One more for the road...

My previous blog was meant to be my last of the year, but I felt this was worth a mention.

At lunch today I went to the bank to pay a cheque in.

That’s not what I thought was worth a mention before you all write in.

Anyway, I looked out of the window and saw a man on the opposite side of the road holding a sign which said ‘you sinner’

This, naturally, held my gaze.

After a while he saw me looking, and we made eye contact. At which point he started to cross the road.

The thought that he might be making a beeline for me entered my head, but I dismissed it.

Surely he wouldn’t come into a crowded bank, walk into the middle of a bank queue and evangelise to me.

Surely.

Well, I learned something today. You should never underestimate someone who carries a sign saying ‘you sinner’ around with them. They don’t stick to the received social mores.

So in he came.

He walked up to the front of the queue and asked me, – really sheepishly I might add – “Did you...did you erm, know, you’re a sinner?”

I said, “You don’t sound so sure yourself”

He laughed nervously and then went away.

This is where it gets good.

As I was being served I heard a bit of confused conversation coming from the front end of the branch.

Turns out, after finishing his very brief chat with me, he’d sat himself down at an empty desk, where the mortgage advisers usually sit – none of the staff had noticed – and people were coming in and going to him for mortgage and financial advice.

As I was leaving I saw a couple come in and say to him “Excuse me can you tell me about the interest rates on your savings accounts”

He replied “No, but I can tell you about our Lord Jesus Christ”

Beautiful!

If that happened in a sitcom it would be deemed implausible. My life is an implausible sitcom. Official.

One more thing that I must share with you.

We were watching Bid TV last night (yes, again) and there was a lady standing in for Paul Ross, hosting his DVD evening for him.

She was trying to sell this:



But couldn’t stop laughing at it.

At one point she was muttering, through the tears of laughter, “I can’t do this...I can’t do this”

After a while she started fiddling with her ear piece and pulled herself together.

I think she was getting a telling off.

Just goes to show, it takes a real pro like Paul, to peddle really bad box sets and not laugh at them.

She could also learn a thing or two from Peter Simon, who managed to sell a toilet seat with a picture of a dog’s face on it without so much as a snigger.

Happy New Year everyone!

And finally...

That picture will make more sense when you reach the end of the blog.

So, I thought I should post one last entry before the end of the year; and the end of the decade for that matter.

The only problem is, I haven’t really been up to much.

Well I have, but it isn’t stuff that would qualify as blog material per se.

(As if that’s ever stopped you in the past, I hear you cry)

I’ve mostly been dropping in on friends in the run up to Christmas, like some sort of modern day Santa, driving a Micra instead of a sleigh.

I’ve been to a few parties too. The most recent of which was the One Life Left party / end of year show recording.

(One Life Left is a computer game radio show on Resonance FM that I was a guest on earlier in the year. On the back of this blog entry. If you’re into games, give it a listen)

The party basically consisted of a room full of people getting drunk whilst the show was recorded live. It was brilliant fun. And I did very well out of the Secret Santa.

The idea was to wrap up a game you weren’t playing much anymore and effectively swap it. I wrapped up Hotel Dusk for the DS (a format I am increasingly parting ways with) and went home with Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six on XBOX 360.

A good result.

And speaking of good results, I see that Rage Against the Machine got to number one.

‘The man’ will be so gutted.

Take that, ‘the man’.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

You have to admit. Never has rebellion been blended so perfectly with commercialism since Johnny Rotten started selling Country Life butter.

(Don’t worry, I am aware that mine is not the popular view)

I expressed this opinion earlier on Twitter...



...and dropped half a dozen followers in the process.

Which is weird, because I thought crazy rebellious dissenters wouldn’t be averse to a bit of dissent? You really won’t last long in the anarchy business if you’re anti other people having an opinion.

An actual opinion.

That they thought of themselves.

...And didn’t even need a Facebook group to direct them towards having.

I know, I know, I’m a grumpy cow. I’ve never even said ‘simples!’ It seems I do not qualify as a 'character' or a 'right old laugh'. A shame. As I always wanted to be the office bore.

And on that miserly note (sorry, it's been a long year and I am tired!), Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I’ll see you all in 2010!

Coming soon to DVD...me!

This time last year I performed at a couple of Robin Ince’s Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People shows.

Look, there I am now. Under some stage lights that are conspiring to make me look ginger.



Well, the second night was filmed for posterity – which is bloody typical as I had a much better gig on the first night. I know, I know, excuses schmexcuses – and is now available as a DVD from gofasterstripe.com

So, you know, buy it and that.

Not because I’m on it (unless you’re my mum) but because properly good people like Stewart Lee and Richard Herring are on there. And the money goes to charidee.

I won’t be performing during this year’s run. I couldn’t make the dates I was offered.

I saw Robin last night at the launch party of the Atheist’s Guide to Christmas and he kindly asked if I could do any of the other dates, but I’m pretty much back to back between now and Christmas and even if I weren’t, it’s a bit late for Robin to have to mess around with his running orders.

I also got to thank him for all his help during the Face of Kinder competition.

The massive spike in my blog hits that you can see here:

That was down to Robin Ince and Peter Serafinowicz circulating the link one evening over on Twitter.

And of course as we all know, it paid off!

