Hils Barker

Advent calendar

2011-12-19T03:30:00.000-08:00

My flatmate bought me a milk chocolate advent calendar this Christmas. I didn't know what to say - I'm lactose intolerant! He's German though, so you can't make excuses. He'll only wake you up in the middle of the night to check if you've had your chocolate, shouting "Where's your Blitz spirit now?".

He likes the Blitz spirit, but thinks it would have been improved by more rules. Like all things to do with being English. I keep a box of After Eight mints in the kitchen purely so he can tuck in with the phrase "makes you proud to be British", which I enjoy by refusing to detect any irony in his voice, but he gets very upset if I eat any of them before 8pm. It's the same with the advent calendar.

After five days it became clear he was struggling with my lack of commitment to eating the chocolates on time. He got all a bit "no wonder Britain's out of the EU if you can't stick to even simple targets". I said that British people are too used to relying on immigrant labour, so maybe we could get a Polish woman in to eat the chocolates for me? They're used to being pushed round by the Germans. But he said no, and something about how I needed to learn to understand Christ's struggle up the hill with a cross. Nonsense. Living in this flat, I already identify fully.

So I've decided to go with Greece's approach to any challenging situation. I've put the advent calendar under my bed, and am now simply pretending to eat the chocolates. "Yes, Chancellor Wehn, all the chocolates are being eaten, correctly and on time." Failing that, I'll be using my Veto. It might put me in Dave's camp, and probably Richard Littlejohns's but that's the madness of the festive season.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Are you flirting with No to AV? I did too. NOW READ ON....

2011-05-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

Thinking of voting No to AV? Then know this! I’m an actor-comedian type who is currently writing two sitcom scripts. I could do with a bit of exposure and some ready cash. I was offered (*place finger on mouth*) ONE THOUSAND POUNDS, or to put it another way £1000 in my bank account, 1K, a pony for my Cockney readers (it probably isn’t a pony) to be in the No to AV campaign alongside Rik Mayall, who is one of my comedy heroes. He was as funny recently in Let's Dance for Comic Relief as he was at the start of his career in The Strike and A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques.

So I did my research. I really wanted to take the money and the fun of a few days’ filming with Mr Mayall. I knew the ad campaign would be on telly, and if I was funny enough, it would help my career (just for the record, I could have made that teacher part really funny). The director also said that if I didn’t want to do that I could play Rik’s secretary. So you can understand, I started my research kind of wanting to agree with the No to AV campaign. I even went down the route of trying to convince myself that we should say no to this reform because it isn’t full-on proportional representation. But this was desperate behaviour.

In the end I had to conclude that, to put it bluntly, you can’t side with this depressing and pessimistic bunch of lies, half-truths and myth of a campaign. Here’s why. Our voting system is broken. New Labour and the Conservatives are essentially the same party. There is fuck all to choose between their policies. I remember two Libertarian and Socialist friends of mine having many arguments down the pub and then finally agreeing on one thing: that neither of them had anyone to vote for. Our voting system doesn't allow most people's voice to be heard. It's basically one where once every five years a minority of swing voters in marginal seats decide the government.

It is mainly the Tory and Labour parties who in any way want to keep the current system. That is because the people in power desperately want to keep that power, an endless ping-pong between practically indistinguishable parties. Put simply, FPTP is undemocratic.

Keeping First Past The Post, which is a really bad name for it, as this fantastic blog from Gowers points out, implies that only people with mainstream opinions deserve a say. People should almost not be 'allowed' to vote for any other party, because what is the point? This seems to me to be most undemocratic. No-voters who don’t like the idea of the Lib Dems or other minority parties should consider that people who don't want to have to choose yet again between cat shit and dog shit, are not crazies or tree-huggers; they are serious voters with a point to make. Putting aside my view that, at some point, maybe not in our future but at some point in the future, anything other than environmental concerns will seem laughably fatuous, the parties other than Labour or Tory still have much to contribute politically to the concerns that will shape our lives.
This Tory party is not about to introduce any kind of Libertarian, small-state policies. The Labour party spent more of its time sucking up to big business and letting it have its rampant way than the previous Tory party could ever have dreamed of. When can we vote for a party that will actually do any of the things we want?

As you can see from this, there is nothing in this voting system that makes it inherently more likely to return 'mediocre' candidates. In fact, the opposite is potentially the case. The only exception to this is that the least popular candidate – probably the racist vote - WILL be eliminated. The fact that their second votes are counted is because..y'know.. because we live in a democracy. But it is likely that the least popular will be the racist vote, and that's why the BNP are saying No to AV.

Basically, AV is a non-wasted vote. That, surely, is what democracy is. AV is a good thing if you think that 'democracy' is a good thing. You can vote with your heart AND have a safety vote. At the moment, there are so many people in this country whose votes are being completely ignored. The only people who want to keep FPTP are the twats who’ve been in power for the past 30 years.

One final thing on the question of whether AV will lead to more coalitions. More coalitions are likely, but this is the case whether we have AV or not. To quote fullfact.org, because it's a devilishly sexy website, as I think I'm about to prove with my hot, hot, hot quote: “as the outcome of the 2010 general election proves, FPTP can no longer claim to guarantee ‘strong single-party government." The report argues that this is because of the rise of minority parties, and falling support for Labour and the Conservatives. Yeah? Phwooaaargh. Electoral reform gives me the horn.

To quote further:
“The current trends to multi-party democracy in the UK and the regional fragmentation of party support across the UK, make it more likely that no government will gain a majority in future elections, whether under AV or FPTP.
Neither of these trends are due to FPTP or AV.”

So I think that about wraps it up, as I don't think any of us can take any more of these come-to-bed facts. Democracy! Freedom! Liberty! Quoting from political nerd websites that nobody gives a shit about! My agent LOVES ME! (Actually, he does. He is ace for putting up with my ongoing moral principles).

And that’s why you should vote yes tomorrow. For the sake of liberty, and to in any way vindicate my decision and the loss of… oh, a monkey or whatever it’s called.

Arthur, Alcohol, Dudley and Russell

2011-04-12T03:04:00.000-07:00

I see the remake of the film Arthur is out. I might as well come out and say it; I loved the original. I used to watch it with my Dad, who was a connoisseur of both booze and funniness, and we related to it on a joyously teenage yet also emotional level. "Hello, Mr Johnson!, slurred with the false bravado of the irrevocably sloshed, became a standard greeting round at his house.

So when I first saw a trailer for the remake a month or so ago, I tried not to hate it. I told myself that it looked “ok on its own terms” – if I hadn’t seen the original, I wouldn’t think it was going to be awful, I would just think, “oh, interesting concept. Could be fun”. But who am I kidding? I know I’ll never watch the full movie – don’t even need to, and yes I am about to extract a whole blog and pontificate a whole theory just from watching the trailer. I’m on quite the budget, and I’m fucked if I’m going to watch movies that for me can only ever be the pathetic shadow of a former love. Besides, it's not out yet.

I have back-up in the disappointment camp. Some seem slightly confused that it’s not good, given that Russell Brand has a playboy and addict’s past, is a comedian, and therefore should be perfect for the role. Others have concluded that the reason it doesn’t work is because Russell Brand is just not that funny, which I don’t think is true either. I don’t know why I’m so concerned to get to the bottom of this – it’s not as though famous comedian Russell Brand needs my seal of approval before he can truly claim to be funny. But I think he is, so I am honour-bound to try and give other reasons for the film’s obvious lack of success.

As proof that Russell Brand is funny I’m going to cite the fact that the first time I met him, I didn’t like him at all, and then I saw him onstage and had to admit he was funny. In comedian terms, that is surely incontrovertible evidence. The second time I met him, I did like him; he was, quite literally, ever so nice. Even though he probably didn’t remember me from before, having done Big Brother’s Big Mouth and quite a lot of drugs since then, he politely pretended to. He was all loveliness and light having just done the twelve-step programme, and despite this, I still found him funny onstage.

