Monday, November 30, 2009

St Androoos Day

Happy Saint Andrews Day for any of you Scotch people what read this. Or if you are Scottish then it called St Androoos Day, I believe. I'm not really sure what St Andrew was famous for, apart from at some point being a fisherman. Technically if that's all he's famous for then I would suggest we have a St Captain Birdseye day as well, although that would probably be a bit creepy and involve kids going missing. Apparently St Andrew also got crucified but not with nails, as he didn't believe to be worthy of being crucified in the same way as Jesus. Instead they just tied him to the cross with rope. Now, if you ask me, it doesn't sound anywhere near as bad and if anything, he should have had something worse than Jesus if he didn't feel worthy not better. Like perhaps he should've been nail gunned to the cross? Or attached using swordfish. Something like that. I can't help but think St Andrew gave it all that 'I'm not worthy of nails' knowing full well he'd get a much better deal than Jesus did. If that is the case then I would fully accept that he gets Patron Saintage for such efforts. More deviancy in the Bible please. Lets uncover that St George did benefit fraud and step it up a level.


Its not a day off for me today. Not that it would be as I don't live in Scotland nor am I remotely Scottish. But still I will use this as a pretense to complain about all the things I have to do. The main and most scary thing is that I am doing my solo show 28 Years Later tonight for what will be the penultimate time. I'm both really looking forward to it, and slightly terrified as I haven't done the show since August 24th, which was quite some time ago. Look on a calendar. See? I win. I'm pretty sure its all in my head, having gone through it a few times, but I'm worried I'll miss out on the little things that made it good. Certain looks, or expressions that I have forgotten I did. I could remedy this by listening to the audio recording I have of it but that would mean listening to my own voice, and I really hate listening to my own voice. I always have. Its because no matter how you think your voice sounds, when you play it back, its a lot squeakier and more pathetic than you thought. I like to assume that I sound a bit like a giant trapped in a short man's body and that when I talk the tremors cause snakes to travel for miles looking for the source of the earthquake and dogs to howl in fear. Instead, when I hear it back on a tape it sounds as though Orville the Duck has sucked on helium and is entering a competition for 'Most Weedy Uk' which is weedy in terms of physique rather than what you might have thought. I will do it though. I will brave the playback, hear me say certain jokes wrongly and criticise all the things I do, and then go out tonight and do it exactly the same. For anyone who may be coming along tonight, I might be adding some new bits too, so it should be much fun, and Caroline Mabey's show is on before me and I've heard its superb and am very much looking forward to it. See here for info:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178049797217&ref=mf


Not much else to blog today for I have things to do. I did however watch The Snowman with Layla last night as she is going to make her class do Snowman type stuff for their Christmas show. I still love the film even though I find as I get older I can't help but unnecessarily question bits of it. Such as why doesn't the little boy get frostbite in Lapland with only his PJS on? Why doesn't the snowman melt at all when indoors in a warm temperature? How come the parents don't wake up with all the noise? Why on earth is no one scared that a big fucking snowman has come alive and is stealing people's motorbikes? Mostly though its faultless. After Layla went to bed, I watched through the DVD extras that I'd never seen before, and amongst them was the most terrifying alternative introduction to the Snowman I'd ever seen. When the show was sent to America, they demanded an intro by someone famous. So here's what they got:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6taVb9zSD4


Both wrong and yet would explain many things about both Bowie and the plausibility of the actual story.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Zoo Story

How brilliant are baby monkeys? The answer, really very muchly brilliant. The one in question was only a month and a half old and was having a proper spak around its cage. Its mum was just casually holding its tale as a rudimentary leash to make sure it didn't hurt itself, while she just sat and stared at all the people staring at her, as if to say 'yes, you may think he's entertaining, but trust me, he's a very naughty boy-monkey.' Its lucky he had a tale as they don't have those baby barriers for monkeys, and if they did, the monkeys could probably just climb over them so it would be pointless. Next door to them were some Diana monkeys, so called due to their anti-mine campaigns, the way they die in Parisian tunnels and the fact they sleep around with everyone except their husbands. One of said monkeys was was eagerly getting its food from inside a pouch that had been tied by the keeper between two branches. Layla commented on how clever they are, that they can find their food like that. I disagree. I could do that. If you put food in a pouch near me, I reckon I'd find it fairly quickly. What would be clever is if the Diana monkey then used the pouch to put over the head of the keeper, escape out of the door, and then go on to reprogram the Pentagon's nuclear warhead system. But it didn't do that, so its still an idiot monkey.


Layla had to go to London Zoo today as she is taking her class at school for a trip there on Friday, so had to scout it out. Naturally I couldn't miss out on a free zoo ticket so I put on my best 'I'm a teacher really' face and we got in for nowt. To be fair, they didn't even check I was a teacher and they probably couldn't care less. I think they looked at us thinking 'any idiot that wants to go to the zoo in the rain deserves a free ticket because of their sheer stupidity'. Actually zoos in the rain are excellent, because very few other people are there, and you get to see a miserable looking gorilla carry bits of sacking as a rain hat and then sit, covered in sacking, under a ledge looking like they hate the world. Brilliant! I saw loads and loads of animals including some with legs, and some with eyes and some with fins and eyes and tails and ones with funny noses. It was awesome. My favourites though were the otters who seemed to desperately want human attention and kept mewing at me and Layla whenever we tried to walk away. They were possibly mewing a 'help me' type plea or even just swearing at us in Ottertongue, but we just assumed they were being brilliant. I've read Tarka the otter and he seemed alright, so I shall judge them all in the same way. Its technically animal racism, or speciesism, or otterist, but so far they don't have any civil rights so its ok. My other favourites were the monkey baby and the Himilayan Newt. The latter swims like a complete div and I found this funny for ages. Far too long in fact. Both me and Layla laughed quite hard, and other people were walking past thinking we might have some sort of drug abuse issues.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBtRYYtI360 (see here after 4.14. I challenge you not to laugh. If you don't, you are a grown up. Well done.)


It reminded me of the time I went to the aquarium in Genova with my friend Luke and a girl called Geneva (I know, what are the chances of a Geneva in Genova?), after smoking quite a lot of, er, funky herbal cigarettes that we bought off some Italian biker kids, way back when I travelled round Europe several years ago. It was the best aquarium trip I've ever had on account of finding every fish hilarious and playing the game 'that's your dad that is' which involved going up to every animal and telling Luke or Geneva that was his or her mum, dad or some other relation. Geneva, being American, really hadn't understood it at first, but eventually it was so funny that was fell to our knees somewhere just past the sharks and had to sit down for a bit and try not to look at the catfish for fear of starting the giggles again.


Yeah I've had some pretty good times going to zoos. But as much as I love them I still have slightly mixed feelings about whether they are cruel or not. I know all the animals are very well looked after but sometimes you have to wonder if its right that they are taken out of their natural habitat and stuck in a tiny little room with people constantly staring at them. Today for example we went to see the meerkats, who were all huddling under some red heat lamps. The uninitiated might assume they are some sort of lapdancing meerkats, but it actually appeared that they were just desperate to get out of the rain and be in the warmth. Normal meerkats probably don't ever see much rain and when they do, its hot rain. If you were to compare these meerkats with the ones in the desert, well then you are a dickhead who is far too amused by clever advertising. Simples. I don't like seeing animals looking sad though. I will never forget the memory of the orangutan at Washington DC. It just sat and stared out of a porthole-like window with a sheet on its head knibbling straw, for hours. We kept returning to see it still sat there.




(video expertly taken by Layla of the saddest orangutan in existance. Please note, camera was on its side at first, not the ape)


It made me and Layla wonder if it was just really cruel having it there, maybe all it wanted to do was escape? Then we saw the orangtuan behind it who was constantly throwing up and then eating its own sick, and we realised they are probably just hungover and its all fine. Who knows whether they enjoy being there or not really? I've gone back to my flat, turned the heating up and have now slobbed indoors, staring out the windows at the shitty rainy weather and I can't help but think it might be quite snug in your own little window at the zoo. Maybe I should charge for people to come and listen to my stand-up from outside my front window? Every now and then I could swing from something or eat straw and it'd be the closest thing to seeing me in my natural habit that you could get? Always thinking me. Always thinking.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Mooooon

I rather like Moon. Not the moon, although it must be said, the moon has some good qualities to it. The tides and making the night slightly less dark, thats all good and well. Werewolves is the only bit that isn't great. I mean if the moon didn't exist then no-one would ever be able to turn into one and that would be much better, except we would lose some great films, or they'd have to use effects instead. Also if there was no moon, Neil Armstrong wouldn't be famous and then he'd have to do something a lot less impressive with his life. I think we can see that the moon is pretty necessary, if only to keep Armstrong and werewolves. That sounds like a great BBC1 sketch show if you ask me. Sketches include the one where Armstrong is bitten by a werewolf and then they both speak like modern day teenagers even though its the 40's. But aside from all this, I meant the film Moon with Sam Rockwell in it. You may know Sam Rockwell from loads of things but never ever be able to pinpoint what it was you saw him in. I've even checked imdb.com and I still can't figure out what I know him from. Sure I've seen Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but it scarred me so much I've erased it from memory so as to not get flashbacks of someone taking Douglas Adam's great book and slowly wiping their arse with it while cackling about how Mos Def would make a great Ford Prefect. So its not from that. It might be from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but I don't really remember. I wonder if Sam has the same problem, day in, day out, looking in the mirror, not being able to work out what he's done with his life? Well he's soon to be in Iron Man 2, which should sort things out. Apparently in the sequel Tony Stark has even more creased clothes than before and him and Sam Rockwell have to get one of those big steam pressers to deal with things.


Moon is brilliant. Its not, as you might think, about someone who has a compulsion to stick their arse out of windows. Or a hen-do in a limo. Nor is it the Mighty Boosh action film. Instead its a big bag of headfuck, set in space. I don't want to tell you any more than that as it will spoil it, but its a beautifully filmed piece of claustrophobic sci-fi thriller. Don't be put off if you hate or get confused by sci-fi, as Layla understood it and she had originally chosen Revolutionary Road for us to watch which says it all. Its all directed by David Bowie's son too, which is amazing as I didn't think a goblin child could do such things, but who knew? Anyway the film got me thinking - *SPOILER ALERT*

http://shophyperformance.com/cart/images/thumb/17-509.jpg.

