PeetThompson's Blog.

crazy miniature golf

2010-09-19T01:01:00.002Z

Is it miniature golf or crazy golf? It's not really miniature. The ball's the same size, the stick's the same size, the hole's the same size. The hole's just nearer. Nearer golf is what it should be called. Miniature golf would mean tiny weanie clubs and balls. And to play it you'd have to be shrunk down all tiny weanie. And then it'd feel exactly the same- pointless.

But it's not that crazy either. The oddest thing you're likely to find is the windmill. You hit your ball in the front - it comes out the back. Not that strange really. If you hit the ball into the windmill and it groaned, clutched it's belly with its wings and said 'Ya got me, oh lord, ya got me!' and 'Hold me, it's getting dark, so... cold...' and died in your arms - that'd be pretty crazy.

In fact normal golf is the strangest of the lot. Imagine 'crazy' golf was invented first, then somone came up with 'normal' golf..

-I've taken up a new knid of golf.
Really?
-Yeah. You know the hole? It's like 300 yards away.
Shit off!
-No, really. And you need like 10 different sticks to hit it. And it costs about 30 quid a game.
Bollocks!
-And you have to dress like Val Doonican, and sometimes you hit it so far you need a special little car to drive to the ball.
That. is. mental.

Gig 96.

2008-08-12T08:39:00.002Z

I'm back! I've had a baby everyone - the gorgeous George. And if that wasn't enough I've also been incredibly busy at work, so I haven't blogged in about 6 months. But I also haven't written anything or done any gigs so I'd have nothing to write about anyway. But last week I forced myself to do a new 5 minutes at the dog and parrot. Most of it was bobins, I've been away too long and my comedy filter isn't working. One thing that did stick was a version of the Jam's That's entertainment. Do you know it?

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT - Paul Weller
A police car and a screaming siren -
A pnuematic drill and ripped up concrete -
A baby waiting and stray dog howling -
The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking -
that's entertainment.

A smash of glass and the rumble of boots -
An electric train and a ripped up 'phone booth -
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat -
Lights going out and a kick in the balls -

that's entertainment.

Days of speed and slow time Mondays -
Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday -
Watching the news and not eating your tea -
A freezing cold flat and damp on the walls -

that's entertainment.

Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning -
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol -
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard -
Watching the tele and thinking about your holidays -

that's entertainment.
Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes -
Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume -
A hot summers' day and sticky black tarmac -
Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were faraway -

that's entertainment.

Two lovers kissing amongst the scream of midnight -
Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude -
Getting a cab and travelling on buses -
Reading the grafitti about slash seat not fares -

that's entertainment.

Well that doesn't sound very entertaining to me, so I came up with...

A morcombe and wise christmas special
Bruce forsyth spinning plates on the geneation game
an hour long episode of the new dr. who
but not christopher ecleston, he was a bit po faced.

that's entertainment.

Watching allo allo on a dreary Sunday
The fallen madonna with the big boobies, good moaning
a monkey heavy episode of you've been framed
a crash on top gear and clarkson's in a wheel chair.

that's entertainment.

Royal Navy Submarine- There's more below the surface.

2008-03-18T16:43:00.003Z

The theme is advertising at LLC tonight, a subject most comics have a bit on. I saw a poster with the above title and picture promoting the royal navy. I know what they were going for. They're trying for a play on words. Life on a submarine isn't what you expect. There's more to it. There are a huge variety of roles and skills in play, the crew contains scientists, chefs, navigators, people with language, computer and communications skills. There's more below the surface. That's what they're going for. But when you see a big picture of a rising submarine, and the words 'There's more below the surface' the actual impression given is that this poster is there to inform me that there's more bits of submarine under the water. If this is news to you, don't join the navy. The last thing they need is someone turning up on the first day of training saying;

'Hang on. How are 200 of us supposed to get in there? It's only about a foot tall, apart from that sticky up bit.'

'No, there's more of it under the water.'

'Oh right.'

Voyager.

2008-03-07T16:45:00.003Z

Floating through space now somewhere is the voyager space craft. And on the side is this picture to show any aliens what we look like. And we're naked. Is this the first impression we want to give? They might be impressed by the technology, but they'll be picturing our scientists building it naked. There's also a record with some Beethoven on it (that's just wrong anyway- a space ship with an LP, it's like having a car with a sundial.) But even if they're impressed by the music, they'll be imagining the whole orchestra in the nuddy. And the record, to make sure it doesn't warp or rust, is made of solid gold. That's just dangerous. Aliens think we're so rich we make our LP's out of gold, and we flounce about in the nude - We're just asking to get mugged.

So aliens will expect us to be nude. But we expect aliens to be nude, when the little grey men come out of the space ship they're allways nude. ET was nude and that's for kids. Why? Who invents intergalactic travel before pants?

jet pack crimp.

2008-03-04T16:41:00.002Z

Practicing my crimping today. If you're not in the know, it's a form of rap/song/poetry/spokenword/nonsense invented by the mighty boosh. All the kids are doing it daddio. Didn't you even know that? Get with it grandad.

Jet Pack Crimp

See the flying fox, Oh.
Is he just a bat?
No, a proper fox with a proper jet pack.
Strapped on his red back
Reasonable jet pack
Buy 3 get 1 free
4 pack of jet packs
nice set of jet packs
suit a pack of pack rats
Don't forget the pack-a-mack
Windy up there
Layers
Layers
Vest and T-shit
Long Sleeved T-shirt
shirt and jersey
What about a waistcoat?
No, that's going too far, Just put your jacket on.
I feel the need, the need for tweed.
Argile, Harris, Orkney, Mull!

Bloody Hooligans.

2008-02-23T12:41:00.002Z

I was clearing the rubbish out of my small front garden. Usually this gets me pretty angry, it's full of trash because thoughtless arseholes just dump their crap on the streets and it ends up stuck in my bushes. Bloody kids and layabout drunks! But I've noticed that about a quater of the rubbish is plastic poppy petals that have blown down from the war memorial at the end of the street. Bloody veterans! Honouring their dead! They don't think about the consequenses though do they? They go off fighting in two world wars, but who's got to clear up the mess? Muggins here, that's who.

Mcwirter Twins - and other guff cleared out of the notebook.

2008-02-23T12:15:00.005Z

NEW DEFINITIONS:
Carpets - The spiders that live in your wing mirrors.
Warthogs - Geordies' clothes. (I heard this one on ISIHAC)

I'm a workaholic, I can't work without drinking.

Who invented fabric softener? Why are we buying something that weakens our clothes.

There was a craze at school where everyone wanted a diver's watch. 'My birthday last week, got this, tells the time 200 metres underwater.' I went one better, got a vulcanologist's calculator. 'Got this, does sums at 500 degrees centigrade.' Why did anyone want a diver's watch? If I'm 200 metres underwater I'm concerned with getting to the surface- I don't care if I'm later for a meeting when I get there.

Parents can be cruel. Take the Mcwirter twins, Norris Mcwirter and his brother Ross, Co founders of the Guiness book of records. If you've got twins, and you call one Ross, don't call the other one something that sounds suspitiously like 'No Ross.'

'Congratulations Mrs. Mcwriter, are these the boys?'

'Yes, this is my beautiful first born Ross.'

'And the other one?'

'Oh, him. He's no ross.'

'What?'

'Noriss, he's Noriss.'

What's that little hole you can open up on the side of your hoover hose? Surely that just means there's less air sucking in at the end you're using to suck up dirt.

WORST LYRIC EVER?
Lindisfarne -Lady Eleanor.

"She tied my eyes with ribbon of a silken ghostly thread
I gazed with double vision on an old four poster bed
Where Eleanor had risen to kiss the neck below my head."

Where's your other neck then?

Tanked up.

2008-02-15T12:29:00.002Z

I was helping out a class today where students were comparing the same story in two online papers. I saw one about 8 people found inside a chemical tanker, I thought I’d see what the Daily Mail’s take was. Sure enough they’d replaced the word ‘people’ with ‘ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.’ OK, so they probably were illegal immigrants – but the Mail couldn’t have known for sure, as the story had just broken and none of the basic facts reported everywhere else could confirm that.

And, as Marcus Brigstock has said, the sort of tenacious, inventive go-getters who will cling to the underside of a truck for 8 hours are exactly the kind of people we need in this country.

But this blog is about comedy so here's the bit that made me laugh, a comment posted by a worried Mail reader following the story…

“I'm so sick of the immigration problem in this country. I even had a dream last night that there were a load of illegal immigrants living in my downstairs cupboard.”

- Helana, London

Gig 94, 95.

2008-02-15T12:05:00.007Z

I’ve nearly reached my hundred, but I’m not ready to retire just yet. I compered the Chilli, and didn’t do a bad job if I do say so myself. On the way down I thought of a few new ideas on my recent fatherhood, which made for a good start. It got a bit ragged at one point when we were running out of time, which meant I just did a bit of material and got off – I couldn’t afford to keep going until I got a bigger laugh to end on, so Jenny Armstrong didn’t get the warm up she deserved – but luckily didn’t need it.

I did a gig in Beverly, Yorks. Which was lovely (as everyone who’s done it had told me) – the dangerous animals song was well received, but the few minutes of stuff I did first went down a storm. It’ll be nice if I finally get offered some 20 minute gigs where I can do a song and still have time to do some other stuff around it.
One of the new bits I did was about the advertising for Newcastle College – they use posters something like this…

The New Vivienne Westwood.
Not exactly like this, as I couldn’t find a copy of the poster on the web (well done NC publicists) Anyway, a fresh faced student with the words ‘The new inset name of most famous person in the field’ They’ve got them for Sports Science (David Beckham) , Business (Alan Sugar) etc. They don’t have one for Physics, and I’ve worked out why – it would have to be ‘The new Stephen Hawkin’ and that’s a bit of a double edged sword.
The cover of the guide to the library has two students leaping ecstatically into the air. It’s the LIBRARY! It’s not the BOUNCY LIBRARY!

Gigs 92, 93.

2008-02-01T12:10:00.001Z

Obviously been a while since I blogged, and one of the points of this was to keep a count, as when this all started I said I would do 100 gig then see how I feel. Some people interpreted this as do 100 then definitely stop, but it was more to ensure I did a minimum and didn't give up before I gave myself a fair crack of the whip.

Anyway, the gigs I can remember over the last 2 months were...

92-Charity gig for Amnesty at the Cluny, where I sabotaged myself a bit by starting with the ebony and ivory stuff - this can be misinterpreted (search for that entry again to see some very indignant comments by somone who must have stumbled over the site and thought I was entirely serious, and I genuinely believed Stevie Wonder was too stupid to appreciate the difference between elephant teeth and people.)I will do this material again, but just lose the po-faced stuart lee presentation, and instead do it as I do 'The Who' material... great music but the lyrics are a bit etc.

93 - Our covers night - an enjoyable Pete and Dud sketch with Barry as Mr. Cook. And more Peter Cook but performed in the style of Morrissey to a kareoke version of 'How soon is now.' - I got a pervese pleasure from this, but it left most people bemused.

THE MOON AND NEW YORK CITY.

2008-02-01T11:47:00.000Z

I occassionally do character comedy, usually wrapped round a suitable song -hence my singing cowboy, singing yokel and singing guatemalan busker. This last one was the short lived product of noting down the words 'troosers, losers, youze is(to be sung in bad spanish accent)' This resurfaced as a song where Paulo from Guatemala was fixated by the fact that everyone in England wore trousers. 'Even the weemin' is wearing troosers' and to ingratiate himself he busked a song about the British love of strides.

But what's great about characters is that you come up with material that would be impossible to think of or perform as yourself. It was Ned Nineacres who was bemused by the lyrics of the Who's 'Pinball wizard', not me. In one performance Paulo came out with the following (I think) comedy gold...

(This does rather depend on you being familiar with the title song of the film 'Arthur')

My friend Raoul - he's gone native loco man, loco loco- he acts all eenglish - and he has 5 pairs of troosers. It's true man, 5 pairs - it is his dream one day to have a pair for every day of the week. -It's crazy man, but it's true. You know that song? (Sing's Arthur's theme) IF YOU GET CAUGHT BETWEEN THE MOON AND NEW YORK CITY, I KNOW IT CRAZY, BUT IT TRUE! I love that song man, you know that was real popular in our village when the movie came out. We loved the movie and the song was a hit too - but then a rumour started that it was possible to get stuck between the moon and New York city, and that this was happening all the time man. I know it's not true now- you know, I guess if you live in New York and the moon is up, then you can jump and you're between the moon and New York city - but you don' get stuck, you just fall down. But, well the media in my country is a little different, and this rumour spread like wildfire, and everyone is terrified. So when I was walking home from the village and I see the moon, i was always lookin' over my shoulder, trying to see if New York city was a sneakin' through the bushes, tryin' to get me.

Gig 90, 91

2007-11-08T12:06:00.000Z

Just to keep the count up to date. Gig 90 was an odd one at Heresy, at Jekyl and Hyde's Edinburgh. A spooky goth / scooby doo pub where the toilets are hidden behind a book case - this might be novel for a visitor but I realy pitied the staff who have to direct people every 3 minutes. Anyway, heresy is billed as an anything goes, no taboos night. But when we arrived there were 2 couples in and they were both over 40. Still it filled up a bit, or due to the impractical shape and all the pillars it looked full, in that wherever you looked someone was sitting, but if you stepped to one side you saw the acres of empty space. 91 was my compere duty at the chilli and 92 was back at cool fun in durham, where I tried to keep my spanish accent through the trousers song and keep it up while I did some stand up and dangerous animals. - It's pretty tough to do Spanish - irish - spanish - bob dylan -spanish. Especially with a dry throat - one thing cool fun needs is a bar you can get to without disturbing the show.

God what a boring blog- but i at least need to keep track of gigs.
speaking of which..
We are filming tonight's long live
and saturday at the cluny is in aid of amnesty.

Gig 89-Holding the Fort.

2007-10-25T08:25:00.000Z

Gig 89 was my running the Dog and Parrot single handed unitl reinforcements turned up as Cal arrived at 10. Not a bad night, though with the first chills of winter, there weren't loads in. I did have to think on my feet, as I was doing all the compere duties and the practical stufff too, so I had a few ideas I might keep. I started with the old eldon square goths, who were mulling around looking confused (no change there then) because the square's been fenced off. I think the council missed a trick, they should have put up the fence with the goths in it, and made it a new attraction. Stick up a few sighns- 'Come and Mock the Goths.' 'Do not throw vegetables at the goths. They may eat some out of curiosity, and vitimins will cause the goths to lose their unhealthy pallor, the other goths may then turn on them or ostracise them from the group.' I love the word 'ostracise' - It did originally mean you would be tarred and feathered and have your neck stretched.
I mentioned I used to be a goth which lead on to my hair - 'It used to be even bigger- I've got an old passport photo that looks like a bald guy standing in front of a brown background.' Someone mentioned vegetarian burgers, and I explained how I've never understood produces like Quorn Bacon. If you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables. Don't pretend you're eating meat. I like my meat but I never make a ball out of susage and pigg blood and pretend it's a tomato.

Gig 88 -the power of the note book.

2007-10-04T11:24:00.000Z

I'm slowly getting back into comedy through the power of the notebook. I always swore I'd have one in my back pocket at all times, but this has fallen by the wayside. But i found an old one and decided to add to it, no matter how dodgy, slim or rough the ideas seemed.

One entry said simply 'troosers, loses, youses' (to be sung in bad spanish accent.) After a few weeks mulling, this suddenly spilled out again, as 5 minutes of Paulo from Guatemala, who had noticed that the English like trousers 'Even the weemin wear troosers, It's crazy man, you pants crazy, you guys are pantaloonies!' Paul the tried to fit in by singing a song about the importance of trousers. This was a rather experimental bit, but after a couple of drop outs at the Dog and Parrot I ended up finishing the night with it. A few bemused looks, but some very big laughs in there too.

My next main gig is compereing the next chilli, so I'll have to trawl through my old blogs and material and see what I've got left that they haven't seen already.

Why do birds suddenly appear....

2007-10-04T08:29:00.000Z

Every time Rick Moranis is near?

Just Like me, they long to be, Close to Rick Moranis.

Why do stars fall down from the sky, every time Rick Moranis walks by?
Just like me, they long to be close to Rick Moranis.

On the day Rick Moranis was born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true. So they sprinkled moon dust in Rick Moranis's hair of gold and starlight in Rick Moranis's eyes of blue.

That is why all the boys in town, follow Rick Moranis all around.

Just like me, they long to be close to Rick Moranis.

(We are considering buying a video projector, once the long live comedy coffers look a bit more healthy. This will mean we can project the logo anywhere, have backgrounds for sketches, have video based competitions (What happens next? or Dubbing?) show clips and short films, and even have our version of the bad film club- saw it in edinburgh, just watching a bad DVD with comedians pointing things out and the crowd encouraged to shout out anything they think of too. But I want to christen it by putting on my best vegas louange voice and saying, 'Hello friends, and welcome once again, to long live comedy, good t'see ya. I'd like to start with a little song about some one very special...'

gigs 74-87

2007-09-18T07:38:00.000Z

Just a quick one, to keep my gig count up to date. 74 was a Tuesday at the Dog and Parrot when I previewed the start of my Edinburgh show, -the ladies song with full backing track. Woo. The the 10 gigs of Edinburgh itself, plus one day we had a trip to Glasgow where I did 5 minutes on just one idea- the Ebony and Ivory bit of the last blog. It was great to have an idea, write it in the afternoon and then do it that night, and it worked really well. When we got back I did the Chilli. I hadn't planned to, but people from work were coming to see me and rather than have them see me operate the PA i bumped myself on to the bill. And last Tuesday I compered at the dog. So tonight will be gig 88, if I get onstage, which I probably wont.

