Effortless.

A couple of days ago I saw a sign in a Post Office. It said "Customers wearing pyjamas will not be served". I have rarely been offended by a sign in a Post Office as much as I was offended by that. How dare they? That's not exactly going to help society is it? That's not exactly a good way of pushing the human race forward, is it? That sign is simply a negative symbol that will do no good at all for anyone. Instead of reminding people that they should probably get dressed before they leave the house, why not simply shoot them in the back of their pig ignorant heads? 

Can't be bothered getting dressed? Write your own fucking blog then.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though.

Your Tworoscope 4.

Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. Welcome, stranger, to my humble mystic wig-wam where I can channel the stars who show me the past, present, future and director's commentary of every single thing that has happened, will happen, might happen and should have happened. I know your future, my friend. Now sit with me as I read you Your Tworoscope....


ARIES: Your love life changes this week after Johnny Depp sends you a huge bunch of lawyers. You eat dry pasta for breakfast again.

TAURUS: Someone at work has noticed you. Sadly, it's you and you hate you. Wait until everyone leaves and smash your own face in.

GEMINI: You're being talked about! But not in a good way. In Klingon. That's right, you're boyfriend is a twat.

CANCER: Bills, bills, bills. Also, cancer.

LEO: You're a hair sign aligned with the planet Hollywood. You can barely look at your wife knowing how bad your broadband provider is.

VIRGO: Pot the reds and screw back for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black.

LIBRA: You put your career on hold to enjoy some low quality cider. A promise from a tall, dark bailiff becomes reality.

SCORPIO: Not doing up the fly of your Ewok costume ruins your daughter's 7th birthday party. You eat a whole thing of Haribo.

SAGITARIUS & CAPRICORN: Absolute wankers.

AQUARIUS: You've started shouting when those Kevin Bacon ads come on. Tuesday is emotional when you discover your soul mate is a creme egg.

PISCES: Sex with your partner is awful but the break up row afterwards is always so good. Your car makes you look fat.


And that is Your Tworoscope for this week. Perhaps I will see you all again...IN THE FUTURE!



www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though.

Little Man, What Now?

Let's take a moment from our busy day to spare a thought for Morrissey. If you've always hated Morrissey then, as well as being a fucking idiot, you're very lucky. If you've always hated Morrissey then you probably wake up and "hit" the gym and then Brompton your way to work and let spreadsheets eat away at you and pick up that £4.25 bottle of WHITE WINE from Marks & Spencer on your way home and drink your way through Fat Disabled Poor Cunts on Channel 4 and go to bed and masturbate and then pray to a god you don't believe in that this is the night that you finally just slip away and I am so jealous of you having that amount of freedom. If I always hated Morrissey then I'd be able to do all that but instead I spend so much of my time worrying about this man who I don't even know.

I think there hasn't been a day since about 1992 that I haven't worried about Morrissey but normally that feeling of helplessness only lasts a minute. These days I seem to spend hours and hours thinking of ways to try and get this man to see that he's clearly turned into a handsome, charismatic nothing.

Of course there was a time when I did really hate Morrissey. I was 15 and I just didn't get The Smiths at all. They looked too much like me for me to see any good in them (that's pretty much Morrissey's career in one sentence there) and when I was offered tickets to see them in 1984 I turned them down. That would have been my first ever gig. Right now, in 2013, I could be saying "Oh, yeah, the first gig I ever went to was The Smiths at the Ulster Hall in Belfast in 1984" and people would want to buy me a drink and blowjob my skeleton out of me. I'd be so sexy now if I'd only just said yes to those tickets. No matter how old and wrinkly I'd be, everyone would want to touch me because I could say "The first gig I ever went to was The Smiths". My first gig was Nik Kershaw.

Why has Morrissey let his genius slip? He used to be the greatest thing on this planet. Never the biggest thing on the planet of course but the biggest things on the planet (Bono, Prince, Paul McCartney, whoever) couldn't sleep at night because they knew they were shit in comparison. No one could ever come close to being as lyrically witty and beautiful as Morrissey could. And it seemed handsomely effortless. "I would go out tonight but I haven't got a stitch to wear" is still joyous in defeat and "I crashed down on the crossbar and the pain was enough to make a shy, bald buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder" might be the greatest line written in the English language. "To die by your side. Well, the pleasure - the priviledge is mine", "If you think peace is a common goal, that goes to show how little you know", "Leather elbows on a tweed coat. Oh, is that best you can do?", "Here I am. Well, you don't need to look so pleased". So many great lyrics and songs and then... nowt.

