Comedy I like: part 1

The Day Today- Jam interview


Big Train- Tyrant at home


Stewart Lee- Princess Diana


Big Train- passing opinions off as your own


Adam Buxton- Obama's alternative victory speech


Biff from Back to the Future- A song about questions he gets asked a lot


Dog running in its sleep


Catchprase cock-up


Flea Market, Montgomery

He's basically a black David Brent.



Adam and Joe- Handy Andy


Bobby Conn- Never Going to Get Ahead

This is not meant to be 'funny' as such, but it gets me every time. The oddballs in the audience; his dancing and ego complex; the shellsuit; the Care in the Community feel of it all. Televisual gold dust.

When spam gets poetic

From: Dennis Wolf [mailto:1c2eldd@chinamobile.com]
Sent: 24 March 2010 19:40
To: Tom Hall
Subject: Melvin Hodge

She must have alluded to her father. Will you take my advice? Come and sit down here beside me. That is what I told her. He went in through the garden. She was born for love. What could she do? Such a lovely plan!
Reuben Metaxa that you wants. It is here. It smothers me.I'll ask Jane. FRIENDS IN NEED. What is the money to me? I'll tell her.
Would you like me to show you? Those are forests. But not with pleasure. The other two were evidently brothers. Why from different people.
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2766 - Release Date: 03/23/10 19:33:00

The above is a genu-wine piece of spam emailage, sent by one Dennis Wolf, who a good friend informed me shares the same name of a pro bodybuilder!

Assuming it is said preening meathead, I have to say, I quite admire his literary style. It's fractured, melancholy and somehow defiant. Reminiscent of 18 Century greats like Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe.

Like myself, I feel Wolf falls apart by taking on too many weighty themes and drifting too far into obscurity, thus alienating his audience.

He also failed to plug any products or fabricate an elaborate story about his wealthy African ancestory to tempt us into parting with our cash- a must in any self respecting spam email.

Wolf should have stuck to what he knows, namely how best to lift heavy lumps of metal as a means to resembling tragic children's TV presenter Mark Speight after a radiation accident in a Cheetos factory.

The email should have read something like this:

From: Dennis Wolf [mailto:1c2eldd@chinamobile.com]
Sent: 24 March 2010 19:40
To: Tom Hall
Subject: Melvin Hodge

She must have alluded to her spotting partner. Will you take my advice on correct dumbbell form? Come and sit down here beside the free weights bench. That is what I told her. He went in through the gym reception area. She was born for high intensity cardio workouts. What could she do? Such a lovely fitness plan!
Dennis Wolf Mega Super Whey Iso-bars that you wants. It is here in three delicious flavours. It smothers me like the bigger man with bigger muscles that haunts my dreams. I'll ask Jane. FRIENDS IN THE SAUNA TO CHAT WITH ABOUT HOW MY DELTS ARE LOOKING. What is the money to me? Who needs money when you have a six pack that could grate cheese?
Would you like me to show you my guns? They are like oak trees. But not with pleasure. I have body dimorphism so to me they look like small pine cones.

Quit being a puny pen pusher!!! Order Dennis Wolf Mega Super Whey Iso-Bars now!!!!

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2766 - Release Date: 03/23/10 19:33:00

Live performances I wish I'd been at part 1

I wasn't present at any of these musical delights, but if the grandchildren ask, I'll bend the truth and say I was.

If the grand-kids then call me a liar, and tease me about not being their real granddad, I'll send them to bed without dinner- which will probably come in pill form by then, so they'll no doubt have a load stashed in their satchels anyway. Curse these imaginary future blighters!

Moving on. Here's a few rock performances I really dig, collated for ease of viewing.

The Strokes on Letterman

I love how lead singer Julian Casablancas (the band all have improbably amazing names) manages to fall over a guitar amp and emerge cooler for it.



Radiohead on From the Basement

A gem of a moment from a year ago, that captures the band's newfound swagger.



Jeff Buckley at Glastonbury

This man's vocal range is said to reach the highs of a castrati and the lows of a tenor. No one's matched him since, or before.

