Monday 30 April 2007

Partick Mass Massage

Yesterday afternoon I went along to the Partick Mass Massage an event run by All Tomorrow’s Particks, a group attempting to stop Tesco building a 24 hour supermarket on a green space round the back of the Morrison’s in Partick.

I really just went along to take some photographs, though realise I must have looked like some sort of Tesco spy, when I said I wasn’t really into taking part, but would take some information from them.

Anyway they were attempting a world record for mass massage. No idea if they managed it or not.

There's a preview of the attempt in Thursday's Evening Times, with some interesting (and not so interesting) points in the comments section. There's also a little bit about it in today's Evening Times.

Their next couple of events are:

Partick Swap Shop - Bring something, leave with something else!

Picnic and Rounders - Cakes al fresco followed by a game of the old favourite
.

You can see my photographs here.

Friday 27 April 2007

Man, It's a Slow Day


David Beckham's new hair. Tim Roth in The Hit.

Thursday 26 April 2007

I Tried to Stop it

When I left the house this morning I realised I was very early for my usual bus but probably too late for the 8.02 bus. However when I walked up the hill and saw it cross at the lights I thought I would make a run for it.

Nine times out of ten the bus moves off before or as I get to it, whether the driver has seen me or not, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway.

As I got closer to it I realised that a man who had just got off it was trying to get the driver to stop for me. To no avail it turned out as the bus drove off while I was still about 20 feet away.

I waved at the guy, who was roughly in his mid 50s, and said ‘Thanks anyway’.

The guy then walked straight toward me saying “I tried tae stoap it fur ye.” It was at this point that I realised he was out his tits on drink.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said.

“I tried tae stoap it fur ye,” he repeated still walking straight for me.

“I know I saw you,” I replied somewhat irritated now.

“It didnae stoap. I tried tae stop it fur ye.” He said as I manoeuvred out of his way.

I think I know why it didn’t stop.

8.04am. Out his breeks on swally.

Are You Super Bad?

I watched the trailer for this on Yewknee. It’s really funny. Superbad features Michael Cera from Arrested Development and is directed by Greg Mottola.

From The Hollywood Reporter: "Judd Apatow is reuniting with his "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" star Seth Rogen for the comedy "Super Bad" at Columbia Pictures. Apatow is producing the high school-themed film, while Rogen is penning the screenplay with Evan Goldberg and will co-star. Greg Mottola ("The Daytrippers"), who directed several episodes of Apatow's short-lived TV series "Undeclared," will helm "Super Bad," with Apatow regular Jonah Hill and Michael Cera on board to star. "Saturday Night Live's" Bill Hader is in talks to co-star.

The story revolves around two co-dependent high school seniors (Hill and Cera) who set out to score alcohol for a party, believing that girls will then hook up with them and they will be ready for college. But as the night grows more chaotic, overcoming their separation anxiety becomes a greater challenge than getting the girls."


Wednesday 25 April 2007

YOMG on Channel 4 Laughs

You Owe Me Glue are the Editor's Pick of the Day on Channel 4's 4 Laughs page. Go to the link, scroll down the page 'til you see our daft faces and click on the link to hear an audio version of 'Absolutely Had To'.

Speaking of Channel 4 we have also made the live stage of their Gags to Go competion. We will be performing our shortest gig ever (one sketch) next Wednesday night (2nd May) at the Universal on Sauchiehall Lane. You can obtain free tickets through the link. There's plenty of sketches on, so it should be a good night.

Tuesday 24 April 2007

The Election Race Hots Up

When I was chucking away the Sunday Herald yesterday I noticed this pamphlet fall out of it. It was for the SNP and listed a lot of the pish they intend to do if, heaven forbid, they get elected to power. I then realised that it folded out into a poster. A fucking poster! Of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon!

Who the fuck do they think is sticking this on their wall? Maybe if there was some sort of pop star cull or mass tour bus crash, then maybe kids would be forced to stick posters of gormless politicians on their walls, but really come on.

And speaking of the election I noticed this doctored banner below on Woodlands Road.

An Evening With Kevin Smith

Having the big bucks to throw around, such as I do, the other day there I chucked away £5 on An Evening With Kevin Smith. A double disc DVD Q & A with the ‘Clerks’ director that came out in around 2002.

When he gets going he is very entertaining. However much of the discs’ 3 hour plus running time is taken up by fanboys asking him if he wants to smoke weed with them afterwards or about how much they love him and would like to orally pleasure him.

