Who Are Ya?

I have realised the huge flaw in only writing a blog every few days rather than daily, and that’s that I have far too much to talk about within any 24 hour period. Therefore letting it build up until I do actually write a blog means that you, the blog reader (yes, all one of you) gets a barrage of thoughts that have been left inside my head to build up, stew and generally make no sense, all delivered to you in one literary brick to the face. I’ve already written another Huffington Post blog today that may, or may not, be legally allowed to be on the site again (fingers crossed peoples), so at least that’s one strand fired elsewhere. Sadly for you though, here go all the other ones:

THOSE CLUBS

I had the joy this weekend of performing in one of ‘those’ comedy clubs. You know, those ones. The ones that only operate on weekends. The ones that see comedy as secondary to the amount of drink they sell and the disco afterwards. The ones that tend to attract the kind of crowd that can’t give a fuck about comedy at all and the ones where the comedian is less a purveyor of comedy than a master of crowd control, like a smiling bouncer. This weekend wasn’t too bad, but the Saturday involved an entire table of people who had tickets booked for one of the chain of clubs in an entirely different city. The staff – who were some of the nicest, most patient people in the world – sorted it all out so these idiots could stay, sat them down and gave them drinks. The idiots then complained about the drinks, food and service before proceeding to heckle every act with the phrase ‘WHO ARE YA?’ or the overly original ‘YOU’RE SHIT YOU ARE!’ before being kicked out during the second section. That’s the sort of lovely people they were. People who can’t even turn up to the right city then blame the rest of the world for their lack of brain cells. Part of me was sad they were evicted before I had the chance to respond to the ‘WHO ARE YA?’ heckle by telling them that they would need a lot more money to see acts they might know from the telly, and they’d have to act like actual proper audience members. This was the nicer retort of the two I had in mind.

Anyway, I had the blessing to be working with several other brilliant acts and the venue manager and rest of the crew were bloody brilliant, so all in all, we dealt with it and no one had a ‘bad’ gig. I don’t love these gigs but in the last few months I’ve taken resentment to those acts who like to tell me ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t do those sorts of shows’ boasting about how they are above it and frowning on those that do. And yes, several acts have said that to me. I can see why they’d say it and yes, if I suddenly hit fame I wouldn’t see myself ringing up these gigs to pop in and do new stuff on a weekend off. But the fact is, they are useful for a few reasons. Firstly they pay brilliantly. Shallow but true and as a working comedian I don’t mind being able to pay my bills by doing these shows on a weekend, if I can then be creative and do non-paid or lower paid nicer gigs in the week. I have to live and I like having things like a phone. Until someone finally pays me to eat crisps, this is my only option. The other reason is that while some argue that these gigs can make you a bad comic, forcing you to perhaps dumb down material and become more crass, I take a huge pride in walking away from a weekend like that having avoided all dick gags and stuck to my material. Sure, I don’t break into politics and keep to some of my older stuff, but I try my best to compere with friendliness and feel hugely pleased with making an audience laugh by just doing some of my older gags. I think if you don’t only do these shows it can make you a better comedian. If walking on a stage to an audience of rowdy stag dos, hen dos, parties and army folk doesn’t phase you then nothing will, and you’ll only walk onto stages with proper comedy going audiences with an even bigger sense of enjoyment than you did before. But yeah, hurry up telly work so I don’t have to think of more comebacks to ‘WHO ARE YA’. Thanks.

 

BE THE BEST

I was brought up to be vehemently anti-war. I have been on countless anti-war marches and generally believe that, on the whole, much like the song says ‘what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.’ The current situation in Afghan and Iraq, if either can even be referred to as wars anymore, just seems like oppressive regimes in already battered countries, where our country continues to send troops pointlessly to their death or at least injury and trauma, wasting money, resources and people we could use elsewhere. However, despite this view, I have, of late, gigged to quite a lot of army people. And some RAF. The thing is, they’ve all been lovely. They’ve all either just come back from Iraq or Afghanistan or were about to go and amongst the sometime horrible people I’ve come across at gigs, they have always been the nicest, most polite and lovely audience members. A bit of me has always felt sorry for them having to go through such horrible events and I’ve often held back bits of material where I insult either troops or the situations in those places. I think what’s happened is that while previously I would easily discard anyone who’d joined the army as a complete tool, I’ve since realised these wars aren’t their faults. They are the faults of the governments and industries that created them. Not only that, but in a society with such huge unemployment, a job prospect that involves you never having to pay rent, or pay much of anything, yet gain a decent salary, all seems like a decent idea. More recently I played a gig to a whole regiment who were losing four members to job cuts and were having a leaving do. Just where do you go from there? So for now, I’ll leave those jokes out if those people are in and hope this isn’t by any means mean I’m becoming a war sympathiser. Just a people one I think.

