19/06/05 Turkey Tales

On Xmas day many years ago, my faithful old dog Robbie ran into the house with a large turkey carcass he'd found at the rubbish area of a nearby hotel.
To him this was a veritable coup and he ran around the house and garden for a good few hours with it, leaving a trail of debris, trying to find somewhere peaceful to eat it.
After a while, we decided to confiscate it as he was making a bit of a right old mess.
This was not appreciated by Robbie and he made determined efforts to retrieve it. We ended up hiding it on top of a cupboard, out of his reach.
During the night I felt a bit dehydrated and went down to the kitchen for a drink of water. I was somewhat surprised to see my older brother Gavin sitting at the table with Robbie's turkey carcass in his hands, picking at it and eating scraps of meat from it. He had mistaken it for the turkey that we had been eating for our Xmas dinner. He was not particularly amused when I gently explained the recent recorded movements of the turkey carcass which he was eating.
Robbie was also singularly unamused, not to say confused by Gavin's actions.
I think Gavin can now see the funny side though...
Talking of "turkey shoots", yesterday I played golf with Mr Mark Dance, the elder brother of the famous "Fabulous Dance Brothers" music hall acrobatic act, on the hallowed turf of Dalmeny Estate Golf Club.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, a delightful sea breeze drifted in from the Firth of Forth. Glorious. On such a day, it seemed unimportant who actually won the match, as it was really just all about the pleasure of taking part. But it was me. I won. Just by one hole mind you. But winning is everything and second is nowhere and all that kind of thing, and I also hit the longest drive of the day. No triumphalism from me. That would be wrong.

18/06/05 The Shame Game

satire..! :-) 

I have to confess to feeling a twinge of sympathy for the young scallywags who were "named and shamed (and photographed)" by the Daily Record for trying to sell their Live8 tickets on Ebay.
They were all about 18. It was definitely an unlovely act, and certainly not in the spirit of the event ; but who could honestly say that as an 18 year old, with a likely fairly low disposable income, they would not have been slightly tempted to cash in on their good fortune in securing a ticket?
In the end their actions aren't preventing any money going to the relevant charities. Live8 have already made millions through the premium rate text competition.
It always rings a bit hollow when the Daily Record sets itself up as our "moral guardians". I can't stand that paper. It's a nasty little rag.
Anyway, lots of other people will be making cash out of the event. The bands will undoubtedly benefit from the exposure in terms of record sales. The inflated price hot dog sellers around the stadium will be capitalising on the event just as much as the Ebay mob.
I don't want to sound cynical. I absolutely support the aims of the event and hope it's a total success. The reality of life is that there are always people who will benefit privately from these occasions.
The Ebay people in Scotland are just slightly unlucky in that they've been highlighted and given pariah status by the Scottish press.
I can't bring myself to criticise Geldof though. He's a loose cannon, but I don't really think that this foreign debt initiative would have gotten this far without his personality and influence pushing the politicians to get it on the agenda.
As far as I'm concerned he's the dog's bollocks, and I'm not going to join in with any petty sniping aimed at his efforts.
So anyway, Patrick, Tony and I lounged about all day on Bruntsfield Links ruminating on ideas for the show. It was a good productive session. Unfortunately, even though it was cloudy, we got zapped by the UV.
I was supposed to be doing a stand-up spot at Richard P's birthday party. However, I was knackered and sunburnt and decided to enhance the dehydration by getting fairly pissed. Richard didn't mind. He was going to do a spot but decided against it as well. Well done to Patrick though, who did actually do a spot!
We had a couple of drinks at the Old Waverly Hotel in Princes St where Patrick was staying. Although, when we got to the bar, the barman said they had no beer. No draught. No bottles. Nothing. So it was cider then....with the inevitable sore head the next day.

17/06/05 Circus Crew Perform in Perth

Patrick, myself and Tony did spots at the Amused Moose show in Whispers nightclub in Perth. This was the first time we'd all seen each other do our schtick.
With consummate timing I had a bad night. On the evidence of this showing I'm definitely the weakest link. I thought Patrick and Tony were great. I'd seen Tony a few times before, but he was doing some new material, and gave a really funny, assured performance. I loved Patrick's stuff. Very gentle, wacky streams of consciousness, packed full of gags.
I didn't enjoy my spot at all.
I was first on after the interval. You generally expect the compere to do 5-10 minutes at this point, before introducing the first act of the second half. I think the compere did about 25-30.
I find the "hanging about interminably waiting to go on experience" has a bad effect on the way I perform. When I'm psyched up and ready to go, but then have to wait an uncertain amount of time, I get a bit tense and lose energy. It just gets mentally tiring waiting and maintaining the adrenaline for your intro. Not that I'm making excuses or anything. I fluffed a couple of lines early on that usually get big laughs, then started going too fast. A robotic performance ensued.
There's always positives to take from these situations. It certainly provided a good kick up the arse, and I realise that I've got a lot of work to do before the Fringe.
I'm really pleased to be involved with such a strong line-up for the show though. And the knowledge that I'll have to raise my game considerably is a positive. There's no danger of me being complacent.

16/06/05 On Your Bike

my name in lights...! 

Well, the gig got off to an inauspicious start when Irish,flame-haired, former sambista Trish introduced me as Jim Parks...it was a dagger in my chest.
It was a tricky gig. I was the first "comedy" (allegedly) spot of the evening. Before I came on, a band played some nice, way down, ambient stuff featuring acoustic guitar and digeridoo. Very enjoyable.
It's difficult going straight from this to stand-up comedy. Usually a compere will spend 10 minutes warming the audience up to get them into comedy mode. Plus, it takes a little while for people to stop talking. Thanks to Mr Kay for hassling the crowd at the bar to belt up.
Anyway, after this slow start, I thought the set went really well. There were a few heckles, a guy came up on stage with his mobile phone after it went off. I'd said that if I were a more experienced comedian I'd have taken the phone off him and have had a hilarious improvised conversation with the hapless caller. He came onstage anyway. It turns out it was a text message (?). He asked me if I had a message that he could send to the person who'd texted. I came back with the side-splittingly funny ad lib, "Yes, just tell him to fuck off!" ...comedy gold, comedy gold...
It was great to see Phil Kay onstage. I haven't seen him perform for ages. First of all he drew the raffle. Probably my favourite part of his show. Just great off-the-cuff madness. He then told a series of bike related anecdotes. Apparently he has had 11 bikes stolen because he can never be bothered to use a lock.
He spent the last 20 minutes strumming his guitar and improvising a song about his problematic marriage. He tends to split audiences. I like acts that do that. I think it's better to make some people laugh a lot, rather than have everybody laughing at a lower intensity. Avoid lowest common denominator comedy.
One of the things that impressed me about Amsterdam was that there are thousands of unlocked bikes parked all over the place. Admittedly most of them are old bangers, but I just like the fact that people feel comfortable about doing that.
I heard a bizarre new ambulance siren yesterday. It sounds like an alien spacecraft about to land. Curiously similar to the Space Invader flying saucer that taxi'd periodically across the top of the screen. That's 300 points if you count your shots and hit it. I was always shit at Space Invaders.

15/06/05 The Armchair has gone!

Amazing. Such is the power of the Internet that as soon as I'd mentioned it on the Blog, the armchair vanished into the ether. Perhaps, the owner is an avid reader of my Blog and was embarassed to see that thousands of people a day were laughing at their appalling taste in soft furnishings.
I was thinking today of people I've known through my life with peculiar nicknames, as well as the reasons for being landed with the same nickname.
Here's a few I remember ;
"Big Squashie" ; was given this name after pronouncing "Quasimodo" as "Squashimodo" whilst reading aloud from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" at school.
"Cheesy" ; became nickname after person in question specifically asked for a Pizza in an Italian Restaurant, "without cheese".
"Peanut" was buying a round and misheard a drink order, screwing up his face and saying "Peanuts?"
"Berjikoff" ; had a strong likeness to the "village idiot" character in Woody Allen's "Love and Death"
"Howker" ; was witnessed frenetically scratching his genital area while half asleep in bed. Derived from the verb, "to Howk"
"Screw" ; can't even remember why. It was a non-sexual reason though!
"The Hawk" ; not sure where this came from. Perhaps he ate small furry mammals and/or had exceptionally good eyesight?
"Doc Photon" ; again, I'm unclear where this came from. Great nickname though!

Why not send me a comment with any hilarious, genuine nicknames and their reasons?
I'm willing to pay absolutely bugger all for the one I deemed to be the most original and funniest.

14/06/05 Strangers On A Train

I headed through to Glasgow on the train for the gig at The Stand. I was at one of these table-for-four seats next to 3 people who were going to see REM in Glasgow. They were arguing about Edinburgh bands in the 80s...what was the name of their single?, names of people in the band? etc. I knew the answers, but didn't want to engage in conversation as I was trying to swot up on new material which I was intending using at The Stand.
Directly across from us were 4 spotty teenagers, obviously going to the same gig.
I caught the 11pm train back. I saw a spare seat, sat down, then looked up and realised I was next to the same 3 people. I also realised that the 4 spotty teenagers were in the same position as well (they didn't have any connection with the other 3)
I thought that was a bit spooky.
I was then expecting Peter Cushing to introduce himself and ask each of us to pick a tarot card whereby the screen would go all wavy, and he would reveal something rather nasty about to befall each of us in the future.
And then in the end, we'd find out that Peter was in fact the Horny one himself! (btw that's the Devil, not Sid James), and we were in fact, all dead, because the train had crashed at Falkirk High, and we had been placed in some peculiar limbo-like state to complete our contractual obligations with "Hammer Horror Inc".
(listen, if you haven't seen "Dr Terror's House of Horrors", this will mean nothing to you...)
But thankfully, I discovered I was still alive and got out at Haymarket. I'm not sure about the others though. Anything could have happened in that tunnel between Haymarket and Waverly.
At the gig, the tried and tested stuff went really well, but my new material spectacularly bombed.
This material related to Strawberry Scuffle and the singer Mary Hopkins. I'm going to give this stuff another couple of chances though, as the delivery was dreadful.
There were two no-show comedians, so I was told I could do 15 minutes. This is the longest I've ever done. Good practice. That'll be the length of my main timeslot during the Fringe show.
I met an old friend Nick at the gig. I used to share a flat with him at Stirling University. Throught the conversation I had with him, I discovered that an Irish guy who also lived in our student flat had been killed in the World Trade Centre on 9/11.
I was never particularly close friends with the guy who died, as he was a rugby playing "jock" and I was an NME-reading, dope-smoking, post-punk layabout. We inhabited different social spheres. However I liked him a lot and he was a very decent bloke. I remember thinking at the time of 9/11 that it was likely there were some people I knew or had connections to involved in the incident. IT workers, Investment workers for companies that I'd worked for who regularly commuted back and forward to NY.
In the end there wasn't. However, last night the connection finally materialised. I expect millions of people all over the world have some tenuous link to an individual involved, such is the cosmopolitan nature of NY City.
btw the chair is still there, and I have now gone 15 days without smoking.