Ebony and ivory

2007-09-03T07:51:00.000Z

Today I want to explain why I hate Paul Mcartney and I hate Stevie Wonder.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh lord, why dont we?

That's the reason why I hate Paul Mcartney and I hate Stevie Wonder. Because of these stupid, juvenile, ill-conceived notions on how to acheive racial harmony throughout the world.

You see, what Paul and Stevie have noticed is that the small ebony keys on a piano are black, and the big ivory keys are white. Well, that's what Paul's noticed. What Stevie's noticed is that the ebony keys are slightly rough, but warm, whereas the ivory keys are smooth but slightly cold to the touch. But they've gone with the colour thing, because they don't want to sing about racial conflict between the small, rough, warm people and the big, cold smooth people.

Anyway, Paul's turned to Stevie and said, 'Hey, Stevie- these keys are black and white, and yet they live side by side on our piano keyboard, apparently in perfect harmony.' And Stevie's run his hands along those keys and he's said 'I think you're on to something there, my caucasian friend, because I can sense no racial tension whatsoever.'

And from this observation they've leapt to the conclusion that we should all follow the example of these piano keys. But what Paul Mcartney and Stevie Wonder have overlooked is that the ebony keys are bits of wood and the ivory keys are bits of dead elephant. And neither material, in itself, is capable of any kind of mental activity. Piano keys cannot produce a single thought or idea, bigoted or otherwise.

But let's give Paul and Stevie the benefit of ther doubt. Let's presume this analogy is not really about ebony and ivory per se, let's presume it's actually talking about living ebony trees and living elephants. Does it work then? Well, while piano keys may 'live side by side in perfect harmony' if you put elephants and ebony trees side by side, the elephants do tend to eat bits of the trees. Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment that either Paul Mcartney, or Stevie wonder were sayinng that racial conflict would end if the caucasians like myself started to eat little bits of the black people. Clearly, that's just going to make things worse.

But if the 'ebony, ivory' idea doesn't even prove that elephants and trees can live together, how much less is it a formula for acheiving racial harmony? It just goes to show how misguided Paul and Stevie are. They might be at home watching the news, and perhaps they see that the Sunni and Shia muslims are fighting again. And stupid, stupid Paul Mcartney turns to stupid, stupid Stevie Wonder and says, 'Look at those poor people. If only those people could be killed, and parts of their bodies chopped off and fashioned into keys for a monstrous piano of death, which you and I could play together, then they would finally live together in perfect harmony, side by side on our piano key board.

And that's why I hate Paul Mcartney and I hate Stevie Wonder.

lazy tv ideas.

2007-08-14T10:46:00.000Z

It's been a while since we had a ecent competition at the LLC, so I thought long and hard and remembered something we can steal from lee and herring.

They would brainstorm lazy comedy ideas for the BBC, based on real programmes. Their ideas would usually include characters called Ian - a running joke which also featured in Sunday Heroes, with one of the disciples being called Ian. Programme examples included:

Roll Reversal
Ian Roll is a driving instructor, Ian Reversal is a baker. They swap jobs, etc. With hilarious consequences.

Chalk and Cheese
Ian Chalk and Ian Cheese are two men. They are very different. However, they eventually become friends and realise they are not so different after all. With hilarious consequences.

Bent Coppers
Ian and Iain Bent are brothers who are policemen. One is corrupt and the other is homosexual. They both suffer from curvature of the spine, and they're made of copper. With hilarious consequences.

Fruit and Nuts
Ian Fruit and Ian Nuts are room-mates. Ian Fruit is allergic to nuts and Ian Nuts is allergic to fruit. Ian Nuts is a homicidal maniac. Consequently, he's always trying to sneak fruit and nuts into everything they eat. With hilarious consequences.

Dangerous animals on the podcast.

2007-08-13T16:39:00.000Z

A new podcast- the first performance of my song 'dangerous animals' at LLC Dog and Parrot. I thought I needed a new song to end the Edinburgh show, so over a few days I wrote this. It went down better than I could have hoped, so it's now the big finish to my section of the show. I wasn't sure if I should put this up, as if someone likes it and comes to see the show because they listened to it, then 33% of the show will be hearing this again. So if you're not going to edinburgh, and you've no chance of seeing me live in the near future, listen to this. If you're coming then don't spoil it- see it for real the first time (Though by all means have a look at the podcast for the older stuff which I may never do again.) Either way, click 'Pete's Podcast' in the links.

Little Chefs and camp cakes.

2007-08-06T17:03:00.000Z

I had the morning off after working on Saturday, but had to waste it going to the doctor about an inflamed eye-lid. I did get to go to Birtley Home Bakery afterwards, as I'd been as good as gold and very brave. I had one of their peach melbas. This is a fantastically british invention. A pastry case contains a tiny lump of tinned peach, this is covered in a pile of cream roughly the size of a tennis ball, and the cream is then encased in a thick layer of icing. In this so called 'peach' melba there is probably about 1/8 of a peach. Or in other words, if you tried to get your 5 a day via peach melbas, you'd have to eat 40. That's 14,000 calories. A week's worth.

Anyway, walking back to the car I noticed I was walking very camply- arm horizontally forward from the elbow, pinching the top of the bag between thumb and first two fingers, ring and pinky extended. (I mean fingers. It wasn't THAT camp.) But it seems this is the only way to carry a single cream cake once it's placed in a paper bag and given a little twist so the point is at the top. I tried swinging it manfully at my side as you would a sports bag, but I had to swing gently and crook my arm a little to prevent it bashing on my thigh. If anything, this was even worse.

On another food related note, while going to gigs I've sometimes stopped at the little chef. I got to thinking that maybe they really do only emply little chefs, as their name and logo implies. Perhaps a lot of failed jockeys drift into the work.

'Oh jaysus, wid'ya look at that, now? I can't even see the fekin grill. A right bloody shambles this is turning owt te be. Somebody wants what, basil? An' here's me with a spice rack half way up the bastard wall.'

gig 72, 73 and edinburgh prep.

2007-08-06T12:13:00.000Z

\Gig 72 was the eventual showing of our guide to churchill, which went down pretty well. 'It's nice when we're the best thing on, isn't it?'-said Al. I know what he means, plenty of times we're outshone by other performers at the gigs we organise. This is just as it should be, there's no way we could be the best thing week in week out, with so many other great people performing. But it's nice that when we do (occassionally) make an effort and do something new, different and with a bit of thought and sweat in it, it usually does end up being a highlight of the show. gig 73 was my first attempt compereing the Chilli. I took lots of cards onstage, to help me remember names, times, rules etc, I figured I either wouldn't need them, then I'd play them down- or I would need them, so I'd make it really obvious and do a new comedy character 'bad compere man'. It was a bit of both in the end, but the night as a whole was so good that nobody minded my occassional mistakes (Such as calling Sahra Millican 'Kate'-I am an arse.)

Cal's already checking out Edinburgh, and has warned us of low numbers and unenthusiastic audiences. Well, I was kind of expecting that. You can't expect the same reaction at 3.30 in the afternoon as at 9.00 in the evening (most people aren't that drunk yet.) Also, almost paradoxically, if it's free people come but expect it to be pretty poor (as it's free) whereas if you charge, people don't come at all. But at least we all know what were doing. According to Cal many people were still scribbling on beermats before they started their festival shows.

Gig 71. St. Patrick and dangerous animals.

2007-07-25T20:03:00.000Z

A great LLC last night, possibly the best ever. Loads of people turned up to watch, and we had a packed gig and every act was magic. Occassionally we have a good crowd but a patchy show, and far too often we have great acts but noone to see them, so it was great to have both. And I was very pleased with my bit. Over the past week I've been trying to write another song to end my Edinburgh show on. I did, and I tried it and it was magic. Chuffed.

In the song, about dangerous animals, I briefly mention St. Patrick and how he drove the snakes from Ireland. This makes him sound pretty cool and St.ly. I can imagine him on the beach, forcing the wicked poisonous serpents into the sea, thousands of little ribbons cutting through the water trying to make it back to the warmer lands of europe. 'Away wit yez, or 'al bust ye wit me holy shelele!'

But Ireland is also completely free of moles. Did St. Patrick banish them too? That just seems harsh. There's nothing St.ly about a St. Patrick who forces tiny, velvet-black mamals into the sea. At least we can imagine the snakes swimming away. But just picture thousands of moles, sadly nosing their way into the surf, only to be washed back with every wave.

Wow Timmy, Why?

2007-07-19T15:42:00.000Z

I do like my rock, me. But I'm not always happy with the lyrics. You may remember my problem with the Who's 'Pinball Wizard' lyrics, and the reason why 'Whole Lotta Love' is now ruined for me. (Search the blog if you don't) But sometimes it's simply that I can't quite catch the lyrics. But there's a compulsion to sing along with a good rock tune, even when you don't know the words. So the other day I was driving home and Steppenwolf (How's that for a rock band name!) were singing 'born to be wild' feeling good I was singing along, but I couldn't quite remember the words, so I just did my best. And this came out of my mouth...

Get ya motor runnin'
Head out on the highway.
Looking for a French Shirt
and a dickie bow tie yeah!

In my weird spontaneous version Steppenwolf are going shoping with their mum. To buy some smart clothes for the school photograph. I had a check to see if anyone's made a similar mistake, and found www.kissthisguy.com- an archive of misheard lyrics. The site name comes from the moment in purple haze where Hendrix sings 'Excuse me while I kiss the sky'- although he could actually be saying that, there's no way of telling. There are some 'born to be wild' misquotes and by far the best one is the icelandic teenager who interpreted the song's title as 'Wow Timmy, why?' I'll let him explain himself...

"Well I am from iceland and I were not very good in english when i was 14. When i heard the song and not very clear, i sang very low... wow Timmy why... in front of my friends and they stood still for a moment and then just laughed at me. I thought that the story behind the song were that this Timmy guy had done something wrong, like shooting somebody and that the singer sung about it. So it sounded perfectly to my ears."

gig 69,70 and killer cars.

2007-07-17T08:55:00.000Z

Gig's 69 and 70 were two trips to Scotland, to play the Stand's at Edinburgh and Glasgow. A 5 hour round trip on each day to be onstage for 5 minutes. It is crazy, and it's difficult to explain to people why it's actually worth it (sort of). But it was nice, an OK gig in Edinburgh, than a quick trim and a much better gig in Glasgow- even though I was first and they weren't really warmed up.

The Edinburgh drive took even longer because the front wheel started to come off, this is something I wish I could work out myself. But it was just an odd knocking sound coming from somewhere. It was only when the guy from green flag called to confirm my position (after I'd already been waiting an hour) that he said 'have you looked at the wheel nuts?' I hadn't. I'd looked at the tyres, but they weren't flat. But after his prompt I did manage to pull off the hub cap and found there were only two nuts holding the wheel on. Ho hum.

I think cars are conspiring against us anyway, at least some are. Following the trend of the transformers, half have chosen to protect mankind and half are going to destroy us. We all know cars are evil polluting machines. Some companies are now stressing that their evil polluting machines aren't half as bad as some other evil polluting machines. The ads have greenery, waterfalls, trees and talk about low emissions, while rabbits shoot heart shaped arrows into the sky, to celebrate their chum, the hybrid engine. But deep down we all know cars are wrong, and we should really be buying bikes instead of slightly cleaner cars, we have to admit it. But admiting it and repentantly trying to change isn't the only option. Some other companies are exploiting it the other way. 'We all know cars are evil polluting machines- so why not drive the biggest, baddest evil polluting machine in the world!' They are actually marketing cars now on how evil they are.

There's the Nissan truck that turns into a robot spider, crocodile and snake- EVIL. The one that uses the solgan 'It gets respect!' - Which the owners interpret as 'Stop at zebra crossings? Not us, we're EVIL.' And I have just watched an ad for Golf which actually says 'When was the last time you just went for a drive?' and tries to encourage people to drive round at night FOR NO REASON AT ALL. Je. Sus. Wept.

I'm having showers instead of baths to do my bit and these dicks are driving round in circles all night. EVIL.

Churchill- LLC special Tue 10th July.

2007-07-01T13:49:00.000Z

Progress on the Churchill special continues. We hope we'll be informative as well as funny and people should leave knowing a great deal more than they did about the great man. But there is one dark secret we've uncovered which we'd better just face up to.

Churchill was ginger. Yup, a copper top. A strawberry blonde. In short a ginga. But because all the photos were black and white, the British public was spared this dreadful knowledge. And it was probably for the best. Hitler managed to convince a nation that he (a short arsed, dark-haired weirdo) was the rightful leader of a race of arian supermen. But a Ginger Prime minister? That's just taking the piss.

In an address to his old school, he told the boys there... "Never, give in! Never give in! Never! Never! Never! Never! Never! Never!" Inspiring stuff, but the boys were so determined never to give in that in the following term 15 of them died from Chinese burns.

It was hardly surprising that he was stirring up defiance among the boys in this way, he had hated the school, were he was frequently beaten; according to one biography, 'until his bottom was a mass of blood.' He was once punished because in latin class he didn't understand the Vocative form of the word for 'table' - His teacher said 'It means O table! You would use it in addressing a table!' But I never do sir! replied Churchill. It's no wonder he wasn't scared of Hitler. If you grew up being beaten to a pulp for not knowing how to talk to tables, then a genocidal maniac is pretty much par for the course.

The most famous photo of churchill, with his scowling bulldog look, was produced when the photographer snatched his cigar out of his mouth just before taking the photo. Which is rather like finding out that the look of steely defiance on Che Guevarra's face is becuase the photographer's just called him a poof.

Rather touchingly, on his 90th Birthday, a young girl from Mexico sent him a birthday card by simply writing- 'To the greatest man in the world' on the envelope. Who would that reach today?

Churchill / Nicking material.

2007-06-25T09:16:00.000Z

The next LLC experience (got to start calling it something different.) will be a guide to Churchill. Talking about it I mentioned a sketch I'd heard of but never seen. I think it was in an inteview with Barry Crier or Spike Milligan, but google reveals nothing more. The idea was about a group of german troops, and one who speaks a little English translates the following song...

Hitler has only got one ball,
Göring has two but very small,
Himmler is somewhat similar,
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all."

... and of course they all fall about laughing throughout. It's such a funny idea I think we'll have to include it, though it breaks the 'though shalt not steal other's jokes' which I normally adhere to. But we'll add an admission that it's not ours, and I think in this case we are more like historians, restoring a routine which was almost lost. Also there's something great about comedy in another language, as longh as it's the sort of cod-German with enough similar words so that people can still follow it. (See Eddie 'Le sange est dans l'arbre' Izzard.)

Das Englander songen, vas ist das?

Gehen, Sie sprechen Englisch.

OK, das tommys sprect zo...

Hitler hat nur einen Testikel erhalten,
hat Göring zwei,
aber sehr klein,
Und Himmler ist derselbe wie Göring,
Und Goebbels hat keine Testikel an allen.

Gig 68. The Balloon the Ape and The Apple.

2007-06-24T13:17:00.000Z

Again, the first proper gig in ages, but a good one, at this delightfully named Manchester pub, which the Comedy Baloon recently moved to. I did a variation on my virgin train toilet doors stuff-search the blog for 'virgin'. This was well recieved, especially the inclusion of a guide dog who wants to help but is as unsure as me about what to do. Also a bit based on the England Glory matches- see entry last week, which I remember only coming across as so so, and as my recorder stopped at that point I'll have to go on memory. Most energising of all was the jounrey where Al and I found a very likely topic for our next attempt at an LLC special - 'Churchill.' I've since even bought a biography. (£2 in bargain books) The index has 20 pages under 'Humour- sense of' compared to 3 on 'Home rule- india' so it looks like we made a good choice.

Bits and Bobs.

2007-06-19T07:21:00.000Z

I've just started to carry a little notbook around with me again lately, but I've lost the latest one, so I'm going to try and remember any gems from that. I think I mentioned...

Neighbours' pets. There's a dog upstairs which cries when its owners are out, but it doesn't sound like a real dog it sounds like a person taking the mickey. I also had a conversation with the cat next door. This is the one that craps in my herbs so it's not welcome, but it was standing on the wall meowing. I suppose it was looking for an invite, so after just gving it a stern look I said 'Hiss.' and it got the message and went off. I didn't hiss and run at it or imitate a cat, I just said 'hiss', but it seems to work.

I seem to remember another predictive text blip that I'd noticed. Trying to write 'blogs' it comes up with 'clogs'- surely anyone who owns a phone is more familiar with internet diaries than Dutch wooden shoes.

-Well you can't expect comedy gold from every page of your wee notebook. (I bet I forgot the good stuff too.)

Transport.

2007-06-12T16:40:00.000Z

The LLC tonight is transport. I recently came back from Japan through Heatrow. Not a good idea. Usually we go Newcastle Amsterdam. No problem, in Newcastle - providing you're not an obvious trouble maker you're alright. So if you don't wear a Sunderland FC shirt they let you through. But Heathrow is a different story. You're met by a huge line in a dirty hall, it's like being in the queue for customer service in Primark. And they don't trust anyone. We had to take off our shoes. It's a wonderful introduction to the UK. Welcome to London- dirty, inefficient and paranoid. And remember - I'd already flown from Tokyo to London, this was to get the connecting flight. What kind of terrorist manages to get his bomb on a packed international flight, but saves it until he's on the shuttle to Newcastle?

I also had the debate about the moving walkways. Stand or keep walking? My mate thought it was stupid to stand, the airport has spent millions on them to get people there quicker, not give lazy sods a rest but get them there at the same time. I take a different view. It's like being granted a superpower. Now, which Super power would you prefer?

a)the ability to move slightly faster while using no more energy.
or
b)the ability to stand still and hover miraculously to your destination?

