6-24 Dec- Lazy December

This December I have not been able to write a blog due to snow!

Have a belting festive period everyone. I will hopefully write an extra good blog in the no man's land week between Christmas and New year.

Fingers crossed I get a book token from a stingy family member....

29 Nov- 3rd Dec: Christmas moments

This week I did a talking head spot for Channel 5’s Top Christmas Moments. If you’re at home on Christmas Eve, check it out.

The brevity of this post is symbolic of how long I will be on that 3 hour show for.

This post is very post modern…nothing to do with me being lazy and not in the mood to write lots of words…

22-27 Nov: Massive Boobies

Possibly the most immature title to a blog post ever but it’s for a reason.

This week I ended up filming an online advert for something that none of you will ever see. It was something that I thought would take 30 minutes but somehow took 6 hours. By somehow, I mean I couldn’t say a two-word sentence correctly, so we had to re-film it 200 times. The only good thing about the unnecessarily long day was I got to work with 2 very attractive girls.

It turns out one was a model and when I asked if I would have seen her in anything, she said “maybe”…turns out she’s a page 3 girl…so the answer was actually “no”…but now the answer is definitely “yes”. Her name is Rosie Jones and as the kids in the street would say, she’s well fit! As soon as she told me, I got out the Iphone and googled her. I can see why she was sheepish about revealing this info because presumably men view her very differently once they are made aware of this information. I was genuinely surprised because she didn’t seem that dopey/ image conscious like most glamour models.

Having said that I did manage to make her believe I owed 3 pet donkeys. Make of that what you will.

Nov 15-20, Dead Cats, New Flats and Arsenal being Crap

As you can tell by the title of this post, it really was a great week. We got told on Tuesday morning that our previously lovely landlady wants to move back in. This is completely fair enough as it’s her prerogative but it now means I have more unwanted admin to sort therefore as a stroppy twat I’m annoyed at her. I’m already dreading packing boxes, cancelling bills, starting bills, changing address even learning the names of my new neighbours who we will not speak to. More than anything, the prospect of dealing with estate agents makes me want to be sick in bin. One rang me yesterday and this is exactly what he said, “hello Mr Martin, I think I have a flat for you…hang on you wanted a 3 bedroom flat…this is a 2 bedroom one…no worries…see you later”. Prick.

If I thought moving home was annoying then hearing that my 16-year-old cat needed to be put down was really annoying. By really annoying I mean heart breaking. This is a cat that has been fully knackered with heart disease and kidney failure for the last few years so we’d been expecting his death for a while. This meant I was happy to go with my massive dad to the vet for the inevitable. As soon as we both stepped into the vet’s office and she told us she was going to ‘terminate’ him, we both started crying like schoolgirls. I guarantee anyone would blub at this exact moment; with the exception of that woman who put a can in a bin, she’d probably do a little dance.

One thing I didn’t realise about this morbid process is you have to watch your pet die in front of your eyes, which is as horrific as it sounds. The other is that you have to pay the person to do it. I know this information is well known but something about turning a vet into the world’s crappest assassin seems weird to me. If you’re going to pay them to kill your pet at least make an effort: maybe sneak into my house dressed as a ninja and shoot him with a silencer. In tragedy therein lies moments of comedy and this situation was no different. When we walked out of the vet’s office there were two schoolgirls waiting to collect their dog. They looked so happy about the prospect of getting their healthy dog until they saw two grown men crying, holding an empty cat cage. It didn’t take Columbo to work out what had just happened: their faces dropped. It was like a wake up call to them about the real world, after seeing us their fixed dog was going to seem like nothing more than a panting parcel of inevitable sadness.

The funniest thing about this whole debacle was when me and the big man got back in his car we didn’t talk for 2 minutes. The silence was broken by me saying, ‘did you see those girls?” and my dad laughed and said, “yup, we totally ruined their weekend”. So the moral of this story is, if you’re feeling sad upsetting other people will make you feel better.

Also Arsenal made me cry by losing to Tottenham. Lots of crying this week.

8-12th Nov: airports, Ireland and Immodium

I spent most of the week over in Galway and Dublin, which was really fun but would have been a whole lot better if I wasn’t petrified of soiling myself.

It was my first visit to Ireland as an adult and I was excited because it involved me flying there. Whenever I fly anywhere I can’t help but feel like I’m on holiday. Even if I was flying to a prisoner of war camp, I’d still be excited about it once I browsed electrical goods and was shown how to use a seatbelt; incidentally If you need to be shown how to use a seatbelt, you deserve to drown. The security at the airport has become ridiculously over the top. 10 years ago you could have walked straight onto the plane for a domestic flight with just a driving licence and a sack of dynamite on your back. At the security scanners I saw an old lady walking through in front and heard the 2 girls working there have this conversation:

“Getting that old is really sad”

“It happens to all of us eventually”

“Yes, but it just depresses me”

That was right in front of this wrinkly woman’s face. Right in it! Let’s hope she was so old she was deaf.

Ireland itself is an awesome place. I hardly had a chance to see Galway due to my flight and train times but I really want to go back as everyone is so friendly, even after they find out your English. I was in Dublin for 3 days and I was supposed to visit loads of things with my friend Shona, who I met in Bali. I, however, had proper gastric flu and so spent a lot of time trying not to follow through. Therefore I just walked within a few hundred metres radius of my hotel room and more importantly the toilet. I nearly cried when I had to eat Immodium then managed to rip one of my sneakers when putting it on, if I’d split my trousers I prob would have jumped out of my first floor window. Dublin has just as many nutters as London and a lot of homeless people: probably because it’s £6 for a pint. They probably think, ‘I can either afford rent or booze…and if I’m drunk the fact I’m on the street won’t bother me’.

Get yourselves to Dublin if you get a chance. It’s a beautiful city and even better if you’re minted and you’re bowels are working properly.

Nov 1-5th: Getting sick sucks, especially when you don’t remember the 5th of November.

Comedians’ football aside, this week was spent feeling ‘under the weather’. It’s such a mum’s phrase but so accurate. Not fully bedridden but not 100%. When you’re feeling a bit ill you start telling anyone who will listen what percentage you’re at. I was going up to strangers saying, “I’m only feeling 70%” but turns out no one in Tesco cared. The benefits of living away from home far outweigh the negatives yet when you’re feeling like a bag of rat droppings all you want is a mum to put the palm of her hand on your forehead and bring you treats; I do mean ‘a’ mum because any mother will do when you’re below par. I’m looking into founding a rent-a-mum business for sick people: you get waited on hand and foot without getting nagged about tidying and washing.

When my percentage rose to an acceptable level, I managed to do a podcast with Carl Donnelly. After we’d talked nonsense we met up with Richard Mills to find a Chinese lantern for Fireworks weekend. The approach of fireworks night had completely passed me by because it is a holiday that has no appeal to me. It may sound miserable but my theory is once you’ve seen one firework, you’ve seen them all. The day a firework spells my name or shapes a penis in the sky is the day I get excited about bonfire night. Since there isn’t much money in spelling my name or displaying a massive sparkly cock at an event primarily more kids, I’m out.

Despite my apathy, I still helped Carl and Rich try to find a lantern because it was better than killing time alone. We went into a shop in Wimbledon that sells fireworks, guns and darts. I cannot believe that shop exists: all it’s missing is topless women staff to make it the most blokey shop in the world. The man who sold us the merchandise was also the biggest giggling geezer. When we went “have you got any Chinese lanterns?” He went, “no…apart from those massive one right in front of you”, then he laughed a lot. This also cheered me up and made me feel better. Therefore, I’m thinking of creating a rent-a-geezer business to be the sister company to my rent-a-mum and basically cure illness all around the world. Screw Oxfam, send mums and happy geezers to Africa and the world will be fixed. On that completely unexpected and odd note, laterz

25th-30th Oct: Didier Drogbear bruv

At the start of the week I invited my friend Max Garth over to play Fifa but mainly because he wanted me to mention me in this blog. I’ve no idea why his name being read by 8 people is appealing to him but I thought I’d oblige.

Having said that, he is the most hilarious man to play a computer game against. He genuinely thinks it’s a real match. He slags the ref off for the whole match whilst claiming that I have bribed him. Unless there is a cheat I’m unaware of, I’ve no idea how you pay an imaginary person to fix an imaginary game. His competitiveness is actually more entertaining to watch than the game itself. I once played in a 5-aside team with him and when we conceded a goal he got on his knees he started slapping the ground like it was a naughty girl and he was a notorious porn star. The fact he’s a bit of a geezer makes it all the more amusing. He at one point, paused the game to shout “Ref, how did you not see that foul…owwwww….you just made me swallow me gum!” after he restarted it, the ref had in fact given him a free-kick so his gum swallowing was in vein.

“Can you do me a favour and hang with me at Chelsea and I will pay you 60 quid to dress as a bear”
The above sentence was a message I received from my friend Joe Williams on Wednesday night. I naturally replied with “What in the name of Jesus’s left testicle are you on about? “ Turns out Joe was organising a promotion for a new kids bear and to do so he needed someone to join him in dressing as a massive bear. I obliged, a bit because I love hanging out with Joe but mainly because I got to dress as a massive bear. The way he sold it to me was “mate, this is proper bear suit with a speaker in it and everything.” My main concern is the novelty would wear off after 10 minutes. I was correct. It was sweaty and heavy and I now have new found respect for anyone who dresses as a massive toy at Disney Land: that is a sentence I never thought I’d utter.

