Calm Down Dear, It's Just a Blog...

“Who is it?” Jen asks sleepily as the frantic knocking on the bedroom door wakes her from her rest. Her flatmate Debbie runs into the room and sits down excitedly at the foot of her bed.

“Have you heard the news?” she asks,

“No.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Do you remember that advert with the white haired, slightly lascivious bloke selling insurance, where he asks her to calm down dear because it's a commercial?”

“Vaguely.”

“WELL! Maybe she should tell him to calm down dear because he's dead now!” 

Debbie claps her hands triumphantly and waits expectantly for her flatmate to respond. Jen rolls over and tries to get back to sleep.

“Oh come on Jen! What did you think of my brilliant topical joke?”

“It wasn't very fluid."

“Well what do you know,” Debbie says, getting up from the bed crossly, “I've already had 32 re-tweets and 18 likes.”

“I'm very happy for you.”

“You do know your wasting your life Jen, not getting involved when the nation gets together to laugh at the death of a celebrity.”

“It just seems in slightly poor taste.”

“Not if their entire life can be boiled down to a catchphrase or meme it isn't!” Debbie shouts furiously and slams the door behind her as she leaves.

Meanwhile...

“...and so he goes 'why don't you calm down dear, it's a funeral!” Bill from Marketing says over the top of his desk divider, as the rest of the office fall about with painful, guttural laughter.

“Here's one, here's one!” Ian from Customer Services manages to shout out between wretches of mirth, “Michael Winner gets to heaven looking a bit shocked so God says 'calm down dear, you're in heaven!'”

Sally from Firewall Management almost chokes on her morning coffee as Trevor from Vending Machine Optimisation scrolls frantically through Twitter.

“Have you guy's heard this one?” he asks, the sweat of good humour pouring from his forehead onto his keyboard, “Michael Winner is dead. Calm down everyone!”

There is silence in the office.

Then everyone falls about in uncontrollable hysterics once again as the phone lines in the office ring and ring to the indignity of no-one paying any attention.

Meanwhile...

“Erm, we are sorry for the delay ladies and gentlemen,” the muffled sound of the tannoy dribbles out into the overcrowded morning train to groans and tuts from the commuters. Twenty minutes late already and now more bad news about to befall this accursed London-Midland journey.

“We're having some slight problems getting you to your destination today, but don't worry, calm down dears it's only your daily commute!”

The explosion of laughter seems almost like a physical presence in the carriage as everyone falls about, hugging one another and punching the air with delight. Some openly weep with joy and others text their friends to tell them what has just happened. 

The conductor himself finally stops laughing at his own joke and continues, “But seriously folks a young couple have committed suicide by jumping in front of this train so we'll just be a few minutes more while their mangled bodies are peeled off the front bumper.”

Meanwhile...

In a hospital bed, after several hours under the influence of heavy medication, the actor Michael Winner wakes from his operation.

* *

“Nurse!” Michael says irritably, having already been ignored three times, “nurse, was the operation a success, I feel fine?”

But the nurse just walks past the bed and into the next ward.

“Bloody ridiculous.” Winner says grumpily to himself, stepping out of bed and into the hospital slippers. He feels slightly woozy from the medication but otherwise in tip top condition. He sees two doctors chatting in lowered voices around a water cooler and approaches them to register his complaint about the rude nurse.

“Did you hear about Michael Winner?” asks one of the doctors to the other.

“Yeah, I guess he should have 'calmed down, dear!'” both men let out guffaws but quickly stifle them, concerned of waking up the sleeping patients in the ward.

“Now look here!” Winner begins but they ignore him and continue their conversation.

“Still we shouldn't laugh though, died on the operating table poor chap. Where did you hear the news?”

“BBC news website, you?”

“A funny picture on 4chan.”

“It is strange though, because I was in the operating theatre at the time and I remember the operation being a complete success.”

“I heard that too, but then, why would 4chan make something like that up?”

“I suppose so.”

“And why would everyone on Twitter be making all these brilliant jokes?”

“Well...”

“Look, let's just check Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is wrong about something then I don't want to be right!”

The two doctors get their iphones from their doctor bags and browse in silence for a few seconds.

“Okay, well I guess you're right, I don't know what I was thinking. Go on, tell us another one!”

