Guess What The Internet Cafe I'm In Is Full Of?

I'm in Newcastle where they are having their local Festival of Rain, obviously. I don't think I've ever been here when it isn't raining and night time. Even now at 11am it's night time. I came up on the train which was a lot of fun for about 20 minutes because there were 12 teenage Hasidic Jews permanently getting moved around because they kept pretending that they didn't know the seats they were sitting in were reserved. It was funny because people were obviously annoyed but didn't say anything because if you did you'd appear racist even though they were being cheeky little bastards. Religious minority or not they were being rude. Eventually three of them sat by me which was fine while I was watching The Deadly Assassin, a brilliant Tom Baker story, but as soon as I got my book out to do a spot of reading they stopped laughing, joking and being teenagers and turned into the big starey-eyed people. The book I was reading was God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

I'm a bit worried about the flat that I'm staying in. The Hyena in Newcastle always puts up comedians in a quite nice flat about 10 minutes away from the gig. It's always been fine to stay in but when I arrived yesterday it was obvious that it hadn't been cleaned since the week before. I kept getting creeped out about lying in bed that night. Just the thought that I could be lying in Tony Hendricks' dried sweat or Ron Vaudry's tears made the hairs on the back of my neck vomit. It was (sort of) cleaned while I was at the gig so my mind is somewhat at rest. The gig was great although not everyone agreed with me. In fact, I was the only one on the bill who seemed to like it. Hey-ho. I'm not sure how this weekend is going to turn out. Maybe I'll tell you why tomorrow. I'm in an internet cafe FULL of cunts so I'd best go.

Happy Now, BBC?

Well, he's gone. The BBC wouldn't let one little abusive phone call lie and as a result he's walked out the door. And why wouldn't he? He's got a huge career far outside the BBC, he doesn't need them and his thousands of fans will probably follow him to what ever it is he'll do next. Just five more stories and he's out. He should have stayed for at least a few of the Steven Moffatt episodes, though.

I'm obviously a huge fan of David Tennant's Doctor but, as a fan, I'm extremely proud of him for quitting because of Manuelgate. He's probably the most respected actor who works for the BBC so this show of solidarity for Ross and Brand will surely influence others to do the same. I imagine Karen Taylor, David Walliams and the entire cast of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps are all handing in their resignations right now and swearing never to work on TV ever again. I'm imagining it and urge you to do the same. It's a lovely thought and makes my toilet bits go funny. I love my toilet bits. Anyway, well done Russell Brand for basically telling the BBC to go fuck themselves. They've shown no support for the two performers who's only fault was to do something that wasn't in anyway funny. Christ, if that was their remit BBC3 would be a blank screen permanently. The BBC say that they've given in to public pressure. What public pressure? The Daily Mail are angry; that's a GOOD thing. The Prime Minister is outraged; erm, doesn't he have something more important to be doing? And 18,000 people have contacted the BBC to air their disgust at two men-children acting exactly like men-children. It's only 18,000 people. That's only twice The Late Edition's audience, it's nothing. And they're not people anyway. The moment you write to the BBC complaining about something that you haven't even heard is the moment you become a fucking idiot. So, it's only 18,000 fucking idiots that have made the BBC do what they wanted. Maybe I should be sending my scripts to 18,000 fucking idiots in the UK instead one great, big fucking idiot at the BBC?

I went to see Robin Ince's School for Gifted Children last night. I'll be honest, I went thinking I'd be on because during the day I spoke to Tim from The Scotsman newspaper about Manuelgate and had such a nice rant I felt it needed to be said on stage. You know, before I forget it or the story becomes old. But when I got there I saw loads of comedians so chickened out of pushing myself forward. I like Robin Ince's shows. Firstly, because he is a genuinely brilliant comedian and secondly, for no other reason. And last night Robin was superb, just completely at his best. School for Gifted Children is a very random show filled with random comedians and random scientists. I enjoyed the comedians, Wil Hodgson and Richard Sandling were very funny and it was great to see Dave Gorman doing stand up after years away from it. Would have been nice if he'd returned to the stand up arena and was a bit shit but, no, he couldn't even give us that. The comedians were good but, and I tried my best, the two scientists bored my arse's teeth of a hind-leg's donkey. At one point, one of them burst out laughing at a graph. I was never good at school and this reminded me why. I'm able to learn things if Magnus Pyke teaches it, I'm pretty much lost with everyone else. The highlight for me though was seeing Andrew Collins who I have a big girly crush on. He's very funny, despite what he says, and I genuinely gave an audible wow to his Mitford punchline when everyone else in the room was stoney silent.

