I Won’t Bite

My relationship with Twitter is absurd. In fact, in common parlance, it would be considered abusive.

I use Twitter. I use it only when I want something from it. Once it’s delivered I drop Twitter like a hot potato. I neglect it. I go off elsewhere, leaving Twitter to sob pathetically on the shoulder of a girlfriend while I’m down the pub laughing about it all with my mates. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.

It seems to work. Twitter is always there for me when I want it. It never says no. Sucker.

I say this so you’ll understand that my use of Twitter is highly infrequent.

Now. I Follow a few celebs. Mostly just to be nosey. And I realize that this whole enterprise is utterly pointless because I’m not on Twitter often enough to read any of their Tweets. Every time I dip into Twitter it’s full of people moaning about their children not going to bed properly and people who I don’t Follow trying to sell me something. I’m rarely online when Barrack Obama is for example. I guess we are like ships that pass in the night.

Very, very occasionally though, I get lucky and find myself Tweeting when a celeb is Tweeting.

It’s tempting, isn’t it? To reply. They’ve come out with some lame witticism or other and you think, I can top that.

And so you Tweet and hit Reply.

And then you feel dirty.

And a little sad.

Because none of us like to think of ourselves as sad star chasers. None of us would go into work the next day and boast that William Shatner had replied to one of our Tweets and aren’t we absolutely amazing as a consequence.

OK. That’s a bad example. I probably would boast about William Shatner replying to one of my Tweets. It’s William Shatner, for God’s sake.

But in general. the celebs don’t reply anyway.

And then you move from feeling dirty to feeling insulted. Hey! Cameron Diaz! Don’t ignore my 140 character review of your latest movie! At least have the grace to say thank you when I made the effort to spell ‘vacuous’ correctly!

But what did you expect? It was dumb to send the Tweet in the first place.

But I do get caught like this occasionally.

On Wednesday when I was doing my usual Twitter based sniping at The Apprentice (about the only time I use Twitter to be honest) Lisa Rogers, star of The Big Breakfast, Scrapheap Challenge and possibly at least one other TV programme that is still being shown on Dave (and pictured above) entered the snarling ring of Apprentice putdowns with the conjecture that the contestants were all “nobbers.”

Given the biscuit based activities of this week’s task I automatically responded with the Oscar Wildeian “don’t you mean ‘HobNobbers’. (Excuse me while I snigger to myself again... ahem ahem ahem; I’m just so funny sometimes.)

Lisa didn’t respond.

I mean, come on. What girl doesn’t like a biscuit based joke? A digestive jest? A drink is surely too wet without one?

I did get annoyed. But then I calmed down and thought it through. I was being unfair. I can imagine what it must be like. You’re a celeb. A star of TV, stage and screen (or maybe just Heat magazine) and all these people are Following you on Twitter. Every time you log-on you get thousands of Tweets from desperate Twits desperate for your attention. It’s easy to see what happened.

Amongst all those tens of thousands of Tweets that Lisa was receiving that evening my superbly crafted slice of immaculate comedy gold must have blazed forth like the sun shining into Bryn Celli Ddu barrow on Midsummer’s morning. Her retinas would have melted with mirth.

No wonder the poor girl couldn’t bring herself to reply. I mean what on earth could she bring to the table after that little hydrogen bomb of hilarity had gone off and vaporized her funny bone? She probably thought that anything she said after that would just sound wet and as funny as one of Eamonn Holmes’ jokes. Best to keep schtum and not reply.

Lisa, what can I say?

It would have been fine. I’m brilliant at summoning up polite laughter to bolster other people’s fragile egos. I would have made allowances for your comedy ineptitude.

I don’t bite.

I’m like a big cuddly HobNob of comedy.

You don’t have to be a high class biscuit yourself to appreciate my fulfilling oaty base. You can dunk me in your best China and it would be fine.

You wouldn’t cramp my style, honest.

And I’d even be prepared to sample a couple of your custard creams in return.

Now I can’t say fairer than that.

