You Forgot To Bring The Funny

My New Blog...

2011-06-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

...find it at My Continuing Adventures.

See you there.

Round 1! Alistair Campbell v. Adam Boulton

2010-05-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Wait for Round 2!

Memo to the Labour Party

2010-05-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

I think Labour supporters, and some others, are getting a little bit self-righteous with their outrage at the possibility of a Tory / Lib Dem coalition.

Now let’s get this clear, I want a Tory government as much as I want sexual acts performed on me by the entire Tory shadow cabinet, ie not at all. The more I think about it though; those two things are pretty much the same thing.

How fortunate for the Labour Party to not have to look at their own performance in this election and over the last 13 years. They can just slag away at the Lib Dems for talking to the Tories about a coalition. Well here’s a little history lesson; in 2010 you lost the most seats you have ever lost, got your second lowest share of the vote since the 1920s and over 13 years have destroyed all the hope, faith and trust people had in you and the political system as a whole. ‘Iraq and a war based on lies? Forget about it! Up yours Cleggy!!’

Labour were and are better than the Tories, but they weren’t good enough. More money for schools and hospitals? Great, it’s a made a real difference and I will sincerely say well done to Labour for that. It’s a pity they did so much of it through PFI, giving billions to rich people and screwing up the country’s accounts for a generation.

So what else was there? Well, two wars, one a disgraceful lie that Tony Blair should be arrested for and the other with no end it sight.

Labour never took on the rich and the powerful, never made them pay there fair share, even when they made so much money in the boom times and so many of them in the banking sector helped cause this recession, which has no upturn never mind end in sight. Labour signed up to the free-market fundamentalism that was once (and still is really) so fashionable. The lack of regulation of the British banking sector helped cause this recession and what regulations did Labour put in since the crisis started in 2007? None. Just given the banks a trillion pounds to pay off their credit card.

Labour were ‘Tory Light’ or ‘Diet Tory’, so it must feel pretty good to accuse the Lib Dems of being that and as an added bonus you can all pretend to be socialists for a few days.

Now let’s look at some facts and numbers. The Tories came first. I don’t like it but it’s a fact. Inconvient as it may be, that’s how people voted. Now that doesn’t given the Tories a right to form government (Hey Tories, you didn’t get a majority of seat and 64% of the electorate did not vote for you). But it does get them first in a line for a chat with Nick Clegg especially as when Labour and the Lib Dems combine, they have 315 seats – that’s not an actual majority. Add in the SDLP and the Alliance party and Plaid and the SNP and the Green and they have 328. And that coalition is about as stable as an Icelandic Volcano. How long would it last? The two years it would take to get electoral reform? Unlikely and what about the backlash and a Tory government sweeping to power with a majority and governing on their own – unrestrained in attacking public services and the poorest and weakest in our society.

What a pity a government that got elected THREE TIMES with a manifesto promise in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and who were in power for the last 13 years didn’t ensure that a referendum was held on changing the electoral system. What’s that? You want a referendum now? Well it’s a bit bloody late.

I don’t want a Tory / Lib Dem coalition. But please, Labour supporters, spare me the indignation. Nick Clegg has a shitty stick and you’re the ones who shat on it.

Cannot be bothered to post anything so here's a funny video

2010-05-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Film Review: The Bridge (Die Brucke - 2009)

2010-05-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert: Don't read this if you haven't seen the film yet. In fact, save yourself some time, don't read this even if you have watched it.

After writing most of this review I googled the German for 'bridge'. In doing so I found out that the film I watched is the 2009 TV remake not the 1959 classic. I didn't know there was either a 1959 classic or indeed an acclaimed book from 1958. The criticism of this 2009 version seems to be pretty universal in that it wasn't as good as the 1959 classic. However I’ve written most of this so I'm posting it anyhow. At least now, no one will now say 'I can't believe your ignorant comments about Bernhard Wicki’s seminal film!'

Why don't remakes come with a ‘Warning – Not the Original’ tag. One of the best films I've ever seen is 12 Angry Men some rainy Sunday when I was a teenager. If I had first seen the 1997 remake I don't think it would have quite the same profound influence on me. Anyhow...

I have a big pile of foreign films that I rarely get around to watching. This is despite the fact that they are frequently very good films, often captivating and thoroughly enjoyable. I too rarely venture away from Hollywood DVDs but there are only so many times a man can watch Die Hard. Even John McClean would struggle at 7. In one week.

So I pluck from the top of the pile, The Bridge, a German film set in a small German town towards the end of WW2.