So why don’t people like the Arthur remake? Apart from the fact that the script can never match the sheer genius of the original and its tedious concern with the idea that we’ve all got to be “alcohol-aware” and talk about AA and things, why is it pissing people off so much? I think the problem lies in the character of Arthur himself. It’s just not a part that can be brought alive by what Russell Brand is good at. As a comedian and now actor, his success was so quick (in life-span terms) and his battle with his addictions so apparently victorious, I don't think he can relate to or portray endearing, heartbreaking failure. And this is what lay at the heart of the appeal of the original Arthur. What made the first film good wasn't that it was all about a rich boozer having a good time - although it was. What made it funny and great was the fact that you love Arthur, and what made you do that was his loneliness beneath it all. Dudley Moore was so good in that role, not just because he knew how to be a playboy, but because of the vulnerability with which he underpinned it. He was unbelievably likeable. He later said that he understood what it's like watching an alcoholic you love disintegrate from being with Peter Cook. And on top of that he added his own charm and his own insecurities.

Dudley Moore showed us both a loveable boozer at his finest, and the fragility that occasions it. The death of Hobson, played by John Gielgud, is moving not just because of the latter’s stunning acting (I know Gielgud looked down on the film – I don’t) but because you know Arthur absolutely can barely exist without him, and yet will have to. His despair is palpable, hidden beneath jokes and childishness that the two of them collude in, then finally when Hobson is gone, it’s undeniable. The only way he knows to deal with that kind of emotion is to plunge back into drinking, and yet this film refuses to be sentimental about that either. No hugging, no learning. Just laughter, pain and some sort of forgiveness. It’s pretty fucked up, yet pretty grown-up.

It really was a great film that, for me, said far more about the human condition than most people gave it credit for. Yet this remake is being peddled as some sort of desperate tie-in to the Royal Wedding – ‘imagine what it’s like to be the prince who has it all! Crazy! Honestly, it would be crazy!’ Oh, and ‘Don’t worry, we’ve put an AA scene in there!!!" I just can't bear to watch.

You Have One Identity, Drones

2011-03-09T05:17:00.000-08:00

I have just read Lauren Weinstein's excellent blog on Mark Zuckerberg's latest frolics: basically an attempt to integrate Facebook, and your one uber-identity, into everything you do or comment on, on the web. His justification for this is as follows:

"You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."

Pretty sinister, hey? That, or the devastatingly naive comments of someone who, as Laura points out, is too young to have acquired any "life baggage" as yet and cannot possibly understand the implications of what they are saying. Or thirdly, the cynical comments of someone who needs to find any justification for their business model, and ways for it to keep on expanding (although by now we can assume that the need for continued expansion is not about the money, but about the game itself).

Sure, I hear you saying - if you're against this problem, don't be on Facebook. Or just have a fake Facebook identity to comment on the websites you want to. Great. But then maybe you can't comment on your favourite blogs: y'know, join the big debate. And I think we can already imagine how people not on Facebook, or who have a private alter ego on Facebook, will increasingly start to be viewed, not just socially, but in the competitive jobs market.

The whole thing has got me thinking about the concept of privacy. Zuckerberg's 'belief' that anonymity must intrinsically be a bad, even dangerous thing - and the increasing willingness of other people to share that view - is leading towards the kind of world I don't want to live in. Here's why:

"The greatest passions, however, require privacy, and the good society
would not deserve to be so-called if it lacked ample opportunities for
seclusion and solitude. In work and in love, creativity requires time
alone, to think and plan. Great, passionate works of art are not
usually brought into existence by committee. The deepest friendships
and loves also need time away from prying eyes to blossom; time to
share intimacies not shared with others; time to build a special
microcosm of private meaning within the wider, public world. A society
devoid of privacy would be a society with no room for great passion,
and hence not a place I would want to live. Warrantless wiretaps and
extensive networks of closed-circuit television cameras have
contributed to the United States and England being ranked alongside
other “endemic surveillance societies” like Russia and China,
according to Privacy International. But those who say, in defense of
such invasive government actions, that people who have done nothing
wrong have nothing to hide, reveal a profound misunderstanding of the
importance of privacy. Privacy matters not because of the bad that it
hides, but because of the good and the great that it nurtures."

I've been saying that last sentence to myself over and over. This quote is from a blog by Bradley Ducet called Freedom and Virtue in the Good Society. Give it a read, as I link to this blog from Twitter and quite possibly, Facebook...

Tribute to a friend

2010-12-12T04:47:00.000-08:00

Below is the full article I wrote for the Observer's New Review on Mackenzie Taylor, whom many comedians knew and loved. I'm proud that he was my friend too. He died on 18th November after taking an overdose.

I had no idea how to start writing this piece: this thing that I hope will be a proper tribute, a eulogy, something that gets at the true essence of what Mackenzie Taylor was and is. When I think of the cheerful and extraordinary person face he presented to the comedy world in spite of his illness, the incredible number of people that he helped, made laugh, and helped to understand their own human condition, I am horrified that he is no longer with us. But more than that, I want to talk about him, and the wonderful performer, friend, brother and son that he was. To know Mackenzie was to know that he was an empathiser; insightful; wise beyond his years and much loved by many, many people.

Mackenzie suffered from bipolar schizoaffective disorder, a condition which leads to periods of psychosis, depression, mania, paranoia and a whole host of symptoms which make doing comedy both almost impossible and practically essential. However I had no idea of this when I first met him, which was in 2005 at the Wayward Council comedy gig that he ran and hosted at the Redhill Theatre, Surrey. You don’t remember every gig that you do as a stand-up, but I remember this one because I was so intrigued by Mackenzie’s material. It was just simply really good: interesting, original, thoughtful and funny. I told him so afterwards, and we had an illuminating, lovely conversation. His enthusiasm and intelligence were so clear, and I remember thinking that I’d be seeing more of him on the comedy circuit.

That turned out to be the case when in 2007, at Mackenzie’s invitation, I performed an Edinburgh show with him and the brilliant actor Alex Dee. ‘Open Mic At The Globe’ was based on the idea of Shakespeare characters doing stand-up, and I have to thank Mackenzie for asking me to do it because that was my first foray into comic acting, something I hadn’t previously considered. Indeed I’m laughing as I write this, given Mackenzie’s comments about the brilliance of being in a manic phase, where you feel you can ‘do anything’ – I don’t know if he was then, but there was something so persuasive about him, and the idea was so intriguing, that I’d instantly wanted to meet up and get going.

Mackenzie hosted that show as a sternly entertaining, rollicking Bill Shakespeare, introducing his creations and letting us fly. For my part it was one of the most fun and liberating things I’ve done in comedy, but also watching him work and deal with the pressures of the Edinburgh festival, I learned a lot about him that summer. His creative instincts, his indomitable spirit of ‘no surrender’, his ability to analyse and lucidly explain himself and his condition so that others might not feel alienated, were astonishing.

Those qualities were never more in evidence than in his 2009 Edinburgh show, No Straitjacket Required, a show which dealt with his suicide attempt of the previous year. It was a brilliant hour: illuminating, funny, humane and wise: like the man himself, really. I remember the metaphors he used to convey what his illness felt like, especially the one about it being like having a terrible modern jazz band playing in your head all the time, which he would then play insistently and gleefully. I laughed at the show so much, as did everyone, especially if they related to the darkness behind the merriment. It struck me as an extreme version of something that all great comedians do: making sense and fun of your own problems, to entertain other people. And yourself, obviously (inflicting his ‘brain soundscape’ on the audience! He loved that).