 

THE BOYS

Somewhere in the world at 5pm this evening, something really god damn cool had to be happening. Something so stupendously cool like Bootsy Collins and the Fonz riding Harleys and listening to Cymande while fighting ninjas. Something like that. Why? Well because at 5pm today, after having a huge milkshake, me and Keith Farnan, both replete with beards, went into a comic shop and geeked out. I’m having a bit of a comic resurgence at the moment with a continued love for the Walking Dead graphic novels, an excitement for the upcoming Avengers film and a constant sadness at selling my whole Marvel collection aged 17. Today I bullied Keith into buying Walking Dead volume 1, because it is one of the best things ever. He, for similar reasons, bullied me into buying The Boys vol 1 by Garth Ennis. I’m not going to go into it, but I’ve already read it and ordered vol 2 and 3 for delivery this week. It’s dark, gritty, imaginative, funny and brilliantly illustrated. That’s it. This entire paragraph is just a doting, gushing piece of marketing for The Boys. Go buy it. Bloody love comics.

 

Think that’s all. At some point I will write up the brilliance of the Altitude festival and the naked bear dancing in ski lifts, but I don’t want you to run out of word intake all at once. I’ll try to not leave it so long next time…..

Shit In A Bag

On Sunday, after returning to my car with L and the very funny Tom Webb, we discovered, lying by the side of the car park, a shit in a bag. The afternoon, up until that point, had been rather nice. A brilliant Comedy Club 4 Kids gig in the North Pier theatre in Blackpool, a mosey along the beach front and a nice drive there. Yet all of this became quite quickly marred by this display of contained faeces. Sure, it was contained, so you might think that that is ten times better than a crap on the pavement, but the disturbing thing about the offending article was that it was very neatly placed in a bag and left in the middle of a walk way, meaning some thought had seemingly gone into its placement and many questions instantly arose. Was it a dog or a human turd? If human, had they shat into a bag and turned it inside out or merely had someone hold the bag underneath them in a team effort? More importantly than all of this, why? Why oh why oh why had someone decided that this was a reasonable thing to do? The road into Blackpool is filled with signs trying to promote the sadly now rather dilapidated area, asking you to ‘see it’, ‘feel it’, ‘love it’, before stating a number of exciting things you might be able to do whilst there. None of these for warn you of an unwanted encounter with a pre-wrapped gift boom.

I find myself more and more on a daily basis simply asking out loud ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ about members of the human race. I’m not sure if its my waning tolerance for such things, or perhaps I’ve become more perceptive to such horror since growing out of assuming everything is sunny and lovely, and skipping about in a delusional haze of joy. Or maybe, just maybe, its that people have become even more horrendous. The other night I saw Chris Packham on Room 101 say his least favourite animal was ‘The Human Race’ which Frank Skinner quickly dismissed by saying how wonderful we all are. Thing is, I often think the same as Chris. Lions won’t cut in front of you at 100mph on a motorway without indicting. Snakes won’t, like the maid did on Saturday morning at my hotel in Mayrhofen, burst in at 6.30 demanding to know ‘when are you leaving?’ despite knowing full well check out is at 10am. And while dogs may have their shits put in bags by others, I can’t see them ever willingly doing it by themselves. It us. Animals don’t vote for terrible governments, they don’t pollute the Earth and they don’t racially abuse and then attack teenagers. Ok, they sometimes attack teenagers. But they are stupid teenagers who step into their territory with food, rather than those who are in their own territory minding their own beeswax. So, fair I reckon.

I should have expected Shitbaggate. I had spent the entire previous week at the excellent Altitude Festival mingling with some incredibly nice people – comics and audience alike – and only ever feeling sad about humanity’s existence when speaking to 8 out of 10 Austrians who seem to have innate hatred of everyone. But even then, I’d see a mountain behind them and be able to imagine throwing them casually off it, and it was all better. So really, I had a whole week of amazing gigs, much drinking and lovely company, so it had to crash down somewhere. Blackpool – a place where the idea of a ‘Pleasure Beach’ is realised using run down casinos, a giant Poundland and ‘The Conspiracy Theory Experience’ – was the obvious place for it to happen. Fair play to it too. Just when I might remotely think about enjoying life, just when it might seem like the world is actually a brilliant place, the seaside resort brought me humbly back to Earth with a shit in a bag. Cheers humans. Cheers loads.

My Slanderous Blog

This post was meant to be on the Huffington Post this week, but er, legally, cos of the things it says in it. So, knowing full well it contains libel and probably slander, here it is, in full form. Enjoy! btw it was written on Sunday so sorry if its out of date about anything.

 

 

Do any of you remember the beginning of the Warner Brothers cartoon ‘<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPFSNu_QNs” target=”_hplink”>Pinky and The Brain</a>’ that had Pinky asking The Brain ‘Hey Brain what do you want to do tonight?’ with Brain responding ‘same thing we always do Pinky. Try to take over the world.’ Yeah? That’s exactly how I imagine every meeting in number 10 between Cameron and Osborne. The parts are interchangeable of course, especially as brain looks more like Iain Duncan Smith and oddly, I think the only MP that looks at all close to Pinky is Lembit Opik and they won’t let him anywhere parliament let alone number 10, or even Europop stars anymore. It just feels like the Conservatives aren’t really even trying anymore. Way back in 2010, all revving up for the election, I had many a suspicion that Cameron and his cronies were going to do awful things, but that’s in large to do with my upbringing, Conservatives throughout history, and Cameron’s horrible smug, slightly swollen face. But at least they were trying to pretend they might do good things back then. There was all the economic growth that was promised, the solemn oath that they wouldn’t touch the NHS, etc etc and it allowed at least a possible glimmer of hope that the UK wasn’t about to descend into an Orwellian nightmare only with a far more deprived an depressing Big Brother aired on Channel 5.

