so i still ain t done nuffin about getting a new car/van/vehicle. this weekend i am hiring a cute little Fiat. i did llanelli Ffwrnes on friday, theatr felinfach yesterday, and tonight am in whitchurch, shropshire. I think it might have been karma, – when i rushed down to bognor regis a couple of weeks ago the sat nav took me on a crazy country route, i was speeding cos i was late, and ploughed through some pheasants, Pheasants unlike regular birds, seem to be a bit thick when it comes to cars. they don’t get out of the way and, unfortunately, i think i left one dead or dying behind me.

so later that day my car packed in.

In Llanelli i hired two pro cameramen to record my show, and got john, dinah’s husband, to do the sound. i got an audience of 60 plus. the first half i did old stuff whilst explaining to the crowd what i wanted to do, about the recording etc. the first half went great, but the second half – which was the one i was recording – went….okay. for some reason the atmosphere had a kind of tension present. and half way thru a heckler piped up – he was alright, but when another member of the audience told him to shut up he got very upset. i t all made it a little awkward. coupled with that i kept forgetting new jokes, and fluffing a few lines. but, having said that, i hope there will be a good show in there somewhere, maybe with the aid of clever editing. Certainly it should look nice if nothing else.

THis the way i think the recording went: have u seen Raiders of the Lost Ark? in it there’s a stunt involving a large lorry. the lorry’s is blown up and the stunt driver crashes it. It looks good, but you can tell it could have been more spectacular. I heard the stunt man wanted to take it again but Steven Spielburg, the film’s director, said no it looks fine. In the final cut you can see the lorry lean over on to one side, and it wheels around for a few seconds jut on one side, before collapsing. I guess this is more realistic in the end, and does imitate how a real life lorry would actually respond . But in Hollywood it could have looked better, bigger, with wilder moves and crashes. I think maybe my performance on video will resemble closely a real life gig.

i just had the busiest week i’ve ever had since i started doing stand up. i had 2 gigs every day except thursday – from wednesday thru to sunday. Trouble is it was one gig too far for my poor car. i drove from an afternoon gig in Bognor Butlins to Mold Theatr Clwyd. but the engine made a big bang, and i broke down on the M40. so no gig in mold for me. grumpy is life. waitin on a hard shoulder,,,,good job i included that breakdown service in my insurance.

saw a fox two days running….and 2 magpies along with it. meaning ? spirit? freedom?

but then yesterday i also killed a stupid phesant….it was writing in pain as i drove away, rushing to get to bognor, the outer regis. how come i get a week so busy? it started last wed afternoon in pontypridd; i did a 5 minute set in welsh for S4C Noson Lawen – the xmas episode, so i had to pretend, and write a xmas set, i was very pleased with it, also included jokes about teh smelly portaloos in the Steddfod.

it’s a bit stressful knowing the car’s fucked, well, i could pay for a new head gasket, £1500 said the RAC man…no thanks

Did a gig in a quirky little venue on the high street, like an off-license or shop. The audience were lively. to say the least. A fuckin obstacle course it was. The microphone, the hecklers, the bloke with ADHD, the people on the street peeping through the window. bloody hell it was liking playing to children. But the staff were friendly – gave me free drinks.

Weigh the Mouth

Talk about friendly staff, i did a great gig in Weymouth last weekend. That was also a feisty crowd, but what a beautiful room for comedy. And i got to stay over with my old friend – well he’s not that old – Richard Jay. what a charmer this man is, so laidback like a lilo on a dreary afternoon.

Him and Jerry fed me, gave me a bed for the night and even gave me lift to the gig from his house. and if u r reading this Rich…hello matey! i am just about recovering from the pneumonia.

The gig was solid, with a few bigmouths that were handy targets for adlibbed put downs. what fun. and free drink and veggie burger – could life be better? Yes…..but not much

Had a gig near Preston, Penwortham, in fact i’ll be in same village this week, but diffrent venue. anyway, it was a couple of days after my John Lennon’s birthday gig – see below – and i attempted the ‘let’s see what i can do with 5 shots in me’ joke. But it misfired, if you’ll excuse the pun, and as a result the audience stopped laughing and just stared at me for 5 minutes. I really had to pull the stops out to get them to respond. i walked off stage and bang bang bang, i interacted and tried to chat. They started laughing – ah relief.

But some bloke at the back coughed, not constantly but loudly a few times times. Third time he coughs i ask him ‘ you a smoker or wha ?’ (even though this man was at back of room it was a fairly small room, so everyone was visible and within conversational grasp). His answer shocked me:

“Mind your own fucking business!”

and he meant it. meanie. But the audience, i mean the rest of them, i think sided with me more after that. a few years ago an event liek this would have shaken me, but i kept my cool. by the end it was all good, though i still couldn’t quite believe how my opening joke had messed up.

On october 9th, a sunday, i went down Juniper bar in Swansea for the first heat of British Comedian of the Year. Managed to win it – so now onwards to – i hope – more success.

Started the set with a variation on my 5 shots joke, a cruel joke about you know who’s assassination.