The Annual Douieb Review

Here we are at the last day of 2011. As some people would say, its been a year of ups and downs. I agree with this. I’ve been up some hills, particularly over August in Edinburgh, and I’ve also been down the same hills in order to get back to where I lived. I’ve been up some escalators and again, down some later otherwise I’d have had to live upstairs in a shopping centre. There have been some good times, like 22.22 which I always find aesthetically pleasing and some bad times like 15 x 276, which is too difficult for me. Personally though I’ve found 2011 a difficult year to decide whether or not it can join my non-existent log of good years – the annums not favourite tyres or blimps. I should point out that I honestly don’t have one of these. Partly because I consider the end of the Edinburgh festival to be my end of year comedy & career wise, but also because I find that in my cynical old age I know full well that it’ll hit midnight and nothing all that dramatic is going to happen. Unless the Mayans were right and 2012 is going to be the end of the world, in which case I’m very glad I’ll embrace it sitting at home with L having a drink, finishing my drawing of a viking rather than being surrounded by mega twats moshing their skin off in an over priced underground ship’s container. And yes, I know the Mayan’s predicted the end of the world will happen in September so really, that’ll be after Edinburgh anyway and technically in my next year.

But let’s board this band wagon and look at why 2011 was indeed one of shits and giggles. In terms of the world, it was proper massive elephant sized dung shit. The economic crisis swept across the Western world allowing several governments including our own, to make horrible cuts and changes that all very much affected the lower classes and not at all the banking pricks and the rich that caused them in the first place. Several ‘evil’ dictators died or were killed while other people have been put in place that those who dictated why the original tyrants should be usurped can more easily sell weapons to. Horrible natural disasters have happened, thousands of people have died unnecessarily and overall we all felt very much more mortal and vulnerable. We became the first generation of people who think their children will have a worse future than they will and that is a truly horrible thought. Though at the same time it may save us having to read them really sickly bedtime stories with happy endings and instead go for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or repeat viewings of Mad Max to prepare them. We’ve had more and more obnoxious people trawl the internet making nasty comments unnecessarily, generally being shit to each other and all the while instead of preventing or dissuading the public from doing this, the press have proved itself to be far more responsible for such ills than anyone else. Oh and Gil Scott Heron died which was a terrible loss for the world. Then again to balance all this, there was Frozen Planet and that was great.

Personally though, I’ve had a great year. Sad times mean comedy thrives and career wise I haven’t been busier. I’ve gigged in several different countries, to thousands of amazing people, done a bit of telly and more importantly than any of that, I’ve gigged at protests and events I’ve felt were important. I’ve written material and spoken about things I actually give a shit about and get passionate about rather than just harp on about bears. Which to be fair, I’ve also done. I’ve honestly never felt more pride standing up in front of a massive crowd on Westminster Bridge on a sunny afternoon talking to a massive crowd about why we need the NHS. Or way back in March on the big TUC demonstration, doing stand-up hundreds of people while police helicopters rattled over us. Edinburgh was a mixed bag but of all the things that I didn’t expect, the children’s show that was written in three hours and put together in such a ramshackle haste ended up being a 5 star hit and has lead to some very exciting things. Above all this, I’ve met someone who I completely adore, managed to get a car, went to three zoos, found Adventure Time, was a best man for my best friend, found out I can’t snowboard, and last night I pretended to be Guy Garvey and getting the entire room to sing the chorus of ‘One Day Like This’ so I could stop for a second and drink more beer. Music wise I saw James Blake silence a tent of thousands at Bestival, Elbow smash both the O2 and Glastonbury with an amazing reverse Mexican wave at the latter through the entire crowd at the Pyramid Stage. Me and L watched the National sing ‘Vanderlyle Cry Baby’ acapella while the crowd whispered along, sending a chill down everyone’s spines and we both witnessed DJ Shadow perform to incredible visuals from inside the Shadowsphere. I watched Radiohead from a rainy hill while the gorgeous people of the Pink Bus provided shelter and food, peeked into the tent at Lounge on the Farm where Goodnight Lenin played and then decided they would be the opening track to my Edinburgh show. I watched Sam Duckworth do an amazing solo gig at the Borderline club to an awestruck crowd, which, along with previous meetings, led to my Small Guy Garvey show last night. I’ve worked with a puppeteer who was involved with so many films and tv shows I’ve loved, I struggled to hold back tears, clutching L’s hand so tightly while watching Translunar Paradise at the Pleasance Dome and I won the Slammer. So y’know, it’s been pretty good. Oh yeah and I started drawing a viking.