It was only between 11am-4pm and we shared the time out but as I haven’t had a proper job for 18 months, my lack of a work ethic was highlighted. I was ready to knock it on the head by lunch time. The low-lights of it were, the sweating, the fact it was a Chelsea scum bear and constantly fearing a kid hitting you in your buried treasure. The funniest thing was how everyone, adults or children just wanted to hug you, it made me feel really happy collecting over 300 hugs. The other messed up thought that jumped into my brain was: if you were a sex offender and you wanted to touch children get yourself a bear outfit. It also baffled me how stupid most kids were. 8 year old boys were saying, like they were mini Columbos, “I swear bruv, that ain’t a real bear, there’s a man in dat suit. I swear.” Whilst I was inside the suit shouting, “of course I’m not a real bear you moron”.

A lot of kids also thought Didier Drogba was inside the suit. They should not be allowed outside the house or in public.

In summary, make someone's Christmas and buy them a bear outfit...unless they're a pedophile.

18th-22nd Oct: When a Polish Cleaner Meets a Cockney Builder

This week I got to had a friend visit from Ireland so got to hang out with them and therefore stave off the loneliness for most of the week. Rather than bore you with that I’ll tell you about my cleaner again.

Firstly I actually found out her name, it’s Pepper. So now I make hilarious jokes to her like, “Where’s Salt?” and I start sneezing on her but as she still speaks no English she just stares at me. She came over on Tuesday as she normally does but this time my flat mate Be asked me to request she does his ironing because he’s the world’s laziest man. It took me about 5 minutes of me miming and gesticulating to convey this message. Once she’d started though I never realised how long it take to iron 15 shirts, she was about an hour in before I realised she probably wasn’t going to have time to clean the flat properly. Worried we’d have a flat that contains a human turd on the carpet but 15 really straight shirts, I emailed Be and BJ about the scenario. They hilariously sent me about 10 emails along the lines of, “stop her!” and “unplug the tossing iron!” I wasn’t going to try to get her to stop something I’d laboured over to get her to do, otherwise I might end up with an iron shaped burn mark on my forehead

Whilst this was all happening I got a text from a cockney builder coming to sort the damp out saying he’d be over in 20 mins. He was supposed to turn up the day after, but a builder being a day early is pretty rare so I wasn’t going to complain. I had to wait for him to come over before shooting off. Now baring in mind how hard it was for me to explain ironing to Pepper imagine how ridiculous it was that I was trying to explain a small, shaved-headed, cockney builder was coming over and they were going to be in the flat together. It’s like the script to a low budget porno/ 1970’s sitcom. I just had to leave these two paradoxical figures alone in my flat. No one was dead when I returned, so I guess it all worked out fine. In my head I like to think they had really hygienic and well-constructed sex. I don’t know why I have these thoughts….

This is all something a normal person would do in day-to-day life and think nothing of it, whereas it’s the highlight of my week.

11-15th Oct: kicking flat footballs with friends

This week was another throw back to my childhood. On top of doing vaguely constructive things like writing something funny with a friend, recording a podcast with Carl Donnelly and filming one of those talking head shows, I had an old school play-date with my friend’s Nick and Pat.

Before I describe the most boyish Friday ever, I’ll just mention this talking head shenanigans. I had to go into town to film some spiel for “Most Annoying people 2010”. I’m getting quite used to these shows but my only problem is I find it hard to slag off these “people”. The only people who actually annoy me are those that effect my life, I think Ronnie O’Sullivan is awesome and have no problem with him but I’ll happily slag off the tosser who got on the Underground before I’d got off! So I doubt I’ll make much of the edit saying “everyone’s lovely!” It’s hardly comedy gold.

On Friday Nick and Patrick came over early afternoon to play computer games and rinse me. If you lock 3 or more male friends in a room in the middle of the day there is very little that goes on apart from us all calling each other “benders”, “retards” and “gay-retards”. I mainly got torn apart after an advert I’m in came on the TV. Due to the wonders of Sky Plus, Nick rewound and played it in slow motion 10 times, zooming in on my worryingly crinkly forehead.; I still loved it though, I’d rather be getting annihilated for hours with friends than be alone. If all the ribbing and joshing wasn’t suitably immature we went down to the park with a Mitre Calcio. If anyone of our friends with jobs had walked through a Willsden Park at 4pm on Friday afternoon they would have seen three, 24 year old men playing an adapted version of World Cup singles. The worst thing was I didn’t win this pointless game; Nick “the penguin legs” Halewood managed to dominate with his trusty toe punt.

Being immature is one thing but losing at being immature is something I’m just not used to.

4-8th October: Just when you think you’re growing up you buy a new Xbox game

This week I was back in London and so much less depressed. I dabbled at writing but mainly enjoyed the fact I wasn’t being kept prisoner in a sleeping bag.

Things I did, which I now count as constructive were, buy the new Fifa 11, get a haircut and purchase a new adult coat. I went to Sainsbury’s to get Fifa because I heard that you get it £25 if you spend over £30 on other items. I had no real need to buy any groceries and I wanted to get gaming as quick as possible so I embarked on my own version of “Supermarket Sweep”; minus the orange faced house husband’s favorite, Dale Winton. My main criteria were, get items that are high cost, not perishable and can be easily swept into my trolley. For one horrific moment I thought they’d sold out of the game on the X-BOX. After queuing at customer services for ages, I begged, “please don’t tell me you’ve sold out because that’s the only reason I bought this food is to get Fifa for £25”: a sentence that no 24 year old man should ever say. Luckily they had it and I now have no reason to leave my flat.

Natalie, who I’ve mentioned in previous posts gave me my usual haircut…sort of. She prefaced the task by saying “I’m really hungover”. Well that’s fucking fantastic, person holding deadly weapons in and around my scalp and face! If you want to tighten your sphincter at 11am on Monday, try watching a person with the shakes put a sharp thing near your eye for 30 minutes: it’s impossible not to look at your inevitable injury due to the fact there are 30 bloody mirrors in the joint. She managed to pull it off, although it was a bit too short but that’s down to the fact I asked for it too short, no doubt distracted by the fact I may have to wear an eye patch at the end of the ordeal.

I also bought a proper man’s coat at Uni Qlo, which is incidentally the best shop in the world. I don’t know how much the Japanese workers are getting paid for making the clothes and I don’t want to because it may put me off buying suspiciously affordable garments from there. By a proper man’s coat, it has buttons and no hood. I think this is the first time I’ve owned one and I felt almost like a real grown-up until I went home and played 3 hours of virtual football online.

September 27th- October 1st: away from home alone

This week was spent traipsing around the middle and north of Britain in my chick-magnet, white Nissan Micra. I went to such exotic destinations as Leicester, Nottingham, Liverpoo, Sheffield and Bridlington and I found myself far more homesick than when I was in Indonesia. This is due to the fact that I was crashing on sofas and was struggling to kill time during the day till my gigs.

When I’m at home during the day, even if I’m alone, I can constructively write, go to the gym or do some admin (play Fifa online). Whilst I’m staying with people despite them making me feel as comfortable as possible I can’t fully relax because I’m sort of in the way, therefore I don’t do anything constructive. Things I did to pass the time were go to the cinema twice: “Scott Pilgrim” and “The Other Guys” were both good, I especially enjoyed the latter due to the fact I think Mark Walberg is the coolest man in the world. I would happily bum him in exchange for some of his coolness, although I don’t think this is a proven ‘get cooler’ technique. I also took 2 hours to eat a sandwich at lunch at Leeds University, mainly because I was staring at everyone trying desperately hard to impress each other with clothes, new hairstyles and a variety of different sized earphones. The people with the biggest earphones think they’re the biggest legends but in actual fact they come across as the biggest bellends.

I stayed with Chris Quaile (nicknamed ‘The Egg’), who kindly let me crash for 3 days in Leeds but the fact I was in my sleeping bag meant I was massively uncomfortable. I understand the practicality of a sleeping bag but why does the bottom bit have to remain zipped tightly? Surely you should have the option of turning the bag into a cover? It’s so irksome trying to sleep in a cotton pharaohs tombstone, it’s like practicing for being buried alive. You may be thinking, why didn’t I just bring a duvet with me as there is plenty of room in my car? The answer is that I’m a moron but at least it’s given me something completely minor to complain about.

Now I’m back in the comfort of NW London, I can do something constructive like…well, check my emails 20 times. However, I can do it in the comfort of my own pants. I’m may be lonely but at least I’m comfortable.

16th August- 24th September

Hey team. I’ve been away the last few weeks so have been slack at updating this little badboy. Rather than wrack my head trying to remember what happened on each specific week, I’ll give a quick precise of where I’ve been with a couple of highlights.
After a week long Edinburgh shaped bender I pretty much just watched the TV box set “Entourage” in a week. I cannot recommend it enough. It’s like “Sex and the City” for dudes: it’s funny, silly and always contains double barrelled fitties. The character Ari Gold (the agent) is one of the greatest characters in TV history.

I also went to Notting Hill Carnival. I’d never been before due to always being in Edinburgh for the whole of August. It was great. A full day of drinking and partying with friend in a bustling atmosphere is pretty much ideal to me. Although, I’d recommend bringing a pack lunch because paying £6 for a hamster sized portion of chicken, rice and peas unsettled the tight fisted pikey on my shoulder.

