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.