“Okay, okay. What did Michael Winner say when he met St. Paul at the Pearly Gates.”

“Dunno...”

“Calm down dear, I had a Death Wish so let me in Heaven already will you!” The doctors burst into laughter at the two brilliant individual references and once again hush each other up.

Exasperated, Michael Winner stomps into reception and, ignored by the receptionist, doctors and other patients, out the front door and onto the London street.

“Taxi!” Michael Winner raises a hand but the cab driver just continues on past. He curses to himself as a young lady bumps into him. She looks confused for a moment and then carries on walking.

“CAN ANYONE SEE ME?! I'M MICHAEL WINNER!” Michael shouts to the crowded street but no-one glances his way. Michael Winner looks down at his hand, it gradually fades away into nothingness, as the words "calm down dear" in slightly different but ultimately identical guises fill social media live feeds.

FIN

This Blog is dedicated to my good friend Shaun Kellett, and anyone else who made a Michael Winner joke over a social networking site and showed no contrition afterwards.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (extra final chapter)

Chapter 18

The evening rain seems to hang in the air, darkening the sky and soaking the sheep in the fields. In a lonely expanse of sodden countryside the beautiful mansion sits, besieged by the elements and the creeping of time. It is 1941 and the house is in darkness. In the servants quarters Mrs Macready pauses in her nightly reading of the bible and looks darkly at the ceiling. Although two floors below the children's room she can hear the creak of the floorboards as Lucy stomps around, swigging from a bottle of gin and raging impotently at her situation. 

“Lucy we have to get on with our lives, we have to move on.” Susan implores.

“But I was a princess!”

“I know Lucy, we both were. But we have to get on with our...”

“But I was a fucking princess in a kingdom of magic and wonder!” Lucy shouts, throwing her sister's hand aside, “I had a lovely boyfriend, some servants and a group of friends! Now I'm 8 years fucking old, it's pissing down with rain, it's the fucking blitz and I'm never going to see my boyfriend ever again.”

“We have the opportunity to start our lives again, make them whatever we want.”

“Terrific! I have to live the next ten years as a child and then get a job. I can't even remember what jobs there are in this world, can you?”

Susan tries to think, to remember the world before. It seems hazy and distant like a half remembered film.

“Clerical work.” she settles on eventually.

“Right,” Lucy says, “I don't know what that is. But it doesn't sound as good as being an actual fucking princess. Is clerical work in any way comparable to being a magic princess with a healing potion and a dagger?”

“The Professor says we can go back! One day we'll return to Narnia and have more adventures!”

“Oh don't talk to me about that old prick!” Lucy shouts, uncorking the bottle and having another swig, “he's clearly supposed to represent the author of the book, he can take us back whenever he likes! And besides Susan,” Lucy spits her sister's name with scorn, “in case you've forgotten, what seems like a second in this world is fifteen fucking years back home. Our friends are probably all old or dead now. We've missed the best years of our lives just because we were chasing that stupid stag.”

Susan makes for the door, looking concerned and older than ever which is ironic if you think about it.

“Stay strong, Princess Lucy the Valiant, one day we'll return to Narnia, one day. Remember; once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.”

“Oh piss off!” Lucy cries and lies down on the bed.

“How art she?” Peter asks as his sister gently closes the door. Peter hasn't adjusted well to not speaking in a fantasy style.

“Not good.”

“By the Lion's Mane I trust rude health shall return to our sister soon enough. Tis a queer situation we find ourselves in, returned to childlike form having gone through puberty, grown accustomed to sex, alcohol and sword fights and stuff.”

“I know,” Edmund says, “I tried to have a lovely wank earlier. Nothing doing I'm afraid.”

“Why has this happened to us?” Susan asks, burying her head in her hands.

“I know not” Peter sighs, staring out of the window at the ordinary British countryside as the ordinary British drizzle fills the air, “but we have to get on with our lives. We have to live...”

*

Susan, Peter and Edmund are in the drawing room. They have been back in the real world a week but still sit awkwardly in their unfamiliar children's bodies. Edmund is stuffing his face with rationed sweets because he can't find any Turkish delight and Susan is knitting a hat with a lion on it. Peter is standing at the window, running a razor over his bald, child's face and staring blankly at the rolling fields of rural England. There is a sudden banging from the room above and all three children look up and then at each other.

