Youth and Old Manhood.

I'm getting old. I only found out yesterday when I was tidying up my house.

I've decided to get rid of a lot of stuff that clutters up my house. CD's, DVD's, books, games, a bizarre amount of London A-Z's are all getting chucked or eBayed. The thing is, the items that I own are constantly telling me that I'm not 23 anymore. That's a good enough reason to get rid of them if you ask me. Parklife is 15 years old. How the fuck did that happen? It only came out about 5 years ago so it can't be 15 years old. It's umpossible. Foxbase Alpha is 18 years old! What the fuck? It can't be 18 years old because it's so modern and futuristic and I've just moved to London and it's telling me everything that I want to know and everything I feel about this city. It can't be 18 years old because Sarah Cracknell's only about 25 and me and my mate Phat Paul were sitting in Dingwalls oogling her and that was only last year or something. Plus, it just can't be 18 years old because if it's 18 years old then I must be 40 and that's RIDICULOUS.

Tidying up is quite an awful thing anyway but it's a lot worse when the things that you're tidying up start ridiculing you. The CD's of my youth laugh at me because they've remained youthful and vibrant and my Doctor Who/Star Wars/Batman DVD's that are relatively new remind me that I'm a fucking idiotic man-child. You see? This is why men don't do housework, Chicks. It's not because we're lazy, it's because of the bullying and mental scarring that we have to go through. Women are lucky. They have the mental capacity to understand fully that we all grow old and one day we will die. Men haven't a fucking clue about that. One minute you're a child riding a bike, discovering girls and burying your head in a comic and before you know it you're a middle-aged lump, sitting in your own piss and burying your head in a comic.

At least I'm not Daniel's Dad. If I've done anything in my life, it's that. I've achieved the lofty position of not being Daniel's Dad. Being Daniel's Dad must be awful and I can only assume that he is a very broken man. Daniel is a kid I saw in the park today and he's a prick and a half. So is his mum. So, you see, being Daniel's Dad must surely be about as bad as life gets. Not only have you helped create this fucking dickhead called Daniel but you've also put your precious, precious penis into that heap of arse known as Daniel's mum.

Daniel and his mum were cycling through the park today and passed me while I was at the river throwing the ball for Jerk. Daniel, the big prick, decided that he wanted to ride his bike in the river. His mum told him not to because he might fall in. It's not very deep at all but it is rocky and he was surely going to fall in if he rode his bike through it. He told his mum to shut up and rode his bike into the river. He fell in practically immediately. He was drenched and I was entertained. So far, so good. He got out of the river but without the bike. The bike was in the middle of the river. He started crying. Not because he hurt himself but because he was wet. He was about 13 for fuck's sake. He stood on the bank of the river trying to reach out for the bike, his hand stretched out in front of him just in case The Force actually does work and he can magic his bike back on to dry land. His mother then tried to help. She asked Daniel to hold her hand and to use all his weight to make sure she didn't fall in the river as she stretched over to reach for the bike. She fell in practically immediately. This time, I wasn't so much entertained as overcome with a blend of pity and hate. Daniel's mum got out of the river and stood on the dry river bank. They just didn't know how they were going to get the bike out.

THEY HAVE BOTH BEEN IN THE RIVER AND ON BOTH OCCASIONS RAN AWAY FROM THE BIKE. What is wrong with these fuckwits? By now, I had decided to sit by the river and watch. Mum walked all the way round to the other side of the river, via two bridges, but even on the other side was too far away to reach the bike. Daniel's mum had run out of options. She asked for my help. That is normally the last thing that people do. The pathetic pair were soaking wet and shivering. I had to help. I pointed out to them that if Daniel walks into the river he can lift the bike and take it to dry land. Mum pointed out that he would get his wet shoes wet if he did that. OK, I said, why doesn't he take his shoes and socks off and walk in? Because, she replied, he would get his feet wet. I left them to it.

My house is starting to look slightly more bare. Once I get rid of these mocking items I'll have a lot more room. I've only put one thing on eBay so far but I hope you will be interested in buying it for your own home. I've had this framed photo of comedian Rex Boyd for ages. Happy bidding:http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330318489585

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The Change.