Smith also seems to insult practically everyone who asks a question. When he’s allowed to tell stories of crazy Hollywood people the DVD is well worth the money. His story of filming a documentary with Prince is worth the five bucks alone.

The best portion though is probably this bit below, a near twenty minute tale of how he came to write a draft of Superman.

Cowards on Radio 4

Cowards began their series on Radio 4 recently. You can listen to it on the BBC’s Listen Again feature. It’s pretty funny. Several of the sketches I remember from seeing them at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005.

Monday 23 April 2007

It’s Official – We’re Binned



As Pish devotees will know, Tom and I work in the same office.

Over the years this has meant that we’ve been able to work closely together on doing stuff like putting together shows and doing stuff for submissions etc. It’s also meant that we’ve quite often got sick of the sight of one another.

Well, a brave new dawn approaches as we’ve just been told officially that we’re finally getting the bin from work.

Rubbish in one way because we all have to eat but probably a good thing, since our work is soul sucking meaningless pish.

We are now of course willing to consider all offers except call centres and gay porn. At least until the reduny run outs.

Ten Easy Steps to Sketch Comedy Greatness

This is from TV Squad. It focuses on Human Giant, a new sketch show on MTV, which has its roots online. The features also discusses the growing popularity of do-it-yourself sketch comedy ion sites like YouTube.

Don't be too good-looking.

This is a rule I've actually heard from many professional stand-up comedians. You have to be relatable. You want people on your side not hating you because you're too rich or too handsome. British scientists even posited what the funniest face would look like, and folks, it ain't pretty.

Well Done.

Graham Linehan on how recording of the new series of the IT Crowd is going.

And On That Subject, Shurely Shome Mistake?


I read with mild interest this news on the BBC website today.

Note they mention that The Dandy is the longest running comic in the world. Naw it isnae.

Off the top of my head I can think of one older that's still going - "Detective Comics", first published in March 1937, several months before the first issue of The Dandy hit the stands.

It's certainly Britain's oldest, but that's not what they've said, even though its an easily checkable fact.

Nice to see yet another person with a better job than me getting away with phoning it in. Bravo BBC.

Of course, Detective Comics Number 27 features the first ever appearance of...Batman - you can pick up a mint copy for around 300 grand.

Murphy and Cavett on Letterman

This is some funny stuff. Eddie Murphy and Dick Cavett guest on Late Night with David Letterman. They discuss their close friendship, Cavett doing anything on a dare and racist toothpaste.

Via.

Baldwin, Baldwin, Baldwin

You’ll have heard Alec Baldwin’s rant at his ‘12 years old, 11 years old, whatever age you are’ daughter by now. If you haven’t you can hear it here.

He has apologised for his rant, blamed it on his Academy-award winning ex-wife and even found time to promote his forthcoming book.

I’ve heard a lot worse than this aimed at kids by their parents, while travelling on the number 40.

This is Alec Baldwin being very funny, in a sketch from Saturday Night Live, which given that it's very juvenille, probably shouldn’t be as funny as it is.

The Great Batman Artists

Another comics one.

Since it was such a gloomy weekend, I headed down to the library and got a stack of Graphic Novels, a few of which featured Batman.

I’ve missed about 10 years worth of continuity on “Batman” and its long running stable mate “Detective Comics”, so its been fun in recent months to pick up books filling in the gaps.

Over the weekend I read the fairly recent “Hush” by “Heroes” creative consultant Jeff Loeb and a couple of Mike Barr GNs from yesteryear that I’d somehow managed to miss out on, “Batman: Year Two” and “Son Of The Demon”.

All good, if not mind blowing stuff and all stories that shy away from the gritty pseudo-realism that has become the norm for Batman stories, harking back to the bitter romance and hard-boiled noir of earlier tales of the Dark Knight.

I read the Mike Barr stuff mainly because the current Batman continuity refers to this earlier work, with current Batman writer Grant Morrison exploring the loose ends of Barr’s “Son of The Demon” storyline.

It also got me thinking about the huge number of people I’ve read and admired who have handled this greatest of all comic book icons.

The artwork in “Hush” for example is provided by Jim Lee, and is easily the best thing I’ve seen him do. He’s a very accomplished comic book artist in general, but with Batman, he has found the character he was born to draw.

