Phone Answerer

I have a touch of sunburn on my shoulders. Do you know how long I spent in the sun yesterday? About 15 minutes. That's all. Barely enough to burn an ant with a magnifying glass and yet my pathetic skin tone wilted under the solar force. I would have thought it would be pleased with all the Vitamin D after a whole year of deprivation. Had there been 4 more months of solid rain I would have placed bets on the certainty of my getting rickets by the end of Edinburgh. But now the weather's all lovely, I cant cope with that instead. And my hayfever is really flaring up today. There must be loads of pollen around. So far I've sneezed 15 times in a row. Its getting so boring I'm considering trying to keep my eyes open for urban myth purposes just to keep it interesting. I think I should probably just walk around in a massive reflective jump suit and gas mask combination. Although I suppose then I might get mistaken for one of Lady Gaga's backing dancers.


The show at the Camberley Theatre last night was just delightful. I would have thought that with the odds of Britain's Got Amanda Holden Being a Dick Nightly and the sunshine, that we would have had an audience of one pasty faced TV hater. Luckily this was not the case. A lot more people have taste than I thought and far more of them are also scared of nice weather. I find this partly a shame as it seems inherent to dislike the weather whatever state its in. I asked the audience if they'd been in the sunshine and they grumbled. If I had complained about the rain, they would have grumbled. Snow, grumble grumble, light breeze, grumble grumble. I almost wonder if all the UK should be kept under a big Centre Parc glass dome with a controlled eco-system. I would still wear my reflective jump suit just to scare children.


There were some interesting characters in the crowd last night including a man who claimed his job was that of a 'telephone answerer'. I poked fun at him by saying that everyone else in Camberley is incapable of answering phones without his sort of training, but in actual fact I love how he simplified his job title to what it is. More jobs should be called what they are. It would work in their favour sometimes. Nurses for example would be 'Life savers' with Doctors being 'Life Saver Generals'. Then other jobs would suffer the brunt a bit more. Tax man could be 'Sadness Distributor'. Everyone's boss could be 'Staff Shouter' and clowns could be 'Child Scarer'. Further suggestions below please. No one ever comments on this blog, except to complain about my inability to spell iPhone. A mistake that may not have been a mistake, and in fact perhaps instead of the Apple phone, I might've been discussing the lesser know book by Isaac Asimov 'I, Phone'. I wasn't. Well please do give jobs their proper titles and then if we collate enough I will propose a restructure of the UK working system. I, personally would like to be called a 'Laugh Inducer', or if that's too much, ' A Day Waster'.


Another man, when I discussing people's levels of road rage, pointed at his wife and said in all seriousness 'She gets so angry, she gives people the finger, but with one finger.' I feel that if were to explain the idiocy of that comment to you that you would fall into the same category of intellect as the man that said it. Its amazing how often people create their own downfall. There is a misconception that MCing or compereing is a difficult job. Its not. All you do is let people talk until they make themselves look like idiots. One of my favourites was about two years ago at The Hob in Forest Gate. The was a mustachioed man by himself in the second row and I asked him what he did for a living. He said he was a photographer. Not sure where the banter would go, I asked him what his favourite thing to take photos of was. Without hesitation, or it seems, any thought, he said 'Children.' Job done. Man makes himself look like pedophile, rest of gig made easy by his downfall.


Have a trek and a half tonight to Shrewsbury. I don't really have any idea where Shrewsbury is or if it even exists. It sounds like something that should be tamed. Or a type of berry eaten mostly by rodents. I really hope I don't turn up to find lots of rodents eating berries. It will be a tough show to compere. "Where are you from?' 'That burrow over there.' 'And what do you do?' 'Eat berries.' Yawn.

A Walk In The Park

Me and Layla went for a walk in Finsbury Park yesterday afternoon. People are often saying things are as easy as 'a walk in the park' and they are right, it was pretty easy. There were no giant obstacles, flames or anti-walk paint. Nothing that would create any sort of difficulty whatsoever. I an imagine taking a walk in some parks isn't easy. Central Park at midnight probably isn't that easy. I've seen films and tv. In those films and tv what I've seen people get chased, stabbed and get stuck in horrific pointless conversation with 'friends' in Central Park. Those things aren't easy. Sunday morning is also meant to be easy. I've had many Sunday morning's where I've been very hungover. They were not easy, they were very very tough. I've also eaten eggs that were 'over-easy', they seemed no easier than normal. I felt cheated.


Finsbury Park is an odd place. Its quite a lovely big park, with some nice big green bits and some ducks and other staple park items, like trees and one of those wooden huts that no one knows what it contains. It is also surrounded by busy busy roads which you can see from where ever you are, leaving you feeling a little bit like you're trapped on a giant grassy roundabout. There is also, in the middle of the big grassy nice bit, a big trashy funfair. You know the sort that blare out music no one likes at very high levels and where children probably go missing from at a far from average rate. What I like in large parks is the ability to pretend I am no longer in London and just lie there in the quiet. The road and funfair limit how much I can do this, so I just pretend I'm lying in a field just off the M1 while some dick nearby has parked in a laybay and is playing his stereo too loud, while going on a waltzer and stealing children.


It was fairly full of people by the time we arrived. All the sorts of usual sunny day park culprits. Some people being all mental and going jogging; some of the regular old fashioned tramps that chase imaginary butterflies with their hands; some people clearly bunking off work and looking very pleased and guilty at the same time; that woman who is determined to lie in the sun until she is a shade of blood red and definitely has cancer; the Finsbury Park local rudeboys and girls who insist on wearing hoodies to look cool, but the sweatiness of their faces shows their are far from cool in any temperate way. As well as all these lovely people, there was one group of about 20 very odd ones opposite our sitting place. They weren't odd in a 'wearing the skin of dead pets odd' more in that kooky and rather lovely way. Several of them were just sitting, that wasn't odd at all. What was odd, was that they were watching, and cheering on the non-sitters while they played their game of football. Again, might not seem too odd, except that....THEY DIDN'T HAVE A FOOTBALL. No football whatsoever. Not even a substitute like a tennis ball or cauliflower or hamster ball. Nothing. They were entirely miming a whole game of football. And they did it very well too. There were dives, headers and some very good saves and what made it all quite exciting is that they were very good at mime, so it looked like there could've just been a ball there. In fact there is part of me that worries there was a ball there and I'm losing my eye sight, or as someone on Twitter suggested, it could have been a photo shoot for spot the ball. Perhaps the credit crunch has hit people harder than I thought. If that's true then I hope that extends to premier league games. I'd watch a lot more football if players were played thousands to mime really well. Whatever it was, it was intriguing and quite lovely. I'm really not sure which side won in the end, I don't know if they mimed the score system.


Today is another beautiful sunny day where once again I will be relegated to sitting indoors and doing some work for my preview on Monday. I haven't done any work on it since Bristol and its highly likely I now hate everything about it and will need to rewrite loads, so its best I start inside and do that. My only other option is to go outside and get sunburnt really quickly. I suppose I could go to the park and mime doing it. Then off to Camberley tonight for some polite banter with a crowd that will probably be over polite in a venue that is unlikely to be suitable for comedy. If they don't enjoy it I'll just mime the gig for them. Now I'm going to mime the rest of the blog while miming eating my breakfast. So far, I think you'll agree, I'm doing rather well.


PS I posted this on Twitter last night but its still making me laugh. I popped to my parents house last night and my mum found my grandma's old knitting book, with some truly hilarious pics in it. I think the guy looks a little bit like after the photo shoot he shot a lot of kids in a high school. Look at his eyes. Terrifying:

http://yfrog.com/0wzxaj - Scary manaclava

http://yfrog.com/0uywwj - Hee hee hee

Protect The Tiernan

I have just been asked if I will shave my beard off for an audition I have next week. This is a terrifying thought. I have only been beardless once in the last 8 years, which was also for a TV venture. It was a hidden camera shoot for a Graham Norton show that never happened, and I had to be the teenage nephew. Without a beard, I look like a child. I'm afraid that suddenly sans beard I won't get served at bars anymore and I might get caught by a truant officer and taken back to school. An even worse thought is that I haven't seen my chin in over 4 years and what if its not there anymore? What if my entire chin structure is held together by my beard? I will have to do whole shows about how I have no chin, and how when people say 'chin up' to me it makes me cry. Even worse still, what will I stroke when looking like I'm contemplating something? Oh dear God, the thought of it all is terrifying. Needless to say, I've said no. Lets see how they all deal with that. Probably by not giving me the job. Sigh.


Less fun than not having a beard, was last night's gig. Everything about it seemed ok at first. It was in a lovely venue, The Cobden Club in Kensal Rise. I've only ever been there once before for this:

http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/tiernan/2007/07/10/xtreme_hobnobbing

That was when I nearly spoke to Dennis Hopper and Damon Albarn had I not been too scared. Forgetting the fear aspect though I definitely would have hung out with them all night. Basically ignore that outright terrified star struck attitude and I was basically their best mate for the whole night. Luckily neither of them were there last night, otherwise I would have been too busy cowering in the corner like a great pal/frightened fan. Instead they had really really tiny cupcakes. They were so small it felt like I was a giant eating a normal sized cupcake. This was as special as Dennis Hopper being there. Dennis Hopper does not make me feel like a giant standing next to Dennis Hopper, so therefore cupcakes win.


The problem with last night was not the cupcakes or the lack of Dennis Hopper, but the fact it was a charity gig. Now, without meaning to slur all charity gigs ever, they tend to be filled with loads of people that don't really give a toss for what's on, and are just there to drink because their friend works for the charity and has asked them very nicely. Or in the case of the last charity gig I did in Epsom, they are just a massive bunch of the most horrendous people ever that build a gig so bad I still get 'Nam like flashbacks. See old blog flashback number two:

http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/03/epsom-downs.html

Oddly enough the Epsom gig was also the last time I worked with Terry Saunders. Not meaning to say that Terry is a curse on all the gigs I do or anything, but he probably is. I am scared incase there is some sort of space/time vortex that is opened when we work together causing even the nicest of gigs to fail. If this is the case then we should embrace our evil power and gig together at comedy clubs around the country until comedy is dead. Rather than him being bestowed with some sort of ancient gypsy voodoo, its more likely that me and Terry are both the sort of gimps that readily accept charity gigs because we pretend we are lovely people. He also has a gypsy voodoo curse but that's to do with the plague of locusts he carries around rather than how his gigs go. The other contenders were Mark Allen who I haven't seen in ages and Eli Silverman who I had never met but he seemed ace and had the sort of moustache you should be very proud of having.


