Do not EVER use the Quiet Coach on a train. It is the loudest place on Earth. It's as if every single evil bastard moron that goes into the Quiet Coach has decided to treat it as a challenge: Let's see who can be the most annoying.
On my way to Newcastle I took my seat on the Quiet Coach so that I can read and work without being disturbed. Now, I know fully well that there is no room for silence or manners or respect or decency in the Quiet Coach but I always pretend that it's all going to be fine. I am always wrong. It is never fine. If I had a pound for every time I had to ask someone on the Quiet Coach to keep the noise down, I'd have enough money to hire a comedy writer to write a punchline to this sentence. The sign Quiet Coach is fucking everywhere you look but I just assume that humans get on board and think "I didn't pay all this money to read that sign" and therefore they have no idea that shouting down the phone, listening to loud, awful music and firing guns randomly are prohibited in this part of the train. They are the bulk of British people. Horrible, thick, lazy, selfish British people. Will someone please just invade us and save us from ourselves? PLEASE?
But there is one thing worse than the nasty fucks who don't give a shit about other people on the Quiet Coach and that is The Friendly Man.
God, I fucking hate The Friendly Man. The Friendly Man is an idiot who can talk for months about absolutely nothing at all while breaking the world grinning record over and over and over again. He winks and smiles and talks and has no capabilities to read body language. And I got stuck with the cunt yesterday.
Muki and I sat near him and his dead wife and immediately noticed that Muki had a bag of crisps. FUCKING BRILLIANT!, he must have thought. NOW I HAVE A SURE FIRE ICE BREAKER TO USE AND I CAN GIVE THESE TWO LUCKY TRAVELLERS THE GIFT OF MY POINTLESS CONVERSATION!!!!!
"What's for lunch then?", he said through his punchable smile.
I got slapped with the fear. Muki is a very friendly person and from nowhere The Friendly Man has decided to talk to her. This will be a nightmare. They will both talk to one another. They will laugh and chit-chat and he will offer her a Tic-Tac and they will become lifelong fucking bumchums and I will hate every tomorrow until the charitable kiss of death. But Muki knows her limits. She is friendly, not psychotic (people often get those confused). She saw his grin and his wink and went through his opening line again and again in her head. This man was not for her. You really have to take this very seriously, reader. When Muki, someone who loves EVERYONE, thinks you're a cunt then you most definitely are a cunt. She is an instant jury. She needs only seconds and if there is no good in you she will respond accordingly. For the first time since I have known Muki, she grunted in response to someone and got our her iPhone so that she could hide in it.
This didn't stop The Friendly Man of course. He is The Terminator of the train. Every time you think that he is finally destroyed he just comes out marching from the blazing inferno of tedium with a lovely big, metallic, cyborg grin on his face.
He sat there telling us about the way train seating should work and how he's staying with friends "oop t'nurth" (he couldn't say up north any other way, the fucking cunt), all with the absolutely insane belief that anyone at all would ever be in any way interested. Where is the guy in the Quiet Coach with a gun when you need him?
Finally a woman appeared and informed The Friendly Man that he was sitting in her seat. This was fantastic news for him because, although he had to move, it meant that he could talk to the woman and show her how unfunny and bastard boring he is. His dead wife stayed where she was but The Friendly Man sat right behind me and beside his next victim. All I heard was The Friendly Man bore on and on about blank oblivion while the man next to him occassionally went "Mmm". Why can't this cunt take the hint? Why can't he see that NO-ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT HIS OPINION. Why won't he just SHUT UP? Then he started talking to his dead wife which meant that he had to lean much closer to me, something he relished talking about. He basically said something about me and him being gay lovers in a way that suggested all gay people are fictional and homosexuality is too ridiculous to be true. I had no choice but to ignore his homophobia because another important issue had come up: his stinking breath. It was like he'd swallowed my Four Seasons shower cap.
Eventually he got his original seat back and started up our lovely chit-chat again. Muki and I had yet to talk about this man. Muki is never rude so she would wait until he had left before talking about him, something I always forget to do. We hadn't talked about him or worked out a plan on how to deal with him but from nowhere we acted as one. 12 years of knowing one another is now in action. We both ignored him and it was beautiful.
He spoke and neither of us responded. He spoke again and we just kept on reading and pretending he was as dead as the woman he married. "Hmmm.", he thought. "They're boring".
We smiled.
I told that story to someone in Newcastle last night and he laughed and said "You can't talk on the train? Typical Londoners". No, not typical Londoners. Typical fucking idiots. If someone is reading, DON'T TALK TO THEM. If someone has their earphones in, DON'T TALK TO THEM. If someone is sitting in front of you with a grin that lasts forever and you see they're about to talk, RUN. This is MY head, YOU aren't allowed in it.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Friday, 28 May 2010
Toilet's Revenge.
Someone on Twitter recently remarked that I was obsessed with shit. I pooh-poohed the comment thinking nothing could be further from the truth. But maybe they're right.
I'm lucky enough to pick up shit every day. It's one of the glories of owning a dog. Firm stools, liquid splats, chunky with no colour known to Man. Yes, I've picked up every kind of shit there is thanks to my dog and, sometimes, some other dogs. I don't mind my dog's shit at all. I don't love it but I'm very happy to tolerate it, after all, it came from the strained anus of my little princess. But there is very little more icky than bending over to pick up your dogs poo to find it cold and then realising you've picked up another dog's poo. Other dog's poo is disgusting. Other dog's poo is shit.
I should point out that I use a bag to pick it up, just in case you really did think I was that relaxed about it.
So my dog's poo I'm fine with, other dog's poo I can pretty much handle. I tell you what poo I can't stand. My poo.
I may have mentioned that I spent a few days in Doha at the glamourous Four Seasons hotel. "Gazing over the Arabian Gulf, with its own private beach and a marina curved at its feet, Four Seasons is a traveller’s haven fashioned to the finest international standards", it says. Everywhere you go in the hotel you see money. Exclusive spa, fine dining, windows. This hotel has the lot and you can't help but feel more refined as a human being just by being there.
Which is exactly why I couldn't ring reception to tell them I'd blocked up the toilet with all my shit.
The Sunday night of our stay was rehearsal night. We were driven from the hotel to the incredible Qatar Foundation where the Doha Debates are filmed. I got into the cab and told the others that I had just done the most disgusting thing that anyone has ever done at the Four Seasons in Doha. Sadly, I was still too traumatised to actually tell them what it was.
You see, I have this thing where I can't bare anyone ever seeing my shit. I'm not saying that my shit is weird or different to other people's shit. It isn't. My shit is average, I assume. But I just don't want anyone to ever witness what comes out of my botty. Is that so awful? I knew that my first long term relationship was doomed the day that I lay in the bath and my girlfriend came into the bathroom and had a shit. IT'S SHIT, FOR GOD'S SAKE! KEEP IT PRIVATE.
So there was no way that I could just call reception and speak to someone who deals with oil barons and diamond encrusted wives of tycoons to tell them that all my shit won't flush. I had to come up with a plan. Luckily, I'm razor sharp. I flushed the toilet again but this time I watched it while shouting "Come on. Come on. Come on". Unbelievably, it didn't work.
This situation wouldn't have been a problem if only the Four Seasons provided a toilet brush but I can only assume that the wealthy never shit so this has yet to set the hotel a challenge. I flushed several more times but this toilet was just not accepting my waste. Every time I flushed, the water rose to the very top of the toilet bowl just to terrify me and show me my swirling, unwanted faeces. 20 times I must have flushed and shouted at that toilet but it refused to co-operate. My "no-one must ever see my shit rule" was screaming in my head and I realised I had little choice but to deal with it hands on.
Don't get all queasy. Trust me, I dealt with the situation in a totally dignified manner suited to my surroundings. Yes, that's right, everyone. I found myself on my knees at the Four Seasons, Doha, with a shower cap wrapped round my hand down a toilet squashing my own shit.
It would take a long while to get over this.
I flushed the toilet and my excrement laughed at me all the way down the u-bend. I must have lay beside the toilet for 5 long minutes with the shower cap on my hand and hearing "Deep Blue Day" by Brian Eno playing in my head. Surrounded by glamour, once again, I find myself on the floor with a shit stained shower cap on my hand.
Thank you for listening.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
I'm lucky enough to pick up shit every day. It's one of the glories of owning a dog. Firm stools, liquid splats, chunky with no colour known to Man. Yes, I've picked up every kind of shit there is thanks to my dog and, sometimes, some other dogs. I don't mind my dog's shit at all. I don't love it but I'm very happy to tolerate it, after all, it came from the strained anus of my little princess. But there is very little more icky than bending over to pick up your dogs poo to find it cold and then realising you've picked up another dog's poo. Other dog's poo is disgusting. Other dog's poo is shit.
I should point out that I use a bag to pick it up, just in case you really did think I was that relaxed about it.
So my dog's poo I'm fine with, other dog's poo I can pretty much handle. I tell you what poo I can't stand. My poo.
I may have mentioned that I spent a few days in Doha at the glamourous Four Seasons hotel. "Gazing over the Arabian Gulf, with its own private beach and a marina curved at its feet, Four Seasons is a traveller’s haven fashioned to the finest international standards", it says. Everywhere you go in the hotel you see money. Exclusive spa, fine dining, windows. This hotel has the lot and you can't help but feel more refined as a human being just by being there.
Which is exactly why I couldn't ring reception to tell them I'd blocked up the toilet with all my shit.
The Sunday night of our stay was rehearsal night. We were driven from the hotel to the incredible Qatar Foundation where the Doha Debates are filmed. I got into the cab and told the others that I had just done the most disgusting thing that anyone has ever done at the Four Seasons in Doha. Sadly, I was still too traumatised to actually tell them what it was.
You see, I have this thing where I can't bare anyone ever seeing my shit. I'm not saying that my shit is weird or different to other people's shit. It isn't. My shit is average, I assume. But I just don't want anyone to ever witness what comes out of my botty. Is that so awful? I knew that my first long term relationship was doomed the day that I lay in the bath and my girlfriend came into the bathroom and had a shit. IT'S SHIT, FOR GOD'S SAKE! KEEP IT PRIVATE.
So there was no way that I could just call reception and speak to someone who deals with oil barons and diamond encrusted wives of tycoons to tell them that all my shit won't flush. I had to come up with a plan. Luckily, I'm razor sharp. I flushed the toilet again but this time I watched it while shouting "Come on. Come on. Come on". Unbelievably, it didn't work.
This situation wouldn't have been a problem if only the Four Seasons provided a toilet brush but I can only assume that the wealthy never shit so this has yet to set the hotel a challenge. I flushed several more times but this toilet was just not accepting my waste. Every time I flushed, the water rose to the very top of the toilet bowl just to terrify me and show me my swirling, unwanted faeces. 20 times I must have flushed and shouted at that toilet but it refused to co-operate. My "no-one must ever see my shit rule" was screaming in my head and I realised I had little choice but to deal with it hands on.
Don't get all queasy. Trust me, I dealt with the situation in a totally dignified manner suited to my surroundings. Yes, that's right, everyone. I found myself on my knees at the Four Seasons, Doha, with a shower cap wrapped round my hand down a toilet squashing my own shit.
It would take a long while to get over this.
I flushed the toilet and my excrement laughed at me all the way down the u-bend. I must have lay beside the toilet for 5 long minutes with the shower cap on my hand and hearing "Deep Blue Day" by Brian Eno playing in my head. Surrounded by glamour, once again, I find myself on the floor with a shit stained shower cap on my hand.
Thank you for listening.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Bless.
