Matthew Crosby's Readable Podcast

Another week another podcast

2011-10-14T11:47:00.002+02:00

Hello. Here's a podcast I did with Danielle Ward of Gutted/Karaoke Circus and David Reed of the Pennt Dreadfuls/Karaoke Circus. It's supposed to be about films.

Laugh Out London Podcast

2011-10-01T18:49:00.002+02:00

Here's an interview I did with the Laugh Out London podcast. It also features James Acaster & Ian Rigby...

http://laughoutlondon.co.uk/2011/10/01/matthew-crosby-james-acaster-ian-rigby/

Enjoy!

AdventureParty: Life After Edinburgh

2011-09-26T16:30:00.002+02:00

I'm gigging all over the place at the moment (I say all over the place, mainly London). My full gig list is here.

Notably I have a couple of performances of AdventureParty, my show from this year's Edinburgh festival. If you missed it in previews or up at the festival, this is your chance.

They are:

Pleasance Islington, October 18th 8pm

and

Elgar Rooms, Royal Albert Hall, November 9th, 8pm [with Andi Osho]

See you there.

AdventureParty: All month at the Edinburgh festival

2011-08-03T14:49:00.002+02:00

My solo show AdventureParty will be at the Edinburgh Festival from 3rd-29th August. If you're about, come and see it.

Tickets here: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/matthew-crosby-adventureparty

Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146769815403880

Photo of me here:

Video of me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjVDxjAoSTA

Final 4 AdventureParty previews before Edinburgh...

2011-07-22T03:04:00.002+02:00

Friday, July 22nd The Albany, Deptford

Tuesday 26th, Hope & Anchor, Islington

Wednesday, July 27th Positively 4th Street [preview w/ Josie Long]

Thursday July 28th The Duke, Dalston [preview w/ Isy Suttie]

or see it in Edinburgh 3rd-29th August 2011: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/matthew-crosby-adventureparty

More details of all these shows here!

Matthew Crosby: AdventureParty

Matthew Crosby, the short one with the glasses from sketch favourites, PAPPY’S (if.comedy award nominees, Chortle award winners), presents his debut solo show: AdventureParty. Is it an adventure? Is it a party? Is it neither? Come find out. Matthew has written for and performed in a number of TV and radio shows including The Now Show (R4), The Kevin Bishop Show, Robert's Web (Ch4), Ask Rhod Gilbert (BBC1) and The King Is Dead (BBC3).

“A rising star” BBC Culture Show
“Intriguingly Matthew Crosby from Bromley is also a comedian.” What’s On In Kent magazine

AdventureParty: Tickets on sale for Edinburgh

2011-06-12T22:16:00.003+02:00

I will be performing my show AdventureParty from the 3rd to the 29th of August 2011 at the Pleasance Cellar at 4:45pm everyday (not 16th). If you would like to buy tickets you can get them here:

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/matthew-crosby-adventureparty

Don't forget, I'm also previewing it in London and Brighton over the next few weeks. Go here for preview dates.

AdventureParty: Preview Shows

2011-05-15T22:33:00.012+02:00

This week I'm starting to preview my new show AdventureParty in preparation for the Edinburgh Festival in August. If you live in London or Brighton, then come and see me stand on a stage in a tie saying, "Is this a thing?" for up to an hour.

Friday, July 22nd The Albany, Deptford

Tuesday 26th, Hope & Anchor, Islington

Wednesday, July 27th Positively 4th Street [preview w/ Josie Long]

Thursday July 28th The Duke, Dalston [preview w/ Isy Suttie]

Yesterday was Thursday/Today it is Friday/Tomorrow is Saturday/And Sunday comes afterwards

2011-03-18T17:04:00.000+01:00

I’m writing this so as not to feel as if the entire day has been a, for want of a better, less punny term, write-off. I haven’t written anything today or done any actual work. Here is a list of what I have done instead:

I have overslept.

I have listened to Adam Carolla interviewing Bobcat Goldthwait (of the Police Academy films).

I have sent some emails.

I have been distracted from my emails by the Huffington post website.

I have read The Huffington Post’s 'favourite Rebecca Black tweets'.

I have googled Rebecca Black and found out that she is a singer.

I have watched the video for Rebecca Black’s song Friday. Twice.

I have laughed a lot. On my own. Watching a 13 year old sing a song.

I have uploaded the video for Rebecca Black’s Friday to my facebook page and checked back every 10 minutes or so to see if anyone has “liked” it.

I have watched a parody video of Rebecca Black’s Friday. Someone has recorded it in the style of Bob Dylan. It lasts nearly 6 minutes and the joke is simply that it’s a pretty faithful soundalike. I listened to the whole thing.

I have had a shower.

I have made myself a broccoli and pasta lunch.

I have washed up.

I have cleaned the George Foreman Grill.

I have sneezed whilst cleaning the George Foreman Grill.

I have cleaned the George Foreman grill again with anti-bacterial washing up liquid.

I have made a cup of tea.

I have forgotten that I’d made a cup of tea.

I have drunk a cold cup of tea.

I have been on Wikipedia site for the author of the Moomin books, Tove Jansson, and listened to the pronunciation of her name. Twice.

I have realised I’m mispronouncing Tove but nailing Jannson.

I have tweeted a joke that David Reed and I came up with last night. I say, “David Reed and I came up with”, he came up with it, I asked if I could steal it off him.

I have stooped so low as to steal things that other people have said to put on Twitter.

I have signed up to a discount vouchers mailing list on the promise of Nando’s vouchers.

I have received no Nando’s vouchers.

I have looked online and found that there is a guy selling completed Nando’s loyalty cards on ebay. 4 for a tenner.

I have decided against buying Nando’s loyalty cards on ebay.

I have decided that buying or selling Nando’s loyalty cards on ebay shows a distinct lack of loyalty.

I have tried to write an opening to the Pappy’s Tour show (tickets still available).

I have failed to write an opening to the Pappy’s tour show as I am too hungover.

I have had a hangover.

I have considered this a day wasted.

I have written this.

I have slightly revised my opinion. Looking at it written down it actually doesn’t seem like such a bad day.

Or, as Rebecca Black might put it...

But what do the spammers actually want to tell us?

2011-02-21T00:15:00.004+01:00

My twitter account has enjoyed an influx of clearly fake accounts (No tweets, very few followers, weird mismatched names). I've just spent the last 20 mins blocking them all. Whilst this pained me greatly, as I'm always happy to see my following go up, it also gave me the opportunity to read some of the bizarre mottos these accounts had put in their biogs to convince the me that they came from real people. I've collected them here for no other reason (aside from mild OCD) than they made me laugh a bit. Enjoy!

EDIT: Feel free to add any you have been spammed with in the comments section.

"I'm a brazilian jiujitsu student, freelance writer, like to do extreme sport."

"we are the dreamers of dreams"

"Swedish web developer."

"Bitch Please"

"Canadian software guy living in Tokyo for ages."

"Music. Science. Outdoors. Eating. Challenges."

"Inventor, Entreprenuer, Army Wife, Motivator"

"Former community radio presenter and soon to be ex webmaster who is moving back to the mainstream."

"I am Physical Graffiti"

"Stay at home mommy to two adorable kidlets, and Blockhead ;)"

"entrepreneurial, people, opportunity - looking for them all"

"...Life is good for only two things: discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics... ...."

"Stalk me through Twitter. Check out my Youtube channel as well."

"Proud mother of four kids"

"writer, novelist and Blogger"

"On-Line store Vintage, Retro, Indie, Nurave, emo etc etc etc etc etc Just check out our website"

"Crossword Puzzle fanatic, Bargain hunter, Chocolate Lover, Comedy afficionada."

"Christian, Writer, Novelist, and Music Producer"

"with a love like that, you know you should be glad."

"I write stories, sing songs, and discuss roots music ad nauseum."

"Midwest boy"

"building social commerce one step at a time"

"Mia Allen is not just a Home Decor Business. Call me to ask how you can raise money for your fund raiser! 231-409-1417"

"ask your mom."

"All around awesome chick."

"I am nice and cool, college boy! Follow me"

"Student, musician, techie, gadget geek, Apple fanatic, IT expert"

"Short film producer. TV innovator. Sushi enthusiast. Geek."

Guess where I'll be performing on May 1st

2011-02-16T09:56:00.001+01:00

My Gig List

2011-01-04T17:41:00.011+01:00

Here's where you can see me doing comedy. If you'd like to see me as part of Pappy's you can see our gig list on our website.

Brief Stand-Up Biog
Matthew Crosby is one third of award winning sketch team Pappy's. With them he has won a Chortle Award, been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly Perrier) and performed comedy all over the world. Without them he is a stand-up comic who has performed comedy all over the world but in much smaller venues. He has written for a number of TV and radio shows including The Kevin Bishop Show, Ask Rhod Gilbert, The King Is Dead and Robert's Web. His stand-up has been featured on the BBC's Culture show; so it must be important.

"A rising star" BBC Culture Show
"Compact, controlling" The Times

A new year's resolution

2011-01-03T17:11:00.000+01:00

Hello. One of my new year's resolutions [that I'm willing to publish] is to do more stand up comedy. I really enjoy it but Pappy's has sort of taken over in the last few years. Obviously the majority of the live stuff I do will still be Pappy's related (we're going out on TOUR this year!) but I also want to do more solo gigs.

"What has this got to do with me?" I hear you ask (that's right, I can hear you through my blog).

Well, you can do one of three things:

a) Come and see me do a gig. You can find my gig list on this blog!

b) If you run a gig please book me for it. If you know someone who runs a gig, please encourage them to book me for it.

c) Talk about my stand-up (whether you've seen it or not) in excited-yet-hushed tones to create what my agents call "a buzz".

But mostly do the first one. Happy New Year.

Ask Gleeves?

2010-12-09T13:07:00.003+01:00

I've been asked to answer the question "What Is Glee?" by Ask Jeeves. Here's what I came up with. And check out the picture too. Bet you wish you were as cool and moody and black & white as me.

For many, Glee is a TV show from America that takes elements from a bunch of different pop culture products (High School Musical, the movie Election, Jane Lynch’s character in Role Models, the music of Britney Spears) and packages them together to make one thing that isn’t quite as good or unique as the things from which it has borrowed. It’s inexplicably described as a comedy and explicably insanely popular. The show gets its name from High School Glee clubs where groups of teens get together to performs songs by systematically removing meaning and, in its place, adding rows of gleaming teeth formed into smiles that would seem forced and garish in the opening sequence of Blue Velvet. These clubs, as far as I’m concerned, have as little to do with the word ‘glee’ as badges on a TGI Fridays waitress’ uniform have to do with the word ‘flair’.

The feeling of glee is different to happiness. It’s devilish, it’s naughty. It’s best summarised, to my mind, by my friend Fordy. Fordy is a man controlled by his own wide –eyed excitement at the world around him. When Fordy is possessed (and there really is no other word for what true glee does to you), whether by a song or a memory or an anecdote or the thought of his heroes Stuart Pearce or Tony Blair, his whole body convulses. He shakes with excitement. He emits high-pitched yelps and squeals. He rubs his face uncontrollably. It might sound horrible in print but in person it’s infectious. It’s real and it’s visceral and it’s more compelling for me than hearing the phrase Grilled Cheesus will ever be.

Find out more about Matt [sic] and what he thinks at: matthewcrosby.blogspot.com /www.twitter.com/matthewcrosby / www.pappyscomedy.com

Technology song

2010-12-03T18:33:00.002+01:00

Here's a thing that Pappy's filmed for Channel 4's website. Hope you enjoy it...

I'm guest editing 'This Just In' today

2010-09-17T15:48:00.003+02:00

Channel 4 have asked me to guest edit their topical comedy website, This Just In.

You can read all about it here: http://thisjustin.channel4.com/author/matthew-crosby or follow them/me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/C4ThisJustIn

Also, the Trinny and Susannah show that I was a part of has been turned into a real TV show in much the same way that Pinocchio was turned into a real boy. You can see my wooden performance on Channel 4 on Thursday 30th September at 9pm.

See ya!

Matthew Crosby: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

2010-08-06T17:01:00.002+02:00

I've written a short blog for The Fix. Enjoy it here.

Tickets for our Edinburgh show, All Business, can be found here (just click on the poster on the front page).

Trinny and Susannah

2010-07-01T23:49:00.002+02:00

I play Toby the agent in Trinny and Susannah's new mockumentary. You can watch all 4 parts of my episode here. Hope you enjoy it.

The #TwitterMan cometh

2010-06-26T10:29:00.002+02:00

For those who have just joined us, I'm going to spend all of today letting my followers on Twitter make my decisions for me. After yesterday's poll it appears I am going to watch a good film on my laptop during a screening of a bad film at the cinema; take off my trousers in the post office and post them to one of my followers; and get on a train going a-ny-where. Wish me luck.

But it doesn't stop there. I'll be posting mini decisions for you to vote on throughout the day. So keep following. My twitter account can be found here.

My first #TwitterMan poll is GO!

2010-06-25T11:15:00.002+02:00

For roughly 24 hours I am going to use Twitter to make all my decisions. This is going to happen on Saturday 26th of June.

Here's a list of the best options my followers came up with. Vote for your favourites and I'll see what I can do.

Obviously I will be responding to new suggestions throughout the day. This is just to give me a start.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and to use the hashtag #TwitterMan.

Where have I been? I've been on Twitter.

