The Morrisons Effect

Its a day off today and I'm so excited about it that I've managed to get to nearly 2pm having completely wasted it so far. This is not fair. Time is not allowed to fly by if I am not having fun. There are rules that should be in place. So far my day has consisted of having some sleep, then going to our local angry Morrisons to once again wonder why on earth I go to our local angry Morrisons. I have written about it in far too many of my blogs, but sadly its a regular occurrence. I suppose its because I hope that one day it won't be overcrowded with morons who think nothing of barging you out of the way, till staff who glance at the queue stretching to back of the shop and decide that instead of working more efficiently, will chat to their friend on the other till, and odd people. There were lots of the last one today including an obscenely obese man who kept standing slightly too close to me while I was looking at vegetable stock. I began to get worried he was wondering what I'd be like in a broth. Then there was a woman in a bright red jacket, white jeans, had her hair in pig tails and thick rimmed black glasses, chomping on a sausage roll like the world was about to end. She appeared to be the bastard child of Sue Pollard and Ivy the Terrible and she would stand in the middle of the cheese aisle causing everyone to swerve around her while she stared at them gormlessly. Twat.


Still, now having endured all that, my day suddenly feels better. Its like Morrisons is there to provide the low that will mean whatever else happens, today will be pretty good. Even if I was to fall down the steps to my flat and break both my legs, at least I wouldn't be stranded in the frozens section next to a man who smells of wee while a lady who looks like she's made of teabags shouts at her child for existing. For that I am grateful. Its been a pretty good week overall, with a really great gig at the Komedia last night, so I wouldn't want to just glide throw today feeling ungrateful for having a day off. No, that would be snobbish. So thank you Morrisons Holloway Road for giving me some perspective on things.


Last night was particularly brilliant. It was one of those where you worry that you will jinx it by saying so, as though mentioning just how lovely the crowd are will cause someone to instantly redress the balance and ruin it all. But it just wasn't the case. The front row consisted of such interesting people as a lady that does recruitment for nuclear power plants and a professional window cleaner, which was much fun to banter about. But more than that, they just seemed up for really enjoying a night of comedy. I wanted to someone capture them all, feed them into the next update of MS Office and hand them round as a template to other audiences. 'Here you go, that's how you should all be.' I'm not sure how a crowd becomes like that but I might make it my mission to travel around the world, barefoot like Cain from Kung Fu, searching for the key to making a group of people operate as one lovely unit of good audience (that's an official measurement). Then I wondered if perhaps they were all brainwashed. Or the Borg. Maybe I've mistakenly enjoyed something that was caused by government experimentation causing none of them ever to think individually again? Well if thats the case, then keep experimenting government, you're doing very well.


Not really sure what I'm talking about anymore, so I shall go and eat my veggie bacon sandwich and think about how much I'm not in Morrisons. Yey!

Sign Of God

This is the current advert outside the loony church round the corner from me. Much as there is large part of me that likes to find huge holes in a fraudulent cult corporation masquerading as a religion, they do seem to dangle the bait out there like they want passers by to mock. I haven't a lot to say about their current offering, but it must be said that signs from God have really gone downhill in the last few years. Back in the day it used to be anything from stigmata to statues of Mary crying blood. Previous to that of course were various miracles and various personal appearances from God himself for example telling Noah to build an ark. I'm not sure what's happened but to downgrade to a level that feels like someone with simple skills on powerpoint could knock up something a bit better, does feel like God probably doesn't care that much. I suppose a true believer would say that God doesn't need elaborate signs with lights on and dancing bears to prove a point and we can look at that bit of definitive religious history that is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to see the point proven perfectly with the Holy Grail scene. But I still think he needs to do better than a step up from a primark tshirt with a similar design simply saying 'love machine' at the top. I fully expect the next sign to say 'I found God and all I got was this lousy tshirt'.

Here was the last time I ranted about such things: http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/09/god-bothered.html


I am still very very tired. This tiredness has not been helped at all by getting home near 3am and waking up this morning at 8am to co-run a Comedy 4 Kids workshop, where it was proved once again that no matter how hard I work on a joke, or how clever I may think it is, it will never be as funny as twelve 7-13 year olds chasing each other round a room to the Yakkety Sax music. Then tonight I'm doing the late show at the Brighton Komedia so I have a small gap around nowish to grab a nap and that is exactly what I'll do to stop my brain from completely giving in to the point where I'll walk on stage, open my mouth and only the Apple shut down noise will happen before I keel over. I'd really hope someone unplugged me too or they'd be needlessly wasting energy. So nap is what will happen. Yey for naps. Everyone loves naps. That's why people got so upset when Napster started stealing naps over the internet all for free. Metallica particularly got upset as they are a bunch of guys who really like their naps and it all got taken to court and now Napster legally sells small amounts of sleep all across the world. I'm fairly sure that's what happened.


There's a lot more say, including last night's show being unexpectedly lovely despite our dressing room being in a toilet and Tenbury Wells being further away than anything else ever, but I'm ending this blog now. I would ask you to make up the rest of it yourselves, but last time I did that only 3 of you bothered, even though I said there was a prize and everything. So this time, just do something else. Like make coleslaw. Everyone loves coleslaw. Personally, its my favourite type of law. So two final things as my eyes are doing that weird thing when you see black dots in the corners of your vision, like you're being stalked by angry polka.

Thing 1: My twitter gag is featured in the new Guardian online @gnews140 hosted by Ariane Sherine. Have a look: http://is.gd/9eryC

Thing 2: I think its great Will Smith is taking on such controversial roles: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8538410.stm


Fin. (Dorsal if you're curious)

Caffeine Hated

I'm really tired. Proper stupid tired. As a result over the last day or so I have pumped levels of caffeine into my body that were someone to lick me, they'd probably buzz for a few hours before crashing. This is not good, as obviously caffeine makes you more tired in the long run, meaning you need even more caffeine. It is like the heroin of beverage ingredients. Except that I can drive and gig on caffeine. Saying that, have never taken heroin, I feel like I am making unjust assumptions about my super cool ability to do things while of my face. Oh dear, I had to retype that sentence three times. I'm starting to wonder if that last coffee proves me wrong. Thing is, I haven't had a lot of sleep. Lots of late late night gigs followed by early mornings, and as a result I'm a slightly cheery zombie, which means I'm not managing to do anything well. Except drink coffee. If only I could get paid to do such a thing. I envy the career of Anthony Head. And maths teachers. All my maths teachers smelt badly of coffee. And cigarettes. And despair.


Today's morning was spent doing a casting with Tom Craine. It was something that we'd both really like to get, but ultimately, after today, we're fairly sure we won't. We spent time yesterday having fun preparing for it, which is not normally something either of us do, but all preparation was dismissed in the actual arena of the casting studio and we're both fairly sure the woman doing it didn't like us very much. Not a lot you can do in these sorts of situations. All casting directors know what they like and more often than not, its not me. Its a shame, but her dislike appeared evident in the lack of laughter and her prompting for us to move on instead of doing our usual waffling. It was a job that I think I would have genuinely enjoyed getting too, and mostly involved getting paid to watch movies and talk about them. I'm good at that. Generally, I will go and do that for free. Not that I'd say that to them, just incase they'd realised they'd missed a trick. Ultimately after today I've realised I could quite happily live a life of drinking coffee and watching films for money. Sure I'd get the shakes, sure I'd have a warped sense of reality, but the former might help me lose weight and the latter is nothing new. Starbucks, get sponsoring Odeon and give me a call.


Further long distance driving tonight and early mornings tomorrow and then another late night. I need to master the art of napping midday time. This however is impossible with all the coffee. So the only way to combat the tiredness from not having a midday nap due to coffee, is more coffee. I fear that I may never sleep again. Shall have to fill the time watching films. I tell you, they've properly missed a trick.

Comedy Hero

It became quite clear, fairly quickly last night, that I am properly shit at Beatles Rock Band. Or Lego Rock Band. Or probably any Rock Band of any sort. I have complained about this before (see HERE) and very little has changed since then, except that as well as trying to understand how to press red, blue, blue, red, green and yellow, blue, green or whatever for 'Here Comes The Sun' on the guitar, I also hugely failed on the bass, the drums and the vocals. Yes even the vocals. But 'Douieb', you cry, 'you clearly have the warbling tones of a lark at sunrise? How can this be?' Well firstly, please stop crying. All you ever do is cry when you ask me questions on this blog and I often wonder if you have some sort of behavioral problem. Unless you stop crying, I will refer you. Or perhaps you are standing face on into some strong winds? In which case, why not go stand behind a wall? Well done. And in answer to your question, singing is something I'd like to think I can do. What the main problem was, that I didn't know as many lyrics to things as I really thought I did. For example, The Two Princes track, I had it down when it was doing the 'di di doo do doo do doo doo doo doo doo' bit, but as soon as it said anything else, I lost all hope, fumbling through the words like an unwilling drunk groom at a wedding ceremony. With the drums the main problem was that I just don't have any kind of decent hand to eye coordination and just thrashed around smacking anything that resembled a drum pad in the hope my timing would coincidentally be somewhere close that of the track we were playing. If we were the Beatles last night then I was definitely the one that was made to leave way early on and they made a film about but to be honest, no one cared.


Here's the thing though. I really feel like I should be decent at these sorts of games. I am not a man without rhythm. Back in the day (excuse me while I have a Werthers original) I used to do breakdancing classes (stop laughing) and got pretty damn good at busting a move. Shit yeah. Sure I can't do any of it now, for fear I will actually break something, but the sense of rhythm is still there and whenever I am alone in a hotel room I spend at least 30 minutes practicing some body popping and general 6 stepping. See, I even know the terms. I am a B-Boy sitting in my retired B-Boy stance. So this should mean that if I can move in rhythm I can play rockband drums in rhythm? No apparently not. And I can definitely sing a bit. I am king of my shower, and the car. In both circumstances I can belt out a tune like Sinatra on red bull. Infact, once again back in the day, I was in a few musicals at school and at actual theatre type things, and I sung some of my own songs. Yeah, that day back then was pretty chokka full of interesting things.


