Uninteresting Angles

I am confining myself indoors today until the London Improv show tonight, as I still haven't finished doing my taxes. Despite having started them over a week ago, I have only managed to do half of all my outgoings. This is partly because my attention span will not allow me to get through too many at once without realising its more boring than watching Adrian Chiles read the shares index on repeat. But, it has to be done by Friday, so I am once again under self inflicted house arrest. So far I have been up since ten, and in that time, I have looked at the possibility of doing my taxes twice, before giving in and resorting to doing everything but. I've done all the tiny boring things I normally wouldn't be bothered with, such as tidying up and that sort of thing, and I have now moved onto staring at a small fly in my room buzz about, but curiously only ever at right angles. Im not sure if all flies do this, but this fly is very specifically flying in a line, then turning at what appears to be exact right angles. Though without a protractor, a way of slowing time and a proper concept of right angles, I will never know if this is true or not. What I am concerned about, if this is true, is why it would do such a thing? Various thoughts occur along the lines of perhaps this fly is a angle genius. Bred near a maths lab or in a spirit level or something, it now, for its very short life, has the capability of being an angular genius. Never getting the wrong angles, only the right ones. Thought two is that its a tiny robot, the beginnings of the Matrix sent to spy on us humans. Sadly all it will get from me is that humans like to avoid work and stare at flies. Little do they know this is far from the truth. Well. Not that far. In fact, its quite spot on. Sorry other humans. I've let the side down. Soon I will start dancing and then put a hat on my knees and speak to it, to confuse the robots. Thought number three: its an angel and has got confused. I don't believe number three really. It must be number two.


It appears I will never get my taxes done. Ho hum. What I should use is my motivation to get them done so I don't have to keep blogging about them. I mean, let's all be honest, this week has been a weak week in terms of bloggery. Why? Well aside from not doing my taxes I have done very little. At some point today I have to buy bread and I can only presume that this will be a high point in my day. I will take my time over bread buying just because it won't have anything to do with taxes. Unless I start thinking about how much I have to pay and in what way VAT and things relate to that, but luckily I have no concept of these things and therefore will revel temporarily in the idea that ignorance is bliss.


Right I'll shut up now. Stupid taxes ruining any creativity. The fly has left, and so I must get these things done, or depress all of you until it happens. On a much more interesting note, at Fat Tuesday last night Andrew Lawrence and Bridget Christie did their Edinburgh previews and they were both ace and far far more interesting than me moaning about taxes. Go see them both. Gig that is, not just follow them around. They'd get scared by that.

Short Stories

Its slightly cooler weather wise today and I'm bloomin' thankful for it. I probably mention the weather far too often in this blog, general chat and wherever I can. Its because its a genuine indicator of how I will deal with the rest of the day. Yesterday I woke up, it was stupid hot, I did very little till the evening. I was like one of the trolls in a Pratchett novel. When its hot I just sort of fail to operate. Saying that, when its cold, I sort of fail to operate too. Perhaps for the sake of my workload I should live in an entirely temperate incubator until its all done. Or in a big zorb like bubble with constant air con pumped in. That'd be great except when uphill. And terrifying downhill. Maybe I should just deal with the weather a bit better. Its not like I haven't dealt with it for the last 29 years of my life. Well actually I haven't. I moan about it on a daily basis wherever I am. Maybe I should live in space? They don't have weather there do they? Although they do get asteroid showers and that's probably worse than light showers. Especially as an umbrella wouldn't be very helpful when pelted with large space rocks. Saying that, light showers don't shower you in light. So at least asteroid ones don't lie. Either way if I get nothing done in the next few months, I won't blame it on myself. I'll blame it on the weatherman.


Today is all about getting my taxes done, so thank god the grey skies have appeared. There is nothing worse than sifting through receipts while you glare through the window at all the people, receipt free, frolicking in the sunshine. Frolicking is probably the wrong word for where I live. Some people just walked as per usual only more sweaty and irritated. Some bowl like gangstas and shizzle. Some walk like the sun is giving them actual physical weight on their back. They are the ones who in their sweaty suits peer in through my window at me in shorts, doing receipts with the fan on and hate me. Except what they don't know is that having the fan on only makes looking at receipts that much harder, as they get blown all over the place like a tiny whirlwind of transaction history. And I have rubbish shorts too. I realised this only yesterday, under the assumption I had more than one pair of decent shorts. Not only do I have only one pair, but they are also shit. Admittedly, shorts for men are often a tricky one. They either make you look like someone's snuck up behind you and cut the bottom off your trousers, or that you are about to run a marathon, with the truth being more that you look like a dad who's revealing too much when sitting down.


I aimed to rectify this before my gig last night and popped into everyone's favourite home of bland popular culture clothes, Topman. I haven't been in here for a while, ever since it appeared that skinny jeans were the new fashion, I've stayed away until the trend returns to clothing that doesn't look like its the fabric equivalent of a boa constrictor and I am its prey. Sadly, it appears that not much has changed. Everywhere I looked there was what appeared to be women's clothing with its tightly fitting and revealing shapes. Then I realised Topman was upstairs. Idiot. Upstairs though, was a similar thing. I can't wait for the 90s to be back in fashion. No I don't want sunglasses with big green rims that make me look like a fly, nor do I want the ones that make me look like I should have a flock of seagulls haircut and that I dream of being an angry American cop. Nor do I want to be Kanye West. When I finally found the shorts after battling through the sort of crowds that are all style but absolutely no content, I was depressed to know that they cost the same as the jeans. How insane is that? They should at least be a third less on account of the lack of material. I fully believe this is how clothing should be. Women's bikinis should only cost them £2 as there is nothing there. This may also encourage them to buy and wear them more. Tee hee. So ultimately I didn't get any and instead rocked around in my jeans becoming so hot I was tempting to bottle it up and open my own sweatshop.


No idea what I'm on about today. Lets endeth with some boh-ring but useful self promo. Firstly my webpage has a new front page. Have a look:

www.tiernandouieb.co.uk

I'm always adding stuff to it anyway, so you should take a look around for new things.

Secondly, people's keep asking me when my previews are. So here you go:

July 4th - Stoke Newington Festival - Jokes Newington
July 8th - East Meets Jest, The Railway Tavern, Clapham High Street
July 10th - Cambridge Comedy Festival
July 12th - Outside The Box, Kingston
July 16th - Chuckles at the Regal, Tenbury Wells
July 17th - Arc Theatre, Caterham
July 18th - Somewhere in Cardiff
July 20th - Fat Tuesday with Stewart Lee - sold out, returns only

I expect to see you all at all of them. Back to taxes and dreaming of a refreshing asteroid shower.

Summerburn 2010

My brain has officially melted today. I've tried to do a few things, but beyond menial tasks I seem to have given up. So rather than sit here and rant about how crazy the weather is or just how hugely hugely shit England were yesterday, I thought I'd just post up the Summerburn playlist I've just made and sent out. So instead of my usual waffly words, today I give you some musicness. I've put a link for you to download it too at the end, which is all probably highly wrong, so it'll only stay up for a couple of days and then I'll scrap it. I have enjoyed nothing more in this sunshine than sitting around and listening to very chilled things. So that's what I did with this year's playlist. Mostly chilled things. LIke listening to ice. But not. Because that'd be really really dull. Unless it was holding up noisy stuff and then when it all melted they all made noisy stuff noises. I should so do modern art. Or not. Anyways, here's the list, have a nice summer day and my brain will be back online tomorrow for some actual words:


1. Everybody Loves the Sunshine - D'Angelo
2. Summertime - Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
3. The Summer Of '42 - Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
4. He Got So Much Cool (He Don't Need No Music) - Main Source
5. Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover - The Hawk
6. In the Sun - She & Him*
7. Little Bit of Feel Good (LA Garage Mix) - Jamie Lidell
8. Empire Ants (feat. Little Dragon) - Gorillaz
9. Brothers On The Slide - Cymande
10. The High Road - Broken Bells
11. Love's Enormous Wings - The Leisure Society*
12. I Know Where The Summer Goes - Belle And Sebastian
13. Sort Of Revolution (The Cinematic Orchestra Remix) - Fink
14. Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime - Beck
15. On The Sunny Side Of The Street - Billie Holiday


Some are about summer, some just sound like you should listen to them in the sun, and some of you might argue some are not summery at all. Well I would argue that you are a bumhead. Yes, my brain has melted, that's the best of my insults. Arguably the first track is one of the greatest summer tracks of all time, so following that is pretty hard anyway. I also would've added a whole heap of other tracks such as 'Sky Holds The Sun' by The Bees, 'When She Smiles She Lights The Sky' by Plant Life and 'Juanita Bonita' from Quantica Presenta Flowering Inferno, but I couldn't make it fit an hour. So this is all ya get till I do another one next year. Hope you enjoy.

Here's the download link (its a zip file. So's ya know):

http://www.zshare.net/download/77731413fd2eb39f/

*Ta to Emma for these tracks.

McGuyver of Social Etiquette

Its only just occurred to me that in the song Three Lions, when they sing 'its coming home, its coming home, its coming' it sounds more like they are wishing England to lose. I mean really, if anything, they want football to stay over there, so that it can keep playing. No? Its a stupid silly song. I am hacking this up quickly because despite my entire lack of knowledge or any real care for the game, I'm going to watch the England match today, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm not sure when it happened, but I've started to care a bit. It may have been after Wednesday when I realised that there was a point in willing on a team that previously were less a team and more a group of shuffling twats on a field. If not, then it could also possibly have been in the last few days where I really enjoyed the Uruguay vs South Korea match, or last night's Ghana vs US match. I'm not sure why I enjoyed them. I couldn't really tell you which bit was my favourite or who did what when. All I know is, some blokes kicked some balls and ran a bit and it seemed pretty entertaining. Today I will be similarly useless in terms of knowledge, but I fully intend to comment on things in the most pathetic way possible and get into it the best way I can. I will be heard to say such things as 'ooh look, he kicked a ball' and ' well done that one for running a bit' with as much gusto as a vicar at a spring fete. Many will look at me as though I have taken the entire platform of football and put a flowery dress on it, but let me tell you, hooliganism wouldn't exist if we could all just sit back and comment on just how lovely the camaraderie is and doesn't that grass look green?


