Everyone @ Chortle

I'm going away for 5 days, so (a) no blogging, and (b) I was looking at setting up one of those AutoReply OufOfOffice things that posh people with real jobs have every time they go for an extra-long poo or something. You know:

"I'm not at my desk from 12:35pm today. If you need anyone in the mean time, contact Janice my very Personal Assistant, yeah, that's right, I have a Personal Assistant, and she does exactly what I tell her, cos Janice, you're all mine. Mine! Bwahahaha. I'll return at 12:37pm. Oh, and actually don't contact Janice, cos she's probably with me offering me toilet roll."

I've never enabled one of these before, but it's the weekend before the gig I run at The Stoke in Guildford, and normally that's when everyone emails saying they want to reserve tickets. And I don't want them thinking that because I haven't replied, that they'd better make other plans (particularly now that every pub in Guildford has a comedy night now - all vastly inferior of course). So, AutoReply it is.

But then I thought maybe I shouldn't. Whenever I email my mailing-list, I always get a few AutoReplies - some saying the email address has changed, some saying things like the above one (but about holidays, rather than no.2s). So what happens if I send out a reminder to the mailing-list about the comedy night next Wednesday, and then I go away on my long weekend away? My email will generate several AutoReplies from people not in, which will then be sent back to me, which will then fire out my own AutoReply email, which will then generate more AutoReplies from then, which will again generate more AutoReplies from me... This will continue until I have sent or generated several million emails between Thursday and Tuesday, thus breaking the internet. No wonder broadband's so slow.

So I shall not do that. I shall stick to ManualReply. I don't want to have the downfall of the online world on my conscience.

Oh, and...

Yesterday I bought a thing, and asked a man about something.

Last week I did my first ever TV warm-up job, with a few catches. The first and foremost being that I didn't have to do any warming up. Or comedy. Or in fact anything you might need a comedian for. The second was that the line of work was all about football, and I know less than nothing about the subject matter other than sometimes people fight about it and that all the players earn far far too much money for kicking a ball about some grass and getting drunk in bars.

When I was about eight years old my uncle took me to my first football match at Highbury Stadium. Arsenal vs Oxford it was. A brave move on his behalf because he was a Tottenham fan and had to grin and bear it while we sat on the Arsenal side. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the fact I got to eat a kit kat, and the tension created when my uncle had to stop himself cheering for Oxford for fear of death. One wrong move and I could've seen my first boxing match that day too. Other than that I honestly had no idea what was going on. This was followed up by a couple more games with the same result, then I eventually just grew out of having any interest in it whatsoever. Even at school footie was the sport I enjoyed the least, because despite effort the only ability I ever had was to trip over the ball or kick it so far off the pitch even the PE Teacher would call me a dickhead. He didnt, but I knew he wanted to. And nowadays, I hate football because when its on, people don't go to gigs. That and Arsenal fans always leave litter all the way down my road after a match.

So I was incredibly surprised when out of four comics, three of whom know loads about the beautiful game, the TV people picked me.
Similar to my poker experience and lack of knowledge in that field (I'm starting to think my agent is a fan of 'Faking It'), I spent a week gathering all possible knowledge about European football I can ready for an ultimate blag. The Internet and friends whose footie chat I've previously been bored by, can be incredibly useful at times.

And blag I did, or more truthfully, would have done, if I had had to do anything more than ask the same few questions over and over again to the people on the streets of London. The main question was this 'Now that all the home countries are out, who will you be supporting in Euro 2008?' The main response to this question? 'I won't be watching it. I can't be bothered if England aren't in it'. Which is not the answer you want when making a trailer to promote the excitement of said tournament. Of course I don't blame any of them. despite my dislike for the game I might've watched the England matches, but now we're not in it, I'll just be glad there are more gigs around.

We went to some very interesting locations though, to find 'real' people, who would give us crap answers. One such place was the Billingsgate Fish Market, somewhere I never would have ventured otherwise, and will never ever venture to again. Fish traders are amazing characters though, which is quite a feat considering they start work at 5.30 and constantly smell of fish. We spoke to most of them and all the while I felt like saying, 'How can anyone ever love you except maybe a cat when you stink of fish in such a gross way?'

We also filmed in a bus depot in Bow which featured the scariest bus engineer I've ever met. A man who warned us that we had to be 'real careful because a bus can sneak right up behind you and then you're dead', apparently. Never again will I look at the Number 4 the same way. There was also a man who insisted he would be supporting 'Australia' in Euro 2008, despite us repeatedly telling him he couldn't. But apart from these few people I don't really know why it came as such a shock to me when I found out that most punters really are desperately uncharismatic and on the whole boring, resulting in 11 hours of filming for 6 seconds of footage. Its strange how most people shy away from film crews and when asked questions, they give dull straightforward answers. Where are all the characters that should be dwelling in these sort of places?

The answer came when I got my cab home and was treated to a tirade of racist jokes from a very large character of a cab driver. While I didn't enjoy any of our conversation all the way back, I couldn't help but feel he might've at least played up to the camera a tad.

A girl I know was having a birthday party on a rooftop Saturday and I really wanted to go but was heavily drugged due to allergies and basically slept for about 24 hours.

However, I forced myself out of bed just after midnight only to find myself thwarted by the subway, after which, raindrops started to periodically drop out of the sky.

Things just weren't going my way.

I got to the location maybe a little past 1 and after walking a number of flights of stairs, arrived at the roof only to find that nobody was there.

But . . .

There were colored lights all around, beyond them a spectacular view of Manhattan.

There were tables and chairs, a well-stocked bar, platters of food, even an iPod charging in its charger.

I had raw veggies, a little apple tart kind of thing, some fruit, some nice cold ham.

I fixed myself a bourbon; sat at one of the tables overlooking the city.

It was magical.

Afterward, I treated myself to a slice at Smiling Pizza, one of my favorite places.

The rain was now coming down outside, yet I was dry. I felt very lucky.

But they had given me a reheated slice.

And so, the spell was broken.

So, I now have a venue -- The Counting House, daily at 12:50pm,

However, I'm now dealing with the Fringe programme department's resistance to including my listing at this late date.

I know from experience that they can still add a show to the programme if they want to and that they've done it many times, when they've wanted to.

I also know that I antagonized the guy who runs the programme department in previous years by playing (necessary) "check is in the mail" games in order to get listed despite insufficient funds.

Oh, pardon.

The programme guy, in an e-mail to me this morning, wrote, regarding this factor, "We don't hold grudges at the Fringe.."

Well, I guess that's it then. Couldn't possibly be a grudge.

This week I watched the single worst adaptation of anything I have ever seen. Regular readers may know I'm a fan of film, and religion, which makes me particularly interested in those lavish American star-studded biblical biopics. Richard Harris as Abraham. Charlton Heston as Moses. Yul Brynner as Aaron. Grace from Will & Grace as Mary Magdalene. I like 'em as I like any historical biopic, no matter how conjectural: The Other Boleyn Girl, Shakespeare In Love, Spartacus...

But Jon Voight as Noah is something to behold. I don't mind the odd liberty being taking to dramatise it. And I'm sure not everyone reading this will be familiar with the finer points of the Noah's Ark story. But I'm sure all of you most know that nowhere in the original text does it even hint that there are pirates...

That's right - the NBC version of Noah includes pirates. God wiped out everyone on the planet, apart from Noah, his family, all the animals, and, oh, the odd ragtag bunch of angry villagers who cobbled together a few planks to make something that floats.