 

This week alone has featured so many supervillian-like announcements that it’s almost as though the Tories are opting for a ‘lose voters’ policy at best and a French revolution at worst. The NHS was given its final battering on Monday, shrouded in the sort of right wing announcement about privatising roads that sounded like they would even upset the almost fascistic views of road Hitler Jeremy Clarkson. Then this was all forgotten as after upsetting anyone who was remotely ill and anyone who ever drives, they announced their ‘Robin Hood budget’ that pissed off anyone left who may have still had a glimmer of apathy about them. A budget that, with its cut of the 50p tax rate, very much has stolen from the poor to give to the rich, and leaves me under the assumption that Osborne has only ever read his book about the green hatted hero and his Merry Men back to front. Either that or he only meant to compare his party with them because they too are a band of thieves. The 50p tax rate in itself has only been discarded in an attempt to stop those for whom it applies avoiding it. So, millionaires dodge paying tax and therefore the tax rate is lowered to make them pay? Is this not the financial equivalent of negotiating with terrorists? ‘Well if they are going to try and find different ways to bomb the transport system we thought we’d just give them small bomb bins on each tube to accommodate them as such.’

 

Add to this the granny tax to make pensioners irate, smoking and alcohol price increases to make those who are angry not even indulge in their vices to get through the rage, and the Tories possible u-turn on the decision of ruling out the extra runway at Heathrow which in turn will make all the green protestors very red at the blues. Who’s left that might possibly still offer this government support at the next election? Only the very very rich, who just last night discovered much to their joy, that at the cost of £250k they too, could gain ‘access to Cameron’, a term that very much sounds like he has become a rent boy of the highest expense. The party of course have adamantly denied all this, <a href=”http://www.conservatives.com/Donate/Donor_Clubs.aspx” target=”_hplink”>despite links still being up on their website advertising as such</a>, just in nicer words. You too, for just the salary of a lower paid worker who’s average wage makes living very hard, could join the Treasurer’s Club, replete with badge, secret codename, an annual newsletter, plastic vinyl of Osborne singing ABBA’s ‘Money, Money, Money’ and a lifetime of influencing the government to put a lot of money back into your overly full pockets. Cruddas, the man who ‘mistakenly’ made such offers to undercover reporters has now resigned as the party’s principal treasurer, of course. No fear, he will be replaced by a fittingly named <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Fink,_Baron_Fink” target=”_hplink”>Lord Fink</a>, who ranks 698th in the Sunday Times rich list and comes from a background of being CEO of Citibank. So we can all be sure that he’s not remotely interested in laundering money quicker than a Zanussi full of £50 notes. On top of this the Conservatives will be launching their own investigation into what happened which will involve one spokesperson being paid some of Cameron’s access fee to say he discovered nothing, no one saw a thing, noting happened here and if anyone says otherwise they may go missing.

 

So there’s no hiding that our votes have far less power over the Coalition than the proffers of the rich, which makes me think that there are only a few ways to deal with this. One is that we all raise money so at least a few of us can pay £250k to go and meet Cameron and bribe him to stop ruining things. That or at least get close enough to him to punch him in the cock. The other option is that if they’ve reclaimed Robin Hood as some sort of elitist, rich loving hero, then we should reclaim the Sheriff of Nottingham as our champion, surrounding their camp at parliament with men on horses and threatening an execution unless we get our money and land back. Let us out supervillian the supervillians I say. And if course if any of you want a say in any of this, you can have a word in my ear about it for a mere £250k. Ahem.

Drunken Goat Stunt Expert

I have just got back from a casting which I started by falling down an entire flight of stairs into. It wasn’t a stunt man casting unfortunately or I’d have been right in there and the job would be mine. No, sadly, otherwise I’d have topped it off with being on fire at the same time and the job’s a good un. It was for a voiceover casting and so instead I merely felt rather stupid, flustered and not in the prime of vocal brilliance. The director told me that her son had fallen down the stairs recently too and that we should sue, and whilst in usual banter state I’d have retorted with something wonderful like ‘ oh no, that’s how I turn up to every casting’, I merely smiled like a gimp, and proceeded to be mediocre. I am not generally a clumsy man. I’m generally as sturdy as a goat, and pride myself on not falling over at the best of times. I have been known to not fall over when drunk. I have also been known to not fall over when walking places, or indeed, not walking places. Almost exactly like a goat. In fact the only times I have taken a tumble in life where when drunk and going somewhere and as we know, that sort of thing rarely happens.