The best thing that can be said of Morrissey's last album, Years of Refusal, is that it had a nice front cover. A photo of Morrissey holding a baby. Now, THAT'S funny. There's also a great recent(ish) photo of Morrissey with a cat on his head. There is no doubting that Morrissey's career of being photographed is still going strong, it's just everything else he does has fallen to bits. 

His band are terrible, all his songs sound pretty much exactly the same and his lyrics are as teenage as ever. Sadly, he's not. He's in his 50's, somehow still hasn't got a girlfriend and he's been thinking of voting UKIP. To be fair, voting UKIP is quite liberal if you compare it to some of the things he's said over the last few years. I really was expecting a record called Beautiful BNP Brian from him at any time. Also, when David Cameron keeps going on about how much he respects and admires Morrissey...well, it's like getting the seal of approval from Satan's evil twin brother himself. Maybe it's my fault, not Morrissey's. He always looked to the past while I saw him as the future. But when he opens his desperate mouth these days it ruins even his very best work. We live in the age of digital watches and electrical computers and it's hard to get noticed because the world is online shouting at once so when Morrissey speaks you'd think he'd choose his words a bit more carefully. That's why his outrageous comments seem like begging. Not to mention redundant. Everybody's lost but they're pretending they're not and I just wish Morrissey could pretend a bit better like the rest of us. 2013 must frighten the hell out of him. Face it, he changed a million teenagers entire lives. With one song he made people think about where their food came from and animal rights became as important as haircuts and kissing. But does that mean anything anymore? No. I mean he sang this beautiful anthem that actually made people THINK but he was still saying things like "I find shoes difficult to be ethical about - one just can't seem to avoid leather". One could if one really gave a fuck. Does he still wear leather? He's still only a crappy vegetarian, I know that. Sorry but milk is murder too, you know. That's how redundant Morrissey has become now. He used to make the youth of Britain...no, the world...say no to the meat industry. Who's doing Morrissey's job for him these days? The meat industry. Morrissey has actually been replaced by a butcher.

I just watched Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe and laughed a lot at the footage of Chris Moyles on a Sky TV dating show called Love Machine. Not only is Chris Moyles the host, and therefore you have every reason to never watch it, but he has a glamorous assistant too: Stacy Solomon, a woman who somehow has a deaf accent. I was laughing a lot at the fantastically funny jokes all aimed at Moyles and then...I stopped. Why are we laughing at Chris Moyles? He hasn't let himself down. He can't ever let himself down. Love Machine, Chris Moyles's Quiz Night, The Parody Album. None of these things are bad enough for him. I'm not sure Operation Yewtree is low enough for him. So, I stopped laughing and I thought about Morrissey.

Turns out, he's written new songs. And the first thing he did when he got out of hospital is reschedule his tour and made the Staples Centre in Los Angeles go 100% vegetarian for his upcoming gig. This is the first time this has happened. OK, it's only crappy vegetarian but it's the step in the right direction that counts. Also, he's being funny again. His post-hospital statement was "Rumours of my death have been greatly understated". Oh, he's coming home, isn't he?

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast atwww.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though.

Me & Oblivion.

I have never seen Breaking Bad. I know it's incredibly well written and the characters are fascinating and the acting is superb but there's just something about Breaking Bad that puts me right off it and, chances are, that something is you.

Breaking Bad is a TV programme and not the cure for disease and famine that it's made out to be. The joy and enthusiasm it has brought to millions of people, along with the numerous awards it has won, can only mean one thing: it's shit. Come on, EVERYONE LOVES IT. You know what EVERYONE is like. EVERYONE's awful. Why would I ever listen to EVERYONE? EVERYONE loves Coldplay and bacon and X-Factor and children and ringtones and coffee and football. So the chances of Breaking Bad being any good is practically zero. I mean, that's just science (please can I take over from Dean Burnett, The Guardian?).

It's exactly the same with 24 and The West Wing. "Jesus Christ, I've realised that love, food and water are meaningless now that I've got Community, Michael. You HAVE to watch it". But I quite like love, food and water. You're scaring me. Stop pulling at my jumper.