13/06/05 Tales From The Skip

The offending armchair (with designer accessories)  

There are a couple of skips in the vicinity of my gaffe at the moment. One is for the work going on to fix the stonework on my building, the other is for my neighbour who's getting some landscape gardening done.
There's a long tradition of skip etiquette in this country. Apparently, if you see a skip, you should collect all your old shite and discreetly dump it all in the skip when no-one is looking.
This policy has been rigidly adhered to with these 2 aforementioned skips. However, the workers who are using the skips aren't having this, and have taken to remove any unauthorised deposited items and dump them back in the street.
Of course the Council Cleansing dept guys will only pick anything up if it is in a black bag, or if a "special uplift" has been formally arranged.
So what we have now is something of a classic stand-off.
For the last 2 weeks, an armchair with a handily placed gas fire sitting on it, has sat outside my flat. Neither the Skip owners or the Binmen will touch it.
I'm stunned at how disgusting it is. It's the worst looking item of soft furnishings I've ever seen in my life. Did someone actually have that in their living room at some point? I suppose they must have seen it in a shop and thought, "Oh, That's really nice, we must buy that!".
As a punishment for illegal dumping, I think the owner should be traced, (I'd imagine there are likely to be traces of DNA on it), and made to sit on it, on the stage of the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street, from 9am to 5pm every day.
People could walk past and make sarcastic remarks about what a nice choice of armchair it was. I think this is a fair and commensurate punishment for this wilful act of fly dumping.

12/06/05 The Beat Goes On

Lucia : The Queen of Scottish Samba 

I'd intended spending today trying to sort out some stand-up ideas and sketch-type things for the Fringe show. I've got quite a busy week coming up. I'm doing The Stand in Glasgow on Tuesday, a Bike Charity benefit gig in Edinburgh on Thursday (with the legendary Mr Phil Kay), an Amused Moose gig in Perth on Friday, and a spot at Richard Pulsford's birthday bash on Saturday. In addition, Patrick and Tony are coming through to Edinburgh on Friday and Saturday to work on some ideas for the Fringe show.
So I decided to go through to Glasgow to play samba at the West End Carnival. Well, it was another top sunny day. An impressive display of willpower.
Glasgow people get more up for these sort of street parades than their Edinburgh counterparts. It was just a pity that it started pissing with rain really heavily half way through the parade...
Good fun though.
I stopped for a Chinese carryout on my way home.
As I waited I noticed that the (loud) record playing in the restaurant was stuck in a loop.
It was some lilting French folk song. At the chorus, it would do that CD scratch/repeat thing a few times, stop jump on a bit, play another 5 seconds, stop, then go back to 30 seconds before the same chorus, and the debacle would all start again. I must have heard this cycle about 20 times in the time I was waiting in the restaurant. It was driving me insane, and I was only there for about 15 minutes.
I couldn't understand how the rest of the diners and waiting staff were tolerating it. Nobody seemed that bothered.
Just as I was leaving I mentioned to the waiter, "Isn't that record driving you mad?". He just shrugged and laughed.
I'm obviously too sensitive. I felt like I was being softened up psychologically in Guantanamo Bay, to make me more amenable to sustained interrogation. It really was that annoying, believe me.
In a similar vein, I can't go to the cinema at weekends any more. I turn into the Incredible Hulk. It's the culmination of mobiles going off, "text received" bleeps, watches beeping on the hour, people munching "industrial skip" sized containers of popcorn, cellophane sweetie wrappers being unwrapped (most annoyingly when people try to open the sweets stealthily, rather than just get it over with quickly), people talking and people farting, coughing, sneezing. It's hell. I'd rather stick cocktail sticks in my eyes, or do a lunchtime comedy spot at Becogent Call Centre in Airdrie.

11/06/05 Gala Day!

Gala Day! 

I joined the Edinburgh Samba School to play at the Gorgie/Dalry Gala Day. This is my local community, so I was happy to help out. It was another brilliant, sunny day. Perfect weather for outdoor practioners of the samba experience.
For many of the players, it was their first, ever gig. This show was seen as an opportunity to blood players who've been attending the beginners classes.
Last minute advice on patterns was dispensed and crumpled up pieces of paper were concentrated upon. I remember being very nervous before playing my first gig in Penicuik, and recalling how I played, I was justified in being nervous about it.
We were on about 30 minutes later than we should have been as the Line Dancing had overrun drastically. This would have been excusable if the display had been setting the audience alight, and that in all the frenzied excitement, time had been forgotten completely. Rather than adhere to the showbiz maxim of leaving the audience wanting more, I got the impression that no-one ever wanted to see Line Dancing again, ever, well certainly not within the next 50 years.
Then we were on! It was a good appreciative audience. Although there was a cluster of bampots. At a glance they appeared to be an extended family. It clearly wasn't a very broad gene pool, (more of a "gene puddle" as that wag Mestre Mark commented).
They were intent on disruption and drawing attention to themselves in any way possible. They went through a repertoire of jokey pretendy drumming, deliberately crap dancing, grabbing spare instruments (including hitting shakers with sticks (?)),and hitting Mark and his drum with an inflatable hammer at appropriate intervals. They were also badly sunburnt, and gave the impression that a fairly substantial amount of alcohol had recently been imbibed.
The enjoyment of playing was to some extent curtailed by worrying what they were going to do next. Everyone else in the audience was fine though! I'm not dissing Gorgie/Dalry in general! I really like it. I live there!
At night it was Lucia's 50th birthday party.
Lucia is the most recognisable face of Scottish Samba. Generally seen leading parades in all her Brazilian Carnival finery, pursued by a cluster of spotty, male press photographers snapping away madly.
I can't believe she's 50. She doesn't look anywhere near that age.
Great party. Fantastic food. A rivetting belly dancer. Some frenetic samba. And a load of beer.
I've always thought that Lucia has the loveliest smile in Christendom.
If she was to smile at me, then ask me to go and jump off the top of the Scott Monument, I would do it unquestioningly. On the way down, I might eventually ponder whether I'd made a poor decision, but by then it would be too late.
I anticipate she'll still be cavorting along Princes St at the 2055 Festival Cavalcade...

10/06/05 Testing Times

Oh dear, after some recent spectacular highs, the good ship "HMS Comedy" has hit some decidedly choppy waters of late.
I was in Glasgow last night doing a gig at The State Bar. It was a heat of the long running "So You Think You're Funny Competition".
I'm not a big fan of competitions. Many of them are dodgy. There are often endless heats with people who've been previously knocked out making surprise re-appearances in later rounds, (like me next week in the Amused Moose heat in Perth). There are suspicions that agency influence has a hand in pre-determining winners etc. They are perceived as attractive money earners for promoters, as only the compere gets paid bla bla bla comedians get too pissed off when they do badly in them, and get too bigged up when they do well in them. One man's meat/poison and countless other anecdotes are all applicable...
I'm just doing them for the stage time and because I've got a show at the Fringe that I need to try out a lot of new material for.
All the comedians struggled last night with the audience. It was like playing to the crowd of Michael Jackson devotees who hang around outside the courthouse, shortly after he'd been found guilty and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. This is not an exaggeration. Very hard work out there.
We don't find out till next month who gets through to the semi-finals. Ho hum.
It was a strange environment. There were pockets of people supporting each act. You got the impression they'd decided only to laugh at "their" friend.
This is a shitty state of mind for a comedy space. You should go along to a comedy night to be entertained, not to show partisan support for one act. It's all bollocks really.
My mood darkened when I found out that the Fringe Programme have cocked up our entry and have our show starting at 9.55pm instead of 9.40pm.
This is going to cause an inordinate amount of hassle and warrants a claim for substantial compensation I'd say. grrrrrrrr.
To make matters worse, Jonathon Ross has been awarded an OBE for "services to broadcasting".
The world has gone mad.
In keeping with the appropriateness of Mr Ross's award, I expect Harold Shipman to receive a posthumous knighthood for "services to medicine".
I know my opinion on Mr Ross is not universally shared. Some normally sane and rational friends of mine really like him and think he's very funny.
Ah well, I'm sure Vlad the Impaler's children loved him as well, and that he was really a big softy behind that ruthless facade?
On a brighter note, I played golf with Mr Mat Clements, samba superstar, and proprietor of www.wherestheone.co.uk, on the hallowed turf of Dalmeny Estate Golf Club.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, a delightful sea breeze drifted in from the Firth of Forth. Glorious. On such a day, it seemed unimportant who actually won the match, as it was really just all about the pleasure of taking part. But it was me. I won.
2 and 1. (Just for the sake of completeness and documentation.) No triumphalism from me. Absolutely not...

09/06/05 Cockburn Comedy

Ah well, the comedy mojo took an inevitable dip last night. The promoters of "Cockburn Comedy" had seen me at The Stand on Monday and asked me to do a spot at their Thursday club in the Arcade Bar.
I produced a rather tentative, stumbling performance. Got good laughs. But I didn't really enjoy it and felt slightly nervous for no particular reason.
It's strange, I feel more relaxed doing my act in front of 200 people at The Stand than a dozen people sitting around a bar. It feels like you are performing in someone's living room. I'm a bit awkward with small audiences like that as you feel you have to engage them with banter. I'm usually ok at this, but last night wasn't really up to it.
When there is a big audience, you can detach yourselves from them. I think I prefer that, but a good all-round stand-up would have the ability to adjust his act to suit the environment. Must try harder.
I'd gone for a stroll up Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat before the gig, and pathetically was feeling a tad weary.
The other comedians were much better at playing the room than me, rapping with the audience and using assorted props in the bar.
I took it as a learning experience.
Dave Reilly and Dave Bann made appearances, although Mr Bann missed my show. I was quite happy about that as he has never seen my act yet. I'd rather he saw me on a better night.