Humour’s a tool to improve the world; Mackenzie knew this better than anyone. When I think of how funny that show was, I’m reminded of the quote that Mackenzie would use night after night in Edinburgh during the Shakespeare show, about tragedy plus time equals comedy “so 400 years ought to make this hilarious”. Well, No Straitjacket Required was only a year afterwards, and he’d already transformed the bleakness of the previous year, where he’d told me that his brain felt like a computer that needed to be shut down. It didn’t matter whether you remained alive afterwards; the main point was, you couldn’t carry on with your brain continuing to, for want of a better description, betray you.

The last gig I did with Mackenzie was less than a year ago, and he was rocking the joint – MCing an unruly and slightly difficult crowd, and coming up with a beautiful, thoughtful and courageous rebuttal of a racist comment from an audience member. His philosophising on the ‘point’ they had made stopped the show for a while, but he brought it back with aplomb and a great joke. Both sides of his response were necessary and superbly done.

I cannot begin to express how much there is a void left in comedy at his passing, and how much his friends will miss him. Mackenzie is someone who, in spite or perhaps because of the problems he went through, was ever sensitive to the needs of others, and able to reach out and help so many people, including me. That he is not here is one of the saddest things imaginable. But he brought a lot of light into our lives, and in a way I know that he, too, has gone into the light.

How I learned to love The Murder Mile

2010-05-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have fallen in love with Hackney. I was supposed to do three gigs this weekend, and all of them got cancelled due to the weather (admittedly, one of them was cancelled a month ahead of time, but I think they knew). So I took the opportunity to go on holiday in my own hood.

Well. First off on Satdee morning I went to the local shop in Clapton to buy stuff for a picnic and sign a petition against the proposed facking Tesco's, which would totally ruin the ace Turkish supermarket's livelihood. They sell cappuccinos for £1.20, and at night you can sit outside at the tables they put out, and it's like being in Beirut or something. BRILLIANT! Then we went to London Fields Lido for a swim, except that just as we were about to go in, about 50 police men and women, some of whom were way too short and fat for their profession but were running like fuck anyway, bombed it into the park and told everyone to evacuate as there'd been a 'serious incident'. Talking to people later, we worked out that someone had been shot in the stomach after being caught in a feud crossfire - ghetto fabulous!) There'd been a Virgin helicopter circling the area for about 5 or 10 minutes before the police arrived. I don't know why. Maybe in Hackney, Richard Branson is the fourth emergency service. Or by the looks of things, the first.

Obviously, everyone pretended to bugger off, and then came back three minutes later and carried on with their barbecues and having fun while the fat police cordoned off an area of the park irrelevantly. I think that's why I've started to love the place. You can't have your day out ruined just because someone maybe got murdered.
Then, being at the Lido was like being in Naples, because it was really hot and sunny, people were swimming in hygienically questionable water in the middle of a city, and there was the real possibility of getting shot in a gang-related attack. What made it slightly less authentically like Naples was the live Italian band playing some old Neapolitan classics. But apart from that, it was all pretty much exactly like last summer, without having to travel.

There's no law against smoking, bringing your own barbecue and getting pissed in Hackney's parks. The local police really do have more pressing social problems to be sorting out. Outside the pubs of Broadway Market where we went for a pint later on, it was the same: barbecues and accordion playing in the street, drinks outside, carnival atmos on. Also, we found a great piece of installation art that was constructed using rubbish in a junk yard, and although the local council apparently can't tell the difference between the two, they're really proud of it. ROCK!

So then yesterday Diego and I bought a pair of cheap bikes off Gumtree and rode them back from Maida Vale. When we hit Camden we started riding along the canal path, which you can take all the way to London Fields and the Lee Valley. Its a beautiful ride, which doesn't get properly fascinating until you hit Hackney and find whole families swimming in the canal, a bunch a friends having dinner with tables and chairs and everything in the public walkway near Hackney Wick, and kids diving in the lock (in the lock! in the fucking lock! I'm pretty sure that, between the changing levels of the water and the rat piss in it, that's fairly dangerous, but they were having such a good time, nobody, and I mean nobody, had the heart to tell them to stop it. I thought about it for roughly a minute, and then thought it would just be health and safety gone mad).

So that's how I learned to love The Murder Mile, where I live. It seems the Mayor of Hackney feels exactly the same way, as he too has pointed out that everybody in the park continued to have a really good time after the shooting on Saturday. He's been lambasted for this on Twitter and in the Hackney gazette - apparently they feel he is "glossing over the situation". He's not. That's pretty much exactly what happened. Even as we were going home on the D6 bus on Saturday night, as the doors closed a bloke on the street shouted to another bloke who had leapt onto the bus just before the doors closed: "You're DEAD! You're fucking dead meat!". Something about his tone made me think this was no playful threat cos the other guy had just beat him at Scrabble or something, but still - if you really, really worried about all this sort of thing, you'd never leave the house. Although I do think the Mayor should reconsider the local tourism slogan, "Hackney: Parks for Life". It's definitely not quite right. Maybe a tweak? Yeah, just a tweak, like "Hackney: Parks for Life. Or Indeed Death. Who cares? Woo! Let's jump in the canal! Last one in gets both barrels of my SIG-Sauer!"

No Anarchy in the UK

2010-04-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

It’s a bad week for anarchy, civil liberties and just generally keeping it real. Malcolm McLaren died yesterday - now he was no Joe Strummer, but it's still part of the passing of a generation that protested and shook up the establishment. This morning, the Digital Economy Bill has passed, bar the shouting. And I think when people realise what they have given away in this bill, they’ll wish there’d been more protest against it.

In better times, decent musicians would have kicked off about this. Guilty till proven innocent, summary disconnection, government control… where are The Clash when you need them? But no, instead we’ve got Lilly Allen, who just really wants Peter Mandelson to clamp down. Artists like Allen, and the record companies, don’t seem to have realised that people who download music illegally are the people most likely to pay for music too. I actually don’t download music illegally – iTunes is just too convenient. I used to, obviously, until one part of the music industry evolved to keep up with technology and stop me doing that.

I’ve also never ‘illegally’ downloaded a TV show or film. To be honest, I feel a bit not down with the kids admitting that, but it’s true. But even supposing that downloading is losing the economy billions of pounds - rather than something which ultimately encourages people to go out and buy boxsets, music, see bands etc- I don’t see how this bill is the right answer. This bill will disconnect people’s internet if their usage is high, on the assumption that it must be illegal. The Magna Carta, anyone? You’d think this government would have learned from the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes that “guilty till proven innocent” isn’t a great basis for proceeding.

And what limit on usage is going to be set? Say it’s 30 gigabytes a month. You can get loads of illegal songs and movies for that. On the other hand, if you run a business from home, you’ll be way over your limit all the time. You actually can’t set a limit; it’s a completely unworkable law. But passing it makes the government look to the powerful lobbyists in the record and movie industries like they’re doing something. And of course it puts the onus on the people and the ISPs to prove their innocence – and makes us pay for it while we’re at it.

Basically the situation we’ve got here is that record company bosses like David Geffen are dictating government policy to fit in with their 20^th century business models, when the way the world works has moved on. And instead of creating new technology to adapt to this new way people want to own content, they’re forcing the Internet Service Providers to do the job of the police. Maybe we should give them guns and sniffer dogs too, or let them beat people up if they can’t prove what they’ve been doing online, or don’t know enough to stop their wi-fi being jacked.

Actual artists and musicians don’t benefit from the record industry’s way of doing business. They benefit from the egalitarian, information sharing way the internet works. They never got much money from record companies selling their albums. They might do if the technology were to exist for them to sell it themselves online. The record and Hollywood movie industries are not some kind of ’12 Good Men’, sticking up for what’s right and fair. The situation we’ve got now is more like some kind of French film noir, where the little guy just keeps getting twatted.

And that will include you, if your usage goes over this whatever arbitrary limit they set. The Digital Economy Bill is a very, very bad law, that has been barely discussed (by people who don’t know what they’re talking about anyway) and then rushed through. Keep lobbying your MP about it. So far, the Lib Dems are the only ones who have taken a stand against it – everyone else barely seems to understand it.