That's the spoiler over with. But here are actual film spoilers - about having a clone. The film does raise some scary ethical questions about the possibility of human cloning and the consequences of playing with human lives, but the bit it didn't say was JUST HOW BLOOMIN' FUN IT WOULD BE TO HAVE SOME CLONES! I mean think about it. Right now for example, I could be getting one of my clones to type this, while I eat breakfast. Then another of my clones could be writing some comedy, cleaning the house, making food, being in several different locations to confuse CCTV and anyone who might be stalking me, and helping to form a giant human Tiernan pyramid. We, like in the film, could play table tennis against each other, except that I wouldn't actually have to waste time playing it, as they could just play each other. Then, if I got enough clones, we could occupy a small island and call it Tiernarnia. Then I did spend ages wondering how I would feel if I actually was a clone and my entire past life had been a lie. There would be some plus points to that, like any times in the past where I'd screwed up, I'd know it wasn't me, it was some other dick who'd ruined my life already. And then there would be the fact that if my body only lasted for 3 years, then I wouldn't really have to worry about credit card debt.


This is my first weekend of not gigging since September and you see what's happened to my brain? I can't really cope with it. Somehow I need to wind down so I'm happy with doing nothing till Monday. Of course I do have some things to do, but they are all minor and can all be done in my pajamas. So instead of stressing about anything last night, I watched a film with Layla and then played a lot of multiplayer on Modern Warfare 2. I have learnt that 'multiplayer' comes from the Greek word meaning 'many shitty teenagers online will shoot you in the face all at once and ruin your evening'. I got shot in the face a lot. I shot some people back in the face, but not as many times as they shot me. If only real war had the option of just reappearing somewhere else once you'd died. It would save a lot of time. For a start we'd only need an army of about 15 people, we'd save money on funerals and Gordon Brown would never cock up writing someone's name. Right I need to do something with myself. And the 26 other me's that are wondering around bored.


Tiernans! Its time to see what Tiernan can endure. Tiernan 1, get into that cannon. Tiernan 2, come here so you can be set on fire. Tiernan 3, fall off that wall. Tiernan 4, eat all this chilli at once. Tiernan 5, do all my insulin at the same time. Oh no wait, I need some of it. Shit. Maybe that's why cloning is wrong.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Some Friday Thoughts....

Thought 1:

My friend Mat texted me in distress two nights ago as he had ordered his food shopping online, only for it to be delivered to his door by someone who used to go to our school. That's a hugely awkward situation. I have similarly had the same person deliver food to my house, but luckily the man in question did not recognise me as I didn't have a beard till way past my school days, and it has since become a disguise against awkward conversation with people I haven't seen in 10 + years. I don't know how Mat dealt with it, other than frantic texting to explain how much it had disturbed him, but the correct way would have been to sit back after and have a harshly smug grin at the fact that it was neither of us that had delivered the shopping to him. Now this may seem like a rather snobby view, but in my defence, I fully appreciate the role of the shopping delivery person as they prevent me from having to go shopping and then allow for my full laziness. I know someone that used to work in that field and now has a much better job doing computery type things. But if I, at the age of 28, was still knocking on people's doors that I used to go to school with and explaining subserviently how 'we've run out of potatoes so we've swapped them with some scourers instead, I hope that's ok', I would seriously question my life. Admittedly, perhaps I should question my life that sometimes I get my home shopping delivered in the first place. My life is not busy enough that I have no time to go, and I clearly don't get enough exercise, so perhaps we are both in a bad place. No wait, neither me or Mat have to wear a t-shirt that says 'Every Little Helps', so we win. Everyone must remember that the entire point of school is so that many years later you are able to judge yourself against your peers.


Thought 2:

Some people on Twitter got upset last night because they thought I was tweeting while I was driving. I wasn't. I don't do that as its dangerous. Even though I am very good at texting and tweeting while driving. But I don't. Even though if anyone ever should be allowed, it should be me. It didn't help that I had previously tweeted that I'd done various things on my journey home including taking my jacket off and doing my insulin while on the motorway. I realise both of these are wrong but I was a) very hot and b) needed to do my injection but didn't want to stop. I did both of these very well as well so none of you need worry. The rest of the time I spent teaching myself to do an impression of Alan Carr and then Daniel Kitson, both of which I am now proud, singing along to songs I don't know, just to irritate myself, and seeing how long I could drive for knowing I needed to pee but not going till it was absolutely necessary. 130 miles is the answer. My bladder now hates me.


Thought 3:

I love the Muppets and if you don't you're a dick. FACT. I was very pleased when Messer James Hingley sent me this yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

I highly recommend you watch the Habana video on their youtube channel too. I do hope this means a return to Muppet form and some new Muppet films. Muppets From Space was very good though nothing will ever beat the frog/bear confusion in Muppets Take Manhattan.



Thought 4:

I now have 3 nights off. Not intentionally, but all because gigs have been cancelled which is not good. I should be chasing up gigs but instead I plan to chill today, go to London Zoo with Layla tomorrow (under the pretence that I am a teacher checking the place out for a school trip. Ha! I'm so not a teacher), and then spend a lot of time remembering my Edinburgh show for this on Monday:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178049797217&ref=ts

Do come along as it will be the penultimate time I do this show. The final ever ever time will be January 8th at the Etcetera Theatre at 7.30pm. I will relentlessly annoy you all when tickets for that go on sale.


Thought 5:

Sarah Millican and Silky are two of the nicest people in the comedy world. FACT.


Thought 6:

To pronounce Llangollen I have to make a noise with my throat that I only usually ever use to scare away other cats from our garden. I can only assume that there are many cats in Llangollen that feel wrongly neglected.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

A Boot Of Tea




No time to blog Doctor Jones, as today I be quickly using Silky's computer for such things. He needs to use it for many printing things for tonight's gig so today's blog will merely be to tell you that last night I drank tea from this boot shaped cup. Yes, yes, indeed, I win.


Other news - last night's gig was tremendously lovely, and tonight's is with Sarah Millican and Silky in Llangollen and promises to be more of the same loveliness. Proper blog tomorrow. In the meantime if you have drunk tea from something better, then please comment below.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Not Chortling

This is a ranty, bitter blog. So sorry in advance. It is entirely my fault that its ranty and bitter and entirely to do with getting home last night, after having a couple of drinks, and then googling myself. Its something you're not meant to do and certain stronger willed comics say they never have done and never will. I don't believe them. Curiosity and constant need for attention are both driving factors of being a comedian - its that and a degree of mental illness. Some people have 360 degrees of this - and so both of those combined often let me find myself typing my name into the search engine to see what might come up. Yesterday was, almost in its entirity, a very good day until I'd done this. Fat Tuesday was brilliant again, with awesome sets from James Sherwood, Ava Vidal and Mark Watson, and I had some odd bits of good news about various things in the afternoon. Had someone played some whimsical music I may well have walked along a bit of road and clicked my heels whilst whistling. It was that sort of a pleasant Tuesday. Then I did the stupid google deed and it made the day shit. The shitness was caused by a new comment on my Chortle.co.uk page by a man who happened to be in the crowd at the Jim Jeffries gig in Coventry last week. The gig I wrote about here:


http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/11/angry-terrible-happy-things.html


It made me remember why people shouldn't be allowed to comment on such things. I have a feeling that were Adam Twomey to have stood infront of the same crowd on Friday, I can't imagine he'd have enjoyed it either. Now I'm not 100% sure that his comment is meant entirely maliciously, but even if it isn't, it will now be online for ever and that will be seen by everyone. Its always the shit gigs. I would say that on average I now have about 29 good gigs to 1 bad/ok gig. I'm sure there is a clever mathematical thing you could do with that so that people understand it better, but last night I struggled to add 6 to 56, and realised there is a reason I didn't have a career as an accountant. Actually there are about 40 reasons I didn't have a career as an accountant ranging from 'I've never applied for a job as an accountant' all the way to 'backwards accountant spells tnatnuocca which is a word I don't like', but I won't bore you with these now. What I was trying to say is, if people leave a gig having had a great time, often they don't feel the need to blab about it online. Whereas sadly it appears the opposite is true of a bad gig. Its amazing how much people like to complain and my Chortle page has a myriad of comments from those that haven't enjoyed what I've done. They are nearly all, also, from gigs where some varient of the gig has gone horribly wrong beyond my control. The Coventry one has already been described in Saturday's blog so we won't return to that. But here go all the others on my Chortle comments page that were less than nice:


Michael Monkhouse's comment - This was part of a larger review he wrote on the Channel 4Laughs website, which overall said very nice things. He sent me a comment saying he was sorry he couldn't fit it all on Chortle comments. I said not to worry, then I looked at the comments and realised he really should've been more selective what he'd put up there. When Nice Things Go Bad. Grrrr.

Colin - This was a gig in Hereford where due to the violent storms that day I drove myself and Martin Davis for 5 and half hours straight from London. I didn't stop once, for drinks or toilet or nuffink. When I arrived at the gig I felt a little bit sick and knackered and had two minutes to have a pee and a sip of water before walking straight onto the stage. To make it worse the crowd were heckly and shouty and all I really wanted to do was have a lie down. Colin was not wrong, I didn't ever get into my stride, but thats because I left my stride somewhere back on the motorway several hours before. Nervous however is wrong. I honestly couldn't have given a fuck.

Joe - Joe is right. That gig, I was massively shit. Boo and hiss.

Clara - This was quite some time ago now, but that gig sticks in my head as I got stuck in traffic at the Blackwall tunnel for over 3 hours due to an accident. I called ahead and apologised profusely, which I also did onstage as soon as I got there. From that point on, the gig was really fun and I had a great night. Clara obviously has an issue with punctuality.

Chas - probably right. I really can't remember what that was from. Still I had only just started out then so quite likely I was crap. Then again, he is called Chas. I only know one nice Chas and I've met two crap Chas's, so odds are against this one.


