what's your comic persona

Piracy is not a crime.
It's a lifestyle choice.

A while ago when I told an old friend of mine I was becoming a comic and he asked me, maybe in a way that after he said it I felt like I should have come up with a better answer than I had done, or that I should have had something pre prepared, he asked me, do you have a comic persona?

This worried me.

Do I need a comic persona?

Is this his way of saying you, as you are, aren't really funny enough, so what's your comic persona.

[you could do the whole of this dressed as a pirate]

So, I said, well, you know, I reckon all the really good comedians I've seen they're kind of themselves but, like a heightened version of themselves. Like there must be quite a lot of David Brent's in Ricky Gervais, right?

So he said, so basically you're going to just be yourself, but funny.

And that's how I ended up here this evening.

And I know what you're thinking, and you're right.
Day to day, I don't normally have the parrot.

But for the purposes of comedy, of your entertainment, I felt I needed to push the envelope, or whatever people say in offices.

So, that's the parrot. It's me. But more so. Day-to-day I'm not rocking the parrot accessory. Because ultimately I'm fearful that if I go down the parrot route, and say I'm in the job centre signing on, they're not going to take me seriously.

Basically, I'm a pirate. That's my vibe. Swashbuckling. Walk the plank. That kind of thing. I'm old school though. Not one of these modern pirates sin little speedboats high on Khat toting AK 47's. No I'm more mid 1500's kind of thing. Keira Knightley kind of thing.

So that's me. Probably best not to ask me anything about boats or the history of piracy when we're done here, because literally I don't know a damn thing. I haven't done the research. And I think it's safe to say if you get this far (shows outfit) and you haven't done the research, you're probably not going to.

Some upsides of being a pirate and a comic. I'm unique. You'll see a lot of other so-called observational comics out there, really good ones. Ones that make a point of saying "don't ask me yeah, if I can tell jokes, I don't even know any jokes, I'm an observational comedian. I make people laugh by observing everyday life"

Well, that's fair enough. And they've made me laugh with some of their observations.
But as for me, I'm not an observational comic.
But I am a pirate.

How many people can say that?

Other upsides of being a pirate comedian. Get quite a lot of overseas gigs.
Done quite a lot of stuff in Somalia.
Seem to go over quite well there.

Some other upsides.
Pirate heckling seems to be quite limited in scope. People just tend to either shout out pirate phrases they've heard.

[gap]

Or, just silence , really. Just silence.

Well, thanks for lending me your ears. I've got to shoot now and get this parrot back to the hire shop before 10pm.

Before I go I suppose I could tell you what the sexual term 'pirating' means but top be honest it's just going to make all the women in the room hate me and think I invented it, so I'm not going Io do that.

Although, if you lot demand it of me, we could do it another way that doesn't incriminate me.

I've broken down the term pirating into three section and if members of the audience would care to read one section each then technically no one will have read it and so you won't be to blame.

Up for that?

Shiver me timbers is that the time. I must be going. Arrrggh.

Remember folks, to errr is human, but to arrrggghhh is pirate.

What do you mean technology didn't converge on the Kettle?

Funny isn't it.

These days mobile phones aren't just phones any more, they're maps and they're address books, and they're mp3 players.

There are some thing that when I say them make me feel like I'm someones mum. MP3 players is definitely one of those things. MP3's. Who actually talks about MP3's apart from losers. I'm nit saying I don't listen to them. Whoaah there. I'm not a Luddite. I've got an ipod. I just don't refer to them. I think if you say the words MP3 player you don't really know what it means, you've just heard it somewhere and are trying it out. Yeah, it's got an mp3 player - and in the back of your mind you're just thinking "please don't ask me what an mp3 player is, please don't ask me what an mp3 player is, please don't ask m".

Or maybe it's one of those questions that you can go into the carphone warehouse and when they ask you what you're looking for you can smash it out of the park straight off.

"I like the look of this Sony, but does it have an mp3 player?" you might say, just to establish in the mind of the salesman you're not some dufus that he can offload his most rubbish phone onto because you won't know the difference. Even though you don't.

I digress.

So, where did we start. Phones these days do a lot of stuff, they're not just phones any more. They're multimedia hubs, with mp3 players (knowing wink).

Same with computers, computers have become TV's and radios and pornography superhighways all sorts of stuff I've got no idea about.

And the weird thing is that about 5 years ago, people we re saying this was all going to happen, that technology was going to converge on one of these items and that that was going to become the dominant item in the home, and the choices were TV, Phone or Kettle.

Now, I went Kettle.