All the gigs this weekend were fantastic which means I'm in a horribly good mood. Don't get me wrong, I tried to get in a bad mood. I didn't want to let you down so I tried to do a podcast knowing fully well that my Podcastudio just refuses to work when I tell it to. It's an evil bastard, really. It works when I set it up and it seems to love recording me saying "Testing, Testing, 1,2,3." but when it comes down to me actually using it for a podcast it just stops. Like it was bored or something. Rude.

But my fury didn't last long because I was with Johnny Candon, da party man! I mean, if we don't do a podcast then we can go straight to the pub. Brilliant. I live near a pub. We can be there in 5 minutes. Johnny can't say no to pubs, today's gonna be fiiiiiine. But today wasn't fiiiiiine because Johnny wanted to go shoe shopping. Fucking shoe shopping!? What? Are we Sex In The City now? Johnny actually said the words "I need to go to Schuh or Office" in that order. I had lost Johnny. Johnny has been changing a lot lately. He's been eating salads and packets of roasted almonds instead of punching his face in with deep-fried heart-attack meat. He's even been talking about going to the gym (only talking about it, mind). Poor Johnny. No more lovable falling asleep in his lunch due to having too many breakfast ciders, from now on it was all about looking good, girlfriend. I needn't have worried. The big, cack-handed lummox wandered around the streets of Covent Garden terrified of shops that sold non-booze related footwear for about 20 minutes before running back to the safety of beer and quiz machines. Stupid Johnny trying to think for himself. Idiot.

The Jade Goody film lie made me angry for about 15 minutes too so, really, the last few days have just been peppered with bile rather than steeped in it like normal. Last night's Comedy Cafe gig was excellent. I even saw a new comedian who I really liked. Imagine that! Her name is Katie Wilkins (I think) and her material about talking dirty to her boyfriend in bed was absolutely fantastic. I laughed a lot. In fact I've been doing a fair bit of that laughing thing over the last few days. I finally got round to watching the first series of The Inbetweeners which was excellent, Newswipe was amazing and I get Peep Show now. Never did before. It's brilliant.

Sorry about the good mood. Perhaps you can recommend a terrible comedy TV show for me to watch and I can be back to angry normal. If Johnny's turning into a red-hot, size zero shopaholic and I'm finding comedy "fun" then this does not bode well for King of Everything. Please help.

In the meantime, enjoy this opening credit sequence for the 60's cartoon of Marvel comic's terrifying ball of fury, The Hulk. Ain't he unglamour-ace? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj26N10Ymlg

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The Jade Monkey.

Jade Goody: The Movie? You know what? Fuck off now. I've tried my very bestest to be kind, thoughtful and respectful about the news of Jade's horrible illness and eventual death, despite all knowledge that she is in no way more important than any other person who has died of cancer, but the very thought that anyone at all is even thinking of discussing a movie biopic about Jade's utterly ordinary life beggars belief. It was on the front page of the Daily Star today. That makes it practically gospel. Like Jesus wrote it or something.

I have nothing at all against Jade Goody. She made money out of, well, nothing but people loved her and I certainly can't argue with that. Natasha Richardson was a well-respected stage actress but no-one gave two fucks when she died. Fucking hell, Darth Vader has cancer now. Where's his fucking OK! magazine creepy selling-the-dead special? But, a film about her life? Isn't that the news media wringing the last bit of energy out of this story? Of course it's not. They'll always get more.

What sort of film could it be anyway? It's hardly inspiring. Woman exists, is loud, dies. That's not much of a gripping tale. I know there was more to Jade's life than just that but...well...I dunno, was there? Really? She was popular. OK, but for what? I still don't know. She was unpopular. I understand that but it was ridiculous how she was treated for it. She said something stupid. She was told it was stupid. She understood it was stupid. She apologised. That all sounds OK to me but that was her at a time when Britain hated her. Britain hated her for having the same opinion or lack of education as almost everyone in Britain. It was fine when she just embarrassed herself but when she showed us all up to be cunts that was the limit. Then she became popular again. Because she was ill. God, we're horrible.

