A potpourri of Plantar Fasciitis, the Egg Throwing President, farting & the Pope

The prestigious Andy Dunlop

I think the word for this late-posted blog today is ‘potpourri’ in lieu of any transcription time.

Various people who read yesterday’s blog suggested various sources of various Chinese medicines to me.

Andy Dunlop, the already highly prestigious President of the World Egg Throwing Federation, picked up on the thought that I may have got Plantar Fasciitis in my right foot. He wrote, with the merest hint of self-publicity:

I got Plantar Fasciitis in one foot and the other later following ‘flying’ off Worthing Pier to win the 2012 Worthing International Birdman’s Kingfisher Class.

The Worthing International Birdman is an annual competition in which human ‘birdmen’ attempting to ‘fly’ off the end of a pier into the English Channel. These attempts tend to end in ignominious failure. Andy continued:

My aim was to manage 100metres (to win £10,000) then turn left, head for France, land, stock up on beer, take off and fly back. This plan was curtailed when I only managed to fly 18 metres, including 11 metres downwards. I hit the water, feet first, at around 35mph. This tends to damage a foot and causes it to stretch. It was bloody agony. 

I am not allowed to take part in the Birdman contest any more as my wife says the risk of injury is too great for her to bear my groans and moans. 

This blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith also contacted me, asking:

Might there be a pain clinic in London? There is a pain clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital here in Vancouver. It is something to do with retraining your mind to react differently to the nerve impulses which are telling you you are in pain. Neuroplasticity, it is called. There is a book called The Brain That Changes Itself. You might also suffer less pain if you stay away from comedians.

Anna Smith, on a recent low-key visit to a Vancouver hospital

Anna continued:

I just had an appointment confirmation email from Cardiac Care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. I learned a new word. Apparently I am an aortopath.

Then she got a little off-subject:

Don’t even think of asking (she named a British comedian) about drugs. They never had any effect on him whatsoever. He is one of that small percentage of people whose mind is utterly unresponsive to THC. When I was in Lonon, he could never fathom why I would impulsively grab £5 and bolt down to Brixton. He seemed to think I went to those clubs because I wanted black men to put their hands into my pockets.

The only time I ever saw him high was late one night after a party in a photography studio in Soho. We had eaten some carrot cake at the party and were walking over Waterloo Bridge afterwards. He made a comment about the reflections in the river looking pretty. This was completely out of character for him. So I realised it must have been a very strong carrot cake. Other than that momentary observation about the lights, his composure was completely unaffected.

I did go and meet three senators one night at a very luxurious Vancouver airport hotel four years ago. It seemed a little odd to be meeting senators in a hotel room for non sexual purposes.

I went there with three other friends to petiton the senators not to close staffed lighthouses along the coast. Our lighthouses are not automated as they are in the UK. But our coastline is far more jagged and isolated. Boaters, especially fishermen, have had their lives and vessels saved innumerable times by the light keepers… Somehow I became fairly involved with that battle even though my boat has never been out of the river.

Alright, it was actually two senators and an Olympic ski champion, but the skier was also a senator, so I guess that does make three senators in total.

The senators had no idea that I was an ex-comedienne. They thought I was an angry mariner.

I grew up along the banks of the Mississippi. Actually, the city was on the Mississippi but our house was closer to the zoo. We could hear lions roaring as we fell asleep.

After this, my chum Mr Methane, who was on a secret farting mission to Italy this week, e-mailed me, totally ignoring my tragic foot (and shoulder) pain:

The Daily Mirror spotted a resemblance between purveyor of beloved populist fantasy Jim Bowen (left) and Pope Francis

I am back home in England. I have been travelling all day. No direct flights so I had to go via Germany. I had a ride on an open top bus in Rome yesterday and thought I saw Jim Bowen in a shop doorway but it was, in fact, a life size Pope Francis cut-out. I have bought you a Pope Francis fridge magnet from a souvenir stall outside the Colosseum in Rome, I thought you would like it as he really does look just like Jim Bowen.

This rubbed salt in my wounds, as I was recently passed-over for the role of Pope Francis in an upcoming pop video.

Life can be cruel.

But I am available to play the part of Jim Bowen in any upcoming pop videos.

Edward Snowden, Jihadi John, a farting Mr Methane & legless Eric Morecambe

Edward Snowden in Moscow yesterday interviewed via Skype

Yesterday, at the Observer Ideas Festival in London, Edward Snowden was on a dodgy Skype link from Moscow.

After Jihadi John and that old Taliban bloke the name of whom everyone has now forgotten, he must be one of the most wanted (by some) men in the world. Last week, I also saw actress Linda Thorson reminisce at the Cinema Museum in London about her days on cult TV series The Avengers.

So should I blog about Edward Snowden or Linda Thorson or what my chum Mr Methane did in Manchester last Thursday?

A tough call?

Not at all.

The glamour world of Mr Methane with some fans

My chum Mr Methane has been farting around the world most of his career. He is the world’s only professionally-performing flautist – a farter to you and me. He became a cult in Sweden, Japan and elsewhere. He is also quite liked in France.

In November 1994, he was a guest on the French TV show Nulle Part Ailleurs (1990–2001) at the request of host Antoine de Caunes who had seen Mr M featured earlier that year on a celebrated French documentary series called Oeil Du Cyclone.

This consequently led to numerous appearances on the British Channel 4 series Eurotrash, which Antoine presented.

At the weekend, Mr Methane told me this: an insight into the glamorous daily life of an international flatulist:

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Last Wednesday, I got a call from Antoine’s current Canal Plus TV show in France – Le Grand Journal – to ask where I was on Thursday as they were doing a Nulle Part Ailleurs celebratory show on Friday and they wanted to send a cameraman over to the UK to film a short message from me – with a fart scene at the end of course.

Mr Methane in his former guise in a train at Crumpsall station

As luck would have it, I was due to be in Manchester for a works reunion of former and current British Rail staff. (Yes, Mr M used to work for BR.) So Le Grand Journal booked a meeting room at the SAS Radisson hotel, Manchester Airport, flew a cameraman in from Paris, I diverted to the airport and we shot the scenes there.