Right. Off to Newcastle now. Bets on that David Tennant regenerates into Russell Brand.

Do You Have Andrew Sachs Phone Number?

I take back everything I said about Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. They were RIGHT to abuse Andrew Sachs over his whore granddaughter. I want to phone Slut Sachs myself and go into detail about how I fucked her granddad and see how she likes it. It was a brilliant thing to do and if I could only ever ask Messrs. Ross and Brand two questions they would be why didn't you go further with your horrible, cuntish phonecall and what does Messrs mean? It was a brilliant thing to do, I wish I'd done it myself and those two sacks of useless shit should be knighted because... they really pissed off Loose Women. Anyone who can upset those pointless, whining, Dinner-Ladies-With-A-TV-Show, thick as pig shit, embarrassing wankers is a hero worthy of an X-Factor charity record in my eye's book. There is no such thing as feminism while Loose Women stalk the Earth. How can you say anything that Ross & Brand have done is offensive when you a) feel the need to tell the nation how lovely Will Young's bum is and then filling the time with 15 minutes of giggling, b) discuss the credit crunch and how it has stopped your husband handing over his credit card when you demand it then fill the time with 15 minutes of giggling and c) are Linda Bellingham?

Not that Loose Women are the only ones upset over this DEEPLY IMPORTANT WORLD-SHATTERING STORY, BBC's Breakfast have had more comments from the thick public over this than any other story ever. 9/11? Never heard of it, but did you hear about Manuel's voicemail? I'm up in arms! Even chilled-out, sugar-sweet, peace-loving light entertainer Jim Jeffries is offended by Manuelgate which is a bit like Darth Vader being outraged at Ewoks for throwing stones at stormtroopers. All I'm saying is that if all these human beings and a comedian have been shocked and agitated by two dickheads haven't the two dickheads done us all a great favour? I'm very proud of them and of the BBC for not firing them (yet). In fact, the BBC should fire anyone who hasn't phoned Andrew Sachs to tell him they'd fucked his granddaughter. That should get rid of Tess Daly.

I had a lie down yesterday. A real lie down, like a proper old person. I had a terrible headache that genuinely came on during the white noise of Loose Women and I felt drained for the rest of the day. I like a lie down but as I was on my own all day yesterday I failed in getting all the sympathy that I needed to make me stop pretending I was iller than I was. Don't get me wrong, occasionally the dog would poke her nose in my eye but it's not the same as Mum making me an egg-beat-up-in-a-cup and putting Bagpuss on. That's the cure for EVERYTHING. I'm still ill now so, Mum, if you're reading this; sorry about the swearing, can you pop round? I'm poorly.

The Last Resort.

To be very fair, what IS funny about phoning a 78 year old man to laugh about the many ways you fucked his grandaughter? I don't want to sound like a party-pooper but that just seems like a very cuntish thing to do. Who would have thought it of cheeky, chirpy rapist Russell Brand and, the worlds's oldest child, Jonathan Ross? Perhaps, as bad as this is, this will be the end of the new Brucey-Tarby-Lynchy crew that has arose over the last couple of years. That happy, back-slapping, aren't-we-great-big-showbiz-mates wankery that is Brand, Ross, David Fucking Walliams and Ricky Fucking Fucking Gervais is just vomit inducing and embarrassing. Did Filthy, Rich & Catflap teach them nothing? To be fair, I actually think Russell Brand is the least offensive out of the four and it's a shame that this idiotic prank was played by him and not Walliams. Let's face it, Ricky Gervais wouldn't give a fuck if he'd done it but Walliams probably couldn't show his face at Sir Elton's next Let's Give The Poor All My Old Frocks charity do. And if he wasn't there then he'd be pointless and have to kill himself, which is excellent. So, the only one who's really going to look bad in this is Jonathan Ross. I mean, he's nearly 50 and he decided to egg on another grown man to phone up Manuel and say "I fucked your grandaughter". Why don't you egg your own brother on to get a fucking proper job, Jonathan? Not that anything bad will happen to him, he's too popular, but it would be a laugh if he got fired. At least Angus Deayton had the dignity to blow coke up a prostitute's arse.

