Wednesday 30 December 2009

Sofa, So Good.

My lazy days spent on my parents sofa ended yesterday when I moved around a little bit. Not much, of course, but definitely a little bit. There is a gym near my parents house that has some of the most state-of-the-art running machines and weight training equipment as well as a first rate yoga session but that is completely nothing to do with this blog because I went to the cinema.

There comes a time when a man can no longer lie on the sofa watching TV and he must give himself a good shake by sitting in a cinema. Just in case you are jealous of my stress-free lifestyle of late let me reassure you that once again leaving the house has just convinced me more than everyone on Earth is a brainless bag of fat except me. I'm the best. I queued up to buy tickets for Avatar (I know, I know) and once the tickets were bought I had to queue up again to BUY the 3-D glasses you needed to watch the film. I had to BUY them. "That way, you can keep them", explained the cunt. I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING KEEP THEM. I want to drop them in a pile of stood on popcorn and Fanta like in a real cinema. Not only where they selling 3-D glasses for you to keep but they also sold SEPERATELY a "luxury" pouch to keep your 3-D glasses that you don't want in. What is luxurious about an item that you despise? Then while standing in the second queue waiting to buy something that I now hated, we were told by the world's smallest prick that we had to queue in a different way, a way that would block other people getting into the cinema. I'm joking, of course. Nothing could block the 10 year old shaved gorillas who go to this cinema from getting in. You're in the way? Well, FUCK YOU, let me push you to the side with my sticky hands and massive forhead. Cunts.

All this and I was going to see a James Cameron film. I was now stressed out.

Unbelievably the film was quite good. Not brilliant. But quite good. There are one or two special effects in Avatar but mainly it's a film entirely shot on location and, for once, a blue actor plays one of the leads. That said, I was very disappointed in Sigourney Weaver blueing up for her role. I'm sure there are a lot of great blue actresses out there who could have played the part just as well as a white actress could. I can imagine that Smurfette is furious. I don't blame her. It's exactly how I felt when I saw Lenny Henry in True Identity. Shameful. Anyways, the film was a very unsubtle satire on America being a twat. I think that's a fair review. Even though the dialogue was mainly a bit awful there were two lines that genuinely made me go cold. "Why would they help us?" and "You're not the only ones with a gun" pretty much sum up our crap, crap world. We're screwed, basically, is the meaning of Avatar. I left the cinema depressed.

Why do I ever budge from the sofa?

Later that night I went to the pub with my Dad and Dotes (you remember Dotes?). It was a fun night of talking absolute bollocks about school, work, Newtownards and Pissy Cripple (if you listen to Precious Little you will know about Pissy Cripple). I think the best part of the night was when the "lads" in the next room kept cheering while watching football. As none of us were interested, and weren't even in the same room as the "lads", we imagined that they were in fact watching Come Dine With Me and someone had obviously just made a really lovely dessert. The best part of the night definitely wasn't the part when Dotes showed me a really horrible "funny" column I wrote for some free newspaper when I was about 18. It was called Tales From The Drinking Den and if it was supposed to be in anyway funny then I now just don't get the joke. Basically, I was laughing at people being a little bit drunk and then calling them twats. I have really grown up since then. I will stick these awful columns up as soon as I can. But remember, I said they were shit first, OK?

I am about to get off the sofa again. I'm getting off the sofa to go to karaoke. God help me.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Monday 28 December 2009

Silly, Stupid, Lazy.

I've done nothing. Since I got to Northern Ireland I've done absolutely nothing. I sleep a minimum of 10 hours, I shuffle around eating, drinking and making the occassional noise and then I go to bed again. I mean, I consider myself a lazy man but I had no idea of the incredible amount of fuck all I could achieve if I just refused to apply myself.

Last night I watched Cranford, for fuck's sake. That's how little I'm doing. I even enjoyed it. I didn't understand any of it but I enjoyed it. I don't know the characters or what goes on in Cranford but it was perfect I-refuse-to-move-from-the-sofa-to-pick-up-the-remote viewing despite it being baffling. It was like period-Lost. It looked very pretty and Tim Curry was in it and a cow got hit by a train and Imelda Staunton disappeared in a box. All I had to do was sit on my massive, fat arse, drinking booze, eating sweeties and looking at the pretty pictures. I thoroughly recommend it. Stop reading now and do fuck all. You won't regret it.

This morning, after four incredible days of nothing, I left the house and walked about a little bit. What a stupid fucking idea that was. When I'm not lying on the sofa and dribbling over Cranford I see people, places and things that upset me. Today I looked at my first newspaper in a week. What a stupid penis I am.

The main story in some of today's newspapers focuses on crap terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I was already miffed when it came to Umar because he tried to blow up an airplane with 300 people in it (he failed. Honestly, what are they teaching in terrorist camps, these days? RUBBISH!) but today's papers have shown me that he is a lot worse than I thought. Did you know that he once went on a school trip to Buckingham Palace? ISN'T THAT THE MOST DISGUSTING THING THAT YOU HAVE EVER HEARD IN YOUR LIFE EVER? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab disgusts me now. How could an evil, sick, unsuccessful "murderer" like him ever be allowed into the nation's favourite building? Anything could have happened! He could have sneaked away from the rest of his school group and made a bomb and then not killed The Queen. It's DISGUSTING that this man who in the future would fail at terrorism was allowed to have his picture taken beside a corgi. He is now so much more evil than he was a few days ago. Definitely.

I am furiously angry with this piece of trivial non-news that I refuse to leave the sofa again until I leave Northern Ireland. In fact, right now I am getting my feet rubbed while I sprawl on the sofa with a lovely cup of tea. If I ever screw up blowing up a Hovercraft or something in years to come please send this blog to them newspaper people. The country will need to know how evil I was while doing fuck all.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Saturday 26 December 2009

Pope Star.

I arrived in Northern Ireland on Christmas Eve at about 7pm and just a few hours later I would be watching a multi-million album selling singing sensation live on stage. I can't really remember the last time that I went to a live music gig. Embarrassingly, I think it might have been Metallica in September 2008. That's a long time for a young, totally cool, young, hard-living, rock n' rollster like me to go without the adrenaline rush that my hard rock fix gives me. I more than made up for it on Christmas Eve though.

It was AMAZING. We listened to his CD in the car* to get us in the mood plus we had his new CD with us in the tiny hope that we might meet the great man himself and get him to sign it. An unlikely event, of course, but that did not dampen our happy, happy spirits. I mean, it's not every day that you go to St. Patrick's Catholic Church to witness a midnight gig by Father Martin O'Hagan.

Father Martin O'Hagan, as you know, is one of The Priests. Not one of the priests (thought he is obviously one of them too) but one of The Priests, the trio who have topped the American albums chart despite, and because of, being actual priests. They are very different to Metallica.

I haven't been to proper non-wedding/funeral church in years, my deep spiritual belief that God isn't real has kept me from going, but I made an exception this Christmas Eve because my Mum was singing in the choir. I am a lovely son, though one that, in my loving Mother's eyes, will burn for all eternity in the Lake of Damnation. To be back in St. Patrick's Church after, I think, 21 years is odd to say the least. It looks pretty much exactly the same. It's big, it's cold, it's quiet and it's pretty dull. That said, I wasn't being forced to go this time so I could at least enjoy mass knowing that I never ever ever have to come back.

For those who have never been to Catholic mass before let me explain what happens. A cold, grey man in a dress mumbles incoherently for an hour while everyone else in the building takes part in a coughing competition. That's pretty much it.

It has to be said though, Father Martin from the pop group The Priests did his best to liven things up. He joked! ("When Mary in the nativity said she had given birth to a baby I said "Great. Is it a boy or a girl?"") He sang! (Brilliantly it has to be said. A bit like Daniel O'Donnell but even more like Nick Cave) He begged us to give it some welly!

Catholics are very meek people (when sober) and they only go to church to sit in their own joyful misery and not have to get involved in anything other than the Mass responses that have been beaten into them since birth. I haven't been to Church for over two decades but I still remember every terrifying word of Mass. But that's not what Father Martin O'Hagan wants. He wants us to rejoice, praise loudly and sing, sing, SING! Everytime you sing a song, he said, you're praying to God twice. A theory that must piss off a lot of death metal bands.

But, of course, he could say all this until he's blue in the face (he did) and no-one would do anything more than shrug out their praise to their Almighty Saviour. Christmas gigs are tough, Father Martin.

Mind you, if he had sung my favourite hymn maybe I would have joined in a bit more. We were given a hymn book when we entered the Church and soon found a song inside called My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Why we didn't sing this joyful tribute to Our Father I will never know. It's SO uplifting. Here are some of the real lyrics: "Dogs have surrounded me, howling/Criminal gangs approach and attack/My hands and my feet they are tearing/All of my bones can be easily seen".

Joyful and triumphant.

The next day, of course, was Boxing Day Eve and it was spent with family, eating and drinking and an hour on my own watching Doctor Who. What can I say about the penultimate Tennant/Davies episode? Well, how about "Thank fuck it's nearly over"? I obviously love the show despite all my complaints but I just don't even see what actually happened in last night's episode. What was the story? I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet (although Russell T. Davies obviously does) but there is either a lot going on or nothing going on and I just can't figure out which. The Master has the force now, The Doctor is bored out of his mind and The Time Lords are BACK! How did they come back? I mean, they're all dead, right? O ye of little faith. It's simple. The Time Lords come back by saying "We are the Time Lords and we are back". Makes total sense.

That said, if any of you slag it off I will punch you. I go to Church now. I know how to condemn old school.

*(I originally wrote "We listened to his CD in the cat" and deeply regret correcting myself)

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Thursday 24 December 2009

His Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day!

I am actually full of Christmas cheer, everyone! Jesus was born 2010 years ago, love and friendship is in the air and (mainly) I have done all my Christmas gigs for the year.

I had my last two last night at the excellent Funny Side of Covent Garden and got so weirded out by the shows that I barely did anything. The first show had a (very nice) audience of just 27 people. One of them was a woman. I think, to be fair, that's enough to weird anyone out. But I got through them, they had moments of fun and I never got punched in the face. Something that every comedian just assumes will happen at this festive, joyful time of year.

