Thursday, December 17, 2009

I understand...




To a certain extent, I have sympathy for Tiger Woods and the predicament he currently finds himself in.
I too am a golfer, and only too aware of the accompanying pressures which participating in this sport bring.
The basic truth of the matter is that for millions of females, the sight of a man carrying a bag of golf clubs, whilst wearing a pringle sweater with brightly-coloured slacks, is the personification of irresistibility.
I've experienced this phenomenum first hand many times, and understand how easy it would be to succumb to temptation and use golf as a convenient vehicle to get off with literally hundreds of women.
In fact, as well as my regulation, full set of clubs in my bag, I also keep a shitty stick, which I use to ward off the hordes of groupies who loiter outside clubhouses waiting for golfers to emerge.
At least Tiger's downfall has brought global attention to the plight of golfers having to cope on a daily basis with this constant hounding.
It is only by choosing to play on rainy days, with a wind chill factor of minus 5C, that I can "enjoy" a game of golf without constant interruption these days.
I'm playing probably the last game of 2009 next Monday. (I thought you might be interested)
Bob, who usually whips my ass (this is a golfing metaphor), has failed to beat me in the last 8 matches.
Next Monday represents his last chance in 2009 to halt the "Jim Park Golfing Juggernaut" (I thought you might be interested).
I could just write about golf all the time really...
Is anyone still reading this?
btw I am on twitter as jimmyparker99
I can give you a hole-by-hole update if you follow me.
So there you go...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Round up.

My sketch got a pretty decent reaction at "Melting Pot".
It probably would have been better received if anybody in the audience had heard of the Broons comic strip, (very international crowd).
I'd already decided that a Broons parody was all a bit hack anyway. Must try harder.
I was already aware that there's not quite as much money in pro snooker as there used to be.
This was confirmed when I saw that this week's snooker on BBC is the "Pukka Pie UK Snooker Championship".
No disrespect to pies, but I suspect that the sponsorship cash on offer from PP represents a tiny fraction of what the fag companies used to put up before they were banned.
It's a reverse situation from football.
In football the older retired players must curse that they missed out on the big cash £100K a week wages possibilities.
In their day, they had to either become managers or run a pub after they retired ; whereas a lot of today's players don't really need to do anything beyond their playing careers, such are the riches they can now achieve in the game.
However, in snooker, the heyday was the 80s and early 90s when Embassy and Benson & Hedges etc threw millions at the game as it gave them extended prime time terrestial TV advertising.
But now, it's the time of "Pukka Pies" and selling advertising space to local traders on their waistcoats...
I was interested to see the BBC pre-match announcer shout "Let's Get The Boys On The Baize!".
Some of the audience joined in, so I assume this is the new snooker catchphrase.
It's snooker's answer to dart's "Let's Play DARTS!" (genius)
Just been for a haircut...quite a grumpy Australian barber.
This was the opening chat?
Barber : "Were you out last night?"
Me: "Yes, just for a couple of beers"
Barber: "Where were you?"
Me: "Burlington Bertie's"
Barber: "Was there a lot of pussy in?"
Now, I thought that was a bit over-familiar, and I was a bit shocked.
I hesitated, then replied "A reasonable amount", but didn't elaborate.
This seemed to put a dampener on the conversation, and there was silence for the next 5 minutes.
Then he suddenly shouted "You stupid cunt!"
I thought he was talking to me, but he was berating someone outside who had accidentally walked into his barber "A" board on the pavement.
He then moaned about people in Gorgie being "the fucking thickest on the planet, mate..."
Australian people are supposed to be relentlessly cheery.
What has happened?

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Suspicious

Amongst the pile of Christmas cards, I spotted a plain envelope addressed to "The Parents or Carers of Jim Park".
That's an unusual first line, I thought.
Has my performance at the "Heresy Comedy Club" last week led to moves for me to be sectioned?
With a degree of trepidation, I opened the letter...even though it was not actually addressed to me personally.
Was I breaking the law?
Anyway, it turns out that it was from the Organ Donor Registry people confirming that "Jim Park" had registered to donate his organs.
I then noticed that the date of birth of "Jim Park" recorded in the document was "14/05/2009".
I was officially only 6 months old, hence the letter being addressed to my "parents or carer".
I can't help feeling that there is something slightly dodgy in a parent registering his infant child for organ donation.
There is obviously a question of consent!
And it's not really the nicest present you can give your 6 month old son.
I could now be under suspicion for having some illegal organ dealing business.
I might already be under surveillance by the social services.
This is the most interesting thing that has happened to me today.
I've got sketch on in "Melting Pot" tonight at The Stand, so will be going along to hear how it goes.
I don't think it's that great, but it's good to force yourself to write.
I saw "Me and Orson Welles" yesterday, and it's the most I have enjoyed a film for yonks.
I still haven't managed to buy new trainers yet.
It's a scandal.
I noticed that this weekend there are a couple of "Tap O'Lauriston Memorial" events.
I used to work and socialise in this much missed Edinburgh Institution, so may go along to pay my respects.
It was an interesting bar, in that one side of it was very much a traditional "old man" type pub, whilst the other side was a trendy, muso, arty bar.
When you worked there, you effectively worked in both bars, as the service area was circular with the trendy and old-fashioned bars on different sides.
It was hard work, and you could hardly see for smoke...but hey, ...good times!

Friday, December 04, 2009

Born to be Mild

So I did my joke about a clipboard facilitating a speedy passage along Princes Street at the Heresy Comedy Club last night.
Nothing.
Not a sausage.
Unprecedented.
That immediately sends a comedy flare up that you should just abandon the script and fool around as much as possible, which
is what I tried to do, with varying degrees of success.
I made some banter with some IT guys about Cobol.
It wasn't very funny.
Who'd have thunk it?
It's a good training exercise.
Mind you, the chuggers on Princes Street seem to have abandoned their trademark clipboards, and are less easily identifiable.
The clipboard has obviously become a loathed symbol of their ilk, and has been replaced by a little badge that you don't notice
until it's too late.
"Excuse me sir!"
Aaarrghh...!
I watched Channel 4 News depressingly document the continuing, seemingly unstoppable, deforestation of the Amazon.
I'd like the whole of Scotland to be covered in trees again just like the good, old days of the "Great Caledonian Forest" (we've only got about 1% of the forest we used to have).
So, couldn't we reforest the whole Highlands, and by doing so get a massive indefinite EEC subsidy for our carbon offsetting, then the population could forever live off the fat of the land, and we'd all live happily ever after.
And by doing so we could help fix the global warming thing.
Just a thought.
I know...but I'm trying to come up with a quick thought every day to keep my brain active.
Right. Xmas Shopping. Go go go.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Resting

The problem being "between jobs" at this time of year is the shit weather.
Sometimes I think, I might as well be sheltering in someone else's office using their central heating.
If it was June or July, this enforced leisure period would be much more enjoyable.
But dems da breaks.
Jeff O'Boyle was compering Red Raw at The Stand on Monday.
He informed the audience that there would be a "prize draw".
There is always a prize draw, and the existing convention is that on hearing this news, the audience make an excitable
"woooooooooo!" sound.
Interestingly, I was the only person in the club that night who made an excitable (and very loud) "woooooooooo!' sound.
It was very funny.
You had to be there.
I've always thought of myself as having a relaxed, informal Bohemian style when it comes to dress sense and appearance.
This is a look I've assiduously cultivated through the years.
However, my self-image took a bit of a knock on Monday when I was compared to a "tramp" by two separate individuals of my aquaintance.
I assume the remarks were borne primarily out of jealously, as the accusers themselves are highly unlikely to find themselves in the shortlist for "Best Dressed Person 2009".
Nevertheless, I don't want to be complacent, and am going to buy some new clothes this weekend.
I've now gone 7 weeks without a cigarette, and feel good.
My lungs are cock-a-hoop, but my liver is a bit pissed off at the additional workload that has come its way as a consequence of my decision to bid farewell to Mr Nicotine.
I got through the "Beechers Brook" of the no fags regime ok (ie doing a Thurs/Fri/Sat run at The Stand without succumbing to the temptation of the ritual pre and post-gig cigs).
However, this is just a warm up for the "Festive Period" ; very much the Helmand Province tour for the ex-smoking fraternity.
I was trying to get parked near Causewayside in Edinburgh yesterday without much success.
Then suddenly I came across a street with loads and loads of free "pay and display" spaces.
Something didn't seem right.
Anyway, I parked and approached the meter to buy my 30 minutes of parking time (more than enough, but sensibly buying a little extra in case I got delayed).
So anyway, it turns out you have to buy AT LEAST 3 hours of parking time...for £3.
No wonder the street was empty.
Whose idea was that?
I reluctantly paid the £3 then found out that the sports shop that I was told was a good place to buy trainers, doesn't exist any more.
I just want a bog standard pair of trainers, without lights on them, or big padded heels, or stupid colours, that have astro turf studs on them...but apparently this is impossible.
It's an injustice, it is.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Disappointing

