I have spent a stupid amount of time this week trying to put all of my CD collection onto itunes so that my choices for portable music listening will be extended beyond that of a mere mortal's selection. This is a tiresome process because a) I have a sh*teload of CDs, and b) regardless of the advances in technology it is one of the slowest processes known to humankind. Its slower than waiting to buy parking permits at the council town hall, or that crap bit of the M1 when they reduce it to one lane at 3am in the morning leaving queues of lorry drivers and comedians filled with sadness. When Steve Jobs gets up and does his lovely talks about clever Apple products I suspect he has never once thought of just spending a week making itunes a bit faster and allowing obsessive ipod users like myself a bit more time in their lives.

The worst thing about all of this, is that after three days of solid music copying - I have now managed to get into a groove whereby I can do many other things and copy CDs, see who cant multi-task now ladies? - my i-pod broke. Not only did it break, but it waited until half an hour before it was to be used as the Fat Tuesday play list before it froze then repeatedly mocked me with a little lit-up apple sign while I frantically pressed all the few buttons it has in hope of resuscitating it back to life.

I remember that a few years ago I saw most of Dan Clark's brilliant show about losing his i-pod. At the time there was a cynical part of me thinking that I would easily cope without one as I had done most of my life. Who can't handle hearing music everywhere they go? Well, me actually. Suddenly a tube journey I made yesterday was the most boring trip of my life. The gym, already unbearable even with the aid of my own music, became even worse as all I can hear are the grunts of muscle-heads and fat people alike working out while some euro-pop dance trash that sounds like a child accidentally created it using 16 beat on a Casio keyboard, plays over the tannoy.

When did this dependency happen? I didn't used to trawl my Sony Sports Walkman everywhere, although that may have been because it weighed as much as a brick and its difficult to turn a tape over when your on a treadmill. Its not just the i-pod though. I was perfectly capable of using a map or reading from the AA directions to get to gigs until I got a satnav at Christmas. Having a Nintendo Wii means I barely leave the house. I barely speak to anyone thanks to email and the Internet. I've become a recluse thanks to technology and yet if it was all to be taken away I'd suddenly find myself bored and unable to do anything.

Perhaps the Luddites were right, we should have smashed all the machines. Little chance of that now, as even holding a meeting to discuss such things would require the use of mobile phones and email rendering all arguments void. No turning back now I guess. Soon we'll be spoon fed by a giant floating food machine, our muscles will be exercised with small electrodes while we remain prostrate and we will spend our lives living in tiny cubicles never seeing another human except for their Facebook profile, from which we can press a button and our DNA will be combined for test tube cloning/breeding. Or not.

Either way I have only until next Monday when I have a four hour train ride to Edinburgh to work out what to do about lack of personal music system which scares me more that my over-imagination. Better dig out that Sony Sports Walkman.....

Its all back in full swing this week with gigs left, right and centre. Of the UK that is, in just seven days I've been to the North, Midlands, London and Wales for comedy purposes. Obviously for comedy purposes I might add, as I'd like to re-iterate that there would be little to no chance of me ever visiting any of these venues for the sheer fun of it.

Its been a mixed bag of gigs too. None were amazing, but at the same time none were particularly bad. Wherever they were let down, I feel I can confidentially say it was to do with either the venue or crowd, but not me. Had a tough crowd to MC in a student venue full of science geeks. That wasn't the (main) problem, but lack of monitors past the front of the stage meant that two thirds of the crowd couldn't hear a word. That and they were science geeks. Regardless of what defence you may give science geeks they are inherently social misfits. They have to be otherwise they wouldn't spend enough time in their labs curing aids and cancer and instead would be out shagging and drinking. In the end we have to be grateful that they have no friends.

Then there was the lovely Welsh gig that started with a bunch of people who didn't want to have any crowd response until they'd had enough booze. Luckily enough, after taking a 'bullet for the team' for the first 15 minutes, they opened up and it became lovely, not least because I endured my favorite and most polite heckle of all time from an 80 year old man who called me a 'doughnut'. I was so thrown by the mildness of that insult and the fact I hadn't understood a single word of the welsh sentence that had preceded it, that I had to just compliment the man on his sugary baked goods based cuss.

Then lastly, last night a hot sweaty stuffy room, with a gig that ran on far too long and a crowd that had drunk too much and were too tired by the time myself and the final act got on stage. I could also be slightly bitchy and say that the crowd horrifically cackled loudly at the first super hack comic (names shall not be named) only to enjoy anyone more wordy slightly less, but as I say, that would be unnecessarily mean.

I've managed to convince myself that on all of those occasions it wasn't my fault I didn't enjoy the gigs as much as I should've done. Its amazing how comedy is one of the few jobs where the customer isn't always right, and it can be variables other than the performer that ruin the show. Mario Joyner who has been supporting Chris Rock on his tour had a lovely bit of material about this, explaining how you wouldn't have a pilot blaming the people at the back for a bumpy ride etc.