2012 has a lot to live up to. Selfishly, I’m not looking forward to the Olympics and Euro 2012 destroying the comedy scene for several months making bill paying tough. I’m also not looking forward to the effects of the government’s cuts continuing to destroy UK society. I know it’ll be another year where I will be consistently baffled as to how some people can operate by being so horrible and inconsiderate to others. But there’s loads more I am looking forward to, because (and excuse the retchy seriousness) life is always what you make it, and right now I’m enjoying making it fun. I hope the rest of the world realises that we can make stuff happen if you put your minds to it and frankly, we don’t have to stand for the oppression we face. I’m not doing resolutions as such, but aside from cutting down on eating entire bags of Kettle Chips in one sitting (less of a resolution, and more of a ‘trying not to die’ plan) I aim to continue to do what I can to voice my opinion in an accessible way and hope to make a difference as minor as it may be. Oh and I’m totally going to finish the viking drawing.

May you have an excellent night tonight, whether you be brave enough to go against expectation and be out partying, or like me and L, stay in and eat curry. I hope you’ve all had a great 2011 and will have an even better 2012. I hope you make some decisions, chase some exciting dreams and stick to them all and make them all happen. And if you can’t think of any, why not start with a viking drawing?

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The Passenger

Yesterday was one of those odd ones. You know those ones where even if you pretend you had had some grasp on how it would all pan out, life decides that your ideas were not quite random enough and throws all the curveballs at you it can until you give in and roll with it. It wasn’t bad odd, just odd odd. It doesn’t help that I was at the Lounge on the Farm festival in Kent and random things tend to occur more at festivals than anywhere else. It’s when a field is specifically designated as a place for people to romp around in animal onesi’s or for that office worker who’s usually dressed in shirt and trousers to suddenly appear in fluorescent blue shorts, face paint and use poi in a manner that requires both huge amounts of confidence and also no skill whatsover and will, at some point, have a child’s eye out, that you conjure up an area for bonkers to frequently rear its mental head. Lounge on the Farm is a really lovely, very small and hugely chilled festival. Amassing itself over only three main fields and focussing on mostly local talents, local beers and local punters, I had assumed it would be a rather relaxed day nowhere near the likes of Glastonbury or such and as a result had dragged L along for a lovely festival fun day. Yet while we had much fun, neither of us would have expected these three things to rock up on our Sunday:

Thing 1: The Last Straw

I really need to learn that when doing kids gigs, you sometimes have to be quite careful what you say as children are prone to riot quicker than anyone else. I had been enjoying some very merry banter with some rather looney festival children including one who said his name was ‘Hippy’ and kept pointing at airplanes, and a boy who had travelled all the way down from Liverpool for the festival and yet hadn’t enjoyed himself one bit and wished he’d stayed at home. There was another child who, since the beginning of my set, had been parading around the front of the stage with his diablo and wanting to take part in every bit of material I had. His name was Elliot and while he seemed sweet, he also had that air of a child who is used to attention and while I didn’t want to get all teacher like with him, I had had to ask him to sit down several times in order for other kids to be able to see. At one point he started to fill his diablo with grass and so I thought it best to ask the audience what he should do with the grass. Of course, the general consensus was for him to throw it on himself. He decided not to do this and instead threw it at me a few times. And here is where I realise I must learn to not do this at kids shows – I said how much I liked grass being thrown at me. Cue a huge avalanche of children running up to the stage throwing grass and hay at me, until I was mobbed by about 15 children rubbing it in my hair, putting it down my tshirt and generally making me some sort of evil kids wicker man/Wurzel Gummidge tribute. After several minutes of this including a child trying to punch my groin – which I’m not sure was right in anyway – I decided to do a crap joke about how I wanted to say goodbye but instead I must say ‘Hay’ and left the stage being followed by children like a demented Pied Piper. I’m bloody glad I don’t still have hayfever or I’d be dead.