Sadly however, it is forward in this day, and I fear pretty much all of those talents died the day I realised beer was a closer friend that I ever knew, that I have some sort of symbiotic bond with a sofa, and my discovery that late night service stations only sell food of the devil. I like the devil's food. This equals bad things. So, all I can do is sit in hope that they make a Comedy Hero for the Xbox 360. You could belt out a routine of your favourite comedian, timing the 'errs' and 'jams' correctly as Izzard, or having to wipe your brow consistently as Lee Evans. There could be various special controllers: a wireless feather duster for Dodd, a pint glass for Al Murray or a drink driving fine for Jim Davidson. Certain people would be impossible such as Ross Noble, or Andy Kaufman, the latter of whom you can only clock the game if you leave your flat entirely and take your controller for cookies and milk unexpectedly. Personally I think its a winner. Although the only draw back will be that as I don't do stand-up like any of them, I'll probably be really shit at that game as well.


Still, it was bloody lovely to see real friends last night. Its been far too long since I've seen Mat, Sam and Stef and no doubt it will be stupidly long again. It was joked that such things are my fault due to my silly social hours. Some insults were thrown about and it was laughed at but they were mostly right. The next few nights include the sort of driving you would get given as a punishment in the Dante's 9th circle of Hell - the one for people who've been a bit naughty but not enough to get a pitchfork in the eye. Tonight, I'm back to Kings Lynn and its bumpy roads. Strap yourself in peoples, or you genuinely might get thrown out of the windscreen on the way there.

You're Hot

Just did an interview thingy on Sunshine Radio. I'm aware how dubious that radio station name is - you know along the lines of special bus etc - but its local radio for Herefordshire, Worcestershire and other places that end in The Shire, like Middle Earth. Maybe that's why they had me on. Actually its because of a gig I'm doing on Friday in Tenbury Wells which all sounds rather fun, so I had to do the promotion things of sounding a bit funny despite only having one cup of tea, feeling rather sleepy and not yet having a clue where Tenbury Wells is. Thus commenced a few minutes of blaggery. It didn't help that the phone line was terrible so I could barely hear the DJ and just said yes to everything. I have no idea what I agreed to but the DJ was called Daz so let's hope his tagline isn't that he's 'whiter than white' and I've just joined a nationalist party by accident. Unfortunately today's radio japes weren't conducted purely in my pants like my last radio interview. Today I am fully dressed which feels like I've somewhat ruining a radio opportunity. I should've put my dressing gown on or wore a sock on my head or something just so I'm was doing it properly.


Last night's FT was much fun. It was the first one we hadn't sold out since at least a year ago, but the 50+ audience more than made up for it by being really lovely. So lovely infact that the only heckle I got all night was when I asked if the audience was too hot (as the heating system can be rather erratic) and a women shouted back 'You're too hot!' This, I must admit, is my favourite sort of heckling. Its rare that people shout out complimentary things, as much is the nature of shouting something out, its usually said in a loud and brash manner because its intended to offend. However, on occasion someone will defy expectation and tell you you're funny (always useful, as being a professional comedian it is these drunk people's assurance that keeps us going. Not), or as is sometimes the case, something more interesting. Amongst my favourites were this one:

http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/03/leeds-part-3-i-am-teddy-ruxpin.html

But I must admit, I rather like 'you're hot' as well. I only hope it was said with sincerity and not that they thought I was on fire or perhaps had a temperature due to man flu.


A much needed night off tonight which shall be spent with some real friends playing Beatles Rock Band and maybe having beer. I say maybe, as it appears that, myself included, everyone is drinking a bit less. I have a feeling the night will also not go past midnight, there may be talk about bills or mortgages and at some point we will all sigh in realisation how old we have got. I endevour to avoid this happening by constantly bringing up subjects that we spoke about as teenagers. I'll every now and then shout things like 'boobs are brilliant', 'Streetfighter' and 'A Levels are soooo hard'. I think that's all teen conversations covered. I have also bagsied that I'm not Ringo. Lets hope all things go to plan.

To Work or Not To Work But Think About Work? What A Long Question

I'm doing work today. Yes work. I was meant to be doing work yesterday but my brain completely gave in and decided that it had done enough work for a few days and after several hours of just starting aimlessly at my computer, struggling to even resend a tweet about a big dog that people were excited about, I instead sat on the sofa and played Xbox. Sadly this wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped, as every second spent killing people in medieval Italy was overshadowed by thinking of all the work I should be doing and just how big that dog was and that I should probably tell people about it. If there's anything worse than doing work, its not doing it, but thinking about how much you aren't doing it to the point where you aren't enjoying anything else you're doing. Its like having a little angel and demon on your shoulder but both have put aside their heavenly and hell(ly?) differences to high five, team up and both shout at you about the same things. I think days off are underrated. I am currently craving a couple of days off that do not require me to do work of any kind. However what will happen is that these days off will occur, they'll go on for too long and suddenly I'll be broke and wanting to work. Essentially people, I am a hard to please fickle man.


It was a somewhat joy then that last night's gig was cancelled. The venue was quite possibly one of the coolest places I've ever been, styled in a 1930s caberet bar design, with red velvet curtains, dinner tables and the sort of decor that felt wrong without men in trilbys discussing who was 'gonna git it' next sitting there and flipping coins. It was one of those sorts of places that made me wish I lived in the 30s. Then I thought about the how badly they treated diabetes then, the lack of the internet and the fact that I'd probably have to go to war at some point soon. I'm glad I don't live in the 30s. So great venue, great line-up of acts, but with only six people, who originally were a party of 10 but four cancelled, the executive decision was made that I could go home. So only 20 minutes later I was back on my sofa, slippers on, watching Glee and drinking whisky. Yes whisky. Occasionally I seem to think I'd quite like a glass of the stuff to relax me. There are three rather nice bottles of it in our kitchen and all have remained virtually untouched. This is because when I have one glass of whisky, I remember why I don't drink it very often, the heartburn kicks in, my mouth tastes like wrong, and I return the bottle back to the cupboard to sit for four months till I forget about the experience and try again. Stupid whisky.


So to make up for yesterday's lack of doing anything today is for writing and then Fat Tuesday tonight, which so far, is the first one that hasn't sold out since last Sept. I'm a bit sad about this as headlining is Dan Antopolski who is a man that never fails to make me laugh. It will be excellent. Should you want to come along then tickets are here:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/65635


Now to work. Or at least think about work and why I'm not doing it. Sigh.

Not Fine Speeding

A few things for today:


Not Fine Speeding

I just filled out a form admitting to a speeding fine, despite the fact that Layla had already filled one out that I had signed too saying I was guilty of wanting to go somewhere quicker than I should. They obviously got that reply and deemed it perfectly fine to kill another tree (or perhaps another bit of the same one) and send me out exactly the same letter addressed to me. If they are able to fine me for going slightly too fast on a bit of road where you can normally go that fast, then I should be able to fine them for time wasting. I'm normally pretty good at not speeding. Or you can read that as, 'pretty good at speeding but then slowing down for the cameras'. Even when I do go over the limit though, its not normally by that much and its usually only when roads are very empty and I'm on my way home from a gig. I think that instead of fining me and giving me points that most certainly don't mean prizes they should give me a little test to see just how good at driving I am and then evaluate if I should be able to go faster at 2am on an empty road. I reckon I'd pass pretty damn well, yessir. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing worse than some gimp weaving in and out of all three lanes at 120mph with no concern for anyone else but I'm fairly sure I can go at 80mph instead of 70mph in a desolate slow lane without harming anyone except the odd road kill. Even then, I would probably swerve for anything larger than a rabbit. Stupid rabbits.

I'm so totally aware its all my fault. £60 on stupidity. Ouch. Damn the law. I can't wait for flying cars.


Karma Hits Me In The Face With A Shitty Stick

My hunt for sponsorship has been completely fruitless so far, until out of the blue last week, I received an email that seemed like the greatest offer ever. I was being offered a very large sum of money to be the face of a food product and all it would entail were some video blogs for their website and some corporate gigs. They seen my work online, really loved it and was pretty certain I was perfect for the job. Sounds amazing huh? That would be Edinburgh and some of my life completely sorted. I read the email, did a small dance mostly involving making the noise 'yeah yeah yeah yeah' to a two step beat and shimmying around the living room, and replied. What could possibly go wrong I hear you ask. Surely you've got it all sewn up like someone who's had an accident involving their arse and sewing machine? Well, once again the deity Sod dangled the carrot of hope infront of me, only to remove it sharply and replace it with a hand grenade that when explodes covers me in the dung of several dying elephants. The product was for a meat snack. I have been a vegetarian since birth. I would have to eat the snack. The company said this meant I wasn't suitable. Of all the products, in all the world, why did this one have to be made of the one substance that is my culinary kryptonite? Damn you Sod. You win again. Never ever have I wanted to be veggie less. I'm going to go kick a quorn burger over the fence as revenge.


Leicester Comedy Festival Preview

So last night's preview was interesting. There's definitely a show there but at the moment it needs a serious amount of work and a lot more gags added. To be fair, the audience was only 5 people and two of those had to be there as part of the LCF. Oh yeah, I'm that famous in Leicester, the crowds they do swarm. So whilst they were lovely, I probably couldn't gauge it as well as I'd hoped. Its not easy to get a good reaction from a crowd that feels as awkward about being there as you do. This then caused me to speed up, not read all my notes properly and generally not enjoy it very much. Still Layla said it went well (although she may be a tad biased) and I felt pleased that I did about 50 mins straightaway with a definite structure of what the show's about. This all feels a bit less difficult than last year which may be a frighteningly cocky view of it all. Oddly I have the beginning and end sorted and its the middle that's a mess, which is different to last year's struggle with an ending.

Next preview show is Glasgow on March 13th (ticket link on the front of my webpage) and I will try and squeeze in a London preview soon after that. This is, of course, if I'm actually going to Edinburgh. Better start eating meat snacks.