I know what gets my vote.

Gig 67 / England's Glory?

2007-06-11T08:46:00.000Z

Finally took the stage at one of our monthly gigs, doing 10 minutes of stand up - I'll be compereing the August gig. A great night and I think I held my own alongside the other performers so, despite being more nervous than i have in a long time, I was well pleased.

I recently noticed the above design on a box of matches. England's glory. A battleship (doubtless off to give the bosh a hiding) and not one but two union jacks. Bit jingoistic in this day and age, I thought. But on closer in spection, it's more international - made in Sweden.

How are England's Glory matches being made in Sweden? Is there a factory full of swedish Anglophiles, wearing bowler hats on the way to work? Starting the day with a rousing chorus of 'God save the Queen'? Watching tapes of 'Last of the Summer Wine' in the canteen? "Yharss, we are maken our matches to pour reflected glory on her majesty."

This would be weird if they were made in China, but Sweden? They have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Beer costs about £8 a pint. Who knew this wealth was based on the match making industry? I thought matches were a fairly cheap comodity. What about all those poor victorian match girls, trying to make enough for a crust of bread.

"Please kind sir, buy a box o' matches from a poor orphan girl."
"Hang on, aren't you Swedish?"
"No."
"You are! That's your Volvo isn't it?"

Whole Otter Love.

2007-06-05T06:52:00.000Z

Tonight's LLC theme is Rock n Roll and the competition is Animal Rock and Roll, as it says on the LLC site;

Because our dumb chums like to rock out too...
The Oasis classic- Don't look back in hamster.
Bonnie Tyler's tortoise love song- Turtle eclipse of the heart.
The Smiths with their tribute to the sea-cow- This charming manatee.

But for my money 'Whole Otter Love' beats them all. Especially as I actually happened to hear the song (the original obviously) over the weekend, and now to my ears Robert Plant is just singing about our largest semi-aquatic mammal.

On Thursday I'll be doing a bit at our monthly show, and I've realised this is my first proper gig (i.e. straight stand up, not something weird, and not just at the LLC.) since February at Cool Fun in Durham. Al offered me a gig on Wednesday, but at short notice I couldn't face 3 nights out in a row. Still, he's doing it- and he was in Edinburgh again over the weekend. I'll have to get out more, or at least make sure when I do occassionally appear I'm so good that people still notice me.

Reasons to be Cheerful.

2007-05-29T08:31:00.000Z

Tonights Long Live Comedy is themed 'the blues'. When I had that idea, I'd vaguely imagined the competition would be blues lyrics, e.g. Filling in the blamks;

I woke up this morning,
and my ......................was.....................
Yeah, I woke up this morning,
and my ......................was.....................
Now......................................................

But actually, this is one of those things that sound like a good idea but it's actually really hard to think up some good examples. It probably wouldn't have worked. So I'm quite relieved that in my absence, Al flipped the theme on its head and set the alternative competition- think of reasons to be cheerful. This may have been inspired by Ian Dury's song...

Reasons to be cheerful 1 2 3

Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly
Good golly Miss Molly and boats
Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet
Jump back in the alley and nanny goats

18-wheeler Scammels, Domenecker camels
All other mammals plus equal votes
Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny Smith and Willy
Being rather silly, and porridge oats

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You're welcome, we can spare it - yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on 40 - no electric shocks

The juice of the carrot, the smile of the parrot
A little drop of claret - anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty, days when I ain't spotty,
Sitting on the potty - curing smallpox

Health service glasses
Gigolos and brasses
round or skinny bottoms

Take your mum to paris
lighting up the chalice
wee willy harris

Bantu Stephen Biko, listening to Rico
Harpo, Groucho, Chico

Cheddar cheese and pickle, the Vincent motorsickle
Slap and tickle
Woody Allen, Dali, Dimitri and Pasquale
balabalabala and Volare

Something nice to study, phoning up a buddy
Being in my nuddy
Saying hokey-dokey, singalonga Smokey
Coming out of chokey

John Coltrane's soprano, Adi Celentano
Bonar Colleano

Looking at that, there's very little I don't agree with. I've never met 'wee willy harris' but I'm willing to take Ian's word for it that he's a bundle of fun. I think the only one I'd really take issue with is 'the juice of a carrot'. There's sometimes a debate about which are fruits and which are vegetables, an easy way to end this debate- get the juice out of something, if it's minging, it's a vegetable.

I certainly agree with the 'Harpo, Groucho, Chico' bit. The Marx Brothers are without doubt a reason to be cheerful. And I think Ian was right to leave off Zeppo. Zeppo was not dropped to make the line scan. Look at him. The daftest name, but it looks like they only let him back in the group after he failed his accountancy exams.

Gig 66. The LLC experience.

2007-05-25T06:19:00.000Z

Oh dear, over a month since the last one. But I`m on holiday in Japan so I have an excuse. I should at least blog to keep a record of the gigs, as I plod my way towards 100 (which I promised myself I would reach, before making a decision on whether to continue or not.) For the record then, gig 66 was the 3 of us talking about madness, - see the last entry for one part. It was fun to do, especially the writing. Folowing on from a blog of mine about victorians going to watch lunatics as entertainment, Al though a follow-up would be that the nutters were really just actors, and from this we knocked together a sketch of somone auditioning to be insane by doing the hamlet speech. Thanks to the internet we could conjour up the words, and they`re pretty funny in themselves. There genuinely is a line which says `with a bare bodkin` which we followed with Callum as a camp director interupting `Would you do it with a bare bodkin, love? You haven:t got a bad bodkin- might draw in the crowds.`

However, though there were some laughs, we really hadn`t put enough work in to rehersing the performance. I honestly think that with an extra hour, just enough time to read through it 3 times, make sure everyone knows which parts are supposed to be gags, which voices work best etc. it would have been twice as good.

Hopefully we`ll do it again - but do it right.

Crazy fool!

2007-04-20T16:01:00.000Z

Still planning for our new concept middle section where the 3 of us (Callum, Al and myself) do 20 minutes of stuff together that is totally on the theme (Of Madness-1st of May.) All our notes will probably appear on the blogs in some form, so if you're a frequent reader it might spoil your enjoyment. Though it'll also be a nice, see the making of kind of effect too.

Anyway, here's something I've had here before, but rehashed into a style we can all perform.

AL.
Madness has been a staple of art and literature, for example, the criminally insane like Hannibal Lectur.

Pete.
(sucks in through his teeth) Thththth!

Cal.
Nice impression.

Pete.
What? Oh, sorry I'm just freezing over here.

AL.
Dicken's Miss Haversham, who after being jilted at the alter wears her wedding dress for 20 years, is one of only countless examples from great literature, other such classic potreyals include er... (Al tries to think of something else from great lierature)

Cal
Howling Mad Murdock!

AL.
Er. Yes. Howling Mad Murdock.

Pete.
Off of the A - team.

AL.
Actually, I'm not sure that counts.

Pete.
Course it counts. He was driven mad by the terrible things he saw in 'nam.

Cal.
It was the first time post traumatic stress disorder was discussed in a kids tea-time action drama.

Pete.
Ground breaking.

(Pete Plays the Theme as Callum sings.)

howling mad murdoc - totally crazy
because he had seen the horrors of war
he dropped nepalm on vietcong strong holds
and killed civilians by the score

(Pete peters out, as he doesn't know the middle 8, while Cal sings on..)

burning death
will fall upon you
like rain
and you know that it will...
take your face off.

(Pete joins in again with a final blast of guitar for the good bit. They stop singing.)

Cal
I wish I'd been in 'Nam.

Pete
Yeah, 'nam rocks!

Cal
Hi five for 'Nam!

AL.
Are you two finished? Anyway, he's not really THAT crazy, he's just a bit odd. He's still a fully functioning member of the A - team, which is quite a demanding role. It's not like they're ever coverting the van and he just manages to smear the word 'mother on the side in his own poo. He's just a bit weird. 'delightfully eccentric' murdoch would be a better name.

(Pete Plays the Theme as Callum sings.)
Delightfully eccentric Murdock-
In one episode he talked to a plant.
but he was still sane enough to fly helicopters
and take part in elaborate plans.

Hurry up.

2007-04-13T09:16:00.000Z

I'm reading Michael Palin's diaries at the moment. God it's depressing. Not only was he younger than me when he started Python he was still younger than me when he finished the 3rd series. So I need to get going with something. We've been busy at LLC but mostly in organising gigs which for the most part give other people more exposure than us. I want to write or perform, not promote. Of course being a comedy promoter isn't a bad job, and if I thought we could get a living wage out of it I'd give it a go, but it seems highly unlikely. Perfroming comedy is a nice hobby. Setting up PA's and leafleting is not a nice hobby. So i need a creative project to do alongside it. But doing something big, like say writing and recordng a radio pilot, is pretty tough to do on your own. A few people have talked about collaborations, but too often the initial 'Yeah, good idea lets do that'-doesn't lead to any actual work.

-then again, I'm only complaining because i've generally only done 2 pages and then stopped myself.

Frogs and Toads.

2007-04-12T07:48:00.000Z

A lovely hoppy little frog and a disgusting warty little toad.

Next week's LLC has the theme of frogs, because Callum has a sketch about tadpoles which we may be doing. I did actually discuss frogs as a possible topic before, but only in the sense of 'would having themes work? What about something as stupid as a whole night on Frogs?' But now it's actually happening.

I do think frogs and toads have a strange relationship. Nowhere else in the animal kingdom are there 2 species which are so similar, yet one is just, well, crap. Rhinos and hippos are pretty similar but they get equal respect. Imagine if as well as the giraffe, there was something almost exactly the same as a giraffe, but fatter, smellier and which walked by dragging it's hindlegs behind it. And if it licks you, you get leprosy. That's the comparison toads have to put up with. Frogs happily jump, toads crawl in a low suspicious manner. Frogs are smooth, toads are gnarled and bumpy. Frogs croak to attract a mate (and get to record with Paul Mcartney). Toads just emit noisy farts, having given up on finding that special someone.

This has gone into art and folklaw. Bad mushrooms are toad stools. Touching toads gives you warts, while touching frogs gives you a free makeover. Kiss a frog, he becomes a handsome prince, kiss a toad- warty lips. Anything toady is bad. The only exception to this trend is that delicious dish 'toad in the hole'. But I can't help thinking this is because people are relieved that it's really a sausage and not a horrid toad they're expected to eat. If it was called 'frog in the hole' they'd be disappointed when it turned out to be only sausage.

Gig 65. Ooh Ar!

2007-04-11T12:35:00.000Z

Handsome baby faced Pete, after 3 hours in make-up, as rough and ruddy son of the soil Ned.

Gig 65, back at York and the Black Swan and like last time I took the opportunity to have another crack at a character which is fun to do, but not the sort of thing I'd want to concentrate on - or could get away with at most gigs. It went like this...

Hello ladies and gents. I'm Ned, Ned nineacres, and I'm a farmer by trade. I'm from Deavon, or Cornwall, or possibly even Zummerzet. I don't really know to be honest. I suggest you listen to the agsent and make up your own mind. (cough) I'll just wet moi whistle. Ooh lovely drop o cider that. An you have to keep lubricated, don't want the old pipes drying up while I'm on stage. Oh, that reminds me. James, jim boy - how long am I on for... 5 minutes, 5 minutes... roight I'd better have another pint o cider then. oh, thanks jim lad. Better safe than sorry eh?

Well, as I said I'm ned and I'm a farmer, but I've always been interested in music, ever since i saw that woodstock on telly. And i thought, well, I've got a bit o land, oil have some o that. Only trouble was I didn't have much wood to speak of. There ain't been any real timber on my land in years. But i did have a stack o sticks. So i put on stick stack stock. An very popular it was an all. People came from miles around to see stick stack stock. It was a bit muddy that weekend though. Some people got stuck. If I'm honest there's still a few people stuck at stick stack stock.

We had some great acts though. We 'ad the 'oo. Noice lads. Good music, but I weren't so keen on the lyrics. Like that pinball wizard. That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball. The seemed amazed by that. But t the end of the day, it's just that ain't it. Just pressin' two buttons dead fast. I reacon i could do that just as well with me oise closed. I'm more impressed that he found his way to the arcade. there's a line in that song- 'he must play by sense of smell' -no lads, sense of touch, that's what he's usin' there. Of course the deaf, dumb and blind do compensate with an 'ighly developed sense of touch. If they bangs into a door they knows about it almost imediately.

...I had some bits about Hendrix and finished by doing songs, until I hit a phrase which sounded like Cider.

-When I've got better things on the other CIDER town.
-That wrigled and tickled and tickled in CIDER.
-Sit and drink Penny Royal Tea, distil the life that's in CIDER me.

Whereupon I would down a pint of the stuff.

I think this rather silly idea was the starting point for this character, but even though it's a good way to end it, it's not the funniest part of the routine. So still needs work, but this is probably one to pack away now and move on. But at least I have a recording which may be a podcast if it still sounds good when I review it in a few weeks.

Don't know if I mentioned it, but the podcast of my last York appearance is up- and you don't have to download it, just have a quick listen online if you want. See the link.

Gig 64. It's got culture coming out the wazoo!

2007-04-05T10:09:00.000Z

I gave the producer character from the sit-com script another airing. I thought it would work better in a comedy night than it had at the experimental theatre gig. It didn't. With normal stand-up I'm always willing to admit a joke's no good if two audiences both don't like it. But I'm sticking to my guns here. I still think the scene is really funny, but it doesn't work. Maybe it's in a weird half-way house between comedy, drama and monologue and people don't know what to do with it. But I still thnk there are great lines in it. Basically it's a producer changing a show about Darwin into Indiana Jones.

That should work, people love monkeys! What d'ya mean, 'There were no monkeys in the Galapagos.' Well what the hell did he study? ...various species of finch! You expect me to go to a demanding audience with various species of finch! You gotta be outta your freakin' mind. Come on, what else ya got? ...giant tortoises? That could work. Now these tortoises, do they rampage at all?

...but in this case it seems my funny bone is not aligned with the general public. I still can't quite believe the following line didn't get a laugh...

That Mc Beth, is that not serious, is that not cultured? Sure it is, It's got culture coming out the wazoo!

Oh well- this was always going to be a one off, I wasn't about to adopt it as my new comedy persona, just a shame it didn't go out on a high.

Now showing in cell 4.

2007-04-02T15:31:00.000Z

It's claimed that the victorians actually went to asylums as a form of entertainment.

Shall we go to the theatre tonight?

Nah, I'm sick of drama. Tell you what, lets go down the asylum and look at the nutters.

Alright? What's on?

Let's see. Bedlam asylum, Star wars, - a nutter attempts to start a fight with the big dipper. Cell 4, 8.30.

Seen it.

The Wild Bunch? They're quite wild, and there are a few of them so you get your money's worth.

Nah!

How about this, I was a teenage werewolf and Bride of Frankenstein.

Is that what I think it is?

A nutter who claims to have been a teenage werewolf and...

A nutter who claims to be the bride of frankenstein. No thanks.

Nutters in the rain? They sing and you get to hose them down until they stop.

Nah. Ooh, what about Hannibal the Cannibal?

Oh, It's rubbish. He sounds scary but he just talks about sheep and makes slurping noises.

What about that trendy independent asylum, is there anything on there?

Oh yes, all this week a nutter who claims to be Napoleon.

Well that sounds good.

Oh wait, it's all in French.

Well sod that, I'm not reading subtitles all night. If I wanted to read about nutters I could stay at home.

New / Old Podcast. The Return of the Living Ned.

2007-04-02T08:25:00.000Z

Another podcast, actually just finally fixed one that's been there for ages, which I realised wasn't working at all. It's me at Cool Fun in Durham, and includes - A man called Snowball and my suggestions for improving sports. This was a great gig, but those hyper students do laugh at ANYTHING, and there are a few quite bizarre skreeches going on. But never make fun of people for laughing. That's kind of why you're there.

A busy week coming up, the weekly LLC on Tuesday, then the first Monthly on Thursday, and next week I'm in York at James Christopher's gig. Where I'm thinking of re-doing Ned Nineacres. He's the cider junkie who also gave Jimi Hendrix advice on his plums (Jimi was trying to grow them on an acid soil.) and in response to woodstock created stick stack stock. - As he didn't have much wood but did have a stack of sticks. (It's basically me pretending to be in the wurzels- yes I am cutting edge.) This is the sort of thing I can only do at gigs like york. I wouldn't do it again at the LLC, but it's too odd to risk doing at a normal gig, so it's nice to have a place where these little ideas can at least get a second outing.

Still trying to come up with 20 minutes of 'Madness' themed stuff for Cal, Al and myself to co-present / perform on the 1st of March. Nothing so far, so I'm going to have a coffee and when I come back I'll have a list of 10 ideas we might mention.

1. psychiatry / Freud.
2. Victorians going to assylums as entertainment.
3. The Monster Raving Loony Party.
4. David Ike.
5. UFO buffs.
6. Religious nutters.
7. Words for mad - nuts, fruitcake, doolally, one stick short of a bundle.
8. Amnesia.
9. Paranoia.
10. Famous Nutters.

Madness!

2007-03-30T12:21:00.000Z

We've been working hard at the LLC, but it's been dull work like printing leaflets, updating websites and replying to e-mails, and we haven't had much time to think up funny stuff. So we agreed to pick one date when me, Cal and Al would do the whole middle section and the topic happens to be madness.

So today's blog is a random trawl through the mad, which will hopefully be the first stage in writng 20 minutes of material.

The picture is (I think) Mark Twain, who said...