I would have spent ages writing this earlier, but the wifi on the train home did not work. This followed being in a Starbucks this morning where the coffee machines did not work, and the pairing of the two made me start to wonder if this is indeed the 'Broken Britain' I keep hearing about. The Starbucks moment was ridiculous. All I wanted was a coffee, they claim to sell, nay specialise in coffee. Yet the one thing they could not provide was bloody coffee. I would suggest that when such things happen, you just close. I admire their keen enthusiasm at staying open just to turn every person away that wants coffee, but frankly I'd have stuck a sign on the door and taken it as a signal to stay in bed. Instead they were cheery as usual, not turning around till I had been at the counter for at least three minutes, and then bringing my tea (yeah always ducking and diving me. No coffee? I'm not phased. Sheeeayyyyaaah) to me and complaining that they thought I was sitting somewhere else. It was empty, I clearly wasn't. Suddenly my choice of seating is an irritant.


Still this was nothing compared to the wifi problem. It was a panicked moment in carriage E when such things were announced as suddenly everyone on the train with a laptop stopped feverishly clicking, and all the hope that boredom could be staved with facebook was replaced with the fear of maybe having to engage in actual conversation. Many of them, including me, hadn't prepared for such things and so had no back up of a book or other boredom neutralising material and so there wasn't much else to do for the next tedious three hours. Ever the McGuyver of social etiquette, I took what awake bit of brain I had and started talking to the woman next to me. She appeared friendly and I assumed we could have some decent banter, learning nothing from my encounter on Thursday. Chat lasted about 3 minutes. She told me she was a teacher, and taught science, didn't at any point bounce any questions back at me and kept just looking out of the window, maybe hoping to spot some wifi flying in to save her from my chat fail. I persevered, fearing my own boredom. She would talk to me rather than let me face three hours of Dullsville. She was going for a job interview in Surrey, I commented on how cool the experiment with magnesium is. She commentated on how good I was at remembering that one. I realised she sounded hugely patronising. I started staring out of the window praying for the wifi wizard (wifizard) to save me. Dullsville arrived. It was a long boring place, and both of us, intermittently looked at each other hoping for an in for chat, but rejection brewed constantly. I wasn't going to back down. So I put my headphones in and really ignored her. She read the same newspaper four times. At the end of the journey, I leaned over and wished her all the best for the interview. I hoped she would both see this as: a) me being nice and b) a sharp dig when she realised she could say nothing back as she hadn't asked me anything. SLAM! She'll be regretting that for many many years to come. Don't mess up chit chat time with the T-Dogg. Boom.


Right. Must go watch some delightful chaps have a kick around against the Gerries. Toodle-pip.

You Do It

It doesn't matter where it is, every Starbucks appears to have a policy whereby they clearly have two tills, and a lot of staff, and yet no one is ever on the second till. The queue gets longer and longer as the one member of staff who's been handed the till short straw appears to use the covert tactics of reducing waiting times by being as lackadaisical as possible. Occasionally dealing with customers, he seems more intent on checking his overly angled hair is still in correct proportions and staring into space in the hope that maybe the world will focus and he will realise that this is all some sort of horrible dream rather than a terrifying reality where he must spend everyday inhaling the smells of caffeine while saying words like 'venti' instead of just 'large' like a proper dick. Occasionally other members of staff appear, inbetween carrying trays with one bit of rubbish on, so that they can go back to the same table six times under the guise of health and safety probably, picking up one piece everytime and therefore avoid actually working. These coffee wombles glance at the other till on passing and then are quickly warned off it as though its showing a picture of a scary man and the words 'if you touch this till I will find you and punch you'. It amazes me how despite being surrounded by caffeine, everyone that spends too much time here are virtually asleep on their feet. I assume that maybe they have inhaled too much and are now on an extreme caffeine high, buzzing off their fairtrade Zimbabwean bean tits and listening to the not displeasing and yet never actually pleasing either, playlists involving far too much jazz flute and xylophone.


Today in Starbucks, I have seen my favourite thing of the day already. I am not yet hungover and I think this is partly due to still being drunk, so it's entirely possible that none of you will find this at all amusing, or that I will even type it properly. I tend to find, especially with texts from the night before, that I remember sending friends the most hilarious of drunk witticisms, when in fact what I have sent is more along the lines of 'haghamd akhdjahdu dog ashjahj boots! Ha f'. So, I shan't build up to it too much incase this translates from 'lovely moment' to 'garbled boredom'. The man in front of me in the queue was one of those people that would probably catch your eye, even if you weren't sure why. Probably in his 40's, dressed in a hoodie and trousers and with completely white hair, there was nothing about him that seemed completely out of the normal. Yet his face was in a permanent fixture of slight discomfort. His upper lip gnarled as though it was trying to dive up his nostrils to seek warmth and his eyes squinting in a manner that suggested his brow was trying to make them give up and let him sleep again. He approached the till and shouted his order in a very broad Geordie accent. Really shouted. 'A GRANDY MOCHY LARTAY PLEASE'. The man at the till barely flinched, and instead very slowly input this in the till and then somewhere over the next few minutes, decided to let one of the others know about this as though it might actually be useful in order for the product to be delivered. Then, this is the bit I enjoyed the most, the man at the till asked for the money, and shouty man just remained gnarly lipped and furrow browed. 'HOW MUCH IS IT MATE?' he shouted. The till man paused, and then very slowly told him again. Once more shouty man said 'HOW MUCH IS IT MATE?' at an increasingly unnecessary volume. '£2.45' the till man said, still as uncaring as before. Shouty man looked even more confused than before, and switch his glances between till man, the till and a very large amount of change he had in his hand. His eyes darted back and forth about 6 or 7 times before he started to count all the change bit by bit. About four 20p pieces in, he just sighed, took all the change, and said 'YOU COUNT IT. YOU TELL ME IF AH HAVE ENOOF.' before putting all of it into till man's hands. It was such an incredible display of defeat.


I can only imagine that if this man gives up on such tiny things that take such an incredibly small amount of time, that he really has given up on life. Either that, or he is just brilliant at being lazy. I hope its the latter as I'd find it far more pleasing. Imagining he sits at the dinner table, picks up his fork before throwing it down and demanding others feed him. Whenever he walks somewhere, he takes two or three steps before just toppling over and lying there until someone picks him up and carries him. I have sat on the other side of the cafe from him, in order to not ruin this possibility. There, hope that wasn't too garbled or dull, and if it was, I'm hugely sorry. Well, not hugely. Or really that sorry. I'm just still evidently a bit of a mess. It feels like a well deserved mess as after an entire day of worrying about last night's gig at the Hyena, it was a really fun gig. Its a shame in a way as I'd had a really nice day wondering around Toon with my friends Rachel and Adam, visiting odd scary art at the Baltic and generally moseying around, all the while making them miserable about the possibility of the gig being a bear pit. There's nothing like showing someone around your home town when all they do is growl with eyes of fear and hate at every large group of men or woman that walk past incase their evening happens to involve comedy. Poor poor them. I fear I've put them off being tour guides forever. Which isn't a bad thing.


The room was mostly men, and not only that, but men in stag dos which, along with rugby teams, is the worst sort of group of men. There's something about that much testosterone in a group that means its only possible to behave as animalistically as possible, spending equal amounts of time growling, fighting and trying to fuck anything that moves. But despite this, I had a great time. I was very much anti-Tiernan, loud, more offensive than normal, and I even changed one of my jokes so it included the word 'blowjob', instead of 'man on the bus that looked like a wolf'. And they liked it. And they didn't heckle. Much. But at least it didn't involve throwing things at me, or trying to punch me. So, whilst no one's intellectual bar was raised, neither was anyone hit by a bar or thrown into the bar or any other such violent activities with bars. So top marks all round.


Today it happens again, and I'm sure I've jinxed myself by saying I enjoyed last night. Today will no doubt involve something going wrong. If it does, I've got a good mind to just hand them some jokes on bits of paper and say 'YOU DO IT' before just toppling over and lying there till someone picks up me up and carries me home.

Stooling Problems

I’ve never really understood the phrase ‘It’s grim up North’ because mostly, it really isn’t. If anything, having a stroll round Newcastle yesterday afternoon, I realised just what a nice city it is. The sandstone brick buildings, places such as the Royal Theatre, ancient wall ruins and the occasional statue of a man who made tea (that must be what Lord Early Grey is famous for) make it a rather picturesque place. In fact all the people seemed to be lovely too. From the general manner of everyone from the second I got off the train to the gig last night at Blake’s Coffee House, all the Geordie’s were alreet. Then, just when I had nearly blocked last year’s visit from hell out of my brain, we met a man in a bar who proved that proper dicks exist everywhere. I say met, but it was more of an imposed introduction that involved him being very aggressive with everyone around the table I was sitting on. His reason for aggression? Well we had taken a stool from his table, after politely asking his friend if we could take it, and his friend had said yes. Then Captain Twat in a black shirt and red tie just waltzed over 20 minutes later, grabbed the stool, called us all fuckers for stealing his stool and got properly aggressively angry about it. Like wanting to fight aggressive. The level of aggression I don’t think I’ve ever got to in my life. I suppose this is because I have some sort of mental block that says, ‘maybe if we handle this reasonably, I won’t get hit in the face’. This man did not have that. Probably because it would be the other person’s face getting hit and therefore slightly less problematic for him.