“Is she still up there?” Edmund asks nervously through a mouthful of liquorish,

“Yes,” Susan says sadly, “three hours she's been in that wardrobe, just sitting amongst the coats.”

“But we can't get back to Narnia that way, the Professor told us.”

“She doesn't trust him. She thinks he's a literary device, and a weak one at that.”

*

Inside the musky old wardrobe Lucy sits crossed legged with a box of matches in her hand. One by one she lights them and watches as the roomy interior illuminates and then slowly recedes back into darkness. She has explored the wardrobe more times than she can remember but it refuses to lead her back to the kingdom of Narnia. She has concentrated, prayed and even pummelled the back panel but to no avail. Sighing deeply she lights the last match in the pack and the brightness flickers steadily before being vanishing into smoke.

Lucy sits in silence for a moment, willing Narnia to appear before her. She almost thinks she can feel a breeze on her neck.

This time, she thinks to herself and crawls to the back of the wardrobe. But her hand touches only thick winter coats and oak panel.

The End

C.S Lewis, 1950

The Entirely Non-Ironic Death of a Lad

The following is the entirely true story of one of the greatest website founders this country has ever produced, and his tragic demise. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but all the events are true (Disclaimer: in the same way that Fargo was true). It is written in present tense because this is more exciting.

  

The 2.00 pm L.A sunshine pours into the bedroom through the rips and crumples in Darren Webster’s Venetian blinds. The floor is littered with computer servers, laptops, empty champagne bottles, take away boxes, cigarette ends and vomit. In one corner stands a plasma screen still showing the main menu for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. In a huge heart shaped bed Darren is sleeping his hangover off loudly and deeply, his legs intertwined with those of two of the most expensive and inhibition-free call girls available on the West coast.

On the bedside table Darren’s mobile phone begins to vibrate angrily and blares out a club remix of Gangnam style. Somewhere beneath the hazy film of champagne, coke and belligerence Darren’s eyelids flicker but he doesn't reach over and the phone goes to voice mail.

“Darren baby it’s Eddie! Just a quick message to let you know I've secured the McDonalds deal, you’re welcome! They've agreed to all our demands and they’re giving you a cool million to advertise on the page! As you suggested the M is going to be held up by two topless birds with massive tits and Ronald Mcdonald will be having a big wank over them! We've come a long way baby, hit me back when you get this message.”

Darren gets up and walks over to the dresser. He looks briefly into a mirror covered in photographs of himself with various supermodels and Premier league footballers. He takes in his disheveled appearance before racking up a huge line of cocaine and arranging it into the shape of a pair of breasts. He snorts the lot but feels nothing but a faint ringing in his ears, so immune is he to feelings and Class-A narcotics. Darren scratches himself and glances over to the wall, covered from ceiling to floor with various posters and promotional leaflets for his website, his baby, his life’s work.

It is over five years since Darren co-founded the LADbible with his friend and business partner Steve.  Eddie has never said a truer word, Darren has come a long way baby.  A long way indeed.

One of the prostitutes begin to stir from the bed, slurring her words badly and asking for money or water or something, breaking Darren from his reverie.

“What is it?” he asks irritably, walking over to the Xbox and picking up his favourite controller,

“David baby, can we have some more coke?”

“What do you think I am, made of cocaine?!” Darren shouts, briefly considering the logistics of such a project and then rejecting it, “besides what are you even doing in here? This is a bedroom not a kitchen which is where you and all women belong ha ha ha #lol!”

“But, Danny baby...”

“No! Get out of the emporium of Lad and get me a bacon sandwich ha ha #sandwichwench!”

The two women stand up and start to argue but Darren puts his fingers in his ears and shouts “la la la I can’t hear you la” until they leave and he returns to his game. He has completed this particular chapter of the Call of Duty oeuvre many times but it doesn't matter. He coolly dispatches another rag-head terrorist but again derives no feeling of achievement. Darren puts the controller down and a single tear forms in the bloodshot and sleep encrusted corner of his eye, as another passenger jet roars overhead.

 How did it come to this?