2010-06-18T13:58:00.004+02:00

I pretty much never update this blog so I'm not expecting many people to see this. Of late, most of my blogging has been micro (you can follow me here http://twitter.com/matthewcrosby). In fact, do follow me here becuase I'm planning something that you might be interested in.

#EDIT

For roughly 24 hours I am going to use Twitter to make all my decisions. This is going to happen on Saturday 26th of June. Note the change of date!

There will be more rules to follow but let's start with something simple: go to my Twitter and message me with suggestions of things I should do on that day. I'll make a list of the best ones and you can vote on your favourites.

Finally, your dream of controlling an obscure comedian and writer can become a beautiful reality.

Oh, and use the hashtag #TwitterMan

Fighting the good fight

2009-08-13T18:42:00.003+02:00

I interviewed Julian Hall of the Independent and attempted to take him to task on his feelings about sketch comedy. You can hear it as part of the chortle podcast (there is also an extended version of the interview on the same page).

A proper blog to follow but, before that, here are some of my favourite shows so far:

Eric's Tales of the Sea
King of Everything
2 Episodes of Mash
Brian Gittins
Helen Keen
Jimmy McGhie
Colin Hoult

However, best of all was Felicity Ward. Her show is probably my favourite thing I have seen this festival. It's utterly brilliant. Please please please go and see it. And then see King of Everything. And then see something else. And end your day at Fordy's Lock In.

Bye!

Everybody loves a techie, tourist

2009-08-05T01:48:00.003+02:00

Just returned from a tech run that went pretty smoothly. Being in a big theatre means we can have real lights and proper cues, which we're not that used to. We kept forgetting things that we needed and enraging the techies. Actually enraging is a bit strong. They were tired and we were disorganised. We, having spent the day remaking props and watching Aziz Ansari's hilarious Raaaaaaaandy character's videos on FunnyOrDie, were not all that tired and were thus, a bit annoying. But there is a real excitement from both sides of the curtain about the start of the festival and the tech ended with apologies on both sides for being tired/a team of four unprofessional dickheads who have somehow found themselves in a real theatre.

Afterwards went for a pint in Brass Monkey and had the first of many Edinburgh experiences. Walking into a bar and knowing most of the people there. It was just like being at University. Except most of the people there didn't mind me talking to them.

At my door a group of Edinburgh locals were entering the flat as I was. I wished them a good day and enquired which flat they were in.
"That's none of your fuckin' business. It's higher up than yours 'cos we're on the third floor", came the suprisingly competitive and aggressive response. That felt more like University.

First show later today so I'm off for a sleep. Thanks for all the kind messages welcoming me back into the blogosphere. And for the one message that claims "every race is equally racist towards each other and that is everyones right." Goddamn you, Herring! Leave my blog in peace!

I've just arrived in Edinburgh

2009-08-04T00:58:00.006+02:00

So that seems a good reason to start writing the blog again.

Our show, Pappy's Fun Club's World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches in an Hour, starts on Wednesday 5th August. Blame preparations for that, several other writing jobs and my general laziness for my lack of blog for the last few months. Strangely, according to google analytics, the blog is more popular in my absence than it has ever been. This is thanks in large part to the number of racists and non-racists that frequent this page. In fact that page was recently-ish recommended by Richard Herring who according to the G2 falls into one of those categories: racist or non-racist. I can't remember which as I wasn't paying much attention whilst reading the article. After all, if the writer can't be bothered to then why should I?

So here I am again in Edinburgh, my favourite place to be during August. It is deceptively lovely weather, birds are chirruping outside yet, since my arrival, the only time I have set foot on good-old Scottish soil is to walk from the car to the flat. I've been in town for nearly 20 hours and I haven't been outside.

I'll tell you a few things about what I have been up to prior to this month, then I'll go and do our tech rehearsal, then hopefully I'll see someone or do something that'll give me something to write about that requires more than 140 characters.

I wrote a bunch of sketches for this series of The Kevin Bishop show. I'm especially proud of my Crank parody, The Puncher. Jason Statham is injected with a strange potion that means he can't stop punching. I also performed in a sketch in which I had to play rugby. Unfortunately I was cut out of most of the 'action' scenes as I looked scared every time the ball came to me. In fact, in a number of shots, out of pure flashback-to-Grammar-school knee-jerk reaction, I actually said,"Sorry!" on catching the ball.

I also co-wrote and performed in a few sketches for the late night topical show TNT Show. The show films on a Tuesday and airs on a Thursday. Upsettingly, I performed a sketch about Michael Jackson (the premise being that he wasn't as ill as the papers were saying, he wasn't using lookalikes and-to prove it- here he is. Cue crap lookalike, ie me) on the Tuesday before his sudden and semi-unexpected death. The news broke on the Thursday night, just as the show was beginning. This of course threw me, the producers and my co-stars into a bit of a panic. In the end Channel 4 did, well, this:

Which was the best they could do in the 15 minutes they had. Read the [not exactly] full story here. One thing that did make it was my girlfriend Charlie's La Roux spoof. Here that is instead...

TNT Show - La Roux parody @ Yahoo! Video

Well, it's good to be back. Hit me up with comments and all that.

Hello. Sorry I've not been about.

2009-06-09T00:16:00.000+02:00

I will be back on the blog train very soon. In the meantime, have a look at what Pappy's got up to for the Twitter Comedy gig tonight.

It's all here.

Hello, this is Matthew, I'm going to be on TV

2009-04-17T17:05:00.003+02:00

I'm going to be on the BBC 2 show Winging It tomorrow at 12.45pm (a perfect hangover treat). More details of the show are here. But the BBC website describes it thusly:

Comedy series which features quick-witted comedians who are thrust into unfamiliar scenarios and forced to improvise their way out of them.
Sporting a fake identity and with no time to prepare, the comedians will be pushed to the limit as they desperately try to adapt to their challenge. Each challenge begins with the performer receiving a dossier they won't be allowed to open until minutes before their assignment begins.

This fearless cast of the best new comedy talent, will be guided through their assignment by the Wing Commander who will communicate with them via an earpiece. Their mission will contain several 'hit points' - pre-planned obstacles, which increase in difficulty as the challenge progresses.The Wing Commmander will be pushing the comedians and will secretly trigger each new part of the 'hit'.

In the first show, performer Jonny Sweet pretends to be a careers advisor and, without any preparation, delivers some dubious tips to a group of jobseekers. Meanwhile, Matthew Crosby takes on the role of leading environmentalist Julian Glacier and, with no time to prepare, delivers a made up-on-the-spot lecture to a group of budding planet savers. Will they be able to convince the public they are experts in a field they know nothing about? Or will their audience realise they are Winging It?

If you miss it you can see it on iPlayer (for 7 days after it's on) right here!

The MCRP will return very soon.

PFC on Tour 29: Colchester Minute

2009-04-13T01:49:00.002+02:00

Read all about our exploits in Colchester here at Pappy's Fun Club's new blog.

MCRP waves goodbye to PFCTB

2009-04-13T00:10:00.000+02:00

Pappy's Fun Club will soon be moving its blog to a more permanent home. Matthew Crosby's Readable Podcast has certainly enjoyed hosting the Pappy's Fun Club Tour blog but, frankly, its outstayed its welcome and we need our sofa back. Besides, Pappy's Fun Club's Tour Blog has an annoying habit of taking off its clothes when we have guests.

So goodbye PFC's TB (I know that's not a great acronym) and godspeed!

Easter Sunday treat!

2009-04-12T15:58:00.003+02:00

You can listen to Matthew on the Gulbenkian Theatre podcast here. Unfortunately, as only Matthew was available for the podcast, he attempted to 'do' the voices of the rest of the Fun Club. Although this was the podcast host's idea, Matthew still agreed, despite being a far from expert impresionist. Anyway, enjoy the mildly upsetting results.

Good Friday treat!

2009-04-10T14:03:00.002+02:00

To celebrate the bank holiday weekend here are a few (only just written but backdated to make them look like we'd written them on the nights of the gigs in question) blog entries about some tour dates we have done in the last few weeks. Hope you enjoy them!

Aldershot

Bath

Newbury

Bournemouth

Reading

New Milton

Also, don't forget to check out our newly revamped website. We'll try and keep posting new content throughout the tour.

Also, congratulations to our pals at Answer Me This podcast. They were nominated for a Sony award this week!

Notes from the Archive: Time Out Article June 2008

2009-04-05T14:21:00.003+02:00

Seeing as we've revamped our website a bit, we thought we'd collect some stuff we'd written and post it. For starters, here's an article we wrote for London listings guide Time Out in June 2008. Fans/nerds might be interested to note that this is the first outing of the "pre-gig ritual" joke.

But before that, it's worth having a look at this picture that Sally (who made the fantastic square headed versions of us) has created. We'll leave you to decide whether she is a heroic genius of art and design or a sex pervert.

See? Anyway here is the article...

A day in the life of Pappy's Fun Club

Hey everybody we’re Pappy’s Fun Club. We’re a sketch team made up of Ben, Brendan, Matthew and Tom. You may have heard us on Radio 4 (doing a show that we called ‘Pappy’s Fun Club’) or on Radio One’s Switch. Maybe you saw us on Comedy Shuffle on BBC3? Perhaps you have seen us live? Most likely you haven’t seen or heard of us before, which is why Time Out have asked us to write this little introduction to ourselves.

Our rich and mysterious benefactor, Pappy, has put us up in a lovely ex-council flat in London’s most exclusive and up and coming area: Streatham. Every day is an adventure for Pappy’s Fun Club so we thought we’d talk you through exactly how we fill our waking hours.

7 AM
Brendan: I like to be the first one awake at Pappy Towers so that I can begin inputting the data into my ‘hours slept’ spreadsheet. Unfortunately this morning I was trumped by Ben who was already awake as I left my room. He normally doesn’t get up until well into the afternoon. How did he do it?

Ben: I didn’t go to bed last night, I was up all night cow tipping. Or at least I would have been had I been able to find any cows in South London. In the end I decided to go fly tipping which was far less fun, although I did get rid of that old washing machine.

Tom: For breakfast this morning I made and ate a bread and butter pudding. I used my grandma’s recipe: 4 pints of milk and three loaves of bread.

Matthew: Woke up last and was dismayed to find that someone had used all the bread and milk. I’ve no idea how that happened; I’d just bought 4 pints of milk and three loaves of bread. Stranger still, I went to take my clothes out of the washing machine and it had gone.

10 AM
Tom: Each day begins with us completing our chores. To help speed things up we get to choose music to play whilst we’re doing them. It was my turn to pick today!

Matthew: Tom’s choice of the Chariots of Fire theme tune slowed down ‘chore time’ to a near halt. It’s very difficult to buff brass in slow motion.

Brendan: Took the bins out and emptied the dishwasher on ‘Chores 2’ my new game for the Nintendo DS. Finished the level just as the boys were wrapping up the housework.

Ben: The toaster was so dirty I decided to take it into the bath with me for a clean.

MIDDAY

Matthew: Shortly after we resuscitated Ben, Pappy rings. He calls us everyday at midday with the location of the evening’s gig. This is fine if the gig is local but more problematic if it’s in, say, Melbourne and we only have seven hours to get there.

Ben: I do hope we get to meet Pappy one day. I always think of him living in his ivory castle on a Himalayan slope possessing magical creatures and a gold bag.

Brendan: Pappy lives in a care home in Putney. I would tell the boys but I’m sworn to secrecy and it’d shatter Ben’s dreams of a gold bag.

3 PM

Brendan: Bit of spare time so I decided to log on and check out how my cyber-self is getting on in Second Life. Alarmed to find my avatar is spending too much time on the computer in his virtual world. Must spend more time online to ensure he has a more rounded existence.

7 PM

Brendan: Journey to the gig was great. Ben did all the driving.

Ben: Great journey. Brendan even let me sit in the special seat with the wheel. Slept all the way there.

Tom: Sat next to Matthew on the trip. Entertained him for the whole journey with my brilliantly silly songs. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe!

Matthew: Had to sit next to Tom again. He insisted on singing his version of Thriller for the entire journey, replacing the word thriller with rhyming words. Vanilla, Chinchilla, George Forman Griller, Manilla (envelope), Sienna Miller, GrooveJet by Spiller. I wanted to murder him. He didn’t even stop to help me during my asthma attack.

9:30 PM
Brendan: Our pre-gig ritual never changes. We gather in a circle and chant in unison, “At least we’re not gigging in Nottingham.”

Tom: Our pre-gig ritual only changes if we’re playing in Nottingham, when we gather in a circle and chant, “We’re all going to die.”

Matthew: The lights go up and it’s time for Pappy’s Fun Club to begin another exciting show. All we need now is for Ben to kick off our opening song.

Ben: It’s only once Pappy’s are onstage that I remember: I’ve forgotten the first line of the song. And the guitar. And to go onstage.

MIDNIGHT

Matthew: Another great day for Pappy’s Fun Club. As we drift off to sleep I look over and smile at Tom and Ben snuggled up to an already sleeping Brendan. Goodnight Pappy’s.

Brendan: Wake up to find the other three have got into my bed again. Sleep on the floor.

PFC on Tour 28: New Milton what I do, all I think about is you, even when I'm with my boo, you know I'm crazy over you

2009-03-29T00:59:00.001+01:00

New Milton's Forest Arts centre has possibly the biggest stage we've ever played. Not necessarily the widest but the deepest, meaning that every entrance required a jog of about 20ft. Being wildly unfit, this meant that each sketch began with panting.

Tom went out on his own discipline tonight and ventured into the audience during the Blue Whale sketch, appealing to the audience to make human connections with one another. Although all he could manage to glean from the audience member he spoke to was what he'd had for breakfast.
Perhaps the whale was inspired by the Forest Art Centre's logo- a giant fish.