Maybe that testifies to my tea 'problem' (do finger gestures). Or maybe, I'm ahead of the curve, and at some point when the computer and the mobile phone are tired battling it out to see who's going to be the daddy, who's going to be the appliance's appliance, maybe at that point, the Kettle, from nowhere might sneak in and win it.

Look, all I'm saying is that if you're in the market for a new Kettle, and I have been for about a year, hang on in there a touch longer, because you know what, and like I say, it's just a hunch, the world of Kettles is about to get very interesting.

You heard it here first.

Get down to Ladbrokes. £20 on Kettles being the big thing by 2012. They'll laugh at you now, and they might be laughing so hard it'll take a while to get that bet written down. But we'll see who's laughing.

Just in case I've presented too compelling an argument for Kettles there, and I've done it in the past, I'm not serious about £20 on Kettles at Ladbrokes.

Well, you know I am, but I feel I have to say that in case you judge me.

----

Left luggage will be taken and may be destroyed

May be destroyed?
May be destroyed?

What kind of bizarre power trip are the people who work in left luggage in airports on?

Are they all sitting around in some windowless room waiting for the next piece of left luggage to turn up.

"Well lookee, lookee, lookee here. What have we got ourselves? A black samsonite mid-size suitcase if I'm not very much mistaken. Mid 90's. Argos I would hazard"

"Maybe John Lewis"

"John Lewis could be John Lewis. Most likely they bought it there but price matched it at Argos if they had their wits about them"

"Argos prices, John Lewis service"

"Argos prices, John Lewis service"

"Never knowingly undersold"

At this point it might be worth mentioning that that was supposed to be two people. A conversation between two airport security staff in a windowless office in, say Luton. But, I do understand that due to my limited accent skills, having to actually explain that that was two people does detract slightly from he humour of the situation.

I do understand that.

I do.

I just can't do accents.

I can one accent.

(dropped) And then drop it to represent another person.

But basically it's the same person.

(dropped) Just in a lower register

Not very impressive really is it

(dropped) No.

----

I digress. Left luggage will be taken and may be destroyed.

How do they decide?

Toss a coin.
Play cards. Play that hand game with the suitcase that you play at school to see who flinches first. Clearly the last one was a silly suggestion so let's take that off the table.

I just like the idea of these guys sitting around menacing an inanimate object.

Here come the accents again.
It's possibly worth mentioning at this point that should you have no first hand experience of actually meeting the people who work in Left Luggage at airports is they all; speak slightly like shit gangsters.

And this is in no way a coincidence that that's one of the few accents I can do.

"So, (cracks knuckles) What we going to do with old Samsonite here?"

"Dunno. We could do nothing with him"

"Yeah we could do nothing with him. Or we could rip his stupid little fucking wheels off and then stamp on his front pocket then take it to a little room in the back and blow the bastard from here to Timbuktu. To be honest with you that's how I'm inclined to play it if that fucker gives me one more fucking funny look"

"Yeah."

"Yeah"

"Not such a big man now are you Sam-son-ite"

"Yeah"

And so on. And so forth.

Submarine Walls/Your Luggage will be Taken away and may be destroyed/Does anyone here work in an office?/Men going to the toilet

I've been getting interested in walls, recently.
No, not ice creams.
Not sausages.

But walls. Boundaries that separate one thing from another.

It seems to be a uniquely human thing, building walls. Don't worry, there's probably a couple of builders in here tonight going "He better not start slagging of Walls, I'm having enough trouble in this downturn without him laying the boot in about walls". Don't worry, I'm not slagging off Walls.

I get the whole "Wall concept". I do, I really do.

But I won't lie to you. There's one thing about walls I don't get. And that's underwater walls.
Apparently there's an underwater wall in between Jordan and Saudi Arabia which delineates the border and you can dive along it.

Sounds good doesn't it?

And then you stop and think for a micro second.
An underwater wall?

Who thought that was a good idea?

I mean, without wanting to make you judge me negatively at any point, I have smoked a joint before. And I have inhaled. I have been stoned. And I've done some pretty stupid things, eaten more Pringles than I thought was humanly possible - they should definitely have a 'NOT FOR SALE FOR STONERS' health warning on those things.

Maybe they could give newsagents a simple Stoner test like when someone comes into a late night garage to buy a packet of Pringles and three double deckers - the only people in the audience who will find that remotely funny are people who have smoked cannabis before so if you're sitting next to someone and they're laughing, then judge them.

Don't judge me.

