And which is more - you'll be a writer, my son.

On Being Old

2012-02-07T03:34:00.000-08:00

'You're 53, Dad, get over it.' Thus spake my senior daughter when I came home one evening complaining that my knees hurt. Just as well I didn't mention my hip.

When I were a lad, 53 was proper old. You had uncles and aunts that age and they were moments from death's door. And you didn't give a huge shit. You get old, you die. But now I'm here, it doesn't seem quite so aged or terminal, not if I ignore the aches, pains and creeping decrepitude. I once asked my 82 year old father-in-law how old he was inside his head and he said 27. Me? I'm 26. Back then, I had two good knees (pre my 9 operations - which I never talk about), shitloads of brown hair and a firm-ish tummy. I was ok looking, single and a qualified solicitor. I mean, what a catch, albeit, no-one seemed to be fishing in my immediate vicinity. Notwithstanding, it was and remains the ideal age to stop maturing.

Being 26 in my head is all well and good, but the 53 year old body is being a bit of a shit about things. I hobble everywhere, my hair's grey (though, small-mercifully, otherwise intact) and I feel the cold, even when it's warm. And the heat. Oy! The body starts giving up the ghost way too soon, in my view. Now it's in a losing battle with a mind marooned in mid-twenties self-delusion, a mind baffled by the inability to chase down that wide forehand or run up the stairs. It's still giving the right orders. Even if it has to deal with mortgages, parents' evenings, breakdown insurance, ISAs, it will never grow up, never accept that it's trapped inside a fading physical entity. It focuses on football, Su Doku on the iPad, worrying - properly worrying - about Andy Murray's quest for a Grand Slam and no-lighty-no-likey TV - and quite enjoys One Direction's latest single.

There are many tragic oldsters who, like me, don't own a suit and still have a crack at wearing those useless-in-the-snow Converse thingies on their feet. But why not? I'll be dead soon enough, especially if I carry on cycling around Kentish Town. Not that I'll be able to do that for long - 9 knee operations; there's very little mileage left on that particular clock.

But let's not talk about that.

How To Work in Cafes

2012-02-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

It's not all glamour being a stand-up comedian. Granted our evenings are spent performing in exotic locations like Crewe or Sittingbourne, often to double figure crowds, but by day we have to come up with the comedy gold. Some of us can write a whole joke in a productive week, but our capricious muse demands the right environment. For me, working from what I laughingly call my study (study what? Twitter?) – is a non-starter. Too many pointless DIY jobs to ponder, too much food in the fridge, too many channels on Sky (S4C is terrific, by the way – wall to wall Welsh!).

So I, like an increasing number of self-employed people, have taken to working in cafes. The benefits are obvious. It gets me out of the house - sometimes before midday; I cycle there, like a middle-aged Cavendish (ish); and it makes me feel like I’m doing something. More to the point, it’s cheap. Commercial rents in the West End, where I spend most of my time, are £20-40psq, so I’m occupying some prime space for the price of a coffee. That’s good business in my book.

But it’s not without its downsides. That’s why you won’t see Shell moving its entire UK operation into Starbucks any time soon. It’s only for the committed pisser-abouter. Want to give it a try? These are my top tips:

1. Always nab your table first: Position is everything. I can't stress this enough. Coffee can wait; it’s not why you’re there.

2. Suss out the sockets: Ok, most laptops and phones have decent battery lives, but sockets mean you don’t have to worry about recharging when you get home which can be a terrible, terrible burden. Grab the table closest to the sockets, plug in and you’re king of the castle. If anyone whinges, ‘they're not there just for your benefit’, call the police.

3. Keep out of the draught: This is tricky. You need to be near the sockets but if you’re too close to the door during winter it’s a living hell. No-one – no-one – ever closes it and you’re much too busy to keep getting up. Oh, and the aircon can be a nightmare whatever the weather. It blows ice in every direction. Ice. But – top tip alert - it has a limited range. See what I’m saying? Think before you sit.