The best part of my few days in Doha was that it was the complete opposite of a normal weekend working away with comedians. I mean, obviously there's always at least one cunt but besides that it was very different. It was just very civilised. Not much drinking, doing some work (well, a bit) and staying in a really, really, really nice hotel. That's not how I do it normally. Normally it's do the gig, get very pissed and cry myself to sleep in a single bed next door to a couple who are fighting and fucking into a huge PA system.
And it was healthy. Sun does you the world of good. I ate good food and I saw a culture that I think I'm supposed to be afraid of. Middle East's Muslims don't always get good press, I don't know if you've noticed, and I certainly have little to no tolerance of any religion so to be in a country where strict religious beliefs are the norm is...odd. I just don't feel that comfortable around people who's faith dictates the way they treat other people and even how they dress. It's too alien to me and makes me question the freedom of their thought. Of course, our press doesn't help but, luckily, I'm nearly smart enough to ignore all that. Nearly. I guess my problem has always been the view that we must respect all beliefs and show tolerance for people who think differently than we do. I really don't know why we should respect all beliefs. Some beliefs just aren't worth respecting. I was raised Catholic but lapsed pretty much when I was a child. Using terrifying images of crucifixion and blood to keep people in check just seemed suspicious to me even then, and after all the paedophile covering up that The Pope has done I just think that any Catholic who sets foot back into their chapel really is living in complete denial. When the head of your church, and the man who speaks directly to God on your behalf, claims that we are all loved by God yet wants to "correct" gays and let's his workmates fuck children, it's time to rethink your religious stance.
But all religions are suspicious. Muslim women are covered up (for reasons that I can never fathom no matter how often it's explained to me) and having sex out of wedlock can land you in jail or, occasionally, stoned. And I mean bad stoned. Christianity is just complete hypocrisy. It's based on forgiveness, something that they never, ever do. And how the fuck in 2010 circumcision is still performed by Jewish and Islamic faiths is beyond me. That is just barbaric. That's not your cock to go chopping. It's a cock, for fuck's sake. How the fuck can you justify that? At least let the cock grow up and let it decide for itself.
Maybe my mind has changed over the last few days. Not about cock chopping but about tolerance of beliefs. After the Doha Debates show on Monday most of the audience wanted to meet the comedians, have their photographs taken with them and laugh with them. They were good fun people. The audience were 80% Muslim and dressed as their take on their religion dictates. Warm, lovely people who wanted to connect with the people who had been debating something that never needed debating in the first place. I say their take on religion because that's what finally dawned on me. You can read the Bible or the Koran or any other self-help book and take what you want from it. Take what makes your life feel better. It's when people start seeing things in these books that aren't there or, worse, never reading them in the first place but happily quote stuff from it that was never there that it gets terrifying.
This blog is naive and stupid. I'm aware of that. Partly because I just wrote it in 20 minutes without looking over it or editing but also because religion is a door I closed firmly a long time ago. I know I'll never believe in the supernatural but after this weekend I might just open the door a little bit and have a peek around.
Some of these weirdos are quite fun.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
And it was healthy. Sun does you the world of good. I ate good food and I saw a culture that I think I'm supposed to be afraid of. Middle East's Muslims don't always get good press, I don't know if you've noticed, and I certainly have little to no tolerance of any religion so to be in a country where strict religious beliefs are the norm is...odd. I just don't feel that comfortable around people who's faith dictates the way they treat other people and even how they dress. It's too alien to me and makes me question the freedom of their thought. Of course, our press doesn't help but, luckily, I'm nearly smart enough to ignore all that. Nearly. I guess my problem has always been the view that we must respect all beliefs and show tolerance for people who think differently than we do. I really don't know why we should respect all beliefs. Some beliefs just aren't worth respecting. I was raised Catholic but lapsed pretty much when I was a child. Using terrifying images of crucifixion and blood to keep people in check just seemed suspicious to me even then, and after all the paedophile covering up that The Pope has done I just think that any Catholic who sets foot back into their chapel really is living in complete denial. When the head of your church, and the man who speaks directly to God on your behalf, claims that we are all loved by God yet wants to "correct" gays and let's his workmates fuck children, it's time to rethink your religious stance.
But all religions are suspicious. Muslim women are covered up (for reasons that I can never fathom no matter how often it's explained to me) and having sex out of wedlock can land you in jail or, occasionally, stoned. And I mean bad stoned. Christianity is just complete hypocrisy. It's based on forgiveness, something that they never, ever do. And how the fuck in 2010 circumcision is still performed by Jewish and Islamic faiths is beyond me. That is just barbaric. That's not your cock to go chopping. It's a cock, for fuck's sake. How the fuck can you justify that? At least let the cock grow up and let it decide for itself.
Maybe my mind has changed over the last few days. Not about cock chopping but about tolerance of beliefs. After the Doha Debates show on Monday most of the audience wanted to meet the comedians, have their photographs taken with them and laugh with them. They were good fun people. The audience were 80% Muslim and dressed as their take on their religion dictates. Warm, lovely people who wanted to connect with the people who had been debating something that never needed debating in the first place. I say their take on religion because that's what finally dawned on me. You can read the Bible or the Koran or any other self-help book and take what you want from it. Take what makes your life feel better. It's when people start seeing things in these books that aren't there or, worse, never reading them in the first place but happily quote stuff from it that was never there that it gets terrifying.
This blog is naive and stupid. I'm aware of that. Partly because I just wrote it in 20 minutes without looking over it or editing but also because religion is a door I closed firmly a long time ago. I know I'll never believe in the supernatural but after this weekend I might just open the door a little bit and have a peek around.
Some of these weirdos are quite fun.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Putting the DOH! into Doha.
So what did I do on my weekend? Well, I warmed up a TV show. I've done this a fair bit over the years but normally it's for panel game shows or quiz shows or pilots that no-one will ever see. This time it was different. This time I was doing warm-up for The News.
BBC World News has a monthly political programme called The Doha Debates which I'm not going to pretend that I've ever heard of but you can. Normally the host, Tim Sebastian, has four guest speakers who debate subjects such as Barack Obama's influence on peace in the Middle East and the treatment of Muslims in India. Obviously a show like that would definitely need me and my stories of loud vaginas and shit supermarkets to get the audience in the right mood to furiously argue with one another. The theme of the debate this time was "The house believes that women are superior to men". It was the last in the series so they decided to make it a bit more light-hearted and go for a Doha Debates Comedy special with guests Robin Ince, Caroline Quinlan, and Azhar Usman. For some insane reason, they decided they needed a warm-up man to warm-up an incredibly lovely and funny audience for 15 minutes so they flew me out to Doha business class and put me up in the Four Seasons Hotel and even paid me. It was a good gig.
The show was great fun. Robin and Caroline were funny, as usual, while taking the stance of opposing the debate (hearing Robin Ince complain about how stupid and useless women are was worth it just to see the look of 'I'm sure I don't believe what I'm saying' on his face) and Azhar was agreeing with the house while being incredibly American about it. You know, he was going to win no matter what. That said, I thought Azhar was very funny.
But that was all last night, so much more happened before that. I don't know how you poor people travel Economy Class. It must be awful for you. I'm so glad there was a curtain separating me from the likes of you because I don't think I could bare to actually witness your squalor. Robin and I sat there with our delicious food, delicious wine and acres and acres of leg room and tried not to think about you while reclining on our flat beds and watching The Office (US) on a proper telly, not the tiny little thing they throw at the poor. I think what I liked about it most was the attention you get in Business Class. You won't know this but they just give you everything you want and constantly make sure that you are comfortable or if you need anything. Anything at all. One stewardess, who looked like a cross between a supermodel and an even superermodel, constantly refreshed my glass, plumped up my pillows, enquired about my well being and give me that smile that suggested I could definitely have sex with her if I wanted to easily. In fact, as the flight went on I realised that I was the only person she was giving this amount of attention to. At first I just assumed that's how it is when you're a Business Class person like what I am but that just wasn't the case. She was being nice to me. Only me. I was the best, greatest, most good looking passenger that she had ever seen and she had no problem in letting me know. After all, this could be her one chance to find the perfect man and, to her, I was the perfect man. She had just laid eyes on me but had instantly fallen in love. To her, psoriasis, asthma and piles are the kind of flaws that make the rest of me seem even better. They make me human and that is the part of me that she wants to tend to for the rest of her life. Yes, yes, yes, she's instantly fallen for my interesting hair, annoying laugh and out of context face but she sees more than that. Something to adore, yes, but also to care for. She looked at me and she saw the rest of her life and she was happy. About half an hour before we landed she came right over to me, NOT TO ANYONE ELSE, knelt beside me and looked deep into my eyes and said "Thank you so much for flying with us today. It was a pleasure having you on board. I look forward to seeing you again".
That poor girl. She had fallen so deeply in love and yet I could not commit to her. I had to turn my back and hope that she would get over me. There are plenty of other good men out there and I really hope that she finds that person. He's a lucky man whoever he is. I sat there thinking of how good the attention felt but how bitter-sweet our meeting had become.
Then Robin reminded me that I asked if I could swap seats with someone really important so that I could sit next to him. The stewardess saw only the seat number and assumed I was him.
The fucking bitch.
We arrived at our glamorous hotel, had a quick drink with Caroline and then all went to bed. Seperate beds. We're just the kind of important people that TV companies will splash out for seperate rooms on.
Next day was full of sunshine. 102 degree heat and doing very little. Doha didn't really exist 10 years ago so they're really only getting round to building it now. There's a lot to look at but very little to do so hanging round the hotel seemed the best bet. I walked around the small beach, the swimming pools and sat reading on the loungers for as long as I could in that heat (about half an hour) and it was just delightful. Relaxing and exotic and jammy. When I'm in a place like this I always like to listen to particularly British music and as Robin and I had been talking about The Cure and I was staring at the sea I decided to listen to Staring At The Sea by The Cure. Felt a bit odd listening to Killing An Arab while in the Middle East, mind you.
In the morning, we had a meeting with Tim Sebastian, Catherine Hart and other production crew from the show. It was me first (getting warm-up just right takes months of preparation for every show) but we were soon joined by Caroline and Robin and then someone else.
PLEASE NOTE: This blog has been edited from the original. Some people involved in The Doha Debates were unhappy with what I wrote and in respect to them I've edited out the most horrible parts. To be honest, what I wrote wasn't worth complaining about anyway but the real reason I've edited this is because the Doha Debates people were lovely and If I've offended any of them then writing a load of old moany crap would hardly be worth it. Basically, I was very much rubbed up the wrong way by another comedian and it doesn't really matter why. That said, it still really upsets me that I've met someone who thought it was OK to be so continually egotistical and horrible. That said, this blog is a big negative and everyone who reads it knows this, it's up to you to figure out whether I mean it or not. Also there is just one part of it that I feel I cannot edit. It's just too important (only to me, probably). I've left this, our only conversation together, here to give you an idea what I mean. It should be enough. The rest I've deleted because the other people I met there are a lot more worthy of thanks than this one person is worthy of extreme criticism. It might help you to know that the comedian is American but continually talked of her Palestinian background...
She started the conversation with this line: "I'm just so glad that I'm out drinking with an Englishman".
"I'm not English".
"Oh. Are you Australian?"
"No."
"What are you?"
"Irish".
"I LOVE IRISH PEOPLE! That is so cool. Hey, you guys trained us".
That's when the atmosphere got worse. I knew exactly what she meant but I wanted her to say it.
"Trained you?"
"Yeah, Palestinian fighters were trained by the IRA".
That's what the idiot said. She tried to make friends with me by saying that. Unbelievable.
"The IRA isn't "me". What made you think I'd be happy to hear that?"
"I don't support violence of any kind but...."
And I stopped listening. I'm a simple man. It only takes only incredibly stupid and offensive remark like that to make me hate you. She did very well. It goes without saying that she's not Palestinian either. She's American. And the most "American comedian" American comedian I have ever met. She's a walking CV with no geography skills.