Belfast Exit

I'm on a proper computer - wahey! - in Belfast's George Best airport, where ironically I'm sure the man that checked my passport was drunk. Maybe that's part of the criteria? He looked at me, and looked back at the passport about 4 times before burping under his breath, looking confused and waving me on. No need to worry about the safety of this airport then. My flight leaves in just over an hour, so thankfully I have a little time to warble properly on this here bloggery. I've had loads and loads to say over the last couple of days and technology has continuously failed me. As I write this, the screen keeps freezing and its telling me that 'Saving and publishing may fail' so I won't hold my breath. Especially as I'm not underwater. Holding my breath would just hinder things and make me feel sleepy. So here's some things:

Belfast

Last night, before I went on stage, the compere stated that the 'next act is English'. We had discussed this before hand and felt it was better he say it than I announce it when I get there. We were both wrong and as soon as it was mentioned there was a very audible boo. It's times like this I'm really pleased I'm only an teeny bit actually English. Not that I explained that to the crowd. They could hear a London accent so I just had to soldier on. Soldier probably isn't a very tactful term to use there. No its because I bloody hate that when the English took part in 800 years of making Ireland and Northern Ireland miserable places to be in, they didn't, at any point, consider this may not help any stand-up comedians who would be performing in Belfast in the future. Narrow minded I think you'll agree. Had they known that any gigs would be audibly different, I doubt they'd have put an artificial divide between the two places at all. Possibly. Anyway the gig turned out ok, or actually, sort of ok, in that it was much like any other Saturday night gig where they were very chatty and very drunk but at the end they gave me a really lovely round of applause and I snuck out the back incase it wasn't insincere. Thanks stupid English ancestors that are pretty much only on my mum's side. Next time I'm here I will be sure to prepare some specific gags about it all. Or not.


Ryanair

I'm not going to do down the usual route of slagging off Ryanair without good reason. They are the butt of many jokes and I would hope that someone such as myself can avoid the whole 'oh you have to pay for everything blah blah blah' bollocks. In fact I was hoping to avoid talking about them at all during my stay here, but as I await boarding another one of their 'so-called flights' (they are flights, that's why they are so called) I shudder at the thought that when we land in Stansted that they will play the little fanfare they played when we arrived here, to announce that they'd arrived on time. Seriously. You know we live in a society of pessimism when a company applauds itself for doing something that should be considered standard. Landing on time doesn't deserve a fanfare. You can't literally blow your own trumpet unless you do something exceptional, such as drop me off at home on the way or somehow travel so fast we go back in time. Unless, Ryanair, you manage either of these, no fanfare for you. Otherwise I would suggest more things have trumpety celebrations for similarly mediocre things. Perhaps everytime I hit the brakes on my car and they work I should get a little parp from a orchestral horn section. Although actually I suppose that would seem oddly appropriate to anyone driving a Toyota Prius.

Leicester Comedy Festival

I've got my show there tonight and I'm really not sure what it'll be like. I've spent a lot of time writing it this week and there are definitely chunks of good gags I'm proud of in there and definitely chunks of, er, nothingness. I mean, there are words but whether or not they'll be funny or like the most self indulgent lecture you've ever heard, I don't know. I had a brief venture outside yesterday before confining myself like a very comfortable version of Misery, to my hotel room to write and write and write and occasionally try and moonwalk infront of the hotel mirrior, and write and watch some telly, and write and look out the window and mutter comments on the people that pass by such as 'hat dickhead' (he was wearing a hat), 'basket twat' (she was carrying a basket), and write. I was always under the impression that without the internet I wouldn't procrastinate much, but it was proved yesterday by my use of various parts of my hotel room to keep myself busy from being busy. It turns out the bed was good for jumping on, the chair for standing on and I'm still not sure why there is a chair in the shower, but sitting down and washing has really made me feel like I'm downgrading when I have to go back to standing up. So we'll see what tonight's like. So far only three tickets have been sold so it could just be hugely awkward. Even if all the tickets sold, it could be hugely awkward. Or it could be the first performance of the best show ever. I'm hedging bets on awkward.

Only 4 mins left so just to say that I was really really saddened to hear about the death of Jason Wood yesterday. I had only gigged with him a few weeks back and while I didn't know or work with him as much as a lot of other comics, I would say that he was one of the nicest people on the circuit and a very talented man too. Condolences to all his family and friends. A true loss, especially for someone so young. Not good. I went to bed feeling all a bit sad after reading it on the Twitter.

Right must leave before this computer kicks me off in a violent 'as though the Matrix was a pay-as-you-go whore' type way. Farewell Belfast! Here leaves this English man.

Skellingtons

How exciting that Britain won the gold at the skeleton event last night in the Winter Olympics. I honestly thought I wouldn't have cared but last night as I tuned in from my hotel room I became hooked on watching these women throw themselves headfirst down an icy chasm of death. I can't even begin to work out how you get into that, how you practice, and more importantly, where the skill is involved. I'm assuming it all starts with a misplaced skateboard at the top of some stairs and when it comes down to it, it's all how aerodynamic/slippy you are. Possibly. Either way Amy Williams is the bestest skeleton, so well done and take that Skeletor.

Today's blog is also on my iPhone, however I've worked out a way so that it doesn't get erased. This doesn't mean that I won't get RSI in my forefinger so there will be a point where I just give up for fear of constantly pointing at this unwittingly for the rest of my life. So far Belfast has been alright. The hotel, when I finally checked in, is nice and I'm pretty much intending on staying here all day like a recluse and writing my show for tomorrow. Boring you might think, but i've been to Belfast loads and it's bloody cold outside so hiding indoors is the best bet to avoid hypothermia. The only way I might leave is if someone offers me a lift to Giant's Causeway as I've never been there. Although being my diminutive height I'm terrified of giants so might be best I stay away.  

I realised last night how being here makes me horribly aware of being English. I'm pretty sure no one else really cares but as I stood on stage I kept being horribly aware of using the term 'Britain' or doing any of my religious stuff as I couldn't remember which was celebrated by Prods and which by Catholics, and who would care about what as I certainly don't understand any of it. That's Prods as in Protestants by the way, not the pokey/pushy action that I will be good at when I finish typing this due to my RSI finger of doom. It was only a third full, audience wise, last night and tonight is sold out so will try and be a bit more ballsy. Prepare for news reports of a man doing a home made skeleton over the Belfast quays in order to escape a rampaging horde.

Choose Your Own Blog

It's times like this I think I only write this blog daily to hinder my life possibly becoming easier. Today, among 6 billion other shit things, I've spent two hours sitting in a foyer, spent thirty minutes in an airport security queue behind a moron who didn't realise creams were a liquid' and I've tried to write this blog 6 times with my phone erasing it each and every time I get over a paragraph. So I'm afraid blog readers Belfast has said no to my full on witterings today. If ican find a suitable Internet recepticle tomorrow I'll do a double blog. Till then choose your own 'Tiernan in Belfast Adventures' and feel free to write them below. Best one wins one of the CDs I'm giving away free at my gig on Sunday.

Pump Action

I've been jogging today. I know. I know. What a dick. It wasn't even my idea but I said I would do it as Layla finally got her new bike the other day and she wanted me to come with her to the park to give it a whirl. Of course you can't just walk alongside a bike so I threw my jogging bottoms on and went along. Why I even own jogging bottoms is a complete mystery to me. I've worn them before, yes, but I don't think jogging of any sort has ever occurred while they've been in my possession. Actually that's a lie. Perhaps once or twice, sitting on the sofa, whilst wearing them, it has jogged my memory that I want more ice-cream, or I have accidentally jogged the controller so its fallen off the sofa arm and I have to wheeze in order to bend down and pick it up. But no actual exercise based jogging. It wasn't all that bad in the end. The rain wasn't ideal but by being annoyed with the rain I managed to forget how annoyed I was with my legs and general poor state of health and eventually we were home and I wasn't dead. Once again, I beat death. Except it appears to have crept back up and killed my legs a few hours after and I am confined to my chair by the computer as if I try and move I'll clearly fall over. My knees, or as I've recently decided to refer to them, my Liam Kneesons, have seized up, and my thighs feel like a large man has repeatedly slapped them with very cold hands. Don't ask me how I know what that feels like.


Its good though, as after yesterday's hospital visit, it turns out that once again, what I need, is some exercise and healthy living. Since Christmas I have planned to do this, but much like the best laid plans of mice and men, I havent done any of them, much in the same way you don't see mice on a treadmill or men eating cheese. Ok you do see the latter. I'm not really sure why I said the 'best laid plans of mice or men'. I couldn't think of any other types of plans. Surely men's 'plans' are not 'best laid' ones but the 'best ways to get laid'. I think they left those words out to help the mice. Anyway, apart from the 'you should stop being fat' talk, my hospital visit was quite exciting as I tried using a diabetic pump. Well not all of it, but the bit that really worried me.


I've been told time and time again by various fellow diabeticals that the insulin pump is six shades of awesome, but I haven't been able to get over the fact that a little machine is attached to you at all times. People have said it doesn't hurt or you don't notice it, but that's also what they say when my dentist cracks a tooth out and my face hurts for days. So I can't trust those sorts of lies. Yesterday, however, I braved trying it. They used a little device and stuck a tiny needle thing in my stomach and attached it with a sticky thing and I didn't feel it whatsoever. Well, at least not until they tried to pull the sticky thing off all the muppet hair on my belly and it felt like my soul was being torn off. Such is the problem of being a tiny hairy hobbit man. So now I'm going through all the processes to hopefully get a super cool bluetooth things that will send signals all over me and sort out diabetes things. I reckon I feel all confident about it now and its only a matter of time before I get bionic legs and eyes and can do a Steve Austin and look at people and go 'waa waa waa waa'. Thats the noise of my eye, not the noise I would make. That'd be lame. I can't imagine the NHS do bionic eyes yet, but I'm sure they will soon. Turns out my its just my dentist I shouldn't trust.

RATM At 'Em

I've been up since 9am trying to get free tickets for the Rage Against the Machine gig in June. I expected to be stuck in an online queuing system for several hours constantly, and perhaps ironically, getting more and more angry with my machine until smashing my laptop with various bits of hard things out of frustration. Maybe, I was suspecting, this was all Rage's evil luddite plan so that everyone would break their computer and avoid the gaze of big brother* and the nanny state. Not sure why big brother and the nanny state have homosexuals that look at you through the computer, but they do. Arf. Did you see what I did there? Did you? Anyway, it turns out, I got 3 tickets in about 6 minutes of refreshing the page. Far too easy. I can't help but wonder if there is some sort of catch. Maybe we will all only be allowed to hear one song, or perhaps that Rage won't turn up at all as we all know they don't do what we tell them. Who knows? Either way, I'm seriously excited. Now I only have to see Tom Waits, the Wu-Tang Clan (original line-up), Jeff Buckley and Jimi Hendrix and that'll be my tick list of gigs sorted. Seeing as the last few are dead (not all the Wu-Tang are dead, just one, unless you think Ghostface has an actual Ghost-Face. But he doesn't. So if you think that you're an idiot) I'll just hope Tom Waits gigs in the UK soon, or they invent time machines.

