Blog - Gaming
When I was a child, I used to love playing on the Commodore 64. The games were basic, but they were fun for a boy of 7. My Dad was never really that fussed by them, because these games were aimed mainly at kids. And I, myself, fully expected to put away childish things by the time I grew to be my Dad’s age.
I haven’t. I still love gaming.
When my Dad was a kid, they didn’t have computers and they had to make their own fun, like playing with fire or kicking a dog. When computer games came along, he had already slipped through the net. The problem for my generation, is that the net has got increasingly bigger and more attractive over time.
It’s cool to be a gamer now – and to be a games designer. I mean, have you seen some of the 80’s games designers? You imagine their bedrooms smelling of dragons and despair. Now though, to be good with ram is not just attractive to....er...this will likely not work....recruitment consultants who specialise in sheep-herding....no, it didn’t work at all...
But in a season where geek-chic is a la mode, to be a geek who storyboards Saints Row or renders the faces on Assassins Creed, the girls are queuing up – albeit the sort of girls who play a lot of video games and tend to have freakishly strong hands and moustaches.
Anyway, I love gaming, but I’m at that age now where I can’t really justify the emotions that get raked out of me when I get into a game. I envy - and also look at sideways, sceptically – those friends of mine who confess that they ‘never really got into gaming as a kid’.
There’s an important hint in that statement, though. The majority of people who did get into gaming as a kid tend, still, to be attached/addicted to it in some way. I still slide on my knees after a great goal on Football Manager. It’s a detailed spreadsheet, and yet I’ve never done that with my Excel budget.
I must have spent about 3% of my life playing computer games. And the problem is that I don’t look at that figure and think ‘Wow, that’s loads.’ I look at 3% and feel aggrieved that I can never reach 100% completion.
I’ve learned nothing from it. Aside from minor RSI, I’ve gained nothing. I’ve levelled up in my ability to do bugger all, but I’ve garnered no skills from wallowing in my gaming pit. I’ve spent hours ranking up on COD, chasing after prestige which only exists in a community of 7 year-old Mexican boys and out-work American fatsos (who are, besides, more prestigious than I am.)
I’m never going to need any of that in real life. We’re not going to see the announcement on the news: ‘David Cameron has vowed to deploy more troops to the Middle-East. Due to the over-stretching of the existing military, he will be sending anyone who’s completed Medal of Honour on ‘Veteran’ level.
I do believe that gaming can have a really negative impact on the way we live our lives. I have a friend who failed his driving test last week. Nothing remarkable about that in itself, until you realise that he didn’t feel the need to take a single lesson.
‘You have to take at least a few,’ I insisted.
‘Don’t worry, Andy,’ he said. ‘I don’t need any lessons. I’ve got 100% completion on GTA 4.’
To be fair, he almost got away with it. He got back to the test centre with 2 minor faults. Then he got out of the car, and shot a prostitute.
Blog - Dreams
I do love a nap. How can anyone not? It’s a perfect mix of laziness and defiance in a fifth-gear world. I nap regularly, usually for an hour. When I tell people this, they look at me like I’m being childish, and say things like ‘Well, yes, we’d all like to have a nap, but some of us are too busy.’
Well that’s your problem, isn’t it? I’m busy, too, but I have priorities. There are very few things in life that furnish me with a deeper sense of pleasure than ensconcing myself under a mid-afternoon duvet as autumn turns maliciously to winter.
The worst part of napping (indeed, the only downside), is that moment of uncertainty when you transition from sleeping to waking; that brief but surreal snippet of time where neither fantasy nor reality has total power over your mind, and the tricks that morphing can play on you. Many’s the time I’ve woken from a daytime snooze, physically sated and elated, only to gradually realise that I am not, in fact, a wizard.
Dream analysis is an interesting hobby. I have a friend who is obsessed by it. Apparently your dreams mean something...usually, that you’re asleep. The other day he approached me and said, ‘Andy, Andy, I had a dream last night where I was eating a pink unicorn – what do you think it means?’
I didn't know, but guessed it had something to do with cocaine intake.
Some people suggest that dreams are either stuff that has happened, or stuff that is going to happen. If that’s true, my future looks like a mixed bag: dancing round a maypole with Amy Nuttall before being devoured by a rampant Wolfman.
There’s a website where you can find out what your dreams mean. And I mean any reverie. If you’ve dreamt about Gall Bladders – and who hasn’t?* - you will discover that it denotes the need to get rid of negative energy.
It really is an eye-opening and much needed resource. Dreaming that you’re feeling sad could be, and I quote, ‘a reflection of how you are feeling in your waking life.’ Bloody hell – how did I ever cope without this?
Here are some other corkers:
“Salad: To see or eat a salad in your dream suggests that you need to express your feelings and take in the positive influences in your life needed for personal growth.”
“Magnet: To see a magnet in your dream symbolizes negative forces that are drawing you towards a path of dishonor and ruin.”
“Telephone Book: To see or use a telephone book in your dream suggests that "you need to reach out and touch someone". Perhaps there is someone from your past that you need to reconnect with. Or the dream may be a metaphor telling you that there is some issue that you need to "address".
You can email these people and they will interpret your dreams. I sent them an email. It simply read ‘Bollocks’.
I got a reply: To see bollocks, or testicles, in your dream symbolize raw energy, power, fertility or sexual drive. The dream may refer to anxiety about your sexual prowess.
Ironically, they failed to interpret my message.
Enough for now. Sleep well...
*me or anyone
Blog - Cantankerous
Wifey and I were in a café yesterday. I had recently consumed 3 separate Eggnog Lattes and, more recently still, been sick.
I was in a bad mood, and was in the process of setting out a number of reasons why, despite regular assertions from the TV, I was convinced it wasn’t Maybelline.
At this point, a big, burly, tattooed man squeezed through the door, pushing a Quinny with a sleeping child therein, with another child and a wife in tow. He smiled at the Emu* behind the bar and placed an order.
Wifey, determined to avert my escalating rant, leaned in and whispered, ‘I bet you wouldn’t like to meet him in an alley on a dark night.’
The problem was that I was due a rant, and that it didn’t matter what the subject was. (In truth, gentle reader, I don’t care whether it’s Maybelline or not.)
In fairness – and while she hasn’t said as much, I’m sure Wifey would agree – it was a stupid thing for her to say, rife with presuppositions and lunacy. ‘I bet you wouldn’t like to meet him in an alley on a dark night.’
First of all, she’s presuming that this family man, on a day-out with his kids, is the sort of man who loiters with intent in the early hours. The fact that he looks after his physique and enjoys body art naturally means he’s a rapist/killer-pervert (which is a killer and a pervert, not just a really good pervert.)
So you’ve got this poor, innocent man in a dark alley. Then, I’m there as well? What am I doing in a dark alley? Why, in your mind, at midnight, am I strolling down rapist boulevard?! In the early hours – I go to bed at 10!
Which alley is it? That’s another thing. If you tell me the name of the alley and I know there to be a sexual predator hanging around, I’ll avoid it – I’ll get a bus home. It’s more expensive, but it’s better than death by mamba.
And you bet? You bet I wouldn’t like to meet him? Where are you getting odds for that – Paddy Power?
‘Yeah, what odds can I get for Andy not to want to meet that guy from the café in a dark alley?’
‘Get out, you smack head!’
You say I wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alley…well maybe I would. Because, realistically, the chances are that if I’m there and he’s there, he’s in the diary. We’ve agreed to meet. We practice shadow puppetry, that’s what we do – you need an alley for that. Look, a rabbit!
‘So actually, Wifey,’ I snapped, my voice breaking, ‘I would like to meet him in an alley on a dark night.’
‘Was there alcohol in that Eggnog?’
‘Not officially.’
‘Right, come on, I’m driving you home.’
‘Can we watch Labyrinth?’
‘No.’
(Screen fades to black….)
*That was meant to say Emo, but I quite like the imagery that the misspelling created.
Blog - What's in a name; Part 2: Standing Stones
Previously on my blog, I got confused about the name Gillingham and failed to break into Downton Abbey.
You find me now, maybe an hour later, driving along the A303, which, if you’ve read Stand Up and Deliver, you will know is my favourite road. Things were looking up. So much so, in fact, that I decided to pay £7.50 to look at some big rocks.
I’m referring to StoneHenge, of course.