I’d say the same about several others, so here are just a few of the great Batman artists.

Jim Lee

Alan Davis

Neil Adams

Frank Miller

David Mazzucchelli

Norm Breyfogle


...and my personal favorite, the late great Jim Aparo



There are oodles more of course but these are just some of my favorites - artists who have helped bind the character of Batman not just irrevocably to fans but to popular culture as a whole.

The resonance of Batman is pretty remarkable really for a comic book about a guy who fights crime dressed up like a flying rat.

Saturday 21 April 2007

James @ the Academy

I went to see James at the Carling Academy last night. I was there to review them for The Skinny, so I saved on the unbelievable 30 quid ticket price. As I mentioned in a post last week, I’ve been a fan of James since the late 80s, from round about the time the Strip Mine album came out.

I became less attached to them as the years went on and their popularity increased. However they would always come along every so often with a song I really liked. So when the chance came to see them for nothing I was happy to take it.

The Twang opened for them. Touted as the next big thing by the music press they recall the Madchester days of the Mondays and yes, Northside. Why do we need another Northside? We don’t really, eh? But they were actually quite good. They have two singers, one doing a Bez type act. I’m sure they’ll be about for some time to come. You can listen to their single ‘Wide Awake’ through the BBC site here.

The audience seemed to be full of people in their mid 30s to mid 50s and given that James are doing this tour to celebrate 25 years in the business that’s no great surprise. They kicked off with ‘Come Home’ and from then on most people in the audience treated the night like a World Cup win. A lot of folk seemed to find the need to watch the show with their arms aloft in some sort of messiah pose.

Many older guys did that jogging on the spot style of dancing throughout the night too. For me there always seemed that there was a hint of trouble in the air and midway through their set a fight broke out not a few feet from me.

Although there was a large steward presence close by, they seemed to take ages getting involved as two guys hammered blows at each other’s head. I was only disappointed that I didn’t get a good photo of it, only capturing the aftermath.

As for the show well James were really good. They dared to play only two new songs, since the crowd were pretty much here to hear songs that they knew.

They did mostly everything you would expect. I enjoyed hearing Johnny Yen again and a few others like Say Something, Laid and Destiny Calling I enjoyed too. You really couldn’t knock their performance, they’ve always been a great live band and they’ve lost none of their performance skills in the years they’ve been away.

There is a selection of photos on my Flickr page.

Friday 20 April 2007

20 Years of The Simpsons

The Simpsons was 20 years old yesterday. This is a good article with head writer and executive producer Al Jean. He briefly discusses the upcoming Simpsons movie.

"The movie had to stand on its own. It needed a storyline that was emotionally connected, not just 80 minutes of jokes," Jean said, adding after a beat, "although it will be 80 minutes of jokes."

Comics and Literature

Comics are usually Fraser's territory, but I'll wade in here. This is a good post from Graham Linehan on what to say to the Late Review panel on whether comics are 'literature' or not.

Thursday 19 April 2007

Comic Attack

Australian comedian Jim Jeffries was attacked onstage at the Comedy Store in Manchester recently. The club captured the indecent on its camera. So here it is.

Here’s the story of the incident on Chortle.

Warning: as well as the obvious violence most of the language on this clip makes it NSFW.

The Unstoppable, Transforming Man

AV Club has an interview with Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz fame.

AVC: Was there any actor or director whose work was particularly helpful or inspirational for Hot Fuzz?

EW: I think we really wanted to cover all areas of the cop film. Within the two-hour running time, we pretty much cover the corruption cop genre, the fish-out-of-water cop genre, the serial-killer thriller cop genre, the buddy-action film. There's a lot of ground that we cover. I suppose people like Tony Scott, Michael Mann, John Woo, there's a lot of those elements, certainly in terms of the action and the overcaffeinated, ADD aspect of it. Obviously there's the classic '70s directors like Sidney Lumet, William Friedkin, Don Siegel, so we definitely tried to cover a lot of ground. It's a very kind of immersive tribute to the cop genre.

SP: The actor that influenced me most was Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. He's the cop that I base Nicholas Angel on, the unstoppable, transforming man.

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Pish on Bloglines

You can now subscribe to Talking Pish through RSS aggregator Bloglines. This means that you'll always know when we've updated.

Here's their blurb from their site.

Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install -- simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device.


There's a permanent link down the left-hand side of the page.