The show was meant to start at 8pm, but the bar we were in was desolate. This might have had something to do with the free drinks all being in the bar upstairs. It might have also been to do with the big Amnesty sign saying 'No Comedy Here', which is a poster that's meant to be about how political comedy of any kind is a crime in certain countries, but to all the trendy Kensal Risians, they took it all a bit literally. Time went on, and I stole lots more tiny cakes and a free pin badge saying 'Protect The Human'. It seemed odd to me that a campaign about protecting humans involved giving humans booze and damaging them. I suppose that the best way to protect other humans is to get the trendy wanker ones to get so drunk they die of liver failure. That way other people are protected from them. Me and Terry spent a lot of time standing next to each other but not talking and just tweeting via our phones. While I am a big advocate of Twitter, at times like that it does make me think socialising is dead. It got worse when we did speak only to show each other the tweets we had just sent that we had already seen on our phones. I'm surprised that any conversation we did have wasn't only in 140 character bursts.


To pass time we went to watch the band that were playing upstairs. They were called The Dirty Feel and were really really good. Proper 60s-70s rock and they all dressed and acted like they were playing 60s-70s rock. One had long hair, a beard and girls top. One had a moustache and a hat and one looked like the guy from Nickelback. He was the only one I couldn't take seriously as he had a leather jacket on but nothing underneath. I felt very concerned about how sweaty he would be getting and all the chafing that might occur. He clearly hadn't thought it through. All their songs were good though and I kept expecting them to do something really rock like smash a guitar or kick in an amp. Then I realised its the credit crunch and that doesn't happen anymore. 'Smash the amp!' 'We can't. Ive still got 13 monthly repayments for it on my credit card.' When the band finished they told everyone the comedy was on downstairs and some of them ambled towards our bar with all the enthusiasm of a kid being forced to go to the dentist. And that child has orthopedic shoes. And is walking through very thick mud.


And so the gig was to a rabble of people who talked all the way through Terry's start. They then talked all the way through the top of my set. I mentioned that while an Amnesty gig was about Human Rights they should not be exercising their rights to Freedom of Speech. I thought that was clever. Two people in the front row, sighed and got up and left. The rest carried on talking. I rambled on for 15 minutes paying attention only to the women on my left who was actually laughing, and then I ran away. I got in the car and pricked my finger on my Amnesty pin badge trying to take it off. So much for Protect The Human. I think I will leave charity gigs for a little while. I feel my karma meter must be at an all time high from enduring that and Epsom and will have to now go balance it out by being a real arsehole for a bit.



First step is somehow finding a way to ruin the life of Mary Bunker from Maine, USA aka MamaBee4 on Twitter. She seems to have found it hilarious to entirely steal the idea of Twitter Comedy and do it the weekend before us. Admittedly she has done it in a shit disorganised way, with no press and no jokes and I mostly couldn't give a damn. But then she messaged our Tweetcomedyclub account boasting about it. Now that's just not right. Not only is she a cheap idea thief, but she boasts about it too. And if you are going to steal an idea dont rub it in the face of the person you are stealing it from. Thats like the great train robbers taking the ransom to, er, Network Rail and dancing around with all the cash around Victoria Station. Out of annoyance I looked her up to find that she writes blogs with titles such as 'Ass Breasts'. There must be someway to stop her from being. I might tell Amnesty she has violated my human rights by talking about my, er, Ass Breasts, and then perhaps they will send her loads of pinbadges until she cuts her finger loads and bleeds to death. If you want to hate her too, please feel free to. In fact we could always set up a facebook group. That's what I love about the net, there is no boundaries to how far you can send abuse. Yeah its all about connecting people from around the world, but if those people irritate the hell out of you, you don't have to wait for airmail to deliver them death threats.

I Win

I got drunk yesterday and for free. I win. Its nice when you win things. Especially when its a game that you don't tell anyone else the rules to it. Last night the game was 'Lets all go and get drunk on free booze and eat canapes that are also free while a big purple cow dances around'. Did you do that? Doubt it. I win. So there. That is generally all I want in an evening - free booze, dancing cows and canapes. I often get canapes confused with canopies which is a very bad mistake. You try nibbling on a canopy. Its not good and it hurts your teeth.


The dancing cow in question was Violet the Udderbelly Cow who was there as the mascot to the Udderbelly at Southbank, the launch party of which was last night. Launch parties are often great, although no one does them better than NASA, where they actually launch stuff. That wins in my opinion, if of course you are playing the 'who has the best launch party where people actually launch stuff' game, which I was. Of course this is discounting NASA's Challenger launch party of a few years back, which wasn't fun for anyone. Least of all the astronauts. Last night's do was to kick start the big upside down inflatable cow at the Southbank for 8 weeks. It looks great next to the Millennium wheel and has definitely brightened up the area somewhat. From quite some distance away you can see giant purple hooves and it does look a bit as though someone has just accidentally dropped it there. A small part of me is worried that giant purple intergalactic cows may fly past and think we've killed one of theirs. There were lots of nice people at the do and I'd managed to persuade Layla to come along and get drunk too, so we both indulged in small talk with people that was interrupted everytime someone with a tray of grub walked past. Everyone at these events knows that as much as its nice seeing nice people, the only reason we are all there is for booze and food and the waiters and waitresses with trays of stuff are the demi-Gods of the cow arena. The only bad thing they had was olives in sweet chilli sauce. This is wrong. Olives aren't meant to be with sweet things. Same as marmite shouldn't go on ice-cream. There are certain unspoken rules that everyone should know. The poor waitress that was carrying those must've felt like the booby prize of the night as everyone quickly glided away from her.


Joan Rivers cut the ribbon to open the Udderbelly which was cool. Its weird seeing her in real life as her face is so plastic she looks artificial. It started to rain and I was sure the rain drops were just bouncing off her cheeks like they would off a treated and varnished door. I wonder if she is allowed near open fires or if that is a health and safety hazard waiting to go wrong? The idea of plastic surgery still disturbs me. There are now adverts all over the tube and bus stops about it but none of them show the sort of people that have had it and look as though someone has laminated their face after a dog has been chewing at it. Althought to be fair, it could be that those surgeons are brilliant and that the clients walk in and say 'Hi, I'd like the look as though you've laminated my face after a dog has been chewing at it.' If that is the case then fair play. I'm not a fan of any cosmetic surgery or art stuff. I havent got a tattoo and I don't want one. I fear what it would look like when I'm all old and wrinkly. Like those women that get a tattoo of a horse on their chest only for years later it to look like a giraffe. I did entertain the idea of getting my whole outline tattooed on me for a while to look super defined, but I think it would just creep people out.


I'm doing a charity gig tonight. Yep, I win. Of course this is because I am playing the 'who is doing a gig for charity' game this evening. Its all for Amnesty and there will be comedy and funk music. Not all at once, although I hope one day I do have a funk band backing me so I'll be like the Shaft of mirth. I don't know if people would laugh at my jokes if they finished with a 'bow chikki wow wow' or if they'd just think I was hella cool. To be fair, either outcome is good.

If you fancy funking up and hearing gags all at once, sort of, then please pop along:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=74568968735

Till then I'm going to spend today doing lots of things I need to do. Yep, I know. I win.

Fight Tuesday by Tiernan Douieb

I still haven't entered all the numbers in my phone yet, and as luck would have it, all the texts I've received over the last day or so haven't been from any of the numbers I have entered. This creates an unintentional and semi-exciting game called, 'Guess The Texter'. By merely reading the text I have to guess who its from and how to respond. So far I have guess 3 out of 5 right. I was completely thrown by fellow blogstro Michael Legge's text asking me my opinion on Asher Roth. Having assumed he has some level of taste and had possibly also read my blog of a few weeks back, I did not think Legge would be the sort of person to seriously ask such a question. Alas, as I had no idea who had sent it, I didn't reply and Michael made the rookie error of listening to it and is now deaf in the ears from such horror. I realise these are the consequences of playing such a game, but there are always casualties of war. I just hope I don't get a text saying 'Red wire or blue wire' or it could get bad.


So Fat Tuesday returned last night in the swanky looking The Compass. It was a tad odd going in to our old room that looked all new. It felt like we'd left home for a few months and our mum had let our cousin stay in our room and they'd put lots of odd posters and things up. At the same time the cousin was much neater and upmarket than us and had put lovely curtains in the window, replaced the manky bar with an oak one and put chandeliers and a new sound system in. All of which is brilliant, except when like me, the old sound system really confused you enough. It all looked great though and after an hour or so we worked out the best way to configure everything ie. have a light and some chairs and a mic. I suppose its not rocket science. If it was, our gig would be a lot more aggressive. I prefer not to have rockets at a comedy show. Maybe that's just me. The rather unusual situation last night was that the bar wasn't yet 'officially' open, which meant that while our show was on upstairs, downstairs was closed off. Audience were only allowed to get drinks by waiter/waitress service and they had to stay in the room except for loo and cigarette use. It was like an oddly enforced yet fun lock-in. Unlike other secret posh parties we didn't have nice food, party games or a dead hooker, but if the situation happens again I will try harder.