08/06/05 Jacko!

I had a feeling that today was going to be verdict day in the Michael Jackson trial. That's 3 days deliberating by the jury. That's a respectable amount of time to consider things I'd say. I reckon the Judge privately briefed the Jury before they were sent out to deliberate.
He'd have told them to take at least 3 days. This would be essential to lend a little credibility to the American Justice system. Even if they are sitting around doing crosswords and "I Spy" games for 72 hours...just put on a show.
The Legal Industry still cringe over the OJ Simpson jury. In that case, 10 months of evidence was fully deliberated on and a verdict agreed in a stunning 42 minutes!
The media people would love that again though. They've just got to hang around a, by all accounts, desperately dull corner of America, waiting for the verdict.
I can't see a guilty verdict on the main charges. I reckon he is guilty, but the evidence presented doesn't have "beyond reasonable doubt" written all over it to my layman's eye.
Plus, all the characters in this story seem essentially flawed.
There's much previous form of lying on oath and a damaging suspicion that ultimately it's all about money.
So anyway, I was wrong....no verdict today after all.
I predict Jackson is found guilty of the lesser offence of supplying alcohol to minors and is given a 12 month suspended jail sentence.
I am Mystic Meg. That's me, that is.

07/06/05 Park's Circus Publicity Stuff

Park's Circus Publicity 

Here is a publicity shot for the upcoming "Park's Circus" show!
In spite of the fact that I look like a crazed, slightly decomposed, zombie flesh eater, I like it a lot. I think it's a fairly mad, wacky image of the 3 of us which should encourage hordes of festival goers to beat a path to our door.
I always did find Circus clowns slightly scary anyway.
I went out to Mitch's country seat yesterday to get it sorted out. Mitch is something of a wizard with all this image/photo manipulation stuff, and the range of possibilities is all very mesmerising to a computer dinasor like myself.
I have to pay homage to his patience, as it usually helps a graphic designer if the client has got a vague idea of what he is looking for. I just tended to agree with all Mitch's suggestions, and found it difficult to come up with any positive decisions on my own.
Luckily, Mitch managed to resist the temptation to smash my head repeatedly off the floorboards, shouting, "At least give me a basic idea of what you actually want you useless TWAT!".
Eventually, I was sent to entertain little Jem, son of Mitch, for a while. This gave Mitch an opporchancity to finish off the picture.
This also gave me the opportunity to attend my quarterly psychological briefing from Jo. This session was entitled "Attitudes To Relationships Vol 23(a)".
Thankfully Jo doesn't yet have a Blog, otherwise she would have the opportunity to disclose to the world what a complete mentalist I truly am! :-)
Later I had a shot of Mitch's newly constructed "white knuckle" Tarzan Swing. This involves something of a "leap of faith", as you have to take a run, then swoop over an unappealing drop into a ravine before swingning round and back to safety.
Having had Mitch labour away all afternoon on the publicity picture, I thought the least I could do was risk an entertaining, painful death by taking on the Tarzan challenge. I am happy to report that I survived. It did feel like preparing to do a bungee jump.
I later on met up with Pete and Greg Mitchell. Greg repeatedly tried to set me on fire after I queried if he had enjoyed watching Celtic lose the league on the last day of the season. I don't know. Some people. Really...

06/06/05 Double Diamond

works wonders!
Well, no, frankly it doesn't. It is a market leader in "Disgusting Beers Of Our Time".
I used the double title as I had 2 comedy gigs last night. One at The Stand and one at Reg Anderson's new comedy night at the Q Bar on Leith Walk.
I had another great gig at The Stand. I seem to have stepped up a level recently. I'm not sure why exactly, but the past couple of gig responses have been way,way above anything that has gone on before. I think I've worked out who I am on stage a bit more. I used to be a ranter, now I'm playing it more as a befuddled space cadet. The latter is definitely working much better.
As is often the case with the first night of fledgling comedy evenings, the Q Bar was fairly sparsely populated. There was an audience of 10. Interestingly they were all tourists in Edinburgh. They were also all female. They were also all attractive as well. (oooohhh misssusss!)
I really enjoyed doing a set to them. They laughed at all the right bits. It was tricky in the sense that a pre-requisite in getting some of my jokes is a knowledge of the TV series "You've Been Framed" and "Tales of the Unexpected".
No-one in the audience had heard of either of them.
It was a good exercise in improvisation, as I had to depart from the routine and explain, with examples, the format of these programmes before doing the "joke".
I don't want to come over all Bridget Jones, but....I have now gone 7 days without smoking a fag and thought I should take the opportunity to congratulate myself on the internet for my courage, my strength and my indefatigability.

05/06/05 Sunday Morning Nightmare

Ageing punks will recognise this Blog title as a track from the one and (thankfully) only, "Sham 69". For years I had a piece of Jimmy Pursey's shirt. He dived into the audience at a gig at Clouds in Edinburgh, and his shirt got shredded by the baying mob. I didn't know what happened to the bit I had. It got lost. Shame. It could be worth a lot of money now. But probably not.
I'd like to begin by saying that my Samba review in the previous blog entry, was a satirical review written in "Whose Line Is It Anyway" fashion, in the style of a "samba god". Although, it probably is still fair to say that I did indeed play particularly brilliantly. (I'm being satirical again...or perhaps not?)
I had a sore head after my barbecue antics. However, I managed to make it to the Meadows Festival.
Unfortunately with all the rain, the Meadows had turned into a bit of a mudbath, and the attendance was pretty sparse.
I stood for 20 minutes looking at owls in the "Birds of Prey" stall. They are amazing looking creatures. I felt a bit sorry for them being chained to a perch though. And being nocturnal animals, they must have been slightly pissed off to be getting stared at by a hungover prodigiously talented percussionist at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon.
The other stall that caught my eye was a demonstration of "keep fit" line dancing being given by a group of mature members of the community.
It was a little incongruous to see that the instructor was a great big fat bloke. This slightly deflated the image of doing this activity as a basis for achieving fitness and health.
It would be a bit like Keith Richard playing a guitar solo on the video of the groundbreaking anti-drugs anthem "Just Say No!" performed by the kids of "Grange Hill".

04/06/05 I do like to be beside the seaside

I played with the Edinburgh Samba School at Port Seton Gala Day. The locals seemed to like it. They are simple, but happy, folk.
I was playing tamborin and vibra-slap, aka "Twanger". I was slightly concerned that my presence in the band might cause disapproval in some quarters, as my recent rehearsal attendance has been, at best, sporadic.
Fortunately, I played particularly brilliantly and didn't make a mistake, of any description, all day. It was a virtuoso performance of samba brilliance, and many people told me afterwards that they felt greatly privileged to witness it, and that it would prove to be an enduring memory for them.
The Twanger breaks in the 3-1-5-2 sections of Baion did though provoke a certain degree of controversy, as their efficaciousness was cheekily questioned by the band's Mestre Mark. However I am 100% certain that I played the Twanger at the appropriate spot, and that it would be absolutely churlish to criticise me in light of my innovative twanger-ing causing the rest of the band to make an arse of getting back into the groove. It should really be up to the rest of the band to raise their game to adjust to the challenge of playing with such a gifted percussionist.
It's not all a bed of roses being a prodigiously talented instrumentalist like me though. I'm playing next week at the "Gorgie/Dalry Festival" and I daresay people will be expecting me to equal, or ridiculously, even better, my level of performance yesterday. I can feel the mounting pressure already.
God was having a bit of a right old laugh with his weather remote control. He jokingly switched from the "bright, warm sunshine" to "pissing down like stair rods" settings, intermittently all afternoon.
We later retired to Paul & Morag's gaffe for a delightful barbecue
At the back of their house, you open the garden gate and find yourself in a kid's swing park. As a child, this must be roughly on a par in terms of perks, as your parents owning a sweetie shop!
As we all know, the combination of adults, alcohol and a children's swing park are a dangerous mix. At one point, I found myself being spun round sitting in a circular spinning device type thing. I estimate I was spinning at approximately 75 mph, and that my ordeal lasted for about 10 minutes. The Spanish Inquisition guys would have loved this device.
On alighting from the aforementioned torture device, I staggered dizzily around, narrowly avoiding a collision with the slide, and fell over in a heap. Luckily, there were some small children around who helped me, in my time of crisis, by jumping on my chest, and shaking me back and forward. Bless.
I then proceeded to drink rather a lot of wine, and make flippant comments about samba.
I thought Debbie and her friend were going to do a "Fame!" type singing and dancing tribute show for the assembled throng. However, it turned out that they were actually going to see the show "Fame!" at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh that night, and had decided to get into the spirit of the occasion by wearing legwarmers, headbands and 80s fashion. Apparently, they were the only people in the entire audience who thought this was an appropriate gesture. This is a shocking inditement of humourless Edinburgh theatre goers!
I experienced something similar myself when I turned up in a Nazi uniform at a showing of the film "Schindler's List". I was so embarrassed that I was the only person in the entire audience who thought this was appropriate!
I shared a taxi back with a few others. The taxi seemed to go via Fort William. I'm not 100% certain of this, but it just seemed I was in that taxi for a long, long time.