However, when it comes to castings I suddenly become a calamitous fool who spent his ten minutes in the waiting room replacing his legs with big, stupid, idiot’s legs. Yes, I could have found a better analogy, but they are just the legs of idiots. At a casting a few years back for a presenting job I noticed the a step up to the room with the casting in and in noticing said step, my left leg just kicked it, sending the right one stumbling over it like a drunk, moving goat man. It’s not just legs either. Only recently I made the incredible faux pas of trying to steal a producer’s coffee as I went for a fairly important TV meeting. A woman had entered in a green cardigan and asked if I had wanted a cup of tea. I’d said yes and minutes later, without looking up, I saw a green cardigan wearing lady walk in with tea. Her cardigan being green. Not her. That would incite a different response altogether. But instead I just grabbed the cup of tea while saying ‘thanks’ only to look up and see a very different, far more senior woman who I fired a stream of apologies at before sitting down and feeling very stupid.

Being a comic, there really is little that will embarrass me, but simple klutzy body fuck ups can ruin me. I have a back catalogue of moments where one of my arms will go rogue while eating soup and just fling it somewhere, or the classic leaning back in a chair only to miss the back bit by a few centimetres and slump uncomfortably forward. So somehow I need to find a way to utilise these sorts of events. I remember a kid at school called Daniel Marshell once falling off his snakeboard in the middle of the playground. Yes, a snakeboard. I am old enough to remember that rather unfortunate period of time where it was decided that the simple flat surface of a skateboard was not enough. Instead a board with a joint in the middle to make movement even more ridiculous was the way forward allowing children to smash their faces into pavements all over the world. Daniel was actually fairly good at it if I remember until this amazing fall that resulted in some good air time and a proper arse smash into gravel. The school crowd gathered round to point and laugh in that good natured, lovely, supportive way they always did. Oh no wait. Sorry, I meant ‘malicious and shitty way.’ Sorry. Thing was, as they were about to point and laugh Daniel, using all initiative ran into the crowd, turned round and pointed where he fell shouting ‘aaaaah! Which dickhead did that? Hahahahahah what an idiot! He totally dropped! Look at him! Fucking idiot! Ahahahahah!’ Which confused everyone and somehow the circle paused, then dissipated and his kudos was left entirely unscathed.

I still remember watching that happen in total awe and wishing I could be as quick as that. Sadly, instead, I’ll just be a bit dazed, tell everyone I’m fine before grabbing my sore bum with a slight ‘ow’ sound and spend the rest of the day being miserable. Maybe I just need to go for more stuntman drunk goat jobs.

Smokey McSmokerson

Smokey McSmokerson lives next door to us. That’s not her real name, its merely a moniker that we, in our flat, have given her. Well at least I don’t think its her real name. Stranger things have happened and it could well be that her parents, the McSmokersons, decided it was best to name their daughter so that her overall title has a lovely ring to it, in the same fashion as Dino Dini or Mario Monti, only less Italian. Or reasonable. I have no idea what her real name is, what her job is, what she’s like as a person or anything other than the one thing I see her do everyday. Our kitchen window looks out, rather inconveniently, into her back garden. It used to have a grotty net curtain that hung over it, but I decided I would prefer less privacy to a swathing of dirty grey over our cooking area. About three or four times a day, Smokey’s garden door opens, she strolls outside, sits on her stone step and has a cigarette. She does nothing else while having this cigarette. No playing with her phone, no reading of a book. Just smoking. She sits, stares back at her garden door, partly due, I presume, to her viewpoint being forced in that direction by the placing of the stone step, and she thinks and smokes.

Sometimes she looks directly at me while I do the washing up or cooking, wondering why I’m looking out into her garden as she smokes, interrupting her only bit of alone thinking time she has. This is the only impression she ever gets of me. We have never seen each other in the streets where we live, or outside of her garden and my kitchen. In her head all I probably ever do is cook food and wash dishes. When she does look at me, I immediately look away until she is staring absent mindedly back at her flat, at which point I stare at her again, wondering what’s going on in her head. She never looks sad, or happy. She just smokes. I like to assume she’s thinking about one of these things:

1. A distant far away land where everyone smokes all the time and is legal in all indoor areas. Children are handed cigarettes from the moment they are born and everyone quotes Gene Hackman in ‘Crimson Tide’ when he says ‘I don’t trust air I can’t see.’ National Smoking Day is a day where people smoke even more than normal and masks on airplanes supply oxygen and nicotine incase of a crash.

2. Whether or not my name is really Washy McWasherson, or Cooky McCookerson and whether or not my parents – the McCookersons or McWashersons – just had no taste in names. What I think about when I cook or wash up and whether its about a world where everyone washes dishes or cooks all the time.

3. How to take over the world.

4. Getting some wood and blocking up our kitchen window from the outside so that I can’t stare at her while she smokes a cigarette and me and L can stop shouting ‘Its Smokey! She’s back!’ whenever she appears.

But she might just be thinking ‘this is a lovely cigarette’ or about her work, or life or how inconvenient the design of the flat is that means we can look into her garden. Some days she smokes a lot more than others. Some days she doesn’t seem to appear at all. Though it could be that some days I wash up or cook more than normal and coincide exactly with her smoking and somedays I just don’t. Or it could be she is only able to smoke when someone is watching her. Maybe she is not a social smoker, but a professional model smoker who only smokes when it may promote the serenity of the activity to others.

