Twats and Tweets at London lawyers’ comedy show trial in a pub last night

Judge Norman Lovett, looking the part
(photograph by Bob Slayer)

Two days ago, I lost my voice. Yesterday it was back though slightly weak and I coughed a lot. This morning I have no voice again.

At 5.00am this morning I woke, coughing, with my throat razor-blade raw from a dream in which I had been transcribing the ornate language of a medieval court case.

This was because, last night, I went to the Lamb Tavern, first built in 1309 in London’s Leadenhall Market over the Basilica at the centre of Roman Londinium.

I was there to see a sold-out try-out of This Is Your Trial, a comedy show in which three comedians are the judge, prosecutor and defence counsel in the ‘trial’ of an accused person who (as in real English court cases) is presumed guilty unless proven innocent.

The paying audience were mostly lawyers. The accused (on a rather vague charge of identity fraud and making over 100,000 Tweets) was legal blogger Charon QC, aka Mike Semple Piggot. Last night’s judge was the suitably bewigged Norman Lovett, with American Luke Capasso as prosecutor and sober Bob Slayer as the defence counsel.

When I started writing this blog today, I searched around for an adjective to describe members of the English legal profession and the best one I could come up with was ‘smug’. I suppose that is what comes of building your careers and high earnings on the back of so many innocent people being imprisoned by a system which does not even present a credible pretence of seeking to deliver justice. On the other hand, when I meet people involved in the game they are almost always intelligent, sophisticated, good company and have a sense of humour. So I guess the two words ‘amiable’ and ‘amoral’ cover the English legal profession.

And, last night, a legal eagle sitting in the same row as me did offer me a free sausage and a chip, so the profession may not be totally uncaring.

The evening started with Judge Norman Lovett saying he was looking forward to appearing at a gig on Saturday night – the Madness Weekend at Butlins, Minehead – though lamenting the fact he would “miss X Factor, the jungle programme and Match of the Day – three programmes on the trot… but the money’s good and so are Madness”.

An excellent piece of advertising – something which could perhaps be added to real court cases to lower legal fees.

Last night was also like a dream product placement plug for Apple, as the room was awash with iPhones, a few iPads and, behind me, even a Macbook laptop. Throughout, people were Tweeting while still managing to pay attention and laugh.

Bob Slayer, Norman Lovett and Luke Capasso last night

This Is Your Trial is a wonderful format. It would transfer seamlessly to TV as a sort of comedy Crown Court – and it could make a fortune on the corporate circuit.

Putting the case for the Prosecution, Luke Capasso’s opening line was “Charon QC… Charon? Isn’t that the ferry man of Hades?… Do you worship the Devil, sir? Do you suckle at the teat of Beelzebub?”

It turned out that Charon QC turned down a place at Cambridge because he had fallen in love with a girl and went instead to Leicester University. He had also, in his youth, mysteriously been approached by a member of MI6 “whilst wearing a skimpy pair of speedos” with an invitation to “work for her Majesty”.

“I wasn’t wearing the speedos,” argued Charon QC in his own defence.

“Her Majesty was wearing them?” asked an incredulous Luke Capasso.

“Her Majesty wasn’t,” explained Charon QC, “but the Commercial Attaché was. It was a surreal experience and, needless to say, I had little difficulty in turning the offer down.”

The prosecution argued, unfairly I think, that “bloggers are a subversive breed”.

Quoting the Daily Telegraph, it was suggested they have an annoying habit of pointing out when journalists make mistakes, that they are “disturbing creatures” who publish “any old thing they find on the internet” and “they engage in their activities for accuracy, for truth, for their own enjoyment and for the enlightenment of others rather than for money”.

Bob Slayer rather unexpectedly, given that he was arguing for the Defence, said: “Those who can, do… Those who can’t, teach… And those who can’t teach, blog…”

In a clever end twist to the evening, Charon QC was found guilty by a card magician.