4. Order your coffee in a takeaway cup: This is where experience counts. Takeaway cup = lid = your coffee stays warmish all day. You can’t go splashing out on two or three cups every day, never mind that every 148th beverage bought using a Starbucks card earns you a free shot of vanilla. And – potential bonus – sleepy staff might charge you the takeaway price. Result.

5. Befriend the staff: They sometimes let you off if you’ve forgotten your wallet. And you’ll learn to understand 'how are you today' in 13 Eastern European accents. Don’t get too close, though – they’re usually just passing through and forming attachments can ultimately lead to emotional pain. Apparently.

6. Defend your space: You don't want someone sharing your table. Ugh. Absolute no-no. You need it for your laptop, coffee and…you know, other stuff. You certainly don’t want anyone wobbling your table with their busy, typing fingers. Or having telephone conversations that close to your precious, hard-won bubble. Put your bag on the other chair. If anyone asks, it’s just fallen in the urinal and you’re drying it out.

7. Avoid sitting near groups of young American girls: Xenophobic? Maybe, but trust me on this one. If this odd human strain enters your coffee shop, leave. This is the one known socket exception. Tough, I know, but it’s about retaining your sanity. You see, young American girls’ voices spouting their remorseless shit cut through the atmosphere and pierce the soul. And I'm over 70% deaf. Once you’ve heard the seven thousandth ‘like’ you’ll be Googling ‘Local Assassins’.

8. Develop your ‘tut’: People on mobile phones shout. Don’t know why. They just can’t help it. Nothing more infuriating than someone having a loud, one-way conversation and, worse, apparently enjoying it. Understand this: they’re doing it to annoy you. Learn to tut loudly. This takes time and patience. Practise.

9. Make sure you can see the toilet door at all times: Positioning is key again. You don’t want to be craning or turning. Never queue. It’s demeaning and time consuming when you’ve got so much else to do. Oh, and never go in after that rancid tramp.

10. Look out for celebs: Recent spots include Hugh Grant, Peter Stringfellow and that bloke in that film. Always good for half an hour of doing nothing (or trying to sneak a photo on your phone for FB – make sure the silly shutter sound and flash are off otherwise you’ll look like a git and/or stalker or, worse, Paparazzi).

11. Wifi: Essential if you need – for professional purposes – to keep abreast of email and social media. Starbucks wins hands down here. Prêt and Nero offer the patchy, infuriating Cloud; you’ll top yourself long before you attempt your nineteenth reconnection. Key tip: Never – and I mean never – pay for it. It’s an offence.

12. If you see me anywhere, leave me alone. I'll be busy defending my space.

Reflections On Being Suddenly Slim

2011-11-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

So here I am, 20 years an unreconstructed, unapologetic fat bastard, suddenly slim. Ok, slim-ish. It's all relative. I've lost 2 and a half stone, but then I was ridiculously heavy to start with. I was a man I no longer recognised, a man I caught unwittingly in a coffee shop mirror and instantly dismissed as a corpulent pig. That was the turning point, really. If that was what I saw when I wasn't sucking in my cheeks to ready myself for my reflection, it was what everyone else saw.

A word or two on how I got here. Simple, really. No forensic calorie-counting, no fads, no crazy fitness regimes. The key? I've just stopped the bi-weekly loading of the mega-sized carrier bags they give the greedy chocoholics in the 99p Shop.Without that evil sugar/fat abomination hanging about the house demanding to be scoffed, I'm having to make my own fun. Walnut anyone?

Here's the regime: I eat dinner late so breakfast is not the first thing on my mind when I wake up - it's easily skipped; lunch might be a bit of popcorn, a yoghurt, some fruit; a snack when I get home (granola, nuts, pretzels) followed later by the kind of evening meal in which I've always specialised - anything that takes less than 3 minutes to make. Chicken soup (powder + hot water + boil it + vermicelli = done) followed by a few slices of toast and jam or a chicken stir-fry, if I'm feeling all Jamie Oliver, or - pushing the boat out here - a baked potato with some packet roast chicken and microwaved beans. Dessert is a yoghurt, tons of fruit, tea (copious) and maybe a packet of Polos as a treat. I know it sounds grim, but I honestly haven't suffered or yearned. And now I'm where I want to be, I can have decent meal out or a lump of chocolate if I fancy. The key is moderation.