"...in one way or another all men are mad. Many are mad for money...Love is a madness...it can grow to a frenzy of despair ... All the whole list of desires, predilections, aversions, ambitions, passions, cares, griefs, regrets, remorses, are incipience madness, and ready to grow, spread and consume, when the occasion comes. There are no healthy minds, and nothing saves any man but accident--the accident of not having his malady put to the supreme test.
One of the commonest forms of madness is the desire to be noticed, the pleasure derived from being noticed. Perhaps it is not merely common, but universal."

And he looks a bit nuts himself doesn't he. He has that Einstein haircut. Einstein, also a bit doolally, he had identical clothes so he wasn't distracted from important things by choosing what to ware. An example of how madness is close to genius, although in reality the examples where madness is closer to idiocy seem more common.

Some people call Salvador Dali mad but you can't really be mad and still paint that well. I went to his home / museum. It may be a bit mad to want a gold plated orang-utan skeleton in your bedroom, but to actually be able to afford it you must basically have your head screwed on the right way.

Another mad is the 'Zany' which we avoid at all costs. It's a fine line. Monty Python is great. People who go to Monty Python conventions are 'Zany'. We're pretty open to weird stuff at the LLC, but if people ever come up after a show and say 'You guys are just crazy! Seriously, that was great but you guys are just too much!' then we know we've gone too far. 'Zany' people are about as far from real rebellion, danger or madness as it is possible to get. 'We're mad, we just thought lets come to the party in cowboy hats, for, like, no reason! I know, we're insane.'

Some times madness is just the loss of a faculty we're not really aware of. If someone doesn't recognise you because they're blind, we accept it. The faculty of sight is gone and we can understand that. But if someone has lost their faculty to interpret visual signals as 3 dimensional objects, and they don't recognise you because they thought you were the Lake District, we think they're mad. There are loads of cases like this in 'The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'. One chapter is devoted to people who can only interpret words literally. Which make it impossible for them to talk to sarcastic policemen without getting arrested. Another group had lost the ability to interpret language, but had an increased ability to interpret gesture and tone. The chapter ends with an anecdote about both groups laughing at a presidential speech, the 'literals' because the words actually didn't make any sense, and the 'tonals' because they could tell that whatever he was saying it was bullshit.

Well, I'd be mad (ho, ho) to waste any more time on this today.

Chilli Launch Night!! Thursday 5th of April.

2007-03-29T07:38:00.000Z

Anyone reading this will probably also read the LLC site and know about this already, but here's the lowdown on our new monthly gig. We return to the Chillingham Arms, where me Al and Cal had some of our first gigs. It's more of a standard professional gig than the Dog and Parrot, but we're still leaving the middle section open for the best of the newcomers. Here's the blurb...

Long Live Comedy started a year ago as an open mic night for new comics. But the night was often also attended by established acts, keen to try out new material in the relaxed atmosphere. Long Live Comedy soon gained a reputation as a great comedy gig. Now the venue has been rewarded by being selected as the best comedy night in the North by Chortle - the comedy news website.

To celebrate our success we're expanding to showcase some of the finest talent that has appeared at the Long Live Comedy open mic night. But now they are guaranteed to appear alongside professional comics from all over the country.

Every month we will be bringing you professional comedians and some of the mad funny people who come to the Dog and Parrot every week.

April 5th
Compere Al Dawes
Steffen Peddie
Carl Hutchinson
Ric Wharton
Vladimir McTavish

May 3rd
Compere Callum Cramb
Susan Calman
Nolbert Stump
Selsdon Crupp
Daliso Chaponda

Gig 63. Beyond Compere.

2007-03-27T18:27:00.000Z

Gig 63 was my second go at compereing solo at the LLC, and I think it worked. As the review said...

Pete was compere for the rest of the night, and soon abandonned his 'this week in history' themed material- it turned out to be informative but not funny, which is why no one else had bothered with it. Instead he got stuck in the logical problems of 'ripping the piss' put of someone for going to the toilet - are you actually helping them? The plucky recipient was Seb Proudfoot, and came in for more abuse when we pondered how he got his name. 'Well, I'm a baker, so I'll be Joe Baker. What about Seb?' 'Well, he's very proud of his feet.'

I think it was the lack of prepared material (or at least my willingness to dump it in favour of spontaneous stuff) that made the night. I'd researched a few facts on 'this week in history' but as it ws Al's turn to compere I didn't convert them into real jokes. And a week watching Cal's Ross Noble DVDs had me in a 'wing it and see what happens mode' and there were some nice moments. Particularly the 'proudfoot' thing where I milked a laugh of (what seemed like) 10 seconds, out of looking at my ow feet. Hopefully this is one of those important 'turning points' and gigs where I die because I've failed to engage with the audience are a thing of the past. On the other hand I can't survive for much longer with that hair. A man either has long hair, or he doesn't - there can be no middle course.

Gig 62- experimental theatre.

2007-03-19T11:12:00.000Z

God, I'm getting bad at blogging. I'm now doing this in spare momets at work. I did add a picture, but it's in such a rush it has nowt to do with this bolg. Well, I'm in such a rush I don't know what I'm writing, so it might be about elderly men organising a bike race round the town centre. But no, instead, very briefly I'll do all the stuff I would have done if I'd been blogging daily.

The theatre gig was a bit wierd. Experimental performance art and one of those badly written plays where people in the middle of heated arguments still manage to list obscure facts that show the writer did some research. 'I'm going to kill you! Because your company's building projects have caused an 83% decline in curlew numbers in this area.' 'You crazy fool, the police will be here any second- and the curlew was already in decline, 19th century hunting meant breeding pair numbers had been unsustainable since the turn of the century.'

And me and Cal reading bits from a sitcom that needs a lot of re-writes. I don't think the audience knew if they were supposed to laugh - I'd been biting my fist for most of the evening.

We won the best Northern Venue in the Chortle comedy awards. HA HA HA HA HA!

What's my motivation?

2007-03-12T10:50:00.000Z

The first post in a long time, but I haven't done any gigs apart from the LLC nights, and I can't remember doing anything so spectacular that it deserves to be called gig no. 62. But I do have a weird one coming up. John Scott put me forward for a gig at Northern stage. A couple of weeks later I had an e-mail through which explained it as an opportunity to see theatrical works in progress, meet with the creators and offer feedback to help hone these dramatic first steps. So 10 minutes of me telling jokes about starwars didn't seem appropriate.

So, I dug out an old script - 'The Garret' a tale of struggling Victorian artists. I wrote this with the help of a mate a few years ago, sent it to 2 companies, had 2 rejection letters and forgot about it. But now it's back. Given the lack of time, I didn't think I'd be able to learn it, let alone anyone else, so the show will have to be represented by me reading out 3 scenes. One featured a showbiz producer turning a serious play about Darwin into Indiana Jones. This bit at least seems to work. The conversation was so onesided that I was able to cut all the lines by the play's writer and do the producer' part as a monologue. So even if 'The Garret' never resurfaces, I may have another 8 minute routine I can use somewhere. Due to the increasing popularity of the LLC nights (for performers- we're not exactly turning away punters yet.) I've not been able to get on to try it out, but I'm hoping for a cancellation tomorrow, so I can at least try out this bit before Friday.

Scrabble winning poem.

2007-02-26T11:09:00.000Z

The 'Ai' or 3 toed sloth.

I talked about this poem a while back, when it was going to be the (anti?) climax of my Newcastle festival show. It includes (nearly) all of the 2 letter words which can be used in scrabble. But I never published it because of the length. However, a couple of scrabble fans came across the entry and wanted to see it so here it is.

Sh! St! Quiet! I’ll tell you what happened to me
When Ho! I was accosted by a most strange enemy.
He had the muscles of an ox, he was angry and direct.
And I guessed that he was Scottish from his use of dialect.

Oi, Ye! Ch ug you, ch ug you I say.
Now ch means I, and ug means loathe- this just wasn’t my day.
Ye stole ae of my ky – he meant one of his cattle
I’ll ne let ye get away – Ha! Prepare for battle.
Cos you’re the one who pushed my sweet jo oy into the ea
I didn’t understand at all – I thought, did I mishear?
He explained, jo- beloved, oy- grandchild, ea- river.
and when I’d got the gist of it he punched me in the liver.
Na! I said, you’re mistaken, I swear it was not me
Fy! He said - You try to pull the oo over my ee?
(wool over my eyes)

He looked like a volcano, I was sure he’d blow his top
And spray aa (– a type of lava) all over the shop.
How could he be so angry, hadn’t he heard of meditation
Perhaps a bit of yoga would improve his situation.
But teaching this man inner peace would clearly be a farce
Give him a burning incense stick – he’d stick it up your arse.
Was I right to judge him, not knowing of his strife
Well- one look told me the man wouldn’t say om! – to save his life.
Still his face was red and straining – a mask of consternation.
Like the before picture in an ad for relief of constipation.

He was clearly deranged, I knew it was so
His id didn’t control his super-ego
And as if to prove how his brain had gone wrong
He suddenly stepped up and burst into song

Do, re, mi, he bellowed and also fa, so
He continued la, ti and then went back to do.

Then he pulled out his da, that’s a short Burmese knife
Then he pulled out an ax and I feared for my life
But I have to admit that things hit a new low
When he pulled out a Maori digging stick called a ko

At american college I learned what to do
My fraternity house was xi, pi, mu.
I didn’t learn much but at least I know
Exactly when it’s time to go.
I said lo, look – free whisky – isn’t that just what we need?
And as he turned to look for it I jumped upon my steed.

I rode a mile and I then rode a li
That’s a measure of distance used by the chinee (se)
But on the horizon always in hot pursuit
I could make out the shape of his gi- (judo suit)

I prayed to the gods, di – that’s plural for deus
I preyed that they might perhaps get in the wayus
Of this bloody Scotsman, his ax and my fayus
But would anyone heed my call

I couldn’t help but notice the distance shortened between us both
Because he was riding a stallion, I rode an ai – a 3 toed sloth.
I was terrified he chased me, wherever I did go
When he caught up I wet myself – having lost my travelling po.

I preyed to od, that’s an old word for god
I said wo is me and please protect my bod
But a kick in the balls from the malicious sod
Told me there would be no help at all.

He kicked me and oh! Of course I said ow!
For he kicked like the Zo – a Himalayan cow.

My first name is rolf that’s r,o,l,f.
And I am the one who will thump you to deff
He said without so much as pausing for breff
Ah! Eh! Ou! Er! Oh!

I tried to bribe him with yu –precious green jade
I offered him xu – coins, Vietnamese made.
It was clear from the start that he wouldn’t be swayed.
I could see that the end was ny.

I offered him money I offered him checks
He said he’d only be calmed by a bout of man-sex
Excuse me? You heard – m, a, n, s, e, x.
Well I had no idea he was bi.

I said ta, but no ta. I’m afraid I’m not gay.
He said neither am I. I don’t quite swing that way
I’m a lassie you see, trapped in a man’s body
Is it my fault the body is that of Bill Oddie?
So before you pass judgement, I think you should stop.
And consider the tranny, who can’t pay for his op.
You can’t say I’m exactly femininely built
More like a brick shit house – even wearing a kilt.
Oh ma, oh pa – I’m lonely Ay!
I’m so confused he said.
Then he took his da (Burmese knife)
And he cut off his own head.

He had no ba, ka or soul, no qi or life force
All of this meant he was quite dead of course.
So I think that we should now salute
This poem’s confused star.
Let us remember that poor Scotsman
With a sympathetic aw!

Electric Killer Sheep.

2007-02-22T09:43:00.000Z

The next LLC theme is Myspace, and I'm compere- which I wasn't happy about. I gave up on myspace as too fiddly, so I'm no expert, but it did get me thinking about whether it's really an improvement. It's getting people writing again, which is nice. It looked as if technology would kill off the written word, as phones rendered writing obsolete, but now, e-mail and blogging have brought writing back. And e-bay and amazon have brought back getting exciting parcels in the post. It's weird, but thanks to the information super highway, I now have brown paper in the house again.

So at least the internet is something different, whereas some technology is just making things electric. And in most cases it's not necessary. The electric pencil sharpener? How hard is sharpening a pencil? Who needs to sharpen their pencil as quickly as possible and get back to their important pencil based work? If you're using a pencil, it's not that important, that's why you're doing it with a pencil.

How about the electric door? It's not hard to open a door, but it can be left open, causing a draft - so the electric door is really self closing, more than self opening. But I'll tell you where you don't need an electric door - on a toilet, on a train. I'm speaking of course of the new virgin train toilets, which have 3 buttons - open, close and lock. Why close AND lock? Who goes to the toilet on the train and doesn't take up the option of locking the door? What's more, you can't lock until the door is fully closed. This safety feature, which incidentally is a feature of traditional doors too, is to stop scally wags who would press a single close/lock button, then leap out leaving the toilet locked but empty. But most people don't know this. Which is why last time I was on a train a young woman went in, pressed close and lock together and presumed the door was locked. And 2 minutes later I pressed open and revealed her upon the throne.

And 'reveal' is the apt word, this huge curved door slides magically back, revealling the occupant like a prize in some dirty European quiz show- "Eh Paulo es victor! Eh con prizee especiale - una senioritta urinato!!!" It's like some weird pervert vending machine. We've all seen tramps checking the change slots of phones 'on the off chance'. Well, I think a similar habit will be seen on virgin trains.

In conclusion, not everything needs to be electric. And this goes for the suggestion of one of the 'most inventive people in the world' according to the ads enouraging us to teach. They do so by claiming 14 year olds aren't disgusting idiot heathens. One girl claims a good idea for an invention is 'electric killing sheep'. We've already got sheep and they run on grass, which seems highly efficient. And the fact that they don't kill you also seems like a bonus. If this girl is in your class, don't put her on televsion, send her to the school psychologist.

Gig 61. they say faither...

2007-02-14T11:50:00.000Z

I tried a little character at last week's LLC. Based on an older entry in this blog (I can't be arsed to do a link so search the blog for 'combs') I'd originally thought this traditional tale would be well presented just read out in a dead pan style. In fact I'd only dug it out again to use in a possible project on the theme of happiness, which I may be helping Donnachda O'Connail with. But as Donnachda wouldn't be there I tried it in my own (rather less convincing) Irish accent, and from that it was a small step to adopt the persona of a priest. I found I had a black shirt in my wardrobe and an organ sound in my keyboard, so I thought what the hey. Anyway, the result is on the podcast, it's not top quality (you can hear Callum's notes rustling in the middle) but I may never get round to doing a better version so there it is.

Sports.

2007-02-06T08:40:00.001Z

Today's LLC is about Sport. The competiton is suggestions to improve sports, and as I'm compereing most of it myself, I thught I should do some preparation. So I'm trying to have a suggestion for nearly every sport ready, so any suggested can be met with a quick and hilarious suggestion for improvment.

Golf.
Giant crazy golf. So a typical 9th hole (300 yards par 4) is an unbdulating pink aiplane runway with a windmill at the end.

Marathon.
The marathon is based on the route of the runner who took news of the battle of Marathon back to Athens. So every year another distance related to a historical battle should be attempted. Eg. The 8000 mile 'long march' of the retreating Chinese communist army.

Relay.
Sticks of dynamite replace batons. This means the runners are still competing against each other, but there's also an element of beat the clock.

Javelin.
Targets. This was originally used for fighting or hunting so they wouldn't be happy with the longest distance, they'd want acuraccy too. "300 yards? Very impressive, but the stag's over there!" The targets should idealy be mechanical ducks or giant playing cards.

diving/basketball -hoops of fire.
table tennis- the players should themselves be on another giant table. Just to freak them out.
tennis-not just clay and grass, also ice, sand and lava.
rugby-drinking games incorporated into the match.
iceskating / figure skating / Ice hockey - a few holes, with occassional killer whales attempting to eat competitiors.
polevault- a team of 3 attempt to use 1 pole.
discus - done over a lake.
hammer - must knock a nail in
high jump- over a brick wall.

Gig 60. Phew.

2007-02-05T09:33:00.000Z

Woo. A good gig. Which rounds out my week to 3 good ones and 1 duff one. So I'm back on a high, and though I'm not about to forget the possible need to re-think my onstage persona, it's not the pressing need I'd thought. Cool Fun at the fish tank (above bimbis) in Durham was a joy. The organisers are all at the university, which means they have a full room of their student mates every time. It's a bit like our place when we have 3 acts from Newcastle College. Unfortunately, in the real world your mates come about every 6 months so we have to (well, ought to) work a bit harder to get a crowd. With a lot of acts and only one break I was impressed by the patience of the crowd, though it was hard to tell at times what the crowd response was. There was constant laughter, but sometimes eminating from a few mental patients dotted about the room - including a few of the organisers / regulars who were hooting like constipated apes at the back. Still, I had a very nice time. Started with the new 'snowball' bit in an effort to sound a bit more spontaneous - then did my well rehersed 5, though I was relaxed enough to forget a few bits and not care. I finished with a few completely new bits based on tomorrow's competition - improving sports. All good. And when I came off I was assured that everyone had been laughing - not just the gibbons.

Ups and downs -gigs 57-59.

2007-02-02T12:47:00.000Z

A weird week with many gigs which, at this stage, leaves me tired and emotional.

Gig 57. Monday 29th. -Edinburgh Stand.
As expected a lovely gig, well recieved and laughs in all the right places. Even going on first didn't bother me.

Gig 58. Tuesday 30th. -LLC.
A bit drunk. But we were rushed so I didn't do too much anyway. I basically had a few suggestions for the competition - new reality TV shows, supposedly my explanation of 'Pimp my Pimp' was well recieved, as a few people have come up and said 'ahm the biggest pimp in darlin'ton'which brought back some vague memories.