02/06/05 Last Mention Of Big Brother

The current cast of Big Brother are a sorry bunch. It's actually quite sad. Each individual obviously believes that they are "special", due to the fact they've been chosen from thousands and thousands of applicants to go into the Big Brother House.
However, the reality of the situation, is that Channel 4 have deliberately picked a lot of unintelligent, dysfunctional saddos, who they are confident will generate a heap of banal arguments and watchable TV tension.
I know this gets said every year. But this year it is definitely true.
I don't think the format really works any more anyway. Everyone is far too conscious of the cameras, and are acting totally unnaturally in an attempt to exert a level of control on how they are perceived by the TV viewers.
It's the Meadows Festival in Edinburgh this weekend. Was it really 20 years ago that myself and a couple of friends staged the "Rent-A-Laugh Show" at this very festival?
We managed to wangle some funding for this from the Meadows Festival Association.
The running order included an "Alcoholic Juggling Contest". Myself and Mitch, (current owner of Edinburgh Film Studios), competed in this challenge.
We had to juggle until a whistle was blown, then drink as much as possible out of a bottle of wine, until the whistle was blown again, whereupon we had to resume juggling, then drink again etc etc. The winner was he who finished the bottle of wine first. We performed this competition twice throughout the course of the afternoon, (hic).
Other acts were someone called Ken, accompanying himself on guitar, singing a song entitled "A Tin Of Peas". George Coleman did a human drum kit impression, cunningly morphing some cymbal playing into working in a fish and chip shop. Nicky Hind sang the "Laughing Policeman", and we all joined in at the end for a rousing chorus of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life".
It's worth pointing out that this was a long, long time before "Vic Reeves' Big Night Out" appeared on your television screens.
I'm quite stunned, given my current level of alcohol tolerance, that after 2 bottles of wine, I was more than happy to pop across to a local hostelry with the cast, to discuss the finer points of that afternoon's performances.
Another abiding memory of that day is observing James "Lord Lucan" McNeill biting chunks out of a pint glass in Burlington Bertie's Bar.
I don't know why he did this. I only know he did. This was a long time ago!

01/06/05 It's A Shit Day!

Well it pissed rain all day today. A tad disappointing after Tuesday's glorious weather.
I went down to the Gramophone Emporium in Stockbridge. This is a curious shop. It's only open 2 days a week. Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays. It's a tiny little shop with thousands of old 78s, vinyl LPs and gramophone players. There's only really enough room for 2 people in the shop at any one time, and one of these has to be the owner. The owner is very helpful and will happily have an extended chinwag on any area of old recordings. I believe he works at Edinburgh University and just runs the shop as a part-time hobby.
I was on the lookout for "laughing records". These are odd old 78s which were very popular in the 1920s. One such record involves a man singing the Toreador song from Ravel's "Bolero". However, he repeatedly fails to hit a high note and his voice cracks. This prompts a woman to burst out laughing. This process is repeated several times, with the laughter getting more and more intense. It's practically impossible to listen to it without bursting out laughing.
These records used to be played as ice breakers at little parties to get everyone relaxed and cheery. Basically, the audio equivalent of a big spliff being passed around the cocktail party.
We used to have this record, but it has gone AWOL. The gramophone man needed me to provide more information, (I didn't know who recorded this), so I'll have to do a bit more research.
I was talking to my big brother on the phone tonight. Coincidentally, he is a big fan of Big Brother, and will happily talk about it till the cows come home.
This is dangerous. He was beginning to get me interested, and I ended up watching last night's highlights.
I know people say this every year...but they really do seem to have surpassed themselves in selecting 13 of the biggest tossers Britain currently has to offer. 100 grand isn't enough to persuade me to spend 11 weeks in a house with that lot.

31/05/05 It's A Beautiful Day!

I have now removed about 500 tons of weeds and cutting from the garden and transported it to the recycling centre to be turned into compost. How Green You Are, How Green You Are!
We used to sing that at kids' parties if someone was looking for something, (to the tune of Auld Lang Syne), singing louder if they were getting close, and quieter if they were further away. Hah! Who needs computer games. We made our own entertainment.
It was great day weather-wise yesterday, and I did some serious basking.
John Burns, a comedian from Inverness, has come down to stay for a day as he has a job interview in Edinburgh. We went to Belushis to witness some stand-up and have a couple of beers. Belushi's is a bar attached to a Backpackers Hostel. I felt like I was in Amsterdam, my knapsack on my back. The comedy was good, the beer was rubbish.

30/05/05 Trauma Revisited

Getting obsessive about this battle with the weeds. They will be beaten.
On a tea break, I stumbled across the film "Ring of Bright Water". A Bank Holiday treat.
I couldn't watch it all the way through though. Way, way too upsetting. I saw that film at the cinema as a small child and was completely traumatised.
The story is basically about a bloke who buys an otter as a pet in London. He then decides to quit the Big Smoke and head up to an idyllic cottage in the Scottish Highlands. He takes the otter (Mij) with him of course. He also meets a bit of local tottie in the fragrant shape of Virginia McKenna. This is all very lovely and heartwarming until....yes, tragedy is just around the corner, and some local fisherman type mistakes Mij for a rat and kills him with a spade.
The film tries to end on an optimistic note when some baby otters are seen cavorting about and it is assumed they are Mij's sprogs. It's not enough. I was devastated.
I was surprised they were showing that to today's generation of impressionable children. Maybe they've edited the ending?
I would compare seeing this film as a small child, to putting on a video of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at a toddlers' party.
But even this isn't anywhere near as upsetting. At least the people killed in TTCM are all really, really annoying Americans. What we're talking about in ROBW is a lovely, playful, friendly otter who never did any harm to nobody.

29/05/05 'ee it were grand!

I spent another few hours in my war of attrition against my resident weeds. It's a First World War scenario. I've just got to try and outlast the little bastards.
I caught a bit of "Antiques Roadshow" and was surprised to see somebody with a "WEM Copycat". This is basically an echo unit. I played in several bands in which this was viewed as an essential piece of kit. It gave guitars and vocals a much fuller and less jangly sound. So what the fek was it doing on "Antiques Roadshow"?
Whatever. It made me feel like an old fossil. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I was on at "The Stand" in Edinburgh last night. It was a Bank Holiday Special and was sold out. I really stormed it. Probably my best ever reaction. It should be said though that it was a really good comedy audience who were well up for it.
This probably means that my next gig will be an unmitigated disaster. It's just a sad inevitability that when you're registering particularly highly on the "comedy confidence scale", something will happen which will puncture it.
Then you will be returned to that edgy, nervousness again, which ironically you need to raise the performance level. You see, it's a vicious circle...
I was talking to the Edinburgh bloke who was on the recent edition of "Faking It" in which he went from being a Physics Researcher to Magician, and ended up fooling the experts. He was in the dressing room to see Mandy Muden. She was on the bill as well last night, and she acted as one of Kevin's magic mentors on the programme.
He's doing magic full time now. It's interesting how appearing on that programme has turned his whole life upside down, (in a good way).

28/05/05 How Does Your Garden Grow?

..."with millions of annoying little weed bastards" is probably the most accurate answer.
I periodically engage the weeds in mortal combat, and spend a day of purgatory vainly trying to totally eradicate them. It is a form of psychological torture. You think they've gone and the next day another crack squadron of junior weeds appears, scoffing at your extermination intentions.
I spent the whole day on weed detail. In fairness, it's sometimes nice to do a bit of physical work . Even if what you have been doing all day is an ultimately pointless exercise, there's something strangely satisfying about knackering yourself in the course of the working day. This is probably due to me generally tending to work in offices and sit on my arse all day.
It is ironic though that I am such a world leader in weed cultivation.
If I buy a houseplant the shop assistant puts a little black cloth on her head as I pay for it. The plant realises that it has just received a death sentence. For some reason, my houseplants never survive more than a few months.
I also have the same trouble with any new plants I put in my garden.
So how come I can grow weeds brilliantly, with very little maintenance. Weeds are just plants growing in the wrong area, aren't they?
I was thinking of maybe entering my dandelions into the Chelsea Flower Show. I have a particularly impressive crop at the moment...
Well anyway, as I always used to say, "She was only a gardener's daughter, but she was a dandelion in bed"

27/05/05 Go West

Spent the day through in Glasgow, as Tony and I had arranged to meet Patrick (the 3rd Party in the upcoming, Fringe hit show, "Park's Circus") for the first time.
I hadn't been on a train for a while and I was immediately reminded how annoying train journeys have become with the advent of mobile phones and the inevitable presence of amn't-I-important-because-my-phone-never-stops-ringing-Foghorn-Leghorn-impersonating-captains-of-industry doing my head in for the whole journey. Dreadful. I long for the old days when your shoes used to magically turn into comfortable slippers, and it was all dead relaxing with a breathy jazz singer crooning away in the background, like the TV advert. They couldn't use that advert now. They'd get sued for criminal misrepresentation.
I was a bit early so ended up going into the Grosvenor Hotel at Hillhead for a quick drink.
I was sitting at a table when a woman came up behind me saying "Sorry, I'm late...traffic was terrible...What's that you're drinking?".
(it was white wine....£5.40 for a glass..I realised this too late!)
She then sat down, eventually looking up and realising I wasn't who she thought I was. I became curious as to who she was actually meeting. I recognised him as an actor. I'd seen him in a play "Gagarin Way" at the Festival a few years ago. He's been on TV quite a lot as well, but I couldn't remember his name.
Anyway, he looked absolutely nothing like me! I must have just been sitting in his regular seat or something. Gripping stuff...!
We had a good meeting with Patrick, and we seem to have a good joint vision of what the show will be all about. It's going to be fairly pressurised getting everything sorted out though, as Patrick is based in London and will only be able to come up to Edinburgh occasionally between now and the Fringe. I feel a good vibe about things though. (famous last words)

26/05/05 Swearing

The late great Rikki Fulton's wife, Kate, died recently. This brought to mind a thought about my Grandpa.
By all accounts Kate was a very nice person. However my Grandpa could never abide her.
In the 60s and 70s she worked as a continuity announcer for STV. It has to be said said that her screen persona was slightly smarmy. Physically, it was evident that she had an unusually small mouth.
My Grandpa used to describe her as "having a mooth like a hen's arsehole".
As a small child I used to find my Grandpa speaking like this hilarious. He very rarely swore, but when he did, it was invariably memorable.
I also remember an occasion when the toilet at my Grandparents house became blocked.
My Grandpa's technical analysis of the situation was "we've got a 3 inch pipe, but someone has a 4 inch arsehole". Again, this sent me into convulsions.
It's odd how swearing has lost most of its ability to shock these days.
I caught a bit of the Gordon Ramsay "Kitchen Nightmares" show this week. It starts at 9pm, and is hour long avalanche of fuck this and fuck that and fuck the next thing. I don't find it shocking or offensive. But it's fair comment to say that the law of diminishing returns comes into play in terms of the use of swearing to spice up a show. Jamie Oliver has got quite a nifty line in prodigious swearing as well.
Anyway, fuck this, I have to fuckin fuck off to fuckin Glasgow to meet the fuckers I'm fuckin doing this fuckin funny as fuck Fringe show with, to fuckin discuss what the fuck it's going to be fuckin all about. Fuck!
(who said that television doesn't influence behaviour?)

