Boy Next Door Gone Wrong

34: Concentration

2011-05-17T20:08:00.001+01:00

I've tried to write pesky blog number 34 for quite some time now, and I keep getting distracted by the tiniest of things - such is the wafer thin level of concentration in my noggin.

As all of these little notes are dedicated to things that I hate, I had previously tried to write about about a dozen little things but kept going off track somewhat and deciding that I hated something else even more. Then I'd eat a bakewell slice, have a nap and play Portal 2 for a bit.

My first idea was to talk about people who wear glasses when they don't need them. I have - despite many warnings from my mother about various teenage activities that would limit my vision - 20/20 vision. I know. I'm as stunned as you, to be honest.

I know a lot of people that rock a pair of glasses, and in many ways I am jealous of their awesome face furniture. Glasses are cool, no doubt about it. But I have been led to believe by the lady in the laser eye surgery commercial that it's possibly slightly preferable to have working eyes. After all, she looks so happy. After just two hours!

I'm not sure if people who wear glasses get as annoyed about this as me, but the only people who wear glasses without prescription lenses in them tend to be girls that think they're alternative because they once bought a fairisle knit cardigan from the Cancer Research shop and guys who have stupid hair and pretend to read Dostoyevsky on the tube. Cunts.

Then there's Radio 1.

As a former BBC employee I used to be limited in what I say about Radio 1, however as I'm now as free as a bird let me speak out on a couple of subjects:

1: It's not a "music festival" if all of the bands that are playing have essentially been chosen because they represent 80% of your daytime playlist.
2: I'm not that happy at you fuckers spending the license fee (that could be dedicated to you know, actually saving local radio) on putting on said "festival" and then mentioning it in every link for six weeks before and after the so-called event.
3: Fearne Cotton is the worst presenter in the world.
4: Greg James is the second worst.

Of course, this isn't as annoying as the new opening credits for the Simpsons.

Why change it? Yes, it jumped the shark ages ago (series 10, "The Principal and the Pauper") but I could still watch old episodes and bask in their timeless humour (something that Family Guy will never be able to do). Now there's an opening credits that tries to make minor characters important (the fucking one eyebrowed baby? Fuck you), has Sherri and Terri playing on Nintendo DSs and somehow manages to make a programme that is now in HD and better animated than ever look as cheap as a Primark wedding dress.

Not to mention that all new episodes of the Simpsons seem to follow the same formula:

Homer does something dumb
This leads to them going to a different place
Episode takes place in different place (Ireland, Italy, Africa, the Midwest)
Mild racism and minor wackiness ensues.

Don't even get me started on bicycle seats.

Riding a bike is fun, right? So why should the seat make me feel like I've been violated by an angry bear that is wearing that spiked sheathed from the film Seven?

Also, women who go out walking at a slow pace whilst wearing leggings, anoraks and carrying a bottle of water: That is NOT proper exercise. Try running. Or walking further than the small loop near your house with two of your friends talking about Emmerdale. Get out of my cycle lane.

I forget what this was about. Oh yes. Concentration, that's it.

Nope, I've got nothing.

But I will enjoy a bakewell slice.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

33: Brainache

2011-04-18T21:12:00.002+01:00

I'd love to paint the image that I'm some kind of happy-go-lucky comedian that people tend to hope that all of my breed are; spending my downtime whistling showtunes or getting into scrapes like a heavily tattooed Norman Wisdom. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

I've not done any kind of survey amongst comedians, but I'm fairly sure that the majority - even if it's only 51% of us - are mentally ill in some way. Either keeping to themselves (as I have no doubt my Mother wishes I did) or like me, being a big old show pony about it.

I'm not proud of being bipolar, I don't view it as a selling point or anything like that. I mean, how could it be one? Imagine my agent ringing people up trying to get gigs for me purely based on that:

JON: Fancy booking Jim for a gig?
PROMOTER: Not seen him before, what's he like?
JON: He can be quite funny and full of energy...
PROMOTER: Excellent...
JON: Or sometimes he just sits in the corner of a green room, rocking backwards and forwards whilst sobbing uncontrollably.
PROMOTER: There's a call on the other line...

I have my condition under control, with medicine and positive thinking. The fact that I have my dream job of course helps - but that doesn't mean that I'm not prone to bad days. I am. Today was one, for no real reason. Let me talk you through it.

9am: Got up. Ate chocolate weetabix - a cereal guaranteed to get you off to a bad start as there is clearly NO FUCKING CHOCOLATE IN IT.
9.15am: Tire of the day. Have a massive wee and go back to sleep.
1pm: Wake up. Check emails. Send some texts. Go back to sleep.
5pm: Wake up. Remember I need my prescription. Get dressed, collect it, visit my parents, feel vaguely human, come home.
9pm: Start writing this. Goal: Do something productive with my day.

I've got a tattoo on my arm of a power switch. I had this done to symbolise that I never switch off - fuck it, I'll take a gig in Azerbaijan at the drop of a hat if I have to. Even if it's a Mirth Control one and I have to drive people back to London afterwards.

(Non comedians: Just trust me, that last bit is funny. Do what my mum does and laugh, pretending you get it. Thanks)

Of course, the power switch does also say, apparently, that I'm permanently turned on. That's regrettable. Thank fuck it's funny.

Point is that I don't like having days off. If I sit at home I have time to think and worry and panic and fret. That's all I've done today. I've worried about all of the following:

1: My weight
2: My appearance
3: Money, or rather my lack of it
4: Edinburgh
5: My career
6: My daughter
7: My lack of friends
8: My teeth
9: The environment
10: The crack in my car windscreen
11: My fines at Blockbuster
12: Bills
13: Whether I've had too much sleep
14: If my neighbours might try to kill me
15: The economy
16: What to eat
17: My heart
18: My liver
19: Whether my penis is too brown (it is freakishly brown)
20: My website
21: Whether I worry too much

When I got to number 21, I started the list again in a different order. That is what the inside of my brain looks like, a constant ticker whirring by listing everything in the world that I can worry about. If I'm having a bad day like today, I can't convince myself to do anything other than worry. I can't even play videogames to distract me, because I worry that I'm playing too many videogames.

The way out of this is of course to face my worries and do something about them. If I don't like my body, I could go out for a run. If I'm worried about money I could put a load of my stuff on eBay. If I'm worried about my car windscreen I could call Autoglass as I'm led to believe that they are able to both repair and replace.

I don't do any of those things though. I sit and mope and can't drag myself out of the gloomy pit that I've made. I don't like being this way, I just can't get out of it on a bad day.

I may have been addicted to a lot of things, and they've all done me a lot of harm. I do have an addiction still though - an addiction to being onstage. If I didn't have comedy I don't know what I'd do.

It's interesting that I NEVER have a bad day if I'm working. No matter how bad the gig is, I'd rather be doing that than sitting at home on my own. I spend most normal days writing to get better at what I do - god knows I've got a long way to go yet. I may spend a lot of time sitting on the M1 or M6 but at least that means that I'm on my way to a gig. 20, 200 or 2,000 people - it doesn't matter. I have the greatest job in the world and it's ironic that making a few people happy makes me more happy on the inside than they'll ever know.

There's no real point to this little rant, no punchline at the end, nothing that I want it to achieve other than pull me out the funk that I've been in all day today.

Just bear in mind next time you see me onstage that if I make you giggle even in the tiniest way that you're helping keep me on the straight and narrow. If you look at my daft tattoos and grin then that makes me happy.

For every day I have like today, stupid little brainache day, I have a dozen great days. I see the world, I meet great people, I ignore my stupid brain and have a blast entertaining as many people as I can. You'll note that I didn't worry today at all today about having a purpose in life. As silly and frivolous as mine is, if I am forced to be a jester for the rest of my life than I'll die a happy man.

I know it's surprising. Who'd have thought that a man who listens to loud music, has a ton of tattoos and wears a lot of black t-shirts could be such a fucking emo?

If you take anything away from this posting, take this: If you ever see me away from my comfort zone of being in a comedy club and I'm moping, quiet and miserable: Slap me around the head with a large fish and remind me that I'm one lucky fucker who, most of the time, adores life and everyone in it.

No punchline, as I said. So I'll give you a sentence and you write your own joke around it. I'm off to try and enjoy chocolate weetabix again.

Here goes:

It turned out it was swarfega!

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

32: Saturday Night Out

2011-04-03T02:24:00.002+01:00

Tonight, as I walked back to my car after performing in Birmingham, some youth chose to punch me in the face. I was more stunned than hurt - his clumsy pugilism merely vaguely bruised my forehead so I doubt that the cowardly fuck will be troubling the highest echelons of boxing at any point soon.

I have no idea why he decided to attempt to give me a pasting. He walked out of a bar across the road from where I was working, strode up to me, said nothing and lamped me. It did lead to a very awkward moment where he expected me to go down and I just stared at him and said "ouch". He then considered hitting me again, panicked and buggered off. A very odd moment in my life.

This happened just off Broad Street, a place that pretty much resembles my idea of hell on earth. Hundreds of drunken revellers being as pissed as it is possible to be without sleeping on a bench every night, all trying to have loud conversations with people over booming R'n'B music in the vain hope that they can possibly go home and have awkward sex.

This is, of course, a Saturday night out.

I've been working at the same venue for the last couple of nights and I was astonished upon leaving last night just how short girls dresses are. I must stress - I was shocked. Not "pleasantly surprised". Genuinely shocked. Where do they get these dresses from? Hang on.

(Goes to look)

Ah, Lipsy.

Anyway, I should be pleased about this as a heterosexual man. Women wearing less should be a cause for celebration, surely? No. It just reminds me that I'm getting old and that I've got a seven year old daughter who'll probably be out and about doing the same thing in about ten years. Maybe that's why that dude punched me - he must be a parent of a girl and the sight of so much flesh panicked him. Poor little guy.

I've noted that on these Saturday nights out that there are three distinct groups that form pretty much all of the so-called revellers in bars and clubs.

ONE: ALL GIRLS TOGETHER

Masses of girls together, usually wearing as little as possible. At least one will be crying, one will hate all of the others and half will not be wearing their heels by 11pm.

TWO: THE BOYZ

A load of lads hanging out together, spending a lot of time proving they can drink more than the others and staring at the uncovered backsides of the girls that are out and about. From my experience this weekend they seem to all look EXACTLY the same: Very short hair, polo shirt, shit tribal tattoo. Hey, fellers? Just because your polo shirt is from Lyle and Scott it doesn't mean that you've managed to escape your social class.

THREE: COUPLES

Jesus, these are the worst. A group of four or more couples, where all the women are friends (NEVER the men) and the guys are forced to sit next to each other and pretend to like the others. They like to remind you that they're all attached and happy and that they don't NEED to be out on a Saturday night, but they choose to be because if they stayed at home watching television they'd worry that they were missing something. Nope. If you stayed in when you were single you didn't miss anything, you miss even less when you're attached and merely spend a fortune trying to relive your youth which you only see through the rose-tinted spectacles of booze and drugs back in the day.

Of course, I say all of this whilst hiding a guilty secret.

Yes.

I have never enjoyed a Saturday night out.

When I say "never enjoyed" I don't mean that I've been on hundreds of nights out and they've all sucked. I mean that I don't think I've ever had a Saturday night out. Not with dancing and fun and conversation and the sort of epic adventures that drinkers and revellers enjoy. The kind of weekends that prompted Pete Tong to tell us all that they started on Thursday and have idiots text into Radio 1 talking about how they were going to "large it". Cunts.

I digress. My point is that I quit drinking aged 20. Prior to that I'd never liked clubs and bars. I now work in comedy clubs every Saturday night. I still don't drink, have precious little time to socialise and after gigs people seem more scared of me than wanting to hang out.

Anyway, if you're reading this you're probably thinking that you've had loads of great Saturday nights out. I will not deny this. I will merely remain annoyed and jealous about it. Trouble is, I don't think I can fix my aversion to Saturday nights out now. As:

a) I'm likely to be working every Saturday night until the end of time and convincing people that Monday is my Saturday doesn't really work.
b) I'm nearly 33 for fucks sake. That train has sailed.
c) Large groups of people are always suspicious of little me, drinking coke while they get hammered.

And most importantly of all:

d) It seems that I have a face that people like to smack.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

31: Not Being a Proper Boy

2011-01-27T15:19:00.005Z

I am 32 years old, nearly 33. In my life I have watched football, been drunk, done drugs, touched ladies on their rude parts and generally been a bit of a tearaway from time to time. Yet my family don't treat my escapades as (formerly) youthful exuberance, the actions of a bit of a lad in the prime of his life, oh no. They react in a different way.

My mother simply refuses to believe that I've ever done anything untoward, as she's my mum and she likes to presume that the sun shines out of my posterior. When I told her that I used to be an alcoholic she merely shook her head and went "naah, not my boy" and made me another cup of tea with too many sugars in it (and with a plate of assorted biscuits on the side).

My father accepted the alcoholism confession with a much more direct answer:

ME: Hey dad, I used to drink a lot.
DAD: When?
ME: I my teens, mainly. Like, all the time.
DAD: Ah, explains a lot. I just thought you were a twat.

However, on the few occasions that I've dared tell jokes about my surreal and downright wrong sex life he has stared at me with a look of "yeah, right", rolled his eyes and carried on. No matter what confessions I tell my parents (and my sister) they just seem to wash over them now. And having thought about this recently, I know why my fanciful stories of regret and wrongness are so difficult for my family to swallow.

You see, as a child I was never a proper boy.

I don't mean that I didn't have the required bits or anything like that, it's just that I was a RUBBISH boy. I'm still useless now, and I think it's too late for me to become a proper one.

Let me stress what I mean: This has nothing to do with sexuality or manliness, it's to do with those things that make you a boy or a bit of a lad when you grow up. I was never the sort of child to have scraped knees and muddy clothes (indeed my mother reminds me that I even hated finger painting at school because it got my hands dirty). Let me give you my life history:

Age 0: Born by caesarean section because it was too much physical effort to be born via conventional means and I wanted the extra attention. As I'm whisked away in foil my Dad sees me before my Mother and presumes that I'm a baked potato. Apparently I was emo even before birth and tried to hang myself with my umbilical cord. The Smiths were not even formed at this point.

Age 3: My sister is born. I surreptitiously eye her toys.

Age 5: Start school. First day is dictated by the few moments that I stop crying for long enough to be able to read a book quietly in the corner. One memorable day someone tells me that the toilets in our school are haunted, so I eventually wet myself. That day I was wearing bright yellow trousers. This was not the choice of my mother, but rather mine - and a foolish choice in which to disguise urinary mishaps (but a good colour to stand out from the crowd, it would seem).

Age 6: Discover something called "football" after watching Dundee United play Gothenberg on TV. Turns out that most children wanted to play the sport rather than watch it. I tried for a while but was so bad at it that in the end I would sit at the side of the pitch and provide commentary whilst eating my dairylea sandwiches.

Age 7: Have a massive tantrum when I'm not allowed to wear my favourite bottle green cords to school. Later in the year, parents decide to buy me my first football shirt so I can be like the other lads. Instead of choosing England, Leicester or even Liverpool, I choose West Ham because "their kit is the nicest colour".

Age 8: Too frightened to learn to ride a bike, I spend most of my nights after school running after my friends on their BMXs. I become very good at running, but still look like a pissed giraffe when doing so. I eventually get bought a bike (with no stabilizers) and regrettably have to learn. I fall off one day and cry so much that I'm sick all over my teddy bears (George, Nim and Little Gordon).

Age 9: First swimming lesson. Fall into the swimming pool and nearly drown. Upon being rescued I sob uncontrollably until the teachers give up hope and just read me the last rites and offer me a noose to end it all as soon as possible. Once the crying ends I realise that my skin is ablaze (not literally) and that I'm allergic to chlorine. My 7 year old daughter can swim now and constantly mocks me for this and my dedication to drowning the very second I come into contact with her paddling pool.

Age 11: Move school. Our new school field has trees in that we have expressly forbidden to climb. I stick to this rule, and when mocked for never climbing said tree I run and tell some teachers. Result: I am saved from climbing the tree, which I would not be able to do as a fully grown adult, let alone as a stick thin non-adventurous child. Also, all the other kids are banned from climbing the tree. I receive special attention from the teachers for this, and coincidentally also receive a different type of special attention from the kids too.

Age 12: Discover the Smiths. Uh-oh.

Age 13: Quite like girls. The standard way of showing this amongst my chums is as follows:

1: Pull hair of said girl.
2: Hit said girl.
3: Run off.
4: Repeat until they give you a kiss reeking of marmite and pickled onion monster munch.

My method is slightly different.

1: Admire girl from afar.
2: Send her anonymous notes quoting Smiths lyrics.
3: Realise she knows you sent the notes.
4: Ask parents if you can change schools.

Age 14: Discover booze. Not in the usual way, behind a skip in a park, pretending to be wankered on half a sip of Diamond White. Oh no. Much better to get drunk in my room listening to Morrissey, Nirvana and Joy Division and then really nail home this image of teenage angst by playing Turrican on the Commodore Amiga.

Age 15: First touch the lady bits of a girl. Slightly repulsed by it and have nightmares about losing my hand in an octopus for the next month.

Age 17: Sleep with a girl. Did not lose my virginity in the way most lads do (at a party, pissed) but instead lose it by candlelight to a girl 4 years older than me (who looks 4 years younger than me) whilst drunk on wine and listening to a mixtape that I made her. And one point she paused coitus to stop the tape (midway through a song from the Cure) and put on a Mary J Blige CD. I could not reach orgasm.

Age 18: Experiment with drugs. Not with my friends, sat around in a circle giggling at nothing at all whilst high on weed, oh no. But take large amounts of LSD in order to (and I actually wrote this phrase in my diary) "unlock my deeper consciousness" and be able to write more "heartfelt, yearning and personal stories". Jesus.

Age 20: Quit drinking and drugs just at the point when I should be being sociable at university and doing these things.

Age 25: After being married and divorced, briefly date a lapdancer hoping it will earn me some man-points. It doesn't: I find myself far too eager to give advice on what music she should dance to and find myself terrified that she'll one die run off with Peter Stringfellow.

Age 27: Start doing comedy. Not because I think I'm funny, but because I want to be less shy. Least rock and roll reason to fall into a career EVER.

Age 30: Start getting properly tattooed. My Dad lives in hope that one day I'll have a bit of tribal or the City badge etched into my skin. He rolls his eyes at Princess Peach et al and just lets me get on with it.

I had a conversation with my daughter the other week where she told me what the boys at her school were like (noisy, dirty, smelly and very active) and she - without even blinking - looked at me and said "but I know you weren't like that at school, Daddy". How did she know? I had to ask her. She shrugged and said "I just know. You're a proper Daddy but not a proper boy".

Enraged by this (but not showing it) I decided to take her to a chilly adventure playground and leap about the climbing frames with her. She dashed all around, demonstrating monkey-like agility all over the place while I gamely tried to keep up (I made it look like I was letting her win, I wasn't). Eventually I tripped and fell, hurting my ankle. I made Amelia come and sit next to me on a swing while I tried to not scream in agony. As we sat there swinging, Amelia soon got bored and stood up. She patted me on the shoulder and said the following:

"You just sit there Daddy. The swings are much more your thing."

So I did. Damn her little perceptive mind.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

30: Snow

2010-12-19T00:26:00.002Z

THE FOLLOWING TOOK PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 13.30 and 22.00 ON SATURDAY DECEMBER 19th 2010...

13.30 - BARWELL, LEICESTERSHIRE

I open my door and stride into the cool winter air. I'm prepared for a tricky journey - being a plucky BBC employee I've seen the weather reports and instead of lying in bed all afternoon catching up on my sleep I'm leaving early for my gig in central London. Plan is pretty much this:

1: Drive the two hours to London
2: Possibly see some snow showers
3: Not worry about #2 because I'm a mighty human in a car
4: Get to London
5: Find a pub
6: Watch Leicester City beat Ipswich Town on TV in said pub entirely populated by chirpy cockneys eating Pie and Mash
7: Do gig and make much mirth
8: Go home, finished for Christmas and happy with my lot.

As I leave there is a light dusting of snow. I smile to myself, thinking about how Christmassy it looks. Bless.

14.00 - LUTTERWORTH, LEICESTERSHIRE

Journey so far is a piece of piss. Nobody on the road as people are warned off the road by what I wittily call "scaremongering". It's only some snow. And besides, I'm on the M1 already and smashing it down to London. I think about how I'll show off to my London based comedy chums, listening to them talking of struggling on the tube when I've travelled 120 miles - like a green room version of the Four Yorkshiremen Monty Python sketch.

At this point I am planning my dinner. I reckon Mexican, somewhere near Embankment.

14.15 - DAVENTRY, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

It's snowing a little bit, but is clearly no match for my mighty iron steed. Brrrrrrm.

14.30 - NORTHAMPTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

The snow has stopped. Stupid fucking weather forecasts. Although I am buoyed by knowing I'll be well early, clever little monkey that I am.

15.00 - NEWPORT PAGNELL, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Quite need a wee, but pass the services knowing that Toddington has a Marks and Spencer and they do wasabi peas. Besides, I know I'll be there in 15 minutes or so.

15.01 - 1 MILE BEYOND NEWPORT PAGNELL, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

How come it's so cloudy and foggy and that all of a sudden?

15.02 - 1 MILE BEYOND NEWPORT PAGNELL, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Fuck me, it's snowing like a bastard.

15.05 - 3 MILES BEYOND NEWPORT PAGNELL, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

Ah, it's slowing down. Besides, the roads seem fine.

15.10 - JUNCTION 14, M1

Probably no point getting off here now, traffic is sluggish but it's bound to be a little congested. I laugh at the saps queuing to leave the M1. MORE MOTORWAY FOR ME, FUCKERS!

15.11 - ABOUT THREE FEET PAST JUNCTION 14, M1

More snow.

15.12 - ABOUT THREE FEET PAST JUNCTION 14, M1

More snow than backstage at a Motley Crue concert. In Switzerland. Midwinter.

15.13 - AS ABOVE

A car in front makes a bold move and drives forwards, then sideways, then into a barrier. I laugh in the style of a man who is mildly aware that he's fucked. Still have over four and three quarter hours to showtime. Pride myself on leaving early enough, although do briefly think I may miss City's scintillating start in Ipswich. Everything is bound to clear up soon.

15.20 - TWO FEET ON

I have spent the previous seven minutes getting excited every minute when the car in front moves a couple of centimetres. Have decided that the man in the car in front is a twat for the following reasons:

A: He has a personalised plate. Not a good one, like J1MMY or something like that. One so obscure that only he knows that it refers to the time he was born and the initials of his dog or some shit.
B: He's driving a car with too much torque, so it's struggling to get the power down on the snow. I have no idea what this means, but I've watched Top Gear.
C: He is leaving TOO MUCH ROOM BETWEEN HIM AND THE CAR IN FRONT.

15.30 - ANOTHER TWO FEET

Now swearing at the radio. Thanks to the weather I'm having to listen to Blackburn vs West Ham. Laugh briefly when the commentator describes Avril Grant as having a hang-dog expression. His face is the actual dictionary definition of the phrase.

16.00 - ANOTHER TEN FEET

Start inventing new swearwords for the people in Four Wheel Drives who seem to think its acceptable to drive on the hard shoulder merely because they have bigger wheels. And secretly regret buying a tiny little Ford Fiesta and giving a flying fuck about fuel economy. The best words I've invented thus far are "festwich", "clinth" and "banzunt".

16.30 - ANOTHER FIFTEEN FEET

Brief sense of excitement of hitting 8mph for three seconds is ruined by looking in my rearview mirror and realising that I have moved absolutely clinthing nowhere.

