Hello. How are you today? I thought I’d ask as I never do. I mean really this blog is always ‘me, me, me’ so I thought I’d start today’s blog by seeing how you are. Of course you’re too rude to respond, or I bet, if you do, it’ll be by the time I’ve finished typing the blog and so it won’t really matter. Essentially its a rather fruitless attempt to seem caring. I just don’t want you to think I’m neglecting you all. Any objections if I do? No? Good. Let’s move on. It’s national drawing day today and I feel that after this blog I shall have to get drawing something. Blood or swords are off the list for health and safety reasons, so I guess I shall have to sketch again which is fine. I’ve got some comic strips I’ve been wanting to do for a while. What I realised when I did my ones before (which can all be seen at TIERNART) is that drawing takes ages and ages. I’ve no idea how the Beano used to come out on a weekly basis. Those artists must never have slept ever. My other worry is that today is also World Environment Day and I worry that by wasting paper on pictures of angry bears is a total waste of tree. You just can’t win people. You just can’t.
Welcome back to today’s blog, some things! Hooray!
– Last night, when driving home from my gig in Bournemouth, I highly illegally checked my phone. Now, before you all have a go, this is the weird bit. My iPhone did its thing where it searches for wifi and the first one it brought up has the SID name of….’tiernan’. Bit weird huh? Like hugely a bit weird? Sure it may happen to you all the time if your name is Dave or BTHomeHub, but the fact is, no one is called Tiernan ever. No one ever. Not even me. Yet there, in Bournemouth, someone has named their wifi Tiernan and it happened to be in the exact spot where I drove through. I felt like I was in a hi-tech version of LA Story. I kept reconnecting to see if the next one would be ‘Stop driving and turn around’ or some sort of important message. It wasn’t. It was BTHomeHub. Bloody parents need to be more original with naming their kids.
– The compere at my gig last night was less a compere and more someone with severe anger management issues. He was very nice offstage, but as soon as he went onstage he just screamed at people to ‘Shut the fuck up’ and aggressively threatened them with violence before bringing on a act who’s name he would admit he ‘didn’t remember’. It was an interesting approach and while I don’t necessarily applaud it, as he was a huge bald Scottish man, it seemed to work. People did shut up for fear of their lives. It felt like I was about to do a gig in a prison. He occasionally did a very nice joke but it was overshadowed by the fact that prior to that joke he would say something like ‘you wanna shut the fuck up mate or I’ll kick your head in’. He isn’t a comic mind you and we all had to start somewhere. I just feel that starting like that will sooner land you in a cell than the Comedy Store. He also used the phrase before bringing on the headliner that ‘the last act I introduced on stage died the next day. True story’. Except I was the last act he introduced onstage. I am spending most of today being terrified. Mind you, I made reference to him whilst on stage and he laughed along, then when some complete twat dressed as a convict for his stag-do told me I was too ‘small to insult him’ I pointed out that our compere wasn’t though and on cue, he ran back in and shouted at the man. I would perhaps like a shouty man to do that at all my weekend gigs. At the end of the night he stopped shouting and wished his daughter, who was in the audience, a very happy birthday. Just goes to show. I’m not sure what it goes to show, but it’s definitely something.
– My friend Emma took me to Bournemouth pier for the first time last night. I like the idea of piers. They are a bit like an unfinished bridge. Someone started it then realised covering the sea was just too much and so they gave up and stuck some arcades and ice creams on it. I wonder if the Severn Bridge started as a pier until they realised it was often too rainy for ice cream and so they’d better finish it. Bournemouth pier is probably lovely at day, but at night its a tad creepy. This is mostly due to the deserted fairground at the end of it, featuring one of those creepy carousels where all the horses look like they are laughing manically about the fact they are going to eat you. One day someone will figure out the reason kids scream when they go on carousels is because of the fear of falling off and being eaten by hell steeds and not because they are having fun. So instead of a lovely stroll myself and Emma spent the whole time worrying about the comment from the compere as it was now after midnight and maybe I was to be killed by night mares. See what I did there? Night mares? Boom. Sigh.
– MP Frank Field has been named today by Cameron as his ‘poverty tsar’ who will report back to the coalition government how on earth these bloody poor people get so trapped in poverty and that. Poverty Tsar sounds like he is the king of the tramps and should be made to wear a paperbag crown and have an office by the bins where he dances with his pet rats. I honestly think Cameron has never seen a poor person up close in his life, as they are usually removed far from his estate before he can get close. I can only imagine Field’s report is to be split into sections saying things like ‘Are they funny sitcom poor or disgusting poor?’ I hope Field’s report comes back with the answer to why people are ‘being trapped in poverty’ as: the previous Tory government, then the Labour government and now the current government, all of whom have far more interest in keeping the rich even richer than ever letting society get back on its feet. It won’t say that though. It will just show photos of him in Hackney singing songs from Oliver to entertain the PM.
– I am in Gloucester tonight. Make of that what you will.
