It has been a very popular time for resurrections. First, at Easter, Jesus came back as a zombie. An all loving, forgiving zombie, apparently. And every year we celebrate, larding it up – but no-one ever spots him.

I do wonder if he’s maybe come back and the religious leaders know it but they’re keeping schtum because he’s come back as a complete dick head and they’re embarrassed. I bet that’s it, I bet he’s back but he’s Samantha Brick and they (the Pope and that) just can’t be bothered explaining what went wrong.

Most likely in the after life Jesus had some cracking therapy, about the crucifixi-trauma, Dad-issues etc. etc. but because it was, well millennia probably, of basic confidence rebuilding – it went way too far. And he’s come back fancying himself.

Not a ludicrous theory. I thought my car the weasel was dying but with the help of an entirely new exhaust he’s back to life!

I could tell he was ill because over the past few months his engine had gone from sounding like a massive fat old lion with asthma, snoring… to more recently making a noise that I can only really describe as loads of metal, screaming.

It turned all he needed was entirely new insides, who knew. Now he purrs like an ancient, toothless smoker, but a charming one. One whose not so noisily, at least, teetering on the edge of his mortal ignition system coil.

Now that I’ve drawn this tenuous connection, what if that’s it? What if my car, the weasel, is Jesus?! WHAT IF I’VE BEEN DRIVING JESUS?! It comes back from the dead often, it forgives my coasting, I’m irrationally committed to it, it has followers (if there’s heavy traffic), it loves everyone (I imagine), its well old and it’s purple.

Pretty solid theorizing (oxymoron included) there, who said I was shit at science? Hmm?

If you care about anything please may you come to a preview of my new show BRAVE NEW WORD on 30^th April in Camden? It’s only £2. Click on the title.

Greetings plum-brains,

Here are some purposefully mistimed reviews of things I haven’t finished yet so you should probably take no notice of, so there.

Books:

I’m over half way through Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series which is proving excellent.

I love the idea of psychohistory leading to excellent predictions of the future – without spoiling there’s this bloke in it right called Hari Seldon and he’s like a lovable cross between Eric Hobsbawm, Brian Cox and Derek Acorah. There are loads of planets and one is called Terminus which makes me think of abortions but it has nothing to do with that. Every chapter jumps hundreds of years into the future from the next, so you have to keep meeting whole new sets of characters and forgetting the ones you’d just learnt to care about, which made me wonder if Asimov was brought up in care but he wasn’t. There’s a mule in it but no donkeys and considering its 1950s science fiction, much like Wyndam, Asimov wasn’t too wussy to have a strong female protagonist. Well, by the second book. Give it a bash – but you never know, the ending might be cackhouse. So reading it now on my recommendation would be nothing short of attractively reckless.

Comedy:

Also not over by a long way is Terry Alderton’s brilliant tour – I’m having the honour of supporting him on it. He is a walking masterclass in innovative and inane funniness and a lovely, supportive man to boot. Do see it while you can. It’s far less risky than the aforementioned books.

Food:

I’m halfway through a beef in black bean sauce from M&S and it is being fine. Not fine as is ‘fine dining’ – more as in

“You seem a bit pissed off with me, are you annoyed that I forgot your birthday?”

“No. It’s fine”

But who knows, it could all come together at the end.

That’ll do for now, wishing you a merry rest of March please.

x

P.S. Only just still online (until end of Weds) is my bit of stand up I done on Stephen K Amos’ Radio 4 show – you can juuuust still listen to it by clicking HERE

Also my next preview (another thing that’s not ready) that’s cheaper than 2 things from the 99p shop, with the mighty Paul F Taylor too is APRIL 30^th, CAMDEN HEAD, CAMDEN (£2) (8pm start) (prefer having three to two things in brackets in a row) Click on all that for tickets.

Weros are not, surprisingly, wet Aeros, but women heroes. Here are some tales of heroic women whom I love…

*contains stories I may have relayed before but no-one reads all my blogs so I think we’re safe

               I was once in a giant windowed café with a few friends, Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd as I recall – it was around lunchtime and pretty busy, when a giant pigeon accidentally swooped in. It instantly realised its mistake and went mental with panic, flapping and soaring and nutting about the whole place, understandably because the human contingent was even more aflutter. There were screams and screeches and people standing up and backing into walls because suddenly people were close to a bird (admittedly I pretty riddled, fugly bird) – but I’ve never experienced noisy public hysteria like it, it was like a terrorist had come in! Almost everyone in the place went totally ape-shit. Then Pascoe, with the serene efficiency of an Avian Mary Poppins, seemed to almost float towards the startled and startling pigeon as if it were just a mewing baby. She wrapped it gently in her coat, and carried it outside to let it go into the air. In an instant it was over and everyone sat back down, too stunned to clap or even say thank you. But it was fucking amazing, they should’ve clapped and said thank you.