I started to watch France v Ireland last night and had an inkling that the Irish were more than capable of pulling off a shock result.
They've got a fantastic togetherness about them, which Scotland occasionally have, but often pathetically don't, (eg last Saturday).
In the end, that controversial goal was hard to take.
I desperately didn't want to witness a "glorious failure" in the Scotland tradition, but I think Ireland's experience eclipsed even Scotland's formidable record in this area.
It's so disappointing that in a match of this stature, the wrong call was made on a huge decision.
There's now an overwhelming case for video technology to be made available to the 4th official, and perhaps use the "2 appeals allowed" system currently in force in tennis.
There is a fair amount of hypocrisy doing the rounds though.
I remember Joe Jordan's handball against Wales which bizarrely resulted in Scotland getting a penalty and scoring the decisive goal that took us to the Argentina World Cup in 1978.
I can't remember a lot of agonising going on in Scotland over the unfairness of the decision against the Welsh, (who were by far the better team on the night).
Although, if time travel became available, I'm sure a few Scots might want to go back and kidnap the referee before the Scotland v Wales match, and hope that a less myopic replacement would give a different decision.
In the end, it might save Scotland from making that harrowing trip to Argentina, and "Ally's Tartan Army" would never have been written, and Andy Cameron would never have appeared on Top of the Pops.
I know you shouldn't meddle with the Space-Time Continuum, but there should surely be some exceptions to this general rule?
Mind you, Archie Gemmil's goal against the Dutch was good...
Hmm...
I'm still not sure what Joe Jordan was trying to do.
I assume he wasn't trying to get a penalty.
I've never seen a decision like that one before or since.
I'll be taking advantage of the fine weather to go for a relaxing drive through to Glasgow tonight, as I'm doing the weekend at The Stand there.
Headlining is one of my all-time comedy heroes, Simon Munnery.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Thursday Thoughts

My sketch got a great reaction at "Melting Pot".
I was very happy about this, feeling weirdly nervous about the whole thing as my sketch was introduced.
So I now feel suitably motivated to write some more.
I have plenty of free time to do it...there is no excuse.
I've been watching a bit of "International Bowls" on BBC2 this week.
One of the prominent sponsors on the advertising hoardings is "Co-operative Funeral Services".
This was the first time I have seen a funeral business sponsor a televised sport.
I know that sponsorship is thin on the ground at the moment in light of the prevailing economic climate, but have
the Bowls people really thought this through?
It doesn't exactly make bowls seem like an aspirational lifestyle choice.
The subliminal message seems to be "why not have a game of bowls? oh and btw you're going to die soon ...".
Where do you draw the line though?
Would they also accept sponsorship from "Incontinence Pants R Us"?
It might be an idea to stipulate that the competing players dress up as "Grim Reapers" to reinforce the brand sponsorship?
I think that funeral advertising would work better on Motorway signs, bottles of whisky, packets of cigarettes, the summits of mountains and comedy club green rooms.
At least these activities have a more obvious link with the death thing.
The problem is that people don't really like being reminded that there is a sport called bowls, and that we will all watch it accidentally one day.
There's a universal squeamishness about this subject.
But there's no way you can avoid it.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Never Knowingly Underwater

That's the working title for my debut solo show at the Glasgow Comedy Festival in March next year.
It makes me laugh, but that is no guarantee of anything.
Other news.
I've extended my unbeaten run of golf challenges against Bob Hind to 3 matches.
I thought you might be interested in that impressive statistic.
We've started playing a regular game at Braid Hills of a Monday morning.
It's a great start to the week, and the views over Edinburgh were amazing in the bright autumnal sunshine.
You can never really get blase about stuff like that.

I've written a few bits and pieces and am getting one of my sketches performed at "Melting Pot" at The Stand tomorrow night.
I'm slightly apprehensive about what "death by proxy" might feel like, if it bombs.

And through the letterbox has just arrived, "The Rhythm Method".
Yes, it's the memoirs of erstwhile "Revillos" drummer, Rocky Rhythm, aka Nicky Forbes.
I was an obsessive Rezillos/Revillos fan, and got to know the band and their entourage fairly well, way back in the day.
I am looking forward to reading some warts and all retelling of the anecdotes of these halcyon days.

Nearly 4 weeks of no cigarettes.
I am now feeling slightly healthier, I think.
I'm going to try and sign up for a Smoking Cessation Group.
I think I could probably manage ok on my own, but I'm interested in getting involved and seeing how it's run.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Comedy Gospel

"Comedy criticism is basically what a cunt thought of something they didn’t understand"
Frankie Boyle.

Amen.

So anyway...

I haven't smoked for 3 weeks...
Do I feel any different?
No...
Oh well, at least I've saved some cash.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to write various things. It's hard, really hard.
I have a lot of stuff, but have no idea whether any of it is funny or not.
Someone passed me a video of a typical day in a Factory Egg Farm type place.
Hideous.
The sight of a continuous conveyor belt of "commercially valueless" live male chicks getting dropped into a grinding machine has put me right off eggs.
It's the way no concession is made whatsoever that these are living creatures that really sticks in the craw.
I don't have a problem eating animals that are reared humanely, then stunned and slaughtered.
And yes, amn't I great?
It's ironic in that a lot of "vegetarians" will happily eat eggs.
And, oh shit, eggs get used in cakes don't they?
And omelettes...
Jeezo...
Anyway, on that hilarious note, I had a fun gig at the "Queens Retreat" in South Queensferry this week.
This was my venue of choice for underage drinking when I lived in SQ.
Underaged beer is the best tasting beer you will ever taste...Nectar of the gods.
(obviously I'm not going to extend this metaphor)
They must have been very relaxed about things.
I didn't even look 18 when I was 18.
Funnily enough, the decor in the bar is pretty much exactly the same as I'd remembered it.
Well if it ain't broke, don't fix it...that's what I say.
JoJo Sutherland runs a really great comedy night there, with a great regular crowd who are well up for the comedy thing.
I left my clipboard in the bar though.
Was this a subconscious decision to free myself from its clutches?
I'm looking forward to seeing Miles Jupp get bollocked by Peter Capaldi in "In The Thick of It" on Saturday.
I can just imagine the chemistry being really funny there.
I read Frankie Boyle's autobiography.
Very funny.
The complete absence of hyperbole is impressive.
He just routinely describes the different stages of his successful career in a matter-of-fact way, and throws in a lot of
his trademark acerbic descriptions.
(it makes my self-congratulatory prose on doing a good 5 minutes at Red Raw seem horribly embarassing. Perhaps it's better just to concentrate on writing jokes and let others say whether it's any good or not)
His affectionate tribute to The Stand's Chris Cooper as "..a frighteningly degraded-looking 26. He looked like a 26 -year-old man from the Middle Ages and spoke in a low, rasping, sexualised whisper." caused me to nearly fall off my seat laughing.
I know Chris will have been equally amused.
At the same time I was reading Michael Palin's diaries.
This was with his permission though, as he's published them in a book.
You could hardly get two more different author perspectives, but they were both absolutely compelling reads.
I am now making soup.
I am loving the not-having-a-proper-job-thing.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Stretching credulity















So what do you think the connection shared by these celebrities?
Yes, you're absolutely right!
They are indeed "celebrities" whom people have said that I "remind them of".
I swear to god this is true...
I sense that the alleged "Marlon Brando" similarity will generate the biggest communal guffaw....
This was said to me by a girl I met in Peru.
In fairness, she was no obviously no stranger to recreational drugs, and I feel this may have slightly skewed her judgement.
I also neglected to establish whether she was referring to the smouldering, dangerous sexuality of the young Brando, or
whether she meant the elderly Brando in "The Godfather" who has a cardiac arrest in his garden, pretending to be a monster to his grandson, with a bit of orange peel in his mouth.
I'll never know.
I'm assuming it's the former.
The others are Frank Skinner, James Woods, Steptoe, Richard E. Grant & Geoffrey Rush.
Having finished my IT contract, I now have a lot more time on my hands.
Could you have guessed this?
If I had to pick I'd take the Christopher Lambert one, and to be honest, I can't really see the Steptoe likeness at all.
I think that was just said as a poorly conceived joke.
I'm not delusional, so don't start questioning my sanity...
It's a relief to have finished my contract, and I'll never be able to say that I miss the social aspect of the job.
This is mainly because, there never was any social aspect to the job.
Not a lot of fun at all.
Other than that, there was a big get-together in the Oxford Bar last week.
My friend David reminded me yet again that I once brought too much curry on a hillwalking trip.
Every time he recounts this anecdote, it just gets funnier and funnier and funnier.
Little did I know that my fateful decision to bring a little too much curry on a hillwalking trip would provide years and years of unending amusement.
And apparently, I went to sleep straight after the walk too!
Comedy...it's a funny old game...!
I am on tomorrow night at the "Queens Retreat" in South Queensferry, if you want to talk to me about why I decided to bring
a little too much curry on a hillwalking trip.
It's good to feel chipper again though.
I was ill for virtually the whole of October.
Illness is, first and foremost, boring as hell.
I reckon I had swine flu, then followed it up with some exotic cold/throat infection which I picked up on the flight back from Spain.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

A bit knackered...