Anyway, one last quick thing before I sign off.

I am apparently going to be on Radio 5 on Friday talking about my Amazon reviews.

I’m not sure of the details yet, but will post them here when I have them.

My weekend and that

This weekend I went to Lincoln to meet up with a friend.

She lives all the way up in North Allerton and I live all the way down in that London, so we usually meet in the midlands.

It was nice, Lincoln.

Very festive too, with a massive Christmas fair.

There were a lot of Christians out and about, and one of them handed me this leaflet:



Seems a bit negative. Surely they should be bigging him up? Boom Boom!

I left at a very respectable 7pm, but got home at a very unrespectable half past midnight. Which is extraordinary given that it’s a 2 hour journey.

Apparently there’s no call for a direct train to London after 5 in the afternoon. But of course.

Instead you have to go to Newark and wait an hour and a half for a connection.

In an empty, convenience free station.

In the rain.

Which was great fun.

Still, all of this meant that when I got back to London I had the joy that is the last train home to look forward to.

In my carriage there were some posh twats. Really loud posh twats.

I think they thought the rest of the train found them hilarious.

We didn’t.

At my stop someone chucked a bottle of water all over them as a parting shot. Usually I wouldn’t condone that sort of thing, but it was deserved.

As I walked past to get off, I said in my most polite voice, “to be fair to them, you are really annoying”

Speaking of really annoying, there is a person over on Twitter, who I won’t name or link to because that is exactly what they want.

They’ve been mindlessly abusing high profile comics such as Richard Herring, Robin Ince and Jason Manford.

Oh and stealing my jokes.

Which is ironic because one of the reasons they were having a go at Jason Manford is that they considered him a joke thief.

They’re really vocal when they’re sending reams of abuse, but have ignored every approach from me picking them up on their shameless joke thievery.

Probably because they know they don’t have a leg to stand on.

Still, I suppose as annoying as it is to have your material passed off as someone else’s, it must be even more annoying to be so utterly talentless that you have to steal ideas.

There one minute, gone the next...

I saw a rather amusing news story today, wherein a tax evading priest called the Inland Revenue 'a shower of almighty c*nts'

I posted the link to the story on Twitter, but seconds later I was getting responses from people saying "really, where?"..."he didn't say that"..."I'm so disappointed".

It turns out that in the nano second between the news site posting the story and me tweeting it, they had edited that bit out.

Before:



After:



Thank goodness for screen shots!

Nintendo: what happened to you?

I love Nintendo.

My first console was a Nintendo and I have a huge sentimental attachment to the brand.

But we’re starting to seriously drift apart.

Over the past couple of years, they’ve decided to target casual gamers and non gamers.

Most recently through the irritating medium of Ant and Dec, seen here having ‘a right old laugh’ playing Wii:



You may also have seen the TV adverts? – “Hello there, you just caught us playing computer games with ordinary folks like you...”

Oh go kill yourselves.

Sorry, I shouldn’t take it out on Ant and Dec, it’s Nintendo’s fault.

They’ve left people like me who bought their GAMES console to play GAMES on, with little more than a rather expensive ornament.

The only Wii game I’ve bought this year is Super Mario.

Which I didn’t like.

It looks like Mario, but doesn’t feel like Mario.

It’s not just me, Edge Magazine concurs:

"Mario and his chums feel superimposed, like cut-outs from another game, hastily inserted."

Worse still, you can’t use the classic controller. What madness is that?

You have to use the Wii remote, which has no grip and is uncomfortable to hold. And all so you can use a gimmicky shaking action which makes Mario spin.

Yawn.

Again, Edge and I are on the same page here:

"Did Nintendo realise the game wasn't special and so throw in a feature to disguise its banality"

Answer, yes.

Ironically if they would just bin the gimmicks and concentrate on game play, rather than use gimmicks in place of game play, they’d produce much better games.

Oh and the Mario Kart steering wheel is a load of old rubbish too while we’re on the subject.

Thank God you can use the classic controller for that game, or it would have been ruined.

I’m not even going to talk about guff like Wii Fit, as I really don’t feel like having an aneurism.

One saving grace is the virtual console, where you can download old games (which are actually good) like Dr Mario and Zombies.

Were it not for that the Wii would be in the cupboard.

It’s very lucky it isn’t actually, given that it’s sitting next to an Xbox 360 and a PS3, looking very sorry indeed. Even the PSP gets played more often...

As for the DS, one of the only games I’ve bought for that this year had to be imported from Japan.

It wasn’t released in the UK, because all you can buy over here nowadays is 'My Pet Horse'.

Or those awful ‘Imagine’ games that are advertised by the even more awful Holly Willoughby and Fern Cotton.



Or this complete abberation:



Gah!

Nintendo, please back away from the non-gamer market!

And non-gamers, just piss off back to your own hobbies. I don’t come round your gaffe and start defacing your sudokus!

Anyway, I’ll stop my geeky ranting now and move on to other things.

Back in June I posted a blog about Everyclick.

At the time of posting I had raised £380.54.

And as the year draws to a close I am currently up to £607.72

I’ve made about £37 a month from doing nothing but web searches!

I’d strongly recommend you switch your search engine to Everyclick.

You really can make a lot of money for your chosen cause.