PFC on Tour 26: Reading for action

2009-03-26T00:59:00.003+01:00

Worryingly, shortly before this gig Tom and Matthew had been told by two different comedians that this venue was the site of their worst ever deaths. Luckily we're clearly much better than those two comedians.

Tonight's show was notably for a fly landing on Tom's chest during the show. He christened him Carl. Strangely Carl stayed attached to Tom's t-shirt for about 20 minutes before flying off during one on Tom's more energetic dance routines. Probably off to join the Penny Dreadfuls.
Matthew left his phone in the venue. He got it back the next day though so- phew- that was a close one, eh readers?

PFC on Tour 25: Bournemouth to do it.

2009-03-25T00:59:00.000+01:00

A strange gig. We'd got very used to playing arts centres that, when faced with a proper student comedy night, we wondered whether or not the show would go over. Especially after taking a few days off. In the end it really did- although it was far more shouty and aggressive than previous shows on the tour. The audience were a bit watchy in the first half but after they had a break for booze and pizza (if you book a table you get a free pizza- now we know why we haven't been selling out!) they really got into it. This review takes a similar view.

PFC on Tour 24: Newbury me with my boots on

2009-03-22T00:59:00.003+01:00

Another cracking show in this venue that's also a curry house. In fact there's a deal in the contract which allows a free curry (up to £10) for every performer. So here we are with Tom's aunty Joy enjoying the spoils of our success.The audience expectantly waiting for the show to finish so they can all have a curry. Pappy's excitedly deciding which curry they are going to have. The final choice is made. An innovative feat of architecture. The show was also noteworthy for an onstage argument between Tom and Ben about capoeira which ended with them wearing each other's clothes.

PFC on Tour 23: He who Baths last

2009-03-21T00:59:00.000+01:00

Last time we were at the Bath Rondo the audience was largely comprised of a French exchange group who had been brought along by their teacher, we suppose, with the intention of learning English. The teacher sat there with his head in his hands for much of the show whilst the kids sat there clearly not enjoying any of what we did. So it was exciting to have an English speaking crowd in tonight. And not just English speaking but lovely to boot. Thanks for a great time.

There's also an incredible burger place over the road that does all manner of different styles of burger and a variety of different meats (including ostrich and wild boar). Anyway, here are some pictures.

The gorgeous Bath Rondo theatre.
The unnecessarily large dressing room. Ben helps Tom pack up the show.Matthew watches Ben help Tom pack up the show.Us outside the Bath Rondo. Post-show pre-Boar burger.

PFC on Tour 22: Aldershot through the heart and you're to blame

2009-03-20T00:59:00.001+01:00

We're a bit behind on updating the blog so the next few posts are going to be quick and photographic.

Aldershot saw us at our most tired so far as a result of our mammoth London-Glasgow-Cranleigh-London journey the day before. And strangely, there was a massive dancefloor-like area between the first bank of audience seating and the next. Obviously the audience decided to sit in the bank nearest the back so most of the crowd were a good 20-30 ft away from us throughout the show.

However, it turned out to be a fun show as you can see from our faces in this snap. Look at Ben, he looks like he's posing outside his house on his first day of big school.

PFC on Tour 21: It's a Cranleigh affair

2009-03-19T00:59:00.001+01:00

We arrived early in the sumptuous villagy surroundings of Cranleigh with a few hours to kill, having driven for 7 hours. It should be noted that Tom did all of the driving.

At a service station on the way down Tom was accosted by a German man who claimed to be a businessman whose wife was pregnant and was on his way to Dublin. He’d left all his sterling and his credit cards in London and was unable to pay for his petrol but assured Tom that if he leant him £80 he would repay him £1000 the next day. After a lengthy conversation, the gist of which was that Tom- or any of us- didn’t have £80, the man got back into his car and drove off. We saw him a few minutes later drive back into the services and accost another man. Presumably he kept doing this until someone fell for his scam.

Once in Cranleigh we ate fish and chips (Tom and Matthew) and Pizza Express (Ben and Brendan) and began setting up the show. Like last night’s gig in Glasgow, the show was in another converted church. Unlike last night’s gig, which was in a 200ish seater venue, tonight would be packed if we got 40 in. Which we did.
The show had the feeling of a town meeting with most of the audience knowing one another. Tom began with a backstage announcement, “Cranleigh, tonight you are family!” and it really felt that way. Perhaps there’s something to be said for driving 7 or so hours before each gig for helping us get ‘in the zone’.

We took a bunch of pictures so this entry will be more photo-diary than anything else. Enjoy.

Matthew gave the Blue Whale a new lick of paint, the fumes (and the 16 hours of driving) overpowered Tom. Tom was so tired, he was able to sleep almost anywhere. This slightly disrupted Ben and Matthew's musical push-ups warm up routine. But only slightly.The backstage was a kitchen. Here's Brendan about to put our travel guitar in to bake at gas mark 5. Not content with his push ups, Ben decides to use tonight's gig to teach himself to read. Note promoter Jon Briley skulking about in the background, planning ways he can disrupt our show with his dodgy sound-cues. Finally the audience start arriving. If only someone had made a handy to sign so they knew which room to go to...

PFC on Tour 20: If you gotta Glasgow, Glasgow with a smile

2009-03-18T00:59:00.000+01:00

Our trip to Glasgow began with an all-day drive with the prospect of another all-day drive the next day to Cranleigh in Surrey. Yes, we’re idiots.

Showing an uncharacteristic amount of foresight we all pitched in to provide packed lunches for the journey. Yes, we were still eating sandwiches; but at least they weren’t £4 each. We were eating sandwiches on our own terms.

The SatNav played an early stinker by leading us straight through the centre of Westminster. Undoubtedly the straightest route but by no means the fastest. You could say that, having lived in London for years, the stinker was in fact ours but, such is the tremendous power of the SatNav, we have now become entirely trusting of and dependent on it. Yes, we’re idiots.

Brendan attempted to Twitter the journey but, as we pretty much drove for 7 straight hours, there was little to say that wasn’t “In a car” or “Eating a banana”. That said, it was still more interesting than 98% of the tweets we read that day.

The gig itself was in the Tron which, from experience of the Edinburgh Tron, we expected to be an It’s A Scream pub but actually turned out to be a beautiful converted church. The gig itself was notable firstly for the presence of both Ben’s cousins and the lovely girls who made these t-shirts for Edinburgh last year*, and secondly for the fact that Brendan, goaded on by Tom, tried to kick him up the arse and managed to make contact with both of Tom’s balls instead. The Blue Whale was bluer than usual.*Who, as we’d forgotten our camera, took the pictures of us outside the gig. Check out the one at the top of this post: Matthew, due to his height and hair, blends almost imperceptibly into the group of girls. Haha!

PFC on Tour 19: Thrown to the Wolverhampton

2009-03-16T21:09:00.008+01:00

Yes! Finally we sell out a show. We even needed this security guard to make sure we weren't mobbed by any of our superfans. Here he is attempting to hold back the mob.

Admittedly the show was in Wolverhampton, where Tom and Ben still have a lot of friends and family, but it was still a sellout! All tickets sold!

We even got supercool Almost Famous style backstage passes. Brendan demonstrated exactly how supercool he is by wearing it on his thigh. The very thigh that's doing so well in last week's poll.
Our sound guy, Max, managed to make a series of delightfully well-placed errors during the show bringing a sound cue in early three times in the same sketch. This only enhanced the chaos and stupidity of a show that also included an impromptu competition to think of as many words or phrases that rhyme with "kwik fit fitter" and Matthew leaving Tom onstage mid-sketch to perform stand up about his family's reaction to his weightgain/weightloss. It was a very strange show. Here's our view from the stage. And here are some words written about the show on a blog.

Pressing Issues

2009-03-12T20:48:00.003+01:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know we misspelled wrap as warp in the most recent poll (still open by the way) but seriously 3 comments?

Here are a few articles from the past few days that either mention or feature your favourite Fun Club.

Warp your eyes around these. Dammit! Curse you spellchecker!

Is this the death of the TV comedy sketch show? from the Guardian.

Where to see the best comedy sketch shows from the Independent.

Pappy's Fun Club talk to Maddog magazine from Maddog magazine.

Photoshop Me This!

2009-03-11T00:11:00.002+01:00

Helen and Olly, our friends at the Answer Me This podcast, are running a photoshop challenge. Simply find a picture and photoshop Helen and Olly (or Martin the Soundman) into it.

Gareth from Glasgow felt the need to add not only all of Pappy's into this poster from the movie Hairspray, but also Josie Long and musician Gavin Osborn.

Perhaps you might want to do the same. That's right. We want you to sabotage our friends' competition with Pappy-related entries.

Here's where you can go to take part in Helen and Olly's photoshop challenge.

PFC on Tour 19: View from Cambridge

2009-03-08T22:45:00.001+01:00

Sadly, we forgot the camera at the gig we played in Cambridge. The show was great fun with a mess up in the sound cues leading to the venue's tech guy being the butt of all our jokes- which certainly took the pressure off us.

Tom performed an incendiary, blistering Blue Whale that culminated in a diatribe about rose wine drinking Travelodge guests. It was magical, but you had to be there.

So, in lieu of actual photos, here's another poll (suggested by our friend and Basildon audience member, Richard Sandling). Get voting!

poll by twiigs.com

PFC on Tour 18: Basildon You No Harm

2009-03-07T14:22:00.001+01:00

Charlie Lansborough was in the big room (the Tom Paxton of this gig) whilst we hung out in the smaller house, a theatre that had an old-fashioned Muppets style curtain that raised at the start of each section. This impressed us so much that both halves began with us bounding onstage and calling out, "Look at that! Wow! Incredible! A curtain!" to the largely non-plussed audience. Presumably they had seen curtains before.

Brendan, Matthew and Tom travelled up by train as they had been to see the incredible play Stovepipe by Adam Brace. It's the story of a mercenary's hunt for his friend in post-war Amman. It's housed in the West 12 shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush and is a moving piece of promenade theatre. If you have any interest in theatre- and how can any fan of the Fun Club not?- then please go and see this play. More details can be found here.

Luckily, Ben was driving the car with all the stuff to the venue to ensure there wasn't a mad rush to get set up before the audience arived. Unluckily, Ben thought it would be totally fine to leave at 5pm. In rush hour. On a Friday. He arrived with moments to spare and the show-and curtain- went up on time. Ben blamed the SatNav. The curse of trusting a machine to do the work of a human brain. Did we learn nothing from Short Circuit?

Our pal and movie buff, Richard sandling was in the crowd to fill the room with his raucous laughter- and our hearts with jealousy when he revealed he'd taken the day off to see Watchmen- which was a welcome boost. You can see his bearded face in the onstage shot of Tom in full internet garb, above.

Here we are, realaxing outside the venue. If this photo had been taken a mere 5 minutes later, we would have been crushed to death by stampeding old biddies all hopped up on Charlie Lansborough induced lust. And by the way, if you are thinking of starting a video shop in the mid-80s, the Towngate theatre know a place you can get the perfect sign for it.

PFC on Tour 17: This means War[wick Arts Centre]

2009-03-06T19:44:00.000+01:00

A nice big audience (that included Brendy's father and star of Channel 4's Comedy Lab, Alan Dodds) came out to see us at Coventry's Warwick Arts Centre last night. Prior to the gig Matthew had been wandering about outside reciting his usual mantra of "What can I Twitter about?" when he came across seasons 5 and 6 of Seinfeld in the Arts Centre's gift shop for £5 each. Thus, the others were treated to the sight of him running backstage in an asthmatic panic to grab his wallet- despite the fact that the show was due to start in mere moments.

The show itself was a happy shambles with several young kids in the audience, clearly lured in by the vibrant poster design and kiddie-show title. It's only when you have kids in that you realise exactly how un-family this show can be. "Daddy? What does tossed off a unicorn mean?"

Further excitement came during the drive onto the campus. Check out the awesome sign they had to advertise the show. It's not quite having your name in lights but, as PBH might put it, "it's bloody close!"

Here's a picture that Brendy took of the venue that makes it look quite ominous. It isn't.And here's one of us that makes us look like two couples. Which we almost are. But what goes on tour, stays on tour!

PFC on Tour 16: Maidenhead of steam

2009-03-01T11:45:00.001+01:00

The gorgeous, Swan-like space that is the Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead was our venue for yesterday evening’s show. We arrived early so Tom, Brendan and Ben could enjoy the rugby and Matthew could enjoy soundchecking and setting up the props for the show. As the show began we realised that there were a couple of quite young kids in the audience. We try not to change the show to suit the audience but a few not-entirely-neccessary swears were replaced with ‘goddamns’. For some reason this amused us no end and each goddamn was met by a giggles from the other three.

Once again it was another packed house.
Ben brought the show to a near-standstill by failing to appear onstage during a pivotal moment in the show but it was Brendan’s turn to play the clumsy prick-end tonight, as he exited a sketch by walking into a temporary wall. His version of styling it out was to do it a second time later in the show- so that, “people would think I had done it on purpose the first time.” No one was fooled.