Myself, Tom Wrigglesworth and the other two men on the table were entirely unsure how to handle this and most of us did awkward explanations about how we’d asked nicely for the chair and other such mutterings that the angry man didn’t seem to register. Then, as we were scrabbling out worrying about our faces, one of the girls just grabbed the stool off him and put it back. He then got very angry, his mates made him sit down and everything was both better and uncomfortable all at once. Like a brand new nice sofa but with some large sticks in it. We resumed conversation and could hear angry man saying things along the lines of what people say in films when they get all angry like ‘yeah you’re fucking lucky this time’ and all that kind of thing. Then the same girl that took the stool thought it a good idea to turn around, and ask the man if he’d ‘got over the whole stool thing’. This was not a good idea. It was the sort of idea that had Archimedes had it, everyone would have preferred him to drown in the bath. The man had not got over the stool incident and instead got more angry at the antagonising and as such the girl on our table was forcefully turned around and we just about managed to avoid any further conflict. Well done the women on having more balls than me about it all. Although not well done on starting it up again. I wonder if that’s how a lot of conflicts start between men. I blame Helen of Troy. She started it. Oddly that’s the second Greek legend reference I’ve made today. Wonder why? Maybe because I checked my bank and saw how in debt I am.


Today I doubt will be as relaxing. Well the first bit will be. I have hired my Twitter friend Rachel (@well_armed_lamb if you are a tweeter. She is very funny too and worth following) to be my guide around Newcastle for a day. As yet we haven’t discussed a rate of pay but I have some chewing gum and banter so hopefully that’ll be enough. But then after that, I return to the Hyena where my evening will be spent trying to work out why hen dos are hen dos, yet stag dos, despite their behaviour, are not called cock dos. I will also not be asking anyone if their seat is spare.

A Little Less Conversation

I have to type this using some sort of train stealth. I fully intended on the train to Newcastle to get loads of work done. Write some stuff about the budget and the England game, work on my show, do a good lengthy blog and generally abuse East Coast's appalling free wifi for every megabit I could. I'm not sure megabit is the correct term. As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be as a bit means something that is only a little piece of something else. By adding mega to it, you suddenly make it bigger than a bit. Its a stupid self contradictory term and I await the wrath of computer folks all explaining it to me then insulting me in binary. Go on. So, yeah, I wanted to do all that, but instead I have had the luck, and by luck I mean misfortune, to sit next to a large American man who insists on talking about the extreme weather conditions in the US. Sure some of its exciting. Things like the volcanic explosion in Seatle or....no wait. That was it. Everything else has been about snow and earthquakes that didn't break anything. Yawn. Proper big fat yawn. But he insists on wedging me in my seat (I have the window, he the aisle) and banging on and on about that time it was a bit cold and his motorbike wouldn't start.


Its my fault really. He started some conversation about whether on not it was my seat and I stupidly thought 'here's a friendly man, maybe this train journey will be fun.' Some interesting banter started things off, small talk about train stops, the realisation that every train stops at Peterborough despite Peterborough having nothing in it, and some stuff about Whitby. I can handle this small talk. In fact I would go so far as to say, I'm a master of it. But where I like to dilly dally in the realms of inane banter about the price of tea or such things, my approved conversational arc aims to take things to a more interesting level past the three minute mark or move away and never speak again. Sadly, the three minute mark indicated no such verbal diving into excitement pool but being on a train I have nowhere to go and hide. So here I am, typing this quickly while he snores beside me, his gutteral nasal sounds providing brief relief from further pointless musings about how you 'shouldn't wear cotton pants when its less than minus 8 degrees'.


Its only 1 in the afternoon and yet today has already been filled with these people. This morning I had a hospital visit with the dietician. I supposedly needed it before I get my diabetic pump in a few weeks, but it turns out she had nothing to offer in any way. Dieticians are there on the basis that people are fucking idiots. If you havent got a clue that eating nothing buckets of lard is bad for you, then you should see a dietician. Though I would possibly also stress that under the notion of survival of the fittest, its probably just best we leave you alone and let you go. This morning we ran through all the basics again or what you should and shouldn't eat. looked at some pictures of potatoes and then let me guess how many carbs were in each one, took some leaflets and left. I humoured the dietician. She was very nice and I would have felt mean going in and saying 'really? Why don't you show me how to use a knife and fork as well you patronising fool?', so I didn't. Instead I was all very polite and guessed every potato right. She didn't give me a sticker or a lollipop or anything. Gutted.


I'm sure I attract this sort of behaviour. I've put a bit in my new Edinburgh show about how much I enjoy meeting new and interesting people and so leave myself open to such things. Yet ever since writing it, more and more I get embroiled in the sort of conversations that have begun to entice me to tear my own ears off. I won't do this. I like my headphones. And I want sunglasses to sit ok on my head. And hats. If it wasn't for that, I be Johnny No Ears by now, stuffing my fleshy aural receptors into the American man's face in order to make him shut up about breezes'. Still only an hour and half to go.

Grizzologist

Its too hot to do anything again today. It was the same yesterday, which I only realised once doing things. These things involved carrying and walking and both of those meant more tshirts and shower water were used up than is actually necessary. I wore my favourite new tshirt of a bear fighting an octopus too early on in the day yesterday and after carrying a few things for 30 minutes the only winner of that fight was body odour. In a real fight, body odour probably would just enrage the bear more due to pheromones or whatever. Probably. I'm not a zoologist or a bear specialist. Though I wish I was a bear specialist. They probably have a proper name like bearist or grizzologist. I will look into such things. The octopus would probably not be fussed by body odour as they don't have noses (they might have noses, I don't really know. I'm not an tentaclist. That is a word, as of now). I forget how to sensibly plan for the heat. What you need to do, when its all hot and sunny, is.....nothing at all. That's the best way. Like all the people lying in Finsbury Park this morning as I strolled through, you should just lie there and sunbathe. At least I think that's what they were doing. They could have all fallen out of the sky in summer wear and died. Really I should have gone round shaking all of them to check if they were ok. One of them looked like John Locke from Lost. This only goes further to prove my theory about them falling from the sky. The lack of plane crash does not.


THE ENGLAND GAME

It is the England game today that decides whether they can stay in the World Cup. I also have a preview tonight and don't really care about the football. In fact I would go so far as to say that for purely selfish reasons, I hope they lose. This is purely because suddenly my gig diary will get that little bit better instead of all the gigs cancelled for stupid football games. At the same time, I'm gigging in a fairly rowdy club this weekend and feel I should probably watch it in order to make some jokes. Compromising my beliefs and interests for populist demand? Why would you do such a thing Dooyebbie? Well, when I like to think of it as survival instincts. Think of me as the Ray Mears or Bear Grylls of comedy. In fact, definitely Bear Grylls, now that I'm going to be a grizzologist. Football + gags about football = not being glassed by angry stag dos that will question my manhood by me not liking football. Many of you might disagree but I quite like my face. I prefer it without glass in it. Therefore I prefer to watch football than have a glass filled face. Simple. Unlike football. What is more likely to happen is that I will write jokes that I think are funny but don't actually make sense. Stuff like 'offside? Onside more like' or thereabouts and I will just then have watched football and still have got glassed. There is very little about this that can go right.


IPHONE UPDATES

How is it, even though we are now in the future, it took me two hours to update my iPhone this morning? Hmm? Two whole hours. Why didn't I do it on Monday when the update was released? Well because I don't care enough. And now I wasted two hours just staring at a little white bar get slowly more and more full just so my calculator icon looks different I reckon I could have left it even longer. The next update had better have an app that allows me to fly and another that makes me tea in the morning or I will throw my iPhone at Steve Jobs' mush. (I wouldn't. I love my iPhone)


FAT TUESDAY

Fat Tuesday was mental last night but much fun. Two very good previews from Josie Long and Maff Brown. You should most definitely go and see their shows in Edinburgh for sure. Some lovely new material from Kevin Bridges too. In terms of mixed bill of comedy, it was the oddest one we've had yet, but our crowd went from Maff's quick gags to Kevin being angry about the world cup to Josie talking about feminism and role models. I like our crowd loads. They are better than your crowd. FACT. What you wanna test that? Yeah well maybe my crowd and your crowd should have a fight. Mine would lose, but they'd knit everyone arm casts afterwards and that's better. Why do I love the FT crowd so much? Well not only are they comedy savvy and open minded about what to watch, they also do things like......


FRANK SIDEBOTTOM



......this is Little Sanna, as made by the ridiculously talented Sanna King (@Sannapanda twitterpeoples). Sanna is a regular Fat Tuesday goer and due to some goading by me on facebook, she made and brought Little Sanna along to the gig yesterday as a tribute to the great Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom who sadly passed away this week. It was the least we could do to give her free entry to the gig, although ultimately the amount of time it probably took her to make it, means that her ticket was less than the equivalent of minimum wage. Hey ho. Still I'll be popping the £7 that we would have got with another few quid towards the Frank's Fantastic Funeral fund, which if you don't know about, you should read here:

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/06/23/11239/frank_faces_paupers_funeral

It was a real loss to the world of comedy and he deserves a proper send off as far as I'm concerned. I never met the man but I watched him on telly many times and watched on repeat youtube vids of his Manchester Medleys. He was ace. RIP Chris and Frank.

Also, should you want to see Sanna's other awesome art stuff she does full time, have a look at her website on www.sannapanda.co.uk which has links to her facebook fan page and other stuff too. What she doesn't know is that I will be expecting a new art project every week or I won't let her into the gig ever again. That's what happens.

