In but 12 hours I'm heading up North to begin Edinburgh madness. All the props are sorted, the diaries crammed, admins all done, flyers/posters ready, everythings packed, its dark and I'm wearing sunglasses. Ok, not the last bit, but I wish I was. Although having tried it, its just hazardous rather than cool.

I seem to be feeling stressed before I've got there. Knowing that the second we arrive my day is filled with tech rehersals, rehersals, buying some monkey nuts and flyering as well as various other bits. But I'm excited too. I'm hoping its gonna be a rocking month, and I know I'll enjoy it when I get there, but until then, the pre-amble is scary.

Fingers crossed for at least one good review, several nights of messy madness, and at least two incidents of still being up at 11am having not slept and off my facedness to look back on and enjoy. But until then I've got a last night with my gilrfriend till I miss her for a few weeks and a night of worry that I've forgotten something seemingly trivial but possibly important.

Next blog will probably be in the early hours of the morning after a late night rehearsal of the children's play I still haven't got the script for! Woohoo! Its all go people! See ya at the festival.

Last thoughts, the Simpsons Movie is gash and truly disappointing and good luck to Matt Kirshen in the finals of Last Comic Standing. Watched his semi-final tonight and it was damn good. Shame about some of the US comics. Oh well.

5 days has passed since our final preview, and I can successfully say that we have done no further work towards our show in that time. Probably not what it needs, but all in all, its nice to have a little rest before you get so bored of the whole show you start to sabotage it for each other. I have already anticipated this will happen towards the end of Edinburgh and have bought hilariously logo'd underpants specifically to throw Lauren off. (Yes I am in my pants for two sketches. Have you ever heard more of a reason to see a show? Although to be fair, I've probably scared most of you off. Its true. I have no dignity.)

So what I did do this weekend was spend the whole of Sunday reading the entire Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as did much of the world aged 7-70 (if they still have decent eyesight). I'm not by one iota ashamed of this, and in fact I got really excited about buying it and finding out what actually happens to the boy wizard. And I have to say, it’s a pretty damn good read. Yep, JK has ripped off every fantasy writer this side of Discworld, but she also has a great way of making you love her characters. The book's pretty ace, and has a superb battle scene, and all is good and fun until...the end.

So so many things manage to screw up endings. I know endings are supposedly a tough thing to do, but after reading or watching most endings of things, 90% of audience will know where it’s gone wrong, and yet the director/writer seems to be unable to notice it and continue to f*ck it up. Potter has a happy ending. It comes pretty damn close to having a realistic (OK I know he's a wizard so realism is not the most important factor) and mildly depressing conclusion, but it jumps the gun and makes everything all happy and shiny before children can clog up Childline with their moaning.

Life rarely has happy endings. Especially if you are fighting the most evil wizard ever (Voldermort that is. Although there are many contenders to this title, including Sauron, that one from Willow the Wisp and David Copperfield). I want more realism in these things so children can learn to not be so bloody optimistic. Spiderman should've got bitten by a radioactive spider and got cancer, Simba should've been shot by illegal hunters, Woody should've got stuck behind a radiator and never retrieved, Shrek should've been burned at the stake for being an ogre, and Harry Potter should've died while Ron and Hermione are reduced to a life travelling with Paul Daniels and Bobby Davro respectively. Because that’s what would really happen. And that’s what I'll tell the kids at Comedy 4 Kids in Edinburgh for maximum tear potential. Although none of them will be old enough to know the sheer tragedy of Bobby Davro, and they should all feel joy to have been spared his and Linda Lusardi's mediocrity (although Linda's lycra suits will forever be applauded).

I like that in a story. Harshness. And unnecessary damage to buildings and people. I saw Transformers at a preview a few weeks ago, and it was amazing. Yeah it had a happy ending, but it also had 2 hours of huge robots f*cking stuff up. No proper storyline. No sh*tty love stories. Just robot violence. Beautiful.

I've kind of forgotten what my point was thanks to memories of robots destroying things. Jesus, they are big robots and they destroy so much stuff. But I do think JK missed a shot by finished the books with an ending that would shock the world. I might write to her and suggest a second edition featuring a teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, a youth detention centre and obesity, with Harry declaring his gay love for Voldemort before being stabbed by hoodies to cover all current issues.

