Aarhusing Again

This week’s excuse for not blogging comes from the fact that at 5am tomorrow I leave for Denmark. Well I say I, but I mean Tiernan Douibe, the person who’s names on my boarding pass. I’d like to be able to change that but I didn’t book the flights and it would cost £110 to do so, so I’m praying Ryan Air don’t have me arrested by the terror police and I’ll happily spend my flight pretending to be someone slightly different. Sure me and Tiernan Douibe will have some similarities. We both totally have beards, we both like the Wu Tang Clan, things like that. But where we differ is that Tiernan Douibe may speak in an accent. I’m not sure what yet. He may also laugh if he farts on the plane. In a loud way that states he is in no way embarrassed. He’ll also prounounce ‘water’ slightly wrong so that when he asks for some on the plane, everyone around him thinks he’s exotic. And he might walk with a limp. We’ll have to wait and see. I haven’t met him yet. It could all go horribly wrong though. Firstly Ryan Air may just not let me on. That’d be bad. Worse would be if I get to Denmark and they are expecting Tiernan Douibe who is a completely different comedian and his one hour show ‘I Fire Penguins From My Asses’.

This would be mostly bad because a) I can’t fire penguins from my asses, not least because I don’t have a pet ass. Nor do I have more than one bodily ass. Either way, it’d be hard and 2) because I have spent a week learning Danish things. There is nothing like an abroad trip to make you realise just how culturally ignorant you are. I know the Danish watch a fair amount of British TV but my gags seem to be filled with far too many vague references on people and places that outside of the British Isles are fairly pointless comparisons. I could go full ‘British Tourist’ and just say them anyway, only loudly, hoping they’ll get it, but instead I’m actually trying to write jokes. Mostly, as I’m doing two one hour shows, I’m trying to write about their government so I can squeeze it in and around my Edinburgh show of last year. Turns out that its pretty hard working out how other countries work. Well it is if you’re me.

I spent ages learning how British politics work, and now to try and get my head around Danish politics, it feels like a whole whirlpool of boringness. Its not the most interesting aspects of Danish culture I’ll give you that. Sure, there are bits that are. Like the fact that their Queen smokes, their Nick Griffin equivalent is the only Danish MP that supports David Cameron, and recently they too suffered from Norway’s butter crisis. But ultimately things are so similar yet with such subtle differences, that cramming them all in my brain isn’t very helpful to anyone. I’ve been watching the Danish show Borgen to help me, and what that has told me is that most Danish politicians are quite pretty, anyone who looks like an evil Pacey from Dawson’s Creek is definitely evil and that calling someone ‘Bent’ as a first name will be funny for the rest of my life.

Thing is, comedy is totally universal. There are things that will make people laugh all over the world and last time I was in Aarhus I found it an absolute joy to play. But I wasn’t trying to comment on the state of the nation. Nor was I talking for an hour to a theatreful of people. Hopefully, I’ll just wing the whole thing, say Borgen a lot, occasionally say how funny it is that their PM is called Helle and then break down crying. Or if all else fails I’ll learn how to Fire Penguins From My Asses.

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The Future Is Not Now

Surely as technology progresses it should become easier and easier to use? Long gone are the days where to use a computer, 14 men had to lug an entire machine into a building only for a scientist type to press 67 buttons, wait seven days and then see that the mechanical beast has only managed to add 2+2 in binary and nothing else. Instead we revel nowadays in our chips the size of atom’s teeth and being able to use computers to do everything from cook our tea to help us fly to the moon. That’s what I’m guessing anyway. Despite liking the idea of most newfangled gadgets I only have a few snazzy type devices including my laptop, a stubborn sat nav, an iPhone and a blu-ray player. The last of these was an extravagance that I never would have bought for myself, but my oh so lovely friends got for me for a birthday a couple of years back.

Since getting it, I have embraced its high quality graphics, often oohing and aaahing ‘how defined it looks’ which is a phrase I say every time I watch a blu-ray disc even if I really can’t tell the difference. It sounds like what you are meant to say and I think that even if I can’t see any difference my experience is enhanced by pretending too. Some films definitely do look better though. I can clarify this by trying to watch ‘Up’ when hung over which was both a terrible experience in terms of emotions – it is not a film to watch when fragile – but also because the colours were far too bright for my wincing eyes. Overall though, it is a lovely thing to have and I spend quite some time carefully choosing what to buy on such a format to get the fullest out of my lovely sleek black Samsung player, squished underneath my unnecessarily oversized TV that I am still paying off 2 years later.