My Chortle review itself was done at a new material night, not long into my career. There were only 12 people in the audience and as I walked onstage I stated that a) I was a bit hungover and b) it was all new material I was doing for the first time. Consequently, after the review came out, I never did any of that material again. I am quite open to criticism and I fully accept most of it, but I remember Frank Skinner saying at the last Chortle awards that before the internet, a bad review would last a day in the papers, to then never reappear again, except maybe to be wrapped around some fish and chips. Whereas now, a bad review is there in the webspace for ever and ever. Thanks technology. Fucking thanks.


Right, rant over. Much apologies to readers who hope for some daily whimsy. I suggest going back and reading yesterdays again. Or come along to my gig tonight where I will be trying some stuff I did last night about an underwater census. Tonight's gig is in Leeds in a place called Chapel Allerton, which sounds like a warning system in place should large church buildings ever attack. 'They are coming! Switch the Chapel Allert on!' Yes, I will start with that gag. Yes, I will no doubt get another nasty comment on Chortle tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bears

Words escape me today, which is a shame as I have this blog to write as well as some new material for tonight and various other writing type things. I blame staying in bed too long. My bed is a small haven of warmth at the moment though and its very hard to leave. My flat is not cold and it could be warmer if I turned the heating on, but I am using the pretense of protecting the planet while in fact it is just because I am stingy and hate getting a huge gas bill. It upsets me that I have to pay for warmth when I can just wear a jumper and stay in bed. That seems to do the trick just as well. The problem with this though is that if I stay in bed, its unlikely I will get anything else even remotely done. The curtains in our bedroom block out all light and so it takes little to convince myself I live in a very comfy cave and its time to hibernate. I've often sympathised with the life of a bear. I used to and still on frequent occasion talk about bears in my stand-up, I once got asked to be the 'little bear' on a gay bear night (I politely declined), I played a stone statue bear when I was four in a production of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and if there are bears on the telly I will sit and watch silently, thoroughly enjoying the bearness. I'm not sure what this obsession is, but I put it down to a few things:


1 - Bears can properly mess people and things up. This is brilliant.
2 - They do actually like honey. I like honey. Bears are great.
3 - Bears rhymes with stairs, chairs, lairs, scares, flares and many other words. Bears are great.
4 - They look hilarious in hats.
5 - Quite a lot of them are famous: Winnie the Pooh, Rupert, Yogi, Paddington, The Care Bears, Gummi Bears, Fozzie, Baloo,
Sooty, Superted and Teddy Ruxpin to name but a few. How many famous voles can you name? None. Exactly.
6 - People use bear parts for lots of things. People have bearskin rugs, talk about the right to bear arms (that's Andrew
O'Neill's lovely gag), walking around bear foot, some people have a whole cupboard that's bear.
7 - Add a 'D' and its a beard. This is why you should be suspicious of beady people. They are just bears trying to infiltrate the
humans by having shaved around the eyes.


I don't eat salmon though. This is why I am definitely not a bear. But I would like to hibernate like one. Today I am wearing my most bear like jumper. By that I mean it is big and warm. It does not look like a bear, nor does it have a bear on it. Its just big. So big infact that I increase dramatically in size whilst wearing it. Often people think I'm nearer than I am, but I'm not. I love the fact that winter allows for clothes like this to be worn. Big jumpers, my big Napoleanesque coat and my bright red beanie that makes me look either like I'm about 7 years old or about to go fishing. Its an odd combination of things. In the same way I wear my Timberland boots which make me look either hip-hop or lumberjack. There are links fashion wise there that no once can explain. I like to think that hip-hop comes from the ancient lumberjacks of all time. DJ's chop up beats, lumberjacks chopped up wood. Hip-hop came from the block parties, lumberjacks axe up blocks of wood. Its all there. All bloody there.


I think Canadians will like todays blog.


Its Fat Tuesday tonight with Mark Watson headlining which should be lovely. At the time of typing, there are a weeny amount of tickets left. You should book them. All of them. Thanks:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/59106


Also, next Monday is this:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=178049797217&ref=mf

You should all come to that too even though I clearly won't remember how my shows goes having not done it since August. If all else fails I will do a lecture on bears.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Under The Sea

Its a Monday, so have this:





I did that ages ago but haven't ever bothered to do more. At some point I will draw out the others ones I've written including the one where he tries to get cancer from a photocopier just to end the torment of his daily life. Is it obvious I did that when I had a day job?


Not a long blog today as its my day. I'm going to have such a day off as its my first proper one in ages. I'm aiming to not even leave me flat no matter the circumstances. If someone sets fire to my flat, and a fireman arrives to drag me out of the burning mayhem, I will punch his yellow helmeted head till he lets me stay in bed. Even if my bed is on fire. That is how much I don't want to leave my flat today. And I have no need to leave it anyway. Unless someone sets it on fire. Or fills it with beetles. Or replaces all the walls with poison. Hopefully none of those things will happen.


I had a fairly lazy day yesterday, up until I went to do a bit on Talksport radio at midnight with Ian Collins. I was looking forward to it but resented the fact that it meant I had to get dressed to go out and I was tempted to turn up in my PJs and dressing gown. Then I got the fear they would have a webcam. They didn't, but you never know with radio stations these days. It must really irritate radio presenters that because of webcams they can't do the radio wearing a gorilla suit or just completely naked. That's all they used to wear when doing radio in the 70's and 80's apparently. That was until the case of the nakedgorillasuitgate when Dave Lee Travis had forgotten that a family had won a trip to the live studio show that day and there he was with his dong out and a gorilla mask on, infront of a family of four. Probably. The radio was much fun in the end, which was great as I had been a tad worried. Not about doing radio in general, I enjoy that. I like the fact that the audience aren't there in front of you so you can pull 'unuh' faces everytime they call in or send an email. I do that constantly. But I was worried because by the sounds of the bit of show before me, I would have had to have been making 'unuh' faces a lot, to the point where the producers were calling an ambulance just incase I was having facial seizures. They were on the subject of fox hunting due to the Tories stating they want to get rid of the Hunting Act as soon as possible. This led to a plethora of calls from idiots calling foxes terms such as 'indiscriminate killing machines'. I have never heard a fox be described as this before and I must have missed the bit of Fantastic Mr Fox where he pulls out an uzi and guns down the farmer and all his children before rampaging through the countryside in a tank destroying all semblance of life. I have to admit that would be an awesome film. I'm suggesting that happens in the sequel Bombtastic Mr Fox You Fox Faces! or something like that. I'd love to see an hour and a half of an animated fox attaching C4 to the very rich.


Luckily I didn't have to speak to any morons about some toffs senselessly killing animals in a barbaric way because they are bored with incest and setting fire to poor people. Instead we talked about many fun things and at some point, for those that care, the whole thing will be up on my website very soon. Till then I wanted to talk about one of the items I didn't have time for on the show. I had to pick four stories from the paper to discuss and this by far was my favourite:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6927449.ece


Firstly, how on earth did they do an ocean census? How could a creature with only one eye and two ear like fins fill in a long form like a census? I've done one before, they take ages and you definitely need opposable thumbs. What questions did it ask? 'Are you a) a fish, b) a whale, c) something really horrible that looks like its out of Doctor Who and may eat my face?' To find over 17,000 is phenomenal, and they say 17,000 is the manageable number, but if they were to actually calculate it would be hundreds more. Its amazing to think that there is still all that undiscovered territory on our planet. It also makes me never want to go into the sea again. I don't care how cute they try and make these things by calling one of them a 'Jumbo Dumbo'. If they had replaced the Disney elephant with that, it wouldn't have been a hit kids film. Admittedly, the whole film would've been spent just showing a picture of an indeterminate jelly like blob on the circus floor while the crows contemplate whether to eat it or not. I find all those weird animals absolutely terrifying. I spent ages watching the Blue Planet, one of my favourite shows ever, but only because I pretended it was science fiction. Fish with teeth? Fish with their own electricity from out of their heads? If I lived in Cumbria right now I'd be worried it was some sort of planned attack from these devil fish to take over the area. Its only a matter of time people. Saying that, as well as the horrors of things like a sea cucumber - essentially a mouth attached to an arse - there were also some genius fish things like the Gigantus Suborus. That may not be its name and I can't find it by typing it into google, but that's what I remember it to be called, so that's its name. As far as I'm concerned it is the most pitiful creature in the world and I applaud its existence. Completely round and with nothing to weigh it down, it only has stupidly tiny fins. This means that it is unable to propel itself in any one direction and just aimlessly spins around in circles, moving wherever the current will take it. Usually it takes it directly into the mouth of something bigger. This creature has no reason to exist other than to prove the futility of life. If you are having a shitty Monday, just remember the Gigantus Suborus has a shittier Monday.


Read the comments below that Times article to have a glimpse at some of the people I class lower on the scale of things than a Gigantus Suborus in terms of usefulness to the planet. Just because I wouldn't want to hang out with a 'zombie bone-eating worm', doesn't mean it deserves to have the sewage of wankers plonked on it. Same way foxes may eat the odd chicken, but it doesn't deserve to be torn limb from limb by upper class dogs. In fact if that's the only criteria as to why foxes deserve to die then I suggest those hunting packs sit outside a KFC on a daily basis and attack anyone that emerges. There was a point to this, but then I got imagining the above situation and I slightly lost it. Essentially our planet rocks and I hope it continues to stay alive and thrive at least until we can discover whatever this is and then I might be able to go swimming in the sea again:

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/06/13/bloop/index.html

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Completely Nuts

I slept in till about 1pm today. I feel a bit ashamed of this as I had planned to get up a bit earlier and do lots of stuff, but instead I went to see Tom and Nat after my gig last night, stayed until 4am and consequently have slept my day away like a pig. A sleepy sleepy pig. A slig. There is only one remedy to this. I have decided the only thing to do is declare that it is still morning till at least 3pm. I hope you'll conduct this change of the entire concept of time. If you live somewhere where it is still the morning, then please just put your clocks 5 minutes back so that I can regain control of where you live as well. I'm not being a megalomaniac or anything, I'm just being a megalomaniac. There is no anything about it. I have also decided that the entire history of the world started at 11pm on Jan 9th 1981 as that was when I was born. If you existed before that then consider yourself a lot younger than you thought you were. This does of course confuse how it was possible for my parents to conceive me, but as with all creation of the world type tales, there is a large amount of plot holes. We shall just ignore all reason and start from 1981. If any of you want to dispute this then you will be shot with a gun from the early 1900's just to mess with your mind. We will tell you the gun doesn't exist. It will make your brain sad. I'm a brilliant dictator me. This is what happens when I get up late. Innocent people suffer. You had all better give me a wake up call tomorrow or I'll make you all pay for water and air like in a petrol station, but for actual water and air. When you wake up, if you don't put £2.50 into a Tiernan meter then you can't start breathing or we'll hit you with a stick from 1743. It will be an old stick and it will crumble to dust when we hit you with it, so then we will have to hit you with another one. Its best just to pay the fine or you will be stuck there for ages and covered in non-existant dust.