Here's an interesting tale (if you're pissed or on something); it was my birthday a few weeks ago so all bets were off. I hit the sweet shop, hard, and gorged on Boost, Caramac, Maltesers and Tooty-Fruities, but - this was the funny thing - I didn't particularly enjoy it. Me, Fatboy The Sweet Gorger. Would you credit that? Just felt sick, actually. I think they call it -'re-educating' your stomach, or some such shit.

And one other thing; I cycle a minimum of 14 miles a day, but then I've been doing that for 20 years. Combined with sensible eating, it helps the weight fall off, whereas if it's done only to feel virtuous and excuse the relentless stuffing of one's face every night, it helps not a jot.

Clothes don't look crap on me any more. My last blog was obviously a cry for help. I'd reached the point where jeans, no matter how capacious, looked appalling, like I was trying to squeeze two legs into each leg-hole, and shirts needed to be XXXL to even resemble something made to be worn by humans. I can now go into shops and stick on a pair of 34 inch-waisters (I'm nearer 32 now - I know!) and they look ok. I was nudging 40 inches and, honestly, you don't want anyone to see you flipping those babies off a hanger and sneaking into a fitting room. The other bonus here is that the clothes I was squeezing into a few months ago now hang off me, something I still enjoy demonstrating to my children who, sadly, don't give a flying fuck. Yes, Dad, you've lost weight. Big. Deal. Oh yeah, by the way, I crashed the car.

One other bonus is that there's less weight going through my tortured knees. Now, people who know me will know that I rarely talk about my 9 knee operations, the constant pain, the swelling, the clicking, the sheer, unalloyed misery. Oy, you shouldn't know from it. I still can't play tennis and a return to the ski slopes would probably be inadvisable, but there's been a definite improvement, as you might expect given that the equivalent of 9 stone has been removed from the load going through them when I walk, 18 when (if) I run.

Turns out I have cheekbones! Who knew? They sort of jut out and create little shadows on my cheeks. Is that normal? And hip-bones and shoulder blades and a spine...which hurt when I move about in the bath. And - stop me if this is too much information - I felt a hard lump when I was washing my bottom the other day. No, not a tumour, silly (although I'm of an age when...let's not think about that). No, it was my coccyx. Who put that there? I've also, apparently, reduced the risk of heart disease and diabetes, made myself less prone to debilitating asthma attacks and, best of all, removed all trace of the corrosive bouts of indigestion I used to suffer every day despite 24 Rennies and a couple of Omeprazole (a dosage that should neutralise Sulphuric Acid).

But there's a downside. Suddenly, I look my age. Which might not sound bad, but everyone used to comment on how much younger I looked as a fatso. Well of course they did; I had 26 gallons of natural collagen filling the wrinkles, smoothing the skin. Not any more. It's Wrinkle City up there, but a small price to pay. I even had an insane, thin man's number 3 haircut to complement my now slender face - it looked absolutely fucking horrible (got carried away with the slim thing, I think) and am grateful to still have a thatch capable of consigning such catastrophic hubris to memory, given time.

So, there you go. I'd be happy to counsel anyone seeking to do what I've done. Call me smug, call me obnoxiously gloaty (I may be less so shortly, given that Xmas is approaching, which might yet wreck everything; the fat, greedy boy lurks just under the surface - I can hear him), but feel free to contact me, if only to allow me to crow a bit more.

Why Do All Clothes Look Shit On Me?