The Henge, as I imagine the Druids would have called it, treads a fine line between being one of the world’s most famous sites, and being a massive let down. Don’t get me wrong, gentle reader – I think it’s amazing and bewitching and all that…for about 5 minutes, after which it just looks like a huge rockery. It’s worth £7.50, in the same way Francis Jeffers was worth £8 million when Arsenal bought him in 2001.
I walked around the stones, bewildered by just how the prehistoric pagans managed to winch up some of the bigger stones, and even more amazed by how many American people were there. Seriously, if we ever wanted to get all imperial and take back the colonies, all we’d need do is send a press release Stateside informing them of a new, previously undiscovered landmark, and then, when they’re all over here taking photos and asking where Macdonalds is, we take Washington.
I’m glad I can finally say that I’ve been there, but driving past, as I’d done on several occasions previously, provides just the same amount of awe and wonder, and leaves you with enough money for a Steak Slice and a Strawberry Yopp. Paying £7.50 shows that StoneHenge has finally been absorbed into that very modern state of affairs: overhyped and ultimately underwhelming. I wonder if Michael Bay could trace his lineage back as far as Stone-Age Wiltshire. I suspect he could.
Anyway, I paid £7.50 to get stoned. Maybe one of my more trippy friends can tell me whether that’s a good deal or not.
Blog - What's in a name; Part 1
Dear Diary,
You are not a diary, so stop acting like one.
It’s been a while since my last confession. I’m talking about blogging of course, rather than some conversion to Catholicism. There is no remit here to blog about Catholicism. Or, for that matter, Cataholism, which is an addiction to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Cats.
So, as you may know, I had a gig in Gillingham recently. That’s right, Gillingham. Not to be confused with Gillingham, which is in a totally different county. Luckily for me, I got to see both of them, because when you confirm gigs via email, how could you possibly know that the woman meant Gillingham and not Gillingham? You couldn’t and I didn’t.
However, redemption can be found in the smallest of matters, including the mispronunciation of a G. Leaving Kent is always advisable, and making my way through Hampshire, I saw a sign that alerted me to the proximity of Highclere Castle. 'Highclere what?' You might have just said…although you’re more likely to have said 'What castle?' Yes, I don’t think many people mishear the word castle – or at least, I’ve not met anyone who has. Wouldn’t want to.
Highclere Castle is where they film Downton Abbey, a programme which I should hate, to which I should hand short shrift, but which I nevertheless think is pretty bo selecta. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that it’s family viewing, and Amy Nuttall. But for now let’s focus on the family viewing part (The irony being that if I go on too much about Amy Nuttal, my family – which consists of my wife – will get upset and leave me, and then watching Downton will lose all its attraction…except that it will still contain Amy Nuttall, who I would, in the event of current wife leaving, almost certainly try to ensnare as a replacement spouse or, if she was determined to stay in character, scullery maid.)
Anyway, family viewing. I love comedy, and it’s one of the best jobs I could even conceive of having, let alone imagine doing. But something which makes me jealous of all you muggles is that singular ability to do bugger all on a Saturday night.
‘But Downton is on Sunday nights’, you may be thinking. Will you please stop interrupting and just listen?!
The consequence of being deprived of family weekend viewing is that the idea of sitting around with people you like and watching TV becomes something of an idyll. Downton is a) family viewing, and 2) on a Sunday. This means I can watch it more often than not, and also feel like a normal person with a normal life.
I digress. Downton is filmed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, and so, finding myself on the a-road adjacent to it, I thought I’d chance a look round and a game of hide and seek. That compound plan was ruined by the fact that Highclere is pretty much, in itself, a compound, and also closed to the public. I rejoined the a-road, feeling a bit peeved and shut out, ironically how I imagine a trespassing housemaid or bell boy would feel if they strayed into the drawing room to find Lord Grantham with no trousers on.
The misnomer with Gillingham was, thus far, failing to yield any dividends, and I was as vexed as a man who had to drive across the breadth of the country on a Friday. I was also making mental notes to check that my upcoming gig in Birmingham was in the West Midlands, and not Alabama.
Next time, on my blog…Stonehenge!
Blog - Kettles
I went to Sainsbury’s yesterday, to buy a kettle. The fact that this experience has elevated itself every other experience I had shows it was a slow day.
Anyway, kettles. The Sainsbury’s range start in price from £4.87 – the one I bought – and rocket up to almost £50. My question is this: That’s stupid.
It’s a kettle. His/her/its sole function is to boil water. I’m prepared - I’m even raring - to pay roughly £5 for it to do that. After all, a single crisp note for hot water on demand – who’s not excited by that?
So where does this extra £45 come into play? For a fiver, it carries out its only task in life. What is it doing with the rest – investing it? Or does it do other stuff as well, like boil water and offer you gentle flattery at the same time?
‘A fifth coffee, sir? Well, you deserve – you work so hard, and you have lovely knees.’
Or perhaps it’s the runt of the Autobot litter, who confessed to Optimus Prime that he was more of a lover than a fighter and just wanted an easy life. Nb. That was too surreal. Forgive me. I have had 5 cups of coffee today.
I still don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of this massive £45 discrepancy from cheapest to most expensive. It seems to make no business sense. For £50 I could either buy a smokin’-hot kettle, or I could buy 10 bog-standard kettles and either sell them on for a small profit, or just have them dotted about the house for people to find as a game on their birthday. (I use the conditional tense as a linguistic device only, when of course you have guessed that this is precisely what I have already done.)
I might make all of this week’s blogs relate to appliances in some way. Yes, I’m expecting a slow week.
Blog - Nolin
I had my favourite ever petrol-station based experienced this week. This may seem like nothing special, but, without wanting to sound too much like Alan Partridge, I once shook Todd Carty’s hand on Knutsford forecourt. Top quality hand-shakeage.
Anyway, I was somewhere outside Saffron Walden. It seemed, on the surface at least, to be a perfectly standard pump-based episode. As usual, I played the system a little bit, removing the nozzle from its housing before unscrewing the petrol cap, thus eradicating a potentially frustrating waiting period as the cashier turned on the pump. This way, as soon as you rest the cap on your roof and return to the nozzle, the petrol is prepped and waiting, like an expectant river of resource-sapping poison. It’s one of many time-saving devices I use on my travels, like drying my hands on the back of my jeans instead of using the driers, or weeing in a bottle during traffic jams.
So I queue up, warring internally on the issue of whether to buy a Krispy Kreme donut. I decide to resist – more to do with bad spelling than personal will-power. Behind the counter is a man who looks – and probably smells – like he has watched every episode of Robot Wars at least twice: hair so lank and greasy, it made me think deeply about peak oil; his bedroom wall almost certainly bedecked with posters of ‘thinking man’s totty’ – Phillipa Forrester, that Rachel woman from Countdown, and Professor Brian Cox.
On the surface, the fact that he was wearing dark blue jeans and a brown leather jacket with a checked shirt beneath might suggest that he’s at the more fashionable end of the geek scale. But, in the way that all socially peripheral humanoids do, he had managed nevertheless to look profoundly unfashionable – his clothes looking like they were purchased wholesale from a darkened warehouse in pre-war Yugoslavia.
But then, without warning or prior consultation, he blows open my expectations. The woman at the front of the healthy queue hands over a sandwich and says ‘Pump 4’ please.
‘That comes to 14.75,’ responds the man, who I think is probably called Norman or Colin. Nolin.
The woman ferrets around in her bag for change, but then is distracted by a bombshell from Nolin.
‘Battle of Vaslui’
‘Sorry,' asks the woman, still, annoyingly, failing to find the right money. In all seriousness, it shouldn't have taken her by surprise.
‘Battle of Vaslui, 1475,’ Nolin persists, clearly slightly exasperated that the woman has no idea what he's talking about. ‘Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire, which was led at that time by Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople.’
‘Oh right, that’s good knowledge,’ she says, politely.
‘It’s my job,’ states Nolin, incorrectly.
The woman shuffled off, replaced by a bloke in his early twenties who hadn’t filled up with petrol but had invested in a roadmap of the UK, some de-icer, and, in spite of the basic misspelling, in a box of Krispy Kreme donuts.
’18.15,’ said Nolin, his face teeming with confidence. ‘Battle of Waterloo.’
‘Nice one,’ said the bloke, not bothered.
But I was loving it. Nolin had taken the boundaries and limits of working in a petrol station, stretched them to breaking point, then told them to f*** off. The next two people in the queue were also duly given instant trivia about the year correlating with the price they were due to pay. Nolin was like a human, reliable version of Wikipedia – one where I’m not reported as finishing second in a World Ferrero Rocher Eating contest to Timmy Mallett.