Enough of this madness. I was going to tell you about yesterday afternoon when I went for tea with a friend. I don't want you to think I go for afternoon tea a lot, as I don't. In fact I hadn't had one in at least 10 years until I went to Betty's Tea Rooms a few weeks ago and it was quite random that my friend James wanted to go for tea yesterday. It appears tea is cool again. You hear that kids? Next time you're thinking of going to a grime club or whatever else you young uns do, pull those baggy trousers up and get the tea strainer out instead. James had been surfing the website afternoontea.co.uk and had decided that Franco's in Jermyn St was the place to go. Pretty fancy stuff and again I had that terrible feeling of being somewhere I probably shouldn't belong. God forbid what it'll be like when I rule the planet and have to sit in my throne room drinking only the finest port. I'll probably feel well awkward. If I do, one of you will pay and be poked at with a piece of sponge from 1822. Anyway, James is one of these people that is allergic to anything - cats, fish and nuts. Nuts especially but fish a bit and cats a small amount. Should anyone ever invent a catfish nut then James would die instantly just from seeing a picture of it. I can't really understand the allergy thing. My immune system is hella good and I don't think I'm susceptible to much. Nuts - I'll take 'em down. Lactose - I'm so tolerant to that. Gluten - I still don't know what that is no matter how many times people tell me. Ebola - bring it on fuckers! Actually, don't. Thanks. James had pre-warned Franco's when we booked that he was allergic to nuts and they had this on their computer screen when they arrived. Still however they didn't check any of the cakes they had brought with the tea and so we had to ask to double check. The cicones were full of pistachios apparently, but we were informed everything else was safe for James to have. Being a true gent and superhero I quickly ate both cicones to make sure there was no risk. Then I eat a small green ball with some creamy stuff in and thought 'hang on this is pretty good', immediately telling James to try one as they were great. He picked it up, confident in the knowledge that it was nut-free, then bit into it. There was a sudden look of realisation as he swallowed half of what I now like to call the 'green death', as we both clicked the greeness was all pistachio nut. We called the waiter over who confirmed it was indeed nut and he'd just forgotten to say, and an ambulance was called. I've never seen anyone go into anaphylactic shock before and I have to say a little bit of it is amusing. Before it gets dangerous, the tongue swells a little and the victim speaks like a total doofus. Then the tongue swells even more, and suddenly them saying 'Etth nnneeeedd ambuhhhlahhhnncethhh' goes from being really funny to a little bit worrying. The ambulance arrived and James was shoved into the back while I was told to wait inside with all our bags but also the cakes and tea. I felt a bit left out and I contemplated eating all the cakes, going into a hyperglycemic attack and then I'd get to have a ride in the ambulance as well. I've never been in one and that would've made my day. After that all I'd have had to do is commit arson and get to go in a fire engine and I'd have sat in all the emergency vehicles (please note: AA truck doesn't count). Luckily James was alright and the restaurant gave us our tea for free due to them nearly killing James, which was nice I suppose. Especially as I spent some time working out how I'd approach paying the bill. 'Hello. How much is the bill for you causing my friend to have an anaphylactic shock? And here's a generous tip because he didn't die.'


So a lot of excitement for one afternoon. To top that off I finally bought new headphones. The man in HMV tried to sell me an extended warranty. I asked him what it covered but it did not include 'cats chewing through the wires' so I declined. I am now keeping said headphones as far away from the cats as possible. If they find them then I will have to assume mice have got into the wires.


Two more things:

Firstly huge huge kudos to the excellent Andrew Lawrence, who last night saved the comedy gig I was at. The headliner for ED Comedy failed to show up last night and Andrew, despite having just done a 20 in the middle of the section, came back on as an emergency headliner and did a whole different 20 mins to rapturous applause. Damn good things.


Secondly, there was a man at the gig who was wearing shorts. He was not a Geordie, Aussie, athlete, explorer, shorts salesman or someone who's trousers had shrunk in the wash. No. He was merely a weather maverick. Well done him.


Thirdly, I'm on Talksport Radio tonight around midnight. Midnight in New Tiernan Time will be about 4pm in the afternoon. I'm not sure who'll be listening to Talksport at midnight on a Sunday but I'm looking forward to promoting myself to all you insomniac week wasters. I'm not sure what I'll be talking about but it won't be sport, that's for sure. Even if they try and make me. I'm also intending to go in my pajamas. I will check if they have a webcam first.


Enjoy the rest of your morning. If any of you state otherwise expect a visit from the Tiernan police who will be quick to make things nasty with a sundial from the early 12th century.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Angry Terrible Happy Things

I tend to come up with different non-gig things to write this blog about, and then such odd things happen at my gigs that its pretty hard not to talk about it. Last night was so laughably awful that I actually left feeling quite pleased with myself. Its odd when something like that happens and I couldn't quite pin point why I jumped in the car feeling elated with things but I just did. It was my third visit to Coventry in the last three months, which many would argue is too many times, even for those that live there. The last two times haven't been terrible (see here: http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/10/coventry-squished-people-and-hardee.html and here: http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/10/police-story.html) but something has always gone a bit wrong, whether its the gig, or Phil Nichol leaving my car boot open as we headed down the motorway. But yesterday was a whole new different level of awful. Like the last time I was there, the show didn't start till 10.30pm. Neither myself or Jim (Jeffries) knew this and so we turned up far too early, having to peruse the new concrete wonderland in the middle of Coventry's concrete hell. There is little difference between the two, with the hell bit being very bleak and grey, and the wonderland bit having some neon lights in it, a fancy new theatre, a fountain, some bars and a really shit Pizza Express where it took over an hour to get served. These sort of things are enough to make a large difference. Until some kids take over the area and use it as a skateboard park and mugging hub, then it will become even worse than all the surrounding parts. I love the British eco-system. Money gets put in, nice buildings get put in, nice people move in, violent kids move in, area gets ruined, people move out, money gets taken away, area crumbles, area gets rebuilt again ten years later, cycle starts again. Essentially the children that we persecute and blame for all these things could also be said as the people that keep the economy going. Its like some sort or crop rotation.


I could go on for ages about the Pizza Express bit, primarily how once again a place with a name that suggested speediness has horribly let me down, but there are more things to focus on in today's bloggery. After being let down visually and culinary, we made our way to the theatre where we were greeted by some hardcore Jim fans who thought it was hilarious to come over, say hello to Jim and then pretend they didn't know who he was. They were wrong, it was the opposite of hilarious. There are many ways to find out the opposite of hilarious. You can try using correct scientific methods to create a huge machine with which you can spend time reversing hilarity levels until you get an inverse hilarity rating, thus seeing what kind of creature and atmosphere is left in its void. The other way is by being a mega dick. Jim dealt with all this in a very professional manner ie being friendly and joking with them. We then hid backstage and listened as the crowd entered and before the show was anywhere near starting they were already shouting at each other. Calling each other names, pointing and having a go from across the other side of the auditorium. They seemed a mess. Then I went on stage, and immediately became some sort of target in a comedy firing range. I quite enjoyed it. I dealt back some retorts I was pretty pleased with and they got rounds of applause, but then they carried on. So I gave back as good as I got again. Then they carried on. Then they heckled each other. Then they found out someone didn't live near there so they booed them till they walked out of the auditorium. Then they heckled me again, then each other, then me. It just got boring. I eventually stopped talking, and let them carry on until I'd be onstage for 22 minutes then I walked off. I've never been in a situation like that before where about 80% of the audience were all beyond the point of watching a show. I came back stage, where Jim said he was amazed I didn't walk off after five minutes. The stage manager said that the audience had drunk the bar dry and they'd been confiscating 1l bottles of vodka off people as they came in. There were several of them that had been drinking there since 6pm. The theatre weren't happy, but oddly I'd quite enjoyed it. I felt pretty good I'd lasted out there for the entire time and that I'd constantly dealt back verbal blows I was pretty pleased with and all the jokes I got out all got really good laughs. As I finally left the stage, a few people also shouted out 'Don't go we think you're brilliant.' Death or not death? Who knows. It wasn't even really a set. So I say it was so terrible that in the circumstances I don't think it could have gone better. I waited for Jim to start and they gave him a good amount of lip at the top but eventually settled down and it looked like it was going to be a good show, so I pegged it back home. If you are going to start a show at 10.30pm that's what happens. Yeah. (That yeah is to be said in a 'pointy fingered told you so' type way please. If you do not read it as such I suggest you don't read this blog with the gusto it deserves and you should get someone else to read it out allowed to you.)


I had a brilliant journey home thanks to the session band on Mark Lamarr's God's Jukebox on Radio 2. If you get a chance to iplayer it, do. The band were Breakestra, who I saw live at the Jazz Cafe way back in 2003. They are funk on a stick and last night provided one of the best live sessions I've heard on Lamarr's show. When I saw them live they were incredible too and I will always remember the main frontman Mixmaster Wolf who had the deepest voice and the greatest name I've ever heard. There is something about funk that allows its musical delivery team to gain the best names ever. Mixmaster Wolf. What you have combined there is a legendary DJ title of Mixmaster with a brilliant animal that is able to tear your face off but also raise human kids as there own and howl, Wolf. Brilliant name. I spent some time thinking about what name I would have if I was a funk legend and I quite like T-Jive Doobiedown, but then have left out the vital animal element that makes Mixmaster Wolf's name so good. Maybe T-Child Eagle Bear, although that sounds like a Native American chief. Any further suggestions welcomed. Anyway, without wanting this blog to get all insightful or anything but for some reason I spent ages on my journey home thinking of loads of things I hadn't seen or listened to in ages and had to dig them out when I got home. Here are a few of them. Apologies in advance for some possible insightful non-funny stuff and museo type banter:


Blues Run The Game by Jackson C Frank - Jackson C Frank only ever made one album in his life. It was produced by Simon and Garfunkel and after it was finished and released Jackson suffered from severe manic depression. He became homeless in New York for 20 years, during which time he lost his eye in a knife fight. He was finally found again by someone from a record company who got him to record some new stuff, but his voice was so destroyed by his tragic lifestyle that it sounded crackly and broken. Then he died. If that's not enough reason to listen to the one album he made, then you should do it because its amazing. You can hear all the pathos in his voice as he sings some truly beautiful lyrics.