Oh and here is Little Sanna's Twitterbrawl outfit:

Pretty Fly

Firstly, the as yet unnamed webcomic by myself and Mat Wandless, pt 2:



The first part was here if you missed it: http://www.twitpic.com/1v1v65

Secondly, I went for a run this morning. Not that dissimilar to recent events where I have also gone running. Nor is it particularly interesting. No. So why on earth am I telling you about it? Well blogsters because this run only lasted 10 whole minutes. Pretty pathetic huh? Taps can run longer than that. Actually that's a silly comparison. Taps can run for ages. Except if they do, then you waste water and people get all angry 'cos you've broken the environment and you've flooded the house and its leaked to their flat below and everyone gets sad. So why did I only run for 10 minutes despite doing 30 over the weekend? That's in one go btw, not in small 2 minute bursts. That would be easy. No 30 minutes in one go. And my legs didn't fall off or anything. Well today, I only ran 10 minutes, because ten minutes in, I accidentally swallowed a massive fly and coughed my guts up. Not literally. I wouldn't be here typing if my guts were somewhere on the parkland walk being eaten by a dog.

I don't like accidentally swallowing a fly for a number of reasons. Firstly, I don't want to have to eat a spider to deal with it. I have an innate fear of spiders and eating one, just to deal with a fly would be the worst thing in the world. Ever. Not only that but my parents cat is looking at me with fear, knowing it will be only a few steps down the line. I mean really, I've never understood why at any point in the story of the old woman it doesn't just say 'oh by the way, this woman is mental'. I mean really, she never thinks at any point 'wow I can eat some pretty dry crackers and not die, surely my digestive system can handle a small fly?' No. She insists on eating the entire food chain in order for eat part of that chain to eat the bit before it. Yet it never occurs to her that if she is unable to swallow a fly properly, then how on earth will she digest all the subsequent animals? Complete idiot. I presume there were several prequels where she eats a tomato and then has to eat several aphids, the ladybirds and so on and so. That book should come with some sort of warning on it.

Secondly, I'm a vegetarian and I've never wanted to swallow a fly in my life. Even if I wasn't veggie I doubt flies would be high up on my idea of cuisine, but as I am, I really didn't want to take its small buzzy life. Don't get me wrong, I don't like flies. They puke on food, they fly, and other stuff. I'm sure there's other stuff about them that really pisses me off, but those two are definitely the worst. Nobody should ever puke on food ever. Even if, like flies, you're going to eat it again, you still shouldn't. Not nice. And I can't fly, so it really annoys me that flies can. Not only can they fly but they can walk too. Whereas walks can't fly. However on the other hand, birds can fly, but flies can't bird. So I suppose its fair. But I didn't want to eat the fly. If I was a Buddhist I'd be doing whatever it is Buddhists do when they kill an animal by accident and don't want to return to the next life as that animal. I don't know what it is, but I don't want to return as a fly, though I suppose I would then be able to fly and that would be good.

So fly went in gob, much spluttering, running stopped, coughing, run ruined. Then I tried to start running again and my legs stopped working. My body had decided that if I was to only fuel it with flies then it wouldn't work for me. Either that or the fly ruined me from the inside. Whatever it was, this is how my day started and I'm fairly sure it will all go wrong from here.

That wasn't interesting was it? No. Sorry. Go back and read the comic again. Its got a bear in it. I'm going to go and watch the budget and cry about how Osbourne's idea of saving the country from further debt is to make all the poor people so poor they starve and die and therefore the Tories can steal all their inheritance tax and give it to the banks. I'd better get used to those flies if today goes the way I think it will.

Oh and tonight's Fat Tuesday now has an added special guest. You might want to come along. Here's the tix link:

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/78342

The Thunder Child

I'm listening to Jeff Wayne's 'War Of The Worlds' as I type today's blog, so who knows just what will happen? Why am I listening to that? Who can say. Sometimes I think you just need a song or two about an astronomer's odds on things coming from Mars and some red weed to get through your day. No? No? No. Ok. Well I'm singing along like the world is about to be invaded by aliens and I don't care who knows it. Even though there is no one in the house at the moment and if there was I clearly would be listening to something more in line with the T image. Not that there is a T image. I'd love to know what sort of music people assumed I was into when they saw me. I would like to think people take one look at my beardy face and say 'that is one funky cat, I bet he's down with all sorts of hella cool shit like funk, hip hop and that'. Sadly I think they probably just assume I sit at home alone singing to Jeff Wayne's 'War Of The Worlds'.

Many thoughts for today so let's go people, before them aliens attack:

- Had Edinburgh preview number 7 last night and it went well-ish. There is still loads of work to do and annoyingly there are whole bits that in my head totally link but in practice, really really don't. I hate the way sometimes people can't just use psychic powers to totally get what I'm talking about and sometimes I really think audiences are selfish in the way they expect me to relay everything to them like I'm a performer or something. Yeesh. Got another preview on Wednesday so I shall iron out some things between now and then with a big comedy Tefal. Only problem with ironing comedy is that you'll never make the audience crease up with laughter. BOOM! If only I could do jokes like that in my show. Or not. Definitely or not.


- If the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, then technically you are more likely to get invaded by aliens than win the lottery. I do not like this. Although I could probably get lottery equivalent dosh by talking about my alien invasion to the tabloids, so it might be ok.


- My podcast has been up and down the charts like a comedy yo-yo since I put it up last week. I have never ever cared about the iTunes charts but I've become a bit too obsessed since my one became part of the iRat Race. I am at huge disadvantage releasing it all in one go instead of weekly to keep those numbers up, but hey ho, I clearly didn't think it through. Except I did, and I know how impatient I am so I assume everyone else is too. Either way, I hope it helps in terms of ticket sales. So far people have said they've enjoyed it, and its got an overall 4 star rating on iTunes which is better than it got in Edinburgh so that's all nice. Of course there is one bad comment on there too, but that's inevitable. Its from someone who clearly states they haven't even heard more than two parts, and yet still feel qualified to complain. That's fine. Excuse me while I go to watch half a play then critique the hell out of its structure, then read two sentences of a book and decide the rest of its content is dog shit. Actually, saying that, I've done both of those things, so I totally let that person off.


- I just got a tshirt in the post. It has a bear fighting a giant octopus on it. I can't possibly tell you just how happy I am about this. I assume the bear wins, but it isn't specified whether they are in water or not. It looks like not and therefore bear. If they are though, then octopus. I think I will just look at it for a while and imagine paw vs tentacle hell rage.


- I spent far too long trying to compile this year's Summerburn CD. For those of you who haven't heard of it, and I've banged on about it before, its a scheme run by funjunkie.co.uk where you send two people a CD of your fave summer music and you receive two cds back from two different people around the country. Its all a lot of fun, but what I forget every year is just how stressed I get about it. So far I know what track to start with and what track to end with, but the middle is a mess. Not dissimilar to my Edinburgh show. Maybe I have a problem with middles. Maybe that's why I like donuts and hula hoops? And hate Jayne Middlemiss? Starting track is 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine' by D'Angelo. I swear that is one of the best summer tracks ever ever. Just to prove it, here it is:

D'ANGELO - EVERYBODY LOVES THE SUNSHINE




- I wouldn't be all that scared of a heat ray, unless I was already pretty hot. Then it might make me really sweaty. Actually thinking about it, aliens that get defeated by germs and have a gun that's a bit like a sunbed would be crap. They'd totally go through Liverpool getting their arses kicked.


- For youse lot who are on Twitter, tonight is #twitterbrawl3. Twitter brawl was an idea I had ages ago to have a massive bar brawl on Twitter. The first time about 300-400 people took part spending an entire hour tweeting how they were kicking each others arses in a cowboy bar brawl type manner. Many pianos were broken and people thrown through saloon doors. It was, surprisingly, hugely popular and we have since had a second one themed on a Victorian bar. Tonight it returns after popular demand, and the setting is Sci-Fi. I'm calling it Twar Of the Tworlds. Maybe. Still if you fancy virtually getting violent then follow me on Twitter and I'll be doing the rules at about 8.50pm BST, with kick off (your face) at 9pm.


That's all for today. I've got important things to fill my afternoon with such as work on my Edinburgh show and prepare the cellar as a bunker for when the aliens attack.

My Own Worst Enemy

This will be a bitty blog. Mostly because my brain is in bits today. Once again (and as is becoming an oft too regular occurrence on these typings) I am suffering thanks to booze. Its not the worst thing to be suffering from. I mean I could have a serious illness, or famine or something like that, but suffering from booze has its own whole extra level of misery whereby you know that all bits of hangover are entirely self inflicted. To know that I did this to myself makes me very untrustworthy of me. I mean, what else am I capable of? Surely its only a matter of time before I convince myself to kick a land mine or tap dance on train tracks? Next time I drink I'm going to ensure that someone forces me to drink and therefore I will be able to blame them for all suffering and feel slightly better about things. Today's hangover is particularly bad because a barman in the cool bar we were in - and it was a cool bar - decided to let us try odd drinks he was making in the drinks lab upstairs. Yes they had a drinks lab, yes they concocted things, yes the man had a non-descript European accent, yes if I wasn't drunk I would have been fairly sure it was an evil trap. It clearly was an evil trap as I have had the taste of horseradish vodka in my mouth since I woke up, and its not great. I've been contemplating cooking a roast just to see if it would accompany such horrible flavours, but the hangover means I can't be arsed. Instead I am condemned to vicious burny burny retchy mouth all day long. Stupid stupid evil barman. Stupid stupid idiot me.