The other reason that I'm feeling very Christmassy is because a lot of very nice people have been sending very lovely Christmas messages of goodwill to me. I hate Christmas cards. I don't see the point in them. The way I see it is that I assume that you want me to have a nice Christmas so you don't need to send me a card telling me that. I want you to have a nice Christmas but feel that going out and buying cards, writing stupid messages in them and queueing up in a post office is only going to make me have a less nice Christmas. So by me sending YOU a card YOU have fucked up my good time. You shit. In fact, they should only make cards for people who want other people to have a shitty Christmas. That would be fair enough. I know Mum and Dad want me to have a nice Christmas so they didn't need to send a card but I had no idea that Ian and Brenda from number 12 wanted me to have a shit Christmas. Thank God they sent me a card or else I would have no idea. Look, on the front of the card it says "Jesus was born on this Holy Day..." and on the inside it says "Because you're a cunt. I hope you choke on your nut roast, you fucking wanker, Ian & Brenda." That just makes more sense.

BUT.....I have had nice messages from other folk. Firstly, I have missed the last two shows at the fantastic monthly gig, Hecklers in Aldershot, and the good people there made me a large card with individual post-it notes attached, each one containing a special Christmas message for me such as "Your a prick", "Fuck off and die of AIDS" and a picture of an arse. Thanks so much to Nobby and everyone at Hecklers. Then James Hingley and I recorded our Christmas Precious Little podcast and it is full of very lovely Christmas messages from other podcasts, Johnny Candon and one Cyberman (really). I urge you to listen to it only because it's quite funny hearing me get a bit overwhelmed by it all and all the messages make James and I sound really popular (well, except the one from Collings & Herrin). Thanks to everyone who sent their messages to us, they're fantastic. And thanks to James for surprising me with them (well, except for the one from Collings & Herrin). That's lovely, that is.

Have a lovely Christmas, dearest reader. Let peace be with you on this special day, may happiness reign upon you and may we all find the strength to try to forgive David Tennant and Russell T. Davies for what they are undoubtedly going to do.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!



Merry Christmas from Aldershot.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Wednesday 23 December 2009

Balls.

I have just done the most pathetic thing that I have ever done in my life. That's up against some stiff competition, I'm sure you realise. I've done many, many pathetic things in my life. As I write I'm sitting with a Spongebob Squarepants blanket over my shoulders and listening to an awful Morrissey B-Sides album. I mean, that's pathetic but that's nothing to what just happened. It really just happened 15 minutes ago.

Jerk is spending Christmas in Margate. I walked with her, Muki and a ball-launcher (it's a stick that throws tennis balls about 50 yards for dogs to chase) to the train station via the park. I threw the ball a lot and Jerk chased it, making sure she had a good run before getting on the train. They got on the train and I waved goodbye and walked home via the park. I still had the ball-launcher with me and as I walked threw the park habit got a hold of me.

I threw the ball. On my own. In the snow. While people walked past.

If you've ever seen anything more pathetic than a man throwing a ball for a dog that's not there and then walk through the wet snow to go and pick it up please let me know. I need to feel a bit better about myself.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Flip Off.

Surely the bottom of the barrel has been scraped so much that it is now just dust. Have you ever pitched an idea to a TV company and had it rejected? Feels bad, eh? Now think about how bad that feels now knowing that Five have decided to go ahead and make Heads Or Tails.

Justin Lee Collins, Britain's fattest and loudest T-shirt, hosts a brand new game show where contestants have the chance to win one million pounds on the flip of several coins. The contestant simply has to say heads or tails. Obviously, it's not that simple. The contestants have to pick a number between one and twenty first and then they flip a coin.

Oh, sorry, it IS that simple. It is the simple half-brother to Deal Or No Deal, it is utterly pointless (because flipping a coin CANNOT entertain unless in lands in Justin Lee Collins eye) and it is stolen from a Peter Serafinowicz sketch.

It starts badly and keeps that as a theme throughout. The opening has Justin's massive head flapping in an incredibly serious way. "A million pounds could be won", he says like he's telling the world that nuclear weapons are heading for us. "But will they choose heads (pause for incredible amount of non-suspense) or tails?" Then the opening credits roll with a big silver coin flipping constantly to show all the aspects of Justin's personality. You know, "Grinning like a cunt" and "Looking like a cunt". And then it begins.

A giggling arsehole who actually thinks Justin Lee Collins is great giggles and points and giggles as she can't quite believe that she was chosen to be in a game show that she applied to be in. She is going to go out of her mind if she correctly predicts heads or tails (she does). Justin asks her to pick a number and the audience laugh hysterically at the contestant's reluctance to choose the number 7. "It's not curly or straight, is it?", she reasons while the rest of us convince ourselves further that this planet is doomed. She picks her number, the lights go down and Justin Lee Collins asks the all important question: HEADS OR..........................................................................TAILS?

She picks one. He flips a coin. She's either right or wrong. It's depressing.

Luckily Justin is on hand to fill up the show with his magic. He asks the contestant about her best friend. They talk about the contestant's best friend. We learn that she is a hairdresser and lives in the world. THEN, because Justin is brilliant, her best friend appears from the side of the studio. The contestant goes apeshit. The audience goes apeshit. Justin is apeshit. I mean, seriously, how on Earth could TWO ordinary members of the public find their way to a location? FUCKING AMAZING.

My favourite part is when the contestant feels the pressure. I mean, heads or tails? So much to choose from. She turns to the audience for advice. Unbelievably some shout heads while others shout tails. This is going out on television.

If you have any scripts that you would like the powers that be in telly to look at so that you can somehow improve the medium, then please bin them now. You will save yourself a lot of heartbreak in the future. TV wants itself to be shittier and there is no such thing as too shit. Your script will be rejected or ignored and Heads or Tails will get a second series and a Christmas special. What's the fucking point? Even the sketch show that this was stolen from didn't get a second series (although it did get a Christmas special). I'm depressed.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Monday 21 December 2009

I Love Kevin.

Goodbye, Brittany Murphy. I met her once, you know. We kissed. So let that be a warning to all of you. I am the kiss of death. OK, it was only a kiss on the cheek and it was three years ago but it was obviously deadly. Maybe I've got the cheek of death? Oh, yes. The "Coroner" says it was cardiac arrest but you people really don't quite get how mysterious and interesting I am. Do you?

I really liked Brittany Murphy and it really is a shame that she's dead. I loved Clueless (even though everyone else in the entire world hated it) and she was fantastic in Sin City. 32 years old is a tragic age to die. Especially when you consider that Andi MacDowell is still alive.

But there is at least one truly great human being left on this planet and his name is Kevin.

On Saturday night I decided to do my yearly thing of losing my phone. I left it on a train between Hitchin and St. Neots. I got off the train, realised I'd left my phone behind and came to terms with my loss. I would never see that phone again. Someone would find it, steal it, have sex with it, keep it in their cellar and torture it on a daily basis because that's how people are. If they find something that should be returned to it's rightful owner, the first thing they do is have sex with it. To be honest, I would. I had totally given up seeing that phone again the second I realised that it had gone.

But it was found by Kevin, a man too good for this harsh, cruel world. He found it and immediately did the right thing. He phoned my Mum, left a message with her, gave details on how I could pick up the phone and then had sex with it. I assume.

How nice is that? Someone ACTUALLY did the decent thing and returned a lost phone. He didn't phone Australia, text "Suk mi u beeeeaaatch" to my sister or put it up his bum, like the rest of us would have. Kevin, I thank you. You are the last of a dying breed. So, you know, don't die.

Other good people on this planet are, of course, John and Tracey Morter who started the campaign to stop the X-Factor winner's single becoming the Christmas number one. Rage Against The Machine got to number one with a song that wasn't a single and has the fuck-word in it. Pretty amazing. I love the fact that the nation has come together to say bum off to Simon Cowell. Yeah, yeah, yeah where were these angry people when it came to voting day and two BNP members got in? But since when has politics and fascism been as important an issue as pop?

I'm tired, OK?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Friday 18 December 2009

Chicks, Eh?

Yep, I've still got it. I'm 108 years old but still the ladies line up for a length of Legge. Now, before you puke, let me explain.

Three times over the last few days I've been on trains and got smiled at by female women girls. This means nothing, of course. It only goes to show that some people are friendly and don't suffer from the don't-talk-to-me-don't-look-at-me London thing that the rest of us do. On Sunday, while on my way to do acting, a very good looking woman in her early twenties stood near me and looked at a baby that was being cradled by another passenger. She was smiling at the baby and when the baby smiled back she looked delighted. The woman then turned to me with a huge beaming smile. I immediately pretended that we hadn't made eye contact and looked at my iPod instead. I did this for a good reason. When she smiled at me it said "I'm a really lovely person sharing a happy moment on the train" but when I smile it kind of looks like "I will follow you home and eat your flesh". I am an idiot.

Then a couple of days later a man was on the train near me and his phone rang. His ringtone was so loud and awful that the woman opposite me had to look over at me to smile. She wanted to know that someone else thought there was a big twat on the train. There were actually two twats on the train because I immediately started looking out the window. I can't share a smile with a stranger. It's not the London thing to be warm and cheerful and want to share. Besides, she's a girl and if I smile at her she will "know" that I plan to keep her in my cellar forever so she can give birth to my freak army.

What a fucking idiot. There's nothing wrong with sharing a smile with someone on a train. The crap that happens on trains is so awful that I reckon I deserve someone to smile at me and remind me that not everyone is shitty shit. I vowed then that I'm going to be a lot more open to strangers.

Anyway, cut a long story short. A woman smiled at me on the train last night. I smiled back. A few minutes later she threw up on my trousers.

I'm keeping myself to myself from now on.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Thursday 17 December 2009

Xmas Factor.

So, how has your last 48 hours been? Pretty exciting, I would imagine, eh? You’ve probably been organising parties, getting off with models or shouting at Johnny Ball. Not me. I’ve been busy feeling sorry for myself.