P.S. And I didn’t even make a joke about Ginger Nuts. That’s how good I am.

Looky-Likey

Yesterday morning, when I should I have been turning my thoughts to higher things, I indulged in a spot of Twitter based badinage with 2 fellow bloggers (you know who you are and so do my lawyers; you’ll be hearing from them later in the week) and the subject got onto eighties TV.

You don’t need to know how we got onto this subject because the route was circuitous and passed through some weird and wonderful country, within the borders of which I was imagined dressed up in a gold skirt like Freddie Mercury in Queen’s “I Want To Break Free” video.

Suffering under the barrage of cackling that thus ensued I decided to use the old distraction technique that Freddie Mercury taught me on the video shoot and came up with the true observation that some of my friends, back when I had a fuller beard, thought I resembled Mr Claypole from Rentaghost.

Much cackling then ensued and I thought, yeah, thanks, Freddie, great help you were.

But it got me digging around online for Mr Claypole related facts. Rentaghost was a great programme when I was a kid and Mr Claypole was every kid’s favourite character.

What is he doing now, I wondered, ‘cos he just seemed to disappear into thin air? Er, rather like his Rentaghost persona.

Well, it was a shock to discover that actually Mr Claypole isn’t doing anything very much at all at the moment because, just like the character he played in Rentaghost, he’s actually dead. He died in 1987!

For those of you brought up on BBC kid’s television this must come as a great shock.

I knew nothing of this. The poor guy has been dead for nearly 25 years and I didn’t know.

It’s like finding out that the original Bagpuss has been destroyed in a house fire or that He-Man had homo-erotic undertones.

It casts a dark shadow over your entire childhood.

I am indebted to www.cheesebrush.com for furnishing me with the sad facts of Mr Claypole’s demise. I feel gutted. I have the Rentaghost theme tune on my MP3 player and just hearing his voice singing the crazy lyrics now brings a lump to my throat.

The child in me is weeping. You’ll be telling me next that Roy Castle is dead. *sigh*

But on the bright side I can’t think of anyone else I’d much rather look like.

Especially when the same bunch of friends who thought I looked like Mr Claypole also made the observation that I looked a little bit like Gerry Adams.

Gits.

Alright, alright. Cut the cackling.

Poetry In Motion

So it’s home time (funny that I think of it as “home time” – like I’m still at school – rather than “clocking off time” from work). A glad escape from another miserable day at Fractious Towers. And I’m pounding the oven hot streets at the bottom end of town with of all things ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky” tickling the upper register of my hearing on the good old trusty MP3 player. My spirits are slowly rising after a tough day but suddenly I can hear other unwholesome, unwelcome, extraneous noise.

Running down the avenue...

Oi! Go on then!

See how the sun shines brightly...

Na ha ha ha!

I turn my head slightly and notice a gang of lolloping, long armed, long legged (long goolied, given the gutter height crotches on their trousers) hoodies flapping their Nike’s over the pavement on the other side of the road. One of them, the one wearing a pale blue vest about 5 sizes too big for his cadaverous frame, is riding a chopper.

Now I haven’t seen one of those in years and I can almost forgive this stain of brash hoodiedom on my home patch for the brief glimpse of this most classic and characterful of all bikes. It catches the sunlight so evocatively as Mr Blue Vest (Oh Mr Blue Sky / Please tell us why / You had to hide away / For so long, so long...) peddles his merry little way the wrong way up the bike lane.

He meanders up and down the curbstones. He wheelies in and out of the shop fronts. He cuts up pedestrians with pushchairs. And all the time he’s giving it some jaw. I can’t hear what he’s saying because the choral bit at the end has kicked in and ELO are chugging their guitars with gusto but I can tell that it is inane, arrogant and annoying by the fact his mates think it’s hilarious and every other passerby is stifling a barely concealed sneer.

And then it happens. The inevitable veer into the middle of the road.

Someone in a black Peugeot has to pull wide and slow down. They roll past him slowly and must say something. Something not complimentary but something that I warrant is true.