Some other things:

Pancakes - I had 4 pancakes yesterday. I wish more days were pancake days. Realistically, there is nothing stopping me having a pancake day everyday if I wanted to. Infact what I might do is have a pancake day every day except pancake day. Hows that for being ultra cool and rebelling against the norm? Hows that for getting really fat and malnourished? High fives!


Brits - I didn't see much of the Brits at all. I know it will make me angry, and knowing Peter Kay was hosting was just more red rags waivered in a stupid bull's face. I decided that as much as I like to slag these things off on Twitter, that I would avoid the whole ordeal. The one bit I did see was Lady Gaga being dressed like a fluffy cornetto in a mask. I would like to see bets taken on what she will wear next to ensure she looks like she's properly batshit crazy and should be admitted. Its only a matter of time before the wigs wear out and she's wearing y-fronts with a cycling helmet and has one tit out. That day everyone will realise they shouldn't have given her all the awards at all, that its not all a clever fashion marketing strategy and that her name is more appropriate than we thought.


Sponsorship - I received a few negative sponsorship responses from people this morning, three of which stated the reason they couldn't sponsor comedy is because its the World Cup this year and that's their priority. Oh yeah, I forgot footballers needed more money. I forgot that its entirely justifiable that everytime they kick a ball a big corporation needs to whack another few grand their way to ensure that they don't run out of caviar and starve when they leave the pitch. Got to remember what's important people. Lets all release a band aid song so when not playing games our footballers can keep spit roasting teenagers and each others girlfriends as an example to the kids.


Hospital check up today, where I will get there in time for my appointment only to find that part of the appointment is an allowance of two hours to sit in a grey room with ill people staring at the wall so that your will is completely broken by the time you see the doctor and just nod as they prescribe you drugs to make your skin green and your eyes bleed. Cynical? Not at all.

Not Snowboard

I generally, as rule, hate sports. I don't really like any of them on account of the fact they take up time watching them that I could be using doing other useful stuff. What other useful stuff you ask? Well, er, all sorts. From walking around kicking my feet to sitting around kicking my feet. Stuff like that. Useful stuff. With most games I find it irritates me that they never end. Yeah your team or player wins the cup, but give it 8 months and they have to start playing for the cup again. Why doesn't it ever end? Just have (and I've said this over and over again) one big match and that's it. Properly play for everything and then if you win, you've won forever. Consequently, if you lose, you are the biggest loser for infinity, and then we'll suddenly start seeing people play for their £88k a week salaries and training instead of shagging each other's girlfriends. But as with all rules, I have discovered an exception. This rule, by the way annoys me, as if there is an exception to every rule, what is the exception to the rule that 'there is an exception to every rule'? Or is that the rule the exception by not having an exception? Ow my brain.


Anyway, last night upon returning home from Old Rope (where incidentally my new material worked. The new material I wrote while not using Twitter or Facebook all day. Whats the message? Hmm?) I turned on the telly to find the Men's Snowboard Cross race at the Winter Olympics and I was hooked. So much speed, danger and hair raising overtaking, it is quite possibly the best sport I've ever seen. I found myself sitting, glued to the screen making sounds like 'ooh' and 'argh' and other things you say when you are witnessing someone about to crash their face into an icy wall at extreme speeds. I was completely gripped watching all the qualifiers, quarter finals, semi-finals and then the brilliant final where one person dropped in a spinning messy fashion, then 2nd place overtook 1st at the last minute as though he was in a computer game and someone had pressed the 'A' button for a boost. Amazing. Then was the luge, the Winter Olympics version of firing someone blindly out of a cannon. They say there is skill involved but I really can't see how. I suppose maybe there is skill in having blind faith about shooting down an icy tunnel of sheer death at fast speeds on a metal wagon of doom. There was a rather tragic luge event last week where a Georgian competitor did actually die. Hearing about this, I realised, that as sad as that was, the element of possibly dying is exactly what makes the Winter Olympics so much more fun than the summer ones.


Admittedly, not all of the Winter Olympics. Curling for example is stupidly dull. However, they should replace the curling stone with a bomb that goes off if it slows down. That would be gripping and added to the possibility of losing fingers and limbs from a speeding ice skate, the Winter Olympics are hella dangerous. I think this is an element we need to add to the normal ones, and suddenly we'd all care about 2012. Hurdles with spikes on? Yes please. Javelins in the shape of boomerangs? Let's go. Alternatively, as I mentioned on Twitter last night, maybe we should just do all the summer events in the snow and ice. I like the idea at the London ones that someone has to luge down the side of the gherkin building. Or maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't like sport at all, and everyone should stay safe. Yawn. That's what I say to that. More Cross Snowboarders please!


Its Pancake Day today which makes me all a bit excited. Pancake Day usually collides with a Fat Tuesday Comedy Club, which while it has the essentially the same name, does not include pancakes. It did once, when myself and Andre Vincent dared each other to each them until one had a diabetic coma. Instead we just both felt a bit sick. Today however, no gig, so I am going to indulge in pancake mania. Savoury ones, sweet ones, medicinal ones, ones with worms in. Ok not the last two, but I ran out of ideas. Like in the olden days I will use up all the stuff in our cupboards before tomorrow. We don't have any flour so they will have to be made with sweetcorn and jam. I might just go buy flour. Then lent tomorrow, which is a week where I won't nag anyone to give me back stuff they've borrowed. That's how it works right?


Right must get tossing. Today I am a tosser, you are a tosser, everyone's a tosser. Hooray for pancakes.

3 Daaaammmnnnn Biatch

I quite liked Avatar. I wasn't entirely sure I would but it contained all the things I like in films: guns, robots, dragons, arrows, fighting, boobs and blue people. Essentially with this criteria there are very few films that have really fulfilled 'ideal film' status for me since the Smurf Special in 1987 and that was banned due to the bit with a half naked Smurfette with guns killing robots. I'm not going to talk about Avatar because you've seen it. Everyone ever has seen it now I think and me and Layla were definitely last to see it ever. Sure the cinema was full, but they'd all probably seen it six times and we were definitely definitely the last people to catch it. If by some chance you haven't seen it yet, then you are even more uncool than us. But just incase here's my quick synopsis of what happens: Big blue dudes good. They sex with wormy hair. Human dudes bad. They go inside transformers. Arrows in face. Dead.


Hope that helps. Avatar was also the first film I've seen in 3D. Well not the first film. I got to see that weird Michael Jackson one at the Epcot centre in Disneyworld when I was about 8, but trust me, Jacko reaching out to touch you is terrifying enough that you will remove the glasses several times during the course of the film. There is also a bit with clowns that made most of the kids in there cry with fear. Disney! When will you learn clowns are created by adding evil to face paint? So with all that in mind, last night was the first one, and definitely the first one with this new 'Real 3D' stylee. I can't help but feel 'Real 3D' is the sort of title that mean its purposefully curling one out over all the previous red eye/blue eye technology. Sure it looked like one half of your face had taken drugs while the other side had died, but it started it all and I think this new one should pay some sort of homage. Perhaps it should be renamed '3D Jr', or, and admittedly unrelated, I prefer '3Daaaamnnnn Biatch!' I realise that as little relevance to anything, but I just want to hear people saying that when they ask for tickets to 3D films.


I like 3D, thats what I decided. Before last night I totally couldn't work out what bits of shots were in front of other bits of shots and I truly believed that outside of the shot of say, someone's torso, their legs existed. But now, with 3D, as that torso zooms out towards you, you know they didn't have any legs at all. I would like more films in 3D now, but there must be some rules. For example if like they did with blu-ray, they start 3Ding old films then nothing with Barbara Streisand in please, or that nose will scare people and nothing like Boogie Nights for obvious reasons. I'm hoping that the next step after 3D has got to be things actually coming out of the screens and interacting with you like a less shit Last Action Hero. We can only hope for dinosaurs to jump out and eat some irritating teenage kids who insist on talking all the way through or perhaps for anyone from a Richard Curtis to slowly walk through the audience allowing us to slap them a lot for reading such smultzy lines. Yes, smultzy is a word, as of now. You contest? Well, what do you think it means? Yep. It means that. I win. Its a word.


In other news: I bought some jeans yesterday. As my life gets ever closer to middle age, I tend to buy all my jeans from Gap to symbolise just how dull and boring my existance is. These new jeans are of exactly the same shape and size as all my other Gap jeans, so I didn't bother trying them on. Why would I? Instead I bypassed the woman on the till who could only say the words 'thankyyyeeeewwww' a lot in a voice that would have irritated Joey Lauren Adams (look her up, hear her voice, understand), and took them home. And guess what? They don't fit. Well fuck you Gap. I relied on you for steadfastness and you've mocked me. You're perhaps thinking that maybe my waist has got bigger? Well actually, its still exactly the same tubby shape with no change whatsoever. This means Gap has changed and as far as I'm concerned this is war. Maybe next time I go in I'll change all their receipt paper size. See how they like it. Or swap all their coat hangers for toothpicks. Yeah, how'd you like that? Or I might just take them back and get one size up. Sigh.

Valentiernan's Day

So its the day of Rome Ants, the biggest ants in Italy and to celebrate just how big Rome Ants are, everyone gets sexy. That's right, its Valentine's Day or as I aim to rename it, Valentiernan's Day. What that will entail is everyone giving me endless love all day on the 14th until we all decide its got too messy and we'll stop and have a wash. Layla isn't too keen on this idea at all. But she can shush cos I've been all Rome Antic and done the flowers and breakfast thing like a good boyfriend today. I still don't think that flowers are a great symbol of love. For a start they die after a few days, or at least they do when I look after them. And the only similarities between roses and a relationship that I can see are that they're bloody expensive and are thorny if you touch the wrong bits. I was trying to persuade Layla that I get her something that symbolises our relationship's durability, how it will last forever and we'll always carry each other ie a plastic bag. She wasn't too pleased with that either.


