SOME MACHINE

Ice Ice Baby!

2011-12-13T20:53:00.000Z

Almost got a prize winning photograph of a baby wearing a bear outfit, looking at me, over his dad's shoulder, with a concerned expression on his face, as hundreds of teddy bears were thrown on to the ice after a hockey match.

I was too slow and missed a great opportunity. I mean for a cool photograph not to see a terrible baby - bear - ice mix up!

Pavlov's Dogs

2011-12-04T20:10:00.001Z

Sketch filth

Cross Ants

2011-11-10T11:25:00.002Z

I was in a cafe and ordered croissants and jam from the menu. I assumed that from the word croissants (and the price of £2.60) that croissants meant more than one croissant.

When one below average sized croissant arrived, the soundtrack to Curb Your Enthusiasm began playing in my head and I said to the waitress “Oh I thought I was maybe getting two croissants? It said on the menu croissants”.

The waitress said she’d go and “check with the chef” then came back to inform me “No it’s only one croissant. It’s a mistake on the menu” followed up with “You’re the first person that’s ever noticed that”.

By this point Larry David had left me in the lurch and instead of saying something like “No, I’m just the first person that’s ever pointed it out” I ended up apologising profusely before tucking in to my breakfast of kings.

The 50p sized jam should help illustrate the scale of the problem.

Weather Shortage

2011-09-19T20:24:00.002+01:00

Scientists somewhere have predicted if we keep using our weather at our current rate that the world’s entire supply of weather will have completely run out by the year 2021. Professor Fibonacci Sequence of the University of some place delivered this statement to an audience of members:

“This is some scary biscuits we’re talking about here, and I don’t mean mutant biscuits with fangs right. First off let me be clear about what we’re not saying, we’re not saying that there will be less weather in the future, what we are saying is that there will be no weather in the future. None. Zilch. Zero! Can you imagine that? It will be neither hot, nor cold, there will be no rain, but it won’t be dry either. Try to imagine lots of weather, like wind, snow, lightning and something else weather related yeah? Right, well now imagine the opposite of that. Scary oyster’s huh? And not the kind of Scary Oysters that wear Halloween masks and turn up at your door with a baseball bat. No sir-ee, we’ve taken the weather for granted for too long, and just like my wife, it’s going to fuck right off, although the weather probably won’t take my children like an evil whore!”

The disappearance of weather could spell disaster for people who rely on climactic features to make a living, such as door to door snow salesmen and those dead sailors who sometimes appear out of the fog. But it’s not all doom and gloom, as the absence of weather will mean there will be no gloom. Plus weather forecasting will become more accurate than ever with nightly reports after the news consisting of a nothing more than a big sheet of paper saying ‘No Weather’.

The challenge now facing the humans is to find a suitable replacement for the weather, and the world’s fattest brains have been meeting this week in an underground tree house to consider the options. One of those options is to replace the weather with a giant floating bum that would pump out different coloured mood gas, but this has been dismissed as both ‘expensive’ and ‘highly unsanitary’,

A more realistic scenario is that the weather will be replaced by Country and Western music. There are some who feel this should have happened years ago, but those people are record company executives living in Nashville. The reality is that Country Music will not be spread evenly across the globe, with the rich countries in the west enjoying a variety of country with fine spells of Johnny Cash, mild Willie Nelson’s, and occasional Dolly Parton’s. The poorer nations will have to suffer relentless repeats of scorching hot Conway Twitty, and millions will be forced to start each day by walking many miles just to collect enough Jim Reeves for their families. Jim Reeves that may be polluted with shit.

Doors Open Days 2011

2011-09-16T16:44:00.000+01:00

During September there’s free access to many buildings across Scotland that are usually closed to the public.

This weekend it’s Glasgow that’s holding its Doors Open Days.

So why not make a visit to a historic abbey, or a trip to a rhubarb pie factory, or both!

If ancient religious buildings, or sweet or savoury fillings inside a pastry casing, aren’t your thing then here are some of my suggestions, from last year, for getting out and exploring Scotland's cultural and architectural heritage.

Week of Champions

2011-09-12T00:30:00.002+01:00

The last 7 days mighty morphed together Power Ranger style into the fearsome Ultramegaweekathon!!!

It featured the combined forces of Scottish Opera’s new production of Orpheus and The Underworld, the Vault Art Glasgow exhibition at The Briggait, a guided tour of Quarriers Village, a night at The Stand Comedy Club, Super 8 at the cinema, a 45 mile cycle, attending a talk titled “Art, Money and Value”, watching simulated sex featuring a man dressed in a gimp fly costume, discovering the perambulatory delights of Milngavie reservoir, dining on “authentic south indian cuisine” and having my portrait drawn by The Drawing Devil for the handsome price of £6.66.

The only blot on the weeks topographic copybook was the game of Russian Poolette I was forced into playing for two days, following the “authentic south indian cuisine”. (To quote a friend of mine “ authentic refers to eating the same as people earning 2p a day”) but at least it turned an ordinary journey on the tube into a high stakes, trouser based, thrill ride!

And no matter how debauched the forthcoming Year of Hero’s, and Decade of the Gods, becomes I can be secure in the knowledge that I will remain the image of male perfection whilst my devil painted portrait takes on all my sins. For as you can see, it hath already started working.

10 Energy Saving Tips

2011-09-06T19:23:00.001+01:00

I received my gas bill today, along with a letter informing me that homeowners in the UK waste a staggering £2.9 billion on energy every year. Fortunately there are things you, and I, can do about this as Scottish Gas also enclosed a booklet full of helpful tips and advice on how to save money, stay warm this winter, and become more energy efficient.

Here are their top ten tips:

Don’t burn gas unnecessarily. Many people think it’s cheaper to keep gas continuously lit on their cookers rather than to turn it off and on again as required - this is a mad wives tale! Turning the gas off after you’ve used the cooker could reduce your bills by up to 33%.

Did you know that heating your home counts for over 60% of domestic gas bills? Turning your heating down by one degree could make a 10% reduction to your monthly bill. Turning your heating off completely could give you a saving of over 60% on your bill. In winter the amount of gas used for heating rises dramatically so turning off your heating in winter could save you even more money!

Energy saving lightbulbs last ten times longer than traditional energy costing bulbs and save around £40 over the lifetime of the bulb. 100 energy saving lightbulbs would save you £4000 whilst buying 10,000 energy saving lightbulbs would save you over £400,000!

Use the economy programme on your washing machine wherever possible, or wear your clothes for longer periods without washing them. In the same way that human hair left untouched will eventually start to wash itself*, soiled items of clothing will eventually start to clean themselves**. After a year of continually wearing the same clothes they will look and smell as good as new!

Reduce heating bills by the use of visualisation techniques. Psychologists have shown that projecting your thoughts can have actual physiological effects on the body. Imagining you're soaking up the suns rays on a topical island paradise, whilst you’re wearing a jumper, and the jumper is on fire, could save you over £80 on your winter fuel costs. Whereas imagining you are standing at the North Pole, in your underwear, and your underwear is full of ice-cubes could add over £164 to your winter fuel bill.

Exercise is a great way of staying warm, and best of all it’s absolutely free. Star jumps, squat thrusts and press ups will all significantly raise your body core temperature. As long as you exercise continually throughout the winter, without stopping, your body sweat won't freeze and you can avoid hypothermia. Exercise has additional health benefits, particularly for the elderly as it helps to keep their circulation going and is a great alternative to freezing to death because they can’t afford to pay their heating bills.

Baths and electric showers use large quantities of energy so switch to more efficient methods of keeping clean such as sand baths, as used by indigenous tribes peoples in arid habitats like the bushmen of the Kalahari. Bathing in sand, or dirt, absorbs bodily oils and not only has the benefit of saving water but also helps to keep flies and insects away.

Most heat loss from the human body escapes from the top of the head, and the same is true for your house. You can reduce your carbon emissions and decrease heat loss by having one of our qualified engineers install a large hat on top of your roof. A giant sombrero, or a ten thousand gallon stetson, can insulate your home in winter and reduce your heating bills by up to 46%. Government grants are also available to help the over 70’s and those on low incomes purchase home balaclavas.

Keep warm this winter by building a thick insulating layer of blubber. Just 10cm of blubber could save you £15 a month whereas a 200cm layer of blubber could save over £200 a month. Eating several tons of krill on a daily basis throughout the short summer months will help your body produce blubber thick enough to withstand sub zero temperatures, but will also help you to avoid the need for heating food during the winter as you will be able to survive for months on your own fatty deposits. Alternatively our friendly technicians can install a layer of cavity wall insulation directly under your skin.

Hibernation is another great way of reducing your winter fuel bills. By dropping your body temperature, and slowing your breathing and heart rate, you will become impervious to the cold and sleep right through until spring. If hibernation isn’t your thing then why not try migrating south for the winter. Monarch butterflies spend the summer in Canada and migrate to Mexico for the winter, whereas the CEO of Scottish Gas and spends the summer in the Seychelles and the winter relaxing in an exclusive beach resort somewhere in the Maldives. Adopting the lifestyles of our animal cousins could help save you £££s!

*It doesn’t, you just get used to the smell.
**It doesn’t, you just get used to the smell.

Kebaballet

2011-08-29T00:56:00.007+01:00

Last night I went to a performance by Scottish Ballet at the Edinburgh International Festival. As Jim Bowen used to say “You can’t beat a bit of ballet”, and this is especially true when you can watch incredible dancing and listen to beautiful music for less than the cost of watching a twenty something comedian’s floppy hair for an hour.