One day I may actually meet her. In over a year of living here, we’ve never bumped into each other on the street near where we live. She’s never been the one that opens the door when I go next door for mislaid post. We have never attempted to wave or even pretend we have any interest in knowing each other beyond our regular awkward daily sessions in ignoring each other. I have thought about making little signs, or pictures to make some sort of contact. But then I often think that what if I she reciprocates with signs or pictures and I don’t like her pictures? Or signs. Or she says something mean about the way I wash dishes or cook food? What if her name is Smokey McSmokerson and I find it hard not to laugh at her whenever I see her from then on? It’s not worth the hassle really. So I’ll just keep staring at Smokey, a person who I have decided to entirely define by her regular habit and she can just assume I am a man who washes up a lot of dishes.

Today is No Smoking Day. I haven’t seen her once. Oddly, I feel really proud of her for this. Well done Smokey. Well done indeed.

Not In Their League

There are very few people in the world who make me feel a bit like a nervous idiot fan. Most of them are music based, generally because if you put me near an instrument, I’ll spend 5 minutes trying to work out how I’d hit someone with it, 5 minutes trying to blow into it, even if its a string instrument, then eventually give up and lean it against something that will cause it 3 minutes later to fall over and break. Even if its a grand piano. I am very bad with instruments, reaching only being able to play the ’12 Bar Blues’ in guitar at school before realising I could shout and make people just as blue, so gave up. As a result this leaves me to see most people that can play instruments or make amazing music as some sort of being that has been bestowed with powers by the gods. But there are also a few people who’ve done certain things in the comedy or acting world that make them just amazing to me. It’s become less and less over the years because – and yes, I realise how arrogant this sounds – as I get better at what I do (the current scale ranges from being abhorrently terrible at the start to now being mediocre at best) I can see and understand how they do what they do and so it all becomes a bit less impressive.

Last night I accidentally sat opposite someone who I still hold in my ‘slightly in awe of books’ on the tube. It wasn’t intentional, but he was sitting in the quietest bit on the carriage and as I had just got back from four days of shows in rural Wales and then gigged in central London I was slightly less used to people than normal and as usual, very wary of Saturday night drunken ones in town. Rural Wales doesn’t allow you to encounter too many people at once. There are far too many hills, trees and rivers to get in the way of people and so, instead, you start to remember what space, peace and quiet feels like and then get the shocking discovery that you like it. I have noticed this before, having only recently been to Scandinavia where they have so few people they spend far too much of their lives being happy. It takes a while to figure out that that’s what it is. There general joyful disposition, their constant politeness and hospitality when they do meet people, their constant lack of need to be in a rush anywhere. Its because there isn’t anyone to get in their way and slow them down and they are far less likely to encounter a total bellend at any point in their day to make them realise that being nice to people is utterly futile. Whenever I am somewhere like this, such as in Wales this weekend, I immediately remember that having less people is a bloody brilliant thing, then I return to London and within days just return to grunting at idiots who stop walking right in front of me, and find it difficult to sleep unless there’s sufficient car noise outside or the sound of someone shouting about how they need to vomit after ‘that jagerbomb’. But after this Welsh excursion – which included a visit to Big Pit (an underground coal mine) just days after watching The Descent for the fifth time. Not wise – I was still a bit uneasy around idiots and so sat right at the end carriage.

Taking my seat, I noticed the man opposite was Reece Shearsmith, a man who, ever since seeing him say ‘Oh yeah I hadn’t thought of that!’ in a stupid accent in Spaced, was a hero of mine. League of Gentleman was nothing less than a masterpiece and many things he’s done since have been brilliant. But far worse than me being in awe of him, I once performed one of the worst Comedy Club 4 Kids gigs I’ve ever done in front of him about three years ago. He was there to see the son of a friend perform, and after I very briefly met him beforehand, I went on to host to complete silence, fluster all my words and generally wish I was dead. I didn’t get to speak to him again and that was that. So I hid my head in my book wondering if he remembered me at all and whether it would be a plus or minus point. I should have just said hello but I get funny about these things. If I was introduced in a professional capacity it would be fine, but out in the real world its just not. Case in point was Simon Amstell several years ago, who I saw walking along in the West End with Miquita Oliver from T4. I was with my brother and friend Mat and despite having gigged with Simon a few times, I assumed he wouldn’t say hello as I was just an open spot. So instead I chose to keep my head low and just make it all easier for everyone. Then as we passed he said hello and I looked like a rude twat. I have had a very similar experience with a few ‘named’ people in the past and generally have decided that outside of the comedy scene I like to be as inconspicuous as possible, so I’m sure they do too.

So I spent 25 minutes trying to read my book, occasionally looking at Reece Sheersmith while he spent 25 minutes looking at his iPod, trying not to notice the weird beardy idiot that he probably vaguely recognised from somewhere but was generally just fed up with. If I’d just said hello I could right now be working on some amazing horror comedy with him. Or be being invited to be in the next League Of Psychoville as a new character. Or, shuddering as he shook my hand saying ‘oh yeah, you were that really shit host at Comedy Club 4 Kids that time weren’t you?’ Probably best I kept reading my book then. Sigh.