It was a great gig. Not just because all the acts were brilliant - Robert White, Liz Carr, Dave Gorman and Gordon Southern - but also because it was a small but perfectly formed crowd of regulars. Apart from maybe 2-3 of them, every member of the crowd had been loads of times before. That meant they didn't need much warming up at all and were more than accepting when the mic broke during the first act and when they were told that if they left during the interval they would be shot and attacked by dogs. I didn't say the last bit, but they knew it would happen. The new managers and staff all seemed very enthusiastic about everything which was nice but unusual. We will have to beat this out of them with time. So not really anything to complain about. Which makes for a dull read no? So for your sake here's a fake ending to the evening:


....Just as Gordon was about to go onstage the management ran on saying we were all too loud and that next door had complained loads so the entire evening was to be conducted in whispers. Everyone co-operated until someone in the second row sneezed causing the management to say we were never allowed in the venue again. This created uproar with the crowd and a full on bar brawl ensued where some people and chairs and people sitting in chairs were all thrown out of windows. I joined in, but was pulled away by the head honcho, The Compass, a giant man with a Compass for a head. He smacked me in the face with some organic goods and I luckily ducked his attempt to hit me with a vintage bottle of fairtrade rum. Thinking quickly I wrapped a load of mic cable around the metal bracket of the disabled lift creating an electromagnet. His stupid compass head was drawn to the lift and as he got stuck I sent it up and then down crushing his tiny disproportionate body and saving the day.


That was so much better than the real version. In fact that was so much better than most days. I'm going to the Udderbelly Southbank Launch party tonight. If the giant purple cow doesn't come alive and start eating children and then I have to destroy it using a rocket launcher, I will still write it as though that happened tomorrow. Perhaps this is my new career. Forget comedy , welcome Tiernan Douieb action writer extraordinaire. Will start with today's epic about how my cats have grown 50 ft in height and I have to use a combination of a paper clip, some cottage cheese, a banjo and my wits to reduce them to normal size and stop them from destroying Winchester.

The Return...

Good afternoon. And how might you be? Me, oh well Im ok thanks but a bit brain damaged from having sat through two hours of meeting with my accountant and sorting out my taxes. Meeting with him is generally an odd experience. It involves going to Edgeware which is a part of London atmosphere forgot. There are lots of buildings and shops that cater for the sort of people that have only ever been within a 1 mile radius of their house, and in only one direction. Its a funny little surburbian area that freaks me out. Within that, my accountant (who is vaguely related to me via my Great Aunt) works in an office that looks like it is trapped in a 70s time warp. All the chintz furniture and bland colours feel like I could be in any episode of any 70s sitcom, if say Mork and Mindy or Happy Days only had people sitting very quietly working out how 'taking clients to strippers' can be passed of as 'stationary allowance'. This is until I enter his part of the office. This has a very different look and keeping with the 70s analagy I would say its more Vietnam War than disco funk. Papers everywhere, boxes on the floor. If Ryman dropped bombs, the blitz would look like this. He also doesnt use a computer, just a pencil, paper, and today, a magnifying glass because my print outs were too small. Still he is very very good at doing stuff that I dont understand, and today he told me that last year I earnt only just enough to live on, which is nice. Well its not really, as it would explain why I'm so horribly horribly broke. Still, at least I know why now and can no longer blame it on the debt fairy.


I finally finished all my tax input dullness yesterday afternoon, which was roughly the exact time the sunshine fucked right off. I wouldn't like to say it was planned, as that would make me seem paranoid. But someone has definitely rigged the weather in order to ruin my week. Instead as a celebration me and Layla took our bi-annual trip to Blockbuster. People have asked me why we still go to Blockbuster when such avenues as Love Film and Netflix exist. Well its because firstly I sometimes like feeling I am still in the 90s, and secondly its to witness the sadness and despair that exists within such places. It makes me feel better looking at that staff who stand around wondering why they exist. They know its pointless being there, as does everyone else, and they know its just a matter of time before they dissipate into the atmosphere like a misery guff. Yesterday there were only four other people in the shop. One was just walking around the same aisle in circles hoping that a film would just throw itself at him as the lack of choice provided him with nothing he wanted to watch but could not cope with the idea of watching no films at all. The other three were staring at the 'Exclusively to Blockbuster' section, which ironically, had nothing on its shelves whatsoever. I told the man at the till that this meant nothing was exclusive to Blockbusters but he grunted and looked like with further provocation he would eat his own limbs. I did try asking for several films I knew were out of stock, but after rummaging around like a spastic badger he just shrugged lots and gave me a look as though he really really wanted me to leave. We finally settled on Changeling on Blu-ray because we are in the future and like paying £1 more for a DVD with a different name. Annoyingly when we got home it was still Changeling on DVD and I felt we had been conned. I apologise for the quality of that joke.


Fat Tuesday returns tonight which should be good. Well it should be, but judging by ticket sales so far it might be a bit quiet. This may be due to my rubbish plan of re-opening just after a Bank Holiday. I'm hoping that lots of people turn up on the door. I'm also hoping that it all runs ok. Already I've had the new bar manager ask me if we want to run it in the massive room downstairs. I tried to explain using words such as 'small and cosy enviroment' why we don't want to, but it was treated with a rather vacant response. Fingers crossed it'll be nice. If you fancy coming along, have a lookie here for line-ups and tickets:

http://www.fattuesdaycomedy.co.uk

Thats all for today. I must go and panic about poorness and gigs. Or pogness as I like to call it. Sadly that often gets confused with a short lived children's toy craze from the 90s that no one remembers.

Smokey and the Bandit

Its Bank Holiday Monday. According to Wikipedia on May 25th in 1977 Star Wars was released at cinemas. To think of the unknown brilliance thousands, nay millions, were about to embark on heading to the cinema that day. None of them had even the merest glimpse of thought that in 25 years time Lucas would take everything great that he'd done and shit all over it like a diarrhetic dog. Today, 32 years later, I've had garlic mushrooms on toast for breakfast. Its obviously a day for exciting ventures. I like it when I wake up and decide to eat something for breakfast that is a bit spur of the moment, new and exciting. And like those soon to be Star Wars fans, I had no idea it would make my breath stink quite so much, or that burning a little bit of garlic would continuously set our smoke alarm off for a twenty minute period. Our smoke alarm is a bit of a jobsworth. It goes off at the slightest sign of anything remotely smokey. Some of you might suggest that thats brilliant as were there ever to be a fire we would get a very early alert and be up and out to safety before you could even say 'Oh Jesus my arm's on fire, its bloody well on fire!' Yes, that is a bonus, because I don't like being on fire much. I once caught my dressing gown sleeve on fire and I didn't like it. I was well aware that my arm was on fire, which helped me to put it out and I do suppose that had I been asleep I wouldnt have noticed as much, so I can see the benefits of the alarm. But the problem is it goes at every given opportunity. Every single sign of smoke. A little bit of burning food it goes off. Someone lights a match, it goes off. I listen to Smokey Robinson, it goes off. I wonder if I need to give it a real fire to see if its just crying wolf/fire unnecessarily. Will it actually go off if the whole building is in flames? Thats the question that may need to be answered today.


Last night's show was a brilliant, as shows at Downstairs at the Kings Head always are. There are so many reasons why that gig is great, including the room, the fact that Pete Grahame who runs it actually cares about it, and that the crowd is nearly always friendly. Above all these is that its a 10 minute drive from my house or, er, a longer walk. I havent walked it in years due to laziness and a big hill in the way. Big hills ruin walks for lazy people. I would happily walk along non-hills to get there, but the steep incline means a big no no for me. I mean why should I exert that bit of extra force when I can save it and use it for later when I run around setting fire to stuff? Have to keep that energy for important things.


The warm weather counter-acted the Bank Holidayness last night and so there was a reasonable but not massive crowd number-wise. I would only have meant number wise as the warm weather and Bank Holidayness would not have affected their general build and weight mass. Unless the warm weather had meant they sweated lots off, and the Bank Holidayness had meant they'd eaten loads to put it all back on again. But until now, I hadnt thought of that. Despite the small numbers and mixed ratio of heights and weight they were, as always, a great crowd. The front row alone was composed of a man who decided to tell me outright that had a 'dirty stop out' the night before, and then wondered why I started asking him questions about it. I wouldnt have done, but he didn't understand that by telling the whole room about it, questions had to be asked. There was also a policeman who's surname was Johnson which I equated to being a euphemism for dick. I then berated him about the G20 riots, as he was on the squad in town that day. He didnt hit me and he was actually fairly good natured about it. In the second section an audience member was missing so I told him to investigate why and when he failed to do so, I asked him how much trouble someone would get into if they insulted a policeman off duty. He said it depended on whether or not the person who threw the insult knew they were off duty. I told him I knew he was a copper, and then called him a prick, offering him the chance to lay down the law and arrest me, but ruin the gig for everyone, or leave me alone and fail in his work. He was nice and he failed. Which, in hindsight, I am pleased about, as I dont fancy jail. Even if others in jail might fancy me. Urgh.


The last couple on the front row were very nice too and the man, Richard was a poet and tour guide. He very kindly gave us a great limerick about a man from Putney and then told us how he holds misguided tours of areas. Next week he is doing a misguided tour of Crouch End. This is a genius idea where people pay him money and he takes them around Crouch End telling them massive lies about its history. As we pay politicians money to lie all the time anyway, this is a lovely way to pay for lies that are funny. I think more tours should be filled with lies as telling us the throne room in Buckingham Palace is the secret entrance to the Batcave is far more exciting than saying its where our emotionless cold facially dead queen sits sometimes and pretends to be important. I managed to find his tour on Facebook so based on last night, would highly recommend you go. I wont be going, but thats not because I don't want to, but because on that date I will, er, be doing other stuff. Like fixing my burnt down house.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=82282481465

Quick other plug for someone who doesn't plug their own stuff enough. I bought this book off of very very funny comic Dan Evans last night. I've only read about 15 pages and its made me snorty laugh 6 times which is a lot and very embarrassing when around other people.

http://bit.ly/8K0Qu


Lastly on the agenda for today's blog, @misswiz on Twitter last night told me that her friend thinks I have PR that write this blog for me. Its a nice belief but I cant work out in what way talking about cats shitting on my laptop is self promotion. I would fire a PR that did that. If I could afford one to write my blog in the first place. Even if I could, if I tried to fire them, my smoke alarm would go off. Then again maybe its some clever form of anti-PR, whereby making people be so uninterested in me, that interest is somehow aroused. Im not sure how this would work, but I might sell the idea to someone. They wont be interested at first, but they'll come round and see its genius.