               I specifically recall another two heroic actions from my Mum. Once when I was but an urchin she rescued me from drowning and once, when I was an adult, she rescued me from a lecherous, violent redneck.

               I was about seven and I’d gone to the beach with my Dad, Mum was working as a nurse. She came down though for the few hours break she got in her long split-shift. I was in the sea when she got there, and on seeing her I thought I’d show off by swimming out as far as I could. Twat. I got stuck in a swirling current around a break-water. As I recall it now, I don’t think I was drowning so much as looking for a bit of extra attention, I do recall being a bit scared, but drowning scared. What a twat. Anyway, without even having a chance to take her nurse’s uniform off, she’d waded right in and plucked me to safety. Then she had to go home and change for the rest of her break, and not have any beach fun. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

               Then, well into my twenties, Mum and I went to the Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit my uncle. How do I put this? Some of my uncle’s friends are, um, a little bit, um, ‘hills have eyes’. Best example, one night, one of them decided to have a conversation with my Mum about my sister, then 9, who has cerebal palsy and is in a wheelchair (she’s a hero too but mainly for finding ways to rude me so funnily) – and his comments included “if I saw your little girl, I would just cry” – Mum said “Why? She’s really happy” (legend) and out of nowhere the guy said “I would never shoot a little girl”.

WTF!!!! Mum came running over to me and said “things have gone too weird”. Hahaaa. But earlier, she’d done another wonderful save on me. A brick-shit-house of a three-toothed racist  had been attempting to woo me, with talk of sharks and cars etc. I had no idea where Mum was at the time. Then just as he was saying “I wanna take you out somewhere, I could take you shooting, you like guns?”… like a magical Chaperone-In-A-Box my Mum popped up inbetween us and right in his face said very politely but very firmly “No Thank You” and led me away.

Amazing.

Another amazing woman is an old teacher of mine, Viv Guilfoyle, who we affectionately nicknamed Mama G. She was an excellent teacher, as a personality it seemed very natural that she would be a great teacher but she clearly put everything into it, work-wise, as well.  She taught me philosophy, religion and ethics and was my form tutor for many years. She opened my mind and without doubt made me grow up, she made me more clever, more wise and more kind – what more could you want from a teacher?! We stayed in touch after I left school and became friends. Shortly after I left she had serious heart problems, which eventually culminated in a massive stroke. She somehow survived it. Over the last, what, ten years now it has meant the end of her life as she knew it, forcing huge changes in her career, her family, her mobility, everything. But she has come through it, incredibly, and has a reinvented life now. The strength that must have taken and must still take is truly heroic. She’s written a very funny, very moving book about it, which I was honoured to have written the foreword for – you can buy it by clicking HERE.

…

And if you fancy seeing two more women, me and the lovely Isy Suttie flounce our new comedic wears for a meagre £3 on 22^nd March, come to the Camden Head  – it’s called Start of Something, just click anywhere on this paragraph for tickets. 

xxx

Originally a ‘jest’ was simply a ‘notable exploit’, you see…

I did a gig where a girl heckled that she hadn’t expected me to know what an oxymoron was. “Why?” I cautiously ventured… “Because you’re a comedian”

Now, I’ve had a lot of things assumed about me because I’m a comedian: that I’m an egomaniac; a depressive; a gay; a man… but never that I was unintelligent?!

“Why?” I asked again – “From my experience”, she explained. “That’s sad”, I said, defensive arguments about how much brain-work goes into comedy aside  – “I’d like to think no-one was assumed to be intellectually feeble because of what job they did”.

Later I asked what she did – hairdresser.

_

I did a gig where after every punch line you had to wait a good few minutes while all of the tiny audience chatted to each other about what you’d said and made sure each other all understood it, then they laughed. It sounds awful but it was actually brilliant and they were lovely, probably too lovely. Then the cherry on the odd-cake that was that evening, at the end the landlady gave us each two lavender bath bombs in the shape of massive jelly babies, which she’d made.

I love comedy so hard.