PFC on Tour 15: Basingstoke the Fires of the Forge

2009-02-28T14:22:00.002+01:00

After a night off we played to a hot Friday night crowd at Basingstoke’s Anvil Theatre. The SatNav managed to take us all the way to the venue this time. Much to Tom's surprise!When we arrived we found that the big room, a 500 seater, was playing host to folk musician Tom Paxton. We were in the smaller room, which was lucky, as having 25 people in a 100 seater venue was tough enough. The woman who ran both the concessions stand and took tickets on the door told us that Russell Brand had managed to attract 11 people the penultimate time he’d visited their venue but had promised to come back and sell out the big room. He made good on his promise, as indeed will we. Although we made the slightly more realistic promise of half filling the small room the next time we came to Basingstoke.
Tom Paxton was referenced throughout the show, especially by [our] Tom. His quote in the venue’s brochure was something along the lines of, “Tom’s songs are fine songs in anyone’s book” which apparently sold him 500 tickets. Just goes to show that people would sooner see a “fine” singer than “the funniest”* sketch team.
After the show we met a couple who had been to see Paxton but had been at our gig in Fareham two days earlier and came up to say how much they’d enjoyed the show. Our show, that is. Not Paxton’s. That would have been rude and not a little awkward. Tom missed this meeting as he had gone to find Paxton, who had gathered quite a crowd as he signed autographs and sold CDs, and was busy flipping him off.*The Scotsman, Aug 2008

Vote for us in the Pappy awards 2!

2009-02-27T14:11:00.006+01:00

A new weekend and thus a new poll for Pappy's. Thanks to everyone on Twitter who helped come up with suggestions for future polls. Matthew has closed the sexy poll for two reasons. Firstly, Tom felt that the number of naked photos of him on this blog over the last few weeks have skewed the results (he was running dead last- behind even the Idiots of Ants), and secondly because he was winning. So, there we have it. Matthew, who maintains the poll and created it in the first place (and called people to ask them to vote for him), has won. He would like to thank his parents. Who voted several times.

This week we have a slightly less contentious issue. Who would you most like on your pub quiz team? Bear in mind the results of the Triv game in Dublin!

poll by twiigs.com

PFC on Tour 14: All's Fareham in Love and Tour

2009-02-26T20:06:00.005+01:00

Occasionally you play a venue that really makes you feel like your part of the bigger picture of touring comedy. Last night’s gig at the Ashcroft Theatre in Fareham really felt like that. At least the dressing room did. The walls, like the dressing room of many of these regional touring theatres, were papered with posters from shows gone by. Some were huge stars doing pre-fame tours or small warm up shows. Others were lesser-known names familiar to us (a gorgeous photocopied A4 of a young Mervyn Stutter, billing him as the star of a Radio 4 show called ‘Love 40, New Balls Please’ or Ivor Dembina sporting a gorgeous full head of hair). Most were shows we’ve never heard of from people we would probably never hear of again (outside of the walls of other Art Centres). It’s hard not to wonder what futuristic sketch teams of the future in their silver suits will make of our fading posters on the walls the Art Centres of tomorrow. The Ashcroft was remarkable in that they had covered not only every inch of walls but the ceilings also. Here’s Matthew and Ben relaxing in front of an hour and a half’s worth of props.Mighty Boosh, Dave Gorman, Ben Moor, Rob Newman. Some incredible comedy has graced the venue that we very nearly half-filled the front row of. Luckily, they had cordoned off a few rows to fool the audience so no one really noticed the slightly lacklustre sales. See?

The audience was our most eclectic to date (with the possible exception of Cork) with young and old coming together to stare confusedly at our comedy. Actually they were very sweet and lovely with one woman, Jill, and her husband being particularly vocal throughout. At one stage her husband, in place of a laugh, merely stated in a loud, posh voice that felt like it was a message from another time, “Very good!”
During Brendy and Ben’s fake-improvised song, when they asked Jill for a household object, she proffered, “Chamber pot?” As Tom later remarked, that gives you a good indication of the average age of our audience. One guy was knitting in the front row.

But, as with all of the shows so far, we ended up having a really good time. Tom used his time onstage as the Blue Whale to complain about his impending baldness and his failed attempts to give up bread as part of a new diet. Funnily enough (or perhaps not, given the audience,) this was the part of the show that went better than any other.A night off tonight and a show in Basingstoke tomorrow. Let’s see what they have in store for us. For those of you not old enough to know what a Chamber pot is, here is Tom (as Jim of Zak and Jim for Skins) interviewing N Dubz. Peace out!

This is only a test

2009-02-26T18:26:00.003+01:00

It's not really a post. Blogger was playing up. Sorry to anyone who wasn't able to check the site.

PFC on Tour 13: Lincoln Perk

2009-02-25T16:28:00.005+01:00

The journey to the gig was filled with joy and excitement. Not because we were playing a blistering round of Leonard Maltin-although we were. It was mainly due to the fact that, despite being nearly a month into our tour, we have only just invested in a SatNav. We used to rely on wits and memory to get us to venues, which was pretty unreliable. More recently we’ve been using Tom or Brendy’s iPhones, which was almost slightly more reliable (especially after we added the ‘wits and memory’ app). But, annoyed with the last twenty minutes of every journey featuring a seemingly endless drive around an unknown city’s one-way system and several phone calls to the promoter who-for some reason- never seems to know the route to the gig from an Allied Carpets in a retail park 35 miles from the venue, we decided to spend the last of the petty cash on a TomTom.

On the we stopped off at the OK diner, a very cool looking retro diner, for takeaway coffee or, in Brendy’s case, a banana milk shake. He thought it gave him more of an authentic 1950s experience than our Dowe Egberts. In the interests of keeping it as authentically 1950s as possible, Brendy also swapped racial slurs with this fellow.
Unfortunately, as great as our TomTom was in getting us to Lincoln, it wasn’t a great help getting us to the venue itself as it appeared to be confounded by a river and a bridge. As usual we resorted so the all-too familiar manoeuvre of hopping out of the car to ask go-getting, sporty students where their union is. It’s a wonderful way to make yourself feel fat and old.The gig, which was a little sparsely attended, was nevertheless great fun. One of the main highlights of the show was Matthew, attempting to make a dramatic, head-down exit from the stage, went headfirst into a microphone stand whilst simultaneously bringing his knee into sharp contact with a floor mounted stage light. It was a moment of wonderful tension, the like of which we haven’t seen since Matthew clocked Tom in the head with a guitar at the last gig. He truly is a clumsy fuckwit. What next? Inadvertently sawing Ben’s face off with one of our paper hats? Only Fareham will know. We're there tonight!

In Lincoln tonight but on the Internet NOW!

2009-02-24T13:17:00.002+01:00

Our latest twitter was "Show at the engine shed, lincoln. The next show there is Razorlight. One's sold out. The other is on 2-for-1. Guess which is our's." to which Richard Herring jovially responded: "Congratuations on your sell out. Perhaps you can give away free tickets to razorlight at your show and help them out. Losers"

Seriously though, if you are nearby tonight do come along. In the meantime, enjoy another word of the day.

Oscar night: the rest of the night part 2!

2009-02-23T04:58:00.015+01:00

If you haven't read the first few posts of the night. They are here in order:
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR

Tom lost his trousers in his ill-advised 'every time Slumdog wins an award I remove an item' game. Please stop giving this film awards. As I type this, they have just won another for best song. Tom is wearing only a shirt and boxers. We still haven't had best film or director. This blog's about to get NSFW. We've had to make cuff-links an item of clothing. Best Director just went to Boyle for Slumdog. That's right, I'm on last/first name terms with the director/film. Tom's in his boxers. Ben, Tom and I celebrated with this snap... ...no one celebrated this snap. Winslet won Best Actress. We all won on the sweepstakes. We all lost when Tom tried to hump-interview her. Right. Slumdog won again. Tom is dancing around the house singing faux-Bollywood nonsense. If you don't want to see that, look away now. Ben correctly noted that Tom looked a bit like one of the Oscars himself by the end of the night. It was a perfect synchronicity of awards and the number of items of clothing Tom was wearing. Perfect or horrifying. Let's see how this changes the results of the sexy pol l.

Matthew got 4/6 in the sweepstakes. He's the big winner of the night. As this 'hasn't moved for 4 and a half hours' photograph proves. If you have made it through this folly [even if you're reading this on Monday morning at work], well done. May Rourke be with you. Goodnight.

Oscar night: A better start... and the rest of the night!

2009-02-23T02:42:00.014+01:00

I'm not doing lots of posts anymore. I'll just keep updating this one entry every ten minutes or so.

Rule number one is out. Jackman just did a sensational opener to the show. Absolutely brilliant. We apologise. "I am Wolverine!"

2am ish: Matthew wins the first sixth of tonight's sweepstakes by correctly guessing Penelope Cruz as Best Supporting Actress. He celebrates by doing his impersonation of Scarlett Johansson. Slightly after 2ish: Tom, who suggested a striptease for every win by Slumdog, was forced to remove his hat after it won Best Adapted Screenplay, revealing his gorgeously balding head.
Those sweepstakes in full. Enjoy them. 2:35am Tom forced [himself] to remove another item of clothing when Slumdog won another award for something. By the end of the night we'll be able to piece together a whole Tom.

3am: Heath Ledger inevitably takes the Best Supporting Actor award. Thom, Ben and I had him on our sweepstakes. We don't know how to feel. Slumdog just won another two awards, so we get to enjoy the jacket leaving Tom's grotesque frame... ...and, horror of horrors, the socks. As for the rest of us? Nothing has changed.

Oscar night: Drinking Rules Official

2009-02-23T02:22:00.004+01:00

Any time Jackman is exposed as an inappropriate host.
Any Jack Nicholson reaction shot.
Sore loser.
Crying winner.
British win.
Anyone who Cuba Gooding Jnrs their way through the orchestra when delivering an acceptance speech.
Any reference to Obama, Hope or Change.
Any talk of recession.
Wardrobe malfunction/trip or slip onstage.
Standing ovation.

We should also mention Thom Gibbs who has kindly hosted this night of Oscar jollity. Thanks Thom. Here he is, glued to the screen.

Oscar night: Drinking rules

2009-02-23T02:06:00.004+01:00

Tom's just proposed that we drink every time one of Hugh Jackman's jokes misfire. We're going to drink hard tonight. He's also suggested that we drink every time Ben tells us he hates an actress. A long night ahead.
Tom's taken the edge off by dressing as the drummer from Dodgy.

Oscar night: A good start

2009-02-23T01:52:00.004+01:00

Just three guys having a good time. It's like a nerd outreach project.

Oscar Night in HD with PFC 1

2009-02-23T01:40:00.003+01:00

Hello. Matthew here. Right, I'm going to try and live blog our Oscar watching experience. As with any Oscars (and any any 'Live Blogging' event) it might be a pile of fresh shitstormery. Here's hoping. I'll be doing it on Twitter (so the Twittidiot bit at the side of this blog is the bit to watch) and uploading photos in the main bit of the blog.

If anyone is checking out this blog at 00:45 on a Sunday night. God Bless You.

Whoever your God may be. Ours is Mickey Rourke.

PFC on Tour 12: Norwichinal and Best

2009-02-22T23:09:00.007+01:00

Norwich was our biggest gig of the tour so far; in the gorgeous 300-seater Norwich Playhouse. As the picture shows, we very nearly filled it!

Our friend David O’Doherty had been there a few days before (as had another friend of ours, Barry Cryer) and had left us a message on our dressing room door. Thanks, David. No such message from Cryer- what’s all that about Barry?

The first half was a mish-mash of old and new sketches and was seemed to go really well. Although you might get a different story from the kid and his father in the front row who got had the misfortune of sitting directly in the eye line of the hem of Tom’s toga. Their unwitting upskirt view meant that they decided not to return for the second half. Which is a pity as that was our Edinburgh show, Funergy, in its entirety.
For a show that we’ve performed a good number of times we certainly did a good impersonation of four people who’d never been onstage before. In fact, given the number of fluffs and mistakes in the first few minutes of part two, you might be forgiven for thinking that we’d never even met each other. This reached a head when Matthew picked up a guitar to begin the opening song and Tom, thinking he was supposed to have the guitar at that moment, attempted to wrestle it out of Matthew’s hands. This awkward moment was made all the more awkward when, trying to make a joke of the moment, Matthew inadvertently hit Tom in the temple with the guitar. Tom looked angry. Matthew looked angry. Ben and Brendan looked sheepish. The audience looked at their watches. Luckily the power of Funergy is such that all musical violence was soon forgotten and a good time was had by nearly all. In fact, someone even heckled that it would make a good story for the blog. They were almost right.

Twits

2009-02-21T03:09:00.000+01:00

The decision to put a 'joke' option in our 2009 sexiest Pappy's member poll (there's still a chance to vote here!) badly misfired when the object of our ridicule, sketch team Idiots of Ants, used their high profile connections with the Pleasance theatre to engineer this bit of Twitter trickery to beat us at our own sexy game.

Anyone on Twitter might want to follow Brendy here. Or Matthew. Or Pappy's Fun Club themselves.

Tom is too cool to be on Twitter. Ben is too busy perfecting his one man show. This video shows Ben previewing part of his show (provisionally entitled "A salute to the star-studded tribute to the heroes of Comedy: Part One: Legends of Our Time Volume One: Comedians We Have Loved") in Dublin. It looks like it'll be quite an event.

Vote for us in the Pappy awards!

2009-02-20T16:06:00.004+01:00

Cruelly passed over for nomination in this year's Chortle awards, we decided to start our own awards ceremony. Actually that's not exactly true. Matthew just found this online poll service and is trying it out on his blog. Happy voting!

poll by twiigs.com

PFC on Tour 11: To Hull and Back

2009-02-16T01:47:00.003+01:00

We’re in the car on the way back from Hull’s Carnivale 69. It happens at a bar that more than one comic referred to as looking like a Turkish bath and was just as hot. For some reason they’d decided to leave the venue’s heating on full blast resulting in a sweatier than usual set from us.