I must confess I’m more a fan of contemporary ballet than the classical ballet canons and so I found the two pieces performed last night both visually and aurally absorbing. The first piece ‘Kings 2 Ends’ was a collision of the two very different energies found in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 1 and Steve Reich’s Double Sextet. Both lyrical and playful, the vibrant choreography invited the audience to simply immerse themselves in the piece and to discover their own personal meaning.

The second piece ‘Song of the Earth’ explored man’s struggle to accept mortality, with the Messenger of Death stalking the action throughout, and the hope and renewal that comes with death. It was set to a live performance of Gustav Mahler’s song cycle Das Lied von der Erde, the lyrics to which, as you’ll know, are translated from a collection of eighth century Chinese poems that offer bittersweet reflections on human emotion.

However, the most fascinating thing about this evening occurred during the interval when a rotund and heavily bearded man appeared at the front of the stalls and started shouting “Kebabs! Getcher kebabs! Get ‘em while their hot!".

He wore a tray around his neck, containing pitta bread and salad and a small hand-cranked turntable with a vertical spit which was laden with doner meat.

“Getcher Tasty Kebabs!"

I think, like me, many of the audience expected instead to see an usherette selling overpriced tubs of ice cream or tiny bottles of vino, and so were a little taken back to see a kebab salesman hawking his meaty products during a ballet.

“Hot and Spicey, Oh so Nicey!"

Although the Turkish meat vendor had ‘the gift of the kebab’, it looked like he would be without any takers, but the smell of his hot meat soon began to pervade the auditorium. I found myself compelled to join a lengthy queue that had formed in order to sample his wares. My enquiry as to the type of meat on offer received the reply “Good Meat”.

The second half of the ballet began with the dancers sliding about on bits of kebab grease but somehow the taste of the doner provided the perfect counterpoint to the acrobatic movements on stage, whilst the spicy chili sauce only served to heighten the effect of Mahler's unconventional arrangement of orchestral forces.

In the hands of a lesser meat choreographer this mixture of ballet and kebab could have left a pitta taste in the mouth but instead it provided such a cornucopia of sensations that it kept this reviewers taste-buds dancing long after the final curtain.

Four stars!

More meat based ballet analysis

Welcome To The Club - Part 3

2011-08-24T23:18:00.008+01:00

For the background to Welcome To The Club please take look inside Mr Smith's Cabinet of Curiosities.

Here's Part San.

Fringe Recommendations

2011-08-21T14:32:00.005+01:00

I've only spent a couple of days seeing stuff at the Fringe so far this year but these are some shows I would heartily recommend.

Meryl O'Rourke 'Bad Mother..' 2.45pm at the Underbelly

John Scott 'Totally Made Up' 5pm at The Beehive

Raymond Mearns 'Everything You Wanted To Know About Stress But Were Afraid To Ask' 8.15pm at The Stand.

Koyaanisqatsi

2011-08-15T22:29:00.004+01:00

On Saturday I saw/heard Philip Glass performing in front of the film Koyaanisqatsi at the Edinburgh International Festival.

If I ever go back to performing stand up I'm going to use this as my intro music.. all 83 minutes of it.. Then I'm going to come on stage dressed as a Hopi Indian and I'm going to and start chanting, then weeping, then shaking my fist at the audience, and then I'm going to smash up a computer.

Welcome To The Club - Part 2

2011-08-11T17:12:00.002+01:00

Comedy Whore

2011-08-02T20:14:00.004+01:00

I cycled to Balmaha on Thursday, stayed the night in a bunkhouse, got up early the next day, hired a kayak, went exploring some of the islands on Loch Lomond, and then cycled back home. I used to do stuff like this, but I stopped about 15 years ago when I was seduced. Seduced by a whore.

Her name was Comedy. I was intoxicated from the moment I laid eyes on her and she quickly became my life. When friends asked me if I was coming out to play I’d say I was busy, because all I wanted to do was spend time with my new love. We were at it, like rabbits, nearly every night and we were happy together she and I. That was until the arguments started.

“You’re seeing someone else aren’t you?” She’d yell, “Who is she? Hillwalking? Photography? Oh god, it’s that bitch stamp collecting is it?”

“I’ve not seen stamp collecting for years and when would I have time to see Hillwalking? I’m with you 24 hours a day”

“Oh so that’s it, you’re with me but you’d much rather be doing something else?”

“How can you even say that? I moved to London to be with you remember?”

“Yeah but you moved back home pretty sharpish. You don’t love me anymore do you?!!”

“Of course I do. It’s just-”

“Just what?”

“Just that, well, I never know where I standup with you anymore. One night everything between us is fantastic, we have a great laugh, but then the next night you give me the silent treatment”

“Well maybe if you paid a bit more attention to me, your punchlines might go down better!”

Comedy’s constant need for reassurance became wearing and as the years past that firm breasted sparkly eyed beauty became a saggy-titted, dead eyed, syphilitic whore whose once seductive tones had been replaced by a deep gravely rasping smokers wheeze.

When I thought about spending a little time doing away from comedy. She’d get insanely jealous and start screaming “You can’t do anything else! You’d be nothing without me!”

And for a while I believed that, but I knew our relationship had changed, we both had, and one night I’d just had enough and walked out.

“You can’t live without me. You’ll be back!!”

And she was right, the evil bitch knew that I could never leave her, not completely, but I try not to spend all my time with her now, and have other interests outside comedy. And if she doesn’t like that, well she can go fuck herself!

Just please don’t tell her I said that.

How Not To Pick Up Chicks

2011-07-27T15:34:00.006+01:00

Earlier this year I started work on a book idea called 1001 Things Not To Do Before You Die. A list of pointless activities, stupid challenges and wastes of time. The sorts of activities to which I have dedicated my entire life.

But it soon became clear there was a problem with this idea, because one of the things that could be added to a list of things not to do before you die would be to write a book called 1001 Things Not To Do Before You Die, because someone else has already written a book called 1001 Things Not To Do Before You Die.

Despite continuing to write a book called 1001 Things Not To Do Before You Die, when there is already a book called 1001 Things Not To Do Before You Die, being the ultimate pointless activity I abandoned the project in search of an idea with that may have slightly more chance of being published.

I put on my thinking pants and came up with an idea about a boy wizard with magical powers who, together with his friends, battles to overcome the forces of evil. I thought it could make a really great series of fantasy books aimed at children. But then, whilst browsing in a book shop, I discovered, to my horror, that once again someone had got there before me with the same idea. Apparently its sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide, so I’ve no idea how I missed it, but for some reason I’d just never come across The Bible*

I then wrote almost 250,000 words of a tragic novel, set in the fictional English countryside before the start of the industrial revolution, that I called 'The Lord of Casterbridge' when I discovered that Thomas Hardy had written a book called 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'. It was identical to what I had written in almost every respect except, on page 140, the main character eats a cold meat pie whereas in my version it was hot. I can only conclude that the plagiarising bastard stole my idea, 125 years before I had it!!

My other novel ideas turned out to be not so novel either and I had to abandon a children’s book I’d written called ‘Alison’s Adventures In Wonderland’, a classic boys-own adventure story called ‘The Thirty-Eight Steps’, my dystopian fantasy ‘Bold New World’, a revenge thriller set in France at the time of Bonaparte ‘The Count of Conte Bisto’, a story about racial prejudice in the Deep South ‘To Kill a Mockingcat’, and even novel set before the Russian revolution about a married woman’s passion for forbidden fruit ‘Banana Karenina’.

No matter how original an idea I thought I’d come up with it always turned out that some swine had already stolen the idea before I’d come up with it. After discovering someone had thieved my idea ‘Charlie and The Coco Factory’ I was all set to throw my pen into Mount Doom. It seemed as if every idea there was had already been done. Was there anything I had knowledge of to which no one else was party?

And that’s when I had my Ulrika moment - I realised that over the years I’ve dated someone the world’s most beautiful women, including top supermodels and Hollywood actresses**. I’ve made sweet love to over 100,000 women**, from Eskimo chicks to horny tribeswoman from regions of the Amazonian rain forest as yet un-touched-up by modern civilisation - I should put pen to laptop so that lesser mortals could benefit from the wisdom I’ve gathered over many years as the the world’s number one ladies man!

For I wasn’t always the studmuffin you read before you. No sir, my journey from zero to hero began many moons ago when I came across a newspaper article about a young boy child who was abandoned in the jungle and raised by a pack of feral women. When he was discovered by scientists, some twenty tears later, he was living like a woman, he had over thirty pairs of shoes, and he could only communicate via his emotions.

It was then I realised that if ever I was going to conquer my fear of women that I must first learn to think like a woman, and to learn to think like a women I must live like a woman. No sooner had I disguised myself as a beautiful woman, than I was inundated with invites to girly nights out, pajama parties, coffee mornings, hen dos and bitch-fests. I was accepted as ‘one of the girls’ and had access to their innermost secrets and desires. So successful and attractive was I as a ladyman, that I even managed to enter Miss World. But as I say I also dressed up as a woman.

Immersing myself in the world of womankind gave me incredible incite into what women want, but more importantly into what women really want when they say what they want but mean they actually want something completely different. It was through my intimate understanding of the female of the species that I started writing the ultimate guide book to picking up chicks.

I began by mapping out some the basics into chapters such as 20 Most Effective Chat Up Lines To Use On Aborigine Women, MILFS GILFS and GGILFS, Tips For Pulling Lesbians and How To Have Sex With Ghosts.

Then last week it happened again I found out that a TV celebrity has written a dating guidebook, that's coming out in September. So that was that idea ferkqwereackered.

But then I had another Ulrika moment..

What if I wrote a book on How Not To Pick Up Chicks?

Over the years I’ve not slept with literally billions of women. I could use the many thousands of disastrous dates, and relationships that I’ve ballsed up, to help out those poor men who are highly successful in affairs of the heart and teach them the skills they need in order to learn how not to pick up chicks***.