It doesn't stop there. The original version has Noah welcome his wife (here played by Mary Steenburgen), his sons and their wives onto the ark. Only in this version, Noah piles on his wife, his sons, and then three random women. It's only during the course of ark's journey that the three sons get a bit rapey, and Noah intervenes and says, "Hey! You've got to get married first!"

You'd have thought God would be angered by this rapiness, but he's too busy playing with Noah's head by offering him mirages of dry land, then laughing when Noah realises it's just an illusion. Ha! The prankster God, so seldom seen in the Bible. Yet here he's also the impulsive God: at the end of NBC's 'Noah's Ark: Beyond The Thunderdome' (it might as well be), God decides that actually he's going to kill Noah, his family and all the animals after all. Noah begs God, but to no avail. So Noah starts whistling. It is a funny whistle. He even does a little dance with it (in Jon Voight's most demeaning screen appearance since - no, including Anaconda). God likes the whistle/dance combo, laughs, and lets Noah off.

What?! If that's what changes his mind, why has no one else done this since? When Hitler pulled out his gun in his bunker, did he pucker up, do a few bars of Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles, a little jig, and Bob's Your Uncle?

Oh, and Mrs Noah tries to kill all the animals she doesn't like. And they all go mad, like in Cast Away. They start chanting and wanting to sacrifice each other, and I wouldn't put it past them to have conversations with a football called Wilson. Then there's a peddler man, who like the pirates, somewhere survived the flood. He's played by James Coburn, and sells useful items, novelties, party tricks... Noah doesn't buy anything, which must nark the peddler a bit, because I can't imagine there are many boats around. Unless as well as Noah's Ark, there's also Jeff's Ark, Steve's Ark, etc, which I wouldn't put past 'em. That's NBC: Not Biblically Cohesive.

So! Its a saturday night and I've just got home (sober) and I feel like writing tons of stuff. The thing is, my mum and dad read this blog so I can't talk about rudey feelings - which is what I fancy talking about. Not like my pal Caroline who says it like it is (dawg). (www.dayinpictures.co.uk) Like she openly announced she "got some" the other day and I was so in awe of her. My blog's so tame in comparison. Shall I? Shan't I? Shall I be honest for once readers? Answers on a comment below.

In other news - I am slightly annoyed. Here's how it is. You know when you feel like you're being mugged off? Like when you know something - but others don't realise you know so are all secret squirrel around you but the thing is you DO know but you don't give a FUCKING SHIT and you really think GOOD LUCK TO YOU. You know when you feel like that? Well that's how I feel today. And now I seem secret squirrel. But I cannot divulge. Its just... I. DO. KNOW. So kiss my fat arse.

And it is fat. But I kinda like it. Specially at present cause my friend did air brush tanning on it t'other day and it was ace. We erected a large tent in my kitchen and it took up the whole room and I was naked! And it was COLD. But then I was a berry made of brown. I always find a tan makes one look less fat. We couldn't get the tent back down after sprayage and we ended up using string. I crunched it down in me' mate's car boot and then shouted "GO GO GO!" indicating for her to shut it fast or it'd ping back up. This took three tries. I became aware that it may have looked to innocent passers by as though we were disposing of a dead body.

So I got a friend request today on Facebook from this guy I went on a date with about four years ago. I accepted against my better judgement. I'd met him the sunday before in "Walkabout" in Bromley and me and my mate were mashed. I remember there were lads and there was one there alot inches from my face. Then it appeared we were snogging. Then it was the next day and my phone had a new number in it. Now dear reader I cannot remember what he looked like but we had arranged a date and I was going.

When I got to the pub for the date, he texted to say he would be ten minutes late. I sat down with a glass of red wine waiting with anticipation hoping that he wasn't going to be rough. A man entered the pub and looked around in a quixotic fashion. He had a carrier bag (I thought this weird but quirky). I raised my eyebrows as if to convey "is it you?" He raised his eyebrows back which to me confirmed this. He ambled over and we shook hands, I noticed his finger nails were dirty. I gestured for him to sit down and would he like a drink (?) to which he obliged. At this point a member of bar staff came over and went "Nigel, now you know you're not supposed to be in here... off you go." And then looked at me and went "Tch! Sorry about that, he's the local tramp and often comes in here. "

I felt great, as you can imagine.

Hmmmm... So I'm looking out over the Londinium skyline and wondering what to do. I had a good pal come over today My mate sam. S'funny, cause we fell out for a year or so but we had such a lovely friendship that we've just found our way back again. Back in November I was meant to see her, but I was busy thinking that I was going to get dumped by my boyfriend, so cancelled. But today, seeing her daughter again was lovely. I used to babysit her when she was three, and she's eight now and really cool. She also has a little babba and he is soooo lovely. I picked him up and felt so comfortable. (Not that comfortable) but there was a time when I wouldn't touch a child ever for fear of breaking them.

It all stems back to the time when I dropped my cousin Ryan when he was a baby. I was ten and he was sick on my sock. The warmth from the puke freaked me out so I threw him on the floor. I remember covering my face and chanting over and over "I dropped him, I dropped him" In my head though, I was on the soap opera "Neighbours" and my being dramatic was endearing, I didn't really care. Often as a child I had an invisible audience. Ever since then I've had issues with holding babbas. Also their heads are so squishy. Too squishy in fact.

Anyway - a rambly blog which I've enjoyed writing.

BYE.

Eyes itchy.

Nose stuffed.

Sleepy from medication. Just wanna be left alone.

Knock on the door -- roommate needs something.

Knock on the door -- roommate wants something.

Knock on the door -- roommate has to get something.

Knock on the door - roommate wants to know something.

. . . Oh, sorry. Distracted for a minute. Roommate had to tell me something I neither wanted nor needed to know.

I'm going out where the air is filled with allergens that will make me feel worse than I do now.

Where there are people everywhere you turn.

And I can be left alone.

For the uninitiated John Campbell has a show at 7pm every day, a bit like Trevor McDonald's show he had when they cancelled the news at 10. Current affairs and the occasional fluffy story.

He's interviewed the Pope, Tony Blair and the Dalai Lama, and now he's interviewing Little Howard.

Not on Youtube yet, but here it is on the Channel's website.

http://www.tv3.co.nz/Video/BigHowardandLittleHowardonCampbellLive/tabid/312/articleID/52878/Default.aspx?ArticleID=52878

Also, here's a review of the show and an interview with Big Howard

http://nz.entertainment.yahoo.com/080424/7/52ta.html

OK, I had to go and pick up Nick and Kirsty so I didn't get to finish this last night.

It's a beautiful day today and I was possibly supposed to be meeting up with someone but they didn't get back to me so I'm now just playing the waiting game before the store tonight.

Last time I got booed, so I'm hoping it won't be repeated.

Anyway I was talking about my facebook account. I'm fed up of getting asked to join groups and add applications. It's annoying. And whilst I was looking through which groups I'd been asked to join I saw two from a friend.

Two facebook groups with morals at the other end of the spectrum from each other, asked by the same person.

I don't believe in moral absolutes, but I just believe in having some level of consistency in your personal beliefs.

the first group was a petition against an artist, though all through the description the term artist was imprisoned in inverted commas, as if it is the nature of the audience to decide what is and what isn't art. Marcel Duchamp's description is the best description of art I've heard "If I call it art, it's art."