To be fair, we can't really be bothered with Valentine's because we do lovely things all year round. I often think that those who go all out today probably can't be bothered doing things the rest of the year and spend their time punching women and farting in front of children (or something like that. Both of those seem pretty unromantic if you ask me). I read the other day that Valentine's Day all comes from the pagan festival of Lupercalia which celebrated the god Pan, who was the god of kitchen utensils and that shitty South American pipe music you hear in hotel foyers. During this celebration the men would run around slapping the women in the village with goat's flesh. Some of it had to come from really gruff goats, just incase the men had to slap any real trolls. Sexy stuff huh? Then they'd all put the ladies' names in a hat and whoever they drew out they'd spend the rest of the year shagging. In villages where there were more men than women, some of the men had to spend 365 days doing a 'Tootsy'. Then the Christians came along, and ruined it all so that it became Valentine's Day and somehow out with the goat's meat and sex and in with the sort of teddy bears that could make Vin Diesel puke, and cards that have messages that show things like a picture of a sheep saying ' Ewe are my Valentine' but actually carry the message that you think you're loved one looks like a farm animal. I say lets all be romantic all year round and then on Valentine's Day, we should be the opposite of romantic, like eat something from a bin and call your partner a dickwad, or something like that. Yeah, take that Christians/moonpig.com!


To rebel against such things, our romantic day today is going to be spent mostly in pajamas, eating things and then later going to the cinema to finally see Avatar. Yes, neither of us have seen it yet. If it turns out to be a whole film about the little picture people use to symbolise them in a geek forums, I'll be gutted. Or about the special tar that Ava Vidal uses to cover roads, then I'll be annoyed too.

Hope you all have lovely sexy times. I'm off to be a proper Casanova and eat two pan au chocolat's at once before drinking more tea. That's what the ladies love, yes indeedy.

A Couple O' Things

Gotta do shout words at brats again today, ahem, sorry, I mean do Comedy 4 Kids, so today's blog is gonna be pretty tiny. Fire those bullet points cos here we go:

EDINBURGH SHOW - I've finally started writing this and feel all a bit excited about it. Everytime I get too excited I remember that I probably can't afford to go unless someone or some business gives me some money. This is still a shame as I reckon this show should be alright. Some words I've written in notes include: mugtree, Prague lady, 'Do you believe in magic?', infinity infinities, and ninjitsu. Make of those what you will. At the moment it feels all a bit more personal than last year, whilst also being more accessible. What that actually means is that I've written less of it than I'd like to and by May it'll change completely. Either way them folks next week in Leicester will be getting something entirely new. It won't necessarily be good, but it will be new. It'll probably be like when someone slightly changes the flavour of your favourite fizzy drink and you get excited to try it, but ultimately it tastes even more artificial and you can't stop burping and feeling sick. Whoop!

FALAFELS - I bloody love falafels and last night I had the best falafels I've ever had. I felt the need to tell you this.

FT 5TH BIRTHDAY SPECIAL - Its taken a while to feel like our charity birthday special on March 9th might be good, but suddenly, in the last week or so, it seems to have developed into being what may be the most awesomest FT ever. Yesterday I received an email from someone I was a bit tentative to email because they have been involved in most of my favourite comedy shows from the last 15 years. I can't say who it is, but they emailed me back, said yes and then said funny things. They did also call me Tom, which was a slight let down. But overall, I'm pretty excited as they now join several other brilliant lovely comedians who are doing the bill. Now all I need is to not be a gibbering fool when I actually meet them.

COURTNEY LOVE - Last night, seeing her on Jonathan Ross, screaming down the mic like a drunken harpy from hell who'd been swallowing glass, I once again felt it sad that Kurt Cobain didn't have a massive twitch that caused his arm to move suddenly as he'd pulled the trigger, shooting her in the face.

DREAMS - I've explained before that I think dreams are bollocks and I'm not going to read into this at all. I'll merely tell you my dream last night because it was actually entertaining. I dreampt that me, Layla and her friend Helen were in deepest darkest Wales, and I was doing a show with Cheryl Cole. She was headlining but got very nervous so I gave her confidence tips. She appreciated this and hired me as her confidence coach. Layla didn't mind, but then got annoyed that Cheryl kept calling her April. Oh and her stand-up was shite. But she did smell very nice. See? Dreams mean fuck all.

CORRESPONDANCE - Sometimes, on rare occasion people comment on this blog. I like this. I like getting comments as it proves someone is actually reading this bullshit. My blog from February the 10th received a comment that I'd like to respond to. Here it is:

Anonymous said...
My brother-in-law has a girlfriend called Layla. I'm wondering if it is the same girl ...?


Dear Anonymous, of course it is the same girl. Don't you realise that there is only one Layla in the entire world and we have to share her between us? What kind of idiot are you to not know that?*


* please note, if your brother in law is called Tiernan Douieb, and your sister is called Layla, then you are an idiot, and write things in a very strange way. Saying that, I know all of Layla's brothers and they can all write properly, so I can only assume you are a bigger idiot. Thanks for your comments though! Much appreciated.


Right, that's all. I have no new material for the kids today, so I might just see how many I can set fire to before someone gets upset. I reckon 6 if I'm carefully selective.

Endless Possibilities

Last night I made the stupid choice of watching this week's Horizon program before going to bed thanks to a tweet from Dan Atkinson (@DanAtkinson). There should be a small warning on such things stating that if you are 'of a large imagination but a small brain in terms of science understanding, then please refrain from watching'. If you haven't seen it, head to the iplayer now, as its worth a peek. Its all about infinity. I thought I knew about infinity haven't spent most of my youth retorting to petty insults with it as a back. 'Your mum' was deflected with 'your mum times infinity'. It was used so often that passers by of Stroud Green Junior School at break time would have been forgiven for thinking that there was a playground full of highly qualified mathematicians who'd just shrunk a bit and swallowed a lot of helium. Of course if you were the sort of person to decide this after hearing some school kids shout poor insults, then its clear you are not the sort of person who should be judging who is likely to be a mathematician as I would presume you would probably find it difficult counting all your own fingers.


It turns out I knew nothing about infinity. The show explained how infinity warps laws of addition and multiplication, but changes laws of subtraction in a hugely different way. I can't tell you how as I tried to make sense of it and brain threatened to have an aneurism there and then but its something to do with a hotel that a beardy professor went in. Then there was the revelation that there are infinity infinities and that some infinities are bigger than others and infact they are infinitely bigger than others, all of which is very exciting and yet terrifyingly unimaginable as well. It is one of those things that when you try and think about it you just end up looking at yourself feeling hugely insignificant. I remembered one of my favourite moments of the Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy trilogy (in five parts) where Zaphod Beeblebrox is put in the Total Perspective Vortex, which shows him in relation to the entire universe, a device that is meant to completely destroy someone's soul through making them feel so tiny on the scale of things, and yet Zaphod walks out feeling quite good about himself. I tried to use the fact that ants are even smaller than me, so they must feel super shit about things, as would starlings and germs. That made me feel slightly better. Its clearly an arrogant thing to do as ants aren't really clever enough to say, 'well at least we're bigger than atoms' and swap the whole perspective thing so it works for them.


The whole show was pretty great, and not just because Stephen Berkoff tried his very best to make everything seem as weird and as sinister as possible by growling in over dramatic tones in a black and white style that made it seem like another chapter from The Seventh Seal that was missing from the original. But my favourite bit was, not surprisingly the bit with monkeys and typewriters, but the knowledge that if the univese is infinite that there are infinite versions of us out there, some doing the opposite of us, some doing exactly the same, but altogether there are other Earths with other exact copies of us on them. That is so hugely insane and yet due to the infinite possibilities, hugely probable as well. I went to bed but stayed awake for hours thinking of all the other Tiernan's out there. The ones who didn't have beards, the ones with bigger beards, the ones who stayed in a day job, the ones who'd written their Edinburgh shows by now, the ones who were definitely bitten by radioactive spiders and became superheros. All of them. There must be loads and yet we'll never meet. Which is a real shame because imagine if we all hung out and made an army of Tiernans. Of course the infinite possibilities would mean there would be some Tiernan's I didn't like and that would be bad. They would probably pronounce their name Tee-nan and really like reality television. I'm pleased that infinity is pretty far away. Buzz Lightyear didn't really have a clue, especially as its impossible to get beyond infinity, because beyond infinity is infinity. Stupid fucking toy.


Today is Darwin Day and I can't help but think that in alternate universes Darwin didn't discover evolution, or discovered devolution, or he was discovered by a monkey or he discovered the missing link first but didn't realise he was missing until he got lost in the supermarket. So so many possibilities. And its all because of evolution and progress that we can begin to think about these things. I would say thanks to Darwin and all the clever mathematician's for this but I'll be honest, its pretty much ruined my day as that's all I'll be thinking about for a while. Of course, there are other Tiernan's out there who won't be thinking about it, or enjoy thinking about it or can't even spell infinity. Arggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (and so on, ad infinitum).

Arse Gerbils

Listen right, my brain hurts so you are going to get very little from me today. Its all self inflicted, well to an extent anyway. I definitely had some booze last night, so that much is my fault. However I don't think I had enough booze to condone how shit I feel at the moment so I don't think its all my fault. Its partly my body's fault for not being able to handle it. Stupid body. The more astute of you may say 'but you are your body and therefore that bit is still your fault'. To that I would say 'poo off you bunch of wisearse bumheads'. Yes. That's how I deal with you sort of people. I'm hungover, I'm allowed to say 'bumheads'. The other bit of blame goes to a lager called Sierra Nevada that always seems to hurt me. Its named after a mountain range and I daresay if I drank a mountain range I would get a similar sort of head pain. Yes, again you might say 'but you chose to drink that so its still your fault' and to you I would say 'see what I said a few sentences back, it still applies but now only twice as much'.