Nufonia Must Fall by Kid Koala - Kid Koala is a bit of a phenomenon. The last time I saw him he was dressed in a polo shirt and knee length shorts with thick rimmed glasses and an overall look of geek about him. He then proceeded to mix 8 different records at once to create a jazz track from 8 different tracks of instruments. Legendary. I still don't understand how he can be so cool and uncool all at once. Nufonia Must Fall is a graphic novel he drew, wrote and provided a small CD of music for, with each track being a different page to listen to. Its a really touching tale of a robot who only listens to his headphones and never hears the sounds of the outside world. He meets a girl who shows him the sounds of life are also music and it has a lovely twist at the end. If you get a chance, do go read it. Then also buy all Kid Koala's albums, listen to them once, realise you probably won't ever listen to them again as the sound of clay being punched scratched into the sound of a chicken exploding isn't really easy on the ears.


Kevin Eldon's Speakers - 8 genius monologues by the man himself. Download them here. Listen to them all but especially listen to the 3rd one. Lamb Fruit Lamb Fruit.

http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/category/shows/kevineldon


Billy's Balloon - Just sublime. After this, watch Rejection, also by Don Hertzfeldt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWY1eupbMbU


That's your day sorted. Thank me if you like. I've got the flat to myself this weekend. I plan to fill it with nice things like what I've just posted, but I give it about 10 minutes before I burn myself on the oven while dancing around in my pants to Breakestra and then spend it all in A&E.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Chicken Foul

We had some home shopping delivered this morning. Its not something me and Layla normally do, having the ability to carry things and legs and a car to drive to a supermarket with. I also quite like the active running around and selecting things to eat, then no doubt getting carried away and buying cereal with a free toy and all the other things I had to ask permission for when I was a kid. I'll probably never grow out of the fact that now I can buy whatever I like from the shops. Well I say whatever I like, but there are times when I'll just fill the trolley with lots of brightly coloured things and Layla will have to remove them as we really don't need 6 types of ice lolly and tropical smelling toilet duck. So we don't do the online thing because I find its a little restricted. Yes you tend to save money, yes it means you don't even have to leave your house, yes those two reasons make me wonder why we don't do it more often. Then it arrived and I remembered. Its because of simple things like the replacement items. Today they replaced a bottle of Ribena with a smaller bottle of Ribena. That's fine. They also replaced a fabric softener with another type of fabric softener. I'll be honest, I don't really know what this means, so I just nodded. Layla will probably be annoyed because the washing doesn't 'smell right' or something. That's also what she says when I over pack the washing machine and forget to put any powder in. On those occasions she is 100% correct. However when it smells of petunias instead of lavender or something then as far as I'm concerned that is an upgrade on man sweat. The last item the Sainsbury's men swapped was some meatfree garlic kievs. These are Sainsbury's own Quorn substitute things. They exchanged these with free from Chicken kievs. I'm not sure if you can see the problem here, but essentially they have not given us our veggie items and just instead given us chicken. Just because a chicken is free from wheat or fat does not mean its any less a chicken. Sure its probably the healthiest chicken around, probably does laps around the coop whilst the others just sit. Its possibly also a less bloated chicken thanks to the lack of gluten in its diet, although I can't imagine most chickens chow down on white bread and pasta on a regular basis. Whatever that chicken may be free from, it is still a bloody chicken and that makes it hugely different from a veggie kiev that might essentially pretend to be chicken but actually has nothing to do with it and has probably never met or even sat next to an actual chicken in its life.


These sort of things make me all a bit sad. Last night I went to a Wimpy's on the way to my gig. I didn't necessarily want to go to a Wimpy's but I feel a sense of duty to do so, in the same way I would donate a few quid to a 'Save the Siberian Tigers' charity or something similar. I know it won't be around for ever, but I'll do what I can to try and keep it alive that little bit longer. The problem with Wimpy is that it doesn't do enough to compete with other chain take aways. By that I mean some of its food appears to be cooked properly and the food seems to fill you up not making you feel like you need to eat again within 10 mins of leaving. It also isn't associated (as far as I know) with any companies that destroy the third world or do immoral things. While I've never really understood calling anything Wimpy as its hardly a name that evokes good images of a strong, enjoyable environment, more so a flaccid geek's cock, I like to think I'll help them to survive. Then, last night, I ordered a spicy bean burger and I was informed that they have to tell me they fry the bean burger in the same oil as the chicken. I was a bit taken aback by this. Who orders the bean burger that is ok with that? Surely its mostly veggies that buy it? I asked why, and the response was, 'dunno'. I said why not just fry it in some other oil and the man said 'yeah we could, but we don't'. I can only assume someone at Wimpy's used to work for Sainsbury's and is under the notion that chickens are not meat. Technically they'd be right in terms of cookery books putting them under poultry or fowl. But they still have a face. Even if they've had the face cut off. Them's the rules. See here for the rules:

http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/10/weak-vegetarian.html


Had a lovely gig in Burnley last night. The audience were quite odd but very nice. The odd things they did included telling me that the most exciting thing in Burnley was 'having a shit', and responding to Sarah Millican's question of 'What would you most like to see your boyfriend dressed up in?' with 'A shroud'. Terrifying. This was almost topped by a man responding to Sarah's routine about using food in sex with the words ' Hot pot!'. The Mechanics is a lovely venue, but I had believed it would be some sort of large centre of cogs and wheels that operated the rest of Burnely like a Stepford Wives type town. No such case. It was nice gigging with Sarah too as I haven't seen her since at least Edinburgh and she's ace. There is a phenomenon in the comedy world that means you tend not to gig with someone for ages and ages and then suddenly you will gig with them a lot. From December last year through to about April, I would gig with Mitch Benn at least once a week. Now I've only gigged with him once in the last 4 months. In the same way I haven't actually done a gig with Sarah in ages and ages, mostly because she's been doing brilliant large gigs and telly stuff. Now though I'm gigging with her next week again, which either means I'm doing ok or things are going wrong for her. One day a mathematician will come up with an equation for it all. Or more likely, they won't be bothered. We spent quite some time last night discussing scary tweeters and people that have tweeted that they've spotted either of us but not come along and said hello. We both tweeted that we had seen each other as a joke and then, while Sarah was on stage I received a tweet from someone saying they were watching Sarah on stage and had just seen me. Firstly I was annoyed that someone was using their phone in a gig, but then I felt bemused by it all. I turned to the promoter Mark to show him, thinking it was funny. He then told me the tweet was from him, he just hadn't wanted to say. The world is a silly place.


Back to my favourite (read that with heavy sarcasm) city of Coventry tonight for my last date on the Jim Jeffries tour.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

My Brain is on Strike

I'm trying to hammer my brain into gear this morning but it seems set on being highly useless. So far techniques have involved getting up and going straight out, thinking a walk and fresh air would work. Sadly it was a trip to the bank and the lady at the counter who insisted on guessing where my name was from before confidently telling me I was a 'right little mixture', did not help at all. It was said in a friendly conversational manner but I was tempted to scream 'Racism!' at her and ruin her day. I didn't as my brain didn't think of that at the time. Since returning home I have tried drinking tea and for some strange reason, decided to listen to the soundtrack from Labyrinth. The latter of those two has really not helped as now I feel even more spaced out than before and keep looking out for goblins in the garden. There aren't any so far, but I'm fairly sure if they do appear my cats will eat them first. Although they seem to be having some trouble with it being a windy day and I'm finding highly entertaining watching them sit on the garden wall slightly swaying and giving the expression of a creature that is hugely pissed off with nature. I blame my brain deadness on two things. The first is that this morning I tried to get dressed under the covers as it was cold in my flat. I haven't done this since I was a kid and I realised why after putting my jeans on and then falling back asleep for ten minutes. Back then though I used to exclaim that I was 'undercover' which was a stupid play on words. I doubt actual spies ever get dressed under a duvet. Or if they do, its with rapid speed and stealth to confuse whoever is looking for them in a bed shop. So ultimately for me today, it was a bad way to start things.


The other reason is that last night's gig was one of the most boring trials of endurance I have had to sit through. There was not one iota of comedy involved and instead I had to sit around from 4pm until 10.30pm just so I could say some companies names in an 'exciting voice' over some music and then announce the company head onto the stage. I wasn't even on stage whilst doing this, I merely sat behind a desk with the techy and had to flick through powerpoint slides as I said things. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the cash, but why on earth they asked for a 'comedian' to do this was completely beyond me. Almost anyone could have done that job, as long as they could read and use a microphone and slideshow control at the same time. I have while typing that, only just realised that I multi-tasked for at least 15 minutes last night which means that all you women who say it can't be done can sod off. While doing something else at the same time, because you can. Actually I heard someone on This Morning the other day point out that 'of course men can multi-task, its just only when they want to. You think they couldn't multi task at an orgy'. I liked this, then I thought about it and got stressed at the idea of having to multi-task at an orgy. What if you're getting it on, but need to get a drink? Or have to plot a route for a long journey while surrounded by women needing seeing to? I can only imagine it would be a lot tougher than the This Morning lady thought. Anyway, the whole 'me talking' bit last night only last 10 minutes, so 6 hours of my time was spent playing with my iPhone and wishing I was at home, while rich people in suits talked about things I didn't understand. They were all dressed very sharply and most of the men looked as though their hair had been stuck on. I wondered if this type of man was the inspiration for the Lego people. There was one man in particular that slightly scared me as he looked like he'd been made on the Xbox or Mii profile creator. That was 6 hours of my life I will never get back and I think my brain has retorted for the boredom last night by taking a day off today. I now have a four hour drive to Burnley for tonight's gig and then four hours back so I need to put enough stimuli in the car for my journey there otherwise I will be a mess by the time I do the show.