Must go. Have to head off to buy lighter fluid.

Surprise Cockface!

I'm gigging tonight. I haven't gigged properly since last Saturday and feel all a bit rusty. I have no clue about what's been happening with the world and feel as thought I can't walk on stage just discussing my taxes. I mean, I could, but I can't imagine that the crowd would enjoy it. I cant imagine I would enjoy it. Basically there would be a whole bunch of people there for a comedy evening subjected to at least 30 minutes of me giving them no comedy whatsoever. Some might argue that that's what happens everytime I do a gig. The people that argue that are cocks. I mean that in the offensive term, not that cockerels do not appreciate my humour. Although they might not, I've never performed to any. Its a gig at one of my favourite clubs, Downstairs At The Kings Head in Crouch End, which is a perfect comedy venue. I love it there. On account of it being a Bank Holiday, it should be packed tonight. Although its also sunny, which means it might not be. I sometimes wonder if comics are the only people who hope for the rain and the cold sometimes. Oh, and goths.


I had a small break from tax dull yesterday when I went to my friend Lauren's house to do further work on kids sketches. It was a fairly productive afternoon. By that I mean I wrote a song about bums and Helen and Lauren wrote some stuff that wasn't as puerile. I was very pleased with my song about bums. When I next see you I will sing it to you. Bums will never stop being funny. Unless you are American in which case they are a socio-economic problem. Which if you consider parts of New York being covered in bums, they suddenly become funny again. But only from a UK perspective. Hee hee, covered in bums. We spent the afternoon working on Lauren's roof terrace which was all a bit lovely and provided us with some excellent viewing entertainment. It overlooked the neighbouring gardens, Hampstead Heath and a railway line. If the railway line wasn't there then her house would be very easy to burgle but thanks to Network Rail's regular train service thieves would have to plot their break-in very carefully. Or during a strike. Or the hours of 00.30-5.30. So ultimately her flat is easy to burgle. Dont say I told you. I hope eager burglars don't read this. But if you are, my flat is super secure so don't even try.


At one point we spotted a big black cat traveling from three gardens away on the left to the garden to our right. Then it disappeared behind a shed and next thing we knew there was a flash of black tail halfway up a tree and several magpies flying out. You would assume that the magpies would just fly off as far away as possible, but they kept darting back in and squawking. We assumed there might be a nest there. Every so often they would dart back in, we would see a flash of paw and tail and then they would shoot back out again. Two crows then sat above the railway cables cawing at the whole goings on, like the two old men from the Muppets. It was like a nature program in the back garden. There was some sympathy towards the baby magpies that may or may not have been there, until Lauren said they were carnivores and they eat other birds. That along with the thieving peoples shiny stuff, meant I started to cheer the cat on. I can only assume thats what the crows were doing too. Each caw would probably translate as 'Kill the theiving baby eat shits, go cat go!'


That event and insisting we waved to all the people on every train that went by, made me day, and hopefully some of the train passengers days too. I made sure I was smiling everytime and we got some waves back from people that were either smiling or holding an expression that said 'humour the mentally ill out of pity'. Better than either of those events though was a gift from an unknown neighbour. As I arrived, my iPhone searched for available wi-fi it could latch onto and steal from like a cyber magpie. Sure enough three entries appeared. One called TalkTalk21, one called BT something or other, and then right at the bottom was a small mark of genius. Someone had named their wi-fi 'Surprise Cockface!' with that very well placed exclamation mark. I was surprised. I probably am a cockface. They were very very good. I assume by cockface they didn't mean a face full of cockerals. That would be odd and less funny. No wait, possibly more funny. Either way they had anticipated the wi-fi stealing locality and pre-thought to stop them in their tracks with some childish offensiveness. Whoever you are, I applaud you, and I am going to change the name of our wi-fi service as soon as possible to ' Boo you prick!' Not as good, but I didn't want to plagiarise.


Maybe thats how I'll start my gig. Let the lights go on stage to reveal a giant box. Out of which I will leap and shout 'Surprise cockface!'. On second thoughts maybe I should watch the news or really work out how to make my receipts funny.

Taxing Issues

Not a lot to say today. Between doing my taxes and entering numbers in my phone by brain has become a dulled mass of numbers and graph paper. I often wonder if thats how accountants see all the time. Similar to what Neo sees in the Matrix only a far less excting version where all the Agent Smith's just tell you you havent filled in form section 11a correctly and you have to redo the whole thing. Irritating oversights like that would be made a lot better with some serious kung-fu action but I can't see it happening. It must take a really strong mind to be an accountant. I often joke about their depressing lives if I end up bantering with one while on stage, but they have better will power than me. After two days of data entry I want to kill myself and anyone who ever says a number ever. The Pointer Sisters 'The Pinball Song' could send me into a rage. Accountants look at numbers all day everyday and don't go insane. Thats properly tough. Or so braindead it doesn't affect them. Definitely one or the other.


So that was my day yesterday and will be my day today. I haven't even been outside in the glorious weather. Just indoors, turning grey like a morlock of tax, hidden away from all vitamin c and gaining rickets so I can easily waddle down the tiny underground tunnels where I will eventually live. The only thing that has kept me sane is all the apps I have just got for my iPhone. Its like a whole new world of distraction out there. No one told me that I could download things that would let my demonstrate what happens to a man when he gets thrown downstairs, or if I had a pet and that pet fought other pets. Admittedly my cats do fight other pets, but not with swords. Maybe I should train them, although they have no opposable thumbs so holding the sword could be tricky. Last night, I spent a hefty amount of time playing Pacman Lite, which is a healthy version of Pacman with less saturated fats. You wouldn't tell as it played as good as Pacman Full Fat. I find it amazing that despite all advances in technology Pacman is still a great game. I think its because its pretty bloody simple. A big yellow face eats peas and ghosts. I still wish I could have been in the board meeting where someone proposed that idea.

Game Designer - ' So he's a big yellow face...'
Board Exec - 'Yeah'
GD - 'And he eats peas and ghosts.'
Board Exec - 'And?'
GD - 'And occasionally cherries appear.'
Board Exec - ' And?'
GD - ' Thats it, and in a few years time we'll release exactly the same game but he will have a bow in his hair and we'll call him Mrs. Pacman.'
Board Exec - 'How can she be a Mrs and a Pacman'?'
GD - Well she's not, she's a ...'
Board Exec - 'You're just making this up on the spot aren't you?'
Game Designer - 'Quick he's cottoned on, someone chloroform him, NOW'.

Thats probably how it went. Or probably not.


That's all my brain can muster today before it starts giving me shit ideas like 'wonder if Jeremy Paxman got forced to eat peas and ghosts at school because his surname sounds like Pacman but not quite and maybe thats why he gets all angry on telly sometimes.' But I wont subject you to that. Instead I will hobble back to my mind damaging tax stuff and keep this brief like a pair of pants. In the meantime, this is simply my favourite blog to read at the moment. It is constantly lovely in a dark and mean way, which is what I like. Like a teddy bear with a big axe. Enjoy and hopefully my brain will work again tomorrow:

http://myfirstdictionary.blogspot.com/

Friday is Headache Day

I have a headache. I didnt go to bed with a headache, I just woke up with a headache. What could possibly cause such tension in my head while I sleep? There are several possible causes. One would be that during the night someone snuck in and stuck a dehumidifier by my head thus completely dehydrating me. This is not possible as we have big bars on our windows that would mean only a ninja of the highest accord could get into our flat, and even then ninjas of high accord have much better things to be doing than dehumidifying my face. It could be because I slept funny. I am a comedian, it is in my nature to sleep funny. I walk, talk, eat and drink funny, so sleep is just the next step. Some might say I sleep like an idiot. Anyone who has ever shared a sleeping location with me will know that my tendency to snore like someone is drilling a bore hole through your ears is definitely not one of my most attractive qualities. Snoring = idiot sleeping.


It could be because I watched the last two episodes of 24 season 7 last night and the ridiculous end of season cliffhanger and stupid plotholes made me so angry parts of my brain exploded. Seriously, can Jack Bauer just die now? I never thought I'd say that before. As far as I was concerned Bauer was the Bourne of the TV world. I would play the 24 soundtrack in the car and accidentally drive through red lights because I would feel I was on a mission. He was the epitome of badass. Then season 5 was a bit meh, and season 6 followed it by being the hugest pile of shit I've ever watched. Season 7 started to redeem itself, but as soon as Kim got in danger AGAIN I knew it was all over. How many times will that girl get put in a ridiculous situation? She had only been back in the series for two episodes and already got herself into a hostage situation. She's a liability. Kim Bauer should be kept in a maximum security padded cell because everytime she leaves the house something bad happens to her. Its the same with Princess Peach. If you are going to keep getting kidnapped by a giant dragon lizard king, then she shouldn't be allowed to wander around by herself. I'm almost expecting the next Mario to be where catches her out calling up Bowser and telling him exactly where she is. I think its Stockholm syndrome.


The real reason for headache though is anticipating the boredom I have to endure today. I still have umpteen billion numbers to enter into my phone. You would think that now its the future and everything I could just think the numbers into the address book or press a button and a robot badger would do it for me, but no, it must take up stupidly long amounts of my time. It cant really be the future if things like this are happening. I mean where are the flying cars and tinfoil hats? I think we've all been conned. I also have to clean the bathroom. I've promised Layla I will. I don't ever really understand why bathrooms need to be cleaned. How can they get dirty? They're full of soap and water. Finally, the last and most boring thing is start on my taxes. Every year I think maybe I should just spend a few hours every month sorting out that months wages and outgoings, and every year I don't bother, get to May and panic about doing it. I then spend two solid days bored out of my skull before I go and see my accountant who tells me I've done it all wrong. I hate tax. I don't see why I should be sorting it all out when it'll only go to some MP to spend on a house they don't live in. So the boredom doth begin.