_

I MC’d a gig where an act was saying that him and his partner “were lying there, cuddling” and a young lady heckled “URGH!”

I’ve checked the urban dictionary and it hasn’t taken on some new horrible meaning to do with candles or hamsters, it definitely still means cuddling – they rather beautifully define it as something men love doing with their partners if their friends aren’t there. Ha.

_

I went with my family to see The Snow Queen in Kingston’s lovely Rose Theatre and during the best bit, a really beautiful, serene violin solo and child screamed incredulously “WHAT IS SHE DOING?!”

The other highlight: what with the fake snow all on the stage a few of the more intrepid urchins in the bean-bagged front row decided to stand up and lean onto the stage to give that papery snow a bit of a handy shuffle around. Staffed only by volunteers, a silver haired, much older lady, had to slither up through the crowd on her hands and knees and pluck them from the stage like vermin. I really enjoyed watching that bit.

_

I met a lovely old tramp in a pub who told me (I checked this is what he said, and he repeated it thrice, so it’s definitely what he said) “when I first moved here in 73’, the Queen’s trumpet exploded”

I’m feeling pretty Chirstmassy and lovely, must be something pleasant in the hale that keeps catching me right in the eyes with its brief but invigorating performances. When we talk of snow, we rarely remember to celebrate its softness.

I’m optimistic about the festive patch and all that comes with it this year, but hopefully not unrealistic…

I hope it snows from the evening of the 22^nd to the night of 25^th then there’s a sunny molten morning on 26^th in perfect alignment with my travel plans .

I hope that a robin lands on my arm or (stationary) car and chirrups at me on Christmas day, and I fully believe it to be Jesus’ ghost telling me he’s not coming back because he’s grounded for farting during one of his Dad’s rants, but don’t worry he’s going to let those murders I did as a child (5 x woodlice) go and I should please stop worrying about it now.

I hope that I trip over in some thorny leaves, superficially scratching my face and hands and karmic wind blows a few of those leaves aside to reveal a mass of cash, enough for me to move into my own lovely flat and buy an ipad and boggle and my boyfriend a Stars Wars lego advent calendar.

I hope that we have peace on Mars, by all (fictional) accounts they do seem the most war-riddled.

I hope that I’m never required to operate a crane, I just watched someone do it and it made me feel sick.

Not unreasonable seasonal dreams I think you’ll agree. Digits entwined.

Despite my general cheer, a few people have irked me, but rather than blather on about it here’s an abridged list of the terms of insult best applied to them:

Rat Fetcher. Clip Dropper. Book Dodger. Shoe Shitter. Cold Sharer. Gammy Flip-Flop. Oaf’s Cackle. Alarm Voice. Sour Eyes. Bitter Lips. Word Torturer. Cash Peddler. Mirror Kisser. Fallen Braggard. Adult-titted Toddler’s Brain.

If you want to laugh at my new stuff about etymology and new bits also from the other wonderful component s of Write Club (Sara Pascoe, Lou Sanders and Rachel Stubbings) then shuffle yourself along to this cheap festival of fun tonight:

WRITE CLUB PRESENTS! TIMEOUT RECOMMENDED – CAMDEN HEAD, CAMDEN – 8PM – £3

Gosh I’ve not done a blog on you in ages, I hope you’re not ruded.

I’ll talk to you about the news because I’ve been bathing in it recently because of various projects.

Controversially,  I reckon Berlusconi could get Italy out of this pickle, if he melted himself down and shared himself out as precious golden silicon nuggets.

In my news I sat adjacent to a man on the train this week who vomited into a plastic bag, and between wretches, continued taking bites of his KFC dinner. At one point an unknowing lady sat right next to him, he burped and she shrieked and ran away. I’d bloody LOVE it if they used that for their next ad campaign with the slogan ‘just so morish’.

In ‘not my’ news again, Rebekah Brooks has been given a £1.7 MILLION pay off, chauffeured car and private London office and told to ‘travel the world until it all dies down’ by Murdoch – I wish I’d known that was what happened when you got sacked, I wouldn’t have had to go around in my last job pretending I was sober. Only joking.  This job.

In Russia they’re changing the law so that women will have to listen to their foetus’ heartbeat before they can ask for an abortion. Okay, that’s fine- so long as before they fit gastric belts to the dangerously obese they have them take a deep sniff of some bacon as its cooking first, just to check they really want to stop eating loads.