2011-09-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

I could probably answer that question in one short sentence: because I'm fat. But that would be to oversimplify things and I'm here now so I'm going to wax for a bit. And, let's be honest, if I left it there, you might accuse me of implying that you can't look good in anything if you're fat. This, of course, would be arrant nonsense. Many larger people manage to pull it off: George Melly, a proper pudd'n if ever I saw one, always looked elegant in his baggy flannels and floppy hat; there's an overweight woman who runs our local tea shop and she looks fantastic; Oprah's never too shabby. Vanessa Feltz...sorry, bad example (this is what is known as a cheap shot - it doesn't make me proud, but it's staying). Oh, and let's not forget, there are plenty of skinny bastards who look shit, aren't there?

I'm not going to waste time on the fat v thin debate here - yes we all know there are societal pressures, that obesity (and ultra-skinniness) can be unhealthy, that prejudice and bullying can be rooted in something as trivial as body shape. No, I want to keep this as superficial, shallow and egocentric as possible. I merely want to establish the reason I look so shit in everything, and being fat is right up there.

Fatness, of course, is a relative term. In many people's eyes, I'm not. 5' 10" and 15 stone 9 suggests otherwise, I'll grant you, but I'm very square-shouldered, unusually broad and don't have an especially chubby face nor a pot belly, so I carry it reasonably well. But as soon as I slip into Gap jeans - Easy, Straight, Boot, you name it - I look like a man harbouring Elvis and his fatter twin brother down either leg. My thighs are heavy and my knees buckle inwards due, in part, to ruined, arthritic joints, and my legs always look like a pair of mutant slugs having weird 'X' shaped sex in a sack . Lest you think this is a Gap-based issue, I've tried Next, Hennes, M & S and more. They don't make jeans for people like me. Or trousers. Or shorts. Underpants? Just about.

Then there's shirts. I've tried them all; tees, V-necks, button-ups, button-downs, Grandfather tops. I dunno. I just look shit. I adhere religiously to the 'black is slimming' trope, but to no avail. In fairness, I've got a better chance of looking semi-presentable in a shirt than any pair of trousers, but it's a fine margin. So why? Short neck? That probably doesn't help. No waist? A problem. Lack of definition around the torso? Yeah, ok, you don't have to get offensive mate.

Maybe I need to employ the services of one of those people who just know which clothes work with which shape. It might be painful, I might have to accept certain limitations, but at least I won't look shit. That or lose some weight. People, I have been dieting for a week and lost 6 pounds. So maybe I should hang on before getting Gok Wan over. It might save me a lot of money and the gruesome misery...of having Gok Wan over.

Review of Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

2011-08-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

As abysmal as Sister was readable. For a start, the protagonists are bloody angels or spirits or something, telling the story (too dull to precis here, but it's about who was responsible for burning a public school down - good riddance to it, I say) whilst their corporeal selves lie comatose in hospital, having been injured in the blaze. I thought this madness would resolve itself in something satisfyingly realistic, but no, it appears Ms Lupton was happy for her 'spirits' to communicate with each other, follow the police around, go home, do anything really, without apologising for her feeble conceit.

And then there was the teeth-grinding, middle-class smugness of it all. The protagonist's family were all incredible, clever, wonderful, generous, perfect; their saccharine-sweet love for each other deeper than the the deepest ocean, higher than the highest mountain. Yuck. And for a professional scriptwriter, Ms Lupton's dialogue was unforgivably dismal.

It gets worse. For reasons I have yet to fathom, Ms Lupton sees fit to italicise words, phrases, even whole sentences, lest we, her stupid readers, can't work out where to place the emphasis ourselves. More infuriatingly, most of the italicised words didn't merit emphasising.

Sister good, Afterwards appalling. Second book blues. She's blown it with me."

And which is more - you'll be a writer, my son.

2011-08-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks prior to appearing at the rather wonderful Krater Comedy Club at the Komedia here in drizzly Brighton. I wouldn't normally think this blog-worthy - and it probably isn't - but I thought a few words about the rising fear and tension a performer endures before going on stage would be interesting from the perspective of someone actually living through it.

Problem is, I'm not. I mean, I am living through the period directly prior to a gig, but tension? Not really. I love Brighton, but I think getting here at 2.30 for a gig starting at 8 (stage time, around 9.10) was patently absurd. I had a hearty lunch at Bill's (why would anyone go anywhere else?) and then whiled away an hour viewing a house (we're thinking of moving here one day) but really, it's only an hour from London and I could've left at 6.