Return Of The Blog

Its the return of the blog, oooh yeah, return of the blog, oh right now, return of the blog, you know that I’ll be back, here I am. etc etc cue your best Mark Morrison/Kermit The Frog voice. Anyway, yes, hello, this blog is back. Hello? Hello? Oh. There’s no one here anymore after my month long hiatus. Oops. I can understand why. What is the point of a daily blog if it doesn’t happen daily? Or even weekly? Well my friends, foes, chum, chumps and chumpettes, very little. Though to be honest, I had very little to write about in my time away and I thought it best not to bestow you with paragraphs of dull and instead take a breather from literary rantings. To sum up the last month – I gigged in Estonia and Finland which was incredible, but on the downside made gigging the UK shit again. In one week I dealt with horribly chatty women who talked all the way through the show in Poole, a lovely huge crowd in Chichester, an apathetic, bribed crowd in Leicester, a racist crowd in Bournemouth and a meh crowd in London. After feeling hugely deflated about the place I call home, I fucked off to Norway for a week where they proved to me that the world is lovely, with mountains, fjords, instant heart attack inducing brown cheese and respect for comedy. Incredible comedy gigs, a better understanding of English than many people I’ve met in the UK – and I mean British people, I’m not being xenophobic – and audiences who actually want to see a show. I’ve since been back and spending most days crying with sadness at the government’s constant destruction of the country, playing far too much Skyrim, occasionally blogging for the Huffington Post and doing gigs I honestly couldn’t give a shit about including one in Kent where I managed to insult a deaf women who sat in the front row with her back to the stage. To be honest, she deserved it. It was a temporary period of disdain and so each day, this blog would merely have said things like ‘honestly, you are all fuckheads’ before describing how I want to put my head in a pit and get a career in sleeping.

But I’ve missed typing that sort of thing, so here I am again, perhaps not daily, but with regular witterings to tell you – the one person that may still occasionally check this shit – about my life that you really don’t care about. Well to add to that ever growing set of things you know about me that probably take up useful space in your brain that you might need to do things like remember the PIN number for that card you only use in emergency, where you live, or your name, here is today’s newsflash: I’ve decided not to do a solo show at the Edinburgh Festival this year. Yes. There you go. Woah woah woah, stop those tears chickadee. Don’t go tearing up your travel tickets to the Scottish city, and pissing all over those few tickets you bought to see other shows you don’t care about but thought you might fill some of your otherwise meaningless life time with. I really would love to do a solo show and I have an idea for one and everything, but I’m not going to. Why? Well it’s all for a very good reason i.e. I really can’t afford it. I’m fairly sure that after owing at least £5k every year – not including all the money I don’t earn during Edinburgh having an impact on my bills for the two months that follow – that there was an audible cheer from my bank when I decided not to go. As a visitor you may think Edinburgh is expensive, but you honestly have no idea just how bad it is for performers and how much it costs us to work for a month. Yep, we pay to work. That’s worse than the government’s ‘slavery under any other name, still smells like elitist, right wing evil’ workfare scheme. At least those unfortunate souls forced into stacking shelves for nought but the threat of losing their benefits didn’t have to pay to do it. I can imagine, had Argos decided to stay in the scheme, just how shitty service would have got if every time someone served you, they did it without getting paid. They’d spend at least 45 minutes hiding at the back before bringing you a box of something they’ve spent 10 minutes of that kicking with hate. Now imagine them doing all that but having to pay for the privilege. Not only are you not getting your item number from the catalogue, but you’re getting a turd in a box instead. Maximum disdain for life achieved.

Edinburgh every year costs us lot bloody loads. You have to hire the venue at a minimum of £1500-2500 for the month. Add to that the PR cost of at least £1k+, printing and flyer costs of the same again, accommodation of the same again, promotion costs of at least the same again, and enough money to pay your rent back home, all your bills and to live for a month despite not receiving an ounce of pay. ‘Ouch’ is an understatement. So this year, I’ve decided the Fringe can go punch itself in its overblown face. Especially as with the Olympics cutting into it, I really don’t expect to make anything less than minus £4k. Which is what would happen if I sold out everyday. Its like saying your worst case scenario is a punch in the face where you lose all your teeth and best case scenario is a punch in the face but two of your teeth remain making you look crazy.

There is no such thing as a union for comedians, because despite us being a bloody friendly lot (and we are. Seriously. I can only name about 10 comics I think are utter bellends), comics are still fiercely competitive. If a union of comics said they wouldn’t do a certain show, then that show would just offer it to newer comics who were desperate for a leg up and they’d still end up with a full, if less experienced bill. I do wish, however, that we could muster up a union, just once, to decide that everyone – absolutely everyone – didn’t go to Edinburgh one year. Just once. Then they’d all realise that a festival of comedy, theatre and music can’t happen without comedians, actors and musicians. We’d all meet in Hyde Park, remember what the sunshine was like in August and drink beer while promoters and venues in Scotland realised they need to make things more reasonable in these times of inflation and recession.