I missed the British Rail reunion because, after the filming, I took David the cameraman to the Manchester United stadium tour at Old Trafford and, by the time I had made sure he could get on the tour and navigate his way back to the airport OK, it was a little late for the reunion.

So I went to the Dickies store in the Lowry Mall near Media City and bought some shirts and a jacket. The jacket was reduced to a fiver: an unbelievably good deal.

Dickie’s highly esteemed Store in Manchester

Maybe I should have gone and done some more hedonistic showbiz stuff – hookers and cocaine or somesuch – but that’s not really my thing. An unbelievable bargain from the Dickies store in the Lowry Mall is definitely more my thing. But, if that hadn’t done it for me, then I might have nipped over to the Blue Peter Garden near the Media City MetroLink tram stop and had a selfie with the statue of Petra the dog.

Talking of celebrity statues, a 32 year old bloke was arrested in Morecambe today for sawing Eric Morecambe’s leg off.

Me and Eric on the seafront in happier days (Photograph by M-E-U-F)

The local council has now removed the statue. I am not sure how they will repair it and whether the original sculptor Graham Ibbeson, will be involved. It is a real shame, as it is a great sculpture. He really nailed that one. It is a much better likeness than his Les Dawson statue near Lytham St Annes pier, which somehow isn’t quite right – or at least that’s what me and Charlie Chuck thought when we went to look at it on the way home from Ken Webster’s wedding reception at the HorseShoe Bar in Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

I’ve been back there a few times since on my own and for some reason he just hasn’t nailed Les like he’s nailed Eric, its fascinating as I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Eric’s statue took him six years and Les was six months so maybe that’s the reason but you can’t believe everything you read in the press. His Laurel & Hardy statue in Ulverston is very a good likeness.

The clip of Mr Methane on Le Grand Journal is online. Afterwards, they sent him an e-mail: “Just to let you know that the show went well last night.  You stole the thunder.”

Mr M congratulates the show from the depth of his heart

No farting records in Ireland in 1999

I have to admit to laziness… I cannot face listening to and transcribing an admittedly interesting two-hour recording this morning so, continuing occasional extracts from old e-diaries this week…

In October 1999, I was in Ireland. This is one day’s entry.

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Ah, the things my electronic diary never shows. Like, the chat today with a tennis-playing guest at my Dublin hotel about Soviet economic policy and a man called Pat Murphy in Cork who was matey with Lenin, Trotsky and all the rest in 1917… Then there was the blind woman I met on a train and took to the other station for a trip to Portadown… And having a fight with Hertz about hire cars at Dublin Airport and changing to Avis, then losing my return air ticket and finding it again elsewhere… Ah! the things that disappear on a day-to-day basis..

Today I drove from Dublin to Limerick (just under 200 km) in a hire car. In a very Irish way, it seems that road distances are given in kilometres; the speed limits are in mph; and car speedometers are like the British – in mph but with tiny km equivalents underneath.

The Irish seem to drive slightly slower than the British, but make up for it with some seriously dangerous overtaking on blind bends and on straight stretches with oncoming traffic. The other disconcerting thing is that traffic lights go from RED to GREEN with no amber in between, so it is always a shock when the green lights up.

In the evening, I drove to Shannon Airport to phone my mother and my chum Mr Methane – the world’s only professionally performing farteur. He had left a message on my answerphone back in England. He told me his website had registered 400,000 visits in the last month and that he was selling £6,500 worth of CDs a week, mostly to Americans, because his record is being played on local radio stations over there.

He has zoomed ahead of me in internet terms, talking about exceeding his bandwidth, side entrances and all sorts of unknown technical phrases. At least, I think they were technical phrases.

He phoned me up because he is thinking of moving to Virgin for his internet service, as they give 10Mb rather than 5Mb of webspace plus unlimited bandwidth. This means nothing to me but, says Mr Methane, “It’s like a bicycle. Once you learn how to ride, it’s easy to learn more and more.”

I did not tell him I can’t ride a bicycle.

He told me his record cannot be heard on Irish radio because the stations here feel they cannot play lyrics like “the brown eye”.

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award winner attacked after Edinburgh awards show

So, last night, the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show was held at the Counting House in Edinburgh as part of the Free Festival at the Edinburgh Fringe. The award winners were:

• for Comic Originality – Candy Gigi
• for best Cunning Stunt – Christian Talbot and 12 year-old daughter Kate
• for Act Most Likely To Make a Million Quid – Luisa Omielan

You can find more details about them in the blog I posted when the nominations were announced.

Miss Behave: co-host of Malcolm Hardee Awards (Photograph by Stephen O’Donnell)

Most unexpected parts of the evening for me (apart from co-compere Miss Behave dragging me on-stage and setting the top of my head on fire (true) were a whole series of random comedians doing worryingly realistic 20-second imitations of comic Lewis Schaffer’s on-stage persona. In the ensuing chaos, Lewis Schaffer appeared to award himself a fish.

And, in the Scottish national Russian Egg Roulette Championships (basically smashing eggs on your forehead), co-compere Janey Godley’s daughter Ashley Storrie (who agreed to compete a few weeks ago) withdrew because she remembered only yesterday afternoon that she is allergic to eggs… and Janey was (reluctantly and genuinely loudly protesting) forced to stand in and actually won the increasingly prestigious Scottish Egg Roulette title.

I will not mention exceptional singer Danusia Samal, Maori singer/dancer Mika with his gay haka, Doug Segal doing a Boy With Tape On His Face mind-reading act, Sharnema Nougar being almost dropped by three literally supporting comedians while she sang and played a ukelele, Lindsay Sharman as a Scottish poetess, Vladimir Putin singing gay anthem Ukrainian Men with a line about shooting planes down, Johnny Sorrow and his balaclava mystery man and Tim FitzHigham drinking a pint of lager through a bugle then playing The Last Post for Malcolm Hardee and Comedy in general.

Kate Copstick (arm in sling) with Richard Herring last night (Photograph by Stephen O’Donnell)

But I will mention that other Russian Egg Roulette contestants included Richard Herring and Juliette Burton. For the second year running, Juliette (a farmer’s daughter who reckons she can spot raw eggs from the aura round their shells) trounced Richard but came second – this year to Janey Godley.