I assign hero status quite easily. As you know, I vowed to call my first child Robin Van Persie Kind after the hilarious and appropriate destruction of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last weekend. But Nolin was blowing my mind to the point that my Life Insurance premium would have gone through the roof (if I understood what Life Insurance was, or was capable of thinking ahead in any way.)
I was next up. The queue ahead now dispersed with knowledge and appropriate change/Vat receipts, I approached the desk with a mingled sense of trepidation and an erection. Nolin looked me in the eye; I returned the greeting. We both knew what was coming.
‘Pump 7, I said.’
‘That comes to...oh...30.45.’
Nolin’s face fell, my heart sank.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nolin confessed. ‘It doesn’t work with the future.’
We looked at each other, crestfallen. There was no queue building behind me and so we dwelt on the moment together. Had there not been a massive wooden counter between us, I think I would have embraced Nolin, even though he did, it now became clear, smell absolutely and without question, like a man who has watched every episode of Robot Wars at least 3 times – possibly back-to-back.
Suddenly, a brainwave hit me.
‘What do you think might happen, though?’ I asked, like a child.
‘Oh...well, now then....let me see, let me see....’ Nolin’s mind started fizzing. You could sense his mind plunging into the unknown abyss of historical events yet to come. Then it came:
‘The combined armies of New Germany and Womanland fight off a superior force of sexy Russian Cylons in the Battle of Dingbat Mound.’
I gasped. Nolin stared at me triumphantly.
Ok, his prediction got weirder as the sentence went on, and there were strong hints of sexual perversion, but I thought it was a cracking attempt.
‘I only regret I won’t be alive to see it,’ I said with a sense of reverence.
Nolin nodded, we bade each other farewell, and I left.
I never saw Nolin again. Or, rather, I haven’t seen him in the 7 days since...but probably will next time I’m down in the area and need some petrol.
It’s vignettes like that that make long journeys worthwhile. I could quite easily have become best friends with Nolin, had I perhaps known his actual name, and had he not smelt like a poo.
Blog - Clean Comedian
I’m being hoisted by my own petard.
When I was a new comedian, trying to make some headway amid the mass of jostling open-spots, older hands would always say things like ‘find your unique selling point.’ And, back then, it was obvious what made me stand out from the crowd of fellow newbies: I was clean. I didn’t swear or mention masturbating paedophiles in every other sentence.
So I made ‘clean’ my USP. And it got me work – both in the sacred world and in the secular. I was an act who could be guaranteed not to offend, to whom an audience would warm. All of a sudden, I was being invited to appear on TV and radio to talk about this ‘new wave of clean comedy hitting the UK scene’. Later on, Tony Vino and I took ‘The Clean as Possible Comedy Show’ to Edinburgh – a show that packed in 100 people most days and, unlike most Edinburgh shows, made money.
The tag I’d given myself of ‘Clean Comedian’ was paying off, and the USP I needed when I started out had worked, and helped me get opportunities some other people weren’t getting.
The problem is trying to get rid of it. This is my present cross to bear.
I have never been of the opinion that comedy should be clean. I don’t think it should be. I don’t even think the best comedy is clean. I don’t even think I should be clean. Something isn’t funny because it’s clean.
Comedy has to be funny before it has the right to be anything else. And being funny is my only agenda. The problem is that the media, in particular, like to pigeon hole. The phrase ‘Clean Comedian’ was only ever intended as an adjective – not as a proper noun. The fact is that any adjective bolted on to the front of the word ‘comedian’ is unhelpful – whether ‘clean’, ‘gay’ or ‘one-liner’. These tags suddenly and mercilessly manacle the acts assigned to them, and the expectation of a night in their company builds up subconsciously.
Honestly, if someone told you there was a ‘gay comedian’ on the bill, what would you expect him to primarily talk about?
I still regularly get asked to appear on radio shows to talk about the rise of Clean Comedy, or on whether comedy should have boundaries. In 2007, when Bernard Manning died, Frank Carson and I debated one another across several national BBC stations about moral limits in comedy. It was fun, but I should have spent more time trying to be funny rather than righteous.
It may well be that comedy has ethical boundaries. The fact is, people don’t come to comedy to investigate that. They come to laugh.
Now, I’m not saying I suddenly want to start doing jokes about rape or anal sex. Of course I don’t. And I am grateful for the opportunities that being a 'Clean Comedian' brought me. But I was clean before I was properly funny, and people booked me because I was clean, not because I was properly funny. That is not how comedy should work. Does anyone call Jerry Seinfeld a ‘clean comedian’? No. Is he, technically? Yes.
Like any comedian, I want to be defined by whether or not I’m funny. That is the only adjective that counts. The fact that my stuff is clean should be completely incidental. And plus, I want to use language effectively. Gosh, darn and flippin’ pack no linguistic punch whatsoever. I may never use WMD’s on stage (Words of Mass Destruction – dreadful pun but I’m trying to be clever while also running out of time to leave the house). I may just hide them in an underground arsenal for a special occasion that never comes. But I champion my own right to unleash them at any moment; to use the comedy version of ‘reasonable force’.
In short, I don’t need the tag of clean anymore. Nor do I want it. And anyone who wants to define me by that tag can (insert swear word here) right off.
Blog - Housewarming
I was invited to a house-warming party recently.
I liked the invite that was sent out, because at least it was honest:
“Come and join us in our house-warming/come and see how much better we’re doing than you (Delete as appropriate).”
I’m always happy to see these 2 friends of mine, even if it breaks with my well-honed Saturday routine of Soccer AM, followed by Football Focus, followed by Soccer Saturday, followed by Football First, followed by Match of the Day. After that there’s the option of a classic match on ESPN, but I think that’s maybe too much sport in one day – I don’t want to pick up an injury. Best just to have an early night and recuperate in time for Super Sunday.
In fairness, my friends' house is so nice; so nice that I wasn’t allowed indoors until I had changed into a suit and had a haircut.
‘We’ve got it just how we like it,’ she said.
That’s never a good phrase to hear from someone with a new house. If someone has made a home ‘just as they like it’, anything you do inside that home changes, and therefore, ruins it.
‘Sorry, Andy, can you not sit on that chair – you don’t match the décor.’
I spent most of the time being asked for my views on various items of furniture.
‘What do you think of the rug, Andy?’
‘Oh, I don’t care,’ is the accurate reply to that question, but I couldn’t say that because they wanted affirmation and, more significantly, didn't want to get ejected before the pizzas came out of the oven.
‘It’s a lovely rug, Bill. Where did you get it?’
‘Ikea. Guess how much it cost?’
‘I still don’t care. Can I go home now?’
The most exciting feature of their house is the wall-to-wall laminate flooring – or as Bill pronounces it, ‘Laminartay’. As though it's a member of the 1970 Brazil World Cup winning side.
Call it what you want, Bill – it doesn’t change the fact you can’t afford carpets.
What I admire about carpets is that, not only do they provide a good deal of home insulation, but walking on them is not like crossing a frozen lake. With 'laminartay', you might as well dress up as a young deer and strap on some skates.
It’s all in the socks, you see. The home-owners had no issues with a lino-based floor. Why? Slipper socks, of course. They were traversing the floor like they owned the place, smug within the cosy sturdiness of a pair of Totes Toasties. I buy my socks from the market. 2 pairs for a pound: bargain, I’ll take 2….for a pound.
I slipped over 3 times, on one occasion sending my stacked plate of pizza flying, tomato puree splattering on the floor like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
Thank goodness they didn't have carpets - the stains would have been there forever, as a grim reminder of my visit. My last ever visit.
Blog - More Idioms
Like most middle class English people, I’m quite a nice person…until people start misusing grammar. Then, ooh, woe betide you.
The following Facebook conversation is based on real events:
X: How’s you, mate?
Me: That’s not even a phrase...*Scrolls down*....*Unfriend*
But the whole of the English language is totally bizarre, so...a few more thoughts on some idioms or phrases that we use instinctively, without ever really penetrating into their significance.
First, that old adage: 'Show me the boy at 7, and I’ll show you the man.’ Now, seriously, what sort of man asks you to show him 7 year-old boys? And when he says ‘show you the man’, how do we feel about that?
As I’ve always said ‘Show me the man who asks you to show him the boy at 7, and I’ll show you a man who needs to be kept away from boys.’ (Actually, I’ve never said that, but I promise I will from now on.)