So someone comes in asking for a pack of Pringles and three double deckers just say "We're doing a promotion at the moment involving double or nothing on Pringles, where if someone wants to go double or nothing on this pack of Pringles we'll just flip a coin and if you call it right you win another pack of Pringles".

Now if you ran this test on a normal person they'd just say no. They don't want to take risks with food purchases. They've got a pack of Pringles and 3 Double Deckers, they're good, at least you hope they are. But to someone stoned, well, that's a different story.

They're going to go for that food and gambling option right there.
And then you know, you've got them. No sale.

So, as I was saying. I have been stoned, I've admitted it. If I ever become famous that's something the Sunday papers cannot expose me for, but in all the times I've got high, I have never, ever, ever in my life, thought it was a good idea to build an underwater wall.

I mean, it's fraught with problems.

The "I'm just making a fish pie for some friends who've had twins but I'm not gay" story

So there I am.

In Sainsbury's at the fish counter

(another way of starting this could be to say
"Imagine for a second,
It's a Saturday afternoon
You're in Sainsbury's by the fish counter", then, imagine for a second, la la laaaa)

Buying some fish for a Fish Pie. It's a Saturday, there's nothing at all odd about this situation. There's someone in front of you, someone behind you. The person who's in front seems to be ordering a wide array of fish and so when it comes your turn to order, you're feeling ever so slightly self conscious.

So you order, you know you need 750g of fish for this pie but rather than just buy 750g of cod, because a) that's a bit boring, and because b) once in a while it's good to stop and marvel at the amazing phenomenon that is a supermarket, that there are so many things you can order and actually have, you decide to go for 400g of Salmon, 300g of Cod and 100g of Tiger Prawns.

Why not eh?
Fuck it. I'm sure when they were freely swimming off the coast of Costa Rica or wherever it is that Tiger Prawns naturally reside that's where, if they could think, if they did actually have consciousness, that's where they'd be most happy ending up.

In a fish counter sitting on ice in a pit stop on their journey from actually being alive to their final resting place. A Jamie Oliver fish pie.

Those lucky, luck prawns.

So, anyhoo.

I digress.

The woman behind me hears my ordering - nosy bitch - only joking - well it was a bit nosy - but I am only joking - and says "are you making a fish pie."

And never one to skimp on detail when an explanation could be offered I explained that my very close friends have just had twins and I was making a fish pie and taking it around to them.

And then she gave me this look.

Does anyone here recognise this look [do the raised eyebrows look].

Well, if you ever see this look, from a woman, it's basically a non verbal way of saying "You're gay".

---

So now I find myself in a spot where I feel a bit awkward.
Every part of me wants to turn around to the woman and shout 'I"M NOT GAY" in block capitals.
But somehow, that just seems wildly inappropriate.

It's just not cool. So what if she thinks I'm gay. It doesn't matter, it's fine if you;re gay. Of course it is. It;s just I'm not gay.

Its factually inaccurate.

And it's just something about the thought of her going home and while she's doing the washing up after a simple yet delicious and nutritious dinner of poached salmon and boiled potatoes saying (she laughs) "Oh, Brian, I forgot to tell you, I met the loveliest gay man in Sainsbury's today. He was such a sweetie. He was making a fish pie for his friends who've had twins.
What a lovely man".

You know what, he was so nice I think he might have even been one of those gay guys that doesn't, you know, do it.

What like us is what her husband Brian is thinking at this point but wisely staying schtum.

[I'M NOT GAY T-SHIRT reveal]

Brian Broadbent

Inspired not least in part by the Robin Cooper's Time waster letters, which in turn were inspired by The Henry Root letters, I've started (well one at least) writing letters to various folks under the Nome De plume , and what a gloriously pretentious thing that is to type, I highly recommend you do so should you get the chance, of Brian Broadbent.

Brian writes in that slightly trainspotter-y, nerdy way, but it's all just believable enough to garner a reply. And in Julian Metcalfe's case a personal reply and £20 worth of Pret vouchers for my trouble. I think I'll spend it all on popcorn. I love the way he writes in staccato sentences and he's a man of his word, he has actually gone to the trouble of sending Brian (that would be me then) a Jazz CD to help with his (that would be my) indigestion. I can also tell by his use of quotation marks that he wasn't massively impressed at my referral to the sauce in his chicken sandwiches as "gunk" but hey ho.

The best part of all of this is that a dialogue between us has now clearly opened and he's a good sport and all so I guess I should stop writing this and start writing back to him so we can continue. Initially I thought it was going to be a book which was a compendium of letters and their responses to all manner of persons but who knows, with a bit of perseverance maybe it could just be called the Pret letters.