Gig 59. Thursday 1st. - Castle Leazes Student Union.
Last night, not so good, which is why I've been in a huge funk all day. Not a total failure, there were still sporadic laughs and all the bits I thought would really work were greeted with good (though short)laughs, but it never really took off. I got the impression the crowd simply didn't accept me in the way they took to the other acts. I felt like I was really working to prove I was alright, where as people like Carl Hutchinson were just accepted. They see him and think 'I like this guy, he's going to be good' and chuckle at throwaway remarks. I get the impression some crowds see me, think 'Who's this weirdo?' and I have to work to get a reponse. (Carl also has good material too, I'm just saying his raport with the crowd is much better than mine generally is.)

I may have lost them at a point when I stupidly stopped in my joke about seeing 'the cure' to ask the young crowd if they were aware of 'the cure' and suggested they substitute Marylin Manson instead. This ruined the rythm, was patronising, and made me look even more out of date. -thinking 'the cure' are a modern goth band is bad enough, but suggesting Manson is the up to the minute alternative is worse. Also it totally destroyed the illusion that I was having a spontaneous chat.

I am seriously thinking of a massive style change. Just being me on stage isn't working, at least not often enough. It's galling that I won 'beat the frog' with the same persona and material - but I can't always get that reponse. Though I think being out of the North East helps as I can play the cheeky geordie card a bit. In the North East people sense I am in fact a slightly posh, educated, serious pseudo-Geordie and they don't buy it.

If I want a persona that works more consistantly I've got a few options.

1. I could just do character work, and pretend to be other people such as cowboys, yokels, angels, pirates etc. I would include here finding a partner and concentrating on sketch work.

2. I could pick a new persona and do my set in that voice. There's a comic who's English but performs in a welsh accent. I found this distinctly dodgy when I first heard it, but this kind of thing could work for me.

3. A similar approach, but to characterise myself. I'm actually quiet and seem to give off an unnapproachable vibe which means people don't tend to spark up casual chats. I enjoy converstaion but I'm not good at instigating it. All this is hard to fight against, so maybe I should consciously go with it. In personallity I'm much closer to Donnachda, but whereas he goes onstage as an exaggerated version of himself, I go on stage as something totally different.

This is probably the best approach- but I need to do some research, my self perception- both on and off stage- could be totally different to the impression others get. Anyway, I've got one more gig which will be basically the same as yesterday,

Gig 60. Sunday 4th. - The Fish Tank - Durham.

Maybe this will be great and I'll just put the last one down to an off night and keep going. But if it's another mild one then the work of building a new style will have to start at the next LLC.

Freak Show.

2007-01-29T10:21:00.000Z

I heartily admit that I'm a man born after my time. I lke tweed. Heaven for me would simply be to wake up one day as Bertie Wooster. (This was actually what the first draught of 'Metamorphosis' was all about -"Gregor Samsor awaoke one morning to find he had been trasformed into an enormous Bertie Wooster.") Anyway, I have missed the time period I would most like to have lived through, and therefore my ideal career is closed to me. I will never be the ringmaster in a traveling carnival of freaks. Never will I hear the astonished gasps as I sweep back the curtain to reveal the bearded lady, monkey-faced boy or the three legged man.

I did think of starting an ironically bad post modern freak show. My friend Paul was to be the star turn, one of his eyes is a little bit blue and a little bit brown. He was to be billed as the amazing kalidescope boy. But at present even organising this is beyond me, so in the meantime, let me present...

The Worlds worst freak show, the cabinet of household anomolies...

Behold! The Siamese Spaghetti! Joined at the head (or is it the foot?) this unfortunate pair still manage to live a full and rewarding life.

But worst of all, prepare to witness the loathsome, twisted form of... The Elephant Cracker!

"I am not an elephant, I am a craker."

Oh the humanity!

Gig 56 LLC- The Great Outdoors.

2007-01-27T21:55:00.000Z

I've gone back to a post a week and was worried I'd missed some gigs, but I see the last post was to report on the last LLC. I've done nothing in between, so we're alright. But next week it's unlikely I'll manage to report on all the gigs. Here they are...

Gig 57. Monday 29th. -Edinburgh Stand.
Gig 58. Tuesday 30th. -LLC.
Gig 59. Thursday 1st. - Castle Leazes Student Union.
Gig 60. Sunday 4th. - The Fish Tank - Durham.

That lot will earm me a handsome £20. Well, Thursday will - the rest will get me bugger all. Monday will cost me and Al £20 each in petrol. D'y here that day job- your days are numbered!

Anyway, last LLC was the great outdoors. I didn't have anything until an hour before when I actually looked at my camping equiptment. A Swiss army Knife.

The first thing anyone does with such a knife is open up both knife blades, big AND small - then they do a very bad Darth Maul Impression. Of course if you actually compere them to anything in your kitchen, it's small knife and ridiculuosly small knife. Most outdoors tasks require a fairly hefty blade, I can't imagine when anyone thinks "2 inches long - far too heavy and unweildy. Killing this bear will require the delicate touch." But the most frequently used tool of the Swiss Army Knife is actually the corkscrew. About 1000,000 are sold a year and on 900,000 that's the only blade that is ever is opened. But why is that on an 'army' knife at all. If there was such a thing as a British Army knife, I wouldn't design it with something to aid the average squaddie to get any more pissed and rowdy than he already is. However, this is the Swiss army, they're a bit more sophisticated. "So Jean-Pierre, I think it is time to break out the emergency rations... red or white?"

Next most used is the bottle opener, by this stage it's still essentially a 'booze stick'. Which, to be fair suits most of my camping trips. Ray Mears doesn't tell you this, but you can get a fire hot enough to melt the bottle from a sainsburys French larger. (Makes a nice key-ring.) Alongside the bottle opener is the can opener. They look very similar, so here's a system to remember them;

Sleepy Tortoise. (Look at him yawn.) and Angry tortoise.

Sleepy because he's been opening beers all afternoon and Angry because he's been working for 10 minutes and he still hasn't got his beans open.

If you look closely you'll see that their noses are screw drivers, very useful in the wilderness. If the fire's burning low, just approach a tree, unscrew a branch and pop it on the fire. But do replace the screws, otherwise the tree can lose a lot of sap.

Gig 55. Crammed at the LLC.

2007-01-17T19:53:00.000Z

A full bill and a fuller room, 8 acts (somehow) and loads of people. So not much time, I did bits of the last few days blogs as material and it all went pretty well. So- ok. But I'll have to repeat myself a wee bit as I'd like a new five for edinburgh (the stand at the end of the month, not the festival) and I'd like it to make sure it REALLY works rather than do an important gig on the strength of, 'Well I did it once and it went OK'.

*

Also, in researching the Hitler song (I do occassionally research this rubbish) I found an introductory verse to the song...

(Sung to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory.)

Land of soap and water,
Hitler's having a bath.
Churchill's looking through the keyhole,
Having a jolly good laugh
Be..e..e..e..cause...

Hitler — has only got one ball...

*Ok so it's not Hitler in the bath, but it is Hitler's bath. This is the closest picture the internet can provide at present. Come on nerds!

Snowball.

2007-01-16T08:15:00.000Z

We got a leaflets through our door this week, from the police. This was whole printed leaflet about 1 guy with an ASBO and how we should now look out for him, as he's not allowed in the area. But one thing I spotted, his name was John Martin Snowball. Now wonder he turned out a bad 'un. How can a kid suceed with the name of a persian cat and a gay drink. He's been ridiculed and fighting back since he was a kid.

I can imagine him at 12, when the taunting really started to get bad, pleading with his father to let him change it.

"No way son, that's the family name. You should be proud to be a snowball! You're too soft. It's your mother's fault, she handled you with kid gloves and now she can't let go. But when you're a snow ball you've got to be hard, you've got to be firm, you've got to stay cool. You can't just fall to pieces every time something throws you. You've got to stand up to those bullies. Ignore them, if they try to intimidate you and it doesn't work- you come out the bigger man. Just remember that, you're a snowball- they can push you round all they want. it just makes you bigger than them.

There's a proud family tradition of snowballs. I'm not saying all snowballs are good. we've had some bad ones, your auntie Phylis Snowball, she was a bad un, there was something deep down inside of her, something nasty. Something nobody knew about till it was too late. Then there was Great Uncle George Snowball, he was a conciencious objector in the war, a coward he was, there's nothing worse than a snowball with a yellow streak."

A kick in the balls.

2007-01-15T09:53:00.000Z

With the new year I've been endulging in activities I'd let slide of late. I started playing squash again last week, and very shortly after I was hit in the nuts by a squash ball. Which is something I've not done for ages. A long time since I was hit in the knackers. Many a moon since gonzo got whacked in the eyes.

When I was a kid it seemed to happen twice a week. What with other kids, bike cross bars, improvised swings etc, I was fairly accustomed to it. But these days it's a thankfully rare occurance. Men are very sensitive about their balls (obviously). I remember a drunken conversation where a friend said he would never be truly happy because he was never going to get the quantity or quality of sex he felt he was entitled to. As he was never gowing to grow some charm or good looks the only answer was to reduce his desire. I suggested castration. There he would be, intelligent, happy, sprightly and free of the testosterone which was giving him urges he could never hope to act upon. My friend didn't like the idea. "Couldn't I have an operation of the brain to lower my standards instead?" He said he'd rather have bits of his brain removed until he was not aware of and could not comprehend the existence of (for example) Kylie Minogue's Arse. He'd rather be a drooling moron, fiddling with himself over a stripping biro, than drop the veg.

Some people have only one. And this is seen as a bad thing - less balls, less man! Hence the song;

"Hitler has only got one ball,
Göring has two but very small,
Himmler is somewhat sim'lar,
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at"

But does the opposite apply? Is 3 balls even weirder, or is it the sign of the truly macho? Perhaps we should have added another verse;

"Churchill, he has got 14 balls.
Monty, has 25 in all.
Bader- fewer but harder
And mountbatten's often sat upon his haul."

Gig 54. Billy Bob rides again!

2007-01-11T08:47:00.000Z

Gig 54 was my first trip to James Christopher's York gig

(learn more here)

although to save you time, here's the review of my bit;

"excellent character act Pete Thompson treated us to his guitar-plucking cowboy alter-ego, Bob Thornton. It was a sparkling turn, with great gags, songs and performance."

Not a bad review, as long as no one notices that we pop down to York in what amounts to a comedian exchange programme, so I suppose James will tend to be generous. It was a good night and I was glad to air this old material again, it's a bit I would like to perfect, though it's not something I'd want to do too often or call my main act. There's too many comic cowboys about - Rich Hall's Otis lee Crenshaw, being the biggest one at the moment. I didn't do the turkey song - I think Ashley's right (see coments on last post). I had the idea and once I get an idea in my head I like to finish it, but I hadn't really thought about wether it would work as stand up. Still, you might see the turkey song attempted at the LLC - that's what it's for- and if I do it there I won't be tempted to try it out cold next time I get a proper gig.

The act will be on the podcast soon- though I forgot my recorder so I'll have to wait for James to send a copy of the tape he made. Another gem I hope to make available soon is Cal and Al performing my 'Quorn to be Wild' sketch. I never thought they'd get round to doing it, but was overjoyed to learn they'd had a shot at it in my absence. They tell me it went well - but more on that when I see the video that Cal took. So lots going on, including a few things which we'll anounce soon - feels like exciting times down at the old LLC.

Turkey Jerky.

2007-01-08T09:41:00.000Z

Tomorrow the LLC is running again, but I'm in York - at James Christopher's gig which he runs in flagrant competition with ours. I've decided to give my cowboy character another outing- and here's another song he could do. Though probably won't tomorrow, because I haven't worked the music out yet.

Howdy folks, you know I have to make a living writing comercials sometimes, and here's one that's running about every 20 minutes on alabama state radio. It's for jerky, not beef jerky, turkey jerky. Most people don't know you can jerk a turkey, but you can jerk most anything if you've a mind to. It's not the most apetizing of jerky, is turkey - but it sells because people like saying it. Anyhoo.. the comercial goes like this...

I saw a bird who looked like a jerk
but I gave him a chance 'cos he wanted to work
gave him a shotgave that turkey a job
but he goofed off and he goofed around
and you know what i found
that turkey was a no good low down slob

one day he didn't show, he'd split and taken my car
well, I'm telling you that turkey wont get far

When i catch that jerky turkey
I'm gonna make some turkey jerky
i'll pull off his flesh and dry it in the sun
I'll make tasty strips of turkey jerky
from that no good jerky turkey
then I'm gonna get some beer and have some fun.

Gonna slice his gizzard and stomp on his balls
and hang the bits from my south-facing walls
then leave them in a marinade to soak
I'll pull off his wings, shove 'em up his ass
and sweeten it up with a little molasses
salt and pepper and chilli and hickery smoke

Quorn to be Wild.

2007-01-02T11:25:00.000Z

Here's a sketch that I dragged out because it might have been performed at the next LLC - 9th January. The subject is 'Fat' so it fits in quite nicely. But I'm doing James Christopher's York gig, so I won't be at the LLC. Though it's just possible cal and al might have a go at it. It should be performed with a pete and dud vibe...

X
How long since you gave up then?

Y
Nearly three years. You?

X
Oh, I’ll never give up, I know people say it’s wrong,
or it’s bad for you, I just like the taste too much.

Y
Oh! Me too. I love it! A nice roast leg! Oooh!

X
Spare ribs?

Y
Oh yeah, I can still taste it.

X
So why’d you stop?

Y
Well, moral reasons really. I think they’ve as much
right to live as we do.

X
Nah, it’s survival of the fittest- it’s natural. If
I’m strong and smart enough to catch them, I recon God
wants me to eat em.

Y
You could be right. Maybe I’m just a bit squeamish.

X
So, do you like remember the exact moment you thought
– ‘Right, no more human flesh for me!’ ?

Y
Yeah, I do. I was sitting at the kitchen table,
tucking into my latest, and I looked out the window
and I saw some lads running about knocking a football
round, enjoying themselves, and I thought – that’s how
they should live – free to roam, not crammed into my
freezer or blocking up the drains.

X
Oh, boo hoo - yer big Jessie.

Y
Well you have to admit it’s cruel.

X
Not if you do it right. With me, right, they just
walk in, look round, say – ‘What kind of a surprise
party is this?’ , then it’s ‘Boof!’?(Mime hitting
someone on head with a stick) - Goodnight Vienna!

Y
Well, I suppose if they’ve had a good life and they
don’t suffer.

X
Exactly! It’s just when people play with their food,
causing unnecessary suffering.

Y
Yeah! Gives cannibals a bad name that does. Like
that bloke in Silence of the Lambs.

X
(Astonished- like his hero's being criticised)
Hannibal Lectre? What’s wrong with him?

Y
Not him! He’s a gent. The other one.

X
Who?

Y
The one who keeps the women in his basement until
they get thin.

X
That’s crazy! He wants to fatten them up.

Y
Well I think he only wanted their skins.

X
Their skins?

Y
Yeah, he wanted to flay them and make a women-skin
coat.

X
That is just sick!

Y
Yeah.

X
Killing for the sake of fashion.

Y
Aye.

X
Not even eating them! Criminal.

Y
Well exactly, I feel the skin looks better on the
woman.

X
Yeah. To be honest I have thought of giving up
recently. Mind, not cos some liberal says it’s
‘cruel’. Just, you’re bound to get caught in the end
aren’t you?

Y
Oh aye. The problems I used to have getting rid of
the bones.

X
Well that’s my trouble now. And not just the bones.

Y
No?

X
Well you were lucky, I’ve never liked liver.

Y
No.

X
Biggest organ in the bastard body that is.

Y
I thought you used to burn them.

X
Gateshead smokeless fuel laws buggered that up.

Y
What about your allotment?

X
Full to bursting. Mind, that’s the only way to get
show quality leeks. Nah, I’ll have to quit. How did
you give up then, if you still like the taste so much?

Y
Well, actually, I do have a secret…

(Put on a ‘voice over’ voice and address the audience
directly for this bit – or actually have it as an off
stage voice over.)

Yes, my secret is cani-quorn, the new meat-free
alternative to bloody human flesh.

X
Yes, if you enjoy cannibalism, but don’t like
spending years in institutions for the criminally
insane, - then choose cani-quorn.

Y
Cani-quorn all the taste of human flesh, and only half
the calories.

end
-this is actually a short version- another way to end
it is to have them complain about the quality of the
meat - full of drugs/ they're all on the dole-
cramped housing (think veal) no excercise etc. then
one says he complained to his MP and got a letter
back-
"Dear sir, while we are sympathetic to your cause we
will not be making these views official policy in the
near future. PS. I wouldn't eat a geordie if he was
glazed in honey." end.

Gig 53 Covers Night.

2006-12-30T12:32:00.000Z

First up, hope you had a good Christmas. I haven't been blogging because I've been sick for most of the hols and have hence failed to do anything useful with the precious time off. But, to bring you up to date- a good gig to take away the taste of the last one, though this was more of an acting excercise. Covers night at LLC so I did emo philips. I'd chosen Emo becasue I'd discovered I can do a pretty good impersonation of his odd sing-song voice, so I decided to go with the approach of replicating him exactly (or as near as damn it). I even bought a wig. I think it worked. People who had seen him before said it was pretty much like watching the real Emo, and like the real Emo ther audience reaction was splt 50/50 between 'cool' and 'What the hell....?'

Gig 52. Oh the humanity!