I’ve just got back from spending two weeks in Bali with my house mate Be. I feel so relaxed after a fortnight of getting a sun burnt belly and drinking small bottles of Bintang. Amusing things that happened were me getting chased by a Ladyboy on a moped at 5am after I’d gone on a solo mission for late night grub. The problem was I was wearing flip-flops so me running off made me look like ,what is known in the trade, as a bit of a cock-tease. My wooden duck Graham who I take to all countries went down a treat with the locals…all of them wanted to buy him off me. Wooden ducks must be sacred in Asia. Incidentally every souvenir shop I went into had shelves dedicated to massive wooden dongs. Why? In a souvenir shop? A place where you primarily buy gifts for your family, who’s ever thought, “My mum would love one of those …as she’s allergic to rubber”. I bought my mum 3.

It was a fun trip and has giving me new stuff to chat about on stage. I didn’t go diving or visit any temples. The most cultural thing we did was go to a water park and a swim up bar. Two key things you must do to prove you’re on holiday.

Laterz

9-13th August: Edinburgh baby!

This was a week of pure drunken silliness, most of the days were spent sleeping and recovering as every session went on till at least 5am. I will finish this off by posting a list of funny quotes from comedians I noted down over the week.

Firstly, I will just describe my favourite train journey ever. Me and Matt Forde (or Talk Sport’s Matt Forde) arranged to get the 11am train up together. We luckily managed to get a couple of seats next to each other on a train that was more packed than a pair of Speedos on a donkey. That simile was unnecessary but amusing. We were so excited to be getting up to the festival that we just fully got on the sauce. Living and drinking in London has made me conclude that train beers are not really that expensive. They cost less than £3, which is sadly an absolute steal nowadays. We listened to lots of cheesy music and sung it out loud including Black Eyed Peas, “I’ve got a feeling”. This song is an absolute corker, it can’t fail to make you happy and it has made my funeral play list. The other highlight of the journey was a batty old posh woman who shouted, “Fuck! Bloody British Rail” when she got on board. No one had the heart to tell her British rail no longer exists.

The quotations of the trip, which will mean nothing to most people:

-“That is one massive dad”- Pete Johansson after looking at snap of my dad

-“unnamed comedian…complete nutter that is a legend” (to the tune of Empire state of mind) invented/sung by Carl Donnelly

-“How has Mark Talbort not be stabbed to death yet?” Carl Donnelly about our mental mate

-“Milkers”

-“shit-catchers” for pants

-“I can excuse you for the whole night” Carl Donnelly reffering to someone who asked to be excused for a moment.

-“Fucking Bigger Laugh” Tom Stade

-“I’m going to knock his hair off” Mark Talbort

-“Just in case beers” Mick Ferry

-“Boobsday” (instead of Tuesday) me

2-6th August: No reading makes everything a bit easier

This week I got to record something that I didn’t need to audition for therefore couldn’t mess up. I got to do a talking head for “top 50 moments of the world cup”. It basically meant I got to talk a lot of nonsense about moments I only really got to watch a few hours before filming. For a Wednesday afternoon, you can’t do much better than getting paid to talk gubbins about football. Whether anything I said is going to look funny on TV is another matter. Before I started doing stand- up one of my ambitions was to be one of those talking heads on television that no one recognises. Now I’ve achieved that I would maybe like to do something where people know who I am for doing something good. At the moment I’ll settle for glorified anonymity.

I also had to go to advert audition. Thank Christ’s cobblers I didn’t have to read anything like with the Derren Brown debacle. I had to improvise with a female comedian called Vikki Stone. Castings are much more uncomfortable than stand up. It was the two of us surrounded by 8 advertising/filming executives being told to do various accents in multiple scenarios. I felt like a piece of meat; not a good piece like a steak, I felt like offal. I pulled out a Geordie accent, which is all that I really learnt from 3 years of university in Newcastle.

Turns out I actually got a part on this advert. I will not name it; this is not for legal reasons but because I don’t want people to see me looking like a bellend on the box. You get a prize if you spot me.

July 26th-30th : I can’t read in public

I went for another TV casting and was a big pile of steaming non-recyclable rubbish yet again. I hope in 10 yrs I get better at these auditions but for the time being I’m just not good. This time I had to read, the problem is when I got in the room I forgot how to read. The most irksome thing about castings is afterwards they often ask what days you’re available and so you walk out thinking you’ve definitely got it. Instead, they’re probably asking just to be polite: it’s like a girl giving you a fake number to make you think you’ve pulled them. That trick, however, doesn’t work as much any more because desperate men (me included) go “I’ll give you a missed call so you’ve got my number” but what you really mean is “I’m checking this number is not for the local kebab house”. Maybe next time they ask my availability at the end of an audition I’ll go “tell me the location and the time and I’ll turn up!” Alternatively, I could just prepare better and be less crap at reading and acting.

In case you’re wondering, it was for a dating show with Derren Brown. After not hearing anything for a few days I knew I didn’t get it. You don’t have to be Derren Brown to work that out.

Next week I have another audition for something else. Let’s see if I‘m equally as shit. Fingers crossed.

July 19-23rd: no horny flying horse type creatures

The fact that I keep forgetting to do a blog for 3 weeks means I keep forgetting what I actually did with my weekdays. If something amazing and atypical had happened, like a unicorn pleasuring me, then I’m sure that would stick out in my mind. Unfortunately this blog is a mythical creature free zone and therefore brief. It’s between a twitter update and a blog in length: a Twog (that’s probably a racial slur in some parts of the world)

All I can remember is on one day my friend Max Dickins came over to do some writing. He is also a comedian who was a couple of years below me at school. We wrote some jokes, drunk some tea and played some Fifa. That is what constitutes a very constructive day in my life.

I also think that an “Angry Birds” update was released on the Iphone, so that would have made me happy for half an hour. Some people think having a baby or finishing a big merger is a great day; mine is completing a whole series of levels on “Angry Birds”. Each to there own.

Laterz

12-17th July: don’t go in my mouth when I’m hungover

This week contained some stuff that I’m sure was interesting but the only thing I can remember is my visit to the dentist.

On Monday morning, I had an appointment at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital where you get a free dental check up; it is because you get checked out by a dental student, therefore there is a higher chance you’ll end up with mirror lodged in your throat. Getting a free appointment is still an amazing novelty. When you’re a kid you think going to the dentist is rubbish but at least it doesn’t cost anything, “I can let a stranger tell me how bad my oral hygiene is but it’s free, free, free, free forever”. Then when you’re 19, it’s like, “give me £30 and I’ll count your teeth and tell you to floss more”. So as soon as it starts costing money we all think, “I’ll never go to dentist unless I get hit in the mouth with a sledgehammer.”

Due to the fact it was free I went along despite feeling like a bag of human wank after drinking lots of “Desperados” during the World Cup Final. Never imbibe this beverage; it is a beer with tequila inside and therefore makes you feel dead inside. When I turned up the girl asked me if I had any specific problems with my teeth. I told her it was just a check up and she looked visibly annoyed: this is because as a student they need to treat a number of specific problems to pass their degree, so I was basically a time waster. Feeling guilty, I panicked and lied “actually my top front teeth were really painful about a month ago”. This made her happier but when she put her head near my mouth she went back to looking visibly distressed: this must have been caused by my bin like breath.

So I got a free dental check up from an irritated student due to me being a tight bastard. Turns out I have mouth aids…

July 5-12th

I returned home from Singapore, which meant I was legally allowed to do nothing for the whole week. Whenever you return from a trip you’re allowed to spend at least 5 days complaining about being tired and saying phrases like “my body clock’s all over the place”. Whenever I return from a holiday no matter how long I’ve been away, nothing seems to have happened. By that, I mean when I ask people what the gossip is, they always “nothing really”. Even if someone’s whole family got kidnapped and a hurricane destroyed their house, the only interesting thing they could think to say is “I got a haircut”. Speaking of this there is another law, I think between just male friends, whenever you get a haircut every mate has to say “someone’s had a haircut”: I’ve no idea why it’s just instinct or something.

As you can see I’ve not really written anything that happened this week because I’ve completely forgotten. I probably checked my email loads and went to Tesco. The reason I can’t remember is that my body clock was all over the place.

In my last post I said a monkey attacked me. In truth a tiny monkey (photo attached) jumped onto a branch of tree near me and it made my bum flap!

28th June- 2nd July :Anyone want a bag of whores?

This week involved me flying out to do gigs in Singapore, therefore my Fifa hours were massively slashed. The time difference and flight means that I can’t promise to stick rigidly to what happened between 9am and 5pm.

In the week leading up to departure, I was like a kid at Christmas counting the amount of sleeps till I left. I love everything about leaving the country: getting a pint in the airport Weatherspoons, getting felt up by security staff and watching toilet action films on the flight. This was the first time I’d technically been paid to go on holiday and it was awesome. Little word of advice: If your flight is experiencing turbulence don’t get a glass of red wine. On a completely unrelated note, I have ruined a t-shirt and pair of shorts.

I’d never been to Singapore before but heard lots about it, mainly that you can get a girlfriend half your age, which was not that appealing as I’m 24! It looks a bit like the world “Demolition Man” is set because it’s amazingly clean and illegal to do anything inc. spit in public, litter, carry any class of drug, pinch a woman’s bum but ironically it’s fine to get involved with some whores. As a bit of a renegade, I started my visit by dropping a can of coke on a woman who I was both grouping and hacking on, whilst stoned.

It’s a place that I can see would be fun to retire to as life is very easy. You can get a maid for £200 a month and you can buy reasonably priced women. The amount ex-pats banged on about the women, me and Alexis Dubus (other comedian) had to check out the notorious Orchard Towers commonly referred to as “4 floors of whores”. It’s a shopping centre by day and slag centre by night. I don’t really know why we went, it contained loads of prostitutes and ladydudes (as advertised): we had one beer then left. Also all the men were dressed in a shirt and smart trousers. I wanted to tell them all that there is no dress code when it comes to having it off with a prosty.