Or I could just actually do some work towards our show....

So that's it. No more previews left and just over a week till we head to the Scottish city (Edinburgh that is. There are several Scottish cities, I don’t want you to get confused).

Both previews this week were pretty good. Although Lauren thought last night stunk n a stinky way, but she was wrong. Its tough because Wednesday was the most packed and crowded audience we've had and so the atmosphere was great. We only managed to mildly offend two people and there was laughter throughout. But then on Thursday we only had 17 in a room that was much bigger than the night before. People get strange when it’s like that. Its almost as thought they are nervous to laugh just in case no one else does. You can see people starting and holding back. Several people said afterwards they felt awkward about laughing out loud because everyone else was holding back. Rubbishness. I find that so hard to deal with because in stand-up you can confront it directly, warm people up, loosen up the crowd. But in a scripted show, you are limited. You cant just break out of script, make everyone do drama warm ups and all claps and say our names or some wank.

And so whatever we did, the laughs fell into the gaps in the chairs a bit. I still thought it was much slicker than it has been and apart from a few technical fuck-ups it was good fun. And that’s the most important bit right?

I've also discovered from my younger brother that there is no such thing as 'super-id' just 'id' and now I feel like a big ignoramus, although I didn’t tell him that even though we had written a gag about it, I still have no idea what it all really means. I once read some of Freud's 'Jokes and the Unconscious' and quickly decided that he was the least funny human ever (apart from one of my old uni lecturers who successfully sent the whole room to sleep once. Saying that, he could have drugged us. He was a bit odd). Anyway I'm not pretending our comedy show is all highbrow and stuff, but I am sad my younger brother is smarter than me. It’s so wrong when siblings do that.

I am now gonna rehearse lines for the next week, while trying to write some new stand-up, rehearse the kids show, temp and get some sleep in-between. I fear I may die before August even begins. Although that would be one hell of a good PR angle for our show. Hmm, I'll get working on that now...

PS I've just found out that my spell check keeps trying to substitute 'wank' for 'wink'. Sadly I find this far too funny and no work will no happen for at least an hour while I try writing different sentences with 'wank' in, to spell check it. 'What a winker'. 'My mum caught me winking'. 'I winked all over her'. Hee hee hee. God I'm such a child.

Somehow yesterday afternoon I found myself agreeing to take part in a children's show in Edinburgh that starts at an ungodly time of 10.20am. Now I'm not 100% sure why I said yes to this. Its only 3 days a week, and I love the idea and I quite enjoy the idea of doing kids shows at first. Then what nearly always happens is that during the shows I realise that children are the most evil kind of audience you can get.

I am witness to this first hand having done kids shows for years. Starting with entertaining my little cousin with puppets shows where she would become quickly bored and scratch my brother in the face, to doing a TIE (Theatre in Education for those fortunate enough to have never come across it) piece for a school in Hackney where the children shouted 'dickhead' and 'battyman' at us even though they seemed to be enjoying it. And they were only 6-7 years old.

More recently of course I've done James Campbell's 'Comedy 4 Kids' which, while being a truly great gig, inflicts more fear on me than the idea of doing a set about flowers and pixies at Up The Creek to actual Vikings. Kids there decide to sit upside down in their chairs, skate around on their 'heelies' and actually go 'wild and crazy' for the next act if the MC asks them to.

Then there's also the issue of what you can and can’t say. I hosted an event on Friday for the Arts Council in front of 170 schools and their teachers. We had performances from professional storytellers, break dancers etc, and also from a special needs school with 'visual impairments' that were playing musical pieces. Unlike the incredible musical abilities of blind Stevie Wonder, all of these children were shit. It took all my efforts to not go on afterwards and say something like 'wow, they were blinding'. But you can’t do that in front of kids. Or really in front of anyone. Actually, it’s just wrong.

But this Edinburgh kids show looks damn fun and I like being busy so should be good. I'm just hoping none of the kids will be near enough to me to smell hangover at 10.20 on a Saturday morning.

Further rehearsals last night, and more changes to the show. Am really pleased with our latest changes. Final two Edinburgh previews this week:

Etcetera Theatre Camden - 7.30
Landor Theatre Clapham - 9.00

Come along if you can. If you cant, well don’t then. Loser.

