This Is The News

Today I shall be commenting on news things. Yes, you heard me. Except you didn’t as this is typed. You heard the voice in your head that you think is my voice. I hope its an apt representation. If not, then please imagine it as sort of James Earl Jones crossed with Tom Waits. Then speed that up so the pitch is unbearably chipmunk like, then slow it down a tad, then change it a bit. It will probably still sound nothing like mine, but I’m curious to know what you come up with. Why not record your brain thinking it and send it in? Thanks. I often actually think my voice sounds scarily like Edgar Wright’s voice, and when listening to the commentary on Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, have several times got angry as to why I still haven’t been paid for that work, only to realise I’d never done it in the first place. Damn that Edgar Wright and his similar sounding voice and more successful career! I am shaking my fists right now. I’ll be honest, it’s making it harder to type, so I’ll stop. Its times like that I’m jealous of octopuses and the god Kali.

Anyway, here’s some thoughts on current news. Firstly, I have been listening with a confused ear about all the compensation fights to do with airlines not paying for people’s hotels or paying for them but not for all of their food etc. I fully agree that the people stranded shouldn’t be made to pay for all this, but let’s just take a step back and look at the situation. Unless you standing at the top of some stairs or a cliff edge. In which case, stay where you are and be careful. How can anyone really be to blame for a volcano erupting with a huge ash cloud? Can we blame the Government? Not really. The airlines themselves? No. If either of those had the capabilities to control exactly what landmass does, and if they do then I don’t think we should be blaming either of them for fear they will act revenge by causing a tsunami or earthquake. Can we blame Iceland? No. Not unless you want to blame its actual landmass, which I suppose is to blame, but not the Icelandic people’s fault. Again, unless they have shamanistic powers whereby dancing in a certain formation will cause ash explosions. No, I say we look into detail here at what most insurance companies would call such an incident. They would say it is ‘an Act Of God’. Therefore, the church should pay everyone compensation. Depending on your faith, depends on which God you should claim to, but I daresay the Pope probably has enough to just sort everyone out. He should have had a word with the big chap/chapette/thingymajig and just asked them not to do it. Sure the Pope already has a lot of apologising to do right now, but I think that means that a bit more won’t hurt him much. I swear, its times like this, I should definitely be king of the world.

Second news commentary for today. I watched the second leaders debate on telly last night. Actually that’s a half truth. I heard the first bit on the radio whilst driving home from my cancelled gig. Hearing it on the radio gives you a slightly different view of the whole thing. For example, everytime Cameron spoke, I could imagine his face morphing into that of the devil and Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg standing behind him flipping the bird and pulling ‘unuh’ faces. I understand that sadly, this did not happen. It does make it more fun though and I highly recommend you do the same next time. I caught only the second half on telly and was disappointed to see that instead of the shooting gallery I’d hoped they were standing in, they were instead on some sort of game show studio. I waited and waited and waited for the bit where they got to hit the buzzer and guess each other’s catchphrases bit it didn’t quite happen. Instead they all just bickered and quibbled in a way that probably made a lot of the countries 6 year olds feel pretty grown up. Brown said the phrase ‘get real’ a lot, hoping he could appeal to the high school teens of California in the mid-90s. Sadly no one pointed out to him they can’t vote in this election, so it was a wasted attempt. Clegg said he wasn’t a man of faith, which means he will now no longer get George Michael’s vote as he’s very sensitive about people not buying his singles. And Cameron, well Cameron’s stance seemed to be to say ‘fairness’ a lot. Not sure what type of ‘fairness’ he meant but I’m sure he also mouthed ‘blue eyes and not Jewish’ and I worry about how close to the BNP he really is. He also kept saying Gordon Brown was spreading ‘fears and smears’ which rhymed quite nicely. I have seen Labour’s leaflets and they do not contain any sexual health tests, nor any ghost stories. So there you go. They then all talked about immigrants having caps, which I think means they can play in international matches; old people paying to be cold or something and whether or not the Pope is actually Emperor Palpatine.

Ultimately who won the whole thing? Well that’s what everyone seems to want to know. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I found them all really annoying and a bit creepy. If we want to know who actually won and was the best then I suggest the next debate finishes in a Gladiators style obstacle course, a sing song and then a still art competition.

I was going to talk about something else but I took a phone call in the middle of this blog and its got me confused. Two other small things. Small things 1: I’m in Brighton tonight at the Komedia with the excellent excellent line-up of Rob Deering, Paul Sinha and Seann Walsh. You should come along. I’m in Hartlepool tomorrow and I’m just telling you both these things because lots of people ask when I’m going to be in Brighton and the North East. Not at the same time. That’d be too clever.

Small things 2: I have been asked to write a blog for the website iamstaggered.com mostly about the issue of getting married. It will be a weekly thing where I generally state how little I’m doing and how angry Layla is getting at me doing not much. I will try and refrain from writing wedding things in this blog unless necessary, so read that one too. First one is here:

MY BLOG ON IAMSTAGGERD.COM

That is all. I’m now going to write to the Houses of Parliament with my application for King Of The World.