The show probably finished around 1.30am, so lasted its normal two hours.

At 3.01am, I had a text message from worthy Cunning Stunt Award winner Christian Talbot.

Relevant to this might be the fact that, at yesterday afternoon’s Grouchy Club, critic Kate Copstick said another Edinburgh Fringe performer (surprisingly not Lewis Schaffer) had contacted her about a 3-star review she gave their show. The performer said they thought it deserved 4-stars. Her reaction was: Well, I did not and I am the reviewer. He told her bitterly: I think you took one star off me because of the content.

Well, yes, reviewers do tend to award stars and write their reviews on the basis of the perceived quality of the content. The same thing goes for giving increasingly prestigious awards.

Bear this in mind, dear reader.

Christian Talbot (centre) with his award, me & Kate Copstick

Now back to award-winning Christian Talbot’s text to me at 3.01am this morning.

One of the other nominees in the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award category had been comedian Luke McQueen.

Christian Talbot’s text read:

Had Luke McQueen’s girlfriend grab my trophy off me in Brooke’s Bar (the Pleasance Dome venue’s bar for performers) and try to smash it. It’s not too damaged. What a lovely person she is.

I texted back: Are you sure it was his girlfriend?

She was with him and drunk, Christian replied. Not positive it was his ‘girlfriend’. Could have been a friend that is a girl. I can’t remember what he called her. She was very aggressive.

How did you know it was McQueen’s girlfriend or friend? I asked.

Christian replied: She was with him talking when I came in. I went to talk to him as I kind of know him. When I did, she grabbed the trophy from me. I assumed girlfriend as she was so aggressive with me.

How did McQueen react when she tried to smash the award? I asked.

He told her: “Oh, don’t do that.” He said congratulations to me, but that honestly he felt he should have won. Then I went home.

I forwarded Christian’s first message to fellow Malcolm Hardee Award judge Kate Copstick.

She texted back: Bloody hell! We made the right choice!

Christian’s increasingly prestigious Cunning Stunt Award

I wholeheartedly agree. (Only one of the four Malcolm Hardee judges had initially voted for Luke McQueen, then changed their mind and went with Christian Talbot too.)

Meanwhile, outside the Fringe bubble…

Anyone who read my blog two days ago may remember a passing mention of my farting chum Mr Methane being invited (under his own name, so the sender would not have known he was Mr Methane) to a Christmas gig by Michael McIntyre at the Tower of London.

Yesterday, I received a very polite e-mail from Michael McIntyre’s agent Off The Kerb, saying: “I hope you’re well. I just wanted to drop you an email to let you know that the information posted on your blog re. Michael McIntyre performing at The Tower of London is completely false (blog post 21st August). Michael is not performing at this event.”

I have removed the reference from my previous blog.

Mr Methane at a previous Malcolm Hardee Awards Show

When I forwarded the news to Mr Methane, he was gobsmacked.

“An elaborate scam,” said Mr Methane, “that seeks to ruin the good name and reputation of Michael McIntyre with fake offers for non-existent tickets starting at £1,500 for a non-existent Christmas gig? Keep me posted!”

Mr Methane is currently on his holidays away from showbiz and continued:

“I’ve been staying at Hartington in the Peak District where I’ve been trying out different makes of electric bicycles on the Monsal, Tissington & High Peak trails, I have now moved on to the Ramada Consort budget hotel at Robin Hood Airport, Doncaster, which is ideally situated to visit the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft which houses the world’s largest collection of historic trolleybuses.

“But its not an all-electric vacation, as finally I’m moving on to stay at Adlington, Cheshire, which is where my mum used to live during the war with grandad before she got married. It is also conveniently placed for a visit on Monday to the Anson Engine museum for a bit of diesel, steam and gas-powered stationary engine action.”

I can only dream of such a life.

Racism, farting and the Daily Mail in/out of Edinburgh Fringe

Jay & his golliwog. Further Racist Joke Show stunts planned

In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about how comedian Jay Islaam’s cunning stunt at the Edinburgh Fringe went slightly wrong. Publicising his Racist Joke Show led to it being cancelled.

After I posted my blog, he told me more:

“The whole show from title to poster to planned flyering was going to be deliberately provocative. It is a shame I could not do my cunning stunt for the flyering. The plan was to have me dressed as a slave master, holding a whip and a chain that went around the neck of a (paid) white flyerer ‘slave’, who would be in blackface (but not blacked up anywhere else) and I would drag them around the Royal Mile overseeing them handing out my flyers. They would shout Racist Joke Show meekly at people passing by and I would berate them with the phrase Louder again and again before whipping them. Maybe next year…”

Flyering is an overlooked vital art at the Fringe.

This year, two of the three nominees for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are for flyering stunts.

Desperate pose with Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award

Meanwhile I am still looking for plagues of locusts on the horizon. Their scouts have been steadily arriving.

Yesterday afternoon, I lost a third sound techie for the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show.

“To lose ONE sound techie…” as Oscar Wilde might have said if he had ever played the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

Anyway, I have lost my third sound techie. Around three o’clock yesterday afternoon, I got the message:

“One of my Fringe acts has been offered a space for a late show on the 22nd and I am contractually obligated to tech for them. This means that I can no longer tech for the Awards. I can only apologise for the short notice and the inconvenience this may cause you – I am afraid there is nothing I can do as they are paying me under the assumption that I stick to the contact I signed before the Fringe and we were only informed of the slot time an hour ago.”

Which is fine – although a sign that not just swarms of locusts but plagues of frogs may be imminent.

Also leading on from yesterday’s blog, I got another e-mail from my farter chum Mr Methane.

Today’s Daily Mail front page

Yesterday, he shared a message he received from an advertising agency encouraging him to take out an ad in the online version of the Daily Mail – which has a readership surely not known for their love of speciality fart acts. They are more into Michael McIntyre, a very fine act whom I much admire but who is not known for farting darts from his bottom at balloons attached to people’s heads.

In response to the advertising agency’s e-mail, Mr Methane had written back:

“I am sure Paul Dacre (the Mail’s editor) and his readers would love not to see an advert for Mr Methane ‘The Worlds Only Performing Flatulist’ on the Daily Mail website. I am just not their bag and they are not my customers either. So thanks but no thanks, though it made me chuckle.”