25/05/05 A Turnip For The Books

Well what a match last night. It reaffirmed to myself why I love football more than any other sport. Pure drama. At half-time it looked like Liverpool were going to get well and truly stuffed in Turkey. 3-0 behind at half-time to AC Milan. Italian teams are noted for their strong defensive qualities.
It was all over. Obviously.
I considered going out rather than watching the second half. But Liverpool score 3 and win the penalty shoot-out. Unbelievable.
I met Tom Hamilton for a quick pint at the Caledonian Alehouse. I had just missed him being soaked by a bottle of champagne which someone had covered him with "Grand Prix" style (appropriate because he is a big Formula 1 fan. I find the whole sport baffling) when Liverpool had been confirmed as Champions.
The whole pub was going completely mental. Everyone sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" (badly).
So that's the end of the football season. No more inane football banter from me. Promise.
Hey look...I made it on the home page of "The Stand" web page. And my name is right!
http://www.thestand.co.uk

24/05/05 Just Trying To Help

Ted the cat is a hunting machine and regularly brings a variety of wildlife into the flat for some torture and killing fun, (ideally in front of me for some reason).
Last year he brought in yet another mouse and proceeded to play with it at some length round the flat. He does sometimes get a little too casual in the "let it run away and then catch it again" game, and loses his prey completely. I expect his approach is influenced by the fact that he has already had his tea, and that the "hunting" is principally recreational, rather than a food/survival thing.
So after mucking about for a while with this mouse, he lost it. Served him right.
A couple of hours later I saw a shocked looking mouse in the corner of the room. It seemed physically ok. Of course, the psychological trauma of being a cat's torture plaything for an extended period would undoubtedly take it's toll in later life.
At this point, I decided to interfere with Nature!
I cornered the mouse in the corner (it was quite easy really), and popped it into a jam jar. I then took it out into the garden and released it.
I had just turned to walk back into my flat, when from out of the sky swooped a magpie. It grabbed the mouse, and took off, taking the mouse away to it's doom.
I was shocked. I hadn't seen birds do anything like that before.
I shouted "I was only trying to h-e-l-p-p-p!" as the magpie flew away with the mouse I had saved.
Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire.
You see, you shouldn't really interfere with Nature...

23/05/05 Wet Wet Wet

Went for a walk in the Pentlands. Such a typical Scottish day. It started off a bit overcast. Then sunny. Then pissed down with rain. Then a hailstorm which felt like being jabbed with hundreds of tiny needles on the heid. Then more rain.
It's good to to walk up a few hills and get knackered and rosy cheeked though. It's a suitable excuse to stuff ones face when you get back to civilisation.
I checked out "Red Raw" night at The Stand. We're looking for a number of guest spots for the Fringe show.
The compere bravely appeared on stage wearing a Rangers shirt! It would have been braver if he'd done it at The Stand in Glasgow, but nonetheless still a brave move.
Some good acts on, but probably the most unpolitically correct wealth of material that has ever been assembled on a UK Comedy Stage for a long, long time.
Jings! My legs are aching!

22/05/05 Hoop Nightmares!

Well that certainly was a dramatic end to the SPL! I watched the game in the Polwarth Tavern near where I used to live in Temple Park Crescent. It used to be a fairly rough and ready pub, but has been transformed into a posh wine bar.
The expressions on the faces of the Celtic fans in the bar, when Motherwell's late goals went in, will live with me for a long time. They were gutted. They all started leaving, and one just couldn't contain himself and started shouting at everyone just as he was going out the door. It's a cruel game. Eerily reminiscent of 1986 when Hearts were on the receiving end of a "final day disaster" and Celtic were the benefactors.
Last season I won £1000 on a bet on Celtic to win the SPL. Last October I decided to re-invest my winnings on Celtic to win the SPL title again, (they were quoted on even money). I should point out that I am a Rangers fan. I just don't rate Alex McLeish as a manager, and forecast another season of disappointment.
After Celtic won at Ibrox leaving them 5 points up with 4 games to play, it all looked done and dusted. However, I noticed on Betfair that odds of 20/1 were being offered on Rangers to win the title. Seeing this as a good way of safeguarding my winnings I put £100 on Rangers, (I presume the guy offering these odds was a Celtic fan). This meant I would win £900 regardless whether Rangers or Celtic won the league. Thank goodness I did that, otherwise an ambulance with a defibrillator would have been urgently summoned to the Polwarth Tavern on Sunday afternoon.
I'm mega chuffed that Rangers have won the title, but still don't have confidence in McLeish. Celtic have clearly lost the plot. It's in Europe that McLeish will be judged, and up till now his performance has been dire.
I'm sorry to see Martin O'Neill go. He's a loss to Scottish football. Someone with intelligence, passion and good one-liners involved in Scottish Football? Hen's teeth etc etc
I had a gig in Glasgow at The Stand on Sunday night. I was slightly concerned about the fall-out from the football, and half expected going west to be like a bad night in Baghdad! However, it seemed strangely subdued on the streets. Perhaps everyone though that the sensible thing to do was to lie low till all the fuss died down.
The gig went well. A fairly small but cheery crowd.
btw there's been a lot of talk of cancer in the media since Kylie's shock diagnosis.
The late John Diamond expressed this much more eloquently than I could, but it gets so tiresome hearing all the "battleground" metaphors associated with the disease.
"winning battles", "fighting", "combatting" bla bla bla
Whilst it's obviously good to have a positive disposition when dealing with the disease, it's insulting to people who've died from the disease to constantly go on about survivors "bravely winning battles" etc It's inferring that those who died from it had less will to survive than those who have been successfully treated. This is total bollocks. Surviving cancer is largely down to good fortune. What matters is how early it is detected, how aggressively it spreads, how good the medical treatment offered is. It's all very random.

21/05/05 Greasepaint (smell of), Crowd (roar of) etc

I'd rejoined the human race sufficiently to make Greg Mitchell's play last night. He was making his acting debut in a show called "Deception". It comprised nine separate playlets written by the performers themselves exploring different themes of deception, (as you might expect).
Having subjected all my friends to the anxiety of watching me do my comedy schtick, it was an interesting change to be in the audience observing someone else risk public humiliation. I did feel quite nervous for him, but am pleased to say that he was very much at ease treading the boards and put in a good couple of performances.
He was involved in a play where a housewive was conducting "phone sex" with an unseen caller, who in the end turned out to be her husband (Greg). Whether, this was a secret, or whether they both knew what was going on, and were treating it as some kind of erotic game, was left open to interpretation.
I complimented Greg on his convincing "phone sex" technique. He gave the impression he's been doing it all of his life. This is a ringing endorsement of his acting ability I'd say.
In his other play he played a non-aggressive gamekeeper who didn't like shooting things, in a wacky re-working of Little Red Riding Hood. He ended up going off to live with the vegetarian wolf at the end.
It was good to see him really buzzing about it at the end. I hope he does more. He looks really good on stage. A really enjoyable show overall.
There were some performance poets on afterwards. It was in the "Roxy" a converted church. Unfortunately, there was so much echo, it was impossible to work out what anyone was saying. I have to say I did find this aspect of the show highly amusing.
Walking back home afterwards kept reminding me of James Stewart encountering "Pottersville" where "Bedford Falls" should have been. Saturday night on the streets of Edinburgh city centre is a grim experience. For a start a large section of Nicolson Street had been cordoned off as there seemed to have been a serious road accident. A lot of ambulances and police cars in attendance. There was a tidal wave of vomit all around. Walking along Princes St you have to walk past large posses of aggressive looking individuals swaying about all over the pavement. It's like a video game where you have to anticipate the oncoming staggers and find a gap to pass through without a collision.
I got the feeling that an accidental collision would possibly involve getting kicked to death. And of course there are no cops around.
And yes I know, you always run the risk here of over-romanticising the good old days. Possibly. I just recall that there were more happy drunks around and that there wasn't quite so much of an air of malevolence. But maybe that's just the viewpoint of an involved drunk. Who knows. I just remember that I never hesitated to put my jacket on a puddle if a lady had to cross it, and that I'd always take my hat off to a passing police officer. You just don't see that anymore.

20/05/05 Hangover Of The Year 2005

I vaguely remember supping an "industrial strength" cocktail at The Opal Lounge on Thursday night. This is allegedly a hip and groovy place for happening people with cash to burn. Somehow, I managed to slip past the bouncers' screening procedures undetected and found myself in this hallowed joint. Ignoring my previous sworn edict that my dancing days were officially over, I participated in what can only be described as some ungainly shuffling around the dancefloor, displaying the flexibility and rhythm of a turning oil tanker. It was a good night though!
Unfortunately, I was attacked in the middle of the night as I slept, by a gang of men wielding baseball bats. They pummelled my head for 4 hours, and then, before leaving, emptied the contents of a soiled budgie cage tray into my mouth.
Needless to say, I felt terrible when I woke up.
A cup of tea can sometimes help in this situation, however my condition was beyond help. I woke up at 10am, got up for 20 minutes, then went to bed till 3pm. I then struggled through to the living room and watched some dreadful daytime TV.
An incredibly snooty, humourless middle-aged couple were wanting to buy a house in the country. A BBC presenter was given the task of selecting about 5 possible properties for them to look at. Their maximum budget was about £500 000!
All they did was whinge, whinge, whinge about each property, and in the end they never actually bought anywhere. What a ridiculous programme. What a diabolical waste of TV License money. I felt a bit better. A good bit of scoffing and stinging sarcasm directed at the telly is very therapeutic.
I was due to be seeing Greg Mitchell in a play at night, but still felt ill.
Alcohol? Just don't do it kids! I hate losing a whole day like that. Life is too short. So is Jimmy Krankie.

