Friday Ponderings / Frionderings

Some Friday thoughts and things:


TOAST ACCEPTANCE SPECTRUM

Late last night I offered my friend Sam a piece of toast. That's what you do. Its just common courtesy. He declined, but he didn't use a simple no. No, he used the phrase ' I have a very small toast acceptance spectrum from around 8am to 10am and past that I can't have toast.' I was impressed to say the least.


WHISKY

I've had a fair amount of whisky this week under the assumption that I like it. Thing is, I don't think I really do. Every sip begins with me being fairly sure I like it, only for then it to hit my mouth, my mouth to instantly pull an expression like someone's squirted lemon juice in my eye, it then goes down my throat burning every step of the way and finally gets to my stomach where several tiny whisky fairies start a small unpleasant campfire that allows the whisky to be burped back up over the next two days just when I really don't want it to. Jon Richardson has my fave bit of material on whisky ever, so I don't want to impeach on that, but I have truly discovered that while I will continue to drink whisky, I think its the closest I will ever come to self harm. I have realised this with most booze. I'm almost 100% sure I like beer, but then every now and then I'll have that last sip of a can and feel like I'm drinking the piss of the devil. I'm under the impression that booze has powers of hypnosis. I'm still going to drink beer and whisky a lot, but I will just do it now with this recent realisation and self loathing.


CHURCHES

I gigged in a church last night. Well it used to be a church. Now its a big arts centre, that looks exactly like a church. What they've done is take a church, not really change it from being a church in anyway and instead call it an arts centre. A rose by any other name, as they say, is still a rose, just a rose named by a confused idiot. Thing with churches is, they aren't really designed for comedy. Those high arches and vast acoustics aren't really designed for the intimate atmosphere of a good gig. In the same way you won't find a priest delivering sermons in a comedy gig. Although I really hope somewhere out there that is what's happening and it turns out that last night was a bit of a mix up.

It was in the end, a lovely crowd, wanting to laugh and enjoy themselves, but there comes a point where the amplified echo of your own voice is louder than the audience laughter and once again you blame God. Unless of course, if he/she/it exists it is part of their revenge against the fact I said 'fuck' and drank beer in a church. Well if it is, take that Jesus. Hmm, that sounds like the boy band model of a variety of Jesus action figures.


SCAFFOLDING

I have discovered, over the last two days staying at my friend's Ali and Sam's house, that the sound of scaffolding being removed sounds not at all dissimilar to the sound of pigs being slaughtered. Not that I've heard that sound often before but the high pitch screeching and squealing can only be reminiscent of Babe getting an axe in the face. I don't like it much. I especially don't like it at 8am in the morning where I wake up worried that a load of builders are kicking the shit of out of porky beings outside. Luckily they weren't. They were just removing scaffolding and being racists while they did it.

Its possibly not the first sound you'd think of when you heard scaffolding being removed, but I bet that somewhere in the BBC archive they have a CD of scaffolding sounds to be used when the Archers kill a load of pigs, and similarly a sound of an abattoir for when, er, they, er have a show about scaffolding.


TRAINS

I've decided I like trains.


Finally, I shall leave you with this. This is Finlay. He is ten. He does the Comedy 4 Kids stand-up workshops and is far too good for his age. I both think its excellent and terrifying in terms of losing gigs to someone less than half my age. Enjoy:

FINLAY AT COMEDY 4 KIDS