In the bar afterwards, Bob Slayer was saying how disconcerting it was to have members of the audience Tweeting throughout the event on their iPhones.

“It’s a new dynamic you have to deal with somehow,” said one Paul Bernal.

“This audience,” he continued, “is made up of people connected with the law in various ways who Tweet – #tweetinglegals. I’m a law lecturer; I teach law. I have 2,950-something followers and I was Tweeting to them. They knew what was going on here tonight. We had the hashtag #TrialofCharonQC – I Tweeted maybe 20 times during the event…. These are the people who have re-Tweeted me,” he said, showing us his phone. “He’s in San Diego. These guys are in London. He’s in Canada.”

Another man at the bar, dressed in what appeared to be an orange Guantanamo Bay outfit, said: “I teach lawyers how to do social media like Tweeting.”

Paul Bernal said to Bob: “I Tweeted your joke about Those who can’t teach, blog and it has been re-Tweeted by three people around the world… @legalaware has got 6,366 followers. The other two are not quite so big but, even so…”

“Could you add @BobSlayer on it quickly?” Bob Slayer asked.

“It’s gone, I’m afraid,” said Paul Bernal.

“You should sue them for plagiarism,” I suggested to Bob, but my weak voice went unheard.

“I’ve got 650 followers and I’ve barely Tweeted,” Bob told Paul Bernal.

“But they’re all brewers,” I suggested.

“They are, yes,” agreed Bob.

“The thing that Tweeters want to do more than anything else,” said the Guantanamo Bay social media teacher, “is not get obsessed by numbers.”

“I’ve got this new phone,” Bob said, showing off his unimpressively non-Apple smartphone, “to specifically get into the Tweeting game.”

“The first thing,” the Guantanamo Bay man told him, “is to have fun.”

“Oh,” said Bob,”I have a lot of fun but, when I wake up in the morning, I can’t remember it.”

“You’ve broken the first rule of Tweeting,” he was told. “Never Tweet after you drink.”

“But I am constantly drinking,” explained Bob.

“In that case, you have to invent your own different rules for Tweeting. Do you know when you’re drunk?”

“Always.”

At that point, I left and went home.

This morning when I awoke, coughing, I found an e-mail from Bob:

“I learnt a lot about Tweeting from these lawyers tonight.”

I continued coughing. My voice is now returning a bit.

And now David Gilroy has Tweeted me to say he is Guantanamo Bay Man.

We live in interesting times.

I am worried that I was wrong to give advice to this comedian on how to blog

Lewis Schaffer shows his true colours

I was going to blog about something else today. But then I looked at my e-mail Inbox.

I may have a rival daily blog. I am worried.

When I was a student, in the dim and distant years of the last century when people still used quills and wore flared trousers, I got myself a summer job in the press and publicity department at Penguin Books. One day, they had a visit from a man who was starting up a publishing business in Malaysia. He had asked if he could look round the  Penguin operation at Harmondsworth to see how it was organised on the ground.

Very politely, they told him everything they could to help him. All about their relationship with their printers, their distribution system, the economic set-up of the company and so on.

At the time, I wondered, Why are they doing this? They may find in the future that they have trained their own business rival.

I still do not know why they did it.

Last week, Lewis Schaffer, the not-yet famous American comic based in London, phoned me, asking advice.

“I think maybe I should scale down all the online stuff I do,” he told me. “What do you think, John? Maybe I should stop Tweeting on Twitter, stop doing stuff on Facebook, stop all this social networking stuff or scale it back. Or maybe I should increase it.”

This was classic Lewis Schaffer; it went on for about ten minutes.

I was watching the climax of a movie on TV. I kept watching and listening.

Occasionally, I would say, “Mmmm,” or “Ah.”