A lot of people say this and sometimes its indisputable - see http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/tiernan/2007/10/ for post 'I hate Students' as a prime example - but most other times I cant help but have a nagging feeling I could have done something about it if I was a more experienced comic. I tend to leave a gig thinking if I'd just said that, done this or approached it like that, there must have been a way to make that crowd seem less like the undead on a sponsored sleep/mute-a-thon. I've seen top acts grapple with a crowd or room difficulties until suddenly the gig is theirs, and its a great thing to witness. I'd like to mention that this has happened to me once or twice, but I also find myself slipping into the mind frame that the gig is already lost and so I have to do my job and abandon ship. I'm hoping that the willpower to became a comedy vigilante appears with time.

Of course, then on rare occasion I witness the acts I've seen save gigs, suffer at the hands of a stubborn arsed crowd and revert back to the original thought that people are shit and I really should live in a cave with my Nintendo Wii, I-pod and a good book. I've just read that last statement back to myself and wonder if I am a grumpy 80 year old man trapped inside the body of a 27 year old. Of course if I am then it means that by right I can call people 'doughnuts', which makes it all worthwhile.

Also this week have bumped into fellow humour merchants all over the place. From the tube and random service stations on the M1 (not that unlikely considering how often we frequent such areas) to a busy shop and my local hospital. Are they following me to check that I'm not doing non-comedy things on the side like undercover comedy police? Worrying that I might be indulging in other culture or just being miserable? Or perhaps they are just being normal people and once again I've had a tad too much sugar and have become over imaginative again. Not to self, get Ribena light next time.....

I have been truly struggling to get out of bed this past week. I was wondering if these past few weeks have been where I finally catch up on sleep from last Edinburgh as its my first real break since. More realistically though I think its a combination of weather and the fact that I have had no reason to most days, and even when I did, it wasn't to do something until after midday. What also may be hindering my alertness could be that even when I've had gigs, I've decided to play Wii until 3am once I've got home. There is something comforting about doing this that reminds me of being a student again. Now all I need to do is drink every night of the week, pretend that I know lots of things when I don't and maintain a sheltered social life and it'll almost be the same.

Part of my need for sleep may well be caused by the stress of last week's Fat Tuesday gig. As luck would have it we had been mentioned in half a ton of papers and on the radio. We had one hell of a line-up too. So I shouldn't have been surprised when ticket demand for the gig suddenly became quite high, and consequently it became over crowded to an uncomfortable level. Most club promoters would probably be very pleased that their club had become this popular, but I just found it overly stressful and was unable to enjoy the gig. Thanks to Ticketmaster being hugely unhelpful we can only 'reserve' tickets via email which doesn't really work except with a small crowd. Even with turning away all people on the night, all the phone calls the venue had been getting and a further 60 people on email, we still had to turn away people that had reserved because they had got there too late to get a seat.

The gig was great and all the acts stormed it. Despite this though, health and safety was a constant issue ( I kindly asked the crowd 'not to start a fire please') and even with the hordes I made very little profit. The bar (who are very supportive of Fat Tuesday) are now nagging us to do the show in the larger room downstairs. However, they have little knowledge of comedy clubs and do not realise that a room with a big bar alongside the side will really never work. Also, I don't want to run a bigger gig and not just because I'm lazy. The reason acts like doing it and our audiences regularly come back is because its small and intimate. Whether there is 20 or 90 people in the room has an energy to it. So what do we do? Sell out and become a bigger club? The pros of this would be that we'd get more dosh and could get even better acts. The cons of course would be that when we don't sell enough tickets then the room becomes tough to play.

Aside from this I hate running a club. Things like the numbers issue is annoying. General booking politics are annoying The amount of emails I get from open spots who have been going for a week, have three minutes of material and want to do a 20 set at FT are annoying. But the pay off of a great night is priceless. I love MCing it too. Its my gig and I can confidently say I know exactly how to play it. Lastly, and most importantly, we've been running for 3 and a half years now, a lot of hard work has gone into making it a good gig, and I don't trust anyone else to do it!

Ultimately I'll probably change nothing and complain again when it all goes wrong. Ho hum.

Our kittens have found the furry hot water bottle that my girlfriends mum got her for Christmas and they are licking and cleaning it as though its another cat. Is it possible for a cat to be mentally ill or deluded?

This week has been my birthday week. You may possibly argue how it might be a whole birthday week when most people only have birthdays for one day? Well my answer to you would be because I am a self indulgent individual who very much enjoys the excuse to have fun all week and not really be productive in any way. Also when you have a normal job it may seem fun and perhaps cheeky to have a day off for your special day, but when you are a self employed comedian it merely becomes a clever disguise for the fact that I have no bookings until the end of January.