Next, ‘You’ve made your bed – you lie in it.’ That’s not a punishment – that’s a treat. ‘You’ve made your bed, you’ll have to lie in it.’ Good, I wouldn’t have made the bed if I didn’t think I’d get the chance to lie in it – I’m not a scullery maid.
The idea of course is that you’ve made a huge mess of things and you’ll have to solve them. But it’s the wrong analogy – it creates the wrong mental image. If you’re at work and someone sets fire to the foyer, don’t suggest they have a nap.
‘Well, to be honest, this inferno may well consume us all, but am I right in thinking you made your bed earlier?’
‘Yeah, I did actually.’
‘Well, it would be a shame to waste it. Tell you what, you go and have a lie down – we’ll deal with the blaze!’
You wonder how some phrases ever became popular. Like the one for selfishness:
‘Oh, so you want to have your cake and eat it, do you, is that it?’
‘Yes, that’s it. It’s £2.50 a slice, in a credit crunch. What’s the alternative?!’
For phrases to make sense, they have to have some kind of context. So the best thing since sliced bread makes sense, because at some point we imagine a bloke cutting up a loaf of bread, everyone says ‘Brilliant – now we can have sandwiches’. It’s a winner. But at no point in history has anyone gone into Café Nero, bought a piece of cake, sat down and thought ‘Well…it’s just a bit selfish to be honest…I’ll leave it.’
More to follow.....
Blog - A Game of Two Halves
Saturday was a day where I experienced the full extremes of being a comic.
I had a gig booked in Luton for the evening...and, let’s face it - that, in itself, is reasonably extreme. ‘The Stoke of the south,’ one former friend described it as.
Anyway, my friend, Lee, got in touch and asked if I’d like to go and watch MK Dons v Bournemouth before heading on over to Bedfordshire. Of course I would. Not the most glamorous fixture, but I hardly ever get to go to football these days, and the prospect of sitting in the corporate section caused me to make a funny cooing noise – like a camp ballard, I would suggest.
So, Lee rings up the Hospitality desk at Stadium MK and the conversation goes like this:
Lee: Can I pay for another mate to come too, please?
Random woman: What’s his name?
Lee: Andy Kind
RW: The comedian?!
Lee: Er....yes.
RW: No way, I’m a big fan – I’ve just read his book.
Lee: No you haven’t.
RW: I have. I think he’s amazing. If he’s coming, it’s all free.
Lee: Is this a wind-up?
Now, you’ll have to bear with me on this. I’m not boasting. I should be very clear that this sort of occurrence is a total anomaly in my life. I don’t get recognised on my own street, let alone Milton Keynes. But by some bizarre coincidence, this young lady had indeed read my book, and so my drinks, food, memorabilia and match ticket were all ‘on the house’.
It was amazing, and the game was pretty good, too: 2-2. Tutu.
I left MK feeling as close to a celeb as I’ve ever felt or am likely to feel, and my drive to Luton was administered with a self-satisfaction that someone driving a 2011 Fiesta has no right to exhibit.
Luton is the only place in England where aid packages get sent from the Congo. The gig was a corporate charity ball for Natwest Bank.
I generally hate corporate gigs. As I’ve said on many occasions, what I think comedy needs above anything else is a captive audience. Corporate gigs don’t provide this. The people present are there to get hammered and laid. Even the 3-course meal can be a bit of a distraction from the main event: getting totally ratted in the smallest possible timeframe.
Aside from this, post-food, people want to nap, not laugh, while big round tables spread the audience out too much, making it more difficult to build a sense of communal energy or enjoyment. The only fun that a comedian can have at these (largely) black-tie events is to see how many single ladies shoes they can find lying around after midnight – the owners, by that point, so paralytic, heels become about as welcome as a Sega Dreamcast.
So, why do we do corporate gigs, then? Well, it’s usually a case of money over matter. I don’t accept many corporate gigs, but the fee was good and from time to time, it’s nice to stage a bank job between normal working hours. Take the money and run.
Having said that, some comedians are really good at corporate gigs – and like anything else, if you specialise, you’ll nail it eventually. But you have to have weapons in your arsenal that I haven’t smuggled in yet.
I was due to go on at 9pm for 30 mins. That didn’t sound too bad. They wouldn’t be that hammered by then, and so I might at least eek some artistic worth out of it. But then, having been at the venue since 6pm, I was told at 8:50pm that they were moving the auction forward, and I’d be on straight after that. Oh, and someone wanted to give a heart-rending talk about the charity, too, so it would be closer to 10:15pm by the time they got me on.
That was game over. This was like a comedy version of driving through Snowdonia with no breaks. There was no way I was going to survive this ordeal. All the crowd would be off their faces, and after a good 40 minutes of talking, they weren’t going to want another half an hour of comedy.
I made a couple of phone calls – to my wife and the Samaritans.
‘You don’t know, it might be alright,’ said the Samaritans.
‘Hahahahahaaha. Haha. Ha,’ said my wife.
I hung up on both of them.
I told the organiser that it was going to be a car-crash, to which she replied that she was sure they would be receptive. It was about as feeble a response as claiming that having ‘naked ladies’ on your web history was a lame attempt at a Googlewhack.
So, anyway, Andy Kind, the hero of Milton Keynes, the corporate golden boy of League 1, went on stage at about 10.20pm. He left the stage at 10.27pm, having tried to speak over 150 divergent conversations. It’s difficult to say that it went badly. People have to listen for that to be the case. But it was nothing less than a total shambles. Imagine a singer-songwriter storming the stage at a U2 gig, then trying to play his own set. Yes, a bit like that.
After 7 minutes, I said ‘It’s been a pleasure talking to you, enjoy your evening,’ left the stage area and didn’t stop moving until I was back in Manchester.
1 person in Milton Keynes knew who I was. 200 people in Luton couldn’t care less who I was.
Comedy.
Blog - Moloko
A couple of weeks ago, I had a gig in Leamington Spa. Ironically, it was 12 years to the day that I first went there, having started Warwick University on the same week in 1999.
I’m a nostalgic and sentimental person at the best of times, and so it was peculiar wandering round the campus. It’s a curious thing, the mind. Even though I am conscious of the fact that everyone I shared the campus with in my Uni days left over 7 years ago, I kept seeing friends dotted all over the place (or, rather, I saw people who looked a teensy bit like them, and my mind joined the dots).
‘Regret’ is the word I most associate with my time at Uni. Now, I don’t dwell on this too much - It’s amazing how this grace helps me rebound. But as I ambled aimfully through the campus, stopping and reflecting in front of my halls of residence and taking the lift up to the 4th floor of the Humanities building, a desire to go back and change the ticker-tape parade of mistakes started encroaching into my headspace.
It’s not even that most of those mistakes haven’t been reconciled, redeemed and forgotten. It’s more that I wish I hadn’t been quite so much of a t**t at the time.
But the trouble with nostalgia is that it lives in the past. It isn’t fully present. And the real joy in life is found in being fully present. I don’t mean living for the moment in a moronically hedonistic way. I’m talking more about filling your present with everything that you were made to be. Not wasting it.
And who knows, maybe 12 years from now, I’ll look back at the decade of my 30’s and feel the same thing: the desire to go back and change it.
And here’s the quirky thing: I can.
I don’t need to wait 12 years in the hope that time travel will somehow be possible. I can change it now. I can own my own present, and not let it pass me by.
By being fully present, you don’t just set your own future – you change it. And then 12 years from now, you look back and think, ‘I’d hate to go back – I couldn’t have done it any better.’
Nb. I apologise for the above blog. It’s come across as very Hollywood and naff. It wasn’t intended to. I think that a lot of good messages have been clichified by the film industry. Also, bear in mind that I’m doing one of these a day, and so often I just start writing about the first thing in my mind and see where it leads me. Still, I wish I could go back and change this blog. I just did.
Blog - Service Station
Right, this is a bizarre story, but it is, unlike some of my stories, true.
I was driving back from a gig in London last week and stopped at Oxford Services for a late-night flat white and a tinkle. There is something quite post-apocalyptic about service stations in the early hours that I like very much. It's only you and the cleaner. I enjoy – much more than I ought – that sense of power that pulses through you when you walk into a deserted Men’s Toilets and can take your pick from any of the hundred urinals. (Yes, I was also surprised I found a wife.)
Anyway, on this occasion, I chose a urinal and proceeded to go through the motions (pun intended). I was stopped mid-flow by a man coming to stand at the urinal next to me. Now, I don’t really like this at the best of times, but when you have 99 urinals to choose from, and you pick the one next to the only other bloke in there, something is wrong. I was about to move away and find a lockable cubicle, when this guy said ‘Hey.’ Not ‘hey’ in a kind of ‘how are you doing’ way, but more in a kind of ‘hey, look at my penis’ sort of way.