16.45 - NO PROGRESS

Start going through the cartoon cycle of despair. I've pretty much exhausted anger, I'm now onto wanting to weep. On the verge of tears until I watch a man climb out of his stationary car and walk to the hard shoulder to urinate. He steps onto what he thinks is a grass verge and vanishes up to his waist in snow. I laugh so hard that I stall the car and he definitely notices.

17.00 - ANOTHER TEN FEET

Match kicks off in 20 minutes. Have a feeling I may miss it.

17.15 - ANOTHER TEN FEET

Gig kicks off in 165 minutes. Have a feeling I may miss it.

17.20 - ANOTHER TWO FEET

Small surge in movement makes me foolishly think that I can get to Luton then get a train to London. Because of course the UK is well known for its reliable railway network that can cope with any small problem and is in no way ever delayed because of a wet leaf here and there, let alone a fucking blizzard of biblical proportions.

17.30 - ANOTHER TEN FEET

Cancel gig. Worry about the money I won't be earning that I may have already spent on tattoos, cake and hats.

17.35 - NO CHANGE

Realise that even with the gig cancelled I'm still not going anywhere. Wonder if I have a junior hacksaw to cut through the barrier and do a U-turn. Google Maps tells me that, with traffic, I'm over 90 minutes from the next junction. Which is three miles away. Fuck my life.

18.00 - TWO AND THREE QUARTER MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Man in front with private plate gets stuck. I watch him for a bit and then get out and push him as he accelerates. He moves on and I shout "I AM THOR! STRONGEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!" as a white van driver stares at me, agog.

18.15 - TWO AND A HALF MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Listening to 606 as City are already two down. Can only tolerate it for two minutes at a time before I either want to punch the listeners or Robbie Savage in the face.

18.30 - TWO AND A QUARTER MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Weeping.

18.45 - TWO MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Get deeply annoyed that the kids in the car next to me are watching a DVD. Try to keep pace with them to watch it over their shoulders but am blocked by a pie van. It was Toy Story 3 as well.

19.00 - ONE AND THREE QUARTER MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Remember how much I need to urinate. Consider sneaking onto the hard shoulder to relieve myself but then look at temperature gauge and realise that if I do so my penis will actually shrink back up inside me like a too-wide bellybutton.

19.15 - ONE AND HALF MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Everyone else has started using the hard shoulder as a lane and I no longer care about my strict adherence to the highway code. I'd drive over a sweet old lollipop lady if it got me to that fucking junction a minute sooner.

19.30 - ONE AND A QUARTER MILES TO JUNCTION 13

Screaming.

19.40 - ONE MILE TO JUNCTION 13

A SIGN! A MOTHERFUCKING SIGN FOR A JUNCTION!

19.50 - HALF A MILE TO JUNCTION 13

The traffic seems to be sorting itself into wheat and chaff. Chaff being the people choosing to stay on the M1, wheat being people like me who are leaving the M1 with no plan at all. Note that the other side of the M1 is equally fucked. I had not thought about that. Arses.

20.00 - EXITING THE M1 VIA JUNCTION 13

Start singing "Take on Me" by A-Ha in celebration at getting to 15mph. Realise I have no plan at all. I can go to Bedford or Milton Keynes. I reason that the easy road layout of Milton Keynes would be the best option to get me to the A5 and my steady route home.

20.15 - SOMEWHERE IN MILTON KEYNES

Whoever designed this place was fucking mental.

20.30 - STILL IN MILTON KEYNES

Seriously, how could you pick out landmarks in this place? Even if the entire concrete monstrosity wasn't covered in bastard fucking snow?

20.45 - THE A5, HEADING NORTH

Somehow a single lane A-road is better gritted, salted and cleared than a major motorway. Although the Little Chef is closed and an Olympic Breakfast would be awesome right now.

21.00 - STILL THE A5

Hit a bump in the snow. A bit of wee comes out.

21.15 - DAVENTRY

The snow just fucks off. Seriously. Vanishes. Like I'm playing a bad video game.

22.00 - PARENTS HOUSE

Throw myself on the mercy of my mum and dad. Beg for food, shelter and somewhere to have a wee.

22.05 - PARENTS HOUSE

Piss like a racehorse.

22.10 - PARENTS HOUSE

Relax on sofa. Try not to think about what I could have done with the 8 and a bit hours I've spent in the car. Deeply troubled by the lack of snow in Leicestershire. After my day I want to build a snowman just so I can punch it in its stupid fucking carroty face.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

29: "Sexy" Mrs Claus

2010-12-13T16:14:00.003Z

I don't want the first thing to think when you read this that I dislike Christmas in any way. I mean, I don't love it. I don't own any Christmas decorations - but that is mainly down to the fact that I'd have to put them up and then take them down, and I'm too lazy to do that. I'm so lazy that I tidied my lounge for the first time in about a year today and found the following things that I never knew I had:

1: A cigar. Cuban, I believe.
2: A copy of "Dead Snow" on Blu-Ray.
3: A small, neat pile of Ikea catalogues.
4: A hand-made ceramic snail.

But I do like Christmas. I enjoy giving presents to my family and friends, I enjoy Christmas dinner and I enjoy my early Christmas with my daughter (we have our present opening time on Christmas Eve, as she is under the impression that I have Santa's phone number and I text him every year). That's about it. I don't enjoy the crowds in the shops, the special menus in restaurants, the Christmas music on the radio or Egg Nog, whatever the fuck that is.

As a comedian we have the joy of performing in clubs in front of many a Christmas party during December, and I know that this is a subject of some consternation for many comics. It doesn't really bother me - this December I've had some beautiful gigs in front of Xmas party crowds that have outweighed the shoddy one that springs to mind that I hated every minute of.

I was in Putney this past Saturday at the Comedy Tree, a venue that I must have performed at around ten times this year. I like it there and had a great time this weekend, despite feeling like death and having a pain in my jaw so bad that I felt that someone was constantly hitting me in the face with a spade. Above the comedy club however is the Wahoo bar, a place that if I believed in Hell would resemble it somewhat.

At the beginning of any Saturday evening there it is full of sports fans watching the big screens and drinking quietly. At some point during the evening - I suspect at around 9.30 to 10pm - the mood of the venue changes. It becomes awash with crop-headed wannabe south London gangsters, all sovereign rings and attitude, and middle class girls from Putney, Wimbledon and Kingston who want to shock their parents by fucking one of these knuckle-scrapers to prove how terribly "urban" they are. It's a horrible sight, the air crackling with static electricity as G-Star jeans rub against Ugg Boots to the sound of Tinie Tempah.

I usually exit the gig through the fire door so I can avoid having to see how the youth of today chooses to mate, but this past weekend it was blocked and I had to step through the club to leave the building. And there, I saw three of them.

"Sexy" Mrs Claus.

You'll note my use of inverted commas around the word "sexy", because I imagine the only people who consider such an outfit sexy are the deeply deluded women that choose to wear them. Two were already hideous, one was actually quite attractive (although seeing the drinking venue and outfit she had chosen, I doubt we would have too much in common) but the costume she was wearing merely made you pity her.

As I left the bar and reached my car, I saw another two women dressed in similar garb. Then on my drive through London (taking in Chelsea and Kilburn, amongst other places) I saw dozens more. I genuinely lost count, although they may have been because a taxi driver cut me up and I was calling him a cuntbubble. A word I have genuinely never used before.

If you're not familiar with what a "Sexy" Mrs Claus outfit looks like then let me enlighten you (it's safer at this time of year than going to Primark or Ann Summers to find out for yourself):

A Santa hat, obviously. This part of the outfit is fine.
A very short red velour skirt, trimmed with white fur.
A red bra, again trimmed with fur.
If not the above two garments, then some kind of micro dress in the same vein.
Red stockings or long socks.

I hasten to add to the mix here that I was, the last time I checked, definitely a red-blooded male. I like girls. Without divulging too much of my personal predilections, I'm not adverse to girls dressing up. There's a list of outfits that I consider sexy and that I can share with you now:

Princess Leia.
Chun Li.
Nurse.
Snow White. (watch the Rammstein video)
Silk Spectre. (from Watchmen)
Empowered. (another comic book character)
Morrigan.
Felicia. (the last two both from "Darkstalkers", the video game)
Bayonetta. (Shut up, I'm a nerd)

I should really, ageing pervert that I am, applaud the decision for these hardy young ladies to expose themselves to the cruel winter air in order for us to gaze upon their bodies and be filled with Christmas cheer. But I can't. Firstly, here's a phrase I have never, EVER heard another man say:

"Phwooooar. I'd love it if she dressed up like Mrs Santa Claus."

Never.

It isn't sexy. Not in the slightest. When I worked in an office the only girl who would dress like for the Christmas party eventually left to start a career in pornography, specialising in DVDA.

(Dad, if you're reading this, that's a sexual practice. Not where you get your driving license from)

Also, when deciding what men may or may not find sexy, here's a tip. If Ann Summers sell it, it's probably not sexy.

Sorry, I just went to check the Agent Provacateur website to see if they sold anything like that. And they don't, it's just that I got distracted for a very long time indeed.

Anyway, you're probably reading this and wondering why I'm so bitter about this seemingly tedious and pointless issue. I'll tell you why.

Because once I dated a girl who thought that a relevant Christmas present for me would be dressing up in such a fashion so we could do the sex. That was it. I bought her LOADS of stuff. She bought me nothing. No video games, no DVDs, nothing. Not even a pair of socks. She bought herself some cheap lingerie and allowed me to have sex with her.

Merry Fucking Christmas, Mr Smallman.

It was during said intercourse that I really thought hard about why what she was wearing was so wrong. I mean, think about it. She is dressed up as Mrs Santa Claus. She is literally the wife of Santa Claus. I have no beef with ol' Saint Nick. I happen to like him. I like him enough to ensure that I NEVER smash the living heck out of his wife. Because I respect the man who brought me presents and that my daughter still believes in.

Also, if she is representing Mrs Claus then also consider this: If we take the modern representation of Santa Claus as starting in the 1950s at the latest (Coca Cola blah blah blah) then she needed to have been 16 then. So, 16 in 1950 makes her 76 now. And until Helen Mirren is 76 it is impossible to be 76 and sexy, man or woman, animal vegetable or mineral.

But, I hear you say: What if she's his second, third, even fourth wife? Then I put this to you: If she usually dresses like that around the North Pole then she's nothing but a money grabbing hussey. I bet when Santa is out on his rounds she's in the middle of a train-pulling orgy with the elves, and when Santa is resting she's probably constructed some kind of hoist arrangement in which to abuse the reindeer.

I know that you now think that I think about things too much, and you'd be right. But I got that outfit worn for me for Christmas once and it's scarred me forever. If you struggle to understand then let me utter the phrase used by many in Vietnam to quieten down questioning:

You weren't there man. You weren't there.

http://www.twitter.com

28: That Tosspot in the Hat

2010-05-26T14:54:00.005+01:00

Before I begin here, I should let you know that this little rant is not the sweary modernisation of a Dr Seuss story. This concerns my second of two gigs in Nottingham on Tuesday, at the Canalhouse.

One of my favourite songs is "Thou Shalt Always Kill" by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. Fantastic wordplay, such passion and anger AND a sense of humour. It also features two elements that I really like - the pleading for people to spell the word "pheonix" correctly (as I have just done) and one line that I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs as I drove home last night. And I quote:

"Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave before it's done just because you've finished your shitty little poem or song you self-righteous prick"

Of course, I wasn't taking part in a poetry slam or anything like that. I still can't get my head round the fact that poetry doesn't have to rhyme. If we had limerick slams I'd be well up for that. And of course, I wasn't strumming a guitar singing songs about unspeakably sensitive I am. I can't even play the ukelele.

No, I was performing stand-up comedy - which has been my full time employment for the past year and a bit - headlining a show in front of what I suspected could be quite a nice audience. A bit studenty, but seemingly up for it. Pleasant.

When I arrived a small new act competition was in full swing. The first two guys were decent enough, the second in particular being very talented indeed. Twas performer number three though who will forever be known as "the tosspot in the hat".

Let me describe what this miscreant looked like. Oddly, I'd pegged him as a cock before he'd even begun - and this was merely as he sat in the audience. The first thing to note about him was the hat perched atop his head. As I write this I am wearing a hat. I have no beef with hats. But this student urchin was wearing a fucking straw trilby.

Take that in for a second.

A straw trilby.

He had curly hair and looked to me like he was auditioning to be a lead singer in a tribute act to someone like The Kooks or Razorlight or the View or any of those so called "indie" bands that have their clothes supplied by Topman and spend more time doing their hair than, you know, writing songs and being anything less than run of the mill shite.

He was also committing one of my pet fashion crimes. Shorts with a long sleeved button up shirt. I hate that. It isn't "preppy", you don't look like you're about to take in the Boat Race, you just look like a fucktard who can't make his mind up if he's in the office or on the beach. And hey, just because you've seen the emaciated models in the aforementioned Topman dress like that it doesn't mean it's viable. THEY'RE TRYING TO SELL YOU THEIR SHITTY CLOTHES, DUMMY!

Anyway, our chum wandered up onstage to do his two minutes.

Issue One: He began his set by telling us his name (which I genuinely forget) and then said that most people only know him by his nickname. It was Tatchy or Blotchy or Scratchy or some such shit. The sort of name that only features in sentences uttered by middle class cocks at university who think that "[INSERT NAME HERE] is totally wacky, we had this random night where he drank five pints blah blah blah heeeee hawwwwww".

That last noise was a donkey.

Issue Two: When he wandered up onstage, the back two rows exploded in some kind of ticker tape parade for him, akin to the reaction for Argentina in 1978 when they won the world cup. The back rows consisted of my least favourite type of students - orange girls with massive hair who seem to think that Peaches Geldof is a style icon, rather than a vapid, pustulating axe-wound in the already gangrenous, fetid corpse that is celebrity. Sprinkled amongst this appalling dressed valley of mongs was the occasional bloke, all dressed in a similar manner to the aforementioned tosspot. So much bad hair in such a small space.

I must stress that the rest of the audience was lovely.

Issue Three: I love most comedians, whether they be old or new. But I do despise some johnny-come-lately accident at the clothes show thinking that comedy is "easy" because he makes his retarded friends laugh with crude jokes and by tapping girls on the head with his semi-erect elongated acorn of a penis. Here's the thing - try and be funny. Don't wander up onto the stage and reel off a list of swears that you know mixed in with other peoples gags, you fucking cretin.

Issue Four: This is the big issue. Don't lose a new act competition and then in the break decide to decamp - with all your cronies - to the back of the room and talk all the way through the closing act (ie me) despite being warned by the organiser, bar staff, MC and so on. Also, when I threaten to kill you from the stage I'm not kidding.

Seriously.

Should this person ever have the audacity to perform at a gig with me ever again, one of two things will occur:

ONE: I'll be MC and in charge of prepping the room for his arrival onstage. When people speak in hushed tones of the legendarily downbeat introductions for new acts provided by Malcolm Hardee in his heyday, they will pale into insignificance compared to what I have planned. It'll go something like this:

"This next act is the best type of new act, one with no gags who believes he'll be on E4 in six months times. He's wearing a hat and that is the limit of his personality. I can assure you no laughs in the next five minutes. You'll want to pull your own eyes out with a rusty spoon rather than gaze upon his face again, and replace your cotton buds with drill bits in order to ensure you can never hear such dross again. But don't take my word for it. Judge for yourself. Feel free to mill about while he's onstage, talk to your friends or do anything to keep you from losing your enthusiasm for life if this tosser is the future of comedy.

Oh, but before I bring him onstage, I need to share something with you. I went to the office of births, deaths and marriages today and found out that I'm actually an orphan..."

TWO: I'll be performing a set and he'll be doing an open spot, sat nervously at the gig with none of his friends around him. And i'll think back to when I had to do that, too scared to speak to the other acts, stomach churning in terror before my slot comes up, panicking that I'll die on my arse in from of people who do this for a living. Upon seeing that fear I'll go up to him and quietly reassure him. Because this business is hard, he'll need all the help he can get. I'll put an arm round his shoulder and with my own panful memories burning behind my eyes I'll put everything behind me and try to impart some knowledge into him and have him go on and give it his best shot. He'll look at me and realise that respect in this industry is the way forwards, take my words on board and go up there more pumped up than he ever could be.

And then after he's died on his arse, I'll take more solace in his broken spirit than I would from kicking his fucking teeth in.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

27: University Hoodies

2010-05-14T11:03:00.002+01:00

A lot of people find it hard to believe that I went to university, never mind that I got a decent degree. I'm not sure why this is. I mention stories of my student days onstage a lot, I have used my education to get myself more than one stint of gainful employment and I'm certain that my mother has shown several hairdressers photos of me on my graduation day (which works as a rudimentary bush telegraph in rural Leicestershire).

Possibly the reason for the doubt over my educational credentials comes from my general scruffiness. In the eyes of most people, university graduates of the male persuasion come from two differing schools of fashion:

1: Smartly dressed, well turned out, impeccably groomed and resonating with intelligence and the wealth that brings with it.

2: Crazed, bearded nutcase wearing a tatty jumper, odd shoes and ripped cords. Clearly a mathematical genius.

I'm certainly not smartly dressed enough to convince anyone that I'm doing well - although, may I add, looking this spectacularly mediocre seems to cost me a lot of money - and the sight of me in a suit is one of the funniest things that you will ever see. I don't even own any shoes. Why should I? I'm never required to wear them. If I get invited to a formal occasion I either a) wear black converse or b) don't go.

I can't grow a beard, which is a shame. I'd love to straddle that line twixt madness and genius like so many beard wearers can. I'd like to buy my clothes exclusively from charity shops (preferably garments that someone has died in) then take my bearded face on the streets to scream equations at people whilst drinking horlicks from one of those faux-aluminium stay-hot mugs. And people would look at me and think "I bet he went to a good university. What stories he must have of his time in Russia, being courted by the KGB before writing an oft-quoted thesis on the genetic structure of ants".

The way people look at me at the moment is a fleeting glance - only ever a fleeting glance - never a penetratingly inquisitive stare or a worried look. They make one of two assumptions: That I am not worth their time and energy to imagine my delicately woven backstory, or that I'm a bit of a chav because I wear trainers and have tattoos.

Of course, what I should clearly wear to illuminate my fellow man of my illustrious educational background is a university hoody.

I work a lot at universities. I adore doing so. Students are great, they really are. Most importantly of all, my young friends are the DVD buying public of tomorrow so I love and respect them all. They love comedy, drink a lot (making me hilarious) and have enough free time to follow me on twitter and the like. Good on them.

Of course, that's MOST students.

The students that I find baffling are those that wear these university hoodies, which come in two types:

A: Plainish coloured hoody detailing the name of the university in a vaguely American collegiate font on the front. For people who seem to forget where they are, or want to show off about going to their university. Which I can understand if it's Oxbridge, I guess. Less so if it's Harper Adams Agricultural College. Or [INSERT NAME OF A TOWN NEAR YOU SO I'M NOT LIBELLOUS OR ANNOY A UNI I'VE WORKED AT], as those fuckers are dumb.

B: Dark coloured hoody detailing the name of the university on the front then whatever godforsaken "society" said owner is a part of on the back, often with a completely insufferable nickname to go with it. These people like to consider themselves as "wacky" and possibly, argh, "random".

Unsurprisingly, when I was a student I was neither part of a society nor proud enough of being a part of the population of De Montfort University that I felt the need to advertise it. I think it's the societies that irritate me the most - I can just about understand sports teams giving each other nicknames and wearing hoodies maybe on the way to a game (but at NO OTHER TIME) but these are GENUINE societies that I have seen marked out by hoodies on various campuses across the country:

"Latin and Ballroom Dance Society"
"Young Conservative Society"
"Countryside Alliance Society" (at an inner city university)
"Tea and Cake Society" (I would actually join that)
"Young Abstinence Society"

The last one was my favourite, as it included the owner's nickname on the back.

"Blonde Slapper"

I think my deep seated hatred for these hoodies is a consequence of two things. Firstly, I dislike the general university hoody because I miss being a student. I have a mortgage now, responsibilities, bills and the like. I miss the carefree days of studentdom and working at universities only seek to remind me of this.

Secondly, I really do believe that joining a society at university is merely a CV padding exercise OR an excuse to get drunk. Why not do what the rest of the world do?

* Lie on your CV. I claim to have invented wool.
* You don't need an excuse to get drunk. Just do it. In your home. Whilst listening to the Smiths and crying yourself to sleep, like I did. None of this being sociable and partying nonsense. Education, solitude and alcoholism.

Of course, this saves you £34.99 for the hoody. Which you can spend on drink.

I did think that wearing the university hoody was to create a sense of belonging. But how often have you seen someone in the uni holidays wearing a hoody from a far distant place in your home town, presumably while they are on holiday? Have you ever seen ANYONE go up to them and say "oh, you're studying there? Well done!" or "I used to study there myself" and exchange some kind of secret handshake? Never.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the fact that I went to a fairly ropey university and that hoodies were not invented at the time.

Nope.

And besides, if you must wear a university hoody, you don't even need to be a student. Merely walk down Oxford Street in London and check out one of many street stalls. For about a tenner you can buy a hoody that reads:

"Cambridge University - London, England"

That'll show them all. Even with it being vastly incorrect it's still a better option than saying you went to Luton.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

26: The Daily Mail

2009-11-23T21:41:00.002Z

I'm immediately faced with a slight problem when it comes to writing this rant about the Daily Mail. See, when I initially wrote out my list of 50 things that I hated I was not working as a respected broadcast journalist - I was merely a gawky stand-up comedian with a distinct lack of jokes and some daft tattoos.

OK, I'm still that as well.

But because of my journalistic integrity I'm not allowed to really cut loose and let you know what I think of the Daily Mail. All I can do is present you with the facts - and as it is sadly Britain's second most read newspaper facts seem to be quite easy to find.

I feel I must point out that although the Daily Mail is clearly aimed at Conservative voting middle England, it does rather hilariously think that its a deeply respected broadsheet newspaper. If you want proof of this, read its society columns or entertainment reviews. I can wholeheartedly assure you that the average hyper conservative, anti-everything Mail reader is not likely to be interested in the slightest in opera or the latest French art-house film. And lets be honest, if that film has any nudity in it then we'd be looking at a very negative review from the Mail anyway.

So then, facts.

1: The Daily Mail has a clear editorial stance. For example, it is not only anti-EU but has at least one article a week harking back to what it sees as glorious bygone days for Britain where we invaded other countries and claimed them for ourselves. Ironic, that. The newspaper is also pro capitalism and pro monarchy - which wouldn't be problematic if the paper didn't make such an issue of denying any other alternatives like a teenager denying any other form of music exists outside of what they like. It's childish, negative journalism blinkered with jingoism and xenophobia. Allegedly.

2: My mum used to read the Daily Mail. One day I flicked through it and on the front cover it had its usual moral panic outcry choice for the day. On that given day it had a massive "exclusive" about the number of Bulgarian people that would move to the UK following their admission to the EU. Which begs the following question:

How did the Daily Mail know this? Did they comduct a survey in Bulgaria to see how many people wanted to move to the UK? You can only presume so, unless they have some kind of magic crystal ball with which they can predict the future.

(By the way - their vision of the future allegedly involves slavery being brought back and abortions being performed solely in alleyways in Whitechapel)

Anyway, in that VERY SAME edition of that paper they had a massive feature in their travel section. This crowed about how the newer, larger EU was of benefit to everyone in the UK because we could buy proper overseas at a massively reduced rate. Where did they recommend? Of course. Bulgaria. Thus ensuring that their readers could help drive up house prices in another country. Hypocrites. Presumably all of their readers who did buy property in Eastern Europe took British flags to claim the country as their own.

3: This is a newspaper that ran (on 16th July 1993) the tasteful headline of "Abortion hope after gay genes finding", showing that the paper is quite for abortion - but only when it fits its own remit of being distinctly homophobic.