The take home lesson from his tragically short life? Don't swim in rivers after one too many Jack Daniels kids : (



Jay-Z at Glastonbury

Lapping up- and living up to- the hype, Jay-Z 'pwns' Glasto rap naysayers with the show's best performance. In your face narrow-mindedness.



Beatles Don't Let me Down on the Apple Corps rooftop, 1969

Lennon was off of his face on smack, McCartney was holding the band together by a fine thread, YET the tension sort of gives an untangible edge to this performance, which was designed to wind up the local cops.



Death Cab studio session

Not many bands can pull of an epic tension-building intro, let alone release it as a single.

The lyrics to the track, when they eventually come in, are a little bit 'stalky' on reflection. Still, an undeniably good bass line.

Reality

Upon dismounting the stairs on the top floor of the Stratford-based spa hotel I'm visiting due to my fortuitous occupation, I remark to The Brunette (yep, I'm using AA Gill's affectionate terminology now) that I sometimes question whether I'm completely mad and imagining everything. For all I know, I say, I could well be strutting nonchalently through an Aberdeen crack den, talking to myself, dressed in a bin liner and Jesus sandals.

She giggles, probably at me, not with me.

Given that I have a lot of spare time on my hands, and that hotel rooms are fairly dull when you're not engaged in the various horizontal entertainment options, I continue riffing on this Descartian (or 'Matrix-esque' to people who don't spend their time over-analysing Keanu Reaves flicks) alley of a conversation.

Like the character Cypher in the hit 1999 film, I would rather take the blue pill and live through a fake, but enjoyable, simulation than face a harsh, but potentially spiritually rich, reality. The Brunette agrees and I shut up for a second- a rare event- and put on the television.

The curiously square and curvy relic features an unresponsive and unnavigatable electronic programming guide which forces me to give up and leave it on Sky News.

Current ramblings on the slick and ever-earnest 24 hour Murdochian cable channel revolve around the alleged activities of Jon Venables, one of the murderers of James Bulger. Still a subject that's difficult to stomach.

I'm very much aware that this is hardly the best viewing option for a romantic weekend away- damn this malfunctioning digibox- but I leave it on, mainly because I'm about to start another undergrad-level philosophy rant.

What if, I begin, Venables is essentially living life on a different plain of reality? Maybe that's what evil is, some fucked-up psychlogical plateau in which someone can have the same consideration for human life that I do when playing Grand Theft Auto?

Everyone, for example, would percieve the floral curtains in this hotel room with a different frame of reference (personally I find them a bit mid-nineties and Noveau Riche, since you asked) but very few, I hope, would consider driving through San Andreas, or Stratford Upon Avon for that matter, in a stolen Cadillac at 100mph whilst carrying a 9mm Uzi. It would take a very different level of reality, no?

The Brunette, who studied Criminology, asks whether I'm trying to say that I would have locked up Venables for his crimes or allowed him to lead a more normal life in which steps can be taken to erase this 'alternate reality' in which he lives.

It's an irritatingly logical question which throws me a bit, but I carry on with my rant regardless, notching it up a level, mainly for shock value.

What then, if the people in high positions of power, politicians and the like, have achieved their high-standing because they live in a warped mode of 'reality' which facilitates a borderline psychotic charm offensive which is effective at deluding people and ultimately leading us into wars? Maybe evil works in different ways and people are never aware they are 'evil'.

I wouldn't have led us into war. But I'm also not knocking down doors canvassing for votes, I add, probably coming off like a pompous cross between Alex Jones and Eric Cartman.

Nethertheless, I think I'm onto something and I'm reminded of this book which I'll probably never be arsed to read.

The rant is left hanging. Cartoons come on the telly. It's not on Sky News anymore, unless Murdoch's had a major strategic rethink. Which I'd be all for.

I lie down and chill out for a bit, like normal people do at spas. I take the blue pill, drift off, and enjoy the antics of Tom and Jerry- a show that features a cat with the same name as me, which for some reason forces me to side with him.

I get lost imagining myself locked in an eternal struggle with a cocky, but infinitely resourceful, mouse. An insightful allegory for life itself maybe?

No. No it isn't... Maybe I have lost it?

I look down, raise a puzzled eyebrow, and refrain from asking whether I'm wearing Jesus sandles. I've got enough on my plate anyway, what with this pesky rodent and all.