Its quite hard in a way to shout on stage – as I have been these last few weeks – about the oppression of the current economy and the government, and how people are becoming less and less able to live within their means – when the comedy scene has been like that for years. Most fees haven’t changed since the early 90′s, despite fuel, food and hotels all raising considerably in price since then. I’m honestly having to look at gigs that are out of London and work out if, after I drive there and spend petrol, its worth me doing, which is really sad. Especially as some of the best audiences are those the furthest away. So yeah, this year, no Edinburgh solo show. However, like a total tool, I’ll still be there doing kids shows, missing any kind of warm weather and spending my whole time missing doing a solo show. Ho hum.

See why I took a break? Well no more. You can look forward to me explaining about the miseries of the world more regularly again. Right, now off to see an ancient Welsh castle and spend the whole time complaining that I haven’t got wi-fi.

Snow Business

I’m mostly spending today walking around outside with less clothes on than everyone else. I have sneered at snow warnings and temperature predictions with distaste. Oh no, -10c outside is it? How terrifying for you all. Might snow a bit might it? Get little cold toesies will you? Not me. Yesterday in Helsinki the plane I flew back to the UK on took off in a snow blizzard in -23c. Get in. Take your poxy British winters, I am now an experienced Arctic snow dude. Through the last week travelling around the gorgeous sights of Estonia and Finland I have felt cold that nearly made me cry. It didn’t, purely because my tear ducts had frozen to become another weak area on my face. Wrapped in so many layers, I was like a human onion. Peeling off any of them would have made you cry. Underwear, topped with thermals, with tshirt and jeans on top, then thick socks, a zip up, a warmer zip up, my jacket, hat and scarf. I was the winter version of a weeble, padded to the extremes. Had I been hit by a car, I would have softly bounced off to land gently in the half a foot of snow. Only my face exposed, it meant I was often strolling around working out how to hold my head so that the insides of my nose wouldn’t freeze incase I sneezed and killed a child.

I was quite an experience being away this past week. I had gigged in Denmark before but Estonia and Finland were two new ventures and both equally amazing. Estonia is a country I never would have thought of going to if gigs hadn’t appeared, but now having been I would highly recommend to anyone. Only 1.2m people in the whole place, you get an incredible sense of space and calm strolling around picturesque medieval streets. Surrounded by huge 12th century churches and city walls, while all the houses are coloured a mix of pastel reds and yellows, it all feels a bit magical. Talinn was a beautiful city, but Tartu in its miniature size felt like someone had allowed me to run around a children’s book. Thick snow and cobbled streets is a lovely mixture. The whole place felt like Disneyland with much less crying children. Again though, the cold tear ducts could have been a factor.

I didn’t get to see a lot of Finland, being only in Helsinki for one night and the weather being so cold that walking around sightseeing was impossible. I still saw enough to say that I like the city though and to be honest I fell in love with it on the ferry there from Talinn, staring out at the frozen patches of sea looking like an icy cobblestoned path. I think I’m just a sucker for still getting excited about snow. Yesterday while having a mini-sightseeing trip myself and Louis (the organiser of all the gigs and from Australia so still amazed by snow) spent ages watching some men unstick a ship from its frozen waters with huge steam rods, and then we purposefully stomped in thick snow, avoiding the cleared paths. It didn’t matter that I was only wearing trainers as the powder just fell off. Its lucky I was only there for one day or there’s a high chance I’d have no feet by now.

Finnish and Estonian people both similarly crave the sunshine and being used it, aren’t huge fans of the cold white stuff, but it still doesn’t have the same ‘sigh’ factor when it snows as in the UK. It may be partly because they can deal with it, roads are cleared in seconds, planes still take off. I think when it snows here, as much as love how it looks and the joy of building snowmen etc, we know our week is ruined. As a self-employed person its generally shit, as I lose tons of work due to the inefficiency of British transport and road services. It may also be because there are too many of us here and so we can’t just enjoy the tranquil stillness of a snow covered place. Helsinki is a busy city but still has less than 600,000 people there. We have nearly 8 million people in London. Thats’ more than the entire population of Denmark and Estonia put together. Yet we’re all crammed into one city. No wonder its a hassle. Snow makes darting round these people even harder on icy streets. It makes trains even more crowded as there are less of them. It makes traffic jams so horrible tear ducts will unfreeze through frustration.

As my plane left Helsinki last night, the last few glittering snow flakes hovering in the front of the aircraft, I thought I might miss the snow. I thought I’d miss the extra 5 minutes it would take to get ready to head out, adding every single bit of clothing. I thought I’d miss how quickly the fresh icy air would heal a hangover. But right now, I’m praying it doesn’t snow tonight. I have to go to Poole and something tells me that cold weather will make that journey harder than traversing across several countries in the North. Bloody England. Its great to be back.