So in the spirit of punk, here's the mish-mash version wot Liam did of our protest song, against All This Sort of Thing...

A short but important rant I couldn't deliver to the Labour canvasser

2010-02-21T08:34:00.001-08:00

Someone from the Labour party has just rung the bell to our flat. I went to the door and saw his big red rosette through the spy-hole. I wanted to tell him how Labour have destroyed our civil liberties, introduced tuition fees for uni making it harder for working class kids to get there, started an illegal war, lied and lied, killed David Kelly, given us the millionaire war criminal Tony cunting Blair, are planning compulsory ID cards, have destabilised and ultimately destroyed the British economy by raiding pension funds and overspending, and finally, replaced the Blair cockmonster with someone who, whilst incompetent, is not actually evil, making it harder to vote against them. But I couldn't tell him all that in my pyjamas, so I just stared at him through the spyhole and he went away.

Ooh, offensive comedy

2009-10-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

I was just reading Chortle and the Daily Mail Online (I know! I’d gone to incredulate at the Jan “tissue of lies” Moir article) and I saw that Jimmy Carr has been in trouble, for one of his jokes. So I clicked on the story, because apparently there’d been “tabloid outrage” and I thought, well this has got to be serious. I mean, if the tabloids are outraged.

Obviously, I wanted to disagree with the tabloids, but the thing is though, I kind of WAS expecting it to be an offensive joke. I mean by his own admission his comedy is offensive, and even if he didn’t ever make any such admission, I’m sure he won’t give a fuck that I do.

OK, maybe now you’re expecting something actually soulful and nice. Obviously it wasn’t. It’s Jimmy Carr. But I’m also a big fan of comedy that isn’t soulful and nice. Give me as offensive as you like as long as there’s guts and conviction behind it.

So anyway, with no run-up, one of the jokes from his current tour show was: “Say what you like about these servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a fucking good Paralympic team in 2012.” Now to me, that is a darkly funny joke. It draws attention to wars that most of us seem happy to forget are even happening, let alone how the nation sleepwalked into them. It raises this ridiculous yet subversive idea that it might actually be part of a cynical government plan (can’t win the war, well we’re going to win the fucking Olympics then) – and also it’s quite positive, really. “Fucking good Paralympic team?” Blimey, we only got the Falklands out of the Falklands War. And it doesn’t demean the troops. To me, it actually highlights what they are doing, and the way they are neglected and manipulated by the public and the government.

Of course, I might be reading too much into it. That might not have been how he wrote it. Or said it. I don’t reckon Jimmy was expecting his comedy reviewers to give his jokes an academic dissection: ”Despite the almost archaically traditional nature of his opening gambit – the well-trodden “Say what you like about…” – Carr goes on to prove that he is not only in the comedic debt of the music hall tradition, but may be compared to such satirical greats as Pope, Swift and Peter Cook with their visceral reminders of inconvenient truths, and plangent use of the F-word”.

Actually, what bothered me most about this episode was one of the Mums of the seriously wounded troops, who was quoted as saying “Soldiers are fighting for freedom of speech. I hope Mr Carr remembers that when he makes offensive jokes ridiculing them.” Firstly, I don’t think he was ridiculing them. Unless you think it is inherently ridiculous to be in the Paralympic team. Secondly, they are fighting for many things, but I fear that freedom of speech isn’t one of them. Mary Ann Evans used her freedom of speech to read out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq (while her friend read out the names of dead Iraqi civilians) at the Cenotaph in central London, and she was arrested and found guilty of breaching Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Because she’d bothered to try and draw attention to what is actually happening, she was silenced. So the government could continue to fail to equip the troops properly for a war on a country whose Islamic institutions proved unconquerable by Genghis Khan and the Soviet fucking Union. So yeah, I liked Jimmy’s joke. It’s the way I read far too much into ‘em.

Big fat anti-fascist sitcom

2009-10-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

I’m about to start cutting the sitcom down to a six-minute taster tape, which we are filming in three weeks. The thought of this is sending me absolutely crackers with excitement and fear. And déjà vu, because we have now done so many rewrites on it that half our creative energies are spent thinking up separate titles for each latest version. We have called it Superduper Version, Lemon and Herb, ProfileMe Redux, Sparrowfall – The October Revolution Version, Version Million and One. It is currently called Monkey Pants. And we have alternative jokes documents called things like “Suicide Options”.

Which is kind of how I felt before the first read-through on Thursday. It was properly scary. You walk into a room with a big board table and 12 scripts around it, and people are saying things like, hello, I’m the production co-ordinator, I’m the director, and you feel like shouting – “I didn’t mean it, it was just a joke,” because this thing you’ve been dicking around with for the past six months is suddenly HAPPENING.

So I clicked on Liam Mullone’s Facebook profile (for it is with he with whom I am writing it – hoorah!) to see if he felt the same. And he does, which is encouraging. Obviously, I could have just called him, but I’m working on turning into one of my nerd characters, so I cyber-stalked him instead. And his blog, in which he wrote that I play “two types of Hils” in the show, does seem to have settled a four-hour argument we had in a pub about one of the characters. Liam wondered whether people like this really existed, which was the start of what I fondly referred to in my notebook as "The Damaged Women Meetings". The question was whether or not I'm "like" this woman, Katharine, who I"m supposed to be playing, and who is basically this mad, slightly fascist, sexually twisted, posh bint. Who talks like it's the 1950s. She's going to end up in a mental institution, and then go on to be Prime Minister. My point, surprisingly, was that I am rather like her, and Liam's point was that I am not at all, and that actually I am far more like the other character I'm supposed to be playing, a technology geek from Stoke-on-Trent.

The weird thing is, when I started writing the show and dreamed up the geek (she was called Joanna, but we have just changed her name to Alison, mainly so we can use the Pixies song at some point) I thought I was writing someone really different from me. And I gave her all these characteristics like... loves Steve Jobs and Apple Mac and technology and is obsessed with the internet and Eric Schmidt and Bruce Springsteen, and wears glasses and has bad dress sense and reacts with positivity and politeness to shit situations or people treating her like shit, and I'm going ha ha! What a funny character, and then you realise... no, that's basically me. Proven by how indignant I got when a reviewer of my Edinburgh show pointed out what a ridiculous pair of glasses the character was wearing - "typical nerd specs, totally improbable" - and I'm reading it thinking, but they are MY glasses. That I wear EVERY DAY.

Anyway, I realise that saying I also might be like someone who is 'slightly fascist' is a risky thing to declare at the moment, given that 'fascist' is the hate buzzword du jour. Firstly, and in my defence, this character started off as a libertarian, but then we realised that we simply agreed with everything she said and it was ever going to be funny we'd have to make her a lot more unacceptable. But secondly, can I just point out that being a fascist does NOT make you like Nick Griffin. For a big funny cross explanation of this check Liam's blog, but if you haven't got the time, here's a handy definition of fascism from Wikipedia - "A political regime, usually totalitarian, ideologically based on centralized government, government control of business, repression of criticism or opposition, a leader cult and exalting the state and/or religion above individual rights. ..." sound like any government you know? One of whose members was on Question Time last night, getting round after round of suspiciously concerted applause, almost as though it were some kind of... rally. Fuck me, Jack Straw must have been THRILLED they put Nick Griffin on. In fact, I’m sure the 'Ultra-Leftist' BBC put the BNP on Question Time specifically so that Jack Straw could come on and go "I'm Jewish, you know. May I have a round of applause now". What, third generation on your Mother's side? That's RUBBISH, Mr Straw. Or should I say… Strawbowitz?

