Advent calendar

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....

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.

You Have One Identity, Drones

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

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.

No Anarchy in the UK

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

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

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.