Of course, knowing me the possibility of this being both the start and the end of the project is always a distinct possibility, but we shall see.

Has Apple invented an iPerson?

So, for quite a while my Apple laptop (and if you think this post is ever going to get any more interesting than that start then good luck) has been losing charge so eventually got around to flipping my computer over and found the battery was bulging out of the back.

So I did what any self-respecting renaissance man would do and fixed it myself.
Except I didn't.
I took it to Micro Anvika on Tottenham Court Road.
Ah the joys of being me.

Several grumpy encounters later I found out that the machine had a 'swollen battery' which sounds like a very human ailment for a machine to have. Poor battery. Poor laptop. Anyway, the kind Micro Anvika man told me that because the battery was swollen best to fish it out of there lest it leaks nasty chemicals and hurts the much more expensive than the battery computer. So that was helpful advice. He also gave me the Apple number and suggested that even thought the machine (and hence battery) was two years old and so well out of warranty it still might be worth swinging them a call.

So, I rings Apple I does and had a very odd conversation with someone who in a very polite way was saying no, but saying no nevertheless. And then something weird happened.

He put me on to his supervisor, maybe somewhere in America but this was never established. You know sometimes in trials you hear about people 'leading the witness'. Well the Apple guy I spoke to, who was American and I suspect maybe Canadian, purely from a dialect point of view you understand, definitely seemed to be 'leading' me.

His voice was human yet somehow robotic. It was like Apple had taken the voice coding from the unrealistic directory enquiries woman and re-inputted it from the ground up so that now it sounded natural, real and almost humanoid. There was something of the baddie from Terminator Two about the voice as well. Strange, it did get me wondering whether Apple had sidestepped any moral debate about cloning or stem celll progress and just thought "Fuck it, we'll do our own human. We're smart enough and it'll probably only take us a few weeks".

It's not just the tone of his voice but what he was saying.

Which was effectively repeating this question in different ways

"Am I right in thinking that you were led to believe by an Apple supplier that we could replace the battery for you"
"Errr, kind of, I suppose, I mean they made me think it was worth at least calling your number and seeing what you could do"
"I see, so it would be fair to say you were under the impression we would replace the battery"
"Not exactly, but maybe......"
"because if you were made to think this then Apple would be obliged to honour the supplier's word even though your battery is no longer under warranty"
"I see"
"So would you say you were led to believe this".

How queer.

Eventually the witness was led, and they sent me a new battery out in the post. But I kind of wish in retrospect I rang up and said that I'd been into an Apple Supplier and been promised a new top of the range fully loaded powerbook and that I was under the impression that once this had been offered by Apple, even if it was outside normal Apple policy then they were duty bound to honour it.

But I didn't do that.

If all of the above sounds suspiciously to you like I'm taking one of my many flights of fancy then the clincher that let me know that this person was not made of flesh yet was trying to acquire human characteristics is when he said to me

"Can I just ask you one question. Does the swollen battery smell of bubblegum?"
(What?)
"Errrr...."
"It's just that I've heard in some cases of this happening that the battery can smell like bubblegum. Is this your experience."
"Dunno. I'll smell it"
(robot embarrassed)"No, there's really no need I was just wondering that's all)
"Yeah, come to think of it, it does".
(robot laugh)"Ha ha. Well, that is strange. When my battery is swollen it smells of toffee angel delight. I must share this information with some of my other iPeople colleagues. I will input it onto an iMemory iStick and plug it in to their iMemories".*

*Some of this transcript has been embellished.

Things I haven't learned this week

1a. What the fudge Micro Anvika means. I know Micro means small (yeah, I know, check me out), but what about Anvika? Sounds like it might be a small Swedish robin to me, but not sure how ultimately how technology-related that is.

If anyone does know, and ever reads this blog (now there's a thin pie chart intersection) then don't tell me. I prefer to let it rattle around my whimsical imagination for all eternity.

1b. Laptops woprk without batteries in 'em actually work. Just plug them in. And they're much lighter so you can pretend you own a macbook air without forking out two grand for one.

2. That giving up very quickly on the Guardian quick crossword and then going to the online solution and filling it in isn't actually finishing it. Need to think more on this.


Things I've learned this week

1. You can go to the Guardian website and print out a copy of the Guardian Crossword for free. And it's much nicer doing a crossword (or conversely just filling in the correct answers the next day) from a crisp sheet of white A4 than it is from newsprint. The ink just takes better. 'Tis fact.