Sorry that was all a rambly blog today. Again, blame my brain. I know that my brain is part of me, but I feel that it is definitely not the fault of my knees, or back or any other bit that has no part in computer typing. You could partly blame my fingers but they only do as they are told. One day I hope they rebel against the brain and do what they want to do for a change. I suspect however this would just lead me to being arrested. As they say the 'devil makes work for idle hands' which isn't true. A kid at our school was completely idle and I heard recently he still is and was recently made unemployed again. I would suggest that the devil pulls his finger out and starts helping people in this recession. Get those idle hands some work! Right I will now censor myself after that shambles and stop typing. Watch this and forget anything happened today:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Future Sounds Like A Synthesizer

The title was my favourite quote from yesterday, heard on a Radio 2 documentary about Spandeux Ballet and said by Martin Kemp. I love the idea that back in the 80s there was the assumption that the future would sound like something replicating something else. I just hope to god that synthesizer is not set to the 'waa waa' noise that used to be on my tiny casio that I had when I was about 6. That would quickly become really annoying, although not as irritating as the tiny yellow button that when you pressed it would repeatedly play 'Yankee Doodle' until you smashed it against a wall. I'm sure there was another clever way to turn it off but I quickly discovered that I have little patience for endlessly repeating noises that bore into your mind in plinky sounds. Its why I can't handle the circus music. Circus music may not be too plinky, but it doesn't seem to have an end. Whenever the notes do that 'didldldldldldldldlddldldld' bit (you know what I mean) it then starts back at the top and goes all over again. I can't imagine why anyone would have composed that. Or more importantly, did they insist on writing it all out in music form, and if so, are they still writing it today? An infinite trap of circus hell? They are probably sitting there, ringmaster outfit almost woven into their skin, staring at a tiny model of a big top, writing those same notes over and over again longing for the day someone can give it a finish. All it actually needs to do is go 'dun duuuunnnnnnnn'. I should probably point that out to someone and end a lifetime of misery. Other things that never end that really irritate me are the 'Song that gets on your nerves' and the Neverending Story. Although that last one annoys me because it does end, even though it says it doesn't. By rights, that film should still be going on now and that stupid flying dog should be knackered.


I have to do a very strange gig tonight. Originally I was hired to host an awards ceremony for environmentally friendly businesses and do some gags, but then after calling the organiser, she said that wasn't what she wanted at all. Instead they just wanted someone with a 'nice voice' to read from a powerpoint presentation for ten minutes and that was it. Oh and I have to wear a suit. I have repeatedly asked them over the last two weeks if thats all I have to do and I think they are rather annoyed with me now, but I'm pretty sure there's a catch. I've never been paid decent money to read things out allowed before. Normally I just do it of my own accord and people on the tube think I've got learning difficulties. I also have to wear a 'lounge suit'. I didn't know what this was and had terrible fears of having to buy a jacket made from the same material as a sofa cover or a coffee table. Apparently its just a suit, but its what posh people call normal suits as other more posh suits have other names. I've never been the sort of person to have more than one suit, unless the one suit I have stops fitting me or sets on fire or something along those lines. So I have my suit ready, I'm still able to read, and I can get the gig via the tube. It all seems far far too easy and I can't help but be suspicious that when I turn up they'll suddenly want me to improvise a 10 minute set on carbon filters - I put one of those in a Paperchase and all their pencils disappeared - or solar panels - what you call Mock the Week set on the sun. By the look of those two quick gags, I will fail hugely if this happens. On the plus side it may just be as easy as it sounds. Lets hope it doesn't sound like circus music.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

TV Times

I did nothing when I got home yesterday except shoot people on Modern Warfare, see Layla and catch up on telly such as Doctor Who. I felt this was deserved after my marathon train journey that started with a man at Glasgow Central telling me I had to go to Queen Street for my train, only for a man at Queen Street telling me I had to go back to Glasgow Central as they only run from there. I mustered up enough energy to make a small whiney noise, like you might get if you trod on a dog's paw, before failing entirely to complain and just bought another ticket for half my life's savings. It was only £11.80, but I am very broke. When I finally got to Edinburgh Waverley and boarded my train to London (from which yesterday's blog twas writ) I had to sit next to an old lady who had boarded at Kilkardy (I saw on her reserve ticket) and did not move from her seat once until we got to Kings Cross. Thats five hours of journeying without moving to go to the loo, to get a drink or even to stretch her legs. After two hours of this I started to be concerned she might have died. Her eyes were moving a bit, but I put that down to muscle spasms. Just as I was about to call someone, her phone rang and she answered it. She then shouted down the phone in the strongest, most deep old lady Glaswegian accent I've ever heard, before hanging up, hurridly putting the phone back in her pocket and not moving again for another two hours. I can only put this down to a few things. Either she is some sort of secret soldier type old lady who has camel like abilities to hold water and survive in any terrain without sustenance, or she was possessed by a demon that had no idea how old ladies were meant to speak and act. Either way I was a tad scared so I didn't ask her to use the plug for my laptop by her and spent the last hour of the journey staring into space.


When I got home I did pretty much nothing and so this blog will now convert into some small cheating bullet points about stuff from the telly and the few thoughts I had vacantly smacking around my tired head:


- Doctor Who 'The Waters of Mars' was not as good as I'd hoped it would be. I iplayered it yesterday expecting some sort of zombie type craziness and instead just got very angry at a shit robot, some terrible dialogue, knowing that Catherine Tate and her stupid gormless face will be in the next one, and the fact that explosions wouldn't be that big on the planet's surface due to its very thin atmosphere. Maybe I'm wrong on that one as I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Don't get me wrong, there were some good bits to it, but again I found myself wanting the sort of Doctor Who episode that made me hide behind my sofa with fear. It'd would have to be very scary though as my sofa is against the wall, so I'd have to do some furniture moving for such things to happen. I'm no Doctor Who geek, unlike Michael Legge, but I will always remember the one with Sylvester McCoy in it that had some sort of weird circus where people died. That terrified me for ages and ages and pretty much put an end to any ideas I may have had about being a trapeze artist. I didn't have any of those ideas to being with, but that just made sure I never would. I put that episode up there with some weird ITV children's ghost story where there was boy who had a mirror that did its own thing and when he smashed it out of frustration, he became trapped inside and the weird mirror boy got to take his place in the real world. Except he had big glass eyes and no one could see. I didn't look in the mirror for ages after that. Hence why my hair always looks a mess in photos from 1989 - 1992. And all current photos. And in fact pretty much all my photos ever. Thats my excuse anyway. There was also another episode of that where a soldier got shot in the war and somehow his ghost switched places with a healthy soldier who was left in a broken body on the side of a mountain. I haven't explained that well so just imagine scary things and that was it. I really hope the Matt Smith Doctor does and deals with scary things. Maybe there should be one episode where he gets his bank statement and they've charged him for things he hasn't used his card for but has no way of proving that he was in 1519 at the time.


- How good is Life? Yeah pretty bloody good. We used to have a game at uni whereby we'd drink tea, eat things, smoke some er jazz cigarettes and then shout at all the fights between animals on Life of Mammals and latterly, post uni, Planet Earth. There is nothing like watching animals kick the shit out of each other while David Attenborough calmly tells you why they are doing it. One day I'd love him just to snap and suddenly say something like 'yeah fucking take that Oryx! You had it coming! Punch him lion fucking punch him!' Sadly I can't get away with getting quite so hyper about it when at home with Layla. There was a bit last night where loads of bees were seriously taking each other down in some sort of sting based Battle Royale. I held it in, but nearly spilt my squash when one of them got decapitated. It may seem macabre, but its nature so if you criticise it you must be a creationist and therefore, an idiot. I didn't like the fact that most of last night's show was about insects. At least however a show like that knows what insects are whereas the Metro yesterday had a picture of Sam 'Fox eats insects'. She was eating spiders. Spiders are not insects you fools. They are spawns of the devil.


- I didn't watch 'I'm lowest on the rung of Celebrities so have to take part in degrading activities so I can be allowed back on This Morning'. However I did get some support on Twitter for my idea that next year we take 12 Aussie celebs and put them on the Yorkshire Moors for a week. It'd be more cost effective and there would just be lots of complaining about the weather, making baked beans on a gaslight that doesn't work and working out how not to get mud into the tents. Complaints about this online were the worry that we wouldn't be able to find 12 Aussie celebs - I say easily. I mean its not like they've found UK celebs, more demented over made up rich losers - and that it shouldn't be the Moors, more the Arctic Tundra. I agree with that except if its the Arctic, it should just be shit UK celebs and they shouldn't be given supplies or clothes. Then there also wouldn't be cameras and we wouldn't watch it. We'd just let them die. This would then be followed up by 'I'm a low rate dick, get me out of this spaceship that's flying directly into the sun'.


- My 3D glasses did not work for the Channel 4 magic show last night. They are ones Layla stole from the cinema after watching Up. Apparently its because my glasses are polarized which is why I might only be able to see lots of snow, penguins and polar bears. I once had a pair of bipolarized glasses. They only worked when they wanted to, depending on their mood.


- I watched some of the Spaced repeats on Dave. I bloody love Spaced. Its still one of the best sitcoms ever as far as I'm concerned and if you haven't seen it, your life is empty. That is all.


If that wasn't enough blog for you, I highly recommend reading Tara Flynn's awesome blog here:

http://www.taraflynn.ie/blog/

Its brilliant and I suggest you read it lots.