Loads of other stuff happened but I don’t want to make this too long winded. The gigs were a bucket of chuckles and the people were friendly (sometimes too friendly)
Here is a brief summary:

-An Indian Pirate tried to read my fortune
-A Buddist mugged me in exchange for peace
-I stayed in a hotel with a mezzanine floor
-I ate Stingray (payback for what happened to Steve)
-I saw a man spit on his own belly rather than the floor
-I went to a beach
-I got attacked by a monkey at the zoo: my love hate relationship with them continues

21-25th June: More football

This week was also spent just watching football. The games got better and England got worse. I'm actually too depressed to even write what went wrong with England.


The only small highlight of my week was getting drunk all Wednesday in "The Mason Arms" beer garden when England managed to smash the footballing powerhouse that was Slovenia. It's a brilliant thing that when England play football, the whole country decides to stop work, whilst I continue to still do no work. Nick, Benny and I all got drunk, which I think is fair enough but some people need to have a long hard look at themselves. Regardless of whether England are playing, no one should be snorting cocaine at 3:45pm on a Wednesday like several people in the toilet of the pub. Also for the whole match someone was openly smoking weed: the pub is a bit like an drinking hole you'd find in a Mad Max movie. The funniest thing about this lost society was that for the whole second half of the football it was actually more entertaining to watch the guys who'd hoovered up the naughty salt than the football. One bloke literally would have smiled if Slovenia had scored 12 goals in the second 45 minutes.

"Watching a man chew his face off is more exciting than watching England play football": someone show this quotation to the FA please.

14-18th June: World Cup woes

This week all I did was watch 3 games of football a day as I'd caught world cup fever. Despite most of the 1st round games being utterly pony, watching football everyday seemed like a full time job for me. I've now watched so much that I have my favourite and least favourite pundits. Most of them are total wank: Mark Bright, Andy Townsend, Jim Beglin and Mick McCarthey to name a few. In case you're wondering I'm a big fan of Gareth Southgate and Lee Dixon. I've basically just played "Kill, marry, shag" with all these geezers.

There is not much else to say because this is all I've spent my time doing.

Also England are crap at kicking footballs.

June 7-11: I’d happily have it off with Robert Downie Jr

This week was a great week because it contained my birthday. Some people hate people making a fuss about their birthdays and say stuff like, “it’s just another day, big deal”, whilst I think, “it’s my birthday give me loads of stuff and attention”. In terms of presents I got a few quid and some Robert Downie Jr paraphernalia. This is actually pretty good because I realised after the age of 21 you generally don’t get anything good, this really hit home when I only got a couple of books for my 22nd birthday; I like a book but when it comes to birthdays all I want are toys or DVDs. My sister gave the Robert Downie Jr key ring and bag to me, as she knows I have a huge man crush on him. He is the only man in the world I’d happily bum in the hope that some of his charisma gets transferred across to me.

On one of the other days I did a BBC casting with about 1million other comedians. It wasn’t actually that bad. I got to do it with Carl Donnelly so was much more fun than normal. Normally castings with comedians are like metaphorical dick swinging contests and if you’re not prepared to windmill you look like a tit. Luckily this wasn’t such a wind turbine environment and more of a fun hour with a few comedians I know, who were all prepared to laugh at each other. Afterwards me Carl and Tiff Stevenson (comic) had an all you can eat oriental buffet where it’s vegetarian food that tastes a bit like meat; it tastes much worse than the meat in question and gives you stomach aids, don’t ever go to the one of these places unless you’re constipated. What is the point in vegetarian food that looks and tastes a bit like meat? You’ve made your choice now stick with it: that’s like a straight man from time to time getting his girlfriend to wear a beard and call herself Geoff for the night (or in my case Robert Downie).

After that very confused and nonsensical analogy, I will leave you to continue to stare at a spread sheet.

June 1-5th: A week full of stingy wizards

This week was bookended by my mum’s birthday and helping my dad sell some old paper (this will be explained later).

On the day of her birthday I still hadn’t purchased a present for my mum so something last minute and potentially crap was on the cards. Being a mother must be rubbish for presents because despite how far the women’s movement has come in the last 100 years everyone child always thinks, “what kitchen gadget shall I buy her?” In the past I’ve bought her a bread maker, oven gloves and a blender; she really is lucky. This year I didn’t think I should buy her a kitchen item partly because it shows a lack of imagination and partly because she owned all the kitchen utilities in the world. So instead I bought her bathroom products. Bath soaps are the substitute option for a mum’s present closely followed by a scented candle. I also bought her some expensive cup cakes, they were actually lovely; I know this because I ate one, which shows they were very much a present for me as well. If I ever become a middle aged mum I will have a birthday present list but only contain stuff that I do not wish to be bought. The list will look like this, “nothing for the kitchen, nothing for the bathroom and no scented candles”.

On Friday, I helped my dad sell old books and paper at a book fair in Hammersmith. The collective name for this gubbins he sells is “ephemera”. I have helped my dad sell ephemera since I was a small child and I’ve always found it extremely monotonous and boring. It still is a long and generally tedious day, that involves sitting around and doing very little but the characters that go to these events are hilarious. I’m going to give a little overview of the creatures who crawl around this function room of the Hammersmith Novotel looking for a bargain.

For whatever reason most of the ephemera and book fair circuit is made up of homosexuals, Jewish people and homosexual Jewish people. Now before you clench your PC arse cheeks together, worried that I will going into a homophobic and anti-Semitic diatribe, I am merely stating a fact about the customer demographic not passing judgement on anyone. Most of the men walking around are over the ages of 50 and generally have wispy white hair and dodgy beards so look like an army of wizards. Unfortunately, none of them can do any magic; instead they spent most of their time trying use the power of the mind to convince you to part with an item for a third of the price. There was one man walking around the fair with white hair, a bow tie, a jacket and holding an old wooden stick that you’d find in the forest, which either a rambler or Gandalf would carry: even the walking sticks in this place are antiques.
There is normally a bloke, who wears the same rain mack, every time he comes, whatever the weather. It is one of the grimiest unwashed garments I have ever laid my eyes on and really adds to the sex offender look. Not only this, he refuses to pay over £2 for anything despite being wealthy; I used to be intimidated by him (due to the sex offender look) but as I’ve grown older and become more confident I normally berate him by saying, “that’s a bit out of your price range because it’s over a quid, you tight bastard”.

In his absence, there were plenty of other nutters knocking around. The stuff that people collect is both fascinating and hilarious. People came up to me and asked if I was selling anything on, puzzles, bees, trees, horses (just horses, nothing else but horses). There is one white guy, who has grown a Mr Myagi beard and ties his hair up with chopsticks and only wants stuff on Japan: weirdo. Despite being surrounded by bizarre people I was still pretty bored by the end of the day. I was also perturbed because the woman running the fair told me off twice for not tidying up the stall. Getting told off as an adult is the worst feeling in the world but at the age of 24 you’d think I be old enough o stand up for myself; instead I do my reliable trick of saying “sorry”, then muttering to myself and sulking. Mature.

If you ever want to watch a crazy group of individuals get your ass down to an Ephemera fair and dress like a wizard.

24-28th May

The Highlight of this week was preparing to do a debate at the Oxford Student Union. I had to debate against the motion, “Englishmen are funnier than Americans”. This was clearly going to be a difficult debate to win as American bashing is a British past time closely followed by calling your best mate a “wanker”.

I spent a full day researching and writing about American religion, which was a complete waste of time because I just ended up crowbarring in my stand up material. I was also told by Matt Lacey (aka the guy from the Gap Yah video) to wear a tux. Out of 400 people in the room I was one of only two people in a tux whilst everyone else was in fancy dress. So not only did I lose a debate I did so whilst claiming I’d dressed as James Bond. I felt like a sartorial bellend.

The even more annoying thing was I got it specially dry-cleaned. There is a place in Chiswick run by an Albanian con artist: that is not derogatory; he is a con artist who happens to be Albanian. He cocked up a suit I wanted cleaned last year and this time I noticed by the time I was in Oxford, he’d left a massive stain on my shirt. All I could think was I’m going to murder him and I won’t get caught because I’m going to take my blooded garments to a different dry-cleaners where they know to clean stains properly.

The debate was quite fun and proceeded with a posh meal. I hate eating posh meals, especially whilst overdressed. For some reason my conversational skills deteriorate and I end up just repeating phrases like, “this chicken is really tender”. We got put up in a top of the range hotel, which was generally great but I have one gripe about the Hollandaise sauce on my Eggs Benedict at breakfast: strap in for most middle class complaint ever. It turns out if Hollandaise sauce is a thin liquid it tastes disgusting. It was like some sort of beige soup,; it made the food at the Diner look Michelin star quality. I still ate it all because someone else paid for it and I wanted to cash in: I’m convinced I’d eat a bag of nails if it was how I was being paid for something.

Lesson learnt: never wear a tux based on word of mouth.

16-21st May

After a month off blogging, I’m back , which all 7 of you will be delighted to know. Personal reasons have prevented me from writing over the last month; by personal reasons I mean I’ve personally been extremely lazy/ forgetful.

This week was constructive and I will give you one or two highlights. I made a Spaghetti Bolognese for the first time since university. I was really pumped about it, as I hadn’t had one since living with my parents. I was getting nostalgic whilst cooking it and if I’m honest a little cocky. I was haughtily tossing in dried basil and oregano, squirting Tabasco and Worchester sauce with gay abandon like some sort of condiment King. After this much diligence and effort it inevitably tasted shit: not horrendous, just not as good as the way my mum makes it. There is something about mums and Spag Bol. Once you fire a kid out of your crotch, God must compensate you with super spaghetti and fried mince powers.