19/05/05 Up For The Cup

Do you enjoy terrible pun-based jokes?
Here are some prime examples!
http://www.ogmac.co.uk/sidcup/standup.htm
Beware, if you don't like football, this edition will be very, very dull and boring (so what else is new?)
Hey it's the FA Cup Final tomorrow live on telly!
When I was a kid, seeing "live" football on TV was as rare an experience as seeing Martin Evans buy a round. (I'm obviously exaggerating here for comic effect. Martin Evans never buys a round. Hee Hee. I am funny).
But seriously, there were two matches shown a year live. The European Cup Final and the annual, sadly defunct, Home International match between Scotland and England.
These matches, the latter especially, were big occasions. Venues were arranged weeks in advance, invitations issued, armchairs reserved. It was inconceivable that any other commitment could interfere with your ability to watch the 180 minutes (or 210 minutes if the European Cup went to extra time. A fantastic bonus!) of live football on show that calendar year.
Both matches were shown in May. When the team captain held aloft the European Cup, you realised it would be more or less another 12 months before we'd see any more live football. We solemnly packed away our flat caps and rattles for another year.
Gradually, things loosened up in England. Contract negotiations with the FA saw TV execs demanding more live matches, and this was reluctantly granted.
However in Scotland we still saw nought. This was due to the powers that be at the Scottish Football Association decreeing that live football could not be shown in Scotland if it co-incided with any senior representative football match.
This gave rise to situations where a low level match like Forfar Athletic v Brechin
(expected crowd ; 100), blocked the rest of the nation enjoying live football screened in the rest of the UK.
"Except for viewers in Scotland" became the most loathed phrase heard on TV. Whilst the rest of the nation watched an exciting FA Cup Semi-Final replay, we were treated to a documentary on the development of the Locomotive steam engine.
Ernie Walker and Jim Farry were the humour-free tyrants who ruled at the SFA. They fretted that live coverage would kill football.
Funnily enough, we are now in the age of wall-to-wall coverage of live football and the game has never been more popular.
See I told you it was going to be dull and boring, didn't I?

18/05/05 The name's Park... Jim Park

http://www.thestand.co.uk/listings/listings_edin_july.htm

So anyway, I get to appear on The Stand web listings on account of doing the upcoming weekend shows on 14th/15th/16th July. Fame at last.
Although I have done a lot of gigs for The Stand in Edinburgh and Glasgow, I have up till now always been included in the "and guests" generic description.
My excitement was slightly curtailed by noticing that I am billed as "Jim Parks" instead of the correct "Jim Park". This may seem a rather petty complaint. However, I've had a whole lifetime, up till now anyway, of people getting my name wrong.
"Jim Parks" is a hardy perennial, and when I'm giving my name on the phone, approximately 50% of recipients will start referring to me as "Mr Clark". I always say my name now, then unprompted, immediately spell it..."P - A - R - K", just to prevent any confusion.
I presume the "Jim Clark" thing is a consequence of my name sounded fairly similar to the late Scottish racing driver who used this name.
It's unfortunate for a great number of reasons that he died in a car crash, but one of the lesser ones is that I'm denied the chance to ask him if people started referring to him as "Mr Park" if he happened to be giving his personal details on the phone.
I don't think this is just me over-reacting here. I know plenty of people who get grumpy at their name being incorrectly spelt. I think the problem is that there is no escape. Unless you change your name to something totally unambiguous and deadly dull like "John Smith", or even "Richard Arnott", you are sentenced to a whole life of correction and exaggerated pronounciation and being eventually forced to assault repeat offenders.

17/05/05 I'm Still Stand-ing

I've come up with some fairly ropey titles, but I think this one is definitely the naffest of the naff. I thank you.
I did "The Stand" in Glasgow last night. It went very well. Nice to bounce back after last week's disappointing inaugural (and likely last) "Toecurler Comedy Nite" in South Queensferry.
I did a new piece about recently getting the sack as an assistant in an Old Peoples Home. This was because, to alleviate boredom, I devised a game of "Human Snakes and Ladders" involving old ladies on wheelchairs in colour coded cardigans (to represent the counters).
The board was made out in chalk. Landing on a ladder was then followed by the old lady/counter going up an appropriate stairmaster, and landing on a snake was followed by the old lady/counter being shoved down a refuse chute, and so on...
I'm pleased to report that it went down very well, even though it was far from honed...so that's good. A little victory. I only did about half the material I'd intended to do in the timeslot. This is also good. It means I'm not garbling as quickly as I have done in the past.
There were a couple of new guys taking the plunge for the first time. You tend to forget how terrifying that first performance is, but seeing the look of apprehension in their faces brought it all back to me.
The compere introduced the first guy. He then didn't appear, and the compere had to go onstage again and re-introduce him. I'm not sure what was going on backstage, but it certainly added to the tension. One of the new guys was good, the other wasn't. But such is life...
What a stunning performance from George Galloway yesterday at the US Senate hearing. In the run up to his appearance, I figured that the Senate boys would booby trap the hearing in such a way that GG wouldn't be given a license to spout on uninterruptedly about all things Iraq. I was wrong. They gave him an open platform to deliver some home truths. Michael Moore must have experienced a mixture of elation and jealousy. He could never have come up with such an impromptu critique of US foreign policy.
GG is confusing. There's a whole load of reasons to dislike him and his policies, but you can't deny he's a consummate orator and knows his stuff.
(I have the same problem trying to get an overall stance on the great Tony Benn)
The US Senate has the atmosphere of A Gentlemen's Club in which everthing is settled politely in hushed tones. Not yesterday. Pow!

16/05/05 Something To Crow About

I was playing golf at Duddingston Golf Club with Ralph, Mike and Andy when we witnessed a curious crow-related spectacle.
A big bruiser of a crow was pecking aggressively away at the prone body of a smaller crow in an apparent joint act of murder and cannibalism. Two magpies were excitedly prancing about in the background obviously anticipating sampling some Crow intestines for their tea.
Disturbed by the approach of 4 golfers (as most sentient species would be), the Big Crow and his Magpie backing singers flew off to a nearby tree.
We were then surprised to see the smaller Crow shrug off it's role as the gala banquet of the evening and stand up. It stood there for a couple of minutes with something of a perturbed expression, before flying off. This was all very strange, as it had looked deader than a very dead thing on initial inspection.
We remarked on how cruel nature is, how "it's a jungle out there" etc etc I then went up to play my second shot, after a rather stunning drive (even if I say so myself), and made a complete arse of it...sclaffing it into the adjacent rough. I had obviously been deeply affected by this savage display.
Thankfully I played better after that.
The moral of the story is, obviously, if you inadvertently find yourself being being pecked agressively and eaten alive by a large Crow, then choose a Golf Course as the appropriate venue. This may lead to you getting rescued by nature's common aversion to approaching golfers, and thus scaring your attacker away, and you may live to fight another day.
Myself and Andy lost a closely fought contest to Ralph and Mike.
Charlene fell off her seat in the bar, and I bought an extremely dodgy fish supper on my way home. It was that kind of day....
I ate some of it, then gave the rest to some watching Crows.

15/05/05 Phew What A Scorcher

I have a theory that the lost Aztec tribes got a bit pissed off with the Spanish Conquistadors, and decided to jump in their boats and make the arduous trip to Scotland to re-settle.
If I can have my theory accepted by Historial experts, this might be regarded as the greatest historical breakthrough ever, and be regarded as the theory which turned conventional wisdom on it's head and then performing a double somersault, and a triple salko as popularised by the leading British figure skater Robin Cousins.
Aztecs were noted for worshipping the Sun. The Sun newspaper sells a lot of copies in Scotland, but that is not what I mean here.
When the sun shines in Scotland, our Scottish genes command us to go to a place of drinking, (as early in the day as possible), remove clothes to an acceptable minimum, drink continuously for 10 hours, get badly sunburnt, pick up a Chinese Carry Out on the way home, then slump into an armchair watching TV, and doze off.
Apparently, this is exactly what the original Aztec tribe used to do, (as interpreted by their surviving murals). Thankfully they had more sunny days than we do here, so didn't get quite as badly sunburnt as the modern Scots/Aztecs, since they were more used to regular sun sessions.
Instead of sacrificing a virgin in a religious ceremony, the new Aztec/Scots go for the ritual murder of a wide-oh in a bar who has allegendly been looking at a member of the local tribe "in a funny way", and would therefore be sacrificed to appease the great Sun god.

14/05/05 Tourettes & Pizza

I was shocked to discover that the dress code for The Edinburgh Samba School's gig had been changed from maroon trousers to white trousers. This was an agonisingly late decision, and threw my preparations into complete turmoil. I didn't have white trousers and ended up compromising wearing light canvas trousers.
However this compromise was greeted with scorn and ridicule by the assembled samba players. I should have stayed with maroon, as a couple of other "free spirits" had turned up in maroon in spite of the issued advice from the samba high command.
This may seem a trivial matter to the discerning blog reader. You'd be mistaken. Wars have begun, people have died over this issue.
Anyway, I was making a rare appearance by playing with them to mark the opening of a new branch of "Papa John's Pizza". We were getting good money for this as well as being able to eat an unlimited amount of the said pizza.
I tinkled away of a selection of hand instruments and bantered cheerily with the passing members of the great British public. Unfortunately we had to play in the shade and were denied a clear sunbathing opportunity.
We did have one complaint from a grumpy elderly lady who lived nearby. We were instructed to move round the corner, and as she walked away she turned and gave us a pithy parting shot..."That's not even music, anyway!" Ouch!
Having consumed a few pints that eveing in the Cambridge Bar, I was alarmed to hear another reported occurrence of my "Nocturnal Tourettes Syndrome".
This first came to light at Mitch's New Year Party when I crashed out on his settee. Apparently I was scaring the children by shouting loudly "F**** Off You C**t", and other such cheery homilies, as I slept. Weird.
I was at it again on Saturday night, allegedly sounding like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"! I'm honestly bemused as to why I've started doing this, and will perhaps engage the services of a doctor specialising in "advanced loonies".
If I'd been doing this 300 years ago, I would by now have likely become a human flame grilled burger (in a very public setting).

