Oasis Vs Sir Cliff

The technical genius that is Producer Dave has put together a wee video of part of last Sunday’s show.  Taken from the story on music news that fans of Sir Cliff have accused Oasis of thieving Devil Woman.

if J.M.W. Turner did star wars

From the always brilliant B3TA.  Right, back to work.

things that have floated my boat this week

The reviews this is getting on Amazon.

My new column is up.

Original 106 won the pub quiz last night.  Take that BBC, STV and Aberdeen Journals.

I have been paid.

I have a job interview.

Jim Gellatly’s new music podcast.

Things that sunk my ship this week…

The bank.

Death.

General Cuntery. 

Ikea on a bank holiday Monday.

SCOTY

looking angry beside SCOTY final poster

I had the final of Scottish Comedian Of The Year.  If I’m being brutally honest I didn’t do myself justice.  The set lacked focus and was in no order and I lacked energy.  If I’m being really brutally honest then even if I had given the set of my life there’s still no way I would have been in contention with the top three.  Scott, Teddy and Keir are all superb and amazing comics, all three of them heroes of mine and they deserved their respective placings.

What was a bit of a result was that I got some genuinely nice and positive feedback, and some offers of gigs.  What was also rather nice was how pleasant everyone was.  Janey Godley was a brilliant compere and was incredibly helpful and full of advice without in anyway being condescending or patronising.  The other acts were not cunts but incredibly supportive, nice funny people.  Even some of the judges sought me out after the event and gave me some nice words.

I had gigged the night before and for some reason I had been incredibly nervous before it.  I don’t know if it was because it was in front of 200 pissed up Glasweigans on a Saturday night or because I was representing the East Coast in a special make pretend Glasgow Vs Everybody-Else-In-Scotland contest.  Yet all day Sunday before I played the biggest gig of my life in front 750 people in the Old Fruitmarket I wasn’t nervous at all.  I’m not sure why but until a few minutes before I went on stage I remained fairly calm.  Perhaps that’s the reason why I was lacking in energy.  Who knows?  It’s really not like me.

The only thing that sounds even more ridiculously wanky than that is that I really can’t remember much of being on stage.  I can remember a couple of the big laughs.  I can recall a strange Ha Ha laugh from someone at the front of the audience purely because it was about two seconds behind everyone else.  And I, unfortunately, can remember getting to the end of my set and realising I still had over a minute to fill.  This forced me to go back and use a joke I haven’t used in months.  Seriously, what sort of spaz knows he’s doing 10 minutes in front of the biggest and most important audience of his life and doesn’t prepare? 

The review I got from Chortle certainly wasn’t great but it was by no means bad.  Fairly true reflection I think.  I’ve still managed to pick out a word or two to stick on any future posters.

From a purely professional point of view I realised on Sunday that I need to write more funny funny.  The great Jerry Seinfeld talks about seeing a construction worker go back to work one afternoon and realising that this person doesn’t want to go to work but he does.  So why should he as a comedian put off writing when that was his job?  The other piece of advice I received not too long ago was from If.comedy winner Sarah Millican who just told me to do more and more gigs because then the gags would come.

So, taking that advice I took some half remembered thoughts, scribbles from my book and three word notes on my phone and tried to tie them together in some sort of set.  Then I went down to SNAFU for the Comedy Capers gig and tried them out.  It wasn’t pretty, I didn’t quite die on my hole but from it there were bits and pieces that I now know could work.  I shall try and hammer them into some sort of decent shape and just take as many gigs as I possibly can.  Alas, despite my intentions I slipped some old material in at the end just so I could leave on a good laugh.  What a whore I am.

Zap…

Take some ska, a bit of Christianity some genuinely creepy lyrics and mix together to get this…

He taught me how to turn my cheek

when people laughed at me

I’ve had friends before [note the past tense]

he’s one who’ll never leave you flat

Clearly some issues there.  You know fine well that at least one member of the band has been responsible for the death and mutilation of many a non believer.  Think my favourite line is the one that compares Jesus to a mountie.

why my parents will disinherit me…

There’s a bit of my set from Sunday night up on Youtube.  Have a look, criticise, laugh, sit bemused, whatever.  It’s here…

My poor parents.  I tell some awful lies.  And I swear far, far too much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfyi_EZ3Y8

Scottish Comedian Of The Year

Yay, won my heat of the Scottish Comedian Of The Year on Sunday.  Much to my surprise.  I’m not even being falsely modest when I say that I genuinely didn’t think I had that much of a chance.  Anyway, I had a good night and the audience voted for me to go to the final.  Which was very nice of them.  There was bit in today’s paper which is online here.

Final is on the 28th September in Glasgow at the Old Fruitmarket.  Tickets available here.

I am under no pretence that I have a hope in hell of winning the final (again not being falsely modest.  I don’t) and it would be great to see some friendly faces in the audience.  There are some very, very funny people on stage.