Darren walks over to his laptop and logs into the LADbible. The changes that the website has undergone over the years have been extraordinary. From humble begins as an internet meme, to an ironic series of laws thought up by knowing students being faux misogynist, to its current incarnation, a literal bible. An online bible worshipped by millions of 16-25 year old men. Many of whom have dropped out of society altogether to live in Lad communes where they spend their days playing Xbox, watching football, masturbating each other to hardcore pornography and tweeting about feminist dykes and how best to spike women’s drinks. Every Sunday there is a piñata in the shape of a woman that everyone hits with sticks until it rains down pornographic magazines, cans of Carling and statistics on the disparity in wages between men and women in similar job positions.

Darren watches as thousands of posts per second fill the screen and selects one at random; it is a joke about a celebrity rape victim, written in a speech bubble coming out of the mouth of a kitten with a Hitler moustache. Darren clicks on the user’s profile. The boy is five years old. His display picture is him dressed as fireman Sam sitting on his Grandmother’s knee. Below is a comment from one of his preschool friends, “Don’t think much of that pussy mate! #lol #old” Darren sighs deeply and clicks another link, it is a photograph of an unconscious woman on the floor of a nightclub, Darren scrolls down to the comments.

Fannydragon96: Hey, the only thing worse than women is disabled women, am I right guys?! #mongs

Rickygervaisisgod: I agree!

Spunkmaster7: Yes you are correct

Thepussylord: Man I hate them women!

Dicksplash123: I wonder what Mario Balotelli would make of all this?

How did it come to this?

The door to the room opens and the LADbible cofounder Steve, resplendent in a Union Flag suit crosses the threshold. His eyes rove around the room and finally rest on Darren, his friend, his business partner, his ally of five years, weeping gently at his laptop.

“Darren, I...” he begins but Darren raises a shaking hand to stop him,

“Steve, it’s awful...it’s...”

“It isn’t our fault Darren! It was funny! We both agree it was funny! Students mimicking 1970s attitudes on the internet! We weren’t to know people wouldn’t understand the admittedly wafer thin veil of irony! We weren’t to know!”

“We should have known!  As if anyone prepared to identify themselves as a lad would have any concept of irony or self awareness! We’ve created a monster.”

“It was funny Darren, it was funny. We wanted to be politically incorrect and annoy the stupid squares and the man hating PC feminists!”

“But we didn’t want this!” Darren screams, pointing to a blog by an 18 month old baby detailing, in his opinion, which race of women are the sluttiest.

Steve can’t think of anything to say. Darren nods slowly and stands. In one motion he has pulled his laptop from the table and thrown it out of the window and into the swimming pool shaped like a penis below. Steve watches transfixed as Darren puts on a pair of aviator shades, ejects his Xbox game and inserts on a Roy Chubby Brown DVD. He walks over to the stereo and turns on Chris Moyles’ latest collection of humorous novelty songs and climbs up onto his desk.

“Steve, I want you to remember me this way.”

Darren reaches to the ceiling, pulls down a noose, and wraps it around his neck. He takes a pair of women’s underwear from his back pocket and looks deeply into his best friend’s eyes.

“Hey Steve, how many lads does it take to change a light bulb?”

“I don’t know,” Steve whispers, almost inaudibly,

“None. Let the bitch cook in the dark.”

And with these words Darren drops his trousers, stuffs the underwear into his mouth and steps off the desk, masturbating furiously as he writhes on the end of the rope like a fish on a line. But a fish with women’s pants in its mouth and one that is also capable of masturbation.

Steve hesitates for a moment as his friend twitches violently from side to side, making hideous guttural choking noises and still wanking away. Steve pulls a gun from his jacket, takes aim, and shoots his business partner squarely between the eyes, pausing only to take a picture with his camera phone.  He lets out a sigh that seems to have been brewing in his tattered soul for years and watches as the blood soaks into Darren’s Keith Lemon T shirt and drips slowly onto the carpet. He turns away and points the gun at his own head.

Outside the gates of Darren’s Los Angeles mansion the feminist group protesting Darren stop singing their lovely songs as they hear a gunshot. Followed by another.  They cannot know what has just happened beyond the large front door but seem to sense the enormity of the sound.

“What was that?” asks one.

“Forget it, ladies. It’s LADbible town.” A policeman says, in a funny cinematic reference.

The Greatest Moments on Earth!

Apparently, right, the world is finite?