Anyway, the group was a petition against the artist Guillermo Vargas, who had a dog tied up in a gallery with phrases written in dog food across the walls, the press suggested that he starved the dog to death. this didn't happen, the dog was there for 3 hours before being released and fed.

This isn't enough for facebook the place where you still get petitions to stop the killers of James Bulger from being released, even though they were released years ago. Essentially it's people who don't check out the full facts and believe what they read on facebook.

I'd have let this go, but for the fact that the same person who sent me that sent me an invitation to join a group to "bring back Nestle secret bars" A chocolate bar from nestle.

Would that be the same Nestle who were one of the top offenders on a world health organisation list of unethical companies, and whose policy on baby milk in africa contributes to the death of 1.2 million children every year?

Yes, yes it would.

So one dog being hungry for a bit is enough to get her ire, but not the death of 1.2 million per year in the name of capitalism where a price can be put on a life.

Even if the dog had starved to death, it's one dog, 1.2 million children every year.

I'm going to send them a message just saying "you're a fucking idiot" and then delete them from my friends list.

I love you all

xXx

(except the fucking idiots)

seemed to think I meant, in yesterday's post, that I had never before understood anyone's perspective apart from my own.

Of course, I was referring to a specific set of circumstances where the other party's attitude was upsetting me, partly because I just didn't like it, but largely because I couldn't understand how someone who had experienced so many of the same things that I had could come to such a different conclusion about them (and me).

I still don't think the other person is right. Quite the opposite. But I was able to figure out how a person in this situation could come to those conclusions and that took me out of the realm of "I just don't get it"-instigated hyperventilation.

By the way, this might be a good time for me to mention what should be obvious, but from the flack I've gotten, must not be: This blog is my perspective.

I am honest here but it's an honest accounting based on the way I see things, not a documentarian's clean rendering of events from an outside vantage point (which may be impossible to achieve in any event).

Someone told me recently that it's not all about me; that it's very rarely about me.

Well, not here.

Here, it's always about me.

This is the one corner of the world where my perspective, by definition, prevails. (And that's just in the Andrew J. Lederer blog. Even the main Chortle blog diminishes my primacy. Just the other day, one of the other bloggers unfairly decided to make my whining look trivial by getting sick.)

Very interesting gig last night. I was compering in Hammersmith at the Metro for a new act night (which was really a mix of new acts and old acts doing some new stuff).

When I arrived I saw Steve Bennett (a reviewer from Chortle) so immediately tried to work out who he was there to see. My questions such as "Why are you here then Steve?" didn't seem to work cause he simply answered "to see some Comedy Leanne". I was like "God don't you ever get bored?" to which he replied "No, do you?" To which I replied "Yes all the time." Still I was no closer to working out who he could be reviewing.

Anyway, the night was a free night of comedy - I'd forgotten what this usually means. Soon I would be reminded. The ratio of men to women was exceptionally high so this was pleasing for a single gal like me. As the gig got underway lots of pissed people came wondering in but refused to sit down, instead preferring to stagger around at the back heckling (poorly) under their breath. Unfortunately they'd missed my explanation of the premise of the evening (new act night) and also that if they wanted to heckle they could heckle just me.

I felt that going back up and re-reminding the audience of this, may seem patronising to the acts - highlighting that some of their stand-up may not have been as well received as it might of. To be fair the audience (pretty much all of them) were MASHED. In the end I had to speak with the bar staff to say I may need to remove some of them and luckily he obliged in supporting me and I was to just give him the nod. One of the mashed men asked me if they could come back and do a spot another night which would involve him getting his cock out. Well! You can imagine what I said to that. Yes of course! How amusing...*sigh*

Despite being really drunk most of the audience were quite obediant and receptive when I was on stage and the bar man said it was because I have teacherish tones, and Steve Bennett said that I might remind them of their mothers. Ha!

Later on when the last act was on stage, some hecklers at the back took offense to his political material and started saying things like "Get off" etc... It really was all a bit mental. One of those nights. Still, I have to say I quite enjoyed myself. My attitude to them could have gone either way but somehow the no-nonsense approach worked, and I seemed to be liked. My favourite part was when about 10 lads were all chanting "Strip, strip, strip." I felt truly loved at this point dear reader.

One audience member in particular seemed to like me quite a bit - and he gave me his card. I think he might have loved me. Back of the net.

Such a strange dynamic in a room like that. My friend Louisa said she felt really initimdated by the crowd and especially felt for the very new acts cause you didn't know if they crowd were going to slate them. Sometimes they did, and other times they were so very nice. This very very new act who was only 19 was extremely nervous (and I don't blame him - pit and Lion springs to mind) forgot his train of thought and it was very uncomfortable to witness as the pause went on for a while - but the audience started clapping and cheering and shouting words of encouragement. It was actually quite lovely to see. I wonder if any of the audience will remember the night though... I very much doubt it.

So I read in the paper today a really weird story where a woman has been presented a £75 fine cause her daughter dropped a bit of her sausage roll (litter lout).... by the time the fine had been presented however, a sea gull had come down and flown off with the offending pastry but the fine was still given. What? What the?

So glad its friday although my weekend is unbelievably busy but should be a lovely one. Tomorrow I have a really old girlfriend coming over with her kids and sunday another couple of pals coming for sunday lunch. Lamb is the plan. My very very favourite.

I hope your weekend is of a high standard.

I'm sat in Cranley Gardens, North London stopping over with friends because I'm doing the comedy store tomorrow night. Earlier today I handed in my dissertation, it ran over the word count by 2000 words, but I'd been up for 36 hours and the college was going to shut in an hour and tomorrow's the hand in date so I couldn't leave it any longer.

Now that that is out of the way I've only got one more essay to do. And then I'm free.

10 years ago I started my degree, then broke up with my girlfriend, went mad, got kicked out of uni, came home, came out to my parents as transsexual, went through all the processes that entailed, found love followed her to uni, broke up with her and shared a house with her for a year and then decided to tell my story as the Show Beth Becomes Her, the first time I performed it the woman I was to fall in love with and who I love and who doesn't seem to find any aspect of my personality objectionable was in that audience. Six months later I find myself trying to hand in 5 essays do two presentations and at the same time do all the stressful stuff surrounding getting a show to Edinburgh, and I had in my dissertation.

10 years. A week on wednesday I'll hand in an essay on the German TV show Heimat and relate it to Freud's notion of the Uncanny. and that will be the last piece of uni work I ever do. Blessed release.

I'm currently sat in a dark room writing this on a slightly broken laptop, trying to be quiet as Marty's sleeping on the couch a few feet away. It's his laptop.

I'm trying to check my emails and stuff, finally logging on to facebook after a few weeks away from a pc and I find a number of friend requests and group invitations.

Two of the group invitations inspired me to get online and write this, forgive me Chortle for I have sinned. It's been 6 months since my last regular confession...

One of my "friends" on facebook has sent me two invitations, on the invites list they're next to each other. As my name is fairly front-loaded alphabetically I get a whole bunch of these requests...

I've just got a phone call so I've got to bail. But I'll finish this otherwise it'll aggitate me for a long while.

Tomorrow.

but yesterday, after writing about remembering things properly (and before the allergies required stupefying medication), I was walking through the sunny, Spring-colored, tree-dappled edge of the government office section of Manhattan, when suddenly, the other side of an issue that's been disturbing me for days became clear to me.