This is all made triply worse (I was about to type Tripoli, but that is a completely different type of worse i.e. when bad things happen and you live in that part of Italy) by the fact I have a preview tonight of my Edinburgh show. A show I decided to rewrite yesterday but left most of the rewriting for today. Today, the day my brain died. I must admit, more and more I think about it, I worry that I have set myself up for punishment. Let me just put it out there, that perhaps none of you should trust me ever either. It appears I'm a proper bastard. Still last night was good. I haven't been out on a Saturday night for ages and I was wary that I may not be able to delve into such things like a normal person who has a normal social life. I was petrified I'd see a stag-do and have to stand on a table, grab a mic, and put each and every one of them down in a nasty way until they attacked me or I was removed. Luckily no such things happened. Instead there was much merry banter about everything from hats and Ireland to music and a man who cut his own cock off using a razor blade. What? Oh yes, I should add that one member of our group was a forensic psychiatric doctor. There's nothing like some really really grim stories to keep an evening occasionally uncomfortable as all the men reach for their own groins in a sympathy check as though to say 'I would never do that to you'. While the one woman in the group just kept asking questions despite the fact that I had clearly had enough imagery to give me nightmares for most of the rest of my life. I have learnt, after that and the incident here - EYE HAND IT TO YOU - that I really shouldn't ever speak to people in that profession ever ever again. But apart from that, it was all pretty good.


So I have eased myself into today with some Doctor Who (which started rubbish and got great - well done them), and Ulrich Schnauss (thanks to Rob Deering's recommendation) which is the sort of music that makes you feel like lots of clouds are giving you a hug. Thing is, I have a hangover so I'd quite like the clouds to piss off and let me sleep. You can't really win. Now, sadly, writing must begin. If you are in South London tonight, then pop along to Ed Comedy at the Hob (www.edcomedy.com) to watch a man flail about on stage with all the energy of something dead. Who knows what I will have done to ruin my own day by that point? As long as it doesn't involve a razor and my private parts I'll be happy.

Intellectually Unclassed

Up until about 2am last night (or morning if you're being picky, but its dark and therefore still night in my book. Yes, I have a two page book. One page says 'If it's light, then its daytime. If its dark, its nighttime.' I tend to get very messed up during the middle of winter and summer) I had completely forgotten I was hosting Comedy 4 Kids today. Its a bad thing to forget because, apart from the fact that it means I need to be doing something at 1pm, a time I am usually very happily two cups of tea into my day and just about stirring brain wise, it also means I should probably have prepared something. As it is, I've spent a lot of the last two days writing nothing about my Edinburgh show, which is a very different nothing to be writing to that of nothing about Comedy 4 Kids. Ultimately the kids today are going to get a phrase that derives from Icarus when he went ahead and fly to the sun without really knowing what he was doing: winging it. Ok, so Icarus died doing that, and its from football not Icarus. My you're touchy today. Its also the fact that if I forget I'm doing a normal gig - which I should add never ever happens. I have the memory of an elephant. Which oddly means all I remember is growing up as an elephant - then I am letting people down and that's bad. If however I forget I'm doing Comedy 4 Kids, then I am letting kids down and suddenly I become the worst person in the world ever. Apart from Mugabe. Or Will.I.Am. Anyway, all I'm doing here is throwing my guilt at you via blog format. Please catch it with your face and let me go one to what today's blog content was intended to be about.


Yesterday I realised that I don't really fit in with any type of intellectual group of people. Quite a realisation I know, but let me explain. During the day I helped my friend Wendy move house. I thought I'd gain some man points by carrying stuff. Man points are like Nectar points only you can only really cash them in when in the pub with other men or easily impressed women. For example, after yesterday I could say something like 'I carried a chest of drawers up some stairs' and that would use up all my man points in the hope that I might get bought a pint. This has never happened but in my head it might do. Then would what happen is the sexy bar maid would appear and give me a series of power tools and say 'you can have these as you obviously know how to use them' and then I'd cut down a tree or something. In reality, moving stuff yesterday absolutely destroyed me. I had no idea Wendy's lovely new house had quite so many floors and the combination of heavy things and stairs made this pathetic little man rather tired and achy. I would find myself taking slightly longer to go back down the stairs in order to regain breath and occasionally just considered hiding for five minutes in the hope that my muscles may rebuild just a tad so that I wouldn't have to crawl home. Still it was fun. I said the word 'pivot' a few times, and also got to unpack Wendy's son Max's box of toys, which included a Wolverine claw which is the coolest thing I've ever seen ever.


So ultimately, I'm not capable of life as a removal man. I thought I would counteract this when I went home by avoiding the football entirely. Instead I had a curry with my dad, we discussed everything from work to beer and how much neither of us care about the football. We honestly don't. Two years ago, I did a rubbish warm up thing for a BBC ident (that's Apple's very own digital car damage product. Not) where I had to ask people who they would be supporting in Euro 2008 as England didn't qualify. Apart from many interesting things such as a man at Bow Bus Depot who told me you have to be careful because 'buses will just creep up on you and BAM you'll be dead', the one man that stuck in my mind was a huge fish salesman at Billingsgate Fish Market. A giant of a man in all proportions, with tiny round glasses, and a white apron covered in fish guts, he was one step away from being a character in the League of Gentlemen. Sitting, eating his egg sandwich, we asked him who he would support. He looked at us quietly for a few seconds, before bursting into tears with this tirade about how England had ruined his whole year. He'd booked tickets to the final and now they hadn't made it through he didn't know what the point was. The money he'd used for the tickets he needed to pay his bills and ultimately they had ruined his whole life. The big man sat, a picture of pathos, sobbing his heart out and we quietly crept away, camera crew and all. We didn't use the footage. I mean, the whole point was 'who else will you be supporting' and he hadn't really listened, but also here was a man who cared so much about football that when his team let him down again, it had ruined his life. I don't think it could if I tried, but I really have far more things to than let football take over my life that much. Last night everyone seemed upset England hadn't played well. Thing is, we never win anything. I don't know how the country would cope if we did. We need the cynicism to remain British. Also, I do wonder if one year we should all just not care, the England team will go out there will nothing to lose and they might actually win. Unlikely, but you never know.


So instead me and my Dad watched a BBC4 program on Steve Winwood as we both think Traffic are awesome. I sat there feeling like a bit of an intellectual. Not strong enough to move furniture, not bothering with the football and instead watching a program on a clever channel about culture. Can you pass my pipe and a book of Proust and I'll just regale you with my favourite passages everyone? Then my friend Wilz came round. He had been at the pub watching the football, and turned up on my door with half a beer in hand, smoking a cigarette. 'Aha', I thought 'how can a yob such as this even consider crashing my evening of cerebral activities?' At which point my dad made him a cup of coffee and they sat there discussing Marxism, privatization and markets within a social context. I sat there thoroughly confused thinking that I never hang out with other people at markets, and isn't it amazing all the things that Groucho actually stood for. So, now I realise either I need to geezer up, or read some things. Or study politics while arm wrestling someone and therefore covering both worlds, labelling me a social diva. Or I might just not really bother.


Right Comedy 4 Kids time. I've only got one new joke. Its pretty hard writing new stuff for baby goats that often. Arf.

Deceivingly Unhelpful

Thank God its Friday eh? Though if there is a God it must be pointed out that he/she/it/they/Quango Destroyer of Worlds also created Mondays and therefore you can't just be passing thanks without thinking it through. Today I shall be spending time helping my friend Wendy move house. She's not going anywhere, she's just asked a bunch of mates to push her 3 bed three inches to the left. Arf. No seriously, I have offered to do such things as it requires carrying and being a man and stuff. More likely I will hurt myself picking up the first box, fall halfway down the stairs and then just sit and point a bit while others do everything else. I am essentially one of those people where I appear to be hugely helpful and kind but its often quickly realised I am useless at most things and I'd be less in the way if I just wasn't there. No one seems to have learnt this yet and so I just end up being asked to do stuff, and I of course say yes 'cos I think it'll be fun, and then when someone their most important possessions are being run over by the removal truck because I'd 'just put it down for a minute' they get all upset. I should really operate like how I did at one of my day jobs before I did comedy full time. There it would be a different person's job to make the tea everyday. I very quickly learnt that if I made the tea really badly, no one would ever ask me to do it again. Instead the one person who made it really well would end up making it everyday while I sat, looked at Facebook and generally neglected my work loads. Go team! Today should be actual fun though and I am very good at lifting things really. Sometimes I lift instead of stairs, and occasionally when people come to my gigs I lift their spirits. By that I mean I steal their whisky when they're not looking. Arf.


Even if today involved being set on fire while being prodded with sticks by mutant men, it would still be slightly more fun than the rubbish run through I had to endure yesterday. Actually that's slightly unfair. All the other comics involved made things fun, but ultimately the show was huge piles of dog turd, the type you'd try and step around but they'd just topple on you and you'd drown in them and cry. I won't go into details, mainly because I'm hugely shallow and anyone from the telly company may read this and get all angry at the expense of my non-career, but it appears that comedians have gone full circle from being the comedy experts, guests or commentary from shows, and somehow ended up doing the work of the idiots that usually enter the Big Brother house. Our aim yesterday was to do the sort of tasks that were reminiscent of that bit in The Word (for those that remember it) where some arsehole would do anything to get on TV. No as much as I'm shallow, and I probably would get set on fire and poked with sticks by mutant men just to get on TV, there is also an awful lot of stuff I wouldn't do. Ok, a few things I wouldn't do. However, there are still lots of arseholes out there who would do it, without any chance of it ever damaging whatever sort of lives of careers they would be entering after having a billboard up across London of their face and the word 'Paedo'. I didn't play ball properly yesterday. All my suggestions were mostly things I would never actually be able to do. For example the question 'In 24 hours I will become...' my answer was '...more powerful than you can possibly imagine'. Actually I say that'd be impossible but I am not very powerful at all, and people probably don't imagine I am either. So one can of Red Bull and I could have won that one. Hmm wish I'd thought it all through.