What a crap couple of days it’s been. I have no idea why I’m in this crappy mood. Well, I have some idea. I’ve got another cold (my 5th this year, I think), it Christmas and I’ve spent too much time on my own recently. None of that has helped put me in a good mood. Plus I keep thinking about next year a lot. What am I going to do next year? I’ve done brilliantly at the art of time wasting but I think I’ve gone as far as I can with that. I may actually have to do some work. I know I should do my own Edinburgh show next year but I’m scared.

On a lighter note, I had an argument with a toilet attendant yesterday. Oh, yeah. Is there anyone who I won’t open my big mouth to? Cripples, children, toilet attendants. None are safe from my dubiously moral finger pointing. But, to be fair, he started it.

I turned up at Sway, a venue in Covent Garden, to perform at yet another Christmas gig. I’ve really enjoyed my recent shows at Sway but, as it’s a Christmas gig, I thought it best to go to the toilet before I went on. Just like the superstitious actor will kiss the colour blue three times and then break someone’s leg before performing in Hamlet so the stand-up comedian, at Christmas time, must have a great big shit.

I went into the toilet and straight into the cubicle. There were three men in there already (not the cubicle) and one of them was the toilet attendant. He was cheerily squirting soap and passing out paper towels in the hope of a time. He was also singing. As it’s the festive season he merrily sang the classic “It’s Christmas Time, It’s Lovely Time”.

No, I’ve never heard of it either but those are the complete lyrics and the song never ever ever fucking ever ends.

“It’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time” he sang while I sat in the cubicle wondering why on Earth he was doing this. This isn’t a Coke advert. If you sing openly in public people will just think you’re a fucking nutter who should be locked up, castrated and shot. They won’t think you’re cool. “It’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time” he sang over and over and over again, a never ending pointless loop of insanity until my own faeces refused to enter this world until he shuts up.

I heard him squirting soap, singing and coins hitting his tip plate while I sat there thinking will he ever shut up. He wouldn’t. Do you know why? Because it’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time apparently.
This was getting me nowhere. I thought to myself that I’ll wash my hands without assistance and leave no tip. I’ve done it before, I think. The song had broken my mind so I was no longer sure. Sadly, for me, the toilet attendant was very keen. I got out of the cubicle and as soon as I touched the tap he was right beside me squirting soap and singing “It’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time”. That’s OK. As long as I dry my hands myself I can still get out of here without tipping. Shit. I was too slow. There he was, quick as a flash, with a paper towel and singing “It’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time”. I thanked him and headed for the door. As soon as I opened it he stopped singing. “No tip?”

“Not today, mate”, I said red-faced but smiling.

“That’s bad, man”, he replied.

Was it? Was it really so bad? Well, he’s right really. It is bad to not leave a tip and not explain why. So I explained.

“It’s the singing, mate. It’s too much”, I said.

“But it’s Christmas time”.

“It’s lovely time. Yeah, I know. It’s just you were singing the same line over and over. It got a bit annoying. Just don’t think singing in the toilet is a good idea, you know?”

He looked very serious all of a sudden. Then he turned his back and said “I’m singing because it’s Christmas.

NOT IN A TOILET, IT ISN’T, MATE. Fucking hell, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a billion times: Toilets aren’t seasonal. They don’t celebrate anything. No-one goes to the toilet to celebrate their birthday, Easter, Hanukkah, Bank Holiday Monday or St. Swithin’s Day and they certainly don’t celebrate Christmas there either. I understand why someone might go to the toilet on the anniversary of a tragedy. They’re very quiet places, toilets. You can think there. But NOT if some cunt is continually singing “It’s Christmas time, it’s lovely time”.

Anyway, I went on stage and pretty much died. I didn’t feel too bad about it though. I already felt bad. Like I said, I’m fed up at the moment. The previous night I did a gig in Edinburgh and wound myself up about it so much before I went on that I felt ill. I just KNEW I was going to die. It’s Christmas, there are work parties here and I am going to die on my arse. I wound myself up so much that when I went on and had a great time, I couldn’t even enjoy it. Stupid Legge. So last night I didn’t even think about the gig and I died. Let that be a lesson to ye.

I’ll cheer up soon. I’ve got some new Los Quattros Cvnts dates coming up (details soon) and I’m taking January as the month that I at least try to write an Edinburgh show. Whether I go to Edinburgh or not we’ll find out later but I need to just write a bunch of new stuff anyway so I might as well aim for an Edinburgh show while I’m at it, eh? Right? Hmmmm…

By the way, while I’m in a fucking cunt of a mood and before I return to my normal cheeky but cheery self why not try out these two blogs? They’re excellent. The first is by Chris Limb: http://www.catmachine.eu/ and the other by Liam Mullone: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=236414726759

Note: This is the second time that I have written this blog. Bloody Facebook. When will I learn?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Tuesday 15 December 2009

I Love Graham.

A huge part of being an actor is unemployment and after Sunday’s performance somehow I have found myself with no acting to do. I pretty much expected my phone to be red hot on Monday morning with very important people from The RSC, The BBC or at least www.theshopsitcom.co.uk all begging me to star in their latest production alongside Christopher Eccleston and Gary Wilmot but nothing has happened. My phone is definitely working. I’ve checked it. A lot. In fact, I just checked my phone again. It is still working. Not even BBC3.

So, while I’m resting between jobs I thought I’d cast an eye at my old job of sort of being a comedian. Basically, I sat in the sofa in my pants holding onto my phone and watched The British Comedy Awards. It wasn’t easy but I did it.

I have always loved Graham Linehan’s work. He’s an incredible writer. Even if the only thing he ever wrote was that bit in Black Books when the man explaining how the new security door worked had a Subuetteo player in his hair he would still be an incredible genius. I didn’t think I could love him any more than I do and, once again, I was wrong.

Peter fucking Kay won an award for his outstanding contribution to comedy despite not contributing to comedy for about 8 years. Another baffling achievement for the cheeky roly-poly TV cunt. Before getting the award the camera caught his reaction to the goings on of the awards ceremony about 5 or 6 times. He looked miserable. Like he hated being there. I don’t blame him. I would hate sitting in the middle of a room where every time someone walks past me they mumble the word shithouse. No matter how often that happens to me I still can’t seem to emotionally build up a wall against it. I know exactly how Peter Kay, the shithouse, feels. Then he won his award and got up in front of his peers to receive it. He said something along the lines of “Yeah. Cheers. Thanks. Bye”. Then he left.

Still, it’s more than he’s done for years so comparatively that was a massive amount of work for the staggeringly rich, lazy shithouse. He got applause for his win and even for his shrug of a speech. Later, Graham Linehan got up to accept his Ronnie Baker Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award. The room stood on its feet. There was applause and cheers, as there rightly should be. Peter fucking Kay got some respect but Linehan got adoration. He looked embarrassed and uncomfortable at the display of love that everyone in the room gave his work but when it came to his speech he started with a joke about getting a standing ovation. “I suppose I should apologise to Peter Kay”, he said and I loved him.

Of course, it would have been even better if Peter Kay had actually been in the room but he’d got his award and I never saw him on the screen again. He’d fucked off back to Bolton to shop in Morrisons, say “t’internet” and remember things from the before time.

Have to say that the awards didn’t quite fuck me off like I assumed it would. Of course Stewart Lee didn’t win. He hadn’t a chance. He’s easily the best in the category so there’s no way on Earth that he could ever, ever win. Ever. I’ve never seen Outnumbered but the people winning seemed nice and, unlike a certain cheeky roly-poly TV cunt, grateful so that was nice. TV Burp won a couple and rightly so and Terry Wogan was given a lifetime achievement award. That’s all fine, in my book. Sadly, I didn’t see the ITV2 aftershow show where apparently Kevin Bishop does an impression of Horne & Corden. Surely that has caused a rift in the space/time continuum.

I really need to see that.

I would write more but I am currently sat next to a screaming woman.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Monday 14 December 2009

I, An Actor.

They were in rapture. A standing ovation in front of me. Flowers were brought to the stage and cheers rang through the auditorium. I had arrived at my final destination. To the place where my heart belonged and my own self accepted. They opened the door with their applause and begged me to step through with their love and gratitude. Welcome, they sang, to acting.

See, this is the kind of shit I can easily get away with now that I am a professional actor. OK, I'm not a professional actor in the dictionary definition. If your idea of a professional actor is someone who is a theatrical performer specialising in the art of acting as a paid career then good luck to you, mate, that's all I can say. You're very wrong because I know EXACTLY what it's like being an actor now. An actor is someone who spends the whole day terrified of doing what they're supposed to be doing and then as soon as they've finished doing what they're supposed to be doing get pissed off their faces. That is what the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Ian Mckellen and I must face all the time. It is terrifying and if you're thinking of becoming an actor then please, for fuck's sake, wise up. Why on Earth would anyone put themselves through that torture?

Sara Pascoe and Aisling Bea were very good at pretending not to be shitting themselves before we performed our 12 minute play but Gordon Southern and I were a bit more honest. We were scared. Proper brown scared. Sara was all "I just find learning lines easy" and Aisling was coming off with shit like "Yeah, we'll have a line run through. In a minute. You know, later" and acted like what they were about to do wasn't at all arse-bleedingly frightening.

Luckily, we didn't need to learn lines (Sara learned hers simply to be a fucking crawly bum-lick) and were able to read from the scripts on stage. Even so, you still need to know what it is that you're saying so you need to learn it a bit. I think I did learn it. I think I did but because I had a script in my hand I kept looking at it. That was a head fuck in itself. Knowing the lines, looking at the lines just in case, then getting confident that you know the lines so when you finally look at the script again you realise that you've lost your place and you have a big wee. There really should be some sort of training for acting.

The play was One Each Way by Dave Florez and it seemed to go down very well. I hadn't a clue what I was doing really, especially when it came to the serious bit where my character realises his life has gone to shit and he hates the woman he lives with. I mean, you really need an actor for that sort of thing. But I did a serious face, pretended that Aisling Bea had called Peter Davison a twat and somehow it came out OK (I think). To be honest, the audience were amazingly supportive so I knew that even if I fucked my part up they would still enjoy the rest of it. Luckily, there was a scene were I had to try to open a jar but, as I'm pathetic, couldn't. It was played for laughs and I even got to improvise a little bit by slightly tapping the jar's lid on a stool before going back to struggle with it. This made Sara corpse. I doubt that she will ever be allowed on a theatre's stage ever again.

