On hold.

My college work is now number 1 absolute top priority, so there will be no more blogs posted until the work is done and I am again in a funny mood. Check back in late august. Have a good Summer.

Bugger!

No call came on Friday, so I failed to qualify for the 'So you think you're funny' comp. Well, my best hope now to further my career is the chance that we might get some attention from our appearances at the Newcastle/Gateshead festival. And just doing more gigs, but until this hideous dissertation is finished I can't concentrate on anything else.

The LLC is weekly now, and I still have no idea what to do - a week is no time at all, especially when you have other things on. I had thought of a little story about my hair. I sometimes tie it back out of my face when I'm working. It's big but not long enough to be in a pony tail, so it ends up being a top knot, sticking straight up, the bit with the band round sticks straight up, and the ends stick out like branches - my head looks like a desert island in a cartoon, complete with palm tree.

You know how if you wear a paper hat, after a while you can't tell if it's on anymore. Well it's the same when you use hairbands, on occasion I've forgotten and gone out like that. Once I didn't notice until I bent down to get something from a lower shelf in the supermarket. My pen, which I'd put sticking straight up from my top knot for safekeeping and general convenience, fell out.

Anyway - I had my hair trimmed and I'm not sure if it's now long enough to justify this story.

NEXT GIG
-TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER?

PS - The blogger spellchecker is weird, maybe 'hairbands' should be two words or hyphenated, but I'm going to leave it rather than change it to 'harpooned' as the computer suggested.

Gig 34?

The photo is me in my get up for reading out the mother in law jokes for the LLC competition. It shows how attention to detail is everything. Spot the mistakes;
1. Grey T-shirt visible.
2. It should be a pint of bitter.
3. The hair. I'd tried to plaster it down to appear short, but these days it takes a lot nore than a handful of mouse to get my hair to stay down.

It was a fun night in all. As I say on the LLC site -

"As the show neared it's end came competition time! This week it was favorite mother in law jokes, and to read them out we had Yorkshires top comic (1978) Les Bastard (Pete with a cushion up his shirt.) Al was on the drums providing the BADUM TISH! After every punchline. My favorite of the night: I wouldn't say my mother in law's fat, but she sat on a rainbow and Skittles came out."

I love that joke, I think it was from Steff. I'm not even sure if it really makes sense but it's still funny. The winner was a lot less PC.

Today I'm waiting anxiously to see if I get a last minute call from 'So you think you're funny.' Al got a place in the heats (during the Edinburgh festival) yesterday and he said they were working through the list and today was the last day. He tried to cheer me up by suggesting they may be working alphabetically and would get to him (A, D.) before me, (P,T.) so Monday's blog will be either one of cheerful plans for Edinburgh, or a morose 'why do I bother' rant.

NEXT GIG
-NEXT TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER?

My mother in law...

Tonight's gig is pretty packed already, so I'm not going to do any material - I'll probably let Cal and Al take on the compere duties. However, I will be donning a suit and frill fronted shirt and doing my best 70's yorkshire comic impression to read the entries in this week's competition. AL is bring his drums to do the 'badump, tish!' after every punchline. And if I have time I may make a new jingle, in a schmaltzy vegas style;

'Competition time, oh yeah!
You could win a fabulous prize,
But take it from me,
It's probably,
A bottle of cheap booze!'

NEXT GIG;

The first in a month owing to the cancellation of the last show, so it's packed this week -
Paul Gerrard. Les Paul Marshall. Scott McClould. Phil Buckley. Christian Steel and joining us at the last minute - Steffen Peddie and Sahra Millican. So not too much fannying about from your 3 hosts this week, just bring on the acts. But there's always room for the weekly competition - this week, mother in law jokes! How cutting edge are we?

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2

Fireworks.

Fireworks. Invented by the ancient chinese and used as weapons before settling down to their current role as attractive night time displays, perfect to celebrate New Year, or commemorate the execution of Catholic terrorists.

But when did the Chinese stop using fireworks as weapons? Or why did they start? Because they're not that dangerous. Well, compared to other holiday decorations, they are. They probably cause more injuries than birthday balloons or fairy lights. But compared to actual weapons they're fairly safe. Some stupid kids still have fights with fireworks (bottle rockets in the graveyard) and occasionally someone loses an eye. But that's hardly enough to hold back the mongol hoards. How do you conduct warfare with fireworks?

1. Light your sparklers.

2. Allow to burn until half way down.

3. Drop in the vicinity of the enemy.

4. Watch as the fascinated enemy pick up the sparklers. Half will now receive a nasty burn on the hand.

NEXT GIG;

The first in a month owing to the cancellation of the last show, so it's packed this week -
Paul Gerrard. Les Paul Marshall. Scott McClould. Phil Buckley. Christian Steel and joining us at the last minute - Steffen Peddie and Sahra Millican. So not too much fannying about from your 3 hosts this week, just bring on the acts. But there's always room for the weekly competition - this week, mother in law jokes! How cutting edge are we?

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2

Who do you do?

Themed nights? Still not sure, none of the stuff about frogs yesterday was funny enough to go in an act, but I still think a starting point sets off ideas. Though maybe 'frogs' is a bit narrow.

Another idea we've been considering to spice up the LLC is a covers night. Basically we do famous comics' material, possibly even dressing up like them. If we go with this I might do Emo Philips, as at school I could do a fairly good impression of his sing-song whining voice. For those who don't remember he's a lanky oddball and master of the 'pull back and reveal' gag. eg;

"I love to watch the children in the park running around and screaming... because they don't know I'm firing blanks."