By the way, if you don't know the story, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand phoned up actor Andrew Sachs and left horrible messages on the subject of grandaughter fucking on his answering machine. That's that cleared up.

The last few days have been dull as fuck, really. I've either been putting crap in boxes or putting crap on eBay (anyone want to buy a Boba Fett Pez dispenser?) and generally clearing out my crappy house (which is being Foxyed as I write this). I saw Bennett Arron and his family on sunday which was the dictionary definition of pleasant. I started writing on our play last week and so far it only consists of transcripts of actual arguments Bennett and I have really had. Probably should have shown him the scripts before I blogged that but hey-ho, it's all looking good. Did you watch Dead Set last night? I did. It's good.

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby.

Last night's gig in Southampton was pretty good. The audience were quite quiet but still seemed to enjoy the gig, as did I. It was great to see Otiz Cannelloni, he's one of my all-time favourite comedians which is exactly why he's not internationally famous. My fault. Sorry. Sadly, I missed Micky Flanagan, who I'm sure got the very best out of the audience, but I had to rush back to the train and the last two episodes of The Krotons. It's good, The Krotons. You should watch it.

Then when I got home I stupidly watched X-Factor. What a prick I am. I've got a really busy day today which is a shame because I really wanted to lay in to some cunt off that ridiculous programme even though I'm not allowed to because his wife's all dead. He's an awful human being who should be fucking ashamed of himself. How he can even hear the band playing over the noise of his wife doing cartwheels in her grave is a chart-topping miracle. Awful man. Still, isn't that picture up there the greatest photo you've ever seen?

Will Do Fuck All For Food.

I was told yesterday that I would have to do 40 minutes of warm-up right at the beginning of recording a non-broadcast Sky One pilot for a TV show called Sell Me The Money. 40 minutes of warming up an audience just seemed insane, way too long for an audience who had come all that way to see Keith Chegwin, so I called my agent to query it. She didn't really know what to do as the comedy industry isn't really her bag so I turned up fully prepared to do 40 minutes at the top plus fill in the several breaks that they would have. I'd be earning my money, in other words. Anyway, when I got there I was given a dressing room (unheard of practically for warm-ups), as much food and drink as I could force into my pockets and I ended up doing three minutes of warm-up in total. Don't get me wrong, I got into this job to work and be challenged but ending up doing fuck all came as a lovely surprise. And everyone there was lovely too. Mark, the floor manager from 8 Out Of 10 Cats was there and I met the producer Zoe, who went to the same school as me. It was a 2 hour recording so they had to give me something to do so I became basically a contestant on the show (is that a downgrade or an upgrade from warm-up, I'm still not sure) which simply meant screaming my fucking head off, something I was planning anyway.

The format of the show is for contestants to ask other contestants if they know the answer to certain questions. Of course they might be lying when they say they know the right answer as money's involved. The highlights for me were a cheery, red-faced, fun-loving man called Mark saying that his recent holiday in Poland was "a bit Anne Frank" and a woman saying she knew the answer to What is Britain's Most Famous Heart Surgery Hospital because her father went there and he's still with us at the ripe old age of 94 (the evil bitch was lying). All in all, not the evening I'd anticipated.