Impulsively, I looked across at him and found him...well, what can only be described as presenting his penis to me, as you would a commemorative sword.
What was happening? I expect this sort of behaviour at Knutsford services, but not Oxford.
'Eeerrraagghh,' was roughly what I said by way of response.
What you need to know about me is that I’m not good at dealing with new situations. I panic. My mind is like an old satnav on a new road (You know when it keeps telling you you’re in a lake and should turn right in 100 yards, along a road that isn’t there.) My mind is like this: it will take me down roads that aren’t there. I love bantering and ad-libbing on-stage, but I’ve done it before and so it doesn’t throw me. Very rarely does something happen within the context of a gig that you couldn’t anticipate after 7 years of doing the job. In real-life, lots of stuff happens that isn't feasible, and so I end up saying 'Eeerrraagghh' a lot.
Anyway, this guy window-dresses his willy in front of me. And to be fair, it was a monster. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it had been CGI’d - although I don't think you'll see it on the new Disney Pixar.
Now, there was nothing short of an array of different options open to me at this moment. I could punch him, kick him, nut him, ask him what the **** he was doing. I’m not sure, on reflection, whether applauding was the correct course.
As you might expect, this horrific, deformed man took my spontaneous burst of applause as positive feedback.
‘Oh, thank you,’ he said humbly. I thought for one, shreddingly surreal moment, that he was about to start an acceptance speech. This was getting worse by the moment, and yet still my brain refused to comply with my soul’s desperate cry for help.
‘So,’ this guy said, buoyed by my inadvertent review, ‘What do you think?’
At this point, I was like those people at the end of Crystal Maze, desperately trying to grab an appropriate response in the place of gold and silver tokens.
‘You should be very proud,’ was the first phrase that I managed to clasp in my metaphorical sweaty palm. If I was making this up, I'd use a phrase that made some kind of sense. That is what I genuinely offered.
'Are you not interested then?' he said.
Fortunately, this is the exact same question asked by the German cannibal in an episode of the IT Crowd where he wants to eat Moss. My brain was off the new road and back onto familiar territory.
'Oh no, it's not for me,' I confessed, quoting Moss verbatim.
And I walked off, back to the car, realising as I buckled up my seatbelt, that I still hadn't finished my wee.
The next 20 miles were uncomfortable, for a number of reasons.
Blog - Political Comedian - 10th October
My comedy has changed in recent years. Comics I haven’t gigged with in ages are surprised by the removal of the mindless positivity and smiley demeanour. It had to change, though. When I started comedy I was 24, had a full head of hair and could get away with whimsy.
I’m 30 now (will be 31 in December). I don’t look like I did when I started doing comedy. I look older, balder and more world-weary. Bouncing around in a high-pitched way would look stupid now (indeed, it may have done back then).
Comedy is mostly lies. Most jokes and stories are invented. We tend to just start with a punchline and work backwards. But the paradox with comedy is that the lies you tell have to be realistic. The audience has to able to have their disbelief suspended but not snapped.
As I get older and my gig tally loiters much closer to 1000 than 0, I would love to become more political as a comic; to talk about things that really matter. Certainly, I’m more inclined to watch Mark Thomas than Russell Howard these days (although RH was my main inspiration for some time in days of yore).
But although I look like a man in his late 30’s, I still act like a man in his mid teens. To this day, I still find it impossible to have a bubble-bath without fashioning myself a Father Christmas beard. You see, my mind is too inclined to the stupid rather than the cerebral.
It’s not that I don’t think the silliness in life shouldn’t be celebrated. My belief is that we should all do one silly thing a week – it makes us feel alive. I regularly put my house up for sale, and then when people come round to view it, I get my Mum to dress in Victorian clothing and stand motionless in the loft...then when prospective buyers climb up to the loft and say, panicking, ‘Who’s that woman?!’ I just stay calm, say ‘What woman?’ and watch as they flee. We’ve had no formal offers.
That’s how my mind works. And so as much as I’d like to be a political comedian, it’s difficult to be such when you thought, as I did, that Gaddaffi was one of the Pokemon.
It’s not that I’m not trying, you understand. I’ve started watching BBC News 24 more often and more intentionally - although that provides a case in point. The other day, the news feed across the front of the screen flashed up... ‘Big news about the EU....’ My mind being what it is, I was hoping the full story was going to be: ‘Big news about the Eurhythmics – they’re making a comeback!’
It’s a nightmare. I’ve tried disciplining myself to sit down and write material on social justice, but again I’m scuppered by my own childish thought processes. So I’ll be really good for 5 minutes, but then I’ll stop thinking about ethical consumerism and start thinking things like ‘What’s the longest wee I’ve ever done, and if everybody’s longest was put into a league table, where would I rank?’
I won’t even begin to tell you of the confusion and excitement I felt when I heard Dr. Fox was on the news.
Blog - Football Manager Ruined My Life - 5th October
I’m thinking of doing a show at The Edinburgh Festival next year called ‘Football Manager Ruined my Life.’
Going to Edinburgh, of course, would mean investing a lot of time and money for very little tangible outcome...but then if that doesn’t sum up my relationship with Football Manager, then nothing does.
Every so often you hear people talking about how they don’t remember the 60’s. It’s funny and tragic, but it’s not far from how I feel about the 90’s. It’s not that I don’t remember the decade, of course – it’s that I only remember stuff that happened on a glorified spreadsheet.
For you, the 90’s may spark memories of The Gulf War, Rwandan genocide or, more quaintly, Dolly the Sheep. For me, it was about ‘I. Wright is in the clear...he chips it over the Goalkeeper...and it’s in. GOAL FOR ARSENAL!!!!'
So much of what is now viewed as iconic from that decade passed me by. I didn’t get swept up in the Grunge movement – I was too busy learning how to employ a Sweeper, and Nirvana is how I felt after taking Crewe to the Uefa Cup Final.
The Prodigy was Darren Eadie.
Dances with Wolves is how I describe my epic League Cup Quarter Final replay at Molineux.
O.J Simpson: trial of the century? No, of course not – that was taking Kanu on loan after he had a heart attack.
And for me, the end of Apartheid was more about Lucas Radebe getting more international caps than anything to do with civil rights.
There comes that point in about fourth year of high school, where the renegade kids start going out drinking and taking drugs on a regular basis, and rumours start flying around about who’s had sex. Not for me.
Why buy a beer, when you can buy Bierhoff? Why take pot when you can take Portsmouth to the top of the Premiership? (That’s properly getting high!)
Why try and have sex when you can try and win the Sextuple?! (League, FA Cup, League Cup, Champions League, Charity Shield and European Super Cup).
I pretty much wasted an entire decade on this stupid, frustrating, glorious computer game.
I had a friend at school (John*) who, when we were about 16, used to boast to me about who he’d slept with, how many nightclubs he’d been to and what illegal substances he’d consumed. I remember feeling vaguely jealous and immature by comparison.
‘You’re wasting your life on computer games – go out and have some fun.’ He wasn’t the first or last to tell me I was wasting my life on ChampMan – as we called it back then. But I didn’t really care.
It’s bizarre that I still can’t be quite sure about the date of my parents’ wedding anniversary, but I can be totally certain that Nii Lamptey played F RLC and was the key to success in 1994. Stupid mind.
I saw John last week, the guy I was telling you about. He’s been divorced twice and is – happily – recovering from a longstanding addiction to booze and cocaine. It was great to see him, and he maintains he wouldn’t swap his life for mine.
‘I had a lot of fun,’ he told me.
For my part, so did I. A decade of playing the same game almost non-stop may have prevented me from knowing much about politics, current affairs or how to French kiss; but my time playing Football Manager with my friends Dave, Scott, Padders et al threw up some of my fondest ever memories.
And, on reflection, I may need to change the name of next year’s Edinburgh show.
Perhaps I'll call it: ‘Football Manager Saved my Life.’
*John is not his real name.
Blog - Karma - 4th October
I’m not really a superstitious person; never have been. I don’t think that walking under a ladder is bad luck - I think it’s foolish. It’s only bad luck in the same way that chopping an onion blindfolded is bad luck.
Superstition is stupid. I don’t see how smashing a mirror necessitates 7 whole years of misfortune – aside from the fact that if you’re clumsy enough to smash a mirror, you’re probably more inclined to stumble into chaos than more balanced, less oafish individuals.