For Christmas, courtesy of L’s amazing parents, I got given Frozen Planet on Blu-Ray, which I was overjoyed about. Finally I could watch polar bears being able too see every hair on their big faces, or see that weird caterpillar that freezes entirely for a year in such definition that I’d get nightmares about it for several years. Instead, as I put the disc excitedly in the player, it didn’t work. Instead of a beautifully picturesque frozen tundra, there was merely a black screen, the sound of an RP voiced woman saying ‘Frozen Planet Disc 1′ and then nothing. Checking each and every disc in the set (there are three) the same thing happened and I was concerned I had a faulty product. A bit of googling revealed far too many whiney people complaining about the Frozen Planet ‘cheated’ footage, a few complaining about Attenborough’s stance on global warming, ironically from people in areas that will die first when the floods hit, and then finally a small blurb that said I should probably update my blu-ray player.

We’re in the future right? Updating my blu-ray player should be easy yeah? Surely it just downloads it from the ether after I press one button? That’s how it all works right? No. Instead attempt one involved me stretching cables across my living room to connect it to our router, in a fashion that looked as though I was trying to set a series of trip wires to confuse the Mission Impossible team. After an hour of it downloading the update the machine then crashed, I tripped on a wire, knocked my Xbox into our Christmas Tree and nearly broke the telly. Attempt two involved copying the update on a CD which was then not accepted as a disc because I’d done it on a mac and Samsung are still angry about how much better the iPhones are than any of their phones nowadays and then finally I managed to borrow L’s laptop, copy a disc on there, load it up and now I can see penguins so clearly that I can definitely say they don’t dance like in Happy Feet.

Two days of effort to watch a disc. Seriously? Is this where we are now? Further developments to defeat cancer, telescopes that can see Earth like planets light years away and yet if I want to watch Frozen Planet on my own telly I have to spend hours and hours nearly breaking other things I own just to enjoy it? This future is shit. I’d love to go back to the 70′s and tell them its no way as cool as they imagined back then, but chances are making time travel work will involve three manuals, a phone call to customer support, finding you don’t have the right cables and then having to reset the system as it won’t sync with an iTravel remote or some shit. 2012, you better get fixing things.

Zoo Chews

This is a bad week for blogs I’m afraid. After a cop out blog yesterday, it not only appears there won’t be a moment to blog tomorrow and, even worse, today’s have very little to muse over. Normally by this point in the week I’ll have been so riled up with something or other – and this week has had all the wonders of Lansley’s recorded telly message to patients on a loop unless they pay £5 for a TV service, as well as Francis Maude’s pathetic attempts to prevent the TUC strike next week – or at least enough ridiculous incidents to provide me with paragraphs of awkward woe to relay to you. Sadly – and I use sadly in the loosest term – this week has instead been filled with some lovely work possibilities that I’ve been working hard on and thus ignoring news rage, and yesterday was L’s birthday so we went to the zoo. As with previous blogs you will know I am a man who bloody loves a zoo, and its amazing that I’ve found someone to share my love of just laughing at macaques with and to relish pissing yourself gigging at the way penguins just walk for hours and hours.

I hate to fill a blog with such loveliness but in the 8 months we’ve been together myself and L have very much realised that we have a lot of similar likes and these mainly revolve around eating and watching animals be total dicks. Is there anything better in life? Something tells me should someone ever invent a restaurant where all you do is eat and watch as penguins waddle around you then fall over, then they would be a very rich person indeed. It’d have to be a veggie restaurant or it’d be all a bit macabre I think. I should probably think about opening such a place up. Zoo Chew or something like it. It’d be next door to my Hip Hop Cafe which sells Pete Rock Cakes and CL Smoothies. I haven’t really thought much paste either of those ideas but I’m sure there’s legs in both of them. Again, not literally, as they’d be veggie places. For anyone who’d like to dispute that a hip hop cafe shouldn’t be veggie, I’ll just quickly use my trump card against most meat eaters and point out that RZA from the Wu-Tang clan is a Vegan, so high fives all round.

