Monday, May 29, 2006

27/05/06 Out And About



John "Motty" Motson limbers up for the BBC's World Cup coverage




I had a gig in Glenrothes (the self styled "Cumbernauld of the East" which is also twinned with Chernobyl) on Saturday.
I did a 15-20 minute set.
This was longer than I'd expected, but there was one act short so I was asked to extend my set.
It went pretty well I thought. I started a bit shakily by tripping over my lines (mainly due to lack of match practice), but finished very strongly.
They're not the most boisterous audience in comedy land, but they were a nice appreciative bunch, and gave the impression that they enjoyed the whole show.
Later on that evening I discussed my recent Ikea confectionery trauma with Malin, a Swedish waitress in David Bann's fine eating emporium.
I'd just started this harrowing tale when she immediately guessed what the offending sweet was.
Apparently, the flavour is termed "salty liquorice".
What on earth is a flavour like this doing in a bag of fruit jelly sweets?
It scares me to think of how many road deaths this sweet has caused in the UK as a consequence of innocent shoppers eating sweets on their way home from IKEA ; inadvertently chewing the "salty liquorice" sweet, losing control and skidding across the road onto the path of an approaching juggernaut, (which is probably delivering a further supply of sweets to a nearby IKEA store).
Pete had earlier complained that although the Dance Brothers are "almost completely bald" (not that there's anything wrong with that), people never make references to it, whereas his greying barnet is constantly commented upon.
Not long after this, Malin came in and immediately remarked that Pete's scarf ( a black scarf with white speckles) "really matched his hair".
Pete's defeated facial expression nearly caused me to fall off my seat in a fit of giggles. Supreme comic timing.

Things To Get Annoyed About In The World Cup - Volume 1

Picture the scene...
A striker shoots from point blank range at goal and it bounces off the keeper.
"It's an UNBELIEVABLE save!" says the commentator excitedly!
Well, it's not really. It would have been more difficult for the keeper to avoid being hit with the ball. It's a poor finish. It's not really a great save. It's all bollocks. It's like complimenting John F Kennedy on his skill at blocking the assassin's bullet with the back of his head.

Pundits who ingratiatingly repeat the Anchor person's christian name over and over again at the start of every sentence.
"The thing is Gary..."
"Can I just say Gaby"
"Gary, as far as I'm concerned..."
"But Ray, they've only got one up front.."
I'm always deeply suspicious of people who do this to me.
It's cloying and awful, and if I had my way I'd wire up the TV couches in the studio, and then apply increasingly severe levels of electric shocks to football pundits who persist with this blatant brown nosing on camera.

Any moment when Garth Crooks assumes a seriously thoughtful expression, then pauses...giving the impression he's about to make a startling and fascinating pronouncement on a pertinent football related issue.
But hah...fooled you...it's more pseudo-intellectual bollocks of no interest to anyone on the planet.

Terry Venables is looking more and more like Lou Costello (of "Abbott and Costello" fame)

On a happier note...have managed to slim down a lot.
Billy Connolly came up with a great piece of weightloss advice.
"Avoid eating any thing out of a "bucket"....!"

But don't get me wrong. I LOVE the World Cup...!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

25/05/06 Random Thoughts



Mark Lawrenson gets ready for the BBC World Cup Coverage.



I was thinking of some pitches for films ;

"The De Niro Code"
An Italian American Jesuit priest investigates a radical new theory on Jesus's direct descendants. It's all going well till the Joe Pesci character bursts in to the New York Priests' Convention shouting "Suck on this, muddafukka!" and proceeds to blow the priest's head off with a powerful handgun.

"Charlie Cairoli's Mandolin"
In wartime Greece a local girl falls in love with an enemy clown who shouts
"Hello Children!" at the top of his voice whenever he sees any children in the immediate vicinity.
She grows suspicious of why he persists in doing this and the relationship ends messily.
Charlie drives off into the sunset but the car splutters and the doors fall off.

I played a hilarious joke on Edinburgh restauranteur David Bann yesterday.
I handed in an envelope to the waitresses addressed to "David Bartholomew Bann".
They didn't bat an eyelid...
I thought Bartholomew would have been a pretty funny imaginary middle name to give Mr Bann.
Disastrously, they didn't see it as an opportunity to ridicule him at all.
It's back to the comedy drawing board for me...