The Kids in the Hall are Back

The Kids in the Hall have announced 4 live dates. In Los Angeles unfortunately, but nice to know that they're back doing some live work.

Since every post on here these days has some sort of video attached here are the Kids showing you how to survive a grizzly bear attack.

The Neds With Their Knuckles and Their Burberry Scarves

This is Ted Leo on The Sound of Young America performing a song written about Glasgow, “Bottle of Buckie”.

Jobs For The Boys

Tom and I are currently dealing with the devastating news that we’re probably going to be papped out of work by mid May.

With this in mind, I made the video appeal below to boost our chances of getting new jobs as soon as possible.

Please watch and if you can, please help.

Tuesday 17 April 2007

Surrender

Its been a You Tube kind of day here on 'Pish so here is another great vid, this time for one of my all time favorite songs, "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.

Time Machine Go


I would imagine that usually, if a guy stumbled on stage, announced he was pissed and coming up on drugs before explaining how he was abducted by aliens, I’d be apt to take anything else he said with a pinch of salt.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading his comics since I was a teenager and always got something out of them, but a lot of what Grant Morrison says in this Disinformation Con speech in, I think, 2000 strikes a note with me.

Even if its all bollocks, at least he's asking the questions eh? It’s just refreshing to hear someone talk outwith the same tired old parameters.

See what you think yourself. It's well worth watching all the way through by the way.










Monday 16 April 2007

Magazines for Sale

We spotted this at lunchtime, discarded on the pavement. Obviously from a reputable newsagents. A bargain in anybody's money.

New RFC Strip


For anyone interested, here's a pic of the new Rangers strip. I would have included a picture of the new Celtic strip as well if only to minimise the accusations of being a "...dirty orange bastert", but none are to be had a present.

I'm not that keen - as usual it seems to be the same strip as last year with another tacked-on design change to get folk to part with upwards of 40 sovereigns. I'm also perturbed by that fact that it appears to be yet another lighter shade of blue. Odd.

Still, the 'Gers muckers will probably lap it up.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Passing


If you’re a regular visitor, you’ll have seen Tom’s detailed posts on Kurt Vonnegut in the wake of his death.

He was my favourite novelist – which isn’t saying much – I’m not a novel person really but I always really enjoyed his ability to combine compassion and humour.

Like most people I have a few favourite books – “Mother Night” and “Slaughterhouse Five” are up there for me with “Last Exit To Brooklyn” “Rule of the Bone” and “The Magic Christian” as my all time choices – they number among the few novels I’ve read more than once.

Most people interested in fiction have read “Slaughterhouse Five” but I’d imagine less have had a go at “Mother Night”. You really should. It’s as good as it gets.

Telling the fascinating, fictitious story of American wartime “traitor” Howard W. Campbell Jr, Vonnegut delivers his usual blend of tenderness and surreal humour throughout.

Campbell, a US born German resident, becomes famous during WWII when he acts as a propaganda broadcaster for the Nazi regime. Hated in his home country and pursued in later life by Israel we learn that he has been no such thing – he has been spying for the Allies all along, sending coded messages in his broadcasts.

The novel masquerades as Campbell’s memoir as he explains his motivations, his abandonment by the American Government he served and his encounters with a hilarious band of crumbling old Nazis looking for a leader, his cranky, mysterious neighbour, the Mossad agents sent to kidnap or kill him and the dramatic re-appearance of what appears to be his long dead wife.

It works as a love story brilliantly, as a comedy brilliantly and, as with most of Vonnegut’s work, it comments wryly on the idiocy of war.

I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

Obviously I was saddened to hear about Vonnegut’s death, but he lived a good life – he was a good writer and was a noble man. He was for people, and so few of us are these days.

He passes on with less than most to be ashamed of. Not that he'd agree with me there.

Where Are All the Gay Footballers?

On The Guardian’s sports blog, Portsmouth keeper David James speculates that by the law of averages there must be some gay footballers.

"No one's ever come out to me during my 18 years in football. But I must say I've seen and heard some strange things, remarks that could suggest someone is gay or bisexual. I've heard drunken footballers egging each other on to do certain things for a certain amount of money. Maybe it's routine stuff, part and parcel of what goes on in every pub team across the country, but it made me wonder why they would be talking about it if they were straight."

Sunday 15 April 2007

The Landlord

Will Ferrell has some problems with his landlord.



After you've watched that check out Superman Retires.