It’s still early days but I’ve mapped out a few chapters including How Not To Talk To Girls, Worst Places To Meet Chicks, Chat Up Lines Guaranteed Not To Work, Dress To Unimpress, How To Look Desperate, 100 Great First Date Faux Pas, Talk About Your Ex, The Importance Of Impotence, Secrets Of Stalking, and Dying Alone.

*Comparing Harry Potter and his friends to ‘JC and The Boys’ will no doubt been done before too.

**in my mind.

***Using the word ‘chicks’ is just one example of how not to pick up chicks.

Welcome To The Club

2011-07-21T19:04:00.002+01:00

Here's part one of the documentary Welcome To The Club by The Atrocity Machine.

FIVE LONG YEARS

2011-07-16T23:12:00.021+01:00

Can it really be five years, to the day, that I first put pen to computer and started writing this blog? Five years since this blogs humble beginnings with a small post about seeing a man getting a BJ in the street right around the corner from Strathclyde police headquarters?

Back then my head swam with the endless possibilities for a young man, reasonably well educated, and with his whole blog ahead of him. For I had not long arrived in the big city, where I hoped to find adventure and seek my fortune. A fortune so large that I could return to my village, with a hero’s welcome, kick that fat squire out on his backside, and reinstate my family to their rightful place as members of society.

That day would come, of that I was of no doubt, but for now I concerned myself with more concerning matters. I had heard that there was work to be had for ambitious comedy writers down the docks.

The port was a hive of activity, with sailors, joiners, boatswains, pilots, wheel tappers, powder monkeys, barrel makers and coopers all buzzing about. The first ship I tried my luck aboard was a four masted frigate The Dandy Nicholls. I inquired after the ship’s captain, and was pointed in the direction of a bluff old sea dobber by the name of Captain Nobeard.

“Arrrrrse. So, ye be a wanting a job aboard The Dandy Nicholls eh?” said the Captain “Tell me lad what experience do ye have?”

“Well sir. I’ve written for several high profile comedians and a number of TV comedy shows.”

“Have ye ever written a sketch about a woman coming home and finding her husband in bed with a grizzly bear?”

“Why yes sir. Several times”

“Let me finish boy! Have you ever written a sketch about a woman coming home and finding her husband in bed with a grizzly bear, during a force ten gale in the middle of the Sargasso sea, with fifty foot waves crashing all around you and 5.30pm deadline?”

“Well no sir. But I’m sure I could think of a punchline if you’d just give-”

“I’m sorry lad. There be over a hundred sailors aboard this vessel. I can’t take that chance”.

The story was the same aboard every ship I visited. Tired and rejected I sought respite in a small tavern. It was a rough sort of place but after dining on bread and cheese my spirits lifted and I consoled myself that perhaps a life joke writing upon the high seas wasn’t for me. Besides writing topical one liners aboard a schooner bound for the Indies would be at least a six year voyage, and I did not relish the thought of leaving behind my darling Gemimimima in the clutches of that black hearted rogue of a squire.

I was aroused from my ruminations by a kerfuffle that had broken out near the fire.

“I say, what’s going on? What are those swarthy looking gentlemen up to” I enquired of a comely serving wench.

“Pressgang” she replied.

“The early 90s, youth orientated comedy drama series with Julia Sawalha?”

“No silly. Those men work for the shipping companies. Why pay to have comedy writer aboard your boat when there are so many out of work writers they can pressgang into working for free?”

“The scoundrels! Shouldn’t we go and help that fellow?”

“Not unless you want to be writing mildly amusing letters to the Metro, from the cargo hold of a dutch clipper, for the rest of your life. If you value your freedom you’d best follow me!”.

I did as she instructed and followed her through a doorway at the back of the Inn, whereupon we found ourselves in a quiet alleyway.

“Now suppose you give me what’s in your trousers”

I must confessed I was much taken a back by this unusual request.

“Madam I hardly know you”.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way”

I shrugged my shoulders “Erm. The hard way?”

And with that I felt a sharp blow from behind.

I don’t know how long I was out for but I awoke to find a elderly gentleman, who’s attire suggested he was a man of some standing, standing above me.

“Are you alright?” he enquired with a tone of concern “I found you lying here. I thought at first that perhaps you were dead”.

"Perhaps I am". My head throbbed but my first thought as I regained consciousness was that old joke about waking up in a dentists chair with your trousers on back to front. Thank god trousers were still where I left them, and fully in tact. Then I felt for the familiar bulge in my pocket. It was missing!

“I’ve been robbed! They’ve taken it!”

“Taken what?” enquired the kindly old gentlemen “your cock?”

“My comedy notebook! It had all my jokes in it, and some ideas for a film about things not to do before you die”.

“Oh you’re a comedy writer are you? I don’t suppose you’re looking for a commission at the moment?”

“What? Why yes?” I replied quite startled by such an unusual turn of events “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I am the proprietor of a small Internet factory. My name is Wilberforce Scribbins”

Coming Soon Part 2 Terror At The Hands of 40,000ft!!

Lucky Dips

2011-07-11T22:50:00.006+01:00

The world's first IVF lottery is being launched in Britain this month offering childless couples the chance to win a baby. Surely that’s just rubbing it in that they’re having difficulty making babies when they’re already doing the lottery every time they have sex?

It seems a bit insensitive to make childless couples compete in a lottery to win a baby when presumably the reason they need fertility treatment is because the balls have never been be lucky for them.

There’s surely a fairer way of deciding who is is allowed IVF treatment? Like making childless couples throw hoops over some test tubes.

What are they going to do next bring out fertility scratch-cards called ‘Lucky Dips’? Lucky Dips being what couples who are desperate for a baby call having sex.

And next what’s going to be next, scratch cards for people waiting for an organ donation? “Ooh a heart.. And another heart!.. I just need one more to for a transplant!.. Damn it’s a lemon”.

The IVF lottery tickets will be available in newsagents and cost £20 each. Which is a truly magical way to begin the miracle of childbirth. They could at least make the process a bit closer to how most babies are conceived by selling the lottery tickets round the back of kebab shops on a saturday night.

What happens if two couples numbers come up in the IVF lottery? Do they decide who gets the baby with a King Solomon style spilt decision?

Or what if no ones numbers come up? Will they keep having rollovers until some poor bastard wins octuplets?

And what are you supposed to tell your child when they get older and start asking difficult questions? It’s hard enough telling a child they were adopted without telling them they came into this world because you were blessed when the stock revealed three fetus’s on a scratch-card. (Yes I know it’s basically the same joke as the one about organ donor scratch card)

As with the National Lottery there will eventually be lots of other fertility lotteries to play, offering even more chances to win a baby. Such as the EuroIVF lottery where the country you win a baby from is a lottery. Although the chances are it’s probably going to be Romania. It’ll probably be called the EuroGazillions in reference to the amount of sperm involved.

Not only does the IVF lottery exploit people that are desperate for a baby it also exploits those with gambling addictions. Sure they might end up winning a baby but how are they going to afford to bring it up when they’ve sold their house, and kidneys, in order to to win it.

Rather than waste their money on a fertility lottery childless couples would be better off doing what everyone else does when trying to make a baby and spend their money on cider and porn.

Motley Virgin

2011-07-04T11:34:00.002+01:00

American musician Tommy Lee, from the glam metal band Mott the Hoople, revealed today that he has never had sex.

“I decided to come clean about being a virgin after an article appeared on the internet saying that Mick Hucknall, the lead singer of Simply Ginger, had slept with over a billion women. People were coming up to me and saying if that ginger nutsack of shit has slept with a billion women then you must have slept with every female on the planet.. twice!

But nothing could be further than the truth because I’ve had sex with exactly zero women. Somehow I've got this reputation as a hard rocking, groupie cocking, sex machine, but the reality is that I’m shy.

I’m not saying I don’t like woman, because I do, it’s just that when ever I try to talk to a woman that I like I get all tongue tied and end up making a complete fool of myself.

People think that just because I’m rich, and in a famous band, I must get women throwing their tits at me all the time.. I wish!!

I think my reputation puts a lot of women off. They see me as unapproachable, and usually go off and have sex with the other members of the band, or give the roadies bj’s in the toilets. That’s why I want people to know the truth, that I’m not such an unapproachable person, I’m no different from any other rock star. Apart from the fact I’m a virgin.

I know there will be people out there who won’t believe that I’ve never done the business with a lady woman, those people probably saw the sex tape of me and Pamela Anderson. But in fact nothing ever happened between Pamela and I, the film just looked that way because of the of lighting and camera angles.

I wanted to have sex with Pamela, but she kept saying she wanted to wait. I thought that after we got married I’d finally get to have sexy sex time, but even after we were wed she still kept saying she wanted to wait.

I never even got a glimpse of her big plastic knockers. Unlike just about everyone else. It was a very frustrating time for me.

Being a virgin didn’t use to bother me, but as I’ve gotten older I worry that it might never happen. I’ve thought about going to a prostitute, but I wouldn’t even know where to start finding one, even though the rest of the band insist on a dozen hookers being laid on backstage after a gig.

Another rumour I’d like to settle is that I have a ten-inch penis.. If only!!

My cock measures two and half inches, and that’s when fully erect. My tiny penis is probably one of the things that has made me shy of women. I know people always say ‘it’s not size that matters, it’s what you do with it that counts’, but I’ve got a tiny dongle and I don’t know what to do with it!

At least now that I’ve got my dick out in the open, so to speak, if any woman does consent to have sexual intercourse with me she can’t say I misrepresented the size of my winky.

I just hope that one day I’ll finally meet a female lady who I can spend some quality time with, holding hands and going for romantic walks along the beach. And who will let me my put my pigmy's tinkle inside her lady garden.”