Thing 2:

Sitting with L in the beautiful sunshine and listening to the very good Goodnight Lenin, a man lay infront of us on a mattress. Lounge is one of those festivals that does nice things like have mattresses and pillows for people to seriously ‘lounge’. Its a nice extra and the man infront looked a level of comfort that I was envious of. Until that is, from seemingly out of nowhere, several small (possibly 6 year old) girls pounced on him, grabbing the mattress and trying to pull it out from underneath him while screaming. The man looked bewildered. These children were most certainly not his, nor did he know them, yet they had banded together like a tribe to ruin his sleep time. Then as the man was getting his head together, a huge bald caveman like chap approached telling the girls to ‘put some welly into it’ before helping them lift the man off the mattress. The bald caveman then looped a rope around it, the girls leapt on top and he dragged them away like king of the tiny people. The man merely lay there whispering ‘ I think I’ve just been jacked’. All very odd and further proof that kids are mental and dangerous. Me and L didn’t sit on any mattresses for the duration of being there.

Thing 3:

Two minutes into my adult set later that night, I mentioned I had driven to the gig. A Northern Irish voice shouted at me from the crowd and asked if I was going to London. I said yes, and she held aloft a ‘London’ sign that she had made and was aiming to hitchhike with, and asked if she could get a lift. Infront of a tent full of people it would seem mean to say no, and may well lose me the crowd with another 25 mins or so to go. Me and L had planned a nighttime walk on Whitstable beach but the bolshiness of this woman made me say ‘of course’. I told her I’d be leaving straight after my set and she raced off to get her stuff. I thought nothing of it until she returned just as about to deliver a punchline, repleate with all her camping gear and an excitable grin on her chops. It turned out she was a performance poet called Katherine Brogan and I got her up to do a poem infront of everyone and she rocked it. I restorted with a shit poem I wrote years ago that went along the lines of:

” I wish I was on holiday,

With sun and sand and sea,

But instead I live in Holloway,

Which is shit.’

The set was great and after Katherine joined myself and L on our journey home, paying for the lift with a crocheted iPhone cover that she made on the way back for L and much interesting banter. I’ve never given a lift to hitchhiker before and I have to say, its much fun. I learnt a lot about the up and coming squatter’s rights consoltation to make it illegal by the current government. As someone’s who’s parents travelled around the US staying in squats in the 70′s I found this all quite saddening and more so that the consoltation will happen in the height of summer when most people are away and the whole thing will be ignored and probably immediately carried through in order for the police to arrest them all. Here’s an article she did in the Independant all about it:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/property/home-truths-squatting-is-the-perfect-example-of-the-big-society-2288870.html

After an hour and a half of a brief glimpse into the life of a poet squatter, she leapt out into the night somewhere in Hackney and we were left with merely a small ball of blue wool in the back, a mix of grass and hay still in my hair and an odd fear of lying on mattresses. I love festivals.

Massive Planker

I realise I have been neglecting this blog of late, what with there being a distinct lack of WiFi in the festival fields of Glastonbury and this last weekend finding that paying €3.50 just to tell you what a lovely sunny time I was having in Malta seemed like expensive boasting, and so unfortunately this took a small hit. I hope none of you were left too redundant of things to do and read and I can now only promise that I will intend to blog everyday once again until Bestival in September when similar field based antics to Glasto will render it impossible. One day they will put the future and the internets in fields using cows as antenna and all shall be fine. Then on another day they will decide that like the supposed idea of God, WiFi is everywhere and should just be free and you will be able to access it whatever country you are in for nada. Some people say I’m a dreamer. Well, yes, I am. Particularly when I’ve had cheese.

So without further ado…well infact without any ado. We don’t do ado here. We are adoless. So without any ado at all, here’s some points of note for which to dwell upon, or perhaps beside:

PLANKING

I did my first ‘plank’ this weekend. Some of you might be questioning what such a thing is and whether or not its some sort of terrible sexual fetish focusing around wood based objects. No, no, its far more tame than that. Its a craze in Malta at the moment where people lie face down, in a straight line in odd places. You must have a serious expression on, have your arms by your side and pointing away from you and your legs straight and the more bizarre the location, the better. It has taken Malta by storm and people have died planking on roads or on balconies then falling off. People have planked at their own weddings and on MTV. Have a look here for those of you that Facebook:

PLANKING MALTA

It was a fad in the UK for a while, but then quickly died down after people realised its not that extreme or exciting at all and we don’t have time in our lives to be doing such things, whereas the more laid back attitude of the Maltese means they have snapped it up in their hoards. After jumping off a rock into the sea and then sitting on top of a boat in a way that went against all health and safety standards on Saturday, it was all I could do to risk a ‘plank’ over the weekend. Saturday I managed, to rapturous applause, plank on a table on the stage with no problems at all. Sunday, after a beautiful 5 course meal, my attempts caused the table to tip slightly, ruining my plank somewhat, but a second attempt proved successful. I’m not sure what this means now. I’ve planked, and I can say I’ve planked, but ultimately, aside from about 500 Maltese people, I can’t see it gaining any respect for at all. I can only hope a time comes where several small children need to cross a gap in water or across buildings and my planking experience will form a bridge to help them across. Or perhaps several people will need to carry me somewhere and I can assist by making myself as portable as possible? Only time will tell. Until then, its obvious I’m a planker.