Yesterday, Mr Methane got another e-mail from the unrelenting advertising agency Web Windows.

“They still want my ass in Mail,” he told me. Their e-mail read:

Mr Methane farts a dart at a balloon on a worried man’s head. Is this what Daily Mail readers want to see over their teacake?

I hope you don’t mind me getting in touch again, but I emailed yesterday about a special offer for a banner ad: One month Daily Mail banner campaign just £480.

Did you get a moment to have a look?

I’m around for most of the day, so let me know if it’s of interest – I might even be able to sweeten the deal!

Kind regards,

Alex

Mr Methane tells me: “I am really everyone’s favourite at the moment. Either that or the economy has never really pulled out of recession.”

Meanwhile, back at the Edinburgh Fringe, I still have slight toothache… Kate Copstick still has her arm in a sling, going “Owww!” if she moves it too much… and comedy actor Brian Simpson, appearing out of his stage persona, was seen in the exclusive Underbelly Abattoir VIP area sitting in an armchair, wearing a silk smoking jacket and puffing on an electronic cigarette like some latter-day Noël Coward.

The world is a strange place.

Edinburgh Fringe: How the banned “Racist Joke Show” was a cunning stunt

Last night at about 8.45pm, I had a half hour snooze. When I woke up, it was 6.55am this morning. Einstein was right. Time warps. Especially at the Edinburgh Fringe. Well, to be honest, most things are odd at the Fringe.

Jay Islaam was at yesterday’s Grouchy Club

At yesterday’s eventually crowded Grouchy Club show (people keep wandering in willy-nilly and then don’t leave – which is good), Jay Islaam talked about his Racist Joke Show.

This had been billed as part of the Freestival, the new free show organisation at the Edinburgh Fringe which got a reported £25,000 in sponsorship from La Favorita pizzas matched by £25,000 sponsorship from Arts & Business Scotland.

When Jay Islaam’s Racist Joke Show poster/flyer was brought to their attention, Arts & Business Scotland decided they did not want to have their name associated with the show.

“I have a confession to make,” Jay told us yesterday. “I put out this very provocative poster with just the words RACIST JOKE SHOW – BANNED FROM 100+ VENUES.”

“It hadn’t been, had it?” I asked.

“Well, I have,” said Jay.

“Why?” I asked.

“For a lot of reasons,” he replied.

“And the poster had a golliwog on it,” I said.

Jay and his much-loved golliwog, as seen on his own website

“It was my own personal golliwog,” explained Jay. “But I had no intention of using that on the final poster, though I was thinking of using it on the flyers. It was a publicity stunt. I sent it to the media knowing it would get a reaction.

“(The comedy website) Chortle picked up on the poster and sent it to Arts & Business Scotland, who issued a statement without checking what the show was. I won’t comment on whether that was right or wrong, but that’s what they did.

“On the back of the flyer, it asked a series of questions:

• Are we all racist?
• Is political correctness an effective way of tackling the Far Right?
• Is positive discrimination patronising and therefore intrinsically prejudiced?

“But, sadly, the show did not happen.”

“I know this is racist in itself,” I said, “but surely the name Jay Islaam would imply you are not – let’s say 500 years ago – of white British origin.”

“Well,” said Jay. “this is the thing. Part of the Racist Joke Show was about the fact it should not matter whether you are black or white or Indian if you want to discuss issues of culture or race or religion or sexuality. There should not be restrictions on someone just because they are the ‘wrong’ minority or majority.”

“Your name was on the poster?” I asked.

One of Jay’s characters: decidedly odd Michel de Fromage

“No. It was on the back of the flyer – as was my photo – but in tiny writing. I did not want to be given a free pass to do the show because I was part of a minority – because the point is the things that I say about race and religion and sexuality and different types of prejudice should be something that anybody can say because they have a logical basis to them. You should not be censored because you are white or male or Chinese so you can’t talk about Indians. That was the point of not putting my name or picture on the poster.”

“I have never understood the argument,” I said, “that a black person can say the word ‘nigger’ but a white person can’t. The word is either offensive or it is not.”

“This is one of the things I was going to discuss,” said Jay, “and why I was using the golliwog as a symbol. People talk about ‘reclaiming’ offensive words, reclaiming insults like the Americans did with the word ‘Yankee’, which was supposed to be an insult.

“The show was wanting to do the same thing with words like nigger or Paki or Chink. You can say: I am black and I am going to reclaim the word nigger. But, if a white person says it and you are upset by it, then you have not reclaimed it because the word still has power over you. The show was going to be about taking the power away from these words and symbols.

A piece on Jay in this month’s Eastern Eye

“The poster was a blatant publicity stunt using the golliwog, but the upshot was the controversy snowballed to a certain point where the show was cancelled. That was not my intention.

“My intention was to create enough controversy that people would come and then I could preach to them. Get them in the church and then you can preach to them. But the church was knocked down before I was allowed to proselytise views.

“Hopefully next year I will be able to bring the show to Edinburgh. I have already been asked by some promoters in the North of England if I will come and tour it at their theatres.”

Meanwhile, back in what passes for the real world outside the Edinburgh bubble, this morning (when I eventually woke up) I read an e-mail from my farting chum Mr Methane – the world’s only professional flatulist act – whose company is called BO Productions. Yesterday, he received this e-mail:

Hi,

This is the first time I’ve been in touch and I wanted to find out whether you’d be interested in the idea of running a banner ad for B O Productions Limited on the Daily Mail website?

Web Windows is an advertising agency who are occasionally able to pick up some amazing late-availability banners. This is one of those occasions and you can find all the details of the offer on this link: One month Daily Mail banner campaign just £480.

If you’re not sure whether online advertising is right for you we’ve put together a Video Review: Why Online Advertising.

I appreciate this offer has appeared out of the blue, so if you’d like me to explain things in more detail, I can be contacted on the number below. Or maybe you’d just like to go ahead?