13/05/05 It's A Kind Of Magic

Nursing a rather nasty hangover, I remembered that I'd committed to doing a spot of "magic" (I use the term very loosely), at a party in South Queensferry which had been organised as a welcome to Linda who was across from Germany.
It was great to see Linda and her kids. She sang a few haunting traditional songs, and probably edged out the crass magician in the clapometer ratings.
We had a resident electronic organist playing throughout the evening. His piece of resistance was an epic version of the "Duelling Banjos" theme from the film "Deliverance". I've never heard anything like it in me life!
I managed to mesmerise a packed audience with my legendary disappearing handkerchief trick, (noted for not appearing on Channel 4's recent "100 Greatest Magic Tricks"). I then followed this up by magicking a card (chosen by a randomly selected member of the audience) out of the pack onstage and into Max's top pocket as he sat in the audience. I managed to locate the card by waving about a magic wand and using it as a detector to lead me to the location of the magicked card.
A couple of the kids there spent a few minutes trying to dismantle the magic wand as they were convinced there was some kind of homing device located in it.
I explained to them at length that there wasn't, and that they had witnessed magic in it's purest form, and that there was no rational explanation available regarding what they had been privileged to witness. I just couldn't convince them that there wasn't some kind of obvious trick going on here. They just weren't having it. Well I don't know, kids these days, really!
We nicked back into town and had a couple of late pints at the slightly bizarre Argus Hotel bar in Edinburgh. They have a big overhead fan on the ceiling which has the curious effect of pushing the cigarette smoke back down amongst the assembled drinkers. Very clever. Also, the central heating is set to the "Phew, I'm about to pass out with heat exhaustion" setting.
I don't complain though, as the hotel is 50m away from the front door of my flat. Furthermore it was my choice to go there. On the plus side, you can always get a seat there (quelle surprise), and you can hear people talking (usually a positive).

12/05/05 Toecurler Comedy Night

Well, I thought I'd pulled out all the stops.
I'd advertised in The List, The Queensferry Gazette (including a feature article), The Guardian, Radio Forth, s1Play.Com, Chortle, put posters in all the bars in South Queensferry, supermarkets, shops even offered the staff at Agilent (South Queensferry's biggest employer) a large discount....
And on the night only 6 resident Queensfery people who I didn't know showed up!
The rest of the audience were family and friends whom I'd threatened with extreme violence should they choose not to attend this prestigious event.
The Edinburgh Samba School were in attendance and rocked the sleepy High St of South Queensferry before the gig and played a cracking set during the comedy itself.
They also added 10 to the audience, completing an all round valuable contribution to the evening. As George Galloway might say, "TESS, I salute your courage, your indefatigabilty!".
As I often said, "If someone stopped me in the street and said "Variety is dead!", I'd punch them right on the nose".
It was a bit of a shame that the atmosphere was very flat. It was a big cavernous hall and any comedy night really needs a tightly packed crowd of people to really work. I thought all the acts did ok in difficult circumstances.
I headed back into town and did some late night beer analysis.
I reckon I lost £200 on the comedy night. I blame South Queensferry. I am toying with the idea of flying an aeroplane into the town hall to wreak my revenge. Not very original I know.
Failing that I might even write a sarcastic letter to the Queensferry Gazette thanking the residents of Queensferry for their support of my comedy venture and jokingly hope that there's not an earthquake on Ferry Fair day.
Not that I'm bitter.... :-)
Anyway it was nice to see my old muckers Ralph, Jamie and Joe. Jamie and Joe were telling an amusing anecdote about a night out in Dunfermline (yes, Dunfermline...yes, that place in Fife...the party capital of Scotland! ....what? ....oh...). The trouble was they were laughing so hard telling this tale that I couldn't understand what the story was. It sounded hilarious though. I had to leave before the end of it to drive Reg and Tony into town, so I'll have to revisit this madcap tale of adventure in Fife (yes, Fife! really...)
It also turns out that Margaret, who was also there, lives in the flat below Ralph, and they didn't know they both knew me. And Margaret's flat has been flooded twice on account of Ralph's girlfriend leaving the bath running. It's a small world!
Financially yesterday was saved by me realising a vast profit on my Manchester United shares as I sold them in the afternoon.
If Malcolm Glazer wasn't so goddamn ugly I'd give him a good snog. His timing was impeccable and managed to install a flippant attitude to my piddling comedy losses.

11/05/05 Turned Out Nice Hasn't it?

I'm still having problems bonding with the builders working on my flat. When I leave the flat and give them a breezy "Hi There!", I am met with an expression commensurate with just having told them that their granny has drowned in a freak yachting accident. I should maybe wear my Rangers top next time, as an obvious symbol of football allegiance generally provokes comment from your average Scottish male.
This could be a risky strategy though. If they are Celtic fans they might substitute strawberry blancmange for cement in the main foundations of my flat.
I had a game of tennis in the afternoon and played like a granny who had just been drowned in a freak yachting accident.
Somewhat inadvisedly, I had a pint of Kronenberg after the game and immediately went to play 5-a-side football.
Stephen Hawkings would have been a more valuable player to have on your side. It was possibly my worst performance ever participating in the beautiful game. A day of sporting ignominy of the lowest order.

10/05/05 Ideas

A film "Hoop Dreams" about two up and coming young "Home Counties" based croquet players?
"A fascinating glimpse into the ultra-competitive and glamorous world of semi-professional English Inter-regional croquet."
The film funding would crucially depend on negotiating a lucrative "product placement" contract with "Pimms".
If it comes together it could re-launch the British Film Industry, and Colin Welland might get another chance to say "The British are coming...!" at the Oscars Ceremony.
Just an idea anyway...

I've just been reading the blog of a "Victorian Gentleman" and very interesting it is too...
http://www.opendiary.com/entrylist.asp?authorcode=D165033

Are you doing anything special tomorrow night?
Why not come along to the inaugural "Toecurler Comedy Nite" at the Rosebery Hall in South Queensferry?
It really does promise to be an exceptionally entertaining evening, featuring the colossal comedic talents of Vladimir McTavish, Reg Anderson, Tony Wilkes & Derek Lightfoot with a special guest appearance by the much esteemed "Edinburgh Samba School", and compered by yours truly.

09/05/05 The Natives Are Restless

There's unrest brewing down Gorgie way, as the Jam Tarts (aka "Heart of Midlothian Football Club") have parted company with Robbo (aka John Robertson : The Hammer of the Hibees aka "Hibernian Football Club").
I can't feel too sorry for him though. Won't he get a big juicy pay-off to compensate him for the severance of his contract?
I'd love that!
He'll get another job fairly smartish anyway. He seems a likeable sort and has had a fairly decent season with the Jambos.
It doesn't tend to happen in IT contracts though. Somewhat annoyingly, the employer generally insists that you have to work the agreed FULL term of your contract, and will only get paid for the hours you have ACTUALLY worked.
This is but a small step up from organised slavery and degrades all those who participate in this repressive system.
I'd much prefer it if a new Chief Executive joined the company half way through my contract and decided he wanted to bring his own man in, and paid me off.
I'd be ecstatic.
Anyway if the Lithuanian guy who is taking over Hearts wants his own man in, well that's his perogative. He is contributing a few squillion quid to the Hearts coffers (allegedly).
The Edinburgh Evening News apparently thinks it's all Chris Robinson's fault (aka The Pieman). This is a bit unfair, as there were 6 anti-Robertsons on the board, but the paper couldn't resist some more cheap tabloidesque potshots at The Pieman.
Maybe the Robinsons just have a traditional dislike of the quite-similar-sounding Robertsons?
Which came first? The Barley Water or the Raspberry Jam?

08/05/05 This Sporting Life

Continuing the trend of sporting overkill, I played in a golf competition today, carding a rather disappointing 87.
What with the football yesterday, I walked round the course in the style of The Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. Such was the quality of my golf, I would probably have scored just as well if I'd used a big axe to hit the ball with.
I was playing with 2 people I hadn't met before, having just signed up on a tee-off sheet.
I didn't really know anything more about them at the end of the match as few words were spoken. I'm usually a bit of a blabber, but there wasn't any rapphort going on there at all. It doesn't really bother me, as sometimes I can't be arsed.
It was as if these 2 guys had reached a point in their lives where they'd stopped recruiting new friends, feeling they'd reached a point where they had a comfortable social circle which didn't require topping up.
So rather than having to plough through the necessary "getting-to-know-you" small talk again, they've decided to pull up their social drawbridges.
But as I say, I didn't really mind as I was knackered anyway.
I was shocked to discover that the poster for my upcoming comedy promotion on THURSDAY 12TH MAY at the ROSEBERY HALL in SOUTH QUEENSFERRY (SHOW STARTS 7.15PM), had been removed from the wall!
Somebody obviously felt it was inappropriate advertising in the clubhouse.
Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise....
Do I really want golfers to come along to the show on Thursday? Am I crazy?

07/05/05 Can't Stand Up

I had my 3rd game of football in 4 days today. A Scottish select were playing against a team of Norwegians across for a boozy weekend.
Predictably Scotland lost, but we put up a stubborn resistance, and I'm sure Berti Vogts would have found some reasonable excuses for our defeat, were he our manager.
Their goalkeeper had played for a semi-pro Norwegian club, and had apparently played against AS Roma. He had the biggest hands I've ever seen in my life. They were like these big foam hands that wacky people tend to wear at football matches and in the "Gladiators" studio audience.
I could hardly walk after the game, and I think my knees are desperately trying to tell me something. I might have to cancel my River Dance appearances, or at the very least miss out on the Matinees.
At night I did my first stand-up for a month at the "Four Ways Bar" in Airdrie.
It wasn't my finest hour, but I got fairly respectable laughs throughout. Nothing to write home about though.
I tried a Dalek routine that myself and Dave Reilly had come up with while bantering before the recent Karl Heinz Stockhausen show.
It concerned the predeliction of the Dalek to reach a sexual climax prematurely, thus explaining the reason why there was only one left.
Unfortunately, it bombed :-)....However, I blame my rather poor delivery, not the material itself, and I will give it another couple of run outs before making a final judgement.
It's amazing how quickly you lose your timing. It's just been a 4 week gap, but I was all over the place, getting the sequences of material wrong, missing bits out.
I reckon you need to do at least a gig a week to keep everything ticking over.