And then it was over. All day in fear and then, 12 minutes later, it was over. I really wish that I could have convinced myself that I knew the lines well enough and that I was doing my best, then maybe I could have enjoyed it more. But that is how we mere player of plays are. Stupid cunts.

Half an hour later I was making moves on getting drunk, something I did with much more confidence and ease than I did with my dramatic acting. The great thing was that the bar was full of people I knew and it was a lovely way of having a big social Christmas drink up.

It was a fantastic night. Thanks to Phil, Maggie and Dave. I was terrified, nauseous and I'd do it again any time. Brilliant.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Saturday 12 December 2009

Oh, The People Outside Are Frightful.

At this time of year, we comedians fear the audience even more than normal. Mainly because they're often not really an audience. They are people who have reluctantly agreed to come along to their work's Christmas do and their boss has decided that a comedy night would be fun, not quite understanding that the employees just want to sit, drink heavily, chat a bit and hopefully put their willy into Debbie from Accounts.

They're indifferent to us a lot of the time, angry and violent at other times. It's just a bit scarier than normal. And boy howdy, do we complain about it. Comedians turn up to gigs and take one look at the happy, smiling, paper hat wearing people in the room and, because they're having a good time, consider them cunts. They are cunts, of course. Everyone who doesn't want to watch us, laugh at our jokes and consider us King Sexy of Fuckland is a cunt. That goes without saying. We know this just by taking one look at them and their pre-gig joy. Fuckers.

It's not our fault or their fault that some Christmas gigs don't work. A lot of people in the room don't know there's comedy on. They just assumed it was booze and food and Debbie from Accounts. They're not ready for us and we hate them. It's never going to work. Some people there will be at a comedy club for the first time while others will be out of the house for the first time this year. They're the scariest ones. They get drunk quicker, shouty quicker and they are Debbie from Accounts.

That's why we fear these gigs a bit more than even the stags and hens that we face the rest of the year. But that's because we're pussies. We don't know how fucking lucky we are. A lot of these people might be massive arseholes but at least they're all in one room, contained away from the civilised world. We forget that people who only go out and drink heavily at this time of year are EVERYWHERE not just in comedy clubs. In a comedy club we have bouncers to protect us. On a train filled with drunks who can't drink, there is no one to help you.

Last night I gigged in Bournemouth, a town 70 billion miles away from London. On the way there I was lucky enough to be sitting very near two cunts. One of the cunts had no front teeth. I can imagine that those were removed from his mouth during a previous train journey. Toothless Cunt sat in front of his friend, Tattoo Cunt, and they drank heavily during the whole, long, bastard of a train journey. Just to give you an idea of how cunty they were, they were drinking a beer that I've never heard of (it looked like it was called Shoom), they clapped at everything the other one said and Tattoo Cunt had Est. 1985 on his neck. He thinks he's set up. He's not. His other tattoos included Angry Dog, Slag and Shouting Flag. He was at least colourful.

A woman made the biggest mistake of her life by sitting next to them. She got her laptop out and started to work. Toothless Cunt offered her a Shoom (which he thought was hysterically funny) and when she politely refused he called her a....well, I can't say that word because it's offensive but it begins with C, lets just say that. She closed her laptop and left. Toothless and Tattoo found this even funnier than offering someone a drink. Then they started farting.

Farting and farting and laughing and farting and laughing and clapping and farting. But I sat there saying nothing. If I said something they probably would have got aggressive but that was certainly not the reason why I didn't confront them. I didn't confront them because, as awful as they were, I hated everyone else on the train more. Could they not hear the farting and the clapping and the shouting? Could they not hear them calling someone a cunt? WHY DO I HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING? IT'S YOUR FUCKING TURN!

Toothless then got on his phone and was shouting arrangements to another cunt (I assume) about meeting later. "Meet me at the station", he said. "Meet me at the station".

"Meet me at the station. Meet me at the station. The station. Meet me at the station. The train station. Meet me at the station."

This went on for a while, like a pissed Paul Hardcastle.

My only hope was that they were getting off the train before Bournemouth. I couldn't stand farting and clapping for another hour and a half.

"Meet me at the station. The station. Just meet me at the station. Yeah. No. The station".

For fuck's sake.

"The station. Just meet me at the station. Meet me there. The station. The station".

Just shut up.

"The station. Yeah. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. The station. Yeah. Bournemouth".

CUNTS!

I left the carriage. Not so much angry at the two horrible mistakes but at everyone else. Why can't people just stand up for themselves and say anything? Simple: because they're all thinking the same thing. "I'm not going to say anything. I mean, if no one else is going to do anything about grown men farting and clapping on a train then I won't either. Look at me disappearing into my free newspaper".

The gig was fine (Ava Vidal was absolutely excellent) and within the blink of an eye I was back on the train for my three hour journey home. The carriage was empty. The whole train was practically empty. Fantastic! I got my DVD player out and started watching some lovely old, black & white Doctor Who.

The train came to it's first stop about two minutes later and a man got on at my carriage. Just one man. That's OK. I can share MY carriage with one man. It's a big carriage. I probably won't even know he's there.

He stank of piss, was carrying a bottle of wine (that was half empty) and he sat right across from me.

For fuck's sake.

I immediately moved. Not far, but far enough so that I couldn't see or smell him anymore. I could hear him however. He had very loud phlegm that he was very, very proud of.

The train journey went on and the carriage slowly got fuller the closer to London we got. London. Friday night London.

Soon I was surrounded by drunks, idiots and children who love their loud music. I broke my new rule (my new rule is to say nothing to anyone on a train and let someone else sort it out for a change, if it's not upsetting anyone else then I can pretend it doesn't upset me) and told some children to switch their music off. The child turned his music down. Down, not off. I gave it a minute and told him to turn it off, completely off. He did so because I looked so angry due to this AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH of a train journey that he must have just assumed that I'm a big mental nutter.

That's how easy it is. Just look madder than everyone else on the train and you can get them to do whatever you want. If only I had thought of that a few weeks ago with the irritating crippled girl.

I got off my train and prepared myself for a night bus. I looked around at the zombie film of drunks wavering around the bus stops and decided that a cab was in order. A nice relaxing cab journey that will take me, JUST ME, home.

The cab driver was a loud music loving, shouting, speeding maniac. He told practically every driver on the road to fuck off but at least he got me home in 15 minutes. Incredibly, when I paid him he said "No tip, then?" Still, I was quite proud of my response. "No way. No fucking way".

Merry fucking Christmas.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Wednesday 9 December 2009

0800 1111.

OK, so no one else found a child crying as much fun as I did. I got a few emails from "parents" yesterday who want me to know that I don't understand anything about raising a child. I don't understand anything about raising a child? That's NOTHING. I don't even know how wasps fuck. Please don't waste your time writing to me to tell me all the things that I don't know. It's a mammoth task that you're setting for yourself and, knowing me, I probably won't take it all in anyway.

They are right, of course. I know nothing about raising a child. I imagine that it must be a 24 hour a day, every day worry that your child will eat poison or burst in to flames or have unprotected sex or get mauled by a wolf or disappear or, terrifyingly, want to sing on stage in front of the country's biggest cunts. I do know that if I did make a big sex mistake and had a child that if it begged and pleaded to go on Britain's Got Talent that I would try to protect it from that horror. I'm sure most kids who are constantly told how brilliant they are can't quite grasp the stone cold fact that if they enter a competition there is a chance that they may not win. So, just to spare them heartbreak, maybe lets not sell them to a TV show who will then take a clip of them failing in front of a big audience of arseholes so that an even bigger audience of arseholes can laugh at them for all eternity.

I'm not a parent, though, so it's just a theory. I'm sure Mum knows best.

Strangely, I've got a few more emails just in the last couple of days all with the same query: "How come you don't say cunt anymore?"

I haven't noticed this. I thought I'd said the cunt-word several times a day since I was about 12 but if I've slipped either in the amount of cunts I say or in your estimation then I apologise. Allow me to say cunt a lot, please.

On Sunday, I was happy. My acting career had soared from not being an actor to being in a play in a matter of minutes, I met my new man-crush Terry and I'd seen a child cry. That's a good day, in my book. Of course, there was more joy to come when I woke up on Monday.

I looked on Twitter and @CripesonFriday had sent me a link that he thought would make me smile. It did. I read it while a single tear of pure joy trickled down my big face. The link brought me to chortle.co.uk and the news that Horne & Corden, the fucking cunts, would now not be getting a second series of their cancer of a sketch show. Somehow, TV executives had seen that something was truly awful and, in a complete alternative to the norm, decided to pass on it instead of making it again and again and again and again and again until we all die of Corden.

I realise that I'm just as big a cunt as Corden for taking glee in another part of his downfall but I realise that I have to take my glee where I can these days. I mean, he's down now but who knows what horrors grinning, smug, looky-me, Stay-Puft nightmare could come up with next?

Cuntingtons. It's just "put on hold". SEE? Somehow he laughed first but still laughs longest! Read this depressing article and weep. Especially at the last four words: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8403317.stm



The worst thing that I have ever seen.


www.twitter.com/cripesonfriday
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Terry and Teary.

Becoming a really brilliant actor wasn't the only highlight of Sunday. In fact, Sunday turned out to be a brilliant day. One of those days full of special moments that should be treasured forever. One single moment of Sunday will live on in my heart forever. I just know it. I will cling on to to that memory until the day I die. Because I'm just that sort of a complete bastard.

Who knows, maybe you're that sort of complete bastard that laughs at crying children too? You are? Great!

But I'm ahead of myself. After the rehearsal, during which I was the best actor, my fellow Thespians all begged me to go drinking with them (in a very quiet, almost completely silent way) but I could not. As much as I would have loved to sit with my new friends in a bar loudly quoting famous lines from Shakespeare films, I had another appointment. Believe it or not, I went for a drink with my entire street.