Sex, Pies and Hucknall

2011-06-21T00:55:00.006+01:00

Mick Hucknall, lead singer of pop group Simply Ginger, says he’s ready to settle down following claims by himself that he has slept with over one billion women.

“In my younger, wilder years, I was addicted to sex and must have slept with a quarter of the world’s female population at one time or other. At the height of my fame I was having sex with over 750,000 women a day, I was insatiable. Simply Ginger would be playing to crowds of 60,000, but backstage I’d have twice that number of women waiting for me to come off stage and have sex with them”

Mick believes that having sex with so many women was a result of an addictive personality and it was around this time that he developed his eating disorder.

“When I wasn’t having sex I was eating pies, I was eating twice my own body weight in pies every couple of hours. I knew I couldn’t carry on eating pies and having sex at such a rate and so I checked myself into a rehabilitation clinic. But even in rehab my tour manager was able to sneak in seven or eight thousand women a day for me to have sex with.

But the staff soon became suspicious because off all the sounds of female sexual gratification coming from my room, and also because of the seven or eight thousand women that were standing in a queue outside my door. They sent me to see a string of sex therapists, but the results were always the same, within seconds of meeting them they’d be having sex with me.

I can’t really blame all these women for having sex with me. I blame my incredible good looks, animal magnetism and magnificent ginger balls that are like the Tardis, except my balls are smaller on the inside than they are on the outside. I’m not stupid I know that my wealth and fame must had something to do with one, possibly even two of the billion plus women I’ve had sex with, but mainly it’s down to my looks, magnetism and tiny ginger balls”.

One woman who slept with Mick is 97 year old Li Ming Huan from a remote hill village in Guangdong province China.

“I had sex with Mick in the back of his limousine, along with several hundred women from my village and the surrounding countryside. He was a very considerate lover, and I really thought I’d met the man of my dreams, but when he’d finished gratifying himself, he called us a fleet of rickshaws, and we haven’t heard from since. I thought Mick really cared for me, and the other women from my village and surrounding countryside, but he turned out to be just like every other millionaire pop star with a sex addiction. I thought we had something really special together, but he just used me, used me for sex”

Mick says that his days of having sex with entire villages and the surrounding countryside are behind him, and he is now looking for the right woman to settle down with, a woman that can offer him what he needs, a combination of sex and pies.

Joining a Dentists

2011-06-07T00:39:00.010+01:00

At the start of the year I thought it was about time I got my teeth into shape so I decided to join a dentists.

I checked out quite a few dentists, some of them were pretty basic, spit and polish type places, but I decided to join one of those fancy new dentists that have all the latest equipment - polishers, scrapers, electric toothbrushes, drills, and flossing machines.

I must admit it was quite intimidating going along the first time but there was only two other people at my induction session so it wasn’t too painful and the orthodontists showed us how to use all the equipment before letting us try it out for ourselves.

The noise of the drilling can be a bit irritating but eventually you learn to drown out the sound of people rinsing their mouths and concentrate on your own teeth. It's also funny watching the way men in the dentists start brushing their teeth like mad every time an attractive woman walks past!

To get the full benefit of the dentists you really have to being going about three times a week but it wasn’t long before I was giving my teeth a good workout nearly every day. I found it was a great way to reduce stress and I started to see my teeth getting whiter, which in turn gave me a real confidence boost.

Before I knew it I was cleaning my teeth twice, sometimes three times a day, but I wasn’t seeing the sorts of gains in whiteness that I had initially been getting.

I’d noticed there were a few posers in the dentists who seemed to have really white teeth, but I knew they didn’t get that way through brushing alone. Then one day when I was in the changing rooms this big toothed guy approached me and asked if I wanted to buy some tooth whitener. I must admit I was tempted - but it’s a mugs game - sure it makes your teeth whiter in the short term but it also makes you more aggressive and shrinks your cock!

It was also getting increasingly difficult to get on any of the dental equipment. As soon as you got on the cross polisher someone would appear and say “Are you going to be on that long mate” and it was difficult to have a good polish with them hanging about watching you.

Work commitments also meant it was getting harder to find time for visiting the dentists. I missed a couple of dental appointments, then once I’d stopped going it became harder and harder to go back.

I've now cancelled my expensive dentists membership and bought a dental chair and some basic scrapers, so now I can enjoy cleaning my teeth at home as little, or as often, as I like!

Michael Bolton’s Moon Boy Joy!

2011-05-28T16:56:00.008+01:00

Last night the peoples of the world were treated to the first public outing of the baby born to singer Michael Bolton and the moon.

The new moon, named Moon Bolton by his delighted parents, weighs a healthy three hundred and fifty thousand million tonnes, and is the result of the NASA mission to study the effects of crashing Michael Bolton’s cock into the moon.

The moon decided on a space birth, without the aid of drugs, in accordance with Bolton’s belief in the religion of Spaceology. And yesterday evening over half the planet gazed up in wonder as the moon gave birth, out of a giant vaginal crater, to a half moon half Michael Bolton.

Proud father Michael gave the following statement:

“It’s all happened so fast, I can hardly believe it. It feels like a only a matter of days since my cock was slammed into the moon, and now look at me - I’m a dad! I’m so proud of the moon for giving me a beautiful son. He’s definitely got his mother’s barren rocky features and lack of gravity, but he’s got my hair, and boy has he got a set of lungs on him. I think he wants to follow his old man into the music business. I don’t know how easy that’ll be for a lump of rock orbiting the earth 150,000 kilometres away, but then I didn’t think when I was a growing up that one day I’d get to fuck the moon!”.

For baby Moon Bolton, getting an audience won’t be not a problem, and he’ll be appearing in the night sky, for the next two billion years, and treating the human population and whatever evolutionary stage dominates the planet after their inevitable demise, to some of his father’s classic hits such as ‘I’ve got you under my skin’, ‘Sexual Healing’ and ‘Wassa matter you hey shudduppa your face’.

Tearings

2011-05-23T22:39:00.007+01:00

The idea I had rejected on Dragon’s Den was ‘Tearings’.

I wanted a £50,000 investment in return for a 100% share of my company.

Essentially Tearings are Tea bags that you wear as earrings. They’re stylish fashion accessories but they’re also right handy when you’re out and about and are gasping for a brew.

The Tearings come with handy adjustable strings that allow you to dunk you bags with a simple dip of the ear.

And that's not all because each set of Tearings comes with a handy cup sized TV magician Pete Firman attachment.

Michael Bolton’s Penis Smashes Into The Moon

2011-05-19T22:39:00.004+01:00

NASA was congratulating itself this week on the successful completion of an eight year mission to smash singer Michael Bolton’s erect penis into the surface of the moon.

The American crooner, who had chart success with ‘When a man loves a woman’ had a massive hit of a very different kind when he hit the surface of the moon, erection first, at over 15,000 km per hour, on the early hours of Thursday morning.

Director of Spacecock research Dr. Dick Jupiter:

“This is the first time we’ve been able to study the effects of Michael Bolton’s engorged member smashing into the moon. We’ll be able to collect invaluable data from the crash site, such as accurate measurements of a penile induced crater. We believe Michael Bolton’s cock travelling at such high velocity may have resulted in a crater several hundred meters across, but only 2inches deep.

We’re currently trying to get Michael Bolton’s penis back on line, and we’re optimistic that if any of his systems are still functioning we may be able to activate his thrust mechanism, thus allowing us to observe what the effect of fucking the moon might be. We hope to gather spectacular images of one of the universes most awesome sights - zero gravity ejaculation.

Up until now there’s just been a lot of speculation as to the effect of spunking on the moon. It’s not known whether the jizz would fly out off Micheal Bolton’s helmet and go into orbit around the moon, or whether his powerfully fertile spunk will impregnate the moon, and result in the birth of a new half moon, half Michael Bolton type thing. The bottom line if we just don’t know, yet.”

Despite the scientific interest the mission has been criticised by many who believe the 15 billion dollar cost was too high a price to pay for smashing a soft rock balladeer’s pork sword into the moon, and that the money could be better spent on other things, like some really nice curtains.

Dr Jupiter says the critics “Should shut the fuck up! What makes us truly human is our thirst for knowledge, it’s nothing to do with curtains, no matter how nice and new they might be. We brainy types are attempting to answer the big questions. Why are we here? Are we alone? And what happens if you smash Michael Bolton’s cock into the moon?”

As for the question of why, of all the cocks they could have used, they chose Michael Bolton’s cock, Dr Jupiter says “Were you not fucking listening? I’ll tell you why Michael Bolton’s cock - because why not Michael Bolton’s cock, that’s why Michael Bolton’s cock!”

The race is now on to be the first nation to send Jessica Simpson’s tits into the sun.

Curried Paranoia

2011-05-12T13:52:00.000+01:00

I’m sure most people have said things that they then worried might be misinterpreted.. but here’s a minor incident from a while back that illustrates saying something that sounded inappropriate when taken either the way it was intended or otherwise.

I’d been invited to meet up for a coffee by a female producer, to discuss doing some work. After the meeting the producer asked me what I was up to for the rest of the day ..

I said I was going to get something to eat before meeting up with a stand up friend who was gigging that evening in Glasgow. She said she was also planning on going for something to eat as her train wasn’t for another couple of hours. So we went for a curry together.

Towards the end of the curry she said “Oh, my stomach is getting a good work out”

To which I replied “Oh, you’ll be getting a good work out later on too!”

This was followed by awkward silence..

I was trying to make an, admittedly not very funny, joke about curry resulting in problems in the toilet department.

But it wasn’t the inappropriate implication that after her curry she might expect some toilet based action that worried me most.. Because to emphasize that I was cracking a crap gag I swung my arm to make a “Way-hey!” gesture..