 

PAUL

I managed to watch 20 minutes of the film Paul last night. Then I realised it was more fun to stare at a blank ceiling. This is not a great sign for anything that is meant to capture the imagination.

NORTHERN LINE

I’ve managed to create fictional history for every stop on the Northern Line. This was partly to entertain L on the way home yesterday and partly because I am wired wrong in my head. I don’t have time to tell you them all here, but promise to make a full tube map with my definitions on at some point. Highlights included Lee the Finch being the largest of all the birds to the extent he needs both an east, west and central station for the public to navigate around him, and Elephant and Castle being a joint venture between Nelly the performing animal and Roy the former, now sadly deceased, host of Record Breakers. See? I’m wired wrong.

BAC

I start work at the BAC today. Doing acting and shizzle. I give them a day before they realise I’m only good at larking around and planking on tables and decide to get someone who’s actually trained and stuff. I am also going to see how many times I can pretend they need my BACS details before they get upset. Commence fun.

 

Normal blogging service shall resume as of tomorrow. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Foot Of The Problem

I can’t understand people that don’t like feet or have  a phobia of them. They’re pretty important things feet. Imagine not having any. You’d fall over all the time for a start. Buying shoes would be a waste of time. Measuring things would be difficult. And for men, no one would know how to make inappropriate assumptions about your penis size. See? Feet are brilliant. They also rhyme with wheat, treat, beat and street, so if you don’t like them you’re probably odd.

 

I love my feet. Its not often people harp on about their feet but as a diabetic I have to get them checked a lot because apparently they can fall off or explode or something if you don’t look after them. I never really look after mine but they have done pretty well by themselves over the years. They’ve trodden on lots of sharp things like rocks and bees, walked me all over the world, did a little bit of damage to people during kick boxing and I can use the right one to pick things up off the floor. Yes I can. Not many things mind you. And not when I’m drunk. I have also danced on them a lot and despite them easily comprehending the sideways moonwalk, the backwards one still evades them. Idiots.

 

After Glastonbury my feet hate me. They are covered in horrible blisters, cuts and bruises that only come with hiking them around in wellies all day shifting six tons of mud with your feet. I then worsened the situation yesterday by wearing birkenstocks which despite all their trendy connotations, appear to be built to tear huge strips of the sides of your lowest appendages with every step you take. Consequently today I have been trying to work out how not to use my feet to get anyway. I was unable to crawl onto the tube. I can’t walk on my hands so getting from the tube home was a feet torture fest and I daresay doing stand-up later without using my feet will be difficult.

 

So I am left to just keep using my feet until they break which will make the doctors sad. Stupid feet. I hate feet. Wish I had wheels. No wonder people hate feet. Let’s all swap our feet for fins or blocks of steel or gerbils. Bah. Feet.

One Day Like This A Year Will See Me Right

Well that was quite honestly one the best weekend’s I’ve had in a long long time. I’m now home, showered, have used a proper loo and yet I’m really missing the mud of Glastonbury, especially as it was such a beautifully hot day as I drove away to head back to London. There were so many moments where I was stuck with a perma-grin on my face or just content with standing in the mud with beer and damn good friends. I could write an essay detailing everything I’ve done over the last few days but as per usual, I’ll just indulge you in my personal highlights:

- Pighenge is not as good as Stonehenge. However some of the pigs were really big and were all dragged there by human hands and no one knows how.

- ‘There are always dicks around flags’ – Tom Flood’s Glasto motto of the weekend. There was more about how it was like a disappointing rainbow with a pot of dickheads at the end but I won’t go into it.

- There are a lot of different names 4 Poofs and a Piano could have had if they’d used a different instrument. Barry Castanogla came up with a lot of them.

- I wore a really big hat.

- I went to see Jessie J with PB, PB, Mel, Monkey Liz and Monkey Hannah because we thought it’d be funny. It wasn’t. She was rubbish. She didn’t even play the only song we know for ages and ages. Then, when she did, we realised we didn’t like it anyway. Hmm.