Mr Blue Vest gives him the finger. Long and hard. His mates cheer. Emboldened he chances his other arm. Literally. The double fingered salute is proffered to the driver of the black Peugeot. The last symphonic notes of Mr Blue Sky die away...

...and Mr Blue Vest upends the bike onto his own arse and the non applause of the tar macadam.

Cue even louder cheers from his mates. Or are they indeed jeers? ‘Cos they’re showing their true colours now. Despite the rush hour traffic they sound almost disappointed that the car immediately behind their fallen comrade has slowed down with plenty of room to spare.

He gets up. Arms raised and chin held high in that what-the-hell-I-meant-to-do-that fashion that all social retards adopt when they want to brazen out their palpable and unmistakable public humiliation.

He gets back onto his chopper, back into the saddle and rides off more sedately – dare I suggest even chastened – in the midst of his mates. Hidden away and shielded by a thin wall of baseball caps and spotty chins. Away down the oven hot street they mooch, ignoring the smirks and knowing smiles that light up the faces of every single person that they pass. The drivers, the shopkeepers, the people going home, all these witnesses to one of life’s more poetic moments.

I nudge my MP3 player gently. You know, I just might listen to Mr Blue Sky again...

Birds, Bees And Tee-Hees

The funniest comedians are physically unattractive. Discuss.

We were talking about comedians at work this week and being a shallow lot the discussion quickly moved on from merely which ones we thought were funny to those we thought were attractive. And it quickly became apparent – certainly from the males – that if they found a female comedienne attractive they tended not to find her very funny. But this was OK. This lack of comedy skill was forgiven totally provided there was the redeeming presence of a nice face, or nice tits, or a nice arse. Eye candy made up for all the comedy shortcomings.

And yet those comedians we (the men) deemed to be masters of laughter were all unanimously declared – by male and female alike – to be Hound Headed Troglodytes From Planet Ugly.

Or at the very least Plain Janes and Joe Averages.

Such a judgment seemed rather sweeping.

And it got me to thinking. Is it true across the board?

On the face of it, it seems to be. A quick example: I think Frankie Boyle and David Mitchell are the funniest things on the comedy circuit period. Witty, sharp, intelligent and frequently thought provoking. Everything I could desire in a comedian. But attractive? To anybody?

Surely not (though some of you may prove me wrong). Frankie Boyle by his own admission looks like one of The Proclaimers (which isn’t a good look even for a corpse) and David Mitchell is, well, er, very funny.

As for comediennes I find attractive, Lucy Porter would be top of my list. Petite, brunette, curvy, vaguely elfin in an early Kate Bush kind of way... she’s hot hot hot. I like watching her.

But she doesn’t make me laugh. Much. She raises the occasional smile and something else but that’s about all.

Jo Brand, however, I think is much funnier and well, there you go. Argument proved.

Or is it?

I think the possible explanation for this rather sexist dissection of who is good and who is not good at comedy is centered around gender politics in a different way. Being heterosexual I don’t, by and large, find other blokes attractive. Sorry, I just don’t. Instead I seek out other admirable traits in men. Intelligence, wit, a certain coolness, etc. As for women, well, I know what I like and I gravitate towards it.

But women’s humour is just different from men’s. Stand-up comedy isn’t as broad as people think. It’s the old French & Saunders thing. Women (mostly) found them very funny while us men (mostly) just didn’t get the joke. Because it was from a strong female perspective. It just wasn’t meant or pitched for us.

Is the converse true though? Do women not get bloke jokes?

Plainly they do. So are male comedians pitching their gags to a more universal audience while female comediennes pitch theirs to a stronger female demographic?

I’m confused. Maybe there is no clearly defined right or wrong answer.

It was interesting to note, however, that some of my female colleagues found Frankie Boyle and co. not only “not funny” but also not very attractive as well. They lost out on both counts.

How funny.

I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

But as long as everybody is happy and getting their laughter injections somewhere, does any of it really matter?