All human life is finite and will end?

 Did you fucking know about this?

I know right, why weren't we told? It's important! They should have taught it to us at school in double science or whatever that “citizenship” stuff was. *DISCLAIMER* If they did teach it to us in science or citizenship then obviously I missed that class. I was probably having my BCG injection or was round the back of the bike sheds smoking fags and snogging all the pretty girls. Or exploiting weakness in the other kids.

That or I was in the class and just wasn’t listening for various cool reasons (see smoking, kissing, and exploitation). *DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER* If you went to school with me and have quite a different memory of what I was like, I did do all those things, just whenever I did them you were somewhere else doing P.E or detention or something.

So yeah, the world is going to end. 

The sun is finite and one day the Earth will just fuck off. This is a bit of a downer for a few reasons but mostly I think because it's a reminder that no matter what you achieve in your life eventually it will be reduced to nothing. Even if you become Europe’s friendliest King or invent the world’s most hilarious, life affirming meme, eventually all recognition and memory of your life will have boiled away to nothing like so much stupid water.

However due to the cool time I had at school I am an optimist, and I have thought of a positive spin.

Just imagine that in a far distant Universe there is a super intelligent alien race, brilliant and advanced in every way, and they've been watching us and they think we’re brilliant. Like how otherwise intelligent people on Earth sometimes watch Coronation Street, this alien race finds us endlessly fascinating despite the asinine nature of everything we do. Again, just like in the Coronation Street analogy.

They absolutely love us, they think we’re great, and then, at the moment of  the Earth’s annihilation, this race of hyper intelligent super beings will produce a Channel 4 style rundown of Earth’s greatest moments, hosted by the alien equivalent of Jimmy Carr.

Because Earth has a massive audience on the planet Farawayia. Sure the early seasons were 

a bit shit, all that tedious bollocks with a primordial stew, but if you stuck with it then eventually it got good. Alien Jimmy Carr is usually a gag man/alien but by the end of the roller coaster ride that is “The Greatest Moments on Earth!”  retrospective he’ll be wiping away a tear. The end credits will roll slowly with old style sitcom music and every single organism on Earth getting a chance to wave goodbye and pull a funny pretend sad face as the studio audience clap their hands/suction tendrils and holler their appreciation with their mouths/suction jaws.

These shows seem to last forever on Earth, so I reckon in alien time there will be ample space to discuss literally every human that has ever lived in great detail. Doesn't that cheer you up? An alien Lauren Laverne reminiscing about her favourite “you” moments? The impact you had, however small, on the overall narrative of the planet Earth? Your best sex scenes and funniest lines.  Sure there’ll be some lesser pundits contributing to the show, but former alien reality TV contestants will be given the “early” slots to talk about.  After the Big Bang but before all that cool shit with the dinosaurs.

People, by and large, are sorry that they have to die. It’s a bummer. But I think I would genuinely be a lot happier about the horrible knowledge that one day I was pass, cold and alone, if I knew that somewhere out there an entire species were looking back on my life and applauding. That probably tells you more about me as a person than I would care for you to know, but I am comforted by the fact that in the distant future, alien Huey from the alien Fun Lovin’ Criminals is discussing the blog tedious clown and saying how it was very prescient, if a bit derivative of other things.

Nice Boys First XI

Football.  We’ve all seen it. At Wembley Stadium, on the telly in the pub, at the end of the news. It would be pointless to deny it. Frank Lampard. He’s one. Rio Ferdinand. He’s another one. It’s the most popular sport in the country, brings people together and fills up 90 minutes of the day that would otherwise have nothing in them (plus stoppage time and the bit in the middle where the players go off the field for a bit).

Football however has had its fair share of problems recently. It seems to be constantly embroiled in allegations of racism from fans, players and officials and is marred by idiotic statements made by its proponents on Twitter.

After the endless communal spunk fest of inspiration and pride that was the Olympics football has even started to be seen as the “bad guy” of sports. The arrogant, anti social old dictator drunk off power and Carlsberg, worshiped by fools and bathing in the millions of pounds offered up to it by evil television corporations.

However I think I've found the solution to football’s PR nightmare. It’s the answer everyone’s been waiting for, that’s right...

A man who knows very little about football has written a blog picking his all time first 11 of players that he reckons are probably nice guys in real life based on gut instinct!