- Janelle Monae on the other hand I’d like to carry around in my pocket. She’s so bloody diddy and amazing. Possibly the best set I saw all weekend. Amazing.

- I would like the Carnival Street bus to follow me everywhere I go playing that funk music and with the sexy woman at the front of the crowd dancing.

- I made a wish in the Grandfather tree. No, you can’t know what it is, and if you steal the 20p I put in it to make the wish then you are scum.

- Most awkward moment ever: Sitting to eat food one table away from Graham Coxon, only to have it pointed out to me by people on my table that I’m wearing my Blur tshirt. This was not intentional. Thank god for zip ups.

- Never sneak up on Craig Campbell.

- Carl Donnelly throws wee at people’s tents.

- It’s very sad when you share a moment with someone who is a total bellend. ie a man infront of me at Wu-Tang threw a water bomb into the crowd. Arsehole. But then he was the only other person in the audience who seemed to know the lyrics to ‘M.E.T.H.O.D Man’ and so we rapped them together. I still hate him.

- I met a girl from Oxford who says Thom Yorke wears ski gear when going for walks.

- The people on the Pink Bus are my favourite people in the world. Much kudos to Tom, Victoria, Caroline, Nick and Meg who saved me with lovely food and wine on a rainy afternoon.

- The syncronised dancing done by the staff at the Hurly Burly tent on Saturday morning to ‘One Day Like This’  was fantastic. Not as fantastic as the look on the man’s face waiting to get served as he realised they were doing the whole song before going back to work.

- I do not like people who like pixies and think I’m a pixie and chase me because I’m a pixie. Terrifying.

- BB King is a bloody legend.

- Warpaint however are not. Whiny bored girls. Yawn.

- Between everyone at Glasto I reckon we have moved the entire field clockwise bit by bit by misplacing mud from our wellies.

- Most boring conversation all weekend:

Him:  (pointing to my Blur tshirt) ‘Are you going to see them tonight?’

Me: ‘No. Its Pulp tonight, not Blur.’

Him: ‘ Oh. You going to see them then?’

Me: ‘No.’

End of conversation.

- I like it when old school friends appear behind the bar at a festival and give you free booze because you haven’t seen them in years. Thanks so much Marcus. Bloody legend.

- I don’t like it when the free drinks they gave you give you brainfreeze to the point where you have to have a sit down. Bloomin’ strawberry daquiris.

- Sarah Morgan didn’t weave daisies in my beard.

- Daisy however, did paint my face. So its close.

- Big Boi rocked the West Holt stage. However 1) he wore camouflage gear yet I could still see him, and 2) the lyrics to Outkast’s B.O.B on reflection, are pretty wrong.

- Important Discussion of Friday night invented my Monkey’s Liz, Hannah and Mel: Wouldn’t it be great to have boobs for hands and hands for boobs? The short answer: No.

- On the Thursday when shown to the wrong side of the festival from where we needed to park, myself, PB and Marti were stressing somewhat. A man in a stetson, smoking and with a grisled wrinkly face pulled up in his jeep. He asked in a hella cool growly voice ‘where do you need to be?’ We told him and he magicked up a pass that meant we could drive around the site where we liked. His surname? Shepherd. It made me almost want to become religious.

- Elbow are still my current favourite band ever. Being able to take part in possibly the world’s biggest reverse Mexican wave was amazing. Happy 20th Birthday you fucking amazing band.

- I still don’t know how they got that tube train in that wall. However, I love how underneath that tube train and wall is a dirty dirty dubstep d’n'b club which rocks on till 6am. Aces.

- Yesterday all I ate was a banana, two bits of toast and some churros.

- Radiohead were great. Its just a shame I couldnt see them when I could hear them and couldn’t hear them when I could see them. Dear Emily Eavis, please sort out the Park stage, thanks.

- Rain gets annoying after a while.

- Adults do not like mud. Kids love mud. Kids fall in mud on purpose. Adults fall in mud by accident. The fun adults then realise they are big kids and keep falling in mud. The belly slides down The Park slope were the best example of this.

- Blistering sunshine gets annoying after a while.

- Is it wrong to have a favourite festival toilet? I did. It was the one on the far right side of the Theatre and Circus camping area. Always seemed to be clean. Well done poo scrubbers.