To keep it at bay I will spend every ten minutes downloading a new app for my iphone and then tweeting about it. Doing this should take about 10 minutes at the end of which I'll realise I've spent another whole day not getting anything done. I really really need a robot badger.

Rosiegate

I knew this would happen. I knew that it would just interfere with my life and stop me from getting things done. The i-phone has already jumped to the top of my importance list above my own health and safety, Layla and the cats. Its dangerous. It arrived in a little box yesterday, delivered by a little woman who arrived in a little van. As they say, all good things come in little packages. From little woman, in little vans. That saying is massively untrue. I'd like a big car. A big car wouldn't fit in a small box. Unless of course a wizard put it there. Or a giant, and the box was only little in the giant's perspective. For the first twenty minutes my i-phone just sat there, charging, like a useless slab of technology. Then I poured water on it and fed it after midnight and lots of tiny angry i-phones grew from it and started causing havoc all over New York. That's not true, and instead once charged it opened up a whole world of i-phone applications and funny swoosh noises when emails get sent. Above all the other amazing technology that is the bit I like most. I love swoosh noises and the fact that I cause on when sending an email makes me very happy. More swoosh noises in general please. I'd like a swoosh noise everytime I open a door, point at something and arrive anywhere. I also like the word swoosh due to its onomatopoeic ways. Swoosh sounds like swooshing. Unlike 'abattoir' which sounds nothing like pigs screaming.


Generally the i-phone was a nice thing that happened in a whole day of nice things. I did not expect nice things yesterday because the day started with very bad things. Very very bad things. Things so bad that they were worse than walking out of the shower to find my cat, Rosie, sitting on my laptop, cleaning herself after having smeared cat shit all over it. Oh no wait that is exactly how bad it was, because that is exactly what the furry shitball did. To say I don't love my cats would be wrong, but there are times I wish it was ok to drop kick them. I cant imagine many computers were designed to get covered in cat shit. I don't think Steve Jobs sat there saying 'What Apple really need is a computer that is not only user friendly, innovative and stylish, but is defensive against all forms of mammal feces.' Luckily, 6 anti-sceptic wipes, some flash, and such disgust at how gross it was I nearly went to a church to get my soul cleansed, the computer was ok. Rosie did not seem to give a shit - the wrong term clearly - and was more annoyed I'd shooed her off the warm keyboard. As revenge she jumped on top of some bills and letters and covered them in poo as well. Now I've always wanted to do that to bills really, but it the reality of it was not good. Finally I made her go outside and she cleaned herself. Thinking the crisis was over, Rosie then jumped back into the house mieowing loudly. She mieowed and mieowed and then coughed and a whole live bee flew out of her mouth. Rosie chased it all over the living room knocking things everywhere until she twatted it in the face and ate it. This entire scenario was watched by my other cat Bella who was sitting on the sofa and giving me a look as though to say 'Yes she is mental. Why you took her in from the cat home we don't know, all the other cats there thought she was a bit special.'


Following catmania I went to see The Compass, the newly refurbished Fat Tuesday venue, where we shall be returning to next week. I was a bit scared that they were going to gut the entire place and fill it with jelly or sharks or other things unsuitable for a comedy venue but actually they have done an amazing job. The place looks very very classy and the upstairs room now has loads of great bonuses for our gig such as brand new sound system and a special place to put an i-pod or a shiny new i-phone which made T-Phone (for that is his name now) very happy. They also have a menu of fancy things which they state are all organic and local and fair trade and all the other trendy things food can be. Stuff like beef from cows that have been strangled that afternoon after a life of mooing by pool in Beverly Hills and raspberries that were hunted and shot at using blackberry friendly gunshot etc. The dessert menu has something on it called a 'Peanut Butter Pie with Ice Cream'. I need to have one of those but fear it could cause me severe damage, and not just because my friend Adam Brace once said I 'look like someone who should have a nut allergy'.


Then last night me and Mat finally clocked Resident Evil 5. I'm pleased about this as it may finally mean I can stop dreaming about imminent zombie attacks. The final bit in the game involves shooting a big villain in the face with a rocket launcher. As far as I'm concerned all games should end like that. Even board games. Monopoly would be great if I sent that little dog flying with an Rpg Rocket or by placing a proximity mine on Mayfair.


Twitter Comedy Mania continues to grow. I had an interview with a journalist from the Canada Sun last night which was a lot of fun. We had a very good chat but I did have to restrain myself from saying 'aboot' a lot or asking about moose. I love moose. They are the most ridiculous looking animals in the world, with over sized snozzles like a Steffi Graf of the wild. I remember a Canadian friend once telling me that where she was from they called them 'Swamp Donkeys'. I like this term but again moose wins on sheer onomatopoeia. Say 'mooooooose' really loudly and it sounds like you might be a large animal. Say 'swamp donkey' loudly and the trampiest idiot in the pub will punch you.

Phones, Time Lords and Witches

I'm going to go visit the newly refurbished The Compass today to see if there is a future for Fat Tuesday. I'm slightly scared that its going to be all wrong and I'll have a bit of panic. They have already rung me today and said the first gig that they said could go ahead might not be able to go ahead. Not good. I'm scared this will escalate into the next 5 gigs all can't go ahead and then nothing can ever go ahead ever and all comedy must be destroyed. Obviously that would be the extreme but you can never discount these possibilities. It always starts small. I've read Dr.Seuss's non-fiction 'It Was All Because A Bug Went Katchoo' and everyone knows that lead to the Chernobyl incident. Hopefully the 26th will still go ahead and so will all the other gigs because frankly I have a little too much on at the moment to be sorting it all out. Today is filled with many an appointment, the most important one being the arrival of my new phone. That's right after my debacle where I drunkenly, threw my own phone on the floor and broke it, O2 have taken pity on the stupid drunk man, and are sending me a brand new i-phone today. The news of that makes me do a jig everytime I say it. I have to stop saying it as its becoming very hard to type while jigging. I don't know how Morris dancers ever type anything for they are constantly in a perpetual jig aren't they? I hear they only live for a few weeks as all the dancing wears the body out in super quick time. So they emerge from a cocoon after 3 months, and become a fully grown Morris dancer, only to dance the night away every night and day for three weeks, before spreading their seed and dropping dead on May day. Its all so very sad yet beautiful at the same time. Sigh. Nature's little wonders eh?


Getting an i-phone could be dangerous on two accounts. I think it will take up more time than I have. It doesn't have to but I know I'll want to fiddle with all the features and download the thing that makes lightsaber noises and wave it at the cats. The other reason is that I currently do some material on how i-phones make people wankers. This material might have to be adjusted. Of course I could just lie for the sake of comedy, but I am an honest governor and, more importantly very bad at lying. I do odd things when trying to lie, like yawn and burst into laughter. Basically my Pinocchio's nose is appearing like a maniacal narcoleptic. Despite these though I'm still excited as I have been using my old phone which seems like alien technology to me. I can't text with it and it has none of my numbers on, so everytime someone calls me its a surprise. That bit is both nice and bad. I have certain people's numbers on my phone so I know not to pick it up. Guaranteed they will all call me in the next day or so. Maybe I shouldn't answer any calls whatsoever.


Yesterday was a day of some greatness and some badness. There was also a high amount of oddness which added to both areas. One of the odd things was as I was parking near my gig last night. It was in the West End of London which is like a public warzone at the best of times. I saw a space and headed straight for it. As I did, some arse in a smart car pulled up right beside me, looked at me and tutted while waving his finger at me. It was irritating and a little bit creepy. It was a one way street and I was infront of him carwise, so the space was mine. But he looked so angry and then rather than shouting he told me off like a teacher would. Shouting I would have been prepared for but finger wagging threw me off a bit. I thought nothing of it until I reached the gig, then I started wondering was it a curse or a warning? I paced back and forth and suddenly felt that I should run back to the car. Sure enough I had a parking ticket and I had left the door unlocked. The man must've been that woman in bewitched. Its the only explanation.


The other weird thing was noticing a man at the gig who looked exactly how I assume I will look in about 20 years time. I hadn't noticed him until I walked onstage and there he was. Little grey goatee, short grey hair, slightly rounded face, a bit tubby and not very tall. It was uncanny. He had left to go to the loo as I had walked onstage. I told everyone and Richard was concerned that he had been sent back from the future to prevent past me from making a 'terrible mistake'. When he returned we all gave him suspicious looks then I shook his hand to see if a vortex was created or if time and space exploded. It didn't. I still don't trust him though. He tried to say he was my dad. I bet thats the story Sarah O'Conner had told him would work.


Richard's gig The Perfect Movie is a truly great night. Like Mark Olver's Oppo gig the other week, it felt like stumbling into someone's special private club and being allowed to join in. All material is movie based, and Richard's MCing all relates to film facts. He knows far too many film facts. It can be a little scary just how much he knows. I realised I don't know anything as in depth as that. There was a time when I knew a lot about Marvel comics and then about DJ Shadow, but those times have past and now I know a lot about good ways to waste time but I don't think I could run a club on that basis. Or I could try but every attempt at preparing for it would be spent doing other things. So I really enjoyed the show and I was lucky enough to do the section at the end where I just had a chat with Richard and then we re-enact five of my favourite movies scenes. I managed to ruin Raiders of The Lost Ark, Duck Soup, Transformers the Movie (the animated proper one), Psycho and Pulp Fiction. The scene from Pulp where Jules recites Ezekial 25:17 was my favourite. I think I've finally realised that when I grow up I want to be Samuel L.Jackson. It may take some work but if you're determined enough anything can happen. Of course it will mean Samuel L.Jackson will have to do something else but he can be me if he wants. I'm sure he'd love that. My stand-up wouldn't necessarily get better but it would all sound that bit more cool and dramatic.