That’s right motherfuckers. Let’s turn this wave of negative public opinion around!

My intention with this blog is to be welcomed into the football fraternity and get a regular spot as a panellist on the popular “Football review weekly” show on the BBC alongside Alan Hanson, George Lineker, Graham Goalposts, Lil’  Monty, The Count, Lord Controversy, Deepak Chopra,  Ron Corner-flag and Alan Davies.

The Team 

Goalkeeper

Pat Jennings:

A lot of goalkeepers  or “goalies” are quite smug and arrogant about the fact they’re allowed to pick up the ball with their hands when, if any other player does it, the referee tells them they have to get off the pitch and go home. Not Pat Jennings. Once during a training session a member of the youth team was visibly upset by the unjustness of this system but Pat went over and reassured him that he was so good at kicking the ball with his feet and sometimes head and chest that he didn’t need to pick it up. The player was immediately cheered up, and that little boy, who nobody liked, went on to be Michael Owen (citation needed)

Defenders

Stephen Carr:

He came into the bookshop where I work once and bought two volumes of Usborne Children’s bible stories (presumably for a child) and was really nice and friendly and polite even though because I was in two minds about whether to ask him for an autograph I didn’t enter the BOGOHP offer and had to void the transaction and start again which must have been frustrating but he never even mentioned it.

Graeme Le Saux:

 A nice educated man who reads the Guardian, plus he stood up to stupid Northern fuckwit Robbie Fowler when he mimed that he was a bummer on the pitch. Truly the Peter Tatchell of the football world.

Chris Hughton:

Used to be proper left wing in his youth as I think I remember Brian Clough was in that film with that Welsh bloke in. But Brian Clough always seemed like a bit of a nob and his one liners weren’t as good as he thought they were. For example “I wouldn’t say I’m the best manager in the business but I am in the top one.” Quite good, But it isn’t exactly Tim Vine is it? I’ve just realised this has mostly been about Brian Clough. Chris Hughton seems like a nice cheeky cockney and has a nice face.

Roberto Carlos:

Aside from football, my biggest passion in the world is videogames. The last one I really enjoyed was Pro Evolution Soccer 3 and on it whenever Roberto Carlos took a free kick his run up was about a third of the pitch. Why would Konami have included this detail if he wasn’t a nice guy?

Midfielders

Owen Hargreaves:  

I saw him play for England in a world cup one time and he was really good at being in midfield and then he signed for Man United and got injured and that always seemed like a shame to me. Also at one stage of his career he looked a bit like Orlando Bloom and it is fun to imagine Owen Hargreaves being in Pirates of the Caribbean or Captain Jack Sparrow playing for England.

Jonás Gutiérrez (Captain):

Again I first spotted this talent during the world cup. Whilst in the tunnel waiting to come on most of the Argentine players appeared nervous, steely eyed with determination, staring intently at the pitch and focussing on the task in hand. Not Jonas. Jonas was dicking about with one of the small children that accompany the players, pulling silly faces, making funny noises and generally twatting around.  He also sometimes celebrates goals by wearing a Spiderman mask.

Paul Scholes:

Looks like the kind of guy who, if he had a party and you were his neighbour would say “oh we’re having a party, it won’t be too noisy and if you want to pop round for a beer and some snacks then feel free,” and actually mean it.

Gianfranco Zola:

Short and smiley.  Very much the Rob Brydon of Attacking Midfielders.

Forwards

Matt Le Tissier:

The main reason behind a lot of my selection decisions is that the player seems like a regular, down to Earth guy. Matt Le Tisier seems like such a regular, down to Earth guy that it almost felt like he was just some bloke who managed to trick his way into the Southampton first team as a drunken bet after too many real ales and curries.  And he was such a good method actor he became really good at football.  I’m going to use this is an idea for a fun British comedy and this is the reason behind his selection.

Jürgen Klinsmann:

 What’s this? A German in the Nice Boys XI, surely not? Well actually German people can be just as friendly as anyone else so check in your own prejudices you stupid bigot.

That’s my team! If anyone can think of any other nice footballers who deserve to make the cut then please let me know.

See you on the BBC Alan Shearer!

