Oddness and Ironies

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

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

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

(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

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

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.