06/05/05 "We Win"

ok, so Labour win an unprecedented 3rd Term. It's all very low key though. It's as if people secretly crave another repressive right-wing Tory Government, so that we can all have another big party when we get rid of them. Just like we did in 1997.
There's such bollocks talked about Tony Blair being a "lame duck" PM because he only has a majority of 66.
Labour in the 70s and 80s would have been delirious to be in that position.
Well anyway, I quaffed a few glasses of wine to celebrate.
I crashed out fairly early as the exit polls seemed to be uncannily accurate.
There's really only about 1 second of tension in the whole night. That being the time between the first Big Ben bong at ten o'clock, and a lesser spotted Dimbleby announcing the exit poll findings.
I was sorry I'd missed George Galloway. That seemed the only moment of genuine drama.
He's full of shit but I respect his indefatigability, that's for sure.
PM Question Time will be more interesting in the upcoming session.
I spent the day trying to write material for the comedy night I'm promoting and compering next week in South Queensferry.
I'm not going to do my usual material, but intend to banter on all things local.
I think that's a safer option as my weird stuff will probably bomb.
I've no idea what ages/background the audience will be (assuming there is one), so best just to do the cheeky chappy piss taker persona.
I've booked a samba band to play outside the venue before the doors open, and also do a 10 minute spot during the show.
It'll be good to mix things up a little.
I might play my congas with the samba band. Or will that me look somewhat wanky and a pathetic show-off? hmmm...

05/05/05 Great Parlour Games of the 20th Century

interesting date today.
The previous date in this sequence would have been 4th April 2004.
For a moment I thought that it was 1904. That would have made this first paragraph more interesting. Never mind.
Great Parlour Games of the 20th Century
No. 23 "Goodnight John Boy!"
Props ; A rolled up newspaper (preferably a chunky broadsheet)
The best environment for this game to prosper is in a house after an evening of hearty drinking at a local hostelry, involving ideally 10-12 participants.
Each participant in the game assumes a character name from the much loved, groundbreaking show "The Waltons".
The contestants sit in a circle.
A volunteer is selected to initially stand up and go in the middle, wielding the rolled up newspaper.
He says "good night" to any character in the circle, eg "Goodnight Mary Ellen".
The contestant who has adopted the monicker "Mary Ellen" must say goodnight to another selected Walton's character. eg "Good Night Wreckless"
Any hesitation can be seized upon by the person in the middle, and they are at liberty to thwack "Mary Ellen" over the head with the newspaper if they hit her before she utters the next "Good night..."
Furthermore, any character who has been said "Good Night" to, cannot immediately say "Goodnight" to the character who has just said "Good Nght" to them, nor can they ever say "Good Night" to the person in the middle.
Any offenders are summarily thwacked over the head and then become the person in the middle.
With the addition of liberal amounts of alcohol into the equation, reaction times are shot to pieces and the game becomes a festival of slapstick violence.
Obviously, this was in the days before computer games...

04/05/05 May The Fourth Be With You!

Ha Ha...I couldn't resist that crap old joke...!

"In the end, I will remember not the words of my enemies, but the silence of my friends", Martin Luther King

This quote has no particular relevance to any recent event that has befallen myself. I just like it. Very thought provoking. Well, it certainly provoked my thought in a fairly provocative kind of way.

Linking to an unrelated non-sequitur, I remember an anecdote from the film made about Jerry Seinfeld, "Comedian", where he's talking to a young up-and-coming comic, who worries about the career progression his non-comedy peers have accomplished, and wonders whether he has made the right vocational choice?
Apparently, once upon a time, The Glen Miller Orchestra were making their way to a concert via a plane. They couldn't get to the airport due to snow, and were forced to land in a field, and literally march their way to the hall a few miles away.
Along the way, they came across a little cottage, and peeked in the windows to see a nice family happily sitting down to a huge meal in front of a roaring log fire.
This was in stark contrast to them in their muddied uniforms they wore as they continued their frozen march.
One band member looked at another and asked, "How can they live like that?"

Anyway, I live in constant fear of not being misunderstood...so there.

I got offered a gig this Saturday in Airdrie (7/5). Hopefully this will be better than the disastrous show I appeared in at The Call Centre in Airdrie.
A review will follow.

03/05/05 It was never a goal anyway...!

Oh dear...Liverpool were not supposed to beat Chelsea in the Champs league semi-final on Tuesday night.
This has made a large dent in my recent splendid run of form on my Betfair.com football betting system. D'oh!
In spite of all that, I'm happy to see Liverpool in the final as I've always liked them, and the all-conquering team of the 70s and 80s is still my favourite ever.
But the bastards cost me a lot of cash.
I'll have to go back to selling matches on Coates Gardens and cancel the crate of Chateau Neuf du Pape forthwith.
More scaffolding has gone up at the front of my flat (in front of the existing scaffolding).
Just about all the light getting into my basment flat has been blocked off. It's now like living in Hitler's bunker. Funnily enough, I was thinking of going to Poland for a holiday. I must stop thumping my desk every time I try to make a point when I'm speaking to someone on the phone.

02/05/05 Poster

It's amazing how long you can faff about trying to create a basic A4 size poster for an upcoming new comedy night.
I still think it looks pretty crap, but it'll have to do.
I'm not entirely convinced that my idea to promote a gig in South Queensferry is a good one yet. And deciding to compere it myself is a slightly risky venture as well, as it's unknown territory for me.
But I want to have a go.
I think Donald Campbell said that just before he made his water speed world record attempt in the Lake District.
Anyway, the way I see it, if you are hellbent on making a fool of yourself and experiencing total humiliation in public, it's best to do it in your home town in front of people you've known all your life. People who will never let you forget the unmitigated awfulness of your compering debut, and will bring it up endlessly in future conversations, effortlessly psychologically scarring you.
I can't wait.
I put a few posters up in South Queensferry. I found the reactions of bar managers and shop asistants occasionally very funny when I asked them if I could put up a poster. It was a reaction I'd expect if I came in asking them if they were interested in some black market "weapons grade" plutonium or some cheap heroin.
They seemed very suspicious of my motives, and carefully read through my poster at least a couple of times before finally deciding that it was deemed "window-worthy" (or not).
I felt like kneeling down, clutching a flat cap and exclaiming emotionally in a poor cockney accent... "Oh Thank You, guv...thank you, guv...you're a proper gent..and that's the gawd honest truth...!"
On reflection, I decided not to do this.
This is South Queensferry we're talking about here!
I also took a calculated risk and put a comedy poster in the Clubhouse of my local Golf club.
This is risky, and I half expect a SWAT team to kick down my door, wielding uzis,
(composed of Golf Club Committee Members), and whisk me away for interrogation on suspicion of displaying inappropriate advertising on the Clubhouse notice board.
I might never be seen again....
They might even cut my handicap...
They have the power to generate fear!

01/05/05 It's all Nick Hornby's fault...

So anyway, last night Channel 4 had a 4 hour prime time slot for the "Most Watched TV Programmes" (decade by decade).
This is definitely the worst example of a deceased horse receiving brutal corporal punishment I've ever seen.
How many List themes are there left?
"Top 100 Serial Killers"
"Top 100 Open University Lectures"
"Top 100 Amusing Anecdotes By B-List Celebrities"
"Top 100 Numbers Between 1 and 100"
"Top 100 TV Lists Programmes"
"Top 100 Top 100 TV Lists Programmes"
"Top 100 Top 100 Top 100 TV Lists Programmes"
"Top 100 Russian Dolls Collections"
"Top 100 Top 100 Russian Dolls Collections" yeah yeah yeah, you can say where I'm going with all this.
It has to stop.
Mass burnings of Nick Hornby's "Hi-Fidelity" should take place on hilltops throughout the land as we try to end the scourge of obsessive list making.
Anyone overheard volunteering their "Top 5" of anything, in public, should be set upon immediately and bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument.
This may seem an extreme measure, but has to be seen as a proportionate response to the severity of the current situation.
We must act.
It isn't too late to stop this deadly scourge.

30/04/05 In The Dark

The Karl Heinz Stockhausen gig was a very curious experience. I have to confess to my finger being a considerable distance away from "the pulse" with regards to this particular music genre.
He's an avuncular 70 something German. He came on stage did a brief introduction, going on to explain the acoustic difficulties he had strived to overcome at the venue, (his sound is "octophonic").
Then the lights go off completely and he goes off to control events from his mixing desk.
The first piece didn't quite do it for me. I just felt like I was stuck inside a Space Invaders machine. I wasn't sure whether the piece was meant to have a contemporary relevance, or whether we were supposed to admire how ahead of his time the Composer was, in his innovative approach to electronic music, (it was composed in 1958).
The second piece after the interval was a lot longer (69 minutes), but much more accessible. There was more development of a theme with a bigger more symphonic sound.
I found it relaxing just shutting my eyes in the darkness and letting it all wash over me.
Of course, being the Queen's Hall, it was again suffocatingly hot, and I had severe numb bum syndrome from sitting on the ingeniously uncomfortably designed pews.
I'd say I enjoyed it overall though. 6.5/10.
I got a lift back from Dave. I was grateful for the lift, but became irritated at Dave's habit of ignoring the area designated for cycles at traffic lights, and driving right onto it.
This is just a token gesture by the Council to make Edinburgh's roads more "cycle friendly", as is their rather half hearted attempt to introduce the odd cycle lane here and there.
Dave justifies this slightly fascist tendency by citing the bad behaviour of cyclists ie going through red lights, cycling on the pavements, weaving in and out of lanes etc etc
This undoubtedly is a valid criticism of SOME cyclists' behaviour, but it is hardly fair to apply it to the whole of the cycling population.
If this logic were applied to car drivers by cyclists, they could be all categorised as anti-social, polluting, child killing (the UK has the highest rate of child mortality due to car accidents, in Europe), speeding, aggressive fuckwits.