4: The Mail is very good at mobilising its readers to complain about anything and everything - even things that they may not even have read, watched or listened to. See the Russell Brand / Jonathan Ross / Andrew Sachs controversy, which was as much to do with the paper's hatred of the allegedly left wing BBC than it was defending the honour of an innocent girl. Oh no, hang on. A burlesque dancer. No, wait. A goth stripper who shagged a famous bloke in order to say that she had.

5: I shouldn't need to recount the vile column from Jan Moir from 16th October this year, where she was incredibly poisonous and spiteful over the death of Stephen Gately in what has to be one of the most homophobic and nasty pieces of so-called journalism ever written. How ironic that a newspaper that calls for so many people in a year to be fired from their jobs once they mobilise their complaining army that she should still somehow be in a job. 25,000 complaints - the record ever recorded for a newspaper article - and she's still got a job.

6: Even more nauseating is the fact that Richard Littlejohn works for the same newspaper. The man who has been named by such a well-to-do pillar of the community as Nick Griffin as his favourite journalist is paid £800,000 per year for his "hard work". Shall we see some of his greatest hits?

i) He once suggested that the police should use flamethrowers against "militant homosexuals".
ii) He has constantly lied about the benefits that asylum seekers can claim - often quoting hundreds of pounds per week. When journalist Johann Hari put it to him that the actual proven figure is £37.77 it became quite obvious that Littlejohn hadn't bothered doing his research. Hari often criticises Littlejohn - whose response is to say that Hari fancies him. Hmmm.
iii) On writing about the Rwandan genocide he stated: "Does anyone really give a monkey's about what happens in Rwanda? If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them." Classy.
iv) On December 19th 2006 Littlejohn's response to the Ipswich prostitute murders was to descrive the victims as "disgusting, drug addled street whores".

All of this got me thinking. The Mail can't just write what it wants in regular stories for fear of criticism of its already slight grasp on journalistic integrity. But it can employ columnists to write whatever hate-filled garbage that they choose on a weekly basis.

Hmmmmm.

Well then, as a broadcast journalist myself I can't state how I truly feel about the Daily Mail as that wouldn't be at all correct.

I can, however, employ a columnist to take over at this point of this rant to talk about whatever he chooses.

So then, I hand you over now to my guest columnist - James Littlemann.

"Hello there, dear reader.

The Daily Mail, eh? What a bunch of cunts. With aspirations far in excess of the limited brainpower of their readers and employing such imbeciles as Jan Moir and Richard Littlejohn it makes my blood boil. I would rather be fellated by a rabid polar bear with a coldsore than be caught reading that newspaper.

If you scan any random issue of the The Mail you will find at least one coded mention of "Enoch Powell had a point, you know". It's usually written within their letters page. Or by Littlejohn. The papers attitude to homosexuality is as blinkered and retarded as that of a twelve year old boy living in a village in Devon. Only difference is that child can be educated. There is no turning the Mail around.

The average Daily Mail reader lives in a small house surrounded by unkempt animals. Their lounge has a Union Jack taped to the wall and on top of their ancient television set (which only gets BBC1 and ITV - too much filth on the other channels) there is a framed photograph of Margaret Thatcher. Across the mantlepiece are framed photos of a miner getting punched by a policeman and two of their four grandchildren. They don't care for the other two - one grandson once played with a Barbie doll and the other speaks French.

The average reader would still have a job but they were fired for deciding to put a large sign reading "ARBEIT MACH FREI" above the entrance to their place of employment. They claim benefits but it's ok because they're white.

In the next election they're not voting conservative as Cameron is a bit Blairish, but that nice chap Nick Griffin seems like a good bet. After all, he loves Richard Littlejohn.

Littlejohn earns £800,000 per year. Horrific homophobe and bigot Jan Moir earns around £100,000. Its nice that in delicate financial times that the Mail can afford to pay these figures. Luckily they recoup a lot of these by selling "exclusive" tat to their senile and infirmed readership who are too drunk on propaganda and morphine to say no. Important things like portraits of the Queen and Dambusters coins, available in monthly instalments.

I will go on record now as saying that if you can find me £50 for the train ticket to London that I will happily save the Mail this money by hunting down Moir and Littlejohn. I'll no doubt find Littlejohn in Soho, sat in a coffee house pretending to shake his head and be disgusted by all the gay men - when we all really know that he's merely as repressed as Cliff Richard. And I'll happily stab the bigoted fuck in the face so he can't have a state funeral in a glass coffin - like he no doubt thinks he's entitled to after two failed TV programmes and a few failed books. Cunt.

Then I'll hunt down Jan Moir. I won't do anything to her. I'll merely threaten her and record her trying to backpedal out of her opinions once again, like she has to when faced with any opposition. I'll then play them via loudspeaker outside of her own house until she doesn't know what her opinion is anymore and she's locked away in a padded cell, screaming to herself about the power of twitter and how unfair everything is.

Of course, the Mail still won't fire her and she'll have a column showcasing her bizarre, insane views. It will be slightly more readable than her previous efforts. Even though often she'll use no vowels.

Then I'll burn their offices down."

I'd like to thank my guest columnist there. What refreshing views. Nice to see someone say what we were all thinking.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

25: People Blowing the Paper Bit of Restaurant Straws Off

2009-10-21T02:08:00.002+01:00

I have a temper. It takes a lot to push my buttons enough to make my face crimson and my blood boil, but there are certain little things that you can do to guarantee that I'll become irate. Not just mildly miffed (in the way that middle class people feel the need to write a letter to someone) but proper testicle-dropping, teeth-grindingly irate. Some of the things that do this to me have already been mentioned in these little rants. Others include:

Insulting any member of my family or friends.
Moving my wheelie bin too far from my house because you think it's YOUR wheelie bin.
Calling the Police to tell them I've parked over your driveway when I haven't.
Knocking on my door to tell me to move my car when I'm parked on a public road.
Getting your solicitor to write me a letter about my perfectly fine back fence.

OK then, the main person to make me angry at the moment is my next door neighbour. In fact, his entire family. He's the only person in months who is capable with a sheer ham-fisted lack of social skills to make me want to commit actual murder. Of course, I didn't tell this to the Policeman when he came round. I find they frown upon that.

You know how people go on about the old days, when you could leave your front door open and how everyone in a street knew everyone's business? My mother always says that she wants a return to these good old days, despite her hating the people who live directly opposite her and not talking to any of her neighbours for the last ten years - unless you count saying hello whilst making an excuse to go back inside as a detailed conversation. I certainly don't want a return to those days either. You know what I want? A return to the apathetic late eighties, where everyone was wrapped up in their own business. People were depressed and had no prozac, people had no money but speculated wildly, every man was for himself and therefore no-one bothered getting to know their neighbours and better yet, this was in a time before anyone had a clue what legal rights they thought they had over fucking fences.

I will gladly wear a pinstripe suit, pink shirt, braces and red spotted tie every day if we can somehow bring this way of life back.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in my neighbours house every night. I see the blinds twitch every time my car pulls up (and I'll be honest, I've taken to pulling up with a screech of brakes with Metallica playing very loudly to make sure I see the twitch every night - they haven't invested in double glazing yet, presumably waiting to sue me for some reason). I'm sure that my very existence irritates them beyond all belief, in the same way that theirs bugs the heck out of me. I want to catch them outside in the dead of night measuring how close I've parked to their drive with a small plastic ruler that came in a special Snoopy pencil case in 1988. I want to have been in that very house the day they thought that a useful way for the Police to spend their time (in Barwell, for fucks sake, well known for its policing issues at present) would be to call them and complain (I imagine in a whiny tone that belies my neighbour blinking back tears of frustration) that someone had parked an inch over their driveway.

Where was I? Oh yes.

Anger.

When I was a child, Hinckley had a McDonalds in the town centre. I would go there for a treat every now and again. This became a virtually daily ritual when I was studying my A Levels and could drive - we would skip lessons and go there for breakfast. It was at around this time - and yes, I'm a late starter in this regard - that I discovered the joy of tearing the top bit of paper from a McDonalds straw, and then blowing the rest of the papyrus sheath in the face of a friend.

Ho ho ho.

The first fifty times, this was funny. It was always funny because I would be the only one able to buy a McDonalds every day (thanks to my burgeoning business selling pornography to my peers) and therefore the one most likely to have a straw. I would do it to an unsuspecting friend, they would jump and flinch, we would all laugh and so on.

After a while, I would carry on doing it out of a sense of duty but it really wasn't having the same effect as before. So I feel that I got out of that particular game at the peak of my career, with around 65 faces struck with paper and only my shoulder and right forearm ever struck in return.

Fast forward several years. I have graduated university and have been to Next for a job interview. After I leave their head office I go for McDonalds. I sit in a plastic booth in my suit, mulling over the events of the day. I'm very much in my own world when...

FFFFFFFFT.

I am hit in the face with the paper sheath from a straw. I look around me: Could this be one of my old adversaries taking revenge? It hardly seems likely. The only people within striking distance are a McDonalds employee (sullenly wiping down the life size plastic sculpture of Grimace), an old lady who upon further inspection is only drinking a coffee, and an 10 year old child who is staring at me, beaming.

I have been made humble by my prepubescent enemy.

At this point I find myself blinded by completely pointless rage. I should sweep the whole event under a metaphorical rug but I cannot. I look at my drink - I already have a straw. I could get up and get another straw to fire back but the whole charade would lack decorum. What do I do?

I do nothing.

Fast forward again several years. Any time that any person I know repeats the event of what I like to call "Black Tuesday" is met with my wrath. Pointless, childish wrath. Girlfriends, nephews, my own Father. All have been met with fist shaking and cursewords as they stare at me bemused. For to them, all they have done is have a mild laugh at my expense. To me, they have besmirched my honour with a slap in the face made from 95% recycled paper.

Recently I sat in a McDonalds drive through (I refuse to spell it "thru") with Amelia, my 6 year old daughter. Someone had taught her the skill of straw-sheath blowing. She giggled and smiled as the paper flew past my face and ricocheted on the drivers window behind my head. I laughed back. But I smiled at her with a grin that I hope gave away my true feelings:

If she wants a war, there will be a war.

I love my daughter more than life itself. But I know what will happen the second that her aim improves. I have already secured myself ten spare straws in the side pocket of my drivers door for that very second she comes even merely close to striking my visage.

She will face my papery vengeance, daughter or not.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

24: Religion

2009-10-14T22:08:00.002+01:00

A friend of mine once told me, in a very matter-of-fact way, that I will be going to hell when my time on Earth is through. This doesn't bother me in the slightest, as being a devout atheist (How devout? I believe in nothing at all WAY more than you do) the concept of hell is as imaginary and non threatening to me as the threat of me somehow being transported through time and space to the land of the dinosaurs.

And why exactly will I be going to hell? Take your pick, dependent on how crazy your religious choice is - we can cover everything from the serene buddhists all the way up to the hellfire and brimstone nutters in the Westborough Baptist Church in the USA - those lovely people that picket funerals of dead soldiers.

I'm divorced.
I've had sex before marriage.
I don't go to church.
I worship false idols (Josh Homme and the entire LCFC team)
I've kissed a man.
I'm friends with more than one homosexual.
I've stolen several things (a mars bar, a miniature keyboard and a Faith No More album from Hinckley library, to name but a few)
I may have masturbated once or twice.
I often take the lord's name in vain. I may have also taught my 6 year old to do so.
I once vandalised an RE textbook at school with several amusing speech bubbles. (My favourite, however politically incorrect, was the stupidity of putting a speech bubble between two starving boys saying "Oi, give us a crisp")
I honestly believe that if my neighbour had an Ox that I would strongly covet it.

I must quickly state that I have no problem with anyone who believes in any religion whatsoever. If anything, I admire you and I'm a bit jealous. There's no saying that what I believe in is right. If my friend was correct and I die and end up in the place filled with flames and stalagmites then that's my problem. Must say though, I vastly prefer to be warm rather than cold.

My main issue with religion is not the obvious one. The stereotypical thing to choose would be the fact that religion is seemingly blamed for every conflict in global history. While this is true on many levels, I'm always ashamed that most patriotic, jingoistic British people don't look in the mirror and blame the old days of Imperialism for the problems of the world on an even keel with religion.

The war in the Middle East is as much to blame on oil and America's mistakes as it is religious fervour from the Taliban. The troubles in Northern Ireland stem from the British Government occupying territory that isn't theirs to take as much as it is sectarian issues. World War Two was driven by an Axis of insane people wanting to take over the world, and the horrors committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS were driven by racism as much as intolerance for another religion.

Religion has a lot to do with the problems of today, but it's not the sole problem. In fact, if everyone followed the teachings of their relevant religion to the letter then we would have no war, would we? Pretty much all of them stress the whole "not killing" shit over everything else. Also, if everyone heeded the teachings of their religions then there would be no greed, no desire to expand territory, no mistrust, more diplomacy, more handshakes, more hugs, more tolerance.

The world is essentially fucked up because we're fucked up. People are greedy, scheming, manipulative beasts who want to achieve their own goals. I know I do. Apparently admitting that makes me some kind of satanist - well, it would if I believed in him as well. But I don't, cool as a dude with goat's feet would be.

My issue with religion comes from the fact that as a society we are getting pushed away by it more and more with each generation. We're smart people. We know that we're not all sinners. I've done plenty of stuff wrong but I'm still a good son, brother, colleague and friend. I go out of my way to help people. My mother raised me to be a gentleman, and I try my best to be. But in the eyes of the faith I was born into does this matter? No, not one bit. Because I was born a sinner, I've lived through sin and I'll die a sinner - because I'm not repenting anything I've ever done. All I've done is live a life. I may have made mistakes but I always learn from them - isn't that more important?

The way forward for religion is this: Find a universal belief system that everyone can adopt. Nothing too difficult to describe. Nothing too airy-fairy and open to misinterpretation. None of this "born sinners" rubbish.

We're all essentially born nice. Why not focus on that?

Let's form a new religion now, all of us. A new ten commandments.

1: We're all essentially nice people.
2: Treat people how you'd like to be treated.
3: If you make mistakes, learn from them.
4: Don't kill other people. I'm stressing this, but number 2 should give that away.
5: If someone has a different viewpoint to you, that's just human.
6: If your neighbour has an Ox, just stroke it or feed it grass.
7: Worship who you want, but don't force it on others.
8: Seriously, don't kill other people.
9: Don't feel the need to buy into something just to make you feel better. In fact, feel free to ignore this if it's clouding your judgement in any way.
10: Did we mention not killing people?

If only we could all agree to get along. Disband every religion and simply reverse the notion of being born into sin to that of we're all born nice and remain nice until we do something wrong. And let us all remember, if you do stuff wrong then karma gets you in the end. After all, who on Earth have you ever heard of being complete scumbags and getting away with it for their entire lives?

OK, I shouldn't have asked that.

Screw it. Forget my religion idea. Believe in what you want. I'll believe that when I shuffle off this mortal coil that I'll be buried and have my face eaten off by worms. At least I'll be getting some sleep.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

23: Hulk Hogan

2009-09-15T23:58:00.002+01:00

There comes a point in every life where you have to make a decision on what path to take. Just like Luke Skywalker turned his back on the Dark Side, or Adolf Hitler decided to become a mass-murdering cock with a natty line in moustaches. I once faced that choice. The decision to dedicate my life to the good, the worthy, the needy... or to be selfish, self centred and a little bit evil.

I remember the day I made that choice.

I was sat watching television in the lounge of my parents house. We had recently had an Astra satellite fitted, the precursor of Sky TV. What I really liked to do with this lovely analogue device was wait till my folks had gone to bed and retune it to the german channels where pornography could be readily viewed through slight distortion. One particular favourite was TeleKlub ("Der Kino Kanal") where the best in banned video nasties could be balanced out with ropey eighties porn. One excellent night was spent being scared by "Zombie Flesh Eaters" followed immediately with a wank - half out of terror, half lust - over "Sperma Spiele" which I'm led to believe means "Sperm Games". How would they even work? Unless they were having competitions to test muzzle velocity.

They didn't, as it turned out. Mainly just shagging.

Anyway, the day in question. I sat on my parents sadly-missed floral sofa, flicking through the channels. The satellite decoder made a very satisfying click as it thunked its way through the 16 channels on offer. I avoided MTV, as I was not yet of the age to have opinions on music. But I did stop on the sports channel. And there I watched my first episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge.

Wrestling was not that new to me. I had been forced to watch World of Sport by my Gran and her Husband (Dave) every time we visited them on a Saturday, with Dave always grabbing me in a wristlock and shouting "submit" until I cried enough for my Gran to yell at him and I would be sent to the paper shop to buy some sweets while they had a massive row. I did not like wrestling. I thought it was boring and hokey, with my parents always reminding me that it was fake.

But by 1989 - when my revelation occurred - the WWF was the talk of the playground. After my discovery of it I would go on to ridiculous levels of fandom for a good few years. Every morning we would recreate the in-ring action we had seen that weekend, swap stickers from our WWF sticker albums and do impressions of Randy Savage. Because he was the easiest to do an impression of. I even got a day off school once because my mate Lee knocked my fresh TB scar off, drenching my school shirt in blood (unbeknown to me as I was still wearing my Nevica ski jacket) with a well timed double ax-handle from his desk.

So I was already aware of the WWF thanks to the playground buzz. My friend Richard already had a lot of official videos that I wasn't really interested in until now. I watched the first couple of matches, my eye half on the action and half on the game of football taking place in my street between kids I didn't like. But then I heard the strains of Rick Derringer's "Real American" and out strode Hulk Hogan. He was the real deal, the superstar that all the other kids were talking about. The crowd went INSANE for him, every single man, woman and child getting to their feet to welcome into the arena not just a man, not just a wrestler but some kind of demi-god, superhero and action figure all rolled into one.

He spoke. He uttered forth phrases that drew squeals from the collected masses; Americanisms, references to saying your prayers and eating your vitamins and how he would vanquish his foe. None of this was contentious to me - I was an idealistic 11 year old boy. I knew I was an atheist and I wasn't a fan of sanatogen, but this was Hulk Hogan. He was already a legend. I knew that the talking was merely the precursor to him kicking some serious ass.

I forget who he was wrestling that day, but the match lasted about 30 seconds. I can sum it up for you as follows - and I know that this match was meant to be a squash match, but it's the sheer wooden nature of what transpired that offended me.

Hogan enters ring, tears off t-shirt. My mum brings me a cup of tea and shakes her head, saying "what a waste of a good t-shirt".
Opponent attacks. Hogan takes a small beating for a few seconds.
Opponent punches Hogan. He shakes his head, points his finger and shakes his head some more.
Opponent tries to punch Hogan. He blocks it and hits him back.
Opponent runs at Hogan. He hits him with a big boot.
Hogan bounces off ropes and lands a legdrop.
Ref counts to three.

Even though I'm 11 years old and I know that I should join the other baying thousands in smiling at his win, I can't do it. I go from seeing him as the legend people had falsely told me he was to seeing him as a balding, orange, overrated, wooden and pointless figure. What I had just watched was as fake as British wrestling. I had suspended my disbelief as I watched the other matches, but this? His terrible promo before the match and performance within it was as bad as those of Big Daddy, with kids trailing in his entrance and his one move. Horrible.

Luckily the next match was the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase. And everything about him was amazing. His entrance music, his mean streak, his crispness in the ring. Next up was Randy Savage, a bad guy at the time. He leapt across the ring like a cat with bad intentions, desperate to hurt his opponent. These guys were good to watch. As I watched more wrestling I became even more enamoured with these bad guys - Ric Flair, The Big Boss Man, Jake Roberts, Curt Hennig, even the Honky Tonk Man. But it wasn't their superior skills that I enjoyed. It was the prospect of them beating Hulk Hogan. I couldn't bear the sight of him. When the Ultimate Warrior beat him for the WWF Title at Wrestlemania 6 I was agog with excitement, even if the Warrior was the most useless, steroid infested waste of oxygen that ever drew breath.

I lost interest in wrestling in around 1993, as I was 15 and it turned out that girls and drink held a lot more interest for me. In 1998 I got into it again, after accidentally seeing Mick Foley fall off the Hell in a Cell whilst channel hopping. I then spent my time researching who was still around, trying to get myself back into it. And lo and behold, I found that Hogan was still around - now trying to get on my good side by being a bad guy. It didn't work.

He was terrible as a good guy. As a bad guy he was even worse, not acting like enough of a coward, only expanding his moveset to include eye and back rakes and he took something that was earth shatteringly awesome (the Outsiders) and turned them into a joke that eventually destroyed WCW and indeed competition in wrestling.

And then when WCW died, he somehow parlayed his way back into the WWF fold, with fans cheering at his very presence like the mindless sheep that they are. They had Austin, the Rock, Michaels, HHH and so on to deify but they chose the Orange Goblin as their hero instead. All he did was make me hate wrestling once again, sapping my love for it that I had built up over the years. Now I only watch independent wrestling or the occasional pay per view because my joy has been so sullied.

But back to my revelation. That day back in 1989 I set my stall out. If everyone else thinks that one man is the highest possible power, the ultimate force and the real deal - in spite of all the evidence to show that he is hokey, fake, false and unworthy - then I can question it. I decided that day to ignore the cheers of the sheep and back the others, the black side of the coin, those whose opinions were reviled and whose actions were deemed unsavoury. And I have taken that idea on throughout life, driven first by my dislike for Hogan and then amplifying it to bigger ideas and more complex theories. And this is where I stand today.

And for all of my hatred for Mr Terry Bollea, I must thank him for something.

Because his existence seems to have made me a satanist.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

22: Ageing

2009-09-09T23:21:00.002+01:00

I realised during my sojourn to Edinburgh in August that I'm getting old. I'm aware that I cannot stop the relentless march of ageing, but I kind of hoped that my natural charm would somehow keep it at bay for a while. I was wrong.

I've had to start wearing hats because my hair is falling out. Now, I can rock a hat pretty well. But I bought a brightly coloured trucker cap in Edinburgh and realised that, upon seeing my reflection, I am no longer a teenager and therefore look like Jonathan King or some other fucktard who is trying desperately to cling onto his younger years. Of course in my book, I'm trying to do that because I don't want to get old. He does it for quite different reasons.

I mistook a guy in the audience for a teenager. I genuinely thought he was 14, and it turned out that he was 25. That's quite a mistake to make. In retrospect, he didn't even look boyish. He just looked younger than me, and for some reason in my head I still think that I'm 20.

Even worse, one day I was sat with several lovely people in our Fringe hideaway of the GRV office. Loud music played downstairs. I found myself - with not one beat of my heart skipping to warn me - complaining that the bass drone from beneath the floorboards was "just a noise". Some of my younger chums stared at me. They agreed with me, it was a noise. But they are young and do not need to state this. They don't need to make the rest of the planet hear their irksome quibbles and complaints. Because they still have youth, and life is still rosy and good for them.

My rapid ageing puts me in somewhat of a quandry. How do I deal with this? I can go down two routes. I can grow old gracefully, or hold on, kicking and screaming, to my youth until I'm even more gap-toothed and a darn sight balder than I am now.

I don't know. I don't feel like a 31 year old. I certainly don't act like one. I still get really excited driving into tunnels. I buy Pick and Mix whenever I feel like it. I consider Weetabix topped with Jaffa Cakes as a nutritious breakfast. In the bath I will fashion my hair into a bubble-bath mohawk.

I was too sensible when I was younger. I had a "career" and a house at 22, married at 23, Dad at 25, divorced at 26. I started comedy at 27, so a large part of what I do these days is counteracting my sensible early twenties, where I would wear a suit to work and trawl around garden centres at the weekends. But at least my body was intact then, even if my sensibilities were more aged and mature. I had a full head of hair. My man breasts still only required a training bra. During Edinburgh I got out of breath doing part of my routine about me and drugs. I used to be able to run for ages at a time, what happened?