My new iPod Touch is fantastic. There I was in my luxurious dressing room full of mineral water, fresh fruit and Cadbury's Buttons listening to The Collings and Herrin Podcast very loudly (I've backlogged three to get through, that makes me very happy) and annoying people in the next dressing room with the noise. They kept walking out of their dressing room because they thought there was a tannoy announcement. Maybe I could have closed my door but the new iPod Touch is a very cutting edge piece of tecnology so I wanted everyone to enjoy it. It has a speaker on the side now! I'm off to Southampton tonight and on the way I intend to laugh in the face of cutting edge technology by watching a Patrick Troughton era Doctor Who on the way. Fuck you, the future!

Unhelpful, Unfunny and Going To Hell.

Yesterday I saw something fantastic, sad and hilarious all in the space of about 10 seconds. As I walked out of Ladywell Fields with Jerk I was lucky enough to spot a woman who must have been in her early fifties riding a skateboard. I bought a skateboard about 9 years ago and the sage-like Natalie Haynes told me that I'd give it a few trys, be pathetic at it then never go near it again. Her sage-like wisdom proved to be annoyingly spot on, the fucking sage. So, seeing this 50+ woman skating happily by reminded me of my patheticness. Then, as if to make me feel not so bad about myself, she fell off. The 2% of me that isn't a cunt dragged the rest of me to her aid but by the time I got there everything that I'd just seen hit me and, therefore, I started to laugh. When someone is in pain and really needs help it's best not to offer it while laughing your face off, I discovered. Initially the very nice lady ignored my laughter as I helped her up but soon asked me to leave her alone. I tried to help, I tried to be a good citizen but, at the age of 40, seeing someone fall still makes me laugh and I ended up being a cunt. My good deed for the day was actually evil.

I nearly had two great gigs last night courtesy of The Funny Side. The first gig was The Funny Side of The City and was full of office workers, very nice office workers. They were great fun and gave me plenty of room to muck about. I tried out a new joke which seemed to work although it's really hard to tell because the audience were so giving that you can't quite gauge new stuff properly. Why can't these lovely audiences give us comedians a chance to work out new material fairly, the selfish cunts? Next I was off to The Funny Side of Covent Garden which was much quiter than The City and, to be honest, I didn't fancy my chances. As it turned out the gig was great. For about 17 minutes. Lots of mucking about and general fun was followed by this awful cunt who just kept shouting crap. She claimed she was married to a Northern Irish man so she could say what she liked to me. The audience disagreed, which was nice, but The Cunt had left such a weird atmosphere in the room that I just decided to leave. Shame, because it was great up until then. Afterwards, a woman came up to me and said "I thought you were really funny. I really enjoyed your performance. You should have smashed her fucking head in". It's nice to get positive feedback. Then the worst post-gig thing happened, The Cunt came up to me to apologise. Instead of just going away and blowing her own face off the stupid bitch came up to me to say sorry. It goes without saying that I told her to fuck right off. It goes without sayinger that in reality I sheepishly grinned and said that it was all OK. I hate me sometimes.

After that Greg Burns took me to one of his favourite toilets. It was a pretty crowded toilet that had stopped being a toilet and was now a bar. It was full of drunk office workers and charged whatever the fuck it liked for soda water. I liked it. It had very odd lighting that showed up all our agespots. Luckily, Greg had seemingly blacked up beforehand so we couldn't see his. It was a nice way to end the generally pretty good night, if you don't count The Cunt. Then something utterly brilliant happened. I got on the train to go home and sat on the only free seat in the carriage. I soon found out that I was surrounded by about 12 archeologists who were all talking passionately about a set of stone tools they'd found. They were all young, very chatty and used brilliant scientific phrases like "Of course it's older than that, you belgian twat". I'm not educated in such matters so Lord only knows what it means. After declaring that a tool they'd been studying was perhaps 2.5 million years old another passenger on the train chipped in to remind us all that we are all going to hell because Jesus' Dad think we're all arseholes (not his words). A brilliant argument erupted with pissed scientists shouting at a loud, drunken christian. "We have proof because it's detailed in the geologic calendar, you prick", "There is only one calendar and that is the word of God". Those sentences were actually thrown about in what will probably be my favourite train journey ever. It was like watching The Argument Channel, which sadly doesn't exist.