All of a sudden, I could see how and why someone could see things or feel differently about something than me.

It didn't fix things; didn't change the actual circumstances of my life at all.

. . . But I felt better.

in the last couple of days, to remember real images of London -- vivid summonings of places there -- for the first time since I returned to the States two months ago.

It's like, "I remember now."

But until the other day, I was simply in my New York life and remembered England intellectually but not with any resonance.

I didn't need any -- it had just happened and other stuff was happening here and now.

Question is, do memories always return? The real memories, not the stories we've crafted to protect ourselves and guide our daily lives in what we've decided are the best and most productive ways?

Or do people really forget the way chunks of their lives actually felt and instead, separated from the distractions of reality by internal blinders, live as if their belatedly-created narrative was the whole truth?

so I could use them as fodder for my blog and storytelling shows.

I tried to explain that it's not true, that blogs are what you get when you don't get what you want; that I want to be happy, that I want love, that I want success, that I want it all. That those things can be hard to obtain but that stories are easy to come by.

Not sure if I got through, though.

Anyway . . .

I had a very upsetting experience recently, which engendered in me feelings similar to those which followed the death of someone close to me. (Fortunately, this time it was only the death of a dream.)

There was a family dinner that night and, as had been the case when the person close to me died, I was funny and charming and ate my gefilte fish (I might not have had gefilte fish the last time) and was generally normal to the people around me, while simultaneously feeling a great loss inside.

After dinner, I walked downtown along the East River rather than heading for the subway 'cause I needed to think and I needed to feel.

The moon was high. There was a quality to the night that was part crystalline and part suffused. The man-made mountains of the city seemed composed largely of light, both sharp and soft.

I wanted to keep walking; to walk across the Queensboro Bridge before taking the G train home; to see the city from a great height and the Manhattan skyline as it receded into the distance; to be alone, both in and above my city, as I worked out my fate and made sense of my pain.

But the pedestrian entry to the bridge was two avenue blocks further west than I'd hoped and by the time I got to it, it made sense to just take the nearby Brooklyn-bound F.

I mean, we were talking about a lot of extra walking.

However, in movies and stuff, the guy in pain always walks across the bridge and I knew it would look good in my blog.

So, I headed up the ramp toward that long trudge across the river and home.

So my sister is married and I am officially the last of the Diggins girls to get hitched. (There are only two of us but still...) The wedding was a small affair with no handsome best men to make a fool of myself in front of so that was a bummer although I did do crying in the registry office! (Unusual for me as I am made entirely of stone....)

I got an email last week from someone on the dating site I'm still signed up to. He seemed interesting as his user name is "Crazy Eyes". I've decided to live dangerously and have agreed to go on a date with him. He's taking me to see some Live Music. I thought that'd be a good idea cause then if his eyes become too crazy I can avert mine and concentrate on the band.

I'm thinking of trying out that "my single best friend" site. Which I believe Sarah Beeney founded. I think this to be a good idea cause look at Sarah, she's always preggers ain't she. One of my mates told me a funny story about this site which intertwined with a funny about Facebook.

This girl (we'll call her Clara) went on a date with someone from my Single Friend website and it went extra well. Then followed a second date which was also exceedingly fantastic. Meanwhile Clara was doing some basic house-keeping on her facebook page and decided to delete her relationship status so that no-one would know if she was single, in a relationship etc etc. On the news feed this shows up as "Clara is no longer listed as single." The guy she'd been seeing was due to call her that day and so far hadn't. When she checked everyone's status updates she saw that he had written "'Pete' is PRESSURE!" She texted him the next day and said "Hey how ya doing?" To which he didn't reply and never did ever again. All because he thought she'd deleted her relationship status and directed it at him. What. A. COCK. Get over yourself!

Talking of singles, I am outraged at the girl they use in the London Lite to represent single young ladies of London. She does a weekly article about her latest shenannigans in "London Tahn". Not sure if the picture accompanying the article is the actual girl, but whoever she is, she looks like a gigantic hoe. With a "barely-there" slip dress and a stupid half smile which says nothing more than "Do me" I think this is most uncool. She is slightly better looking than the girl who used to do the single girl article, for she had a massive chin. Still, looks like she's got a boyf now so who am I to judge?

So I've got a gig on thursday compering in Hammersmith which I am sure will be much fun. I have some new stuff to try out whilst making sure the audience are in JOLLY mode. Its a new act night I'm told so I'm also looking forward to seeing some fresh blood. And by that I mean handsome young men.

I've just spent three days in the Northern region of the country at gigs of varying degrees of enjoyment. For the first time ever, my girlfriend, Layla, came along on the road trip with me which was really nice apart from all those moments where she would gasp loudly at my driving because she thought I might crash into the car two lanes away or other ludicrously situations. Apparently if she gets paranoid about my driving its because I've driving dangerously, whereas if I get paranoid about her driving, its because I'm an idiot. Fair's fair I suppose.

Layla joined me on the trip for two reasons, one being that it's her half term (she's teacher training, I'm not perving on a school girl OK?) and the other because we combined the trip with a visit and free stay at her brother's in Huddersfield. This meant rather than going up there for gigs, we had a nice three day break where unfortunately I had to work in between. It was a nice break from Londoness though, with some nice lunches and a triumphant moment where I beat Layla's fourteen year old nephew on the xbox. That makes me a king of games. Or as he would say it 'a noob'. A 'noob' means geek, or general twat as I later found out. Another phrase he used a lot was 'CBA'. This stands for 'can't be arsed'. Amazing how the youth of today have reached a level of laziness where they have to abbreviated the phrase to say that they can't be bothered. That's an incredible lack of effort all round.

In between a gig in Manchester to people who were so lacking in energy they could've been dead and a gig in Stoke-On-Trent that seemed terrible and ended being so nice I did a 40 minute set by accident, I had a gig in Scarborough. Having never been to Scarborough my girlfriend and me had planned that we would head down there earlier in the day and have a look around as many people had said it was lovely. When I say people, I mean my mum, and Simon and Garfunkel who sang a lot about some herbs and things but it all sounded nice.

Now none of them were wrong, but they weren't entirely right either. Parts of Scarborough are filled with brilliant architecture, and there are streets that make you feel as though you have been transported back to the forties/fifties just without the war bit. The beach itself is also extremely clean but the ice cold winds slightly put me off having a dip in the sea for fear of everything retracting and somehow becoming a floating torso. The bit where it goes wrong is the beach front itself.

Masquerading as a front to the picturesque town behind it, the front was filled with the tackiest, cheapest amusement arcades, chip shops and gambling holes you can imagine. Dubious titles such as 'Slots of Fun' and 'Winking Willies Chip Shop' sit alongside sweet stalls that sell marshmallow penises and jellied eels in the shape of arses. OK the last eels bit was a lie, but you get the picture. I couldn't understand why they had to sully this part of the area. Are people really more attracted to the seaside if they can spend all afternoon putting 2p's into a machine in hope of a fake copy soft toy of Scooby Doo? I can't believe they are. Slap bang in the middle of all of this was a very new looking 'Ask' pizza and a trendy coffee shop overlooking the coast as though it was some sort of middle class cry for help. Perhaps its an attempt to make the beach front nice again. Lets hope it doesn't swing the other way and fill the beach with wankers on their Blackberrys sitting in the sand in tight jeans. Thinking about that was when it struck me, that by having a skanky promenade, the locals are keeping the rest of the town safe from overpopulation. They are driving the masses away leaving only Scarborians (is that a word? It must be that mustn't it? It can't be 'Scarbs' can it?) to really be able to enjoy their lovely town. Of course this theory doesn't explain places like Margate which are just horrible throughout. My only theory on that is that someone wanted to drive everyone including the locals away and took their plan a little too far.