t’s been a busy week.
I’ve been gigging in Aberdeen and Glasgow (both great gigs), then did a spot at Jongleurs in Edinburgh last night.
It went ok, but it wasn’t spectacular.
It’s a pretty tough room to play ; a long rectangle with the stage in the middle.
The opening 20 act, who I think is hilarious, was not getting much of a reaction at all.
I bemused them initially, but finished pretty strongly.
I’d never set foot in this club before, so it was something of a culture shock.
The staff are great though and can’t do enough for you ; free drinks and food and all that.
I’d like to do it again though, as all of the comics agreed that last night’s audience was severe hard work.
I was thinking of trying some joke about how I was the new European welterweight boxing champion, having
just beaten the reigning Spanish champion the previous evening.
Just before the bell went, I got my trainer to sneak behind the champ at his corner, and stick two long spikes with feathers on them into the back ofhis neck.
I then got a friend of mine to ride a horse into the ring and poke him on the back several times with a big sharp lance thing.
He was quite startled by this, and I capitalised on his distraction and strode across and biffed him,
knocking him out.
I still say it was a fair fight.
Probably just as well, I didn’t try that last night.
The fact that someone put another “Downfall” spoof on youtube, this time with an Edinburgh Trams theme, has massively increased the hit rate of our TSOTT video. (It appears on the same frame when you view the “Downfall” one).
I wouldn’t call it a viral phenomenum quite yet, but we have now accrued more views than the “official” trams video which we initially used for our spoofery.
I actually suggested to my erstwhile TSOTT colleagues that we should now maybe capitalise on the brand awareness and write a sketch show purely about the Trams fiasco!
It would act as a form of redemption in view of all the pelters we took for our lack of trams content.
Sadly, I was told to “fuck off” in so many words, and that they never wanted to have anything ever to do with trams again.
Bastards!
This is a sad loss, isn’t it?
What?
Oh fuck off, that’s a terrible attitude!
No, it's ok...I fully understand.
I saw Billy Connolly three times last week at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.
That may seem a bit mental to some people, but I don’t know how many more tours he’ll be doing.
He’s 66 now, you know.
Anyway, I’d say 60-70% of the material each night was new.
He did about 2 hours 10 mins each night without a break ; of pure stand-up.
It’s pretty extraordinary stuff.
It felt odd to have just stumbled on some tickets on the Usher Hall’s web site the night before ; then to find
myself sitting in the front row, when all the concerts had apparently been “sold out” for months.
Strange.
I watched a bit of the SCOTY Gong show, after my “Fourplay” gig in Glasgow.
I was expecting a bearpit but it was disappointingly civilised.
So there you go!

Monday, September 14, 2009

IT Pin-up boy

So anyway, I hated the idea of getting a great big photo on myself on the back page of my work's in-house corporate magazine thing.
However, I convinced myself that it was going to be good publicity for "The Silence of the Trams" show, and agreed to go ahead with it.
Unfortunately, publication was delayed, and the magazine came out A WEEK AFTER the show had finished.
Marvelous...
So in the end, we got no publicity benefit from this whatsoever, and I have to put up with my big, stupid face looking at me from hundreds of copies of the magazine scattered throughout the office.
I've decided to punch the next person in the face who passes me in the office and says "tell me a joke, funny man!".
My cover's been blown, and life will never be the same again in my present workplace.
It's not the best photo I've ever seen of me either.
I'm sporting a ridiculous, self-satisfied smirk.
The only way that a decent photo can be taken of me involves a total ignorance on my part that someone is pointing a camera at me.
Something terrible happens as soon as I pose for a photo.
I used to deliberately do ridiculous toothy grins for school photos to sabotage the shot, and it appears that I never managed to re-adjust my camera image to look natural again.
It's also worth pointing out that the magazine itself is fairly tedious.
In it you can find out interesting facts about the Financial Accounting Section, and read a quick interview with the deputy-manager of the department.
Usually, they've got ambitions to play a round of golf with Tiger Woods, and say that their ideal dinner companions would be Linda Lusardi ("because she's lovely!") and Henry VIII ("because he'd have lot's of interesting stories!").
And apparently "the staff of a company are its most important asset!"
This makes me feel valued, and almost makes it up for having my photo everywhere.
Kanye West may well feel like a complete twat after his impromptu awards speech, but it's trivial compared to my embarassment.
It's tough on Kanye though.
There's nothing worse than trying to be noble to impress a lady, and you just end up embarassing her.
I've got a rich experience of such gestures.
I remember trying to be cool on my new moped in front of an object of my desire, but managed to hit the kerb and fall off the aforementioned vehicle right in front of her.
But even that wasn't as bad as this magazine thing.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

September

Looks like this is turning into a monthly blog.
Pathetic.
I'm still slightly frazzled in the aftermath of the Fringe.
Even more pathetic.
So anyway, "The Silence of the Trams" ; the verdict?
Well, the number of tickets we sold was way, way beyond our most ambitious hopes.
We got a mention in Tommy Sheppard's post-Fringe press statement.
We had 3 reviews ; one was decent and 2 were dreadful.
Some people dismiss reviews as "just one person's opinion".
I think that's true in certain cases, but if the writer is knowledgeable and has a respect in the comedy business, then it's
delusional to completely discard what they have to say about you.
I've completely discarded what they had to say about us.
Our reviewer from Festmag, Sarah D'Arcy, attended on one of our best nights.
She sat in the front row, continuously writing copious notes on an A4 notebook , and laughed heartily throughout the show ; then gave us a right kicking in the review.
The reviewer in The Skinny, Rebecca Gordon, also came on a really good night, and then proceeded to hammer us.
Both of them seemed to be outraged that the show wasn't entirely about trams.
Imagine that...a Fringe show with a funny title, that doesn't correspond precisely with the whole content of the show.
I've never seen that done before!...Unprecedented...!
(Although the Evening News stitched us up by intimating that the show was purely about trams, but who takes seriously anything that is written in the Evening News?)
The skinny reviewer is also a self-styled "film reviewer" but "has never seen Citizen Kane" and recently watched "Love Actually" for "about the millionth time" ; according to her Blog.
No more questions, your honour.
I'm not bitter though...not at all...no, really!
I had a load of friends come along, and cringed inside slightly as I knew they'd heard much of the material many times before.
I feel their pain.
The problem is that the majority of the audience hadn't seen us before, so you want to use your strongest, bankable stuff.
But having churned it out for a month, I'm committed to binning most the old favourites and becoming a born-again comedian.
On the plus side it was great fun and a fantastic honour to do a show as part of the Stand Fringe programme.
There's hundreds of comedians who would kill to get a Fringe spot with them, so we appreciate how lucky we were to get invited.
I should have gone to see more Fringe stuff, but working during the day killed me.
I saw "Camille O'Sullivan" and was completely blown away by her.
She did a load of my favourite songs (Bowie, Jaques Brel,Tom Waits), and managed to make an incredible emotional connection with the audience, the likes of which I hadn't previously witnessed in my puff.
Unfortunately, Scottish comedy's Gordon Alexander wasn't as impressed as me, and his demeanor during the show was akin to him watching Grimsby Town lose a relegation dog-fight, six-pointer at home to Hull City.
Jo Caulfield made me laugh by describing how some Japanese people had walked out of her show after 5 minutes.
They went to the box-office and complained ;
"We were expecting a "performance", but it was just a woman talking on the stage".
So there you go...
I was looking through some of my Dad's old books last night, and came across a biography of the RAF's famous wartime pilot, Sir Douglas Bader,"Flying Colours".
He must have bought this in a charity shop, as someone has made written notes on some of the pages, and it is not my dad's handwriting.
My favourite "note" is on page 204.
It states "Bader was still hated in the RAF in the sixties. He was a big-headed, snobbish, little bastard".
This made me cackle with laughter.
I must try to get out more.
Other notes I liked were ;
"The middle/upper class get the gongs and knighthoods. The erks get fuckall"
"Did Spike Milligan write this book?"
Maybe this was an angry ex-RAF man who made these comments and gave the book to a charity shop so that his views would become more widely circulated.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Sunday

Disappointingly, there was one empty seat at last night's TSOTT show...
There it was at the back,staring at us contemptuously...
Our run of sell-outs had to come to an end sometime.
The other TSOTT boys were initially refusing to go on... giving it the big Diva stuff...
"We only perform to FULL HOUSES..." they shrieked through hysterical tears.
Thankfully, I managed to persuade them that this was the wrong attitude, and that it was churlish to blame this audience for the "one empty seat" fiasco.

We had a problem connecting the laptop to the digital projector, and as a result I had to stand in front of the audience holding up the laptop to play the Trams video.
It was all very comical, and I really enjoyed watching the audience reaction to it...they loved it.
I had by a long way my best gig of the run....
Afterwards, it was straight through to Glasgow and a spot at the Glasgow Stand.
It was probably the best ever gig I have had there, putting the cap on a
great day.

I ended up giving fellow comics Paddy Lennox and Jason John Whitehead a lift back to Edinburgh.
As we left the Stand there was a full-on monsoon in progress.
I hate doing the M8 in torrential rain late at night.
Never a pleasant driving experience.
The comedy gods had obviously decided that my day had just gone too well, and that I needed some adversity.
This came initially with the discovery that that the East-bound slip road onto the M8 at Charing Cross was coned off.
I'm not that familiar with driving in Glasgow, but located an alternative M8 slip road, and it too was coned off.
Then I got lost. (didn't have the sat nav with me...didn't think I needed it!)
I drove around somewhere in Glasgow for about 45 minutes trying to find my bearings.
It's fair to say that, the torrential rain wasn't helping matters.
Eventually,found a way onto the M8 at got home at about 1.15am.
knackered.
I was so wired from the horrible torrential rain M8 driving experience that I couldn't get to sleep and was lying awake at 4.00am.
I am now feeling very dozy...
It's an early night tonight, that's for sure.

I haven't eaten anything but sushi for the last 4 days.
It's the ideal Fringe fuel.
It keeps you going and feeling sharp without any bloatedness.
I think I could live off it all the time.
My wallet might disagree though.
And traditionally at the Fringe, the pounds have started slipping off, as one meal a day seems to suffice.
(it all goes wrong in September though, when I start eating like a bear emerging from hibernation)

Saturday, August 08, 2009

And they're off....

We had our first night “proper” of the TSOTT run last night.
Another sell-out.
Another sauna.
A few jokey heat references this time to make light of the desperate discomfort.
I enjoyed the gig a lot more than the previous night, feeling a lot looser and relaxed.
As of last year the esteemed publication “Three Weeks” sent a reviewer to see our show on the FIRST NIGHT of the run.
I don’t really feel any great anxiety about reviews like I used to.
I’ve had some great ones this year, and also some complete stinkers.
Kipling was right...
Although, obviously I’d prefer if the reviews were all great, of course….
I'm not STUPID.