Immediately after doing this I became paranoid that the phrase “You’ll be getting a good work out later on too!” could be interpreted as implying some kind of sexual workout.. especially as I had combined those words with an arm movement that didn’t look entirely dissimilar from one that might be used in a Carry-On film and accompanied by the word “Pwoarr!!”

However, for a number of reasons it didn’t seem appropriate to make clear that my remark had referred to the possibility of heavy shitting action rather than hot cock action.

Firstly because it was inappropriate enough to talk about poo-ing at the dinner table the first time without then spelling it out.

Secondly because it might have looked like I was suggesting they didn’t understand a basic poo joke, and I’d make myself look like one of those embarrassing people that think other people haven’t laughed at their jokes because they didn’t get them, rather than because what they’d said was obvious and unfunny.

And thirdly because it was possible that she might never have thought of the comment as being a sexual remark, unless I pointed it out to her that it wasn’t, but now that I had pointed it out she might be thinking that it was meant in that way even though it wasn’t.

And now I’m paranoid that anyone reading this will be wondering how on earth someone can function in life by over analysing ever detail of social interaction..

And now I’m paranoid that anyone reading this might think that I really had meant the comment in a pervy way, but that I’d come up with an pathetic explanation about how I’d actually meant the remark to be about poo in order to cover my tracks...

And now I’m paranoid that no one reading this would be thinking that I’d only come up with an explanation about how I’d meant the remark to be about poo in order to cover my tracks, over an inappropriate pervy comment, until I mentioned that just then....

Or maybe I’m just being a bit paranoid?

The Burnistoun Boys Slide show

2011-05-09T19:20:00.000+01:00

Tune in the final episode in the current series of Burnistoun, on BBC One Scotland, tonight at 10.35pm.

Here's a link to a most amusing audio slide show where Robert and Iain talk about writing Burnistoun.

(see if you can spot me)

( I'll give you a clue. I'm wearing a somewhat embarrassing outfit)

The Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine

2011-05-05T20:46:00.010+01:00

Hi I’m George Forman, and I’d like to tell you fine looking people about my Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine.

You know back when I was training for a fight I used to go into the gym every day in order to get my bottom into top condition.

I’d spend hours working out on the Big Bum Bag and when my sweet cheeks couldn’t take any more punishment, my coach would line up all the guys in the gym and let them pound away on my ass until my buttocks were black and blue.

I knew my posterior had to learn take a beating if I was to become the Heavyweight Bare Bum Boxing Champion of the World.

But once I stopped working out my derriere got so big I had to drag my sorry behind behind me in a reverse wheelbarrow.

I needed help to reduce my massive backside down to a manageable size and that’s when I discovered the Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine.

I swear that after only 16 hours a day, everyday, for five years, with my big ol' buns in the Ass Reducing Machine, my rear end was smaller, firmer, silkier and more manageable, than it had been in years.

My Ass looked 10 years younger!

I felt as if I could take Mohammad Ali in the ring and still go cheek to cheek with Larry 'The Ass Man' Holmes!

The Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine is so simple to use.. Just strap your gluteus maximus into the compartment and let the thousands of tiny knives do the work for you!

When your bahookie has reduced to the size you want it - small, medium, or rare - you simply remove the straps and buy yourself some new pants. It really is as easy as that!

But that’s not all because my Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine is the only Ass Reduction System with patented Ass Fat Collection Technology.. Simply drain off the Ass Fat at the end of every session and you’ve got yourself a refreshing glass of Ass Juice!

Drink it straight or just add some of my George Foreman’s Mighty Tasty Ass Powder to make delicious Ass Shakes in a range of Ass-tonishing flavours that everyone will love including Crab, Squirrel and Onions, and Ready Salted.

And the Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine is low, low, low maintenance. It can handle the fattest, plumpest, Asses!

And it’s environmental friendly too, because it prevents the release of poisonous Ass Gas, unlike like some other rump shrinking products I could mention.

So isn’t it about time you ditched your old Joe Frazier’s Smoke Producing Buttock Reducing Contraption and got yourself the undisputed world champion of Ass shrinking equipment?

The George Foreman Clean Green Ass Reducing Machine - It’s so good I even put my Ass on it!

Booty call today whilst stocks last.

Recycling Jokes

2011-05-01T19:34:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I cycled along the banks of Loch Katrine, Loch Arklet, Loch Chon and Loch Ard.

Four Lochs?

It is so true.

Loch Katrine

Loch Arklet

Loch Chon

Loch Ard

I went round Ben Vane, to Stronachlachar, on to Aberfoyle and then over the Duke's Pass.

Trossachs?

How very dare you!!

How to destroy your feet the west highland way.

2011-04-28T21:01:00.010+01:00

Here’s my advice for destroying a perfectly good pair of feet on the West Highland Way.

Preparation is the key. You want to be carrying far more stuff than you’ll ever need, or indeed is physically impossible to carry for long distances without SAS training.

For maximum foot discomforturation I recommend carrying -

Tent (two man)

Sleeping bag

Self inflating mattress

Puncture repair kit (in case self inflating mattress gets a puncture)

Water proof jacket (the heavy one that’s more suitable for winter walking)

Water proof trousers (the ones you’ve only had occasion to wear about 2 or 3

times in the 17 years since you bought them)

Jacket

Hooded top

Spare trousers

3 polyester T-Shirts

3 pairs walking socks

2 pairs normal socks

4 pairs pants
1 polo shirt (in case of dining with Royalty)

Spare shoes (completely unnecessary)

Towel

Wash kit

Suntan cream

Headtorch

Camera (which you should buy specially the day before but turn out to take worse pictures than your phone)

Phone and charger (where you going to plug this in, a rock??)

Hat

West Highland Way guide book (unnecessary as the walk is well signposted)
Walking guide book for central highlands (for planning the next stage of your walk that you won’t get to)

Walking guide book for northern highlands (pointless as you’ll never get that far)

Map of Knoydart area (absolutely no way you’re going to be able to walk there with fucked feet)

Notebook and pen (to record in detail every agonising step)

2 packets of Compede (Blister protection to lull your feet into a false sense of foot security)

2 litres of water (when 500ml would be enough as there are plenty of places to refill)

6 cheese rolls and 6 tracker bars

3 bars of Kendal Mint Cake (You might want to leave these at home because they actually provide a small sliver of pleasure during the slog)

Kitchen Towel (for added pointlessness)

That’s enough kit to continue on to your goal of either getting on the Cape Wrath Trail, or doing the Great Glen Way, after you arrive in Fort William, but it’s also enough stuff to ensure that you’ll never get close to even starting either of those two long distance walks.

There’s just no point going if you just pack a lightweight waterproof jacket and a few sandwiches, and stay in the many inexpensive hostels or bunkhouses along the way, because you’ll be end up more focussed on enjoying the scenery than concentrating on the intense pain in your feet.

Once your rucksack is loaded up it should weigh around 20kg which is more than enough to leave your feet in tatters after only a couple of miles never mind a 20 mile stretch on a stoney military road.

My next piece of advice is to set off far too late in the day, so that you have to march briskly, without any stops, in order to make it to where you’re planning to camp before it gets dark. Any time after 3pm is ridiculously late to start walking but is easily achievable if you only start packing the aforementioned list that same day.

If you haven’t become aware that your pack is far too heavy after only about 10 minutes of walking then something has gone badly right. A good sign that you are in trouble is if you pass a group of attractive german girls struggling to push their mountain bikes up a hill and, rather than offer to help, like the pathetic beast you are, the best you can manage is to grunt “hill.. steep.. ugg”.

By the time you make camp your feet should already have quite a few blisters. Camping means you’re ideally suited to make an early start the following day, but you can get a bad nights sleep, and a late start, by camping somewhere where a university canoe club will turn up at 4am and unselfishly take part in the world car door slamming championships for the next hour.

Another a good motivating factor is that when you get up in the morning you can watch a group of posh young men, all of whom would appear to called Ed, cooking bacon and eggs on an expensive looking cooker, whilst you breakfast on a squashed cheese roll on the hoof.

The military and drove roads of the West Highland Way are particularly hard on your tootsies when wearing inappropriate footwear, so try to avoid walking on the area at the side of the path as these are more cushioned and only offer respite.

By now your hands should be swollen, from the weight on your shoulders, and you should, for example, be no longer able to click your fingers. If you’re walking from Bridge of Orchy it would be sensible to camp by The Kingshouse Hotel, near to the start of Glencoe, so I’d recommend not stopping and carry on walking the 21miles to Kinlochleven.

The stoney road, built for by hydroelectric company, is as long and winding as it is great for doing your feet a serious amount of damage. Having taken eleven hours, without a break, to walk what would ordinarily take you about six, by the time you arrive in Kinlochleven you should be walking like an old man with chronic hemorrhoids.

It should take you about ten minutes to peel off your shoes as they will have become congealed to your feet through your socks. If you’ve followed all the ill-advised guidelines your feet should be starting to resemble something out of a medical dictionary or a butchers, and will be throbbing in agony (only without the momentary respite that you’d normally expect from traditional throbs) throughout the night, so that you’ll be continually waking up from the pain.

Bizarrely it will only now that you realise you’re incapable of walking the final few miles to Fort William. So with the finish-line in sight it’s time to take the demoralising hobble of shame to the bus stop.

(After waiting nearly 3 hours for the bus to come you’ll find out that the road between Fort William and Ballachulish has been closed so that you’re essentially stuck, and may not make it to the train, you’ve booked a ticket for, in 8 hours time.)

By the time you arrive home you should be barely able to stand, your feet should smell indescribably bad, and resemble something out of a serial killers porno. Congratulations you’ve just ruined the first week of your holiday and fucked up your feet up so badly that you’ll probably not be able to anything for the second week. Arsehole!!