In America parents have been buying lollies off the internet infected with chicken pox to give to their children, because they don’t trust vaccines. What will they do if they don’t trust seatbelts to protect their children in cars? Tie them to the bumper by their hair?

I like Frankie Cocozza’s badge there look, he’s an avid supporter of the opium trade.

And then there’s Liz Jones. I haven’t written anything funny about her though because I don’t want to perpetuate the myth that female comedians all talk about twats.

Would you like to come and see me do all new stuff about etymology for £2 on Monday? With James Acaster, Rachel Stubbings and Robin & Partridge? Yes, click HERE … oh you’re busy? Well don’t miss House of Mirth on 29th then winners. Tickets left if you click HERE

xx

Sounds pretty doesn’t it? It’s the toponymy of Croydon.

I’ve ‘been to Croydon’ strangley frequently in the last fortnight, having gigs either right in it or in one village or another that dangles from its obscene skirt. Such were the adventures I’ve had that ‘been to Croydon’ is my new euphamism for having had a joyeously weird time.

One was last night for a gig in a village hall, which felt more like playing the part of a ‘stand up’ in a post-watershed special Vicar of Dibley than being in any sort of comedy club. They were lovely people but they’d never heard of Jim Broadbent. I’m mainly pleased that I didn’t fall off the shallow but two metre high stage. Gigging for a mature, c(C)onservative audience, the majority of whom have never seen comedy before, is precarious enough as is.

The night was eventually made comical, however, in the interval, when an ambassador for the seemingly stuffy crowd came backstage to tell us there hadn’t been “anyway near enough filth.” Right. Good. Right. Lesson learnt, don’t even judge a bible by it’s cover.

Another trip was for ‘my first Jongleurs’, in the centre of Croydon. It got off to a clever start when having parked, walked to the High St and asked a nearby bar doorman “Whereabouts is Jongleurs do you know please? It’s on the High St here somewhere” and he said “Oh yeah, Jongleurs, it’s in Covent Garden”.

Yeah not that one you dick.

Then to the gig, where again my preconceptions were wrong – the audience weren’t violent at all. Andrew Bird was properly excellent, and gave a wee masterclass. I enjoyed myself playing the gig too, there will be gigs where you can use long words, and there will be gigs where you can’t use words longer than ‘dog’- it’s all comedy, and it’s all there to be learnt from and funned at.

A third trip was to another out-frill, slightly further away than Croydon but not much, this time in a room above a pub- with some acts I was friends with. So I was well looking forward to it. It turned out to be one of those twilight zones where it looked like the quaintest village pub I’d ever beheld but then it turned out the front row were proudly fresh out of court for assault, not for the first time and most people there had mainly come out either to send a flurry of lame insults at someone with a microphone or with the express intention of having a shit time. Oh well. Again, I still enjoyed it. Ages before I started stand up I wrote a string of ‘heckle-put-downs’ in the nonsense fear that it would all be about fending off abusive – thankfully it’s not- or it would be properly crap. But yeah, I rarely get to use those bits and bobs of deflection really, so it was interesting getting to air them. I liked it.

Another weird bit of that gig was the closer, a man notorious on the circuit for displaying a loathsome bitter streak of rudeness and intimidating unprofessionalism towards any comedian newer (not hard) and potentially funnier (not hard) than him. I’d not met him before and he was true to form. Yuck. There’s brilliant a reason though, that he’s so poisonous – because actually comedy is a wonderful, creative, supportive and friendly world and so if you behave like that then it slowly but surely chews your career up and spits it out. And thankfully they’re very rare, those angry, cruel husks.

And in a way, that tiny old fraternity of comedians are a bit like Croydon – we it to remember how lovely everywhere else is.

Right, in Edinburgh 2012 I’m keen on the idea of doing a show called ‘Etymolojoke’ where I will, true to the constituent parts of the word etymology itself, discuss the true meaning of certain words and attempt to do so in a humorous fashion. I figured so few people read my blog that I can do my testing here to see if I can make this work. Haha.

For the first time today I asked strangers which words I should find the origin for? A few popped up quite swiftly so here are my very first, hopefully informed musings.

Thank you to @Hayles_Ellis

Balloon – from the Italian word ‘pallone’ meaning ‘large ball’. It started meaning ‘infalted bag’ as it does now, when the hot-air balloon was invented in 1783, in France, by Yoda

Then thanks to @fki01

Sheer – in the 12^th century it meant exempt, or innocent.