2006-12-19T07:54:00.000Z

Oh dear. What I hoped would be the second in a string of gigs for a local promoter has totally put the kybosh on the whole idea. It was bloody awful. I think my nerves probably showed, which makes the audience nervous, they lose faith and expect you to be rubbish. Then I was rubbish, no laughs at the usually safe A-team joke, and things went from bad to worse. Without the laughs I lost track and had to actually stop until I remembered the next bit. I had hoped to win them round with the last song but it never happened. Arse. What's worse is this has happened because I've ignored my own advice... I did a similarly bad msical set in Manchester and told myself...

I don't want to be on a stage unless I'm 80% sure the material is going to work.

- but still I'd used a fair amount of stuff I like myself, but which has never really been proven. (Such as; Another famous riff was Hendrix playing the star spangled banner at woodsrock. An interesting fact about that, it was actually a cover - he didn't even write it.)

From now on I will only do tried and tested material at unfamiliar venues, and only add new material which has worked perfectly at local venues. Most beginners will just do their best 10 when they get a gig- Why I feel the need to try new stuff, I don't know. From now on I'm doing a travelling 10 and sticking to it unless I've already done the same stuff at that venue 3 times.

Anyway, hopefully tonight's LLC will give me a confidence boost. It's covers night so I'm being Emo Philips.

It's not my material, but hopefully I can be proud of my performance- after all, it's how you tell 'em.

LLC- lowest numbers, most fun.

2006-12-13T14:01:00.000Z

Just a quick one in a tea break again- so no time to waffle and add pictures - but I thought I should make the effort because I've realised I've been doing this for over a year. However, as I rarely manage a full week and never write at weekends I average about 10 entries a month, so a year of blogs isn't as impressive as it first sounds. Hence today's effort.

But I do have something to talk about. Last night's LLC was a weird one - 3 people turned up, and as we didn't have that many acts either there was no way to pretend there was a real audience. But we did it anyway. Al took the mic off the stage and set it at the back next to our little group. As we couldn't be arsed to go back to do the music I just sang the supergrass intro riff which is our coming on stage music.

And it was fun. Al says it was the most enjoyable one yet. And for us it was, without the stress of taking money, queing acts, watching time or even worrying about being funny I had a great night. Of course, maybe sitting around chatting is simply more fun than watching a proper comedy show. That might be why sometimes only 3 people turn up.

Gig 51. Stockton Arc.

2006-12-11T14:20:00.000Z

A quick, tea break entry for a quite important gig. The benefit of Al Dawes being in spain (beyond the obvious one of being rid of the fat twart) is that when promoter Pete Vincent is looking for someone to fill 10 minutes he gets a bit futher down his list. To me in fact. So I found myself following compere Steffan Peddie on to the stage at the Stockton Arc. A proper theatre, there was a grand piano onstage for gawd's sake. (Which in retrospect I should have used- I must learn 'Darwin!-The Musical' properly.) All in all an OK gig, they laughed at the 'gags'- but didn't go with the weird rambles so much. Possibly because in that setting I didn't have the confidence I have at the LLC and didn't sell them quite as well. Anyway, I got another gig in Middlesborough out of it so I must have done Ok.
And I'll be ready for next time...

A 1,2,3, 4... Oh Mr. Darwin...

Gig 50 - Movies LLC.

2006-12-11T09:08:00.000Z

Whoops. Nearly 2 weeks without an entry. Well, before tomorrow's show rolls round I'd better tell you about last weel's LLC. I did under 5 minutes, just introducing the comeptition, but there were some nice moments so I'm calling it a gig. There was a nice sense that we were playing off eacy other. James Christopher, our visiting compere from York, for example, felt like a compere this week rather than another act. He merged the movies theme with some audience banter, trying to come up with Arnie style 'death puns' based on the crowd's occupations... for a printer 'You have been erased' and for an I.T. support officer 'Die nerd!' So when I went on I started with a better alternative, imagine the I.T. guy's gun had jammed, Arnie says 'Did you try turning it off and on again?' -It's even funnier in a bad Austrian accent.

For the rest of the bit I was basically introducing the competition - 'Budget Movies'. The examples of films re-made on the cheap included 'The Empire Strikes' - 90 minutes of Stormtroopers on a picket line.

'We're not finishing this Death Star until management meet our demands!'

Vader -'You will obey, or I will destory you!'

'That's the trouble with this place, all stick and no bloody carrot. I'm off to join the rebellion, they're on Hoth - you can ski as much as you like!'

I followed up with 'The tax return of the Jedi' -a camp Luke wondering if occassional use of a light saber to swish about and cut the heads off dandelions counts as 'entertainment expenses'. I then apologised for doing Star Wars stuff 3 weeks running. When James went back on stage he had a great follow up...

'Nice to hear Pete's done Star Wars material for 3 weeks, so in 15 years he'll be back doing another 3 weeks of material- but so bad it sours the memory of the original.'

Origin of the Species - The Musical.

2006-11-28T08:40:00.000Z

DARWIN: So what do think?

DARWIN'S CHIMNEY SWEEP: Well I've read your book sir, and I have to say it was astounding! Amazing! Gor, just to think we are all descended from lower orders of animals, and we're developing into something even higher. And if there is a god, he operates outside the natural processes and therefore the lowliest creature has the same cosmic importance as me! It's gobsmacking, it's, it's...

DARWIN: In other words?

DARWIN'S CHIMNEY SWEEP: In other words, Mr. Darwin...

(Sprightly Musichall piano)

I'll be a monkey's uncle
A monkey was an uncle to me
Lord love a duck
it came as quite a shock
to find the lord loves his ducks as much as me.

Oh gor blimey
we're from the same stock as any slimy
thing what crawls out of the sea
they're essentially
the same as you and me.

Oh mr. drawin
at first i found your theories quite alarming
but now I think they're obvious and charming
you've made a world of difference to me

you see when I thought I'd been created
by a good and ever loving god
it made me wonder why me life was shit
and why I'm such a miserable sod.

knock me down with a feather
we're all in the same boat together
an' humans won't be around forever
slowly we're becoming something better

la la la...

(SONG CONTINUES, DARWIN AND SWEEP FROLICK AROUND DRAWING ROOM DOING COUNTRY DANCES AND IMITATING ANIMALS.)

The Universal.

2006-11-27T11:08:00.000Z

Sometimes something being funny depends on the audience having the same points of reference as you. It's something you have to think about when doing a gig in another part of the country- will they get that in London / Edinburgh. Non of my material is especially regional, I don't talk about Geordies, Chavs or slag off Sunderland, so I'd be alright in most parts of the country. But if I ever get the chance to gig abroad it would get worse. Even if you're playing to the ex-pats who seek out places they can still get steak and chips and John Smiths, you still need to be aware of what they're out of touch with. Whoever won the 'so you think you're funny' got the chance to perform in Canada - and they probably had to rewrite their entire act. And possibly put on a different accent. I don't have an especially strong northern accent- some real 'Geordies' presume I'm a soft southern poof. But some Londoners still presume I'm Scots, so the Canadians would presumably guess I was Norwegian.

But even at home one can slip up by assuming 'everyone knows that!' I had a bit of material sink because I presumed everyone had heard the lyric 'where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye.' I think it's from Oklahoma, I don't know it that well myself, but I just assumed everyone would have heard of it before. Even when the material that flows doesn't depend on knowing this starting point, I think people still need it to go with you. In this case I went on to ask if this system is used to measure all crops in the American West

'I'd like some potatoes please.'
'Our potatoes are as large as the fist of a chimp!'

This didn't work- I think partly because people didn't understand the first step i'd taken to get there. (Though it's pretty weak too.) I'd say it's similar to my recent Star Wars stuff, but as people know Star Wars and Dickens, they understand the first part, are willing to make the jump to the second bit and go with the joke overall.

Anyway, I mention all this because I remembered talking of the practice of nearly pushing someone off a precipice (cliff, castle wall etc.)and saying 'Tell your mother I saved your life!' To my surprise this practice (or at least the use of the accompanying phrase)is not widely used throughout the North. I was waiting for the joyous lagugh which show the audience is thinking 'Oh god, yeah!' and it never came. Beware presuming everyone's childhood was the same as yours.

Podcast 6.

2006-11-24T17:22:00.000Z

A new podcast is available- just click 'Peter's Podcast' in the link and you'll be whisked. There's a collection of new bits of stand up which I tried recently. This touches on; the outrageous claims of the advertisers of Cravendale milk; my days working at Fenwick department store; my presumptions on what comedian Don Moses' act was going to be and some twaddle about Star Wars, i.e. the entires of the last two days, but in glorious Dobly sound.

More space.

2006-11-23T08:32:00.000Z

Continuing the theme of starwars names, which I would have put into yesterdays entry if I'd had time....

The Darth thing is weird too. When it was just Darth Vader that was fine, but since the new films we've got Darth Maul, Darth Sideous, Darth grievous... I think when you join the dark lords of the sith they just open the thesaurus at the 'evil' page and choose at random. So you're at the Sith graduation, you've completed all your exams - you've punched a baby in the face AND buggered a chicken (using only the power of the mind.) And the Emperor steps up.

"Ah, my dark appwentice. You have joined us on the dark side. I dub thee Darth... Naughty! Go, join your dark brothers, Darth mischievous and Darth pedophile."

-(I know these are getting shorter these days, but I have a job now.)

Gig 49. Space LLC.

2006-11-22T08:08:00.000Z

A space themed LLC last night, so I ended up talking about star wars.

The names are daft aren't they? And because they are made into toys every character has a name, even when it's never mentioned in the film. The little beaky thing that sits next to Jabba the Hut and cackles is called Salacious Crumb. That's a bit grand isn't it. It's like something Dickens rejected before settling on Ebeneezer Scrooge. I think he should have gone with it...

"Salacious Crumb was a wicked old money lender, hated throughout the city for his meanness and cold heart, and because he was 2 feet high, only ever said 'EEEEEEEEEEH!' and went around with his best mate who was an enormous slug.
'A merry Christmas', said Bob Cratchet.
'EEEEEEEEEEH!' said Salacious Crumb.
'Mocha Chocka Lata Yaya' said Jabba, then some urchins poured salt on him."

gig 48. Children in Need (Gateshead.)

2006-11-20T09:20:00.000Z

Sometimes I have to decide whether to count an appearance as an actual 'gig' or not. This is usually when I've done 2 minutes of introductions at the LLC and have to conclude it's not enough to count. Well this gig was 'not enough' but to discount it would be whitewashing over history. A pub in gateshead for a charity night, this was a tough gig. I feared it would be full of chavs- not quite that bad, but probably quite a few parent of chavs. They were friendly enough - no direct agressive heckles, but just didn't seem to go with anytthing, and too big a proportion weren't taking any notice at all. I couldn't believe how, even with the last act who was a great Irish comic who was also playing the hyena that night, people just weren't taking any notice. I watched the guy for the first 30 seconds, and you just know- this guy's good, whatever he says is going to be worth listening to. But most of the Park Lane regulars didn't agree. Oddly, even people who were apparently engrossed one minute would be chatting with their mates the next.

I've always felt you get out what you put in. I know not everyone gets this. I have a friend from school and uni who should have been my partner in a great band, but could never be arsed. But these people haven't grasped the concept far enough to know if you make the effort of shutting up for 5 minutes you might get the reward of hearing something more interesting than your own inane twitterings. I've just heard something on BBC7 about the rise of comedy in the folk clubs, which described the working men's scene as 'foot on neck' meaning to grab the audience you have to grab them fast and hold them steady while you deliver a stream of non-taxing gags.

Anyway, while I'm moaning about the gig, I can't be proud of my performance. Al said...

"Pete Thompson and Carl Hutchinson strode manfully onto stage, and both did their best, but by this point the crowd were talking amongst themselves, and I just couldn't get them to listen to the acts any more. I will learn the art of the compere, but I have a lot to learn."

Well what Al didn't mention was that, while Carl's best was ploughing on for nearly his 10 minutes, my best was wraping up after 3 minutes and calling it a day. Well, I had just done my 'vell, ve haff been expectink you!' line, and a daft German accent was as close as I get to pleasing this kind of crowd.

I must vow never to leave a stage early again. But I will acheive this not only by force of will but by turning down gigs which sound like mistakes in the first place.

Gig 47. Cheesy LLC.

2006-11-15T08:51:00.000Z

A nice gig last night, Cal was away and there were only 4 acts so we could all stretch ourselves. I did some new stuff touching on; the origin of cheese- one story claims it was produced accidentally from the milk inside a dead camel, which makes one wonder how it caught on; my days on the deli counter in Fenwicks - an endless round of breaded ham and pease pudding; a bit about the anti-peodophile campagins which developed into something on the schooldays practice of nearly pushing somone off a cliff (accompanied by the words 'Tell your mother I saved your life'). I also did a nice bit on the name of one of the other comics 'Don Moses' - who I thought was going to be a character comic doing a mafia biblical character...

DON MOSES.

'Looks Pharo, I told yous to let my people go. Now what part of 'let my people go' don't you understand? See if the Jews don't go free, well, accidents can happen. Frogs can get knocked out of the sky. I mean, it would be a shame if every first born child in Egypt was to meet with an unfortunate accident...'

I like this bit but I can only do it when Don is on the bill before me.

If the picture probably doesn't work(it's supposed to look like one half and half image) -tough. I've changed the size settings 3 times.

This was going to include a review of the whole gig, but I've got to get to work.

www.longlivecomedy.com

2006-11-14T08:57:00.000Z

As I said yesterday we have secured the above website, and it now directs you seamlessly to the ld blogspot site- hopefully this slight simplification should make us easy to find and send the punters flocking to the site and thence on to the shows.

And speaking of shows... tonights is extra cheesy.

As usual, no one will take any notice of the theme (except probably Al, who makes the stuff), but it makes a nice competition - see the site for details, why not use the new name to get there, go on type it in. Right- I'm off to work and am going to think of cheese based comedy all the way there.

ladies on the podcast.

2006-11-13T09:35:00.000Z

A new podcast- a rather ropey version of Ladies, ladies, ladies - but I think I have now taped over this version on my studio. I might have been able to make a few changes, but I don't have time right now to do it again from scratch. Still here it is. To be honest, some stuff is going on the podcast just so that I can then delete it from my recorder - it's a public dustbin basically. Probably not the best way to go about promoting myself.

Also, we've now secured www.longlivecomedy.com so the thousands who couldn't find the LLC site because they forgot the word 'blogspot', will now flock to the it.

Gig 46. Back at the Sunderland Royalty.

2006-11-02T16:11:00.000Z

I'm trying to get back to a post a day- though I really haven't got time. Is it worth forcing one out if it's not going to be entertaining? Probably not. But hey ho. At least this entry contains the picture of Grey Hairy Booze Ghost - which should have been in yesterday.

Anyway, for the record, went to sunderland feeling ill, got lost, found the pub, went on first, enjoyed it more than I thought I would, laughed too hard at Gavin Webster (who makes it look easy) which set back the recovery of my sore throat. Came home.

More tomorrow, thrillseekers.

Gig 45. Haloween LLC.

2006-11-01T17:25:00.000Z

For the halloween LLC I did a few bits of the material from yesterday, but more successfully we also used the scrap of fake fur that hides the boozy competition. This revealed itself to be a ghost, the idea was that I'd voice the ghost puppet with an extra mic offstage, and Cal would talk to it. But Cal hadn't had enough time to learn it, so we had the rather surreal solution of AL doing Cal's voice, just as I did the ghost's. Here's the script...

well... that's the competition, but who's looking after the prize. Well as it's halloween, we thought we'd let you in on a little secret. This bit of cloth that hides the prize is actually a ghost. let me see if he'll talk to you... Come spirit... awaken...is there anybody there? (etc, till you get the puppet on.)

hello mr. cal.

hello. So you know us then?

Of course, I've been watching the show for nearly a year. you're mr Cal, that's mr pete, and thats the lovely alison.

Alison?

Well, I know you usually call her Al, but I think it must be alison really.

So you like our Al?

Oh yes, shes got lovely curly hair, and she talks dirty, I bet she'd do owt.

Right, OK. so you know us, what's your name?

Hairy grey booze ghost.

Hairy grey booze ghost?

That's right, Mr. Hairy grey booze ghost.

That's a bit of a mouthful, do you have a first name.

Ken.

Right, well I call you that...

No, it's a bit familiar, please call me Mr. Hairy grey booze ghost. Maybe if I come back next week you can call me ken.

So you think you're coming back next week?

Yes. I expect I will soon become the star of the show.

Right. well. So, you're obviously a hairy grey ghost and the booze bit is because you look after the competition prize.

Not only look after it, I make it myself, I emanate it from my own ectoplasm.

Ectoplasm?

Yes, it's a sticky substance that ghost produce when they get excited.

Oh, I know- like slimer in ghostbusters.

(spits) Gah! I hate ghost busters! the bastards. BIll Murray and Dan Akroyd and the specky one and the black one, just ganging up on ghost and putting them in boxes!

but the ghosts were being quite naughty.

rubbish, just minding their own business.

Well what about that dog demon that attacked rick moranis- that was pretty bad.

OK, but afterwards he got to have sex with sigorni weaver. And there's no way that speky twat would have had a chance with her otherwise. I mean, most men would happily be attacked by demonic devil dogs if they could shag sigorni weaver afterwards. Like she was then, I mean, not now. She's about 50! Imagine it- like shagging your gran, urgh.

Ok, ok, calm down Hairy grey booze ghost. I wanted to ask- what were you like in real life, were a man, a woman or what-because now, you just look like a small sheet,

that's because in life I was a flannel. But I was a bad flannel, I did terrible acts. Crimes against flannelity

flannelity?

That's like humanity but with flannels. I did shocking things. Once, I was being used to wipe up some jam, and I rolled over so my owner got it all on his hand. And once I hid at the back of the drawer, so no one could find me- and they couldn't shut the drawer properly either. And once I killed 6 kids.