But she couldn't ruin the trip. I just ignored her for the rest of my stay and enjoyed the company of genuinely lovely people. Robin, Caroline, Tim, Catherine, Paul, Patrick, Azhar and many others enjoying working and playing together. It was a great trip. And, hey, it's me. Obviously if I get sent to paradise I'll find something to complain about.
Sincere thanks to The Doha Debates for being so incredibly nice to me. You should watch the debate yourself. It's good. There's more on it here: http://www.thedohadebates.com/news/item.asp?n=9442
ANOTHER PLEASE NOTE: This was edited purely to respect the people that I worked with. They didn't ask me to edit or change it in anyway. They've been incredibly nice about everything. Apologies for offence to them.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
BBC World News has a monthly political programme called The Doha Debates which I'm not going to pretend that I've ever heard of but you can. Normally the host, Tim Sebastian, has four guest speakers who debate subjects such as Barack Obama's influence on peace in the Middle East and the treatment of Muslims in India. Obviously a show like that would definitely need me and my stories of loud vaginas and shit supermarkets to get the audience in the right mood to furiously argue with one another. The theme of the debate this time was "The house believes that women are superior to men". It was the last in the series so they decided to make it a bit more light-hearted and go for a Doha Debates Comedy special with guests Robin Ince, Caroline Quinlan, and Azhar Usman. For some insane reason, they decided they needed a warm-up man to warm-up an incredibly lovely and funny audience for 15 minutes so they flew me out to Doha business class and put me up in the Four Seasons Hotel and even paid me. It was a good gig.
The show was great fun. Robin and Caroline were funny, as usual, while taking the stance of opposing the debate (hearing Robin Ince complain about how stupid and useless women are was worth it just to see the look of 'I'm sure I don't believe what I'm saying' on his face) and Azhar was agreeing with the house while being incredibly American about it. You know, he was going to win no matter what. That said, I thought Azhar was very funny.
But that was all last night, so much more happened before that. I don't know how you poor people travel Economy Class. It must be awful for you. I'm so glad there was a curtain separating me from the likes of you because I don't think I could bare to actually witness your squalor. Robin and I sat there with our delicious food, delicious wine and acres and acres of leg room and tried not to think about you while reclining on our flat beds and watching The Office (US) on a proper telly, not the tiny little thing they throw at the poor. I think what I liked about it most was the attention you get in Business Class. You won't know this but they just give you everything you want and constantly make sure that you are comfortable or if you need anything. Anything at all. One stewardess, who looked like a cross between a supermodel and an even superermodel, constantly refreshed my glass, plumped up my pillows, enquired about my well being and give me that smile that suggested I could definitely have sex with her if I wanted to easily. In fact, as the flight went on I realised that I was the only person she was giving this amount of attention to. At first I just assumed that's how it is when you're a Business Class person like what I am but that just wasn't the case. She was being nice to me. Only me. I was the best, greatest, most good looking passenger that she had ever seen and she had no problem in letting me know. After all, this could be her one chance to find the perfect man and, to her, I was the perfect man. She had just laid eyes on me but had instantly fallen in love. To her, psoriasis, asthma and piles are the kind of flaws that make the rest of me seem even better. They make me human and that is the part of me that she wants to tend to for the rest of her life. Yes, yes, yes, she's instantly fallen for my interesting hair, annoying laugh and out of context face but she sees more than that. Something to adore, yes, but also to care for. She looked at me and she saw the rest of her life and she was happy. About half an hour before we landed she came right over to me, NOT TO ANYONE ELSE, knelt beside me and looked deep into my eyes and said "Thank you so much for flying with us today. It was a pleasure having you on board. I look forward to seeing you again".
That poor girl. She had fallen so deeply in love and yet I could not commit to her. I had to turn my back and hope that she would get over me. There are plenty of other good men out there and I really hope that she finds that person. He's a lucky man whoever he is. I sat there thinking of how good the attention felt but how bitter-sweet our meeting had become.
Then Robin reminded me that I asked if I could swap seats with someone really important so that I could sit next to him. The stewardess saw only the seat number and assumed I was him.
The fucking bitch.
We arrived at our glamorous hotel, had a quick drink with Caroline and then all went to bed. Seperate beds. We're just the kind of important people that TV companies will splash out for seperate rooms on.
Next day was full of sunshine. 102 degree heat and doing very little. Doha didn't really exist 10 years ago so they're really only getting round to building it now. There's a lot to look at but very little to do so hanging round the hotel seemed the best bet. I walked around the small beach, the swimming pools and sat reading on the loungers for as long as I could in that heat (about half an hour) and it was just delightful. Relaxing and exotic and jammy. When I'm in a place like this I always like to listen to particularly British music and as Robin and I had been talking about The Cure and I was staring at the sea I decided to listen to Staring At The Sea by The Cure. Felt a bit odd listening to Killing An Arab while in the Middle East, mind you.
In the morning, we had a meeting with Tim Sebastian, Catherine Hart and other production crew from the show. It was me first (getting warm-up just right takes months of preparation for every show) but we were soon joined by Caroline and Robin and then someone else.
PLEASE NOTE: This blog has been edited from the original. Some people involved in The Doha Debates were unhappy with what I wrote and in respect to them I've edited out the most horrible parts. To be honest, what I wrote wasn't worth complaining about anyway but the real reason I've edited this is because the Doha Debates people were lovely and If I've offended any of them then writing a load of old moany crap would hardly be worth it. Basically, I was very much rubbed up the wrong way by another comedian and it doesn't really matter why. That said, it still really upsets me that I've met someone who thought it was OK to be so continually egotistical and horrible. That said, this blog is a big negative and everyone who reads it knows this, it's up to you to figure out whether I mean it or not. Also there is just one part of it that I feel I cannot edit. It's just too important (only to me, probably). I've left this, our only conversation together, here to give you an idea what I mean. It should be enough. The rest I've deleted because the other people I met there are a lot more worthy of thanks than this one person is worthy of extreme criticism. It might help you to know that the comedian is American but continually talked of her Palestinian background...
She started the conversation with this line: "I'm just so glad that I'm out drinking with an Englishman".
"I'm not English".
"Oh. Are you Australian?"
"No."
"What are you?"
"Irish".
"I LOVE IRISH PEOPLE! That is so cool. Hey, you guys trained us".
That's when the atmosphere got worse. I knew exactly what she meant but I wanted her to say it.
"Trained you?"
"Yeah, Palestinian fighters were trained by the IRA".
That's what the idiot said. She tried to make friends with me by saying that. Unbelievable.
"The IRA isn't "me". What made you think I'd be happy to hear that?"
"I don't support violence of any kind but...."
And I stopped listening. I'm a simple man. It only takes only incredibly stupid and offensive remark like that to make me hate you. She did very well. It goes without saying that she's not Palestinian either. She's American. And the most "American comedian" American comedian I have ever met. She's a walking CV with no geography skills.
But she couldn't ruin the trip. I just ignored her for the rest of my stay and enjoyed the company of genuinely lovely people. Robin, Caroline, Tim, Catherine, Paul, Patrick, Azhar and many others enjoying working and playing together. It was a great trip. And, hey, it's me. Obviously if I get sent to paradise I'll find something to complain about.
Sincere thanks to The Doha Debates for being so incredibly nice to me. You should watch the debate yourself. It's good. There's more on it here: http://www.thedohadebates.com/news/item.asp?n=9442
ANOTHER PLEASE NOTE: This was edited purely to respect the people that I worked with. They didn't ask me to edit or change it in anyway. They've been incredibly nice about everything. Apologies for offence to them.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Saturday, 22 May 2010
On Your Bike.
I had a good day yesterday. I realise that that very statement ruins the ethics and morals of this blog but it can’t just be ignored. The weather was great, I got work done, I had a couple of drinks. It was a great day.
Of course, I’m loyal to the blog so I did try to have a horrible day. I woke up at 7, that should have ruined everything but the sun coming through the curtains felt so good that it made me want to spring out of bed. You know, like a cheery cunt that you hate. I went downstairs and Jerk was wagging her tail and seemed so happy to see me that I thought I’d take her for a walk right there and then. Well, not right there. I took her to the park instead. Even at 7.30am the sun felt warm and beautiful and the sight of the Lewisham Parakeets flying, playing and fucking only brought added joy to this old, jaded serial killer-in-waiting.
But you never know, I could meet my new enemy: Cycling Prick.
I met Cycling Prick just a few days ago in the park. Again it was really early in the morning and the last thing I needed at that crap, crap hour was rudeness. Luckily, cyclists and their eco-saving egos come with bodybags full of rudeness.
Normally, I get out of the way of bicycles. I don’t really like the idea of the front wheel of a 10-speed ending up in my arsehole. It was just how I was brought up. Strict Catholic, you see. That arsehole isn’t for bicycles, young man, I was told. That’s the Pope’s arsehole. Anyway, that’s not the point. Like I say, normally I get out of the way of bicycles but not when the prick on the bicycle is rude. A simple ding ding of the bell is enough of a gentle alert to make me want to stand aside for the oncoming bike. “COMING THROUGH!” is not an acceptable equivalent.
That’s what Cycling Prick shouted. “COMING THROUGH!” Like he was in any way important. Like the world better just stand to one side because Cycling Prick is here cutting down Co2 emissions and raising people’s blood pressure wherever he goes. Well, fuck Cycling Prick. Cycling Prick is a prick.
As he cycled past I said “Did you mean ‘Excuse me?’”
He screeched to a stop (pathetically) and aggressively said “What was that?”
Two can play at the first thing in the morning aggression thing. “You heard what I said”, I replied. “Is that your way of saying excuse me?”
“Look I could have run into you. I could have run into your dog”.
“Yes. Or you could have slowed right down so once you got near to us you could say excuse me instead of speeding up and shouting COMING THROUGH at me”.
“Well, maybe next time I’ll just hit you”, he said with a very smug look on his pointy, aerodynamic face.
“Or maybe next time I’ll hit you”, I said.
Now we were both in a difficult situation. We had both been aggressive and neither of us had had breakfast yet. One of us had to be a man and give in. Luckily, he’s a man and he gave in. He cycled off and I carried on walking. I didn’t feel like I’d bloody shown him. It was too early for that. It took me ages to realise that I’d almost started a fight. Even Jeremy Kyle’s Dickhead Farm hasn’t opened for fighting yet. And soon Cycling Prick was returning. Now, I don’t know why he decided to cycle past me again. It looked like he had been rushing to work earlier but maybe he had come back because he left something at home. Or maybe, and I’m just saying maybe, he had decided to give aggressive sarcasm another try. “Excuse me”, he said horribly as he passed.
“SEE? YOU’RE LEARNING”, I shouted happily.
He cycled on. He looked pretty frustrated but he cycled on. OK, I admit it. I felt I had bloody shown him by now.
So I looked for him yesterday in the hope that I could somehow ruin my lovely day and maybe write a better blog but he never appeared. You know what? Even if he had been there, he could not have ruined yesterday for me. I went home and finished off a bit of Los Quattros Cvnts writing (June 2nd, The Phoenix with special guest Richard Herring) and then did gardening like a daddy does. I sat in (what felt like) my new garden reading and saying hello to my new followers on Twitter. Chris Addison was kind enough to give me a plug and his fans obviously think so much of him that I had about 1000 new followers in a couple of hours. And they’re lovely. All full of Hello’s and good cheer. It was a lovely day.
And if I told you what I was up to this weekend you wouldn’t believe me.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Of course, I’m loyal to the blog so I did try to have a horrible day. I woke up at 7, that should have ruined everything but the sun coming through the curtains felt so good that it made me want to spring out of bed. You know, like a cheery cunt that you hate. I went downstairs and Jerk was wagging her tail and seemed so happy to see me that I thought I’d take her for a walk right there and then. Well, not right there. I took her to the park instead. Even at 7.30am the sun felt warm and beautiful and the sight of the Lewisham Parakeets flying, playing and fucking only brought added joy to this old, jaded serial killer-in-waiting.