It's ageing, thats what. Not me becoming unfit through laziness, no way. Stupid ageing.

So then, let me examine my options:

1: GROW OLD GRACEFULLY

To do this I will need to do the following things.

a) Stop wearing brightly coloured trainers, preferring a sturdy brogue.
b) Avoid daft hats at all costs, especially for irony reasons. So no Stovepipe.
c) No more tattoos, ever. And cover the ones I have with swaddling.
d) Adopt a proper diet. No more scotch egg and mars bar dinners after gigs.
e) Get a proper job.
f) Consider getting an ISA.
g) First, find out what an ISA is.
h) Consider Take That as the forefront of British music.
i) Clean my car every weekend. Especially if it doesn't need doing.
j) Get dressed on my days off.
k) Buy some slippers. Not tartan. I'm not a monster.
l) Start to enjoy soup as an actual meal.
m) Watch football matches just to be disappointed.
n) List at least one Richard Curtis film as a favourite, replacing "Dawn of the Dead".
o) Abandon hopes to somehow become WWE Intercontinental Champion.
p) Start to view the TV as something to watch documentaries on, not just play games.
q) Stock up my freezer. Just in case.
r) Dream of DIY at night, rather than scoring the winning goal in the cup final.
s) Claim to prefer Vanilla ice cream to all the other flavours.
t) Ensure I exhale loudly after sipping tea or sitting down on a high backed chair.
u) Stop going to the cinema. No-one over 30 goes to the cinema.
v) Steam at least two meals a week, whilst wearing a self-satisfied grin.
w) Wear a tie to go to Sunday dinner.
x) Rate funerals as "good sendoffs" rather than sad events.
y) No longer listen to rap music, heavy metal, punk or electro. Or music.
z) Accept each birthday with a wry smile, knowing that dreading the onset of age is pointless and accepting my fate with the meekness I will only exhibit later on when I'm undoubtedly a dribbling fool in an old folk's home.

That's the first option. A quiet slide into my forties awaits. When I was a reckless twentysomething I couldn't see myself living past 40. You may think that is a frightening prospect, but I find the potential future of mowing a lawn whilst wearing rugged outdoor sandals and combat trousers on a damp September morning infinitely more terrifying than a premature death.

But there is of course option 2.

2: TRY TO HOLD ONTO MY YOUTH

This is the option that I seem to be taking my default, and failing at it. Sure, I still spend money on clothes that are best suited to a teenager and I own enough trainers to be classed as the Imelda Marcos of comedy. But when even my six year old daughter tells me that I'm old and embarrassing then it's probably time to throw in the towel. When I worked in a school I thought of myself as quite cool. I dressed differently to the other teachers, retained a sense of individuality and made a point of empathising with the kids. That said, when they guessed how old I was, what did they say?

42.

Now, if my daughter or nephews had of said that, then fine. Little kids always overshoot estimations. That's why you don't ever employ them as quantity surveyors in a washing machine warehouse. But 15 year olds? Come on. 42? And they LIKED me. They weren't trying to offend me. I went home from work that day and stared at my gaunt reflection in the mirror for far too long. You know what I mean - until the mirror starts spinning slightly in your head and the Boards of Canada start providing a soundtrack to the whole sorry situation.

I then decided to amp up the acting young. Which made me arrive where I am today, wearing a parody Run DMC T-Shirt I bought from a skate shop, stupidly low slung jeans and pink and green patent leather trainers. With video game girls tattooed on one arm, plans to have Ron Burgundy tattooed on the other and hare-brained plans to have a piercing just because I don't have one yet. With a lounge that looks like I won a competition in Nuts magazine, bursting to the seams with video games, films and a massive telly. With kitchen cupboards that have nothing more sensible than biscuits in them. With a job - my dream job - that I do full time, wearing a permanent grin.

So I think I have my answer.

It's not how old you are, it's how old you feel. And though my body may be falling to pieces and my forehead is starting to be as wrinkled as Abdullah the Butcher's, I'm not ready to be old yet. Or sensible. So my solution to my hatred of ageing is to take a measure akin to holding a pillow over my head and screaming "Lalalalalalala I'm not listening".

I shall merely stand here, smile, and hold up two fingers to the tireless march of time.

Fuck you ageing. I win.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

21: Coventry

2009-08-24T16:15:00.004+01:00

It's not unusual for people to hate the nearest town to them - it's the cheap and easy staple of any comic to slander the next-door neighbour town whenever they're working at one venue and reverse it the next week whenever they're in the town that they've just slagged off.

Towns that I have slagged off onstage in my last ten gigs include:

Barnsley
Wakefield
Elgin
Welwyn Garden City
Marseilles
Chloride (It's in Arizona)
Montevideo
Fray Bentos
St Petersburg
Atlantis

I've honestly got no ill feelings towards these towns at all, but it's easy to slate the unknown. I've only visited three of these towns anyway - although I'll always be sad that I haven't visited Fray Bentos in Uruguay to see if they specifically farm incredibly gristle-bound cows.

Coventry is a horrible city. If you've never visited, don't. I can very quickly describe to you the main attractions to save you actually needing to ever take the trip up the M6.

THE CATHEDRAL - After the tragic events of World War 2, the Coventry cathedral (which was a beautiful Gothic structure) was rebuilt as some terrible angular nightmare, bearing resemblance to a comic book villain's lair.

THE TAPESTRY - There is a massive tapestry in Coventry. It's of the virgin Mary, I think. Who even bothers making tapestries?

THE TRANSPORT MUSEUM - Just to remind the people of Coventry that once upon a time they had a thriving industry.

That's it. Nothing else.

There is no real reason for me to despise Coventry so. There really isn't. It is completely unfathomable. I don't really dislike anybody. I'll take a gig anywhere and pretend that I am madly in love with any audience that makes even the slightest giggling noise in my direction. For I am a comedy whore. A joke-bearing slut. I'll take gigs in Coventry (and often have) but the only reason I dislike the city - despite it having a ring road shaped like a Scalextric - is merely down to the geographical proximity to the town I grew up in.

I don't mind the people. There seems to be a larger chav population than most towns but fuck it, I've been to Burnley. Just because the rustle of tracksuits against fake Ugg boots punctuates the darkest of nights with noise and vague sparks, it doesn't make it a bad place. The fact that it is one of very few cities to have an Ikea within the city centre doesn't irk me, neither does the platoon of idiots that shop there, treating cheap Swedish furniture like its the most amazing thing they've ever seen whilst dodging roaming gangs of townie scum who are trying to steal large stuffed snakes for little Tyreese or Chardonnay.

It's not the layout of the town really. Sure, the previously mentioned slot racing-esque road system is annoying, as is the way that you have to cut someone up (metaphorically, not literally, although it may help relieve tension) in order to enter any of their roads because no one has the manners to actually let you out. I don't think that it's the fact that they decided to build some of the ugliest buildings ever committed to concrete - I mean, who the fuck decided to make a structure shaped like an elephant? Seriously?

Football is a major driving factor in my likes and dislikes - the fact that I was once chased by a man with a iron bar in Portsmouth means that I'll never speak highly of the town. But football doesn't bother me that much, especially when the team in question doesn't really matter. What have Coventry ever done? Keith Houchen once scored a fantastic header in the FA Cup Final, but apart from that? Nothing, asides from the legacy of having a famous brown kit. That is literally the ONLY thing people remember them for. What else is there? Having a football ground with stands that are too high for people to even walk up?

It's not even the fact that it's bigger than Nuneaton but further away from me, closer than Birmingham but not as big or that it has a shopping centre with an outside escalator.

Can't even think of a reason why I hate it so. Silly geography.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

20: Being the oldest person at music gigs

2009-08-05T22:31:00.002+01:00

I recently went to see Kings of Leon with my Dad. I would class this gig as the biggest and most commercial that I reckon I've ever attended, with it being at the O2 Arena and all. You know what? It was very good indeed. Great support act (Glasvegas), great sound and great performance from a band that I tried for years and years to actively dislike. I just can't, because they're so talented and awesome and grrr. My Dad loves them so we attended together in a father-son type bonding way. Prior to the gig we ate Brazilian buffet food - which involves meat being brought to you on long knives by waiters. I made a dozen "pork sword" references in the first minute of our visit.

The good thing about attending gigs with my Dad is that I can guarantee that I'm not the oldest person at the show. Because I'm 31 and these things deeply bother me. The slight downfall of attending a gig at the O2 is that I have to sit down, pay a fortune for the right to attend and have to suffer the four types of fans that Kings of Leon seem to attract:

THE LOOKALIKEY - Late teen to Mid Twenties men who shop exclusively at All Saints and Top Man in their bid to look exactly like one of the Followills. All deep V necklines in charcoal with carefully coiffeured hair and a ton of necklaces. They only own the third and fourth albums. Own no trainers, only many pointed shoes.

THE GROUPIE - Women who fancy the Followills (usually Caleb). Dress in Top Shop's "I'm an Indie Whore" range - I saw one wearing an MC5 t-shirt with FUCKING GLADIATOR SANDALS and felt the need to ask her if she could name one MC5 song. Downloaded the singles "Sex on Fire" and "Use Somebody". Owns none of the band's albums.

THE SERIOUS MUSO - Wearing a band t-shirt - but crucially NOT Kings of Leon. Sonic Youth seemed popular. Lies and says he's there to watch Glasvegas only. Tuts when they play their biggest hits. Loudly requests an obscure B-Side to prove how much he knows about music. On the trip to the gig secretly listened mercilessly to the band's new album to ensure that he knew all the words.

THE CHAV - Heard "Sex on Fire" and liked it. Saw tickets on Ticketweb. Thought he'd go along in his tracksuit to see what all the fuss is about. Spends the first half of the gig pissed and screaming at the top of his lungs for Sex on Fire and (I genuinely saw this) Hey Jude.

Of course there were plenty of regular fans to balance out the above detritus, but you get the gist. I'm not one of those people however who decides to dislike a band merely because they become successful - after all, who on earth chooses to form a band to not sell records or fill arenas? They're living the dream, fair on them. It's just people that get my bile up. You might have noticed that.

Anyway, sometimes I'll go to gigs with friends and I'll clearly be the oldest person there. Due to the nature of much of the music I like, sometimes I'm not - Metal festivals are handy for me being able to blend into the crowd, as the bearded forty-something hordes come out to worship Thunder and Def Leppard. But more often than not, I'm the rogue old dude stood in the corner with people whispering about me. Ageism is rife in these parts.

You are probably thinking that the best way to deal with this is to throw myself headlong into gigs, whirling around the moshpit with my arms flailing and my face contorted into a grimace as the music takes over my very soul. I could do that, but I have my own solution.

To merely stand at the back of the gig, hands in my pockets, silently watching the music and the chaos pass me by.

Why?

Because then people see me and have to draw their own conclusions as to why I'm there. The youth of today are quick to judge and even speedier to leap to false conclusions. So I stand there and let them chatter amongst themselves, trying to work out why I'm there, like the proverbial rogue grey pube.

The best suggestions I've heard so far are as follows:

DRUG DEALER: It helps if you keep a coat on during the gig to pull this one off. Stare straight ahead at all times. Occasionally nod at a bouncer, so it looks like you've "paid them off". If anyone asks you for drugs, you have two options. You can either tell them that they won't be able to handle your "shit" with a sinister glare, sending them packing with a modicum of panic and dread; Or you can bring aspirin and paracetemol out with you and sell them at a vast profit margin.

UNDERCOVER COP: Every now and again just stop a youth and ask him what he's doing. Then let him carry on. Brilliant. Everyone will instantly believe you're undercover and you can then watch the gig undisturbed, with no circle pits of other childish shenanigans going on within a 50 foot radius of your location. Combine it with the Drug Dealer one too - start the first idea with some of the crowd, then the second part with some more of them and watch the panic spread.

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: Stand there watching the band and every now and then nudge the person next to you and say "I tell you, when they were recording this [INSERT LEAD SINGER'S CHRISTIAN NAME HERE] just couldn't get the harmony right, but listen to it now." Every now and again scowl as if you've heard a bum note or missed drumbeat. Ask people for their opinions of the band like you're conducting market research.

JOURNALIST: Take a notepad with you. A tiny one, like the ones you sometimes get in crackers. Every now and again take it out and write something down. Tut loudly from time to time. Allow yourself an ironic laugh or two as well.

THE MAN AT THE WRONG GIG BUT TOO SHY TO ADMIT IT: Every now and then nudge the person next to you and ask what the band onstage is called. Especially the headliners. Loudly wonder when The Communards Tribute Band is coming on. Keep looking at your watch and sighing.

BODYGUARD: Works if you attend the gig with others. Let them go off, but every now and then hold your hand to your ear, talk to yourself and then relay whispered messages to your friends. This is a bonus one, as your younger friends will have also entered the web of deceit. You win a pound from me every time you convince someone that you're trained in Jujitsu and your friends are all part of the Belgian Royal Family. And somehow are in Rock City Nottingham on a wet Tuesday.

You get the general idea. I'm glad I have this game, because I'm certainly not getting any younger. Neither can I bear the idea of stopping watching live music. But this occupies my time and keeps me from feeling too over exposed whilst bobbing my head to the music in a dreadfully out of rhythm fashion.

You could also argue that at 31 I should probably have retired from liking decent music by now and just become a Take That fan like every other poor fucking thirtysomething in the UK.

You could try that, but I'd ask you to grow up.

19: Film Remakes

2009-07-07T22:44:00.003+01:00

Let me ask you a theoretical question. Pick your favourite music album of all time. Got it? Hold that thought in your head. Think about what that album means to you, how much you love the lyrics, the orchestration, the production, its sentimental worth to you and so on.

I'll tell you what album I'm thinking about. Plucked at random, one of my favourite albums is "London Calling" by the Clash. It's a work of genius that still stands up to the test of time today.

Now then, for the sake of my argument, imagine that this brilliant slice of late 1970s British punk was merely re-recorded by the fucking Jonas Brothers. Contentious lyrics were edited out, simpler stuff was added in, production was bigger and boomier and so on.

That's madness, right? You don't take a musical work of art and attempt to remake it. A cover version is a one track tribute, but no-one is going to take your favourite album and Hollywood it up a bit to make it more palatable. No-one (well, Banksy maybe) wanders into art galleries and hangs up their kid's version of Dali's Persistence of Memory. It's insane.

If you look on Wikipedia you'll find that there are so many film remakes that they have to split the listings over several pages. There is no example of a remade film being better than the original. Why? Because the original film has the essence of the writer and directors vision, has the initial spark of creativity and above all else does not star Sarah Michelle Gellar.

To save you time I've decided to tell you the differences between original films and their remakes. No, no. Thank you.

ALFIE (1966) - Michael Caine stars as Alfie, a bit of a rogue who grows as a character during the film, passing a scathing commentary on promiscuous swinging London in the 1960s.

ALFIE (2004) - Jude Law is a cock. You watch the entire film praying that he catches a disease. Whilst Mr Caine talking to the camera in the original is cool, Law doing it is as toe curlingly annoying as when Lovejoy used to do it.

---

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976) - One of the greatest action films of the 1970s. A stark, stylish take on both western and zombie film themes made for a pittance - thus adding to its grimy charm.

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005) - They decide to change the enemies in the film to policemen (HA! GENIUS!) and Ethan Hawke is in it. And Ja Rule, who looks like Howard from the Halifax adverts. Watching it makes you feel like you're playing a terrible video game. It even has flash grenades in it. Do they even exist?

---

BEDAZZLED (1967) - Peter Cook stars as the devil. What other reason do you need to see this?

BEDAZZLED (2000) - Liz Hurley stars as the devil. What other reason do you need to rather set your face on fire than watch this film?

---

WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) - The acid-drenched celebration of many a child's favourite book, represented in a way that is entertaining for both adults and kids. Gene Wilder is utterly convincing as the completely batshit loco Wonka.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005) - Unimaginitive retread that is too dark and grimy to be fantastical, of course because it's directed by Tim Burton and he's not familiar with what light is. Johnny Depp tries to out-loon Gene Wilder and just ends up looking like a camp man in a top hat.

---

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) - The greatest horror film ever made. Over two hours long and the prototype for a billion other cheap and nasty zombie films, none of which could get it quite right. Atmospheric, thought provoking and genuinely has you on the edge of your seat.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) - Hang on a second. JUST HOW LONG HAVE ZOMBIES BEEN ABLE TO FUCKING RUN?

---

GET CARTER (1971) - Stylish, gritty, dark crime drama set in bleak, industrial Newcastle. Another amazing turn from Michael Caine, a man who knew no bounds in the late sixties / early seventies. Received criticism at the time for its decisively unhappy ending, but is now beloved by us all because we're in essence all heartless bastards.

GET CARTER (2000) - Wannabe stylish crime drama set in upmarket Seattle. Sequel friendly ending tacked on to the end (Carter doesn't die, basically). Stars Michael Caine. No, don't be silly. Not as Carter. They hired - get this - SYLVESTER FUCKING STALLONE. Jesus.

---

THE ITALIAN JOB (1969) - The best caper film ever made, bar none. Loads of quotable lines, a plethora of fine actors in the cast (yes, even Benny Hill), a character called Camp Freddy, stylish costumes, amazing cars (from the Mini to the DB4 to the Miura) and the best car chases ever committed to film.

THE ITALIAN JOB (2003) - No cliffhanger ending. A completely different plot. Doesn't matter if Ed Norton and Donald Sutherland are in it, it stars Mark Fucking Wahlberg. The longest BMW commercial you'll ever see - it's two hours of a glorified ad for the all new fat-arsed Mini, which you can only sucessfully drive if you're a hairdresser or an estate agent.

---

SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) - Samurais are awesome.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) - Cowboys are shit.

---

THE OMEN (1976) - Beautifully shot horror film with a stellar cast and an awesome gothic soundtrack that makes the film a zillion times more sinister.

THE OMEN (2006) - Poorly shot horror film made on the cheap in the Czech Republic. Doesn't stray too far from the original plot, so feels like a pirate DVD of the original with the soundtrack missing.

---

[REC] (2007) - Wonderfully low budget Spanish zombie film, shot as if it's been filmed with hand held cameras. Features a truly loathsome female central character who you eventually start to feel sorry for, even despite her vanity.

QUARANTINE (2008) - Firstly, why change the title? It makes the film sound like a brightly lit room containing a couple of German Shepherds that someone tried to smuggle in from Bulgaria. Also, how the heck did it cost $12 Million to make? I could have made it. And I'm a better actor than Jennifer Carpenter.

---

RINGU (1998) - Stupendously frightening, atmospheric Japanese horror film that spawned the rebirth of an entire genre in the Orient. Through ingenious filmmaking contains some of the most frightening sequences ever committed to film.

THE RING (2002) - Scary premise ruined by having Americans in the film. Naomi Watts? Come on. Manages to remake many of the Ringu sequences with four years experience and additional knowledge and yet do them worse. Made more money in its opening weekend in Japan than Ringu because the whole of the nation was watching the film and laughing at it as a collective.

---

ROLLERBALL (1975) - The film that the Commodore Amiga classic game "Speedball" was based on. Violence, a frightening image of the future, comment on society and classical music for a soundtrack.

ROLLERBALL (2002) - Chris Klein. LL Cool J. Rebecca Romjin. Annoyed yet? Wait till you hear the soundtrack, featuring P.O.D and Hoobastank. Even better, everyone's favourite fat-faced pop star - Pink - has a cameo role. The joy.

---

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) - Possibly the finest independent horror film ever made. Cost a mere $140,000 and remains one of the most influential films of all time, inventing the slasher film on its own. The cheapness of the film adds to the illusion of reality.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) - Hideous remake with too much noise, gore, overacting, violence etc and nothing approaching the tension of the original. More to the point, the central "heroes" are American College kids. As soon as you see them you WANT them to die. You end up wanting to give Leatherface cake to sustain him in his long day of slaying.

---

TAXI (1996) - Nuts French caper film. Great fun.

TAXI (2004) - What, you mean the film was FRENCH? Can't have that. No way. Subtitles? God no. How about we cast Queen Latifah in it? Somehow? Hello? Hello? I think they hung up...

---

WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) - First truly great stab at making an apocalyptic sci-fi film, using one of the greatest stories HG Wells ever wrote.

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) - Lots of explosions and Tom Cruise running round with Dakota Fanning, hoping that pairing him with a child that is playing the role of being his daughter will make us think he's heterosexual. Come on Tom, just admit it now.

---

What we've learned here is that there is no such thing as a good remake. None at all. It's like me reinventing cheese. I could try and do it, but it would just be runny and taste bad.

OK, that's probably not the best analogy. But you get the point.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

18: Strawberries

2009-07-01T17:14:00.002+01:00

Ah, Wimbledon fortnight. When the entire country pretends to like tennis and we're treated to endless images of the middle classes and aristocracy munching on strawberries in their little enclave in south-west London.

I don't like strawberries. Saying this to most people causes them to stare at me like I've got a conjoined twin stuck to the side of my face, and said twin is spreading messages of hate with its little reedy voice. I imagine it wouldn't have a brilliantly developed voicebox. But I don't like them. I would go as far as saying that I despise them. I hate their taste, their texture and the fact that they look like obese raspberries.

For the record, I also hate raspberries.

My mother took around 25 years of my life to be able to accept that I don't like strawberries. In her very British way, me saying this is akin to me denouncing the joys of roast beef and yorkshire pudding or suggesting we join the Euro. Before she accepted the fact, I dare say that she would have been able to accept the news that I was - lets say, a transgendered serial killer - in a much more calm and orderly fashion than she did my refusal of strawberries.

Before you imagine that I'm ok with strawberry flavouring - in the same way that tomatoes are evil to eat on their own, but ketchup is a staple of my diet - I'm not. As a child I would be the only kid who would leave the pink part of the neopolitan ice cream to fester in the bottom drawer of the freezer, the only one to turn down trifle, the only one to eat the yellow and green Opal Fruits over the red. Fuck off, they're called Opal Fruits. Starburst sounds like a godawful 1970s nightclub in decadent New York.

Thing is, I like puddings. Love them. I sport an impressive set of man-breasts thanks to this lust, and have an ample beer-gut despite never really having drunk beer. This is the result of years of cake, pies, biscuits, sweets and ice cream. Why, just the other day I stopped on the way back from a gig for ice cream. At 1am, nothing entertains petrol station staff more than a heavily tattooed man trying to decide what frozen treat is easiest to eat whilst driving at 90mph.

It's a Maxibon, by the way.

At this time of the year though I have to hold back from the desserts because everyone serves up strawberries. If I was on Come Dine With Me this week (and lets be honest, a boy has to have dreams) I would inevitably be offered up strawberries, or summer fruit suprises, or strawberry pavlovas, or some other hideous concoction that makes a mockery of fruit and all of its joys.

There are only a few fruits that I approve of:

Bananas - The rolls royce of fruit. I could actually overdose on them. Not green ones though. If you like them anything other than slightly blackened then you're a freak.

Oranges - For which to make mandarin cheesecake and orange jelly. And to flavour calippos.

Lemons - For to flavour sprite.

Limes - For to also flavour sprite.

Apples - Mainly pink lady ones, because I'm classy.

All other fruits can go away. All berries can, to be frank, fuck off. Stupid sickly, tart little beasts with their horrible gritty seeds and disgusting texture. I don't care one jot if I can go to a godforsaken field in Somerset and pick my own, nor if they provide one of my five alleged portions of fruit and veg a day - a law in itself which was, like Valentines Day was invented by Hallmark, dreamed up by the Munch Bunch. Strawberries aren't healthy if you cover them in sugar and cream. Although you can tell how working class you are dependent on what topping you put on your strawberries. Use my sliding scale below:

POSH

Mascarpone and champagne
Double cream
Single cream
Squirty cream
UHT cream
Several creamers stolen from a coffee shop
Dream Topping
Fussell's Condensed Milk

SCUM

Another thing. Where to people get off putting a single strawberry on top of something as wonderful as a chocolate cheesecake (served in an individual glass ramekin) as some kind of obscene garnish? No thank you, sir or madam. It's like decorating a fine Fruits De Mer with a sea urchin, or a beautiful rabbit shaped blancmange with dead woodlouse.