The Bionic Woman is, apparently, playing the part of Jade in the film. I want Danny Dyer as Jack Tweed, Dev Patel as Shilpa Shetty and, of course, Morgan Freeman as caring old Uncle Max Clifford. It'll be MASSIVE. If, you know, it ever existed.

I never thought I'd say this but I really do feel sorry for Jade Goody. She sold pretty much everything she ever had while she was alive and she's now a product. The one big product that, in these credit crunch times, continues to sell. Newspapers will continue to make a lot of money from her by making up crap for a long time to come. There is obviously no plan to make a Jade Goody film because there can't be. There's just not enough there to make an actual on-screen story. That doesn't stop papers like the Daily Star, The Mirror, etc. from telling us that there is. Jade sells, so why not make up some crap and sell a bit more? It's depressing.

A dog went missing in the park at Ladywell three weeks ago. Posters went up immediately crying out for the safe return of this loveable pet to the family. The dog was then found a few days later. The posters are still up. Why? Why must people be concerned about a lost dog that is currently at home being spoiled by it's loving, lazy owners? Why won't they take the dozens and dozens of fucking posters they put up down? More importantly: While there is a credit crunch destroying the world, our saviour Obama is sending more troops in to Afghanistan and 48 people are killed in a terrorist attack in Pakistan, how come I'm more fixated with a Jade Goody lie and some lazy, thoughtless dog owners? I'm depressing.

More chuckle tomorrow, folks!

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More Idiots.

The park is getting worse. Luckily, so is the weather so maybe these other people will stop using it for a while and give it back to us regular dog walkers, alcoholics and tree-screaming-at-ers that the park rightfully belongs to.

I saw a young family out walking their Staffordshire Bull Terrier yesterday. I hadn't seen them before and therefore I can only conclude that they are other people and don't belong in my park. Then I concluded that they don't belong in my universe when the "Dad" said to his dog, "Do we have to have this conversation again, Oliver?" "Dad" is a bellend.

But he is NOTHING compared to the two gentlemen I saw competing against one another for World's Biggest Tool. I was 10 minutes from leaving the park and for once I thought it was a relatively twat-free walk until I saw these dudes. And they were dudes. They were huge, wore t-shirts that were going mental over some sort of sport or other and they wore baseball caps. In England. In 2009! It goes without saying that they weren't from round here. They was all American like. They were playing a game called Frisbee. The rules of Frisbee are simple: Rule 1) A twat throws plastic at another twat. Rule 2) See Rule 1.

It was borderline pathetic. There's nothing wrong with playing Frisbee, it's only a game after all. But there most certainly is something wrong with playing Frisbee if you whoop loudly when you catch the Frisbee and the person you're playing with applauds. Surely, catching the Frisbee is what you're supposed to do? Isn't that all there is to it? Then when one of them didn't catch the Frisbee the prick that threw it yelled "C'mon, man. Where's the desire?" Those were his actual words in real life. He's an adult. Playing a game. The park can be a depressing place.

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Blanked By Baby.

What is the fucking point? I was invited round to Margaret Cabourn-Smith & Dan Tetsell's flat yesterday to meet their new baby, Amy. I brought booze, flowers and Bennett Arron (actually that bit was awkward. Bennett was on his own in a nearby Starbucks and I couldn't just leave him there). Their flat is in Hammersmith, one of the many places in West London that thinks street signs are crass and unnecessary. Firstly, my train is late. Then I get on a tube that is so slow it feels like it's going backwards in time. Then when I get to Hammersmith, Bennett starts pissing about crying that he wants to get a present for the baby. He's never met the baby. He has no concept of what this person likes but decides he must buy something anyway. The fucking idiot. He buys something that is pink because Bennett is a sexist. I'm bringing a sexist round to my friend's house. Fucking brilliant. I might as well have knocked on their door and given them Jim Davison as a present. Anyway, we were late and I hate being late.