This slight blip in the world of comedy was further increased by having to fill in a Q+A last night for a tabloid about my Edinburgh show. One of the questions that they felt the need to ask, despite it being the literary equivalent of the sort of thing Fearne Cotton may say when her brain has only just been turned on at the switch, was 'If your show was a well know celebrity, who would it be and why?' Well its not though is it? I mean, its a show. A well known celebrity is a well known celebrity and my show is definitely my show. Frankly I feel as though that's like someone piping up on question time asking Michael Gove if his face was a well known pot of jam, which pot of jam would it? He would have to answer whatever jam it is that looks most like a stupid stuck up baby, but still it would be pointless. So my answer? Well I gave this:

Adrian Chiles in that its hugely inoffensive and will go past mostly unnoticed. When it eventually leaves no one will miss it.

But apparently that's too negative, so I've re-written it. Sigh.

Couple of other things:

- I received an email last night asking if I wanted a 'cool radiator'. Surely this is the most useless type of radiator there is?

- I should never assume that after drinking four pints in the afternoon, that I will be able to anything of use for the rest of the day. Because if I did assume that, I'd be hugely hugely wrong.

- My podcast is slipping down the charts like something by N-Dubz when people actually listen to it and try and get a refund on their purchase. If you haven't yet downloaded it, please do from here:

http://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/28yearslater/podcast.htm


Off to carry/break things. Fingers crossed its the former. I am so a man. Just a very very weak man who's crap at carrying things. Sigh.

Pay Peanuts, Get Tiernans

Only got ten mins to hack out this blog today due to very bad time keeping. I swear time keeping is pretty heard even though being a time keeper must be easier than being a zoo keeper. I mean they have to keep animals and know what the time is, so it would appear to be doubly hard. But they don't have to keep time which is clearly the hardest bit. My watch contains some of it, but it tends to escape a lot. Much like today where suddenly I only have 10 mins to write this, then run off and do some run through of some show that I won't get and probably don't want to get, and won't get paid for either way. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Sadly, if you pay nothing, you seem to get me. I'm not really sure how this works, especially as I really like peanuts. I'm also fairly sure zoo keepers don't pay peanuts for their monkeys. I've seen them feed the monkeys, and mostly they get fruit. But also at no point do the monkeys appear to check their wage slips and say 'hang on, fruit wasn't in the contract, I'm outta here' before commuting home.


So I'll try and summarise the important things I need to discuss: sunshine, beaches, June to August. Haha I summer-ised it! Sigh. Really though, I am void of things to chat about anyway as yesterday was just mostly fun with a trip to the pub with two of my very old friends Mat and Wilz. Sadly, as they are the same age as me, this also makes me very old and we sat, drank, discussed various juvenile conversations we remember having, which was easy as most of them were only recent, and generally caught up. We have all done fairly different things with our lives since school: me with the stand-up, Mat does acting and works in something clever to do with sound technology, and Wilz who has just returned from living in Israel for a while, before he heads of to Uganda in August. Despite this, whenever we meet, which is more and more rare these days, we all are still fully able to get along purely by insulting each other endlessly till we all leave. This appears to have been tradition for many years now with the buck passing between each others appearances and comments until any possible ego has been well and truly stomped on, laughter ensues, job is done. Combine that with drinking in a pub that has increased its upstairs decking to a level where it appears to be the best boozy treehouse ever, and talking with some random blokes about how they play poker with Graham Linehan and gave me free tequila, and its hard to think of the evening as anything other than a success.


I wish I could relay some of the 'hilarious' banter we had but ultimately I was a tad drunk and it would probably not be all that funny to you. Especially as you have no sense of humour. SLAM! Joke. So sadly this blog just becomes one of those run of the mill 'and then I did this and then this happened and that was my summer holidays' blogs which I mostly despise. And I didn't even mention where my mum and dad took me, or getting an ice cream or going to the seaside. Or draw anything in crayon. Incidentally, I really hope one day I see a DJ gig where the DJ claims to have stacks of wax, and he just has a lot of crayons. Or a bad ear infection. Ahem, sorry. I'm sure tomorrow, after today's run through will be filled with cynicism again and we can all be relieved. Till then, rest assured that yesterday was just pretty good. In fact adding to all that that my podcast was mentioned on Twitter by lots of lovely people like Chris Addison, Al Murray, Mark Thomas and Andy Nyman and is now number 11 in the charts, you can be assured that today is more than likely to go downhill from there.


Must run to get paid nothing while monkeys with peanuts tell me what to do. All the time has gone again which means I'll probably get fired pretty soon.

Casting The Pod

This is not so much a blog today as a rather extended advert I'm afraid. I'm being horribly self-promotional today, and not in a way that means I'll only refer to myself as 'The Captain' for all my hard work. No, in a way that means people on Twitter will probably hate me for the amount of times I'm irritatingly asking people to RT things, and in a way facebook friends who aren't really friends will do that thing so they hide my feed, but still insist on updating me on what they are doing in Farmville despite the fact it appears to be the most tedious way to waste your life ever.

So anyway, why am I promoting stuff? Well, I've gone and done a podcast for the first time ever. I prefer podcasts to plastercasts or the cast of Hollyoaks, and so I went and made one myself. This one in particular is a whole free recording of my 2009 Edinburgh show '28 Years Later' from the last Saturday at last year's Edinburgh fringe. Not only that but I've gone and done some oh so hilarious* interludes too that you can listen to, or totally not.

Anyway, all the links are on the front page of my website at www.tiernandouieb.co.uk

But I know that's an effort to do two clicks so here's the iTunes link:

http://bit.ly/dueBHN

And here's the direct download link:

http://bit.ly/9R5D3a

What to do with it once you've got it? Well you could listen to it on your iPod or mp3 player or phone or pop it on a memory stick, put the stick in your ear and download it into your mind. If the thought of hearing my 'creepily like Edgar Wright's' voice terrifies you, then why not just download the icons and use them to decorate your desktop? Perhaps in a funky star shape or square type? Or maybe just scattered around the screen like a futurised Jackson Pollock?

And if you do listen and enjoy, then please pass it round or tell other people to download. Prob won't leave it up there forever as I still use several of the jokes, so get it while you can.

Oh and I made a facebook event for it because I'm a loser:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105700592812161



In other quick news:

Stuart Goldsmith and Paul Sinha's previews at Fat Tuesday last night were both bloody brilliant and I couldn't recommend their shows enough. Definitely go see them in Edinburgh if you get the chance.

I have a sore tip of my finger. Why does no one make a convenient plaster for this? Sure I can get plasters that go around the finger, but hugely expose the bit that hurts. Or I can wrap a plaster around my finger six times to cover it but subsequently cut off all the blood supply and can't use most of my hand. What I want is a tiny finger hat like a plaster thimble or a pinkie first aid condom. Sadly these don't exist so I will just have to man up. Sad times.

I really hate to say it, but I though Cameron's speech apologising for the events of Bloody Sunday was very good. This is a day after I liked James Corden in a program. If things like this continue to happen I may ask one of you to kill me.

Proper blog again tomorrow. Promise blogsters.


* tiresome

Taxing Issues

DOLLARS, TAXES

I swear taxes are the most boring thing in the world. The only thing more boring would be watching paint dry on taxes. Actually, that's not true. That would at least contain the relief that you don't need to do your taxes as they're now covered in paint, or the fear that you probably should have done your taxes and now they are covered in paint. Here's the thing: I don't think sifting through, filing receipts and then adding them up, can ever ever be exciting. Even if someone fired each individual receipt at me, via some hi-speed cannon while I, dressed in armoured goalie gear, had to catch it, I'd still have to add it up and put it into categories which would ruin any fun. That and I'd probably get paper cut to hell so I'd be both bored and in extreme pain. Of course it has to be boring doesn't it? I mean, everyone would just claim off everything if it was fun. If doing all your taxes meant you had to eat jelly three times a day, while going to zoo on a skateboard, I think everyone would do their taxes all the time, and the economic climate would be in trouble. That or lots of animals would have businessmen's heads stuck in the bars of the cages after being flung from a skateboard covered in jelly.

Yesterday I managed to do all my incomings, and then two months of outgoings. What I've already assessed from this is that I've earned a decent amount more than last year (yey!) but still don't earn anywhere near enough to buy an island, a yacht, a large bassoon or infact, really anything. Occasionally I can buy a biscuit. One day, I hope I do my taxes and realise that I now earn enough to get a whole packet of digestives without too much financial worry. Saying that, if it all goes wrong, I've got more than enough receipts to chew on.


FOOTBALLS

Whilst doing my taxes last night, I watched the Italy vs Paraguay match. I'm not sure why. I hate football, but I hate taxes more, so it felt like I could distract myself from hating taxes by hating the football instead. Sadly it just meant I was doubly bored and angry, feeling like it was the closest I might ever get to self harming. Even though I'm not a huge footie fan, I do find I get sucked into the world cup. Not literally mind. That would really freak the winners out if when they opened the lid I popped out and said hello, undoubtedly stiff from sitting in there for four weeks. No, normally I just think that it must be the best of the best playing so the footie will be more exciting than normal. Sadly, I appear to be hugely wrong. Last night's game was as dull as doing my taxes.

The only bit I've been enjoying is a) the goalie's annoyance at the ball being 'too round'. I fully expect all the players to complain next that the sky is too blue and that the ground is too on the floor. Idiots. And b) the vuvuvuvuvuthingies really pissing everyone off. It does sound not too dissimilar to someone kicking a crane in the face, but I think that's what the world cup has been missing all these years. We've had violence and upset, its time for irritating dicks with horns. If anything, surely it will just push all the players to play harder so a game is over with quicker and there is no extra time for the parping of annoyance?


CORDEN

I watched Saturday's Doctor Who last night. I didn't hate James Corden in it. I'm really upset with myself.