Actually, you can tell that Nick Griffin wasn't really a feared opponent from the fact that Jack Straw was there on the panel in the first place. No, Nick Griffin is clearly just a desperately unintelligent racist whose eyes appear to be trying to escape from his head in deranged shame. When there's actually someone on the panel who's likely to chime with public opinion, or in situations where Labour know they're really fucked, they just field someone like Hazel Blears. Not that they can any more, which is a pity, because I'll miss her searing insights such as "I actually think human rights are very important", but in general they always put a minion on when the going gets tough.

I actually invented the Katharine character to be the OPPOSITE of everything Hazel Blears stands for. In that sense, I suppose or hope I am like her. But that doesn’t feel like any kind of victory. According to Liam’s analysis of these types, I've got a future to look forward to that includes eating disorders, obsessive cleaning, being bi-polar, sexually unfulfillable and something about policemen. Oh, good.

High heels and the TUC

2009-09-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog back after a summer where I did quite a bit of travelling, moved house and wrote the like 9th draft of my so-called sitcom. Thinking about it, I shouldn't have stopped blogging. After you haven't randomly told some strangers and non-strangers about shit you've been up to for ages, it starts to seem... well, almost normal not to tell anyone. I kept toying with breaking the silence by a cheeky "Went to the shops today" or the even more wacky "Here's how my gig went last night", but it just seemed wrong.

And then a darnright unusual thing happened, which was that I went to a fashion show. I just never thought I would do anything like that. It was my friend's brother's show, so I had an excuse. Come to think of it, my dress sense itself is enough of an incentive to go and "get some inspiration", but let's not get into that here. I was pretty excited, let me tell you. Lights down! Crank up the remixed New Order and unideintifiable harcore Euro Pop! Audience expectation to the max. Yeah! Let's see some properly fucking professional anorexics!

The show was like a bloodletting. It only lasted six minutes, and afterwards there's all this post-show relief, whereas before we'd been quite apprehensive. Everyone asking each other questions like "Who are you wearing?" Me and my friend Ashley just kept repeating, "We're in Kate Moss at Top Shop. Everything is Kate Moss at Top Shop."

Actually, there was something brilliant about seeing all these mad clothes. After a while you start to feel like, why not, we could all wear stuff like this! With the possible exception of at school if you're still there, or maybe funerals, we can all dress how we want! Every single day! We're not drab drones! Fuck the TUC!

This was because of an article I'd read about how the TUC have made moves to get high heels banned in the office on health and safety grounds. Apparently they think we lose too many work hours to high-heel related accidents, an unacceptable loss of productivity. This, from an organisation DEVOTED to striking. I bet that’s not the real reason the TUC can’t stand high heels. They’re just afraid that anyone wearing them would never join their club. Cos it's a short leap from there through shoulder pads to capitalism. So yes, I enjoyed JJ's fashion show. Let me tell you, between this and the Virgin Ads, the Saucy Air Hostess look is IN.

Link here to Julian J Smith's stuff in Vogue! Blimey!

Tosser

2009-06-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

I WANT A PRIME MINISTER WHO SAYS, I REALLY DON'T CARE THAT MICHAEL JACKSON HAS DIED; I HAVE QUITE A BIT OF WORK ON.
AND A LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION WHO DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT IT EITHER WOULD BE GREAT.

I'b sorry, I have a cold

2009-06-19T03:43:00.000-07:00

Wow! I feel normal again! For the first time in a week. This week we've been doing the radio recordings for Shappi's new Radio 4 show. I do a guest spot every week... except we ended up recording all of my spots on the same night, due to "Radio 4 Compliance Issues". I don't know exactly what this means, except they are draconian. The very phrase "Radio 4 Compliance" strikes fear into the heart of every producer.

One of my bits involved a song which I call The Racism Song except when I'm on public transport. Anyway, we'd already recorded it once and it was all fine. It references idealistic songs like John Lennon's Imagine, Nina Simone's Ain't Got No... I Got Life and (terrifyingly) 4 Non-Blondes What's Up? (it was my own tune, but there were musical jokes in the middle where you can hear the other songs in it - I mean come on, Jammin' does this all the time, right?). But three hours before the second recording I was on the phone to the producer who was going, "it does WHAT? Oh my God, I had no idea. Oh... oh God, we're fucked. Sorry, but the whole thing's fucked. It's... Radio 4 Compliance."

I said, "no, it's fine, I can just rewrite that bit, it'll only take me..." and he was just going "Oh God, oh God, no, we're completely fucked, you don't know what they're like, I mean, it's RADIO 4 COMPLIANCE". I started to get the seriousness of the situation. You do not fuck, apparently, with Radio 4 Compliance.

So I re-wrote the song, got myself to the Drill Hall and arrived to the producer going... "erm, you know the Unconventional Parents song? Well, we have to re-record it and change the ending because of..." at which point I whimpered, "Is it... R4 C?" We'd done a bit at the end for Shappi to sing "Oh, My Old Man's An Exiled Iranian Satirist"... and even though it's an old music hall song, apparently Lonnie fucking Donegan had recorded it and so there might be all sorts of compliance issues, so we rewrote the song into a generic Chaz n Dave style knees-up with about half an hour to go, whilst drinking more red wine than is feasibly good for me on the basis that "it might bring my voice back" (see aforementioned cold), I popped three Nurofen and applied a nasal spray and then wandered on stage thinking, "well, I can't see how this can go wrong."

It was ace though. Radio 4 audiences are the yin to their Compliance yang. And Shappi, John Gordillo, Felix Dexter, Paul Sinha and Aval Vidal totally rocked. Even my Religion bit, which I'd been very worried about under the circumstances, went fine, with the audience joining in like a proper congregation drunk at Midnight Mass. I would also like to thank Shappi for providing me with so many non-controversial topics to write songs on. I'm hoping next series we can do the Holocaust and abortions. Yeah!

Dude, what is this, like "recession"?

2009-05-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

I am trying to work out what the hell is going on with the recession, and if any of us are going to have any money ever again.

And then I found something in my brother's shared items: an article written by my Dad a long time ago, which predicted exactly how and why this recession would happen. It was passed around the family quite a lot at the time, and we all giggled at what my brother Rich described as its predictably intemperate style. But the point is, it has incredible foresight. It's a brilliant article. And I can say that because my Dad is now too ill to blow his own trumpet, or indeed do anything. He certainly won't be writing articles like this again. Anyway, I think it's pretty impressive, given that this was written in 1998...

When he sent the article to me years ago, it was called "Angry With Gordon Brown". When he sent it to my brother he said "RB: Expect Errata" - but there really aren't many errors. This was written in 1998, after Brown's first budget.

Anyway. Here's Dad...

"Last month I heard the announcement that pension funds were to lose
their fully-tax-exempt status, hidden quietly in the corporation tax
"reforms". I was very shocked and angry. This plan formed no part of
the Labour Government manifesto. It will hit hardest on the working
men who voted Labour; they can least afford this loss of pension. The
abolition of the pension funds' exemption from the payment of advance
corporation tax amounted to a theft (not manifesto-announced or
electorate-approved) of at least 4.5 billion pounds per annum. This
was 4.5 billion pounds per annum that was to be taken from an industry
that was already weakened by a series of weird and inept legislation
(most of it Conservative).

The consequences began to occur to me, and I am truly shocked. To
begin with no industry or business or country can cope with any
unplanned-for disaster. When it is so huge - and Government-caused -
it seems to me that Brown must be incapable of thinking beyond next
week, incapable of working out what are the logical and inevitable
social and economic consequences of his actions. (Where did he go to
school? Belmarsh?) In contrast, I am thinking of the vicious circle
or inescapable downward spiralling consequences. Further thinking
makes me realise that the results are myriad, intertwined and
self-fuelled. They could amount to the swansong of a once wealthy
nation.

The irony is that this stealth tax will eventually be self-reducing:
the more revenue it raises the more damage it will cause to the goose
(the hybrid goose that is the pension/stock-exchange) until soon it
will stop laying golden eggs.