I've got into the habit of arriving insanely early for things like voiceovers, the rationale being that I usually cycle so need to cool down first over a nice cup of tea. Nothing worse than leaving a foetid patch of sweat on a studio chair, is there? Yet, although I cycled to London Bridge Station to catch the Brighton train today, I think a five and a half hour cooling off period is a bit over the top.

So, here I am just around the corner from the Komedia, knocking out this blog and about to be turfed out at 7. I have a very respectable and weighty bag of sweets from the hip little pick 'n' mix shop in the North Laines which I'm thinking of raiding on a bench somewhere to while away some more dead time, but I'll be scraping damp sugar from the bottom by 7.05 and be feeling bloated, nauseous and only marginally closer to kick off. You need a bit of tension to get up there and do your stuff, but right now I'd be happy if they locked me in and left me here overnight.

Well, there we are. An ill-considered, stream-of-consciousness, unedited blog. Was it all worth it given the paucity of insight and wit? Don't answer that.

Great Book...How Many Have You Sold?

2011-08-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's a question I've been asked a few times.

Not many's the answer.

Here's a salutary tale. Several years ago, I approached some piddly literary agency with my debut novel, Losing It. They were called...er...Christopher Little, if memory serves. Oh, you mean J K Rowling's billionaire (ex)agents? Yes, that's them. Less than three weeks after receiving my hopeful little package, they were all over me. Loved the book, said it was a potential best-seller, that I'd be great at promoting it given my performing pedigree. Oh, could I just make a few minor changes? Here we go. All right, go on then, if you insist. So I did. They wanted more. Grudgingly, I re-drafted. What, more changes? This time I told them to stuff it lest they destroy my artistic vision.

Idiot.

Absolute, 100%, 24 carat cretin.

If they'd insisted I re-cast my female protagonist as a Taliban warthog with acne, I should have got on with it. They were Christopher bloody Little, J K Rowling's...who cares about artistic effing vision?

But you see, I (the aforementioned cretin) figured, if they loved the book, so would everyone else. But I made no progress with the handful of other agents I approached and, in a fit of pique - tarring all agents with the same brush - I published it myself. That'd show them. I eventually sold 400, which isn't bad, I'm told, but only after nagging libraries, appearing on radio stations so local only God was listening in, chivvying local book shops and wasting a smallish fortune on useless PR. Net financial loss? Let's not go there.

And that's when I gave up writing novels for a few years until inspiration struck and I rattled out A Song For Europe, an edgy romantic comedy more in keeping with my day/night job as a comedian and scriptwriter. I gave it to a few trusted folk to read and received rave reviews. Which is when I approached another handful of agents. This time, one came back on the same day I emailed them a sample, champing at the bit. Not quite in the Christopher Little league, but long established and respected nonetheless. Sadly, they weren't particularly set up to promote an edgy romcom and although there was a ripple of interest from publishers, nothing happened.

But I believed in the book and, rather than suffer the misery and financial flagellation of self-publishing, decided to stick it on Amazon as a digital download. Kindles everywhere would be loaded up with my David Nicholls-stylee novel within days.

Except that didn't happen. The problem is, if no-one knows it's there, it might as well not be. What to do? I've had my head buried in websites claiming to know the secrets of promoting digital books. I've started a Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Simon-Lipson-Author/140280092721031 - 95 fans and counting - none of them have bought the book). I've started tweeting for all I'm worth (@SimonLipson). Still nothing. I'm sure I can do more, but I'm beginning to think I need to commit A Song For Europe to good, old-fashioned paper.Then... ring up libraries, contact local book shops, appear on Radio Sark...you know the rest. Somehow, I have to get the 'word-of'mouth' thing going, but there are only so many hours in the day. And if I shift 400 copies, so what?