On a better note, I thrashed the Edinburgh Samba School's tennis champion Debbie (at tennis).
She has recently had the upper hand and has taken great delight in seeing my tired old legs shuffling roud the court vainly trying to reach her winning lobs.
The axis of power has shifted now though.
My secret weapon has been my fiendish backspin returns which have left Debbie confused and tearful.
6-1 to Spinnin' Jim.
Debbie has been sent homeward to think again...

My football form is getting better as well, helped by the fact I'm not carrying around a big sack of potatoes with me any more...(it's just a little 2 kg bag of new potatoes now)
I impressed everyone with a trademark Ronaldinho free kick in which I hit the ground before the ball and saw it trundle past the post at a top speed of 3mph.

Monday, May 22, 2006

22/05/06 Eurovision Gloom




These are desperate times for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The onset of public votes has cast us to a Eurovision wilderness from which we cannot escape unless the voting rules are changed.
This is extremely unlikely to happen.
Charging voters premium phone rates ensures that the competition now pays for itself in telecom revenue.
Reverting to the old jury system of allocating points would now be seen as a classic case of turkeys voting for an early Christmas.
This is a desperate, desperate situation.
It is really galling that Tony Blair should choose this time of Eurovision crisis, of all times, to take a nice impromptu holiday in Baghdad and swan about with the newly elected Iraqi Prime Minister.
Tony has taken his eye off the ball, and I fear that he may live to regret this flagrant dereliction of duty.
This is a clear failure of prioritisation.
Can't he see the people are suffering?
I noticed that the Footsie crashed further down this morning.
I suspect that this is entirely related to the weekend song contest trauma.
In the contest itself, Dan Sampson's brilliant schoolgirl/seedy taxi driver rap was absolutely nowhere in the voting.
Dan cut an abject figure at the end.
Even though he had lived up to his pre-show vow that he would give his performance "A thousand and fifty percent!"...it sadly just wasn't enough.
Even giving it two thousand percent probably wouldn't have been enough either.
We're out on a limb. We have no mates to vote for us.
All the Balkan countries vote for each other, (which surprises me as they also go in for a bit of neighbourly genocide every so often). All the former Soviet Union countries vote for each other. Greece and Cyprus give each other douze points etc etc
We get no geo-political Eurovision favours at all.
What can we do?
One hope could be to invite "UK friendly" countries to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.
USA for example.
Well yes, ok, you're right...the USA isn't in Europe, but neither is Israel or Russia or Ukraine etc etc
Perhaps, each state of America could each have a separate song and a separate vote.
Now we might be in with a shout! (bad news for France though)
We could also invite the Falkland Islands to participate?
Gibraltar?
Canada? (not the French speaking bits though)
Isle of Man?
This would push the entrant numbers up to about 150, so the show would probably have to start on the Friday night and go on all day, leaving 8 hours for the voting.
And none of this "only giving the last 3 votes for each country" and displaying all the lower marks automatically.
Let's go back to each vote being delivered painfully slowly in French and English.
Come on, don't mess with tradition.
I've decided I want to go to Lithuania on holiday as they are obviously the funniest people on the planet.
They came up with the hilarious concept of a group of car salesmen singing a song
beginning "We are the winners, We are the winners, We are the winners of Eurovision".
What a cheeky idea which may well have won the prize if the song itself wasn't so irretrievably shite.
In Big Brother, Shabaz seems to be doing for Gay Scottish Pakistanis what the Titanic did for the Pleasure Cruises Industry.
This isn't just car crash viewing, it's a multiple motorway pile-up involving 351 vehicles.
It's so bad, that I just can't help looking.
Please somebody charter a helicopter gunship and take him out in the garden...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

16/05/06 Danger!