This wasn’t as bad as Benny Boot’s Lamb curry, which he made for me on Wednesday. Benny is a fellow comedian, who recently quit his day job. This means he has less money but meant I had someone to play with (not like that) on a weekday. He brought over his homemade lamb curry in a Tupperware box like an overgrown schoolboy. He gave me half, which I now think was a roundabout way of him telling me that I had somehow annoyed him. It did not taste good. He was the first one to put his hands up and say it wasn’t an enjoyable mouth companion; he blamed the lack of salt in the marinade. I blame the fact that he hasn’t fired any children out of your crotch because mums are also good at making curry.

Benny also accompanied me to the gym. This was a world first for me: I had a work out buddy in the gym. Benny got to see all the GMBs and The GMG who we both agreed was relatively attractive but could probably only have conversations about reps and stretching, therefore not so attractive. Having him there meant I actually did a proper work out rather than lift the odd dumbbell and stare at leggings. I’m not really a fan of doing a proper workout because it meant I was completely fatigued and had to have an afternoon nap, which no one with a real job is allowed to do.

The other notable trip I embarked upon was to attend a Vodafone advert casting in central London. The money was decent and I’m more broke than a Greek (topical), so I was quite keen to get it. The funniest thing about a casting is you sit in a waiting room with 5 or 6 versions of you. As the brief for who they are casting is your physical description it’s slightly disturbing being surrounded by people who are only ½ a chromosome away from you. After waiting for ages I went in and mimed putting some shoes on for 8 seconds before the director said, “thanks for waiting for so long…”, in his mind he must have finished that sentence with, “…”although you are crap at mime and shouldn’t have bothered”. I did not get the part.

It’s good to be back blogging. Till next week or month or year.

April 12-16th

This week started off with potential. BJ twisted his ankle on the weekend playing Rugby. My delight wasn’t due to me still having repressed hatred for him after Parking Ticketgate the week before but because he had to work from home on the Monday. In my head I was thinking we’d play a lot of FIFA, have a lunch and play knock down ginger. Unfortunately this didn’t happen because we are both no longer 12 and he not only has a real job but is also the most sensible 23 yr old you’re ever likely to come across: he likes indoor rock climbing, spends 3hrs a week ironing and bakes things with his girlfriend. By ‘things’ I mean cakes and biscuits not random objects or insects that would be far too cavalier and not sensible enough. So my Monday was spent doing nothing of interest in the same room as someone else doing nothing of interest. It was like he brought his office job into my living room; this was not appreciated.

My other housemate B (Benedict Pringle) had been working through the Monday and Tuesday night at his advertising company. I don’t know exactly what he was doing. Presumably he was trying to think of an advert to rival Compare the Market and the Go Compare dude. As a man who watches a lot of day time television I would really like to see a couple of different intermissions between programmes. Maybe someone can make an advert where the Meerkat and that fat, crap moustached opera singer fight: the winner gets to stay on TV, the loser get’s relegated to the advertising in the Evening Standard. The reason I was excited was that his long night meant he was going to be at home on Wednesday. He got in at 9am, I figured he’d have a quick nap and would be up at lunch to hang out: I was positively pumped.

I quickly popped to my parents to help them move furniture. Since I’ve moved out, I’m only ever required to go back to either move furniture or fix the computer. I get the feeling my parents wish I was either a massive tattooed geezer removals man or a spectacle wearing nerd. I’m unfortunately neither of these things: I’m bad at lifting things and clueless about IT but evidently less rubbish than my parents are. I got home at about 2am to find B had left the flat. I was absolutely gutted. My good deed for my parents had cost me a companion for the day. My parents now owe me a play date. From now on I will have to start charging them for services rendered but rather than money I want them to provide me with someone who likes computer games and is not a git. Paying me in a human being is probably defined as slave trading, however, if slavery merely consisted of sitting on a sofa, chatting and playing FIFA it probably wouldn’t have been so morally abhorrent and it’s abolition wouldn’t have been so widely celebrated.

The week, therefore, was one that promised to be fun and friend filled yet was mainly one of writing and Facebook stalking….

April 5-9th

I went to The Diner on bank holiday Monday: what a surprise. On the way into the restaurant a woman said, “did I see you doing comedy in Hastings last week?” I said, “yes I was gigging there” and she replied, “thought I recognised you”. She, however, did not state whether she thought I was funny or not. I can only guess she thought I was not amusing. It was quite pointless stopping me really. I saw a bloke the week before who works in Foxtons but I didn’t stop him to point this out. What I’m saying is, only stop me if you’re going to pay me a compliment.

Me and BJ went down to The Coronet in Notting Hill to watch The Hurt Locker. It was one of those films that won loads of Oscars so I was worried it was going to be shit. There will be Blood is a prime example of a wank movie that won loads of awards. The cinema is a decrepit but kitsch venue, which I recommend everyone goes to. It was only £4.50 for a ticket although I got a £60 parking fine, so it ended up being an expensive visit. I rarely get angry but I definitely wanted to punch a bin when I discovered the ticket. I parked on a single yellow on a bank holiday, which I assumed was allowed, apparently not in Chelsea and Kensington. My anger was exacerbated when I sat in the car and I expected BJ to offer to pay half as he’d persuaded me to drive and told me it was fine to park on a single yellow. He didn’t offer so I went, “you’ll give me money right?” and he went “I’ve always paid parking fines myself with other people in the car”. I then didn’t talk to him till we got home: mature. He then reassessed his stance and offered to pay 1/3rd of the fare. It was a funny argument in retrospect because personal parking fine politics are not exactly something you are aware of until it happens. It doesn’t exactly pop up in conversation down the pub along with what football team you support. We have now kissed and made up: gay.

The rest of the week was spent writing and in my own company. I wished there was one bank holiday a week for the rest of the year so I could hang out with more people. If one of the political parties put that in their manifesto they would win the election. Admittedly we’d go into a recession but what’s new there? The two women I spent most of my week with were Charlotte Jackson (the Sky Sports News presenter who I love) and my Polish cleaner (still don’t know her name). I also watched Kick Ass on my own. It’s awesome. I watched it in a cinema with only six other people so felt guilty every time I laughed out loud. I wanted to get up and turn around to everyone and say “you should all be laughing right now: stop making me feel like the nutter in this viewing situation”; getting up and saying that would ironically have made me look like a nutter.

29th of March-2nd of April

I spent all of Monday making a stew. This is a sentence I have never previously written or said. I want to improve my cooking skills but the qualm I have with making a big meal of food is that it takes up almost all of your day. Why is this a problem when I spend most of my days twiddling my thumbs and masturbating? Well it’s boring and invariably not worth the effort. What makes it worse is that I’ve recently been watching MasterChef. When you watch people create these breathtakingly tasty dishes and then I go and make a pile of brown shit, it makes you feel pretty dejected. I still want to go on that programme and make toast. I’d love to see Greg Wallace’s podgy visage when I say, “today I’m going to make toast, with an Olivio and honey seasoning accompanied by a goblet of PG Tips.” I bet Greg would still say “lovely!”

I played Comedians football again, which is quickly becoming a weekly ritual, which is hopefully preventing me from becoming a Greg Wallace lookalike. I also went to the Diner on Wednesday. A place I have started visiting regularly. It’s become my rubbish British version of the restaurant they used to frequent in Seinfeld. There is a woman working there who sees always gives me a knowing smile. I can’t work out whether it’s a flirty smile or a smile that means: you come here all the time you sad bastard. That’s the problem with body language: it’s too ambiguous. The worst one is when you catch someone’s eye in a bar and they stare back at you. It either means we both fancy each other or it means, “why is that creepy dude staring at me?” It’s normally the latter.

Easter Friday was the highlight of my week as my housemate BJ (as in blow job) was off work so I had someone to hang out with. My sister also came over to see the flat. I did not show her Chatroulette as I did not want to expose my 22yr old sister to strange erect cocks. BJ created home made sausage rolls, which were belting. They would have beaten the crap out of my beef stew in a fight. They wouldn’t have just beaten it up, they would have maimed, raped and kidnapped it. His culinary skills are certainly superior to his taste in films. He suggested we go and watch Clash of the Titans, which has to be the worst movie I’ve ever seen in the cinema. I always have fun in the cinema because it’s loud and lot’s of stuff is happening in front of your eyes but this did push the boundaries of enjoyment. As a fan of crappy action films, I thought I might like it but Liam Neason’s tin foil costume, and Sam Worthington’s acting which makes Joey Tribbiani look like an oscar winner, made me want to be physically sick. The only good thing about it was Gemma Arterton who as the kids say is “well fit”. I’m pretty sure at one point she stared directly at me. It was not a flirty stare; it was a look that said, “I can’t believe you paid money to watch this pile of wank”….

March 22-26th

This week was pretty rubbish. I was into my third week in a row of gigging every night, therefore, I spent a lot of time sleeping in.