Best regards

Today’s front page of the Daily Mail

It is good to know that the Daily Mail is obviously trying to expand and subtly alter its brand image and thinks its readers would appreciate a banner ad for a farting act and is actively courting Mr Methane. Meanwhile…

In other, more tragic, showbiz news, the increasingly time-constricted Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on Friday seems increasingly UNlikely to include a string of comedians doing impressions of iconic Lewis Schaffer (though we did try it out to great success at yesterday’s Grouchy Club).

Perhaps our final Grouchy Club show should be devoted (as, of course, we all are) to Lewis Schaffer.

A show or event? Who knows? But it is happening this Friday

There is even worse news, though – I am told by his agent that Jim Davidson is unable to accept my invitation to take part in the Scottish National Russian Egg Roulette Championship during the aforementioned increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show this Friday.

I tried my best.

We will just have to soldier on with what we have.

Have we got a show for you?

Well, it is certainly going to be an event.

Now I must go away and figure out a running order.

The problems of advertising farting and a very strange sighting of Noddy Holder

Mr Methane prepares to perform on The Gadget Show with cameramen Rob Shaw and Mark Tredinnick of Mediadoghire.

“According to some factoids that ran during my recent appearance on Channel 5’s Gadget Show, the average person passes wind 15 times a day,” Mr Methane told me last night.

I was staying overnight with the world’s only professionally-performing farter at his home in Macclesfield, north west England.

“I had to road-test these anti-flatulance underwear pants on The Gadget Show,” he told me. “they were called My Shreddies. They’re quite trendy: they look like Calvin Klein underpants.”

“Who wears them?” I asked.

“The marketing people aren’t going for the traditional person who might be ‘going off’ (in farting terms) all over the place because their arse muscles have packed up. They’re trying to attract a normal person who is going out on a date and doesn’t want to fart in case it ruins the romance. They can pass wind in confidence. There will be no smell.”

“And they stop the sound of the farting?” I ask.

“No,” admitted Mr Methane.

“So what,” I asked, “is the fart-combatting element in the underpants?”

Image from My Shreddies homepage aims to appeal to buyers

“Some kind of charcoal,” said Mr Methane. “I think if you’ve ‘gone off’ in them a few times, once you wash them, it reactivates the odour-eating properties. The My Shreddies people seemed to be over-awed by the amount of publicity they got from me being on The Gadget Show. They got in touch with me and had some promotional ideas. They were going to make a pair for me in purple and were going to have a picture of me on a train – because I used to be an engine driver. I asked for a very economical fee. But they said I was a bit beyond their budget. It is a classic example of the way people put no value into farting.”

“So you farted and parted,” I said.

“We did,” said Mr Methane. “A few years ago, some company wanted me to do a viral ad for some charcoal biscuits which, again, were anti-flatulence.”

“Did you eat them or stick them somewhere?” I asked.

“You ate them,” said Mr Methane, “and they obviously did something in your intestines. I’m not sure what. Anyway, this guy wanted to do a viral ad so I said: Give us £1,000. That’s not a lot of money for a viral ad. They said they were a small firm, but £1,000 is only £20 a week for a year. If they can’t put away £20 a week for a year, they don’t deserve to be in business. So that didn’t happen either and I’m still open to offers. I think, in terms of doing a viral ad, you’ve only got one chance. Once my bottom is endorsing a particular product, that’s it.”

“British Gas should approach you,” I suggested.

Instructions on how to use The Palm Bomber in reality

“The only thing I have done as a viral ad,” said Mr Methane, “ended up a real bum deal. It was for the Palm Bomber. You know like when people used to fart in their hands at school and throw it at their mates?”

“I think,” I said, “maybe this only happened at schools in Macclesfield.”

“It’s obviously happened in America too,” said Mr Methane. “He’s an American, but his father came from Manchester in England. He spent a load of money making this Palm Bomber thing like a medical pump. Basically, you break wind, you suck up the fart into this rubber surgical container and then you go up to your friend and you ‘palm bomb’ – you squeeze out the fart into his face. It’s on YouTube. (He turned to his computer.) Here it is. Here’s the selling line:

“It is the world’s first and only product that is designed specifically to capture, store and re-release your farts. A patent-pending vacuum-funnel system which easily allows you to capture your farts anytime anywhere with minimal gas leakage.

“This guy had gone to China to get these things made and then had a shitload shipped from China to the US.

“I did an advert for him on YouTube. I did it as a favour. It was one of those mad moments. He said I can’t afford any money, but my dad’s got a paper for ex-patriots in America and I’ll put an advert for you in his paper and blah blah, but he never put it in. It’s just a classic case of people taking the piss.”

“I’m surprised,” I said, “that you haven’t been picked up for some ad campaign.”

“Years ago,” said Mr Methane, “I did a Christmas gig for Saatchi & Saatchi and my manager Barrie kept in touch with one of the big cheeses there and said: I want you to get Mr Methane an advert. You remember that series of Fosters lager ads? – He who drinks Australian thinks Australian. Barrie had this idea of me going into a bar, farting and it empties the bar and then I get my pint of Fosters and the slogan is: He who thinks Australian stinks Australian.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t use it,” I said then, changing the subject: “You haven’t issued a Christmas CD for ages.”

Mr Methane’s professionally produced CD

“The bottom’s dropped out of the market,” said Mr Methane. “It has to be MP3s now. And Barrie’s a perfectionist. The amount of time that we put into the orchestration of the songs… the actual production costs are quite high. On the last one, a lot of the guitar work was done by a very famous producer who worked with Britney Spears; he did it under a pseudonym. And, on the track Fucking Hell, My Arse Smells (to the tune of Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells), we got the fiddle-player out of Steeleye Span. He happened to be visiting Barrie who told him he had a country music track and he needed country fiddle on it. I don’t know if, even now, he knows he’s on the album.”

“So no planned albums?” I asked.

“No, but my personal fart greetings are going well.”

“Ring tones?” I asked.

“No, I do a video and send it to them. I’ve done three this last week. I did one for a guy who’s retiring from a big American symphony orchestra. It’s going to be a gift to him from the horn section. I do a trumpet piece from Brahms’ Concerto for Something-or-other No 1.”

“And,” I said, “you have a prestigious gig coming up that we can’t talk about because you had to sign a confidentiality agreement. What do we say in my blog?”

“Say it’s for ‘old money’,” suggested Mr Methane. “The British aristocracy.”

