Thank you!

Just a quick blog to say that my JustGiving page has now closed, and in total we raised £1205 for the Canterbury Oast Trust.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated!

Your money will help learning disabled adults to lead a safe and fulfilling life:

世界は続く 何もなかったように

Anyone who’s watched the Derek Acorah show on Sky Real Lives (i.e. not many people) will know that, in addition to being able to chat to ghosts, Derek can also talk to the animals.

He can.

Stop being so cynical.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he sometimes combines these skills and talks to ghost animals. Observe:



Compelling...

The last time I watched the show he was having a conversation with a cat.

(Not a ghost cat, that would be ridiculous, but a real cat, live in the studio)

...actually ’conversation’ perhaps isn’t the correct description...

He was talking at a cat.

And then leaving a pause, before telling the cat’s owner what the cat was ‘saying’.

All of which explains why this week he got hired to exorcise a fat rabbit:

Click on the picture to maximise

I want his job...

Or the job of photo psychic at Pick Me Up magazine:

Click on the picture to maximise

Anyway, changing the subject completely. I’ve had me a bit of a new year shake up.

The other day I deleted both my MySpace and my Facebook account.

I deleted my MySpace for the simple reason that MySpace is now defunct.

(I imagine it won’t be long before MySpace deletes MySpace for the same reason)

I would log in each day and have no messages, no comments, no blog comments, and a friend request from a spammer.

The only thing that MySpace has going for it is that Rupert Murdoch wasted $580 million of his ill gotten gains buying it, just before everyone started leaving.

But you don’t need a MySpace account to enjoy that fact. In fact, deleting your account just makes it funnier.

And I deleted my Facebook account because I was procrastinating on there too much. Like most of the world's population.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a little procrastination now and again, but Facebook procrastination is pretty dull.

At least when I procrastinate on Twitter I get to see a photo taken from the space station, or learn a bit of Japanese.

Now, at this point you might be thinking; “Your new year shake up is pretty lame. Deleting social networking profiles? What else did you do? Re-order your cutlery drawer?”

Well you can stop scoffing, because there’s more.

You may remember that last year James and I quit Viz?

Well, I have now quit writing and stand-up altogether.

(Oh and I re-ordered my cutlery drawer)

I say ‘quit’ but that’s maybe not the right word. Quit implies a sudden dramatic exit, when actually it’s been about a year in the making.

During that time I’ve been gradually winding the comedy down, only gigging when it suited me.

And it started to suit me less and less until it just naturally ebbed away to nothing.

I did my last ever gig in early January; Josie Long’s Lost Treasures of the Black Heart, a night where the acts all talk about their unsung heroes.

I talked about Paul Ross and Peter Simon. Obviously. And accompanied my talk with various pictures printed off from previous blogs.

Paul Ross crying during a séance:



Peter Simon’s shoe selling face:



I finished up with some Peter Simon quotes that I had collected in a notebook. As well as some from ‘PeterSimonSays’, a brilliant Twitter site that transcribes, well, what Peter Simon says.

He has a weird way with words you see. For example:

"You can't go wrong at 9.99 for a designer French clock. There'll be many a person coming in to your room and going 'That's French'."

"Because I'm going to take you to my garden. At the end of my garden there's gnomes, gnomes that are solar panelled..."

"This is very Tiffany. It's very very Tiffany. It's elegant, it's exquisite, it's feminist."

"History is especially fascinating if you're someone like me and is fascinated by it."

"This is a lot of coat."

See what I mean?

There are even fan songs which mix his sayings over dance music.

Anyway, when I was writing my set I realised that I could end my comedy career with the words that Peter Simon signs off with on Bid TV every night.

So the last thing I ever said on stage was:

“No matter who you are, or where you are, you might not know it, but somebody loves you”

Life and art eh?

So that as they say, is that.

And now my blog title should make sense. If you speak Japanese...

Challenge

In addition to watching a lot of Bid TV, my household also likes a bit of Challenge TV.

Challenge, for those of you who are not familiar with their ‘work’, are basically a cable channel that repeats old episodes of Family Fortunes on a permanent loop.

Which brings me to my point.

It was during one of our recent marathon Family Fortunes viewing sessions that we saw this:



Possibly the most extreme Family Fortunes ‘huddle’ of all time? I think so.