Sven

Sven is not a happy man. Despite his carefully crafted dreadlocks and lifestyle not dissimilar of a student, he doesn’t seem to be remotely impressed with being stuck in charge of a youth hostel in Talinn. Not one bit. A tall thin man with a sad face, he wears clothes that looks like he was lifted up and slotted into them like a toilet roll into a loo roll holder. They fit him almost exactly, with slight space for movement and an area about the shoe to make it look like he accidentally grew in the night. His t-shirt of a red, once exciting, now rather faded and word. A reminder that once, long ago, Sven had fun. His trousers have probably seen clubbing days but now only see other return from clubbing as he enforces that ‘no visitors’ are allowed in the rooms or ‘to keep the noise down’. Sure Germans do stick to rules but he didn’t think he’d be the stereotype when he took this job, spending everyday perched at his tiny computer desk, surfing the escape possibilities online endlessly, using the computer that ‘is for everyone unless I am using it.’

As I entered the hostel today Sven didn’t even look me in the eye. Another one of those comedians, he probably thought. Staying here for one night, taking a large room to himself, while the rest of the world suffers. ‘You do this comedy as a hobby?’ He asked me. ‘No’, I replied. ‘Full time. Its my proper job.’ ‘Hmm, curious’ came the response. As discerning in tone as possible. My job isn’t a proper job. Nor will it ever be. Yet somehow, somehow, I earn more than he does and enjoy my life. This discrepancy will only burn inside his soul as he searches yet another Facebook page for some reason as to why his life has hit a huge dead end. The sort of dead end that you can’t quite turn the vehicle out of without scraping both the sides and some arsehole telling you ‘its a dead end y’know’ and that you’re facing the wrong way.

‘Where are you from?’ ‘Germany.’ ‘Yep, but which part.’ ‘Oh, you wouldn’t know it.’ I honestly began to wonder if Douglas Adams’ creation Marvin was based on a trip to Germany many moons ago. ‘I don’t know why I left’, Sven said, before turning back to Facebook. Outside the very walls in which he sits is a city steeped in architectural history dating back over 7 centuries. But he’s seen it. He’s seen it before. He’s seen the people come and go through it. He’s heard Americans say its quaint, English people talk about the beer and Australian backpackers take extra bread and cheese at breakfast to make a sandwich for lunch. Tomorrow, I leave here. Another one of those many people whose names he won’t ask about, whose careers he will discern out of spite, whose comments on minus 13C degree weather he’ll snort at, knowing full well he hates the cold too. And in years to come he’ll still be here. Surfing Facebook, wondering why everyone in the world has more fun than Sven.

Why waste time Sven? Here’s the answer: Its because you’re a penis. I’m totally going to find a way to fuck up the internet on that computer and make you cry. I really worry I shouldn’t be allowed out into the world. Ever.

White Whine

Things seem to be easier in Denmark. That’s what I’ve discovered. Well most things anyway. I’m currently staying in a magician’s bedroom in Copenhagen while he’s in Aarhus, and trying to find where he keeps the tea is a nightmare. So far I’ve discovered tons of glitter, a crystal ball, balloons, a toy racoon, a skateboard, a series of hats and I know where the beer is. His flatmate, a Danish comic called Niels who’s very kindly letting me stay, is still asleep. I have no idea how you wake a sleeping Dane in a kind way but I can’t help but think back to the Jorvik Viking museum and seeing a helmet destroyed by a Danish sword, so I’m staying clear. There is beautiful snow outside with children sledding down picturesque hillsides, while I am scrabbling around just wanting a cuppa. All is wrong with the world.

Well not all. Denmark, actually, is one of those countries that makes me return home and wonder why we can’t do anything right. Yesterday for example, I got on a three hour train journey. It cost me £45 to buy a ticket on the day, which is about 3 times less than it would in the UK. Then the train itself was clean, spacious, with information about where you were and when you’d get there every step of the way. The views were snowy fields and amazing lakes all the way. Compare that to any UK train journey it it merely seems like we get the withered, not talked about, younger brother of European travel. Even when the high speed rail from London to Birmingham is made I daresay the wifi won’t work, you won’t be able to find a plug socket for your laptop, you be able to either have your table down or move your arms and chances are someone who smells will sit next to you.

I do realise that complaints about ‘not plugging in your laptop’ are what Niels has been referring too as ‘white whine’. He often likes to point out when a complaint is something we can only make having the lives we do in the Western world. So far these have included things like complaining that the hotel yesterday kicked me out at 11am and him being annoyed his plate wasn’t big enough for all his food. At either of those moments someone from the 3rd world could happily have pointed out what arseholes we are and all the other far more miserable things in the world. Though this wouldn’t have stopped me from being tired, nor Niels from being hungry and all in all we’d have questioned how that person had got to Denmark from their country without a reasonable income and why on Earth they were in Niels’ flat.

Apparently, I’ve been told, Danish people complain a lot. But I reckon that’s because things work and make sense here, so when they don’t, its a surprise. I’ve never seen anyone new to London negotiate the Underground system as quickly as I did the S-Train system last night. I don’t speak a word of the language but it was all pointed out clearly how to get where, with everything running on time. I’ve seen people stare at Oyster card machines for well over 30 minutes hoping that their brain might explode before they have to actually get on a tube train. Yet we grumble and moan but never really complain and I think that’s because we are now so used to how badly everything works we’ve given up trying to change it. Not that I’d change it you understand. Otherwise I’d have to work a damn sight harder to write jokes and I’d feel far to content to ever rant about anything. Its all just white whine really.