Saturday 14 April 2007

Saturday Night Live 25 Years of Music

Recently I bought volume one of Saturday Night Live 25 Years of Music. Featuring live performances from bands from 1975 to 1980 I enjoyed it so much I ended up buying all 5 volumes.

As well as music there’s a good sprinkling of music related SNL sketches. All the clips are held together by links from one of each particular era’s alumni.

Volume one features Carly Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Patti Smith performing ‘Gloria’ and Joe Cocker performing alongside John Belushi doing an impression of him. It also features a controversial performance from Elvis Costello, which allegedly got him banned from the show. Although went on to appear again.

The set features a lot of acts at the peak of their powers, doing one of their most recognisable songs.

Rick James doing ‘Super Freak’, Neil Young performing ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’, Nirvana playing ‘Rape Me’ and Talking Heads doing ‘Take me to the River’.

Even bands I initially wasn’t interested in offer gripping performances such as Live, Blind Melon, Randy Newman and Fine Young Cannibals.

It also includes Sinead O’Connor’s infamous performance of Bob Marley’s ‘War’.

The sketches include Bill Murray singing ‘Star Wars’, Steve Martin as King Tut, Kevin Spacey, Michael Palin and Beck in a sketch called ‘Weed Doctor’ and Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze auditioning for the Chippendales.

At only 3 quid per disc, take a trip into your nearest Fopp or Music Zone to pick one up. Below is Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

Friday 13 April 2007

Snap Happy

You'll mind back in January I had one of my photographs on the BBC website in their pictures of Scotland section. Well, last week Paul from work had a picture of men cooking paella that he took in Edinburgh used. Today Katie joins him with a pic of her boyfriend Adrian on their holiday.

James on The Other Side of Midnight

Wow, the wonders of YouTube. This bit of film is exactly what I was looking for when I scratched my head to think what I might want to see that I haven’t seen for years.

This is James on Tony Wilson’s programme The Other Side of Midnight from 1988. I remember watching this as a teenager, being totally enthralled with Tim Booth going mental at the end. I find it’s really not as exciting now, that must say something about me in the passing years.

Jim Gaffigan on Letterman

This is a brilliant bit if stand-up from Jim Gaffigan.

“You don’t use mayonnaise? Why?”

So It Goes


A lot of bloggers, newspapers and magazines are saying a lot of things about Kurt Vonnegut, so here are some links.

Graeme at Hocemo Li Na Kafu?

Screenwriter James Moran.

Comedian Bill Arnett.

Screenwriter Jane Espenson.

Jane quotes Vonnegut’s 8 point guide to writing fiction. Here it is:

1.Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. -- Kurt Vonnegut


The Independent republish a famous interview from The Paris Review where he discusses his experiences in the Second World War.

INTERVIEWER You are a veteran of the Second World War?

KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Yes. I want a military funeral when I die - the bugler, the flag on the casket, the ceremonial firing squad, the hallowed ground.

INTERVIEWER Why?

VONNEGUT It will be a way of achieving what I've always wanted more than anything - something I could have had, if only I'd managed to get myself killed in the war.

INTERVIEWER Which is - ?

VONNEGUT The unqualified approval of my community.


Obituary in Time.

Writers discuss his influence in the International Herald Tribune.

Tasha Robinson talks about a doomed interview with Vonnegut in the AV Club.

A feature which links to a PDF of an article written in 1979 by author John Irving on Vonnegut and his critics.

Adam Gartenberg posts Vonnegut's reflections on his time spent as an editor for The Cornell Daily Sun.

10 Zen Monkeys on when Kurt Vonnegut met Sammy Davis Jnr.

An interview with Library Journal from April 1973.

MTV News looks at film adaptations of Vonnegut’s books.

I’ll stop there as I could probably go on all day linking to the numerous things people have been writing about him.

Thursday 12 April 2007

Hey Ya

All right, here’s a bit more uplifting post than those posted already today. This is an outstanding acoustic version of Outkast’s Hey Ya by Mat Weddle of the group Obadiah Parker.

The only distraction is the video needlessly cuts to shots from the original promo, though apparently that helped to make the video a viral smash.

Glasgow: Scotland With Scum

When I read this article last night I found myself angrier than I have been in a long time. The fact that it happened not far away from where I’m from made it seem much more repulsive to me. Though no matter where it happens it’s still vile.