It’s funny how the stress levels are so low (with the occasional exception, eg Gordon having to get a taxi from the venue to his flat and back ; 25 minutes from showtime, to get a laptop) to previous Fringes.
It’s now a fairly seamless routine, to get in, give the running order to Erik the Tech, play the Trams Video, activate the virtual compere, do your act, present the prize draw then go home.
Last year we seemed to spend hours looking for missing cds, props, organising guest spots, etc etc
It all seems so organised now. Bliss.
And, it has to be said it’s an incredible honour and privilege to be part of the Stand Fringe programme.
We appreciate we’re really lucky to be given this opportunity, and are desperate to make the show as successful as possible.
Ideally, I would like to be stretching myself a bit more in terms of doing longer sets.
We are all capable of doing longer sets, but because of the restrictions of a 4 man show in an hour, it’s always going to have to be a fairly tight set.
I’m constantly tweaking and trying out new little bits every day though, so it’s great to have a long run of gigs
to be able to do this.
When Tommy Sheppard did his traditional speech at The Stand Fringe Press Launch, he was very critical of the inflexibility of the Council and the massive disruption that the current state of the Tram works were causing to the hosting of the Fringe in Edinburgh.
At this point we glanced at each other thinking that this could well lead to a link to plug our show…
But anyway, it wasn’t, and afterwards we laughed at our misplaced, self-importance.
We’re “Plankton And Proud!”:-)
The ticket sales seems to be going really well anyway, so mustn’t grumble!

I toyed with the idea of going to see The Stranglers at the Picture House last night, but felt too weary in the end.
Reading an Evening News article on said band earlier in the day, I was somewhat shocked to discover that the drummer
Jet Black is now “in his seventies”.
Jesus!
It was one of these moments when the passage of time really hit me.
Fair play to him though…!

I ended up having a couple of pints with star of the hit 2005 Edinburgh Fringe spectacular “Park’s Circus” ; Mr Tony Wilkes.
He then missed his train (apparently the late Glasgow trains don’t stop at Haymarket), and crashed at Chateau Parky.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

TSOTT begins

We had our first preview for TSOTT at the Traverse theatre on Monday night.
68 paying punters rolled in which was way more than we had anticipated.
Alas, we couldn’t show our intro Tram spoof video due to technological constraints, but the show was generally well-received and it was certainly a worthwhile outing.
It’s clear that the show name was what got the punters in, rather than the individuals involved in it, (even though we are all brilliantly funny…obviously).
I’d also imagine that there was very possibly, a certain degree of disappointment amongst a proportion of the audience,that the show wasn’t entirely devoted to lampooning the saga that the Edinburgh Trams Project has developed into.
The challenge we face is to make the show so funny, that people ultimately won’t mind that the show didn’t quite fit into their pre-conceived idea of what it was all about.
It’s handy that the name attracts people, but we need to get a good word-of-mouth going from these punters to really get the box-office zinging.
I reckon that by the end of August, neither myself, Jeff O’Boyle, Martin McAllister or Gordon Alexander will want to set eyes on one another for at least 6 months, or wish to hear any of each other’s material ever again.
That’s my prediction.
They intensely irritate me already and we haven’t even started the run yet.
It’s not their fault though…they just don’t realise how naturally irritating they are.
Maybe I should mention it to them sometime?
Other news, I have bought an Apple Mac.
I have finally summoned the courage to tell Bill Gates to “step off”.
Is it too late for me to re-train in the way of the Mac?
Who knows…the point is I really hate “Windows” and always have done.
I only justified sticking to a PC because I’m generally using a PC at work.
Now, however, the IT freelance market is on the point of collapse, so it’s maybe time to move on and do something else.
Maybe I’ll write a best-selling guide on switching from one to another “with hilarious consequences”.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

That's what friends are for...

So anyway, I did this gig at The Stand a few weeks ago.
It was a Sunday night and I had a 10 minute open spot.
I made up my mind to try out some completely new material.
Shortly after arriving at the club, I was told there were 2 reviewers in.
One of them was the Daily Record.
After a bit of thought, I decided to press on with my original plan, and just go with some new stuff.
There were 6 acts on the bill, so if it went badly I'd most likely be ignored, as most of the review would probably concentrate on the legendary Phil Nichol, who was headlining.
I'd say trying out new material is a bit like asking someone out on a date when you are by no means certain what the response will be.
It's also difficult to do it confidently in front of an audience of strangers.
So I do the gig...it doesn't go particularly well.
Most of the acts were in agreement that it was a very quiet audience, and it was a night where everyone had to work hard for the laughs.
In a way it was probably an ideal night to try out new material, because if it had gone over really well with that audience, then it was obviously comedy dynamite you had on your hands.
Weeks passed, and I forgot about the Daily Record review.
I'd done a bit of googling but there was no sign of it.
My good friend Billy came to the rescue.
His girlfriend had spotted it in the Daily Record, and Billy was helpful enough to read it to me on the phone.
He is a kindly soul.
What became immediately apparent was that the reviewer only talked about 2 acts from the 6 who were on.
This was myself and the headliner Phil Nichol.
Surprisingly, he'd actually written more words about me than Phil.
Anyway, here it is......

"As Frank Carson endlessly pointed out, the way you tell 'em often matters more than the material itself when it comes to being funny.
Carson's advice sprung to mind while watching Jim Park, one of half a dozen acts at the Sunday night package show.
Jim has a neat line in oddball oneliners but cunningly manages to deliver each and every one of them absolutely stillborn. Deadpan just doesn't do him justice.
Presented with more vim,verve and structure, or possibly by someone else, his surreal gags could slay an audience.
Instead, he left this one looking confused and slightly embarassed for him.
Cruelly, the more Jim died on stage, the funnier I found his act, to the point where I began to wonder if he was deliberately sabotaging his own set.
I laughed until I cried but I suspect it was for all the wrong reasons."

When you get a "rave" review like that, the first thing your comedy training tells you to do is look for a quotable quote...
"I laughed until I cried" Daily Record, is the one that stands out.
(I have misquoted it slightly on my web page, but taken from the Daily Record, there's an amusing irony in that)
There's also "a neat line in oddball oneliners" "surreal gags...slay an audience"
So that's all positive.
I can't really regret trying out a load of new stuff with reviewers in.
I think if I'd gone for the tried and tested and had a solid gig, I wouldn't have been mentioned.
Elaine Malcolmson and Jeff O'Boyle had top gigs I thought, but didn't warrant a mention by Mr Jonathan Trew.
He'd obviously wanted a sacrificial lamb to use in his "Frank Carson" themed piece, and I assumed that role.
So, yes, it's a bit unfair, but he still has a point.
I was talking to a UK comedy mogul recently, and he said he really liked my stuff, but that I needed a greater stylisation in the delivery if I was to climb further up the comedy ladder.
We have a preview of "The Silence of the Trams" at the Traverse Theatre on Mon 27th July.
Feel free to come along and watch me "deliberately sabotage" the show... :-)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Thoughts

Well it looks like, for the first time ever, I’m on course to get through a series of “Big Brother” without watching ANY of it…
I am very proud.
It is one of my finest achievements.
By not watching any of it, I am sending out a powerful message to Channel 4 that as a product, “Big Brother” is finished.
This has to be the last series.
I watched Andy Murray impersonating Tim Henman last night…it was quite convincing.
Tennis can be entertaining, but there’s far too much faffing about.
If I was in charge, I’d make the following rule amendments ;
You’ve got only one service…and if it hits the net cord and lands in play, THEN JUST PLAY ON…!
(all this “First Service”, “Second Service”, “Let” is a big waste of time…)
From now on you get to sit down at the end of a SET not every TWO bleeding GAMES.
Come on…! You’re athletes…not Chelsea Fucking Pensioners.
Furthermore, you’re only allowed to dab a towel on your face once every twenty minutes.
If you break strings in your racket you just have to carry on with it.
Look after your equipment!
If they’d have introduced these rules before last night’s game, it would have finished two hours earlier, and we might have achieved more at out TSOTT strategy meeting.
This week it’s become clear that Edinburgh has decided to stop being known as the “Athens of the North” , and is now competing for the title of “The San Francisco of the East”.
San Francisco is famous for Trams as well…
This could form the basis for our satirical Tram show.
or maybe not.

Monday, June 29, 2009

FF Row

There was an article on “The Silence of the Trams” in the Evening News on Saturday.
I look on it as an empirical test of the theory “There is no such thing as bad publicity”.
On the positive side, it’s almost a full page in the newspaper, and in terms of Fringe publicity, very valuable.
On the debit side, I fear we come across as a bunch of tossers…but maybe we are a bunch of tossers.
The article implies that the show is entirely devoted to Trams.
We never said this, but at the same time, I’m not stupid and realise that they were always going to emphasize
the Tram angle as they know that it’s a hot, local topic.
We’ll have a few tram references of course, but I just hope people aren’t disappointed that it’s not an hour-long satirical revue on Edinburgh Trams.
It’ll probably be a good idea to make fun of the lack of tram references.
I sent 300 “TSOTT” promotional emails last night as I went through all the historic entries in my yahoo address book.
I’d no idea who many of them were, and I suspect there may be a bit of confusion from some of the recipients as to who I am.
I’d joked before doing this, that some of my old contacts may not actually be around any more.
Unfortunately this turned out to be tragically true.
My email to old snowboarding buddy Paul McCrae bounced from his Westminster Council email address.
I thought I’d do a quick Google to see if I could find an alternate contact address for him.
I was then stunned to find a “Just Giving” page set up “in memory of”.
I stayed at a snowboard chalet with Paul and his girlfriend Fiona a few years ago, and principally remember spending the whole of that week continuously laughing.
My snowboarding was largely rubbish, but the banter was spectacular.
He was an incredibly warm, full-on funny guy, and I find it very hard to take in that he’s not around any more.