Then in 14^th Century ‘schiere’ came to mean thin

or sparse

which came from Old Norse ‘Skaer’, into Middle English Skir’ meaning bright and clear. Wasn’t until 1580s that it came to mean utter, and steep not until the 1800s.

Sheer has almost too many meanings and I’ve discovered another one, look

http://www.sheerpoetry.co.uk/ having browsed this website, ‘sheer’ in this instance, must mean ‘eye-shittingly dull’.

Animal – comes from the Latin ‘animale’ which meant any living, breathing thing. It was first used to mean brutish humans in the 1580s.

Scientifically all humans are also animals, apparently because humans are not plants. Ah hem… then how do you explain this?

I don’t believe he’s genuinely happy, sorry. Anyway…

Curiosity – comes straight from the Latin ‘curiosus’ which pretty much meant the same as curiosity means now.

Like the Latin ‘cura’ for ‘care’ – which is nifty because the proverb ‘curiosity killed the cat’ started life as ‘care killed the cat’, care in this instance meaning ‘worry’. That was first used in Ben Jonson in his 1598 play, Every Man in His Humour.

Which also explains why cats are such nonchalant, arrogant shits pretending they don’t love me, actually they can’t show me how much they care about me, incase it kills them.

I’ll be Twittering out for more suggestions soon nicely. Woof.

Come to House of Mirth on Tuesday! There’s only a few tickets left! Click anywhere on this for them

I’m so sorry I’ve lazed off blogging so much this summer. I’ve been really busy destroying myself financially to creep an inch further forward in comedying. In the good news, it worked! In the better news, I actually really enjoyed Edinburgh, despite the inevitable tumultuousness. The show got laughed at and I didn’t even cry properly all month.

That was in no small part to the sensible advice, love and support of the some excellent dear ones, especially (by Twitter name) @disingenius @sarapascoe @lousanders and that @rachelstubbings Thank you them. Combined they’re like a Mum to me. Like a Mum that I fancy.

I certainly saw some impressive shows up there because on my first night back my boyfriend tells me that in my sleep I started applauding. Not the half arsed usual dream-state sort either, proper hands above the head, fully enthused clapping.

I’m going to do more and more character things and bobs now as well as standing up, and fittingly I’ve witnessed some excellent behaviour to inform and inspire me over the last few weeks, I’ll share it forthwith:

1) I helped cook a chilli for 30 odd people in France last week, I was talking to Mum about enlisting help (my Step Dad’s called Gary) and she said

“Get Gary in, he’s a massive chopper”

2) I’ve just read H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. It was properly brilliant and I can’t see a sign for Leatherhead or Woking now without getting a fearful shudder. Written 1898, however, meant some beautiful language was employed. He once refers to a piece of farm equipment I’d never heard of before called a ‘cockchafer’. And when one landlady flees her burning house her husband apparently “followed behind her, all the way ejaculating”. This particular one stood out for me though, in describing a man driven to tears with the grief of impending Armageddon…

“He was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman”

3) I overheard someone on a train saying “apart from the homeless people, everyone was happy”

4) I caught an accountant putting caffeinated tea bags in the box for decaf teabags. I asked him why and he explained “we’ve run out of decaf”… as if the box was magic and it was the box that ‘turned’ the bags decaf. And they say accountants are boring, this one’s a part-time wizard.

Not that I’m in a position to take the piss out of any of this. I clap in my sleep.

HOUSE OF MIRTH looks bounteous on Tues 27th September, come aboard.

Edinburgh’s been ever so fun so far! I’m three shows in and I feel slightly spoilt, there are much harder times to come I’m certain. My audiences have been big and lovely, my flat’s lovely, my flatmate’s are lovely, my tech’s lovely, the swimming pool near my house is lovely, all the shows I’ve been to see have been lovely, even bloody our landlady’s lovely (I know).

Basically I’m having a nice time because I’m ignoring any reviews. Ha ha.

Best Highlight So Far…

Being one of Josie’s impromptu backing singers (Josie Long and The Three Stars) alongside Sara Pascoe and Hatty Ashdown in the Horne Section last night- seriously silly fun.

Best Low Light So Far…

Standing on a cold chip in flip flops, it felt like a slug.

Shows I’ve seen so far that you’d be a nugget to miss…

Brett Goldstein Grew Up In A Strip Club, 5.30pm Pleasance Dome

Lou Sanders, How to be Awesome, An Introduction, Gilded Balloon, 5pm

Shakespeare for Breakfast, C Venues, 10am