What kind of culture have we developed in this country where things like this are happening? There’s no end to the bottomless pit of scum that populate our streets.

As a peace loving individual it makes me feel sick that I can’t help but wish for castration and a long-lingering death for this piece of dirt. I hope he’s grassed up and caught very quickly. And that he has coming to him just what Chopper suggests.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. The author of classics such as Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five was still writing and nailing it up until his last days. If you happen to trawl through the 'Pish archives you'll see that we've quoted from him more than once. We've even refrenced his work in a YOMG sketch.

This is one of my favourite quotes and very apt.

"Writing allows mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into intelligence."

"He's the closest thing we've had to Voltaire," Tom Wolfe, told Bloomberg News Service. "It's a sad day for the literary world."

There is a good feature on him on the BBC's h2g2 site.

There's a good post on the Guardian Books Blog with a few good comments after it.


This is a 37 minute interview with Vonnegut on the virtual on-line community Second Life.



This is the first part of an Arena special on Vonnegut. After you've watched it click on it for the remaining parts.

Wednesday 11 April 2007

More Surprise Rock

Back in the world of stand-up comedy where you don’t have to deal with neds rioting on buses Matt Ruby once again got to be on the bill when Chris Rock unexpectedly turned up.

"In every relationship, there's a Hall and there's an Oates."

Monday 9 April 2007

The Life of a Comedian

All right, here’s why I don’t do stand-up very often. Now I’ve seen the Jerry Seinfeld documentary ‘Comedian’ more times than I can count and the life of a stand-up comic looks like quite good fun. Craft some material, perform it, rewrite it, and perform it again. Hang around in well-appointed clubs with your like-minded fellow comic pals. Stand around outside the comedy clubs on balmy summer evenings trying to pick up girls. It all looks quite appealing and better than the life of an office drone.

Some weeks ago I agreed to do a spot at Linsays monthly comedy club in Edinburgh. I intended to write a load of new material for it. I came up with a couple of bits, but of course didn’t spend enough time on them to really do them justice, so had to dig out the old stuff and incorporate a couple of new lines. But never mind it’ll be all right.

I headed off for Edinburgh at 5 in the afternoon, scored a double seat on a busy bus and all was well. On alighting in the capital I headed off for my tea. I had made my plans to go to Tempting Tattie on Jeffrey Street for Edinburgh’s best and biggest baked potatoes. However when I got there I discovered it was shut for Easter. Cracking.

A fair bit of hanging around on my own at the gig followed though Carly Baker and Gus Tawse were both happy to stand and chat. Both down from Aberdeen they both did really well. Carly especially. She went on third and to be honest the room hadn’t really taken to the first two acts, but Carly warmed the place up nicely with her tales of adjusting to life in Scotland as an American. Not only that but she was also nice enough to buy me a drink.

For my part I went over okay. My new stuff went down all right, but since I was saying a lot of it out loud for the first ever time, it wasn’t as good as it should have been. I also fumbled over a few of the words. But I think a 1-0 win was a fair assessment of the performance.

On after me was the undoubted star of the evening Jim Hobbit. It’s really hard to describe his act if you weren’t there. A lot of frantic rambling, some obscure music references and using a kazoo and a bendy guitar he closed his set by doing a lengthy Chuck Berry/Marty McFly impression.

I headed for the bus before the headliner, Aggie Elsdon, came on.

The bus was reasonably quiet with only a handful of folk onboard, though the driver did force several people, Jim Hobbit included, to either wolf down their hot food or put it in the luggage hold, before he would let them on.

Midway through the journey the Young Baillieston team up the back kicked off with some of their Buckfast fuelled hi-jinks. The bus driver made futile half-hearted attempts to get them to be quiet, but you knew he was never going to do any more than shout from his seat. He was just trying to get to Glasgow as fast as he could before anything major kicked off.

When they sauntered off in Baillieston, a girl came down to the driver to say that one of them had hit her and what could the driver do about it? Well love, not much. As she said herself, if he called for the Police they would be long gone. The driver said he’d have done something had the bawbag still been on the bus, but since he wasn’t there wasn’t much he could do. The lassie kept on for a bit as the young team banged the side of the bus. After the girl finished with her protestations the driver finally decided to take off though by this time one of the Young Team was dancing in front of the bus in the middle of the road. The driver had no real hesitation in aiming the bus at him as the bawbag jumped out of the way.