On a lighter note, I spent a recent weekend golfing in Northern Ireland.
Again the actual “sport” aspect of the holiday was fairly dreadful in terms of my individual performance ; however, there were a few amusing off-course moments.
I’ve never seen a hotel more anxious to get the money for accommodation paid as quickly as possible.
In a way I was impressed, as they obviously regarded our party of “golfers” as capable of larging it up and causing wanton destruction to the hotel, when in fact, we neither have the energy nor the inclination for that kind of stuff any more.
Interestingly, the founder of the hotel had obviously done a fair amount of animal slaughter in Africa judging by the abundance of animal heads on the walls, (as well as a stuffed tiger in a glass cage).
I was interested to spot 2 antelopes arses on the wall as well (with a drink dispenser emerging from a predictable source).
This isn’t something you see every day.
Another talking point occurred on the Saturday night.
It was a fairly large hotel with about 8 different bars, as well as a couple of club-type bars which attracted top local youth in their hundreds.
At one point, along with about 50 other people, I found myself in the “smoking area” ; a roofless ante room to the main club bar.
I was talking there to fellow golfer Calum.
He stopped in mid-sentence with a vaguely startled expression on his face.
I looked around and saw a young couple sitting on a bench snogging.
Nothing unusual about that per se….
However, as my eyes descended, I noticed that the gentleman’s forearm had disappeared under the lady’s skirt.
The arm movement was akin to a lead violinist playing “The William Tell Overture”.
There’s not really any way you can dress this up…
This was a public act of energetic fingering...
A bouncer intervened and informed “Romeo” that his actions were “inappropriate”.
Stunned by this spectacle, we left…then tried to explain our gobsmacked expressions to the rest of the party.
This isn’t what Jane Austen had in mind, surely?

Monday, June 15, 2009

Anyone still there?



I've been neglecting the poor old Blog...
I can't apologise enough to you both...
It's lazy, lazy, lazy.
Anyway, I felt a chill today as I read the sad news that someone had a fatal fall on Clachaig Gully at the weekend.
The location of this accident is on (what I am now aware is) the dangerous, inadvisable descent from the frankly, terrifying Aonoch Eagath ridge walk at Glencoe.
There is a much safer way down, but stupidly neither I nor my companions on that day decided to take it.
I didn't even realise that the Clachaig Gully route down was dangerous anyway.
The problem is that it leads straight down to the Clachaig Inn, and on intial inspection appears a fairly straightforward descent to the pub and the enticing prospect of a delicious cold beer.
It had been a blistering hot day, we'd run out of water half way across the ridge (clever) ;I was dehydrated and my knees were tired and aching.
The path down is badly eroded with large sections of scree.
I fell over loads of times on the way down, as my feet repeatedly gave way in the scree.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but what I didn't realise was that, slightly disguised by high grass, was a several hundred foot drop which was literally inches from where I was frequently losing balance.
What an idiot.
Never go up mountains without a map.
On a brighter note, we ran a TSOTT preview as part of the "Leith Festival".
It was a sell-out and we ended up having to turn away about 40 people.
(We put an extra show on later on)
It was a great night, great crowd. Quite remarkable!
This is really encouraging and hopefully bodes well for the marketability of our Fringe run.
On a less brighter note I had a near-death experience at a comedy club in Glasgow on Friday at a place where I'd had a stormer on my last visit.
This brought to an end a great run of really rocking gigs.
So one duff gig after ten great ones should be put into some kind of perspective, shouldn't it?
Of course not, that would be too logical. I'm pissed off about it. Curses.
The main reason that I'm starting to write this again is to try and get some creative energy going to write some new material.
I tried a few things last week with variable results.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Ding ding! All aboard...

If you have ever walked around all day with a pit bull terrier’s jaws locked onto your calf muscle, than you have an inkling of what it is like to have presented funnyman Gordon Alexander with a tempting opportunity to take the mickey out of you in a sustained attack.
Gordon’s attention had been captured by my “QI” warm-up spots posting.
He spent most of yesterday, casting doubt on the veracity of my tragic tale of missed opportunity and heartbreak.
We were forced together, as yesterday was the photoshoot for our upcoming show “The Silence of the Trams” ; now forever referred to as “TSOTT”.
I took the opportunity to dress up as a “tram conductor”, complete with a false moustache and a camp hat.
There are people who may think that the “QI” anecdote was a crude episode of self-promotion…a desperate, cloying attempt to take something positive from a day of disappointment by hoping that the disclosure, that I was within a million miles of being selected for a job of this nature, might inflate my comedy profile, and cause the conservative, small-minded Scottish promoters who consistently pass me over for gigs, to think again and re-evaluate my comedy status, (I’m joking…I’m joking…).
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It’s warts and all on this blog, and, of course, everyone knows that disasters make much better reading than success stories.
I have just experienced two dropping incidents in two days.
Last night I dropped a pint glass during Billy Kirkwood’s impressive set at The Stand.
The glass, thankfully, didn’t smash, but everyone turned and stared at me disapprovingly, which I found very unsettling.
Then today at work I dropped a carton of tea, causing mayhem. Losing my grip? (on reality?)
I didn’t get where I am today by dropping a pint of lager and a cup of tea, on consecutive days.
We got a little mention in the Evening News…
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/opinion/Liam-Rudden39s-Fringe-Firsts.5227716.jp
I particularly liked the “finest young comedians” bit.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Almost quite interesting....

I got an email yesterday from the Hackney Empire people.
It was confirming a couple of gigs (one of them doing an extended set back at the Hackney Empire “Best of Hackney New Act of the Year” show on July 18th ; I’m looking forward to that!).
They also went on to ask if I’d be interested in doing warm-up spots for the studio audience of the BBC show “QI”.
Apparently, the “QI” people had been at the Hackney final and were “very impressed”, and had asked about my availability.
I said I was interested, after picking myself up off the floor.
I then made the classic mistake of telling a few people about the “QI” thing, and then got another email later that day to say that unfortunately they’d already filled the spots.
I wilfully broke the law concerning talking about something before it was a done deal.
Idiot.
The initial email had been in my inbox for a few hours before I had the chance to read it, so perhaps I missed the boat timewise.
Gutted.
Still, it was flattering to be considered for such a position, and hopefully I’ll get another opportunity.
We’ve recently been spending some time sorting out all the Park memorabilia which has been stored away in my sister’s flat.
Being involved in this process stirs up a lot of emotions.
There were a lot of laughs, but also a great many poignant moments.
There was some hilarity when an old diary belonging to my Gran was discovered.
One entry concerned my sister and I and read ; “Jim and Janie came to visit me. It was nice to see Janie”.
Now, my interpretation of this was that my Gran mentioned “it was nice to see Janie” because she wasn’t as regular a visitor as I was,
and that her happiness at my presence didn’t need to be explicitly remarked upon, as I was pretty much the favourite Grandchild who was constantly doted on, (well this is my clear recollection anyway).
A visit from Janie was a rarer event, and this is obviously what Gran is alluding to.
She was too busy going to parties and hanging out with freaks.
What worried me was thinking, that if I was to become a famous comedian/national-treasure-type figure, some BBC commissioning editor
might decide, in the future, to commission yet another mean-spirited BBC bio-pic on a British comedian.
They’d be researching my life, and on finding this diary, would wrongly assume that my Gran couldn’t stand the sight of me, and would
no doubt feature this in the film as one of the many indicators of the private tragedy behind funnyman Jim Park’s chirpy demeanor.
Obviously, I’ll have to make sure I write a tedious autobiography to counter such possible misconceptions.
(suggested titles? “No Parking!”, “Just Jim!”, hmmm…very poor)
But there were also sadder things.
There was a stack of “Get Well” cards that the kids at my Mum’s school had made for her when she was ill.
The cards had obviously meant a lot to my mum.
We were trying to be ruthless with a lot of the stuff, but couldn’t bring ourselves to bin things like this ; even though they were painful to read.
We also found an old cassette tape with a Park party going on in the background…lots of laughter, singing songs round the piano.
I heard myself playing a medley of tunes on the piano at the party.
There was “Sleepy Shores” (my piece of resistance) as well as (very ironically) “The Sash My Father Wore” and “Derry’s Walls”.
I did this mainly to annoy my Dad who was raised a catholic, and couldn’t stand Rangers.
I’ll always remember his face when my Grandpa gave me a Rangers LP for my 8th birthday with all the usual delightful, sectarian bilge on it.
Although, at the time, I thought it was great and played the record incessantly.
Then we read this by successful Edinburgh singer/songwriter Kim Edgar.
We were all really touched by how she regarded my mum as such an inspirational figure.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Walking