Speaking of wankers with Blackberrys, I am now one of them. I upgraded my phone yesterday and due to need for constant paranoid email and facebook checking I got persuaded to sell my soul to the corporate devil. I'd just like to say to my friends, family and social life in general this may be the last we communicate without me spending at least 50% of my attention on a small blue bit of plastic. I'm sorry, and it's been fun.

It's been quite a few days - beginning on Thursday morning with a trip to A&E. It was half a day of lying on a hospital trolley, two days of worry, four days of terrible pain, and a fair amount of chess. But generally the weekend played out like an episode of House. I had a medical conundrum that no one could work out. So my first question to you is this: are you a fan of TV show House? If so, and you don't get embarrassed or awkward about reading a stranger's (or friend's, depending if you know me) medical history, then read on, and see if you can work out what was wrong with me...

Thursday morning I awoke with agonising pain in my abdomen. I had got through a bottle of wine the night before, so wondered if it could be something hangoverish. But this was properly agonising, so pretty soon I thought it can't be that.

Six years ago I was rushed to hospital with peritonitis, which is a pretty bad condition, which in my case resulted from a rupture in my bladder. It was very dangerous, and only thanks to immediate surgery did I get through it. That too began with a sharp agonising pain in my abdomen, so when this new pain appeared last Thursday, I panicked a little. The main difference is that six years ago it was just on the right side, and Thursday's pain was all across from right to left, and a little higher. Could it be some internal rupture, just a bit higher up?

My other pondering was that it could be related to lower back pain I had two weeks ago: same region of the body, only the back pain was around the back and the front pain was, well, around the front, obviously. I went to the GP then and he diagnosed it as mechanical back pain (common for tall men) and gave me a course of Diclofenac - a hefty ibuprofen-based painkiller. So that seemed to sort the back pain from two weeks ago, but could he have misdiagnosed me? Could Thursday's new abdomenal pain be this same back pain, only... moved round the front?

A&E couldn't work out what it was. I had an X-ray, blood tests, wee tests, and my poor parents and girlfriend kindly wondered in to see me lying on a hospital bed in A&E wearing a hospital gown with a needle in my arm and an oxygen mask around my mouth (I was feeling a bit faint from the pain). Bless 'em. In the mean time, a surgeon visited me to see if I should have surgery, as I did with the peritonits 6 years ago. He decided not. He concluded a few things were behind it, including a wee infection among other things. So he gave me some antibiotics, some new painkillers, and sent me home with them.

So what was wrong with me? We think we know now (although it will take another few days to know for sure, till the correct drugs kick in), and it was solved by my GP, and my mum chatting with a roomful of nursing friends. But do you know? It can be solved from the above information, and you don't need to be overly medical to work it out. If you need some more thinking time, have a quick re-read. For the answer is in the next few paragraphs. In the mean time, here's our Graham with a quick reminder...

Would you have done surgery?
Would you diagnose a wee infection?
Would you suspect the evil peritonitis (internal rupture) from 6 years ago had come back?
Was it the back pain from 2 weeks ago, making its way to the front for some reason?
Or something else?

Right. Time's up. Let's see if you're more like Hugh Laurie as Dr House, or more like Hugh Laurie in Blackadder. If you've seen House then you'll know it follows a pretty familiar formula. Well the history of the bladder rupture - that's the early diagnosis, and the red herring that a House episode would feature about 15min in. That was enough to panic me, but the pain from last Thursday was higher and not just on one side, so nope - similar feeling but not the same. So if you opted to do surgery on me - you're wrong. Or you're sick and twisted. In which case you're still wrong, just in a different way.

The A&E doctor suggested a wee infection. Also wrong, because if so, I'd have had the pain lower, ie. where the wee is. And what about the back pain from 2 weeks ago? Related? No, that was just back pain from bending over in the wrong way. But me having the back pain is related to it...

The drugs the GP gave me two weeks were a course of Diclofenac - an ibuprofen-based painkiller. As you may know, ibuprofen is the one that you have to take with food, otherwise it enrages your stomach. Well, I had been, but it's still a pretty heavy-duty painkiller, and to have a course of it is a little bit excessive. But I obey the GP, so even though it had fixed my back, I was still finishing the course. Which didn't make my tummy very happy. It gets pretty acidic, and you can change the 'pretty' to 'really very very' if you add something else acidic and silly to the stomach like, say, a bottle of wine... which I did mention I had the night before the pain. So, bottle of wine, plus stomach of unneccessary ibuprofen, equals much abdomenal pain.

It's still there, but at least I know what caused it now. Oh, and if you guessed right, well done, you have now graduated medical school. And you're better than the doctor in A&E...

How does one keep from bring a bad person? In effect, if not in intent?

How do you reconcile your own needs with the needs of others? When are others needs more important than your own?

Who decides this?

How much can you bend to to others' determinations without betraying the lesser-known but very important commandment (or strong suggestion), "Don't be a schmuck"?

And if you live in a world where assumptions seem against you in the first place, is there any way you can win?

Assert your own prerogatives and people will see you as wrong. Yield to others' perceptions and you throw away that small, undeniable bit of you.

And when you do that -- or when I do that -- the "others" don't seem to care that much anyway.

Except perhaps to feel a kind of victory.

And, if possible, even more right.

The kind of thing you might use to rip open a deer.

So, don't judge me.

have all been "talked" out and I will not wallow in them today. Instead, here's a thing that's been kicking around my brain for a bit. (I wonder if it has resonance for anyone else.)

I've recently had reason to reflect upon the time a woman with whom I had a complicated relationship was -- in the grip of certain psychiatric issues -- brandishing a large, extremely lengthy knife at me, menacingly. Ultimately, I found myself hurling her across the room to ensure my safety, even my continued survival

I knew she had serious back problems but I guess it had to be done. However, under the circumstances, I have to admit that I enjoyed it a little.

Anyway, I have, if not physically, of course, been on the other end of the hurl.

And I have to wonder . . .

Just how much pleasure is being felt by the hurler?

Smells like summer outside, though.

and it couldn't come at a more appropriate time as someone who's been very important to me in recent months seems to be passing me over.

Who put the ram's blood on my door?

(Charlton Heston dies and all hell breaks loose.)

So, rather than being part of the "Edinburgh Comedy Festival", which seemed a real possibility, I am now part of no comedy festival.

I don't regret waiting and not contacting other venues, however, as that would have been contrary to the notion that I sincerely wanted to make an arrangement that would make good on a debt.

I did consider asking Alex Petty for a slot at The Counting House when it became available a couple days ago, but then I risked alienating Peter Buckley Hill, to whom I have also been quietly trying to prove a point, that I am not merely an opportunistic venue-seeker, rather a believer in higher ideals.

Actually, I am an opportunistic venue seeker and a believer in higher ideals.

Earlier this year, I asked Peter for a slot at the Canon's Gait, where I've worked twice before, and only the Canon's Gait, because, quite frankly, it was the only one of his venues that seemed suitable to my needs. (Now my needs are simply to have a venue -- oh, how the world has turned.) He rejected my request because, among other things, he felt I was not a "team player".