(AT this point the ghost goes a bit mental - so just shut him up and move on.)

A picture of HGBG will be added once the picture uploading thingy starts working again.

Halloween.

2006-10-31T17:26:00.000Z

*
A quick one, but I want to get a full week in, which I haven't done in ages (Just realised it's Tuesday so I've already blown that one.) It's the Haloween special at the LLC tonight- which is basically just one of our 'themes' but as everyone is aware it's halloween today, it might actually be a recognisable part of the show.

Although, not everyone knows it's today. Most kids seem to think it's a vague 3-5 week period somewhere after they're bored of being back at school. I actually heard 'penny for the guy' before any mention of Halloween. This was 3 weeks before the 5th of Nov. (Remember, remember? -They've never heard of it.) Worse, I then heard some urchin who wanted, 'a penny for the guy for Halloween.' I've seen kids who expect money because they've taken their tracksuit top off, filled it with god knows what and have a blatant tesco bag for a head. My mum saw some kids trying to get away with a teddy bear in a hat. A teddy bear is not a guy. Hat or no hat. When we were young at least we made an effort. Our guys were life sized, we pushed them round in a wheel barrow. They had realistic early 17th century ruffs.

My brother once had a couple of kids come to his door in mid October, no costumes. "Too early." he said and sent them packing. They returned closer to the date, but still with no costumes, in fact they'd just been kciking a couple of footballs about and taken a chance. "You haven't even got costumes." said Keith, and away they went. They were back in 10 minutes. One had his jumper pulled up over his head and a ball under his arem, the other had his football up his jumper. "Right, what are you supposed to be." "I'm the headless horseman, and he's the one who ate all the pies."

*Spooky picture added later- the internet is full at the minute.

Gig 44. Forbidden fruit, City emblems and other bits of tat.

2006-10-27T15:34:00.000Z

A good LLC on Tuesday, back to the old format, 6 acts with each of us introducing two of them. All the acts were good, ending with a great set from John Scott, and Cal Al and Myself all had pretty good stuff to do in the gaps. I tried this...

"I noticed that a new greengrocer had opened. And they've gone for that thing hairdressers do of using a related pun, you know- so there'll be a hairdressers called 'curl up and dye' - which works on two levels. So This greengrocer has tried to do that. And he's called his shop 'forbidden fruits' Which I think only works on one level really.

-I'll have a pound of apples please.

-Sorry mate- they're forbidden.

Unless Satan has set up the shop to sell the actual forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden. You go in the shop and there's just an apple tree with a snake wrapped round it. 'Go on, have one, they're fuckin lush.'

Yeah, I always have a problem with that Adam and eve story- because the apples are supposed to be the fruit of knowledge, they eat them and they know all this new stuff. And the first thing they notice is that they are naked. Which begs the question... How fucking stupid were these people in the first place? I mean I've got some thick mates- but they all know whether or not they've got clothes on!

I reckon god must have worked out that making this fabulous garden of Eden was too much work, and it was easier just to make Adam and eve so stupid that they wouldn't notice where they were.

GOD- Adam- do you like the paradise I have created for you?

ADAM- (In vague chav / manc accent.) Yeah man great, top one.

As he wanders round an abandoned sainsbury's car park.

Then one day, ADAM- top! Apples (munchity-crunchity) POSH ADAM-I say, I appear to be completely starkers, and what am I doing in sainsbury's car park?"

This didn't get a reaction, though it tickles me. I also did another bit on odd signs, pointing out that 'WARNING C.C.T.V.' is not only directed at criminals, but is helping them (by warning them.) My futher annoyance with designer milk came to the fore, when I challenged the claim of Cravendale 'It's filtered to make it purer.' (Im-bloomin-possible.)

I'm still not quite comfortable with the spontaneous banter, but I've been able to come up with things on the spot based on topics earlier acts have mentioned. Someone mentioned the emblem of the London underground police- a mole, because they work underground -with glasses and a white stick, to point out they can't see. (An aspect of the mole that you'd think the police wouldn't focus on.) Anyway, I tried to make something out of the unlikely choice of the seahorse as Newcastle's emblem. We're hardly inundated with seahorses are we? This got a bit of a titter, but it was only when I (unfairly) claimed they'd be dodging between fag-ends and old johnnys at North Shields that the real laugh came. So, nice to be able to come up with something on the spot. If only I could get close to Ross Nobel on a similar subject...

"Our national crest has a lion, right, and a unicorn. So that's one animal that doesn't even live in Britain, and one that doesn't exist. We might as well have a hippo and an ewok."

Gig 42, and festival 43.

2006-10-24T18:11:00.000Z

Another long break as the disruption of the festival has made blogging a low priority.

Gig 42 was another appearance at Manchester's Beat the Frog. After winning last time I thought it would be a bit cheeky to do the same 5 minutes, and though I had the 20 minute festival show ready, none of it was suitable for a gong- so I tried some new / newish stuff. So I did the bits on the low lactose milk for cats and a new bit on a fruit shop near Al's called 'Forbidden Fruits'. This was actually beat the frog- world series, a slightly more prestigeous version with a grand final, so most people were using their best stuff and my new and shakey material didn't stand up.

But gig 43- our festival success- a decent crowd, thanks largely to Cal's mates, and a good gig all round, it also felt like a good tightly run show and everyone went over well. I wanted to start with my laydeez song, and tried to really sell it with a nifty 'timberlake' drum sample running in the background, and a mirror ball (which was promptly nicked at the end of the show.) A better than usual sound-check paid off- everyone could hear the lyrics and it got my set off to a good start.

I decided to end with my poem which includes all the allowed 2 letter words in scrabble. This was perhaps not quite such a good idea- I think people like it, and there are some great laughs towards the end, but it takes 8 minutes and for a lot of that they aren't laughing. In retrospect an edited version, leaving time to finish on another song, might have been better. Still, good overall, and with me in the middle breaking up the conversational styles of Cal and Al, the night worked well as a whole.

Now- straight back to the weekly routine of Tuesday's LLC- hopefully with a boosted audience thanks lto the festival.

Bollocks- update.

2006-10-12T22:14:00.000Z

There's a new podcast- what I would have / might sill have to enter for the BBC7 comp. Check the link to the ppodcast site.

Bollocks!

2006-10-12T10:56:00.000Z

I was just preparing to finalise and send off my ideas for a couple of radio competitions today. One's adding to an existing sketch show the other is coming up with an idea for a new show. So I decided to look a little more closely at the web site and see if I'd missed anything. The sketch competition is already closed. Arse.

But worse, regular readers (both of them) will remember 'Through the time hole with Lord Caruthers-Wothington.' -the adventures of a victorian gent. This was my plan for the other competition. On the site they have an interview with Colin and Fergus- the first people to have a show commissioned by BBC7, and they describe their show...

"We were keen to work up an idea based on a Victorian detective story."

Double Arse. It turns out this is (the main) part of a sketch show, rather than a whole sit com, but still. If the first thing BBC7 comissioned was about victorian detectives, then the second thing isn't going to be about victorian adventurers. I must learn to be prepared by (a) reading competition details and closing dates and (b) buying a decent voice recorder earlier.

I've just got a nice new one with a huge memory which is also mac compatible (though still a pain in the arse to convert to MP3) If I had bought that last year and had started my podcast I would now have audio samples to pick and choose from- surely I could convince BBC7 that one would stretch to a 15 minute show. But alas, all I have is 3 more days to think of a new idea. Bugger.

Cheating at Scrabble.

2006-10-10T13:48:00.000Z

If the picture has uploaded then you are looking at MIT sophomore Jason Katz-Brown, he's very good at scrabble. He's the sort of cheating bastard who knows all of the two letter words. You know the type, player A puts 'insipid' (12 points) running down the board, player B, using the 'n' puts 'intro' across (8 points), Jason Katz-Brown puts a 'q' in the corner -making 'qi' (chi-spiritual energy.) in two directions (157 points).

There are loads of them, from the obvious -IF, IN, ON.

To the interesting- AI- another word for 3-toed sloth.

All the noises we make, AH, OW, OH, are words - when you stub your toe- that's a sentence.

Unbelievably ES is how you spell the letter 'S'. I have no idea when this would be used, as a clarifier when writing signs? Surely it would cause more confusion.
-So the cake should say 'Happy Birthday Ross'-just to be safe, is Ross spelled r-e-es-es?

And there are a load of Scottish dialect terms, some are really different words 'OY' is Grandchild, but some are just the same words with a scottish accent 'KY' for cow.

Anyway, I've developed an easy menomic poem to help you remember these- but it takes 8 minutes, so if you want to hear it come to our show next week.

AND SPEAKING OF SHOWS, AT THE LLC TONIGHT...

We have the return of the students, so UK Student Comedians of the Year Donnachda O'Connill and Chris Martin will be around, as will multi-talented Kate Fox, Ric Wharton and Paul Gerrard. The theme is 'Primates' - will anyone remember to mention it? Who knows?

But if you only go to one gig in the next fortnight, make it this one...

TUE 17th- Best of Long Live Comedy - your regular hosts Al, Cal and Pete show off their best bits.

This is our Newcastle/Gateshead comedy festival show. It's Cal, Al and I doing 20 minutes each. Given that we've been doing this weekly for a year now, 20 minutes of our best material is as good as anyone's. (Though we'd be stuck if we each tried to do an hour on our own.) So it's not the usual Long Live Comedy show- it's shorter and more expensive. An hour for £5, as opposed to the usual £2 for two hours. But, this is an hour of tried and tested, slick, guaranteed A-grade material. And remember, all our money goes back into the show anyway- buying the PA, giving petrol money to the acts who've driven hours to get there, paying for the competition prizes etc, etc.

And it's not just us, there's a whole week of comedy...

TUE 17th- Best of Long Live Comedy - your regular hosts Al, Cal and Pete show off their best bits.
WED 18th- Steffen Peddie and Chris Martin- One and a Half Man Show.
THR 19th- Bob Doolally's Soccer Balls.
FRI 20th- Vladamir McTavish - A Brief History of Scotland.
SAT 21st- John Scott - A Scott in Newcastle.

THE BIG ONE DRAWS NEAR.

2006-10-09T09:45:00.000Z

To start this week news of forthcoming shows. First, tomorrow we have a cracker of a night at the Dog and Parrot...

We have the return of the students, so UK Student Comedians of the Year Donnachda O'Connill and Chris Martin will be around, as will multi-talented Kate Fox, Ric Wharton and Paul Gerrard. The theme is 'Primates' - will anyone remember to mention it? Who knows?

But if you only go to one gig in the next fortnight, make it this one...

TUE 17th- Best of Long Live Comedy - your regular hosts Al, Cal and Pete show off their best bits.

This is our Newcastle/Gateshead comedy festival show. It's Cal, Al and I doing 20 minutes each. Given that we've been doing this weekly for a year now, 20 minutes of our best material is as good as anyone's. (Though we'd be stuck if we each tried to do an hour on our own.) So it's not the usual Long Live Comedy show- it's shorter and more expensive. An hour for £5, as opposed to the usual £2 for two hours. But, this is an hour of tried and tested, slick, guaranteed A-grade material. And remember, all our money goes back into the show anyway- buying the PA, giving petrol money to the acts who've driven hours to get there, paying for the competition prizes etc, etc.

And it's not just us, there's a whole week of comedy...

TUE 17th- Best of Long Live Comedy - your regular hosts Al, Cal and Pete show off their best bits.
WED 18th- Steffen Peddie and Chris Martin- One and a Half Man Show.
THR 19th- Bob Doolally's Soccer Balls.
FRI 20th- Vladamir McTavish - A Brief History of Scotland.
SAT 21st- John Scott - A Scott in Newcastle

Panned! Gig 42.

2006-10-04T14:16:00.000Z

A slow day today as I'm trying to get my head together after a bit too much to drink at last night's LLC. I did the boats stuff from yesterday, but I'd written it as compere bits and it wasn't really working as a short set which is how I presented it in the end. I even read out the following (largely forgotten and sometimes edited) section from the Wind in the Willows. Not funny but quite interesting. Mole has just followed some music while searching for a missing baby otter...

"Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

`Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. `Are you afraid?"

`Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.

Messing about in Boats.

2006-10-03T14:45:00.000Z

Today's Long Live Comedy had the theme 'Messing About in Boats.' this was Al's idea and I've been wondering what to do. The picture, by the way is a guy who crossed the atlantic in that little boat- but I include it for pure comedy value. Is there anything funny about rowing? Of course their is; cox. And don't tell me that was a perfectly normal word when it was invented that only sounds rude nowadays. Knobs have been called cocks for thousands of years, they knew what they were doing. It also sounds like exactly the kind of purile student humour that might eminate from oxbridge youths.

But why not? It livens up the sport. The only reason anyone watches the boat race is for the possibility of hearing a respected anouncer say 'they're holding their cox over their heads.' They very nearly played the same trick again with punting. Other sports should do it. I suggest the shooters in netball teams should be known as 'norks', formula one cars be renaimed 'fannies', and tees in golf renamed 'jerks'.

'What sets this team apart are the amazing norks.'

'Well, of course over the years, the fannies have gotten smaller and smaller- it's amazing that the drivers can squeeze in at all.'

'They're just positioning their balls and getting read to jerk off.'

What else? The line 'messing about in boats' comes from the wind in the willows. What's your favourite bit of that book? When Mole wakes up at the start? The fight with the weasels? When Toad says 'toot-toot.'? Personally I like the bit when they go to find the missing otter child and find him in the arms of the great god Pan, who is standing stradling the entire river. It's in there, honest. Just not in the claymation version where David Jason does the voices.

Next GIG -LLC TONIGHT- PLEASE COME.

Through the time hole with Lord Caruthers-Worthington. Part 2.

2006-10-02T09:57:00.000Z

Here's the rest of yesterday's nonsense. I'll have to edit it down to 5 minutes and record it again to enter it in the competition- It's an introduction to a potential radio series. When I do I'll also put it out as a podcast. In the meantime Podcast 2 is now also available- a few minutes of me ranting about low lactose milk which seemed funny at the time.

"...But this was only the beginning of my troubles. Time travel is not easy. Some of you may have noticed my dishevelled appearance, perhaps you spotted that these are not genuine 19th century clothes. Forgive me, but to squirm through the tightest part of the time tunnel - what we call the time spincter- one must be completely nude and covered in goose fat. This has the problem that, arriving in the future, one is completely nude and somewhat greasy.

Naked time travel was correctly described in your film 'terminator' and having seen this during one of my future jaunts, I now use the methods of your Mr. Swartzenigger. Now when I emerge, naked and dripping from the time hole, I simply approach a biker or hells angel and demand 'I need your clothes, your boots and your bike.' Typically they tell me to fuck off, so usually I get my clothes from a tramp or student instead- hence this little number. Even this is not easy as tramps must be plied with drink until unconscious and one must threaten to hit the students very hard indeed.

Your future world is very strange to me. When I first arrived I saw strange young people wearing a kind of beige tartan. Gadzooks! I thought, Scotts! Invading again! But in my day a Scott was a wild man, half human, speaking in some godforsaken tongue, and with manners which any right-thinking Englishman would find obscene- but these people, they were AWFUL! But soon I learnered that their strange tartan signifies their allegience to Burberry - the fertility god!

So I have journeyed to the future, but it is the past I seek, to find my heritage. So my journeys have been in vain. What is more Time travel has left it's terrible scars on me. On my first journey I was sceptical about the nudity and goose fat. To be fair, Most people are sceptical about that part, hence I have yet to find a companion willing to strip off and come up my time hole. The first time I was unprepared and suffered terrible time burns. See this hand, it is old and gnarled, for though I am 44 this had is 62 years old. But worse, this had went backwards in time- see it is the hand of a tiny child.

I must go soon, for the time spincter draws ever tighter. But I will leave you with a warning, not to meddle with time. I will describe to you the true horror of my time ravaged hands... in song. (Harpsichord strikes up.)

I have a large hand
a large old and gnarled hand
I have a small hand
Just like a babe, new born's hand

The big hand's good for basketball
My little hand's no use at all.
though actually, it works quite well
For polishing a small bore artillary shell.

How else can I do it? You tell me, you tell me.

The ladies love my different hands,
For one's like a boy's,
One's like a man's.
If they want a tough guy they look over here,
Or an innocent boy to tickle their ear.

But it's really a curse to live this way
I dabbled with time, and time does not pay.
Through the time hole to the future and then,
I found that i could never juggle again."

NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY LONG LIVE COMEDY AT THE DOG AND PARROT

Through the time hole with Lord Caruthers-Worthington.

2006-09-29T12:30:00.000Z

Here's a bit of what I did last Tuesday- It's a character I'm working on for a radio competition I might go in for...

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am lord Caruthers-Worthington and I come to you from the year 1843, Yes, I am a time master. and let me tell you how I came to be so. For years I have pondered the mysteries of time, hoping to know something of my own origins, for I was an orphan.

I was raised by nuns in the jungles of india. For they were feral nuns, lost in the jungle while converting the natives, they were raised by apes. In fact it was hard to be sure they were nuns, as they were completely naked and swinging from tree to tree.

The confusion was futher compounded by the fact that the gorillas had, themselves, been raised by rabits. There can be no more pitiful sight than a 400lb silverback mountain gorilla, startled by a tiny fox, attempting to flee down a 3 inch hole. Such was my upbringing.

But soon I learned something of my origins. On my 18th birthday I recieved a letter. Only 20 years later, as my 40th birthday approached I had mastered sufficient English to read it. This letter gave me a new name, the name Lord Caruthers-Worthington. This was a better name than the one the nuns had given me - Sister Maria Teresa, and was a vast improvement on the name the gorillas had given me - flopsy.