Monday, November 16, 2009

The Bare Cheek Of It

Last night, sitting in the Noodle Bar on Sauchiehall Street with Al Pitcher and Pat Monahan, a woman sat opposite us with her two friends. They had all staggered in, tripping over their own shoes and clutching on to each other with a desperation to get to some food before they collapsed in a heap of drunken slag. Despite it being a Sunday, they had clearly no desire to start the week well and must have been drinking either a lot in a short amount of time, all day long or most likely, all of their lives. After much effort, they ordered their food and sat down at a table seeming happy to find something they could lean on without it moving. The one sitting closest to us, wasn't, and I'll say this as politely as possible, in any way a competitor for anorexic of the year, and as she sat down a truly horrid thing happened. Most of her arse left her trousers and entirely hung out the back of her jeans. This wasn't just a bit of bum, not a small glimpse of top back or even an eyeful of whale tail. It was pretty much her whole arse. All of it. Leaping out as though it was trying to escape her body and I wouldn't blame it if it was. The weirdest thing was, she either didn't notice or didn't care. There was no moment of readjusting or even trying to cover it up. In fact when her food arrived, she shuffled around letting even more hang out so she could completely angle herself to dive into the polystyrene trough of food as though she were a noodle hunting pig. Then she stood up exclaimed that she should probably put her belt on properly and tied it round herself in a manner that meant the skin under her protruding article was tightened merely pushing it out even more, before she stomped off for more food. Now I am being rather harsh, but I've never witnessed such disregard for unwanted self nudity before. That is, I'm assuming it was unwanted. Its highly possible it was some sort of mating ritual, like what baboons do when they make their rears inflate and go all red. Best of luck to her and hope its a means to an end. Tee hee.


On the train back to London now. It was a pretty lovely weekend, with yesterdays shows at the Glasgow Stand being great as well. The earlier kids show was the usual level of mental with highlights being a very small boy who looked very sheepish, walking all the way to the front of the stage to ask Susan Calman to 'prove she had super powers'. This was only just topped by a little girl who at the very end of the gig said in a rather cheery fashion 'I don't have a dad'. The entire audience's hearts broke and there was moment of silence till Susan just gave her a hug and Brendon Burns gave her a pack of crisps. The girl seemed truly delighted at this and waddled back to her seat. Either she's very fickle and will happily take snacks over a family member, or she had it all planned from the start. Either way she was adorable and seemed to rejoice in telling me endlessly that her cat could open windows. The gap inbetween shows was filled with seeing my friend Dave who now lives right by the Stand. Apart from getting food and Dave relentlessly thrashing me at pool, I was shown two exciting things. One is what is called the Advert Game. Dave and his flatmates were watching X-Factor from the night before when I popped over, and while they wanted to see the show it was the gaps inbetween that caused shouting and arguing to the extent that tea was spilt and temperatures rose. The game simply involves someone shouting out what the advert is for before anyone else can. Sounds easy but then certain ads such as 'Benefit Fraud' or Wanchai Ferry appear and all hell breaks loose. I'd like to point out the ad wasn't promoting benefit fraud. I wouldn't want that to appear to be the case. Neither was Wanchai Ferry advertising large seafaring boats. Or the singer from Roxy Music drinking tea. Infact the game while on the surface level, appeared to just be a fun way of wasting 5 minutes by getting overexcited at the telly, on a deeper level it uncovered the true lies of televisual marketing. But then again on a real level it was just shouting 'Talk Talk' a lot and hoping you did it first. It was only when I realised they had Sky+ the whole show and could've just skipped through the ads, which gave it a new level of tragedy in line with my cup of coffee creamer the night before.


The other exciting thing was a shop called Moe's. Its difficult to explain why Moe's was great but essentially it was largely because of the enthusiasm that Dave had to take me there, purely to show me how small the front of the shop was, compared to how big the back of the shop was. He was right, it was an oddly TARDIS like effect that lead us to walking round a few times and trying to work it out. There is no working it out, but by god if you want Halal meat or groceries I would suggest going there as its probably from another dimension. I'm hoping the sequel to Doctor Parnassus will be held in such a place. Well to be honest I'm hoping that film doesn't have a sequel.


Three hours till home, Doctor Who and some Modern Warfare endless violence till Layla gets home and I actually get to see her for once. Maybe I should walk around with my arse out and see if she finds it alluring.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Man Will Heckle (Sort of)

When Simon Munnery got backstage at The Stand last night, he told us all of a man at the back of the room who was telling another man, someone he didn't know, that he really wanted to heckle but didn't know if he should. The other man was telling him that he never heckled and thought it was wrong and then tried to avoid the wannabe heckler, but he persisted in trying to ask for guidance on whether or not to shout things. The Stand staff had noticed him come in and had been keeping an eye on him since he got there, so he was well known, although not deemed to be dangerous, just a bit of a dick. As the second section started I stood at the back and didn't need to have him pointed out to me. He was playing on his phone, and as the open spot went on, he nudged the man he'd been speaking to, and then, in response to the comic's question of 'How's everyone doing?', he responded loudly with 'Shite.' The comedian picked up on this and said 'Oh thats a shame', to which he then, shaking with pride for himself shouted 'Cheer me up!' I've never seen anyone so happy that they'd had the courage to do something so meaningless before, but there was something oddly warming about this odd man finally doing what he'd wanted to all night, even if it was completely the wrong thing to do. Although those heckles weren't exactly malicious. As he shouted the second line, the staff swooped in on him and he immediately went all shy, apologised and made himself sit outside to calm down. It was a beautifully pathetic display, but there is part of me that hopes he felt fulfilled with his efforts.


I watched the trailer for the new Clash of the Titans film yesterday afternoon. This is a film I was tentatively looking forward to, as I loved the original where plasticine monsters fought each other with a venom that I can only imagine is replicated at a Morph family do. It was a classic Greek legend and its pretty hard to completely mess up a tale that's been loved by everyone for so so many years, because its already imbedded in a lot of people's heads as a brilliant myth. In the same way that if Parkinson killed someone in road rage, he'd probably get away with it, just for his sheer status as a much loved sage type of our times. I mean, even the person's family would probably forgive him a bit, especially if he interviewed them about how they felt. He's oddly calming like that. But it appears that they have screwed up Clash of the Titans already. It doesn't appear to be the CGI, even though I was sure that couldn't beat a play-do cyclops. Nor is it a ruined storyline or wooden acting. I expected both of those. Its almost criteria for allowing the film to be made. No, instead its that the tagline is this:

Clash of the Titans. Titans Will Clash.

Really? Is that really the best you could come up with? The film is steeped in mythology and magic and yet the only slogan that could be made involves slightly mixing two of the words around? I can only imagine it was done on a Friday afternoon when everyone really wanted to leave the office. It was probably the 8th or 9th attempt after getting stuck on 'I'll Clash your Titan', 'Titan your Clashes', 'Clash Bang Wallop, Titan' and 'There's some Titans and what they do is Clash a bit'. All hopes of this film have now been completely dashed. If the slogan's that unoriginal I can only wonder what the dialogue in the film is like. 'Where are you going Perseus?' 'I'm going to go Clash with some Titans' etc etc. Perhaps this, and the 'Shit Scared Film of The Decade' quote for Descent 2 (see here: http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/10/hallow-to-you.html) signals the end of effort in film marketing. It won't be long before we see 'Man will Iron', 'Stories about Toys' or 'The Wild Things Are Where? Where Are Those Wild Things?'


Two more lovely shows last night. The charity gig was an absolute delight with 400 very lovely audience members, and it was run by very lovely people for a good cause. Only thing I couldn't figure out was that considering it was for the Centre of Health and Wellbeing, they handed me a bottle of whisky to say thanks. Surely that's counterproductive? Although to be fair if I drink enough I will feel pretty happy. At least for a while. After my last show at the Stand I headed over to Jongleurs to watch Carey Marx, who had a great set. We stuck around for a drink afterwards and stared at people dancing. It was a bit like a car crash, if the airbags had been filled with make up and the passengers had continued to judder and shake once they'd been freed from the vehicles. I would have been disturbed by it, but I'd already witnessed the non-heckler so I felt I had run out of pity. Still they all seemed to be having fun and thats what matters isn't it? Especially when you compare it to me going back to my hotel room and pouring 8 of the coffee creamers into a cup to try and have a drink of milk with a shortbread biscuit. I feel I achieved a new low there and then.


Also, it was World Diabetes Day yesterday. Hope you all celebrated me and others. But not by baking a cake. That would have been insensitive.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

CHiPS

Last day in Edinburgh today and I only have to achieve the simple aim of not eating chips. That's my main target, as last night, I again fell foul to the 2am chips and cheese danger mix. Its some sort of subconscious need that after a really good gig, I have to ruin it all by slowly destroying my heart by ever increasing cholesterol levels. The entire day pre-gig was fairly healthy, with the possible exception of a gingerbread latte, which for a diabetic like me, is almost some sort of milky sugar time bomb. Essentially just that and the chips are enough to ensure I die in my 40s. So today I will try and be healthy. A bit. Apart from the beers. I find it difficult to be healthy in Edinburgh. Not because there isn't enough healthy food around, but more because unhealthy food tastes pretty good up here. I can only assume that for locals, due to all the hill walking they need the unhealthy food to keep their protein and fat levels up or they'd just fade away. Maybe when the trams are finally built they will slowly phase all out chippery as it won't be needed. The city operates on some sort of man made ecosystem. Maybe.


Got two gigs to do tonight. First is some charity gig. It sounds like it'll be fun but I haven't got a clue what charity its for and I could end up doing entirely the wrong material for the gig. For example if its an animal care charity and I do all my material about that time I punched a cow, or something similar. Not that this is likely, but you can't be too sure. I think I'll go in all guns a blazing, criticise every possible ailment and then no one will feel left out. Apparently the gig is being filmed and shown to NHS patients to cheer them up, which is nice. They do say laughter is the best medicine, but if you have swine flu its probably not. Or in fact most injuries. Especially broken ribs. If you have broken ribs then laughter is pretty shitty. Even when I have a really blocked nose I hate laughing. I'd prefer some lemsip. Whoever invented that phrase was clearly not ill at the time and full of lies. Then after that its back to the Stand, which I have decided is one of the best gigs ever. Last night was unnecessarily lovely and I'm sure tonight will be the same.