I'd love to hear from anyone who's been through the self-publishing maze and/or stuck something on Amazon Kindle. Maybe we can knock heads and work out a strategy for getting our works of genius into the hands of a deserving public. As an avid reader, I know a hell of a lot of inferior crap gets published. There's no rhyme or reason. So - sisters, brothers! Let's do it for ourselves! (ahem - sorry, quite forgot I'm British for a moment).

http://www.amazon.com/A-Song-For-Europe-ebook/dp/B00492CQ2K - as if you're going to buy it.

William Boyd? Surely not.

2010-02-03T07:22:00.006-08:00

I recently finished reading William Boyd's latest novel, Ordinary Thunderstorms. It took me forever because I kept abandoning it then picking it up again. I mean, surely it couldn't be that shit all the way through to the final page. Could it? Well, no. Somehow, it actually got shittier before disappearing up its own anus with a grim squelch. I had to check that this was the same William Boyd who wrote Restless and Armadillo. Tragically, it was.

I'm not Boyd's biggest fan, but have generally found him to be fairly readable, in a can't-find-anything-else-in-Luton-Airport-Smiths-and-the-plane's-about-to-leave kind of way. He can handle whimsy and more serious themes reasonably well, and there's a level of intelligence that marks him out as a reliable if not exactly must-read author. So what the fuck happened?

Ordinary Thunderstorms starts off with a ridiculous (and seen-it-all-before) premise - innocent man witnesses murder when he goes somewhere no sensible (or even stupid) human being would even think of venturing. He then - surprise, surprise - pulls the knife out of the victim (the only person in the western world who's never watched CSI or a million other police procedurals) and dithers about informing the police for reasons so inane I can no longer recall them. He then goes into hiding - in a tent on a grassy bank alongside the Thames, mind - and becomes feral, vicious and cunning. The guy's a respected meteorologist or something. Doesn't he have any better ideas than that? The casual murder he carries out is as incongruous and silly as the fey, dopey, facile affair he conducts with an investigating policewoman.

Sorry if I've ruined it for you but, trust me, I've saved you eight quid and days of ploughing through dung wondering whether it can possibly get any stinkier. Trust me, it does. Pathetic, implausible, lazy, idiotic, cretinous, moronic...and I haven't even opened my thesaurus yet.

And, once again, I mutter and curse at the injustice of it all. Maybe Boyd's track record enables (entitles?) him to get away with this travesty of literature, but how comes I can't get a publisher when crap like this (and by people like Erica Spindler - an illiterate - James Patterson (or any one of his minions), Tony Parsons - don't start me off - and thousands of others) gets onto our shelves? I wouldn't mind, but several agents and publishers have told me my stuff is 'great' and 'hilarious' and 'commercial' - but I'm still sitting here, baby.

Spleen vented. Feeling a bit better now. Should last at least 10 minutes.

Twitter - Oh The Pointlessness

2010-01-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

I've just joined Twitter. I have no idea why. I haven't got the time, much less the inclination, to read anyone else's dull musings, and can't begin to understand why anyone would read mine. I mean, no-one even reads this fucking blog to which I am at least able to devote some time and thought before committing it to the vacuum that is the blogosphere.

As I've now discovered, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and everything else I hold sacred is all shot to hell when people have only got 140 characters at their disposal. Obviously, my Tweety vignettes are perfect - I'm talking about everyone else, though I suspect many of them would remain incapable of explaining the purpose of a comma however much time and space they had at their disposal. (I'm in danger of becoming a grumpy old-school sod, I fear, even as I embrace modern technology)

Still, I think it's important, at my age, to try and keep up with current technological fads, irrespective of how pointless and plain idiotic they might be. So, to the zillions of you out there who already don't read this blog, here's something else for you to ignore... my Twitter address: http://twitter.com/simonlipson.

I've already contributed some fatuous crap to the canon and can already see how short a shelf life it's going to have for me. Read it (or don't) while you can.

The Miracle

2009-12-23T02:14:00.000-08:00

I've been sicker than many a sick dog over the last week, though on the upside, my previous virus, which lasted a mere nine weeks, had been well and truly out of my system for almost five days before this new thing started, so I've had a really good spell of near-health lasting almost a week. Musn't grumble, eh?