That's not entirely true but certainly Peter and his "Free Fringe" do not take priority over professional concerns when I'm making Edinburgh plans. Also, when I went with Laughing Horse's "Free Festival" last year, rather than Peter's operation, I knew neither the extent nor the actual nature of the rift between the two.

Even now, I have no idea who's "right". It's entirely possible Alex said or did something truly terrible to Peter (or not) but I've not been made privy to any of the details. I do, however, believe that Alex seriously exaggerated the merits of Berlin, the venue I was in last year, so my orientation in the realm of free venues has turned increasingly toward Peter. (An orientation it became easy to maintain when Alex lost his most compelling venues).

Whatever.

To prove my essential goodness (though I don't think I should be required to prove it), I decided I wouldn't even investigate Laughing Horse opportunities for this year. I didn't say anything about it. I just figured it would ultimately send its own message.

So with free venues off the table (but no money) , I resurrected a plan I'd submitted to a major venue two years ago which would have paid them back money I owed them without upfront cash from me. (A win-win.)

They weren't interested then, but as I said in my previous post, they were, they said, interested now.

Well, that interest was apparently not enough to make it a reality. And I'm not fool enough to have missed the potential downside of waiting for the deal to come through. Still, I didn't want to appear anything less than sincere (which I was), so except for a note asking what was going on because another potential venue had come into the picture (The Counting House, which I never inquired about but, after seeing it had come available and with the major deal still in limbo the day before the deadline, I figured maybe I should), I kept myself available to the last and beyond. ( I did submit notions to a couple of other venues but for a show other than the one I'd held for the major venue and those proposals remained simply proposals.)

Anyway, in case I had to make a last-minute play for The Counting House, I reached out to a name comic close to Peter Buckley Hill, to see what his opinion was of the Peter/Alex thing. Was I being a fool, I asked in a note tho him, for having resisted contacting Alex? Did he, as a friend of Peter's, think that Peter was being unfair to people and that I should do what was right for me? Maybe this guy knew something I didn't that would help me judge this thing.

Well, if he did, he didn't tell me, having failed to respond to my inquiry, though we had exchanged messages about something else just days earlier.

So, on the day of the Fringe programme deadline, while trying to prove my good character on two fronts, with the possibility of venuelessness looming, I had to decide whether to antagonize Peter Buckley Hill by trying to get one of the Counting House slots. (And they were apparently going fast.)

Except it wasn't just a Peter/Alex thing. What about Peter's influential friends (who would never do their own shows in a free venue but whose integrity is apparently not in question)? Could I risk antagonizing them?.

My storytelling show needs a continuing supply of guest acts. What would happen if some of the "hippest" were unavailable to me?

So, no venue.

Man Without a Venue.

"The Man With No Venue"

(Cue Ennio Morricone music here.)

Had a hairchop today (prompting, as ever, cries of "Haircuhuhut" from my housemates), and I was very impressed. It was the first time ever ever in my 29 years of having my hair cut that the barber offered to trim my eyebrows. I thought wow, what a great barber. It has clearly slipped the mind of all previous barbers.

Only of course it's not necessarily that the others were lacking by not offering such a service. The other explanation is that I'm ageing, and thus hair is protruding from places it shouldn't. Indeed, this morning I bought my very first nose-hair trimmer. Too much information I know, but that's what blogs are for. It is a definite step towards the ageing direction. See my previous post for the more serious reasons that this week sees me feeling like I'm growing up finally. Well today is proof in a more trivial way that the ageing process even happens to us twentysomething (where 'something' = as high a number as possible).

So let's for the moment presume that it's not that I'm ageing that caused today's barber to offer an eyebrow trim. Let's presume instead that it's just that it has a highbrow (as well as eyebrow) salon in a chic part of town, where such a deluxe service is offered as standard. And where is this fine salon, you may ask? Mr Toppers, Goodge St, £6.

I made an offer in good faith to one of the major Edinburgh venues that was designed, in a way that worked for me me but was very favorable to them, to pay back an outstanding debt.

They said they were interested but, since then, nothing has been forthcoming except the barest contact necessary to keep me waiting for a solid offer in return.

Well, you know, deadline for the Fringe programme is theoretically tomorrow and I've thought for a while that I might end up getting screwed.

But, as I said, I made my offer in good faith, so I decided to wait 'til the (perhaps) bitter end, regardless of consequences.

I may be left venueless or outside the programme, but no one will be able to say I didn't go out of my way to make good on this debt.

Been an upsetting weekend – my nan died on Friday. Yeah, not a cheery blog – sorry. Her passing was expected at some point soon – I just didn’t expect it yet. A very generous person and a lovely and loving grandmother.

I’d normally keep all this private, and I'll do my grieving offline rather than here, but the interesting thing that came out of this, which felt bloggable, was that Nanny was my last grandparent, so I now move up a generation, which is a tad scary. I told my mum this, and she countered with, quite rightly: “How do you think we feel? We move up a generation too. It’s scarier for us – who’s next to go?” Fair point.

Tis odd how even at the age of 29, I still feel like adult life isn’t fully there yet, though Friday went a long way to growing me up – when you realise that you are the next generation, not the one after next.

Anyway, in other news, I’ve come away to Nottingham for Sunday and Monday, as Zoe’s got a business thingy here today. So it was a chance to come back to my old student haunt, feed her the best kebab in the world, and show her off to various Nottingham-based friends who don’t believe I could ever keep a girlfriend more than a week. One of my good friends from student years, Henry, who taught me the way of the kebab, had us to dinner at the vicarage where he now lives. So yes, he is a fully-fledged vicar, which again makes me realise that we are all proper grown-ups now. Someone I studied with is now a full proper big vicar. Not curate. Not deputy. There is no one above him in his church, apart from the obvious Trinity – so alright, he’s top mortal.

Oh, and the kebab shop was shut. So I’ll have to bring Zoe back another time to sample the delights of Tipoo, greatest kebab shop in the universe...

Feels strange. Like I'm writing somebody else's adventures instead of my own.

Anyway, I was inducted into the Chinese Entertainers Hall of Fame, yesterday and . . .

(Hey! That didn't happen to me.)

I've finally worked out how to do Comedy 4 Kids and its taken me a ludicrously long time. As I said in my previous blog I did the lovely Comedy Club 4 Kids in Brighton last week and then again in Stamford yesterday, with several more coming up. Its normally one of those gigs that terrifies me. Kids have a lovely tendency to show you how crap you are in the worst ways. Forget nasty heckles, there really is nothing more demeaning than a group of kids being so bored by you that they play tag in the aisles or start drawing on each other.

I've never had a bad C4K gig before, having grown-up with a younger brother and cousins, I've always had a vague idea of how to keep children entertained. Although entertaining my sibling was less a case of imagination and more of 'what can I throw at his head today to make him cry and sod off?'. At the time he did ask for it though by responding to questions from my parents such as 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' with such answers as 'God. So I can rule everything you stupid.'

Entertaining them all at the time was easy because I too was a kid so I know what to say to make them laugh because it was also whatever made me giggle. Now of course I like to believe that my sense of humour has developed beyond that of an 8 year old and that's why comedy for kids is a scary prospect. Since those times of youth I've gained a better understanding of the world and say clever and witty things about its inhabitants and their behavior. In reality though, all that's happened to my sense of humour is that I've added swear words to it and some dick gags. Other than that, its still pretty childish. And that's why, finally last week, I discovered the secret to making kids laugh and its much much easier than I ever thought it would be.