PS the title is not a reference to the unfortunate Langham trial or anything like that, but merely a word I made up using the word for fear of children and sticking 'show' in it. I'm sure it doesn’t really work like that, but I don’t care and I feel clever, so there.

...or so they say. However, what they don’t take into account is that when you receive you haven’t had to spend hours searching for something that ends up being only mildly enjoyed by the person who's received it and thus you are left merely with a lower status in their eyes and less money in your bank.
Its one of those phrases that was clearly written by an arsehole. Its like 'that would be over egging the pudding'. If you over egg the pudding, surely you just add extra ingredients so you have even more pudding. No one complains about extra puddings, not even me, and I'm diabetic so it could kill me and everything. Or 'too many chefs spoil the broth'. Get them to make even more broth instead and its all great. Losers.

I've been shopping for my dad's (slightly belated) birthday present, and every year it seems to get harder to find something. Back when I was a kid a shit drawing would suffice (or so parents tell you. However, when I am a parent I will be adamant that my 3 year old son/daughter gets me quality goods), but I feel that every year I have to step up the mark and avoid getting CDs/DVDs or dad clothes from GAP or somewhere.
Sadly after three hours of sheer aimless window shopping, I completely gave up and just went to faithful HMV. I am a cop out king. I hope that place never closes or there will be thousands of sad dads everywhere come birthday time. That little yappy dog and gramophone keeps families together. When the world is only downloads there will be many more broken homes. Sigh. Its almost like a lesser version of the Matrix.

People always say that its really hard buying a present for their dads. I'm not sure why this is, ‘cos my dad likes loads of stuff as do other dads (except one of my friends dads who only likes making derogatory comments about other people’s driving abilities and you cant buy that as a present. Yet. There is a whole untapped market there that should be dwelled upon and perhaps attached to a sat nav). I think it’s the unfair assumption that dads are hard to buy for that makes everyone stressed about getting them stuff. I will stop this when I am a dad and make concise lists of exactly what I want and from where. I will also only ever get my kids games that I can beat them at. Essentially I will be a bad parent.

Although not as bad as Barry who went to my university who vowed he would call his first child (boy or girl) Steve? with that question mark there like that, so whenever he spoke their name it would seem inquisitive. 'Its time for school, Steve?', 'Let me read you a story, Steve?' and perhaps most disheartening 'I love you, Steve?'. Never will a child grow up more damaged. Apart from his next few kids who he will just number. I expect at least it will make a humorous story in a (waste of) free newspaper one day that will make three people mildly chuckle at the psychological abuse of children while on their way to humdrum office jobs. Every cloud, every cloud.

Apparently what a good blog needs is a different theme everyday. That’s what another constructively critical friend said to me when I enquired what he thought of my previous few entries. 'It shouldn't just be a log book, it should be as though you are writing a newspaper column. Yours is more like a "what I did in my holidays" entry' Apparently. Of course he is a master of blog etiquette and technique, but writes his under a pseudonym and wont tell me what it is, so I cant use it as a template. Wonderfully helpful without actually being remotely helpful whatsoever. Not too dissimilar from the NHS direct help line.

I have never excelled at any sort of journalistic or novelistic (a word what I made) writing, with a high point in my life when I received two merits in my English class (aged 13) for a Raymond Chandler style story about a missing dog. I had wanted to write a severely grisly murder story, but I was forced to conform to light heartedness, and hilarious dog antics to avoid funny looks and a poor mark.

Although feeling as though it would be good to fight conformity, I will attempt to write each of my blogs in a more brief and thematic manner. At some point when my blog dictators back is down I shall write a minute by minute dull entry of my life up until this point and defy all his boundaries and rules and become the reigning blog rebel king! My minions shall all join m and together we shall stop blogs being featured in crap free papers, and writing everywhere will sound like a child with learning difficulties had written it (like that book about the dead dog. I could’ve done that.)! We shall overcome in a poor and illiterate way!

Until then though today’s blog has themed on dogs, and brought to you by the letters D, Z and the number 12.