And it's a lose/lose situation every single time. "WHAT? You haven't seen Girls yet? You're a fucking idiot". OK, I'll watch Girls then...but...but...but it's a pretentious pile of crap about some of the most horrible people that you would NEVER spend any time with. Why are you putting yourself through it? The Wire was tedious, Mad Men was like watching paint dry while grass grew on the shipping forecast and 30 Rock has Tina Fey in it. Finding her in that was like finding horse meat in your dinner. Really smug horse meat.

But fans of these shows always have the same excuse for their TV shows clearly being terrible: "stick with it. It doesn't really get good until season 3". Then why don't they just not make the first two SERIES then?

That's why I like programmes that people don't go on and on about. I like that late night BBC2 drama Doctor Who. It's barely made a dent in the nation's conscience and it's really good. Catch it now before they take it off air (again). I just can't get into those edgy American dramas and finger-on-the-pulse comedies. Not when I have Pointless.

POINTLESS IS THE BEST PROGRAMME ON TV. Don't care how unmissable Homeland is because I'm still catching up on loads of past episodes of Pointless so I'm missing it. It's probably the most gripping, tense and exciting teatime quiz show I have ever seen. I'm in no way being sarcastic and ironic. It's brilliant. And the plot just blows my mind. Pointless is about the destruction of popularity. Admit it, at least part of the reason you turned to Breaking Bad was so you could fit in. Well, Pointless hates you for that. Congratulations on your superior knowledge of all that is globally accepted but you wouldn't last one round in Pointless. It's the trivial and the forgotten that have meaning here. The obscure triumphs. Name a Band from Liverpool? YOU IDIOT! Not them, the correct answer is The Crucial Three. That would have got you no points and therefore you'd win Pointless. This really is where the misfits rise, where the geeks inherit the earth and where zeroes win. It's easy to be a big fish in a small pond by keeping up with the TV must-sees but in Pointless they want nothing from you and that's why you will fail. Every single day at 5.15 you can see them...people who know too much...all of them falling two by two thanks to them only looking at the bigger picture. Good people, fine people. Well crafted characters who seem to come from real places and have real experiences and once we get to know them it's just a matter of minutes before they get written out of the series for good (or maybe come back the next day for a second chance at getting to the final). And the final...OH, THE FINAL... Only the truly unpopular can ever walk away as kings. I have seen them all face that challenge and....I have seen few survive. IT'S LIKE LORD OF THE FUCKING RINGS, PEOPLE!

But, you know, edited.

Not that everyone likes adventure, and my God Pointless has so much adventure, and that's fine because there's such an incredible subplot too. In the main story, Alexander offers mental quests to the brave while Richard shows them the folly of their hubris, but away from that there is so much more. Alexander will often mock these challengers and he does so with cutting wit and a look at Richard to confirm their superiority over any who dare stand in front of them. Except...that look lingers. Every time. Too long? Never long enough! I have no idea what the writers of Pointless have in store for any future series but it's pretty clear they are setting up something huge. It's hard not to fall for leads as good as these. No idea who the actors are but they have nailed these characters brilliantly. Alexander: suave, witty and, JUST WHEN WE THINK WE KNOW HIM, daft. Then there's Richard: intelligent, gentlemanly and highly trained in idiot-spotting. At the beginning (AND THIS IS A PLOT SPOILER) they seem only to be interested in finding worthy champions of the remote but now look at them. They so want us to know there's a spark there but, like any good drama, they want us to wait until they're ready. I know it ruined Moonlighting but look at those guys! I for one would be delighted to sit down in front of the telly after 5 with my dinner and watch them fuck. I mean, they're spotless. It would be the cleanest, family-friendly fucking on TV ever. I for one can see THE POINT in that. *winks*

I guess TV just isn't as charming as I'd like it to be anymore and that's one of the many reasons I love Pointless. It's bukkaked in charm. I used to love TV shows that could grip with winners and losers and twists and turns and, at the end, the characters have learned something. Clearly, I still do. In fact, it's on in an hour. Better pick up my suit from the dry cleaners. I like to look nice for them.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast at www.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though. 

For The Easily Offended.

Liam Gallagher tells teen fan: 'You'll like the new Beady Eye album if you're into drugs'.