Also I learned that I was an Englishman and had therefore, figuratively speaking, won the lottery of life. Coincidently I had also won the actual lottery of life, and had gained a small fortune.

Returning to London I spent my time and my fortune trying to unravel the secrets of time travel. I longed to go to the past, find my parents and know my origins. After years of searching I found the secret, and, using a mixture of science, black magic and the mother of all laxatives, I managed to force open one of the universes time holes... "

Thrillin' aint it.

NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY LONG LIVE COMEDY AT THE DOG AND PARROT

Gig 40, 41 - and the PODCAST!!!

2006-09-28T11:36:00.000Z

Well another week without a new entry but this one is a doozy.

First - gig 40 was in Scunthorpe, promoted by 'the other side' who also organised last week's Scarborough gig. I had a strong start, a dodgy middle and won them back again at the end with the Monkey song. We also met Mitch Ben, guitar maestro on 'The Now Show' - who's great in real life, i.e. when he's not restricted to songs about one week's news and can spread himself a bit, for more on that see Al's Blog.

Gig 41 was Tuesday's LLC- see the site for that, though it's been playing up, so at the moment there are two copies of the review and no 'coming next week' page. I'll talk about that more tomorrow too.

And now the real excitement. I now have.... a podcast site. Just go to;

www.peterthompson.podomatic.com

or click the link. At the moment there is just one entry, me at the 'beat the frog' show in Manchester. I don't know how often I'll update it, especially since owing to compatability problems I have to record stuff on my recorder, go to my Mam's, download to their PC, e-mail to my Mac, play it on the mac, while recording it again in realtime with wiretap, send the wiretap file to I-tunes, convert to mp3 in I-tunes, upload to the podcast site. So unless I find a way to take a few steps out of that I wont be posting very often. Still, you can subscribe so when I do get my arse in gear the result is sent to you automatically. Technology eh?

NEXT GIG:
TUESDAY LONG LIVE COMEDY AT THE DOG AND PARROT.

Gig 39.

2006-09-20T21:12:00.000Z

A great LLC last night. We had Dynamite Dan, who we only realised after sticking him on first, is a pro who usually gets paid. So he joins the ranks of those we're lucky to get. He'll hopefully be back to headline at some point. Although it actually worked well, amateurs that we are, we're only just realising that the first act being good is as important as a good headliner.

We also had the sketch group Belly Rub, with Tom Mitchell who's done stand up at the LLC before. Following a drop out they had free reign over the whole middle section and it worked really well, made a great change and has certainly made me consider going back to the sketch format occasionally.

I was pleased with my own stuff too- basically a rant against low lactose milk, especially when targeted at cats- which went over really well. I wouldn't normally count so short an appearance as a 'gig' but as I compered the last section, including the competition I was on stage for a while. Despite being a little drunk I think I was entertaining enough. At one point I dropped a competition entry and when Al helpfully pointed out 'It's behind you.' I was still sharp enough to follow it with 'it's usually December before you here that on stage.' It's not the best come-back in the world but, sod it, I'm counting that as gig 39.

Anyway, for a whole review check out the site.

On the downside, the Royalty gig in Sunderland never happened. It actually starts next week, but after the confusion I'm not sure when I'll be on.

So,

NEXT GIG.

LLC TUESDAY.

Gig 38. Give 'em a chance.

2006-09-19T15:18:00.000Z

A nice show in Scarborough last night. It's amazing how in these sleepy little seaside towns there are at least 100 people willing to pay 6 pounds and troop to the basement room of one of the myriad hotels and watch comedy. Maybe there's so little to do that when the occasional oasis of culture comes along everyone flocks to it. I think we're spoiled in Newcastle, there's so much to do that there's no sense of urgency, and in the end people probably see a lot less than the apparently culture starved citizens of Scarborough.

Anyway, perfomance wise I was a little lacklustre. My gong winning set went over fairly weakly - so back down to earth for me. But everyone's loving the Jabba the hut joke at the moment and after that the sci-fi them was popular and by the time I ended on the 'Planet of the Apes' song I'd won them back a bit, so not too shabby after all.

I may be imagining it, but I think the audience would have responded better if they'd had more faith in me. I think I'm going to have to ask the comperes not to stress the 'they're new so don't expect too much' angle. I used to be grateful of this but I think my act is OK now, and I'd rather have the audience expecting me to be good. I suppose the idea is that if you're bad they're prepared and if you are good they're pleasantly surprised. But sometimes it seems they only click after the first 5 minutes, slowly realising 'oh, he's OK' right I'd better start enjoying this rather than politely tolerating it.'

Come along to the LLC tonight, we've got some new acts, so lots of love, give 'em a chance...

NEXT GIGS-
-TUES 19TH, LONG LIVE COMEDY, DOG AND PARROT- BACK AFTER THE CANCELLED SHOW LAST TIME.
-WED 20TH, THE ROYALTY, SUNDERLAND.

Prep. for gig 38.

2006-09-18T15:13:00.000Z

Ooh, where's me Laurels? Ooh look, I'm resting on 'em.

Well, only 2 posts last week, I will attempt to get a full week in sometime. Today's entry is my notes as I work out a 10 minute set for tonight's gig. It will be based around the 5 minute set I did for beat the frog, a. because it was good. and b. because the line-up looks pretty good already, and I may get there and find I've only got 5. (If I get there to find I am not on at all I will throw Al in the stinking Scarborough sea and drive home.)

For my notes, here's what's in that 5.

shirt-vincel-good summer-goths-austrailia-ve haf been.-swearing in adds xxxx-Whole grain-GM food-brunel school-big issue-cyborg-jabba.

I could extend it by continuing the sci-fi theme and going into my 'Planet of the Apes' bit and ending on a song. I can now take the low-fi approach as I have added a strap to my acoustic guitar (liquid nails and string- If you think this looks shit wait till you hear the song.) hopefully that will sound Ok just picked up by the mic.

Right, I'll just try that and see how long it adds...

...another 5 minutes. Hmm, I was thinking I'd still need to add a bit at the start too, but that's it. Oh well, here goes nuttin'.

NEXT GIGS-
-MON 18TH, SCARBOUROUGH.-Mirth Control with,
AL DAWES.
Jim Jeffries.
Die Clatterschenkensfietermaus
MC-Jon Reed

-TUES 19TH, LONG LIVE COMEDY, DOG AND PARROT- BACK AFTER THE CANCELLED SHOW LAST TIME.
-WED 20TH, THE ROYALTY, SUNDERLAND.

Gig 37. I am the Champions!

2006-09-13T09:44:00.000Z

Whoo (and indeed) Hoo! I finally got out of my bad gigs rut with a corker. I went to 'Beat the Frog' a gong show at Manchester's Frog and Bucket comedy club, and only blummin' won.

I've had bad experiences at gong shows in the past, well twice at the Middlesborough one, but we'd been assured it was a good one. Unfortunately we didn't know if it was good in the 'they give you a chance and appreciate good comedy' sense, or in the more negative sense of good as in 'this'll teach you what a tough crowd really is'. Luckily, it turned out to be the former. They were a great crowd, giving every thing a fair chance, they even let people falter a bit, and they only got the gong if they kept on faltering.

That said, I think I can be justly proud of my superb* set. Even bits of filler and introduction were getting laughs, for example I talked about my shirt 'this is a genuine 70's shirt, my grandfather wore it in Torremolinos 1976.' I don't think this is a joke as such, just the set up for another bit, but it still got a decent laugh. Towards the end the crowd were oddly quiet, which would have freaked me out at the start - but they were still laughing in the right places. It seemed it was just that everyone was now actually listening to me properly.

Al had a brilliant gig as well and was the clear second place, in fact after his set I told him simply 'That was a masterclass.' (in a voice which was a lot more wanky than I realised at the time.)

But before I get too carried away, someone does win this every week - it's not the Perrier. (or whatever it's called now.) And a lot of Manchester comics do it regularly as a forum for new material. So maybe it's not that notable that Al and I can swan down and dominate it by doing our best stufff.

Still, I'm quite chuffed.

*Not my words, the opinion of the Beat the Frog website. Also, I was more surprised than anyone to see my face does that.

NEXT GIGS-
-MON 18TH, SCARBOUROUGH.
-TUES 19TH, LONG LIVE COMEDY, DOG AND PARROT- BACK AFTER THE CANCELLED SHOW LAST TIME.
-WED 20TH, THE ROYALTY, SUNDERLAND.

The Da Vinci Load.

2006-09-11T13:05:00.000Z

FIRST- LONG LIVE COMEDY IS CANCELLED THIS WEEK FOLLOWING A DOUBLE BOOKING COCK UP.

"The new entrance to the Paris Louvre has become almost as famous as the museum itself. The controversial neomodern glass pyramid designed by Chinese-born American architect I.M. Pei still evokes scorn from traditionalists who feel it destroys the dignity of the Renaissance courtyard."

These words, you might think, come from a Paris guidebook. But no, that's where they belong but this is actually the point where I gave up reading the Da Vinci Code. In Dan Brown's stupid world this is what passes for intelligent writing- i.e. including as many irrellevant and atmosphere ruining facts as you can to show you did some research.

He writes as if he was going to be tested on it, like his editor might say -'It's not a bad story Brown, but have you done any swatting? Put in a few quotes so the examiners know you've read the rough guide to Paris.'

I HATE this kind of writing! The worst example ever is 'Timeline' by Michael 'Jurassic Park' Chriton. It's a time travel story which mostly happens in 14th Century France. He actually includes a bibliography to show all the books he ignored. He ignored dozens of clever physics books, which told him time travel is impossible. He also scoured history books and ignored everything except the parts which allowed him to have huge explosions. Yes, in 14th century france he managed to include two huge explosions, one gunpowder dump (fair enough) and one mill, based on him reading that in certain circumstances, possibly, if the conditions are just right, flour dust can be mildly explosive.

I did actually finish this book, as I wanted to see why the evil billionaire was sending scientists back to study the 14th century castle. Was he planning to go back with machine guns and steal all of the world's gold from idiots with swords? Would he plant a false historical trail making him king? Would he put 1 franc in the first bank to open and then withdraw it again in 1999 with 600 years of interest- making him the richest person on earth?

Nope - he actually wanted his scientists to study the castle, so -get this- he could build a perfect replica, more detailed than any restored castle ever! People would flock to see such a superbly restored castle and they would spend a lot of money in gift shops and hotels. Gift shops and hotels which the evil billionaire had shrewdly bought up. Mwaa ha ha ha!

Da Vinci is rubbish anyway. They say he invented the helicopter. No he didn't. He drew a doodle of a helicopter. He never built it and if he had it wouldn't have worked. It was powered by 4 blokes walking round in a circle for christ's sake! Show me the dictionary where the definition of 'invent' is 'to originate a new machine by drawing a vague scribble of a prototype which is obviously doomed to fail.'

NEXT GIGS-
-MONDAY, BEAT THE FROG, MANCHESTER.
-LONG LIVE COMEDY, DOG AND PARROT- BACK ON THE 19TH SEP.

The Knockers on the Lockers.

2006-09-08T10:29:00.000Z

(To be sung in a music-hall stylee, possibly with actions.)

Yesterday I went to my local swimming pool,
I noticed a new feature, I thought was rather cool,
On all the little boxes where you store your shoes and clothes,
Are great big brass door knockers, and now everybody knows...

They have knockers on the lockers at the local swimming pool,
They have knockers on the lockers at the local swimming pool,
They have knockers on the lockers at the local swimming pool,
They have knockers on the lockers at the local swimming pool.

Some of the female swimmers don't think that they are cool,
they tend to laugh and point and sneer and jeer and ridicule.
They say, 'Knockers on the lockers, we simply can't abide,
What use is a knocker when there is no one inside?'

They're the knockers of the knockers on the lockers at pool,
They're the knockers of the knockers on the lockers at pool,
They're the knockers of the knockers on the lockers at pool,
They put the mockers on the knockers on the lockers at pool.

Judge not, lest ye be judged, so the bible say.
As they had judged the lockers, they were judged themselves that day,
I looked to see a flaw in them, which I could tear to bits,
And noticed that each one of them had tiny thurpenny bits.

They've no knockers have the knockers of the knockers on the lockers,
They've no knockers have the knockers of the knockers on the lockers,
They've no knockers have the knockers of the knockers on the lockers,
On the lockers at the local swimming pool.

NEXT GIGS-
-MONDAY, BEAT THE FROG, MANCHESTER.
-TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER? CHECK THE LINK TO LONG LIVE COMEDY.

Consumer society.

2006-09-07T08:39:00.000Z

It's hard not to admit we are a stupid consumer society when you see the crap companies produce and someone, apparently, buys. Al Dawes told me they have finally brought out the 5 bladed razor, which I won't dwell on as we both agreed it will be in every hack comedian's repertoire by now.

On the side of my milk cartons I've noticed a money-off voucher for, get this, low lactose milk for lactose intolerant... cats. Now I'm sorry, but if a cat doesn't like milk it can Fuzz*. Right. Off.

Meow, can I have a bit of milky wilky pwease? But low lactose - I have a very dewicate tummy. And I saw some mice here earlier, do you think you could shave them? The fur aggravates my asthma.

People don't even understand why they are buying this stuff. Can anyone explain to me what's good about 'whole grain'? I predict that by this time next year one of the cereal companies will be saying 'Most cereals are made from whole grain - but we use only the best part of the grain, and we throw the rest away!'

Why do we just assume 'whole grain' is better? We don't assume 'whole pig' is better. 'Walls use only the whole pig in our sausages- brains, snout, trotters - you get every bit of the porky goodness.'

The 'proof' on why 'whole grain' is good is so tenuous too - the ads just say, 'People who eat whole grain tend to have healthy hearts.' It's a bit vague isn't it? So that study was basically;

Excuse me sir, do you eat whole grain?

Er, yes.

And do you have a healthy heart?

I, erm..

Well, you're walking about so it must be working. You don't have any shooting pains in your arm do you? No, right so Whole grain- tic, healthy heart -tic.

So it doesn't necessarily represent a scientific survey - but even so we still have the word 'tend' in there - 'People who eat whole grain tend to have healthy hearts.' Not all of them do, so someone actually keeled over before they got to the end of the questionnaire.

*The blogger spell checker doesn't know any rude words. - It actually first changed it to Fuji.

NEXT GIGS-
-MONDAY, BEAT THE FROG, MANCHESTER.
-TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER? CHECK THE LINK TO LONG LIVE COMEDY.

Gig 36. Manchester music mess.

2006-09-06T09:23:00.000Z

Gig 36 was the trip to Manchester and was a stinker. I haven't had a really good gig in ages, I have had the excuse that I was busy and just doing odd bits to fill time at the LLC. But now I'm not so busy and need to start working on stuff again- I don't want to be on a stage unless I'm 80% sure the material is going to work.

I was trying out all my musical bits which can fit into the stand up - as opposed to my musical character bits (which are probably stronger.) It was a tough crowd, mainly because a group of women just would not shut up. Callum had done about the best just by keeping them under control, and when the headliner went on it descended into chaos. Rather than just do his set over them, he wouldn't proceed until they shut up, and they didn't - so it became a shouting match between one table and the stage and eventually the night was wrapped up early.

Not an easy gig under any circumstances, and certainly not a gig to try out largely untested musical material where I'm also worrying about getting the amp at the right volume, the mic stand in the right place and the notes in the right order.

Ho hum.

-TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER? CHECK THE LINK TO THE LONGLIVECOMEDY

Music.

2006-08-31T12:07:00.000Z

Well, the Gateshead Newcastle Comedy Festival is approaching and our gig there is going to be my comedy highlight of the year, -hopefully. (The pic is our promo shot, which should be on the official website soon.) I've messed around with a lot of musical comedy bits over the year, and I think I'm going to go for a set that's 50/50 music and regular stand up. To that end, I'm going to try and make Friday's gig my first musical outing outside Newcastle - usually it's too much fuss to bring a guitar a long way for a couple of minutes - but if I try all of my music bits together it should be worthwhile- and i'll see what works as well as i remember it.

My latest music bit is a prince inspired bit of wah-wah drriven naughtiness called 'ladies ladies ladies'...

ladies ladies ladies ladies ladies
Im a real big fan of all you ladies
I got ladies wallpaper, I've got a ladies lunch box
I've even got a ladies pencil case.

I even collected every sticker in the panini sticker album of ladies
well, Ok, it was really for the world cup
but I only used stickers of footballers with long hair
and I drew on boobies - so they looked just like...

ladies ladies ladies ladies ladies

(The falsetto is killing me.)

NEXT GIG
-FRIDAY MANCHESTER - SEE www.zumebacomedy.co.uk
-TUESDAY AT THE DOG AND PARROT - IT'S EVERY WEEK NOW, REMEMBER? CHECK THE LINK TO THE LONGLIVECOMEDY.

Back in action! - gig 35.

2006-08-29T17:28:00.000Z

Whey hey! The work is done, I almost have a masters in Applied Linguistics, and now that's out of the way I can get back to the business of being an amateur comic.

Come down to the Dog and Parrot tonight - I haven't got a thing prepared, but I'm sure there'll be some other people who are. I compered last week, which i suppose was gig 35. It was Ok, but I'm not really a 'relaxed banter with the crowd sort of bloke', but in getting a few bits together I came up with a nice prince / beck song which might be worth keeping. Tune in tomorrow for the Lyrics - and hopefully soon hear it on the podcast, but don't hold your breath!

On hold.

2006-07-20T15:41:00.000Z

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!

2006-07-18T10:33:00.000Z

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?

2006-07-14T09:07:00.000Z

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?