The Two Richards

Bacon and Dawkins

I think a lot of creative forces like me (yes I am because I'm writing a blog, stupid) hope that their dreams will provide a well of inspiration and ideas. It is hoped that as you sleep the mangled little wisps of thought that bubble up through the subconscious will form something substantial that can be harvested as the next great album or novel or hilarious blog. 99% of the time this doesn't happen. What does happen is you wake up at 3.46am in a bleary panic, trying to gently nurture and keep flickering the faint flame of your Eureka moment as you wait for your laptop to load up. You write it down as faithfully and articulately as you can and happily drift back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that all your worries and problems are over. Within the next six months you'll be laughing at Stephen Fry’s latest witticism at the BAFTA awards, too full of oysters and cocaine to think of a response but that doesn't matter because you've “made it”, and lets face it Stephen the armful of awards rather speak for themselves, don't they? Too bloody right they do Stephen!

Ooh yes brother you've eaten your fill of half baked ideas and the shitty, bitter chocolate of rejection over the years but now you've finally found Willy Wonka's golden ticket. It arrived in the post when you were half asleep, c/o your dreams and excellent imagination. This added quirk will probably make up the bulk of the liner notes of your number one album. Notes that you'll probably hand write for a charming personal touch. It will probably cover at least 15 minutes of the Mark Lawson interview. Be sure to thank the fabric softener you used on these old quilts when you talk to Esquire Magazine, because every factor that caused this perfect storm of ideas and genius must be acknowledged. You wonder to yourself if you'd reject the knighthood on ethical grounds. Of course the money won't change you but hopefully the legions of groupies and hangers on don't leave you jaded.

Then morning comes and you re-read your idea and it isn't quite how you remember it. It seems to be mostly verbs. Verbs and incorrectly used Spanish punctuation. It also seems to be the exact plot of Pirates of the Caribbean but with “Jack Sparrow” replaced with your name. Shit. Better phone your boss and take back that resignation text message. Your subconcious is a stupid, lying prick.

This is what happens 99% of the time. 1% of the time however, something else happens.

I spent the other night on a friend's sofa. Very comfortable it was too and thank you again for letting me stay. However I still had quite a disjointed night's sleep and some quite surreal dreams. Hearing about other peoples' dreams is utterly tedious so I wouldn't do this to you if it wasn't for the fact I had my Eureka moment. A perfect, fully formed idea for a TV show that is utterly ready to be pitched to a major network. Probably the BBC but I think HBO would probably give it more of an “edge”.

It is called The Two Richards (Bacon and Dawkins).

The basic premise involves the scientist Richard Dawkins and the presenter Richard Bacon as a double act who travel the world going on adventures, getting into scrapes and learning from each other.

Already, fucking brilliant.

There'll be laughs, there'll be tragedy and thrills and spills and more learning. Each episode will begin with our two heroes in a studio together (with an upmarket studio audience, made up mostly of young professionals). They'll do a bit of banter and introduce the premise of this week's “Bacon and The Dawkins”. In the dream the banter went word for word like this:

Bacon: Hello Richard.

Dawkins: Hello Richard.

Big audience laugh

Bacon: I say Dawkins, what would you say is your favourite thing in the entire Universe?
Dawkins: Well Bacon that's a very difficult thing to quantify given the numerous variables involved.

Bacon: Do you know what mine is?

Dawkins: No?

Bacon: IT'S BACON!

Massive audience laugh and lots of cheering as bits of bacon start falling from the ceiling and lights with the word “bacon” start flashing all over the stage

Dawkins: Oh, Richard!

Bacon: I love Bacon! I love it so much it's in my name! What even is a Dawkins?! I can't eat that!

At this point the dream got a bit hazy but I think the raw materials for the greatest television show this country has ever produced are very much there. It also serves as a much needed vehicle for two of this nation's most loved, if under used, personalities.

Now as I've said it's one of the dullest things hearing about dreams, let alone reading a blog dedicated to one of them and I'm grateful for everyone who visits this page and thank you for reading this far Mum. But sometimes when a miracle happens it becomes more selfish not to share it with the world. This is one of those situations.

Writing this blog whilst drunk and feeling a bit sad and then not posting would be similar to Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin and not sharing his life saving cure with the rest of the world because he's worried someone will go, “ooh it's a bit self indulgent this discovery.”