Why would you read any further into this blog with THAT as an opening sentence? It was on the NME's website and I was so offended that I decided to never click on the story itself. It's just so incredibly offensive. How irresponsible can anyone be? Imagine turning to a young person, someone who's life has just begun and they naively think that this world holds only hope and opportunity, and basically saying to them "I know my entire career is shit and worthless but if you say anything that's even slightly controversial then dickheads at the NME will think you're worthy of something vaguely above stale plankton piss". Of course you'll like the new Beady Eye album if you're into drugs. ANYTHING that takes you further away from a Beady Eye album is a truly wonderful thing and should be embraced. I would almost have no problem with the Beady Eye album at all if I was in a highly powered cannon that was pointed directly at a black hole. And if I had a daughter I know I'd be so much more proud of her if she came home with coke-bloodied nostrils and a needle in her clitoris than a Beady Eye tape (do they still do tapes? Beady Eye will. The pricks). 

Was that a bit much? Well, don't worry. You don't need to read any further. That's the great thing about being offended by things. You can just ignore it. That's one of the many reasons that I like and respect Frankie Boyle. On Twitter, if anyone offends him at all he simply blocks them. I think that's admirable. Why be offended? You don't need to be. So just block any offensive people. He's blocked me and God knows I've wanted to do that often enough. He's also blocked Mark Watson and Richard Herring. Comedians who have all offended him. Once I noticed this I then found so many other people who had been blocked by Frankie Boyle. Not just a few people. I'm talking dozens of people. Which probably means that there are hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds of people blocked by Frankie Boyle and quite right too. If you're offensive then people have every right to ignore you. To block you. To forget you even exist. Which then begs the question: How the fuck do you OFFEND Frankie Boyle?

I've been slightly obsessed with people taking offence since I went back to Northern Ireland for a month. It seems that people love being offended. It is their porn and they can wank about it anywhere they want. I've never understood people being offended by anything written in the Daily Mail. I find it far more offensive that these people have read the Daily Mail and are then tweeting links to the offending article and therefore giving the Daily Mail's website more hits and making it more successful. YOU KNOW THE DAILY MAIL IS TERRIBLE. WHY ARE YOU READING IT? Reading the Daily Mail and being offended is like licking a turd and complaining about the taste. You KNEW that. You actually went out of your way to gross yourself out and there can only be one reason for that. You like it.

Today the offence lovers are offended and loud about the front page of another newspaper. I see their point. That newspaper should not have printed a picture of a woman posing in a bikini the day after she was murdered. It was horrible. Equally, no one should have seen it. Well, not the people I follow on Twitter anyway. Why are they looking at the front page of this newspaper that THEY KNOW is vile? Plus...what point are the offence lovers actually making? She was a swimwear model. There are thousands of photos of her wearing bikinis. That's what she chose to do for a living and, by all accounts, she was proud of the photos taken of her. Do you know what I find offensive? All the shouting and pointing and being righteous about a photograph printed in a newspaper famous only for being despicable is a great way of advertising the brand of that newspaper and it takes us further away from what actually happened. Don't offence lovers put offence in some sort of order or are they simply offended by the latest piece of offence? Surely in this whole story, if you're going to be offended, it's the horror of a woman's murder...the fact that the media gave her full name as FAMOUS MAN'S GIRLFRIEND all day...a photo appears of her at work on the front page of a newspaper that spreads hate. Hitler killed his dog but I still don't think it's the worst thing he's ever done. 

It's very simple. We don't know what's happened in this murder case yet but surely it's not really about us being offended? Maybe a bit of sympathy is in order before we start screaming about that newspaper. I know the offence lovers simply want the rest of us to know how bright and shiny their moral compass is but they can shut the fuck up because this isn't about them. Offended by THAT newspaper? Jesus Christ. You CANNOT be offended by THAT newspaper because it's THAT newspaper. Why can't you ignore it and stop giving it publicity? Why can't you block it? Why can't you be more like Frankie Boyle and write for THAT newspaper?

Bad example. And then there's Derek.