The beginning of the week started with me buying hair wax off Ebay. I know what you’re thinking and the answer is “yes” that does mean I’m doing pretty well for myself. Tuesday was pretty action packed. I let my cleaner into the flat, who rather than ring the bell insists of waiting outside for me to peep out on her. Pathetically I spend more time a month with her than any other woman. If I was a 1970s comedian I’d now make a joke about how good it is hanging out with a woman who doesn’t talk and cleans everything. I explained to her that my sink was blocked so to not to try and clean it although I realised late in the week it wasn’t broken; I just had the plughole shut. I managed to open the plug up after already tipping a whole bottle of drain cleaner into the sink: that’s the most literal example of pouring money down the drain. Me= unpractical man= bellend.
I managed to squeeze in a game of comedians football in Crystal Palace before rushing to get a lift to Chichester. I love playing football so much that I’ll endure a 3 hour round trip and do a gig still smelling of sweat and men without hesitation. My team also won, which makes any trip to play far more satisfying. I just realised that last sentence makes me sound like a 9 year old child writing an essay.

Carl Donnelly and me also recorded a podcast this week. When he comes over, it is the closest to being 10 I feel. When he comes over we talk bollocks and then play computer games with intervals to consume a large amount of tea and biscuit based boodles. So it’s like a cross between a play date and a mothers’ meeting. I even bought milk in preparation for the tea drinking. All I seem to do nowadays is buy milk. How long does it take once you move out to not mind buying annoying necessities such as milk? If I had a time machine I’d go back to when everyone used a milkman, so the dairy products would magically appear on the doormat. Alternatively I could probably just do some research and arrange for the milkman to add us to his route; this may be easier than buying/building a time machine.

I managed to make it to the gym 3 times. I didn’t go to any classes but instead the main gym where the Gym Monkey girl seems to be wearing tighter leggings every time I go. She probably should wear some baggier clothes as it’s difficult for me to lift weights with a semi. Joking aside there was a bloke working out in a vest and pants. There should be some rules about clothing skimpiness. When he walked past me it was like he’d bunched his cock and balls up into a ceremonial basket and was presenting them to me as some sort of peace offering. “No I don’t want your bits and bobs, you tight garment wearing weirdo”. Maybe he'd forgotten his kit for the first time since gym class and thought that meant he had to work out in only a vest and pants; maybe he was just a socially unaware exhibitionist helmet. Answers on a postcard ...

March 15th-20th

So I’ve realised writing a blog 5 days a week is actually quite hard and takes a lot of time. Therefore I will try to give a summary of what happen during my working week. That way I don’t have to put in pointless details such as “I had eggs for breakfast”. It really exemplifies just how incapable of a routine job I am that I’ve given up writing a daily blog after 2 weeks. To be fair, I do have to spend some of my time actually writing some funny jokes and stuff: judging by some of my material I definitely need to spend more time making it funnier.

I got my hair cut, which in my mind counts as a serious achievement in my daytime. It was in a fancy/trendy hairdressers, called Rush. I go there because my mate James’s sister, Natalie, gives me half price cuts. They still cost the fat end of £20 but you get free beer; something, which I avoid because after a few drinks I’d think any haircut was good. They could shave a cock in the back and I’d think, “stylish”.

I also got into a fully fledged conversation with Andy, the Body Pump instructor. He was walking parallel to me on route to the changing room so I felt compelled to ask, “do you teach just one lesson a day or several?” As you can tell by that icebreaker we had an absolutely fascinating chat. All I needed to do was talk about the weather and the traffic to complete the world’s shittest conversation.

My week consisted of lots of sleeping because I was gigging out of town pretty much every night of the week. One highlight or in retrospect lowlight of my week was when Charlie came over to mine on Friday. Obviously I was delighted to have a mate at mine to keep me company. We went for a belting lunch at The Regent, then Charlie popped into William Hill to play electronic roulette. There is something depressingly bleak and vapid about being in a bookmakers at 2pm on a Friday. Whenever you walk into one of those establishments the smell of regret, Special Brew and Silk Cut drifts up your nostrils and you realise you shouldn’t gamble; or at the very least do it online from the comfort of your home.

Talking of gambling, I introduced Charlie to chatroulette.com (check that mother fucking segway). He found it equally as hilarious as I initially did and the bonus was we only saw 5 or 6 erect male pipes. To spice things up I dropped the bombshell that I had a vast range of fancy dress garments in my room. If anyone had broken into my flat on Friday 19th at 3:30pm they would have seen two grown men dressed as a monkey and a crocodile, for the amusement of perverts on the internet. That really does epitomize two people with too much time on their hands: we invented dress down Friday for the unemployed….

March 10th: being a student again

Let’s call this ‘the half day’. I woke up at 12:30 like some sort of languid, waste of space student. This is probably because my friend Max and I ended up at a horrible student night in Central London the night before. I’ve never felt a lot older than people on a night out until Wednesday night when I was chatting to someone wearing braces about their A levels. I made sure I had a cold shower when I got home at 3am. Going out 2 nights in a row is a massive struggle nowadays, so I needed to have a sleep that bordered on hibernation.

The day ended up being a real throw back to University as my mate Nick, who is at law school, came over and we played computer games all afternoon. I say throw back, however, I left University under 2 years ago so it’s not like I had to think back 20 years to something completely alien to me. I also had a chicken that needed roasting. So we comically had a roast chicken and gravy lunch on a Thursday. There’s nothing wrong with this but having a roast on a weekday is slightly unusual. You know your time frame is different to most of the western world when you’re roasting potatoes during Countdown….

March 10th- Don’t drink lot’s of Guinness

I woke up in my hotel room at 9:30, wrapped in the bed sheet with Sky Sports News blaring, feeling like bag of faeces with a cat turd on top. I tried to turn off the TV, but couldn’t find the tiny remote provided. It must have been in bed with me when I passed out yet it had completely disappeared from the room. I was slightly worried that I rolled onto it in the night and it had got lodged somewhere: I would be checking my stool with vigor all day.

I made sure I got my free omelette before 10am. I was still completely bloated because of several pints of Guinness and two trips to the Subway, which is open till 4am on a Tuesday. You know you have a serious eating problem when, like the woman behind me in the queue at 3:55am, you know the name of the server in Subway and ask for “the usual”. I didn’t feel like eating but breakfast was included so I legally had to finish it, I don’t think that means I have an eating problem; instead I’m just a bit tight, tight and painfully full.

My hotel room was definitely supposed to be for a disabled person. There was no bath, which is fine by me as I haven’t had a bath for about 10 years but instead there was a shower with a stool provided. I’ve never had a proper sit down shower and I must say it’s pretty good. Disabled people get all the perks, bigger toilets, a stool in the shower, great parking spaces: lucky bastards. The rest of day was mainly spent in transit.

We flew out from George Best airport. I’m sure someone has already noted this but naming an airport, where planes need to be controlled by highly skilled and concentrated human beings, after a notorious alcoholic is not exactly apt. That’s a bit like naming an oven ‘The Sylvia Plath”…well not really but you see what I’m getting at. I had the company of Rob for the travel back to Liverpool street, a lovely man, who is obsessed with the Isle of Man. He’s from there and like a giddy kid kept trying to look for his brother’s house from the plane; I didn’t really see the point because it’s not like he’d be able to see his brother waving at him or anything…

Spent the rest of the day chilling out in Brixton at my friend Charlie’s flat. She also has a Polish cleaner present. It’s weird that in 3 days I’ve spent more time with Polish cleaning ladies than anyone else. Maybe I should just become a Polish cleaner. I definitely don’t have the work ethic for it.

March 9th: To Belfast

I managed to get up in time for the arrival of our new cleaner at 9:30. She didn’t go for the standard ring on the doorbell to get into the flat approach; instead when I opened my living room curtains she was waving in the street. Pretty normal. If I was hoping for a conversation exchange and some company, my hope was misplaced. This was down to the fact she spoke no English. I tried to explain to her for about 5 minutes that I was popping out to the gym and the bank. I eventually had to show her a picture of HSBC on my laptop: thanks Google maps.

I got to the gym but hadn’t left enough time to get back before the cleaner left. I wish I knew her name, so I sound like less of slave owner but getting that info out of her would have involved a water board and a Polish dictionary. I had just enough time in the gym to see the gang of rudeboys talk shite and walk around trying to look big. I also overheard two of them in the changing rooms have an in depth discussion about protein shakes: being part of the gym really is like being part of Mensa. There is actually one Gym Monkey Boy who is in fact a Gym Monkey Girl, who I fancy. I don’t even think she’s that attractive but she wears those spandex ¾ length leggings that make all women hot. I realized that I was drifting off half way through a set of exercises to check her out using a series of mirrors dotted around the room. I felt like a perverted spy: so James Bond.

The cleaner was only being paid to do 3 hours work but did nearly 4. Could she be any more Polish? Doing unpaid overtime voluntarily. Once she timidly left,I had to head off to Stansted. I had no reason to be late but something in my genetic make up always causes me to get prepared 2 minutes before I need to leave. I always end up leaving 5 minutes late then jog to the station to ensure a thoroughly sweaty day of travel. I traveled with fellow comedian Rob Heeney. I’d forgotten all the rules about liquid, so to be safe I brought none. That means I had no deodorant or toothpaste- I pity anyone who stood near me or spoke to me for the rest of the day. I’d brought hope made sandwiches like a real gimp. I suddenly had a moment where I worried if I was allowed to bring them through security, then I remembered that there has never been a baguette bomber: so I was fine.

The Ryan Air flight was the usual clichéd crap journey where they try to flog you any old crap. The best thing was the little pikey looking air hostess dude told us we should buy a scratch card because someone won 10,000 Euros a couple of weeks earlier but then ate the card. Honestly, someone so fat or stupid won 10, 000 and demanded the money instantly. When they didn’t give it to him, he ate his scratch card, which achieved nothing apart from to show how stupid he is. Maybe it was because all the food is so overpriced and he was genuinely starving. What kind of a moron thinks they are going to have that much cash on an airline so pikey that you have to pay for a dump. Also, why did he need it? Was he desperate to spend it all on tiny bottle of alcohol and fizzy drinks. The bellend got exactly what he deserved. Nothing.