The start of the night threatened to be a bit dodgy with a group at the back chatting a bit through the first acts set. In a classic moment of Northern problem solving, a girl seated near the group attempted to quieten them with the words, “Shhhhh…cunts.” That girl turned out to be one of the middle acts, the very funny and charming Katie Mulgrew. We had a yet another fun gig. We’re certainly due a humiliating stinker very soon. But tonight was a joy.

Martin, who lovingly runs the gig, took a picture of us outside the club by kneeling down in the middle of the road. Matthew isn’t aping Tom’s ‘look off in a moody way’; he’s looking at a cab that’s very nearly going to hit Martin.

Matthew bought a best of the 80’s CD that featured both Huey Lewis and the News’ Power of Love and Hip to be Square. Ostensibly the greatest hits of Mr Lewis and his gang. This led to a discussion as to what film[s] had featured the latter on its soundtrack. This in turn led Brendy’s iPhone to this site and provided us with our latest film related in-car game to replace Leonard Maltin. Brendan read out the film moments; Ben, Matthew and Tom guessed the songs. Final scores on the doors saw Ben with 6, Tom with 16 and Matthew with a winning 23.

As Ben’s spending this week in Wolverhampton, he’d driven part of the way in his car. We’d met him at the Tibshelf services on the M1. He left his car at Tibshelf and joined Matthew, Tom and Brendy in Tom’s car to Hull and back. We left him on the journey back at the Tibshelf services on the other side of the motorway. A few minutes later we got a call from Ben. Despite the fact that the staff had assured us that it was possible to walk from the Southbound services to the Northbound services; Ben had somehow found himself scrabbling up a grass verge and rolling down the bank to get back to his car. He truly is Action Pappy.

No shows til Saturday in Norwich.

PFC on Tour 10: Leicester We Forget

2009-02-14T12:59:00.003+01:00

Matthew and Ben put aside their differences to spent a day in BBC’s Western House yesterday doing a series of interviews with local radio stations. Here are a few things they learned:

There is no interesting answer to the questions “Where does the name come from?” or “So who’s Pappy?”
You should never ask Ben to tell you how we got started. Not unless you’ve got a sleeping bag or some Red Bull handy.
We should probably have picked a name that’s less confusing to regional DJs, who seem to think were called Pappy’s Fan Club, Pappa’s Fun Club, Puppies Funk Collective- anything but our actual name.

At one stage, simply to mix things up a bit, Matthew told an interviewer that Ben could do a mean Rolf Harris impersonation. He can’t. Ben attempted a breathy hoo-hah-hoo-hah before fighting back by claiming that Matthew was an expert at doing David Attenborough. One all.

The ‘junket’ ended with a spot on the Nemone show. Nemone was really lovely and, having seen the Comedy Lab, likened us to an adult Rod, Jane and Freddy. Matthew said we were more like Charlie’s Angels, Ben thought we most resembled the Spice Girls (in spirit at least). You can hear the whole show for a few more days here.

That night saw Matthew and Ben join Brendan for a three-man show at the hotel Maiyango in Leicester as part of their comedy festival’s Hotel Du Comedie experience. The idea is that a small audience are guided from room to room by a host. Each room contains a comedian who perform an intimate set in the awkward, over lit surroundings of a Boutique bedroom. The bill was Andrew O’Neill (comedian, anarchist and Amanda Palmer support act), Matthew (in a rare solo stand-up appearance), Holly Walsh (from CBBC) and Pappy’s.

Brendan and Ben kicked things off with a few classics whilst Matthew hid, in full owl regalia, in a wardrobe. Last year (again, as a three piece- Tom is allergic to hotels) we had performed the entire set in bed, using under the covers as our backstage. However this meant hiding under a hot duvet with two other people whilst the audience filed into the room. By the time we appeared for the start of the first sketch we were hot, sweaty and disgustingly out of breath; we shouldn’t normally feel that way until the end of the first sketch.

We ended the day as all day’s in Leicester must end: with a curry. Here’s the delightful cart that brought our bill to the table. Just out of shot: a miniature gentleman riding a tiny pony.Tonight saw all of Pappy’s performing our full show at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester. Tom got to Leicester early with the intention of watching the rugby. But first a quick meeting was called to decide in which order to perform our sketches. This quick meeting lasted the entire length of the rugby. Here's Tom, the artist, in action. Note the pained expression, the abundance of notebooks (mostly Matthew's- he has about three on the go at any one time) and the healthly pre-gig meal.

In an interview with Kerrang radio on Thursday, Matthew had promised that he’d try to get a photo with Pappy’s and the Mayor of Leicester. This proved to be harder than you would initially think. I’m sure you’ll agree that this young romantic (a member of the box office staff) wearing a Lord Mayor’s three corner hat (courtesy of the Pappy’s prop bag) is a more than adequate replacement.Weirdly, as this photograph was being taken, a small group of punters formed and began snapping away. It was like being famous. It was only after we checked the photo that we realised they hadn’t been taking pictures of Pappy’s- Hollywood star Anne Hathaway was stood right behind us!
A drive back to Tom’s parent’s house in Wolverhampton for another curry and the original Batman movie on TV. Touring is brilliant!

PFC on Tour 9: Brown resigns

2009-02-13T14:30:00.003+01:00

Punch-drunk and dog-tired after two hours in two separate beds in Limerick (those pairs: Tom & Brendan and Matthew & Ben) and a stupidly early flight from Shannon. We arrived at London Liverpool Street. Tom and Brendan both had places to be, leaving Matthew and Ben to pick up the luggage and deliver it back to South London. As Matthew was buying a travelcard, Ben, who had been watching the giant news screens, rushed over to him.
“Gordon Brown’s resigned! I just saw it on the big screen. He’s resigned!”
So, still exhausted, we both looked up at the screen. It was showing some adverts. They lasted about a minute and a half. Then the weather. About two minutes. Then some more adverts. Another minute and a half. Then the business report. Then more adverts. Seven or so minutes after Ben broke the news to Matthew, the main news page finally rolled around. Ben, re-read the headline aloud:
“There, you see… ‘Brown scrutinised over resignation handling.’”
“Ben, the word is recession.”

Curse Ben’s overtired dyslexic brain. Curse it all to hell!Matthew was appeased slightly by arriving home to see Brown’s apology in full.

PFC on Tour 8: Schnitzel and out

2009-02-12T17:00:00.002+01:00

We bid a fond goodbye to Ireland with a gig at Limerick's Schnitzel club. Our visit to Limerick (or 'stab city' as EVERYONE we met anywhere in Ireland told us it was called) was brief. We arrived at 6, did the gig at 9, went to bed at 2, woke up at 4, got a flight at 6:30 and was back in Blighty by 8am. Horror show.

Matthew also turned 29 at midnight that night. One year closer to being a 30 year old man who makes his living putting on paper hats and taking his shirt off in front of students.

But the gig was great- Shane from Diet of Worms was in support reading his short stories, which were hilarious- and it was a fitting way to end the Irish leg of the tour. Here we are in our branded Schnitzel hoodies. Which we had to give back as they cost 30 euros each. (l-r) Tom, Shane, Amy, Brendan, Alan (the host and promoter), Mikey, Ben, Matthew.

Here's the view from backstage. A tantalising glimpse behind the glitzy world of showbiz. Fans will be able to tell that this was taken during our famous Band Reunion sketch (Matthew in hat).

And finally, to commemorate our time in Ireland- and as a gift to the people of Stab City- Brendan carved this charming sculpture of Tom.

He's really captured Tom's essence, don't you think?

PFC on Tour 7: Trinity

2009-02-11T16:41:00.003+01:00

Thanks to everyone who showed up to see us in Dublin. And thanks to Robert and Ben who organised the whole shebang and Matt who provided the support. Robert impressed us with his fandom by bringing along his own blue whale costume for us to sign. Another fan came dressed as a giant elk skeleton on a plinth (seen here with Ben). We're not sure why.

The production just before us had been

a piece of hard-hitting theatre called Disco Pigs. This meant that the stage was covered in fake blood which had to be cleaned up before we could cover it in sketch comedy.

The next production was to be Animal Farm. Unfortunately the set for this production had already been moved into the theatre and, although it was obscured by a curtain, as it was a pile of rotting woodchips, it could be smelt throughout the room. Luckily this didn't seem to dampen anybody's spirits and the show went great.

Here we are outside the Players' Theatre. Note Tom's indie pose is still in place. Although the hat makes him look slightly less like a member of the Shins and slightly more like a farmer's son.

PFC on Tour 6: Dublin up

2009-02-10T16:13:00.001+01:00

We had a lot of fun in Dublin. Our gig is on Tuesday but we arrived on Sunday so we had a chance to hang out with our friends Shane and Amy from the fantastic Dublin-based sketch team, Diet of Worms.

After a trip to the pub we retired to Shane and Amy's flat for a game of Trivial Pursuit. As these pictures will attest, Ben and Brendy had no fun at all.

Matthew and Amy (the girl's team as they were dubbed) were just happy to be involved. Here they are celebrating getting a piece of pie for a question about sports they had no right knowing the answer to (the answer was 'Bobby Robson').

And eventual winners Shane and Tom look suitably smug. Eventual winners is the name of Tom and Shane's spin-off double act.

All four of us slept in Shane and Amy's front room for the first two nights. Ben was lucky enough to be provided with this baby blanket for warmth.The next day we ended up getting drunk and playing pool and poker. That's right. We're real lads.

Well, not all of us. Matthew conked out prior to the poker tournament.

Ben's going to want that blankie back, Matthew!

PFC on Tour 5: Still Corking

2009-02-07T00:59:00.005+01:00

In Galway, whenever we'd told people we were going to Cork next they always had a quick opinion to offer on what the show would be like. However these opinions varied from "Oh, Cork? You'll have a great time. Really good crowds, they'll laugh at anything!" to "Oh, Cork? Horrible place to do comedy. My friend's comedian and he hates playing Cork."

Actually, the gig was really good fun. We were gigging with our friend Maeve Higgens (who billed the show as 'Maeve Higgens and four of her boyfriends-wow!') whose celebrity ensured that the Firkin Crane theatre was packed. Despite its name, the Firkin Crane isn't a chain pub but a lovely old theatre in the middle of an area so quaint it's like stepping back in time. This is the road that our accommodation, Jack Lynch House, was on. See?

Jack Lynch was apparently a popular sportman who became the Taoiseach (head of the Irish government) in the 1960s and had actually lived in the house in which we were staying. He can't have been much of a fan of heating.

The woman showing us round the house impressed on us Jack Lynch's importance and told us to ask Maeve about him. When we did, all she seemed to know was that he'd had a tunnel named after him.

Next to the house was an old church in which tourists could go and ring the bells. This meant that Brendan and Matthew were woken most mornings to the sound of an novice campanologist learning to play Amazing Grace. Bell ringing is a lot like comedy, you can't practice in your room- you have to go out and do it for real. And the first time you do it, you'll probably be shit.

There also seemed to be automated chimes throughout the day and night. Although the frequency seemed to be completely random. "27 minutes past three in morning and all's well!"

Here's us outside the Firkin Crane. Note: Tom is looking off into the distance because he thinks it makes him look like he's in an indie band.

PFC on Tour 4: Corker

2009-02-06T17:26:00.000+01:00

We drove, hungover, from Galway to Cork yesterday. A drive that took us straight through Limerick (our final Irish tour destination) and indicated how poorly we have planned some of the journeys (Glasgow on Tuesday 17th March , Cranleigh in Surrey on Wednesday 18th March, anyone?).

The journey flew by, though. This was thanks in part to a marathon session of "Leonard Maltin", the movie guide game invented by Doug Benson. Here are the rules, as described by website video eta.com.

“Doug and pals also play an interesting game at the end of each show. It's something they call "The Leonard Maltin Game". They take one of the critic's handy pocket movie guides and one person flips randomly to a movie. After disclosing the year of the film to the players, he or she reads the cast bottom-up (from least notable to the starring roles) until someone correctly guesses it.”

We arrived at the lovely house the venue had provided for us and head straight out to the fantastic ‘Strasbourg Goose’ for a steak dinner before heading home for a game of Scrabble. Matthew was victorious with his final move, TARRIES, not only scoring him a 50 point bingo bonus but also covering the coveted 'triple word score' square.

A civilised contrast to Galway’s drunken revelry; Brendan rounded off the night by painting this charming portrait of Tom.

PFC on Tour 3: Roisin “Rub a-Dub” Dubh, a gig in a pub

2009-02-05T17:19:00.002+01:00

A stupidly early start this morning as we had to be on the 9:50am flight out of Luton. It was our third time at Galway’s Roisin Dubh- although only our second gig there.

The first time we were scheduled to play the venue- May last year- we got a call a few days earlier from Kevin, the promoter, who informed us that there was no point in us performing as it was the night of the Champions League: Manchester United v Chelsea. Big football matches are always death to small comedy gigs so we agreed. However, as Kevin had booked our flights, we decided to fly over anyway and watch the match in a pub in Galway. It was a wonderful boozy night, despite the fact that Kevin (a die hard Chelsea fan) had to watch his team get defeated on penalties. The evening ended with a disco. Brendy in particular got into the spirit of things by wearing Kevin’s Chelsea flag like a cape and waving it Morrissey-style above his head to a series of indie anthems.