“We can’t mention,” I said, “the family name, the location or why this is so jaw-dropping, except you did the same thing 16 years ago.”

Mr Methane sits on his toilet wearing an Alan Partridge mask last night – Don’t ask me why.

“I’m a sort-of semi-regular customer of the British aristocracy,” said Mr Methane. “You’ve been there yourself.”

“I suppose I can say I went with you to a house in Central London 16 years ago.” I said.

“You went to a large, private house,” suggested Mr Methane.

“Well,” I said, “it was quite a small place, but I think it cost £20 million.”

“You can say,” suggested Mr Methane, “it’s not yer new money Simon Cowell classes, not yer footballers or yer Piers Morgans; it’s the aristocratic backbone of Britain. People who know what made Britain great.”

“Any more TV?” I asked.

“I’ve was asked to do that Come Dine With Me TV show. I thought at first it was the celebrity edition, but then it turned out it was just a normal one and they were looking for fruitcakes. They wanted someone from Macclesfield who was a little bit different. When I found out it wasn’t the celebrity one and I wasn’t going to have dinner with Keith Chegwin, I lost interest. They said: For some reason, we’ve got a dearth of applicants from Macclesfield and we don’t know why.”

“Who does live in Macclesfield?” I asked.

“Apart from one or two Manchester United players,” said Mr Methane, “there’s Christine & Neil Hamilton – they live at Alderley Edge. And Tim Healey off Auf Wiedersehen, Pet drinks at a pub in Fulshaw Cross. Mike Yarwood used to live in Prestbury. And Noddy Holder lives in Prestbury.”

Noddy Holder in 1981 (Photograph by Andrew King)

“Noddy Holder???” I asked, “I assumed he lived in some London mansion on the back of royalties from Merry Christmas Everybody.”

“No, he lives in Prestbury, because you sometimes see him in Sainsbury’s supermarket doing his shopping. My mate saw him last year at the Senior Citizens Hall on Duke Street, going to a jumble sale.”

“Are you sure this wasn’t a Noddy Holder lookalike?” I asked.

“No. He was at the jumble sale at Senior Citizens Hall.”

“What was he wearing?”

“My mate reckoned he might have been looking for stacker boots.’

“What did he look like?”

“Like Noddy Holder, but a bit older.”

ADDENDUM

Four days after this widely-read blog appeared, Mr Methane got an e-mail from the Palm Bomber, saying:

I won’t get into details – we’ll call it miscommunication – but the bottom line is that I did not fulfill my end of the agreement, and I’d like to make up for it. I’ve attached the last draft of the print advertisement I’d sent to you – is it still OK to print in the UJ newspaper?

 

Also, just so you know – we did run a couple Mr. Methane videos and links to your website in the Union Jack Blab (the online newsletter)…hopefully brought some viewers/fans your way.  I’ll forward you the emails shortly…

 

I didn’t intend to take the piss out of you, I think you are a genuine person and I fancy myself the same.  Hope you’re happy with what we’re doing.

The Palm Bomber’s print advertisement is below:

Merry Christmas greetings from the late Malcolm Hardee, Mr Methane and me…

The late Malcolm Hardee (left) at Christmas

The late comedian Malcolm Hardee legendarily had about six jokes which lasted him around 25 years. But occasionally, perhaps especially at Christmas, he would throw in a new one.

His friend Alexandra Mendel tells me of a couple she heard him tell at Christmas.

She says:

“I remember he came on stage just before Christmas to warm his audience up at the Tunnel club and asked: What did the little deaf, dumb and blind boy get for Christmas?…. Answer… Cancer!

“There was another one to go with it too: What’s red and slimy and slides across the chip shop floor?… Answer… Abortion of chips…”

Here is Malcolm Hardee’s Christmas card to his friends in December 2001, three months after the 9/11 attack on New York. It features the view from his floating pub The Wibbley Wobbley of the Canary Wharf towers in London’s Docklands.

Malcolm Hardee’s 2001 Christmas card

Mr Methane, the world’s only professionally performing flatulist, has also drawn my attention to a festive 2001 E! video of his (Mr Methane’s) 22-minute appearance on Howard Stern’s US radio show in which he farts Christmas Songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbuzpTAcswk

For those who are too busy eating, drinking and toasting the Queen to spend that amount of time watching a video, Mr Methane has also thoughtfully provided a festive 2min 25sec audio version of Rocking Around The Christmas Tree.

And finally, from me, for anyone I have forgotten, here is a limited edition Christmas card from last century which never got the distribution I felt it deserved…

A Merry Christmas to you

Juliette Burton (an English rose actress) & farteur Mr Methane’s burning bottom

The highly-coveted main Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award with Edinburgh Castle behind

The Edinburgh Fringe takes place every August but never ends. It is only three months since this year’s Fringe finished and a whole nine months to the next one. But already performers are starting to obsess. It is like having a baby – right down to people having occasional morning sickness with a feeling of nausea in the pit of their stomach.

Fortunately, as a non-performer, I do not have to suffer any of this.

I have already booked a venue for the two-hour 2014 Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show – on Friday 22nd August – and talked to a venue owner about doing a second year of chat shows in the lead-up to it.

Elsewhere, performers’ traumas reign.

Yesterday, a young starting-out stand-up comedian asked me:

“Can literally anything – ANY experience – be turned into a Fringe comedy show?”

“Yes,” I told her. “Janey Godley’s Good Godley! was the show everyone talked about in 2004. It was very funny and it told exactly the same story as her autobiography Handstands in The Dark which is so terrifying it reads like a novel by Edgar Allan Poe. In the book, the story is horrific; on stage, it was very funny without demeaning the story. But, then, Janey’s talent is that she doesn’t tell funny stories, she tells stories funny.

“And Juliette Burton’s Fringe show this year When I Grow Up had something unexpectedly shocking in it: you could almost hear people’s jaws dropping. It was a happy, uplifting show with a coup de théâtre in it.

“If you’re having really bad time with your boyfriend and the relationship is breaking up,” I said, “write it down. It’s cathartic and it could be turned into comedy gold in a couple of years, if not sooner.”

“Should I wait a week,” asked this would-be comic, “then I write it down so I can be objective about it?”