At Buchanan Street I said my goodbyes to Jim Hobbit and made for a late night bus home. My thought process was to find the quietest stop, but it made more sense to get the 62 on Hope Street and Gordon Street. Luck was in however as one turned up right away. I only had to put up with an old guy on a night out with his wife, shoving in to me as I got on.

Pretty much any bus that passes through the centre of town is liable to mental after midnight on a Saturday. In fact you have a high chance of a bam or two any time after about 8pm.

It didn’t take long for the Celtic sing along to start as two half-cut Celtic minded strangers joined forces to bang their feet and sing Sellik songs at the top of their lungs. They even decided to sit together, yes right behind me, arms round one another belting out some of their favourite tunes.

At the stop just before I was due to get off, in Partick, the bus filled up. It then bottle necked, with too many folk onboard, the driver shouting in a vain attempt to get people to move up the back of the bus. A shouting match broke out between two girls. This caused some impatience amongst the passengers, several of whom began shouting to the driver to get moving. The shouting match at the front then developed into a bit of hair pulling. Then some wee guy got involved which kicked off a mini riot at the front of the bus with the wee guy and one of the girls having a full blown fight.

“Pullin a lassie’s hair. Pullin a lassie’s hair. You’re a cunt. Pullin a lassie’s hair,” the lassie shouted.

One of the other passengers, a guy probably in his mid thirties grabbed the wee guy round the throat and pushed him off the bus. The wee guy seemed to be gasping for breath as he held himself up at the bus stop. The girl was screaming the place down as the driver attempted to restore some kind of order.

The wee guy pushed his way back on, which caused another scuffle as the lassie went for him. When that settled down and the girl got off, the wee guy was shouting that he couldn’t see cos he had lost his glasses. The guy who was earlier throttling him, got off the bus to retrieve them from the pavement and the bus slowly moved off.

When I got off the bus, about a hundred yards further down the road, pushing and squeezing my way past the crowd, the same guy got himself involved in another fight, this time he got off the bus for good. I walked away as the bus driver stood up behind his door shouting “This bus is going nowhere until people move further up the bus.”

Thankful that I was out of the riot on wheels I walked over to the 24-hour shop. In there was a guy, steaming drunk, staggering backwards periodically, chatting to the shopkeeper.

“You’re a Muslim eh? I’ll tell you what I don’t like about youse. Youse put yer women down eh?”

“No. No,” the guy behind the counter replied, trying to keep the discussion, such as it was, light.

“Aye youse dae. See ahm a Catholic. We’re no like that. See if any cunt said anything aboot ma Maw…” and at that I headed out the shop and along past the cricket ground to a quiet stroll back to the flat.

I don’t remember stand-up being quite like that in ‘Comedian’.

Friday 6 April 2007

The Easter Bam

So with Easter approaching what to do but go to the pub after work. A few of us crammed into a car and made our way to Lauder’s in town. Not the most welcoming of hostelries, but reasonably priced and central.

Anyway when we left a few of us decided to go back to someone’s flat for a few more drinks. As we attempted to hail a taxi on Woodlands Road, we heard shouting from across the other side. Yes it was a bam. “Are you shouting at me?” he began.

“No, we were shouting on a taxi,” we replied.

“Are youse shouting at me?” he asked once again, this time removing his baseball cap to show that he meant business.

Once again we advised, “We weren’t shouting at you. We were shouting on a taxi.”

“Nae bother,” he replied, settling down and putting on his baseball cap, “nae bother boys.”

His pal grabbed hold of him, and pulled him aside. “Sorry about him guys. I apologise. Come on you.”

“Naw,” our bam shouted. “He’s not apologising. Don’t listen tae him. He’s not apologising for me. Were you shouting at me?” off came the baseball cap once more as he remained on the opposite side of the road.

“We were not shouting at you,” we shouted.

“Right nae bother boys. Have a good night.”

At that point a taxi stopped for us.

“Hang on. Were you shouting at me? Were you?”

At that we were in a taxi and off in search of some more booze, leaving our confused new pal to his confusion.

Wednesday 4 April 2007

The Milky Bars Are On Me

Some of you may remember seeing this from Comic Relief in 2005. it’s Alan Partridge speaking with a now grown up Milky Bar Kid.

The End Of My Geekiest Journey


Warning: This may be the most boring post I’ve ever written!! Read on at your peril!!!