Finally, if I ever find the person who invented strawberry jaffa cakes then I will thrash him until an inch of his life. Until his brain is revealed, like said cake's smashing orangey bit.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

17: American TV Casting

2009-06-23T23:29:00.001+01:00

Every now and then I'll go and audition for some TV work. I'm by no means an actor (many days I'm barely a comedian) but I always pop along, well prepared and all, and try my best to get the job and the sweet, sweet money that goes along with it. Because I want to buy a campervan.

As you may have noticed, dear reader, I've not been on TV yet. Which gives you an inkling of how these auditions have been going. In my head it's not just down to me narrowly missing out after putting in my best effort (if I'm having a positive day) or being beaten into last place by a plethora of infinitely more talented people (all other days). Oh no. It's also down to my advanced age.

I'm 31 years old and started doing stand-up when I was 27. I like to think that I have the comedy age urse, in that most comedians tend to look younger than their actual age. Problem is, I feel daft lying about my age. I guess that I could tell a slight fib-ette and claim to be 27 or 28, but I'm a rubbish liar at the best of times. I glow bright red and emit pheremones that may as well be a siren above my head screaming "AWOOOOOOOOOOOOGAH! THIS MAN IS A LIAR!".

But even if I could get away with telling a slight lie here and there, if you inspect me closer I'm clearly knocking on a bit. My hair is falling out, steadily. At the back, which is irritating in the extreme as I don't know how well I'm hiding my thinning pate on a daily basis. I can't grow a beard thanks to the skin medication I was on when I was a teenager (I can't sweat through my face either, which is bizarre) so that helps the youthful feel - if I grow a moustache I look like the token 14 year old you knew at school who had been wanked off by the sweaty fat girl who worked at the chippy, played truant and had an off-road motorbike. Every school had one of those chaps, I've checked. With their faint little grey top lip hair that would every now and then get scorched by a rogue spark from the cigarettes he'd nicked from his gran's welsh dresser.

The facial hair issue is however one mere peak in the variety of pitfalls that affect my face. If you look at my tired, sunken eyes then you'll see that I am a man that has not slept for around 17 years. And my forehead is as grooved and furrowed as a freshly ploughed field. All of this gives the impression that my face is some kind of cut-and-shut, with everything below the nose a healthy 19 years old, everything above the nose is around 62.

Of course, none of this would matter if I was American. Because lets be honest, I could get cast as a nine year old in pretty much any show in the states if I tried. The whole cast of Dawsons Creek? In their late twenties when playing teenagers. Beverley Hills 90210? Some of them were in their thirties. You know that kid in Two and a Half Men? He's actually a woman in her forties.

Actually, that could be Bart Simpson. I forget.

Then add in the fact that apparently no-one in the USA is fat or ugly, according to their TV shows. The cast of Friends, for example - all of them good looking thirtysomethings, somehow living in amazing digs in one of the most expensive places on earth despite the fact that none of them seem to have particularly decent jobs. Well, except Rachel who became a merchandiser by wandering into an office one day. Because that's how that shit goes down.

If Friends was an accurate reflection on American life then where is the ethnic diversity? More to the point, the size diversity? It should have been cast like this:

RACHEL - Raised in a trailer in Alabammy. Working as a waitress with occasional lapdancing duties as she wants to create a better life for her kids, especially since her babydaddy went away. The "Rachel Cut" would not be a greasy ponytail, slicked back as harshly as possible during the day, and a crude wig at night so people don't recognise her. Has eyes that could tell a thousand sordid stories if only she could actually motivate herself to do so.

PHOEBE - Has to live in a hostel because her holistic therapy business / handmade jewellery stall actually makes so little money that she's resorted to selling crystal meth to kids at new-age music festivals. A confirmed Wiccan, she only meets men through the Internet. Several have scammed her out of her savings, despite her protestations that they're the one. Current beau is a farmer from North Dakota who has made his own human skin costume from the carcasses of the women he's killed.

MONICA - Massive. So fat that she needs a mobility scooter to get around, and the merest glimpse of her thighs is enough to make you push your meal away, should you be eating anywhere near her at the time. Hasn't worked in years, shares a 15 by 15 foot room in Staten Island with Rachel and an infestation of cockroaches. And Rachel's kids when they're not in care. And bedsores.

ROSS - Monica's brother. Religious nut, he joined a cult a couple of years ago and is close to getting Monica to join. Rail thin, thanks to his parents ignoring him and spoiling his fatter sibling. Works at a Wal-Mart in New Jersey where he hopes to be assistant manager one day. 48 years old.

CHANDLER - Only friends with the others because he feels he has to be, he has a middle management office job where he sits and wonders where it all went wrong. Secretly gay, he has joined the Ku Klux Klan to try and purge his own confusion through violence towards others. Doesn't use sarcasm, because he's American and therefore doesn't really understand it. Has been married 6 times, the most recent of which was to a stripper he met. She left after two days, taking all of his posessions.

JOEY - Wanted to be an actor but is cripplingly untalented. So instead of blundering into jobs he's reduced to working as an escort and as he gets older and more desperate, into prostitution for anyone who comes along - all so he can afford to stay in NYC.

So yeah, that would be how I would have written friends. And I know it wouldn't have made it that funny, I'll admit that. But just a touch of realism is all I ask for. I love the USA and have spent a lot of time there, but the lack of humility and honesty that the Americans have bothers me. I'm proud to be British, but I'm also aware that I live in a country with a vast amount of problems and that nobody is perfect - least of all myself.

But the American TV people would love nothing more than to kid us that everyone lives in a vast house, has an amazing job, brilliant and interesting friends, a dynamic social life, they all weigh below the national average and everyone has a ton of free cash to throw around.

Probably for the best that I'm only too old for TV jobs in this country then. In the USA I'd fail on a zillion levels...

16: Robbie Williams

2009-06-15T15:58:00.002+01:00

Apparently, the Robbie Williams song "Angels" is one of the most popular choices in the UK for people to have played at both their funerals and as the first dance at their weddings. I can't think of anything worse. I have made a request in my will to be cremated as "Straight to Hell" by the Clash plays, as that is surely where I'd end up if there was such thing as a god and the afterlife.

Proof that there isn't a god can be shown through the constant success of Robbie Williams, an untalented wastrel from Stoke who has somehow sold hundreds of millions of albums despite no-one ever actively admitting that they like him. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of more talented singers and songwriters performing in pubs all around the UK this very evening, the only difference between them and Mr Williams is that he was in a boy band and parlayed himself into the position of "lovable joker" in said band by the means of doing a sub-par Vic Reeves impression on Live and Kicking a few times in the early nineties.

The worst thing about supporting my beloved Leicester City is not, believe it or not, the fact that we yo-yo up and down between divisions with a similar action to a harlots undergarments. Oh no. It's the fact that before every home game, at around ten to three, we choose to play "Let Me Entertain You" and every time I hear it I die a little inside. It's not a rousing rock anthem, it's a fat bloke in a Kiss costume pretending that he's a rockstar. Shall we see how many rock star credentials Robbie has?

MUSICAL SKILLS - How many instruments can Robbie play? That's right, none at all. Even I can play "Frerer Jacques" on a recorder.

SONGWRITING - For years he got Guy Chambers to write his songs. Then he fell out with him and his star fell. Coincidence? Of course not.

LOOKS - Simply do the McDonalds test with Robbie. For those not familiar with this - imagine that you're in a McDonalds and an unfamous Robbie Williams is serving you, without his stylist making him look presentable in the morning. Would he still be considered attractive by the fucking 3AM Girls? No, he wouldn't. (This idea works for girls too. See Von Teese, Dita)

COOLNESS - Iggy Pop can be in an insurance commercial and he's still cool. Lou Reed can have his best song (about heroin, for chrissakes) taken by the BBC and he's still cool. Iron Maiden are all 70 years old and still exude rockstar cool. You could put Robbie Williams in a solid cold Rolls Royce, flanked by Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg, dressed in finest chinchilla and sipping Cristal from a diamond encrusted pimp cup. He'd still be the same hairy fuck from Stoke with the charisma of a concussed Ostritch.

ECCENTRICITY - To be a true rockstar you need to be a little bit bonkers. The odd stint in rehab does not make you insane. Biting a head off a dove at a record company meeting ala Ozzy Osbourne gives you the legendary level of eccentricty that a true rockstar requires. Going UFO spotting with Peter Andre (the sliced white loaf of popstars) does not make you kooky in the slightest.

PERFORMANCE SKILLS - Ever heard Robbie sing live? It's like listening to a throat scraping on a sealion whilst it gargles a seawater and lemon juice cocktail. I may be exaggerating slightly here, but he's not a great singer. Nor showman. I'd rather watch Shane Ritchie on "Don't Forget the Lyrics". And I'd rather peel my own penis with a rusty ice cream scoop and feed the shavings to a rabid vole (whilst flagellating the bloody stump with a shoelace studded with drawing pins) than watch that. I'm just saying.

Now, I'm aware that Mr Williams does a lot of good things for charity. If I was wearing one, I would take my hat off to him for that. I personally bear him no ill will whatsoever. The bile and teeth-gnashing that comes from me because of him stems from me being a music fan and his "fat dancer from Take That" era of him hanging out with the Gallaghers summoning the end of Britpop and a return, for a few years at least, to godawful pop music in the charts and fluffy, insignificant pop singers claiming they had rock credentials. Oh yeah. I'm looking at YOU, Avril Lavigne. Kelly Clarkson. The Killers. Admittedly, they did things the other way round and went from decent band to godawful art-dance-wank-noise.

Apparently Robbie's next album is due out this year. He's worked with Mark Ronson and Trevor Horn. So it'll be vastly overproduced, full of horns, one no doubt "cheeky" cover version and will sell billions. And I'll cry myself to sleep at the state of this country.

My favourite Robbie story comes from his massive Knebworth gigs a few years back. He got The Darkness to support him and they blew everyone away. Now they've split up and Justin Hawkins is in rehab. Coincidence? Or has Robbie used his alien contacts to destroy anyone more talented than him...?

Of course, you could point out that I'm merely a jealous 31 year old comedian, who is penniless and non-famous. And that this hate-filled rant is merely my jealousy spilling out onto the page.

And you'd be right, dear reader.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

15: The Music Press

2009-06-03T15:25:00.002+01:00

For many years it was all I wanted to become a music journalist. I wanted to be at the forefront of music news and opinion, the first to listen to the newest albums and impart my thoughts on them to the masses. Stood on the front row at not just the biggest and the best gigs, but also at the obscure, to shape the up-and-coming trends and sounds by relaying what they meant to me with the joyous power of words.

Then something happened to me. I realised that the music press existed merely to mock us all. The other day I picked up a copy of Kerrang at the train station and thought I would spend my journey to Bristol reading it. It took me 15 minutes to read pretty much every word in it and realise that it wasn't a bastion of hard-rock journalism, instead it was one step above a comic, full of teenage opinion and writers trying to dumb down their skills to appeal to 12 year old Paramore fans and people who only know who Led Zeppelin are because Fearne Fucking Cotton has a t-shirt with their name on.

I thought back to when I would religiously read the NME and Melody Maker, before they merged into one terrible, childish tome. I would read what was written and so many of my opinions on music were shaped by their editorial policies. I would like bands who were completely shit, purely because they were recommended to me by the NME writers. I would hate bands based on who they had chosen to slag off that month. I would get into entire genres of music, almost obsessively, because they had decided that particular style was "in". I dare say the bastards were partially responsible for the way I dressed.

A later rant will deal with Student Music Chauvanism, but the music press are to blame there too. The music press make plenty of twentysomethings and teenagers claim that they like much more obscure music than anyone else, purely because they're armed with a music rag or two under their arm. Bollocks. I thought that when I was a teenager and when I was a student. Let's examine the evidence:

Teenager - Favourite bands were The Clash, Green Day and Ash.
End of Uni - Favourite bands were still The Clash, DJ Shadow and Blur.

Not exactly tiny little artists, right? And the only reason I liked DJ Shadow was because the NME told me to. It took me to my mid twenties to realise I can like whatever the fuck I want, even if it's as disparate as Elton John, Girls Aloud and Gallows. But way back then, I thought I was better because I'd selected what was cool to enjoy. Not simply because I heard something and thought "wow".

Let us not forget, the NME have put Robbie Fucking Williams on their cover in the past merely to shift units. And they've come a long way from the serious publication that mockingly allowed a young Steven Morrissey to rant about the New York Dolls back in the mid 1970s.

I was thinking of bands that the NME tried to get us to swallow but no-one ever did. They do this from time to time, as if to test our resolve as listeners and to see if we're merely just following the herd because they tell us to. I can only think of a few past coverstars that they've failed to get the British public to actually like on a massive scale. I mean, bands like Oasis and Embrace (especially the latter) had massive press merely for being wankers, way before anyone ever heard their music. Don't even get me started on the NME's cool list each year, which seemingly thinks that smack is the key to coolness, rather than my innocent youth where it was merely wearing shades indoors.

So yeah, bands the NME failed to get us to like - off the top of my head.

Bis - how awful were they? Pinnacle of their career was recording the theme to the Powerpuff Girls.
S*M*A*S*H - Ah, the legendary "New Wave of New Wave" movement, loosely translated from journo into English as "we've ran out of wanky genre names".
Campag Velocet - Seriously, in the mid 1990s they never shut up about them. Name one song. I dare you.
Gay Dad - I remember hearing that several members of said band used to work for the NME. Really? Well, that's a massive surprise.

What I like is how you can follow the cycle of a bands career based on how the NME reports on them. Pick any remotely successful band from the past few years and all of them have the same 5 stages of their career as recorded by journalists.

1: THE BEGINNING

A band is doing quite well, well enough to be signed by an Indie label - so that makes them well and truly on the radar already. Nevertheless, the music press (and probably Jo Whiley) will claim them as their discovery, citing some reference two weeks prior where the band was mentioned in their gig listing page. A small pictorial will follow. If the press gets an inkling that this band is becoming popular, they'll then move to phase 2.

2: THE ASCENT

Said band is doing ok, with one minor chart hit. The album comes out. Even if it's awful, it will get at least 7 out of 10 as the magazine hedges its bets and decides to not piss off the band, just in case they become the next Oasis and hold a grudge. The band get pushed to high heaven. The lead singer ceases to have a first name, being pictured on the front cover and referred to by his first name only, like a Brazilian footballer. No-one can remember his surname, as no-one ever really knew it to start with.

3: THE PLATEAU

Band work on their difficult second album, which will be a massive letdown but still score higher in terms of reviews than their first, merely because thousands of extra pounds have been spent on the production of it. It will sell very well indeed, coupled with wispy pictorials of the band and fluffy interviews containing no substance whatsoever. Some letters will be printed in the letters page slagging off said band to test the water for stage 4.

4: THE DOWNFALL

Band release third album. Is actually their best yet, as they have matured musically - but press choose to slag them off mercilessly, making them the butt of "jokes" wherever possible and using their bandname to prefix the word -esque whenever they feel they need to make a negative point about another band, or compare another band at stage 1 or 2 in a favourable light. Band sell millions anyway, and don't give a fuck about the music press. Massive tour goes amazingly well. Move to stage 5.

5: THE PHOENIX

Band has been doing great anyway, but with album 4 about to come out the press try to bury the hatchet (caused by themselves) by doing endless features about how the band are now legendary, bigger than Jesus and so on. Massive tour exceeds all expectations. Editorial in magazine cliams responsibility for the bands success. Somewhere, a kitten dies.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

14: 30 year olds exhibiting playground homophobia

2009-05-25T21:57:00.000+01:00

When I first wrote my list of hated things I scribbled down the list with all the speed of a Mexican mouse. With a pen. Well, a keyboard. You get the gist. Anyway, it does mean that some of the titles of these rants are not as concise as I would wish. So, this here essay applies to anyone aged 30 and upwards. Not just to those people within the 365 year confines of being 30. 366 days if its a leap year.

Lets set one thing out straight away. Homophobia in general is daft. I've been relaying the story of the audience member with the no-entry sign tattooed on his arse for about two years now. Worst part of that being that he generally saw NOTHING wrong with such a cackhanded choice of ink-based needle design on his posterior. Thing is, he was 15 years old. It doesn't make it ok, but it at least explains it.

Try working with kids. What you'll learn very early on is that the insult "gay" is the most common that you'll ever hear. I'll be honest, when I was young and foolish I used to do it. My tremendously nice and intelligent 9 year old nephew called me gay this afternoon for the apparent "crime" of wearing a flat cap. He could have called me a yorkshireman, but he chose to call me gay.

Thing is, he'll learn. It's not ok that he thinks it's acceptable to call me that, but when he reaches adulthood he'll be well adjusted and will thankfully learn. When I was in my early teens I didn't know anyone gay. I didn't understand a lot of things back then. I barely understood what I wanted myself, so the concept of understanding anything that was different to me was greeted with confusion and like everything I can't deal with (normally, life itself) twas also met with humour. I'm not proud of the person that I was back then, but luckily my parents would always punish me for being homophobic in any way. Because even though they used to beat me on a daily basis with drilled paddles, they couldn't bear intolerance.

I've got a lot of gay friends. To quote the person who would usually be making excuses for hidden prejudices, a lot of my best friends are gay. As I'm now a well raised and hopefully decent member of the human race, I don't think of them of being gay in the same way I don't think of my straight friends sexual preference. They're just my mates.

A former work colleague of mine once expressed his disgust - and I don't mean that lightly, he was genuinely crimson with rage - that one of my best friends is gay. I don't think anything in the workplace has ever made me as angry. In fact, my top five things-that-made-me-angry at work are:

5: The time I ate tainted corned beef in a sandwich.
4: People complaining about tax when they get paid. That shit happens.
3: The time I lost my picture of the the cashmere goat.
2: Hitting my head on the underside of my desk (I did it 63 times in 8 years)
1: The aforementioned homophobe.

Thing is, he broke out all the "backs to the wall" shit. That's the playground stuff that really makes me angry. And he was 38 years old. Let us take this person as a case study. His standard attitude upon meeting someone gay is to make that statement and others along the same lines. And why? The insinuation that he seems to make is that if he does not keep his back planted most firmly to the brickwork that he will become prey to every single homosexual man in the land. I would like to write an open letter to this person.

Dear sir,

In the same way that every woman walking the face of this earth does not want to place your greasy penis in any of their orifices, neither do any of the gay men. In fact, instead of you keeping your back to the wall maybe you could, in the future, keep your face to the wall and your cockamamie opinions firmly inside your narrow minded little fucking skull.

Lots of love,

Jim xxx

13: People (normally younger than me) who make everything sound like a question?

2009-04-29T05:57:00.002+01:00

I'm a child of the 1980s. Yes, I was born in the 1970s, when punk was at its highest of dizzying heights and Margaret Thatcher was about to be festooned upon us like a rusted T-1000 in a bouffant wig. But I'm a child OF the 1980s, because that's when I grew up. If your first childhood memory is not of He Man but of the Turtles, you're a child of the nineties. I care not one fuck if you were born in 1989, you were merely sent into this world in that year. You were not "Made in the 1980s" as your fucking Top Man t-shirt says. Your personality, likes and dislikes and sensibilities are shaped by your childhood and mine took place in the 1980s. The early part, admittedly. The bit where video games consoles were still made of wood and people queued round the streets of Leicester to see the stunning special effects of Ghostbusters.

Thing is, I'm the last of a dying breed. My generation (I reckon those born in 1982 and before) are the last bastions of hope for a rapidly vanishing tradition. A noble, thoroughly British area of etiquette that precious few youngsters subscribe to. An issue that is so simple in the very nature of its being and yet so far from being able to be saved that a billion Daily Mail readers cry into their Fruit 'N Fibre every morning to mourn its obvious passing, like the gradual decline of the Queen Mother - with her peanut teeth giving away the fact that the royal family were waiting uncomfortably long for her to croak, like a family eying up new dogs whilst their labrador limps past 87 in dog years.

I speak of course, of the tradition of talking without making everything sound like a question.

We've become so used to this that we never, ironically enough, question it. Well, normal people don't. I do. I sometimes imagine that I'm possessed by the irritable spirit of a Victorian diction coach, liable to crack people across the backs of their knees with the birch because they made the sentence "I ate a lovely orange yesterday" sound like a question by using the wrong intonation at the end of said sentence, the reckless mavericks.

If you just read the sentence about the orange and your voice went slightly up in tone at the end of it, you are going to hell. I can rest assured that you're younger than me and I can only sleep well in my bed at night knowing that my generation and those before me have wrecked the world beyond all belief for you to live in. The children may be our future, but they can't fucking speak properly.

Thing is, it is a basic fact of life that we imitate and mimic others. Mass media is such that we can watch whatever we want from across the globe at any time. Satellite television has a billion channels with nothing on, so they have to get the programming from somewhere. I could blame any country for this phenomenon if I chose.

It's not the UK, because we invented actual language, so my Dad says. Yeah.

It's not America, even though I'd love to blame them for something else. Their contributions to youth culture know no bounds. I would like to thank them in particular (via the means of me besting them in a Coal Miner's Glove wrestling match) for Dawsons Creek and the wonderful way that it has enabled the love lorn the world over to overanalyse relationships and talk in sentences that no-one would ever use in real life. An actual quote:

Dawson: God, I am so lonely. I'm 16 years old and I'm so hopelessly lonely.
Joey: Is that why you got drunk?
Dawson: Yeah...Jo, why did you break up with me and run straight to Jack?
Joey: Because he wasn't you. Look, it was never about looking for something better, Dawson. It was about looking for someone who wasn't so close to me. Where I could tell where I ended and he began. I mean, our lives have always been so intertwined that in many ways I feel like you partially invented me, Dawson. And that scares me so much. I need to find out if I can be a whole person without you. I need to find out if I can be a whole person....alone.
Dawson: Well, do it quickly, okay? Because....God, I love you.

Seriously, what the fuck?

Anyway, yes. I blame Australia, for so many reasons. The main one being that they can take it. If you know an Aussie, criticise him and her. Watch the look on their face. The wry smile. That's them thinking "Ha! Least I'm not British". While I'm awake at 6am writing this rant, every Australian I know is having a dream about how good he or she is at sport. Even if they're useless at it. They don't have egg and spoon races in sports days in Australia. No sack races. They do three-legged triathlons, and then the talented little fuckers run home afterwards so they can sprint to the beach and swim to Papua New Guinea.

Back to my point about the 1980s. In 1986, something terrible came to our shores from down under. No, not Yahoo Serious (Young Einstein came out in 1988).

Neighbours.

Until the people of Erinsborough appeared on our TV screens, I'm convinced that we spoke normally. You could point to the Americans and the way they talk (which has similar intonation) but I reckon they merely copied us. Because face it, we're cooler than Americans. But not as cool as the Japanese, because they have the whole Harajuku thing and Ninjas.

Over 5,500 episodes of Neighbours have been screened in the UK. My sister (three years younger than me) used to watch it every day. I remember the look of delight on her face when she'd had a day off sick and she rang her friends to tell them that she'd watched the afternoon version of Neighbours. The way she described the experience was akin to someone of my Gran's generation having a biblical vision of St Peter and the pearly gates. My entire school was addicted to Neighbours (and later on, to a lesser extent Home and Away). The only plotline I can ever remember getting interested in was when Todd (I think) got addicted to arcade games and they showed him playing Ghosts and Goblins in an arcade. You could tell he was a dangerous addict because he had on a long coat.