I know from experience that it comforts Lewis Schaffer as he talks. He does not phone for advice; he phones to talk. At one point, I managed to get a word in and perhaps foolishly gave him some advice:

“You should blog,” I told him, still watching and listening to the explosions on the TV screen. “You are a natural blogger,” I told him, still on verbal auto-pilot, “I think you should give up performing your own comedy shows. You should be a ‘meeter and greeter’. That’s what you enjoy. You should meet people at the door, shake their hand, greet them, find out about them, have long chats with everyone, make friends with them. That’s what you like. You don’t do shows because you like being on stage; you just do it to chat to people. Don’t bother to perform a show on stage. Why bother? It just gives you stress. Just welcome people to the show but don’t do the show. Blogging is performing without the stress of performing.”

“Who do you think I should blog with?” Lewis Schaffer asked. “Who do you blog with?”

“Wait a second,” I asked him.

Five people got machine-gunned on screen.

“WordPress,” I told him. “I think you should either use WordPress or Blogger.

“Blogger has the theoretical advantage that it is owned by Google, so it might prove better at some point in the future, but Google picks up everything on the WordPress blogs anyway. I used to blog on Blogger, but I preferred the templates on WordPress. Really, it would be better for me to blog on both. To duplicate the blog and have it running on both. But there have been so many blogs now that it would be too complicated to go back and duplicate everything and I don’t think it would be very effective to start duplicating now.”

“What about Janey?” Lewis Schaffer asked.

“Ah!” I said, “Janey Godley… Well now…”

“Janey is another league entirely. She has a man who duplicates her blogs on I think it’s something like 170 or 180 or more different websites. When she was at her blogging peak, I know she was getting over 500,000 hits every week, because I worked it out for her on about three occasions over a period.”

“Jesus!” said Jewish American comedian Lewis Schaffer.

I paused.

Another three people died on screen and a car went over a cliff.

“Janey’s main blog is on Blogger,” I continued, “but it doesn’t really matter because it’s everywhere. Do a Google Search for “janey godley” + blog and you get some idea. She also has a widget on the homepage of her website which links to her blog and updates every time her main blog is updated. But she tends to Tweet now,” I told him. “She blogs less but could Tweet for Britain in the Olympics.”

“I don’t know, John,” Lewis Schaffer said to me. “I think maybe I should scale down all the social networking stuff I do. What do you think? Maybe I should stop Tweeting on Twitter, stop doing stuff on Facebook, stop all this online stuff or scale it back. Or maybe I should increase it. What do you think?”

This was classic Lewis Schaffer; it went on for another ten minutes.

I kept watching and listening to the movie on the TV screen.

Eventually, Lewis Schaffer talked himself out.

But I woke up this morning and there was a Google Alert in my mailbox.

Lewis Schaffer seems to have started a daily blog three days ago. It is on WordPress. His latest blog is about stress and worry. It is headlined The Power of Worry. It includes the words:

I was happy with my gig.  One old guy did walk out in front of the stage and gave me and the audience of 150 a big, theatrical yawn. I can make people walk out in seconds but I climbed on top of a table and shouted at the guy “Do you think you hurt me by leaving? My wife left me and took my kids!” 

I think Lewis Schaffer has found a way to write a blog about worrying… about which he will worry. He can be very funny when he does not worry too much about being worried. And often when he does. And he does, still, have the best Holocaust joke I have ever heard.

But what if the increasing number of people who read my blog decide that his blog is more interesting? Should I be worried? Or should I just print a photograph of Lewis Schaffer, naked, with this blog and hope it puts people off?

These are testing times for me.

I highly recommend Lewis Schaffer’s ongoing twice-weekly comedy shows in London and his blog (if he keeps it going). Just never ever give him your telephone number. Truly. Just do not do it.

POSTSCRIPT

There may be more pressing things to worry about, though. Just as I was about to post this blog, I got a text from comedian Bob Slayer, on his way back to Britain from Australia. I am looking at it now, with rising fear. It says:

Landed in Brunei. 3.5 hours til flight, so going on 2 hour tour. Unfortunately is wrong time of day for monkey tour so going to food market. Maybe to eat monkey?