The way offence lovers drool over the latest piece of outrage that they've crawled through a sewer to find makes me sick. So why do I keep watching Derek? RICKY GERVAIS IS PRETENDING TO BE JOEY DEACON FOR MONEY. How the fuck is this allowed? How did this get made? Why have I not missed a single episode? Every single time I think that it can't get any worse I'm proven wrong. HA HA HA HA!!! He's a man with a disability. HA HA HA!! They let a drunk come in and fuck the old women. HA HA HA HA!!! That man wears a funny wig.

He's having a breakdown, isn't he? Ricky Gervais is having a fucking nervous breakdown. My mouth remains wide open throughout every second of every episode like offence was food and I just want him to keep spoon feeding me. And he does. My favourite bit was the end of episode one when Derek was asked if he wanted to be tested for autism. His response was "if I have it, will I die? (No.) If I have it will I be a different person? (No). Well, just leave it then". YAY! Good old Derek. Good for him for telling that stuffy old medical professional where to stick his autism diagnosis. I mean who wants proper care anyway? Actually, my favourite bit might be episode two with it's 17 minute long montage of a man with a disability getting pissed. NO! I know what it is. It's the piano music. The sad, sad piano music that gets played every time an old lady dies or a poor teenager gets told she's good at something or when one of the other cast members (WHO ARE BRILLIANT, BY THE WAY) talks about how Derek is the loveliest, kindest, sweetest person in the world. You just KNOW that Gervais writes every word of this script with his own cum. It's the most utterly offensive thing on television and that's fine because I can just switch it off. But I don't. I record every episode and I watch them all.

I'm as bad as you.

www.twitter.com/michaellegge

My blog is available on Facebook, Blogger and Tumblr. It's daily Monday to Friday. Some blogs will be long, some very short. If you're too lazy to read my blog it's also available as a podcast atwww.soundcloud.com/michaellegge or you can subscribe to it on iTunes. All formats are free. That means if I'm doing a gig near you, please come and support it. I give you free stuff. That's fair, right?

This blog is also available on Kindle. It costs 99p a month and I do not recommend it at all. It looks nice though. 

Burnett/Legge.

I don't know what to blog about this week. I noticed Guardian science blogger Dean Burnett was kind of feeling the same so I decided to chat to him about blogging. This was the easiest/laziest way I could think of to come up with a blog. Can you think of a lazier way? I'm in bold (obviously, I'm the loudest) and Dean isnt. Read on....

Hello, Dean. How are you? Seriously, how ARE you? A couple of days ago I saw you tweet something about how difficult it is to find things to blog about. I suffer from this all the time, clearly. How do you find subjects to blog about? Do you ever feel like you're blogging about the same thing at times? I do. Also, what do you say to supermodels who say they have no interest in Doctor Who?

Hi Michael. I'm fine. Seriously, I'M FINE! I did tweet that yes, but there's a bit more to it than that. Seeing as I blog for the Guardian science section, I should have been writing a blog about them digging up Richard III, but I didn't really fancy it for several reasons; I don't know anything about the history or science behind it, every other bugger was doing something about it, and I was resentful because whenever I dig up a dead monarch I don't get any praise. 

One of my jokes there. I'm so sorry.

I'm a bit lucky in that I'm contractually obliged to write about science, so my options are a bit more limited. That might seem counter-intuitive, but it works for me because I'm one of those people who doesn't do well with too many options. I've never actually 'surfed the web' per se, I always have somewhere specific in mind when I log on. Given the whole of the internet to explore, I just sit there staring at the google home page until my eyeballs get uncomfortably dry. So as my remit is 'amusing takes on genuine scientific subjects' (or words to that wanky effect) I have a decent number of possibilities for blogging, but not unlimited. This works for me. Yeah, I blog about science constantly, but it's my job and it's a big enough area that it doesn't get repetitive (so far). 

I don't tell all the supermodels I meet about Doctor Who. I really like it, but I only started watching it from the relaunch, so I don't consider myself a Doctor Who fan per se. The proper fans know and appreciate all of it (within reason) so I feel like claiming to be one would be like claiming to be a soldier on the grounds that I've been paint-balling a few times (which I haven't).

Do you find this with your blogs? A lot of what you write is about your daily exploits or elements from your own life (e.g. Your love of thermal underwear) but you occasionally delve into things like Doctor Who, mainstream TV (e.g. Mrs Brown's Bastards), Edinburgh festival, the comedy scene and so forth. These things all have their own communities and people with their own opinions, to say the least. Is it a different experience to delve into this sort of thing with your blog?

