No Pressure To Be Funny - Weds 13th Oct at the Hob, Forest Hill  www.edcomedy.com

Bringing peace and justice to the entire world almost immediately by means of a few satirical gags and witty quips delivered from an upstairs room in a pub in South London on an occasional basis.

Dear Discerning Comedy Consumers

In the week when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has had an extra charge added to his rap sheet -  entering Poland without a passport -  No Pressure to be Funny returns to The Hob in Forest Hill this coming Wednesday, 13th Oct.

Guests:  Our guests will be Dan Smith, Secretary General of the International Alert; comedians Paul Sinha and Steve Gribbin, and writer/comedian/director/producer/actress/model/comedy colossus Andy Hamilton.

Apologies:  Owing to circumstances beyond our control, Hungarian Sushi is no longer on the menu, but the show will as always be hosted by the urbane and charming James O’Brien, to whom I hope you listen at least occasionally on LBC 10-1 weekday mornings.

Good news amongst the gloom:  I was deeply concerned this week about the full possible consequences of the government’s intention to cap benefits for the children of idle wasters who live off the state, but then ultimately relieved to find no reference to any plans to remove the £250 000 spent per annum on police protection for each of the adored and constitutionally crucial Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.  Only one of whom has only once had her BMW stolen when she left it in the West End with the keys in the ignition.  

Info:  The show starts at 8pm, tickets will be £3, as the show will only run about an hour and ten minutes.  Still a bargain frankly.  Especially as they have Harveys Ale on draft.  

You can book via the Hob’s website: www.edcomedy.com

This might be worthwhile as we have had steadily and steeply increasing attendances so far.

“Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable”.  (JK Galbraith, arr. Nick Revell)

 Sept 9th 2010

Latest on the Chilean goldmine crisis - Endemol have bid for the format rights.

William Hague’s embarrassment continues; if he’s gay, no-one cares; as for possible infidelity -  so what?   But wearing a baseball cap at his age?  Resign.

That is an error of judgement way beyond even describing Jeffrey Archer as a “man of unimpeachable probity”.

Talking of men of unimpeachable probity, Andy Coulson seems to have induced a News of the World journalist to act morally.   That’s about as likely as a peace settlement in the Middle East.   Which according to the White House, will be happening within a year.

Well, the cynical response would be to say that Obama just wants to have the hint of good news in a foreign policy to help him in the mid-term elections, but that would mean we can’t trust what politicians tell us.

But have faith.   This latest statement has been issued by the Administration of Barak Obama.  A man who can work miracles.  Like getting the Nobel Peace Prize while running two wars simultaneously.  

So it must be true; which begs the question, why have they waited so long?

Clearly the last 52 years of bloodshed, bitterness and land grabbing, justified by turning God into a dodgy estate agent, have just been an elaborate performance art piece designed to reveal the intense joy to be obtained by delayed gratification.  How will the solution arrive?  Here’s how.  With the help of computer technology, Palestine is to become the world’s first cyber state, existing only in the online cloud.  That way there need be no dispute over physical land sharing.  The Palestinian population will be uploaded onto various servers around the world, and state of the art computer graphics will enable them to inhabit a land just like modern Palestine, but more so.  Bomb damage, malnutrition, roadblocks checkpoints and Mossad death squads can all be erased from the picture and they can have all their farms and olive groves back with a just few deft strokes on Paintbox.  It’ll be so realistic.  Well, more realistic than peace in a year.

Tony Blair’s memoirs, A Journey.  A more appropriate title would be An Alibi.

We can’t know his motives for giving money to help the wounded and maimed (Or some of the maimed and wounded) from wars that were almost entirely his fault.  We can’t know his motives for telling us he’s doing that. But he is a Christian, and willingly now a member of the Church which also supports the biggest paedophile ring in the world.   I know, that’s a cheap shot, but it’s probably true.  And who am I as an agnostic to refer him to that bit in the Bible where Christ tells Christians to give to charity anonymously.  Matthew 6.3:  “when thou doest alms let not your left hand know what the right hand doeth…”  Hey, the man who rewrote Clause 4 can surely rewrite the Bible.  He’s only letting God stay in office because he’d be more trouble on the outside.  And he’s in Washington now, in his capacity as EC peace envoy to the Middle East.  With access, no doubt, to lots of intelligence that we will never know about.  Which worked out so well last time.

“Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable”.  (JK Galbraith)

This is bascially a plug for my solo shows on 9^th and 10th August at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.   (8.30pm on the 9^th and 7.00pm on the 10^th).

I know I should have been plugging it more assiduously, but I’ve been away, in a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands, walking up hills and from watching the world take another drunken stagger towards the edge of the cliff from a bemused distance…

While David Cameron was away, Nick Clegg called the war in Iraq illegal.   Of course,  David Cameron was furious - there’s Clegg breaching cabinet responsibility, breaking the party line, telling the truth.

Must say Clegg is still looking remarkably fresh faced and healthy.  But in his attic there’s a portrait.   Of his conscience being eaten by maggots.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is giving up the post.  He said he was sorry about all his terrible PR gaffes and hopes his departure will help pour oil on troubled waters.

Times are hard, as we all know, but I didn’t realise Sarah Ferguson is down to her last sixteen servants.  She would ask her ex husband for help, but first she has to raise the £50 000 access fee.    I hope to be arranging a benefit gig for her later in the year.  There’s been some talk of cutting the round the clock police protection her daughters currently receive at a cost of £250,000 a year each.    Sounds reasonable, but think again - could you really sleep soundly knowing that the 7^th and 8^th in line to the throne were suddenly responsible for locking their own doors and finding their own way home from the nightclub?

Thankfully the government have no plans to cut Trident.  Some short sighted people have questioned the need for Britain to have its own top of the range independent nuclear weapons system, arguing that the £20bn could be better spent elsewhere, and that Britain would never launch a nuclear attack independent of the United States.  That doesn’t take into account the possibility of the United States’ government being taken over by a Communist AntiAmerican Nazi Unamerican Crypto Islamic NonAmerican Cabal - which, according to Fox News, could happen any day now.

Ten good reasons to keep Trident:

1            Good way of wiping out debt in struggling EU member states.  (By wiping out struggling EU member state).  Strike on Greece would also settle argument over Elgin Marbles once and for all.

2            Everyone else on the Security Council has got one.

3            That includes France

4            Being one of the countries who could destroy the planet as we know it secretly just feels pretty cool.

5            Getting rid of Trident would mean only countries left with nukes would be foreign.

6            That includes France

7            Finding the £20bn for Trident means devastating social infrastructure and thus leaves UK immune from nuclear retaliation because it would be pointless.

8            Maintains national self esteem after a bad World Cup.

9            Everybody likes a good firework

10            I don’t need to give you ten good reasons, I’ve got a top of the range nuclear missile delivery system.                       

On a cheerier note, I’ve developed a way of turning bankers in to nutritious snacks for starving Africans.  It’s tested very well for market potential, problem is, I can’t get anyone to give me start up capital.

July 2nd 2010

I’m twittering now -   www.twitter.com/nickula 

I watched the England Germany game with my German friend, the German Comedy Ambassador Henning Wehn.  It was tense prematch, but we were determined to maintain a cordial relationship and address the rivalry in a modern, friendly and adult manner.  So there were no cheap, childish references to the Second World War, even from the arrogant goose-stepping representative of the Aryan so-called master race.   Somehow I wasn’t optimistic about England's prospects, despite our brilliant performances in the group, and was resigned to defeat early on. (Taking my cue from the England players’ body language.)   But this didn’t stop me kicking the door at the injustice of Lampard’s disallowed goal.   Or, more accurately as Henning pointed out, I "tried to kick the door but in fact made initial contact only with a chair."  My wife sniggered at this.  She's Scottish.   Strange how the fervour takes over, even watching on TV.  I found myself yelling instructions at the screen, as if the players could a: hear, and b: would find them useful.   Ridiculous.  Capello is yelling from the side of the pitch and that makes no difference either. 