I did a couple of days walking the West Highland Way last week.
It was a charity event organised by The Stand to benefit “Barnardos”.
The weather was glorious, and the walk down the whole length of Loch Lomond from Inverarnan to Drymen was spectacularly beautiful.
Well that's all very well, but where were the funnies?
I'd say, the Inversnaid Hotel "lunch experience" deserves a mention.
It’s situated about half-way down the east side of the Loch and immediately brings to mind the building in “The Shining”.
3 of us arrived and made our way to the bar to order lunch.
I was told to remember that my order was “order number 1”.
I was a little surprised that a numbering system was being used, mainly due to the fact we were the only people who on the premises.
We sat outside and awaited our order.
About twenty minutes later a waitress appeared carried two dishes.
Is this for “number 1” I said helpfully.
“What?”
“I was told to remember that we were order number 1!”
“What?
“It’s our order number…number 1”
“You’re number 1? I don’t know what you mean…”
“The barman told me to remember our food order was number 1”
This went on for quite a while…
Eventually, it was firmly established that the food was for us…
However there were only 2 dishes…we were short of one plate of fish and chips…
“I’ll get another one” she said.
Twenty minutes later there was still no sign of my fish and chips.
I decided to go and find out what was happening.
I am an alpha male.
I saw the waitress in question chatting merrily to the receptionist.
“Hello. I just wandered when I was getting my fish and chips?”
“Oh! I’m sorry! I completely forgot! I’ll order it now! I’m sorry…”
I was too stunned to react angrily.
Now these things will happen occasionally in any restaurant.
Admittedly, it is unusual to happen in a restaurant when there is only one table being occupied by customers.
That takes a superior level of incompetence to carry off successfully.
It must be fairly manic in there when they’ve got two, or maybe even three, tables to deal with at a time.
After a couple of minutes reflection, I did feel like smashing the door to the kitchen with an axe, sticking my
head through the hole and shouting “Here’s Jimmy!”, but would that have speeded up the preparation of my fish and chips?
I don’t know…perhaps?
I also found it amusing that many of the people we passed coming in the opposite direction described the walk they’d just done
in terms comparable to a final push for the summit of K2.
Although it is fair to say though that there was the odd exposed 6ft drop, and once we had to use our hands to scramble over a
small boulder.
At this point my life did flash before me.
But overall it was a right old laugh, and I’d like to do the whole thing at some point, and have a dessert at the Inversnaid Hotel.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Yorkshire Tour

I had a one date Yorkshire Comedy Tour last week in Beverley.
The gig itself was great ; although not so great was the 6 hours it took me to drive there as I got caught up in
the Easter traffic. I’ve got a very low boredom threshold, and long journeys do my head in.
It would probably have helped if I’d brought some decent cds to listen to on the way down, rather than the collection
of garbage currently residing in my glove compartment, (I like the way we still quaintly refer to this storage area as the “glove compartment”
in spite of the fact that very few drivers (I suspect) are currently still in the habit of donning “driving gloves”.)
In addition, most of my cds get stuck on certain tracks, and when this happens in the midst of yet another traffic jam…well, it all gets a bit too much for me.
I listened to “The Best of Bananarama” twice.
Desperate.
The gig was a “Buzz Comedy” gig run by the legendary “Agraman”.
He’s a true maverick of the comedy business who delights in the pun.
Most comedy clubs start with a fanfare of loud music, followed by an enthusiastic compere whipping the crowd up into a frenzy, by asking members of the audience where they come from and what job they do.
Agraman is different.
He just appears on stage without any intro, and gradually batters the audience into submission with a long series of terrible puns, and
an innate charm. I really liked his approach, and so did the audience.
They’re obviously very familiar with his style and took it in their stride.
The last time I’d gigged in this neck of the wood was when I’d only done a handful of gigs, and had a spot in Scarborough.
At that stage in my career, I was quite freaked out to discover that there was an audience of 400 at the club.
I talked at 100mph throughout my set, and was told by many people after the gig that they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about as they ouldn’t understand I word I’d said,(they do definitely talk a bit slower in Yorkshire than they do in Scotland).
This time I deliberately slowed down the delivery, and it all went really well.
Rather than immediately embark on the epic journey home after the gig, I decided to get drunk and stay at a B&B in Beverley ; a very pretty town I thought.
It was at this point that I decided to give up smoking (again).
There was no “Marlboro Lights” to be had, so I ended up buying a pack of “Lambert & Butler” out of the machine (£6.20).
I smoked 2, but didn’t enjoy them at all, and ended up throwing the rest away.
£3.10 a fag…
Ridiculous, I thought…that’s it, I’ve had enough of this stupid habit…
It was the latest in a long line of “nicotine epiphany moments”.
Oh well, have now gone 11 days now without smoking with relative ease….(yawn!...I know…I know…)
On the bill with me were Liane Ross, Marc Lucero and Kevin Dewsbury, and extremely funny they all were too.
I noticed that Liane Ross was also dazzlingly attractive.
It’s fair to say that Marc and Kevin were also dazzlingly attractive ; albeit in a slightly less conventional interpretation of “dazzlingly attractive”.
At the end of the show everyone drove off into the night, but I stayed around to have a couple of pints.
Unfortunately, I got locked in a less-than-enthralling discussion with a Beverley-based, ex-pat Scotsman.
His main topic of conversation was the Glasgow Underground.
He maintained, at considerable length, that it was a far superior underground system to the London Underground because in Glasgow ALL of
the track is underground.
London “pathetically” has several stretches of it’s erroneously titled “underground system” which are ABOVE the ground.
We discussed this for a good (I use the term loosely) half-an-hour.
What made Glasgow even better was the fact that they even had to make the trains underground, as there was no other way to get them there.
Rather than starting to self-harm, I made my excuses and left…cleverly getting lost in Beverley (which is a tiny place ; I am an idiot), as I tried to find my B&B

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Hello! Hello! We are the silly boys!















Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor had already annoyed me before “Fingergate” all kicked off last week.
I’d settled down to watch the Holland v Scotland match, with limited expectations..
As “Flower of Scotland” droned away, the camera panned down the line of Scottish players, in the traditional
fashion.
The majority were making some effort to sing along, but right at the end were Ferguson and McGregor, tight-lipped and both displaying
a deeply-negative body language.
With hindsight, this image was the opening scene of a peculiarly Scottish Shakespearian-esque tragedy.
These images are shown on the big screens in the ground, and are an opportunity to connect with the Scottish support , letting them know
that the team are fired up and ready to burst into action.
This was not the subliminal message imparted by Ferguson & McGregor.
They came across as a couple of surly, dim-witted neds being asked to play against their will.
Now, to be honest, I can’t stand “Flower of Scotland”.
For starters, tunes in “waltz time” just don’t work as anthems.
Furthermore, the lyrics are mawkish, browbeaten nonsense.
Yes, we did send Edward homeward to think again, but after thinking for a bit, he came back and whupped our asses.
And, of course I’m sure that the majority of the ancestors of the middle-class, investment bankers in the Tartan Army were in all probability fighting for the Government army at Culloden.
There are so many other things to celebrate positively about Scotland in song.
I think “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” by “Middle of the Road” would have more gravitas as an anthem than “Flower of Scotland”,
For example, there’s a wealth of Burns poetry positively celebrating Scotland and mankind (and womankind) in universally appreciated sentiment.
Get some people to come up with some new tunes for them, and let’s get it on.
TV Show to select the winning tune? “You’re Bard!” ?
As a text I really like “A Man’s A Man For A’ That”, but the melody is a bit rubbish, I think.
I hope “Flower of Scotland” gets the boot soon.
Listening to the supporters singing it like a “London’s Burning” round, on International sporting occasions, because they can’t get the timing right (2/4 always works better than ¾ for anthems, ok?), makes me feel like sawing my own head off.
However, in spite of all this, if I was representing my country, I would sing “Flower of Scotland” at the top of my voice, as if I was auditioning
for a Broadway musical.
It’s a no-brainer. Let the opposition know you mean business, THEN lose heavily…
It was annoying to read in the next day’s press that Holland “outclassed” Scotland.
That’s baloney…a distinctly average Dutch team were gifted some soft goals, by an insipid Scottish team led by a ned.
I have to say, I was slightly surprised by the ensuing 8 hour drinking binge.
I thought we’d moved on a bit from the crazed footballer drinking syndrome….but apparently not.
I suppose there still remains a cultural attitude in Scotland that if a bar is open it should be used, regardless of time,(check out the pre-holiday binge drinking going on at 6am at Scottish airports for an example of this phenomenum).
It’s basically the same attitude the over-70s have to toilets.
It’s the stupid factor which really stands out in this instance.
I love the fact that it doesn’t occur to them that remaining sitting in a bar after an all-night drinking sessions, as members of the public appear for lunch,
might not be such a great idea.
And of course after their hilarious “offensive gesture” japes at the Iceland game, they declared open season on themselves.
You’d think anyone in their situation, who regularly have to deal with the media, would realise that as soon as the press published photos of their puerile pranks, they’d have to get out there double-quick with big, big apologies and contrition to every media outlet available.
That’s what the great Max Clifford would have done.
But no, they did nothing, and they got hit with a particularly heavy punishment.
Rangers deserve credit for acting decisively, but you can’t ignore the fact that given Rangers’ disastrous financial position, they’d love to be shot of these two under-performing numpties and their huge (by Scottish standards) wages.
They are expendable, both for Scotland and Rangers.
Their idiotic behaviour unfortunately coincided with a groundswell of opinion that someone should finally take a stand against moronic, out-of-touch, overpaid footballer behaviour.
If I was them, I’d blame the “credit crunch”.
“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any longer!….” as someone once said.