- The urinals in the main fields, when the mud by them had sunk, are too high for a small man to reach. True story.

- Mark Thomas’s words of wisdom for the festival ‘Don’t get run over by tractors.’ Without that knowledge I’d be dead right now.

- Cheese strings are bloody great at festivals.

There’s more, but I know have to entertain children. They had better sit far away from me or they might inhale toxic Glasto fumes and be harmed. Back to usual blogging tomorrow.

Glastoclock

I’ve just has what may well be my last shower until midday on Sunday. Knowing that is the case it was a high density scrub of sorts with bits of me getting cleaned that haven’t seen a proper soaping in years. Bag is packed with items that only see the light of day a few times a year: my trusty maglite who’s batteries haven’t been changed since I was 18 due to its lack of use and will no doubt fail on me when most needed in a Mulder and Scully-esque moment of huge proportions; a trusty loo roll that will no doubt get wet and thrown away within minutes of arrival; baby wipes that I will use three of before realising I hate smelling like a baby and then will leave the lid open whereby they all dry out and by day three I will mourn their loss; more changes of clothes than I need and won’t use but all will still smell damp and need to be washed when I get back; my dad’s wellies that he doesn’t know I’ve stolen, again; and diabetic stuff that I will ignore the use of until I get home and have to fix myself in a major way when I do. There’s more bits and bobs including my trusty groundmat that makes no difference whatsoever except in perhaps a placebo manner, and my travel pillow that operates in a beautiful way whereby wherever you place your head is the most uncomfortable. So yes, I’m ready for my first ever Glastonbury.

 

No, I’ve never been before. Silly isn’t it? Well truth be told I’ve never been able to afford it, and until this time, I’ve never got a freebie for it, so it makes some tiny amount of sense. I am properly excited. There are a trazillion acts I want to see this weekend and despite knowing I won’t be able to see all of them I have decided I will try my best, even if that involves working out a system to be in two places at once. I’m not yet sure how I’ll do this, but I reckon booze may help a realisation. Or at least numb the brain enough to stop trying. I’m definitely going to see BB King, Wu-Tang Clan, Morrissey, Elbow, Graham Coxon and DJ Shadow. And I am definitely not going to see U2 because Bono is a tax dodging bellend cockpiece. True story. There are also a silly amount of people I know going which will be nice. I won’t see any of them of course, no matter how hard I try. I’m fairly sure Saturday night will end with me sitting in a mud puddle somewhere ten miles away from the main stage wearing a headdress and war paint, trying to work out exactly where everyone has gone.

 

That’s not the aim of course. The aim is to kick the fuck out of Glastonbury so hard that they won’t come back next year. Yes I know it isn’t on next year and I’m fairly sure this is entirely in preparation for my visit. Even if it isn’t they’ll be extremely pleased they timed it like that. Yes they will. So I’m leaving this blog here and won’t be returning until Monday. If you get severe withdrawal symptoms there are two things you can do. One is to listen out to my soundcloud page as I’m going to try and audiotweet a fair bit if my phone allows. That page is here:

TIERNAN’S SOUNDCLOUD PAGE

The other is that you should feel free to write my blogs for me, and post them in my comments box. Either tell me of your adventures or perhaps write what you think I’m getting up to. Please don’t write I’ve drowned in mud. My mum will get sad.

 

Right I’m off to go punch some mud in its face, down some beer and tell Bono he’s a dick. Adios chumpos. Glasto-a-go-go.

Fomo Mofo

All I’ve done these last few days is complain. Everyone that I’ve spoken to has asked how I am and rather than respond with the token ‘I’m fine’ repartee, I have proceeded to tell each and every one of them how tired I am, how busy I am and how much I’d really like some time off. They then ask me what I’m up to and I explain I’m off to Glastonbury tomorrow then gigging in Malta next week and immediately any sympathy they had for me disappears in seconds. Herein lies the problem: I cannot in anyway pretend that what I’m doing isn’t fun. Its uber fun. Its funtropolis. Its heavy bouts of funshine. But, its really tiring fun. And as I eke ever further towards older age, I sometimes get tired.