Seven 16-year-olds are taken from their school to help replenish the depleted ranks of the Wehrmacht. They end up alone defending the Bridge from the oncoming Americans.

It’s interesting to see a German made WW2 film. The German home front from the point of view of German civilians is one of the less explored areas of WW2.

The film is beautiful to watch and despite every now and again a bit of hamminess, the acting of the film’s youngsters is superb.

So the negatives; the portrayal of the American’s when they appear verges towards the comical. They might as well have had a bunch of Cowboys in army fatigues. In fact’s that’s pretty much what they were. Then again, American and British war films have hardly been great with their in-depth portrayal of German soldiers over the years.

It’s also quite difficult to tell the 16-years-old apart, you hardly know them before their wearing identical uniforms and helmets. I don’t what they could have done about it though; perhaps they should have given them different coloured helmets similar to the Teletubbies? Hurrah! I managed to get the words Teletubbies and helmets in the same sentence, even if it made no sense whatsoever.

I found the American soldiers lack of experience and training hard to believe. In fact scrub 'hard to believe' and put in 'impossible to believe'. Admittedly my awareness of American Army tactics in WW2 is largely derived from watching Band of Brothers but a couple of American tanks and a whole division (or platoon or brigade – who knows) would have been able to take on a bunch of kids and have made better tactical decisions than shooting vaguely in that direction. They also vanish at the end of the film just in time to finally re-appear at the end. They also take an amazingly lenient attitude towards one of the 16-year-olds who was obviously wearing a German Army uniform minus jacket and gun. I’m sure rather than let him wander off they would have said something like, 'Hello. You’re a prisoner-of-war now!'

I assumed most 16-year-olds would be fully brain-washed by years of the Hitler Youth but apparently not. The only fanaticism here is that of bloody-minded teenagers – just as terrifying.

But the film wasn't made to be a realistic. As far as I know it's not based on a true story (er... it is). The films tries to show the full horror, brutality and cruelty of arbitrary death that war entails and it does this at times with frightening effectiveness.

There are only a couple of references to the holocaust and the plight of Germany's Jews; a comment on how Mendelssohn's music is forbidden and a conversation regarding the disappearance of the towns Jewish families. Perhaps it's just me but the film remains constantly under the shadow of the Holocaust, and rightly and inescapably so of any German film about WW2.

Throughout the film you see of all the people in the village, it's the youngsters who are paying the price of the war the older generation have brought upon them all. Apart from one teacher desperate to save her school children from this madness, the older people in the village are oblivious or aware and uncaring of the town's children, looking out for themselves as they prepare for the imminent arrival of the Americans, as the teenagers stand and die alone on the Bridge.

(There’s an amazingly effective scene when you see how much power the now armed teenagers have over the adults. Power comes from the barrel of a gun and they know it. I couldn't help but think about child soldiers in Africa and elsewhere.)

You see this time and time again throughout the film but it never gets old. I have read about how British and American films made about WW2 have contained different themes. Initially it was about the celebration of victory and the need to affirm that the cost we paid was worth it then as the years went by it was more about reflection about the sacrifice made by the previous, 'selfless generation'. What does the German film say about Germany? I think it's about the monstrosity of war itself, the tragedy of wasted lives, the corruption of youth and of the German generation of WW2 who created a guilt that they wouldn't have to fully pay for. That would be for the youngsters.

Now I know there is a 1959 original, it would be great to see if my last comment was in any way relevant.

This is brilliant!

2010-04-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

My Party Political Broadcast Pitch

2010-04-30T04:34:00.000-07:00

Following the controversy surrounding the hysterical but fundamentally correct party political broadcast from the Labour Party, here’s my pitch for a future party political broadcast.

All the MPs who voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are running through the empty streets of London on a grey and cloudy morning. At the head of these MPs is a suited figure, wearing a grinning Tony Blair mask complete with a mug of tea in hand. This band of MPs is being chased by the screaming ghosts of the hundreds of thousands of people who died in those wars.

The MPs scurry along like a swarm of rats. They are desperately grabbing and stuffing into their pockets, £5, £10 and £20s that have been strewn across the road from taxpayers, donors and their future employers. Their rich and powerful paymasters are also lined up on the top of the buildings that line their route and are continually defecating on to the MPs, who when not stooping to pick up the cash, desperately reach out to catch the falling turds before frantically stuffing them into their mouths with a look of hysterical happiness on their faces. Or should that be faeces.