Now he is safely out of Australia, I will go and re-post those two blogs I temporarily removed about his exploits in Oz.

But I pity the poor people and monkeys of Brunei.

A blogger at the end of his tether…

Writing a daily blog which is occasionally picked up by the Huffington Post has two effects.

People want to be mentioned and simultaneously sometimes exactly the same people do not want to be mentioned.

Performers, in particular, are keen for publicity.

People have started to tell me highly personal things which they never told me before and preceding their stories with: “You must not publish this in your blog, but…”

Then they start telling me the most amazingly personal details about themselves and other people which are often so sexually detailed and/or self-incriminating that I can’t, in all conscience, print or even hint at what they have told me.

It can be very frustrating.

It is as if it gives them the thrill and catharsis of self-exposure with none of the normally inherent dangers.

For me, it is just frustrating.

And people also want to ‘have a go’ at other people via my blog.

Last week, a comedian was desperate to slag off another comedian via my blog and someone else was insistent that, if I mentioned someone in a story they gave me, the adjective “evil” had to be added in front of that person’s name, even though I have never met the man and he may be a terribly nice chap.

“It is not libel. He can’t deny he’s evil,” I was told.

Well, I think he probably can. And so can his lawyers and his friends with the baseball bats. I have enough people and incompetent companies I want to slag off myself without adding other people’s bête noires to my list.

(By the way, I removed all reference to the “evil” man so, no, you cannot guess who it is by re-reading last week’s blogs.)

All this is particularly galling if you wake up with absolutely no idea what to blog about.

I went to a party last night where there was a three-year-old boy who was the spitting image of comedian Michael McIntyre.

His mother (the child’s mother, not Michael McIntyre’s mother) is currently reading Michael McIntyre’s autobiography.

That is slightly odd, but not enough for a blog, is it?

The child’s father was enthusing to me about a comedy show called Dirty Fan Male which he had seen as part of Workers’ Playtime at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

But, you see, it is still not enough. I have not seen the show.

Someone else at the party had recently been made redundant by the BBC but, before he left, they put him on a £5,000 TV director’s course.

That is a very BBC thing. But it is not really fascinating enough, is it? Nor unusual.

Until yesterday, I had not fully bathed for a week, because there were stitches in my neck and at the top of my left leg/groin and I was told not to get the areas wet. The stitches were from a minor operation a week ago, to remove two bobbly growths on my skin. I blogged about it before. So I can’t really blog about it again.

The Irish nurse at the hospital yesterday asked, after I had spoken just two sentences: “Are you Scottish?”

This was gratifying because although, yes, I am Scottish, I have an English accent. I never tried to lose the Scots accent; it just got worn away into a Scots-Essex-East London-Home Counties mess of an accent from nowhere.

Before yesterday’s Irish nurse, the only two people who had ever immediately twigged I am Scottish were the genuinely very lovely Scots singer Isla St Clair and a Cockney tea-lady at Thames Television, no doubt equally lovely in her own way.

“A cup of tea, please,” I said.

“Cor, you’re Scottish, ain’t ya?” she replied.

Obviously, I mis-quote her accent for effect.

The tea-lady, not Isla St Clair.

But a mis-quoted Cockney tea-lady and Larry Grayson’s former sidekick on The Generation Game – no matter how nice she is as a person – are not a good enough excuse for a blog.

I am at the end of my tether.

I am going to have to watch a DVD about the art of farting which Mr Methane sent me and which I told him I would take a look at.

You can rarely go wrong with a fart blog.

But not today. Not today.

Tonight, I am going to see a show at the RAF Club in London.

I have high hopes of a more worthy blog tomorrow.

Today’s blog – the one you have surprisingly and admirably just finished reading – will, I feel, not be picked up by the Huffington Post.