But you never know, I could meet my new enemy: Cycling Prick.
I met Cycling Prick just a few days ago in the park. Again it was really early in the morning and the last thing I needed at that crap, crap hour was rudeness. Luckily, cyclists and their eco-saving egos come with bodybags full of rudeness.
Normally, I get out of the way of bicycles. I don’t really like the idea of the front wheel of a 10-speed ending up in my arsehole. It was just how I was brought up. Strict Catholic, you see. That arsehole isn’t for bicycles, young man, I was told. That’s the Pope’s arsehole. Anyway, that’s not the point. Like I say, normally I get out of the way of bicycles but not when the prick on the bicycle is rude. A simple ding ding of the bell is enough of a gentle alert to make me want to stand aside for the oncoming bike. “COMING THROUGH!” is not an acceptable equivalent.
That’s what Cycling Prick shouted. “COMING THROUGH!” Like he was in any way important. Like the world better just stand to one side because Cycling Prick is here cutting down Co2 emissions and raising people’s blood pressure wherever he goes. Well, fuck Cycling Prick. Cycling Prick is a prick.
As he cycled past I said “Did you mean ‘Excuse me?’”
He screeched to a stop (pathetically) and aggressively said “What was that?”
Two can play at the first thing in the morning aggression thing. “You heard what I said”, I replied. “Is that your way of saying excuse me?”
“Look I could have run into you. I could have run into your dog”.
“Yes. Or you could have slowed right down so once you got near to us you could say excuse me instead of speeding up and shouting COMING THROUGH at me”.
“Well, maybe next time I’ll just hit you”, he said with a very smug look on his pointy, aerodynamic face.
“Or maybe next time I’ll hit you”, I said.
Now we were both in a difficult situation. We had both been aggressive and neither of us had had breakfast yet. One of us had to be a man and give in. Luckily, he’s a man and he gave in. He cycled off and I carried on walking. I didn’t feel like I’d bloody shown him. It was too early for that. It took me ages to realise that I’d almost started a fight. Even Jeremy Kyle’s Dickhead Farm hasn’t opened for fighting yet. And soon Cycling Prick was returning. Now, I don’t know why he decided to cycle past me again. It looked like he had been rushing to work earlier but maybe he had come back because he left something at home. Or maybe, and I’m just saying maybe, he had decided to give aggressive sarcasm another try. “Excuse me”, he said horribly as he passed.
“SEE? YOU’RE LEARNING”, I shouted happily.
He cycled on. He looked pretty frustrated but he cycled on. OK, I admit it. I felt I had bloody shown him by now.
So I looked for him yesterday in the hope that I could somehow ruin my lovely day and maybe write a better blog but he never appeared. You know what? Even if he had been there, he could not have ruined yesterday for me. I went home and finished off a bit of Los Quattros Cvnts writing (June 2nd, The Phoenix with special guest Richard Herring) and then did gardening like a daddy does. I sat in (what felt like) my new garden reading and saying hello to my new followers on Twitter. Chris Addison was kind enough to give me a plug and his fans obviously think so much of him that I had about 1000 new followers in a couple of hours. And they’re lovely. All full of Hello’s and good cheer. It was a lovely day.
And if I told you what I was up to this weekend you wouldn’t believe me.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Friday, 21 May 2010
Low Society.
You can't buy class. You can have all the money in the world but class is something you're just born with. Or you learn. Or is pointed out to you. But you CAN'T buy it.
I went for a couple of drinks around West Hampstead on Wednesday with my friend Bennett Arron. Now, admittedly West Hampstead is nothing compared to say Hampstead but it thinks it is. Bars are more expensive there. People eat and drink "Al Fresco", or for those without class "In The Rain". They have sushi instead of kebabs. It's a wannabe high class part of London but it will never get there. Because the people there are fucking trash just like the rest of us. Mutton dressed as Nigella.
The first bar we went to was The Lion. Good name, The Lion. It suggests it's a real pub. A proper pub. a man's pub. But no. Inside it's like a wine bar with dining area and wine patio. Nice, really. A wine patio sounds great. Except for two things. One, everyone in the tiny garden was smoking so it smelled like Amy Winehouse's jumper (ZING!). Two, a fucking stupid cunt decided that it was absolutely fine to change her baby's shitty nappy ON A TABLE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. As if it wasn't bad enough that the thoughtless prick had decided to take her baby to a really smoky area so that she could add more smoke to it and blow it directly on to her own child, she was just feet away from a nappy changing area. Are all parents these days just completely shit? Do we need to take these fuck-nuts away from their babies and put them into care. I mean put the parents into care not the babies. The babies will learn to look after themselves and are definitely better off being far away from their parents who hate this whole baby-hobby thing. I HAVE A BABY AND I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE WHEN I LIKE, the ridiculous mother told us all by showing us the brilliant shit her baby can make on a table that someone else will be sitting at soon. The great part was, as we left, we saw the baby kick the fucking cous-cous eating bitch's wine over. I like that baby.
We moved on to the next bar. Can't remember the name of it but it's the one after The Lion if you're heading back to the tube. It seemed ever fancier than The Lion. Lots of outdoor seating for the chain smoking elite and fancy food that is the culinary world's equivalent to Paris Hilton. You know, looks good but tastes awful. And is full of Chef-Cum (ZING!). I ordered two beers but they were flat and horrible (Hello again, Paris. ZING!) so I asked for a different type of beer. They were more than happy to deal with my request. Why wouldn't they? This is a classy West Hampstead establishment after all. They changed my Peroni for Staropramen with an apology and a smile. Very nice of them.
Then they gave my two rejected drinks to another customer.
I'm never going there again. And West Hampstead is Kilburn so it can get over itself, the pretentious cunts.
Yesterday I came out of my Outnumbered closet. Outnumbered is a very nice, middle-class, cosy sit-com and I should hate it but I don't. It's very clever and it's done that there thing that TV comedy never does. Good writing, strong characters and great acting. So there you have it. I like Outnumbered. In fact, I love Outnumbered. If you haven't seen it I urge you to as soon as you can. Of course, if I like Outnumbered then I must absolutely HATE something new-ish to balance everything out. The universe would fall into the sea if I only liked something and forgot to HATE something. Don't worry, I do really HATE something. It's called Coming Of Age. It's the worst thing on TV at the moment and I'm including news footage of the clashes in Bangkok in this. Just in case you haven't seen it, here it is in a nutshell:
SLAG: Now that you've fucked my arsehole off me, do you fancy a cup of tea?
IDIOT BOY: Well, I'd rather drink tea than suck my Dad's spunk out of my dead Nana's quim.
Repeat ad nauseum.
It's like a really childish version of Rent-A-Ghost. I know it's for teenagers but I had The Young Ones. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, here's a clip: http://bit.ly/9FIGuK
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
I went for a couple of drinks around West Hampstead on Wednesday with my friend Bennett Arron. Now, admittedly West Hampstead is nothing compared to say Hampstead but it thinks it is. Bars are more expensive there. People eat and drink "Al Fresco", or for those without class "In The Rain". They have sushi instead of kebabs. It's a wannabe high class part of London but it will never get there. Because the people there are fucking trash just like the rest of us. Mutton dressed as Nigella.
The first bar we went to was The Lion. Good name, The Lion. It suggests it's a real pub. A proper pub. a man's pub. But no. Inside it's like a wine bar with dining area and wine patio. Nice, really. A wine patio sounds great. Except for two things. One, everyone in the tiny garden was smoking so it smelled like Amy Winehouse's jumper (ZING!). Two, a fucking stupid cunt decided that it was absolutely fine to change her baby's shitty nappy ON A TABLE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. As if it wasn't bad enough that the thoughtless prick had decided to take her baby to a really smoky area so that she could add more smoke to it and blow it directly on to her own child, she was just feet away from a nappy changing area. Are all parents these days just completely shit? Do we need to take these fuck-nuts away from their babies and put them into care. I mean put the parents into care not the babies. The babies will learn to look after themselves and are definitely better off being far away from their parents who hate this whole baby-hobby thing. I HAVE A BABY AND I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE WHEN I LIKE, the ridiculous mother told us all by showing us the brilliant shit her baby can make on a table that someone else will be sitting at soon. The great part was, as we left, we saw the baby kick the fucking cous-cous eating bitch's wine over. I like that baby.
We moved on to the next bar. Can't remember the name of it but it's the one after The Lion if you're heading back to the tube. It seemed ever fancier than The Lion. Lots of outdoor seating for the chain smoking elite and fancy food that is the culinary world's equivalent to Paris Hilton. You know, looks good but tastes awful. And is full of Chef-Cum (ZING!). I ordered two beers but they were flat and horrible (Hello again, Paris. ZING!) so I asked for a different type of beer. They were more than happy to deal with my request. Why wouldn't they? This is a classy West Hampstead establishment after all. They changed my Peroni for Staropramen with an apology and a smile. Very nice of them.
Then they gave my two rejected drinks to another customer.
I'm never going there again. And West Hampstead is Kilburn so it can get over itself, the pretentious cunts.
Yesterday I came out of my Outnumbered closet. Outnumbered is a very nice, middle-class, cosy sit-com and I should hate it but I don't. It's very clever and it's done that there thing that TV comedy never does. Good writing, strong characters and great acting. So there you have it. I like Outnumbered. In fact, I love Outnumbered. If you haven't seen it I urge you to as soon as you can. Of course, if I like Outnumbered then I must absolutely HATE something new-ish to balance everything out. The universe would fall into the sea if I only liked something and forgot to HATE something. Don't worry, I do really HATE something. It's called Coming Of Age. It's the worst thing on TV at the moment and I'm including news footage of the clashes in Bangkok in this. Just in case you haven't seen it, here it is in a nutshell:
SLAG: Now that you've fucked my arsehole off me, do you fancy a cup of tea?
IDIOT BOY: Well, I'd rather drink tea than suck my Dad's spunk out of my dead Nana's quim.
Repeat ad nauseum.
It's like a really childish version of Rent-A-Ghost. I know it's for teenagers but I had The Young Ones. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, here's a clip: http://bit.ly/9FIGuK
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
The Tao of Shit.
Yes, I did enjoy myself at the weekend. Is that such a crime? I had a lot of fun but as with every single time I start to enjoy myself it has to be ruined. It's like if I smile the entire universe starts to shake and the only way to redress the balance is by shitting on me from a great height. Why was I born such a beautiful martyr?
I enjoyed The Fall and that's where I made my mistake. Not all of All Tomorrow's Parties was for me but I loved The Fall. Mark E. Smith's arrogant way of walking around the stage twiddling the knobs of audio equipment that had nothing to do with him and occasionally pushing the keyboard player out of the way so he could punch the keyboard really appealed to me. The music was excellent but Mark E. Smith's way of roaming around the stage, bored and looking for something to do, while waiting for the time when he can just walk off is what makes a quality Fall show. After the encore the entire audience left the room. That's when grumpy Mark decided to come back on and, as a result, caused a mad rush of 40-something unfit blobs in Frenz Experiment t-shirts nearly killing themselves to get to the front. He knew what he was doing. And well done him.
I enjoyed that and so must pay the price. That's when one of Minehead's fattest seagulls shat on me.
It was a huge shit. A really massive, runny, long, white, grey-flecked shit right on my shoulder that ran it's natural course right down the front and back of my jacket. My emotions just bottle-necked. I was grossed out, angry, thought it was funny, disgusted, impressed by the accuracy, depressed that I'll have to clean it and happy that this beautiful animal is so free that it can just shit wherever it likes in public without even noticing. Surely that is something that man has always dreamt of. To soar high above the rooftops, the mountains, the clouds. Casually shitting everywhere without even blinking an eyelid. When will evolution catch up with man's vision of perfection?