The closest I have to superstition is instincts – reactions that are hard-wired into me, and that I find impossible to combat. For instance, I find it impossible to only eat one Jaffa Cake at one sitting. Similarly, when I go for a walk in the woods, I will, without fail, find the biggest fallen branch available and spend the rest of the walk hoisting it like a wizard’s staff. Do those count as superstition or idiocy? I’m much more comfortable with the latter.
Karma is another thing I don’t believe in: that idea that what goes around, comes around. It’s nonsense. If Karma existed, Roland Rivron and Paddy McGuiness would have been joint victims of a vicious Sea Lion attack some time circa 2001.
Karma is Krap. We will never ever see a news story that goes something like this: ‘A 30 year old man was killed today, when a piano dropped on his head in a freak music school accident. Fortunately, it has since been revealed that that man was a hideous rapist. Police suspect Karma.’
But wait. I do have a small confession. When I broke down on the M6 in 2007, I was listening to ‘Karma Chameleon’ by Culture Club. I do find that I can’t listen to that song when I’m driving anymore – through fear that it will happen again, or that I’ll be outed as a homosexual.
Thinking about it, maybe the burst tyre happened as punishment for having such a dreadful taste in music? Perhaps Karma punished me for Karma Chameleon? That would be ironic.
I’m starting to feel superstitious about it all...one of many reasons why I should stop listening to Culture Club.
Blog - Nutty Noah - 3rd October
I had a few days in Center Parcs, Longleat last week - 2 years to the week that Wifey and I honeymooned there. I do love Center Parcs, although the whole site feels a bit like a Tory utopia – not a working class person in sight. We went with my sister and Brother-in-law and their two little girls, which again was lovely and meant that, unlike on my honeymoon, I didn’t get told off for going down the Baby Slides.
On the last night of the stay, my sister decided to book all 6 of us into a ‘Magic Pancake Buffet’, which was actually a magic show and pancake buffet, and not what I was hoping for - a pancake buffet where, no matter how much you ate, you magically never got full. I happen to think there’s a gap in the market there.
Anyway, I enjoyed the buffet (who doesn’t enjoy unlimited pancakes?!) but was feeling a little squirmy about the magic.
I find, as a rule, children’s entertainers to be the most cringeworthy of all performers. With limited exceptions, they tend to be totally without talent, while at the same time considering themselves to be artistes. (There are exceptions, of course, of which one would be Michael Rossinni who runs Froggle Parties – that guy is a legend and a great businessman.)
I think the reason my hackles go up at the mention of 'children’s entertainers' dates back to a few past experiences in my own career, where people have tried to book me for gigs which turned out - unbeknownst to me - to be kids’ shows, and then wondered why I died on my ringpiece.
I’ve also met some children’s entertainers who called themselves and believed themselves to be comedians, which is often defiling of the word ‘comedian’. This sort of behaviour should be punishable by death...or at least a gunge tank; after all, it’s what they would have wanted.
Nb. I realise I’m becoming, in real life and in blog form, quite defensive about what comedy is and isn’t. I may be wrong, of course, and so make up your own mind, but in my opinion – an opinion I respect, and I think we all should – stand-up comedy is quite specific and is often jumped upon by other ‘communicators’ wishing to give themselves some needed street-cred. Anyway, let’s leave that – we’ve all had a drink.
The point about kids’ entertainers is that wearing wacky trousers and pulling funny faces makes you many things, but a comic isn’t one of them.
And so when Nutty Noah appeared, looking about 35 but with Rupert the Bear trousers and a mad grin, I feared the worst and tried to induce myself into a pancake-based coma.
‘After 10 minutes,’ I whispered to Becca, ‘if it’s dreadful, I’ll throw my mojito on you and we’ll claim your waters have broken, then escape to the Mexican border.’
But then Nutty Noah was brilliant. I mean really, really good. Ok, it was aimed at the kids, and had it simply been an audience of adults, we would have suffocated him with uncooked batter. But not only did he nail it for his desired audience, he won over the adults as well.
I’m not a Dad yet, and so the Nutster didn’t have the added advantage of making me vicariously happy through the joy of my child. Nor am I saying that Noah told jokes that worked on different levels simultaneously, so both kids and adults laughed together for different reasons. He didn’t really.
But what he did wonderfully well was inhabit that childlike stupidity that none of us ever lose but have to hide and pack away, while at the same displaying a clever and vital self-knowingness – feeding the adults bits of information that basically told us ‘I know this is stupid, but it’s fun, and behind this I’m just a bloke.’
He didn’t come across as needy or faded or burnt-out. He wasn’t the sort of children’s entertainer you see who tells you how he would have made it big if only he’d been given the chance. He didn’t seem to think he was a misunderstood artist who deserved better than cackling kids. Like all good performers, and unlike most performers, he wasn’t asking to be loved. He was just doing a job that he clearly enjoyed, doing it really well, and embracing the silliness.
One of my nieces cried and slept all the way through the show. The other laughed without really being old enough to understand why. But my sister, wife, Brolo and myself all came away thinking ‘what a wonderful evening.’ To think that about a show that wasn’t aimed at us – that’s the highest compliment I can pay His Nuttiness.
And I salute him.
www.nuttynoah.com
Blog - Complaining - 2nd October
I don’t really have a problem with conflict - I quite like a good debate. The Chinese word for conflict translates into our language as ‘danger and opportunity’. But conflict only works when resolution is the aim, not when someone just wants a scrap.
Wifey and I had a very brief holiday in Cumbria recently. It was more a weekend away, but during midweek. Most counties find it easy to big themselves up touristically. As you enter Warwickshire, they welcome you with the epithet: Shakespeare’s County. As you pass into Cumbria, the signs says: ‘As least we’re not Scottish.’ *1
It’s proper windy in Cumbria. We took a walk along the beach, which was lovely - if your main fetish in life is being trapped inside a Dyson Airblade for 3 hours. Still, striding into the biting wind and rain was fun in a kind of ‘we must remember to book Center Parcs for next year’ kind of way.
As we wound our way back down to Manchester on the Thursday, we decided to stop at Lake Buttermere – which looks and sounds like it was written about by Tolkien. If was absolutely beautiful, and we sat on the side of the lake, awed by creation...and then petrified as a RAF fighter jet came thrusting through the valley about 100 yards away – genuinely, it was terrifying.
We ate in one of the 2 pubs in the village - the one where having good interpersonal skills on your CV didn't mean 'sleeping with members of your own family.' Sitting down and flicking through the menu, it became impossible to avoid overhearing a conversation between two old people at an adjacent table.2*
They had ordered haddock and chips, and were bemoaning the quality of the Haddock.
‘Oh, it’s terrible – this won’t do.’
‘They should be ashamed of themselves.’
The waitress came over and the septegenarians set about telling her openly how disgusting they thought the haddock was. She tried to mollify them and assured the free bus-pass holders that the pub only possessed a small staff and were doing their very best. The waitress took their plates away, after which the man proclaimed: ‘Well they say they’re doing their very best, but it’s just not good enough.’
Seriously? Their best was not good enough? This was a little pub in the middle of Cumbria. They’d ordered lunch for under a tenner.
What he meant of course was that their best wasn’t good enough for him. But who says they should be working to his standards?
Defiant, and fed up of listening to his pomposity, when the waitress took our order, I asked very audibly whether we could have 2 portions of haddock.
‘I’m sure it will be lovely,’ I said, shooting a glare in his direction which he didn't see (which is good, because Wifey informed me that it came across as 1 part angry, 2 parts lecherous.)
Complaining says more about the complainer than the complained against, I think. It’s only my opinion, of course, but it is an opinion I respect, and I think we all should. That bloke oozed consumerism – that idea unique to western culture that we deserve everything we want. And this bloke became so consumed with his gripe, he spent more time talking about that than the wonderful view of the lake and surrounding hills.
He’d left by the time out haddocks arrived, so he wasn’t able to overhear me say to wifey, in subtly hushed tones, ‘This haddock is disgusting – I’m asking for a refund.’
1* Joke: I like Scotland very much. Chill out.
2* Actually, they weren't adjacent, but I just think that words adds depth to blogging.
Blog - Snippet - 30th September
Here follows an extract from Book 2: The Gig Delusion....
Debbie, the satnav, informed us that we had reached our destination. Erm...
We were faced on either side by a row of houses. Houses just like any other. Not special, magical houses that morphed at the flick of a switch into bespoke comedy clubs. Houses.