So, here's what I wanted to talk about. One evening last week, just before the icy Armageddon wreaked its chaos - how will we cope, by the way? - I was about to make my ascent up Archway Road on my trusty, middle-of-the-range Pinnacle bicycle. It's a bastard, that hill, a precipitous gradient close to vertical. I'm 51, you know, and asthmatic, and I've got exceptionally dodgy knees, and I've been a little above my fighting weight for a while now (47 years) yet I am forced into daily combat with this demon if I am to make it back to the sanctuary of my Muswell Hill manor.

Now, as any regular cyclist will attest, there is no such thing as a following wind. It doesn't exist. It's a chimera. Cycle round a roundabout, a full 360, and the gale will be in your face all the way round, battering you, pummelling the flesh on your face, ripping your hair from its very roots. All the way round. You hear me? It's nature at its most taunting and vindictive. And if there's a bit of rain in the air - with its spiteful shards and needles which pock and slice, opening little wounds to the flesh and spirit that may never heal - God help you.

So, anyway, there I was, rounding the grim dereliction of Archway Roundabout, bracing myself for the routine double whammy - wind-against plus vertical ascent - when a gust, no more, lifted me, driving me onwards and upwards on gossamer wings towards the brief, free-wheeling relief of Muswell Hill Road, my aching, ageing legs suddenly spared, my bronchial, wheezing lungs in unexpected oxygen-credit. It was like God's arm around my shoulder, forgiving me all my cycling sins (ok, I go on the pavement sometimes and ignore the odd - and even - red light). And, in that brief, epiphanic moment, I questioned my violent atheism for the first time in thirty years.

Course, it only lasted five seconds. A sleet-speckled tornado opened its jaws and pummelled my soul, mocking my natural lack of aerodynamics, my physical decrepitude, my fleeting belief in another way, and forced me to cycle through treacle as I searched for a gear that didn't exist.

Hey, cycling's fun, isn't it? Thinking of creating a blog all about its myriad joys - I've got a million stories. I mean, there are zillions of cycling nerds out there. Maybe someone will actually read the fucker.

From a King to a Klutz

2009-11-30T06:18:00.000-08:00

So, there I am, last Thursday, doing my stand-up schtick to a packed and febrile house at the Chambers Courtroom in Jersey (Channel Islands, that is, not Joyzee - as if they actually fuckin' tawk like dat dere) and I'm killing...killing! I could have thrown in my legendary (though sadly underemployed) Ronnie Corbett impression and still been carried shoulder high along the prom in St Helier. Suddenly, it's like the old days - you remember, when I was a contender, Mr Jongleurs, Mr Radio 5 Live...Mr Celebrity Squares (ask my agent - his cretinous idea) - and I thought, so what if I'm a somewhat senior performer with nary a brown hair left on my head? Funny's funny.

So I'm a comedy genius. Except, as it turns out, not every night. My recent comeback to the world of stand-up has been surprisingly encouraging. I'm more relaxed these days, less hidebound by the rigidity of tight routines, more audience-friendly. In the past, I've sold myself as an impressionist, which got me plenty of work but didn't do much for someone who's not in love with the art form. I've worked with the current maestros of mimicry many times and while they fret and agonise and practise like dervishes, I only do impressions if, by some vocal happenstance, I can do them. Or if there are exceptional circumstances ('can you do Russell Grant?' 'pah! wouldn't do him if you fucking paid me' 'five grand?' 'the moon is in Capricorn...don't worry, I'll get him').

Anyway, I'm throwing the impressions away these days rather than making a big matzo pudding out of them and I hope audiences think of me as a comedian who does a few voices. Unless, of course, I'm performing in Nunhead, as I did the following night, where they probably think of me as a cunt who couldn't raise a titter if he tickled a hyena. It was a strange old night. I mean, the venue was in such a remote part of London, my satnav just said, 'fuck it, find it yourself.' It was a mixed bill - magicians, people who just got up and talked for no apparent reason, sketch artistes - and I didn't get on until 11, following a man whose sole raison d'etre was to appear from behind the curtain, wave his penis at the audience and leave. Not your typical comedy night. Not even close. And, in fairness, I raised a few muted laughs, persuaded a few people to smile and even garnered the odd whoop, so it could've been worse, but after the triumph of Jersey, it was a sobering experience

Still, as all comedians know, it's the audience, stupid.