Some of the good things that happened yesterday were all Twitter Comedy Club related. It is getting even more nuts every day, and now there some great press coverage. Here's a bit from the Times Online. Possibly the first, and last time I will ever be mentioned in the Times I'm sure:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2009/05/twitter-comedy-show-oneliners-compulsory.html

And then a bit from the Sun Online. They didn't even ask us to go topless or anything!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2439075.ece

You Do It To Yourself

I don't feel one hundred percent today. I don't really feel thirty percent. In fact I feel so shit that thinking about percentages makes me feel a bit sick. Not only that but I appear to have broken my phone. It could have happened when I dropped it onto the hard piss stained urinal at Old Rope last night. It also could have been something else. Its highly likely it was the urinal incident though, followed by my stupid drunk head running my tap under hot water to get the wee off it. But it also could just be something else. That's what I'll tell the phone company anyway. As far as they are concerned my phone just stopped all by its stupid self. If they find small traces of water and piss on it, then I will tell them they did that and they are sick wrong individuals and I will sue them. I'm sure that'll work.


While all of this pain and phone death are direct results of self-inflicted drinking, I would argue that the blame lies with the purple jumper I wore last night. That's right I wore a purple jumper. I hate purple, and believe it is only for girls, wizards, rain, ronnie, films with Oprah in it, giant upside down cows, bruises and girls and wizards with bruises. Its not often wizards get bruises due to their magical ability. If you see a wizard with a bruise, its highly likely its someone dressed up as a wizard who has been hit by a real wizard because they are not impressed with their poor imitation. Wearing the purple jumper was the second clothing dare I have made this week after Sunday's outing in clothes that were they music, HMV would have stuck in its slightly racist 'urban' category. I always feel as though to counter-balance that they need a 'rural' category filled with farmer's jig type songs and country music. Purple was a slightly bigger dare than 'urban' look because of my hate for it, but its a Christmas pressie that I have never worn so felt I needed to see what would happen.


The first incident was a woman on the tube who looked at me funny. It was quite likely the jumper that instigated these looks, although it could also have been all the faces I was pulling at myself in my reflection on the carriage windows. Probably the jumper though. Then I went to meet Wendy Wason before she was doing Old Rope. Wendy ended up being late 'cos of her rubbish bus. The rubbish bus was probably delayed because of my jumper. I then ended up getting served quite quickly at the bar. One plus point to the jumper. Think this may have been because the barman thought I was a wizard and feared me. Or he thought I was a girl and girls get served quicker. But after that one moment of goodness the jumper then forced me to stay at Old Rope and get really drunk instead of going home and being sensible. I wasn't expecting that to happen and as a result of being ambushed by booze I got really drunk fairly quickly and talked nonsense at lots of people. Then on the way home the jumper made me stop at our local kebabery and get a Spinach Borek. I don't even know what a Spinach Borek is but it sounds like a creature from Middle Earth. I think the kebab man must have looked at my purple jumper and thought once again that I was a wizard of sorts and could handle such a beast. It could also be because I asked for one. Either way, I shouldn't have had it because its still in my gut and causing havoc. All of which is the purple jumper's fault. I will not wear that jumper ever again as it gives me an excuse to not have any willpower.


As much as I'd like to spend today lying in bed and setting fire to my jumper, I have to do this exciting and fun gig this evening:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=74866423613

I am closing the show by re-enacting with Richard and the rest of the acts, five scenes from my favourite films. I have a lot of favourite films and so picking them has been tough, but I can safely now say that I will ruin the memories of five awesome films. I'm very much looking forward to it and will spend the rest of the afternoon trying to do a decent impression of Harrison Ford. Maybe, before the gig I will re-create the scene from the end of Return of the Jedi where I make a big bonfire and look forlornly as I set fire to my jumper and phone and start singing that 'jub-jub' song that the ewoks sing.

Mystery Snail Trail

I have had too much sleep and seem to have overdosed on it. I have that horrible feeling where I know sleep is the last thing I need more of, but I'd quite like some. I imagine that's how heroin users feel all the times. Not about sleep, just about heroin. Although I guess you'd get pretty sleepy after all them drug takings. I'm scared that this is just the beginning. What if it starts with sleep, then next its being awake at all times of day only to excel until I'm suddenly addicted to breathing and just can't stop myself. Its a slippery slope, and one you can't sue the council for if you fall down it. Annoyingly, if you have too much of most stuff, you can sleep it off ie booze, food, poor sitcoms. You can't sleep sleep off though, otherwise you end up in a terrible sleep cycle, never waking up like a modern day Rip Van Winkle. I got woken up this morning by a man from the St.Mungo's charity who wanted donations to help the homeless. Being in a half sleepy state, I explained how poor I am and then somehow managed to persuade him to come along to the first Fat Tuesday night back. I think I am a better salesman asleep. I might ask for gigs during R.E.M and see if it works any better. That's the official term for R.E.M not that I will only call comedy clubs while Michael Stipe is warbling in the corner. Although I might try that too. If I pulled it off it would be impressive to say the least. That's pull the stunt off, not Michael Stipe.


I think my exhaustion stems from all the excitement of the up and coming Twitter Comedy Night. Yesterday, the interest in the event went skyward as it was tweeted about by Graham Linehan, Ben Goldacre, Neil Gaiman and Stephen Fry. Yes, the Stephen Fry. After he and the other Twitlebrities mentioned it, the following for our @tweetcomedyclub account went to nearly 4000 in about 4 hours. Madness. I'd love to say it was all my doing but it was actually lots of Twitter Comedy Club fans, and the celebrity status and ability of Mitch Benn, who just asked Stephen nicely. I did nothing but sat at my computer watching the fanbase increase. That is my favourite type of work. Work where I don't need to do anything and it just does itself. What is now scaring me is that I had better have some good jokes for the night. I had sort of thought about winging it a bit on the night but if that doesn't work then 4000 people will witness those wings failing like a Twittering Icarus. Or Twicarus. Whatever happens, we've done it first which means even if someone does it a lot better later on, I can say that they stole my idea then sue them and break them for everything they've ever owned. In fact maybe I should fail this Twitter Comedy Night in the hope that Jimmy Carr or someone else takes it up, and I can claim dosh for my Edinburgh show. My Edinburgh show no one will come to see because 5000 twitterers saw me write sheer shite online. Its a double-edged sword I guess. Much like a lot of swords. Otherwise swords would have one edge making them a 2D object and rather awkward to wield.


Last night's gig at Anthology was a lot of fun. Rather than try and spruce myself out up for going to the outside world I decided to just wear my tracksuit bottoms, hoodie and cap combination and see what kind of looks I got from the middle class of Stoke Newington. It very much confused them as they weren't sure if I was scum or someone very famous trying to avoid the paps. I was tempted to try and mug one of them and then shout 'Look at photos of my flat in OK magazine' and see what happens. I think they would have called the police and Heat at the same time, and I would have taken off my cap revealing that I am neither scary or famous and thus disappointing everyone all at once. The show was lovely. There was a whole audience of 6 people, which is 4 better than the last time I did it. They were all seasoned Anthology followers too, so they were ready for tales. Andrew J Lederer regaled everyone with stories of gone off food and obscure teen jeopardy movies, and then it was my turn to tell everyone 'The Tale Of The Vanishing Squirrel' which is as terrifying as the title suggests. It went down well and more importantly, reminded me of an incident that occurred with me and my friend Mat about 10 years ago. We were sitting in the garden on a summer's day, smoking some jazz cigarettes, and drinking beer. There were two snails on the garden wall and we started off on a whimsical chat about how we supposed that when people aren't looking snails can move extremely fast and its all just a rouse. We laughed about this and at one point turned to each other as you do in parlance. When we turned back a second later, both the snails had completely vanished. We looked everywhere by the wall, but they were nowhere to be found. This still bothers me to this day. It was like they knew we mentally wouldn't be able to cope with that and so they had played molluscan class Gastropoda type of Beadle's About on us. Them snails are tricksy.


No gigs tonight, just a few bevvies with my friends Tim and Adrian, which should be nice. I hope I make it there, as I feel like I have a snooze coming on. Maybe I'll try and wean myself off this sleep lark with a few small dozes or naps, then a 40 winks patch.

Comedy Tits

Feel a bit shaken by a rather disturbing dream about an imminent zombie attack where I, along with 15 or so others, were holed up in a studio flat trying to survive the vast hordes of the undead that were coming to infect us with zombie germs. It all finished when J.D.Williams who played 'Bodie' in The Wire, decided to unlock the door to see if they were still there and they were and they eat his face then everyone's faces. I swear if I ever meet J.D.Williams I will punch him in the arm for that. What an idiot. Then I will tell him how great he was in the Wire. Then I will punch him again. I think I have been watching and reading too much zombie propaganda lately. I will counter act that by watching this instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7ck5mcd1o

I expect tonight's dreams to be underwater and shark/squid based which will make a nice change. As long as neither the shark or squid die and come back to get me, or worse, J.D. Williams lets one of them in through the front door to check if they are still there then it should be ok.


So Norway won in the end. I think that's definitely a good thing. Had the UK won there would have been no way we could've afforded to host it without another G20 emergency fund. Either that or the whole show would have had to take place in a scouts' hut in Surbiton hosted by Timmy Mallet. Although I have a feeling the rest of Europe might enjoy that due the combination of costumes. I didn't get a chance to watch any of Euroderision, but I was very pleased I caught some of Ken Bruce's commentary on Radio 2. Especially the bit where he said 'Just imagine how much this has all cost, must be millions. And to think of all the better things it could have been spent on.' Well done Ken. You are filling the drunk pessimistic shoes Wogan has left behind. 5th was pretty good I suppose. I guess it was because Webber wrote something that was so massively droll and tiresome that Europe liked it. That and everyone was afraid he'd hide under your bed when it gets dark and eat your children if he didn't get votes, like a giant evil toad man.