‘You bloody stupid Satnav! What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Debbie?’
That’s the issue with personifying pieces of electronic equipment – in all the excitement, you forget they don’t have a fully-evolved inner ear.
‘Well what are we going to do now? We’re already late. Has anyone got a number for the promoter?’
‘No, just the post code,' said Tony.
‘The post code? Surely you mean ‘a’ post code. If we had the post code, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.'
At that moment a front door swung open and a lady in her...I can’t decide whether she was in her 50’s or 60’s...hmm...a lady in her clothes, came walking towards us.
‘Are you, by any chance, the comedians?’
‘Er...yes.’
‘Well come in, come in, yes? We were starting to get worried.’
Ironically, we, the comedians, were starting to get worried. We followed the lady (still in her clothes) into what looked from the outside like a fairly ordinary terraced house. However, as we stopped over the threshold, we found ourselves standing inside a totally ordinary terraced house.
As comedians, we’re used to being met inside venues by people with cash-boxes or promoters with drinks vouchers.
‘I better go and lock Alfie up, now that you’re here,’ said the lady (persisting in her state of clothedness).
‘Oh, don’t worry about locking him up,’ said Victor, ‘We’ve played to people with learning difficulties before. We don’t mind.’
‘Alife is my dog.’
‘Oh right, we’ll I’m clearly a d***head.’
It was then that Alfie, taking his cue for this outworking farce, appeared.
Dogs are weird. You may be able to trick them into thinking that you just threw a ball that is, in fact, still in your hand, but you won’t succeed in convincing them that you haven’t had a cat sitting on your lap all afternoon. I had. Scenting an enemy, Alfie – an afghan hound – zeroed in and came racing towards me, teeth showing and claws bared. 3 seconds later, I was lying on my back with bite marks on my arm.
‘It’s all right, he won’t hurt you,’ said the woman, tritely, dragging Alfie away.
‘He already has hurt me!’
‘Oh you just excited him.’
Oh sorry, that’s an excuse now, is it? I got excited when I heard they were filming more Sherlock, but I didn’t launch teeth-first at Steven Moffat.
Sitting around in the front room was a group of about 9 people. In fact it was exactly 9 people – estimates only really work at proper comedy nights that aren’t in people’s houses.
'Are you ok to use the toilet as your green room?' She opened up a door and revealed a box-room with a loo and a bookshelf.
'Well, this looks cosy,' said Tony.
The show started and I did about 10 mins, before introing Victor. As he exited the toilet/green room, I went in and closed the door.
‘Man, it stinks in here.’
‘Smithers just did a poo,’ said Tony
‘What? A poo?! While you were in here?’
‘Yeah. He made stand in the corner and turn my back – it was like the Blair Witch Project. It was like the Blair witch project, but instead of murdering me, he did a poo. I tried to open a window, but I can’t find the key.’
‘Well, we’re stuck here now.’
Tony and I stayed in there for the whole of Victor’s set, hoping he wouldn’t overrun and taking it in turns to wretch.
Blog - Smiling - 19th September
There is something amazing about smiling. Did you know it’s almost impossible not to smile at someone who smiles at you? It’s something to do, I think, with a mirror neuron we have in our brain (that, or wizards).
I am currently sitting in Starbucks and there is an old alcoholic who comes in here a lot. He sometimes sits down, but often he just wanders around, singing shanties and swearing.
What’s interesting is how he reacts to a smile. Most people try and ignore him and get on with their work/chai latte, and he moves on.
But some people make a point of looking him in the eye and smiling. If I’m honest, I’m usually in the chai latter camp (and let’s face it: chai latter is nothing if not camp). When people do this – smile - he always – always – stops, turns to face them head on...and salutes. Even in his addled mind, there’s something about a smile that cuts through the years of gin, special brew and brokenness and reaches deep into his psyche. Maybe it reminds him of happier times, or of past loved ones? I don’t know, and it sounds patronising and pathetically glib to speculate.
But the point is this: after all and despite everything, this man still recognises, understands, and takes the time to commend the value of a smile.
Ironically, of all the blogs so far, this is the least likely to make you smile.
Willies. Better?
Blog - Films - 16th September
My wife is amazing. We’ve been married nearly 2 years, and she is amazing. I found out recently that my wife has the ability to give birth to human beings. How fantastic is that? Truly, what an awesome gift. She has the capacity to grow another soul inside her, and then after 9 months, usher that soul forth into existence. When you think about it like that, it is astounding. What an amazing woman.
And yet, despite this amazing gift, my wife does not possess the more basic skill of not talking during a film. What a ridiculous (albeit amazing) but mainly, ridiculous woman.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I love her as much as life itself. There’s only one thing, in fact, that I love more than her and life itself put together, and that is watching Anchorman in peace.
I’m a simple man, really. I don’t crave fame or fortune. I don’t care for fast cars. As it happens, I probably only have one major goal left in life, and that is, at some point over the next 10 years, to be able to watch a film with my darling wife, without having to explain whether the person currently on screen was in the West Wing or not.
Perhaps it’s not her fault – it’s like a nervous twitch or something? But as soon as the film starts, she’s off: ‘What’s happening? What did that man just say? Was he Poirot? Is that her real moustache? Where is this set? What was he in? I’m not following this at all.’
It doesn’t seem to matter that, invariably, I have seen the exact same amount of film as she has. I chose the film, and therefore should have comprehensive knowledge of everything going on.
For balance, I might point out that my wife possesses far fewer faults than I do. But this is my blog - a blog I respect, and I think we all should.
We don’t have children yet, and I’d like to one day. But when we do, I’m hoping for a really long labour. I’m talking 36 hours. It’s not that I wish my wife pain, you understand – I just really fancy a Star Wars marathon.
Blog - Car Crashes - 14th September
One day last week, I nearly had 2 car crashes in a 24-hour period.
The first near-crash experience happened early yesterday morning when I nearly reversed into a hapless pedestrian in a supermarket car park, just managing to stop at the last minute - and inventing a new swear word as I did so. The person in question turned out to be a very easy-going muslim guy. He said it was the 4th time this week he'd nearly been totalled by a vehicle (how we laughed!) I then suggested a few strategies in 'not getting killed by cars' - just stuff I've picked up on my travels - and we parted.
I'm quite happy I didn't hit him - if nothing else, the police might have viewed it as a hate-crime.
Later that day, an elderly gentleman - who may or may not live in an underground crypt - decided it would be funny not to slow down as I strolled across a zebra crossing. What he later tried to explain, shortly after I'd invented my second new swear word of the day, was that he hadn't seen me against the background. I have no idea what that means.
The only scenario where that excuse would have been viable is if I'd happened to be on my way to an impromptu Zebra lookalike competition, and had decided to stop for a brief doze in the middle of the road.
More disconcerting and terrifying than that was that what he actually said was, 'Sorry young man - I didn't recognise you.' Well, in that case, you were well within your rights to simply plow into me at full pelt! Let's be fair here - if I can't be bothered to find the time to build a friendship with this guy I've never met, I almost certainly deserve to be hurtled across the A519 by a 1979 Vauxhall Viva. I've got some cheek.
I don't know - because I didn't ask - whether this is a technique he picked up during the war to winkle out German spies...'Hmm, I don't recognise that man. Probably a Kraut - better shoot him.' Whatever his reasons, I'm not planning on cruising his hood at any time in the near future.
Blog - Sitcoms - 12th September
As with any circuit comedian, my main comedic aim outside of Stand-Up would be to write a sitcom that gets aired. I wouldn’t even mind if it wasn’t a successful sitcom – lots of good ones aren’t and some bad ones are.
Since Stand Up and Deliver came out and started doing the rounds, this is the sort of question, fairly naturally, that I'm being asked on a regular basis:so is a sitcom the next project?Now, of course I’d love to write a sitcom, and I’ve always got several ideas on the go. And, if I’m honest, I am trying. But it’s so hard. Too hard. Of all the comedic disciplines, it is my opinion – an opinion I respect, and I think we all should – that sitcom writing is the hardest. Why? I don’t know. Remember this is a daily blog of whatever thoughts happen to be in my mind when I first sit down to work, and not an academic thesis (though I don’t see how anyone could feasibly make that misassumption).
With Stand Up (I always capitalise it – that’s how much I care), you basically just have to keep saying funny things. Of course, we, the comics, would have you believe that there’s more to it than that, but that’s what it boils down to. You don’t need to sit down for weeks on end and plot out the narrative arc et al (You can if you want, but you don’t need to). If the words you say are surprising and pleasing enough for the audience, then you’re doing ok.