A relatively action packed 9-5 for me.

March 8th

Today was admin filled, therefore, pretty boring to write about. So strap in for the next couple of minutes, it’s going to be a boring ride. I would have got up earlier and gone to ‘Body Pump’ with that git Andy but I was feeling sore from football on the weekend. On Saturday I’d played 2 games in an afternoon and someone had kicked me hard in the shin. Not going to the gym because my shin hurts is a pretty pathetic and childish excuse but who did I have to convince? Just me and while I was still in bed at 10am I thought it was a more than adequate excuse. The guy who horrendously fouled me wasn’t remorseful and his mum didn’t pick him up after the game; if he’d cried and his mum had collected him it would have meant it was an accident according to the logic of Tony Pulis, the Stoke manager.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/8541140.stm

After 2 hours of refreshing my emails I needed to get out of the house. I did a big shop in Sainsbury’s. I also remembered to bring the used plastic bags that have been accrued over the last month. I was hoping for a round of applause or a hand job but instead the woman on the till said “well done”: perhaps a sexual favour would have been inappropriate, as there was a large queue behind me. I, also, made a list and used a pen to tick off the items I needed: I felt like a real adult. I somehow managed to spend £77. When I’m pushing a trolley around, even if I have everything on the list I can’t help but buy every item with an orange “only £3” sticker on it. It could be only a bag of 50g crisps; but if it says “3 bags for £20”, I’m chucking them in the trolley. It turns out I’m a massive sucker for anything that has big colours and numbers under it.

After getting back, I unpacked and realised I’d bought too much food for the space available in the flat. I’ve effectively forced my flat mates to eat out until my supplies diminish. It’s not my fault. I blame those bloody bargains! After eating a tiny percentage of my war rations, I did some writing and I hit 5pm without speaking to a single human being. I was tempted to knock on the door of the flat below to ask for a cup of sugar, just to talk to someone. However, it’s not 1950’s America and I’m a bit scared of the guy in that flat. I don’t want my obituary to read, “Chris Martin: Stabbed over Tate and Lyle misunderstanding”.

Friday March 5th

This day was a little bit of a write off. I woke up late and didn’t leave the house or do anything of note. I flittered between writing jokes and playing Fifa. I got another England cap for C-unit (that’s my dude’s name) and I hung up some washing. Since moving out of the house all I seem to do is hang up wet clothes. When your mum doesn’t do your washing, the turnover of dirty sheets and clothes seems to increase 10 fold (excuse the pun). I have a new found respect for my mother and the amount of hanging up she used to do for me. My mum didn’t just have to hang up her clothes but also mine, my sister’s and my Dad’s (and he’s massive); she must have barely been able to eat or sleep with that much garment sorting on her agenda.

The other thing I spent over an hour doing was attempting to book a reasonably placed train ticket to Middlesbrough. I did that schoolboy error of waiting till a week in advance to book this. Somehow train tickets exponentially raise in price to the point where you just think National Rail are asking a kid to make up the prices: “How much shall we make it to Middlesbrough the day before travelling young man?”, “a million pounds”, “yup, that sounds reasonable”. It would have been cheaper to book a bus but this is one of the few things I’m properly snobby about. I hate coaches in Britain. If I’m out of the country I’ve no qualms getting in one but I’m allergic to 7hr road trips to the North East surrounded by poor people. For someone as gregarious as me I can’t stomach the clientele on the National Express: it’s like a council estate threw up onto a bus. I instead opted for a £50 return train ticket: making my profit from the gig about £10. Annoyingly I have only myself to blame.

Thursday March 4th

Woke up late. Was stirred by phone call from my childhood pal Tom Halford. He is a chef in Stockholm and has been working in Michelin Star restaurants in Europe for the last 5 years. I’m not sure why a tyre manufacturer is the best judge of good food but nevertheless he is a brilliant cook. He is back in the country till Saturday and wanted to come see my flat. I therefore, stayed in bed writing till he got to my ends.

We went to ‘The Diner’, in Kensal Rise. It’s one of those American chain restaurants. The monster fry up was belting. My only qualm with the place is they do free coffee refills but don’t have the same offer on tea. I love tea and my taste buds are still not mature enough to handle Coffee. My friend Mat and I, go on holiday every year and are the only ones out of friends who don’t drink coffee and can’t sunbathe; we have to kick a football around instead, like a couple of ADD children. One day I will be mature enough to do both these things but till that moment I still have to endure this tea racism.
Tom came back to mine and we had a very leisurely afternoon. We watched a film called ‘Hanging with the Homeboys’ that James Gibb gave me as an intentionally/ironically shit Christmas present. For a minute I actually thought it might be a good film; it wasn’t.

The only thing of note that happened before 5pm was this. I got a phone call from a promoter saying I was going to have to be removed from a gig I was supposed to do next week. I did a gig for them, to a company last week and long story short used the word ‘bukake’ on stage in the first 30 seconds. I will not give specifics about the company/gig as I’ve got into trouble online with names etc before. It definitely wasn’t my fault as no one told me what I could or couldn’t say on stage. Now I’m not a dirty comedian so could easily have done a clean set if asked…it’s not the end of the world but still slightly irksome. I guess the moral of the story is: if in doubt, don’t reference several men spaffing into a woman’s face in the first few seconds of your set.

I’m sure some of you will be Googling ‘bukake’ now. Make sure you delete your history afterwards.

Wednesday 3rd March

Today was exciting for me as I was having friends over for lunch. Human interaction: my favourite.

I went to the gym and GM number 2 was dominating the weights area. He is one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen, outside of the WWE. He is a skinhead geezer, who I’m guessing eats raw chickens for breakfast, whilst I have a penchant for blueberries on Weetabix. I go to a £70 a month gym in Notting Hill yet there is still a bucket load of adult rudeboys in there. A group of about 8 all seem to know each other through their mutual love for trying to beef up and the fact that they speak the language of the streets (don’t worry, I know how wanky a phrase “language of the streets” is). One guy walked over to everyone and announced “ain’t nothing but love in the gym right now!” Shut up and let me do my inferior bicep curls, please.

I managed to prepare a sausage and mash feast for my two mates Tara and Charlie. They are both 2 girls who tickle my funny bone. Charlie spent the whole afternoon slagging off my cooking, whilst Tara pretty much just smashed up my kitchen. They both left me to do all the washing up; still it’s a good way to pass the time. They did, however, show me one of the funniest websites around. It’s called www.Chatroulette.com. The premise of it is, all around the world anyone with a webcam and microphone can chat to you. If you get bored of someone you simply hit ‘next’. It’s a very simple idea and the only way to do it justice is to give it a go. The downside is most of the people on it are weird men and more often than not you stumble across an adult masturbating in the hope that he’ll find a hot girl. I’m sure it will soon get banned as there are children innocently using it. The girls said they saw Snoop Dogg on it when he was stoned, which sounds more fun than a bloke touching his bits. For a laugh, I made sure I was out of shot and got the girl’s to keep clicking ’next’ till they found someone masturbating. After 5 seconds, I would jump up and shout ‘stop Wanking! You sick freak’. It is funnier and less disturbing than it sounds. Give it a go.

The girls remained at mine watching DVDs till past 5. So all in all a fun human filled Wednesday for me.

Tuesday 2nd March

I had a big sleep, in an attempt to shake off the miniature bout of food poisoning. I got up and did some token email based admin and checked my Facebook 30 times. In truth I was just killing time before I made my debut at Comedian’s football in Crystal Palace. To make a 2pm kick off I had to leave my house at 12:30. Travelling an hour and half to play a game of 6 aside football might seem extreme, but I love football and also I got to talk to some friends. Being alone when you’re ill is my idea of hell. Ideally when you’re ill you want your mummy to constantly bring you treats and check your temperature; getting a flat mate to do this is harder than you’d think.

The football game was worth the journey. Highlights included me scoring an own goal from the other half of the pitch and generally laughing a lot at the behaviour of Joe Wilkinson and Daniel Kitson. The downside to playing with professionally funny people is you can’t tell when they are joking. Andy Zaltzman did a theatrical dive in the penalty area: I laughed. Turns out he’d pretty much snapped his ankle. Nasty. I felt like a dick. My team were victorious, which makes playing sport much better. It’s the taking part that counts but it is lovely to win at stuff.

The rest of my 9-5 involved me sitting on a train back to my house: I might buy a second home in Crystal Palace for Tuesdays.

Monday, March 1st

I was forced out of bed at 9am to visit my new doctor’s surgery. Usually I’m happy to get up this early but the weekend had seriously taken its toll. As my mother always says, I’d been burning the candle at both ends. The surgery is the smallest one I’ve ever seen; it should have been called the doctor’s hut. The minimal space made it even more annoying when a Polish baby started crying. I quite like kids but I really wanted to set off the fire extinguisher in the little git’s face. It’s illegal to hit a child but I’ve never read anything about the legal ramifications of firing water at them.

I then went to my now weekly body pump lesson at the gym. The guy who’s in charge is called Andy. He’s a squat, overly enthusiastic Scottish bloke who, doesn’t think he looks like a bellend wearing a Madonna microphone. The sort of bloke who’s zest for life conceals his deep depression at being a professional body pump instructor. Almost everyone in my class is a woman over the age of 30. There is one other bloke: him and me are on, “Hi mate” terms (probably because we are the only 2 people who have 2 testicles and no mic…I’m only assuming he has 2 balls; we don’t shower together yet).