Here it is, and I'm not going to charge you £2 for it with some top dieting tips or do run ludicrously expensive classes in it, you can just have it for free. The trick is to use the words 'poo', 'wee' and 'bum' a lot. That's it. Trust me, by saying these multiple times, you can have a group of children ages 4-11 wetting themselves with laughter for a full 15 minutes. Don't get me wrong, kids are smarter than you think and lots of other jokes work too, but the killer gag is always the one that ends with 'poo'. Its the equivalent of the adult 'dick' gag. I'd love to say I knew exactly what was so funny about it, but I don't, and in fact as an adult I find myself also still laughing spontaneously at the word. That's it, the secret of comedy is 'poo' and anyone who dismisses toilet humour clearly had a crap childhood, no pun intended.

Aside from that revelation, I've spent most of the week recovering from co-hosting the London leg of Mark Watson's 24 Hour show last Sunday and Monday. It was a truly great experience but even at my sprightly young age of 27, staying up all night ruins me for days. It was a true test keeping people entertained for that long and there was little actual stand-up involved, and more games and silly challenges, all of which were really fun. Highlights include sellotaping 140 odd spoons to a man's face, making a random estate agent stand on one leg for 20 minutes, playing guess who via web cam, a Mark Watson face parade, a dirty dancing finale and the most amazing bit, having Sir Terry Jones read us a children's story he'd just written (which incidentally was very funny but contained neither poo nor wee and mainly an alligator). It really was one of those nights/days I wont forget in a while and the crowd and all the other acts were fantastic, having really worked together to make it fun. Hopefully, despite being medically advised not to, Mark will do another one soonish.

I'm now off to discuss with my sketch group about writing several sketches to do with 'poo', one to do with 'wee' and changing our show name to 'wee and cake'. I think we'll sell out everyday.

I see that the Cheyenne Diner, one of the last of the real New York diners, has closed and, though I thought about it, I never went there.

New York, as it was, is vanishing, replaced by a whole other city, and I never really got to know the old one.

Been to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden twice lately, though.

Every year, I think about going but don't generally get there 'til the Magnolia Garden is essentially gone, its remaining blooms browning on the branches. But this year, I've seen the trees as they approach full glory, watched the members of a wedding framed by their petals, been imbued by their sweet, somewhat narcotic scent.

Why can't there be a city parks department for things like shops and buildings and lifestyles and historical/cultural moments that preserves and maintains the world for us to visit when we get around to it, maybe with free admission on Tuesdays and Saturday mornings?

How come some guy is allowed to build a multi-story building in a place where I've yet to have a hamburger?

Time it goes so fast. Friday AGAIN. Today was photo shoot day and it was ok actually, the lighting I'm told masked my weathered eyes. Hope so. Just gotta wait to see it in print now. I had a look at "Look" magazine and it seems ok - nice and glossy and a steal at £1.40. At least the article isn't going to feature in "Love it" or "Pick me up".

Last night I went to a candle party. Now before you make any presumptions about the jolity of this night - it was actually rather good. Its just like Ann Summers parties but no vibrators and cackling women. (Talking of Ann Summers, how annoying was Jaqueline Gold on celebrity Apprentice... OMG. She's a right old cow ain't she. I sang at her wedding don't ya know... She's now divorced, I hope I didn't jinx it with my spinster vibes)

Anyway, this candle party is the sale of nice smelly candles and holders, and whilst there were slight cringe elements to the proceedings (like the names of the candles) it was much fun. I jollied the night along further by doing drinking of white wine. After much candle sniffing I started to feel sick and had to leave the room.....to drink more wine. I knew I'd had too much, when I walked back in the living room and exclaimed loudly to everyone, "POO! It STINKS in 'ere." I left soon after.

T'other night I went round to my pal Kate's house, she does my website and we updated it accordingly. See here for info www.catfacecomedy.com . Kate does make me laugh. She goes to me on friday "Do ya remember that MTV summer party where one of the boys went up and danced with a girl and he was right up close and when he came away he had a red patch of blood on him?" And I was like "Kate, that was in Superbad, you're confusing your life with a feature film." Ah she funny. Just like Bill Murray in Scrooged.

So, I've quite an action packed weekend planned. Tonight, a couple of drinks after work I expect, Tomorrow day I have a meeting with comedy types in town. Tomorrow evening my friend is having a gathering in Beckenham which I shall be attending, and sunday I shall be watching Hollyoaks and Come Dine with Me omnibus's. Soooo exciting!

Have a good one.

-focused.

-obsessed.

-involved.

These are usually used as negative descriptions.

But people are naturally self-oriented, aren't they? It would be a disfunction if they were not. The problem arises when people see things from inside a prism of self-focus and don't balance that against anything else.

Well, someone, somewhere must have found a stash of these prisms and given them to the people I know.

They would say I'm the one in that prism, but that's just the prism talking.

This post is not necessarily about you.

Dogs are not really our best friends because they can't talk to us. For that, we are forced to seek people.

Or maybe dogs are man's best friends because they can't talk.

I mean if they did, what would they say to us? Would it be as confounding and unsettling as what people say?

Maybe they would say, "I'd really like to kill and eat a meaty animal." Would you want a friend who said something like that?

Or maybe, "Why don't you lick my balls for a while?" A little familiar, don't you think? (Under most circumstances.)

So, we're stuck with people.

Who are really not good friends at all.

(Maybe it would be better if they barked.)

I was slightly narked when I came in from work today, and I've no idea why. Just one of those things. So I changed my Facebook status to 'Paul is narked but has absolutely no idea why'. A couple of clicks and I see that only one minute earlier, m'pal Russ made his status 'Russ is euphoric and has no idea why'. How odd. Then my housemate walked in and said, "I'm really tired and I've no idea why." So, what were you feeling at about 8pm tonight, and you've no idea why?

Another thing of whose origin I know not, is that I've hurt my back. And it wasn't that 'bend down, pick up a crate, crack!' moment. Just went, on Friday, when I leant forward half a millimetre. I've never hurt it this bad before - it's a constant pain. Anyway, doctor's orders are to keep it moving, by swimming and/or cycling and/or running. ie. Do a triathlon. I wonder if it's too late to enter the Olympic team?

Speaking of which, that torch relay was fun, wasn't it? At least we now know what all those rings on the Olympic symbol stand for. First there’s the outer ring of policemen in black, then another ring of policemen in yellow with cycle helmets but no bikes, then an inner ring of ninjas in blue tracksuits, then Trevor McDonald plus a flame in the middle. From above, it looked like those old British Airways adverts. I thought it was an eye, winking. Anyway, put those Chinese marshalls in the games I say - they ran 31 miles without changing personnel, so they're fit for the marathon, the relay, and by the looks of their dealings with some of the crowd, the boxing.

I had a nice weekend. I got my hair cut at my pal Cheryl's house. Her little boy is well sweet, he's really unpredictable and even when he's a bit naughty he's not annoying. He was quoting Musical Youth lyrics to me as well. Top marks in my book.