Sounds crazy but it worked. There are only 20 houses in my little street so it wasn't an impossible task (and a couple of people didn't turn up, but only a couple) but normally that sort of thing would terrify the life out of me. I might end up sitting beside Mr. Racist-Nut or dear old Mrs. Queerhate for the entire evening, which would be lovely but imagine if we didn't get on? Embarrassamundo. The great thing is that I can (fairly) confidently say that I have gone to the pub with my street and how many people can say that? Not many. And how many would like to say it? OK, none. But I was really glad I went because I met Terry.

Terry is a man I've met many times in a slight raise of the eyebrows and a half-smile instead of saying hello sort of way. This time we sat together and talked. I could have sat next to and talked to anyone in my street (except dear old Mrs. Queerhate who had a large son sitting at both sides of her) but I sat next to Terry. It turns out Terry is a writer. He writes sci-fi, amongst other things, and has big opinions about Russell T. Davies. He also is a huge comedy fan that pretty much hates all comedy. In fact, he hates everything on TV. It goes without saying that Terry and I got on like a house on fire. All warm and angry with people in us screaming to get out. What excellent company he turned out to be. The fact that he is a football fan didn't even upset me. And why should it? After all, OK he likes football, but to this day he is still the youngest ever world Subuetteo champion. Fucking hell, that's cool.

Meeting Terry was great but as magical as that moment was it was nothing to the sight I saw at London Bridge train station while on my way to the drinking with The Street thing. Just tell me that you wouldn't have laughed if you'd been there....

I saw a little girl crying so hard. She was inconsolable. Her face was buried in her Mother's belly while she was comforted. Her Mum looked like she had been trying to stop her daughter crying for a very long time. The crying just would not stop and it just seemed to get louder. This little child was in a turmoil that no one could understand. No one was feeling the pain that she was going through. No one had and no one will. She was alone with just her tears and screams for company. Mum obviously felt useless.

"You're good, Darling", said Mum. "You know you're good. Why would Bill say that you were good if you weren't good. Some of these people don't know what they're talking about but Bill is a very clever man. He said you were the best because he thinks you're good. You really are, darling. You're very, very good".

Although still crying, the little girl slowly pulled her face away from her Mum's belly and looked up for more reassurance.

It was then that I saw the little girl was wearing a silver, sparkly hairband. On the hair band was a large, rectangular sticker with the number 50803 on it. Next to that number was the Britain's Got Talent logo.

Stupid fucking parents.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Monday 7 December 2009

Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee.

I'm an actor now. I now have yet another talent to add to my big bag of talents, which is pretty much full to bursting since I became an actor. Oh, yes. Comedian, writer, podcasterer, shouter, swearer, quite-good-at-grilling-halloumi-er and now actorer. I sometimes think that there's nothing I can't do. I think I might just treat myself to a slap up meal and a wank.... but I can't. I have to learn lines. Why? Because I'm an actor now.

Like all other proper actors, I am going to be in a play. Admittedly, it's a short play and it's only going to be performed once but isn't that exactly how Robert De Niro started? No, it isn't but when I finally end up working with Robert De Niro (or Bobby as I will continually and loudly refer to him on Film 2027) and tell him of my humble beginnings he will surely be very impressed and probably tell all his fellow actors of how someone with THIS much talent once did a very short play just the once and then ask to be my friend on Facebook.

The play is called One Each Way and I play the part of Darren, who is a bit thick. It's quite a struggle finding the character but the director, Maggie Inchley, was very impressed by how quickly I nailed it. Sometimes she couldn't find words to describe my acting. At other times, she would even leave the room, slamming the door with respect for my skills.

I'm not alone in the play. The people I am frankly carrying throughout the production are Sara Pascoe, Gordon Southern and Aisling Bea. They're not very good but I think as long as I shout my lines the loudest and always stand in the middle of the stage that should cover up any weaknesses that they bring. My character, Darren, gets to have sex with both women but that is all in the "text" and not seen on stage after Sara asked for a "re-write" and Aisling pointed out that my acting was "too real and smelled awful".

Yesterday was our first rehearsal and I have to say I really enjoyed it. To be VERY honest, I don't really know what I'm doing at all. I've never acted before and it's pretty obvious that everyone else involved has. That's a bit scary but I'm pretending that everything is fine. That normally gets me through these things. The play is set in the world of gambling and centres on broken relationships. How me is THAT? Darren, like me, is a gambler, a workaholic and aged late twenties to early thirties. At no point does he talk about Dr. Who or shout "WHAT's WROOOOOOOOOOOOONG?" so you can see the challenge I'm facing.

It's part of the Comedian's Theatre Company's series of new scripts that are performed as rehearsed readings by the likes of Phil Nicholl, Milton Jones, Alistair Barrie and, for some insane reason, me. It starts at 4 o'clock at The Pleasance, Islington so come along and see me shit myself. That sounds slightly unappealing when it's written down.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Saturday 5 December 2009

Nightmare Before Christmas.

And like Jesus on Christmas morning, I too died, crucified by people who just didn't understand that I was trying to make their lives better.

Christmas gigs are tough but I can't help but think I made last night's gig tough on myself. Brendan Riley compered and pointed out all the homosexuals in the room (turns out every single man in the room was gay last night. And the night before) and John Maloney opened the show. The room was rowdy and John was greeted by a shout of "You are gay", not from the compere this time but from a very drunk member of the audience. The audience weren't great but John is and that made the audience gravitate towards him within the first minute. He absolutely had them. He turned the gig around. This is going to be a fun gig and I should just go on and ride the wave that John created.

OR.....

I could go on and ask the audience loads of questions until they're bored stupid.

I went with the second option, for some insane reason. Why I didn't just go on, do material, keep it tight and, most importantly, get the fuck off is beyond me. Rich, the sound and lights man, was giving me the light to get off stage. I'd done my time and I'd best get off before they started booing. Again, I went for the wrong option. You know, the stay-on-until-they-start-booing option. Don't get me wrong, the audience all gave me plenty of time to say feedlines but ran out of patience just before I got to the punchlines. In other words, my last five minutes on stage last night was spent saying random things that went nowhere. I got off.

I couldn't be upset by the gig because it was my own fault really. Bizarrely, a lot of people came up to me and said how much they liked my performance. The sarcastic cunts.

Greg Davies went on next and upset me greatly by doing a very good job and getting the audience to like him. I fucking hate Greg Davies and so do you.

The thing is, I should have been better prepared for this gig. It's Christmas and I'm following John Maloney, that should be enough to make me nervous and when I'm nervous I just think a lot clearer and focus on what I'm doing more but last night's gig just couldn't scare me at all. I've already been through the scariest gig ever this week so I just couldn't put my head and body through that again. I always turn down gigs in Northern Ireland because I'm too self-concious about my accent being the most un-Northern Irish accent ever. I might as well be from the Home Counties as far as Northern Ireland is concerned. The Northern Irish comedian Michael Smiley once called me "BBC Radio Ulster" and I know exactly what he means. The other thing, besides doing gigs in NI, is having any member of my family in the audience. So far, none of my family have ever seen me do stand-up comedy. That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it.

Imagine the state of my pants on Tuesday night when I did a gig in Belfast in front of my brother. Ah, crap.

Luckily, the gig went fine. I was a nervous wreck before going on especially as the compere's Northern Irish accent was so thick that I could barely understand a word he was saying. My coo-eee accent was just going to confuse them all and a big terrorist will kill me. That was DEFINITELY going to happen.

I forgot that most people don't think about me as much as I do. It was as if they didn't give a flying fuck what accent I had. Weird, eh?

My brother was still in the venue when I got off stage so I must have done alright, I suppose. He definitely would have left last night.

I did learn one great thing from last night though. I learned that friendship is not what it used to be. We no longer need to rely on honesty from our friends because hard evidence is now so readily available when we need it. At one point I left my pint at the DJ booth when I went to make tinkle and when I returned, Rich, the sound and lights man, reassured me that he had not spiked my drink. I didn't think he would have spiked my drink but it was nice to have that reassurance. And it was a reassurance that I could clearly see because Rich had a Drink Detective with him. It lets you take a pipettes worth of your drink and, when you place it on the correct pieces of paper, you can see clearly whether or not you have scary drugs in your drink. As you can see from the picture, cheeky Rich only put a little bit of ketamine in my pint. What's he like, eh?



www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Friday 4 December 2009

I Pray God It's Our Last.

Hello. How are you?

I don't normally welcome the reader to my blog but it's my first for a week, the longest break since I started, so I thought I'd say hello and welcome back. Thanks for reading. Really appreciate it. Oh, and merry Christmas.

The season has begun. Last night I did my first Christmas gig of the year and I realised that we are all in an interesting time of year. Wherever we go for the next month we will all hear music that we hate. We will complain about hearing these awful festive tunes and the fact that we cannot avoid them. Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, Wizard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and Gary Glitter's Another Rock n' Roll Christmas will be played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and fucking played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and we will be upset.

Upset at hearing the same awful songs over and over and just simply coming to terms with the fact that apparently it's fine to play Gary Glitter songs as long as it's only at Christmas time. It is a time for children after all.

We will be upset and we will complain. "Not this again", we will think to ourselves. "I fucking hate Shakin' Stevens. Even his non-Christmas catalogue is not to my taste, if I'm being very, very honest". BUT....

We will also say BRILLIANT very loudly when The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale Of New York gets played. That's the Christmas song that everyone in the world likes. At this time of year, we are all drowning in the 3000ft swamp of excrement that is Christmas music and when someone throws us the life preserver of The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl's Fairytale of New York we grab it and cheer.

Then, in two weeks time, we will all hear that song for what we hope will be the last time ever. It too will be overplayed beyond recognition. It will become one of THEM. It will change, from something we trusted, something we thought could never let us down, something we loved.... into a bastard. A lying bastard. A lying, cheating bastard that now has now decided that the company of Wham!, Johnny Mathis and The fucking Darkness is more preferable to just being with you. That song definitely said it was yours once, remember? It said it was yours and not for the thick that actually get happy when they hear Mary's Boy Child.