They have to leap over and dodge all the people they’ve let down over the years, including those who’ve lost their jobs in the economic crisis, who are lying and sitting motionless while they are being kicked repeatedly in the face by bankers, and then there are also the shadowy and flickering outlines of the future millions who are the most vulnerable and needy people in society and who are going to suffer because they are going to pay for the billions in cuts that will come after the general election. There are also patches of Iraqi oil here and there that the MPs occasionally slip on and fall over. It’s all symbolic you see.

They get more and more panicked and sweaty and then they start to perspire the blood of all those whose lives they are responsible for taking. The MPs become increasingly exhausted, and they start to falter as they try to clear the blood from their eyes.

The broadcast ends with the ghosts of the murdered tens of thousands finally catching up to the blood–stained politicians as London slowly morphs into hell.

Just an idea. Not sure which political party would pick it up.

The V Word & Scrotums

2010-03-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

Two things have grabbed my attention;

The word vagina is too much for some.

And in other news, scrotums.

Cheese sandwich anyone?

2010-03-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/09/breast-milk-cheese-new-york

Trololololololololololo

2010-03-04T08:32:00.001-08:00

http://trololololololololololo.com

Off to Croydon!

2010-03-02T04:46:00.000-08:00

Well I've got the day off work, which is nice and I'm off to London to perform at Laugher Lines at the Dog and Bull.

I will probably have a few beers afterwards with my friend Chris.

God, this blog is boring...

The first Cambridge Comedy LOL-athon and how the people LOL-ed…

2010-02-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday saw the launch of 'my' comedy night at the Haymakers in Cambridge. A bit of background first. The other night saw me do my tenth gig. I started last April when I did three. After taking a bit of break I got back into it in November and have done another six. Gigs are the fertiliser of a comedy; the more you do, the better you get. Unfortunately, when starting out, it can be quite difficult to get gigs.

I live in Cambridge and the opportunities aren’t too bad for a city of this size but they are somewhat limited. A mere 45 minutes away lies the international centre of stand-up comedy: London. There are gig opportunities every night of the week in London. I'm getting to the point where I am doing a gig once every week or two down there but I am limited by the cost of going down there and getting back home well past midnight (no 45 minute trains that late in the day) which is not very much fun. There are other factors that can make it difficult to get a gig as well. No one knows you and it can be quite hard to convince them to put you on. That's right, you're not paid a penny and you're only on for five minutes and you still can't get a spot.

So with my very own comedy night I get to perform! As a result my name gets known and I can swap spots at my night in exchange for spots at nights run by other comics. What a grubby business it can be at the bottom end of the comedy world. I also get to perform every two weeks at a gig in Cambridge.

We had a paying audience of 14 which I was delighted with really.

Christian Ancliff was the MC for the evening and he was superb and ensured the evening worked perfectly. Christian is an old friend (I knew him BC – Before Comedy) and a big thanks to him for coming. He had rave reviews from the crowd.

We had a trio of students; Phil Wang, Pierre Novellie and Leo Davidson, all of who were disgustingly good. We also had Darren Pomroy who was as impressive as his striking haircut. Then we had Scott Adams and Dean Roberts from London who were brilliant. Scott and Dean run their own comedy night at the Queens Head in Leicester Square every Saturday. I'll be performing there on Saturday 13th February.

After the break we had Matt Lim, who was great and then we had James Quince, who was performing for just the third time. I thought James was very good and I hope he carries on with it. It can be tough the first few times, but just like sex you just have to carry on until that empty hollow feeling afterwards eventually goes away.

Finally we had the amazing David Trent. I find after watching a really good comedian that I think to myself, "Can I ever be that good?" Thankfully the answer is yes! I jest of course. David was the headline act and really made the evening; more than one person said he was worth £2 alone. It was fantastic apart from a broken microphone stand which I thought might cost me some serious dollar. The less said the better.

There was one other act for the evening; ME! I went on just before David and after a very ropey gig the week before I was bricking it but everything turned out really well. I did quite a bit of topical news and then went down a storm. There were a few friends in the audience who hadn’t seen me perform before; it's quite good when afterwards they say, "Wow! You were actually funny!!" with a look of surprise, relief and joy that you don’t suck.

Just before I went on, for the first time my nerves disappeared and I thought, "It's time. Let’s do this thing" or something like that and it was a good feeling. My confidence is steadily growing and I even ad libbed a little. There is nothing like worrying about the audience, the other acts and everything else to do with a comedy night to stop you worrying about yourself.

So what have I learnt from the whole thing? Well, it was the right thing to do, putting on a comedy night. It may have been a little early for this considering how long I’ve been doing comedy but then maybe not. You have to put yourself out there and the more you test yourself, the more you can get from yourself. Anyway, that's enough vague clichés for now.