OVERDOZING

I got up at 12.30 today. This is proper rubbish and goes along with my worry that now back at my parents, I am possibly regressing to be teenage ways. As long as this doesn't continue to having to drinking alcopops and having to do essays, it should be ok. Anyway, it's kind of fair as I didn't get to sleep till 5am after hanging out with Nat and Tom till the early hours. Actually I say Nat and Tom, but Tom was asleep on the carpet by 2am, so his presence was more incidental. Still, this needs to not become a habit, but the problem is, I really enjoy it. I reckon I'd be a pretty good nocturnal animal. Or a vampire. Though I like garlic, and being veggie have never had a black pudding. I'll stick to getting some sunlight where possible.


POSTERS


Here's my Edinburgh poster! All designed and drawn by the excellent Susan Carey who did my poster last year and the Tea and Cake posters the two years before. Its a cartoon me, with some injokes from the show on the poster that you won't understand till you see it. Ha. Have that. As I said, I'll be annoyingly plugging this until you all book tickets. So hurry up. www.edfringe.com




Btw if you get where the sub heading for the taxes bit is from, then you officially rock.

Rock Ness Pt 2: A Rock Nessay

This is a sort of mega-blog today. Its going to be the sort of size of blog that if it were to fall on New York, there would be widespread panic as it ate buildings and crushed cars. People would be running away screaming 'arrghh Blogzilla (or Blogjira if you prefer the Japanese version)' as various whimsical words bounced down 5th Avenue destroying all in their path. I was meant to blog yesterday and therefore split the weekend's adventures into two sizable, manageable chunks, but thanks to a delayed Easyjet plane and me erratically wiping 4 paragraphs because I've forgotten how to use a PC (Mac4Life - sheezy), it did not happen. So instead, take my virtual hand as I lead you down the bullet point path of the past two days. In no particular order:


- Yesterday morning myself and Chris Cox were strolling through the main field towards the Sunday Best tent. As we did I noticed a woman sitting on the floor with her friend. She was wearing a tutu and had her trousers round her knees as she sat there. She noticed me quizzically looking and shouted repeatedly 'Ah'm not havin' a wee! Ah'm not havin' a wee!' I kinda shrugged and shouted back 'I'm not judging', but she carried on saying it and then as we got just past her she shouted 'They saw me havin' a wee!' Firstly, she was about 200 yards from the loos. Secondly, if you were going to alfresco whizz anywhere on the festival site, right in the middle of the main field is probably the least inconspicuous place you could have done it. Thirdly, the way she was sitting had led me to believe she wasn't weeing, due to the odd angle of where the wee would go if she was, so it was only when she exclaimed she wasn't, that it became a lot more obvious. I really hope she never has to hold information for MI5 or something as if all it takes is a disconcerting look from me and Chris for her to give in, she'll be the worst spy ever. And she probably wees on her legs, and no spies should ever do that.

- I really wish there was a Winzip for real items.

- Our techy in the Comedy Tent was a bit of a legend. Standing at 'quite tall' or thereabouts, with boots, shorts, long hair, a cap, and a daily range of tshirts with pictures of things such as communist kittens on them, Maccy should have got on stage and had his own ten minute set. Amongst many favourite quotes he said all weekend, where his response to me telling him what the time was 'Right, time to get fuckin' c*nted', and his response yesterday to me asking how Sat night was: 'Got fucked, got laid by the Loch, got more fucked, so was all great till this bunch of c*nts decided they needed a 9 piece band on the stage. Fuck.'

- Most kudos of the weekend goes to Abandoman who saved my neck when Scott Agnew sadly had severe car issues, and they turned up and rocked an awesome 45 minute set to get us back on time with things. If you haven't seen them before, you really should.

-Over the weekend I spotted a group of three people walking along in sloganed hoodies. The first one said 'Rock Ness', the second 'Mad Ness' and the third simply 'C*nt'. I can't help but feel the third guy had a bit of a hard deal.

- Chris Cox does not like the prospect of being spooned so much, that he built a barrier in our tent made of my bag and his suitcase between our sleeping bags. Better luck next time.

- I have never been to that part of Scotland before and I'm pretty pleased I now have. Quick summary, its extremely beautiful and the Rock Ness site benefited from the fact that when you looked at the main stage it had the back drop of Loch Ness and its surrounding rolling hills. Sadly, that part of Scotland is also always windy, a bit cold and rainy, which when combined with the fact you are so North it stays light till 10.35pm and gets light again at 4am, makes it a pretty surreal place. Apparently it is almost entirely dark during the winter. So a note to all the people who enjoy suspiciously creeping around, head there only over the winter or you'll be too obvious.



(yes yes the camera on my iPhone is shit)

- I don't like MCing for four hours. FACT.

- However what I like less is performing to 2000 people who were hoping I was Kevin Bridges. I am not Kevin Bridges. This was a problem to some of them. I was meant to be doing 30 minutes but ended up, thanks to odd acoustics and the fact I'm not Kevin Bridges, just doing 24 mins. Second largest amount of kudos goes to the lovely and awesome Scott Agnew who covered my under-running without complaint or worry and did 35 minutes, with a further 5 minutes when Kevin was late. Kevin then rocked the shit out of it, packing out the big tent for the first time the entire weekend.

- Chris Cox is an egg.

- All the staff in the comedy tent were awesome, especially Elise, Beckie, Kieran, Lucy, Dave and Maccy, but special credit to the ace Graham who removed a drunk media person who shall remain nameless, in a swift ninja style movement that would be envied by Jack Bauer. Its a pretty hard thing to describe in type, but imagine said media type staggering in with his jacket hanging around his ankles. He struggles to step to the nearest scaffolding pole to grip to, then attempts to kick his jacket off his feet. As he just about manages to do this, Graham, from out of nowhere, appeared behind him, gently took his arms, turned him around and whisked him straight out again. I've never seen anyone look as confused as to where they are. Top work and funniest moment of the weekend.

- The driver that took me and Chris to Inverness train station on Sunday had driven the Strokes to the festival that morning. He probably thought at the time that he couldn't possibly encounter more famous and talented people than that until he met me and Chris. At which point he realised he was very right the first time and things would probably now just go very downhill.

- There was a milkbar at Rock Ness. Sadly it only sold tiny bottles of semi-skimmed or flavoured milk and no milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom. Saying that, it still appeared that some people at the festival were ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.

- This is what we could see from where me and Chris stood when Annie Mac was playing. Chris actually knows her so that's why we were allowed. I don't and therefore I didn't get to kiss her or anything which pretty much ruined my weekend. Can't believe how selfish she was. She is lovely and she DJ's hella cool and did make lots of people do the jumping ups and downs.



- Leftfield were pretty awesome, but appeared to have one woman who's entire purpose was to sing for 2 seconds and then just waft about in silver lycra at the front of the stage. I cant understand how she didn't feel embarrassed doing that. I would feel massively embarrassed if I had to stand in silver lycra and wave my limbs about at 25000 people. Saying that, Chris did point out that she looked good in silver lycra and I probably wouldn't. Very fair point.

- Whilst watching Leftfield a man came up to us and started to tell us how his friend had had to go to hospital as earlier that day he'd turned completely blue and collapsed. He was a fairly nice bloke and we asked him if his friend was ok, and it was only after a little while that he pointed out his friend had taken 'cider, vodka, beer, pills, speed and coke'. It suddenly became slightly more clear why this bloke's body had given up, and just as it was sinking in, the man said, without irony 'I think he's a fekkin' lightweight.' Amazing.

- Chris has no notion of why it would be bad to take a picture of a huge Aberdeen man with a big mohican without asking him. I find this naivety incredible and after trying to dissuade him from doing so, just decided I'd pretend I didn't know him and watch him get snapped by angry punk dude from a distance.

- I didn't find Nessie. I think she was hiding out of fear.

- Russ Cuban is an awesome DJ.


That sort of sums it up. There's plenty more to report but I have the exciting job today of starting my taxes. From gigging to 2000 people in a tent yesterday to sorting through receipts today. My life is a constant spiral of excitement.

Rock Ness Pt 1

There's something that feels hugely wrong about pre-writing a blog. Essentially the paranoid loon in me wonders if by typing such things it will determine what happens in my day in either some sort of cheap horror movie fashion or a more psychological Derren Brown NLP type way. More likely, I'll be typing the same drivel now as I would at whenever I got up tomorrow anyway, so its much of a muchness. Another phrase I totally hate. Sorry for using it. Much of a muchness? What the hell is a muchness? Is it a duchess that's eaten too much? The queen of the munchkins? No, that would be a munchness. Well whatever it is, having much of it would still be having some of something and therefore it doesn't really work out the same as meaning something is of little difference or inconsequential. Stupid people making stupid words. Tiernan hate words. Tiernan smash.


So the reason this blog is pre-written is because depending on when you read this I'll either be on my to or at Rock Ness, the festival by, you've guessed it, Loch Ness. It looks like it'll be a large bag of fun, funbags even, with Leftfield headlining tomorrow, me doing three different gigs including supporting Kevin Bridges on the main stage on Sunday and many other things, but...and this is a big fun destroying but....the weather forecast say its going to tip it down like a group of enjoyable restauranteurs giving all their service charges whilst falling over. Hmm, bit too long an analogy that, but you get what I mean. Its going to rain a lot. What this means is that little old me shall get very wet and muddy, and I am sharing a tent with Chris Cox, where we will spend all night no doubt in fear of being washed away straight into the hands of Nessie who will eat us both. I don't want to get eaten by Nessie. Sadly as Nessie killing harpoons aren't allowed on the plane, there is little I can do about it, so it will happen. Sorry, positive mental attitude and that, I will get drunk and then it will happen. I've never been a fan of rainy festivals. Admittedly, I'm not great at festivals anyway and having never done Glastonbury or anything, my only experience of a mud hellstorm was Bestival a few years ago, where the mud was so bad it ate babies and destroyed villages. Probably. All I know is that I didn't really like it. I was discussing with Chris how if this weekend is properly shit, then I will attend all further festivals in a zorb ball for the weekend, so that I can just hamster wheel my way over all ground until its safe to leave. This will be bad at Bestival where its mostly downhill, but if I can gain enough momentum, surely I'll just roll back up the other side?