A bit of research and I discovered that old Emo is still going strong, so I can easily write to him asking for full permission to perform his copyrighted material.

I'm just off to do that now.

Yes.

Any minute now.

Honest.

NEXT GIG;

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2

Frogs.

Yesterday I talked of possibly giving our LLC night optional themes, to give people a starting point for new material. I confidently claimed that it's easier to write about, for example frogs, than to write about anything. True? Well I had a think.

What's funny about frogs? Well, Paul McCartney's frog chorus for one. It's got to be the weirdest point of his career. He decide to back a song with burping frogs. (Let's face it, frogs don't sing they burp.) Even Captain Beefheart or Zappa would have thought twice about that one. But, you say, it was for a kids movie. Ah, that does explain it, I suppose. It was for a kids movie aout frogs? No, you sheepishly admit, it was about Rupert the bear. Right, so explain the frogs for me again, would you? It doesn't even have very froggy lyrics -'sink or swim, we all stand together.' Frogs are amphibious, they can stay underwater for fairly long, so sinking isn't that much of a problem. And if anything it should be, 'we all squat together.'

Frogs famously go through a metamorphosis, starting with frog spawn. This is bad for a start. 'Spawn' is without doubt the worst word associated with embrionic states, youngsters etc. There's too much of the 'spawn of satan' about it. In fact it's probably the other way round, Satan's offspring look worse by association with the disgusting jelly mass frogs start off as.

They then go, tadpole, tadpole front legs, tadpole all legs (frog with tail), frog. This is ridiculous. Other animals don't do this. Ok, birds come out of eggs, but when they do a small bird comes out, not a stoat which then grows wings and loses a pair of legs. If humans went for the froggy option we'd go - egg, fish, mermaid, monkey, child.

Then again, it might be easier. All mothercare would sell would be glass tanks and giant bottles of ants eggs. We'd be back in the pub celebrating the day after.

NEXT GIG;

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2

28 acts in 28 minutes.

I heard a great new show this week on radio 4. 28 acts in 28 minutes. It does exactly what it says on the tin. 28 people get up, do a minute each and then a countdownesque tune strikes up and they finish up and get off. Most people seemed to pick a bit from their stand up set that fitted into the minute slot, but some played with the concept a bit. A sketch group chopped down a sketch to fit, and ended up using the time realizing they needed to tell the audience another point in order to get it. They ended with a punchline which was something like, 'not that much ice barman!' and had to yell, 'it was on the titanic!' in their last seconds onstage.

Another explained that they were getting the standard radio 4 fee of £250, which worked out at £15,000 an hour, or £21,600,000 a year. He added, 'I should just put in a solid month then relax for a bit, but I can't be arsed.'

There was a lot of playing with the 1 minute format. Sarah Millican (We can now say 'see the stars of Radio 4' on the LLC posters.) got a big laugh from simply admitting, 'I knew I'd run short so now we'll just have to wait.'

It's a format we could steal for the LLC, we've done it with 'I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue', which we've ripped off to get a lot of the audience competitions. Maybe as well as their usual set we could ask all the comics to prepare 1 minute and do an extra set at the end as we whizz through everyone's minutes.

I don't know - I may just be suggesting this because I haven't come up with much new stuff lately, and working to a brief (such as 'fit it into one minute') seems easier than starting from a blank page. For the same reason I've suggested themed nights in the past. You might think a theme is restrictive, but actually it's easier because you have a starting point. If I say - come up with something funny in the next half hour, it's actually harder than -come up with something funny about frogs in the next half hour. Of course, if you HAVE TO stick to the theme, it would be restrictive - but it would be completely optional.

By the way, my favourite of the 28 minutes was a character based on evil african dictators. But because it's so odd to have a white guy mocking anyone black, he had to jump out of character occasionally to ask 'Is this racist? It's not is it?' Well, politically in a dodgy area certainly, it was very funny;

"I am papa christmas, president of christmas land. Everyday here is Christmas. I come on my sleigh, made of the skins of my enemies, and give out presents. I know who's been naughty and nice because it is a police state. If you are nice you get a present, like some food. If you are naughty, I cut off your hands and put them on television, on the popular TV show 'Who's bad hands are these.'"

NEXT GIG;

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2

Summer Shirt.

Here's my new photo. I'm a Summer guy! I took about 20 and this was honestly the best one. If I just look unbearably smug, as I suspect I do, please tell me.

I'm wearing the 70's shirt that's probably going to be my stage costume until it gets too cold. I do like this shirt. It's a genuine 70's shirt. No retro reproduction, this was actually bought in Marks and Spencer and my grandfather wore it in Torremolinos 1976. He was a babe magnet. He wasn't attractive to women, it was just that push chairs would roll up the street after him. I think it's the fabric. It's a mix of cotton and Vincel. I'd never heard of 'vincel' before either. I think it's banned now. They did some tests in the 80's and discovered it makes you look like a twat.

NEXT GIG;

POSSIBLY- IF WE CAN BE ARSED TO GO THAT FAR AND RISK BEING GONGED OFF- 3 MINUTE WARNING IN CREWE, THURSDAY 6TH JULY.

TUESDAY 11TH OF JULY. SHOW STARTS 9.00 -
'LONG LIVE COMEDY'
THE DOG AND PARROT (UPSTAIRS)
-OPPOSITE THE CENTRE FOR LIFE, 2 MINS FROM CENTRAL STATION.
ONLY £2