In two weeks time, we will hate that song for letting us down so badly. And it hurts. So much. Battering it with it's own golf clubs is too good for it but we will do it anyway. And that's it for us and that record. We've given it chance after chance but no more. No matter how charming it might appear, we won't fall for it again. Oh, it can try to woo us with it's " I regret those transgressions", "I have not been true to my values" and it's utterly baffling claim that it's a professional "athlete" when it so obviously isn't but we know that it's all just words. Meaningless words that are meant simply to manipulate.

And it works. This time next year we will pretend that the hurt is something we can handle. We'll even be happy to hear it again. I mean, it's a great song. And, my God, it's better than anything else around.

IT. USES. US. Remember that.

Please let me know if you think I'm taking this all too seriously.

By the way, last night's gig in Reading was fine. In fact, it was kind of a classic Christmas gig. Some listened, some didn't. Some laughed, some didn't. But mainly, it was better than I expected. I left just as John Maloney started his set and was doing an excellent job and getting big laughs. I mean, who needs to stay and see that?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Saturday 28 November 2009

Nails and Nailing.

So, anyway, there I was on the tube minding my own business, playing Monopoly on my iPod and listening to The Trap Sodcast. iPod's are great when travelling around the UK. You can just almost hide inside yourself so that screaming children, loud fucks on their phones and girls in wheelchairs listening to their awful taste in music can be pushed out and never penetrate your little Me Dome. At least, that's my theory. It never works of course. You can still see these shits on the train, even if it's just out of the corner of your eye, and you can still smell them. People normally smell bad.

I was very much enjoying the game and the podcast (if you don't subscribe to The Trap Sodcast then you are an awful twat, if you don't subscribe to The Trap Sodcast but subscribe to Sick & Wrong then you are a stupid cunt. Those are the rules) but soon someone's smell would ruin everything. If there's one thing I hate (and there isn't) it's the smell of nail varnish. It's sharp and petrolly and just fills your head with a nauseous funk. People who regularly use nail varnish know this. They must do. But that doesn't stop the pig ignorant fuckwits from painting their nails on trains and sharing their stench with us.

As always, I sat patiently ignoring what was going on. I'm sure she hasn't realised what she's doing and she'll finish soon. It's no big deal anyway.

Oh, no. Hang on. That didn't happen. No. I sat there boiling my blood in fiery fury figuring out how to drag her heart out of her right eye socket without any of the other passengers seeing me murdering her.

The thoughtless bastard then took a break from her nails to hold the little bottle of varnish out of the way of her nose and closer to mine. Thanks, cunt. It was then that I discovered it wasn't nail varnish but nail varnish remover. Did she really need to remove her old, chipped nail varnish right now? She couldn't wait until, I don't know, she got fucking home? I then noticed a man opposite me looking at the thoughtless woman beside me. He looked disgusted. I'm glad it's not just me that finds that smell horrible. It is horrible. It was time to do something. If I speak to her it will be my fourth fight with a stranger in about two weeks. My luck is running out. I'm getting closer and closer to being stabbed all the time. But....it's still the RIGHT thing to do. She is rude. It should be pointed out and I can do that in a mature, rational and reasonable way.

I thought for a second and rehearsed my opening gambit to her. "Excuse me. Would you mind very much not using your nail varnish remover just now, please? The smells a bit strong. That OK?". She would realise her error, apologise and smile. After she put the lid back on her little bottle I would smile back to show that no harm was done and all was well. We are adults after all. Yes, that's exactly how it would pan out. I turned to her and almost started my opening gambit.

It was then that I saw that she wasn't removing her nail varnish with nail varnish remover. She was sniffing nail varnish remover. My opening gambit changed.

"What are you doing?", I said. Terrified.

"Fuck off" was the reply.

Ah, the old fuck off, is it? Yes, well, it's certainly got me out of a scrape or two myself, you know. No matter. I'll try again.

"Sorry but do you have to do that here?", I pathetically reasoned.

"It's none of your business"

That's not strictly true, of course. If someone's smell is making you feel like puking up your blood then it is definitely YOUR business. But....well...I was scared now. I didn't really know what to do. She's fine sniffing something that can surely only get you a little bit high while on a train full of people watching. What morals can I give her that will make her see that she's overstepped a mark in society? Oh, yes, I can have a go at kids, cripples and loud people generally on trains, but someone who just doesn't give a fuck? That's tough.

I once asked a woman to stop smoking while on the DLR about four years ago. No-one else spoke to her or pointed out how rude she had been so again it was my job (you fucking cowards) and when I pointed out that the DLR is a non-smoking train she just stared at me and continued to smoke. When the train came to her stop she stood at the door right beside me, blew smoke in my face and got off. I quickly pulled out my foot, she tripped and landed flat on her face. People, cowardly people, on the train laughed. I realise that I had just assaulted a woman but what I felt most horrible about was the fact that people just don't give a fuck about what is going on around them and rely on other people to sort it out. You don't smoke on trains but someone is. Well, I'm not going to say anything, it's none of my business. Then we all sit there and do fuck all. We end up not giving a fuck about people who don't give a fuck.

Makes you happy to be alive, eh?

I looked over at the man opposite me and he gave me a "Whattaya gonna do?" look. I'm doing nothing. No-one else seems to care and she was beyond giving a fuck about herself. Back to Monopoly and The Trap and pretending there's no bad smell on the train.

She got up to leave at the same time the man opposite me did. They were standing together at the doors waiting for the train to stop. Surely he would say something. He saw what she was doing, it obviously upset him, he'll say something. Someone who GIVES A FUCK will say something, right?

He did.

He said that her boots were amazing. They even started laughing together. I switched off my iPod to check what was going on but by this time they had stepped off the train. All I heard was him saying "I'm going to a bar near here...."

He's right, of course. If you have a complaint with someone's behaviour on a train, telling them that will almost certainly get you nowhere. But you can at least try to fuck them.

I hope we've all learned something from this.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Thursday 26 November 2009

Bag of Shit.

Fucking hell. How depressing is a trip to HMV these days? A new HMV has just opened in Lewisham (it will close soon) and not only does it refuse to stock the 2-disc version of Star Trek, just like every other shop, but it lines up people that I vaguely know to point and laugh at me. There are thousands of stand-up comedian's DVDs on display this year and with each one I am reminded of the direction of my career. Rhod Gilbert, Jason Manford, Stephen K. Amos, Ed Byrne, Russell Howard, Jimmy Carr, Michael McIntyre, Jimbo....and LOADS more all have DVDs on the shelves each one with their faces laughing at me and a sticker on the cover saying "Fuck You, Legge. Talentless Cunt!" or "Everyone Loves DVDs" or something. To be honest, I was too upset to read the sticker. Obviously, it's great to think that these very funny people have their hard work available for punters to buy. They deserve it and they've earned every penny. But did they even think once about me when they wrote their jokes, honed them, grafted away at their careers and made it big? Yes. I am a warning to all. Take heed.

What have I really done that can compete with professional success? Well, what about emotional, real, HUMAN success? Yesterday I made two new friends.

Twenty minutes later, our friendship was over. Normal service resumed.

When you walk a dog there are several things that you need to take with you. First, a dog. A dog walk without a dog is just a walk. That's all it is. Second, dog treats. This will help your dog not just fuck off and never come back when you let it off the lead. Thirdly, poo bags. Your dog will want to excrete faeces when it goes out. It doesn't even begin to fathom how that is frowned upon when a human does it and it cares not how or even if the poo is disposed of properly. That is totally up to you.

Now, some dog owners will let their dog poo and then not pick it up with a poo bag and put it in the bin. These dog owners are fucking wankers. They also own Staffordshire Bull Terriers. The fucking wanker of the dog world. I don't own a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and I dispose of my dog's poo properly. That's why I ALWAYS bring poo bags with me.

Well, nearly always.

In my house, I have a bag bag. It's a bag that I put bags in. I know what a bag looks like and when I have a bag that I don't really need it ends up in the bag bag. "Hello", I often say to myself. "That looks exactly like a bag. Yes. Yes, it is a bag. Well, now that I've identified it I can happily put it in the bag bag. That's where I keep bags".

Some people don't actually know what a bag looks like and I am married to one of those people.

Muki thinks that anything that once contained something but no longer does is an empty bag. That's really not always the case. Sometimes, it's a sandwich box, cling film or a net that once held onions. All of which I have found in the bag bag.

Don't get me wrong. There are grey areas (Christ, are you STILL reading this?) to this rule. A bag that once had a loaf of bread in it is still a plastic bag. I can accept that. You can put your hand in a bread bag and lift up poo with it so that is totally accepted into the bag bag. As are the plastic bags that dog treats come in. Finished the dog treats? Fine, we can use the packaging for when the dog treats come out again. That's in the dog bag. Pretty much anything that is a bag is allowed in. Although I will be stricter with this from now on.

I walked into the park yesterday and was immediately greeted by a woman who thought Jerk was lovely. She was right. I liked her. She had good taste in dogs. She was even walking one. It was a Labradoodle and Jerk didn't seem to hate it. This was all going lovely. I was having a nice chat with a very friendly lady and our dogs were playing together. Isn't that nice? We started walking round the park smiling at the fun our dogs were having.

Jerk celebrated with a poo.

It was then I realised that I had come out without poo bags. This is very embarrassing in the dog community. If you don't pick up your dogs poo then you are scum or a Staffordshire Bull Terrier owner (in which case, you're scum no matter what you do). Luckily, my new friend had a poo bag with her. "Don't worry", she said. "You can have my last poo bag". How lovely. Take that, Rolo!

I walked over to the poo and picked it up. It was then that I remembered I did have a poo bag in my pocket. I had taken three from the bag bag the day before and only used two. There was still one left. I told my new best friend in the whole world that I just remembered about my poo bag. "Yeah", she said. "I thought you had one. I could see it sticking out your back pocket".

She just smiled about it because giving a poo bag over to another dog owner isn't a big deal. It's a pleasure. That's just how we are. We're fucking lovely.

