly sauce, sir?"
"Just piss on it, that'll be fine"
"That has been taken care of, nah"

So I'm walking down the street with a guitar case
And the kebab
And I see six, seven kids coming towards me
Six or seven
There were six
I mean, just count
I hate it when people do that
"How many were there?"
"Three or four"
"Well, just count!"
"Well, four"
"Alright, thank you"

So there's six kids coming towards me
And they're all big boys
They're big boys now, aren't they?
Youngsters are big
And they're all like that
And they're wa-wo-ya-wo
And I'm thinking "Well, keep your head down
You'll be alright, wait and see"
And I think "Cross the road
Don't cross the road, you'll draw attention to yourself
Just keep your head down, you'll be fine
You'll be fine, you live here or something"
And just as they're getting a bit close to me
I see one of them turn
I hear him say to his mates
"What's this, man? What's this?
Hahahaha, what's this?"
And he's come at me like this

And all his mates are going
"Yeah! Yeah!"
There's a very unhealthy West Side Story feeling
To the whole thing
And I don't think they've ever seen West Side Story
That's what makes it very frightening
And he's coming at me like "Hahahahaha"

And the mistake he's made
Bless his little cotton Nike's
Is he's looking at me, and he's thinking
"Middle-aged bloke, lost in Peckham
Late at night, probably drunk
We'll have a laugh"

What he doesn't realize, this 44-year-old man
Lived in Peckham for twelve years
Is currently going through a very painful divorce
Looking for a fucking excuse!
You think anything you can give me
Is anything near the twelve years of Hell I've had?!

I threw the guitar away, threw the kebab away
Made eye contact, and went straight for him
He did the Ascent of Man backwards
All his mates went "Nutter! Nutter! Nutter!"

So that happens one week
And then the very next week
I'm coming back from a friend of mine's house
It's half past four in the morning now
And I've had a spliff
And I'm not terribly good on it
I can't even remember if it's delegalized or not now
That's how bad I am, y'know?

So I've had a spliff
And I'm walking through the streets, half past four in the morning
Going "Hello, flowers! Haa! Hello, trees!"
I mean, it's Peckham! There are neither!

I'm walking along, I think
"Oop! Hello! A lamppost! Hahahaha!
Where's the-- Oop! Another one! Hahahay!
Oop! They're in a row!
They're in a row! How clever!
Then you always know where the next one is!
Brilliant! Haha!"
I'm walking along, and there's a wall in front of me
And from behind the wall, I can just hear this
I can hear these words, I can just hear
"Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!"
And the first thing I thought was that the birds have evolved
They've picked up the local dialect

But I go past the wall
And what it is, it's a man standing on his own
Outside a front door, which is closed
Standing there going
"Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!"
And so all I can think is
He's either talking to himself
Or he's talking to a friend of his
Who has subsequently fucked off

So I thought "Best thing to do
Just keep walking normally
He probably won't even see you"
And have you ever done that thing where you try and walk normally
And you can't even remember how to walk at all?
Especially after a spliff
And as I'm walking along, I'm thinking
"Well, it's heel-toe, isn't it?
Yes, it's heel-toe
And my feet can't leave the floor, that'd be running
So it's heel-toe
And I think I move my hips a little bit when I walk
I do move my hips a little
And I probably do move my shoulders
I'm unaware of it, but I probably
And my head probably wobbles with them and
Well, I know what I do with my hands
This is what I do with my hands"
So I tried not to draw attention to myself
By walking past him like this

And he saw me somehow
He must have been psychic
And he said to me "You!
Give me a cigarette!"
I think "Keep walking normally, keep walking normally"
He said "Give me a cigarette!"
And I walked along and a cat came out from underneath a car
And stood in the pavement in front of me
I looked at the cat
The cat looked at me
The bloke said "Give me a fucking cigarette!"
And the cat looked at me as though to say
"I haven't got any cigarettes"

So I keep walking normally away from the bloke
And the bloke suddenly changes what he's saying
Suddenly starts saying
And I quote
"Come here! I've got a knife, I'll cut ya!
Come here! I've got a knife, I'll cut ya!"
Which is interesting
You can't-- "Come here!"
"No"
"I've got a knife, I'll cut ya!"
"Oh, why didn't you say?
Cut away, mad knifeman!"

So I think "Well, just keep walking
He'll fade into the distance
But he didn't, he stayed at the same volume
And I turned round
And it's 'cause he was following me down the street

He was following me
He was coming straight towards me
His shirt was open
His eyes were looking in different directions
He's only wearing one shoe and you know he hadn't lost one
He's coming straight at me
He's got something in his hand
I don't know what it was, but had I been a policeman
I would've shot him and found out later, frankly

And he's coming at me, going
"Come here, I'll cut ya! Come here, I'll cut ya!"
And I'm thinking "How close can I let him get?
Now how fast can he run?
And, more importantly, how fast can I run?
'Cause a moment ago, I couldn't even walk!"

And he got about as far as you are away from me now
He got as far as you are away
And I heard myself say these words
I heard myself say
"I'm terribly sorry
I'm afraid I'm very frightened
I'm going to have to run away"

And it stopped him dead
He went like that
"Wot?"
I said "I do apologize
I'm afraid I'm very frightened
I'm going to have to run away"
And he said
"Fair enough"
So I ran away, he didn't catch me
And that was pretty much the end of it
But middle-classness as a martial art

Shall we cheer him up?
I forgot he was sitting there, actually, poor fella
Yes, Nick and I met up at the Edinburgh Festival up there
Which I went to last year
It's good fun, isn't it?

I camped this year
I went up camping
I don't know if anyone's tried camping
I'd never tried it before
The thing about camping is, if you get it right
It's a bit like being indoors
Only nowhere near as good
And when you say that to other campers
You say "It's awful!"
They say "Well, that's half the fun!"
So half the fun of camping is
It's no fun!

And it was like a little housing estate, this campsite
There's hundreds of tents all pitched next to each other
And you can't argue in that situation, can you?
Late at night, you can't have a decent argument
Because you've got hundreds of people in tents all over the place!
You have to shout with a whisper!
So we're up at half past eleven at night like
"Well, I'm not very happy about this!"
"Well, I'm not very happy either!"
"Well, I didn't want to come in the first place!"
"Your father knew that tent was not complete when he gave it to us!"
"Well, don't bring my father into this"
"Well, he's never liked me"
"Well, why should he like you? You're horrible!"
And in the end, we had to write little stage directions
Just to get our point across, y'know?
"I'm really glad I came!" Sarcastically

Now, as with all good arguments, we ended up making love
And it was beautiful
I don't wanna be too graphic
We were in the tent
She was on her hands and knees in front of me
I was on one knee
I've hurt that one

And it was going terribly well
It was about twelve o'clock at night
And I heard the car start up outside
And I ignored that
And then the headlights of the car
Started to creep across the side of our tent
And you know if you can see your silhouette on the inside of the tent
You can see it on the outside of the tent a lot larger
But I think, just in time, I managed to pull my stomach in

Hm? I'm not plugged in?
No wonder I couldn't hear it!

I've been called misogynistic, but only by girls