Dan welcomed us at the door with Amy in his arms. She was sleeping and very, very quiet. And that's how she remained for the entire time we were there. The rude fuck. I had come all the way from Lewisham to see her and she acted like she couldn't care less. If you come round to my house, Jerk WHO IS A DOG, not even a human, will at least wag her tail and sniff your crotch but this was all frankly beneath Amy. Luckily, Margaret's sister had brought an emergency baby with her so we could all smile at clap at her. Mabel made the effort, Amy. Learn from her. I'm hopefully seeing Rob Hitchmough's new baby, James, next week and if he doesn't jump through hoops and juggle I'm fucking off to the pub.

After some champagne and a lovely time with Dan and Margaret and, I suppose, Amy, sexist Bennett and I went out to discuss our play that we've been talking about for the past few months. It's amazing the many and varied topics of conversation you can come up with when you know you should be talking about work. Actually, we had a really nice night. Lots of drinking and pop-quizzing. Fun. Fun that was slightly ruined by a man who joined us without introducing himself and spent far too long just staring at me without saying anything. It was very uncomfortable. At least Amy was just rude, this man was utterly creepy. It was a bit like a ventriloquist had just left his life-size dummy down at our table and fucked off.

Then a drunk big mental decided he wanted to talk to me while I was on my train home. "Where's Hayes?" was his opening gambit. Not "Excuse me, can you tell me where Hayes is, please?", just "Where's Hayes?".

I think my reply to him was justified. "Eh?", I said.

"Hayes. Where is it?".

By this time, I had pretty much run out of conversation with him. "I don't know", I said hoping that would be the end of our friendship.

"Hayes. In Kent.", he continued.

"Well, it's in Kent", I said. Great. That's bound to be it all over now.

"Yeah. Whereabouts?"

FUCK. "I don't know", I said while burying my head in my iPod.

"It's West Wickham way".

"Right".

And that was it. He didn't say another word. He wasn't looking for directions, he was pop-quizzing me. On a train. After 11.30 at night. While wiping ketchup off his knee. You really do learn something new everyday. If you meet enough of the right nutters.

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Fucking Idiots Enjoy Big Warm Globe in Sky.

A walk in the park is no walk in the park, I can tell you. In fact, I think I have several times. Sorry about that. I do spend a fair bit of time in the park though and now that we've had a few days of sort-of sunshine I feel like my park has been invaded by other people.

Other people are ridiculous. They come to the park but instead of walking their dog, or drinking heroins at 9am or shouting at grass they do weird things. Weird things like having a picnic, play tennis and look at ducks for some fucking reason. Today I saw a woman doing something really weird that only other people in the park would think of doing; Tai Chi.

At least, I think it was Tai Chi. I don't really know what Tai Chi is. Is Tai Chi the thing where you carefully move your arms and legs about the place like you're trying to fight a very slow ghost? Well, that's what this woman was doing. Now, I have absolutely no idea what Tai Chi does for you although I'm willing to bet that it's nothing. It's still quite funny to see someone doing it in a park in Lewisham. You'd think Tai Chi in public in Lewisham would be a licence to have your own head kicked in but all she got was stares. I looked at her but only because it was mad and I wanted to try to figure what, if anything, she could be getting out of it. But after 10 seconds I realised that it was rude to stare so just went on my way. Jerk, unfortunately, does not have my good manners. She stood about 12 feet away from the woman, her head cocked to one side staring at Tai Chi. I can't figure out what Tai Chi is and I'm pretty sure if it baffled me then Jerk was going through an absolute head-fuck by watching. I called Jerk away but she ignored me. So, I did the dog owner thing of if your dog ignores you then walk briskly away. They'll see you're not interested in them and come running for attention. They're very like comedians in that respect. I walked round the corner and down a little country-looking lane, confident that Jerk would be following me in a second. She didn't. I waited for her for about a minute. Then I called her again. NOTHING. Fuck this, I'll go back and get her. I walked back to where Jerk was only to see her now sitting down totally relaxed in front of Tai Chi woman, who was still slowly battling the invisible dead. That's all the proof I need. Tai Chi works. Very relaxing. If you're a dog.