I've always been something of an afficionado of the "jelly sweet" confectionery genre. Whether it be jelly bean, wine gum or "sports mixture", I'm a fan...and only sherbert lemons could ever compete with the jellies for overall dominance.
I was out at Ikea the other day buying a table (such is the rollercoaster of excitement which is my life).
I noticed bags of Swedish jelly sweets in the little shop before the exit doors.
I responded to the advertising like a Pavlov dog and immediately bought a packet which I began grazing on as I drove home.
The first impressions of this continental sweet were highly favourable.
Delicious strong citrus flavours with a soft yielding texture. I was highly impressed.
I'd say they were a bit like Bassett's Wine Gums...only better...!
I then came across a black sweet.
Black jelly sweets can generally either be liquorice flavoured or blackcurrant flavoured. It's impossible to tell until you put it in your mouth.
I don't mind as I enjoy both these flavours equally.
Initially, the flavour seemed to be liquorice.
I relaxed, as the tension of anticipating which flavour it was had ended.
It should now have been a straightforward case of enjoying the consumption of the aforementioned sweet.
Suddenly, everything went horribly wrong.
The liquorice flavour had become extremely salty, as well as what genuinely tasted like a soapy washing-up liquidy effect.
This then mutated into how I imagine sauteed dog shit would taste.
I nearly veered off the road with the shock of it.
I instinctively spat out the offending sweet and it stuck to the speedometer dial.
Not only had I experienced the most disgusting taste sensation of my life ; I'd also found myself in a dangerous situation in which I couldn't be absolutely sure how fast I was going due to the speedometer being slightly obscured by a half eaten sweetie together with traces of black, pungent saliva.
It was like something out of "The Omen".
Luckily, I retained control of the car and made it home safely.
No thanks to IKEA though...

I also had the great honour of playing with the Samba Band in Tynecastle on Sunday to mark the Jambo's incredibly jammy victory over Gretna in the Scottish Cup final.
I get a bit bored at the old cliches of a team hiring an open top bus and going round the city to salute their fans.
I thought it would have been more original for the Hearts team to pose with the trophy on the Drumbrae roundabout,then hire 10,000 buses for all the supporters to get on and drive past their heroes.
I would then get Vladimar Romanov to oversee the public executions of Andy Walker and Chick Young in the Grassmarket, before leading the mass ranks of Hearts fans in a showstopping chorus of the "Hearts Song".
btw I also hate the way teams bounce up and down when they are posing with the cup after the game. Stupid stupid stupid. And that let's all run towards the supporters and do a wee dive thing? moronic...! Jurgen Klinsman has got a LOT to answer for.
Why not try something different?
How about the whole team leapfrogging the entire length of the pitch, until the last person performs a forward somersault whilst holding the cup.
Or maybe try that thing Freddy Mercury did on the "I Want To Be Free" video in which he rolls across the bodies of dancers on the ground (holding the Scottish Cup?)
A human pyramid?
A high kicking chorus line?
Oh well, just a few suggestions to fresh things up a little.

Monday, May 08, 2006

08/05/06 Thank You All!



I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of you who emailed to inform me that I had indeed got my last bet (Bolton beating Middlesboro) completely wrong.
It's kind of you all to point this out, as I wasn't sure I had in fact lost all my money.
Now I realise I have.
Bastards...!
Where's the "congratulations" messages to coincide with my (invarably) winning bets?
I'm hoping to replace Alan Hansen for the BBC's World Cup coverage.
I've written to the BBC explaining how I am capable of exclaiming "Unbelievable!" in a rough Scottish accent every time I'm asked to comment on any footballing occurrence.
I also went on to say I'd do it for half the money.
I could also double-up to replace Mark Laurenson as I have a large supply of crap jokes which I could practise delivering in a camp Widow Twanky "pantomime dame" style ; just like Mark does.
Surely this represents good value for the TV license payer.
I'm sure I could also come up with some funny jokes to say to Gary Lineker about his brother currently being in jail for embezzlement.
His brother used to run bars in Spain. There's therefore undoubtedly a host of hilarious quips I could make about his brother used to being "behind bars" and stuff like that.
I can just see ian Wright falling off his seat with tears of laughter running down his cheeks.
I like Sven's squad announcement today.
It's like seeing a pillar of the community Church Minister shouting "I'm Fucking bored!", run into a casino, stop at the roulette table and place the title deeds to the Manse and all the Church's money on RED....
then growling..."Spin it ya bastard!" in a rough Scottish accent.
Good luck to him...!
People seem to forget that Pele, the world's second best player of all time (Maradona was the best, don't argue about it...), was 17 when he scored a hat-trick in the World Cup Final against Sweden.
I've got a sneaking feeling that Walcott is going to be a sensation.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

03/05/06 Here's Some More Tips!

Place £500 000 on "Lucky Dan" to win the 4.15pm at Kempton tomorrow...

But seriously folks, I have £100 on Bolton to beat Middlesboro tonight. 4/5 ON.
Normally meaningless end of season encounters aren't good punting opportunities (although draws are common), but this one is different.

It looks like McLaren is getting the England job. Allardyce is seething and would love to thrash McLaren's team.
Boro have a UEFA Cup Final coming up and are resting key players.
Fill your boots on Bolton.

And well done Rangers last night!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

01/05/06 Darn It....!