101 Things Not To Do Before You Die

2011-04-19T12:56:00.011+01:00

Munro Shagging - The aim of Munro shagging is to have sex with all 283 Scottish mountains over 3000ft. The first man to successfully pump them all was Sir Angus Munro, in 1884, but his reputation was ruined shortly afterwards when he was caught mounting an under-height mountain and was branded a hill-molester.

Travel in a Cold Air Balloon - Get a spectacular ‘humans-eye’ view of the sky far above your head, as you travel nowhere, inside a cold air balloon. Modern cold air balloons use chillers to cool down the air inside the balloon, making it heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, and causing the balloon and it’s cargo to say firmly on the ground. An incredibly uninspiring experience that really encapsulates what it is like to not float amongst the clouds.

Watch the sunset over Pam Ayers - Pam Ayers is a truly awesome sight that is steeped in a mysticism. Apart from her imposing size, the cornish poet changes colour depending on the time of day and the prevailing atmospheric conditions. Sunrise and sunset are perhaps the most magical as the features on Pam Ayers surface reflect various hues of red, purple, orange and yellow. She is held sacred by Aborigines who know her as Pam Uluru.

Vandalise The Great Wall of China -The Great Wall of China was built over 2,000 years ago, by Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China after a dispute, with Gheghis Khan, over The Great Hedge of Mongolia blocking out all the light in the Imperial Palace gardens. It is one of the largest construction projects ever completed and spray painting a penis on the side of the wall ensures The Great Cock and Balls of China are the only cock and balls that are visible from space.

Spend a night in a non-haunted house - Some people are skeptical that ghosts don’t exist but there are many stories about houses that are supposed to not have ghosts. Explainable noises, lights going on when they are supposed to, and objects mysteriously not moving of their own accord. Spending the night in a house that’s not haunted is the ultimate test for non thrill-seekers, but beware - some people who claim not to have seen a ghost say it caused their hair to stay the same colour overnight!

Muffdiving from 20,000ft - Jumping out of an aircraft and returning to earth with the aid of a giant vagina is top of many people’s list of things not to do before they die.

Take part in the running of the bullshit - The most famous running of the bullshit takes place every year in Pamplona in Spain when adrenaline junkies attempt to outrun a group of bullshitting bastards. Many people have been seriously injured by bullshitters, trampled under half-truths and gored by down right lies.

Swim with a Dolph Ludgren - There can be few better ways of feeling at one with nature than swimming with a Dolph Ludgren. Considered to be one of the most intelligent marine creatures, coming face to face with a bottle-nosed Dolph Ludgren as it plays in the ocean, catches fish, and fights Rocky Balboas in a display of aquatic boxing prowess, is a truly forgettable experience.

Cocktoberfest - Every year six million spunk-guzzlers attend the world's biggest spunk drinking festival, where an incredible twenty million gallons of spunk are downed in just two weeks. Enjoy the bukkaki party atmosphere and join with the boisterous spunking-songs whilst huge tankards of foaming hot spunk are brought to your table by buxom spunkmadens.

Test yourself in a fight to the deaf - For hundreds of years a fight to the deaf has been the ultimate test of man hood. If you have the ears to deafen a man in aural combat then Deaf Clubs can still be found around the country. Deaf-matches can be fought with megaphones, air-horns, or vuvuzela’s, although since the spread of hearing AIDS many Fight Deaf Clubs will insist that condoms are worn over the ears, and remember, -The first rule of Deaf Club - Don’t listen to Deaf Club!

Ride the Tran-sexual express - Riding a chick with a dick all the way from Moscow to the far east city of Vladivostok is one of the world’s great tranny journeys.

Bungee Dumping - Leaping from a 160ft platform, whilst having a shit, with just a giant elastic band tied around your toilet is as thrilling as it is daunting! Once you've made the 'shit of faith' and fallen as far as the toilet roll will allow, the recoil will send your turd rocketing arsewards with incredible G force. There is very little out there to match the pure adrenaline flush of a Bungee Dump.

If you’re interested in other things not to do here’s a list of places not to visit before you die.

Many thanks to Mr Innes Smith for capturing the picture of me balls deep in a mountain.

The Fool Package

2011-04-15T00:11:00.005+01:00

A delivery driver, from Argos Direct, came to my door yesterday and asked me to take a parcel for my neighbour as they were out at that time.

I said 'sure' and he put a note through their door to say I had their delivery.

I took the package into my flat.. where I had a look at the label..

He’d got the address wrong!

I ran back outside again.. but he was gone.

What was particularly irksome is that he’d got me to sign for the package before he handed it over..

Fortunately the address the package was only across the road.. so I went over and rang their buzzer.. There was no answer.

So I took the package back home with me again.

In the evening I went back over the road and buzzed again.. there was still no answer.

I thought about buzzing one of their neighbour’s and asking if I could leave it with them.. But what if there was something expensive in the package? It was next day delivery, and, it was me that had signed for it.

And what if I gave the package to the neighbour, but they never delivered it?

Surely the person waiting for the package would eventually get in touch with the delivery firm, who would inform them it was left with their neighbour.. 'a Mr Allan Miller'..

And they’d say “But I don’t have a neighbour called Allan Miller?”

And the delivery firm would say “It was signed for by an Allan Miller on the 13th of April”.

And they would say “But that was three weeks ago!!”

Then eventually they would work out that it was delivered to an Allan Miller across the street.. and they would come storming across and buzz on my door and demand to know “Have you got a package belonging to me?”.

And I’d say “No”.

And they’d say "According to the delivery firm I’d signed for a package belonging to them".

And I’d say “Oh that package”

And they’d say “What are you doing signing for a package that doesn't belong to you?”

And I’d say “I didn’t know it was for you. The delivery man said it was for my next door neighbour”

And they’d say “Didn’t you read the label?”

And I’d say “He made me sign it before he handed it over”

And they’d say “Well I’ve been waiting for that package for over three weeks. So hand it over!”

And I’d say “I’ve not got it”

And they’d say “What do you mean you’ve not got it. What the hell have you done with it?”

And I’d say “I gave it to your neighbour”

And they’d say “Why did you do that?”

And I’d say “Because you were out”

So then they would go back to their neighbour and ask them if they had their package..

And what if they said “No”?

Maybe they’d stolen the package or, more likely, kept forgetting to deliver it, until so much time has past that it just got too embarrassing to take it round.

Who are they going to believe - their neighbour, or a stranger, from across the road, who was the last person known to have been in possession of the package?

Well I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I went back this morning and buzzed them again.. Still no answer..

So I buzzed their neighbour, and said I had something to deliver to their neighbour..

And I put a note through their door saying that I had a package, belonging to them, that was delivered to me by mistake.

Then this afternoon they came to collect their package.. I explained that the delivery man had made a mistake.. and finally I could relax and stop feeling so anxious.

Then this evening there was a knock on my door..

It was my next door neighbour..

Saying they’d had a note through their door saying that that I was looking after a package for them.

Comedy Weekend

2011-04-09T12:14:00.003+01:00

It's the final weekend of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and a couple of friends of mine are doing shows that I would heartily recommend.

Tonight John Scott, winner of Take The Mic, is doing a show called 'Totally Made Up'

It's on in Blackfriars at 8.30pm.

And then tomorrow Teddy is doing a show called 'Not For Everyone'

It's on in Brel at 9pm (it's been moved from 8.30pm)

Pantandemonium

2011-04-07T16:45:00.011+01:00

Well did you spot me in Burnistoun on Monday? I was only in it for 0.7 seconds but I was in the opening sketch.. ringing any bells?.. I was cycling a tandem.. whilst wearing pants and a gas mask..

That's me on the right.. looking like a creature out of Doctor Who and the attack of the gimps.

Despite the variety dangers that could befall two men cycling a rickety old tandem, through a Glasgow park, on a freezing November morning, whilst wearing only pants and a gas mask.. health and safety regulations dictated we still had to wear bicycle helmets.. It would have been silly not to.

Burnistoun Series 2

2011-04-04T21:38:00.002+01:00

Burnistoun returnistoun for the next six weeks starting tonight on BBC1 Scotland at 10.35pm.

The Clone Stranger

2011-04-01T01:30:00.001+01:00

There's been a lot of stuff in the news this week about houses that look like hitler and jesus's that look exactly like cornflakes..

And you may remember a while back I was in a museum and came across a carving, of an owl priest, that was made an Aztec tribe over a 1000 years ago.. that looked quite like me.

Well Innes was visiting an old country house last week when his eyes met with those on a 300 year old portrait of an eccentric Duke who was apparently some sort of magician.

He thinks it has more than a passing resemblance to himself. I can't see a likeness but what do you think?

Best of Burnistoun

2011-03-28T16:51:00.005+01:00

There's a compilation show featuring some of the best sketches from the first series of Burnistoun, on BBC One Scotland, tonight at 11.05pm.

Doug Stanhope

2011-03-22T11:15:00.005Z

Read 'em and weep Fat Boys!!

Tickets for a Doug Stanhope full house tonight.

The last time I saw Doug Stanhope I was his warm-up man for a comedy show he made for Channel 4. It was the first time I'd done warm up for TV.. and after it ended in me putting an audience member in a headlock.. it was also the last time I did warm up for TV.

You can read about the horror here.

Black Dynamite

2011-03-17T19:49:00.006Z

As some of you know there was film made that was based on my life, but for those of you that didn't here's the trailer.

Burnistoun DVD

2011-03-10T23:14:00.006Z

Burnistoun DVD. Series One. Out now!

Great cover and one for up the arse corner.

And here's an interesting article about the state of Scottish comedy on TV in the The Scotsman

Ooh I 'ate you blogger!

