10/04/05 Jings, is that really me?

On Saturday night at The Stand speccy Coatbridge funnyman Quentin Reynolds gave me a video of my performance at the Leicester Comedy Festival.
I watched it yesterday. For most of the tape my hands were covering my face as I watched it through my fingers. I found it very, very uncomfortable to watch.
It's not that it was a bad gig or anything. I got one of my best reactions that night, and there are big laughs aplenty on the tape.
It's just the experience of seeing yourself, analysing your little physical and verbal ticks...it's all weird, very weird.
I distinctly remember that I was feeling very relaxed at that gig and that my delivery was slower and more measured than previous gigs. Or so I thought.
Watching the video it was still a "racing commentator Peter O'Sullevan after a few lines of cocaine" machine gun delivery.
So if it's as fast as that when I internally think it's fairly slow and relaxed, what must it have been like when I was consciously going very fast??? I've got to slow down!
Oh dear, another bad PR day for Scotland as Hearts fans' booing cut short the minute's silence in memory of the Pope, live on Sky Sports. It was the Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic.
What is it with football and minute's silences anyway? I hate them. It's a horrible cringeworthy exercise when they are not observed. This is often the case.
Anyone aquainted with attending football matches will be aware that any club's support contains a liberal helping of complete scumbags with no redeeming features and no respect for anything or anyone.
Why give them the opportunity to desecrate the memory of a departed person?
Did we have a full public minute's silence in Scotland to commemorate the pope's death?
Did Cinemas or Theatres or any other public gatherings observe one?
So why is it deemed appropriate to use a football match as a vehicle to show respect?
Would they have attempted it had there been a Rangers v Celtic match this weekend?
Not a snowball's chance in hell of that being agreed.
So we're left with another example of Scotland being depicted UK-wide as being a haven for backward neanderthal football fans.
Well, yes, I know that's absolutely true, but we don't need to advertise it to the rest of the UK, do we??