I'm being featured in LOOK magazine. Not, LookIN, "Look". Thats right. All about how I work full time at MTV yet enjoy doing comedy in my spare time. I have a photo shoot for this on thursday at MTV and they're doing my hair and makeup. I have visions of me looking all soft focus and feather boa'd up. Do you remember that? Someone would approach you in the street and say "Hey! Wanna free makeover?" (maybe just I got offered the makeover) and all you have to do is buy the photos for three million pounds. And they always look the same. Soft focus, feather boa or silk wrap, black and white, pearl necklace sometimes...depending on how professional they were.

I just had the weirdest email conversation with someone about doing some compering work for them. It wasn't his fault at all, cause you know when you read an email in angry stressy mode, thats what this guy did. It just kept getting more and more confusing and he thought I was in a big moody. Reading my email back now I can see that it could be construed as being a bit negative but you know when you meant absolutely NOWT at all? I was being all jolly in my mind. Honest I was. Oh well. Powerful stuff is words typed.

On saturday at my mum's, I was studying a Delia Smith cook book (not being funny but I am LOVING cooking at the moment) and I glanced up at the TV (and this just goes to show how powerful the human mind is) I saw a very brief image of a girl with her arms outstretched and wearing a white blindfold. Here is a link to said pic - can't post one for some reason:
">www.geocities.com/ditcin4/watcherinthewoods1.jpg"> Now this haunting image must have stuck in my sub-conscious for about 20 years or so cause when I saw it Saturday I thought immediately "Watcher in the Woods"! I even forgot I knew the film. How powerful the human (my) mind is! Scary film! Recommend.

It snowed yesterday in greenwich. I phoned my mum to see if my cat Timmy was having a nice time in the snow and she informed me that it came up to his armpits. Lucky Timmy.

Going to Real Daniel O Donnel show on Wednesday cause one of the girls in my team are going off on Maternity Leave. Only problem is, I have decided to abstain from the devil's urine for the next couple of weeks cause I've got myself into all kinds of messes the last couple of weeks which I REGRET whole heartedly. I know giving up alcohol for periods of time is not a big deal for many people, and it shouldn't be for me. But when I go to a PUB, I expect to have a drink and one with a percentage value (usually 5% plus) none of this soda water crap.

Sigh.

Right gotta go.

Hello, Little Howard here.

I just wanted to say sorry for not writing to you more Chortle.co.uk. We've been very busy doing our shows, and Big Howard has got his family with him, who stink and take up lots of his time.

Apart from doing lots of lovely shows, not a lot has happened. I could have told you about all the lovely shows we've done, but that would be boring because we would have just said "Had a really good show today. Little Howard was very funny, Big Howard was okay, and the audience liked it. A computer went wrong in one bit, but it was okay. the end". Which would be rubbish.

We've had lots of comedians come to see our show. Ross Noble brought his nieces and said that it was one of the best shows he'd seen. Daniel Kitson bought Pappy's Fun Club, who are like neices, and was very nice too. David O'Doherty came, and threw some of his own poo at the stage. No he didn't. He liked it as well. I was just trying to make it more exiting.

We have seen some very good shows. We saw Pappy's Fun Club, which is great. We didn't get to see it in Edinburgh because Big Howard was sulking about having to do his stand-up show in a tent. But we saw it out here and it was really brilliant. One of our favorite things. We met Brendan from Pappy's Fun Club at the Beach today. He is very nice. Before that we went to a huge swimming pool with Nina Conti and Stan Stanley and their little boy Arthur. All day Big Howard forgot to tell me that they'd been nominated for a Barry Award (Nina and Monk, not Nina and Arthur or Stan - although they are both very funny). If I'd known I'd have splashed her more, as we weren't nominated for anything, and she was.

Other shows we have seen that have been very good have been Kristan Shaal. She is very funny, so is her friend Kurt. They are very silly and they make us laugh.

One of the bestest things we've seen is "Simply Fancy" a show by a group called Pig Island. It's three people, on of them is called Claudia O'Doherty, who used to go out with David O'Doherty, but she was called that before they went out, and they weren't married or anything. It's very funny. It's like The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, but it's more about fruit and Manta Rays. If it comes to edinburgh go and see it. Or if you come here, come and see it.

I think I've finished telling you things now.

Other things that are cool to do in Melbourne are go to the Melbourne Aquarium, go to Melbourne Zoo (but don't leave the Koalas til last like we did, it shuts at 5 you know!), go to The Melbourne Aquatic Centre, where you can swim and Big Howard won't go on the water-slide because everyone else were children, and he was embarrassed to cue with them all the way up he stairs). Go to Melbourne Museum and go to St Kilda (it should be called Melbourne St Kilda, like every thing else is).

Bye bye

Little Howard

PS. The other bit of news we have is that when we get to New Zealand we're going to be interviewed on Campbell Live which is a TV show there. We'll try to get the clip up as soon as we can after it happens.

LITTLE HOWARD: Hello. Things are going very well here in Melbourne. We're having a lovely time. We got a very good review today in The Age, which is extra-good because they called Big Howard "Howard Dean" all the way through it. Whoever Howard Dean is, everyone should definitely go to his show, it sounds great!

My favorite bits are "There's an art to entertaining children and their parents at the same time and Howard Dean has mastered it" and "Dean had the kids eating from the palm of his hand. Parents looking for an hour of all-ages live entertainment couldn't do much better." Although that last one would have been better if they'd said "Dean" at the end.

Big Howard doesn't think this is funny at all.

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/little-howard-and-the-magic-pencil-of-life-and-death/2008/04/07/1207420285905.html

Another nice review, where they unfortunately get Big Howard's name right all the way though is http://www.thegroggysquirrel.com/articles/2008/03/20/2008-melbourne-comedy-festival-reviews/little-howard-and-the-magic-pencil-of-life-and-death/

Bye bye

Little Howard

You can also read the very funny Age review here. Just so it makes me look like I've written more today.

Rating: 4 stars

There's an art to entertaining children and their parents at the same time and Howard Dean has mastered it.


In his latest show, the UK-based animator and stand-up comedian appears alongside his cartoon alter ego "Little Howard" in a series of humorous adventures.


Jealous of his creator's new baby, Little Howard discovers the magic pencil that drew him. But using it to make himself real has unintended consequences and - worse - sinister forces have hatched a plot to steal it.


It's worth arriving early - Dean warms up by doodling random members of the audience. The show follows a loose-knit format of songs and games, jokes and animated shorts, including a 3-D climax.


Its success owes much to its interactivity.


Kids are called on to swat an animated fly, to play catch with Little Howard and to enter his world as cartoon characters.


There are moments that will sail right over the youngsters' heads and tickle the adults, including a hilarious lullaby guaranteed to put the fear of God into naughty children who stay up past their bedtime.


Dean had the kids eating from the palm of his hand. Parents looking for an hour of all-ages live entertainment couldn't do much better.

The Age, Melbourne, Monday 7th of April 2008

Not of course that comedy comes in a cup. I wish it did, then on those days where I was feeling a bit brain dead I could drink some and it would all be ace. Such as parties or social occasions on my one night off in the week when people introduce me as 'Tiernan's a stand-up comic' and I am somehow instantly the least interesting and charismatic person there. Of course if comedy did come in a cup then everyone could drink it and the comedy world would come crashing down due to over-application. Goddamn there's always a catch.

Anyway, enough wittering. This week I have so many different types of things to do that my brain is feeling a bit like it might pack up its bags and leave due to overuse. Norma