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.

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.

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.

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. Normal gigs don't do this to me, but this week's gigs are of a different nature. Yesterday was a Ultimate London Pub Quiz at the Museum of London. I was hosting and slaved over some gags for each answer and the small bits I did before introducing the guest question readers. However it turns out pub quiz audiences just want questions, answers, booze and no gags, so it was a huge waste of time. It was a good night though, and the last guest was John Hegley who did manage to thrust comedy onto the punters by singing and rhyming all of his questions. My favourite being 'do you want to hear question number five? will it enlighten your miserable lives?' Wonderful. I also met a proper pearly king, and he shattered all my illusions by changing out of his costume at the end of the night. That's surely not allowed?

The rest of this week's activities are all odd too. Tonight I had a delightful gig, at a venue where I usually have horrible gigs. For some reason it all went very well and that's not right as I had categorised that gig in my head as a 'tough one'. I don't like it when stuff doesn't meet expectations, even if it does it in a good way. It throws me off. I got all angry and ready for fighty banter and they were all nice. Hopefully that angry energy won't be redirected at tomorrow's Comedy 4 Kids gig or it could all go very wrong. C4K is one of the few gigs that truly petrifies me as I have previously said in blogs gone by.

Following that is a nice gig in Ipswich on Sunday, although last time I was in Ipswich I had the weirdest heckles. On asking a writer for the local paper what the best headline was he told me it had been 'Chicken lays the largest recorded egg in the UK'. I then made the oh so witty retort of 'It must've been a large cock' (geddit? geddit?). Feeling all pleased with myself, I was a little scared when several of them jumped on stage looking angry, only to show me pictures on their phones of the said hen and its size compared to a fork. Bizarre.

Lastly its Mark Watson's 24 Hour Show on Monday. I'm looking forward to this, but I am hosting from 8am to 3pm which will be tough. Luckily I have a couple of guests who will help keep us all alive. It'll all be on web cam so if you can't head down check it all out here:
http://www.watson24hour.com

So all those things and a couple of things to write for and the sketch show stuff, is all a bit much for a week's work. Women were right all along, men can't multi-task, which is exactly why I'm not preparing for any of those things and hoping it just sorts itself out. Sensible I know. Wish me luck or at least a cup of comedy to help me through.

Wow, cheesy last line. Sorry.

PS Great line up at Fat Tuesday next week and a special guest. Do come along, it'll be ace. If I'm not half asleep from the 24 hour fest!