Friday, April 03, 2009

Relatively armless

3 weeks ago, I spent an enjoyable Sunday afternoon thrashing about on a drumkit with some musical associates.
This was all fine and dandy, but by the next morning my right shoulder had seized up completely.
I probably should have immediately gone to see a physio, but kept thinking that it was just a minor strain and would soon clear up.
The pain was ok during the day, but at night it was impossible for me to find a comfortable position to sleep (in spite of being loaded up with industrial painkillers).
As a result, I hardly had any sleep for a week…
Lack of sleep is not a lot of fun.
It makes you grumpy (I know..un-BELIEVABLE), tired (obviously), unable to pay attention (even more than usual).
It’s not good.
You get very little sympathy either.
An incredibly short timescale elapses before your friends and aquaintances declare your moaning about the constant pain you’re experiencing to be deeply tedious.
I’ll now always be much,more sympathetic in future to tedious idiots who moan incessantly about their varied aches and pains.
I will, I will…
They are good, gentle people and I was wrong to dismiss them as twats.
Anyway, I was then off to France for a few day’s boarding.
There was sunshine, blue skies and lots of snow, (including one big powder day).
As usual my boarding was at its best over the first couple of days, then gradually began to deteriorate as the fatigue set in.
My unusual “no sleep for a week” fitness preparation didn’t really work out.
I had meant to get a lot fitter for this holiday, but sadly this wasn’t possible.
As ever, I loved it though, and it remains extremely invigorating to be hurtling down slopes in the Alps on a beautiful sunny day.
On my last day, the light went a bit flat, and I succumbed to a few heavy falls…all of them involving landing heavily on my right shoulder…ouch!
I then started experiencing a continual numbness in my fingers, indicating that I had trapped a nerve.
Such is the current strength in my right arm that a mug of tea wobbles about while I drink from it.
For the foreseeable future, I can’t sit beside elderly people in cafes in case my tea drinking technique is misconstrued as a cruel lampooning
of them.
The Chiropractor didn’t seem to help that much, so I made an appointment at a Physiotherapist.
This does seem to have improved things, but the session itself was 40 minutes of sheer torture, pushing me to the absolute limit of my pain tolerance.
Ah “deep tissue massage”, how I love thee so...
As I flew back into Edinburgh from France in a zombie trance-like state, I was cursing the knowledge that I immediately had to travel through to
Glasgow to do a gig, and also the thoughts of other gigs in Glasgow on the following days, made me feel even more weary.
However, the gigs at McPhabbs (“Ding Dong Comedy”) and Bacchus (“Four Play”) were cracking gigs for me.
I have found in the past that sometimes when you feel absolutely zonked and spaced out, it can often lead to really good gigs in the end.
I was also due to perform at Jim Hobbit’s show but had to get bumped as the show was running way over time and I had to head for the hills.
Oh, and I should get the plugging started and say that our show this Fringe is called “Silence of The Trams”, and it will be on at “The Stand 4” from August
7-30 at 6.05pm…
I’ll remind you all nearer the time.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Not that I'm one to complain, but...

So anyway, I poured some “organic” milk into my cup of tea, and glanced down at the “best before” date…
It said “March 4th”, and the actual date was “11th March”….
I cautiously sniffed the top of the carton, but a nasty pong was conspicuous only by its absence.
“Hang on a minute”, I thought…”organic milk shouldn’t last that long…”.
This leads me to believe that the whole “organic milk” industry is complete bollocks.
There surely must be preservative chemicals in the milk for it to last that long.
In the olden days I remember milk used to last a couple of days max.
When I was at school, by the afternoon the old free milk would often be “on the turn”, and was best avoided.
My “organic” milk was now 10 days old, and should really be stinking out the joint…
If this is the case with organic milk, I wonder how much else of this whole organic business is a complete con…
I’ve also been having a wretched time trying to book a snowboarding holiday in France.
It should be a piece of piss doing this on the Internet, bad sadly this is not the case.
Too many annoying companies and businesses have second-guessed every possible “Google” search you might carry out trying to sort out the details of such a holiday.
As a consequence, it’s infuriatingly difficult to find precisely the information that you need, as every search result is awash with sites of no interest at all to me.
It’s trying to discover relatively simple things, like trying to work out what the transfer options are from airports to the different resorts.
If you didn’t know better, you might assume that the only option available would be an expensive private hire cab, as these
companies have managed to smother all the search results completely.
There are maybe ways you can tinker with google to filter off all this shit, but unfortunately it’s beyond my ken.
There were times where I was on the point of giving up and abandoning the idea of even taking a stupid, bloody snowboarding holiday.
And don’t get me started on booking flights.
It’s now an obstacle course of trying to avoid accidentally paying too much for baggage handling, insurance, car hires, “special” check-in
privileges…eg pay a tenner and get on the plane first (marvellous…well worth the money)
The sites are designed to catch out people making bookings in a hurry.
It’s ridiculously easy to unwittingly include an add-on you don’t require, and once you’ve booked it, you’ll get charged an admin fee and will have a long extended 0871 call to pay for, should you try to revise your booking details.
I made a vow never to use Ryanair again after I’d recently booked a flight to Dublin, and found at the end of the procedure that the “booking fee” for using a “Visa debit” card was £9.50.
In the future I’d rather pay more to another airline than go with them.
It’s pure deception, and I’m surprised they’re allowed to get away with it.
How on earth can you justify £9.50 as a handling charge for a debit card?
The flight I booked from Edinburgh with www.jet2.com was advertised at £69.99.
By the time they’d added on taxes, snowboard carriage fee, card handling fee, a meal on board (I wasn’t going to, but weirdly I always enjoy airline food…I know..I know…), it came to £143.50.
I was mildly irritated at the discrepancy between advertised and actual fare.
Is this still legal?
I did a charity gig this week, and unwittingly found myself on the bill as the “Headline act”.
I was introduced as”…and now…our headline act, “The Stand’s” Jim Parks (sic)….”
I’m not quite sure how I became an official ambassador for “The Stand”, and I can only apologise for any damage that I have caused to their
reputation as a result of this unforeseen association.
I had a pretty good gig, but must admit to being slightly spooked by the “headline” tag…it’s a very different feeling to that comfy womb-like place in the middle of the running order.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The Write Stuff

I’ve got some new clips on Rooftop comedy.
I don’t think they are the strongest elements of my set, and it is likely that the ensuing publicity will dictate that I never work again.
But on the bright side, it’s all been a marvellous “journey” hasn’t it?
I’ve also got my Hackney set on youtube.
I think that most of my set is now in the public domain on various sites.
This is a good reason to get writing and revamp the whole set.
I’m trying to stick to a new regime of writing for an hour every day.
I figure this is better than spending hours on end at one sitting, banging my head off the table trying to come up with some new, dynamite funnies.
The disheartening fact is that 99% of the stuff I write is complete rubbish and totally unusable.
(Some people might hold the opinion that I am badly underestimating this figure)
However, you just have to keep plugging away to mine that 1%...there is no alternative.
Rather than increase the price of alcohol, I would introduce legislation whereby all Scottish children, upon attaining the age of 13, must drink the entire contents of a large bottle of Advocaat.
This certainly completely ruined my taste for alcohol throughout my succeeding adolescent years in which you traditionally tend to perform your most anti-social acts.
Most of us can handle drink without going around punching people and jumping up and down on car roofs, so surely this practice would be more efficient, and would target would-be troublemakers while they are still young and impressionable.
I didn’t so much have a hangover per se , more a 3-day vomit-fest, wondering what on earth had hit me.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Thatch's dotage

I very much enjoyed the play “Margaret” on the telly the other night.
It concerned itself prinicipally with the fall from grace of Margaret Thatcher.
I find it difficult to fathom that this occurred more than 18 years ago.
Lyndsay Duncan was excellent in the leading role and inhabited the
character of Thatcher very accurately.
I have to confess though to being in a highly confused state during and after the play, mainly down to the fact that this particular characterisation of “The Iron Lady” was unarguably giving me the horn.
This is beyond “wrong”, and I am honestly thinking of receiving counselling to allow me to come to terms with this trauma.
This blurring of fiction and reality in this way is highly dangerous.
It’s probably fair to say that I found Denis Healey to be sexier than the real Margaret Thatcher, (it was the eyebrows, I think).
John Sessions was great as “Geoffrey Howe”…he WAS Geoffrey Howe!
There was an interesting portrayal of John Major, apparently base on the character of “Blofeld” in the James Bond films.
Also, less-than-convincing was the Michael Heseltine character who looked (and talked) like he was half-way through a werewolf transformation scene.
Other good news is that myself and the “No Comedy For Old Men” boys have got our show accepted as part of “The Stand’s” 2009 Fringe programme.
This is fantastic news.
It’s a big step up from last year’s show in a pub at the bottom of Leith Walk, (enjoyable though it all was).
I reckon we’ll be changing the name of the show though, as “No Comedy For Old Men” is somewhat out-of-date