Then a man approached. He had a yappy terrier. He was my new friend's boyfriend.

Jerk hated his dog (so did I) but I liked him. He seemed overly cheery and they seemed a nice couple. After two minutes, his annoying dog had a poo. He hadn't brought a poo bag with him either and asked his girlfriend if she had a spare one.

"No. But he has".

She had gallantly gave me a poo bag when I desperately needed it. The least I could do was offer mine to him.

Except, I didn't want to.

He stood there smiling and waiting for me to offer my bag. It was only a few seconds but enough to make it uncomfortable. "I don't have a bag", I said. "I had to ask you for one. Remember?"

"Yes", she said. "But then you remembered you had one in your pocket."

"Yeah. But it's not really a bag. Just a bit of plastic, really".

"That's ok", he said. "I'll take it".

He held his smile and his hand out. I was still not offering the bag. This was now just awkward.

"It's very small", I said.

"That's OK. My dog's only small. I can't just leave it's shit here".

Even though I disapproved of his vulgar language, he was totally right. It's against the dog walkers code. Poo MUST be picked up and therefore I MUST give him my "poo bag". I passed him the small blue bag and prepared myself for ridicule.

It was one of Muki's offerings from the bag bag. It wasn't a bread bag, it wasn't a sandwich box or an onion net. Those I could have handled. This was a bag that once contained 10 sanitary towels.

The man laughed a lot while trying to get his big, fat hand into the tiny bag to lift up poo. He laughed a lot. This made me laugh. I mean, what's so embarrassing about that anyway? NOTHING. That doesn't stop me, at 41 years of age, to be confused, embarrassed and giggly about periods. I'm actually pointing and laughing at the last word I wrote right now. I should be ashamed of myself for not being more mature and I was. Luckily, these two folks saw the funny side and were mature enough for all three of us. That was until the man did the "Ducky" limp-wristed hand gesture and said in a very camp voice "Is that what you and your boyfriend always use?"

WHAT?

"Just because I have sanitary towels doesn't mean I'm a gay man", I said while looking at him in a I-wish-you-would-fuck-off way.

"No", he retorted. "It doesn't mean you're a straight man either".

Him and his girlfriend laughed really loudly.

"You're right", I argued (slightly angrily, if truth be told). "It means, I'm a woman. I'm a woman".

There was a very slight silence (only an hour or so) when my new best friend said to her boyfriend "We should probably get straight back, then, yeah?". He agreed. They said their goodbyes and left quite briskly.

Don't know If I'll see them again. I doubt it. Just wish that the last thing I said to them hadn't been "I'm a woman. I'm a woman".

Don't have time for the awful woman with nail polish on the tube story. That's tomorrow sorted. Bye bye!

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Tuesday 24 November 2009

STEPHEN!

I've been in horrible sticky situations on stage before. It's hard to avoid when you have my "material". On Saturday night I was comparing another lovely gig at Covent Garden Comedy club and generally having a lovely time doing so. Well, for about five minutes anyway. That's when Stephen started shouting.

Stephen was a man in his 60's (I'd say). He was a bit drunk (I'd say) and very Australian (I'd bet my life on it). He also wanted to join in.

He kept shouting out the most stereotypical Australianisms that no actual Australian has ever actually said in real life ever. "Fair dinkum" followed "Struth", "Too bladdy roight" and "Bladdy bladdy bladdy" in quick succession. He also kept saying "Mate" a lot in the hope of getting my attention. This was starting to distract the front few rows from my mind-changing comedy truths so I had no choice but to involve him. That would be OK. It would only be a minute, he'd have his moment of glory and then he can shut the fuck up.

I hoped.

I chatted with Stephen and his hopeless Australianisms for a minute and got nowhere. He pointed out that he was with his sister, not his wife like I had presumed. "No, she's not my wife", he confirmed. Fair enough. Anyway, he's had his moment. Time to move on. Time to start the show. Time for LAUGHTER!

"No. My wife died two months ago".

Ah, balls.

You could have heard a pube thud to the ground. The audience didn't no how to react and I certainly didn't know what to do. Jacksons Lane Comedy Courses neglected to instruct us on drunk and grieving widowers.

"We were together 36 years", he elaborated as the sound of silence solidified our heads. "Would have been 37 next month".

I had to do something. The gig was dead. DEAD. You know? Like Stephen's gig wrecking wife. I'm a professional so luckily I can be relied upon to grab something out of the comedy bag and turn everything around. I took a deep breath and said....

"I'm a cunt".

Strangely, this seemed to do the trick. I had done nothing but I took the blame which made us all feel a bit better and the room heaved a very relieved laugh. No-one can say that the word cunt is offensive now, surely? Look at the good it's done. A gig was dead and I Jesused it with "cunt". Fuck you, Rumpio. The word cunt is not just for the immature. It's for the needy and the grieving too. I love cunt!

Of course, that's nothing to be proud of. I'm aware of that. Saying cunt isn't clever even if it does save an entire night of comedy from turning into a wake. I'm not proud of it in the slightest. But I am proud of something.

The previous night at the same gig I was doing a routine about a noisy vagina. It went down very well. I was very pleased with myself. Smug even. Then when I introduced the next act and stood at the back of the room to watch I noticed that the sound in the venue wasn't as good as it had been earlier. The sound guy was running around trying to figure out what had happened. The gig was still playable, just not as clear as it had been.

When I arrived on the Saturday night the PA system was still a bit knackered but at least they had figured out what had happened. A fuse had blown in one of the speakers (BOSE speakers, don't you know. Very good speakers). It had blown because of the noise I had been making during my noisy vagina routine. I had broken technology with my noisy vagina. How many of us can say that? Men, I mean...

I don't know if it was strictly true that it had broken because of my noisy vagina but I am definitely taking all responsibility. If I achieve nothing more in life (and I won't) I will at least have that story to tell my grandchildren in my dotage.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Saturday 21 November 2009

Give Over.

Saving the world is never going to be easy. It's tough. You have to suffer through a lot if you want to see proper change taking place on this unfeeling and unfair planet. I suffered through about an hour and 20 minutes of trying to do the right thing but I will never do it again. Children In Need should be shot.

Look, I understand that the cause is good but it also highlights the problem too clearly and yet somehow ignores it at the same time. Maybe there wouldn't be these problems of neglect, abuse and underfunded children's hospices (in a time when we have to financially aid incompetent bankers and moat loving politicians) if more was made of that there dignity thing. I dunno, maybe if we just thought a bit more about how we would wish to be perceived then maybe we'd think more about other people, eh? I mean, if we didn't think about other people and how they are cared for then we'd look like pricks. Obviously, this hasn't occurred to the incompetent bankers and moat loving politicians and as a result we, the ordinary people, have to put our hands in our pockets and help. It is because of this that Children In Need MUST exist. And it is because of this that John Barrowman MUST die.

We are all used to newsreaders learning a dance routine or Lesley Joseph wearing a slit dress while singing Hey Big Spender to a young, disinterested homosexual but over the last few years we have been thrown the excrement of John Barrowman as a way of persuading us to help the disadvantaged. Children who live in squalor and fear. Children who live in despair. Children who have no telly. The jammy bastards.

John Barrowman just appears like the alcoholic that doesn't know he has a problem while we watch with incredible pity and thinking he needs our help more than the kids do. Except he's not reliant on booze to get him through his every waking moment. He is simply addicted to himself. Thank fuck that Children In Need had a 5 minute Doctor Who clip and Terry Wogan, brilliantly grumping his way through everything. Every time Blonde 12 or Woman From Strictly spoke he just rolled his eyes and begged for a sniper. It is hard not to love him. THAT is what charity work should be. You do it because you feel you have to not because you're going to enjoy it. Sir Terry should definitely be knighted. Again.

But Barrowman is a different thing altogether. It's not about charity work, it's about embarrassing yourself, your family, everyone you know and everyone else. I'm sure there are community projects that are receiving money from Children In Need right now and feeling dirty about it. They will try to put the money to good use but will they ever rid their minds of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16_iGQIiNdw

Before Children In Need I had the good fortune to be compering the Covent Garden Comedy Club which is in Heaven, the very nightclub that the smelly religious man on the train said that gays would never get into. I'm sure there were a few in though and it was a great night. Lots of fun. After the gig I met Ian who works at the gig. He is a very nice man who made me laugh a lot. Not sure he meant to but he did. Allow me to quote him: "Out of the two jobs I've ever had, McDonalds and here, this is my favourite".

By the way, I DID donate to CIN but it wasn't because I watched John Barrowman do his dance thingy. It really wasn't, OK? I donated because I didn't see Peter Kay. Now that's worth investing in.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Friday 20 November 2009

Dogs of War.

The drunks of Lewisham just get classier. Although I haven't seen Nick the Homeless Man ever since he threw a can at my head and then asked me to join him and his friends for a drink, the park near my house is still full of interesting characters. You know. Arseholes. That sort of thing.

I walked Jerk this morning and passed a group of gentlemen who were sheltering from the rain by standing under a tree while drinking heavily and winding up their fucking horrible looking Staffordshire Bull Terrier (By the way, if you have a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, get it neutered. There are way too many of them and they always end up being raised by fuckers. The same rule applies if you have children). The jolly bunch wanted nothing more than to exchange some gay banter with me. One of them welcomed me to their inner circle with "Fucking hell, do you fucking race your whippet, mate? I'm not be fucking funny or anything".

I don't think swearing is ever called for but surely the phrase "I'm not being funny" is even more pointless. I don't think that anyone who has tattooed himself a billion times, drinks aggressively at 10am and shouts at dogs is the kind of cheeky josher that will end up on Dave anytime soon. Apart from Mock The Week. He was terrifying. I knew he wasn't being fucking funny or anything.

Stupidly, I pointed out that Jerk isn't a whippet. That may seem like an important point to make in a conversation such as this but I can't help but think that I would have been happier simply walking away and not saying a word. Then the gents all talked about times they spent at Catford and Walthamstow's dog tracks...sorry, Catford fucking and Walthamstow's fucking dog tracks with what I assumed was some authority. They were convinced they had seen Jerk race a few years ago. She hadn't. Jerk is too lazy to lead a double-life and besides she's too small to race against greyhounds.