After feeling ‘pumped’ and ‘emasculated’ I strode into Portobello market. I bought far too much stuff. I did that thing where I shopped like I had my car but didn’t; so was carrying an uncomfortably inconvenient amount of gubbins. I also bought fruit from the market. Everyone bangs on about market fruit being better than the supermarket (me being one of them), yet it seems to be injected with something that makes it bruise before you get home and go off in 24 hours. It’s cheap for a reason.
When I got back I started feeling horrendous. It turns out my flatmate, Be (short for Benedict), was sick at work after the Meatball Subway we’d shared the night before. Who knew warm meat from an outdoor Subway vendor in Leicester Square, shared with another man could make you sick? I felt guilty for napping the rest of the afternoon but it was either that or shitting myself. I felt the former less faeces ridden option was the preferred. So my Monday afternoon consisted of sleeping. You can’t do that that in your office job, can you? Or in you van driving job…well in most vehicle based jobs.

Brief gap...

Hi guys/guy.

I wrote the first 2 blogs with no internet connection in my new flat. It has only just been set up and for the week 22-26th Feb, I have been sorting lots of other boring things out so the blog writing was suspended.

It will resume again on 1st March

how exciting?

Till next week

Friday 19th Feb 2010

Today was a great day due to the fact I got to interact with some human beings. I woke up and watched a couple of episodes of Frasier on Comedy Central. This programme always makes me happy. I watch it everyday and think I should write a sitcom as good as this but I don’t. I end up being a ‘viewer instead of a doer’. I’m pretty confident I just made up this saying: I was thinking of patenting it but can’t be bothered, the irony of this is not lost on me.
I was ready to leave the house but hadn’t brushed my teeth. I lent my one and only toothbrush to a friend the night before and for some reason, which was effectively my way of retiring it. I was on my way to get my photos taken in Tooting. I decided to chuck in a little bonus activity en route, so stopped into Portobello Market to buy clothes. Word of advice: If you’re a man and want to buy threads don’t go to Portobello. There is loads of stuff for ladies but pretty much a t-shirt and one shoe for men. Also all the people who own the stalls are dressed like wacky vintage bellends. Everyone seemed to be wearing a hat and big boots: it was especially irksome to see a male stall holder wearing more men’s garments than the rest of the market had on sale. So after this fruitless waste of time, I got my skinny white ass down to Tooting.
I should explain why I was in Tooting. A girl called Tania Ghosh (quality name I know!) saw me at a gig the week before and wanted to take some photos of me for a photography project. I’d never met her before, I was just responding to an email she sent me. It turns out she was a perfectly nice person, however, I completely agreed to meet her above a pub in Tooting without knowing anything about her. I could quite easily have walked into an ambush set up by my nemesis. I don’t actually have a nemesis that I know of but still this illustrates how desperate I am for company. I agreed to go to the other end of London to let a complete stranger photograph me for no money. Not just the other side of London but Tooting. It really is one of the biggest cum holes in London. They still have a Woolworths exterior to one of the shops there. You know an area is pikey when they leave a shrine to a shop that was famous for selling cheap pointless crap.

The photo session went swimmingly. Tania seemed lovely and I avoided making too many obvious gags about her name e.g. ’oh Ghosh’ and….well that’s about it. I’m still not entirely sure what the snaps are going to be used for. If you see me as the new face of Chlamydia in the next few months then I’ve made a rookie error.
I only had an hour and half left to kill till 5 and luckily I was near Clapham South where my good pal Charlie Meek lives. He is probably the funniest person I know yet can also be the grumpiest geezer ever to walk the earth. I arrived at his with a new toothbrush, purchased from a dodgy Tooting corner shop (It’s probably less hygienic than my previous shared one). Charlie is assistant manager of Vodka revolution (that chain of bars that has ‘revolutionised’ vodka/sells different coloured vodka to drunk slappers) and was luckily off work as he’s on crutches with a mystery disease. By luckily, I mean good for me as I got to hang out with him. I don’t think he believes being temporarily disabled is lucky, in fact he was pretty pissed off. Although, he was much less grumpy than I was expecting. We passed the time by playing a very childish game of text roulette. You very simply construct a stupid text on the other persons phone, you chose a letter they chose and number and you go that many places down in the address book and sent the text. The messages contained nothing sexual, they were much sillier, I think one of them was ‘Just so you know if I was going to be any black person, I’d be Hugo Rodallega, just keeping you informed’.
So there you have it, whilst most people are getting emails off before the end of the week to important clients I’m essentially prank calling people. Pretty mature.

Thursday 18th February 2010

I managed to drag myself out of bed at about 10:30, significantly later than I usually like to rise but I was still feeling ropey from three bottles of Grolsch consumed on Monday. They were the obese bottles with the cool flick and pop tops, which I’m convinced means the bar just refills them with any old crap. Once I was up I was determined to actually do something constructive as the day before I managed to spend 6 hours inside playing Fifa 2010. In my defence, I’d worked my way up to becoming an Arsenal regular on ‘Virtual Pro Mode’; not exactly what most people would call ‘productive’. Today I wanted to invent something as culturally significant as penicillin or at least get an England cap on Fifa.
So I got the bus to my outrageously expensive gym. I don’t know if I can divulge it’s official name so shall we say…‘Virgin Inactive’ in Notting Hill. In my mind, paying £70 a month to use a gym means I will actually go more than once a month. It seems to be working but then again even if it was free I think I’d still try to go as the alternative is staying indoors playing Xbox and masturbating myself into an early grave. Pumping iron in the gym is a legal and socially acceptable form of wanking, in my eyes (not the best choice of words). I went on the running machine and chose the one next to the most attractive woman in the gym. If proximity ever becomes the most attractive trait in a person I’m in prime position to cash in. I tried to lift some weights but it’s less fun than running next to an attractive woman. Also I was attempting to avoid the gazes of the various gym monkey boys. When I say gym monkey boys I’m not casually dropping in a racial slur, that’s just my name for the personal trainers, who pretend to be your friend in the hope that you’ll pay them loads of money to shout you into shape. Gym monkey boy (GMB) number one, who’s quite small and Hispanic and looks like he should be driving a taxi in Tenerife, saw me picking my nose whilst I sat on the bench press. Normally I’d wipe it on the bench but as I’d been caught snot handed I had to rub it on my towel.
I left the gym at around 1pm. Only a few more hours left to eat up. I wanted to go down into Portobello road, find a cute coffee shop with free Wifi and write funny jokes surrounded by bourgeoisie creative people. Before this I needed lunch and so went into a Mexican joint and was served by a real Mexican woman-well she had an accent and a tan so, I guess that’s where she was from. I had a meal deal that involved chicken wings and a drink for £5, which on the surface looked great value but three chicken wings actually amounts to no more than a heaped tablespoonful of protein. That’s what happens when you experiment at lunch, you spend money to remain hungry. Tits.
I did find a coffee shop. It was the world’s smallest Coffee Republic. Hardly the indie, trendy venue I was hoping for. I couldn’t write in there because it was the size of most domestic baths and there were two women having a heated argument. One was wearing a helmet that I assumed was for riding a moped but doubled up as protection from Tally McAngry woman (that’s the nickname I gave to the other lady). I then ended up in a place called Kitchen and Pantry, where only Polish women work and the customers are either really old, really attractive older women or tourists, I don’t know which one of those categories I fit into. In the 2 hours I was there I probably wrote 3 things that might be funny, and spent the rest of the time refreshing my Hotmail, Facebook and BBC Sport. A woman was running around frantically, as someone had pinched her handbag. I bet it was one of the crafty pensioners . There is something really uncomfortable about watching a person descend into panic when they quickly come to the realisation that all their earthly possessions are gone. It culminates in them walking around in circles really quickly, holding their hand over their mouth whilst they shake their head and repeatedly shout ‘shit’, ‘fuck’ or ‘bollocks’. To put a more positive spin on it: her loss is my gain as I had something worth writing down…every cloud…
I also downloaded some belting tracks, by Plan B and Prodigy, whilst I was there. That evening I ironically enough got given the new Prodigy album by their very drunk manager in a pub near my flat but if I told you about that, I’d be breaking the 9-5 rule I’ve implemented. In truth, that would be a much more interesting end to this blog than me jumping on the 52 bus back to Kensal Rise but I’ve made my bed, so I’ll have to snooze in it.


Well, there you have it. That is the first insight into how I pass my day times. I really wish there were people who had my interests available to hang out with in the daytime. I thought it would be a good idea for a website: people, who work evenings in your area, fill in their interests and you meet up and hang out. Friends.com, does annoyingly already exist but it seems to heavily push the idea that once you meet they people, you have it off with them. Why can’t there be a website that has no emphasis on sex and instead pushes the thought of meeting up to play Fifa and go to Mega Bowl. Until tomorrow…

intro

As a full time comedian, I’m often asked how I pass my days. People say things like, ‘it must be so fun?” or “you can sleep in till 6 everyday, that’s awesome”. As I’m on my own most of the time and not a vampire neither of these statements are accurate. Therefore, I’ve decided to keep a blog of my daily antics (the word ‘antics’ may be slightly misleading; perhaps ‘ways of passing the empty hours’ is more precise). I will only write about what I get up to between the hours of 9 and 5, to highlight the difference between my day and the day of human being with a real job. I hope this is intriguing, although even if it isn’t at least it’s cathartic and helps me to kill an hour of my day.