 

I have two problems with my blog, which is probably the least amount of problems anyone has with my blog. It has to actually be about something and I care what goes into it. I don't care what anyone else thinks about it but I care what I think about it. Mainly because before I started blogging there were a lot of comedians blogging about their tediously successful careers. Why did they think anyone would give a shit about their incredible lives? I remember one comedian blogging about being recognised in Tesco. How boring is that? Well, it was worse than boring because being recognised as another human being isn't an achievement whatsoever AND it was clearly a lie. He actually lied about being recognised in Tesco. Surely no matter what else happened to him that day it must have been more interesting than being recognised in Tesco and yet, there he was, PRETENDING to be recognised in Tesco simply to show any contemporary that was interested how famous he wasn't. Of course, that didn't stop me from cutting and pasting his blog, changing his name and posting as if it was mine. I was making a point.

I prefer delving. Writing about your day to day life just gets way too cyclical. Especially if your day is as dull as mine (wake up, scream at Homes Under The Hammer, dress my sofa cushions as a woman, kiss the woman, go to the pub, go to sleep, wake up, go to bed, stay awake until 5am). Some bloggers are great at this. Well, Richard Herring is. But I haven't seen another diary style blog that's any good at all. I want to blog every day but unless I really have something to SCREAM, It's getting harder to do. At the moment I'm obsessed with Pointless. There's no anger in that. I can't get a blog out of loving a teatime quiz. Yesterday, I missed the whole passing of the Gay Marriage vote because I was watching Pointless on iPlayer. For a good reason though: I love Pointless more than I love human rights. Human rights rarely comes with a cheeky dig at someone who gives an unbelievably thick answer to a very easy question. AND IT FUCKING SHOULD. Human rights needs to stand up for itself. If human rights is just going to accept thick answers to all of it's unbelievably easy questions then where the hell are we all going to end up? 

What I'm saying is, I'm jealous of you. Finding a subject to write about is near impossible these days, for me. You are lucky to have the tiny, wee pool of science to draw from but it's not the constraint of that that makes you lucky. You're lucky that you CAN write about science. That is utterly brilliant. If I knew something I'd definitely write about it. What made you want to blog in the first place? Do you ever read blogs? How do you feel about the people who read your blog?

 

Took some thinking for a minute to come up with the answer to this, been so long since I thought about it properly.

I started blogging (on my old personal blog, not the Guardian) about 4 years ago. I had/have two big interests, science and comedy. I've been doing stand up as a hobby since about 2005, and been 'doing science' in some capacity since 2000.  As I live in Cardiff there isn't a massive open-mic stand-up scene like London and other big (proper) cities have, although it's grown since. There were about 5 gigs a month if we were lucky, and these were frequented by the same people, so I could probably get 20-30 minutes of stage time a month if I worked at it. Not saying I didn't appreciate it, but that's not a great deal if you want to get a decent set practised.

Plus, they say talk about what you know, and I knew about science. You couldn't do science in a comedy night back then, Robin Ince hadn't been invented yet. But I still wanted to, I saw it as a gap in the market. Then I realised I sounded like a twat for saying that and felt awful, but the point still stood. That's when I discovered that you could 'blog' whatever that was. I started doing it on my MySpace page (remember MySpace? It were like if Facebook had gone for a 'teenager's bedroom' style. Hahaha, nostalgia. Now buy my DVD again!). 

The writing of new material and stuff was always the bit I liked best, with my stumbling mumbly delivery the live performing was always a bit hamstrung. So I just put it out there on a blog, purely to see if I could write funny (for a given value of 'funny') pieces about science. If people saw it and liked it, that was a bonus. Eventually they did, which was a bonus. 

This is going to sound like some sort of horrible text-based 69 in a minute, but the first blog I got into was yours. It was your MySpace one (Remember MySpace? Etc.) and it was the 2008 Edinburgh diary. This one http://michaelleggesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/i-blogged-lot.html I just remember thinking it was brilliant and wanting to do the same in some capacity (Blogging, not harassing a man called Toilet).

I read other blogs now and then, but don't really have a feed I regularly keep up with. In all honesty, I tend to read blogs with a comedy basis, not science. There's yours, my mates Ted Shiress and Matt Price, other stand ups generally. I used to read Ray Peacock's when he did one. Herring's I like, but because it's such a dedicated diary format, if I miss a day or two for whatever reason I feel I've lost track, so I dip in and out of it. 