 

‘ Are you tired because of all the hard work you do Tiernan?’ Er….well….yeah. And that drinking till 6am on Monday. And all the fun I keep having because I am a hedonist who also suffers from what Tinie Tempah referred to on his ill judged appearance on This Week as FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. I could have very sensibly have not gone out on Monday and felt far more rested now. I could also have easily not stayed for an extra drink after FT last night. I could have decided not to go to Glastonbury this weekend. I could have had a day off on Friday and spent the weekend earning money and prepping for my Edinburgh show that needs a fuckton of work on it. But could I have sat resting in the knowledge that 175,000 people were having fun without me? No. Admittedly they wouldn’t have cared if I was there or not, but it would have bothered me a lot. It bothers me enough that I won’t be able to watch absolutely everything while I’m there due to not being completely omnipotent. This is my ideal nirvana to wake up one morning and wish I could do everything and be everywhere. Hmm that sounds a bit grim if you read it out of context.

 

I’ve always had this problem. I am forever jealous with other people for things they’ve seen and done that I haven’t. Rationally it is impossible that I will ever get half the stuff I want to do done in my life, but that doesn’t stop it from driving me insane at times. I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone else needs to stop doing everything and then I should be fine. Or get every single person I know to constantly hang around with me at all times, which may get difficult and expensive. Or y’know, become omnipotent and do everything. Then have a day off. Or two. Two in a row. That’d be great. God I really have no reason to moan do I?

Time For Tiernonion

TIME TO LEARN

Last night I was talking to one of the waitresses at my gig. I was timing the excellent Jeff Innocent so I could tell him when he’d done 16 minutes at his request, and due to a few beers I had completely forgotten when he started so I showed the waitress my watch and asked her if she knew how long he’d be on for. She replied by telling me that she couldn’t tell the time on clocks and could only use analog to understand it. She must’ve been about 19 and had to have gone to school at some point, at least for a while, so how this was possible blew my tiny mind. I seem to remember being taught how to tell the time from a clock from a very early age. Trying to then understand the 24 hour clock proved more of a challenge when I couldn’t figure out where those extra numbers would go around a clock face. It seemed amazing to me though that this age old traditional way of working out at what point of the day we were at, was completely lost on this young woman.

It raced through my mind how many things she must be missing out on. Fear when Big Ben strikes for seemingly no reason, confusion at the tale of Three Blind Mice, a lack of understanding about the terrible old ‘How does Michael Jackson tell when its time to go to bed?’ etc etc. She seemed fairly intelligent in every other way and so it led me to believe that either, as everyone has, it was her one point of contention, the one thing her brain couldn’t comprehend and yet perhaps somewhere in that cerbral cortex she can unravel quantum physics in a matter of seconds. Or the other reason is that she just doesn’t want to ever learn it. I suppose nowadays you just don’t need to. Phones and watches show you the time in digits. Occasionally if you ask someone the time, instead of grunting at you, they will actually tell you. Maybe she was adopting the ways of that newfound tribe in Africa who have no concept of time and it’s of no importance to the way she lives her life?

Either way I felt it to take it upon myself to tell her that there is always time to learn. She responded by asking where it says that on the clock and I decided just to pretend I knew how long Jeff had been onstage and stopped talking to her.

 

ONION

Further ponderings of odd human behaviour. On Friday myself and L ordered a curry from her nearby curry establishment. Returning home after collecting it, I opened my mutter paneer to find that in amongst the sauce and paneer, there was also two thirds of an entire, and rather large onion. The dish also contained onion anyway, but here, as some sort of offering, was most of the rest of it, as though its remains were trying to group themselves back together to form a whole.

All the rest of our dishes were prepared properly and I spent ages racking my brain as to whether when ordering they had misheard my name ‘Tiernonion’ or perhaps upon hearing my voice decided I needed as many anti-carconagens as possible. I have worked in a restaurant and there are often bouts of boredom that result in odd decisions. Once someone ended up with far too many chillis just to spite them, once someone ended up with only one piece of tofu but it was huge. Therefore they were unable to complain about quantity of tofu yet unhappy with the size and dimensions of said piece.

I felt very much that this is what may have happened to me. A simple discussion along the lines of ‘hey, you reckon this guy likes onion?’ ‘Yeah I reckon he really does.’ ‘Let’s see just how much.’ Cue the throwing of an almost entire onion. Or its possible that they just dropped an onion in by accident and I should feel exceptionally lucky it wasn’t anything else. To be fair, when we collected the food (therefore applying the actual term ‘takeaway’ for pedancy’s sake) they argued with us about whether or not we were sure it was our order. Checking through everything, we were pretty sure it was. Now, in retrospect, I worry Tiernonion is out there feeling horribly deprived.