There is so much non question asking chicanery in one episode of Neighbours that I have to turn it off before my neighbours bang on the walls to ask me why I'm screaming utterly random-seeming sentences at my television, like a schizophrenic having a surrealist row with himself. There is no reason that we should pay any attention to Neighbours at all - it's not like the rules of Erinsborough have any bearing on real life.

RULE A: You'll probably work at Lassiters at some point.
RULE B: It's quite easy to become a journalist, so maybe try that.
RULE C: Or a teacher.
RULE D: No other forms of work are available.
RULE E: Unless you count being a sub par Matthau / Lemmon combo as a job (I'm looking at YOU, Harold and Lou)

MAJOR RULE: If you ever leave Erinsborough, you will AT THE VERY LEAST be terribly maimed. If you go into the forest around Erinsborough, you will definitely die.

The popularity of Neighbours was such that if you imported any Australian programme then people genuinely got excited. I remember the debut of Flying Doctors - my mum and sister had planned their evening for weeks. I went outside and there was no-one about. And that night, another 100,000 people made the sentence "I'm going to bed now" sound like a godforsaken question.

Australia - and indeed Neighbours itself - has given us so many great things. Kylie and her bottom. Dannii and her breasts. Stefan Dennis and "Dont It Make You Feel Good". The belief that any simpleton can have a number one record in this country. Angry Anderson. It's all good. Australia may have given us this habit, but we're the ones to blame for copying it so frequently and making it normal. Makes you wonder what's next though, what the next great cultural explosion is, the next best import to Aussie soaps.

I'd quite like the joy of Bollywood films to be a bigger part of British culture - they certainly deserve to be. If only because I'd love dull days to be brightened with dance routines and smiling.

I'm off now, hope you enjoyed this rant? Argh, now I'm doing it.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

12: Psychics

2009-04-20T22:10:00.002+01:00

I'd always like to presume that everyone walking the face of the Earth is essentially quite clever. I sit back and assume that if I'm on a train I can have a 43 minute conversation with the person next to me about topics as diverse as the cause of the recession, the vanguards of American literature in the 20th century and hog breeding. As human beings we have the ability to be incisive, thought-provoking, resourceful and witty.

And yet for all the wonderful gifts that evolution has given us, for all the immense thinking power wrapped up in every single person's brain, for the billions of electrical impulses that one special muscle utilises to drive humanity forward... there are still people that think that psychics have some relevance in the world today.

Why would you want to see the future? I don't. Everyone knows roughly which way that they're headed. If you've worked hard to get where you are then your life isn't really going to take a vastly unexpected turn. Lets say that you spent the last five years working at building up a florist business. If you want to know where it's headed then maybe look back at your records, establish some trends, draw up a well considered business plan and make some projections based upon that. Throw in some intangibles.

Don't go and visit someone who will toss together some generalisations and give you a vague conclusion that you'll then sit on and hark back to everytime something remotely good or bad happens. I would be impressed if a psychic, just for once, didn't throw out a "tall, dark stranger" prediction and instead predicted that we'd all die in a shower of razor sharp broccoli florets.

The same goes for anything else loosely based within the psychic world. Derek Acorah and his like are charlatans, one and all. You know anyone who has ever seen a ghost? No, of course you don't. Because they don't exist. How convenient that something that is allegedly so real cannot be seen by just anyone, nor heard, nor photographed. I've spoken to three different people who have met a drunken Derek Acorah and he's told them that everything he does is made up. Every last thing. He's a trustworthy as a broker at Lehman Brothers. Yeah, that's some fucking satire right there.

Mediums tire me out, especially those that are as believable as the orange faced televangelists in the states. I find someone healing another person by smacking them in the face more realistic than a man in a patterned jumper claiming to know the history of complete simpletons by the means of guesswork and generalisation. It's wrong to pray on the hopes and fears of generally nice people by claiming to be able to speak to their long dead relatives.

The list of people that can talk to dead people is not a long one.

1: Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense"

That is all.

Incidentally, if you decided to read this rant because you misread the title and presume that this is about physics, I apologise for confusing you. But I hate that as well. So, have this bonus rant:

No one uses the words mass or velocity after their GCSEs, fuckers. Stop trying to make us learn them.

11: Racism

2009-04-13T23:52:00.002+01:00

I'm quite ridiculously proud of being from Leicester. I have an oft-rehearsed line that I say onstage at most gigs where I mention that I love the city because it is "a vibrant, diverse place". And it is. I have never caught a whiff of the slightest bit of racial tension in my home city, and that's something that I'm chuffed enough about to even gloat just a little bit. I'm delighted to say that I don't have a single racist friend or acquaintance - although with my own sensibilities I wouldn't entertain anyone racist anyway.

When I say "entertain anyone racist" I of course don't refer to audiences. Because I have no choice there, I can't vet them all. Much as I like to say that I am cool with anyone's beliefs or ideals, if someone says something racist to me onstage I have a burning desire to smash them over the head with a chair. Not in a weak Lance Storm vs RVD way, in an awesome Rock vs Mick Foley way.

Ask any comedian what the most annoying part of his job is and you'll get one of the following answers:

Travelling. I kind of like it, but apparently being squashed into a Corsa with 4 other acts and travelling 300 miles to entertain 21 people in the corner of a pub isn't everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I find it preferable to a daily commute to a regular job. I get nostalgic for it if I have a week or so of travelling alone. The smell of 4 Ginsters sandwiches being eaten at once whilst dissecting each others sets is a joy to behold and the total sensual experience.

Heckling. I kind of enjoy it, but you do get the odd plank who doesn't know when he's beat. You'll knock them down and they keep getting back up, like a retarded version of Rocky, hitting you with funny noise after terrible homophobic putdown like he's trying to have a gazillion sequels made about his career.

Comments. One of my favourites is an inebriated audience member coming up to me - I reckon this happens once in every 5 gigs I MC - and saying "You're really good, you should be one of the comedians". I am one of the comedians, you fucker. Believe me, that shit is quite, quite rehearsed. I wish I was as off the cuff and spontaneous as I may appear. I'm not even spontaneous enough to consider buying flowers from a petrol station when I'm in a relationship in order to guarantee semi-grateful sex.

Suggested Jokes. I reckon this is the main annoyance for most comedians. Some dick comes up to you and tells you - or even worse, shows you a "gag" on his mobile phone - a joke of questionable content or taste and follows it with the required suffix sentence of "you can have that". The most I've ever enjoyed such an experience was when someone tried to give me an off-colour joke that I'd heard a million times and when they said the magic words I simply walked off. No smile, no comment, just a straight face walking away as their bemused voices trailed off into the night.

It's concerning the subject matter of this rant that makes me so annoyed at the latter of the four items above. 9 times out of 10 the jokes that get suggested to me by audience members are inherently racist. I understand that the sensibilities of people in small towns (such as Hinckley or Nuneaton, where I run gigs) are different to those in big cities - but that isn't an excuse to act like a bigot, or believe that you speaking ill of anyone from another race, or of another colour or religion to you is freedom of speech. Racism makes me physically angry. It's just beyond me as to why anyone would believe that anyone is inferior to anyone else. Why can't we just all agree that we're all pretty ace and that life is nice? I don't view my friends in terms of what race they are, sex they are, sexuality that they have chosen - they're my friends because I love them. Simple as that. And everyone walking the Earth has the potential to be awesome, in the same way that they could turn out to be a bit of a dick. The only discrimination that we should all adopt is that of being dickist - not tolerating some of the many halfwits who share the world with is. Which means conversely, that it is more than ok to be anti-racist if you're planning on being dickist.

If that makes any sense.

The closest I got into getting into a fight at a gig is based around racist joke suggestion. It wasn't in front of a 200 strong throng of stag and hens, it was in a country pub in front of 30 people. I mentioned where I'm from, and how proud I am of being from Leicester and how it saddens me to live in a more small minded town like Hinckley. They laughed in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons, writing their own jokes based around stuff that I consider anti racism and anti racist. So I curtailed that part of the set and went back to knob gags, as was my forte at the time. Still is. If I have a forte. Trusthouse Forte.

At the end of an okish gig a man came up to me. Seemed like a regular enough chap, about my age and at the gig with his wife. He did the old "here's one for you..." bollocks and proceeded to tell me some of the most vile, bigoted and racist "jokes" that I've ever heard in my life. I was remotely new to such an experience at the time and shook my head at them.

ME: Well mate, I use my own material... and to be honest your jokes are a bit controversial...
HIM: I thought you'd like them, being from Leicester.
ME: How so?
HIM: Well, you must be tired of them all.
ME: Them?
HIM: You know, the immigrants. Leicester's full of them.
ME: Have you ever been there?
HIM: No, never. Wouldn't like it.
ME: Why not?
HIM: You know, it's not an English city anymore.
ME: Why, has it been moved somewhere else?
HIM: No...
ME: I mean, I drove here from there tonight, and the last time I checked I drove in from the East Midlands.
HIM: I didn't mean that...
ME: I even drove past a flagpole and it had the same flag as the rest of England flying from it. Who'd have thought it?
HIM: It's just that I'm...
ME: A cunt? Yes. Yes you are.

You'd think it would be him that took exception to this, but it wasn't. It was his gin-soaked orange faced Mrs who decided to grab a bottle and pointed it at me. Not smash it, but point it at me, neck up, like an expectant penis. This was the lamest standoff in the history of time.

I should have just walked away, but I had to run in the end. I scrambled for my car keys in my pocket, readying them and shouldering my bag as discussions seemed to calm down.

ME: Sorry mate, but I have to ask why you're so racist.
HIM: I'm not racist. I've got loads of black mates.

(This is, of course, the get out clause of many a racist. Homophobes replace this sentence with "I once watched Will and Grace")

ME: So what's the problem then? The colour of someone's skin?
HIM: No...
ME: Because your Mrs looks like a fucking space hopper.

I ran then. And what I said with regards to her mandarin hue wasn't racist, because some of my best friends are spacehoppers.

10: Fresh Mint (Especially On Potatoes)

2009-04-04T00:10:00.002+01:00

My back garden is a living, breathing, growing testimony to many of my failures and regrets. I'm first to admit that I am not a gardener. Last time my lawn needed mowing it was so long that the thought of even stepping out there made me cry a little and retire to bed and hide underneath the duvet. I ended up paying my sister and brother in law a wheelbarrow full of used notes to do something with it. I think they set it ablaze.

In my back garden stand two sheds. I have no need for either. One is filled with the detritus from my pre-divorce life - old VHS tapes, video games consoles wrapped in plastic, sacks of clothes that I could probably still wear, books I bought and never read. The other shed contains a redundant lawnmower, someone's bicycle (certainly not mine), a hose when I don't even have an outside tap, and my daughter's electric Disney Princess car that I assure you I have never tried to ride down the road in the dead of night, honest.

My two favourite items are in the foreground of the garden, closest to my house and seperated from the needlessly prolific sheds by a patch of wild grass to insane for any lawnmower.

First is my Filbert Street map, purchased from an auction when we knocked down our beloved former home. I always enjoy showing this to people because they then presume that I have the cunning, guile and shame-faced cheek to be able to steal something so vast. I rarely admit that I bought it (and that my Dad owns the other one) because I think the image of me as a wee scamp taking a screwdriver to a game on my 23rd birthday and somehow evading the law makes me seem more dangerous and devil-may-care. I'm telling you now that image is a fallacy. This evening I did a show and then came home to luxuriate in having a cold and doing my finances. This life I lead is strangely non rock and roll.

Then there is my daughter's fun house. Pink and white and made of sturdy plastic, Amelia loves this little place. One of my most treasured photos of her shows her playing with her mini kitchen within the house, making me smile with her mini OCD behaviour when it comes to plastic cups and cutlery. Sadly, she has only played in the house a few times, testimony to my status as a divorced Dad. I love Amelia to bits and I try to be a great Dad - but the plastic house is just like so many of her other toys at mine - enjoyed but they haven't had the mileage from them that they should have.

Next to the plastic house is a mint plant. I've always hated mint. It has a function, it's not something to enjoy for fun. But in the last few years the very smell of mint is now associated in my mind with missed chances and regret. As well as a burning desire to destroy every trace of it from the planet. What use has mint other than to remind me of my failings?

TOOTHPASTE - When I was a child we had Punch and Judy strawberry flavour toothpaste. Why not make this for adults? Why make such a big deal about fresh orange juice in the morning, with adverts showing the beautiful people of New York enjoying a bagel and a fresh glass of OJ as the sunshine streaks in through their blinds in the half million dollar apartment... when the second you drink the damn stuff after your morning dental hygeine session you're forced to suck your own lips off to deal with sourness.

GUM - In essence having minty fresh breath after a refreshing bag of cheese and onion crisps sounds like a decent plan. Having cheese, onion and mint flavour breath is both nauseating and confusing.

MINT YOGHURT - Poppadoms are the crisps that Jesus would eat, if he was alive today. Mango Chutney and Lime Pickle are the salsa dip that Jehovah himself would have enjoyed. If there is a God (and I'm leaning towards there not being so - because he wouldn't have invented mint) I reckon he doesn't share a curry with all these other religious dudes and ask for extra mint yoghurt. Not only does it taste foul, it looks like you're annotating your starchy disc with mint choc chip ice cream.

CONSULATE CIGARETTES - Have you ever smoked these? The first fags I ever smoked, and they made me addicted to Nesquick mint choc milkshake. A rumour went round that they made lads sterile. In my school that was considered a method of contraception.

MINT SAUCE - My family eat this with everything, which makes them more insane than quirky. As you know, dear reader, I despise roast lamb. Mint and vinegar. British people are sick and wrong.

FRESH MINT APPLIED TO POTATOES - I love potatoes. Starchy little fuckers, they're brilliant. Mashed, boiled, chipped, pureed, ablaze, anything. I could eat a ton of them a day. And come the summer, we get the best ones: New potatoes. Bite sizes morsels of wonderment. Oooh! Cold ones in salads! They're amazing. I tend to keep a supply of tinned ones (in brine, of course) for the cold winter months. To eat on toast, on days where I choose to flick two fingers up to the Atkins Diet. I do not need these beautiful things being sullied by mint, horrible mint, trying to freshen my mouth before I've even finished eating.

I'm not one to throw diva strops, but the next time I'm served anything with mint on I will windmill everyone in sight, like a slightly camp whirling dervish. I'll be pushed further than Mariah Carey after she's been double booked at the Dorchester and instead of having a suite with fresh muslin on the walls, she's in a Travelodge with dirty sheets nailed to the wardrobe.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

9: Furniture

2009-03-29T22:14:00.002+01:00

My lounge has relatively few items in it. Ever since I got divorced and got my own house I've made the lounge look almost exactly like you would expect if interior design was handled by a nerdish chimp with ADHD.

I'm sitting in said lounge right now writing this rant, so let me list the essential items that I can see before me.

Large Television. I'm not showing off, but it is vast and shiny. I enjoy HD stuff because it's better than actual life.

Surround Sound Kit. Only now really making use of this. Mainly to disturb my incredibly irritating neighbours by leaving MTV2 on when I'm out. Would also mean that any burglars would be educated on what is good and new in the world of music. Or rather whatever Zane Lowe wants them to watch whilst being sycophantic to the "stars" of Indie music. And the latest U2 video. Which last time I checked didn't fall under the remit of "alternative music".

Xbox 360. Why wouldn't you have one of these?

PS3. To watch Blu Rays. See above, better than life.

Sky Box HD Box. Because I like my yellow animated families to look lifelike. Also, why wouldn't you have Sky? If only for the music channels (even despite Zane Lowe) and awesome dating channels. I recommend that everyone watches those for at least half an hour a day. Wouldn't text any of those numbers on the screen though, a friend told me that they cost a fair bit. That's right, a friend.

Subwoofer. I don't know what it does, but I like saying the word in a welsh accent.

That's it. Nothing else is essential.

I have, for some reason, two coffee tables when at least two less would suffice. One sits on a greying faux-sheepskin rug that I imagine visitors think I use to pose on for my glamour shoots, wearing a pantomined plumbers uniform. The other was purchased from Ikea for around £20 and is used to store anything that I don't really care enough about to display or ever find again. Every now and again I will shove everything that rests on this table into an empty Sainsburys carrier bag and throw it away.

There is no need to have surfaces to put things on when the floor would easily suffice.

I have two identical sofas that look like they've been stolen from a bad nightclub. Not one of the meat-market nightclubs that you KNOW will be rubbish - like the ones my Dad builds - Liquid and Envy, Creation, Oceania and so on. They know that they're dives, with every single punter in there either below 16 years old and female or over 35 years old and male. I refer to the sort of establishment - be it club or bar - that is slightly out of town and run by a man wearing linen trousers, flip flops and a deep vee neck t-shirt from All Saints even if he's slightly overweight. But they're leather and cheap, obviously cheap - but you can imagine them being sat on by orange faced slags on a Thursday night whilst said flip-flop wearer plies them with his most generous servings of his cheapest vodka whilst jingling his BMW keys.

I also have a pointless wicker basket that is part table, part basket. And pointless. I have no idea what's in there at the moment.

(Pause to look)

Nothing but crap. A three year old newspaper. A PS2 steering wheel. Old flyers. A GTA San Andreas guidebook. Utterly pointless.

My mother will often tell me that I need more furniture, that I need to brighten the place up somewhat. No. I would improve my lounge enormously if I got rid of the tables, sofas and wicker box and merely bought one large beanbag and an extra duvet to lie on and possibly build the occasional fort.

Trips to Ikea fill me with rage. It's a trite comedic point to mention the names they give their products - because Swedish people are wacky - so that's not my main issue. My issue is having to watch people somehow believing that their produce is of high quality merely because their friends have an identical house filled with Ikea shit, and also having to watch people arguing about which plastic chair would look best in their pointless little house.

I have never entered a DFS and never will. I'm aware that I'm meant to look at their discounted prices and be amazed, but to me £499 for a red dralon sofa with huge arms and segments of mock wood doesn't really strike me as a bargain. The fact that the people who shop there seem to think that their prices have ever been higher than what they currently advertise fascinates me. It's the unquestioning conformity to accepting what they show as "offers" that I enjoy. People slavishly nodding at their adverts and queuing outside on Boxing Day believing that it's the best thing to do. The same people attended Midnight Mass two days prior to that, believing what they were told once again, showing up because they felt they had to.

If you're religious by the way, I bear you no ill will nor mean to cause you offense with that last remark. Unless you have the chintziest lounge in the world - if that is the case, I think we need to have a little chat.

8: Alcohol

2009-03-24T21:13:00.003Z

I will be the first person to admit that there is a side of alcohol that I do actually like. It's not along the lines of it getting me drunk - I haven't had a drink since the age of 20 and I don't miss that at all. I used to drink quite a bit - some people know this, some people who have known me for a while are probably more unaware. To cut a long story short, I used to love a drink. But I would drink on my own in my bedroom, peeling wallpaper from my walls and writing Belle and Sebastian lyrics on them whilst being half emo, half nerd and feeling sorry for myself whilst trying to perform the highest possible combo on Killer Instinct. Trust me, that's not an easy couple of things to juggle when you've drunk a bottle of Asda own-brand vodka.

As I was a lone drinker I've never had the pleasure of going out and getting drunk with my friends. When I see documentaries about binge drinking teenagers in faceless northern towns I feel a pang of jealousy. I've never gone out, drunk twenty pints and then flashed my arse at a policeman whilst unbelievably still eating a kebab. So I feel I've missed out on a large part of what makes the British, well, British. I'm more akin to someone from Finland. Bookish, rarely awake during the sunny daylight hours, likely to drink large amounts of vodka in a room full of pine furniture whilst listening to black metal and liable to end up as a corpse on a train track.

The saddest part of this is that I have friends who have known me for eons and have always expressed a desire to see me drunk without realising that there is a mathematical certainty that they have - presuming they knew me before May 25th 1998. That said, I've been out socially drinking with most of them since - just with me enjoying my poison of caffeine and sugar instead. Or Nandos. I love that Piri Piri shit.

As I started discussing before my explanatory diversion, there are aspects of drinking that I really, genuinely love.

A: Comedy Audiences Drinking

If people didn't drink then I would be considerably less amusing. On many days I remain not-all-that amusing anyway, dependent on what side of bed I woke up on. Which is a bizarre phrase in itself. I always tend to wake up on my front, looking like I've been dropped from the ceiling (in the position Johnny Depp died in from A Nightmare on Elm Street) onto the left hand side of my lumpy old bed.

Any comedian will tell you that a mildly hammered audience is great fun. They seem to like me considerably more when they've been binge drinking for the last day or so and smell of blackcurrent and amyl nitrate. I applaud the people of Britain for drinking and coming to watch comedy. Do please carry on.

B: Nights Out

The few that I have, I enjoy. I like being the sober one who can remind people what happened to them when they awake the following morning face-down in a knockoff deep-fried chicken box. With a wing bone in their ear and smushed-in chips and ketchup on their carpet.

The only real issue I have is that I can't nor do I want to dance. So, dear friends, enjoy your drinks. But please do not drag me towards a dancefloor if "Horny" by Mousse T starts pumping over the sound system.

However, there are some things that I hate with a venom that would rival some kind of sick hybrid Scorpion-Spider-Cobra. A Scoridra.

1: Breast-Flashing Girls

Let me clear two things up. I like girls. I am also fond of breasts. I'm less fond of mine, although they are both pert and ample. When I was doing all my journo bollocks in my early twenties (not in THE early twenties, they were too busy with the charleston) I would find that flashing a camera around in your average meat-market nightclub would yield countless - let's just call them slags - whacking their funbags out presuming I was a talent scout for Loaded. Novelty wise, this was entertaining for the first couple of times it happened. When you're faced with a constant stream of orange-faced harlots with broken shoes and cheap dresses made of Rayon then it gets old fast. I wish they made dresses out of crayons though, that would kick ass.

2: Groups of People Drinking and Acting Like They're In a War

Here's the thing. You might have decided to go out on a night out with 5 of your closest friends. And that's cool, bonding is nice be you male or female. That's what your night out is all about - having fun, laughing at stupid stuff and thinking that crisps count as a meal. You are not in an elite fighting squadron in Vietnam. If someone chooses to go home early, they are not some kind of conscientious objector. If someone passes out, they are not a casualty of war. If you are one of the last two people left out, you're not some kind of elite hardcore unit. Although more AK47s would make the average Saturday night way more interesting for me as an observer.

3: Wine Twats

The way I see it, there are two types of wine.

RED - Tastes like vinegar
WHITE - Tastes like battery acid

I could try and parlay my immense knowledge into a TV series where I travel the globe talking about the subtle strains of elderberries in one particular bottle of french-made plonk, but I find my method of identification much easier.

And Rose is merely for people who want a drink that is less vinegary and acidic but still tastes like a waste of time. But it's pink! Ooh, pretty. No. Jordan is pink, and she looks like a pneumatic unicorn.

4: People Claiming to Like the Taste of Booze

Following on from my previous point - I have many friends who claim to enjoy the taste of alcohol. They don't. They associate the taste of alcohol with being drunk and happy and that's perfectly fine. But imagine if alcohol had none of these effects, or if medicine tasted like lager or gin. We'd all hate it.

I reckon saying you like booze for the way it tastes is akin to enjoying sex because of the faces it makes you pull.

Of course, this is all just rambling from me. I get like this when I'm pissed. I also have my breasts pressed against the glass of my front window as a lady walks past with a Labrador.

http://twitter.com/jimsmallman

7: The Nintendo Wii

2009-03-19T21:38:00.002Z

3 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH

I see an article in Edge magazine about the upcoming Nintendo Wii. After loving the NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube I presume that they can do no wrong, like some kind of video game Eric Cantona. Don't get me wrong, the Gamecube's marketing was their equivalent of leaping into the crowd at Selhurst Park to pummel some oik who had learned French in order to insult their family: You know that it's technically incorrect, but there's a big part of you that loves them for it. Resident Evil 4? That's a masterpiece. Pikmin? Quality. Any machine that has a version of Mario Kart? Sold. I start a fund ready for said machine.