Still, I can take some solace in the fact I have as many World Cup goals as Wayne Rooney.

Meanwhile, BP are sponsoring a season at the Royal Opera House this summer.  I hear Swan Lake has been cancelled.   For his personal safety, BP CEO Tony Hayward has to travel in the USA disguised as Osama Bin Laden.  Clearly he didn’t realise though,  that pictures of him disguised as a complacent fat cat enjoying a weekend in unpolluted waters on a luxury yacht would somehow find their way across the Atlantic.  To be fair, why would the head of one of the world’s biggest multinationals be expected to know about global communications and 24 hour news? The poor guy only wants his life back.  Maybe we could give him someone else’s.  Like, a Gulf pelican’s. 

You can completely understand the Americans’ outrage over the oil spill.  Firstly, the use of the word “spill.”   An understatement on a par with calling England completely useless.   But not only are the Americans rightfully furious at the terrible pollution, they are also disgusted by the very notion that a multinational company would go into a foreign country and rape and ravage it for oil with no regard for the consequences.  It’s just utterly alien to their way of life.  Good for Obama, though,  forcing BP to divert dividends payments into a reparations fund.  I wonder if he has a phone number for Union Carbide.

I found it depressing last week that the crowd at Glastonbury cheered Prince Charles.  Especially as he'd only gone down there to try and block planning permission for the Pyramid Stage.

Here of course, the major news the first phase of draconian spending cuts introduced by the coalition.  A lot of them directly opposite to the economic arguments that the Lib Dems fought their campaign on.  I’m sure there’s sound reasons for their u-turn, and that Vince Cable will explain them to us just as soon as he’s invented them.  By the way,  Cable is not one of those politicians who rehearses speeches in the mirror, as he can’t bear to look in one. 

I’m guessing there’s a lot of Lib Dem supporters now looking back fondly to the days when theirs was just a wasted vote.

By the way, in August I’ll be performing my solo show - “Revel Yell” -  at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in Vauxhall, London - on Monday 9^th August and Tuesday 10^th.   Below is a link to their website, and to the site for online booking. 

www.rvt.org.uk

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/HAF2010

The Weather

I'm English, so what better subject to start with than the weather? London today is wet and greasy. When it's not actually raining, the sky just oozes moisture like a dirty grey floor-cloth. This summer, so much water has fallen on the British Isles that the Atlantic must be shallow enough to walk across. I'm beginning to take it personally, look for someone to blame. The weathermen, the government. The Bishop of Carlisle blamed the rain and the flooding on Britain's tolerance of homosexuality. Good to have it explained by an expert. There was me thinking it was all down to the jet-stream being pulled further south than usual owing to the effects of global warming and El Nino and La Nina, which in turn cause large areas of low pressure to remain virtually stationary over Britain with concomitant excessive precipitation for the time of year. Turns out it was all down to two schoolboys in Gloucester French kissing in a bus shelter and no-one complaining. .

I'm not an atheist by any means, and I think a lot of us are more religious than we realise. Just sit in a pub and watch a football match. You will see dozens and dozens of grown men believing they can influence the result of the game by yelling at the screen. The game is happening in another city, but they believe shouting at the television can help their team.

I respect anyone's spiritual belief if it keeps them happy. I just wish they'd also keep it to themselves. Feel happy knowing they're going to heaven when they die, shut up, and let the rest of us go to hell, in our own time. Is that too much to ask? I'm sick of these religious fanatics going round the world, killing innocent people because of what they think it says in their version of the many unique versions of absolute truth on offer. And I'm not just talking about George Bush; it's anyone who needs to turn their fear of the unknown at the end of life into a raging psychotic delusion and take it out on other people.

It's brightening up a bit outside.

More soon...