2011-03-02T21:13:00.004Z

I've still not had a chance to upload / download / convert / rip or whatever it is you call it to the sketches I was going to post.

So instead, er, here's a photograph featuring Blakey from On The Buses in a sketch I wrote about adopting old people.

Does Not Compute

2011-02-19T21:10:00.012Z

A couple of weeks ago I found an audio cassette with a recording of me doing some stand up on the 17th of February 2000. I thought it might be a nice idea to post it up here on the 17th February 2011, but it's now two days later, and despite it probably being quite simple, I'm not computer literate enough to do it.

I had also thought I might post some sketches I've written for TV.. but I can't figure out how to do that either.

(I never had these sorts of problem when I just worked with a paper and pen.. I've never had to call up a premium rate paper helpline or ask someone for a hand getting the right software for my pen.)

Oh well, here's a picture of Mr Rumbold from Are You Being Served in a sketch I wrote for a show called Revolver.

Valentine Meat

2011-02-14T00:15:00.004Z

Don’t waste your time buying flowers and chocolates this Valentines Day because the key to a woman’s heart is.. meat!.. Yes, lovely, fresh meat!

All across the country women are secretly hoping their true love will send them a beautiful bouquet of ham and a box of chops.. or that a mystery admirer will present them a with a single red sausage.

So if you want to win your true loves heart then why not invite her out for a mixed grill for two, a romantic moonlit kebab, or even cook her a pan of mince.

Show your sweetheart just how much she means to you by writing her a poem in which you compare her to oxtails and beef brisket.

Or put the romance back into your relationship by leaving a shoulder of mutton under your special ladies pillow, or dropping a cheeky chipolata into her coat pocket so that she discovers it at work.

And when your loved one arrives home why not run them a relaxing steak and kidney bath, then afterwards cuddle up in front of a nice warm beef roasting joint.

But if you really want to push the gravy boat out for Valentine’s this year, nothing says ‘I love stew’ like taking her to a top quality butcher and buying her a necklace of lamb shanks with matching beef olive earrings.

So if you’re planning a valentines day treat, for someone who’s sweet, make sure it involves meat!

Korea Break

2011-02-09T15:27:00.013Z

I just found out today that Burnistoun is the most popular comedy show in South Korea!

It all kicked off when 'The Lift Sketch' became an internet hit in the East Asian country, and now an episode of the Scottish sketch show is played almost every night on Korean television.

Burnistoun has got a massive cult following amongst young Koreans, who like to dress up as their favourite characters like Paul and Walter, Kelly McGlade and Boggin' Old Davy McGrogan. At the weekend they congregate in parks to recreate the 2litre Bottle of Ginger sketch and spend hours asking each other if they've "Got any rolls?".

Iain and Robert are even in talks with Park Chan-Wook about bringing The Burnistoun Butcher to the big screen as the director thinks the character would be ideal for a follow up to his Vengeance trilogy.

Here's a clip of Burnistoun from South Korean TV.

Here's a link to some more Burnistoun sketches with Korean subtitles.. Check out some of the hilarious comments!

Taking the Biscuit

2011-01-28T17:19:00.015Z

Being an introverted show-off and an extroverted neurotic can be problematic. I enjoying show off in front of people, but afterwards I’m usually wracked with guilt and shame.

On this occasion however I was also wracked with pain. About a week before Christmas I was asked to do an allan challenge (eat a cake in a oner) to entertain an 8 year old girl, but I got carried away, as usual, and decided to stuff a whole large cookie into my gob.

The problem, apart from looking like a tit, was that the cookie was actually wider than my mouth. Undeterred by the laws of physics I pressed on with the cookie until I felt the sides of the cookie give way and enter my face. Ta-Da!!

Only it turned out it wasn’t the sides of the cookie giving way, it was the sides of my mouth.

Unsurprisingly, this resulted in two embarrassing red marks which over night became cracked and sore. I thought they would heal up in a day or two, but.. whenever I opened my mouth to talk, or to take a bite, I could feel it getting worse.

This meant I spent the next couple of weeks resembling The Joker, and eating in a fashion that resembled a goldfish. It also meant my speech was restricted to mumbling, although because I was with my parents over christmas I probably would have been speaking like that anyway.

I consoled myself, however, with the thought that people might think I’d been given a Chelsea smile. How would they know that my facial injuries weren’t the result of a struggle with a gang of viscous thugs armed with stanley knives and not wounds that were self-inflicted whilst showing off, in front of a child, with an oversized biscuit?

I suppose I’m lucky I hadn't attempted the allan challenge with this Slovakian monster biscuit.

Roll of Honour

2011-01-18T23:15:00.010Z

I touched on the amount my dad ate, whilst on holiday, in my last post.

On the first morning that we went for breakfast the waitress brought over a large basket of bread rolls. The fact that there were a dozen rolls in the basket, and there was only four of us, would lead most people to the conclusion that you should just help yourself to a roll or two, after which the waitress would collect the basket and take it to the people at the next table.

My Dad is not most people. The conclusion he came to is that all the rolls were for us to eat. He wouldn’t accept that the rest of rolls would simply be given to the other diners, and seemed to think that the ones that we left in the basket would end up in the bin.

Not only that, but he insisted that the rolls were bought and paid for, and so we had to eat them. Indeed it would be embarrassing if we didn’t eat them, and so on the first morning he ate nine bread rolls, which isn’t embarrassing at all.

For my Dad stuffing himself with rolls just to leave an empty basket was a sign that he appreciated the food and didn’t want to leave any waste.

For the hotel staff, the empty basket was a sign that they hadn’t given us enough rolls to eat. The next day they put a large basket containing about two dozen rolls on our table.

“You see Dad, these rolls are for everyone. They’re not just for us” I said

“Rubbish. We paid for them. They’re included in the price. Now get eating!” replied my Dad, opening his tenth portion of butter.

Twenty four rolls later, or in the case of my father seventeen rolls later, the basket was empty, and the staff were jabbering away to each other in Portuguese, no doubt perplexed by their sudden bread roll shortage.

The following morning when we sat down to breakfast, I could see the staff were sniggering to one another. Then two of them carried in a barrel full of bread rolls..

“Dad, this is getting embarrassing” I said, “Do you see the point they’re trying to make?”.

Dad shook his head, took some deep breaths and plunged his hand into the basket of rolls.

Four hours later and the hotel staff and the other guests were standing around in stunned silence. As my Dad crammed the final roll into his mouth they gave a mighty cheer.

The morning after that when we went down to breakfast I was relieved to see that there were no rolls on offer, in fact there was no breakfast of any sort, as the place seemed to be deserted. Then a small peasant boy appeared and grabbed my Dad’s hand.

‘Sem Fundo Poco’ he kept repeating as he gestured for us to follow him. As there was no one else about we followed him out of the hotel, into the street and then down some narrow alleys and passageways. After a short amount of time we began to hear the sound of many voices growing louder and louder. Until finally we emerged into a square, where it would seem every occupant of the town had gathered.

Upon seeing my Dad, a small brass band began to play and the crowd began chanting ‘Sem Fundo Poco! Sem Fundo Poco! Sem Fundo Poco!’ over and over again.

“What are they saying?” I asked one of the villagers.

“Sem Fundo Poco! Eet mean, how you say.. Bottomless Peet!”

The small boy lead to my father through the crowd to the middle of the town square where the Mayor and local dignitaries were waiting to shake his hand.

We still had no idea what was going on, or what they expected from us, or my father, but then the Mayor gestured towards the huge fountain in the centre of the square. It was brimming over with bread rolls.

“Dad. This is madness. They can’t surely expect you to eat all those rolls. Let’s leave now, whilst we still can”.

“Son. We can’t leave.” he said, rolling up his shirt sleeves “It’s all paid for!”

Dawn of The Living Cats

2011-01-15T19:03:00.013Z

The room where people went for breakfast was next to the reception and had a glass wall from which you could watch the world go by as you ate your full English or continental breakfast (or both in the case of my Dad).

On the first morning my Mum spotted a cat outside the hotel and whilst the waitress’s back was turned furtively wrapped up some bits of bacon in a napkin. Then she sneaked off to feed the cat.

I assumed after the caution with which she’d just gathered the scraps, that she was going to head off around the corner of the hotel to discretely feed the cat, but somehow she failed to register the concept that - even though she’d spotted the cat through the glass wall - everyone, including the waitress, the receptionist and the other diners, could see her feeding the stray moggy.. and several of it’s four legged friends who came and joined in the feast.

The receptionist looked particularly disgruntled at the sight of my mother putting leftovers on the ground immediately outside the hotel entrance, but I think it was most galling to the family who had only just come down to breakfast and discovered that, whilst the cats outside were dining right royally, there remained only a meager selection of food left at the buffet.

(I think this was more to do with my Dad thinking a ‘help yourself’ buffet is the same thing as an ‘eat as much as it’s physically possible for you to eat’ buffet)

When Mum finished feeding the cats, she headed back into the hotel, looking pleased with herself for successfully carrying what she thought was the purr-fect crime. Everyone else in the hotel however, was watching the half a dozen or so cats follow my Mum, who was blissfully unaware of their presence, into the hotel.

Once inside the hotel the cats ran off in all different directions. The hotel receptionist sprang up and started chasing after them, as did the waitress from the dining room. At which point my Mum did something brilliant, she just stood doing there looking surprised, as if it was nothing to do with her.

The next morning when we went down for breakfast, the family who’d had to make do with what little we’d left (by which I mean my Dad had left), from the day before had got there earlier and were glaring at us.

My mum didn’t notice this though, as outside the glass window were about 30 or 40 cats. Word had obviously spread amongst the cat community that there was a crazy cat lady in town.. and more and more of them were gathering outside and pawing at the window to get in like a crowd of feline zombies.