After the zoo I took L to a restaurant I haven’t been to in years, called Cafe Pacifico in Covent Garden. It is, undoubtedly, one of the, if not the, best Mexican restaurant in London, with one of the most extensive tequila lists you will ever find. I’m not usually one to know about restaurants, especially not expensive ones, but my friend Thom used to be a bartender there many moons ago. The same many moons ago I worked at the Timberland store, running up and down stairs in heavy lumberjack boots and never being healthier in my life. I spent many a day telling customers about why they should have silicon injected leather on their feet and wondered on a day to day basis why so many Americans came in when they invented the bleedin’ things and could get them cheaper at home. Thom worked around the corner and so whilst the others would go and have a cigarette break, I’d sneak round to his bar, do two shots of nice tequila and then head back to work. Its the sort of thing that makes it sound like I did this job in the 70′s, but I’m only talking 2002 and yes, no one ever noticed my also-breath or indeed how much more quickly I zapped about the stairs after my break. One day I served Tara Reid in Timberland and she was a total rude dickhead, and then she went to Cafe Pacifico and was a total rude dickhead there. Stories were swapped post work and we’d both trundle round the other Covent Garden bars as Thom, being part of the local circle, could get us in anywhere. It was nice to have a comrade so nearby.

It became one of those places that me and friends regularly frequented, and even after Thom left, other bar staff would recognise us and hand out free drinks. Often it’d lead to a messy and very late night with few memories. Returning last night the venue hasn’t really changed. The food was still amazing and the tequila list is still there with the hallowed shields on the wall, adorned with people’s names who have had the Collecion tequila at £100 a shot. The main difference of course is that after one post meal tequila I felt a bit ill and full of food and me so consequently we were both home by 10. Luckily, we both like being in a warm flat too so it all seemed pretty perfect. It was still just funny to be visiting with a completely different energy and intent than before i.e. no I don’t want to get drunk and yes I am old and tired. To be fair though, we had spent three hours looking at new lion cubs. Pointing and ‘awwww’ing a lot can be exhausting. Which is why we should totally be able to sit, eat and point and ooooh. Zoo Chews will so totally happen.

See? Nice times are boring right? I’ll try my best to have a car accident or something tomorrow that I can write up for you on Saturday.

Nothing But Mammals

This has just been posted on my Twitter feed:

BBC Dropping Climate Change Episode Abroad To Help Sales

 

Have a read, get angry, generally sigh about the world. This is another notch on the bedpost that I will use to beat up any scavengers with when the Earth resembles Cormac McCarthy’s The Road due to human greed. Maybe people have been like this for hundreds of years? I’m not sure, but lately it seems that every day or so there is something else to make me just wonder what it would be like if I went to live with animals instead. It has been hammered into human consciousness that we are far better than animals on regular occasion throughout our history, and yes, in some areas we totally are. Do animals make computer games? Nope. Can they cure diseases? Nope. Can they make cocktails? Nope. In those areas we, as human beans, totally rock the kasbar. But then you also look at whether animals have ever totally fucked over the entire planet on a day to day basis entirely for their own benefit? Sure those cow farts aren’t helping the ozone any much, but I can’t imagine they know the consequences of dispersing gas and removing feelings of bloatedness, nor can I work out what benefit they gain from doing so. Though I bet it is funny.

I’m sure there are some examples of animals dicking on each other for gain, but its probably just to gain some extra twigs for their nest or an extra banana and while that one monkey/parakeet/crocodile may get a bit trod on, it wouldn’t effect all animal rights ever. I’m just saying. No animal has set up a capitalist system whereby its more important to invest in brand new weapons that will destroy and maim others and the terrain of the landscape just to pocket some extra peanuts, have they? No animal intends to ruin the entire veterinary system so only the most exotic species could get their yearly jabs while more common woodland species die due to not having enough acorns in the bank. Hmm, this analogy is shit, but you get what I mean.

Take the Frozen Planet story. Its David Attenborough’s program. Attenborough cares lots about the planet. We, as an intelligent species should educate the world in what we learn and ways to save ourselves and this planet. But because some global warming sceptics are quite outspoken in the states, the BBC wants to make sure they earn the money from the series and so will scrap the episode that could teach more people to stop ensuring that in 100 years time all our kids will have to go live on Mars. So when, in the development of our species, did it become more of a priority to earn rather than educate? To destroy rather than heal purely for profit? To willingly let others suffer so you can have a moat? To be fair, I really want a moat.

I think they should screen all of Frozen Planet in the States and just let its viewers learn something for once. If they want to challenge the man that is David Attenborough then I think they they very quickly deserve to be fired into the sun. And yes, I know I would choose to harm them rather than heal but I think it would only profit the planet and that, as far as I’m concerned, is ok. Otherwise, as I have learnt from Frozen Planet, I may go choose to live with penguins as they seem far more reasonable as a species. Fact.