We returned in July with Steven Hall from We Are Klang but last night was pure Pappy’s all the way and, as usual, we confused and entertained in equal measure. Tom flashed way too much leg (and more) to a girl in the front row and Matthew coined a new and utterly unprintable catchphrase for Julian Banjos. Ben struggled- and failed- to keep it together and ended up laughing way more than anybody else in the room.

All in all, a wonderful night in a wonderful venue.

Bonus, read a preview interview with Matthew from the Galway Advertiser and another from the Dave website.

PFC on Tour 2: Uni-Show

2009-02-04T16:01:00.001+01:00

The tickets for Monday’s gig at the Battersea Arts Centre were transferred to the Tuesday and so the tour begins. Minutes before the show Matthew crosses the stage to check with the sound guy to see when they want to start. The sound guy sees Matthew’s arrival as a cue to start the show and so dims the lights and music. Matthew, stranded onstage, apologised to the audience and explained that this isn’t actually how the show starts. We all agree that Matthew has ruined the start of the show.

When the show does actually begin Tom manages to save the day by noticing a punter in the front row has a unicycle by his feet. Tom suggests that, if the audience are feeling bored at any point, they might want to shout, “unicycle” and the guy can demonstrate some actual talent. Luckily we don’t have to call on him during the show, instead we make our curtain call at the end of the night with him circling the stage. It was a magical start to the tour.

Matthew annoys the commuters at London Victoria Station by pretending he is navigating a galleon and they are his crew.

BONUS: Read this strange, unfavourable and slightly pretentious review of the show by fellow blogger Diana Damian.

PFC on Tour 1: Best Joke Ever!

2009-02-02T15:51:00.000+01:00

The night before the first night of the tour we were gigging in Salisbury. Between us arriving and leaving the venue it snows. Not a lot of snow, just enough to make the grounds of the converted church where the gig was taking place look like a scene from a biscuit-tin.

Driving back, Brendan (in the backseat) asks for the heating to be turned down. Tom (driving) humorously winds down the window on the passenger side to hit Brendy with a blast of arctic air. Tom goes to wind the window back up. It doesn’t move. It’s stuck. We are driving in near-blizzard conditions with an open window.

We drive for about half an hour before we find a service station to pull in and try and sort out the window problem. Ben (who was sat in the passenger seat and is now covered with snow) and Tom try to pull the window up manually whilst Matthew and Brendy nip into the services to buy hot chocolate and marshmallows. A real indication of the group dynamic of Pappy’s Fun Club.

Tom and Ben manage to gaffer-tape the window shut and we’re back on the road. Unfortunately the half-hour stop-off has given mother nature ample opportunity to kick into fill-on blizzard mode. We all agree that Tom’s window antics have achieved the coveted title of best joke ever.

Brendan suggests we change our route and take the M25. This route will later be featured on the news.The sign reads "Does your speed suit the conditions?" 3mph good enough for ya?

We leave Salisbury at 10:30pm. Ordinarily it’s a two hour drive. We arrive home at 5am. We receive a call later that morning. The first date of our gig (that night at the Battersea Arts Centre) has been cancelled.

This will be Pappy's Tour Blog for a little while

2009-01-31T15:18:00.002+01:00

I haven't been posting recently as Pappy's have been gearing up for a tour. So keep coming back to hear stories of our adventures on the road. In the meantime, here are a few Pappy related things to enjoy.

Sally, a member of our facebook group, has sent us this link to a picture of some models of us that she has made out of card. If you click here you can print off the plans to make your own. Thanks Sally!
If anyone fancies making their own merchandise for our tour please get in touch through the blog. You may be inspired by the girls we met in Edinburgh who made t-shirts of our catchphrases. We certainly were.

E4 news now. Our very own Tom is playing Jim in the adverts before and after hit E4 show, Skins. You can see him in action here.

Finally, Ben and Brendan and me did some videos for word of the day website Wordia. See our definition of (surprise surprise) the word 'Minstrel' here.

So that should tide you over until tales of the first dates of the tour begin. Which they will immediately.

Bonus Episode: The truth about myspace and minorities

2008-12-05T17:07:00.004+01:00

A full episode on its way next week. In the meantime, here is what really happened at my gig for Myspace. The original video can be found here.

Matthew Crosby get's owned...the truth

Finally, a raging debate is still happening on an old page of my blog. Apparently a lot of people are typing the phrase "Nazi Tattoo" into google and finding my site. I'd imagine that my inclusion the phrase "Nazi Tattoo" again twice on this entry isn't helping. Anyway do check out the insane comments. They'll make you feel beyond mega-sad!

Bonus Episode: Have beard, will age.

2008-11-17T18:13:00.007+01:00

Here's a nice picture of me from Morgan Murphy's blog taken at the Dublin Festival July of this year. I look about twelve. Here's me on Sunday 9th November. I look about 43.

What's the happy medium? Just the stache?

Last week I gigged in Reading and was taken aback by an audience member I was chatting to referring to me as 'Rolf'. I've only had the beard for a short while so it took a moment to realize that he thought I looked like Rolf Harris. I usually get Woody Allen (although longtime readers will remember this and more bizarrely, this) or occasionally Harry Potter but this was my first time comparison with the titular host of Cartoon Club.

The reaction from the audience indicated a positive match and, clearly elated by this success, the punter (who I had already suggested looked like Patrick Moore from The Sky at Night- which elicited sympathetic aahs rather than laughter) pitched in with 'Jim Royle's younger brother'. Boom! Another direct strike for the Moore-alike. This emboldened a far more esoteric reference from another audience member: "You look like the bastard offspring of Bille-Jean King and Ben Elton." Fortunately, it got nothing. But it's not bad. For those of you who can't recall BJK. She's on the left. Elton's on the right. But that still doesn't account for the beard.

Luckily, the thunderous silence that met said reference duly silenced the rest of the audience and the lookalike carte blanche that I had worried aloud might be taking place was brought to an end.

All of which reminds me of an ommission I made in the last episode in which I rounded up a few loose comments. In response to the Brendan from Pappy's/Dolph Lungren lookalike post, Dan said...

Don't you think that in that picture Brendan looks like the talking head bust from Art Attack?

I think you're spot on, Dan but I've scanned google and can find no pictorial evidence to back this up? Can anyone help?

Bonus Episode: More Just The Comments!

2008-11-12T17:28:00.004+01:00

In this bonus episode I’ll address all your comments as there are lots of them. And they’re all quite long. But first:

Sophie said...
Have another jingle. This would come before each time you reply to our comments. It goes to a tune similar to the old Spiderman cartoon so if you could imagine that I'd be very grateful.

It's the comments bit, it's the comments bit,
Where Matthew c responds to your shit,
Without it there would be a disaster,
Here's Matthew Crosby
your favourite podcaster!

In fact she even recorded it for her own blog. Enjoy it!

Thanks Sophie! If anyone else would like to record or video a jingle, I’ll happily upload them on this site. Right, onto the comments. Henry chimed in first with this sarcastic couplet…

Henry said...
Thanks Matt. I'd Sky+'d the election coverage to enjoy in full, and at my leisure this weekend, and until listening to your podcast had remained blissfully unawares. I'd appreciate it if you gave a bit of forethought to your listenership in future.

Apologies Henry. I know a lot of people were disappointed by my spoiler alert. But it could have been worse. You could have found out via a backwards message on your own forehead.

Henry said...
Matt, I think I accidentally called you Matt in that last comment, when I know full well you're a huge fan of Matthew. My apologies.

First I apologise to you, then you apologise to me. How middle class. Apology accepted. Although I have decided that I will now refer to myself as Matt since my friend Ed, a writer on hit teen soap Hollyoaks, has named a character in my honour. Matt Crosby is a “trendy Northern record producer” played by the actor Chris Hall (pictured). He’s only in 6 episodes which should help me maintain my status as the top 3 entries on Google. Back off Hall, you smoulderingly good-looking bastard!

Matt said...
I tried advocaat for the first time this week (you mentioned it a few times in blogs last year, which aroused a certain amount of curiosity in me although clearly not enough curiosity to just go out and buy some). I enjoyed it very much.

Where did you try it? In a bar? How did you mix it? Advocaat and lemonade is called a snowball, perfect for the fast approaching winter season.

Charlie said...
Hynes, not Stevenson! Honestly Matthew, this level of ignorance or carelessness in a member of the Britcom world shocks me deeply.

Right, let’s get things straight, Charlie (if that is in fact your name), when Shaun of the Dead came out Jessica Hynes, as she is now known, had not yet begun using her married name and was thus known by her maiden name of Stevenson. I think she only started using it last year. Thanks for calling me a member of the Britcom world- albeit erroneously- but be careful when you bandy about terms like ‘ignorance’ and ‘carelessness’ young man. I take my anally retentive knowledge of comedy very seriously. No hard feelings though, eh?

Charlie continued...
And no, I'm not the same Charlie from Edinburgh, but that would have been beyond mega-cool if I was. Maybe I could get some glasses and pretend?

I’m glad that you think looking like me would be “beyond mega-cool.” Life experience has taught me that looking like me passes so far beyond that mysterious realm of mega-cool that it enters the opposing realm of "woefully uncool."

Finally, a miniature debate began between regular commenters Katherine and Matthew (a different one, not me, although it would be beyond mega-cool if it was me).

Katharine said...
That is easily the best thing I have read today (possibly moreso due to Martin's interjections).

I’ll have to have him as a guest on the podcast very soon.

Personally, if one's fully clothed the best policy is just to say "I'm watching this porn film and its fucking ridiculous - look at this!" *cue whipping laptop round to show guest whatever travesty it is you're watching*

But discussion and review of pornography on grounds of hilarity is quite a common occurrence between me and my friends, it's not for everyone.

Matthew hit back...
Hmm, Porn, such a tricky beast.

By the way, Matthew, have you seen Tricky Beast? It’s one of my favourites.

I just read Katharine's comment and this 'the best policy is just to say "I'm watching this porn film and its fucking ridiculous - look at this!"' I think, would only work if you're watching something truly outlandish involving animals or some other kind of extraordinary/extreme action. I think if you're just watching some fairly standard FFM, DP, ATM or MILF (yeah check out my knowledge of porn terminology) based filth you won't be fooling anyone.

I think I speak for everyone when I say how impressed I am with your knowledge of porno lingo. You are clearly no busty amateur. By the way have you seen Porno Lingo? It’s one of my favourites.

On the subject, a quick story. I once had a couple of friends of mine over and we had a few drinks and I trudged into the lounge in the morning to find a friend passed out on the sofa with my laptop open on his chest with the website Red Tube up on the screen. I'm pretty sure there is no escape from that particular scenario. Maybe someone else can volunteer a way out?

I can only relax by laughing myself to sleep? It doesn’t really work does it?

Katharine said...
Au contraire, ma petite - I am fairly certain that penises are pretty hilarious in themselves, and thats before we get to the face-pulling and inappropriate application of accents in an erotic situation (West Country porn stars - there's a reason we don't have them). Vanilla porn has plenty going on to amuse and provoke lively debate, I think.

I’m afraid I agree with Matthew here. If my housemates came in and found me watching porn there’s zero chance I could convince them it was merely for shits and giggles. By the way, have you seen Shits and Giggles? It’s fucking horrible. I think this is a gender thing. Women might find porn funny but men, whilst they might find it funny in the abstract, look at it for a fairly singular purpose. Also we do have West Country porn stars. I used to talk about Cathy Barry in my stand up. In fact, I even wrote about meeting her (of sorts) on my old blog. I first encountered her on a channel 5 ‘documentary’ in my teens. I particularly remember a scene where she was dressed up as a cowgirl and was struggling to undo her knotted shirt. One she’d opened her shirt revealing her enormous breasts she remarked in her thick Bristolian accent, “There they are!” Alright, Katherine, that was funny.

Keep your comments rolling in. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you really should watch these.

Under the Bridge: literal version.

Take On Me: literal version.

Bonus Episode: Laptop FAIL

2008-11-07T18:15:00.004+01:00

Those who read yesterday’s post will recall that I discovered a mysterious notepad file on my computer entitled ‘Notions’ and containing two lines: “The sound that won't go away. The computer porno thing.” I had no idea when I had written it nor what it pertained to. However, in typing up the mystery, a light of revelation shone down and the slightly grubby details became clear.

As promised here is the story. Although not told entirely by me. My housemate Martin was the other party in the tale and his realisation as to what the secret message might mean was far quicker. He posted this comment which I deleted from the comments page (as it was a spoiler) and am reposting here. I will, however, annotate as it progresses. His words in italics.

I think I can shed a little light on the mystery. I should explain that I'm Matthew's house mate.

This is true. He is. This is he and I relaxing in identical outfits.

I came home the other day to find him on his own... and it soon became apparent that he'd been enjoying an "internet stag film" moments before.

This is also true. I had done all of the washing up. It had taken me 2 hours. I had literally just sat down and thought I’d relax by watching two people have sex on the internet. Mere moments after the video had begun streaming Martin came in through the front door. I was fully clothed so the only thing I had to do was close the browser window. Click. Nothing. Click. Nothing. Panic. I slammed the laptop shut.

Despite his slamming shut of his laptop upon hearing my arrival, the audio of said film refused to stop playing.

I picked up the laptop and began running around the front room. Martin was not yet in the room but he would be in moments. The only exit to the room would be his entrance to the room and I wasn’t going to run past him holding a silver box that wouldn’t stop moaning. After realising that hiding it in a drawer would be of no use. I decided that I should simply employ what is often referred to as ‘the best policy’.