This is another example of my snobbery. I have to really watch this, I think. Looking at a woman doing Tai Chi in the middle of a park in Lewisham and just assuming she's an idiot is bad. Although, reading back, it does make sense. Anyway, I feel bad that perhaps I didn't appreciate Webstocky on Sunday enough. I judged the audience, the other acts and me. That's very bad. If I sounded unappreciative of the opportunity then that was not my intention. I'm utterly grateful to Matthew Crosby for giving me the chance to read out my blogs. The fact that I barely rose to the challenge is my problem. And thank you very much to the people who were there who wrote to me saying that they enjoyed the whole show including my bits. I'm very grateful. Hopefully, this will open my mind a bit to trying other experiences. I mean, I'm a bit of a cunt so it probably won't. But thank you very much.

Then on the way back from the dog-walk a man decided to get Jerk's attention by whistling at her. This is very stupid non-dog owner behaviour. There's a very simple rule: if it's not your dog then leave it alone, you fucking idiot. But Jerk fucking LOVES whistling so she dropped her tennis ball and walked towards the fucking idiot. I then called Jerk and commanded her to get her ball and bring it to me. Unsurprisingly, the whistle was too interesting so, once again, I was ignored. She'd never heard this whistle before. It was new. To her, it was a lost Smiths album. To me, it was a noise a fucking idiot made. Then the fucking idiot decided to run and get the tennis ball. I hate it when fucking idiots throw the ball for jerk because it teaches her nothing about looking after the ball in the park. But he threw it towards me and Jerk came running. I shouted "Cheers, mate" at him, even though I didn't want to. Jerk was back at my side and we were on our way home. That's when "You could have fucking said thank you" was shouted at me. I ignored the cunt. Not only did he do something that I didn't want him to do, I thanked him for it and then got accused of being ungrateful. I THANKED HIM FOR DOING SOMETHING I HATE. That's the most courteous thing I can possibly do. The fucking idiot went back to his picnic and I vowed to teach Jerk to attack people's throats on command. Jerk skipped and wagged her tail as if she hadn't understood a thing.

I had a surprise night in last night so I caught up on telly. First of all I watched The Justin Lee Collins Show which gave me cancer of the imagination. The fat talentless cunt starts his show by singing a Tom Jones song. He sings it really well and obviously has a good voice but the thing is, the fat talentless cunt doesn't realise that that's not the point. You're not supposed to start a show by singing a Tom Jones song. It wastes time and is upsetting. He then went on to interview Billie Piper and "hilariously" rape Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy. Fucking prick. I also saw Dave Gorman's Genius which I really liked. Like Justin Lee Collins, Dave also had Catherine Tate as a guest but unlike Justin Lee Collins he didn't make me taste all my future sicks in one go. Genius had a guest called Paul who invented a hood that you keep in your sleeve so that if it rains you can put your arm round your lady-friend and the hood will keep her dry. I'm actually baffled as to how that doesn't actually exist in real life. I love Paul. He's a visionary. I'm looking forward to seeing more Genius and can only assume that Paul will be in it every week. Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle was excellent again. I really think we're very lucky that this is on TV. It's great, so therefore it shouldn't exist.

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Art Failure.

I feel really embarrassed today. What the fuck was I thinking yesterday when I agreed to read out blogs at WebstockY, part of the London Word Festival? That's a ridiculous thing to do. These blogs are spunked out all in one go and then forgotten about. They're not meant to be looked back at, printed out and then read out in front of people so cool that they would have to emigrate to the bottom of the sea if anyone so much as saw them smile.

Not that I'm blaming the audience. Well, they weren't really an audience for starters. They were just a bunch of arty, bored looking people who sat on the floor wearing ironic big beards and drinking fucking juice. No, the blame is firmly with me. I entered their world with nothing but swearing, grumpiness and an inability to pronounce quinoa properly.

I got there at 4 o'clock and immediately knew I'd made a mistake. There was a shop set up in the corner that sold it's own booklets and badges and provided lots of coloured markers and blank paper so that people there can draw their own pictures or create their own stories. There's a fine line between the intelligensia and the special needs. Soon everyone was settling down on the floor with their fucking juice because the first act was about to begin.