Frozen Planet

Man, I love Frozen Planet. Its a testament to both David Attenborough and also to the animals of the Northern and Southern hemispheres that an hour of viewing such antics (arctics?) is far more enjoyable than any other tosh that’s on our screens. Sure you can stick 10 twits in a house and film them for a 10 weeks but will it be as funny as watching penguins steal rocks from other penguins? No. You can hear as many heartache tales from X-Factor idiots as possible but it’ll never pull the heart strings in the same way watching a baby seal nearly get eaten by a polar bear will. Sure Jon Snow will say some great things on C4 news, but is he as good as actual snow? And tons of it? Hell no (snow?)! One day later than everyone else I finally had an hour spare to lay on our sofa and watch the latest instalment of icy joy, and by god it didn’t disappoint. Here are a couple of things that I thought very much ruled the roost:

Narwhals – CAPTAIN WHAT THE FUCK? A whale with a huge unicorn horn? That’s completely batshit crazy town. I sat musing with L as to why they might have such huge singular tusks. Perhaps to break ice with? To skewer underwater kebabs or sea cucumbers? To allow shrimp to pole dance? To pole vault on their own faces underwater? To indulge in huge underwater cheese and pineapple swarees? Attenborough said he didn’t know why and that no one does. I hope we never find out, but I reckon if you were to drink from it you’d be invincible. FACT.

Polar Bear hunts fail 9 times out of 10 – isn’t this the most horribly sad fact in the world? That and seeing the mother bear having fed her cubs for four months without eating a thing herself? I complain when I miss lunch cos I’m too busy. 4 months? No wonder those bears are always so angry when they see people. My dad gets a bit angry when he doesn’t eat by 6pm every night, so those bears must be bloody furious. I can totally see why that student got killed. Though he must now feel like a total dick considering he was the 1 out of 10 that got caught and therefore has been beaten by a baby seal.

Killer whales that only eat fish – what dicks.

Next week there is even more penguin and bear action. I really hope this show never ends. I think if you honestly can’t think of any other reason not to cause global warming then let it at least be so we can have more series of frozen mayhem. Thankyou.

Tuesday Zoosday

Its a Tuesday? What does that mean? It means its a zoos day right? Well no. It doesn’t but for the sake of today and the fact that this blog arrives after a solid four and a half hours in Edinburgh zoo means that going along with that chain of thought will be useful in order to make this blog go breezily. I like zoos as a form of escape. After a month of slogging and performing, there is nothing quite like watching monkeys swing off things and penguins act all penguiny to make you step back from your own ridiculous human life to indulge in the simplicities of animal hilarity. I know several people that are anti-zoos and whilst I understand how the restricted environment is mean to certain creatures in captivity, I also have these arguments as to why they rock:

1) Surely it helps to conserve certain endangered and threatened species as well as helps to encourage some of them to breed?

2) It helps educate people about animals and wildlife hopefully ensuring they won’t harm them or the environment in the first place.

3) I bloody love looking at monkeys and if there weren’t zoos then I’d have to travel really far to do it.

Edinburgh zoo is somewhere I have meant to visit during or after the fringe for the past 7 years, failing every single time. I have no idea why as its blooming brilliant as a house of wild creatures. Firstly its on a whacking great hill – much like everything in Edinburgh – which means you get an an exciting sense of achievement as animals appear to get bigger the higher up you go. At the bottom, lemurs. At the top rhinos, cows, zebras and big cats. Amazing. Secondly they have the penguin parade. I have heard many tales of such wonder for years, and watch them there videos on the youtube of the waddling goodness but never bore witness to it myself. Only 6 took part in the parade today but those 6 penguins boldly took their happy feet amongst the crowds, beaks in the air, with one of them continually running in circles and going proper bonkers. Total win.

I’m not sure what it is about penguins that makes them so enjoyable to watch. The sharp black and white suits they don, combined with the aforementioned walk and their oval shapes mean they are inherently comical. L kept squealing with delight as the ones within the caged area would come right up to the fence and stick their beaks through, shuffling side to side seemingly excited. I heard that humans always think that creatures that have distinct human features are more adorable than others. Hence spiders being seen as general dickbags of horror whilst the squirrel monkeys today gathered a crowd that could have filled a good chunk of the O2*. Penguins though, have massive beaks, flippers and feet and don’t resemble any human beings unless a nun decided to wear diving shoes, and a comedy nose that was painted yellow. This is not a common occurrence in people kind and whilst that image may pop into my head almost instantly, I can’t imagine its teetering on the edges of many’s imagination.