So I got shat on, as I was saying, and it made me feel a series of conflicting emotions. My friends could only muster the one emotion however: joy. Sheer joy at me being shat on. The pointing, the laughing, the constant photography...my predicament only seemed to make their weekend more enjoyable. Who would have thought that a simple, horrific stream of excrement on a shoulder could bring so much happiness into the lives of indie people who seem to live their lives being misunderstood and emotionally beaten? Probably for the first time in their limited edition 7" plastic lives they are smiling and happy and laughing and alive. It's like halfway through the film Awakenings but with more runny, runny shit. There I am with all this liquid poo running down my front and back, so white that I consider I'd been ejaculated on by a seagull and not merely scatalogically targeted by one, and all I can see is joy. These mentally ill, whiny, indie fans with their Emily The Strange notepads full of their empty thoughts and their Belle & Sebastian brooches are all smiling and laughing and happy and I am their Patch Adams but with a lot less runny, runny shit.
I paid the price for my joy but maybe it all evened out. I mean, in my job, when am I likely to see such laughter again?
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
I enjoyed The Fall and that's where I made my mistake. Not all of All Tomorrow's Parties was for me but I loved The Fall. Mark E. Smith's arrogant way of walking around the stage twiddling the knobs of audio equipment that had nothing to do with him and occasionally pushing the keyboard player out of the way so he could punch the keyboard really appealed to me. The music was excellent but Mark E. Smith's way of roaming around the stage, bored and looking for something to do, while waiting for the time when he can just walk off is what makes a quality Fall show. After the encore the entire audience left the room. That's when grumpy Mark decided to come back on and, as a result, caused a mad rush of 40-something unfit blobs in Frenz Experiment t-shirts nearly killing themselves to get to the front. He knew what he was doing. And well done him.
I enjoyed that and so must pay the price. That's when one of Minehead's fattest seagulls shat on me.
It was a huge shit. A really massive, runny, long, white, grey-flecked shit right on my shoulder that ran it's natural course right down the front and back of my jacket. My emotions just bottle-necked. I was grossed out, angry, thought it was funny, disgusted, impressed by the accuracy, depressed that I'll have to clean it and happy that this beautiful animal is so free that it can just shit wherever it likes in public without even noticing. Surely that is something that man has always dreamt of. To soar high above the rooftops, the mountains, the clouds. Casually shitting everywhere without even blinking an eyelid. When will evolution catch up with man's vision of perfection?
So I got shat on, as I was saying, and it made me feel a series of conflicting emotions. My friends could only muster the one emotion however: joy. Sheer joy at me being shat on. The pointing, the laughing, the constant photography...my predicament only seemed to make their weekend more enjoyable. Who would have thought that a simple, horrific stream of excrement on a shoulder could bring so much happiness into the lives of indie people who seem to live their lives being misunderstood and emotionally beaten? Probably for the first time in their limited edition 7" plastic lives they are smiling and happy and laughing and alive. It's like halfway through the film Awakenings but with more runny, runny shit. There I am with all this liquid poo running down my front and back, so white that I consider I'd been ejaculated on by a seagull and not merely scatalogically targeted by one, and all I can see is joy. These mentally ill, whiny, indie fans with their Emily The Strange notepads full of their empty thoughts and their Belle & Sebastian brooches are all smiling and laughing and happy and I am their Patch Adams but with a lot less runny, runny shit.
I paid the price for my joy but maybe it all evened out. I mean, in my job, when am I likely to see such laughter again?
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Band Camp.
I went to Butlins for the weekend. Don't worry, it was all very ironic and clever and smug. All Tomorrows Parties took over the poor, thick people's one and only joy in life outside of drugs and having babies for the entire weekend it and filled it with lots of middle-class white people who walked around wearing their Nan's clothes and laughed at the preposterousness of ACTUALLY being there. It was all very dignified.
All Tomorrow's Parties do this a lot. A few times a year they take over Butlins in Minehead and hold a three-day indie music festival that is curated by someone you've never heard of. That said, the previous weekend was curated by Matt Groening who is uncharacteristically actually famous but the weekend that I went to was all organised by 90's indie also-rans Pavement.
I missed the first day because I had to be up early to join Andrew Collins on 6music and that was lovely. You can judge the loveliness for yourself on iPlayer for the next few days (http://bit.ly/dBqdcu). There's also a podcast but it leaves out "Braile dog-poo" and my extended shouting and you don't want to miss that, do you? So after all that I arrived at Butlins a day and a half late but just in time to see Mark Eitzel who I absolutely love. His voice is just so broken and beautiful and his songs are horrible and gorgeous. On stage he appears like a cross between a homeless Frank Sinatra and a dying Paul Foot. How could you not love him? Plus, his pianist was Rory from Doctor Who (it really was). Sadly, a couple of people beside me didn't quite love Mark as much as I did. They shouted loudly throughout the show and generally behaved in a ridiculous, obnoxious manner. They even looked as bad as they sounded. One man was 5ft tall and wore a cravat and a Victorian moustache. Even if he was mute I'd want to punch him. We asked several times for them to be quiet but they didn't give a fuck. So I glared at the dwarf in cunt's clothing and mouthed "That's your last chance". The thing about indie people is they don't expect violence. They live in a twee, we-make-our-own-clothes-out-of-fuzzy-felt, lovely-skippy little world and think that everyone else at an indie festival will be the same. But I am clever. I know that he doesn't know that I am too cowardly to hit him and that is all I need. They shut up pretty soon after that.
Eitzel couldn't be ruined, of course. He is superb and it would take much more than a short-arsed twat in a boater to stop his majesty. But what after Eitzel? To be honest, I hadn't heard of any of these bands. Pavement passed me by and no way was I ever going to be intrigued by bands with names like Camera Obscura (slappable indie wets) or Atlas Sound (I didn't bother). I'd have to wait a full 24 hours before I'd see another band I liked. The Fall closed the main stage on Sunday but that was ages away. Fuck it, I'll give Boris a go.
Boris are my favourite band.
Boris are Japanese and play the intro's to Black Sabbath songs. For an hour. They are so bassy and growly and dirty and thick and loud surely only whales could like their low, low music. It must be killing these indie picnic-ers. I stayed to watch in case they made any of the fey bunch cry but I just ended up loving them and their "music". In fact, they had me right from the start. They walked on, none of their instruments worked, they fucked off. Without a word. WHAT AN INTRO! Take that, Freddie Mercury! Boris are showmen.
I loved them so much that I went back to see them the next day. This time they performed their album Feedbacker in it's entirety. Feedbacker is as it sounds. FOR AN HOUR. Charming.
So much better than the big mistake of the weekend: Still Flyin'. Yes, I saw a band that chose to call itself Still Flyin'. The 11-piece happy-clappy bunch of embarrassing 30-something children were amazing only for one thing. Every member of the band was the band's Bez. Their songs were called things like Sunny Day Hug or Rainbow Pepsi-Cola Prom Panda. CUNTS! They all dressed from their big, fun dressing up box and jumped up and down and invited their friends on stage and got people to draw them and told everyone how much fun they all are and just FORCED people into going along with it in the same way that a tired and embarrassed parent has to be interested in it's talentless child's awful painting. I would send you a YouTube link but you deserve better. Kickable pricks.
So The Fall were excellent (seeing Stewart Lee "mosh" will take some time to get over) and Pavement were too, even though I know none of their songs and I insulted Stephen Malkmus. Tell you about that later. But it's the scale of the thing that impressed me most. Butlins is HUGE. All these streets made of little houses that go on for miles and the amount of activities and the state-of-the-art sound equipment in their huge venues...How come Butlins aims so low? Why does it want tedious entertainment for the Sky+ers to just veg out to? That's the only thing that's wrong with it. If there were pop Pub Quizzes and Boris on all year round I'd happily go there for a June fortnight. I like Butlins. Is that so wrong?
Thanks to James & Sarah for organising it (for me, not for everyone).
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
All Tomorrow's Parties do this a lot. A few times a year they take over Butlins in Minehead and hold a three-day indie music festival that is curated by someone you've never heard of. That said, the previous weekend was curated by Matt Groening who is uncharacteristically actually famous but the weekend that I went to was all organised by 90's indie also-rans Pavement.
I missed the first day because I had to be up early to join Andrew Collins on 6music and that was lovely. You can judge the loveliness for yourself on iPlayer for the next few days (http://bit.ly/dBqdcu). There's also a podcast but it leaves out "Braile dog-poo" and my extended shouting and you don't want to miss that, do you? So after all that I arrived at Butlins a day and a half late but just in time to see Mark Eitzel who I absolutely love. His voice is just so broken and beautiful and his songs are horrible and gorgeous. On stage he appears like a cross between a homeless Frank Sinatra and a dying Paul Foot. How could you not love him? Plus, his pianist was Rory from Doctor Who (it really was). Sadly, a couple of people beside me didn't quite love Mark as much as I did. They shouted loudly throughout the show and generally behaved in a ridiculous, obnoxious manner. They even looked as bad as they sounded. One man was 5ft tall and wore a cravat and a Victorian moustache. Even if he was mute I'd want to punch him. We asked several times for them to be quiet but they didn't give a fuck. So I glared at the dwarf in cunt's clothing and mouthed "That's your last chance". The thing about indie people is they don't expect violence. They live in a twee, we-make-our-own-clothes-out-of-fuzzy-felt, lovely-skippy little world and think that everyone else at an indie festival will be the same. But I am clever. I know that he doesn't know that I am too cowardly to hit him and that is all I need. They shut up pretty soon after that.
Eitzel couldn't be ruined, of course. He is superb and it would take much more than a short-arsed twat in a boater to stop his majesty. But what after Eitzel? To be honest, I hadn't heard of any of these bands. Pavement passed me by and no way was I ever going to be intrigued by bands with names like Camera Obscura (slappable indie wets) or Atlas Sound (I didn't bother). I'd have to wait a full 24 hours before I'd see another band I liked. The Fall closed the main stage on Sunday but that was ages away. Fuck it, I'll give Boris a go.
Boris are my favourite band.
Boris are Japanese and play the intro's to Black Sabbath songs. For an hour. They are so bassy and growly and dirty and thick and loud surely only whales could like their low, low music. It must be killing these indie picnic-ers. I stayed to watch in case they made any of the fey bunch cry but I just ended up loving them and their "music". In fact, they had me right from the start. They walked on, none of their instruments worked, they fucked off. Without a word. WHAT AN INTRO! Take that, Freddie Mercury! Boris are showmen.
I loved them so much that I went back to see them the next day. This time they performed their album Feedbacker in it's entirety. Feedbacker is as it sounds. FOR AN HOUR. Charming.
So much better than the big mistake of the weekend: Still Flyin'. Yes, I saw a band that chose to call itself Still Flyin'. The 11-piece happy-clappy bunch of embarrassing 30-something children were amazing only for one thing. Every member of the band was the band's Bez. Their songs were called things like Sunny Day Hug or Rainbow Pepsi-Cola Prom Panda. CUNTS! They all dressed from their big, fun dressing up box and jumped up and down and invited their friends on stage and got people to draw them and told everyone how much fun they all are and just FORCED people into going along with it in the same way that a tired and embarrassed parent has to be interested in it's talentless child's awful painting. I would send you a YouTube link but you deserve better. Kickable pricks.