Although I haven’t received it yet, it would appear that I have come to the end of one of my saddest and least interesting quests.

When I first got into comics, Frank Miller was the man. He’d just come off the back of The Dark Knight Returns and could do no wrong. He’s done a lot of great works since, and some daft drek as well.

But my favourite work of his was always his late 70s/early 80s run on Daredevil – pretty much the Bronze Age run on any title.

Miller started drawing the comic in 1979 at Issue 158 and began writing and drawing the comic at Issue 168. It was stunning stuff – Miller gave the comic a gritty, nourish edge, maturing the characters and storylines and he introduced a visual dynamism that topped even the old masters like Kirby, Neil Adams and Jim Steranko.

He was also the first comic book creator to introduce elements of Manga to American comics. Miller loved Japanese comics and created a bunch of characters based on his love of the more mystical end of martial arts, his most enduring creation being Elektra.

He also revamped the title in terms of adversaries. Although there were still run-ins with costumed villains most notably Bullseye (an old, rather silly character that Miller revamped into a darkly psychotic assassin) Daredevil’s main enemy became The Kingpin, a brutal local crime boss.

Its difficult to say where modern comic books would be without this most groundbreaking yet faithful-to-the-medium work.

After his first run, Miller returned to the title in 1986, writing “Born Again” for artist David Mazzuchelli and again, made the competition look unsophisticated and silly in doing so.

And now, onto the point.

I have over the years spent a considerable amount of time and money collecting every last one of these comics in original form.

I had them all; the full original run, the one offs, the odds and ends and the full second run. Some of them in great nick, some of them not, but I have them.

All expect one. Issue 161.

It was a sticky one. Y’ see, Miller only drew it. Never wrote it and as such, it didn’t really spoil any continuity by not having it. Plus it’s a rare, expensive comic. It was never originally distributed in the UK and was quite hard to find. It generally went for over a tenner and I could never really justify the expense.

Or was that really it? I’ve wondered over the years as I’ve passed up several opportunities to own it, if there is not another reason. Maybe I just didn’t want to complete the collection because, when I do, the adventure of collecting all the Miller Daredevils will be over. The quest will be complete and I’ll have to deal with the fact that all I’ve really done is collate some sequentially published books. It’s not as if it was some Arthurian quest after all.

But we’ll see how I feel shortly – ‘cos I finally bought it on ebay from a store in Brooklyn for 7 quid postage included.

The end of my geekiest journey is almost nigh.

Tuesday 3 April 2007

One Gay President

Here’s a funny song from sketch group Last Call Cleveland.

Monday 2 April 2007

Another Bus Crash

Less than a week after I posted that pic of the bus on St. Vincent Street another one has crashed. This time into a garden in Knightswood.

Election Fever Hits Scotland…Doesn’t It?


Scotland will take to the polls on May 3rd to return the men and women who will run our country for the next few years.

The hustings are being dusted off as we speak as the nation waits with baited breath for the Conservative manifesto. Oooh, exciting times indeed.

Despite the fact that no-one I’ve spoken too even seems aware that an election is imminent, we could end up with a very interesting result if the latest opinion polls are to be given any credence.

The SNP are kicking Labours ass in the polls with a month to go and Jack McConnell faces the very real prospect of achieving the unthinkable – losing Scotland for the Labour Party.

Of course, no-one will win an outright majority so the probability at present is a SNP/Lib Dem coalition, which would see some very interesting shifts on the political landscape.

We’re talking about a Government that would be:

Still committed to free care for the elderly

Still committed to the abolition of higher education fees

Against the war in Iraq and pro a phased withdrawal

Against the renewal of Trident

Against Council Tax, which they would replace with a local income tax

Against ID cards

…and of course a Government whose first priority would be to seek a referendum on independence.


Whitehall would for the first time be faced with a devolved power base in direct opposition to most of their own key policies and would be forced at least in part to fund that body. Some interesting clashes between Alex Salmond and Gordon Brown would be guaranteed.

Of course there is a month of electioneering to go and things may well change, but it looks like we could be drifting gently into uncharted political territory.

I have to say I find the prospect refreshing, although you have to worry about how a party who have never had to fulfil a single promise at anything other than council level will cope with the responsibility of running the big show.

Sunday 1 April 2007

From Such Great Heights

This is Ben Folds on Australian TV doing a cover of the Postal Service's Such Great Heights.