Opposite the penguins were the red river hogs who went from being adorable to horrendous in seconds. Watching the newer, young piglets running around we commented on how brilliant they were. That is until the largest hog pissed all over the floor and all the smaller hogs ran up to drink it. Myself and L instantly retched and three or four different adults were stuck with a very difficult thing to explain to their small children. The wonders of natures hot list. Pigs rock, piss pigs don’t. Penguins could do all manner of things and still win. And no one likes spiders. I’m not sure what this summary has done for anyone but let’s hope zoologists see my immense knowledge on things as the way forward and we see zoos in the future contain 6000 penguins all in different themed pool areas, hogs in nappies and spiders being fed to bigger things. Hooray for zoos!

I go home tomorrow. I really can’t wait.

 

 

 

* not really. There was about 20 people there, but proportionally, you know what I mean. Or something.

Fringe 2011: Day 11

My friend Jacqui is up at the Fringe today with her boyfriend Ed. Well she was up yesterday but I had foolishly planned my life wrongly as always and after meeting her at the station and catching up for 10 minutes, I then had to run off, do 3 shows at the Fringe, then jump on a train to Glasgow to do a gig at The Stand. It was a long day, starting with a fun show to a very small, very soggy crowd, then moving onto the return of the Great Arctic Caper show with Tim, where one small girl spent the entire time jumping from bean bag to bean bag like a frog before ruining things by pointing out the map we’d ‘lost’ was just behind us. Grrrr. Then Comedy Club 4 Kids where Mark Thomas did the Children’s Manisfesto, the winning results being ‘all children over 3 should be allowed to drive’ and ‘everyone should have a pet penguin’. This was a close call though as the suggestions ‘free medicine for people in Africa. And half price Lego’ & ‘ water flumes to school’ nearly pipped them to the post. Its amazing what happens when you ask children what they’d change about the world as it appears to be a wonderful blend of nonsense and the best ideas ever. ‘Ban Red Peppers’ alongside ‘let’s not use money and instead just swap things we have like in old times’. Amazing. Finally I had the longest journey in the world to get to Glasgow. Me and L sat on a train for ages due to ‘flooding on the tracks’. You’d think Scotland of all places would be used to this sort of thing, but clearly they weren’t. Time restraints meant I got to Glasgow, cabbed it to the gig, did the gig which was amazing and a needed break from the fringe, jumped back in a cab, then got the slowest train in the history of human kind back to Edinburgh. Nowhere should pass a place called Addiewell or Curriehill. They can’t be real.

So yeah, today I actually get to see Jacqui and Ed. After I’ve done my trazillion shows. I’m looking forward to their perspective on the fringe. Neither have been here before which, you might presume, could make it all a tad overwhelming for them. But no, not these two. Yesterday evening after deciding that there was a lot on everywhere they chose instead to sit in the pub below our flat and do the quiz. Brilliant. Take that the 3000 shows in Edinburgh! A pub quiz was more enticing than you. This sort of unique attitude about it all needs to be spread around. I can’t wait to walk them round the city as they bypass the big upside down purple cow in order to hit up and get excited about Monster Mash instead and such things. I’m dragging them to one of the member’s bars later and I already know that the chances they’ll be phased by anyone in there are slim to none. Its brilliantly refreshing.

It’s sometimes what you need in this place. Otherwise its same faces, same places every single day and can become somewhat reminiscent of Groundhog Day without the constant joy of Bill Murray. Sadly. Yesterday’s trip to Glasgow and the appearance of a home town friend is a sure fire remedy to stave off repetitive fringe syndrome. I shall relish in spending today going ‘meh’ to things, helping J & E find shows with magic in and getting excited about pub quizzes. Joy!

 

I hate plugging things, but if you’ve been to my show and enjoyed it, or want to come to my show or have even just seen me do stand-up somewhere at some point and didn’t hate it, please will you tell people you know and that are coming to the fringe to come and watch ‘Tiernan Douieb vs The World’. Sales have been ok but I’m really enjoying performing the show and it’d be great if they were better. Tickets are available here:

TIERNAN DOUIEB VS THE WORLD

Thankyou