2 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH

I start creating room in my lounge ready for the new machine. I'm still not entirely sure how big it will be, but I find it a place next to the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox 360. Sandwiched twixt subwoofer and DVD rack, the space is pregnant with expectation.

1 MONTH BEFORE LAUNCH

Funds are raised. Then girlfriend (jealous despot with rascist tendencies) starts dropping hints that another member fo the electronic family is possibly not the greatest of ideas. Already tired of her, this does not auger well. Resolve to end the relationship if she insists on pursuing this fallacy. Choose to ignore the need to pre-order a machine as I'd quite like the excitment of queuing for one.

2 WEEKS BEFORE LAUNCH

Disaster strikes. The catylytic converter on my car chooses to die, thus forcing my car to fail its MOT. In desperation, I try to bribe the mechanic to pass my car so I don't have to spend my hard-saved cash. My intention was to slip him £20 or so, but my ham-fisted attempt at winking at him comes across as deeply disturbing flirting in a dangerously heterosexual environment. I am forced to pay for repairs. The racist deals with this news in her usual subtle, caring way: Whooping, cheering and performing the macarena as I break down in tears. The relationship is certainly not long for this world.

1 WEEK BEFORE LAUNCH

All is lost as newspaper reports mention that every single available Wii will sell out on day one. I curse my luck and toy with the idea of spending my saved cash on something frivolous. The racist mentions a holiday, but I'm in no way planning on spending my time with her in another country. That would give her chance to demonstrate her Daily Mail-learned foreign languages: Merely shouting the phrase "Sausage, egg and chips" louder and slower each time until understood in the face of the nearest waiter.

LAUNCH

I watch live on Sky News as the doors open at HMV on Oxford Street and the nerds of London and beyond rush inside to claw at each other and fight (in the loosest sense) over the machines available. Think to myself about nerds: As a rule, the more intelligent people gravitate towards this way of life. Knowledge is power. Should some kind of evil force wish to wipe out all intelligence from a nation, merely stage the mock launch of a mythical video game system (lets call it the Unicorn) and set the countdown clock in Game to a nuclear bomb. HMV that night will have smelled like every branch of Game does around the nation: Of sweat, celibacy and despair.

LAUNCH PLUS 1 WEEK

Am lucky enough to get a couple of well paid gigs and a bonus from work. The plan is back on. I pride myself on not having spent the money on frivolous things like food, fuel and mittens.

LAUNCH PLUS 2 WEEKS

The money is now burning a hole in my pocket. The racist has gone quiet about the whole issue, and I'm trying to find a way to get rid of her. Decide to piss her off more often by bringing up contentious issues: Her part of the rent, the Wii, British policy on immigration.

LAUNCH PLUS 3 WEEKS

A friend tells me he has his Wii. An offer of being able to play on it is turned down due to gigs and a desire for me to savour my own Wii experience when I have my own. All mine. Mention the Wii plan being back on to the racist. She goes ballistic. Excellent.

LAUNCH PLUS 4 WEEKS

Have enormous row with the racist over, well, her being a nazi. This story is now immortalised in my Edinburgh show as revenge for her bigotry. Decide to break up with her as soon as she has paid her next rent instalment. Decide to do it the old fashioned way and actually tell her rather than just moving house one day while she's out.

LAUNCH PLUS 5 WEEKS

Big row. Mention the Wii whilst at dinner with my family and the racist and she goes completely mental. Sets up next week nicely. Rent week.

LAUNCH PLUS 6 WEEKS

The racist pays me her rent in cash. I whoop and holler, telling her where the money is going with barely disguised antagonostic glee. She begins to cry. I ask why, and through smeared mascara and angry tears she tells me that she's bought me a Wii from eBay as a gift. A token of her love. I feel a strange mixture of elation, guilt, excitement and regret. A day passes, and I realise that it was bad enough staying with the racist just to claim rent, let alone take her gift. I break up with her, awkwardly, and offer her money (over £100 more than list price) for the Wii and - most out of character for me - offer her the rent payment back. She accepts and I'm free.

I'm now single and better still, my Wii has been shipped.

MY WII ARRIVES (LAUNCH PLUS 7 WEEKS)

I balance the sensor on top of my TV and carefully set up the Wii. Obviously I don't read the instructions, but I take my time and lay out all the equipment. After all, in theory this machine has cost me £550. The expectation is immense as the lights on the Wiimote flash blue for the first time. I slide in Wii Sports. I create my Mii. I'm as excited as a boy can be. I start the game.

I'm underwhelmed.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 1 WEEK

I've borrowed, purchased or rented pretty much every game on the Wii and can't manage more than half an hour at a time on the blasted thing. Meanwhile, TV adverts start to make me dislike the machine. Clearly, this machine is for girls.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 1 MONTH

The Wii gathers dust as the Xbox 360 becomes the household favourite. I have a theory: I'm a serious video gamer. I have an arm full of tattoos and leathery thumbs to prove this. I do not want to play games by vaguely swooshing my arm around, nor do I have the friends to come round and do likewise as we all giggle in soft focus. I want games that I can play whilst lying down and feeling my arteries gain fur.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 6 MONTHS

I sell most of my games. Mario Galaxy holds my attention for slightly longer than normal. The arrival in a few months of Mario Kart is all that keeps me going. Feel slightly twattish for paying so over the odds for the godforsaken machine.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 12 MONTHS

I buy a PS3. The Wii gathers dust. I feel like a Jeremy Kyle-candidate family that has bought a new Rottweiler because their Pitbull wasn't vicious enough.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 18 MONTHS

I hear a woman at work mention that she is planning on losing weight by purchasing the soon to be released Wii Fit. She weighs around 20 stone. She does not own a Wii. I fail to see how some badly timed leaning is going to undo 35 years of pies. Resolve to sell the blasted Wii as more insufferable adverts hit our screens. Video games are not for families, all beaming and healthy. They're for losers like me, pale and drawn, malnourished and over-tired, obsessive and lonely vanguards of weirdo-dom.

WII ARRIVAL PLUS 18 MONTHS and ONE DAY.

I sell the Wii plus all my games for £170. I am not sorry to see it go. Attempt to erase the entire episode from my mind by playing Super Mario World on the SNES non stop for 26 hours.

6: Cocaine

2009-03-17T21:08:00.002Z

Since the age of 20 I've been completely teetotal. I used to try and claim that I was straight-edge because of my strict no drinking, no smoking and no drugs policy - but it seems the straight-edge police from California get a little bit pissy if you fancy a shandy on a summer day, or you take painkillers when you hurt your back slipping on a broken toilet seat. It happens, ok?

I'm teetotal out of choice, but that choice is questioned on a daily basis. Friends will constantly try and encourage me to drink, like the fact that I choose to not imbibe alcohol makes me some kind of untrustworthy bastard. They all cast unapproving glances at me drinking coke as they drink pints; at me matching their white russians with a McDonalds milkshake. I miss smoking a bit although it's been quite some time now. If my daughter ever asks me whether smoking is bad my genuine answer will be as follows:

"It'll kill you. But it makes you look really, really cool."

Because it does, you can't deny that. I always want to have my publicity shots done with me smoking, aping my heroes: Bill Hicks, Mark Lanegan, Dot Cotton.

Drugs are a different issue. People don't tend to offer me them, they merely believe I'm on them. Or that I can provide them, from my mythical suitcase full of powders and pills that I keep in a secret compartment in the boot of my car, covered by tatty carpet and a Tesco shopping bag. If I'd have had a pound for every time I've been asked to provide drugs just because people presume I have an enormous stash of them... then, well... hang on. I'd probably have made more money if I'd have actually started selling drugs. Although I did once sell some Vim to a lad I didn't like at university and told him it was cocaine. I think he lived.

I must stress that in the same way that I'm far from anti alcohol or tobacco - without drunk people I would be considerably less funny, and without the smell of smoke gig venues now smell of boys and beer - I'm really not anti drugs. Your body, you can do what you want with it. Without the influence of narcotics the world of music and film would be without so much genius. And admittedly, without non-talented cocks like Pete Doherty. I'm a big believer in everyone trying out whatever they can in life. If your buzz comes from shoving a powder up your nose then fine, that's ok with me. After all, I'm cripplingly addicted to going up onstage to get my buzz.

My issues with cocaine are twofold - and that's without getting into the politics of how it gets to us, whose pockets it is lining and the masses of people who are killed in the wars over who controls it. My gripes may seem slightly less important.

Firstly, I despise the press attitude towards cocaine. The biggest pusher of the stuff in this country are lads mags, not some dude called Darren in a leather jacket in the corner of your local. You could read about a rockstar doing lines off the backs of sweaty whores during recording of a legendary album and you still read about the music. You view him as a quirky celebrity doing something out of your reach. It's when magazines like FHM, Maxim, Vice and so on (the latter being particularly bad about this) start talking about coke prices, where to get the best shit and so on. Because that's not providing a service to anyone. That's merely letting impressionable idiots know about something that people have been sampling and not harping on about for decades now, and making something break the chav barrier.

Breaking the chav barrier is what happens when something that is perceived as remotely cool is ruined by attention from Britain's ruling underclass. For example - Lyle and Scott knitwear, Fred Perry shirts, everything Burberry have ever made - the list is fairly endless. It used to be so much simpler: Cocaine was enjoyed by rockstars and the wealthy. Now Gaz, Daz and Baz can cap off a good week of driving a white van with a gram of coke and live the high life. This is all the fault of the press reporting on the drug in such a way - that's why the drug is getting more prevalent.

I wouldn't have an issue with more people than ever doing what is (in theory) an non-addictive drug if it wasn't for people constantly harping on about it. That's my second point and the main bone of contention. It's a drug that makes you mildly more sociable, chatty and confident. I'm fine with that - like I said before, I do comedy to get my buzz.

If you're drinking a beer I have no interest in what it cost you, where you got it, how many you can consume in a day, what the name was of the person who sold it you and so on. Just because something is in powdered form, then cut with baking soda by one dealer, then with icing sugar by another, then with shake and vac by another, then sold at an overpriced rate by someone who doesn't fully understand inflation and the global economic dive, then you shared a line with someone you just met in a dingy toilet and you considered it glamorous and classy... it doesn't make it any more interesting.

The one saving grace of cocaine is that it hurt members of Status Quo when they were showering, and helped me learn what a septum was.

And who the fuck Daniella Westbrook is.

5: Improper use of the word "random"

2009-03-16T16:34:00.002Z

I was always taught at university that it was bad form to begin an essay with a dictionary definition. Well, I think that's what they said. I never really listened that much, to be honest. But I'm all about smashing conventions man, you know, like the punk rock auteurs of our past. SMASH IT! SMASH IT ALL DOWN! HANG THIS MOTHERFUCKING BLOG IN THE TATE MODERN!

Yeah.

Random is defined (I could have made this more wanky by quoting what dictionary I took this from and listing it in the bibliography. Have you ever seen someone do that? I have. Yeah, it was me. "Ooh, what wider reading did he do? A fucking dictionary?") as "made or occurring without a definite aim, reason or pattern".

I once went on a date with a girl who described herself as "well random". I must stress that she described herself in that way AFTER the date had begun, otherwise I would not have attended at all - no matter how desperate or lonely I may have been. And I won't lie, I have been both of those things in the past. Especially as a teenager, where I would have probably been willing to sleep with a bristle-faced dinner lady in a caravan in Mablethorpe.

It's worrying enough that she prefaced using the word that stokes my ire so much with the word "well". So, let us overlook the fact that she chose the wrong word to describe herself. Even if she did think she was truly "random", it's not a word that needs quantifying. Random is random is random. You cannot be any more or less random.

And don't get me started on the lottery. It is not randomly generated. If it was then the same number could come out twice in a draw, so it's not random in the slightest. Well, it is almost random. But it's not slightly random - it strives to be random and just falls short.

So yeah, she rocks up for our date in a Vauxhall Corsa (one of the most popular cars in the land), she's a quite pretty 26 year old (quite an average age), she's dressed in clothes bought from All Saints (a major high street brand these days) and her shoes are from Office (ditto. I asked). She worked in an office (not exactly the most bizarre career path) and liked to drink Magners - one of the most beloved of all the boozes.

What I'm saying here is that she wasn't exactly different, controversial, bizarre or however you would choose to describe someone a bit odd. She was normal. Perfectly nice, but normal. No-one ever describes themselves as normal. Ever. Even though most of us are perfectly normal - and there is no shame in that. None at all. If anything, I would enjoy the honesty. We're a normal country full of pleasant normal folk. Is that such a crime?

The date didn't go well, of course. Because I have an inbuilt be-a-dickhead-if-you-think-you-have-a-point device buzzing away in my brain. She casually said that she was "well random" and my tone changed, my smile dropped and I immediately quizzed her on this. A more pleasant human being would just let these slide, but as you can tell from my daily rants I care not for the opinion of others and am spurred on by the dead ghost of a 1970s trade union gobshite that has possessed my soul. I can't leave things be, ever scratching at the surface of arguments that don't need to happen until something or someone is bleeding. Metaphorically.

I quizzed her:

ME: Why are you "well random"?
HER: Well, you know. Me and all my mates, we're all random.
ME: So, you didn't choose your friends? If you go out for a drink then you don't know who is going to show up and it could be anyone from the billions of people walking the face of the Earth?
HER: (Laughing nervously) Er, no. We're just all, you know...
ME: So, you have the same friends each time...
HER: Yes...
ME: But they're completely random people in terms of their character?
HER: Er...
ME: So if I was to check one of their passports, for example, they would always have the same name but they could turn up for a night out in one of a million different forms? So your friend Sarah, for example, could turn up one time as a twentysomething...
HER: I've got a friend called Sarah!
ME: ... and the next time she could be a bright pink Llama? And the next a bowl of Mulligatawny Soup?
HER: That's not really what I meant... we're just, you know...
ME: (Shouting) What? Different? Zany? Wacky? Is that it? Hmm? You're not random. Stop using the word. You are not a 21 year old student. STOP IT! STOP IT! (I'm weeping by now) STOP IT!

She went then.

Simple rule of thumb. If someone described themselves as "random", there is a fair chance that they are as regular and normal as a person can be. And this isn't a sin. Bad English should be, but that isn't either. More's the pity. The same applies for zany, wacky, outgoing, different, alternative - we're who we are, don't try and sum yourself up in one word. Let us try to not live in text messages where we can't use more than 160 characters to describe ourselves.

I, Jim Smallman, am not random. I'm a short tempered, badly-coiffeured stand up comedian without the slightest hint of wackiness opr zaniness. There is literally nothing to set me apart from anyone else in the world, because we're all essentially the same mix of blood, guts, water and fudge. I cheerfully admit my enslavement to the world of normality, the dirty words "normal" and "regular".

See, no-one admits that, ever.

I'm well random.

4: Creosote

2009-03-15T14:04:00.002Z

Spring is finally here. Every morning I curse the fact that light creeps through my blinds and that I don't have curtains, before remembering that I'm meant to - as a supposed regular human being - be excited at the oncoming of spring. Little lambs gambolling around buttercup-flecked fields, adorable puppies frolicking in waterfalls, baby deer being harvested for their meat for the rich and uncaring. It's all good.

Yesterday I wore my sunglasses for the first time this year. Admittedly, quite a lot of that was to do with the fact that I'd only had a few hours sleep and my eyes resembled the hastily scratched crosses etched into cheap bullets in a war torn part of the world - but it was remotely pleasant to look like a rockstar in deepest Leicestershire. The part I enjoyed about the onset of brightness was wandering around Leicester city centre with my music on as loud as possible, staring at the tops of buildings and noticing things that it seems like I've never noticed before. Of course, I have noticed all of these things before - it's just that winter has a way of greying out the tops of buildings, shrouding them in a metaphoric fog as the rain, sleet and snow makes everyone keep their heads down and scurry from place to place like robotic mice.

It'll be Easter soon, an event which has something to do with Jesus being a chocoholic and the disciples being reincarnated as Creme Eggs. As I understand it, anyway. Which means the first Bank Holidays of the year and a chance for people to feel remotely motivated to get themselves along to a garden centre or a DIY place and start to spruce their place up.

I am not one of these people.

DIY around the home is a neccessity. If something breaks, fix it. I can understand that. Gardening is a waste of time - but that's another rant. DIY outside the home is the most pointless exercise in the existence of humanity. Allow me to explain.

If you go to Homebase on a bank holiday and buy a fence, chances are you won't need one. I'm willing to bet that your current fence didn't need replacing. If it did because there was some kind of hurricane in your part of Glamorgan (or wherever you are, I merely like the name "Glamorgan") then I'll allow that - but note what colour your new wooden fence is.

It's wood coloured.

I'm constantly perplexed by the need for people to paint wood in another wooden colour. And better yet, paint it with something that fades after a year so you need to repaint it. Creosote is godforsaken stuff that is clearly deliberately pointless and addictive. It fades, so you must buy more. It smells funny, polluting the air from March to June in every part of the UK (you'll note that creosote isn't anywhere near as popular in the USA, for example) but maybe there's something in the smell. It's probably all a part of a global conspiracy led by the Reptilian hordes. (This theory copyright David Icke, 2009).

Don't even get me started on fucking decking. That stuff is just quadrupling the sadolin / ronseal grasp on the global woodstain economy.

And that stuff is toxic, too. It's carcinogenic, causes breathing difficulties, is poisonous and caustic. It's not exactly in tune with the environmental yin and yang, the essence of spring and rebirth that it's meant to represent. I don't care how few coats it takes to slather your fence in the godforsaken stuff, or how rapidly it dries to a rich woody colour. All I know is that if your pour it into your eyes, it'll probably cause severe burning and potential blindness. And how do I know this? Easy.

It does exactly what it says on the tin.

3: Manufactured pop music (with the exception of Girls Aloud)

2009-03-11T20:52:00.002Z

Music is mankind's greatest artistic achievement. I may love comedy, graffiti, video games, films and brightly coloured trainers but nothing affects my mood more than music. In my 30 years on the planet music has evolved tremendously - even more so if you look back earlier.

Composers would sit in isolation for months, even years, to bring their ideas to reality. Musical visionaries in the twentieth century were brave enough to try new things, to push boundaries: Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, James Brown, The Clash, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, The Beastie Boys, Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Burial - you could probably look through your iTunes and pull out another dozen names of geniuses to add to my ramshackle little list.

I'm fairly sure that you would not include Five, A1, 911, S-Club 7, S-Club Juniors, Gareth Gates, in fact any of the X-Factor / Pop Idol / Fame Academy solo winners or the godforsaken Spice Girls in your list. Unless someone had taken your brain in the night and replaced it with a chewed tennis ball and some mandarin jelly.

The Monkees started the manufactured pop music phenomenon, but they were still half decent. They had a funny TV programme, they had remotely catchy pop tunes - and in the 1960's, that's all you had to do. I used to write a column for an American website about music and I once described The Beatles as the most overrated band in the history of the universe - maybe a little harsh, but their early output was no more cerebral than the Monkees. Just because you have guitars and such it doesn't mean you're not a boy band.

COUGH Busted COUGH McFly COUGH.

I could accept it if our chart music output these days was Monkee-esque. But it isn't. It's an obvious point to make that our charts are ruled by whoever wins the latest reality show - but that's not what is to blame for the homogenisation of the greatest of all the art forms. I'll tell you what is.

We've got no imagination.

If you turned up at a record label now and had somehow recorded the British equivalent of Captain Beefheart in a dilapidated shack in Wales, the record label may be interested in your potential. But they'd take you to Top Man and buy you a pair of skinny jeans first, then some pointy shoes and a trenchcoat. Then they'd overproduce and water your music down until somehow your hours of genius sounded like the fucking Kooks. Again, this isn't the fault of the record labels - it's all down to us. And I'm just as bad as everyone else.

When I was a student I would spend all of my time and money on two things: Video games and music. The video games I would buy would be Japanese imports, and I would spend hours researching them and seeking them out. Music was a similar thing: I would read magazines, books, websites - all in a quest to discover something new, something exciting. Just as I no longer buy my games from the Far East, I no longer put my effort into looking for music. Because I'm lazy. I can put MTV2 on and sometimes find something I like, or I can click through iTunes and find something vaguely interesting and download it. But I don't put the effort in anymore. And no-one does. X-Factor winners dominate the chart because we let them and we're too lazy to stage a revolution. I'd love to say that we're about to have another 1976 style musical overhaul but we're not.

In the same way that it's easy to buy fast food, it's easy for teenagers to buy manufactured music. Some of it is tolerable - you'll note from my disclaimer for this little rant that Girls Aloud are excluded. This is not because I'm an FHM reader who values them merely on how they look. I mean, they're pleasant enough - if a little too WAG-esque. I can't really tell them apart, if I'm honest. My personal favourite is Nicola, and the howls of derision that this brings when I tell people so merely underlines my point about us being an unimaginitive society. She IS the prettiest, with porcelain skin and the most striking looks - but it's the easy and simple thing to do to fancy one of the blonde ones and be done with it. Or that racist one.

My positive attitude towards Girls Aloud comes because their music isn't bad. It's pop, yes - but inoffensive and almost subversive because it's actually remotely interesting. Despite the fact that "Sounds of the Underground" made my ex-wife sick when she was pregnant with our daughter (what can I say, little Amelia has good taste - her favourite songs are by MIA, Kings of Leon and Animal Collective), songs like "Love Machine" and "Biology" actually crackle with personality.

No, I'm not going insane.

They can even get away with lyrics like "I don't speak French / So I let the funky music do the talking". Because they're cheeky, the musical equvalent of a saucy 1920's postcard. The Saturdays can try and take their mantle but, cute short-haired singer aside, they have nothing visually to offer and certainly nothing at all musically. They're merely the Mr Pibb to the Girls Aloud's Dr Pepper. I would rather that Girls Aloud have continued success rather than any of the identikit Indie band out there with their lookalike £75 Toni and Guy haircuts.

I'd love to offer a solution for this problem with our music industry. But I can't. I am merely one man, and a slightly tired one at that. For all my pontificating I'm not going to make you change your music taste. And I would rather people liked SOME type of music than nothing at all. But just consider it next time you buy a CD or a download. Are you promoting the rise of a generic, own-brand music industry? Or did you purchase something interesting, vibrant, different, creative?

And if you think you're helping by buying Duffy records, you're not. She sings like a fucking mallard.

2: Roast Lamb

2009-03-10T15:54:00.002Z

The Sunday roast is a British tradition. Ask any be-backpacked traveller (that's a convenient term for "middle class and on holiday for three months") in the deepest darkest jungles of Cambodia what they miss most about Britain and they'll probably answer that they miss sitting down with their nearest and dearest for prime roasted meats, potatoes and vegetables, shrouded in rich gravy and topped off with Yorkshire puddings the size of Chichester.

My family is arguably odder than most; but not for any terrible reason, I love them all dearly. It's quite rare now that my immediate family unit (Parents and sister) sit around for dinner, just the four of us - both me and Liz having flown the proverbial nest and spawned children over the last decade. And it's a shame, because I think we're the perfect eccentric family. We'll leave me out of the descriptions, because I'll presume that you know I'm daft... the constant stream of hate-filled blogs pays testimony to that fact. My sister is the butt for the least of my jokes onstage, the hardest working person I know, a brilliant mum, sister and daughter and someone who you can have no comeback to, regardless of the base insults she casually tosses in my direction. A typical exchange between us would go like this:

ME: Hello, Liz.
LIZ: You look like a twat in those trainers.
ME: You have a point. I'm going over there to think about the many mistakes I've made.