A lot of people I know write science blogs, and good ones. I read them when they tweet a title of interest or when I'm browsing for stuff, but I don't read them as a matter of course. It's nothing personal, but if I read too many quality science blogs I might get dubious about my own ability/qualifications to write about a scientific subject, so I like to maintain this fragile blissful ignorance in order to feel confident enough to write stuff. Plus, science is my job, comedy is my hobby. Reading comedy blogs is fun as I'm only passively trying to progress in comedy (i.e. if asked to do a gig, I probably will, but I don't chase people for them) so don't feel annoyed or frustrated when I hear what other comics are up to (and we know other comics are prone to that). If I were a working comic and a science hobbyist, I imagine my blog-reading habits would be flipped too. 

I appreciate it when anyone reads my blog, but with the nature of online commenting, particularly now that I have a Guardian blog, it's hard to separate readers from commenters. These are very different creatures, but it's hard to really assess what your readers think, as they read it and then move on. Commenters either like it or hate it enough to make a comment. And there's no guarantee that a commenter has read or understood a piece either, as I demonstrated with my recent Wonders of Life 'review': http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/brain-flapping/2013/jan/29/wonders-of-life-confusing-overrated

Of course, a lot of the comments I get are from scientists and science fans. Some of these have very idealised notions of what scientists should be like, and my approach really grates on their nerves. How about you? Do you find you get heated comments from the comedy fans/community? I've had a number of comics get really pissed off when they find I've a lot more twitter followers than they do, so Lord knows what you get subjected to. Do other comics act differently around you, as there's a chance that they might end up being blogged about in an amusingly acerbic way?

 

I find it really weird when anyone gets offended by my blog or any comedian's blog. Weirder still when it's comedians who find offence. But it's happened a fair bit. Quite a few comedians were shocked when I made a joke about another comedian a couple of years ago. I said his topical material was like watching Have I Got News For You. On Dave. One very famous comedian actually said "If you said that about me, we wouldn't be talking right now". Isn't that a bit weird? To make a joke about a comedian is offensive to comedians? I hope it goes without saying that the target of the joke thought it was funny. Albeit a year later.

I read your Wonders of Life blog and the comments. FUCKING IDIOTS springs to mind but that's not always a bad thing. It's great that people take the time to read blogs and it's equally great when a few don't quite get it or even downright disagree. There's nothing wrong with us being put in our place. That said, my recent favourite was someone commenting on my blog about the flag protests in Belfast. It was about how the flag doesn't symbolise patriotism, people do. Someone responded with "ULSTER IS BRITISH. NO SURRENDER". I just thought, you signed the agreement...you surrendered. 

Now, finally, I'm sure you're like me, Dean, and you've printed out all your blogs and buried them in the garden. How do you think they'll be seen when discovered under a space car park in 500 years time? 

I prefer to think my blogs won't be buried under a car park but something a bit more valuable and inconvenient, like a flagship branch of the future Apple store. On the day they launch the iPad v893, or the iPod Femto. Somebody uses the archeology app on their iPad v892 they bought the day before, which they have on them as they queue for the next one, and they discover a cache of ancient printouts. The place has to be shut down and excavation teams a brought in and they're dug up, but they make no sense to people of that time, so not much will have changed. Luckily, they find traces of my DNA on the printouts (I always leave DNA on writing I'm happy with, via the usual means). They resurrect me with a cloning app, and the first words to my reanimated form are "You're not Michael Legge, you're just that guy who did fairly weak social commentary".

Or something like that. How about you?

Luckily, I know what it's like to be dead and buried so I know exactly how my blog will feel when it's left alone and underground for so long. And that's really where science comes in as far as my blog goes. I can't imagine much literary works besides my blog surviving WW3. It clearly has a hard shell and look at it how it scuttles about looking for the crumbs of acknowledgement it desperately craves. My blog is a cockroach and when found in 500 years time, the only surviving humans on this planet will come out of their swampy holes, cough their teeth out, read my blog and realise they're better off than we were in the 21st century. At least I'll have done that, Dean.

Thanks for chatting, mate. Love you xxx

Read Dean's excellent blog here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/brain-flapping

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