Column 8

Hmm, last week’s column still hasn’t appeared in the Evening Express.  This means I have probably been fired.  MC who is my point of contact at the paoer denies this and says that it is a technical fault, but I know when I’m not wanted.  Anyway, this is what it said:

I saw someone steal something from my local shop the other day.  I mean he was the worst thief in the world, it was clear he had stolen something.  He just walked into the shop, went right up to the back and then put some ham, a ready meal and some milk under his jacket.  Being the good citizen that I am, I pointed this out to the bloke stacking the shelves.  He got up, called one of his colleagues over and pointed at the thief.  The thief saw them point and knowing the game was up, he made a run for the door.  Well actually he didn’t, he just walked a bit more quickly to the door.  However it was still a very tense moment.  All the shoppers had stopped shopping to watch how this would play out.

I personally was hoping the shop staff might go all Steven Segal on the guy – throw him to the ground, a bit of kung fu before taking back their stuff and saying something like ‘All shoplifters will be prosecuted – by my fist, asshole’.  They didn’t.

Instead they just stood there and watched him leave.  At one point one of them shook their heads. 

Alright, I understand that these guys are probably on the minimum wage and in fairness if I did their job I don’t think I would be willing to risk life and limb for the sake of CO-OP own brand corn beef hash, but surely it can’t be that easy to steal? 

I know that some stores have made it a bit more difficult to thieve.  As this paper reported a few weeks back the city’s Spars have started locking everyday goods up in display cases and then selling them beneath the counter.

We now have the slightly ridiculous situation where you can see hardcore-ish pornography on general display but the only way you can get a block of mild cheddar is to queue up and ask the shopkeeper what they’ve got under the counter. 

Perhaps thieving is the real reason we now have to pay for carrier bags.  Perhaps there has a been national run on carrier bags causing shortages or something. I mean it can’t be for the environment, surely?   No store would genuinely sell us tomatoes grown in Egypt which are then flown over to a depot in the South of England before being driven up to Aberdeen in a big truck and then say this bag costs 5p because we’re committed to ending global warming with a straight face?

I’ll end on a tip.  If you find yourself in the CO-OP you’ll see they no longer display carrier bags, but if you ask for one they’ll give it to you from under the counter.  I mean, you do feel a bit guilty, and other shoppers might look at you with a bit of disgust, but it’s only human.  We all do it.

god on trial

I finally got round to watching God On Trial last night and what a piece of television it was.  Even though I was watching, knackered at 1.20am with the sign language interpreter taking up a fair chunk of the screen I was absolutely hooked.

Based on a story, which was written about by survivor Elie Wiesel, that a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz put together a court and put God on trial for breaking His covenant with the Jewish people.  The play asked questions about God’s will and whether man has free will.  Is Hitler God’s servant, the Holocaust the equivalent of the flood that God sent?  Why do Jewish people think that they have a special agreement with God?  Is God just and is he good?   After taking testament from Rabbis, scholars, criminals and lawyers the court found God guilty.

The acting was immense, the direction superb but the real quality of this was the writing of Frank Cottrell Boyce.  It was writing that made me question my lack of faith and forced me to think long after the programme had ended.  Such a stunning use of the English language.  I often think I could write a play or an episode of a soap opera and then I am faced with talent like this and realise I haven’t got a hope in hell of being as clever or as engaging.  Christ, there was even a couple of laugh out loud jokes!

The only problem I had with the whole thing was that four times in the hour and half programme or television play as Wikipedia have called it, background music suddenly started playing.  I don’t know if it was to add tension or whether whoever wrote the score had the BBC over a contractual barrel or what, but it was massively unnecessary and if anything took away from the drama.  Perhaps I have been spoiled by the Wire, in which the only music you hear comes from a source in the scene, like a jukebox in a bar or a car radio.  The actors in God On Trial were so high quality, particularly Anthony Sher and Rupert Graves that they certainly didn’t need any help in building tension.

Oh, and much kudos to BBC Scotland for getting behind it.  I always tend to think of McBeeb as really parochial and unwilling to take risks in the same way that BBC Wales does but they deserve every plaudit that comes their way for this.

If you ever see it scheduled on the telly again, even if it is first thing in the morning and with sign language or dubbed into French then make sure you watch it.

Quick, get in the fridge. There’s a bomb-a-coming

I came across a great phrase the other day – Nuking  The Fridge.  In a way it kind of means the same as jumping the shark but more sort of aimed at movie franchises than TV series. 

It takes it name from the god awful-pissing-on-his-legacy-for-more-cash-Lucas_written-Spielberg-directed Indiana Jones 4.  A film which gave you a burst of nostalgia by managing to recreate the feeling you got when you found out Santa was your dad.  In the film Indy finds himself in a testing site for a nuclear bomb and so he hides in a fridge which then gets blown a couple of miles away.  He walks out of the fridge completely fine.

Basically the phrase means the point when a film streches believability.  No, not quite believability but… Most films require you to suspend your disbelief but it’s when a film takes the piss and does something that doesn’t seem quite right.  Spidey jazz dancing in Spiderman 3, the whole of Batman & Robin.  I think it’s the point when a writer thinks ‘fuck how do I finish this?  Sod it I’ll just put a magic portal here which sorts everything out.’

This webiste has been set up which can define it much better than I.

Also there’s a rumour that George Lucas might make an Indy 5.  This is really very upsetting.  Can’t you just leave your franchises alone George?  Haven’t you done enough?