My Dad is known to most of the people who know me through comedy as the wonderfully robust gentleman who sometimes drives me to gigs for no reason other than I'm doing OK out of comedy and I was always shit at football as a kid. He only wears black, not because he's the world's oldest and chunkiest goth, but because it's all he likes. He's got a wardrobe like a cut-price Don Simpson (I held back from the more obvious Johnny Cash reference there) - swing the door open and there are reams of black shirts and black jeans from K-Mart, and my parent's garage is full of bottles of Dreft Dark, purchased in the fear that one day it'll be discontinued and my Dad will no longer be the enigmatic man in black, more the slightly peeved man in Charcoal.

My mum is a wonderful woman. She's an awesome influence on my life, and the bravest woman in the universe. She's also responsible for quite a lot of my material, through sheer daftness. Why, just the other day she was talking to people over dinner and she said the following:

"Of course, young people don't go courting these days, do they? What do they call it now? Trapping?"

The fact that she has such a great sense of humour regarding my material is reflected in the end of my hour long show where I tell what I think is quite a touching story about her attending one of my gigs after getting the all clear from her cancer treatment. Steve Bennett called it a "pathos tinged climax", which meant I had to explain what that meant to my family. My mother thought it was a Greek Island, my sister one of the Muskahounds. I tried telling her that they were based on the Muskateers but I chickened out. I like the idea that Dogtanian was the original story, it was better.

On the rare occassions we get together for Sunday Lunch it is always a jovial, enjoyable and memorable affair. But I can guarantee that one thing will happen. I will enter the house and ask what we're having for lunch. My father will inevitably answer "Roast Lamb" with a smile on his face. He does this for a reason.

If you rank Roast Lamb as the king of all Roasts then you are a filthy liar. My order of roast preference goes like this - and therefore is completely reflective of society as a whole, because I'm a 30 year old male.

1: Roast Beef
2: Roast Chicken
3: Roast Turkey
4: Roast Pork (not a fan, but I appreciate it has a place)
5: Roast Duck
6: Roast Pheasant
7: Roast Ostrich
8: Roast Kangaroo
9: Roast Centipede
10: Roast Sea Slug
11: Roast Lemur
12: Roast Flying Squirrel
13: Roast Lighthouse-Keeper
14: Roast Bellybutton Fluff
15: Roast Lamb (at a push)

Just thinking about roast lamb makes me gag a little. Some meats are not meant to be roasted. If to enjoy a roast meat you need to cover it in mint sauce (the sauce of the devil, let's be honest) then it probably doesn't taste nice. Why enjoy the wondrous texture of beef when you could have the sliminess of lamb? Why savour a melt in the mouth slice of roast turkey when you could be chewing on a slice of baby sheep for half an hour?

The people who enjoy a lamb shish kebab or curry, I bear you no ill will. The meat of the sheep was intended to be diced, skewered and slathered in herbs and spices. For every one roast lamb someone has to be without a curry and eat Tandoori Trout. Do you want THAT on your conscience?

1: People Reversing Into Parking Spaces

2009-03-09T20:43:00.003Z

We live in a culture where people are desperate to save time. My generation is responsible for the rise in convenience food, with entire dinners distilled into plastic-bound microwave form. Our days are filled with labour saving machinery - my kitchen has the aforementioned microwave (that to be honest, I don't really trust - but that's because it has a mean face), a dishwasher, a washing machine and an iron that virtually irons clothes itself. By virtually, I mean that's what I dream of at night - that I wake up and somehow live in a Disney film. And if that ever happens, I'd like a wisecracking animal sidekick. Possibly an Otter. Called Simeon.

Not "Simon". That's important.

I won't lie to you. The time-saving elements of my kitchen are redundant as I can't cook, as I result I rarely eat off proper china (and by that I mean cheap Ikea plates, the idea of me having Royal Doulton or Spode crockery is as hilarious as it is unlikely) and I tend to do the washing when I run out of clothes and it's either put the machine on or turn up to gigs wearing tracksuit bottoms and the 1997 Leicester City shirt (with Izzet 8 on the back). And that's not the look I'm going for.

But for most people these time-saving measures are a boon. It gives them more time to work themselves into the ground at their stressful jobs, to write oddly obsessive blogs about things that irk them, to concoct complicated plans on how best to form your own army of bejeweled scooter-riding super-pandas. Essentially there are so many time and labour saving devices in our lives that we should not need to rush around anywhere. We shouldn't need to take yet further steps to speed up our day. We should be able to spend an extra five minutes a day on, lets say, our daily commute, doing whatever we like because dammit, we earned that extra time. Let us stop and pick up litter from a lay-by. Help a stranded motorist change a tyre. Park outside a nunnery playing "Regulate" by Warren G and Nate Dogg. That's all healthy and fun.

Don't use that extra time you've made to reverse into a parking space. Because as a rule, if you choose to park in this way it WILL take you all of that time to do this one simple exercise. And for what? So you can merely drive away at the end of your working day or shopping trip? You can start up your engine and drive away, giving us poor normal-parking folk a regal wave from your fucking Mini Cooper whilst we suffer the mind numbing tedium of - holy crap - reversing just the once and driving away?

I used to work in an office with its own multi storey car park. I could guarantee that every single day the person in front of me in the car park - usually a woman in their mid twenties, trying to prove their fashionista status by carrying a Bloomingdales Brown Bag and of course, driving a fucking Mini Cooper - would reverse into their space, as if to look at me and taunt me about my life. They need to get away as quick as possible at the end of the day and that additional 30 seconds they may have to spend reversing at the end of said day (as opposed to the five minutes they wasted at the beginning of their day trying to jab their fuckwitted car repeatedly into a space like a teenage virgin with a nerve-induced semi trying to coax himself into the correct hole) would merely get in the way of their important plans. The gym, coffee with friends, dinner with one of their many suitors at their perfect flat overlooking the river. Five minutes of my day may be wasted but I'm a mere regular parker, with my life limited to eating cold beans from a tin and driving a diesel Focus.

If I ever build a car park - and let's be honest, that's the dream - then I'm equipping each space with those spikes that burst your tires of you drive over them a certain way. That'll teach them.

Hatred.

2009-03-09T00:49:00.002Z

I've not been in the best mood all week, so I've been ranting about quite a few things. In the interest of promoting my own creativity and somehow channelling this terrible whining and stunted aggression into something positive, I shall now attempt to write a blog on each of the following and why the irk me so.

So yes. 50 things that I have registered my hatred for in the last seven days:

1. People reversing into parking spaces
2. Roast Lamb
3. Manufactured pop music (with the exception of Girls Aloud)
4. Creosote
5. Improper use of the word "random"
6. Cocaine
7. The Nintendo Wii
8. Alcohol
9. Furniture
10. Fresh mint (especially on potatoes)
11. Racism
12. Psychics
13. People (normally younger than me) who make everything sound like a question?
14. 30 year olds exhibiting playground homophobia
15. The music press
16. Robbie Williams
17. American TV Casting
18. Strawberries
19. Film remakes
20. Being the oldest person at music gigs
21. Coventry
22. Ageing
23. Hulk Hogan
24. Religion
25. People blowing the paper bit of restaurant straws off
26. The Daily Mail
27. Condom adverts
28. Maths
29. U2
30. My hair
31. Dancing
32. Mowing the lawn
33. Bad tattoos
34. The Now albums
35. Brie
36. My diet
37. Student music chauvanism
38. Swearing for the sake of it
39. Apple
40. Migraines
41. Stupidity
42. Punk rock imposters
43. Guitarists in shit bands spinning around like twats
44. N-Dubz
45. Txtspk
46. Fizz
47. Burlesque as an excuse
48. Dating
49. Hair straighteners
50. Cricket

They're not in any order. I'm already aware that racism is to be hated more than roast lamb - this is merely how the ideas poured into the blog, stream of consciousness stylee.

Now there's a phrase I haven't used since A-Level English, 1996.

The writings of an irritated old man to come.

Jim x

Lists.

2008-12-30T23:33:00.001Z

Word up, Gs.

As it's nearly the end of the year it's time for me to blog shamelessly in a good old review of the year kind of way. Because I've always loved lists. My favourite magazines of the year as a teenager were the end-of-year editions of NME / Kerrang / Empire / C&VG and so on - thus setting me on the path to nerdishness that I now tread most firmly on a daily basis.

Anyway, these are my lists. Tell me yours, oh Facebook friends! Because I'll read them and either nod with my chin cupped in my hand... or tut like an irked librarian.

Lets get on it.

TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2008

1: "Angles" - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Glasvegas" - Glasvegas
3: "The Hawk is Howling" - Mogwai
4: "Third" - Portishead
5: "Sunday at Devil Dirt" - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

I'll be honest, I nearly said the Kings of Leon album, because that's ace. But just missed out. I know that they'll be gutted, of course. I tried to dislike them for years, I really did. But they're quite good. Angles is the best album in years, I reckon. More people need to own it.

TOP 5 SONGS OF 2008

1: "Letter From God to Man - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
2: "Evil Urges" - My Morning Jacket
3: "Revelry" - Kings of Leon
4: "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" - She and Him
5: "Wayfaring Stranger" - Jamie Woon (Burial Remix)

I really like "Handlebars" by Flobots, but if I listed it here I'd be stoned to death by the music chauvanist illuminati. I spent most of 2008 listening to every song from "Untrue" by Burial, but as that was released in 2007 I can't bloody choose any of it. Bah.

TOP 5 GAMES OF 2008

1: Fallout 3
2: GTA IV
3: Soulcalibur IV
4: Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix
5: Saints Row 2

Look at all the sequels. Saints Row 2 is bloody good fun (and Amelia likes stealing cars and respraying them pink, so who am I to argue?), SSF2HDR is an amazing update of arguably the greatest game ever (and apt after the tattoos I've had this year), SC4 is awesome and GTA4 was worth the wait, just about. However, Fallout 3 is one of the greatest games that I've ever played. And I've wasted a lot of my life. My Xbox got the red ring of death when I was 30 hours in and I nearly cried. If you don't own it, buy it. Seriously. Words fail me. It's amazing.

TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Watched)

1: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip (Manchester Academy 3)
2: Radiohead (Old Trafford CC)
3: Those Dancing Days (Summer Sundae, Leicester)
4: Cadence Weapon (Manchester Academy 3)
5: Laura Marling (Manchester Academy 3)

Not many gigs this year, but what I did see ruled. Didn't think that after a 15 year wait to watch Radiohead that they would be topped by a beardy bloke in a hat and a fat bloke with a laptop doing a pretend business presentation in a basement in Manchester.

TOP 5 FILMS OF 2008

1: In the Valley of Elah
2: Cloverfield
3: Persepolis
4: Juno
5: Mad Detective

I didn't watch many films this year. And I know that #1 has no proper ending, #2 is daft, #3 is black and white, #4 is overrated and #5 is mental.

TOP 5 THINGS I'VE BOUGHT IN 2008

1: The girls (on my arm, not whores)
2: All the trainers
3: My phone, which now works remotely well
4: Fallout 3
5: iPod bracket for my car

My arm rules. You knows it.

TOP 5 GIGS OF 2008 (Performed at)

1: February 12th, Bambu, Leicester - First ever hour long solo show
2: October 21st, Student Union, Leicester - I love mental students
3: December 20th, Lonestar Comedy, Folkestone - Last pre xmas gig, was lovely
4: September 16th, Cheeky Monkeys, Birmingham - Fun MCing times
5: July 5th, Jumping Jaks, Bournemouth - Crazy gig with me delirious from 6hrs of tattooing

RESOLUTIONS FOR 2009...

1: Global domination
2: Eat less cake
3: Have more tattoos
4: Finish the book
5: Stop playing Fallout 3

That's it. Now swear at my lists! Have a lovely 2009, everyone.

Jim x

Ink.

2008-09-22T21:33:00.005+01:00

On Sunday I went to visit the lovely Gemma in Norwich and had some more of my arm finished off...

Here's Chun Li...

And Kitana...

Kitana hurt like hell in particular. I wanted to try and get as much done as possible but after 5 hours of work (in the most pleasant surroundings possible - Gemma's house) my arm decided to act up and not take any more. So Zelda (on my inner forearm) now has a coloured in face but not much else. My arm is very, very swollen. More to come in half term week, woo hoo!

My house now has the familiar smell of Bepanthen in the air.

Whilst being tattooed I watched the following films:

King of Kong. Genius. Billy Mitchell is the most loathsome character EVER, to the point where I was honestly convinced that everyone in the film was an actor because he's such a successful caricature of a complete tool. Also ironic to watch the film whilst having a video game tattoo. Meant I couldn't call anyone in the film a nerd, really...

The Devil Dared Me To. Silly fun. New Zealanders swearing is FUNNY.

REC. The film Diary of the Dead wishes it was. Too short, but makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Probably not the smartest move to watch a film that makes you jump whilst being tattooed, mind.

Trainwreck: My Life as an Idoit. Was reaching my pain threshold at this point, but what I could concentrate on I enjoyed a lot. Was quite touching whilst completely wrong.

No gigs this week so more blog updating than usual, I'll wager...

School.

2008-09-20T01:22:00.002+01:00

In 2 weeks time I finally leave Next after 8 years of working there. Very sad to be leaving the people behind, not exactly quite as sad to be leaving the job behind. I've grown tired of making money for rich shareholders (which is basically what I do) and at 30 I really did need to finally make the plunge and properly follow my dreams of becoming a full time comedian. So I have. Kind of.

I did want to ensure that if I didn't make it into the glamorous world of showbusiness (since I last wrote - Birmingham! Hartlepool! York! THE GLAMOUR!) that I'd be doing something I liked. Plus, I need to pay the mortgage - so I'll be going to work in my old school as a teaching assistant. I'm both excited and terrified at this sudden change in career. I'm going to be terrifically poor - but I would wager a million times happier.

Got a nice review of my performance at Cheeky Monkey's in Birmingham on Tuesday. The gig has been running for an amazing 11 years, and the promoter (Martin) is ridiculously knowledgeable about the comedy scene so it's nice to get some praise from him. He also takes pictures of every act that performs there... so this is me onstage this week, slightly blurred...

Funny.

2008-08-31T14:46:00.002+01:00

The above video is easily my favourite 2 minutes of stand up comedy of all time. I watch this and am in awe. As a fan of both James Brown and Eddie Murphy watching this still makes me giggle with glee.

Incidentally, "Delirious" was the first ever 18-certificated stand-up video I ever watched. I was about 9. I have very lenient parents who happen to be comedy fans. God job that, on both levels...

Peach.

2008-08-28T00:36:00.003+01:00

This is Peach. You can also see a small glimpse of Zelda. I'm stunned at my own shoddiness for not showing off my sleeve until now via the joys of the blogosphere. It stuns audiences into silence (even more than my Blinky tattoo on my right arm) and I love it. A thousand thanks to Gemma at Modern Body Art in Birmingham - although she has moved on now (but her gifted hands will finish the sleeve of aceness, wherever she may roam). She's brilliant and it's a great studio. I'll post more pictures as the rest of the girls are coloured...

Still to be coloured...

Zelda
Chun Li
Morrigan
Kitana

Still to be outlined...

Felicia
Tifa
Maybe one or two more...

Plus loads of little bits and bobs in between that are VERY exciting... woot!

In other news, I'm going to be covering up the tattoos to be involved with the opening of the new High Cross shopping centre in Leicester. This is the biggest thing to be happening in my home city for a long time, so this is quite a big deal to me. And a chance to try my hand at some more straight presenting, which is another string to my bow.

Archery isn't, ironically.

Glory.

2008-08-25T13:24:00.003+01:00

I like the above picture. I had hair then, and was pre-cowboy shirt days for me. I now always wear a cowboy shirt on stage - not just because it fits my opening gag, but also because Tony Law often wears them and he's a hero of mine. Anyway, that was Summer Sundae last year. I just did an image search on Google and found the above pic and one of me onstage at Cheeky Monkey's in Birmingham - looking far too thin. Which is a nice was of me saying that I'm a chubby chubster now. That was the day that I was watching the Pigeon Detectives and I got a phone call - I'd already done my slot on the Saturday, but We Are Klang were delayed on the M40 thanks to a shooting (not by them) so I had to go back to the comedy tent and perform again. Which was ace.

Right then, the Edinburgh festival is done with. Not that I was there, being poor and all, but it does mean the beginning of the new comedy year - in the same way that Wrestlemania ends the wrestling year at the end of every March. Shut up, I like wrestling.

I jumped up and down in my lounge saying "woot" when I heard that Sarah Millican won the Perrier (fuck "if.comeddie", it's a daft name) newcomer award doo-dah because she's bloody awesome, tremendously funny and ridiculously nice to everyone. Yay for her! When she's a bajillionaire I can say I gigged with her a few times and that we once sat in a bar in Edinburgh with other comedians having a laugh texting AQA. Back then I presumed that I'd be making bigger strides in comedy by now... and not that I'd actually be working for AQA. Which is actually quite nice, but that's another blog.

I have been thinking though. I've been a comedian for 3 years. The other week I met a lovely lad called Jonathon Elston, really funny kid (I can call him that, he's at least 10 years my junior) who deserves to go far. We had the standard "how long have you been going" conversation and he's been going around a year. And has done nearly as many gigs as me. At last count I've done 170 gigs. In three years. That is poor - and mainly down to my own laziness and circumstances. So that's it now. The quest for glory is on. I've got a plan. Mwuhahahahahahaha.

It doesn't really need the sinister laughter, but I kind of like it.

Part one of the plan is to get VERY good at my trade. I'm not bad. I get good work from some promoters, less good work from others and quite a few promoters sit there and have no idea who I am. Which is understandable - I never go to London to work and I certainly don't gig as much as I might. But with every gig I do I can feel myself getting better - in the same way that steroid abusers feel themselves stretching at night (apparently), I can feel my skills actually getting to a point where I'm not an enthusiastic amateur anymore and I'm really half decent. So from now on, no gig gets turned down. I will work my arse off to ensure that I get better and better and better and that I don't miss any opportunity through my own lack of motivation. Part one (a) is that I need to go to London, do open spots in tough clubs and generally put my name about a bit. It's either that or put my card in phone boxes...

Part two is hassling promoters. I'm a promoter myself so I know how annoying it is to be contacted all the time. But I've got a good CV, audio, video and a million testimonies and references - I need to be using this effectively and taking the step up. And if I get knocked back, I need to not just sit under a duvet for a week, worried that every club in the country hates me. You can't have everyone like you, after all. I jut need to keep going. Consistently.

Part three is Edinburgh, which I will now do in 2009. I did a solo show in Leicester during their comedy festival this year and it went well - it sold out, but that's more down to being a local than actually being good. But I can perform for an hour and it really wasn't bad - all the material in that show gets used during regular gigs, dependent on the audience. The name of this blog comes from my proposed Edinburgh / Leicester /Camden / Sheffield / Glasgow / Manchester hour long show in 2009 - "Boy Next Door Gone Wrong". It's the best description of my act that I've ever heard (from Rob Gee) and will move away from my club set and discuss how I went from cute, well behaved little James Daniel Smallman to heavily tattooed, useless in relationships, messed up former alcoholic Jim Smallman. I'm going to use a slideshow and everything. It'll rule.

I hope.

So then. I feel energised and ready to take on the world. Starting with the Smirking Rooms in Leeds tonight. YEAH!

(This energy will last until I have a bad gig or a flat tyre on the motorway.)

Burial.

2008-08-22T22:31:00.003+01:00

Just after Christmas 2007 I was in London, trawling the post-xmas sales and trying in vain to spend money that I'd decided upon spending in my brain. This means I didn't physically have any money, I'd just allowed for a further kick into the overdraft. I was in Fopp in Covent Garden, looking at all their recommendations for their albums of 2007. My eyes scanned across the above CD - "Untrue" by Burial. I had no idea who Burial was. Or were - as I'd immediately dismissed "them" as some low-rent metal band due to the name. I stopped reading music magazines many moons ago and as Burial was getting no radio play anywhere I had no idea what music the album contained. I then forgot about it and bought more Mogwai albums, as was the norm for me at the time.

A couple of months later I was driving to Beverley in Yorkshire for a gig. I'd forgotten any CDs for the journey so was forced to listen to Radio 1, where Radiohead were running the Evening Session. They played "Archangel" by Burial and it was one of those beuatiful moments where you hear a song and you need to do everything within you to obtain that song as soon as possible. I actually pulled onto the hard shoulder so I could write down in my notepad the name of the song and the artist, eventually remembering the little story above.

I downloaded "Untrue" the next day and was immediately blown away by it. It is the most frightening, beautiful, haunting and amazing album you will ever listen to. I recommend listening to it LOUD through a very good pair of headphones. In the dark. You will never, ever hear another album like it.

I can't describe it. Burial is a dubstep artist but the album is a twisted, ambient, deformed version of dubstep that virtually invents a new genre of music. I have not stopped boring people about this album at all in the past few months because I honestly feel everyone who has an interest in music should own a dozen copies of it. Seriously. Get it. Now.

The thing I loved about the album when I got it was that Burial was, then at least, anonymous. He's now been "outed" as William Bevan, a 2o something from South London who just happened to want to be anonymous. As the press have been doing since he got nominated for the Mercury Prize though, I spent ages trying to figure out who he was. I mean, how could you make something of such beauty, have such immense critical acclaim and be in such enormous demand as a remixer and stay anonymous unless you were already famous? The papers have recently published their theories of him being Aphex Twin or Fatboy Slim - my theory was that he was Mike Skinner. Yeah, laugh it up.

So yeah, the Mercury Prize. I've always looked at the nominations for this and picked my favourite, but the record I have picked has always been the lesser of many evils - picking something I'm ok with and don't hate. But with "Untrue" - I want it to win SO badly. I will petition Mercury themselves if I have to. This is not some pointless indie rock, or pretentious singer-songwriter-wankery - this is a project born of love to a genius, an album like no other on the planet. And it's pushed boundaries so far that they're just a dot to us now.

Get it. Here ends the advert ;)

And for those people in the UK, put BBC 3 on and watch the QOTSA set from Reading. Best lve band on Earth.

Chips.

2008-08-20T19:15:00.002+01:00

I really like chips. This is a new realisation. When I was a child, all of my friends would eat chips at lunchtime as I tried to choke down my dairylea sandwiches on that kind of squishy white bread that always tastes a little bit like it isn't properly baked. I would never look at their chips with envy though, oh no. I was safe in my knowledge that chips were bad and I was an odd kid - so doing the opposite was ok.

In the same way, I was just doing the opposite when all of my friends were getting girlfriends in their teens and I wasn't. Honest.

Anyway, tonight on my way home I passed a chip shop. And for the third time in just over a week, some unknown force dragged me towards said takeaway, like a greasy tractor beam. And just prior to writing this blog, I ate many chips. And a fishcake. And I now have this strange guilt, the same kind of guilt I would have post-masturbating as a callow youth: Knowing what I'd done was bad, but good lord did it feel good.

For the record, I don't smoke, drink or take drugs. Anymore. So this is to be my release, my opium. Anything deep fried.

The only thing better than chips is someone elses chips. Oh yeah. You know what I'm saying.

Ron knows. I was informed that Anchorman 2 is coming. I should probably claim to love loftier comedic films than anything starring Will Ferrell but naaah. He's hilarious. The fact that I own a "More Cowbell" t-shirt is testement to that.

Why.

2008-08-19T23:26:00.004+01:00

Why write a blog?

I'll tell you for why. Because I spend my days trying to stem the flow of words and rubbish that comes spewing from my cavernous mouth. People run, screaming, from my tirades. Not in a bad way, like I'm some kind of frightening beast. But in a bemused way, like they cannot believe for one second that a 30 year old who has somehow managed to father a child could talk such utter and unmitigated bollocks.

Still, that's what blogs are for - right?

I hereby promise to not talk about anything that makes any sense at all.

Bring on the trumpets.