Yesterday, I went on a speed awareness course – having been caught doing 58mph in a 50mph on the M4 at 1am on my way home from a gig – which after income tax, fuel tax and now speeding tax, it was a gig that was practically a loss for this hard pressed working father of…
Doing a gig in Cambridge tonight and it might be a ridiculous thing to say – but I have always found the place intimidating – as if all the people in the audience will be university students and therefore super bright. Or more accurately perhaps, super privileged? Because so many kids at Oxbridge have been…
Very shortly, my twins will be doing their GCSE’s. This makes for a stressful household. Stressful for the boys, obviously. Very stressful for their mum and their mum being my wife, this is a stressful for me as well. This is because I am not huge on formal education – whereby children are trained to pass…
Yesterday, we took in Chessington World of Adventures – a study in pure capitalism and social status. The day began with a special trip to my local supermarket – Asda (Walmart, US giant and therefore evil) – to buy two boxes of Kellogg’s (US giant and therefore evil) cereal to gather tokens that would allow free entry…
With an election looming, there is fevered debate about the state of our nation. The haves and the have nots. Good immigration and bad immigration. Downward pressure on wages and zero hour contracts – which is usually an argument used to demonstrate how workers are being shafted. Which brings me neatly on to professional funny people…
When I played the Comedy Store I used to regularly give money to homeless people – probably because I was happy to have done a gig, was on my way home to my family in my warm house and felt a pang of guilt at my good fortune. But then I stopped giving directly and…
The famous playwright, Neil Simon in his brilliant autobiography explains the review that has been most helpful to him in his career has been – “Neil Simon did not have a good idea for a play this year, but he wrote one anyway.” I think this happens too often with novelists as well. A frequent…
Confusing news today about Clarke Carlisle and let’s not forget the very sad demise of Gary Speed not too long ago. I say confusing, because Clarke Carlisle is a man who on the face of it, appears to have it all. But of course, depression is not a factor of how things appear. Depression is…
I always enjoy the ‘experts’ who are interviewed on news bulletins and state facts that everyone knows already. Terrorism experts explaining that terrorists are notoriously volatile and difficult to defeat. Retail experts explaining that shops need to be progressive, adopt new technologies and provide their customers with what they want. Air crash experts explaining that…
Ted Robbins is a rare comedian indeed -insofar as he supports other comics. I can remember years ago sitting on the sofa of The Des O’Connor Show at Teddington Studios with Des roaring away as was his way – but I could also hear Ted laughing like a drain also from the audience. Ted was…