Imagine if we'd never had the light bulb because Thomas Edison was a bit worried that people would think it wasn't as good as his first invention about 50 Shades of Grey?

Or the man or woman who invents the cure for cancer keeps it under their hat because not enough people viewed or commented on her last cure?

This blog may have become the charting of a mental breakdown.

The Low Level Joy of Comedy Podcasts

The Low Level Joy of Comedy Podcasts 

Doing the washing up is dull. This, I think, most of us can agree on. Doing the washing up is dull. Tidying the lounge is dull. Travelling on a National Express coach is dull. Falling asleep is dull. Walking from your bedroom to the toilet is dull. Life is an overgrown jungle of low hanging vines of utter tedium and boredom that we must wearily hack through with whatever entertainment we can grab before finally arriving at the blessed jungle clearing of death...

Which is why I like comedy podcasts.

I am more or less incapable of doing any task on my own without plugging my ears and brain into an ipod and literally hearing voices in my head. Pretty much always the voices of better, more successful comedians. I started in 2008 and they've been a staple of lunch breaks and solo drinking and gently weeping sessions ever since. The problem is that comedy podcasts seem to be running out of steam. Most of my favourites are either finished or on indefinite hiatus. To be clear, what I mean by “comedy podcasts” is independently run audio content released for free online, I am not including podcasts that are just the highlights from a radio show top and tailed by the presenters and then lazily slung onto itunes for people too asleep or disinterested to tune into the live show. I probably should include these as a lot of them are really good and also make up 90% of the audio podcast chart, but I don't consider these to be “in the spirit” of the podcasts that I love.

It is probably reasonable to say that professional stand up comedians are quite self indulgent people, which is fair enough since being self indulgent is literally their job. Podcasts are therefore the perfect medium for comedians as they offer the opportunity to release content that is absolutely uncensored and unmolested by commissioners and editors. Apart from libel and copywriter infringement anything goes. If the result turns out to be offensive or rambling then the podcast won't get many subscribers and will fail.

The best example of this is probably Richard Herring's fantastic As it Occurs to Me (AIOTM, AIOTM) which was a stand up and sketch show recorded in front of an audience and put online for free. This format negates the need to pitch to the BBC or a production company who would cut the bits too offensive or obscurely referential for the radio. The result is a brilliantly rude and hilarious long running sketch show that would never work in any other medium. Like a lot of good comedy the real gold comes in the later episodes when the audience have a huge set of shared cultural references from earlier episodes.

Podcasts will only really appeal to a particular kind of comedy nerd. The world of stand up comedy in particular is very polished and refined at the moment. This is obviously apparent in stuff like the Comedy Roadshow and Mock the Week but the trickle down effect means a lot of open spots are very aware of being slick and having a career plan. Podcasts are a brilliant antithesis to this, anarchic and rambling and often inaccessible to new listeners. Part of the charm of improvised podcasts is that some of it will be rubbish, there is a perverse joy in finding a hilarious skit having listened to 20 minutes of material that doesn't quite work.

But they seem to be petering out, which is perhaps to be expected. Podcasts are after all free and, aside from the occasional live edition, generate no income for the “writers and performers”. It is an unusual situation to regularly receive a free episode of something with no threat of cancellation, and for the longer running podcasts there seems to eventually come a sense “well, what now?”

 Obviously they are done for love but if there is a “point” to comedy podcasts then it's to generate interest and add to an audience. The best thing about the medium is that anyone can do it and if the result is any good then it will attract listeners. However there must come a point when a podcast has built up a fanbase all it is going to and perhaps then there has to be a time to stop.

So with that in mind here are my top 10 favourite podcasts, hopefully the many, many, many readers of this incredibly successful and popular Blog will all download an episode and the ones that have stopped will be so taken aback by the Earth shattering groundswell in listenership they'll start podcasting again and once more help drum the tedious silence out of my life.

1) The Trap Sodcast/Event Horizon Crescent

2) Collings and Herrin

3) Peacock and Gamble

4) Utter Shambles

5) As it Occurs to Me

6) The Perfect Ten

7) Precious Little

8) Richard Herring's Edinburgh Fringe/Leicester Square Theatre Podcast

9) The Ricky Gervais Podcast

10) Do the Right Thing