None of the people at last night's gig gave a toss, which was very reassuring. It did mean that I felt even worse about getting to the gig late because I had driven all the way from Leamington Spa (for Layla's mum's birthday do) to the wrong venue. Yes a two hour drive filled with sleepiness from lovely grub and a single lunchtime pint was rewarded by turning up somewhere two and half miles away from where I was meant to be. Idiot. It was only after doing two laps of the venue did I ask someone as to where the comedy was, only to be told it was somewhere else entirely. This isn't the first time its ever happened to me. Once, when I was just starting out, I had a gig at a bar in Bethnal Green called 'The Leisure Lounge'. I went to Bethnal Green and found the said place and asked the bouncer if they had any comedy on. The big stupid lug of a man put his arm round me and said 'Comedy? I'll show you comedy son.' I was still oblivious as to what was about to happen, but as we strolled in I realised that all the gyrating naked women meant I was probably in the wrong place. The bouncer just pointed at the women and said 'look at those tits son, that's comedy.' It wasn't comedy, it was a free entry to a strip club, but after I had stopped staring I asked him if this was the Leisure Lounge, only to find it was the Leisure Palace. I should've known as palaces often have naked gyrating women in them, look at Buckingham and Crystal for examples of this, whereas Lounge's just have coffee tables, magazines and sofas. In the end the gig I was meant to be at was shit and I should've stayed watching the sexy ladies.


Last night's gig was the opposite of shit though, and so once I finally arrived I very much enjoyed it. A lovely but oh so posh crowd from Dulwich Village, which is one of those odd places that calls itself a village to try and separate itself from the rest of London. By being part of London, this is actually impossible. Unless they do the Vatican City thing and get their own pope in. I say more places should have their own popes and own city status. I might get my own pope. All I need is a batty old man in a white robe. He can sit on our porch saying vaguely religious things and I will declare our flat Tiernanican City. We will have our own currency and everything. And lots of unnecessary laws such as 'no fishing without full bear suits on'. We don't have a pond, river or other water based landmark in our flat so this law would be easy to uphold.


I'm doing a storytelling gig in Stoke Newington tonight. I have no idea what yarns I will be spinning but I will choose between the time I was a boy made of wood who had a nose that grew everytime I lied, or that time I ate that poisoned apple and seven dwarfs saved me. The stories have to be true so those two should suffice. Either way it'll be fun so do come along:

http://www.timeout.com/london/comedy/event/143249/anthology-comedians-tell-stories-from-life.html

The Day The Music Died

Who let Asher Roth do anything? He is the most offensive thing I've seen in ages. He makes me ashamed to be white and into hip-hop. Someone at the record company should have taken one look at Asher Roth and just told him straight that there was no way in hell he'd be allowed to make hip-hop because it would look horrible wrong and the poor quality of lyrics would make people violently sick and dogs howl. Not only is he repulsive in every single way, he raps and sounds almost exactly like Eminem which is made worse by Eminem's recent comeback with some really terrible songs. Now if I hear them in close succession on the radio I just hate Eminem even more, and its not his fault. Well only half of it. He cant do a song with 'We let We Will Rock You Happen' Queen and Paul 'I'll never be Freddie or anything close to Freddie or infact anything other than a fail' Rogerson and expect people to still like him. But at least he doesn't look like he was constantly beaten up at school. Although he probably was. Asher Roth definitely was and deserves to still be beaten up daily on a regular basis. Eveytime he pretends that what he is doing is hip-hop then he gets double beatings with sticks and bats. If he even so much as tries to tell the crowd to 'throw' their 'hands up in time with this joint', then we shoot his knee caps out. I cant believe Jools Holland would let him on his show. Jools usually has decent taste. Thats what I like about his show his decent taste and the fact he sounds a bit like he has very trapped wind. Roth isn't what I want when I get back from gigs. I want good music, not Where's Wally trying to be badass. It was nearly redeemed by the unfortunate shot of Annie Lennox dancing along to it as though she was trying to get wasps out of her hair. Poor poor mental Annie.


I have just signed up to this - http://www.funjunkie.co.uk/the_summer_burn.cfm - which I am very excited about. Its things like that that make me pleased about humanity and still believe there is love and harmony in the world. I have already started to think of what tracks I will put on the CDs I send out and will put what I believe to be an eclectic mix of amazing tunes that make me feel happy or insightful or a host of other amazing emotions that can be evoked by great music. I hope that in return I am introduced to tracks that make whoever sent them feel the same way and I gain a few extra favourite songs and artists. What I am afraid of, is getting sent a whole CD of Asher Roth tracks or something equally as evil and as I play the CDs I end up smashing up my stereo, house and all belongings out of sheer hate. If that happens, I will find their address and send them endless Chris D'Burgh CDs until their brain commits suicide. It will mean I have to buy the D'Burgh CDs in the first place which will hurt worse than needle in the eye of taste, but it will be worth it to give them a taste of their own medicine.


I get very angry about bad music and I'm pleased I'm gigging tonight otherwise I would witness more musical tragedy with the Eurovision Song Contest, or Musical Showcase for International Racism and Politics as I like to call it. I hate the whole event with its 'who will have the best bizzare transexuals monsters singing songs called La-La Boom Boom Shower Cap Titty Sock'. Although there is a part of me that still hopes Britain will win purely for the memory of Terry Wogan who left due to anger at the anti-British voting. The only problem will be that if we do win, that means we win with an Andrew Lloyd Webber song and that will allow television to put his horrible disfigured face on television again. I wish he'd go back to wearing that half face mask that he used to wear when he lived underground and only came out to play and haunt the Opera. He's like a snivelling Jabba the Hut of music. I hope that the UK come last and as punishment Webber is shot outside Buckingham Palace for his crimes against theatre, music and people's eyes.


Luckily I am gigging so I will miss the whole facade, which I am pleased about. I am pleased I will not see Norton try and fill Wogan's oft pissed commentary shoes. Norton will never be able to demean all the short videos about a country's industry and culture so effortlessly and with such few words. I remember laughing so hard when Estonia's short film about a pipe making factory was overdubbed with a very sarcastic ' pipes? Is that really the best thing they make? Pipes?' then quickly followed with ' I sure this next act in rehearsal, I wish theyd pipe down'. The man was a master at it. So to avoid Norton fucking it all up, I will be at Gipsy Hill Comedy Club on a truly great bill with Simon Munnery and Jo Caulfield which should be good. Hopefully it will be a warmer lot than the crowd at the LCF gig in Boston. It wouldnt be hard as that crowd were so cold eskimo's would have complained about the temperture of the room. It was as though a heat sucking vacuum had been aimed at their heads and turned to max. What I'm trying to say is, it wasnt easy. Carl Donnelly did an ace job of MCing at the top with such an unresponsive group, and I followed and just ran through my 20 minutes to no response so I could go home. There was a point where I asked who was having a drink and a man asked me if I minded if he got one during my set. I said no, and his glee was the best reaction I had. At that point he sent his wife to get him a beer because he was obviously incapable of getting one himself, or she was an idiot. Or both. On the plus side it was nice to see Carl and Holly albeit briefly and to be told of Stewart Francis's very bizarre drinking habits. Of course, aside from that, its always fun driving for three and a half hours each way by yourself to peform a very unsatisfying gig then on the way home a samosa launches itself at you while you try and eat it and get samosa all over your jeans and car seat. Oh wait, hang on, no its not.

Damn God It's Friday

Friday's are generally hailed as a bit of a bloody great day all the way round the world. Its the end of the working week, usually spent with a pub lunch and very little happening until at 5pm when you go home knowing yo have two days of freedom with which you will do nothing useful or life affirming and start again on Monday wondering why you exist in this constant cycle of monotonous depression before retiring 60 years down the line and then dying. But for the budding comedian Fridays are shit. Fridays are the day when if you're gigging out of London it will take 3 hours just to leave the city then another two sitting in dead traffic on whichever motorway of choice you're on. If you train it then you will be squashed to the extent that you can only take shallow breaths and lose most of your body weight in sweat. Then when you arrive at the gig you are put infront of an audience who have been drinking since they left work at 5 or 6pm and through the power of booze are able to convey utmost apathy/dissent/weariness at your performance. Then to top it off the next day is a Saturday and you have to gig then too. Those people that say Thank God Its Friday are comedianist. Also those people that say God Is A DJ are wrong because if he was then he would work Fridays and Saturdays too. Depending on which religious deity he is he would have issues doing Sunday Sessions clubs or might actually have a problem with using his decks on a Saturday due to the electricity required and it being Sabbath. It could all get very confusing.


I have to drive all the way to Lincolshire tonight which is why I'm not happy. I like the place I'm driving too, that's the good bit, and the gig should be nice. What I don't like is that it will take at least three hours to get there because of the A1. The A1 is a road designed by idiots who are scared of three lanes. Its horribly slow which long roads shouldn't be. Not that roads themselves are fast, being made of tarmac and all, but the speed limits can be. Saying that, if roads were fast I'd get there even quicker. I could just park then let the road race me all the way there while I had a snooze. Someone design self-moving roads please! I am a replacement for tonight's gig. I'm not sure who I'm replacing yet but it's the Leicester Comedy Festival tour with Carl Donnelly, Holly Walsh, Jarred Christmas and Stewart Francis, so one of them must be ill. I will find out which one, then as not to disappoint, will try and recreate their entire set and do it in their voice. Don't want people to complain.


Had a crazy day yesterday. Went to see my Nan which I don't do often enough. That wasn't the crazy bit. In fact it was ace as usual. My Nan is very very tiny and always has great tales about when she was a girl during the Blitz. I ignorantly was never that interested when I was younger, but I'm pleased I'm asking her about it all now as I find it pretty fascinating. She also showed me pictures of lots of my French relatives who I've never met. Lots of them look very French. They tend to have massive dark eyebrows and look about them that says 'I smoke Gaulosies and drink coffee'. One of them looked a lot like he could have been an aide or a hindrance to Phillip Marlowe in any of one his tales. I'd go for aide purely 'cos he's family, but big dark eyebrows are usually given to bad guys. Not sure why. I can't imagine how plucking your eyebrows makes you any more wholesome as an individual. I went to uni with someone who we were all sure plucked his eyebrows and wore mascara, and I didn't trust him one it because of this.