Only a brief blog today as I really have little to say. I think this is the chips poisoning my brain. Today I will eat only oats and fruit like a demented horse. I don't think horses actually eat fruit to be honest. I mean, how on earth would they peel a banana? Or an orange? Oh god I need to stop writing.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Fear of the Anonymous

Forgive my paranoia but I have a small level of fear thanks to the comments posted on my Blogger page for yesterdays blog. The two comments left by Anonymous, who I assume is a Greek philosopher and the first sounds terrifyingly like they might be out to assassinate me on Saturday, and the second is the worst review I had in Edinburgh two years ago, with a link to the only bad review I got this year. It could be of course, that the first comment is lovely and sincere but I'm choosing to make my life more exciting than that and have hidden in my room with a view of the city, occasionally glancing out from the side of the window incase a laser sight appears. It doesn't help that I'm staying in a hotel that used to be called the "Police Club' and was primarily where members of the force used to stay, which means my room is probably full of bugs and taps and I don't mean beetles and the ones in the sink. I'd be quite upset if the room was full of beetles. I'd probably be also quite disturbed if there were taps on all the walls, floor and ceiling. It would be like if Escher had focused on the plumbing aspects of building works. Luckily it has neither of those things and is just a lovely place to stay, even if the woman at the reception had crossed out my surname thinking it was gobbledegook. Unless she didn't want anyone knowing I was staying here? Curiouser and curiouser? Although that wouldn't explain all the backtracking she did when I re-wrote my name in capitals just to emphasise it was really my name. She then tried to sympathise by telling me how annoying it is when people call her Susan instead of Sue. I decided to just nod and agree rather than try and go into all six billion ways as to why thats not the same as deciding my surname sounds like jibberish. Either way I need to stop typing about this as I've realised I've given away where I'm staying and now the Greek philosopher will be able to hunt me down even more easily. It is Friday the 13th today. These sort of things may happen.


I bloody love the Stand in Edinburgh. It really is one of the best gigs ever ever. It has all the things you want a club to have: great room, great staff, lovely punters and beer. That's it really. You don't need a lot else. I mean obviously, a mic, lights and some comedians do help, but it has all those so they're really doing very well. Last night's show was a delight. The crowd were slightly judgemental at the top but then warmed up very quickly after someone exclaimed 'yes, yes, I like that' after one of my gags. I assume it was about my gag and not some sort of foreplay that was happening at the back. I love heckles like that. Not malicious in anyway, but oddly nice and demeaning all at once. That person has told me that they liked that gag, but also, perhaps unintentionally stated that they may not have liked any of them before that. See, I'm so being paranoid today? Its because I've had far too much time to myself. That's the sort of things that happen. Things like going out this morning to get a coffee and instead returning with a DVD of Spiderman and his Amazing Friends. Things like completely forgetting that my body doesn't agree with 'sauce' and getting a large chips and cheese covered in the stuff last night. I have since realised why, when said in a Scottish accent, it sounds like 'SOS', because it is clearly a cry for help. If it was that sort of blog, I'd describe how it exits in the same form as it goes in, but I wouldn't want to turn this into some sort of puerile rant about poo. Yeah I just typed what I said I wasn't going to type, and then made you think I hadn't done it. I will go and high five myself in a childish celebration of my own trickery.


Not much else to tell today except that on the train up yesterday a man got on the train at Newcastle in just a tshirt and with no bag, jacket or jumper. Now everyone that boarded from all the stops London to Newcastle were all wearing winter clothes, and in Edinburgh everyone is wearing winter clothes despite it actually being really lovely sunny weather. I am worried about this as I hope all the locals don't start to dry out. I may have to go round spraying them with rain water to keep them alive like beached whales. Anyway, I am led to believe that there really is some sort of special weather resilience that lies just around that region of the country. These are the sort of people that we should send to the Arctic for research. They wouldn't need half the supplies anyone else would and can just parade around in pants next to all the penguins. Or polar bears. Which ever one it is that lives in the Arctic bit. Think its the polar bears, only on account I've never seen a penguin eat an arctic roll. I've never seen a polar bear eat one either, but you can imagine it cant you? Oh god I need some real people to converse with.


I've spent too long near the window now. I'm going to hide in the cupboard just in case.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Trains are great. Cars are dicks.

Todays blog is from a train. This is brilliant because of lots of reasons. 1) Because its like an action blog. Normally I write in the comfort of somewhere nice and you know that apart from one of my cats trying to eat my socks I am generally left undisturbed to mind spew some typings for ya'll. However, in this rogue train environment who knows what could happen? I mean, right now, a man who was sitting next to me just got up and went elsewhere. Who know why? Perhaps it was my odor? Or the slight nudging I was giving him with my elbow? Maybe even the fact that I was doing little coughs with very unsubtle shouts of 'fuck I wish this guy would just piss off so I get my own little section of seats instead of cramping myself against some dickwad.' The error in the last section is that it was pretty impossible to cover up all of that in a single cough. Anyway, he has now gone and the seat will be empty until York. I will use this time until then to stare at the seat with different levels of distaste so that when the unwitting seat passenger arrives they will feel uneasy but won't really know why. That'll teach them for buying a seat next to me. Lots of other things could happen on this train. At the moment on the tannoy, a man is describing a large number of sandwiches, all of which sound disgusting and will be overpriced. And then just as I typed that, I nearly knocked my laptop off the little seat table because its ridiculously undersized and made at an angle that means to watch or see anything I have to hold my neck in a way that it will cramp and I'll look like I'm pretending to be sympathic but I'm actually being hugely condescending. See? Trains are fun. I'm going to continue writing this blog in real time so you can feel like you're right here with me. Not next to me though, that would make me angry and I'd type about you like you had a lot of things wrong with your face.


Reason numero duo) Its not a car. I know this is obvious by the fact that lots of other people are on it, it looks like a train and more importantly no one is letting me drive. Right now though, I'm pretty happy because as of yesterday I've decided I hate cars. Not the Pixar film, even though it was one of their weaker efforts. Just all the others ones. With their stupid wheels and engine and stupidness. Don't worry, I will give reason. I'm not just being unnecessarily harsh to them. And in terms of reason its not because one killed my parents when I was just a boy and now I seek revenge by dressing up as a scrapyard car crusher and roam the streets looking for justice/ illegally parked vehicles. Nor is it because I suffer from some sort of car based phobia, because I don't. If however, a car snuck up on me in a dark alley, I would be pretty scared. Mainly because cars cant sneak or fit in alleys. This would mean it was likely to be an evil transformer. So no to all of those things. I hate cars because yesterday I spent over 7 hours in them. This would not be unusual if it wasn't for the fact that over 4 of those were spent completely motionless due to the shitty car I described in yesterday's blog, completely breaking down. Thats right, after my poor efforts at clutch control were scorned by Layla, it turns out the reason such things happened, where because the clutch properly broke. I don't understand car things as I have previously stated in my blogs, or blogated if you will but basically it all stopped going brruuum brrrrummm and instead did a kind of grrrrrrrr and then lurched forward and stopped moving and one of the pedals, the most lefty one - thats in terms of spacing not political standings - didn't work. This all conveniently happened just as I'd turned in to get some petrol 15 minutes into my journey and so the car, knowing full well I was not a fan of its work, got me stuck right in the entrance of Shell Services Holloway Road, thus making 4 other cars beep at me. A nice man in a truck thing helped me push it to the side and then ....


REALTIME UPDATE - I had a 17 minute snooze then woke up, eat a yoghurt and now the train is delayed by 15 minutes. Thats the last time I eat a yoghurt on the train. I bet it was the few bits of non-friendly bacteria that did it just to annoy the friendly bits.


...I got stuck there for four hours waiting for the repair van to tow the car away. Four hours. Sitting in a car in a petrol station fifteen minutes into my journey. I'd aimed to set off at 1.30 to see my friend Louise in Canterbury before my gig and instead my day was spent with the Shell Services staff who I could now probably consider as chums. I saw them several times, popping in and out for a coffee, to use the loo and once to buy a single Kit Kat chunky. Although the latter point was when I felt they jeapordised what relationship we had by telling me it was three for £1 and therefore either insinuating that I was the sort of fatty that would eat three in one go or that they wanted me to have a diabetic attack. Either way I decided that what could have been a beautiful friendship was over and I hid in the car for hours and hours. There's not a lot to do in a car thats not moving. I often wonder how dogs cope. I think thats why, sometimes, they just die in the back seat. People say its the heat, but I'd say think again Buster, its probably also to do with sheer shutdown of the brain out of nothing else to do. I listened to some podcasts, phoned some people and kept staring out of the window expectantly, like a child waiting for Santa Claus, if that child lived in a cold shit broken car and Santa was a grubby man with a tow truck and some rather odd beliefs about meteorological catastrophes. Yes when the man finally arrived, like a really really late saviour, he started to tell me long tales about the coming apocalypse in 2012 and how the new film thats coming out is all about truth. As though my day hadn't been pointless and wasted enough. I've now got less than three years before the whole world explodes into flames and tidal waves and probably monsters, and I spent one whole day sitting in a car being angry at a clutch. I mean, to be fair, he wasn't the most reliable of sources to believe in. He insisted that the Mayan calendar is the one the Jewish people use. I didn't have the heart to tell him how massively wrong he was. He'd saved me from living in the petrol station courtyard for the rest of my life hoping that one day the Arts Council would just pay for me to be a piece of installation art. Eventually I made it to the gig at 9pm after having left my flat at 1.30pm in the afternoon. Then also the gig was not great. Not mega shit, but not brilliant in any way. I would say that is the day was a large cup of crapuchino, then the gig was a little bit of shit cream on the top. Not the most offending part of it all but definitely a contributer to my thoughts when returning home, that perhaps a meteor strike would be partly welcomed. As long as it feel right on shit car and some of the inhabitants of Canterbury.


Some good points that made things better:

- My friend Lou had made me an amazing spicy carrot soup and brought it to the gig with some bread and everything in a little Tupperware like a domestic goddess. I sat at the back slurping like a homeless man eating his first good meal in ages. Thats merely one of the many reasons Lou is awesome. Then when I got home Layla had also made an amazing veggie soup. Double soup day. Take that shit car!


- The day is now over and unless some terrible situation with a Groudhog or time rift occurs, it won't happen again. Those are really the only good things that happened. And now, as I've previously established, I'm trainwards. A man has just walked past me and so then has another man who has a coffee. See its all crazy here? I bet you wish you were having a training day too.