“No,” I advised her. “The last thing you want to do is write something objective. If something horrible happens, write it down straight away while the pain is still vivid. The writing-down of it distracts you a little from the pain and, when you look at it in 12 months time, you will find you’re objectively looking at something that seems like a stranger’s writing.”

“But you’re not a performer,” she pointed out. “What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” I said, “but I can give bullshit advice plausibly.”

What you do not write is almost more important than what you do write. It is what you cut out that can give impact to what is left in. This is something known by the twice Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award nominee James Hamilton of comedy troupe Casual Violence.

Casual Violence – surely everybody wants to see their sitcoms

He Facebooked a message yesterday about a one-off London show in January called Casual Violence: Nobody Wants To Make Our Sitcoms (Work in Progress). The blurb goes:

Join us for a low-key, super-informal script readthrough of two new sitcom projects that we’re working on – one for radio, one not for radio, both just for our benefit. We just want a bit of feedback so we can make them ourselves, for you. We’d like you to be our script editors. Come along, listen to our stories, have a drink with us afterwards and tell us what you think. Entry: £3 (entry fee is just to help cover the costs of the venue).

I have told them I will come along if they pay me £3.05p because, in comedy, it is seldom the performers who make the real money. It is the peripheral hangers-on.

Although, with luck, the aforementioned Juliette Burton might be an exception.

She is a combination of English Rose and whirling Tasmanian Devil type character with show ideas and promotional ideas spinning around her like a Wizard of Oz tornado. I had tea with her yesterday afternoon and most of the conversation I cannot repeat.

“What CAN I repeat?” I asked her.

“Well,” she replied, “as of today, it is confirmed that When I Grow Up is the first in a series of six live shows – and hopefully books and who knows what else? They will all be themed around identity – What makes a person? – The books depend on the interest I get from the proposal I have been asked to submit to a publishing company.”

Juliette’s new website lists her six shows as:

2013 – When I Grow Up
2014 – Look At Me
2015 – Dreamcatcher
2016 – an untitled show
2017 – Daddy’s Girl
2018 – The Butterfly Effect

“I am doing When I Grow Up at the Leicester Square Theatre in February,” she told me, “then touring it in Australia until May. There’s a new video promo for it.”

Juliette’s 2014 show Look At Me is going to be staged in association with the facial disfigurement charity Changing Faces, the body image charity B.O.D.Y. and the eating disorder charity B-eat.

Look At Me is billed as “a docu-comedy” (which is what When I Grow Up actually was) and, like When I Grow Up, will include video footage shot throughout the year – including interviews (the first is on 18th December) – and, in this case, the blurb goes:

By changing her appearance in dramatic (and hilarious) ways, Juliette will document how people react to her, how she feels and how she behaves. From wearing her glasses to being a man, from wearing a burka to dressing provocatively, from revisiting her “fat” self to being “old” and even going nude. Can we change who we are on the inside by changing who we appear to be on the outside? And is what we appear to be who we are?

I normally hate videos within live stage shows, but Juliette (a former BBC Radio journalist) showed with When I Grow Up this year that she can make it work smoothly and superbly.

Look At Me will also develop Juliette’s promotional blitz style with an accompanying pop song by Frankie Lowe, a pop video by Daniel Waterman, who directed her Dreamers (When I Grow Up) video, and who knows what else.

Juliette Burton seems to me to live a life of extremism.

With my chum Mr Methane, it’s a life of surrealism.

I got an e-mail from him last night.

Mr Methane pictured with (from left) Thomas Numme, author Jo Nesbo and Harald Rønneberg after a previous show visit

Tomorrow, he returns to the Senkveld med Thomas og Harald (Late Night with Thomas and Harold) TV show on TV2 in Norway.

He is making a special guest appearance with Robbie Williams and recently retired Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on the 10th anniversary edition of the show.

In fact, the show was pre-recorded on 22nd November in front of an audience of 8,000 at the Oslo Spektrum stadium.

Mr Methane tells me: “I had a brief chat with Robbie Williams as I came off stage and he went on – that’s right I was his warm up man. He said he had once gone to see me at a gig in Newcastle-under-Lyme in the early 1990s.

“Between us, me and Robbie had both ends covered on this gig. Although we both grew up not too far from one another and we both tread the boards, other similarities are not readily apparent. However I can now exclusively reveal that we both like oatcakes.

“Last weekend I went back to Norway again – this time to Kristiansand – where I did a 25th birthday gig for the Norwegian importer of Umbro sportswear.”

Part of Mr Methane’s much-admired yet seldom imitated stage act involves farting-out the candles on a birthday cake.

He told me:

“The Norwegian boss wanted me to wear Umbro sportswear until I explained that I came from Macclesfield where the Humphrey Brothers of Wilmslow set up their first Umbro factory. (The name UMBRO apparently obscurely comes from the words hUMphrey BROthers.)

Methane’s mate’s mum made his costume

“My mate’s mum, who made my Mr Methane costume, was an Umbro seamstress so I told the Norwegian boss that, technically, I was already wearing Umbro kit.

“He was delighted, but that didn’t stop a rather drunken member of the audience slamming the birthday cake candles into my bottom, burning my arse and rather spoiling the big moment. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or just fell over because he was so drunk.

“But that’s Northern Europe for you: long cold winter nights and large amounts of booze.

“The next day, I got food poisoning at breakfast and had a rough journey home. I am now finally getting back on track. It is a big relief as I am on my last pair of pyjamas.”

Comedian Jorik Mol wants a real life but is performing for dogs this week

Jorik Mol faces a possibly operatic future

When I talked to comedian Ellis of Ellis & Rose recently, he told me he was going to write Raoul Moat: The Opera about the recent multiple murderer. He told me the music would be written by London-based Dutch comic Jorik Mol.

So, obviously, when Jorik and I had tea in London last week, I asked him:

“How is Raoul Moat: The Opera going?”

“We haven’t met about it so far,” said Jorik.

“Do you intend to meet?”

“We do.”