With SUAD, I basically just told a story. I suppose there was an inherent structure afforded me by the way the first year panned out, but I didn’t have to invent the situation or the characters – I just transcribed them. So both Stand Up and ‘Stand Up and Deliver’, while hard and coming with their own set of trials, are both reasonably straightforward. Writing a sitcom is so far from being straightforward, it’s...well, the obvious thing to say here, linguistically, would be ‘straightbackwards’, but that would be to a) shoe-horn in a dreadful play-on-words, and b) use an expression that has never been an expression. So we’ll move on...
James Cary has a blog of his own here: http://sitcomgeek.blogspot.com/
Reading it makes it instantly obvious how difficult it is, not just to get a sitcom commissioned, but to write one worth commissioning. Read it for yourself – it’s very good and you’ll quickly see what I mean.
I wonder whether it’s because sitcom writing is the one strand to comedy writing that genuinely involves proper analysis. Stand Up is at its best when it looks simple, whereas I don’t think a sitcom is. I think we like to see the complexity of it. Arrested Development, as an example, is full of running jokes, call-backs and allusions – which is what makes is so brilliant. It doesn’t look simple – it looks many-layered, and is all the more impressive as a result.
Maybe it’s something about the televisual that makes us engage our brain more. Again, with Stand Up, we engage our gut. When something is on the screen, we connect in a different way. This is maybe – I don’t have a clue – why you tend to laugh more at live Stand Up than Stand Up on TV. The Office is not always very funny, but it is always really well observed and very true. We appreciate good sitcoms it in a different way and from a different place to good Stand Up.
Anyway, the point is that I’m trying to write a sitcom, and not doing it very well. Which is why, at the moment, I’m not capitalising the word ‘sitcom’.
Blog - Roadkill - 9th September
Last night was Roadkill-tastic! Until last night, my sum total of animals killed using my car was a poultry 2 (in that I had knocked down and killed 2 animals classed as poultry).For the record, the first of these was an innocent peacock who failed to use a designated crossing point on a Shropshire country road about 5 years ago. I can laugh about it now - sometimes to the point of getting a stitch - but it was quite sad at the time, as it was my first contact with death up close.
The second time was less of an accident and more of a dare. I was camping in Cornwall, and the local cockerel thought he owned the place - waking everyone up at stupid o'clock with his singing, strutting around my tent like Mick Jagger, and generally displaying an annoyingly - and frankly undeserved - smug demeanour.
The thing you find with cockerels, though, is that they tend to be less smug if you crush them with a tyre while reversing your car. 'Haha, crow about that Carl!' (Yes, the cockerel was called Carl).
Now, you might think this is cruel, or that animals are in some way a good thing. But I hate them. I was bitten by a dog when I was 2 in an unprovoked attack, and since then I've held something of a private war against all of the world’s creatures. To give you an insight into just how much I hate animals, I laughed all the way through Watership Down and I thought Animal Hospital was a sitcom.
Anyway, recently I've been a bit slack when it comes to dishing out vengeance on the beasts (a collective term I use for all animals). But last night - within the space of 10 minutes, in fact - I managed to K.O two little bunny rabbits on a single carriageway. It wasn't pre-meditated. It wasn't even intentional. Just a nice surprise.
What wasn't nice was the fact that, later, a Juggernaut further down the road hit a badger, spraying its contents all over the road. I don't know if you've ever wretched uncontrollably at the steering wheel, but that was my punishment for the fate of Flopsy and Cottontail. Disgusting. Poor old badger. It was literally like that scene from Saving Private Ryan (you know, the one where all the badgers get massacred? It was in the Director's Cut anyway).
However, it does offer a neat alternative punchline to the joke, 'What's black and white and red all over?' Every cloud.
(Nb. This blog may not reflect my actual view of animals or life - it may just be done for a laugh!)
Blog - Packed Lunch - 8th September
Today, for the first time ever, my wife made me a packed lunch. It consists of two rounds of cheese and tomato sandwiches, an apple and a mini-roll (where would mini-rolls be without the advent of a packed lunch?) The lunch doesn’t, however, contain a Capri Sun drink, which any self-respecting packed lunch really should. Then again, I don’t have a spare half an hour to spend on trying to insert a straw; plus, I am spending the day in Starbucks, and if there’s one thing they do well it’s capitalism. But in second, it’s liquid refreshment.
It feels a bit odd that the first time wifey makes me a packed lunch, it coincides with all the kids going back to school – 12 years after I left. If only I still had my red Count Duckula lunchbox to stash it all in.
But the fact that I don’t have to go to school (or rather, am not allowed to even if I want to) and can sit in a hoody in Starbucks makes me grateful, and at the same time gives me a huge desire to drive to Newcastle-under-Lyme school and stand at the gates, laughing and waving my A-level certificates.
As an afterthought, at what point does a packed lunch become a picnic? Is there some objective guage for this? Is it simply to do with the fact that you eat it outside? It can’t be – otherwise a kebab could technically be classed as a picnic, and that would be obtuse and ghastly. In my opinion – an opinion I respect, and I think we all should – the clincher is a pork pie. I’ve never been to a picnic worth attending where there wasn’t a pork pie. Nor have I ever eaten a pork pie without feeling like I should ramp the meal up into a picnic. Feel free to disagree – this is not doctrinal to my way of life. That’s enough for now, I think. Got to get some work done before lunch.
Hang on, are you allowed to bring your own food to Starbucks? I’m being told no. What a waste of time and effort. Oh well, I’ll have to get a kebab on the way home – or as I call it, a picnic.
Blog - Idioms - 7th September
A man approached me before a gig last week and said ‘Hey mate, break a leg’.Isn’t that a bit of a weird thing to say? I mean, I know it’s ironic, but still. Besides, I didn’t recognise this man and so couldn’t be 100% certain he meant it in the figurative sense. Maybe we’d been to school together and he held long-standing hopes of revenge for a poorly-timed sliding tackle in 3rd year. I shuffled nervously onto stage, half-fearing that this bloke had greased it up with a mix of Vaseline and deep-seated loathing.
Afterwards, I did a little reading and discovered that the English version of that idiom is actually quite tame compared to the German. In German they say ‘Hals und Beinbruch,’ which means ‘Break a leg...and your neck.’ Now surely, unless you’re method acting a character who’s been stampeded by bison, that’s taking things a little too far? Googling a little deeper, I learned that in Italy, they say ‘In bocca al lupo’ or ‘Into the wolf’s mouth’. Again, a bit bleak.
However, I do like the idea that the farther east you go in the world, the more extreme that phrase gets. Perhaps, as you sit reading this now, somewhere in Japan there’s a performance of The Mikado, and a friend of the lead actor approaches him to say ‘Hey mate, glad I caught you before you go on - I just wanted to say ‘I hope your entire village is wiped out by a series of vicious bear attacks.’
‘Wow, thanks mate – I’m touched. See you after for drinks?’
Idioms are weird. As an English speaker, I find a lot of the idioms we use fairly bizarre. I mean, in what job is the fact that you literally didn’t ‘cut the mustard’ actually a sackable offence? Working in Subway, maybe, but even then it would be a bit harsh. (‘Cutting the cheese’, on the other hand, would require instant dismissal.)
And I love it when people are talking about money, and someone always pipes up with ‘You can’t take it with you.’ As my friend and comedy colleague Andy Watson points out, how gutted would you be if you could? You arrive at the pearly gates to find a sign: ‘Heaven - tenner to get in’.
It’s worse when you’re abroad, though. Because when you learn a language, it’s difficult enough to capture the literal meaning of phrases, let alone their figurative counterparts. I did some gigs in France for a group of expats, and after one of the gigs, I was in a bar, trying to use my supposed degree-level French. Chatting to one guy, he told me earnestly, ‘J’ai les dents qui rayent le parquet.’ (Literally: I have teeth that scrape the floor). Not realising this was an idiom for ‘I’m very ambitious,’ and fearing he had real issues with his appearance, I tried to placate him by telling him he had ‘Les dents tres jolies.’ (Very pretty teeth). Crushingly, and much to my surprise and lasting distress, this is also a Parisian idiom for ‘Can I kiss you on the lips?’ At which point, he took his massive teeth and ran off.
However, it’s this ability for language to be manipulated in so many different ways that makes being a stand-up so exciting.
You’re possibly wondering how the gig with the Vaseline went, are you? Well, I fell flat on my face. And I’m not talking literally.