hello richard, you are a good listener, and i do nothing but take take take,,,,cake, toast, even toy cars.

today was a lazy day. the weekend was tedious, but also rewarding. two gigs, which i plucked out of nowhere in one day. on friday winchester, on saturday bournemouth. but the reality is i had two gigs in Guernsey booked in since about a year, and found out a few days ago they has been cancelled! Everything is collapsing around me. (i dream of going on a long walk across a land, but where is it?).

so at least i was still working by picking up these 2 stray gigs. The winchester Ark was brilliant. Sol Bernstein was there ,always a happy face in the green room. when i walk into green rooms/dressing rooms/toilets these days i never know who’s gonna be there – rarely do i check in advance who’s on t bill – and there are so many new, younger comics out there. and so, as i walked into the room at Jaggers, bournemouth, i simply announced “Noel James known predator ” – they laughed as they were meant to.

the patron saint of crepes, suzette, is a complete narc. no imagination just the residue of a bad acid trip. she used to wear funny jewelry.

i see people wearing lanyards emblazoned with oranges. I know what they are , what they mean really. each orange is not really an ‘orange’ but a large speech mark, the apostrophe cymraeg. sometimes they appear as lapel badges, but mostly they come surgically entwined within the cloth pattern of a lanyard. You see people around wales wearing these lanyards now and then, office workers usually, or teachers.

This is what their purpose is: to indicate to the passer by that the wearer is a welsh speaker and is happy to talk welsh with whoever wants to speak welsh. I, as a welsh speaker, could start a conversation with this person in my native tongue as opposed to just english, if i happened to be passing by.

Great purpose, a good idea. But the trouble is people take the piss. More and more it seems welsh people, but not necessarily welsh speakers, are wearing these lanyards. I see them in the streets, in the market. i always say ‘shwd mae’ and they just grin and look at me like i’ve just climbed down from the trees.

But that is the whole purpose of the orange speech bubble, not just to help foster a fragile language, but to encourage, to help overcome the embarasment of opening up to a stranger in Cymraeg. It’s important, because a lot of welsh speakers get self conscious, they worry that what’s coming out of their mouths is not good enough. the twits, who just grab any old lanyard, irrespective of its pattern, know nothing of this. and probably don’t care

They don’t do it out of malice. but out of indifference. inertia. They’re not doing anything to stop welsh being spoken but at the same time are guilty of false representation, what they’re doing has a negative effect which they’re not even aware of: my flash of hope, taken away when the words shwd mae leave my lips. a flash of hope dampened. These people are like false statistics. The only thing they represent is disrespect. They don’t realise the significance of the orange speech bubble, i mean historically.

Have they not been told of its origins?

On the origins of oranges.

Legend has it that Adam did pluck an orange from the tree of languages. Lo blessed are the tongues of man for they be the tongues the speaking of which is the word of our lord.

Some also say that Arthur, whilst he lay dying on the battlefield at Mount Baddon, did let fall a tear of blood, glistening orange in the sun.

what can you do? block people on social media if it feels like the right thing to do. But social media is just a toy, a vanity toy, comedians would have you believe it is a tool of their trade, and therefore a necessary evil. I still get some bookers who send out emails – but i’m getting less and less stuff offered. just had this weekend in Guernsey cancelled at very short notice. £700 disappeared just like that. and it’s nice to go abroad, even if it is only a channel island.

it’s like Arthur Koestler postulated: Poetry becomes comedy become tragedy…

chesterfield a town named after cigarettes is clearly not a hamlet, well maybe not clearly because of the smoke…but foggily.

my girlfriend gave me some roses. they were new. Now I’m worried about putting a tea cup on the coaster; I’m struggling to resist putting a spoon in the marmite that’s already been in the honey, i’m insecure in my leisure trousers cos there’s a stain somewhere on them, i’m not comfortable playing the guitar when the tv’s on….i..wish she hadn’t given me those new roses. they’re a thorn in the

Why are there only beauty rooms ? shouldn’t there be ugliness rooms as well?, i mean isn’t a bit ‘looksist’ – look sis we only enhance not invent – well it’s wrong in it, this looksism, this obsession with beauty, it shouldn’t be just about the one side, one part of the spectrum, that’s beauty privilege that is. ugly people have a beauty and beautiful people have an ugliness. yin and yang, Looksism thats what it is. goes with the many isms in the world now. look…jism.

i mentioned yin and yang just now, some of you were asking yourself ‘were they the siamese twins?’ no they weren’t and that’s racism. you’re not meant to say Siamese twin anymore, because siam is now known as thailand, which makes a lot more sense because the twins were ‘thai’ed together. Yes Conjoined twins is what they tell us to say…but what about the conjoinians, how do they feel about it? ‘Yes well as a conjoinin i feel it’s a liberty taking our name and applying it to a physical abhoration…and my twin feels the same way, yes i do i feel the same way.

milligan once said of his past memories , they’re so real you can almost reach out and touch them…i remember being in a bed with my brother, at night, reading old books like Film Fun, and The Eagle. they were 20 years older than me then in the 70s!

did a gig for nothing in capel y nant to raise money for the urdd. i did a pretty good set, i walked the fine line of keeping it parchus but also alternative. i’m not sure if i liked the music provided. i went home after my stint, been walking a few miles most days.

using the rowing machine in the garden a great deal more – you see i had a letter from GP saying i had high cholesterol, and threatening to put me on statins…nooo! Have cut out bread , cake, biscuits, alcohol. <My breath seems to be coming back to normal, and have been taking folic acid tablets (which was the other thing the GP said). Also got my driving license back.

Hired car last weekend and went up to do 2 gigs for Robert Rowse in the peak district. what an amazing couple of shows – i went down really well both nights. Stayed in the cheapest travelodge i could find, which was in burton on trent.