If you got to this blog via Twitter, you’ll know quite how often I use it. Like some sort of horrible addict I genuinely fret when I have nothing to contribute on there, even if I haven’t got anything to say or my life has been exceptionally dull. There’s a lot I could write about Twitter and probably will soonish – particularly how cruel & noisy I feel it’s become – whenever I run out of other things to say. But one thing I would like the endless pointless updates to add to the social site is a couple of extra buttons. One would be a ‘Agree To Disagree’ button. That’s fairly self explanatory. The other one I’d quite like to have is a big button that adds some sort of a banner to a comment saying ‘I’m fully aware that I am a hypocrite about this.’ I need that, a lot.
A recent example is me constantly bemoaning and begrudging how awful the state of television and film is. I do this a lot. My girlfriend is a constant victim of me shouting ‘OH FUCK OFF’ at the television as yet another remake or something that forces us to vote on who will be unknown and forgotten in a years time. I’m not a fan of such popular shows as Sherlock – why not just set it in the time its meant to be set in or just use another detective’s name? WHERE HAS ORIGINALITY GONE? – and I find I have to spend whole periods of time avoiding the internet when such things are on, otherwise bear the brunt of knowing people like things I find tedious. But the world doesn’t need to know my views on which bits I dislike. Despite how many times someone tweets me with ‘well I don’t like that’ or ‘I think it’s rubbish’ when I say I like something, it doesn’t help or change my opinion at all so why should I bother complaining about things I don’t want to watch. I should just not watch them. Its far easier and less time consuming.
The problem at the moment though, is that I’m finding there are far too many things I do want to watch and consume. In the last few weeks me and L have watched all of the first season of the Bridge (the original not the – and I’m sure its ok – totally unnecessary remake) and started on the Breaking Bad time devourer. I missed various things over the Christmas period that are about to or already have stopped being on iPlayer and with things like Netflix I’m finding everyday there is something else I think ‘oh I should see that.’ This doesn’t even stretch to the box sets sitting on myself that are still untouched. Then add to that all the books I’d like to read and suddenly it feels like I need an extra day in my day, just so, around all the work, I can consume.
Is this remotely a sane concern? In my head there is this tiny voice that says if I consume all these things my comedy will be stronger. I’ll know all viewpoints, cultural references, information about the universe. Therefore the scope of things I can talk about will be so wide that I can argue any point or reason within my material. Knowledge is power. But to gain that knowledge I’d have to spend a lot less time working and would ultimately stop having an avenue with which to voice these opinions anyway. So how to do it? It doesn’t help that there is constantly more of everything to catch up on too. Maybe people should stop making stuff. We’ve got a lot of very good stuff anyway. They are currently making remakes of films many people have probably never seen the originals of, or authors are continuing the work’s of writer’s who’ve long since died, when there are easily already enough books and ideas to last anyone a lifetime. So maybe, everyone should just stop. For a few years. Let all of us just spend a year or two going back and picking up everything good that we’d missed of past years.
I’ve realise that by typing this alone I’m not only wasting time I could be using to watch or read something, but I’m also now wasting your time. And around now is when I could use that ‘I’m fully aware that I am a hypocrite about this’ button.
——————————————————————————————————————
I’m doing my first ever UK tour in 2014, starting end of January. All dates and most ticket links are up at my website: https://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk. Please spread the word and come along as if you’re not there, it’ll be rubbish. It’ll just be me in a room and if I can’t get 3G I’ll be really bored. The very funny Chris Coltrane is supporting me on some dates and the brilliant Keith Farnan is doing a double header with me on others.