I didn't really hear the content of said porn because he looked very embarrassed and ran off to either hide the garrulous laptop underneath a pillow, or wank furiously, or maybe both.

Neither.

In fact I wouldn't have even noticed, had he not said "Oh no. My laptop's still playing the sound from the porn I was just watching."

Almost immediately after saying this I realised that there must have been a better way to handle the situation. I should have started singing loudly to welcome Martin home. That would have drowned out the audio and allowed me to place the laptop in my room. It would also have been a lovely greeting for Martin. Although no doubt, if I were to sing for him in the future, he’ll be wondering what other sound I’m trying to mask. Checking under the sofa for a hog-tied hooker. Martin ends his missive thusly:

Matthew, you are a ridiculous human being. I understand completely if you are too ashamed of yourself to publish this comment.

I sort of am. And you, dear reader, should be too. Still no idea why I called it 'Notions'.

Martin Austwick is a talented musician and songwriter whose work and thoughts can be found at http://www.thesoundoftheladies.com/

Episode Ten: A New Dawn!

2008-11-06T16:13:00.006+01:00

Good evening/morning/afternoon/day. My name is Matthew Crosby and this is my Readable Podcast. Applause. Opening theme.

In this episode: A picture of me with my new nephew, an appeal, Obama, Sarah Palin, Edinburgh, Oxes, a mystery, a revelation, your comments addressed, YouTube fame.

An appeal for comments
I know I fell away from the Readable Podcast for a bit but now I’m back into it and it should be easy to keep it up. Especially since I came up with brilliant idea of shorter bonus episodes when I don’t have the energy to write a shitload of shit. So please, please, please keep posting your comments. I enjoy reading them, I enjoy responding to them, I enjoy your responses to my responses. So, if anything in this week’s episode inspires you, please post about it. Several times if necessary.

Goodbye to all that
So congratulations to Barrack Obama who won the US Presidential Elections. I hope you already knew that. It’d be a worrying thing if the Readable Podcast was your source for international news. Anyway, Obama won. This is good in most ways (I hope. With audacity) but it does bring to an end the Sarah Palin viral. Some were awful. Most were easy. Some were very, very funny. Here’s one that falls into the latter category:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

I stayed up with the intention of watching the whole night. Sadly, I got four hours of sleep the night before, started drinking at 7 on the day, went to see a Built to Spill at the Koko (and drank all the way through that). All of which resulted in me passing out about five minutes before the result was called. It was a done deal anyway, but I can’t help but feel I’ve slept through a key moment in history. I awoke to find someone had written Obama on my forehead. I say someone, it was Thom Tuck of the Penny Dreadfuls.

The Penny Dreadfuls had one of my favourite Edinburgh shows this year- which reminds me that, for reasons varied, I’ve hardly written anything about the Festival in any episodes of my Readable Podcast. Here then is a brief story in a series of maybe two or three:

A thing from Edinburgh which is indicative of how self-involved it can make you.
I was standing at a bar in Edinburgh this year and a woman, also at the bar, asked, “Are you performing?” Slightly confused by her question, I replied, “I will be. 6.40 at the cabaret bar.” She seemed equally confused by my answer, “I said, ‘Are you before me?’ As in, did you get to the bar before me? Should you be served first?”

Oxes
I went to see the band Oxes the other day and was reminded of an indie-rock phenomenon that I had probably first encountered at the Shellac-hosted All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in 2002. I had attended that festival with three of my friends and almost immediately upon arrival we were struck by the similarity of the four of us to almost everyone else there. Almost all had dark hair, glasses. Almost all were male. As the accommodation was chalets of about 4 or 5 berth most punters had arrived in groups- adding a new dimension to the phenomenon: there even appeared to be a pattern to the groups! Walking past another group of four was like the scene in Shaun of the Dead where Simon Pegg’s team walk past Jessica Stevenson’s and it’s comprised entirely of doppelgangers. That’s what it was like.

Anyway, back to the Oxes gig. Nearly every punter had at least one of the following four items: glasses, bad facial hair, rucksack, disinterested girlfriend. I had three of the four. I’d not brought my rucksack. Actually my girlfriend, although initially reticent about coming to the gig, was convinced by the awesome power of the Oxes rock. My only concern was that she might walk off with another one of the identikit Oxes fans without realising.

A mystery
I usually sleep next to my laptop listening to music or podcasts as I fall asleep. This means that if I have a funny idea I will often type it up, half asleep and review it in the morning. It’s almost always either indecipherable nonsense or appallingly unfunny. For example, the other night, when unable to sleep, I wrote, “I find the whole process of going to sleep quite tiresome.” At the time this was the funniest thing I have ever heard. Not so in the cold light of day.

But the strangest example came a few nights ago. Or, I should say, a few mornings ago. I was on my laptop when I found a notepad file saved to the desktop called ‘Notions’ that I had not seen before. I’m the only person who uses my laptop so it must have been written by me in a state of half waking. Opening the file revealed two lines: “The sound that won't go away. The computer porno thing.” I have no idea what this means. Or why I should have, slightly pretentiously, entitled these words ‘Notions’, rather than my usual, ‘Ideas’ or ‘Stuff’? The only time I think this might have been written was when I was napping in Tom’s parents house in Wolverhampton last week and was woken up by their housephone’s answering machine sporadically bleeping. It took me a good ten minutes of walking around the house switching things on and off before I could work out what the sound that wouldn’t go away actually was. I may well have returned to bed imaging that this would make a wonderful idea for a sketch. Or worse still, a sitcom. I remember falling asleep as a late teen and plotting a sitcom in my head. Not wanting to wake up fully but not wanting the idea to be sacrificed to my subconscious, I scribbled down a few notes that would help me to write it up the next day. I can still taste the disappointment of waking up and staring a a bit of paper that simply read, ‘potato family’.

“The sound that won't go away. The computer porno thing.” It sounds like lyrics from a brit-rock band of the 90s. Possibly 3 Colours Red or Skunk Anansie.

Oh holy shit. I’ve actually just remembered exactly what it is. I actually told this story to Ben from Pappy’s yesterday. I’m not going to delete the above as it’s an organic version of my thought process. Even if the story about me walking around Tom’s parents house is a bit of a non-ecdote. Alright, I’ll post a bonus episode this weekend with the story that inspired the notepad file. Keep reading if you want to discover the answer to the riddle.

Your comments. Greatly appreciated.
As far as comments go, Ildikó weighed into the political debate with this message...
I find it quite comforting that even people who are kind of racist aren't voting for McCain.

And posted a link to a site containing this story.

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

This pretty much speaks for itself. Although I think 'kind of racist' might be a bit mild, Ildikó. If you use the word nigger (that's right, I had the confidence to type it without asterisks) to describe a black person, you might just be a racist. Tom from Pappy’s, who managed to stay up and hear McCain’s concession speech, said they were booing Obama’s name. Undoubtedly some people will have to resign themselves to the fact that they have respect for the office but not for the man. It will be a very interesting time.

The video of me getting punched also sparked some debate:

Sophie said...
BRRRAP BRRAPP!!! DOOSH DOOSH DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Lucy said...
I'm confused and alarmed. Is this a superb set-up planned incase things start getting genuinely rowdy? Or did you actually get punched in the face?! I'm sure you won't reveal the magic behind that 'fourth wall'...

Hopefully, all will become clear next week. Keep watching this page.

Sophie again threw her oar in with comment about the whole Brand/Ross thing...
Sales on the booky wook have gone up too. So, y'know. There's no such thing as bad publicity?

Tell that to Maxine Carr.

Michael Legge said...
Of course it's a load of shit. All TV is a load of shit. Except Love Thy Neighbour. That was awesome!

Available on DVD, Michael. Fancy a viewing party? We could order in a ch*nky.

Finally, this video has appeared on YouTube. I think this might be the highest accolade I have ever achieved. I'm officially meta.

See you at the bonus episode party! End theme. Applause. Credits.

Bonus Episode: My Two Cents on the Brand/Ross Furore

2008-11-02T19:23:00.011+01:00

Everyone with half a brain by now realizes that, no matter how you feel about Brand and Ross as performers or people, this whole situation has been blown out of all proportion. What I don't understand is the notion that the so-called 'comedy of cruelty' is an all-pervasive force in British culture.

Brand's humour is often juvenile but his target is either a deserved one (his pro-Obama anti-Bush sentiment at the MTV Awards) or, most likely, himself. Yes, this prank phone call was misplaced and should not have been broadcast but, listening to the offending calls on YouTube (rather than simply reading the edited and often misleading transcripts in the press), the tone was akin to little boys egging each other on rather than maliciously attacking a target. Admittedly this changes slightly when the antics are deliberately broadcast to the nation but to say it represents the comedy of cruelty is a gross overstatement.

It's unfortunate that the actor in question was Andrew Sachs; thus leading journalists to make lazy and unnecessary comparisons between Fawlty Towers and The Russell Brand Show. Firstly, one is a scripted situation comedy and another is a largely improvised radio show. Obviously the quality of the latter won't be as consistent as the 6 hours that Cleese and Booth carefully wrote and performed. Secondly, the same journalists easily reel off names like Morcambe and Wise, and Tommy Cooper but judiciously forget to mention shows such as Mind Your Language, the stand up showcase, The Comedians, or (one of my favourites) The Two Ronnies. These are shows that regularly used 'cruelty' towards woman and other races to garner laughs. Even Fawlty towers itself has had its fair share of criticism both for Sach's portrayal of a Spaniard and for the racism of characters like The Major.

I understand that there are shows that could be considered cruel (Fonejaker or Balls of Steel initially spring to mind) but equally a show like Harry Hill's TV Burp is far from being cruel (it sends up celebrities in the same way that Morcambe and Wise would do) and is one of the most successful comedy shows on TV. Many shows that might be regarded as cruel by these papers (Chris Morris' entire post-Day Today oeuvre) used similar methods to Brand and Ross but to very different ends. Even Cleese's own Monty Python could be cruel if it felt there was a target worth attacking.

Furthermore, although they're rarely- if ever- on the TV, the DVD and live sales for comics like Chubby Brown or Jim Davison are still strong. Undoubtedly there will be a cross-over between the readers of the newspapers that take such delight in criticising Brand and fans of these genuinely cruel comedians. Their names have been omitted from these editorials that suggest that the past was a golden era. Perhaps that's because they have been consistent in both their content and their popularity- thus the argument falls apart.

Finally, the statistics speak louder than anything else. On October 18th (when this was initially broadcast) the BBC received only two complaints. When the Mail on Sunday reported on it the complaints rocketed to over 30,000. Strangely this number continued to rise for the next week. Who was calling in 5 days after the story broke? I would imagine that a very small proportion of those people thought to seek out and listen to the whole broadcast thus, in my mind, rendering their complaint null and void. OfCom should have to ask any callers if they actually heard the phone calls otherwise their complaint cannot be counted. I'd like to meet one of these complainers and ask them exactly why they complained. Surely, the fact that the newspapers have been all over the story suggests that OfCom are aware. I'd also like to point out to them that no one is forcing them to listen to the Russell Brand show. Or anything that features either him or Ross. Or anything else for that matter. The BBC is a peerless corporation and BBC Radio 2 is a perfect example of public service broadcasting. Driving home from gigs, listening to Radio 2, I've heard the start of a weekly show which presents an hour of Wurlitzer music. An hour. Of Wurlitzer music. Every week. And although I personally am not a fan of Wurlitzer music I didn't fly off the handle and call up the BBC to suggest that they refund my licence fee. I turned over. But I turned over with a tremendous feeling of elation- a feeling that, although I wasn't in that particular demographic, it was a demographic that was being catered for. If you don't like Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross or Terry Wogan or Alan Tichmarsh or Ken Bruce of the Mighty Wurlitzer then don't listen. But please, don't feel you need to police others' listening habits. I think both Ross and Brand are superb performers and presenters and it's sad that people who would otherwise avoid their work have felt compelled to seek out something for the sole reason of making themselves upset and angry.

Right, I'm off to watch Coming of Age on BBC3. I hear it's a fucking load of old shit.

Bonus Episode: Live Comedy!

2008-10-26T18:53:00.003+01:00

Matthew Crosby Gets Owned on stage

Here's me enjoying a typically great gig. I'm performing at a night hosted by Myspace Comedy. Hope you love it!

Episode Nine: Lions and Racists and Names. Oh My!

2008-10-24T20:06:00.008+02:00

Hello pals. Welcome to another great episode of Matthew-Paul Crosby's Readable podcast.

In this episode: a picture of me by a pub that has my name, a joke I've written, your comments, halloween costumes, another lookalike, Sasha Fierce, Spotlight, McCain, Obama, YouTube, X Factor.

But first, let's kick off with a joke I've written. Get ready to lol.

Just because I have a comically implausible name and I can't spell very well, why won't anyone to reply to my emails imploring people to make their penis larger? If only they would listen to me. Their gurlfriends will w0rsh1p them for 1t!

Alright, thanks for letting me get that out of my system. Here are your comments:

Chris Coltrane said... That story about Stewart Lee accidentally talking into the microphone was brilliant! What happened during the rest of your set, and what happened in his set?

I have written about this before on my blog. But basically, we ploughed through our set and ended up with a shitty review (a cursory search reveals that the internet no longer houses it. As far as I can remember it called us 'mirthless' and said we had a lot of work to do before Edinburgh. Which was true on both counts.) Stewart Lee was superb and people really enjoyed him. He's very good.