Beyond the lack of short-term wisdom, the ignorance of common
knowledge is startling. A child could work out that this is "not a
good thing". Only the mad or the very ignorant have not heard about
the demographic changes that everyone (and not just those in the life
and pensions industry) have known about since WWII. Why doesn't Brown
know?

The pension funds theft will cause lower fund yields - which will result in:-

I. Defined benefit schemes will have liquidity problems and face
wind-up. Previous (Tory) legislation penalised schemes which built up
big reserves for lean years. It is just possible, but unrealistic,
that the Tories did so not anticipating such a future degree of
planned destruction.

II. Increase in money purchase membership with smaller benefits:
amounts to a future load on state benefits.

III. More pensioners become state dependent.

IV. Taxation will increase to pay for the above.

V. Less enthusiasm for pension saving.

VI. Thus less new money to invest - will further badly weaken stock market.

VII. Weaker stock market will exacerbate liquidity problems of smaller
schemes. May also adversely affect insurers with strong equity bases.

VIII. Membership withdrawals from schemes - less new money invested,
schemes further weakened, increased apathy (another vicious circle).

IX. Publicly funded defined benefit schemes will overcome shortfalls
(as revealed at their tri-ennial valuations) by increasing costs to
public e.g. local rates will have to increase by several times
inflation.

X. The sort of companies likely to be worst affected would include the
former nationally-run and Government-funded, but now privatised
companies. Often these are nationally important in providing services
and utilities. Traditionally staffed by bolshie loony lefties, these
workers are "hardline" on any changes or reductions in the perks that
they regard as their right. The pension tax will place their new
private employers in an invidious position. They will be unable to
maintain pension fund viability. A strike or national disaster of
some sort is virtually inevitable.

[On the hard-copy he sent me, point X was ringed with an exclamation
mark. It was the Grangemouth strike that had prompted him to dig this
out.]

XI. Will mostly affect poorer ratepayers and poorer future scheme
pensioners who will becomes even more state-dependent (more tax
increases).

XII. Will weaken the insurers and will put financial strains on their
funds' ability to meet pensions in payment - resulting in poorer
annuity rates - resulting in even less enthusiasm to buy pensions
schemes among the young, further weakening the insurers (another
vicious circle).

XIII. People will look elsewhere to invest: one result will be an
increase in buy-to-let house purchases - will further fuel house-price
inflation.

XIV. A potential problem would be the over-enthusiasm of domestic
property investors. The over-taxation of all other legitimate
investment might drive more people to try investing in domestic
housing.

XV. Combined with a political desire to have low inflation (as Joe
Soap will be told, based on the cost of VCRs, candles, 8-track players
and scythes, ignoring the costs of real items used by real people),
most people will see the only way out to be buy-to-let.

XVI. Joe will be encouraged by the lenders. Low borrowing rates will
possibly fuel borrowing on domestic property. Fringe lenders could
see profits based on lending to short-sighted people (starved of
pension fund savings growth) sums of un-repayable money secured
against freehold property which will probably be over-valued by the
lenders living in cloud-cuckoo land.

XVII. Fringe lenders (and usurers) might get fingers burnt, especially
those in the "buy a shit car on finance" market or the "we do dodgy
120% loans on over-valued shoddy houses" type of market.

XVIII. Tinpot lenders, the "fringe", will continue to lend, or
over-lend, on the assumption that inflation will continue as in the
70s and defend that lunacy by over-valuing freeholds, maintaining
their interest rates regardless of LIBOR or UK base rates. Such rates
will become a political ideal but a commercial irrelevance.

XIX. A possibility that the deemed financial inadequacy will cause
minor banks/insurers to fail/merge/de-mutualise, especially those
strong enough now to have such large equity exposure that they cannot
disinvest without causing further damage to their funds. [!]

XX. Financial inadequacy will result in the purchase of fewer equities
leading to more likely failures leading to greater financial
inadequacy.

XXI. Stock exchange may fall by 25-30% and will take many years to
recover to 1996 levels unless a major reversal enacted. Flying pigs
proposed.

All these possibilities are a direct chain of result leading back to
the raid on pension funds. Bless you Gordon. It is an inevitable
downward spiral, typical of 19th century socialist thinking: i.e.,
kill the independent spirit and force people into state dependency and
thus, as paupers, to vote for the lazy man's misery system. Snag is,
how are the wealth creators going to survive in this lunatic system?

It is possible. Having seen it before in the 70s my fears may seem
inevitable. If they bluster enough about "New Labour" it may keep us
immune from fiscal reality and we may have four/five years "growth".
The only winners will be the ultra-rich and the politicians who pay
themselves based on the sort of economics used by [moderately well-known local crook businessman]. Amazing how such a
fraud works over and over again."

Pretty good hey?

The Pianist and other crazed late night thoughts

2009-02-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

Coming in from my gig tonight I watched what I thought was going to be the end of the film The Pianist, but it’s such a long (and brilliant) film it turned out to be another two hours of unremitting Nazi-inflicted hell. There’s this one point in it where Szpilman, Brody’s character, is hiding out in an apartment after the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. He has to be deadly silent or it will alert the neighbours to the fact that he’s hiding in there (and therefore is Jewish – obviously). He drops a shelf full of plates and within 30 seconds there’s a knock and the neighbours are shouting, who is in there, we’ll call the police. Later on, he tries to escape quietly, but as he’s in the hallway there’s a scream and this woman has seen him. She is shouting, show me your ID card! Where are your papers? I’ll call the police! And I thought, hey that’ll be Britain in about 20 years’ time.

OK, I know how this sounds. I start comparing the machinery of the Nazi state to the joys of life in modern Britain, and I come across like one more raving terrorist to deal with just when we’ve got a boat load from Guantanamo. But hear me out.

If things go the way it’s looking and pretty soon we all have to have an ID card to prove who we are at all times, we are fucked. We have learned no lessons from the war. We have learned no lessons from any war, from any experience of how terrorism works or how totalitarianism works. I’m not even sure we’ve learned how to be human. If we start expecting people to produce a card before they can rent a flat, get a bank account, have access to healthcare, a card that tracks all their movements and data… then you could just as easily turn that card off and make that person a non-person. ‘Sorry, everybody with this type of card issued after this date may not have access to certain types of jobs and is only allowed to live in X area. It’s for the good of the country and to avoid terrorism. These people’s activity patterns are suspect and we think they may be dissidents. They must be sent for interrogation and water-boarding in Liverpool.’ Might not sound harsh to you, but I’ve gigged there.

So I’m well aware of the irony of writing this pro-privacy stuff on a social networking site. But given that I’ve registered to refuse to have an ID card if they introduce them and paid money into the legal fund working to oppose the idea, it seems logical to say these things in public and normalise the idea of opposing the scheme – and other surveillance phenomena. For example, I read a letter in the Guardian last week, from a man who’s just taken over a pub in Islington. He needed a new licence for the pub, which had to be approved by various organisations, including the police. The police agreed to approve his application on the condition that he install CCTV cameras that capture the head and shoulders of everyone coming into the pub, and that the police could see this on request. This guy wrote to the local Labour MP to challenge it – and obviously she didn’t reply – then spoke to a friend of his who is the licensing officer for another borough. “Not only did he tell me there was nothing I could do to overturn this, he also strongly advised me not to blot my copybook with the police by even questioning the request; I would not want them against me in the future, he said”.

The guy (Nick Gibson) finished his letter by saying that even though he has been in a silent rage since he first heard of this request, “at every turn I am alternately advised to keep my head down or laughed at for my naivety for thinking that the world was not ever thus. When was it that the constant small erosion of our liberties became irreversible?”