So The Fall were excellent (seeing Stewart Lee "mosh" will take some time to get over) and Pavement were too, even though I know none of their songs and I insulted Stephen Malkmus. Tell you about that later. But it's the scale of the thing that impressed me most. Butlins is HUGE. All these streets made of little houses that go on for miles and the amount of activities and the state-of-the-art sound equipment in their huge venues...How come Butlins aims so low? Why does it want tedious entertainment for the Sky+ers to just veg out to? That's the only thing that's wrong with it. If there were pop Pub Quizzes and Boris on all year round I'd happily go there for a June fortnight. I like Butlins. Is that so wrong?
Thanks to James & Sarah for organising it (for me, not for everyone).
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Friday, 14 May 2010
Blood and Rears.
I have piles. Of course, I have piles. Why wouldn't I have piles? Piles seems, to me, to be the next obvious step in my evolution. Psoriasis, asthma, arthritis, funnel chest, fat feet, foot lumps, baggy eyes, run like a girl, tiny tiny penis and being thick just aren't enough for me. I needed something more and my body chose the obvious: piles. Now my arse is as furious as the rest of me.
Well, I think I have piles. Basically, my bum hurts A LOT but I have yet to seek a professional medical opinion on my bum. A lot of people have given their amateur opinion on my bum more times than I can remember over the years but I've yet to seek a Doctor's advice. And why would I? I'm a man. Men never go to the Doctor. It's a sign of weakness and we men never ever get ill and we live forever. Plus I'm a bit embarrassed and don't think I'm mature enough to sit in front of a Doctor and go "Well, it's about my bum..." Of course, I'm not mature enough. I mean, look at me. I can't even write the word Doctor without giving it a capital D. That's how my complex and intriguing mind works: If I have to see a GP the he HAS to be a Time Lord.
The great thing about having or assuming you have piles is that all of a sudden you have a whole new group of friends. People with piles love to talk about piles. They are proud of their piles. No matter how much pain you are in it's nothing compared to their arse agony. "One time, I burst every one of my hemorrhoids while shitting and the toilet bowl looked like Saw III", they say with a beaming smile normally reserved for the day your child takes it's first steps. It's incredible. These people live for their piles and if you have piles too then you are instantly their bestest friend in the whole wide world. My arse is in nine bits but, all of a sudden, I feel like I belong.
And if I go to the Doctor I might get given cream and my piles will vanish along with my new ice-breaker at parties. Piles has given me so much more than a bloody hole. It's given me a social in. Who knows where that could take me? No doubt a fellow piles sufferer will discover that I have piles and do me a favour. Maybe introduce me to a producer at the BBC. And when that producer at the BBC see's that, like him, I have piles he'll realise that I'm great and set me up with a meeting to brainstorm a new sit-com and when the sit-com people find out that, like them, I have piles they will suddenly love all my comedy ideas and want to make my sit-com. And then my sit-com will be on TV and piles "sufferers" will love it and it will become a cult hit and because the piles "sufferers" love it they demand that TV offers me more work and that's when the BBC beg me to return so they can get me to sign the most expensive writer's contract in history, one that I can't possibly refuse, and tell me that I'll be writing the new prime time comedy vehicle for king of the piles himself, Paddy McGuinness. That is when every single one of my precious, precious bum grapes explode right there and then as I stand in the middle fountain thing at the BBC but instead of a hundred record-breaking tap-dancing children surrounding me it'll just be an ocean of my arse-blood destroying everything.
What I need, right now, is a Doctor.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Well, I think I have piles. Basically, my bum hurts A LOT but I have yet to seek a professional medical opinion on my bum. A lot of people have given their amateur opinion on my bum more times than I can remember over the years but I've yet to seek a Doctor's advice. And why would I? I'm a man. Men never go to the Doctor. It's a sign of weakness and we men never ever get ill and we live forever. Plus I'm a bit embarrassed and don't think I'm mature enough to sit in front of a Doctor and go "Well, it's about my bum..." Of course, I'm not mature enough. I mean, look at me. I can't even write the word Doctor without giving it a capital D. That's how my complex and intriguing mind works: If I have to see a GP the he HAS to be a Time Lord.
The great thing about having or assuming you have piles is that all of a sudden you have a whole new group of friends. People with piles love to talk about piles. They are proud of their piles. No matter how much pain you are in it's nothing compared to their arse agony. "One time, I burst every one of my hemorrhoids while shitting and the toilet bowl looked like Saw III", they say with a beaming smile normally reserved for the day your child takes it's first steps. It's incredible. These people live for their piles and if you have piles too then you are instantly their bestest friend in the whole wide world. My arse is in nine bits but, all of a sudden, I feel like I belong.
And if I go to the Doctor I might get given cream and my piles will vanish along with my new ice-breaker at parties. Piles has given me so much more than a bloody hole. It's given me a social in. Who knows where that could take me? No doubt a fellow piles sufferer will discover that I have piles and do me a favour. Maybe introduce me to a producer at the BBC. And when that producer at the BBC see's that, like him, I have piles he'll realise that I'm great and set me up with a meeting to brainstorm a new sit-com and when the sit-com people find out that, like them, I have piles they will suddenly love all my comedy ideas and want to make my sit-com. And then my sit-com will be on TV and piles "sufferers" will love it and it will become a cult hit and because the piles "sufferers" love it they demand that TV offers me more work and that's when the BBC beg me to return so they can get me to sign the most expensive writer's contract in history, one that I can't possibly refuse, and tell me that I'll be writing the new prime time comedy vehicle for king of the piles himself, Paddy McGuinness. That is when every single one of my precious, precious bum grapes explode right there and then as I stand in the middle fountain thing at the BBC but instead of a hundred record-breaking tap-dancing children surrounding me it'll just be an ocean of my arse-blood destroying everything.
What I need, right now, is a Doctor.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
A New Hopeless.
I was halfway through a blog about loud, drunk women being thrown out of a comedy club but, like The One Show, this blog has been interrupted to bring you this breaking opinion.
Balls.
Yep, that's my thoughts on it. Balls. I pretty much knew that David Cameron would get in well before election day but what I didn't know was that I would end up voting for him. I am incredibly disillusioned by the Labour party, even though I think Gordon Brown is a much better politician than most, and I would never ever even think about voting Tory. It's just in my bones and blood. You DON'T vote Tory. They are evil. The other two main parties might be wrong but Tories are evil. Ben Elton told me that and he should know. So, as a result, I voted Lib-Dem because I thought Nick Clegg might be the least cunty of the list of cunts that I was offered. Nick Clegg. Stupid, stupid Nick Clegg. The UK's political Anakin Skywalker.
Stirring shit is the main part of any political agenda when it comes to an election and when we had all lost faith in Gordon Brown (Chancellor Valorum) a lot of us believed via bullshit press that there was only one other person we could turn to. No-one else was likely to get in and Nick Clegg, although promising, was just a padawan in a weird organisation that remarkably has lasted as long as it has. These confused and lost people turned to David Cameron (Chancellor Palpatine) which just made anyone watching very upset. I mean WE can see that Cameron is evil, why can't they? That made us RELY on Clegg. He was new, he was naive but he felt he could offer something. When will people take him seriously as a politician? He should have a seat in the Government now. He could bring balance to the country.
So, we were split. Most were supporting Cameron and we knew that Brown was over, out of the race. Maybe, just maybe, Clegg could come along and save the day. He seemed to look to the old ways of the Tories (Darkside) and the old ways of Labour (Jedi, once) and offered an alternative. It was why he got into this in the first place.
But he was young, foolish, reckless. Easily seduced. After the election, it all broke down. Our hopes and Clegg's chances. At the last minute, a lot of us saw what a bad actor he was and he didn't do as well as he thought and that must have made him angry. Soon, we found out that Cameron had summoned Clegg to talk about a coalition (probably in a private box watching a big purple ghost opera) and Clegg dropped to his knees. This way he could save his wife (Padme) from utter political-failure embarrassment and could learn how to use evil for good. Weird, really, as Labour have killed a lot more Sandpeople in recent years.
By then, we who had trusted Clegg could see his orange fiery eyes and felt the betrayal. We are going to have to wait until we land on planet teddy-bear and Cameron and him have a massive fight before he sees the error of his ways.
It's a horrible story and would make a terrible film but it's one that will stay with me for a while. I might be slightly jumping the gun here, and I fear I'm not, but Nick Clegg has made me vote Tory. I voted for someone who said he might have a better way of doing things and now he is telling me that he believed in the thing I hate. I feel like an idiot. A stupid, unforgiving, unforgetting idiot.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum...
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Balls.
Yep, that's my thoughts on it. Balls. I pretty much knew that David Cameron would get in well before election day but what I didn't know was that I would end up voting for him. I am incredibly disillusioned by the Labour party, even though I think Gordon Brown is a much better politician than most, and I would never ever even think about voting Tory. It's just in my bones and blood. You DON'T vote Tory. They are evil. The other two main parties might be wrong but Tories are evil. Ben Elton told me that and he should know. So, as a result, I voted Lib-Dem because I thought Nick Clegg might be the least cunty of the list of cunts that I was offered. Nick Clegg. Stupid, stupid Nick Clegg. The UK's political Anakin Skywalker.
Stirring shit is the main part of any political agenda when it comes to an election and when we had all lost faith in Gordon Brown (Chancellor Valorum) a lot of us believed via bullshit press that there was only one other person we could turn to. No-one else was likely to get in and Nick Clegg, although promising, was just a padawan in a weird organisation that remarkably has lasted as long as it has. These confused and lost people turned to David Cameron (Chancellor Palpatine) which just made anyone watching very upset. I mean WE can see that Cameron is evil, why can't they? That made us RELY on Clegg. He was new, he was naive but he felt he could offer something. When will people take him seriously as a politician? He should have a seat in the Government now. He could bring balance to the country.
So, we were split. Most were supporting Cameron and we knew that Brown was over, out of the race. Maybe, just maybe, Clegg could come along and save the day. He seemed to look to the old ways of the Tories (Darkside) and the old ways of Labour (Jedi, once) and offered an alternative. It was why he got into this in the first place.
But he was young, foolish, reckless. Easily seduced. After the election, it all broke down. Our hopes and Clegg's chances. At the last minute, a lot of us saw what a bad actor he was and he didn't do as well as he thought and that must have made him angry. Soon, we found out that Cameron had summoned Clegg to talk about a coalition (probably in a private box watching a big purple ghost opera) and Clegg dropped to his knees. This way he could save his wife (Padme) from utter political-failure embarrassment and could learn how to use evil for good. Weird, really, as Labour have killed a lot more Sandpeople in recent years.
By then, we who had trusted Clegg could see his orange fiery eyes and felt the betrayal. We are going to have to wait until we land on planet teddy-bear and Cameron and him have a massive fight before he sees the error of his ways.
It's a horrible story and would make a terrible film but it's one that will stay with me for a while. I might be slightly jumping the gun here, and I fear I'm not, but Nick Clegg has made me vote Tory. I voted for someone who said he might have a better way of doing things and now he is telling me that he believed in the thing I hate. I feel like an idiot. A stupid, unforgiving, unforgetting idiot.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum...
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Monday, 10 May 2010
Eat The Rich.
I woke up early on Saturday morning to spend the day with my friend, Phat Paul, and to celebrate his birthday. There was a time when Phat Paul and I would have gone out, got drunk and got into a hilarious scrape involving a Mum, her daughter and a big Nun but those days seem to have changed. We don't celebrate birthday's like we used to. That's why I woke up at 7.30am on Saturday to go mushroom picking.
Yep. That's what he wanted to do.