So the next Lol-athon is on the 18th and it all starts over again except this time, I'm going to compere for the evening. Shit!

Tesco bans wearing of pyjamas

2010-02-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know where I stand on this one.

Chris Morris's Four Lions: exclusive clip from the 'jihadist comedy'

2010-01-22T02:37:00.000-08:00

Hilarious!

Naughty Bear computer game trailer

2010-01-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

I might buy this.

Really?

2010-01-15T05:19:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8460753.stm

"Peppa Pig in seatbelt safety row

TV character Peppa Pig will be seen wearing a seatbelt in future episodes, after parents raised concerns over children following her example...

...it reversed its stance after a parent complained that her daughter had refused to wear a seatbelt because Peppa did not."

How about you tell your kid to wear a seatbelt BECAUSE YOU SAID SO!

The Haiti Earthquake - please donate if you can

2010-01-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

https://www.redcross.org.uk/emergencysite/campaign.aspx?id=88917

The top 50 television dramas of all time - discuss...

2010-01-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

This was always going to be controversial, but The Wire at 14?

Have a look for yourself here.

Playing tonight at the Victoria Pub in Mornington Crescent!

2010-01-12T02:32:00.000-08:00

More details here.

Rage Against The Machine - Buy It!

2009-12-15T16:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/x-factor/6820009/Rage-Against-The-Machine-star-urges-fans-to-ruin-Joe-McElderrys-Christmas.html

Brilliant! I bought a copy, as should you all.

Last night at Romsey Ward Labour Club

2009-12-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

So last night I performed at the Cambridge Trades Council Christmas Do at the Labour Club. I really enjoyed the evening but dying on my arse for the first time wasn't so great. I'm kind of relieved that it's over and done with though. Apparently every comedian dies sometime and I was waiting for it to happen. I’m starting to worry my first gig will always be my best gig.

It is annoying when people you know see you and think you are shit. Saying 'I was really good every other time' doesn't help. I am looking forwards to gigs where I don’t know anyone; people who know me know what a hilarious and wacky guy I am! Making strangers laugh is what I need to work on.

I was becoming a bit too confident for someone who has only had six gigs. Getting pissed wasn't a great idea nor was not remembering the words nor was constantly refering to the fact that 'I was dying on my arse'. Oh well! Obvious lessons learned for next time! I need to man up with the nerves; I completely let them take me over. You have to go on stage with utter confidence or you’ve no chance. It was kind of humiliating all-in-all.

On the plus side, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I can face anything after that. It was the biggest crowd I've performed in front of by far, so that experience was good. I think I've learnt not to pull my comedy punch - use the material you want to. I changed the script quite a lot for what I thought the crowd would like. I should have kept the knob jokes.

I did lots of jokes about the Labour Party (and some about Cameron) in a room with quite a lot of Labour Party members. Someone said that jokes were quite close to the bone and there was a bit of an akward atmosphere. I like to think that was true.

Oh, I won a bottle of champagne in the raffle. I then proceeded to drink it from a pint glass when I got home. I can take the classiness out of anything.

Last night at the Jiggery Pokery Cabaret

2009-12-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

I had a fantastic gig last night at the fifth and final Jiggery Pokery Cabaret show at the Cornerhouse on Newmarket Road.

It was my longest gig at 20 minutes and I think my best yet. Everything worked but some parts worked more than others and it's interesting what people thought was better - it was completley opposite to what I expected.

Thanks to everyone for coming and the very hilarious Helen Thorn and Jen Spencer who were also on.

It was a bit of tough crowd in terms of making myself heard but I think I shouted enough at the beginning to get people's attention.

Many thanks to Paul Richards and Kevin Wright for the nights.

Jiggery Pokery Cabaret Night at the Cornerhouse!

2009-12-09T09:07:00.001-08:00

Well I’ve got a gig in a few hours at the Jiggery Pokery Cabaret Night at the Cornerhouse pub on Newmarket Road. Thanks to Paul Richards for creating the whole shebang.

A lot of friends who haven't seen me perform before are coming tonight so I'm a little apprehensive and it’s all new material too…

My new facebook fan page!

2009-12-09T06:33:00.001-08:00

Let's see how long it takes me for to get my first 'fan'.

Click here

The best product on the internet ever: the wonder that is Paul Ross

2009-04-20T03:34:00.000-07:00

Less than £50

Utterly Childish - But Very Funny

2009-01-28T04:55:00.000-08:00