I don't regret it at all as I very much felt like drinking after another very fun London Comedy Improv night. I have decided I like doing it a lot and its still a really nice change from the stand-up. For a start you work in a team, so if I hugely screw something up and don't do it very well, then everyone take the blame whether they like it or not. Also, its so nice to just be able to do pretty much anything with any of the scenes. And if what you've done doesn't really work then everyone takes the blame as you're all part of a team. Essentially what I'm saying is that I really enjoy working with professionals who can work around me messing up. The audience were lovely, but the last time I did it was when the entry was free over Xmas and so the venue was completely rammed. It was a shame not as many people turned up last night when they had to pay. I can only conclude that everyone is who didn't turn up is a terrible cheapskate. Its a seriously good night, so you should totally join the Facebook fan page or @LondonImprov on Twitter and find out when the next one is. Last night included, among other things: a four headed expert on punk rock pottery; Rufus Hound singing a song about how his dad keeps gerbils in his arse; a rave in a condemned cell and the return of Jesus. That's what you missed you did.


Tonight I am at the lovely Hecklers in Aldershot which should be fun if my brain ever decides to stop pounding. Till then I am going to hope my Edinburgh show will write itself by me hiding under some covers and occasionally making the noise 'baaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh'.

Sorry For Today's Blog

Oh dear. I appear to have slept until now. I would say I feel guilty about wasting away half the day but I don't. Ha ha. Take that all you parents who might say such things. 'The Best Part Of The Day Is The Morning'. I reckon whoever invented that phrase either was an insomniac or someone who had to get up early for work. Either way, they were lying and everyone knows it. As far as I'm concerned the morning is a big idiot.


Actually I do feel a bit guilty. The only reason I slept in so late is because after a lovely Fat Tuesday last night I came home and decided to clock Assassin's Creed 2 on the Xbox, which took me till about 3.30am. I'm a fool and any lethargy or lack of writing that happens today is entirely my fault. On the plus side, tonight's gig is with the London Comedy Improv peoples and so there's little I can prepare anyhow. Although I suppose it would help if my brain wasn't sleepy or only thinking about 15th Century Italian assassins.


Oh and I had beer as well. Only one pint, which admittedly has done nothing, but after having not drunk for weeks and weeks, that one beer is evidently in my system. It all felt rather nice, like I had a missing limb reattached, until this morning when I woke up with things in my throat that were of the sort of colours that would alarm the Ghostbusters. I haven't missed drinking these last few weeks. Or at least I though I hadn't. But after that pint last night I realised I really liked the taste of a good pint. Its strange because we all know beer tastes like shit. In fact even if you like the taste but you drink beer when you don't want beer, its clear it tastes like shit. Therefore my theory is that its all about your brain overriding the tastebuds and saying 'hey there, you like that'. I'm assuming that this is all part of the same bit of my brain that has recently made me like blue cheese, herbal tea and porridge. I'm not sure I like that. How do I know it won't progress and insist I like steak or something weird like toenails or soil? What I need to do, is hone this ability so soon I can be chomping down on bicycle parts and light bulbs like that French dude who used to do that. That would be amazing, though I do worry about the digestion process of all that and without meaning to be to crude, how it leaves the system without cutting things.


Little else to say today. I discovered I had a new blog reader in the form of the lovely and funny Tom Davis, who was on at Fat Tuesday last night. While I get quite excited to find people read this, I can't help but apologise for entries like this. I do feel sorry for anyone who trundles through this expecting it to be even midly amusing at any point only to discover it doesn't and that's part of their life that they'll never get back. And you won't either. I'd very much like it if timewasting things came with coupons at the end that you could cash in somewhere and get that amount of time back. I would gather up all my bank queues, traffic times, and anytime I've accidentally caught any of Loose Women on TV and cash it all in to get a year back. Then with that extra year I'd go round doing more time wasting things to build up and further supply of coupons eventually repeating the process till I have lots of years and yet still seem to be fundamentally bored because I have no friends from all the timewasting.

Oh god I need to stop writing today. Its like someone's vommed on the keyboard and the vom is typing. Once again, sorry for today.

Large Amounts Of Nothing

I'm not sure if you ever have those moments of sheer self doubt? Those ones where you think 'have I got it all wrong?' This happens to me on a rather regular occurrence. Every time I go round a roundabout for example, I get the extreme fear that perhaps I'm going the wrong way, or maybe I should be waiting for the people on my left rather than my right, or maybe I should be in a car. Today, I've just written a joke with the punchline 'Valentine's Day Moussaka'. I was, at first, hugely proud of this, but now, on second thoughts, I'm concerned about my gag writing ability. I'm here trying to write mind blowing stuff for my show at the LCF in two weeks and in the last two days I've come up with a pun about a conundrum being a type of difficult to play percussion instrument and a play on the word 'massacre' involving a potato dish. What I realised as I was doing this is that nothing particularly exciting happens to me on a day to day basis for me to write anything insightful about it, hence mere punnery. Where are all those strange people that will allow me to make hilarious and clever anecdotes about such things and then reflect on the state of society/environment/wars? Instead these are the few things that I can honestly relay have been remotely interesting since the day of hell yesterday:

Non-Interesting Thing #1:

Last night me and Layla went to the supermarket. This is not the fact, don't worry. My life hasn't got quite that dull yet. If anything, the fact we shop on a Monday or sometimes other week nights, makes us less than dull. It puts us into that special breed of people that are so cool that we are too busy to go on weekends when the general dross of humanity go. Instead, we mosey over on a Monday night, while others are recovering from their first day back at work, and peruse the rather empty aisles without having to bash anyone's trolley or slightly nudge people till we can reach the low fat cheddar. This is what I like to believe anyway.


Normally, shopping on a Monday night means you are in the supermarket with weirdos. Proper lonely weirdos. The sort of people who shop on a Monday hoping no one else will see they've emerged from their den made of sadness and the hope that their facebook friends count as real ones. I have, in the past, been privvy to many a mental at our local Sainsbury's at the beginning of the week: large singing bearded men, shouty angry ladies, one woman who never ever put anything in her trolley but would pick lots of things up, inspect them thoroughly and then put them back. Yesterday however was different. There was a very large amount of elderly Afro-Caribbean ladies in the shop. Not particularly odd you might say, and you'd be right. No, that wasn't the strange bit. What was strange was that they all, individually, seemed only to be buying fizzy drinks and mince meat. Scary huh? What does this mean? I really really don't know and I'm a little scared.


Non-Interesting Thing #2:

This is in fact two non-interesting things about cats. You might actually find them interesting, but I am aware that lots of people talk about cats and 'oh how funny they are' to a sickening level. My problem is, being at home all day, our two cats are often the only living things I see for about 5 hours of my day. So, as a disclaimer to those such as Michael of Legge, who think cats are the children of Satan (this theory may make sense. If they lived in hell they could constantly curl up by the fire) this bit may well be dull.

Firstly, our cat Rosie has decided to take it upon herself to tear the living shit out of every toilet roll we put in the loo. So far she has completely shredded up 4 rolls. I don't know if you've ever tried to use several shreds of toilet roll for, er, toilet things, but let me tell you, its not easy. I can't understand what threat she thinks they pose. It doesn't move, it doesn't hiss or do anything like that, its just bog roll. I can only conclude that she writes secret documents on it, sends them over to cat HQ and then has to shred them when done. Either that or she just really fucking hates the Andrex Puppy.

Secondly, we keep getting cat visitors. I have mentioned this before, but since then the front cover of the cat flap has fallen off and other cats seem to think this is an invitation to just pop in. Three tiny kittens in particular, all of whom are very cute, but also really really ballsy. The small black and white one will happily stroll in, eat all out cats food and then hiss at Rosie and Bella if they try to get upset. I have decided that while its irritating in a way, this tiny ball of fur must be the feline equivalent of Joe Pesci. Why else would our cats be deterred by the sort of hiss you get from a cheap deflating balloon? I would shoo it away but I think my cats needs to man up (even though they are both girls) and deal with Tommy DeKito.


That's it. That's the extent of excitement in the Douieb household. I think I might have to start wandering the land barefoot like Kane from Kung Fu in order to have anything to talk about for my show. Please, if any of you know of anything exciting, or are particularly weird/brilliant/scary then feel free to slightly mess my life up, but in a way that I can easily say is to do with the government's 'nanny state' or something similar. Thanks. God, its like I have to do all the work or something.

Fuck You Monday!

I'm sure this has been brought upon by me constantly referring to how awesome Mondays are ever since I became a full time stand-up, but it appears today has taken that statement and reworked the concept of Mondays so it can fully kick me in the face with a triple punch of misery. They say all bad things happen in threes and so I can only hope that the law of Sod is done with me for one day and I continue with my life without sighing and tutting my way through to tomorrow.

Shit thing 1: Layla has a really bad cough. Its not her fault and there is a large part of my that sympathises with her about this. However, I only got home at 2am last night and at 3am, the coughing fits started. It was a pattern, albeit with irregular pauses, but enough consistancy to make sure neither of use would sleep for some hours. Large cough, large cough. Pause. Small cough, large cough, large cough. Were I not so tired I would have made it into a typical 80s electro beat and get a Danish man to rap over it while a fat woman with a soulful voice tell you that the Rhythm is a Dancer. Instead we both got annoyed with it and I tried to be helpful by making Layla a cup of honey tea, and eventually she chose to sleep in the living room so that only she would stay awake which was lovely and selfless. However, our bedroom is adjacent to the living room and so I could still hear: large cough, large cough. Longer pause. Large cough, large cough. More like a slow samba. POW! Hit of misery 1!


Shit thing 2: After eventually getting some sleep and having a bit of a nice lie in on my first day off in a while, I got up strolled to the kitchen to make my usual first cuppa of the day, only to find a tsumnami of cat sick had covered the floor. There was so much of it I was concerned that either several cats had all joined in on some sort of ancient Roman toga vomiting party or that perhaps one of my cats would now only be an eight of the size it previously was. Either way, it took me at least two hours and some retching before I could even consider breakfast. Thanks pets, thanks. SMACK!

Shit thing 3: The way our flat is designed is that its on the ground floor and has a gate under the arch of the stairs for the flat upstairs, before you can even get to our front door. We also have odd removable bars on the windows, presumably because the previous owners were very paranoid. I've always hailed this as meaning our flat is burglar proof, and more importantly, completely safe should there be a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately - and its a big unfortunately - it means that when I am tired and being a complete fucking idiot and lock myself out, that I am completely without hope of getting back in unless someone brings me spare keys. It also means that I have to maneuver myself in a possibly groin damaging way to climb over the gate infront of our door or remain trapped in a tiny cage until freed. I managed to do this, and upon discovering that my parents were no way able to get me the keys for at least an hour, and realising that Sod had ramped up the 'fuck your day o'meter' by making it snow, I trekked to Layla's school to get her keys. Thank god she only works 4 tube stops away. Thank god I allow her keys to our flat like a modern kinda guy huh? Huh? So finally I'm home and warm, an hour after I left to pop to the bank that's 2 mins walk away. WALLOP!