By the way, for anyone who cares, Fat Tuesday last night was excellent thanks to the small but enthusiastic crowd. Both Steve Williams and Glenn Wool's previews were excellent, and are going to make brilliant Edinburgh shows. Go check them out if you can.

Last night's decision to cancel our preview seemed like the best idea in the world. Until that is, I picked up a copy of the London L(Sh)ite. I say picked up, it was thrust into my chest by an angry distributor of free goods. I can never work out why they are so vicious. Is it their only means of standing up against the trash that they hand out so freely? Or is it because the only people they can hire to do such a mundane task are a bit damaged and don’t know the difference between love and pain? Many of them having 'hugged' family members until they died. We shall never know.

Anyway, within this small waste of sapling, our Tea and Cake preview happened to be pick of the day. A rare occasion and extreme hard work from our ace PR lady, but we had shat it all up by cancelling the only gig we've had good coverage for. Gash. There was no way to rectify the situation, as all our props were in the car with my girlfriend the other side of London. So we just didn’t bother trying and had a muffin instead.

The Good, The Bad and The Queen gig was excellent. It didn’t start being excellent. In fact all the support bands were mediocre, it was raining lots and Harry Enfield MC'd. Many of you might think that was a good thing, but it was as though your dad was allowed to host a great gig, and was awkward and humourless. There are many a better host/MC in the comedy world that could have done that gig justice. Harry also kept swearing loads as though he thought that made him down with the kids, when instead he just seemed like the sort of awkward dad who makes all your friends hate you. Shame really. I was very tempted to shout 'You haven’t been funny since Stavros', but was able to maintain myself.

Damon's band were actually amazing. As well as the legendary mix of people in the band, they had a full string section, choir and a beheading of a man dressed as Tony Blair (po-lit-ical, word). Most songs managed to entirely silence a rowdy crowd and we all had shivers down our spine long after it finished. Superb stuff.
Afterwards, my brother and I were persuaded to go to the after party (not much persuasion is needed for these events that involve further booze) which happened to be unnecessary miles away. The place was swanky and filled with people with elaborate haircuts and clever hats. I felt completely out of place, and spent the whole night in a corner waiting for someone to spot I shouldn’t be there and throw me out. I'm normally very good at hobnobbing (the social networking that is, not the art of throwing biscuits in people's eyes or the sexual act involving oven tops), but the people there were all so cool and chummy that I felt unable to do anything but be corner boy. The worst was when Dennis Hopper appeared and I felt completely star struck. Well at least until my brother reminded me he was in the Mario Bros Movie.
He had a huge presence in the room, despite being much smaller than you think (us small people manage to do things like this well) and I spoke to someone who had met him three times and was still unable to speak to him so I felt ok.

It reminded me of when I met Kevin Spacey several years ago and managed to blurt out 'You are like one of my acting idols', only for him to grimace at me and my supportive friend to laugh in my face. I have been somewhat scarred since then.

Today I have too much of a beard on my face but didn’t have time to shave before I left the house. The itchy pain is overwhelming and I keep need to rub my cheeks (facial not anal) on inanimate objects to survive, like a lesser Balloo the Bear. I truly believe that evil bad guys in films with beards only became evil due to the itchy insanity that followed beard growing. That’s why Rasputin was proper nuts.

Fat Tuesday tonight with Glenn Wool and Steve Williams! Huzzah! After which I will shave! Huzzah again (I promised more use of that word so there it is).

Over and out.

A tough executive decision was made by Lauren and myself today. We had a preview booked in for tonight, but no tickets have been sold and we knew of only one person attending. While this may represent most Edinburgh shows, we cant be arsed and so have cancelled it, replacing it instead with 2 hours of coffee and writing.
10 mins after this decision, like some congratulatory back slap of the gods, my brother (a budding Hip Hop producer on the UK scene. Shameless promotion of his new album to follow in the coming weeks. Its actually really damn good, something no one wants from a little brother) rang me to say he has a spare ticket for tonight's 'The Good, The Bad, and the Queen' gig at the Tower of London. I am so excited I might actually wee a bit. Damon Albarn and Beefeaters in the same evening is a recipe for genius. If Jamie 'c*nt' Oliver concocted that for school dinners everyone would be happy. If only all lazy decisions worked in this way.