Anyway I chose not to look at my phone throughout seeing my Nan, so on leaving I noticed I had 4 missed calls, 22 emails, and 7 texts which all had to be dealt with. I raced home did them all in a 3 hour panic mission and felt like some sort of super tasker. What I can never understand is that guaranteed, if I had not gone to see my Nan, no one would have called or texted or anything. Its part of the ritual of Sod. If you are busy, you will be over-run with business. If you are a lazy fat arse, you will not be given anything else to do until you get so bored and turn into a lump of waste. I got all the stuff done because I had to before we started on Game Day 2. I quickly drove to Mat's flat which meant a detour through Chelsea. I haven't been to Chelsea in ages and the whole journey I was cut up by people in either massive 4x4s or angry little Smart Car drivers. It was like a vicious motorized version of Gulliver's travels. I swore at some of them and seriously considered driving my car into the side of theirs out of anger, realising that such an action would not damage the 4x4s but could kill a Smart Car. Knowing that is the consequence its probably worth the risk. Sadly, while Game Day 2 was good, we did not beat Resident Evil 5 as the plan went. This was largely due to a big wormy creature that kept stabbing us in the face and several horrible creatures called lickers that kept, well, er licking us. I understand that doesn't sound very scary, but trust me it was.


So Game Day 3 must be done. If it doesn't hundreds of innocents will be destroyed by the Uroborous virus, which we can't let happen. Until then lets hope the A1 isn't full of lickers, wormy creatures, 4x4s and Smart Cars, or my three hour journey will only be made much much worse.

Brown Damaged

I can't possibly tell you what happened in Derren's show last night as firstly it would ruin it, secondly he would probably hunt me down and steal my memories or something if I did, and thirdly it would mean I would start thinking about how he did it all again. The last one is the worst as I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was think 'but if that was controlled in that way, then how on Earth did.....argh' at which point I had to distract my brain with some Jeremy Kyle just to relax. Don't think of clever mind tricks, just watch two people of a lower social demographic shout because they both cheated on each with people who are equally as repulsive. Its almost like Elephant Man cage fighting championships, with a self righteous, arrogant little twerp as a referee. I suggest they do install a cage into the show and just let them have at it. I dare say more disputes would be settled and we'd be rid of some of the horrible people that feel it necessary to deal with personal situations in a public domain. I have never once got annoyed with Layla and thought, 'do you know what, much rather than talk about this here, lets go to an overly bright 90's style studio to show everyone our dysfunctional situation. To be fair, I never get annoyed with Layla, she just gets annoyed with me.


Up until Derren it was a rather stressful day starting with attempting to write sketches for kids. This begun with sitting around and discussing how awful it must be fore Miley Cyrus to have Billy Ray Cyrus as her dad, and then playing on Stan's phone's Labyrinth app. After that we took a very long lunch where I managed to confuse the waiter by actually ordering food. I have some suspicions now as to whether he worked there or not, or suffered from some sort of displacement disorder whereby he constantly thought he worked in a garage or zoo or something and wondered why, on a daily basis, people kept asking him for food. 'Why does no one care about the penguins?' he probably wonders, or 'surely you need a new crankshaft?' but nonetheless goes and gives the order to the zookeeper. He really seemed to mentally stop as I gave him each item I wanted to get, and I had to slow down my delivery till I was almost speaking like a cassette that was being played in a walkman with low batteries. For all those younger readers, just read that last sentence as 'imagine if your i-pod magically slowed down', and just know for later that cassettes were something they used in Medieval times to ward off evil spirits.


The non-sketch writing was followed by some general Edinburgh accommodation panic. Every year there appears to be some sort of secret start date to look for accommodation that certain people just know, in the same way birds know exactly when to migrate or exactly when you've parked your car under a tree and it needs shitting on. I never know what this start date is, but I always seem to miss it by about a week, at which point I am only left with everywhere that Foxtons would tell you was in a 'plush and near to town location', meaning you have to hike across three fields and get a private flight just to go to the high street. I'm now not going to be living with the people I thought I was going to be living with, and instead should be living with Ginger and Black and Lauren. They have kindly accepted me into their house hunting group which means they are now four panicking people instead of three. We will all panic together and if needs be our time tables should differ so much that at least one of us can guard our makeshift tent/cardboard box creation if needs be.


Then I met up with Corrie and we drove to Oxford so she could she Derren's new show before it went to the West End. Corrie was so excited by various elements of the journey that we needn't have gone to the show. There was a funny circular hill, an inflatable Buckingham Palace Guard, a 50's diner and a road called Toots Hill Butts, all of which incited some wonder. Less so with me as I have driven past them many a time. Although to be fair Toots Hill Butts was pretty good. She had also made a road trip mix which had lots of tunes with beeps and odd noises you could make beep noises along with. I like songs like that. It makes me able to pretend that I am R2D2 doing karaoke.


The show, well, I cant say much, but it didn't disappoint. All the tricks have cemented my feeling that Derren is indeed a sorcerer of sorts. He did things that are still upsetting my mind right now and carried them off with such charm and performance that I couldn't hate him for baffling me. You should go see it. Go on. Hurry up. Then we can talk about the ending which is really distressing me. The man is a proper showman and a master of the dark arts. One day Harry Potter will destroy him, but until then I look forward to his next show. Sort of. It may be that he's made me think that of course, and in fact I could have hated every iota of last night. But it's unlikely as. everything. Derren. does. is. brilliant. he. should. rule. the. earth. must. be. assimilated.

Mind Benders

Im going to see Derren Brown's new show tonight which has made me both very excited and also scared at the prospect of the brain damage I will endure. I have seen him live twice and both times have left me confused and feeling slightly mentally violated for ages after. As Corrie (who is the awesome person who has got me a ticket for the show) told me, it often leaves people unable to finish sentences when they try and describe what he's done. 'I just don't get how he.....', 'What I still cant figure out is just how....'. I reckon he did that by putting some mental block so we can never try and reveal what has happened. The first show I saw was the 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' tour which had such an incredible finale that me and Layla left in silence and tried to talk about it for days after but with no avail. Conversations were ruined as we would suffer that affliction of not finishing any sentences. The second time I was prepared. It was his 'Mind Reader' tour and I was lucky enough to go to the press night launch and then the after party. The show was insane, particularly a bit where he guessed that a woman had once owned 30 hamsters. I was both impressed at his ability to do that, and also that she had owned that many hamsters. I have owned hamsters in the past and they are not fun. They either bite you or piss on you and if you have two of different sexes they just claw the shit out of each other like tiny furry versions of Mr and Mrs Smith. Only without guns. Or clothes. Or any massive plot holes and bad acting.


I got to meet Derren for a minute at the aftershow and was a little bit terrified he would peer into my soul or at least already know what I was going to say to him. He did neither and he was lovely. Or at least I think he was. Its highly possible he punched me in the face but made me only remember he was a top chap. I, being a tad drunk on free booze, told him that I loved the show, but hated the way he had fucked with my mind. He said that he loved the way that 40% of my praise for him was hate and that people often say that to him. I felt a bit sad that perhaps no one ever says he's just brilliant without adding the suspicious paranoia in there but then I also thought that he probably deserves it as if we ever give in entirely we will be at his mercy. He clearly has powers we will never understand. Like a real life Professor X or Obi Wan Kenobi, but with a snappier dress sense. I fear that one day he will turn to the dark side and destroy the earth, controlling us normal folk with incredible mental frequencies. Maybe that's why he shares a surname with our PM? He is controlled by the government to destroy the common man! To prevent this I may turn up tonight wearing a mind protection hat constructed of kitchen implements and tin foil. You can't be too careful.


Yesterday's audition went better than I thought it would. It started with me tripping up on a stair on the way into the room which is never classy. So few rooms have steps up on the door frame into them though that I wasn't expecting it. I wondered if it had been put there on purpose as some clever TV casting test. 'Step one, can he get through the door. No? Well you cant have the job, we only cast comedians who are capable of going from room to room, NEXT!' After that though it got better despite a comment from the director being taken the wrong way. I had done a small bit what I wrote on how annoying getting my card frauded was. At the end, he said 'That's really good' and then under his breath he said 'god how annoying'. You might see how that could be taken the wrong way. He obviously meant how annoying the card fraud must have been or at least that's what he said. Its possible he was annoyed that my bit was still good after being flustered by the step mishap. Well that's how I roll. Or trip, rather. Overall though I was pleased although I'll be more pleased if I a) get it, b) get a whole pilot show just for me on the basis of card fraud, tripping up and my metal hat and c) gain some sort of power to avoid the social awkwardness of tripping up a step ever again.


The rest of the day contained far less social awkwardness and was topped off with watching some odd BBC1 program about sleep. I wasn't going to watch it as it was hosted by Natasha Kaplinski clone Kate Silverton, who somehow manages to look very old and very young at the same time. Its a bit like she is the host body for when Anne Robinson decides to leave hers, like the Emperor in Star Wars (although only in the Star Wars novels which I have read some of like a King Geek). They have given Kate the hair, glasses and leather jacket and one day she will be called to Television Centre and strapped onto a table while Anne's body falls to the ground just a husk of skin and this horrible green smoke will be sucked into Kate's brain until she wakes up, unable to stop winking and being a twat. Anyway, I kept watching the show as I saw Russell Kane was on it, and I have to say it was a fairly interesting watch, if only because it showed just how fat and old Dominic Diamond looks and because it has proved that Russell can calm down and does actually stop moving for once. Although I'm sure some of that was camera trickery. Oddly out of all the remedies they showed for a better nights sleep, none of them contained chloroform or running repeatedly into walls head first. I do hope there is a sequel as I think its only fair to science.


Long day ahead with a Comedy 4 Kids Sketch Show rehearsal followed by mind bending. Hence why this blog is pre-written. Ha, you all thought it was written on the day but it wasn't. I did it the night before. Or did I? Haha eat your heart out Derren! I've just played mind tricks though mere text! Unless of course I only wrote this text because he made me. Maybe I've never written it and all of this is a creation of Derren Brown and we are all trapped in a mind spiral vortex thingy. ARRRRGGHHHH! Well at least I'll be alright because I have my protection hat.

Prototype 1 (complete with mind control expression): http://twitpic.com/529yp

Prototype 2 (For heavy duty mind safety): http://twitpic.com/52avp

See you on the other side mentalists! If it doesn't work expect tomorrow's blog to be written in all half finished...