Its a shame really as today was to be the relaxing climax to a very busy week, finishing with two lovely gigs last night at Sheffield Hallum Unversity and Sheffield University last night. Both were truly ace and my favourite moment was leaving the latter when a group of students pointed and shouted 'there he is' before applauding which was nice. Then to entirely demean that one of the girls shouted 'you heading to Mordor?' This was referencing a hobbit gag from earlier and I must say, I was completely impressed. So today was to be 'at home day' for writing, some tidying up and generally not driving anywhere, but as it seems to have gone I may as well go back to bed, put some sort of circle of brimstone around it and chant incantations till Monday is banished back to whatever hell hole it came from.

As I've been typing this I've been chomping on a spinach pastry that I thought tasted a bit odd. It appears it had mincemeat in it. There goes 29 years of vegetarianism. Fuck you Monday. Fuck you indeed.

PR Hartely

Today is my last day of being really really busy, then tomorrow I have no gigs, but still have to do work, and then I'm busy again. I like telling you I'm busy as it means you probably all go round saying things like 'who's busy? That Tiernan is, he is.' And maybe you'll go round shouting at bees saying ' if you think you're busy, you should see that Timan Doobie'. I am creating an illusion that will hopefully completely cover up the fact that I am spending at least half of today mooching around in a hoodie, eating breakfast. Yes, half a day of breakfast. Some of you might correctly assume that eating breakfast is 'being busy' and I would agree. I am usually unable to do anything else while eating breakfast and that definitely falls under the definition of 'engaged in activity'. You might take this admittance to mean that when I previously stated my level of business that I was merely stating I had been eating breakfast all week. While I would not condone you for thinking such awesome thoughts, as believe me I plan, at some point in my life to have a week long breakfast, its not true.


Nope, I've been all over the bloomin' country this week and inbetween, as well as a few other writing bits, I'm trying to write an entirely new show in time for my slot at the Leicester Comedy Festival in two weeks. Yep two weeks. Seems like a pretty impossible task doesn't it? Not for a Tiernan it isn't. Oh no, hang on, I've got it wrong. Its massively difficult, especially for me. So far the subject matter has changed about 6 times, the current one doesn't have an ending, and most importantly, there are no jokes in it. This might all be hampered by the fact I'm still not sure if I can go to Edinburgh this year. Despite a decent rummage in our garden I have not yet found any buried treasure, and despite not having sent off any sponsorship letters, no one has got back to me about it. Things look rather bleak for finding large wads of cash. What I don't ever get, is that when I'm very busy, I still somehow appear to be poor. Yet I remember in my first job out of uni, the CEO appeared to do fuck all, but was stinking rich. I think I will use this principal to say that doing nothing = rich. After the next few weeks of endless gigging are over, I'm going to put my feet up and watch the moolah roll in I reckon.


And now for a bit of self promotion. I figure if you read this daily dross you might be interested in coming to see me live. Its often better than this blog. For example, I'm actually there, I often say more words than I put in this blog, and I'm only shit 10-15% of the time unlike this blog. In fact, quite often, people ask when I'm gigging near them. I do have all my listings on my website but I understand that you are all as lazy as me. So ignore what I've written about my new show, ahem, and have a look at these rather ace things that are coming up and come along in regional categories:

FOR LONDONERS:

Feb 9th - Fat Tuesday this Tuesday! Its a stupidly awesome line-up and there are still tickets left! Get them here:
FAT TUESDAY FEB 9TH TICKETS
Feb 10th - London Comedy Improv at the Phoenix - its been recommended in Time Out and features yours truly alongside the
excellent Tara Flynn, Rufus Hound and Ewen Macintosh. See here:
LONDON COMEDY IMPROV FAN PAGE
March 9th - There is a Fat Tuesday between this one and the Feb 9th one, but this one is extra special. Its the 5th birthday
charity special with all proceeds going to the Meningitus Trust. So far we have got a pretty special line-up with
more to be confirmed. There will also be party hat, games and cake.
FAT TUESDAY 5TH BIRTHDAY TICKETS

FOR MIDLANDERS:

Feb 21st - Leicester Comedy Festival Solo Show - which I've written and finished. Promise. Ahem. Tickets here:
LEICESTER COMEDY FESTIVAL TICKETS

FOR SCOTCH PEOPLE:

MARCH 13th - Glasgow Comedy Festival Solo Show - by then, it will be 3% more finished than in Leicester. Exciting!
GLASGOW COMEDY FESTIVAL TICKETS

FOR NORTHERN IRISH FOLKS:

FEB 19th and 20th - I'm at the Belfast Laughter Lounge on both nights. Should be ace. Last time I was in Belfast I got
introduced after some anti-English vitriol as being ' a fucker all the way from England'. Fingers crossed
that happens again:
LAUGHTER LOUNGE TICKETS

That's all. IF you're complaining 'cos there's nothing near you, then look at my website gig list at www.tiernandouieb.co.uk where there are loads more gig listed. If you're complaining I am coming near you, then check the dates and go away for the weekend while I'm there.


Tonight Sheffield! And tomorrow the world! Or not. Probably not. I will also not say 'Sheffield: A place where they grow catering experts'. Ok, I might.

Good Moaning

WARNING: This blog is all a bit moany. I apologise about this as I like to think of my blog as a hit of whimsy to start my day, but while some very good things happened yesterday, I feel they would make this blog a lot less exciting than to talk about the couple of rubbish things. I'll give you the good things first in a reverse of the whole bad news, good news thing. I prefer good news first, as it softens the bad news blow. Actually I just prefer good news, then not to hear the bad news and live in a deluded state for weeks. I don't do this, but maybe I should. I might start just watching the news for the 'hilarious' or whimsical item at the end. It will mean that suddenly whilst others are discussing earthquakes and wars, all I will know about is the dog that can play football or something like that. I will be naive, but probably much happier. I will also expect a lot more sports potential from animals.

Good things from yesterday (and a little bit from this morning):

Komedia was superb last night. I know its not for an act to judge an audience, but they really were bloody brilliant. If you were in the crowd last night then please give yourself a big round of applause. It was a lot of fun, with much credit going to the young soldier in the front row who was heading back to Cyprus today. He was very much up for being ribbed and as his girlfriend was a hairdresser I was able to milk the 'Shaving Private Ryan' joke for some time. I've said it before but I do truly think the Komedia is one of the best gigs in the country. Good food, very well run, great crowds. My only issue is I often forget all the staff's names and have to spend the entire night avoiding calling them by first names and just using the terms 'mate' or other generic stuff. Last night was so good that that managed to work and I remembered the two people's names I needed too. Excellent sets too from Simon Evans, Dan Evans and John Fothergil.


Other good bit was that this morning I have booked for me and Layla to go and see Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson's Ghost Stories at the Lyric Hammersmith in March. I'm so very excited about this and yet also so very petrified. I'm a big wuss when it comes to scary stuff, having been permanently scarred by Ghost Watch and I still get momentary fear flashbacks from seeing the Witching Hour in Edinburgh a few years ago. During the latter there was a point where I screamed like a girl and then jumped into my friend Ali's lap. I'm taking Layla with me to Ghost Stories not just because it'll be a nice night out, but more because I will need to grip her arm so tightly I cut off the blood flow and help clear up after my bowels give in through fright.

Thats the good things. Not very interesting for anyone was it? No, not really. Well in which case, here's the bad stuff, but first something merely mediocre to start you off:

Mediocre thing: I saw the one with no characteristics from Girls Aloud open the New Look store on Oxford Street yesterday. I wasn't intentionally there, but whilst walking along Oxford Street to the tube, I was suddenly blocked by a large amount of people taking pics on their camera phones and whooping, to the extent where I was forced in the road to walk round them and nearly got hit by a bus. Being ever nosey I tried to see what was going on and it was the Girls Aloud member that isnt racist, dead looking, Irish or a massive slapper. Her speech about the store just involved saying 'great' and 'shoes' a lot, much like a scratched record, or perhaps her earpiece was faulty and the instructions weren't getting through. Anyway, the idiots seemed pleased with this, the police seemed annoyed and I didn't like nearly getting hit by a bus.


Not good things: I'll be honest these aren't that bad. First thing was that I found out a gig I did last year at a rather big club received the notes 'not very good, wait at least 8 months before booking him again'. This made me rather sad as whilst I am fully happy to admit when I've died on my arse or had a shit time, I had really enjoyed that gig. It was a quiet, half full audience and the first act (who's now very well known) didn't have a great gig at all. When I went on I had quite a lot of fun and they let me overrun because it was going well. So to then find out that one person didn't like it and that means I can't play there again for ages, is a tad disheartening. See? Moan moan moan. There are certain gigs I've always struggled to get into and whilst some of them I'm quite happy to not bother with, others it feels like no matter what I do, the club owners or bookers just don't like me. This I suppose is the very nature of comedy. Hence why I prefer nurture.


The other not good thing and actually not good thing is that I did the stupid thing of googling myself last night before I went to bed and found an entire article in a local newspaper that had taken quotes from my blog as though I'd had an interview with them. The quotes were all about a gig in a rival town and how I hadn't enjoyed it. I won't post the link as I don't want it getting any more publicity than it already has but the 'reporter' (I have put quotation marks in to annoy all those people that put 'comedian' when trying to be mean. Its a wonderfully petty tactic) had made it look like I had enjoyed being vitriolic to him and now consequently I'm rather worried that the gig in question will be upset by this. The journalist had no right to take my blog comments in such a way and I've no gone back and removed part of the blog in question. I always assume that my blog is only read by people who want to read it and therefore I can freely spout whatever I like in the knowledge that most people accept it as general and often exaggerated ramblings. But instead over the last few years I've had large amounts of abuse from Orlando Bloom fans (who were upset at a comment I made about him during the Edinburgh Festival 2008), seriously nasty abuse from people's who's night I ruined by not connecting with their friend's fist as he tried to hit me, someone who remembered a bad gig from 2007 and decided I needed to know he still hated me, and now this. I think that from now on I'll have to very careful what I mention on this blog. Instead I'll save all the juicy stuff for my Edinburgh show where I can publicly slag these people off. Hee hee hee.


