Start As You Mean To Go On

'Start as you mean to go on' is a phrase that people seem to continually use on the first day of a new year. Its a stupid phrase and doesn't really apply to many things. For example a triathlon. If you started with swimming and then tried to swim through the cycling and running events, you'd fail. If space rockets carried on using all the fuel they used to exit the planet's orbit all the way until they reached their destination, they'd never return. I once started to use an electric hand whisk that kept giving me electric shocks when I pressed the button. I have since stopped using it. If I'd carried on, I'd have got electrocuted. And today I started 2010 by waking up much later than I meant to and tucking into leftover pizza for breakfast. Let's hope that phrase is a stupid phrase and not some sort of indicator for the rest of my year. Otherwise it would seem I'm going to go back to being a student. Saying that, it was Waitrose pizza.


Layla and me had a lovely night last night, scoffing things, staying warm and flicking between terrible programs. The decade ended with television deciding to cram its screens with the worst television available, as though to make us realise that noughties celebrity culture did indeed ruin entertainment. The worst was the show about the best shows of the last 10 years. All of which were voted for by the public, which meant Top Gear was number one. Proof once again that the public are a bunch of fucking idiots. Clarkson, May and Stupid Broken Head are amongst the most obnoxious humans on the planet who insist on wanking each other off with right-wing diatribe while driving cars. Does this mean there's a market for this crap? Should I submit proposals for a show where David Cameron, AA Gill and Nick Griffin regurgitate food on a series of different yachts? How on earth The Wire wasn't even in the top 20 I will never know. It worries me that the best thing on was a show looking at other shows. Is this really how badly the idea factory has died? Will this imagination drought continue until I find myself in 2019 watching a show about shows about shows? I really hope the tenties, twentytens, teenies or whatever they're called bring a new level of televisual intellect with them.


We watched BBC1 at midnight, voyeuristically watching Myleene Klass get so cold her brain stopped working and she had to resort to talking to other members of the public who had been standing in the cold for 6 hours and so could only respond with one word answers. The entire decade was summed up by the BBC deciding that Susan Boyle being a mantramp who could warble was one of the highlights of the last few years and glossing over the Iraq War as though it was a good thing. I recalled how awful it was in 2002/2003 when the NYE fireworks went off in Central London and at the same time Baghdad was bombed with similar lighting effect. Yet no-one seemed to notice how horrible the juxtapostioning of it all was. Myleene commented on how it would take her ages to get home, she muddled up words and then told us to look out for a rainbow even though it was dark. I worry she was carried away afterwards in a straightjacket. She did of course mean a fireworks rainbow. I looked out for it, via our telly. Either the cameraman was having a fag break or it was just a non event, but I didn't see the shapes or Zippy, Bungle or George in any of it. Disappointment. I then also grumbled how all the fireworks were paid for by tax payers money and had to stop myself before I picked up a Daily Mail and shouted at an immigrant. Not good.


So, 2010. I haven't got any New Years Resolutions as such. Though I do have one NY resolution gag that I will bring back for the next two months until people in the audience shout that it is not a new year anymore and its definitely not happy so I should shut up. I do however have some aims for the next year. These are not aims as in targets that I would like to throw things at. Otherwise it be rather long and I'd give away too many clues leading to my arrest before I got to carry any of them out. Anyway, here are my few aims:


1. To get healthier. I know many people do this, but I really need to. This time 10 years ago, I was stupidly skinnier, after having worked at kids summer camp and then started uni and joining the gym. Then over the next four years I consistently did various sports including kickboxing and breakdancing (seriously) before then getting a day job in 2004, being put on the wrong type of insulin and eating myself wider. While I have been mostly not bothered by this, the other night during the Impro I managed to put myself out of breath for 15 minutes by doing a 'shepherd dance'. I would like to 'shepherd dance' more. Layla is doing a cycle ride from London to Paris in July. I can't cycle without falling on my face (and that is a long distance to fall on my face) so I've decided I will jog with her when she trains. I must get healthier. I shall start tomorrow. Or Monday. Or Wednesday.


2. I want to do a second solo show at the Edinburgh festival. I've got an idea, I've written for it, I know where I'd like to do it and what to call it. What I don't have is the £7k + to pay for it. Or the £2k to pay off last years. So over the next few months I need to find some sponsorship, get enough work so I earn the money, win the lottery or steal all the blueprints of all the top banks so that I can work out a foolproof robbery scheme. Or perhaps like the banks I should sell off my debt then ask the government to bail me out. If any of you have any better ideas, please let me know.


3. To do more writing, drawing, acting, impro, as well as all the stand-up. Essentially what will happen is I'll buy Mass Effect 2 when it comes out for the Xbox at the end of January and none of this will happen.

4. Have more will power. This is primarily so that when Mass Effect 2 comes out, I won't spend my entire life playing it.

5. Buy Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox.

6. Not fall down any holes.

7. Don't get attacked by bison.

8. Defy the process of aging. I'm not sure how I'll do this, but I'm going to try.

9. Find a way to stop Derren Brown before he destroys the Earth.

10. Start the campaign I mentioned in my blog here: http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/2009/12/year-of-bloggery.html

11. Fight for my right to party. I still don't really know what this is.

12. See Rage Against the Machine live. And Tom Waits live. Not at the same time. Although that would be awesome.

13. Write more political material.

14. Actually understand what politics are so I can write material about them.

15. Stop sniggering when I say politics thinking that its a type of mints for parrots.

16. Keep writing this stupidy blog.

That's it for now, though I'm willing to undertake any reasonable suggestions too. Please note the word 'reasonable'.


Last David Tennant Doctor Who tonight! I'm betting that he dies after reading the ridiculous script that had been given to him by Russell T Davies and then decides to choke himself rather than say any of it.