Would It Help If I Died?

2009-11-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

Hope I'm not tempting fate, but I couldn't help thinking as I laboured through the first 200 pages of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, that Stieg Larsson only started shifting shedloads of his Millennium Trilogy after he passed away. I can't see what all the fuss is about. He seems to break every novel-writing rule ever posited. It's slow, laden with exposition, lacks tension, has about a thousand characters - all but three of whom share the same surname - and turns the previously immutable law of show, don't tell on its head. One weighty paragraph is devoted to the detailed technical specifications of various laptops...which is where I decided to put myself out of my misery. I know his politics were laudable and he was, apparently, a wonderful and gifted man, but I can only think that the origins of his must-read popularity have little to do with the quality of his fiction.

James Dean was a decent pretty-boy actor - one of many - who became iconic posthumously having appeared in only three films. Van Gogh was either ridiculed or ignored during his life. Michael Jackson is selling millions more albums now than he was a few months ago. Death, the bandwagon effect, even notoriety, can influence one's judgement. I mean, is Robbie Williams actually any good? Can't put my finger on it but I quite like him -sorry- and it doesn't matter if there are a million better singers. Russell Brand has never made me smile, let alone laugh; others think his hair alone is side-splitting. And what about Picasso? - don't get him at all. Does anyone?

So, what does this all mean? Fuck all, probably. Or maybe that I ought to give serious consideration to swan-diving off Tower Bridge. Ultimately, it's impossible to second guess the public. So what if my books are better than Nick Hornby's or Tony Parsons'? (Bad example - anyone's books are better than Tony Parsons'). But until someone in a position of power comes along and validates me - and the public back his/her judgement by buying my books - no-one will ever know.

Now, where was my submissions list?

Memo to self. Must stop ranting.

Shit, now I've got to write something...

2009-11-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

Seemed like a good idea, this blogging mullarky, but only in the abstract. Now I'm here, I'm not so sure. I've quite enjoyed setting up my account, entering all the info, picking the template et al, but I'm already straining for anything useful to say. Maybe a bit of background will do the trick.

Ex-solicitor, occasional businessman, stand-up comedian/impressionist, writer - aah, yes, that's why I'm here. Ok, in addition to material for my live work, I've written comedy for TV and radio for 12 years, mostly for shows in which I've also appeared. I've been in all sorts stuff - Dead Ringers, Week Ending, Loose Ends, Fordham & Lipson (yes, my own series on Radio 4 - went out at 11am - no-one noticed) and a host of pointless and long-forgotten TV shows (FIFA's 100 Greatest World Cup Goals (ITV4) anyone? Ok, what about Celebrity Squares?...now you're impressed).

I've also written a couple of novels and have my own literary agent (I mean, I share him, obviously, but you get the idea) albeit the only book of mine to hit the shelves so far (my bookcase at home is bending under the strain) was a self-published affair which bore testimony only to utter frustration with the publishing industry and a sudden bout of vanity. Before signing with my agent, another huge agency - they act for a rather successful female writer - was interested in this book but I rather stupidly got on my high horse when I should have revised my manuscript in complete accordance with their suggestions. They know what sells; I don't. Never mind artistic integrity. Lesson learned.

So now I'm plugging away at screenwriting. BBC Films are interested in a screenplay I submitted to them last year. It is taking forever, but I remain hopeful that they'll want to develop it. I'm now writing a sitcom (pilot and episode outlines) which I hope to submit in a few weeks' time. Not sure to whom yet.

There we are. Five paragraphs of nonsense which I'm sure no-one will ever read. But at least I feel virtuous.