To finish, this is my new favourite track of the moment. Very pleased Massive Attack are back to their awesome best. Its also a Saturday so it feels somewhat appropriate:

Bowing Down

I've left myself 6 minutes to write today's blog. I'll admit, this isn't really enough times to do a lot of things. For example, you need longer to cook a pie, watch a 30 minute program, scale a mountain or boil 3 eggs in succession. Thwo eggs yes, but not three. Unless you put all four in the same pot. But I said 'in succession' so you can't. So ultimately this'll be a short one.


Last night's gig, supporting the One Man LOTR show was good fun, made better by a 13 year old complimenting me on my German pronunciation and someone at the back correcting my Shakespeare quote. In fact I really enjoyed the whole 30 min set, until I was about to leave and I gave a really half hearted bow, followed by walking halfway off and giving another half hearted bow that was not dissimilar to a pigeon having an involuntary jerk. That's body movement, not some really nerdy bloke that's just hanging round pigeons. I'm not sure about the whole bowing thing. Some acts do it very well and I fully like the idea of receiving your applause instead of just running away like you can't wait to leave. The latter is nearly always true but its nice not to let people know that.


My bowing really lacks something. I think its that I never like the idea of doing a full bow, that's sort of theatrey and not what I feel is appropriate. So instead I do a sort of half bow. I'm never really sure if anyone realises its a bow or that I've just slightly tripped over my own shoe. Sometimes I'm tempted to curtsie but I think it'll only be funny to me. Instead I think as comedians we should have a finale that singles us out from actors and musicians. Maybe we wave one foot in the air, or wave our arms in circles. Actually, more appropriately, I think we should just not bow and run away like we really want to go home. At least its honest.


Time's up. In Brighton tonight at the Komedia, which is one of my favourite gigs ever ever. Hope it doesn't go so well I have to bow at the end.

Lost The Plot

Today's blog will be a short scene. Sometimes I get all dramatical on yo asses and today I'd like to share a piece with you that I like to call: How The Writers and Producers of Lost Made Season 6.

SCENE 1. INT. LOST IDEAS ROOM

THE WRITERS AND PRODUCERS OF LOST ARE SITTING AROUND A TABLE. THE TABLE IS COVERED IN EMPTY BOTTLES OF BOOZE, PACKETS OF CRISPS, POLAROID PICTURES OF FANS, AND ON A BOARD AT THE BACK, THE TIMELINE OF THE SERIES WHICH LOOKS LIKE A CHILD HAS SCRIBBLED ALL OVER IT.

JJ. ABRAHMS

So, Season 6.....

DAMON LINDELOF

Yeah. Phew. Does anyone have a clue how to end it?

THEY ALL LOOK AT EACH OTHER AND EVERYONE SHRUGS

DAMON LINDELOF

No, neither can I. Does anyone actually know what's happened so far?

JEFFREY LIEBER

We've got the timeline....

JJ ABRAHMS

You know, like everyone does, that that timeline was a doodle from your four year son...

JEFFREY LIEBER

He's a great doodler.

EVERYONE NODS IN AGREEMENT. JEFFREY AND DAMON HIGH FIVE.

JJ ABRAHMS

Right so....I reckon we just do it like the other seasons and get even more drunk then write whatever the fuck we like.

DAMON LINDELOF

Thank fuck. I thought you were gonna say we actually had to try and make it make sense.

JJ ABRAHMS

Hahahahhaa you fucking idiot.

EVERYONE LAUGHS BECAUSE JJ LAUGHS AND THAT MEANS THEY'RE ALLOWED TO.

DAMON LINDELOF

Seriously though, the people are expecting some answers.

JJ ABRAHMS

Here's an answer: GET FUCKED. Hahahahah!

EVERYONE LAUGHS AGAIN

JJ ABRAHMS

There aren't any answers Damon. You know that, I know that. There never were and there never will be. How the fuck can we write answers to something that we've made up whilst drunk since 2004?

DAMON LINDELOF

Yeah sorry JJ. I was just playing Devil's Advocate you know.

JJ ABRAHMS

Its cool. Its cool.

THEY MAN HUG.

JEFFREY LIEBER

Ok, so so so, get this, how about they go back in time which is forward in time but they also have a whole different alternate universe so they are in that too.

DAMON LINDELOF

Awesome work. What've you been drinking?

JEFFREY LIEBER

Buckfast. Seriously, do it. It works amazingly.

DAMON GRABS A BOTTLE OF BUCKFAST, DOWNS IT IN ONE. JJ FOLLOWS SUIT.

SCENE 2: INT.LOST IDEAS ROOM. TWO HOURS LATER

EVERYONE IS VISIBLY SLUMPED IN THEIR CHAIR.

JJ ABRAHMS

...an' then schome guys are in a big temple an' shit...

JEFFREY LIEBER

Wheresh the temple come from? Wheresh the people come from?

JJ ABRAHMS

Who gives a fuck? Hahahahahah. An' then the main dude does kung fu and shit...

JEFFERY AND DAMON

Hahahahahaha! Awesome!

JJ ABRAHMS

Jeffrey, Jeff, Jeff, call your son. Ask him for advice.

JEFFREY LIEBER

Yeah yeah good plan. (HE GETS HIS PHONE OUT AND QUICKLY DIALS) Hey Davy, its dad. How you doin? Yeaaah Daddy's been drinking. Hee hee hee. What do you reckon should happen in Lost? ....Yeah. Yeah....Ok...Great. You are great. Love you son. (HE HANGS UP).

DAMON LINDELOF

What'd he say?

JEFFREY LIEBER

Get this. Lockesh actually the smoke monshter but isn't actually Locke 'cos Lockesh still actually dead even though we thought he washn't.

JJ ABRAHMS

I schwear that kids amazing. Right lets get writing.

DAMON LINDELOF

Ritual first?

JJ ABRAHMS

Of course. We gotsta have the ritual first.

THE THREE OF THEM SPREAD ALL THE PICTURES OF THE FANS OUT OF THE TABLE AND TAKE IT IN TURNS TO PULL THEIR TROUSERS DOWN AND SHIT ON THEM. THEY ALL LAUGH WHILE DOING THIS, AND HIGH FIVE SEVERAL TIMES.

ALL IN UNISON

Fuck the fans for they are all dicks!

DAMON LINDELOF

Hey guys!

JJ AND JEFFREY

Yeah?

DAMON LINDELOF

We so gotta end it all as just a dream. That'd really make them mad. Hahahahahah.

THEY ALL LAUGH AND HIGH FIVE.




This blog is based on actual events. I'm sure I will continue to watch this series of Lost, even though I really wish I wasn't. Its just horrible. I can only assume that this is what it feels like to be addicted to cosmetic surgery or funerals or something wrong like that. Hurry up and end Lost, so I can have some life back. Thanks.

Last night Rosin told me I stormed the gig at the DWP because over 50% of them were paying attention. I wish all gigs operated on these standards. It would mean I stormed at least 10% of all my gigs ever. Or maybe a bit less. Anyhow, tonight I'm in Derby supporting the One Man Lord Of The Rings show. I can only assume I've been picked because the Hobbit is the prequel.

I Am An Idiot pt 2

Just to confirm yesterday's blog, I am definitely an idiot. What kind of body clock insists on waking you up at 8.30am when you only made it home and to bed at 4am in the first place? An idiot's body clock that what kind. Admittedly I managed to get back to sleep but I am currently in a kind of awake coma state after my mammoth driving last night. I'm using the term mammoth in regards to the fact it took over 10 hours to get to Aberystwyth and back, and not that I was driving a mammoth around. That would be amazing and I think you'd find that this blog wouldn't be called 'I'm an Idiot' but instead 'I drove an extinct creature, hail me as your king!' Although I'll admit, I'd probably be a tad scared. They were rather big I believe and having not really encountered humans before or at least not since neanderthal form, they probably wouldn't let me ride one very easily. Also, you'd need a pretty big saddle and I doubt you'd be able to jump over any hedges or other things horses can do. Anyway, I digress.


I haven't been home at 4am in a long time and I've decided its no longer cool. Perhaps, if I wasn't an idiot and I'd stayed in Aberystwyth with the other acts, Fergus, Ruth and Milo, then staying up till 4am drinking shots with 18 year olds would've been cool. However I think turning down your road after a series of motorways and road that could only have been designed by a drunk child with a gyroscope and then getting home at 4am, is really the opposite of cool. I can't imagine a day where that will ever become cool. Where kids suddenly want to be stuck in traffic or be at Corley services at 3am by themselves surrounded by a dodgy smell of wee and noticing a man in the car park that was almost certainly dead. Ok, I'm not 100% certain he was dead, but he was lying down in his car and the engine was still on. The lying down bit, fine. The engine on bit, not fine. In this situation where I was in a state of sleep deprived delirium and car based cabin fever, I did what any other good British citizen would do. I stared a bit, thought about taking a photo for twitpic, then decided to just leave him be and drive away. I really hope he wasn't dead or I am a terrible man. I also hope he wasn't dead because dying at Corley services would be really shit. Its not even on my list of top 15 service stations.


So am I regretting doing the gig? No. Not at all. It was stupidly awesome. Deceivingly good really, to the extent where you wonder if laughing gas is being pumped in or one cue someone presses a button that electric shocks anyone who isn't chortling. Did it make the drive home worth it? Nearly. I think actually doing a Bullit style escape was for the best anyway, as I was reminded by a post on my facebook yesterday from ex-Aber student Sophie that last time I did stay for drinks and we were all taken to a student bar on the pier. I thought it'd be much fun but instead I felt like the old man in the room as I witnessed young people having fun, and the clincher, a student leap on one of the other acts in a sort of face rape, to which he responded by being rather scared and we both left. I think its still every blokes dream to go out drinking with 20 year old student girls, but let me tell you this, its just a bit terrifying. So getting in the car and driving home, I may have felt old, but I'm quite comfortable with that. I even undid my top jeans button on the way home and ate half a bar of Caramel. I have somehow become a middle aged lady. Oh dear god.