I've never gone mushroom picking before (I know, it's a shock) and I can't imagine I'll go again. There was nothing wrong with it, of course, it's just that the actual picking of mushrooms is a bit dull. I mean, we walked all round Hampstead Heath while people looked solely at the ground and ignored the beautiful scenery around them. It was if they were completely unaware that mushrooms are available in the shops. They also behaved slightly like mushrooms are the cure for cancer and we all needed mushrooms, and only mushrooms, to survive. But, as we were there for four hours and there are only about six mushrooms in the entire place, I couldn't help but think that Hampstead Heath has more interesting things to offer. In fact, due to the Heath's reputation and complete lack of mushrooms, this birthday day out was quickly turning into a cum-filled condom finding expedition. I think at one point we managed to walk fifteen feet without seeing a spunky little ghost lying exhausted on a branch.
But the walk itself around the Heath is just gorgeous. I took joy in ignoring the mushrooms (that aren't there anyway) and looking at all the wealthy people's beautiful pedigree dogs. They all seemed to gracefully run around with an air of importance and superiority that really suited them. Still not as beautiful as my mutt, though. But that was the really annoying thing. I hadn't really paid attention to where we were going or what we were actually going to be doing so, in essence, I ended up paying a dog-sitter to look after my dog so I could go to the park. I'm a fucking stupid penis. Jerk would have loved it on the Heath. She'd be able to fight with a much better class of dog than she's used to.
The mushroom non-picking didn't bother me at all. I like mushrooms but I don't care how many types there are or how they grow or how you dry and store them. If I want mushrooms, I will go to the shop and buy them. I'm walking around a beautiful part of London and no-one can spoil it.
Except for absolutely everyone here.
What a horrible bunch of fucking alien cunts this heath attracts. The people who constantly fuck behind bushes are fine but the other people? They're awful. The mushroom pickers are bad enough. They SQUEEEEEEEAL when they see a small clump of mushrooms and that horrible noise just attracts the others to rush over and start clambering over themselves to get a mushroom too. Dignity is something that never occurs to them. There are mushrooms there so they MUST have some. At all costs. No matter what. Pushing, grabbing, shoving, pulling and for what? Mushrooms. Mushrooms that these wealthy fucks can easily afford yet would rather die than pay for. They acted like cunts, which is fair enough because they looked like cunts. One grown man walked around with a BASKET. A FUCKING BASKET. Like the one Little Red Riding Hood carried before her Grandmother was raped and murdered by an animal. He carried a fucking BASKET around like it was the most normal thing in the world. Fuck, manbags. Manbaskets are the thing REAL twee little bastards are seen with these days. And every time he found a mushroom, which was about twice, he smugly popped it into his BASKET and smugly looked at it as if it was his little earth baby that he loved more than anything he had ever known. He wasn't going to take that mushroom home, chop it up and stir-fry it to death like the rest of us might. NO! He was going to clean it, clothe it, educate it, love it and make it the sole heir to his incredible pastel-coloured fabrics empire.
And he was far from the worst. One cunt, who carried a mushroom identification book with him CONSTANTLY, wouldn't leave us the fuck alone. He kept talking about the dishes he's made all over the world without any acceptance of my body language screaming "I DON'T TALK TO PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW. GO THE FUCK AWAY, PLEASE". I smiled and nodded but as soon as he said "I haven't actually paid for a mushroom in two decades" I sped up and got away from him.
He got more time from me than the "guide" did though. I dunno, there's something about a man who describes himself as a Druid that I can't take seriously. The cunt. He isn't a druid and I say that for a very good reason. NO-ONE IS A DRUID. Grow up.
But it was the people who live near the Heath that upset me most. Yes, yes, yes. I'm jealous of them. Of course, I'm jealous of them. They have everything they want. I just think that there should be a line and, when people of incredible wealth cross it, ALL of their money is passed on to someone else. Someone who might appreciate it and not spend it in the most ridiculously pompous way that they do.
At one point I saw two children on wooden bicycles. Are you seriously trying to tell me that if you had seen two children on wooden bicycles that you would be certain that you wouldn't start punching them to death? I just wanted to deck them. Two little twats OPENLY riding WOODEN bicycles. Are they INSANE? No, they're not. They are children. The insane ones are their parents. The people who bought these two little boys, that they have barely met, wooden bicycles and named them after an exotic holiday destination or a salad and dressed them up little country gentlemen. How could anyone NOT want to batter these children? THEY RIDE WOODEN BICYCLES? Don't tell me I'm wrong, OK? I'm right. I'M RIGHT, I'M RIGHT, I'M RIGHT! No, I'm not losing it, you're losing it. Shut up.
A perfectly lovely walk tarnished by the human race. Again. Luckily, gigs this weekend have been excellent. The Kings Head in Crouch End was just lovely and the Comedy Cafe was a lot of fun too. Allow me to tell you about the table of HERE COME THE GIRLS that had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the venue. Tomorrow...
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Yep. That's what he wanted to do.
I've never gone mushroom picking before (I know, it's a shock) and I can't imagine I'll go again. There was nothing wrong with it, of course, it's just that the actual picking of mushrooms is a bit dull. I mean, we walked all round Hampstead Heath while people looked solely at the ground and ignored the beautiful scenery around them. It was if they were completely unaware that mushrooms are available in the shops. They also behaved slightly like mushrooms are the cure for cancer and we all needed mushrooms, and only mushrooms, to survive. But, as we were there for four hours and there are only about six mushrooms in the entire place, I couldn't help but think that Hampstead Heath has more interesting things to offer. In fact, due to the Heath's reputation and complete lack of mushrooms, this birthday day out was quickly turning into a cum-filled condom finding expedition. I think at one point we managed to walk fifteen feet without seeing a spunky little ghost lying exhausted on a branch.
But the walk itself around the Heath is just gorgeous. I took joy in ignoring the mushrooms (that aren't there anyway) and looking at all the wealthy people's beautiful pedigree dogs. They all seemed to gracefully run around with an air of importance and superiority that really suited them. Still not as beautiful as my mutt, though. But that was the really annoying thing. I hadn't really paid attention to where we were going or what we were actually going to be doing so, in essence, I ended up paying a dog-sitter to look after my dog so I could go to the park. I'm a fucking stupid penis. Jerk would have loved it on the Heath. She'd be able to fight with a much better class of dog than she's used to.
The mushroom non-picking didn't bother me at all. I like mushrooms but I don't care how many types there are or how they grow or how you dry and store them. If I want mushrooms, I will go to the shop and buy them. I'm walking around a beautiful part of London and no-one can spoil it.
Except for absolutely everyone here.
What a horrible bunch of fucking alien cunts this heath attracts. The people who constantly fuck behind bushes are fine but the other people? They're awful. The mushroom pickers are bad enough. They SQUEEEEEEEAL when they see a small clump of mushrooms and that horrible noise just attracts the others to rush over and start clambering over themselves to get a mushroom too. Dignity is something that never occurs to them. There are mushrooms there so they MUST have some. At all costs. No matter what. Pushing, grabbing, shoving, pulling and for what? Mushrooms. Mushrooms that these wealthy fucks can easily afford yet would rather die than pay for. They acted like cunts, which is fair enough because they looked like cunts. One grown man walked around with a BASKET. A FUCKING BASKET. Like the one Little Red Riding Hood carried before her Grandmother was raped and murdered by an animal. He carried a fucking BASKET around like it was the most normal thing in the world. Fuck, manbags. Manbaskets are the thing REAL twee little bastards are seen with these days. And every time he found a mushroom, which was about twice, he smugly popped it into his BASKET and smugly looked at it as if it was his little earth baby that he loved more than anything he had ever known. He wasn't going to take that mushroom home, chop it up and stir-fry it to death like the rest of us might. NO! He was going to clean it, clothe it, educate it, love it and make it the sole heir to his incredible pastel-coloured fabrics empire.
And he was far from the worst. One cunt, who carried a mushroom identification book with him CONSTANTLY, wouldn't leave us the fuck alone. He kept talking about the dishes he's made all over the world without any acceptance of my body language screaming "I DON'T TALK TO PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW. GO THE FUCK AWAY, PLEASE". I smiled and nodded but as soon as he said "I haven't actually paid for a mushroom in two decades" I sped up and got away from him.
He got more time from me than the "guide" did though. I dunno, there's something about a man who describes himself as a Druid that I can't take seriously. The cunt. He isn't a druid and I say that for a very good reason. NO-ONE IS A DRUID. Grow up.
But it was the people who live near the Heath that upset me most. Yes, yes, yes. I'm jealous of them. Of course, I'm jealous of them. They have everything they want. I just think that there should be a line and, when people of incredible wealth cross it, ALL of their money is passed on to someone else. Someone who might appreciate it and not spend it in the most ridiculously pompous way that they do.
At one point I saw two children on wooden bicycles. Are you seriously trying to tell me that if you had seen two children on wooden bicycles that you would be certain that you wouldn't start punching them to death? I just wanted to deck them. Two little twats OPENLY riding WOODEN bicycles. Are they INSANE? No, they're not. They are children. The insane ones are their parents. The people who bought these two little boys, that they have barely met, wooden bicycles and named them after an exotic holiday destination or a salad and dressed them up little country gentlemen. How could anyone NOT want to batter these children? THEY RIDE WOODEN BICYCLES? Don't tell me I'm wrong, OK? I'm right. I'M RIGHT, I'M RIGHT, I'M RIGHT! No, I'm not losing it, you're losing it. Shut up.
A perfectly lovely walk tarnished by the human race. Again. Luckily, gigs this weekend have been excellent. The Kings Head in Crouch End was just lovely and the Comedy Cafe was a lot of fun too. Allow me to tell you about the table of HERE COME THE GIRLS that had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the venue. Tomorrow...
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Thursday, 6 May 2010
No Means Yes.
Maybe it's just because we're going through a time of change but I've been bumping into a lot more positive people lately. There just seems to be a lot more positive people around. All smiling and thinking that everything's going to be great and how you should believe in yourself and how amazing the world is. They're incredibly infuriating to be around.
I was with some friends the other night who were despairing of the cynical attitude shown by, as far as I'm concerned, not enough people these days. "If only people could look around and actually see how lucky we are. This world is amazing", said someone who is a grown adult that I thought I knew. I did the most positive thing I could do at the time. I kept my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets. Hence I didn't scream at her to fucking wake up and I didn't punch her to death with my bare fists. Not sure I could do that again, to be honest.
Brilliantly, a completely stupid cunt called David emailed me a few days ago and, without any sense of irony or humour, said "I don't read your blog to hear you complaining all the time".
I didn't reply but maybe I should. Why does David read my blog? I mean, I'm very happy that he does but what can he get from it if he finds complaining so tiresome? Is he that big a fan of typos? Caroline Quinlan made me laugh by saying she reads it "for the relentless optimism and almost childlike faith in humanity". Either she was joking or I have the complete wrong end of the stick about my own blog.
To be fair, the few furiously grumpy people who read this (and, thanks very much, by the way) are hardly going to fall into the positive people category. But these shiny happy people are out there, walking around being in awe of absolutely fucking everything and, hey, moving forward.
They're particularly upsetting today, of course. "I've voted", they say in every form they can. It's pretty much all that will come out of their mouths and they will Tweet it and Facebook it and MySpace it (they're optimists, after all) and let us all know that if you don't vote then the Rainbow Wizard from Bunnyrabbit Lane won't come down from the planet Lollypop and kiss away all the bad and shit solid joy in our wide open gormless mouths.
You must vote, they say. YOU MUST VOTE. I voted but I can think of nothing more negative than voting. It's literally the most hopeless you'll ever feel when you look down that list of candidates. No-one, not even the positive people, votes for who they think the best person to lead our country is. We all vote for who we think is the least shit. A whole list of useless, lying, evil cunts and we get to vote for whoever we think is the furthest away from Satan's Uncle Hitler. But you MUST vote, they say. It's your vote, your chance to have your say, your chance to do what you think is right, your chance to be heard, your chance to make a change. Sure. The least shit in a list of shits will save us all.