Although the paranoid part of me does worry that tonight’s lack of rehearsal will result in show sloppiness. I fear that Edinburgh reviews will state 'could have been great but feel they could have done with precisely four more hours of rehearsal. Did love the Vikings and pirates though.' Everyone loves Vikings and pirates. However, Vikings don’t really like pirates and vice versa, mostly down to dress sense and violent historical figure importance in today’s culture clashes. As yet pirates are winning with www.piratejokes.net being a daily check point for me, but as yet no vikingjokes.net. Something very wrong with that methinks. Also no 'Vikings of the Caribbean'. Someone should do that. With Rutger Hauer, Dolph Lungren and other Scandinavians in it. Cant think of other famous Scandinavians other than porn stars. Let me know if you do and we'll script it.

Last night's King's Head gig was great. I was feeling lethargic and knackered and not very keen on doing a set, but I always end up loving that gig. Even when its quiet its such a lovely room. Some of my new stuff didn’t work amazingly but all in all was groovy. Huw Thomas entertained with his MCing on his first night back in four years which was great and Andre Vincent managed to insult all my material within his set like the chump that he is. Bastard. One day I will actually get him back but as it is he will always be on the bill after me, and thus has the upper hand. Oh for a headlining set purely for revenge reasons. I'm sure thats not why you should aim to headline, but I do. Possibly why I havent yet. Hmmm.

I was going to attempt to blog daily, an idea that has been ruined by having to do stuff. Stuff always gets in the way but this stuff in particular was getting up at 5am two days in a row for this filming thing. 5am is an hour of the day that should never ever be classed as morning. 5am is only acceptable to be awake for when you have stayed up all night, or you are going on holiday. To get up at 5am to then be driven to some barracks at Aldershot to get rained on a lot is not in any way right and Aldershot is never ever a place for a holiday, despite being deceivingly far away (a normally automatic holday qualification). Hence a distinct lack of blog and a very long catchy up one today.

Saying that, the two days of filming were brilliant. Amongst other things I got to go in a helicopter which made me over excited and hyper like a kid on sweets. I subsequently texted three of my friends to tell them how ace it was, only to receive three texts saying (in order) 'hahaha you wanker', 'arse', and 'motherfucker', which immediately made me feel like somehow going in a helicopter was for wankers. The power of good friends to make you feel like a twat no matter the occasion. Good times.

There were some truly great people on the shoot. One of the actors was this huge guy who did all his own stunts and is soon to be playing a man in a Nicholas Cage film as 'a cop who gets hit by a car', a role I think many would be jealous of. He had some truly amazing tales about various things including a scar on his face from being hit by a broadsword, and a great tale about being sunk in a helicopter and having to break his way out and swim 15ft to the surface of the Bristol channel. Without thinking I immediately told him how 'cool' that was and that I'd love to do something like that. This couldnt be further from the truth, but I created the illusion that despite all appearances I have no fear and am an adrenaline rush junkie. This was ruined in the next 30mins by the high pitched squeel I made when the helicopter took off and my status was again reduced to little bearded scaredy twat. Damn.

Edinburgh wise, we had a preview yesterday afternoon that went really well and made us both feel better after our stinker the week before. We've made a couple of small changes that seemed to make a huge difference, which is the sort of lazy result I like. We did also do the child abuse incest gag infront of my nan, and she didnt understand it so a result we are all happy with. Next preview is monday and so far we have a pre-booked audience of one. So good practice for Edinburgh then.....

Got a set at the Kings Head tonight, and am a bit dubious as I havent done a stand-up gig for two weeks due to sketch show practice. Was gonna use tonight for new material, but have managed not to write any, again. Feeling extremely rusty and have a horrible feeling it may just suck and I'll die on my arse or revert to old material I am bored to shit with. Good times.

Sorry for the lengthy blog, more frequent and shorter blogs to follow! Huzzah! (More use of the word huzzah too! Huzzah again!)