I'm not saddened by this though. Well I am a bit, and my bank is especially, but on the plus side I have been keeping myself busy with birthday fun. Whilst 27 may not be old to many people, I feel in particular that it is. In the entertainment world, 27 is ancient. Most famous people make it when they are merely 20 and so by being 27 and still not getting anywhere in particular I feel time is quickly running out which is odd as running is the last thing I feel capable of doing in my old old age. So to make me feel younger my girlfriend bought me a Nintendo Wii for my birthday which made me very quickly get as excited as a 7 year old, and as unproductive as someone who is addicted to playing the Nintendo Wii. Today I am restraining myself in order to get some writing done, and hence the first blog in over a week and a bit.

In between boxing virtual opponents and helping Italian plumbers jump down pipes I have also been out and about. On Friday I went to see comedy legend Chris Rock at the Apollo. Its rare for me to pay to see a stand-up as usually I get my fair share in the week of gigs, and go home not wanting to hear anything remotely funny for a while, but I had been looking forward to seeing Chris Rock live ever since I first heard 'Roll With The New' in 1997. What he did on that show was ground breaking, controversial and full of energy, and I thought it was one of the best shows I had ever heard. I've since watched his shows after that and while I loved 'Bigger and Blacker', I wasn't too fond of his last and more generic show 'Never Scared'. Nevertheless, he had never played in the UK before and has now sold out all 11 dates, so I was hoping it'd be something special. There have been enough great reviews of this show but in my opinion it was and it wasn't. When he first walked on the stage the energy had the hairs on the back of my neck on end. 3000 people applauding a man for merely entering and grabbing the mic was amazing and he immediately treated us with some great banter about being in London and the US Elections. The first hour was excellent with some brilliant material on race issues and a few lines that made me laugh so hard I snorted. Then all of a sudden, everything took a dip, and the last 45 minutes was not too good. The material suddenly went from sharp to bland 'why men and women are different' gags that he has been doing for years. That's not to say he didn't perform it well, but it still felt flat and not the Chris Rock we had paid to see. The whole gig also felt a tad impersonal. In a venue of 3000 plus I didn't expect him to banter with everyone but he literally ignored all shout outs, did a very brief bit at the beginning about London but then filled the rest of the show with US references not everyone knew (how many people here know about Barry Bonds?) and then left with a very abrupt 'I'm gone, thanks'. That finale left everyone feeling a little cold. All it would have taken was a few more acknowledgements of the audience and a 'thanks you were a great crowd' or something to help us differentiate the gig from watching a DVD. Despite this though, I'm very glad I went and the good lines made it more than worth it.

As a follow up to this, on Saturday I ventured with a few close friends to Ronnie Scott's, the famous London Jazz Club. Once in there a friend on mine remarked that she had recently been to several live jazz gigs which 'must mean I'm getting old'. Bizarrely I seem to agree with her. A few years ago I would never have spent a Saturday night revelling in the softly sung tones of a female jazz vocalist and some amazing trumpet playing, opting more for drum n bass at Fabric or something more club-like. Is this a sign of mellowing out as a person? My music collection has suddenly started including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Bird and lots of Nina Simone to name a few, while as I type this I am thoroughly enjoying the horn playing of 4-piece band Portico Quartet.

My music taste has always been, for want of a better term, eclectic. I do hate stating that, as often when people say their music taste is eclectic I find they like to listen to truly sh*t things such as Algerian monks wailing from horseback or Hungarian techno-folk rock. The latter actually exists and it is truly aurally abhorrent. I've never enjoyed that sort of stuff but what I like really does range from funk to rock to hip-hop to classical to blues. Lately however there has suddenly been a lure for jazz, (bar that complete moron Jamie Cullem and his rodent faced ways) and I can only put that down to maybe being old enough to appreciate it. Either that or snobby enough to think I'm old enough to appreciate.

And when you go to Ronnie Scott's you realise the pay-off of liking such a type of music, as its the sort of venue that reeks cool from every corner. It was the sort of venue that it felt prestigious to be in, and when the main band played it was almost like we were trapped in a 30's speak easy. Only there was the absence of smoke. Or gangsters. And it wasn't illegal. And it wasn't the 30's.

So to play along with our surroundings, our table got drunk on cocktails, talked all the way through the final act before proceeding to leave and scoff our faces while food fighting at a cheapo place in China Town, then returning to mine to drink more and play Lego Star Wars on the Nintendo Wii. Maybe I haven't got too old just yet.

A terrible pun to start my first blog of the year, but its the only chance I've had to make the joke since having a week's Xmas hols in Egypt. No one over there got it, and no one over here has paid any attention to me when I've said it as its such an awful play on words that it deserves to be blocked from memory and eradicated from thought from its first mention. However, I like it, so unfortunately all who read this blog will be subjected to it, and hopefully, just hopefully one person might chuckle then feel sad about how their sense of humour is dying.