Dramatic scenes at "The Crucible" as match referee Don Mitchell collapses with boredom for the 3rd time during the 2006 World Snooker Final.






I very much regret that when the angry gentleman sitting behind me at the Hearts v Celtic game shouted "Linesman! Are you blind, you fat cunt?" that I didn't stand up, then turn round with a furious expression and shout "Oi! For your information pal, that blind, fat cunt is a REFEREE'S ASSISTANT not a LINESMAN!!", shake my head dismissively, then sit down again.
That would have been quite funny, but alas I never thought of it at the time.
So Dott beat Ebdon, and Scotland assume their rightful place in the snooker hierarchy.
We mispend our youth with considerably more expertise than any other snooker playing nation in the world.
It makes up for us not qualifying for the World Cup.
I was rather disappointed that the match finished as early as 1.20am.
It looked at one stage as though it could go on till Tuesday lunchtime ; particularly during a frame which lasted for 75 minutes.
I was hoping that the match would evolve into scenes reminiscent from the film "They Shoot Horse Don't They?" which featured the Dance Marathon Competitions prevalent during the Depression in the 1930s.
People of a certain age will find Mr Dott's voice scarily reminiscent of the bloke who used to read the tales of "Little Nose the Caveboy" on Jackanory on BBC1 in the late 1920s.
Anyway, well done Mr Dott!
I was interested to read in the paper this morning that Dulux Paint are going to approach Peter Ebdon with a view to an advertising contract.
He was brought to their attention when a wag in the audience shouted out "Come on lads, this is like watching paint dry!" during a particularly dull frame in his semi-final match.
...and Jim's "What A Punt!" tip today is Rangers to beat Hibs tonight at Easter Road.
£100 on it, odds 1/2 ON.
It's actually in Hibs' interests to lose this match to keep alive their hopes of a UEFA cup spot, so not even Alex McLeish's ;legendary lack of tactical nous should stand in the way of a convincing victory for Rangers. Am I right, or am I right?

Monday, May 01, 2006

30/04/06 This Sporting Life



It's a rollercoaster of excitement in the Dott-Ebdon World Snooker Final!



So anyway, I did indeed manage to blag a ticket for Hearts v Celtic yesterday.
I bought a ticket off a man in the street. It was a child's ticket for the Family Enclosure. I risked being refused entry, but luckily my youthful demeanor convinced the turnstile operator that I was indeed under 14 and he let me in.
The only other feasible explanantion is that he couldn't be arsed with the hassle of questioning my vintage. This is unlikely though, as turnstile operators are universally acknowledged as dedicated workers who are honest as the day is long and all that.
I was in the front row which was quite exciting.
The Family Enclosure seemed a rather saner environment than other parts of the ground I've been in.
People seemed relaxed and in good humour, and I couldn't spot any obvious psychopaths in my vicinity. I was surrounded by the happy faces of young children enjoying the game.
Then there was a rather dubious throw-in decision by the linesman.
An adult immediately behind me stood up and shouted "Linesman! Are you blind you fat cunt?"
Ok, on one level it's funny, but I was enjoying being in a "heid-the-baw free" environment. It couldn't last. I am so naive...so naive....
A fantastic example to 6 year old kids!
But it was a rollicking entertaining game, and I enjoyed attending a football match for the first time in ages.
Hearts gubbed Celtic 3-0. I won my bet. Unfortunately, the result was very bad for Rangers, and it's odds on that Hearts will get that second place Champions League spot.
Hearts do have an unrivalled capacity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory though...so I wouldn't say it's done and dusted until Charlotte Church has sung.
Outside the ground I was giggling at a chubby middle-aged Hearts fan with an extremely tacky "Print-Ur-Own" T-Shirt which stated that "Hibees Are Gay!".
It just goes to show that attitudes are still a bit primitive in certain quarters.
I mean, it's one thing to be thinking like that, but it's the further step to actually get T-shirts printed that really takes the biscuit.
Hopefully one day they might put "not that there's anything wrong with that..." in brackets after "Hibees Are Gay!".
The inference is obviously that "Hearts are Heterosexual!".
This is all well and good but will it help them in their quest for 2nd place and qualification for the Champions League?
It's really difficult to get a chant that scans well...
"We're all agreed...Hearts are hetero-sex-ual"
Anyway, "Jam Tarts" as a nickname, is a little effeminate isn't it?
It's not exactly got the macho resonance of "Mince Pies" or "Pork Scratchings".