So expect Sunday/Monday's blog to be mostly complaining. Unless I drown in mud, get eaten by Nessie, killed by angry festival goers for spending my entire set complaining about mud or something along those lines. At least it'll be good publicity for Edinburgh I guess. But I should probably not jinx all of this. Just incase this blog does affect my weekend then I can't wait for the bit where I crowd surf over everyone to meet Annie Mac (she's the most attractive female on the line-up so I'm making do) on the main stage where she whisks me away to a warm mansion nearby for a night of passion and watching Doctor Who on the iPlayer. Fingers crossed eh?


Oh and in other news, the World cup started today (yesterday, sorry. This pre-writing is hard). I don't really care. However, in an attempt to asses my manhood, I watched a bit of South Africa versus Mexico and realised that it was just watching some people in yellow and some people in another colour run around a lot, and was ultimately dull and munch of a munchness after all. I did get to drink beer while doing it though and suddenly it became a tad more appealing. Well, not really, but maybe I can just drink beer till its over whilst watching something else? Now that sounds great fun. Go World Cup!

Horseplay

Sometimes I think its hard not to class a day as an entire success. Yesterday for example involved buying a t-shirt with a robot on it, and making this horse out of items from my bedroom:



TAKE THAT NEIL BUCHANAN!

I think its impossible to not look at that and think, 'there is the work of a proactive man.' Or you could think 'there is the work of someone who suffers from severe ADHD' which is also possible. Here's the thing, I really probably shouldn't be left by myself for any length of time, or things like that happen. The day before, when I arrived at the venue for London Comedy Improv early, and no one was around, I decided I would try and do some of the breakdancing moves I could do over 8 years ago, and subsequently banged my head and pulled a muscle in my shoulder and leg. Once you have the ethos that any empty wooden floor should have some moves bust on it, then its pretty difficult not to obey. Of course, had anyone been there, I would have had conversation or at least enough embarrassment not to try. Saying that, I can still six step like no one's business. By that I mean that most businesses don't six step at all and that's why when I do it, it does not resemble any model of a functioning business structure in any way. No, it resembles a man flailing around his limbs like he's being attacked by an invisible octopus.


I have always had this problem when left by myself. At the age of 5 my mum returned home one day to find I had stuck an entire pack of her sanitary towels to the wall. When she enquired what on earth I was doing, I merely replied 'collage'. Bet Neil Buchanan has never done that either. So I shouldn't have been surprised when yesterday turned out how it did. I was pleased with getting a tshirt with a robot on it. It wasn't a real robot mind you as I'd have bee heavily weighed down by its metal and it would probably shoot people with its laser eyes while I walked everywhere. I really wish it was a real robot. But its not. I then picked up my fringe programme, went home, eat some chips and that's when things went wrong. It'd be wrong that I wasn't coaxed into making a DINOSAUR (you have to say it in capitals as that's how they used to say it before they became extinct) by my friend's Emma's goading that DINOSAURS are shit, but she didn't know the extent to which I would have to try and deal with my own challenge. It is a dangerous thing to challenge me with such silliness as I will try and win it, purely on a competitive and creatively challenged level, much to the detriment of my own time and safety. And so, 15 minutes and some foil meddling later:



Yes, its crap, but its also avant garde. Maybe. But either way, it was only onwards and upwards from there, making a horse (that was meant to be a DINOSAUR) from a table, a tshirt (not a robot one), two shoes, a lightsaber, a slipper and a stick type thing. I still don't really know what the stick type thing is, or why it was in my room. I await the say someone says 'hey do you have one of them stick type things? I really need one right now,' and I totally will have one. Its like the dude who was a friend of a friend or some tenuous link like that, that I heard always carried a lightbulb on him incase anyone needed one. My problem with that is that how did he know it would be the right lightbulb and how often would he sit on it, pierce his own arse and thoroughly regret his attempts to enlighten people?


So yeah, horse next, which I was hugely pleased with. I would totally ride that horse into town. I would totally race it in events and stuff. Then I was stopped only by my own ambition to make something 12 times bigger than the horse without having the necessary tools to do so. It didn't stop me thinking about the elephant made from a bungalow, gardening equipment, canvas and a dead elephant all night long though. I wouldn't really use a dead elephant. Well not all of it. So is it a good thing or a bad thing that I end up doing stuff like this? Well, other people might get bored and kill people, or eat their own arms, or talk to other people about football, and in comparison making a horse isn't bad at all. What scares me, is the longer I have time by myself, the more weird this creations may become. I fear having a week alone and being found crushed under a 50ft sculpture of a bear I've made with barbed wire, otters, bricks and several brooms. Still at least it would be better than anything Neil Buchanan does.


I'm off to have an interview while watching the World Cup Opening Ceremony. Don't think I've ever watched an opening ceremony before but I sincerely hope it involves lots of people trying to open difficult things, like very tight jars lids and safes. Then tomorrow I'm off to Rock Ness to get cold and rained on, then jump around to Leftfield like a proper twat. Anyone who is up there, feel free to come and tell me if I am not being twattish enough. Tomorrow's blog as a result of rainy twattishness and much fun, will be pre-written later today. Psyche. Or something.

Post Fox

I'M HAVING A DAY OFF TODAY! Well, sort of. Its a day off where I have to do some things and may even have to gig. Which means its possibly not a day off. But so far, I've done not a lot, so its been a morning off. Apart from going for a run, dealing with emails and phone calls. Sigh. Its so not a day off. Well that ruins that then. I had totally convinced myself it was one until you started asking question. You bloody ruin everything. Excuse me, I'm going to have a veggie sausage sandwich...........

........

...........Right. That was yum. Where were we? I'm having a day off. But despite this day of nothing that involves doing things, there are some important things to address. Like letters. Arf. And Italian women. Arf, but less of an arf as that's a shit gag. (They wear 'address'. No? NO? No.) So let's get started so I can start enjoying pretending I'm not doing all the things I'm doing, ultimately not doing any of them, then getting even more stressed tomorrow with double the things I need to do.

- FOX CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Is it just me, or is this the most ridiculous page ever to have existed on the BBC website? Its one thing when a policeman or someone gets an image of a terrorist or mass murderer who's suspected to have done something, just after they've done it. But a fox? Of course its not certain whether the fox is the same one that bit the babies, its a fucking fox. They ALL LOOK THE SAME. I can't imagine the mum sat down after it had happened, giving a witness statement saying 'well he was orange like, with pointy ears'. Why are the police even involved? If its not to question why the mum didn't notice a large fox biting her children and look into the high level of neglect that must have been involved, then they should probably leave it to the RSPCA. Or whoever it is that is in charge of closing windows and doors. Suddenly the tabloids and idiots have gone bat shit over the fact that foxes exist. Since fox hunting was banned, the foxes have obviously all banded together and worked out they can now eat babies without anyone being able to do anything. They are clearly doing all of this maliciously and on purpose. Or more likely, they are just foxes. That one that's in the Fox and the Hound was well cool. So was Robin Hood and Fantastic Mr Fox, so lets all just calm down. My brother has some foxes in his garden. They haven't yet eaten his face. In fact, all they do is bring him rubbish. The other day they brought him someone else's post. As long as he can train them to get his post, they will no longer need a postman. A postfox who collects from the postbox would be ace. More likely the tabloids would complain they eat babies and take people's jobs. Also they won't do this as my brother throws things at them and they go away. He is not afraid as they are just foxes.

So if it looks like a fox is going to eat you or your babies, just kick its face off. Its only a fox. That's all I'm saying.


- Big Brother started last night and I didn't watch it. Ha, take that Davina. I probably will get sucked into watching it at some point, but I've already noticed, that much like every year, they've selected a bunch of twats that will all get on/shag/argue/fight each other so that other twats can watch them sympathising with what utter twats they are. It really is the most terrible program ever, but its the last series so hopefully they'll just step it up a notch and kill them all at the end. Or it will turn out one is terminally ill or a serial killer or something horrible and everyone will realise what a horrible exploitative show it is. Then it will be all finished and they will replace the void on Channel 4 with a picture of a dead clown and some white noise which will ultimately be a step up the culture ladder.

Or more likely it will do well and the spin off Slightly Smaller Sister will take its place, where women of diminutive stature shack up together for 7 years and have to work together to reach things as part of tasks. Lets all pray for the dead clown.


- Just about everyone seems to be in the race for Labour Leadership. I'm wondering how I can give it go? Any ideas? I'd like to be in charge of something, and if I was in charge of Labour I could go to the Houses of Parliament and everytime Cameron spoke I could go 'unuh unuh' until he gave up. I think the winner of Big Brother should get to lead the Labour party. I'd watch it then.


- TICKETS FOR MY EDINBURGH SHOW ARE NOW ON SALE! Yes, that's right. You can buy tickets to see me in my lovely venue at the lovely Edinburgh festival now. So please do. Pleasey please do. My show will be ace. Promise. Here's the link, and expect me to post it just about everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, my website, your emails, carrier pigeon delivery, the postfox. They will all be going on about it constantly till August, so why not just buy them and sell the run out and then I will stop? Yes it sounds like blackmail. It sort of is.

HERE'S THE LINK - LITTLEST THINGS @ EDINBURGH FRINGE 2010


- Lastly the ever awesome www.londonisfunny.com website have put the Spotlight on me today, which is nice. I wrote some answers to some questions they had. One has percentages in. Have a read:

LONDONISFUNNY.COM SPOTLIGHT ON ME