This sounds familiar. First, it sounds like Animal Farm, when the pigs in charge try and tell the other animals that things have always been this way, that bad is good, that quality of life is improved, when you know in your heart that this is just a FUCKING LIE you are being told, but you no longer have the energy to challenge it. Because you have been told so many lies you become exhausted by their quantity, and where do you start? Secondly, everyone is afraid of being thought stupid, or credulous, and looking like some conspiracy theorist raving nutjob if they start saying, hang on, isn’t this all a bit mental? Just how paranoid are we and just how much more police state does it have to get round here before we’re all living all our lives as though we were being watched at all times, just in case, and informing on our neighbours?

Thirdly, the real interesting thing is the apparent impossibility, and dangerousness of being seen to challenge any of this legislation. If people don’t start doing it soon, and all the time, and not thinking that this will make them look like a terrorist, or suspected of committing a crime, then the moment will be lost and we will truly be living in hell. Challenge the encroachment of CCTV – my boyfriend, a photographer, was interrogated by the police the other month for taking photographs! – write to your MP, refuse to have an ID card, vote for any party that will get rid of them, find out what the Magna Carta was, work out that there is now basically NO RIGHT OF APPEAL against unlawful imprisonment under current terror laws… Cos that’s where all this is leading. Towards the situation where YOU, an innocent person, can be arrested, in case you are not innocent.

That’s why I say, to the stupid, stupid woman Catherine Conroy who wrote in response to Nick Gibson’s letter in The Guardian that CCTV is not a threat to freedom and is only “a threat to freedom to commit a crime” – you are part of the problem. And you clearly haven’t the imagination to understand what kind of grim future world you are dumbly helping to create.

Good God, I need the light of dawn, don’t I. And it is also possible I shouldn’t have given up drinking. I just have a shit load more reading time now.

Sarah Palin.... good God

2008-09-15T06:34:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin gave her first TV interview on Friday - link to it here - and it was very scary. The coverage of the interview is even worse. "MOTHER.... MOOSE HUNTER.... MAVERICK!!" Great. So there's potentially going to be a Vice President of the USA whose main skill is alliteration.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind all the hysterical(hysterical! womb! 5 kids! geddit?) coverage of her if she knew anything about foreign or domestic policy. But what are her views on current Russian activity, for example? "You can see Russia from Alaska". Coooool....

Time magazine has gone bonkers over her as well. I'll have to quote it as I read it in the actual paper rather than online - "There is an undeniable power in the tale of a woman who knows how to carve up a moose and can give a speech while leaking amniotic fluid, just hours before giving birth to her fifth child..." That's not a qualification for office. If you've had so many children you can practically roll one out whilst barely missing a beat in the middle of another speech about guns and Jesus, then you should be sectioned as a main Western contributor to the world food crisis rather than greeted at airports by crowds of adoring fans waving signs saying "Hockey Moms 4 ever."

I also don't know why being a hockey mom is good. I"ll get back to you on that.

I'm back

2008-09-09T03:44:00.000-07:00

I've realised something over this month that I've been away. Away, "doing the Edinburgh Festival", "creating new stuff", "developing" as an "artist". I've been trying to put all these different tags on it, but I know the truth. I am suffering from a shameful addiction to the Edinburgh Festival.

I will do almost anything to facilitate being there. This year alone I have lied, borrowed money, made grand claims, had lunch with my ex-boss to get a loan, and even been in denial about doing it at all. "Hello, is that my bank, First Direct? Yes, please could I borrow some money? About £3 grand... No... it's.... not for the Edinburgh Festival, it's for... a holiday." They'll lend it to you if they think it's for a holiday.

Basically, I know all the tricks. Pretend you're going to be famous directly afterwards, offer them a stake in the show, borrow from 4 different people and don't tell them about each other. Let them think they're the only ones and it doesn't really cost that much. If they knew the extent of your problem, maybe some of them would stop you. But they don't. They are enablers. The bank, my ex-boss, my mum, the producers, my boyfriend. Enablers!!

But what of the "phenomenon" that was Exhibitionist? - you can link here to cool reviews from Fest and also Three Weeks. Thrilled with all this stuff about being "innovative" and "relevant", but next year I'm going to go for "funny".

In the meantime, I cannot afford to leave the house. Or buy food, or pay rent. That's the goddamn motherf*ckin genius of being an addict. If you've had a similar experience, and want to try and face up to what a few years of the Edinburgh Festival has done to you, or maybe you're living with someone who cannot control his or her Fringe shows - get in touch.

Knife Amnesty

2008-07-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

As a Gesture of Goodwill, this blog is giving up all its knives, and would like to encourage other young hooligans to do likewise.
This blog also hopes that by joining the amnesty, it can help add to the culture of fear and panic about knives in any way that is useful.

This blog has now run out of knives, and needs to pop to the shops for a few more knives.

Introducing....

2008-07-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

Hello. I have taken some photos of the characters for the show! It's pretty pretty exciting. This one on the left is Bethan - she's a very upbeat suicidal teenager from Bridgend in Wales.

The next one is Joanna. She is a geek who hero-worships Steve Jobs from Apple Mac and everyone seems to love her so I am starting to be quite jealous.

Then there is Derek. He is also below, or wherever this infernal device chooses to place the

photograph.
Oh, here we go.

Despite his homosexuality, Derek is a committed bigot.

Finally, there is Katherine:
Katherine is very, very wrong.

And there's a fifth character too, but that's a surprise. It's not that the show has a plot exactly, but the characters do interlink, and there's a certain logical madness to it when an actually famous person joins Profile Me and starts blogging. In any case, who it is might change by the time I get to Edinburgh. I haven't decided. Do I need to do that soon? I mean, it's cool if I'm still writing this on the train on the way up there, isn't it...

I was thinking of giving up booze for July. That hasn't happened.

Oddness and Ironies

2008-06-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

The irony of what I'm doing with my Edinburgh show versus my life, is starting to become obvious. Here I am, writing a show about people who choose to have a public profile way beyond what is necessary - in the name of fame, openness, peer pressure, whatever you want - and also, here I am, writing a blog about that.

Basically, I want my Edinburgh show to be entertaining. I think it's already pretty silly, and I'm really trying to write a 'show', not something which is just 'here are the best bits of my stand-up'. But I also want it to have a plot and and a theme and to say something. I love talking about music, and doing songs, and with that in mind, my fifth character (one of them is pre-recorded) was going to be a sort of alcoholic music producer, who bitches about stuff and then gets the sack. But somehow, it doesn't quite fit with the rest of the show, which is really all about the new "freedom" we have to live our lives in public, but also not to be seen to do anything stupid, ever. So I'm writing a new character that will really nail the show into the territory of 'political character comedy'. I am quite a last-minute person, but am worried that even I am taking the piss in how late in the day this show is evolving. It's got to be ready in just over a month. And I don't want to do it half-arsed.

Meanwhile, here is some of the samizdata I've been reading. I'm particularly amazed at the moment by the extent to which Gordon Brown seems actually to be using the concept of doublethink (as explained in 1984) to justify his policies, whilst citing Orwell as a writer who "extolls the virtues of the liberty of Britain" (to paraphrase). Brown made a whole speech on 'what liberty means' in the current climate, and seemingly introduced an idea called 'new-liberty'. Good God. Click here to read the speech. And here to read an amazing dissection of it by academic Fabian Tassano.

Yeah. Making comedy out of this doesn't write itself.

Never going on holiday again

2008-06-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

That's right, I've been on holiday. I'm completely behind on everything, even though I was only away for just under 7 days. My boyfriend is also self-employed, and we are now both so stressed by having to go away that we have decided simply never to go on holiday again. Above is a generic picture of me on holiday. Except it's not - it's a picture of me in Miami in February when I was doing Last Comic Standing. But I figured, I look relaxed in this photo; I look like I'm vaguely having fun, probably because I was working and I like that. I can't upload any photos of me on my actual holiday because I just look too pissed off / sarcastic the whole time.