By nightfall there must have been 20,000 cats surrounding the hotel and we were trapped. The hotel manager went out and started banging a saucepan lid to try and scare them off, but within a matter of seconds they were all over him. The poor sod didn’t stand a chance!

Eventually our food supplies started to run out (thanks again Dad) and things were getting desperate but we managed to escape by pretending we were cats and mewing our way through the furry little bastards to safety.

That last bit is a slight exaggeration.

The Feline Generals planning the Cat-atsrophe.

Jacuzzianoia

2011-01-07T16:49:00.017Z

After Dad walked in and saw the bald giant standing over me with his top off (see my last blog post) I decided that was about as much of an awkward situation as I could cope with in one day. So I cut short my gym session, went for a shower, and decided to go for a swim instead.

Next to the hotel swimming pool was a jacuzzi that I’d wanted to try since arriving but, although the hotel was pretty much deserted, it always seemed to be full of children.

This put me off using the jacuzzi for two reasons - Firstly that I assume the only reason children would ever be in a jacuzzi is that it would give them somewhere to urinate other than in the swimming pool. And secondly a man sitting in a jacuzzi with a group of other people’s children might look even more dodgy than doing bench presses whilst a sweating stranger looms over you asking if you like grilled fish (again see my last post).

After I’d swam a few lengths of the pool I looked up and noticed the jacuzzi had become child free. I seized my opportunity, and headed for the empty watering hole.

Unfortunately no sooner had I sat down in the inviting water than a small boy appeared from nowhere and got in to the jacuzzi as well.

Now I faced a new dilemma - on the one hand the only thing that looks more dodgy than a grown man sitting in jacuzzi with a group of children is surely a grown man sitting in jacuzzi with only one child, but on the other hand I now had an additional paranoia that prevented me from getting out of the jacuzzi as soon as the boy got in.

I was worried that anyone seeing me getting out of the jacuzzi, only seconds after getting in, might think I was getting out because the small boy who got in after me was black.

So there it was, stay in the jacuzzi and look like a peado or get out and look like a racist.

The jacuzzi being thus ruined by the unrelaxing waters of my own paranoia I soon headed back to the safety of the changing room.. where I was greeted by the overly friendly Danish giant, whose invasion of my personal space had driven me out of the gym to the pool in the first place, (see my last post) standing naked in the middle of the changing room vigorously toweling his no longer privates.

Note

This is now the third awkward jacuzzi based incident I’ve blogged about. The last was about sharing a jacuzzi with a couple who turned out to be Kate and Gerry McCann, and the other is a story about being in a jacuzzi when a repulsive couple got in and started snogging.. I recounted this last incident to some friends on Hogmanay, only realising half way though it included details that were entirely inappropriate for discussion in a restaurant over over a bowl of cullen skink.

Grilled Fish

2011-01-04T23:39:00.006Z

The hotel I was staying in with my family over christmas had a gym that I used most days. Although I took a break on Christmas day because I realised that would look a bit sad even for me.. so instead I just went for a swim and a sauna.

One day as I was about to go to the Gym my parents appeared and with much glee informed me that there were some homosexuals in the gym. Actually their exact words were “Ooh you’ll have to watch out, we saw a couple of nancy boys going into the gym”.

(Why is it that people in their 70’s - well they’re not a kick in the pants off it -are still living in the 70’s?) I told them not to be ridiculous and went down to the gym, where I instantly knew that their bizarre assumption was based on nothing more than the fact that one of the men was wearing lycra cycling shorts. They also happened to be father and son.

Not long after I arrived I had the gym to myself but after about twenty minutes an extremely tall, bald man, appeared and started using one a rowing machines.. very loudly. He was grunting away which I found a bit off putting but not as off putting as when he took his T-shirt off.

“Have you used this machine?” he asked.

“No” I replied, “I just stick to the free weights”.

I find people talking in the gym is quite distracting when I'm trying to exercise, more so if they are talking to me, and even more more so if they are talking to me with their top off.

“How do you use those weights?” he asked

“You just lift them”.

I went back to using the only weights bench in the gym, and hoped he would go back to having sex with the rowing machine, but whilst I was doing some exercises he picked up the smallest set of dumbbells and stood about a foot away from where I was lying down. Then he started grunting again as he strained to lift a set of weights that probably weighed less than a bag of sugar.

“Do you like grilled fish?” He asked

“Excuse me?”

“Do you like.. OOF.. grilled fish?”

“Em, no, not really”

“The grilled fish in the village is.. OOF.. most excellent”.

It turned out Gigantor was from Holland, where perhaps, like everyone from outside of Scotland, they have a far narrower definition of personal space.

Then my dad, a man who thinks someone wearing cycling shorts must be a homosexual, walked in and saw me lying down on an exercise bench whilst a sweating 6ft 8in, bald stranger, with his top off, stood over me, making unnecessary grunting noises, whilst doing doing a pathetic attempt at bicep curls, and talking about seafood.

So at least my Dad didn’t get the wrong impression.

to be continued..

Natal Feliz

2010-12-29T15:58:00.008Z

Christmas Day in the Algarve. Sunshine, t-shirts and shorts, but annoyingly the occasional cloud.. Hey what was the weather like back in Scotland on Christmas Day?

Before you start throwing things at me I should point out that I was there with my parents. I know. How cool am I!

My mum refused to let me spend Christmas day in my flat, eating turkey twizzlers and doing press ups to keep warm. Oh well I've got years of that ahead of me.

I hoped we could all spend a week together as proper grown up adults, but it doesn’t matter how old you, or how hard you try, when you’re with your parents you revert to type.. and the childish behaviour, sarcastic remarks, monosyllabic grunting, and the sort of pathetic huffy moods you’d expect from a stroppy teenager all began within five minutes of arriving in Portugal.

I’d really like it if, just for once, they didn’t always act like that.

Allan is not just for Christmas!

2010-12-19T18:23:00.002Z

Iron Chef UK

2010-12-16T13:56:00.007Z

Whilst looking through the TV listing I noticed Iron Chef UK is back on Channel 4. I helped out with the writing ingredient of the show.

It's on weekdays at 12.20pm. I think this is the final week it's being served up but previous episodes are still on the menu at Channel 4 OD

Snowdad

2010-12-13T23:14:00.014Z

I went back to Edinburgh, this weekend, to get my car, that I'd had to abandon in the snow. A bus journey, then an hour and a half walk, and I was sat in my trusty Rover 25, ready to drive back to Glasgow. Just one slight problem, the battery was now flat.

And my Dad's car battery was flat too, so I couldn't get a jump start. I stayed over, the highlight being when my car alarm started going off at 4am. Okay not particularly interesting but my car and I are finally back in Glasgow only 15 days later than intended.

I mentioned a story about my mum in the snow last week so it's only fair I mention an incident involving with my Dad.

There's an old Albert Steptoe type man that lives at the end of my parents street, so when the snow was at it's deepest my Dad knocked on his door to check if he was okay and to see if he needed anything from the shops. The old chap asked if my Dad would get him some milk and bread.

So my Dad trudged through the snow to the local shops and returned with the bread and milk, but when he knocked on the old man's door there wasn't any answer. After having a look through the window, the old boy's neighbour appeared.

"Are you looking for (Albert?)" asked the neighbour.

"Yes. I've brought him some bread and milk" said my Dad.

"You've just missed him" said the neighbour "He's gone to the shops in town".

Freedom

2010-12-07T18:42:00.009Z

It's a Scottish Comedy Double Bill tonight.

David Kay's sitcom 'Freedom' is on BBC Two Scotland.

And Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is on Channel 4.

Only slight problem is that they're both on the bill at 10pm.

Snowmum

2010-12-05T23:22:00.016Z

When I was in Edinburgh last week my Mum headed off to the supermarket.

The weather conditions meant that buses were running fairly sporadically but she and some other folk waited at the stop in the hope that one would appear.

After about twenty minutes a car pulled up at the bus stop and the man inside asked my mum if she needed a lift.

Mum was a bit taken aback by a stranger offering her a lift, but she was freezing cold and reckoned he was just being a good samaritan.

However she still didn’t want to get into strange mans car on her own so turned to the other people waiting at the bus stop and said "Is anyone else needing a lift?"

Three other people stepped forward accepting the offer and so mum felt it was okay to get in the car. It was only after she got in that my mum realised the car was being driven by the husband of one of her friends from her bowling club.

He must have felt it was quite presumptuous of her to ask a group of strangers if they wanted a lift too. But by this point it was too late to do anything about it and when she got out of the car, about half a mile down the road, she waved goodbye as her friend drove off with three strangers in the back of his car.

The Frozen East

2010-12-02T19:52:00.017Z

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

I've been stuck in Edinburgh for nearly 6 days now. With my car balls deep in snow, and no sign of a snow plough, or a clean pair of pants, on the horizon I'm going to have to admit defeat, abandon my car, and try to get into town, to get a train or a bus back to Glasgow. At least not having had a change of clothes for a week means I shouldn't have too much difficulty in getting a seat.

Teddy's also in the final of The Scottish Comedian of The Year at the O2 in Glasgow tonight. There may be some spare tickets now because of the weather, and if I don't have time to go home and change first there will probably be empty seats next to where I'm sitting.

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

2010-11-30T16:05:00.006Z

Tonights must see tonight is Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights which starts tonight on Channel 4 tonight.

There's some amazing sketches on the show and as well as Frankie it features the mighty crusaders Tom Stade, The Reverend Obadiah Steppenwolfe III, Thaila Zucche and Burnistoun's very own Robert Florence.

At some point in the series I make an appearance as a hillbilly serial killing mutant freakboy.. so basically playing myself.

That's Tom Stade and I before going into makeup.