The first act was a performance poet who took photos of people's t-shirts then wrote poetry based on the t-shirt slogans. She read out her poems to a soundtrack put together from edited bits of pirate radio all stuck together and playing at the same time. Unbelievably, it was just as bad as it sounded. I walked out after a very baffling minute. I was followed out the door by someone who worked for the festival. "She's Art's Council funded", he said. "So we have to have her". Lucky bitch. Wish I'd had a good excuse to be here.

It just wasn't for me. Not that it was all bad, it was far from it. If it was exactly the same but instead of a performance poet there was a Cyberman and instead of showing short films they showed the last episode of The Tenth Planet then I would have been delighted. These people have every right to like poetry and blurred photos and non-alcoholic drinks and films about being lonely and a load of other balls. Plus Matthew Crosby was there, a man I think it's impossible to dislike (although, obviously I've tried). He's very funny, self-deprecating and he never seems to stop. He worked the entire show. Not just booking the acts (me, Andy Zaltsman, Idiots of Ants, some other chancers) but running around making sure everything was running smoothly-ish, constantly sending out Twitter updates of the days events and actually hosting the show. I like Matthew a lot. If you know him, buy him a fucking juice from me.

The second half started late due to a technical hitch. Technical hitch then became the theme of Idiots of Ants set. Never really seen Idiots of Ants before. They showed films of things they've done for BBC3 and other pretend TV stations plus sang a few songs. The films went down well but took ages to get started thanks to Apple Mac's fucking pointless inability to work when you want them to. Do Apple Mac's ever work? My favourite part of their set was when one of Idiots of Ants (there was only two of them) said that the next bit was "something we made before we became successful as Idiots of Ants". Well, I laughed.

Then it was me. Me on stage. Me on stage looking out into an ocean of bored faces. I could tell immediately that they wouldn't like me. I wasn't an artist, I wasn't making a point and I didn't have any form of digital media to show them. Apparently, these particular arty people like their lo-fi just a bit more technological. Oh, well. I started off with a bit of stand-up about fucking children. Surprisingly, that got a laugh so I thought I'd best start with the blogs. "These are things I made before they became successful as Idiots of Ants", I quipped to utter silence. Right. Here goes. The one about me being given a tennis ball for Jerk and then throwing it over a fence went down OK. I felt a bit more confident. Then I went on to read out the one about my family loving telling stories about people who got "kilt". That went down well. I was quite confident now and read out the trying to find Quinola in Sainsbury's one that got some really good laughs. I was sooooooooooooooooooo confident now. These things can work. It's not perfect, they need some work, this isn't an ideal audience but, despite everything, I'm getting some laughs and it seems that this might be a good idea after all. Then I ruin EVERYTHING by reading out just one more. Balls. Either they didn't find it in any way funny or they are all big fans of Skinnyjeans. I left the stage mentally kicking myself.

Luckily, I had my good friends Rob Heeney and Liz Buckley there to laugh at my shame. I drank my pint of beer in 9 seconds and left. Rob and I jumped in a cab to go to Islington to watch The Trap. They were hilarious which slightly made me feel worse. The thoughtless pair of cunts and another cunt. It was fantastic to see The Trap finally do a new show. It's been three years since their last one. They've replaced all their interactive media with a big piece of paper with writing on it. I like it. I hope they do something again soon. Perhaps I can support them by reading out some of my blogs. You know, or not.

The rest of my weekend in Liverpool was fun despite Saturday night's gig being pretty much ruined right from the word go by a man getting on stage and grabbing my balls. He thought it was hilarious and that's his problem. I just found it disturbing. Don't get me wrong, I love my balls but I don't think they're so lovely that people find them irresistible. Apparently, I'm very wrong about that. I must make a note to make my balls look slightly less beautiful, if that's possible, when I go out in future. I get the feeling grabbing my balls might be the new giving me a Wispa at a gig. WOMEN touching my balls, that is. Not men. Just a thought...

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