easy! easy!

On Saturday, I had one of my most fun experiences of 2011 so far. I actually got to shout, "Easy! Easy!" at a real live wrestling match!

Graham and I went to see Rob Drummond: Wrestling at The Arches, pretty much for no reason other than it was about wrestling and apparently featured live wrestling. I love it when you have no idea what to expect from something and it turns out to be great.

It started off as an autobiographical account of Rob Drummond's life as a wimp and wrestling fan. He has a theory that everybody has something called a fight window, where they get the opportunity to have their first fight. If you take the opportunity and have that fight, you realise that fight's aren't all that bad, but if you don't take that opportunity, you spend the rest of your life being scared of fights. Rob Drummond missed his fight window so had been spending his life trying to avoid fights and wondering what it would take for him to man up. I should add now, because I don't want to forget, that there were quite a lot of wrestling fans in the audience, including one wee boy who shyly produced his wrestling figure from inside his jacket during the story of Rob Drummond being beaten up for playing with his wrestling figures in the park. It was so cute!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he decided to train with the professional wrestlers at SWA for five months to get over his fears and live the dream a bit and to create this piece of theatre with them. After we had heard most of the life story, the wrestler who had dislocated Rob's elbow (I think this happened in reality and got incorporated into the story, but all the edges between truth and fiction were a bit hazy - just like in a wrestling match, you see) stormed the stage and started shouting the odds and getting all up in his face and that, guv'nor! It is hard to describe fights when you're not a fighter... He was saying how Rob was all talk and a big wimp etc. I was actually quite scared as we were very close to the action and he was very shouty indeed and Rob was very skinny and wimpy with his arm still in a sling. After a fair bit of shouting (and lots of encouragement from the wrestling fans in the audience - "Knock him out, Rob, and give him a haircut while you're at it!") Rob finally stood his ground and agreed to the wrestling match.

At that moment all the lights went out and a voice announced, "Ladies and gentlmen, please take your seats at the ringside!" These curtains opened and there was an actual wrestling ring behind it with big signs for us all to wave. Wee skinny Rob Drummond and three big, burly pro-wrestlers came out and had an actual tag-team wrestling match. It was so much fun, though I'm glad I wasn't in the front row because one of the bad guys shook his sweat all over a rather well-dressed lady of a certain age... And that is the long-winded story of how I ended up shouting, "Easy! Easy!" at a professional wrestling match this weekend. Ta-da!

Continuing with the wrestling theme and in a blatant act of self-promotion...

Big Daddy lavender hangers make it "Easy! Easy!" to have sweet-smelling clothes.

£4 including UK postage here.

And Big Daddy framed lino prints. Yes, it comes framed! What could be easier, easier?

£6 including UK postage here.

Incidentally, SWA are having a big wrestling match in Glasgow on 26th Feb and I so want to go! If you do too, check their website for details.

I might make a belated new year's resolution to stop being so wordy. This blog has gone out of control these days! Today someone mentioned they knew I had stopped watching EastEnders because they had read it on my blog and I actually found myself thinking, "What?! You read all the way to the end of a blog post?!" Not a good sign... I'll try to do some flying visits soon.