Confession and Max Mosley

2008-05-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

It has been just under a week since my last confession. Did you know that you can now confess, in the Catholic sense, online? I don't imagine that's any fun at all. There's none of the frisson of the cloister, the ritual of making up a load of venal sins and whispering them to a man you can't see. If you're going to do that online, it is definitely merely a blog and you should stop kidding yourself.

I'm interested at the moment in Max Mosley's alleged Nazi orgy. I know it happened a few weeks ago now, but I'm writing an Edinburgh show so anything that's happened this year is fair game. Also, the Catholic thing reminded me of it, because although I'm not involved in the BDSM scene (and nor is Max Mosley, judging from the video - those stripey jumpsuits, what were they thinking? How can anyone get turned on by prostitutes who are dressed up as a row of knitted scarves?) I did gleefully read that a popular S&M ritual is a sort of inverted Catholic Mass. I can't go into the specifics of what happens, but I think it's safe to describe it as "low Anglican".

But I think that illustrates the point I want to make. S&M sex is supposed to be wrong, wrong, wrong. It's not about creating the right moral and spiritual boundaries whereby sex can occur, because that's known as a loving relationship. If you think any other kind of sex is disgusting, fair enough. But it's consenting adults, and someone else's private life. Pretending to be a Nazi is a pretty grim way to get turned on, but I would defend his right to do it in private without the News of the World broadcasting it "in the public interest". It's not in the public interest - unless it's to warn the public about the lamentably unconvincing acting that goes on in our nation's brothels. How does this affect his ability to do his job as president of the FIA, rulemaker to the high-octane world of Formula 1? Say what you like about spanking prostitutes, but at least it's carbon neutral.

Have guitar, will travel

2008-05-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

(and probably pick up strangers on the way and get asked to "give us a tune". No! You give me a tune! It is you who seem the more loquacious, and pro the idea of performing on a train.)

WHAT... is the deal... with GUITARS? Climb aboard a bus or tube without one and normal rules apply, no-one is allowed to talk to you. But make the mistake of travelling with a guitar and it's an ice-breaker, a ready made chat up line, AND THAT'S ALL FINE. But I have become curmudgeonly about this merely because in all my time of travelling (and I bet this would hold true if it were in all my time of time travelling) no-one, NO-ONE, has EVER come up with a different opening gambit from "give us a tune, then". Oh, I grant you there's "come on then, give us a tune" but that's very much the same thing but with more drunken menace and overtones of "and cheer up you bitch".

People can't understand why or how you can have been in the same carriage of a tube train as them for upwards of 30 seconds and not given them a tune. It simply doesn't compute. "Barry! This girl's got a guitar and won't give us a tune!" "Don't be stupid - she must know Sweet Home Alabama." In a way, I can understand. I must seem like a really bad sport - there I am, with a guitar, there's no sound system on the Northern Line and, well, you do the maths, the whole situation is crying out for a singalong to Hotel California. Last night, I was coming back from a gig in Birmingham, and when I got on the train, there was a middle class couple sat having a chat. As I walked past them the man cried out "Oh, give us a tune!" and the woman said "Yes, don't go far, we might be needing you later on!" "Serenade or threesome?" I fancied enquiring, but decided instead to smile with unbridled enthusiasm at the offer and giggle "Hehehe, vous etes charmants!!" before sinking down into a seat and pretending to be foreign.

It has its advantages though. Last week in Brighton, the gig was cancelled so we had a bit of a jam instead. I am therefore in a position to recommend very strongly Liam Mullone's "Nazi Soldier" song, which I would undoubtedly not have heard if we'd done the gig (it is very funny, and you know how those comedy audiences hate funny). Yeah! Of course, I insisted on his participation by shoving ther guitar in his direction and going "OI MULLONE GIVE US A TUNE!!!!!!! - oh, a lament for dead fascist soldiers, how unexpected."

Ken and Boris

2008-05-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

I voted for Ken today. "Yeah, obviously", I hear you thinking - but for me it's not as straightforward as that. Under Ken Livingstone, CCTV cameras and monitoring of the population have proliferated, he has endorsed a reactionary police force (fully backing Ian Blair over de Menezes) and although I agreed with him over the principle of the congestion charge, he didn't need to rig the traffic lights and roadworks to clog the city until we agreed with him.

Also, the figures for the c-charge don't add up; they could have put a lot more money back into public transport. Finally, he's been in charge for too long; he promised only to stand for two terms, and although people are entitled to change their mind, he's often guilty of massive hypocrisy. He said he would never adopt a "zero tolerance" approach, but is now going back on that, probably to compete with Boris. Zero tolerance is modelled on Rudy Guiliani's policy in New York, and that makes me worry. By the account of people who actually lived there at the time, Guiliani made Manhattan a better place for rich people, and poor areas were more excluded.

You would have thought Boris would want to monitor people less, and not feed on our fears. But no, read his manifesto and it's all about more uniformed officers everywhere, more CCTV cameras, "beef up the police presence", crack down. Yeah, I'm all for cutting red tape and cutting down on the overspending on city hall, but those are the only good parts of his "fresh solution". Ken critics suggest that Ken doesn't really care about London (and I think that is absolute bollocks): Ken is for Ken, he's a megalomaniac etc. However, that charge applies double to Johnson - getting the London mayoralty is simply his only chance of getting into serious public office. He may be right about the congestion being caused by lights and roadworks being rigged. But in the end I asked myself the deciding question: who would Jeremy Clarkson vote for? Obviously, it would be Boris. So it had to be Ken.

Lady stand-up comedienne

2008-04-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s time I started writing a blog. It will be a great and momentous way of cataloguing the events, thoughts and crucial opinions of a lifetime, both on and off the stage. Ideally my lifetime, unless I get it very wrong. And unless I have better things to do. In which case, it won’t be as good as I’m making out. Of course, by the time I’ve finished (my life, that is – and that is how I plan to end it, “right, I think that wraps it up for now”) blogs will be obsolete and we’ll have devised an even more efficient medium to communicate our thoughts, show off in public and embarrass ourselves.

Until then – here is the latest. I got some anachronistic, Music Hall-ish thrills at the Norwich Playhouse last night. Backstage, I was referred to as a “comedienne”, twice! I was introduced onstage as a “special guest”! I shared that stage with a female jazz quartet called ‘The Stilhouettes’! (though not at the same time; that would have made us “The Stilhouettes and Some Girl who is Unfathomably less Well Dressed”) I made a gallant joke about the rakishness of the evening’s host and star attraction! Variety isn’t dead – we revived it last night, and although I tried to use my set to stuff its head back underwater and hold it there til it went limp, it just wasn’t in me – as I stared out at the expectant, friendly faces, many of whom were of pensionable age and on what looked like an unaccustomed night out, most of me thought, ooh, you all look lovely, let’s try to be ‘simply delightful’, while the rest of me busied itself at editing my material.
I don’t know what that “division of labour” arrangement I have with myself says about us. I mean me.

I hate being called a ‘comedienne’ – it feels like you’ve been dragged against your will into another era, and the next thing he’s going to say is “you know, I’m all for you chapesses having the vote”. Because yes, in answer to the navy blazer wearing, Rotary Club members who normally get really insistent about it - “but that’s what you are, aren’t you, you are female so you’re a comedienne” - I am aware that I’m a girl and everything, but times have moved on since the word ‘comedienne’ was coined, and it refers to a very different style of comedy from today’s stand-up. It’s like being a writer and having to deal with people that keep calling you an “authoress”.

Not really sure how I should end these blog sections. It feels like having a massive rant and then metaphorically sweeping out of the room going “good day to YOU, sir.” I’m going to try and suggest a more consensual climbdown where we both (at a rough estimate of the number of readers) just calmly leave the computer, and perhaps wander off into the kitchen and make a coffee or something.