I'm negative. OK, I accept that not everyone has time for that (sorry, David) but I'm negative for a very positive reason. A world that is perfect, full of hope, joy and progression is what I want but I want it so badly that just looking at the way life is feels like a punch in the teeth every 4 or 5 seconds. "Hey, you have to think positively. This world IS amazing. We ARE special. Life IS good". Well, it's a nice thought but whoever gets voted in today (and, face it, it'll be that Tory cunt) will fuck it up again. Greedy, selfish, blinkered, evil people in power have a habit of shitting on us, in case you forgot. I hope I'm wrong but I'm not.
Yesterday, I bought a bottle of water from a stand just off Oxford Street. The 1ltr bottle cost me £1.80. £1 fucking 80 for water, from this overpriced vulture who knows that there are thousands of suckers like me in Oxford Street so he can charge what he likes. He also had a handwritten sign on his stall that read "If you want directions, buy a map". Yeah, this world IS amazing. I'm constantly amazed at how we haven't actually all killed one another by now. Later I saw this article online (http://bit.ly/dvzwA7), read the first line and got sad. Oh, dear.
I just find the negative people more positive than the positive people. Negative people are down to earth realists who see the world for what it is yet somehow still have the strength to drag themselves out of their beds every day and face another 24 hours of horror. The positive people smile, sing, dance and embrace the shit in the hopeless, hollow, dark, cold, empty chance that it'll all get better.
Plus, if this YouTube clip is an example of positivity, I want nothing to do with it:
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
I was with some friends the other night who were despairing of the cynical attitude shown by, as far as I'm concerned, not enough people these days. "If only people could look around and actually see how lucky we are. This world is amazing", said someone who is a grown adult that I thought I knew. I did the most positive thing I could do at the time. I kept my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets. Hence I didn't scream at her to fucking wake up and I didn't punch her to death with my bare fists. Not sure I could do that again, to be honest.
Brilliantly, a completely stupid cunt called David emailed me a few days ago and, without any sense of irony or humour, said "I don't read your blog to hear you complaining all the time".
I didn't reply but maybe I should. Why does David read my blog? I mean, I'm very happy that he does but what can he get from it if he finds complaining so tiresome? Is he that big a fan of typos? Caroline Quinlan made me laugh by saying she reads it "for the relentless optimism and almost childlike faith in humanity". Either she was joking or I have the complete wrong end of the stick about my own blog.
To be fair, the few furiously grumpy people who read this (and, thanks very much, by the way) are hardly going to fall into the positive people category. But these shiny happy people are out there, walking around being in awe of absolutely fucking everything and, hey, moving forward.
They're particularly upsetting today, of course. "I've voted", they say in every form they can. It's pretty much all that will come out of their mouths and they will Tweet it and Facebook it and MySpace it (they're optimists, after all) and let us all know that if you don't vote then the Rainbow Wizard from Bunnyrabbit Lane won't come down from the planet Lollypop and kiss away all the bad and shit solid joy in our wide open gormless mouths.
You must vote, they say. YOU MUST VOTE. I voted but I can think of nothing more negative than voting. It's literally the most hopeless you'll ever feel when you look down that list of candidates. No-one, not even the positive people, votes for who they think the best person to lead our country is. We all vote for who we think is the least shit. A whole list of useless, lying, evil cunts and we get to vote for whoever we think is the furthest away from Satan's Uncle Hitler. But you MUST vote, they say. It's your vote, your chance to have your say, your chance to do what you think is right, your chance to be heard, your chance to make a change. Sure. The least shit in a list of shits will save us all.
I'm negative. OK, I accept that not everyone has time for that (sorry, David) but I'm negative for a very positive reason. A world that is perfect, full of hope, joy and progression is what I want but I want it so badly that just looking at the way life is feels like a punch in the teeth every 4 or 5 seconds. "Hey, you have to think positively. This world IS amazing. We ARE special. Life IS good". Well, it's a nice thought but whoever gets voted in today (and, face it, it'll be that Tory cunt) will fuck it up again. Greedy, selfish, blinkered, evil people in power have a habit of shitting on us, in case you forgot. I hope I'm wrong but I'm not.
Yesterday, I bought a bottle of water from a stand just off Oxford Street. The 1ltr bottle cost me £1.80. £1 fucking 80 for water, from this overpriced vulture who knows that there are thousands of suckers like me in Oxford Street so he can charge what he likes. He also had a handwritten sign on his stall that read "If you want directions, buy a map". Yeah, this world IS amazing. I'm constantly amazed at how we haven't actually all killed one another by now. Later I saw this article online (http://bit.ly/dvzwA7), read the first line and got sad. Oh, dear.
I just find the negative people more positive than the positive people. Negative people are down to earth realists who see the world for what it is yet somehow still have the strength to drag themselves out of their beds every day and face another 24 hours of horror. The positive people smile, sing, dance and embrace the shit in the hopeless, hollow, dark, cold, empty chance that it'll all get better.
Plus, if this YouTube clip is an example of positivity, I want nothing to do with it:
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
Sunday, 2 May 2010
The Day After the 5-Day Detox.
And that's the end of that. My ridiculous and pointless 5-day detox is now over and I can return to killing myself. Phew! I cheated pretty much every day of the 5 days anyway. A beer on Wednesday, cheese on Thursday, two beers on Friday, five beers yesterday. That sort of thing. Other than that my body has been a temple. A cold, empty, tedious temple.
As yesterday was my last day I had decided to not give a crap. Just eat or drink anything I felt like. But I did feel guilty. I mean, it's just one more day. Surely another 24 hours isn't that hard? On my way to Hitchin to record Precious Little I stopped off at Bagel Factory. I would delight myself with evil BREAD and nasty, filthy, dirty CHEESE and angelic, pure sun-dried tomatoes to take some of the guilt away. I knew I shouldn't be eating it and as I unwrapped the bagel I felt pathetic. So close to the end but here I am eating the very things I should be avoiding just so I can take away the taste of the horrible detox "drink" I have to force down my throat. I took one bite of the bagel and it tasted so good. And so bad. I put it back in it's wrapper to savour the bite all the more. Just letting that one bite of cheesy bready evil have beautiful, beautiful sex with my tongue. I looked down at the bagel lying there like a whore in it's wrapper and I was ready for another bite. That was when I received a message from God.
A bluebottle fell on my bagel.
It didn't land on my bagel. It didn't land on my bagel and then just fly away. Oh, no. It fell. It fell from the ceiling of London Bridge tube station. It fell. Dead.
There it was this dead, filthy, disgusting, germy, fat little animal. Right in the middle of my illegal breakfast. And it spoke to me.
"Don't eat any more, Michael", begged the dead bluebottle. "You only have one more day to go. You can do this. This bagel is so unhealthy. Full of wheat and starch and fat. Plus, there's a dead bluebottle in it. You can't eat it. Just one more day".
I don't normally take advice from dead bluebottles but this one made total sense to me. I folded up the wrapper and closed my friend, the dead bluebottle, up in it's bagely, wrappery coffin and placed him respectfully in his bin grave. There would be no unhealthy eating from me today.
Then James Hingley made me an egg and white bread toast. Like a stupid cunt. Thanks, James. Thanks for trying to kill me. It really makes me feel good to know that a dead bluebottle that I only knew for about 6 seconds cares more about my health than my "friend" does.
In fact, pretty much all of my friends have been cunts the last 5 days. I'm trying (and, admittedly, failing) at trying to be a little bit healthier and they've treated me like a fuck-shaped cake at a kids birthday party. John Voce stared at me on Wednesday night because I wasn't drinking and just said "I don't recognise you". Pretty much everyone I talked to about this stupid detox has screwed up their face and said "What are you doing that for?" like looking after myself is the most out-there and irrational thing that I could possibly ever do. Plus, I don't know why I'm doing it. Surely no-one really knows why they want to reject comfort food and comfort lager. I'm doing it because I was told to. No other reason.
And now it's over I shall go back to eating nightmares and drinking poisons and being happy. But maybe that's the real nightmare. I'll be honest with you, over the last 5 days I've really got a taste for beetroot and pulse salads. I like vegetarian sushi, plums, clementines, three-bean salads and water now too. And over the past few days I've been more energetic. Bouncy, even. Cheery. I...I...I've been really...cheery. Yesterday, I put on two different Converse's on my feet, blue on my left, black on my right, because I thought it was fun. FUN! The real nightmare is that I have no intention of stopping that. To put it in the clearest of terms so that each and every one of you will all totally understand, it's like I've regenerated from William Hartnell straight to Colin Baker.
God help us.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
As yesterday was my last day I had decided to not give a crap. Just eat or drink anything I felt like. But I did feel guilty. I mean, it's just one more day. Surely another 24 hours isn't that hard? On my way to Hitchin to record Precious Little I stopped off at Bagel Factory. I would delight myself with evil BREAD and nasty, filthy, dirty CHEESE and angelic, pure sun-dried tomatoes to take some of the guilt away. I knew I shouldn't be eating it and as I unwrapped the bagel I felt pathetic. So close to the end but here I am eating the very things I should be avoiding just so I can take away the taste of the horrible detox "drink" I have to force down my throat. I took one bite of the bagel and it tasted so good. And so bad. I put it back in it's wrapper to savour the bite all the more. Just letting that one bite of cheesy bready evil have beautiful, beautiful sex with my tongue. I looked down at the bagel lying there like a whore in it's wrapper and I was ready for another bite. That was when I received a message from God.
A bluebottle fell on my bagel.
It didn't land on my bagel. It didn't land on my bagel and then just fly away. Oh, no. It fell. It fell from the ceiling of London Bridge tube station. It fell. Dead.
There it was this dead, filthy, disgusting, germy, fat little animal. Right in the middle of my illegal breakfast. And it spoke to me.
"Don't eat any more, Michael", begged the dead bluebottle. "You only have one more day to go. You can do this. This bagel is so unhealthy. Full of wheat and starch and fat. Plus, there's a dead bluebottle in it. You can't eat it. Just one more day".
I don't normally take advice from dead bluebottles but this one made total sense to me. I folded up the wrapper and closed my friend, the dead bluebottle, up in it's bagely, wrappery coffin and placed him respectfully in his bin grave. There would be no unhealthy eating from me today.
Then James Hingley made me an egg and white bread toast. Like a stupid cunt. Thanks, James. Thanks for trying to kill me. It really makes me feel good to know that a dead bluebottle that I only knew for about 6 seconds cares more about my health than my "friend" does.
In fact, pretty much all of my friends have been cunts the last 5 days. I'm trying (and, admittedly, failing) at trying to be a little bit healthier and they've treated me like a fuck-shaped cake at a kids birthday party. John Voce stared at me on Wednesday night because I wasn't drinking and just said "I don't recognise you". Pretty much everyone I talked to about this stupid detox has screwed up their face and said "What are you doing that for?" like looking after myself is the most out-there and irrational thing that I could possibly ever do. Plus, I don't know why I'm doing it. Surely no-one really knows why they want to reject comfort food and comfort lager. I'm doing it because I was told to. No other reason.
And now it's over I shall go back to eating nightmares and drinking poisons and being happy. But maybe that's the real nightmare. I'll be honest with you, over the last 5 days I've really got a taste for beetroot and pulse salads. I like vegetarian sushi, plums, clementines, three-bean salads and water now too. And over the past few days I've been more energetic. Bouncy, even. Cheery. I...I...I've been really...cheery. Yesterday, I put on two different Converse's on my feet, blue on my left, black on my right, because I thought it was fun. FUN! The real nightmare is that I have no intention of stopping that. To put it in the clearest of terms so that each and every one of you will all totally understand, it's like I've regenerated from William Hartnell straight to Colin Baker.
God help us.
www.twitter.com/michaellegge
www.preciouslittlepodcast.co.uk
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