“And the philosophy of Raoul Moat: The Opera is…”

“There isn’t one so far. I really don’t know what Ellis is planning. I’ve been listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music recently in the same way I listen to Wagner. You cannot listen to that music and not look on it as being anything other than completely and utterly soul-destroyingly manipulative. When you listen to the intro to Tristan und Isolde, it is like coitus interruptus without the coitus. This chord is never released – never released – never released – slightly released – and – the tension is only released four hours later, when the fat lady sings.”

Jorik is now living back in England again after a break at home in Holland for a couple of years. He is doing a Masters in Comparative Literature at University College, London.

“It sounds impressive,” Jorik told me, “but it just means I will never be able to get a job. I’m doing the Masters full-time; I’m doing extra tutorials; I’m doing translations for UCL; I’m trying to gig three or four times a week; I’m trying to write. This week I gigged five times which is a bad idea on all levels. I do not have a life.”

That was last week. This week Jorik is doing four gigs, including one totally in French tonight at the Comedy Cafe for the International Comedy Club (which is run from Zürich). And, on Thursday, he is performing in Streatham at a benefit for dogs in Romania organised by Danish comedian Sofie Hagen.

“Have you ever gigged for non-humans before?” I asked.

“I’ve gigged before for audiences in Holland that didn’t seem to be human,” replied Jorik.

“And next?” I asked.

“I’m writing an essay about Kafka and laughter.”

“I read somewhere,” I said, “that The Trial – which is always billed as the ultimate paranoid novel… Kafka and his friends thought it was phenomenally funny, like a comedy piece.”

“Yes,” said Jorik. “It’s the way it’s been translated into English and the way it’s been appropriated into English. It’s been made to serve a purpose in English culture. The word Kafkaesque does not really apply to Kafka. I want to do a PhD on Comedic Devices and Cognitive Stylistics – two terms I’ve made up.

Jorik in my Edinburgh Fringe chat show this year (Photograph by Brian Higgins)

“When a comedian goes on stage,” explained Jorik, “one of the common stupid opening lines is I know what you’re thinking. But that is actually what all comedy is about.

“Comedy is about leading the lines of cognition in a certain way, from a certain perspective. You are resolving issues that shouldn’t be resolved, you are duplicating narratives, you are leading people up the garden path.

“The cognitive system is in the pre-frontal cortex and it’s basically the thing that asks the questions Where? What? Who? Why? How? and Which?

“If that part of the brain – the cognitive system – doesn’t function, it’s very difficult for you to engage with humour in any way, because humour is about asking the questions Where? What? How? and Why? and those questions being subverted, inverted or converted.

“So I’m going to write about the 18th century: Immanuel Kant, Laurence Sterne, Voltaire and a guy from Austria called Johann La Roche who wrote puppetry plays. It was like Commedia dell’arte. People improvised what was happening in the room, in the street, in politics. It was topical jokes – boom boom boom.

“My interest is in joke shapes: the linguistic shapes that textual humour takes. It’s a linguistic notion of doing something or transgressing boundaries on a physical or social level.

“In Britain, it’s normal for people to say He’s a funny guy, She’s a funny girl, You ARE funny – which is bullshit. Being funny – using those joke shapes and tropes – is learnt behaviour.

“I was talking to people in the German Dept at UCL and someone told me: I can’t really say to students – especially First Year undergrads – This is funny, because their capacity to read German is just not good enough yet. Same thing with French. You can’t say This is funny because they’ll go No, it’s not, because they don’t yet fully understand the language.

“I want to look at texts and how they produce comedy. Was it you who wrote you can’t watch five stand-ups in a row because you get exhausted after a while?”

“Possibly,” I said, “I do think that’s one problem with current comedy clubs – you’re just watching stand-ups doing much-the-same thing – just standing there saying words – with no variation whereas, in the 1980s, the stand-up was interspersed with visual variety acts and bizarre acts.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jorik, “like Mr Methane and The Iceman.”

“Ah!” I said. “The Iceman! He lives in Bournemouth.”

Jorik laughed, as well he might.

“I want to work with Dr Steve Cross who does Bright Club,” said Jorik. “He works at UCL but is sometimes a stand-up.”

“You do an awful lot of gigs,” I said.

“Coming back here,” said Jorik, “I have to re-establish myself so I have to play the circuit. But I’m really struggling with life-work balance: that’s why I listen to podcasts all the time – to drown out my inner monologue.”

“I can blank my mind out to relax.” I said.

“I can’t,” said Jorik.

“That’s why you have trouble getting to sleep at night,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Jorik. “That’s why I need the mirtazapine. I find it very difficult, because my mind’s racing constantly. The first month I was here in London was rough as fuck. I’d basically been waiting to come back to Britain for two years and I’m the kind of person who wants everything done straight away and that just doesn’t work over here. It took me six weeks just to register with a GP.”

“Your persona on stage is not anxious,” I said.

“Yes, it’s quite friendly,” said Jorik, “and sweet and flirty but occasionally bitchy. When I was 20, I wanted to be an angry comic, but I’m the opposite of an angry comic on stage. It’s weird. I feel I have been lowered down into this persona and, with age – I’m 25 and have been performing since I was 17 – I’m only starting to get away with it now.”

“You may have already peaked,” I joked.

Jorik Mol in London last week – Mozart has a lot to answer for

“Yeah,” laughed Jorik. “It can only go downhill from now! I’ve always felt like that. I wake up like that every morning. When I was 4, I read a book about Mozart and that he had composed his first symphony at the age of 3 and my brain shouted out: YOU’VE LOST!

“It’s unlikely I’m ever going to achieve anything in comedy. There are so many people doing comedy right now. It doesn’t matter how original you are. It does not even how matter how good you are. You will not succeed. Success is only what other people talk about when it’s over and done with and you’ve come out the other side.

“It sounds lame, but I now cannot function without doing stand-up at least once a week.”

“Because…?” I prompted.

“It’s just me and my life,” said Jorik, “I was always seen as the weird one. I envy my brother because he is able to go to work then go out at the weekend and have a nice time and live. He runs the supply department for care homes for children with severe disabilities. He’s really happy and is able to function. I have to pretend to be a person. When you do comedy you can sometimes take a step back and just observe: OK. This is functional behaviour. That’s why I want to get into academia as well.

“I could never envisage a life for myself in Holland. I don’t mean being happy – because that’s never going to happen – but just to be functional, just to be working…”