 

A LOVELY MENTION

Mark Thomas gave me a lovely mention in today’s Observer, along with Josie Long and Chris Coltrane. Its all a bit nice of him. Have a read:

 

GLASTONBURY’S RADICAL ROOTS WILL RETURN – THE OBSERVER

False Promises

I have just had to turn off the Obama and Cameron press talk after getting far too annoyed at hearing comments on how lives in Libya have been saved and that their talks this morning have been about keeping ‘our people safe’. Easy to say something like that from a beautiful barbeque with no expense spared while others watch from home or work worried about their increasing debt and possible unemployment. I’m feeling far too cynical this week to get sucked up into the schmaltz of hearing how the two leaders played ping pong with students in a South London school, avoiding all mention of those same students lack of university prospects in the future. Its just getting so repetetive how often we are promised that these people care from their high up thrones, yet the actual realisation of such promises never seems to deliver.

 

Ooh, a rather preachy beginning to the blog Douieb? Well yes. I feel I have every reason to today after an incident last night. After seeing Mark Thomas’s excellent and inspiring new show ‘Extreme Rambling’ about walking the wall between Israel and the West Bank, myself and L (new girlf’s initial. I feel for her sake privacy should be somewhat respected in these blogs incase, y’know, she gets mobbed by all my jealous female fans. All one of my jealous female fans. Not that imaginary people can hurt or mob anyone, but y’know….) had the pleasure of Mark’s company for the journey all the way home. He told us of various new ventures, and tales of his earlier days on the circuit all of which made me very much feel like I am indeed doing the right thing with my often silly life and it put a kick in my step for the rest of the night. There is something about watching stand-up that not only does the initial purpose of making you laugh, but also so so much more in educating and having a point of view. I’m still in awe of stand-ups that can leave me with an ache from laughing so hard, but a tear in my eye from the message given. Speaking to Mark very much affirmed this is how stand-up can be and often should be, and although it may not earn as much money as the stand-up that doesn’t, its the type that will ultimately mean more to people.

 

So anyway, gushing aside, when changing tubes halfway, we looked for seats to sit together on the new carriage. Opposite us was a black man of possibly Somalian descent, sitting legs wide apart with a can of special brew in his hands and very red eyes. I give you his description not to fulfill any prejudices but more to sadly highlight some of mine that I often think I don’t have and am occasionally shocked by my own behaviour, though I should point out my next decision was entirely based on the possibility of being sicked on. I took one look at him and decided that I wouldn’t sit next to him, opposite Mark, as I had originally intended. L, without saying anything, did a similar thing and we all just sat in a row ignoring this ‘drunkard’ and getting on with our chat. Then he started to be a bit sick. We all looked at him wondering if he was ok. Mark was first to ask him and while I’d like to tell you that I would have done it if he wouldn’t, as in past experiences I have, I’m not 100% I could say it would have been the my first reaction. The man sat up quite sharply and looked at us all. He asked what Mark had said, and Mark repeated his concerns to which the man replied ‘No, I am not. I am overqualified and unemployed.’ He was incredibly well spoken and either a lot less drunk than we had given credit for, or held himself together very well.

 

Mark engaged him in conversation and it appeared he had graduated from Oxford in 1991, alongside Ed Milliband and Louis Theroux, being one of the first black college heads at Oxford Uni ever. We never found out what he did for a living but it transpired that due to cuts and possible racial discrimination he was out of work and very depressed. He had tried to kill himself several times and had constantly failed. Myself and L looked at him feeling ashamed on our initial judgement. Here was someone who’s entire life is lower than mine has ever been, his red eyes most likely from crying rather than substance abuse, yet I has assumed him a possible nuisance and avoided at first sight. He got to his stop before we could talk more, thanked us for meeting us and told us that it is not all bad because he is still alive and that’s all that matters. As he stumbled off, shaking each of our hands in turn, I felt his final phrase twang at the heart strings and a further growing contempt for this country and the way in which it treats our people.

 

So when watching the President and Prime Minster say they are all about ‘keeping our people safe’ it just makes me wonder how bad things have got for those people and if they are going to ever live up to their word about fixing this or instead revel in their wealth while people like the man from the tube hold onto life with the sole purpose of living and very little else.

 

If you can see Mark Thomas’s show whilst its still touring, or at Latitude, Glastonbury or Edinburgh then do. Its real actual crafted stand up and storytelling that does far far more than it could ever say on the tin. I can only hope that one day I can even come close to doing such a show.