When they’re not repeating old episodes of Family Fortunes, they will sometimes repeat old episodes of Catchphrase.

Like, really old.

You can tell just how old from the hair stylings of this contestant:



And that brings us to the end of another fascinating blog entry.

Train Chaos: Redux

A few weeks ago, back when I was in my twenties, ah great days they were, my twenties...

But they’re gone now and here I am, a thirty something.

Forty doesn’t look so very far away now, not from where I’m standing.

And then it’ll be old age and death I expect.

Anyway, as I was saying, a few weeks ago (when I was in my twenties...no. No more tangents) I wrote a blog about snow induced train chaos.

Snow induced train chaos which trapped me on a train for almost three hours.

Something which caused me minimal bother, because I, unlike many of my fellow commuters, had a book with me, and was therefore able to meaningfully amuse myself for the duration.

Yes, many a smug Iphone user learned a harsh lesson that day.

Their little toy may be of interest for about 10 of your earth minutes, but once you’ve simulated stapling something, had an e-shave, and drunk a pretend drink of milk, you start to yearn for something, well, good.

Like a book.

And I had an enormous book.

Which is probably what stopped me from turning rogue, shouting at the guard and prising the doors open.

All of which brings me to my point.

Our local paper arrived on Friday and contained this story (click on the picture to maximise):



Now I was on that train, and don’t remember it being particularly post-apocalyptic. But as I said, I was busy reading my book.

The moral? Reading is good.

"Sit down, SIT DOWN!"

This blog is about travel disruption due to snow.

I am nothing if not topical.

However, unlike most tales of snow woe, mine is not concerned with this country's inability to cope with adverse conditions.

On the contrary, I find our weather related ineptitude kind of adorable. Indeed, said ineptitude graced me with the following anecdote.

I got to the station this morning and, as expected, all of the boards either said 'delayed' or 'cancelled'.

However, there was one train that was badly delayed but at least seemed to have a time assigned to it, so I waited for that one and got on it.

We went two stops and then in between stations we came to a sudden halt.

The guard told us over the tannoy that there was a failed train in front of us and that we were stuck until it was moved.

An hour later the guard was back on the tannoy, this time to tell us that another train in front of us was on fire.

After two hours we still weren't moving. And some people were becoming noticeably restless.

I wasn't exactly happy myself but what can you do?

Well, the answer to that rhetorical question is, at it turns out - start a mini rebellion.

After two and a half hours a very panicky sounding train guard shouted over the tannoy - "Attention, attention, sit in your seats, sit down, SIT DOWN, do not get off the train"

I looked up from my book and saw loads of normally stuffy Surrey people wandering past my window, along the track, with the gait of someone who thinks they're a bit like Spartacus or Braveheart.

I carried on reading my book.

Five minutes later the guard announced that we would be moving shortly, but...

...We would have to wait for the people who had clambered off the train and were running loose on the track to arrive at the next station before we could proceed.

Oh the irony. The delayed become the delay.

Over dramatic idiotic rabble.

Although I suppose I should consider myself lucky that they merely disembarked.

If they'd stayed on board they would probably have turned to cannibalism.

The best part of it all, better even than watching the slow breakdown of social order, was watching the return to normal when the train moved.

Metros were pulled back up in front of people's faces, people who had been chatting to their neighbour a minute ago, retreated back into themselves and looked out of the window. And people who had been trying to prise the doors open moments earlier sat back down and fiddled with their IPhone.

We were commuters once more.

The end.

Web Jape of the Year!

Ok, first things first, let's get the cliche over with: Happy New Year.

I hope you had fun whatever you got up to.

Me, I saw in 2010 watching Bid TV.

Don't judge me.

Peter Simon was presenting from 10pm-2am and I wanted to see what he would do at midnight.

And I can tell you that he raised a toast with some champagne that he then promptly went on to try and sell moments later. Bid TV never miss a trick.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick blog to say that I got mentioned on Radio 5 yesterday by the lovely Olly and Helen.

They were doing a show called Web 2009, where they were giving out a number of online awards.

One of the categories was 'online jape of the year' (click on the picture to maximise):



Renegade amazon reviewers were nominated, and I was mentioned as one of their favourites! They even read some of my reviews out.

You can listen here for the next 6 days.

The web japes category is about 18 minutes in.

It can also be downloaded as a podcast from here.

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.