Last night was the first rehearsal after the Edinburgh preview that went so horribly wrong that I wrote about yesterday. It was bad because we had no energy, screwed lines up and generally did everything wrong. To put it into perspective, my friend told us that 'it wasn’t that bad at all, infact you've reached a level where even your worst is better than other people's stuff.' This is the friend who will willingly waste £2 on texting me multiple times that I am a 'gaylord', and so those compliments mean it must’ve sucked so bad he couldn’t even joke about it. We had a preview a few weeks ago, where out of the 18 audience members everyone enjoyed it except two people who were very vocal about how bad it was. Despite this, that gig was ruined by them and not us so last week was the true stinker.

So there was a lot to work out yesterday and we knew that we'd gotten off to a good start when the tube we caught to Lauren's flat went up in flames at Canary Wharf and we had to bail out and trek back. I love how passive and grumpy everyone gets at situations like that. After all the terror alerts and other fear-inducing wank, most Londoners still refuse to give a toss (by the way did anyone else think it was strange that they said they had found 'petrol and gas cylinders' in the failed bomb cars last weekend? Surely those are two key components of every working car and thus they should all be taken off the road as possible terror threats!).

It reminded me of a few months after 7/7 when I was in Kings Cross and an announcement came on asking people to evacuate the station. Several Americans started freaking out and racing for the escalators. Meanwhile, all the Brits were just scowling and blaming on the shitty tube systems. No fear, just sheer distaste.

To cut a short story long, we got rid of our usual 'waste an hour of our rehearsal on inane banter' banter out of the way on the trek there and so had a truly productive night. If only we had encountered more mind focussing danger situations and we'd be all ready by now. My main worry now is whether to leave out some gags about incestuous rape for when my Nan sees our matinee preview on Saturday. Choices, choices.

Am now typing all after returning from recording some sound effects for some adverty thing I cant talk about, but it’s for a company that don’t kill babies or anything so its ok. To be honest, the pay cheque renders most political concerns invalid, but I'm definitely ok with these people. However, along with two others lovely actor blokes, I've had to spend 2 hours singing the same karaoke song 'well, but badly' and I feel if I ever hear it again there might be violence. Lucky for me then that I'll be up at 5am tomorrow to trek out of London for further filming. I have realised that its possible to still be miserable even if you’re doing something essentially fun. Once again, the British attitude shines.

T

Well hello to you

Erm, this is actually my first blog ever ever. I have already spent 15 minutes wondering what to title this post, and still not really succeeding in anything truly magnificent. However, the current title is still better than my previous effort of 'My First Ever Blog', which sounds like a children's book on potty training or similar activity (not sure what other activities could be classed as similar to potty training. Uh oh, another 10 minutes of my life wasted on an uneccessary thought train.)

So as most people do, a small disclaimer before we all embark on the rollercoaster ride (or more likely one of those Postman Pat machines that cost 10p and are three minutes of shuddering jolty movement and then disappointment. Much like sex.) that is my life and ponderings. Er, I aim to blog a lot, and try to write only interesting smidgens of stuff, but as I have already written more than I wanted and find myself distracted by a website about dogs dressed as bees (www.beedogs.com - strange but true) none of the above are guaranteed.

Anyhoo, I'm currently spending most of life working on my show with Lauren Shearing called Tea and Cake at the Undebelly, Delhi Belly (I love saying that, its like a Dr.Seuss book. Not as good as Fox in Socks though) for the festival and so stand-up is about to take a kind of back seat while we work on sketches involving many silly hats and occasional cancer gags. However I have just spent a weekend involving the worst Edinburgh preview we have ever done ever (less of a children's book title), gaining bizarre info off of a drunk member of a very important international governing body, and much drinking at a wedding in Ipswich where I met some Dubliners/Dublinites/Dubmasters who are all much funny than I could ever be. Damn them. So I'll end this blog here before I ramble on about all of them even more. Incidentally, I watched the brand new Simpsons movie trailer end of last week. The last gag on it has been making me laugh out loud uneccessarily for 4 days. Should be a damn good film, go watch the trailer nowish.

We shall reconvene in 24:00 hours - hee hee I feel like Jack Bauer. Although after Kiefer hosted something at that shite Diana concert yesterday(plus point to that was watching posh people dance. Lots of limbs moving independantly of each other and no timing whatsoever. Brilliant) I feel like he's a tad less cool. That and season 6 was pants.

Peace and pies

T