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Got My Mojo Back

Well, I was granted redemption and had a rocking gig at The State Bar in Glasgow on Saturday night; finally getting this cursed monkey off my back.
The journey to the gig had an inauspicious start.
Driving out of Edinburgh, I decided to recite my act, as I’d been having trouble lately remembering the correct sequence, having
recently switched some of the set around.
This was all going fine, but unfortunately my mind wandered from the job in hand, and I found myself on the Edinburgh Bypass
heading towards Berwick-on-Tweed.
I’d driven straight past the M8 turn-off. This was unprecedented, (that means it’s never happened before).
Anyway, I had to drive a good few miles in the opposite direction before I was able to turn around and once more head in the direction
of Glasgow.
From having plenty of time, I was now on a fairly tight schedule.
I got a bit bogged down in Glasgow city centre, and it was now 5 minutes till showtime, I’d still to find a parking place, and I was due on first.
I hate this sort of scenario, and tend to arrive early and swan about for a while before the show.
I got parked then sprinted towards the venue…
It was 8.45pm, the advertised start time…
When I arrived, I was the first person there…apparently the show wasn’t now starting till 9.30pm…Marvellous!
45 minutes of completely unnecessary stress.
I really enjoyed the show though.
It was a great crowd, and a pleasure to play to.
I’d spent the previous evening watching with fascination as Mojo the Chihuahua enthusiastically played with Ziggy the 12 week old kitten at my friend’s house,(they come from two different families)
It was a great example of communal living by natural enemies.
I think Ziggy and Mojo should be hired by the “United Nations” and perform in all the World’s trouble spots in front of the various political leaders involved in all long-running, intractable conflicts.
Having just signed up to Facebook, I extended my continuing years-out-of-date approach to embracing fads by trying out the Wii product range.
I triumphed at golf, but was soundly whipped at tennis, bowls and boxing.
I also aggravated my sore shoulder as a result of the manic, flailing about of punching during the boxing Wii.
Coincidentally, I almost had a real-life boxing match yesterday with a cyclist in Edinburgh.
Dressed all in black, and with no lights, I didn’t see him speeding towards me as I crossed Maitland Street, (it was semi-darkness)
“Dickhead” he shouted as he had to brake and swerve past me.
“You’re the dickhead! Where’s your lights?” I shouted at him at the top of my voice (slightly startling an elderly lady who was walking past me)
About 50 yards further on, I watched him stop the bike, dismount and start heading purposefully towards me.
He looked well over 6ft and quite well-built.
I decided to use the psychology of walking towards him to demonstrate that I wasn’t feart.
It’s a technique I saw used by a man who used to live alongside grizzly bears in Canada, (it worked for a while but he was eventually eaten alive)
We then went face to face…
I said “I didn’t see you..you’ve no lights”
“It’s not dark” he said.
“So why has every car passing got their lights on I said?” (it was very much a “Rumpole of the Bailey” moment)
Then there was a pause as we just stared at each other.
“Why don’t you kiss my arse!” he said aggressively.
At this I just laughed and said “very good!” very good!” and walked away.
I was half-expecting an attack, but it never came.
Whenever I find myself in a situation like this (quite often), I ponder on whether I should really learn some martial arts stuff for self-defence.
The thing is, I reckon you’ll get into more trouble if you have these skills because you’d be less likely to defuse the situation, motivated by self-preservation.
Maybe, I should just take more care crossing the road?

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Strum Enchanted Evening?

Well last night’s gig was always going to be tricky.
I thought I did ok-ish, but it was hard work.
The show at the Voodoo Rooms is predominantly an open-mic musical event, featuring a succession of acoustic singer-songwriters performing 3 songs each.
The compere cheerily introduces the acts, but the overall tone of the evening is quite earnest.
To parachute stand-up comedy in the middle of a show like this is something of a challenge ; a challenge which I was happy to accept, as it’s definitely worthwhile to get out of the comedy club “comfort zone” and test your act on an audience who have not been warmed up by a comedy compere, or perhaps have not even anticipated that there was a scheduled comedy element on the bill.
I was highly impressed by the quality of the musicians. There was some really excellent stuff, and regardless of how my act went, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening..
I did feel I possibly lost a few of the audience even before I got on stage though.
A young male act deadpanly introduced an instrumental piece by informing the audience that he’d written it especially for his girlfriend and was originally intending playing it on a local radio station on Valentine’s Day and dedicating it to her.
He then went on to lament that his girlfriend had unexpectedly ended their relationship earlier this week.
There were a few suppressed titters at this tragic revelation, but I involuntarily loudly guffawed, and attracted several withering glances.
Being an alleged comedian, I was anticipating a punchline, and when it didn’t appear my big laugh reverberated around the room, as my brain computed “jeezo…! he’s serious!”.
There were pockets of the audience giggling away merrily during my act, but there were also quite a lot of blank, non-comprehending expressions.
It probably would have worked better if I’d tried to write some material specifically about the musical open-mic phenomenum.
As a form, it seems to have really exploded, and there must be a lot of humour to extract from it.
I did feel awkward in that some of the preceding acts had described their aspirations for a “raised level of consciousness” to save mankind, with many other worthy sentiments of peace, love and understanding.
I’m not saying I disagree with these ideals, just that it felt a bit odd in context, to be bemoaning my Grandfather’s blocked toilet.
I did mention that I felt I’d inadvertently emptied a large bucket of shit into the “stream of consciousness” which had pervaded the evening.
That got quite a big laugh.
The puns got a lot of groans.
This is always a sign of a troublesome gig for me, in that the audience are reacting solely to the admittedly, often awful punchlines, rather than, ,for example, finding the concept of someone walking around all day with a pot of pasta attached to their foot, intrinsically amusing.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

CSb RIP








I think most people are probably bored reading about anything with “credit crunch” references in it, (I know I am).
However, I have to admit I’m pretty shocked at what is going on in central Edinburgh.
As I take a lunchtime stroll around Tollcross, I notice with each passing day more and more businesses collapsing.
The only firm that seems to be doing quite well at the moment is the one which manufactures the “To Let” signs.
They must be selling like the proverbial cakes of the hot variety.
Many of the restaurants in this area no longer even bother to open at lunchtime, and those that do are virtually empty.
The “Festival Alehouse” and “Scruffy Murphys” bars have closed, (admittedly no great loss, but they seemed reasonably busy compared with many other bars).
The musical instrument shop next to the King’s Theatre has now closed (can’t remember its name).
If things carry on at this rate, the only businesses still open will be the big Coffee chains, and a couple of Poundstretchers.
Although maybe a few more charity shops will start up? (just what Edinburgh needs).
More bad news emerged this morning when I discovered that my beloved snowboarding haven “CSb Chalet Snowboard” has gone out of business.
This is a total disaster as there is nothing else like it on the snowboarding market.
I may have lost millions on misplaced share deals recently, but this is ultimately more painful.
Csb ran a dedicated snowboarding chalet near the Avoriaz resort.
What made it unique was that the people who ran the chalet were also all top boarders, who would act as guides and take you all over the resort, including to a lot of off-piste areas, where their local knowledge was invaluable.
Everybody at the chalet boarded together, ate and drank together ; and although you’d get the odd mentalist, 99.9% of the residents were great people.
I’ve been there 5 times, and I’m gutted to hear of its demise.
I’ve had some fantastic times there over the years, and it’s just not the same anywhere else.
What is particularly annoying is that in Canada last year, I finally ditched my old board, got a Burton T6 on Ebay and totally transformed my snowboarding abilities, and was really looking forward to doing another CSb holiday to consolidate my gains.
Pah!
A couple of years ago, myself and a couple of aquaintances were toying with the idea of taking over the lease of the “Holyrood Tavern” .
In spite of all my financial disasters of late, the fact that this never came to fruition represents a great escape.
In the current economic climate, re-launching the Holyrood would have been a financial catastrophe beyond imagination.
Phew!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Pow!













Hurtin’ my back
On the way to the gym
…”
Of course, that could be a couple of lines from “Isn’t It Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette, if it was actually about irony…
But it isn’t, it’s what happened to me yesterday.
I thought I would start the week positively, in a blaze of smug glory, by going to the gym at work.
I also had to carry my laptop in to work as it’s been acting up and I wanted to take it to the repair shop at lunchtime.
So, while walking up the street and carrying this lopsided load, something tweaked in my back and the gym visit had to be cancelled on disability grounds.
And now I’m hobbling about in pain.
Those of you in your early 70s will remember the BBC series “Colditz”.
On Sunday night, I found myself watching a whole episode on Youtube, (I am living the dream).
The episode I was watching is generally regarded as the most memorable one, and has been repeated many times over the years.
It’s called “Tweedledum” and is the story of one of the POWs who feigns insanity in an attempt to be repatriated.
It features a brilliant performance by Michael Bryant as “Wing Commander Marsh”, the central character.
I enjoyed watching it again, but was somewhat dumbfounded that the very end of the episode was missing.
It’s fair to say that the end is quite important.
It involves “Colonel Preston” (the senior British officer at Colditz) reading a letter he has just received from Marsh’s wife.
The upshot is that by spending so long appearing to have cracked, he has had a genuine mental breakdown and is now permanently
hospitalised in England, with no hope of recovery.
It’s quite a powerful ending.
However, today’s generation of Youtube viewers will think that “Tweedledum” completely fooled the Germans with his cunning plan, and lived happily ever after back home in dear old Blighty.
(It’s probably what would have happened had Hollywood made a version of the tale)
It can be quite misleading missing the end of films and stuff.
Imagine you’d walked out of “The Sting” just as Paul Newman and Robert Redford were shot?
You’d think it was a rather tragic and abrupt end, to what had been quite a jolly film up till that point.
Or you might have left “Snow White” before the end, and felt pained to realise that she was going to spend eternity sleeping in a glass case…very sad!
Robert Wagner was in “Colditz”, although he only ever has about one line an episode to say…(I wonder how much he got paid?)
I laughed more than I have just about ever laughed at anything last night watching Irish comic Paul Currie at The Stand.
He did a lip-sync to the “Hart to Hart” theme (starring Robert Wagner ; what a flawless link…) with an embarrassed-looking couple forced to join him on stage.
The theme is funny in itself, but when he mimed “when they got together….it was moidah!!!!” , and then froze for a couple of minutes while the rest of the theme played out…well, I nearly had a fit.
Beautiful stuff…
My “Chairman Mao” watch has attracted a lot of admiring interest.
Unfortunately, it loses approximately 10 minutes in every hour.
There should be a joke there somewhere?
Gordon Alexander made one last night, but I have managed to forget it.
Something about “a cultural step back in time”.