Happy New Year by the way, which is how this blog should of started. I hope you all feel rested and excited to start the year of 2008 despite the fact it is merely another 365 days leading to the next set and now (apart from birthdays) there are little to no presents involved. As I increase in elderlyness I seem to enjoy New Year's Eve and its oncoming doom less and less. So this year my girlfriend and I made a conceited effort to escape the country and have a much deserved and long awaited week's holiday.

Not having any baring on my girlfriend's half Egyptian origin, its amazing ancient history or the fact that camels look funny, we decided to head to Luxor mainly due to the God of Decisions - my bank account. Oh, and the fact that it was bloody hot over there, and it wasn't and still determinedly isn't, here. Christmas holidays are an increasingly popular way to spend the festive for the British public and we weren't quite early enough to book the destinations we originally aimed for. In retrospect though, in light of recent events, I'm pretty glad we missed out on the decent deals to Kenya, or I might of had a moderately less fun holiday. In fact I know for sure that I enjoy sunbathing and eating much more than being killed mercilessly by the Luo tribe. Just personal preference really.

All in all though we had a really great time. Egypt's history is incredible and I can't compare seeing the Karnack temple to anything else. Walking among 3000 years of history is indescribable, so I wont really try. It is just breathtaking though and it makes me wonder why we haven't learnt anything from it. In ancient times they transported everything by foot, built everything by hand, and used rudimentary tools to create and measure everything, and it has lasted through earthquakes, floods and thousands of fat American tourists leaning on it. Yet nowadays we have all these machines and clever gadgets and yet things fall apart, break down and generally don't last despite precautions, warranties and insurance policies. I'd love to give you a clever example of this right now, but I don't have one. You will just have to trust my cynical opinion and hopefully in the near future a large building will fall down and you will say 'Ah, Tiernan was right'. I'd like to point out right now that I'm not plotting any devious activities to ensure this.

I'd reccommend visiting Karnack to anyone. It was such an overwhelming place that even a phenomenly dire 'Sound and Light' show that involved sitting still watching a lake by the temple as some lights are shined on it and badly written and acted voiceovers tell you the same stories over and over again for 45 minutes instead of anything actually fun, could not dampen my opinion. My friend today did point out that although very little happened in this show, there were sounds and lights and so it was factually not wrong. He said we were lucky it wasn't just a man with a torch and a triangle. He's right and I suppose at the same time, I'm pleased that the Americans haven't invested in it and created a big musical laser extravaganza involving such hits as 'Toot 'n' come over here'. Sorry, no more puns. Promise.

Anyway, I learnt a lot of Egyptian history from all the temples and tombs I visited and despite the odd bit of information (such as the incestuous nature of most Pharaohs at some point marrying their daughters. Much joking about how the residents of Cornwall might be related in origin to Ramses the Third methinks) its a fascinating mix of tales and facts. Aside from this we also braved a camel ride which was nowhere near as funny as they look. I had imagined that riding a camel would be a slightly bumpy end to end laugh of a trip with much spitting and lack of water drinking. Actually its a horrible experience. I now realise that camels are described as the 'ships of the desert' because you are highly likely to get seasick while riding one. Afterwards I walked like a rickets victim for a whole afternoon. I will bear that in mind incase I ever need to use method acting to play a rickets victim in the future.

The only real dampener to the whole week (yes, there had to be some otherwise this would not be my blog) was the constant harrassment from the locals. I have experience such annoyance before in Turkey, Cuba and Mexico, but in Egypt they really step it up a level. What I cant conceive is why the perpertratiors of this awful technique would ever begin to think that obstructing people's ways and attempting to force them to buy things from you, would actually work. Time after time we would tell people politely 'no thanks' and they would continue to run after us with a crap plastic sphinx or something else of reasonably useless potential. The 'no thanks you's' would turn into completely ignoring them, eventually followed by some sort of expletive that they would then feign shock at, as though they hadn't at all been irritating as hell. Surely by now, it must click in all their heads, that they are only losing themselves business and instead they should just allow people to choose which services to take themselves? Unless of course I have it all wrong and it's a clever plan to try and ensure people do not ever return to their city. Perhaps they are the Egyptian equivalent of British Nationals, only instead of skinhead violence they use poor customer relations and bad sales tactics to drive the foreign scum away. It would make sense as its the technique Argos have been using for years.

The other bad thing about the holiday was of course the old cliche that it wasn't long enough. Seven days is not quite enough to re-cooperate from a busy year, and so I can be glad that January is a very quiet month for me. Once again the bank is not quite as happy as me about it, but it will have to deal with it. I'm very content with escaping the horrible cold by sitting in my jammies and playing with all the crappy Egyptian souvenirs I got conned into buying out of guilt.