She's not too small, the booze buffs argued. They've all seen much smaller greyhounds race at the track. The haven't, of course, but they said they have. I realised that I was in hell and decided I'd bid them all a farewell. They wished me a fucking good fucking day but wanted their fucking dog to fucking say fucking hello to fucking Jerk (which, I was informed, "is a fucking stupid name for a whippet"). This is where things always get awkward.

Jerk is very much the dog equivalent to me. She is beautiful, fit, healthy and hates all of her own species. The Staffy sniffed Jerk's bum for a while. Jerk gave it 10 seconds then gave her warning growl. That warning growl is simply like us saying "Stand back, please. You're too close". The staffy did not heed the warning so Jerk barked aggressively. Which made the cunty dog bark aggressively. Which made the cunty drunks shout aggressively.

They thought winding their own dog up further would make it want to attack Jerk and what could be more fun than two dogs fighting to the death? What they didn't reckon on was, although Jerk is lovely to look out and outwardly very sweet, there is a fucking blood-thirsty killing machine within that really doesn't need an excuse to come out. The men shouted and screamed at their dog to "fucking get it" and eventually Jerk just lashed out and bit it's stupid stump of a tail. The coward ran.

"Well", said the main dickhead. "That didn't fucking come to much".

As I walked away I heard him telling the dog off. Not for being aggressive but for not attacking. What a horrible bastard.

We walked right round the park. That normally takes an hour and the rain was still pouring down so I certainly didn't expect to see the drunks still under the tree when I came back but there they were. Luckily I was on the other side of the park and could only see them from a distance but they made their presence known. "Fuck off, poodle", I heard.

I looked over to see a man walking his poodle very briskly past them.

These depressing shits can't ruin my good mood though. I'm still happy with the LQC shows this week and yesterday I received an invitation from Stackridge to see them play in Bath. Don't think I can go but I will do everything I can to try and make it happen. Stackridge RULE!

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Thursday 19 November 2009

Los Quattros Cvnts!

What a lot of fun the last couple of days have been. Los Quattros Cvnts made their debut at The Phoenix on Tuesday and Wednesday and I'm pretty content to consider it a flawed victory. On both nights we were lucky enough to attract really lovely, supportive audiences (although some of them found Paul's drool disgusting) who made it a much less stressful time for all four of us. Thanks for that. Every sketch got laughs (not every joke, obviously), it was enjoyably all over the place and our guests were superb. Very big thanks to Andrew Collins and Jason Manford and a little bit more thanks to Rich Fulcher who did the show on his birthday when he could have easily gone out and done something better. Except he couldn't have because it was brilliant. Hopefully we should be back from January to start our monthly residency.

More thanks goes to everyone who came to watch. We had a very respectable audience on Tuesday and it was a few from Sold Out last night. Particular cheers to a few Precious Little podophiles and others who made it to both nights. I particularly liked how big a laugh the punchiline "Robin Ince" got on the second night. He would be so happy to know that, although we were taking the piss out of him, so many people recognise him as an angry, Godless household name.

I meant to write about this in my last blog. I have a problem with sport fans. I may have mentioned that a few million times before but I think it demands repeating. Apparently telling a sport fan that you don't like sport isn't enough. They will continue to spout sport tedium at you despite your claim that you have no interest, the look of boredom on your face and your mumbles of "shutupshutupshutupshutup". On Sunday night, in between a LQC rehearsal and shouting at Doctor Who, we decided to go to the pub. Jeremy lives in an area of London where shit pubs are the order of the day. There's two of them. One is really shit while the other is merely shit. Although it's further away we decided to make the effort to go to the shit one. We got our seats and I went to the bar to get the drinks. The barman took my order and asked if I'd watched the match. I told him, very politely and in a friendly way, that I'm not a sport fan. "Really?", he said. "It was close though, wasn't it?"

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"The thing is that means we still have another to go through before qualify", he bored.

"Right", I coma'd.

"France....blah blah blah....very strong first half...blah blah blah...we should have won...blah blah blah...they came from nowhere in the second half...blah blah blah....Know what I mean?"

"No".

"If we'd have had the original squad...blah blah blah...the game was ours...blah blah blah...my cousin was there...blah blah blah...couldn't touch the ball"

He had only poured one pint so far. This was taking ages and he couldn't shut up. I looked at my phone about five times. I folded my arms and sighed. I looked away. I repeated "I don't watch it" over and over again yet NOTHING could stop this boring wanker from killing me with words I don't know.

At one point, He asked me if I knew who should have played in the team and I could kick myself for not saying "Ray Reardon" just to see what he would say. He finally poured the last pint and when he handed me the change he cheerily said "Still, the next one should be interesting if they sort themselves out". Because I hadn't been listening I allowed myself to imagine that he was talking about Sex And The City: The Movie and that nearly cheered me up. But only nearly.

I sat down with Dan, Paul and Jeremy and screamed about how frustrating the last five minutes had been. They looked at me like I was a pathetic mess. I was asked if I ever have an uneventful day where I don't want to kill. That really made me laugh. For a second.

It is a treat working with these fine gentlemen and I look forward to starting up again in January. The feedback for the shows has been great (despite people leaving during Paul's drool bit). Twitter was full of LQC fun when I looked this morning. I was particularly happy that Peter Serafinowicz had responded positively to being mentioned in our Twitter Play sketch last night. Someone had gone on Twitter and tweeted about it while it was happening. We heard about his reply during the interval. That's how quick this big fast modern world works these-a-days. So, thanks for that Twitter people. I'm even happy to say that I have annoyed someone on Twitter. Someone felt that they needed to write "enough with the C-word. Jesus, some of us got over that at 15". His name is Rumpio. Yeah, that's how mature he is. His Twitter welcome message is "I wear my sunglasses at night, so i can, so i can watch you weave then breathe your story lines". I mean, why wouldn't I take his advice? The cunt.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk

Monday 16 November 2009

Blind, Stupid and Pointless.

I thought I was actually going to be able to beat the Girl in a wheelchair story yesterday as I stood at Kings Cross train station watching a blind woman loudly dumping her boyfriend. It was a pretty unusual sight. She stood there with a very deadpan looking dog beside her shouting "You're fucking useless, you are. If I ask you to do something you just can't do it. If I want something done then I have to do it myself. I've had enough. I want you out. Out!" at her very sad looking boyfriend.

I was in a hurry otherwise I would have watched it for a bit longer or at least written "Just walk away" on a piece of paper and passed it to him.

No time for that though, I was on my way to Hitchin to record Precious Little podcast 9 or 10. I'm not sure what number it is as I'm not sure that I count last week's pathetic Skype attempt as an actual podcast. I really enjoyed 9 or 10 though. In fact, I was brought to uncontrollable laughter because of a listener's letter telling us about his band. Laughter that lasted a long time but the listener had the last laugh for sure. James read out the letter and I asked him what the name of the guy's band was. It was a rock band. If you're in a rock band you need a cool name. I mean, there's nothing really cooler than being in a rock band so it stands to reason that the band name should reflect that.

The band was called Stackridge.

I still don't really know why I found that quite as funny as I did but I completely lost it for about a minute. I think it might be the worst name for a band that I have ever heard. That in itself is quite an achievement.

But then James and I looked up stackridge.net and it turns out that the band have been going since the 70's and have a huge following. They are famous and, like the £2 coin, I have never heard of them. Not only that, they're good.

Well, that shut me up. I'm now the proud owner of two Stackridge albums. I went on iTunes and bought Stackridge (1971) and A Victory For Common Sense (2009) and am thoroughly enjoying both albums. Thanks very much to Fatty Fudge for bringing them to my attention and apologies for laughing at how stupid your band's name is.

After the podcast (which features the phrase Bum Pussy quite heavily), I was off to Streatham for Los Quattros Cvnts rehearsals. Not sure quite what we rehearsed but it all seems to be pretty together now. Or as together as it'll ever be. I'm really looking forward to these two shows and urge you to come along. They'll be fun. Obviously, rehearsals took a break for Doctor Who. My God that started badly. "Gadget Gadget"? Fuck off. Not that I'm complaining because the second half really made up for it. Very little family entertainment shows end in suicide. Well done.

A weird thing happened to me on Saturday night. I was booked at the Monkey Business Comedy Club at O'Reilly's in Kentish Town. I went along slightly dreading it because I used to drink in O'Reilly's about 10 years ago and it was a violent hole of a place. When I got there I saw no trace of a comedy club. There is no comedy club here anymore. Brilliant.

I contacted my agent who told me the gig was at Red, a bar further up Kentish Town Road. I walked to the gig and when I got there it looked....well....closed. It was closed. The comedy club only opens on a Thursday night. Brilliant.

Called my agent again and was told that the REAL address of the gig I'm doing is at The Steele, another bar I used to drink in, in Belzise Park. I jumped in a cab and sped my way to the gig. It WAS the right venue. BUT....the promoter had booked about six acts too many. I took a look around and said to him "Do you really need me?"

"Not really", he said.

So I fucked off. Pointless story and a complete waste of time. Still now you know how I felt on Saturday night. Not that it was a complete waste of time really, I saw Nick Helm who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite acts to watch and I met Steve Weiner who is a very nice man, a great act and, although not on a par with Stackridge, has a funny name. I then went off to an 80's charity night where I got in for free and drank free booze all night. I think I might have been the charity. Muki was doing an excellent job as DJ and like all nights where Muki invites me out I got completely pissed too quickly and ruined it for her. That is the last time I am EVER going to do that. How I've got away with it so many times is beyond me. I decided at about midnight that it was time to go home, even though Muki didn't want to, ordered a cab and fell asleep in it all the way home. Classy. Sorry, Muki. I'm a fucking idiot.

Anyway, if you like fucking idiots why not come along to Los Quattros Cvnts tomorrow and Wednesday night? Tomorrow we have Jason Manford and Andrew Collins as guests while on Wednesday we have Rich Fulcher. The shows start at 8pm at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, just off Oxford Street and admission is just £6. It will be the event of the year.

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