Lucy said...That was a great blog. Really enjoyed the interview Questions. Must have been surreal to see the t-shirted girlies. Maybe you should make some merchandice, I'd buy an "internet and the owl" Tshirt!

Thanks Lucy. Surreal but lovely. And, talking of Owl and Internet merchandise, I got this email this week!

Dear Matthew, My name is giles, and I am a big fan of the fun club. I was wondering if you could please send me a picture of the owl from your recent funergy show, as I thought he was awesome, and would like to dress up as him for halloween. I hope you, Pappy, and the rest of the fun club are well. Keep up the good work, All the best

My reply...

Hi Giles, You've made my day, it's very exciting knowing that I'm going to be joining Sarah Palin as one of just a few new-for-2008 Halloween costumes. It's basically just a wooly brown hat, a wooly brown jumper with the ends of the sleeves pinned into the armpits and a pair of rubbber gloves. Get ready for massively restricted movement and sweaty hands. The glasses are my own, but they do help the general look. Happy Halloween.

Blogger Katharine said...I feel for your shower/glasses incident. Leaving the specs on when you're going somewhere/doing something in which they have no relevent role is a pisser. My worst one was always climbing into the swimming pool and dunking my head only to realise they were still attached to my face.

I sometimes look for them without realisng I'm wearing them. Or, if I'm onstage playing a character who isn't wearing glasses I sometimes find myself making the motion to push them up and only realising I've done so when my finger meets the bridge of my nose. This is 'Glasses Talk' with Matthew and Katherine. Next up Monocles: Are rich men's glasses the poor man's glasses?

sanjay tuck said... my entry into the shittest lookalike is ben "edict" clark. as he hasn't had one yet. so here we go: ben and the cowardly lion.

Once again, you can decide for yourself. Here's the guy from all those adverts...

And here's a friend of Dorothy. It's not exactly uncanny is it, Sanjay?
I'm also including a picture of Pappy's to encourage you to send in more lookalikes for the four of us. Keep 'em coming. Here's me, Tom, Brendan and Cowardly.

Like Mr MacPhisto, Esther, Victor, Mimi and Diddy before her, Beyonce is changing.

From today's Guardian:

"Beyoncé Knowles has unveiled her new stage name: Sasha Fierce. Fierce's decision has surprised many Beyoncé fans, but is designed to emphasise a new, tougher musical direction, as showcased in Fierce's forthcoming album I Am … Sasha Fierce. To reinforce this message, Fierce is also scheduled to appear on Strictly Come Dancing."

I'm not sure why this makes me laugh but there's something funny about starting the second sentence by immediately referring to her as Fierce. It feels as if the journalist is sending up Beyoncé; a notion that is confirmed by the last sentence.

The same thing happened to me; although slightly against my will. A year ago I joined Spotlight a sort of Argos catalogue for actors, presenters, comedians etc. It's used by casting directors to choose the right person for the role. Unfortunately there can be no duplication of names meaning, as there was a Matt Crosby already registered with them, I would have to change mine. Strangely they wouldn't let me be Matthew Crosby even though my nemesis was registered as Matt (a name I never use). Gone also are the days when a simple middle initial might have set you apart from your namesake. So Matthew P Crosby was also out. Weirdly, hyphenated names are totally acceptable. So, after losing an argument with my agents that would have seen me change my name entirely (apparently being called Ultimo Deathfukker may affect my chances of any more work on CBBC) I had to adopt the never-before-used compound name, Matthew-Paul.

It'll never be used on credits or in anything other than the Spotlight brochure and website, but every now and then I end up at a casting where someone I know asks me if my real name is Matthew-Paul. If anyone knows the 'other' Matt Crosby, you don't need to kill him, just persuasive him that he should give up acting and that he needn't renew his Spotlight subscription on November 1st. Not unless he wants a visit from Ultimo Deathfukker.

I was on YouTube watching a collection of disturbing ignorant, racist comments by McCain supporters compiled from news reports by bravenewfilms. At one point a republican supporter held up a 'Curious George' monkey doll, onto the forehead of which he'd plastered an Obama sticker, and says, "This is little Hussein. Little Hussein wanted to see truth and good Americans." Seeing unfettered racism up close (even on tv) can be genuinely chilling and this was a classic example. The video ended with a caption, "pssst...do something." This filled me with a total panic. What can I do? Where can I go? Is there another link? Can I sign something? I'm in my house at the moment. Should I call someone? As the video ended and the 'related videos' appeared in the box where the movie had been playing I turned to them for help. Perhaps one of these videos might point me in the right direction? Their first suggestion was a guy playing a ukulele version of the Final Countdown. The moral: don't try and get your news solely from YouTube.

I've stopped watching the X Factor now that it's gone into the karaoke competition phase of the show. It's really does feel like two shows grafted onto each other. It's like from Dusk til Dawn. It's Crime Thriller, crime thriller, crime thriller, VAMPIRES! An analogy that only half works: the singers in the second half of X factor can appear as dead behind the eyes and soulless as the inhabitants of the Titty Twister. Whereas the first half, far from being a crime thriller, could more accurately be renamed. I'm delusional, my Mum's dead and my Gran made a cape with my name on it.

Obviously the first section is my favourite part for several reasons. One is the overuse of the phrase "But no one wants it more than..." Every episode they apparently find the one person who wants it more than anyone. It's usually because they're delusional, their Mum's dead and their gran made a cape with their name on. My favourite aspect of delusion is the groups who claim to be offering 'something new' or 'something that no one's seen before'. "We're the only Mother-Daughter singing duo. The industry doesn't have anything like us!" I've never, after hearing a song on the radio that's made me want to stove my face in, had a 180 about turn because the DJ's chimed in that the singers were a brother and sister. If they really wanted to make an impact they should offer something that no one else has ever done. "Why do you think you have the X factor?" "Because we've got something that no one else has seen before. I'm a starfish and my singer partner, Jason, is an ornamental plate."

Thanks for reading. See you next episode.

Episode Eight: Not a real Guespisode Collins

2008-10-18T02:12:00.005+02:00

In this episode: things, stuff, a bit of the other, your comments, a picture that makes me uncomfortable, a photo of me in a place that has my name and a very short anecdote.

A one-sentence anecdote: Standing in the shower two days ago I moved my hands up to wash my face only to discover I still had my glasses on.

Hey everybody, welcome to episode eight of my readable podcast. I promised myself that every fourth episode would feature a guest from the world of podcasting. Episode 4 featured the lovely Helen Zaltzman of Answer Me This Podcast. This episode sort-of features Andrew Collins of the superb Collings and Herrin podcast. Basically, he sent me a few questions for an interview about live comedy for Word magazine. The article is out this month so I'm sure he won't mind if I put his questions and my answers in this episode. If you'd like to read the article itself please buy Word magazine. It's only £4.80 and has a very interesting article about hoaxers and an interview with Denis Norden. Better still, email their editor Mark Ellen (mark@wordmagazine.co.uk) and congratulate him and Mr Collins on including Pappy's Fun Club in their magazine. Who knows, perhaps with your persistence, this time next year we could be on the cover?

So that's coming up in a bit. In the meantime, let's not only have a look at some comments from the last episode.

Matthew said...
I'm going to pounce on your dangling of the coveted 'shitiest lookalike reference' and proffering Brendan Dodds and 80's action superstar Dolph Lundgren. Pretty great.

I will stress that the Matthew writing this is not me. Anyway, I'll let you be the judge, here is Brendan...

And here is the Master of the Universe himself, Dolph...I'm seeing and acknowledging the well chiseled jaw of both men but it's an even shitter lookalike than me and Screech. However, it's not the worst Pappy-a-like. On one internet forum Tom from Pappy's managed to bag himself a comparison with Sloth from the Goonies. Google image that yourselves. It's too harsh to include here.

Katharine said...
Typical! I move house, lose internet useage at work (possibly as a result of this very blog, but more likely because I am quite poor at my job) and suddenly you decide to update twice? Chuh. I liked the 'comments only'ness though, mainly because I got a paragraph to myself (more or less). I also have a question: When are you/the rest of the Pappy's going to do a gig north of the south? I've heard Manchester is spectacularly shiny...

A few lines, not a paragraph will have to suffice this time. Commiserations on your loss of internet use at work. Is that a loss of job too? And we are planning a tour in February and March 2009. I know we're playing in York and Leeds. Hopefully we'll add a Manchester date soon. Check pappysfunclub.co.uk for more details.

Ildikó said...
I watched my first episode of Crowned today. Boy is that show a winner!

It is. My favourite moment so far was the Mother-Daughter team who, to suggest the hidden strength behind their quiet exterior, named their team (in all seriousness) Silent But Deadly. If you haven't seen it yet, get on 4OD now.

Monsterwork said...
Would you give Lyndsey Dawn McKenzie one?

I'm not sure what inspired this question. She was a topheavy-model and high-class prostitute with her sister, wasn't she? I think I might give it a miss. Sorry Lyndsey and sorry Monsterwork.

The strangest comments this week (especially in light of recently being called a "fucking racist" by Bill Kelso about a post I wrote months ago) were actually in response to this post from February 2006. In it I criticised a man for having a Nazi eagle emblem tattooed on his neck. I thought this was a fairly safe target for ridicule. How wrong I was. Quick as a flash, two years later, this pops up:

Anonymous said...
this man is no twat he stands for what he and i belive in as you just follow the sheep/dirt you call usa live long furer!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure how this fellow found my site. Or why he seems to think that I follow the sheep/dirt I call usa. Or what he means by the phrase sheep/dirt. I especially like his sign off. He must mean 'long live the fuhrer'. Are we to assume he hasn't read a newspaper or a history book since 1944? In his jumbled phrasing, though, it seems more like a message of well wishing rather than a loyal toast.
"Live long fuhrer!"
"Cheers, Anonymous! Will do!"

Luckily another Anonymous (or could it have been the same fellow having come to his senses an hour an a quarter later?) posted this:

Anonymous said...
Yah I believe he is a twat, and a big one for that matter.

Good on you second Anonymous! I'm with you on that. A lot has happened to me in the last two years. I have changed in many ways. However I think it's safe to say that my opinion of men who have swastikas tattooed on their necks has remained steadfast. I am still anti.

I'll leave you with this interview between myself and Andrew Collins (his questions in bold). Oh, and here's the photo I refer to later in the article...
How would you describe what Pappy's Fun Club do - and without whose influence might you have never started it in the first place?

It’s essentially sketch comedy. Last year we coined the phrase “post-sketch comedy” and used that on our flyers. Initially it was a joke about music being obsessed with genre (post-rock, anti-folk et al) in a way that comedy doesn’t appear to be. If a band can be post-punk or nu rave, why can’t we be post sketch? But I think it makes a more serious point, we’re trying to move away from the more conventional single-premise-played-out-until-blackout form of performance that a lot of people think of when they hear the term sketch comedy. Thus we don’t use blackouts and try and make the whole show a coherent narrative. It’s usually us (Ben, Brendan, Matthew and Tom) trying to put on a show under the guidance of our never-seen benefactor, Pappy. We play ourselves and all our characters, many of whom conspire to ruin the show. We’re basically fighting against Pappy closing us down.

I think Vic Reeve’s Big Night Out is a key influence. We host a show that is constantly on the brink of collapse, we welcome on guests who are played by ourselves, there is the constant threat of the show being overtaken or closed down, the props, set and costumes all have an amateurish and home made feel. There are loads of similarities now I think about it.

Equally, an American show called Mr Show with Bob and David played a part in shaping what we do. We acknowledge it’s a show and then play out a variety of scenes that interlink and then collapse in on each other.

What are the smallest and largest audiences you've played to? And what were the advantages/disadvantages?

The smallest was probably 7 people in Hammersmith last year. We previewed our show in a pub down the road from the Hammersmith Apollo on the night the Wu Tang were playing, obviously forgetting the massive overlap in our demographics. The audience comprised of: a couple who didn’t know there was a comedy night on, three Australian backpackers, my brother and my Dad.

The advantage of playing to a small crowd is that you can, if you get it right, create a very exciting intimacy. People can feel as if they’re part of a small group witnessing something special. The flipside is that they can feel as if they’ve wasted their time on something unpopular.

Strangely, less than two months after that gig in Hammersmith we were performing the very same show at the Garrick Theatre in London to about 500 people. I think the biggest gig we performed at (discounting the Mighty Boosh Festival which was about 1500 people) was at the Union Chapel which was somewhere between 800 and 900 people. The main problem we encounter is sound. In a smaller venue we don’t use mics and just rely on varying levels of shouting. In a massive space we have to either use ambient mics on stands or tiny mics attached to our shirts or our faces. This not only restricts our movement and our costume changes but led to an incident at a gig in Nottingham (a city where we have never really done well). I was off to the side of the stage, watching the other three struggle through a particularly poorly received sketch, when the headliner, Stewart Lee, leaned in to whisper into my ear that I shouldn't worry too much about it going badly as this was a pretty harsh environment for sketch comedy. As he did so he spoke directly into the microphone attached to my face, broadcasting his opinions through every speaker in the room.

Because comedy moves so fast these days, one needn't "pay their dues" as post-war comics used to have to, as radio and TV are hungry for new names. Thus, the Mighty Boosh can move from cult act to one that plays Wembley Arena in a few years.

I suppose that’s true, although I saw the Boosh performing to their families and a tiny handful of punters at the Riverside studios (coincidentally also in Hammersmith) nearly ten years ago. I know it appears as if they sprang from the forehead of Zeus but they had real difficulty getting their radio and tv shows made. Certainly once they were on the tv their rise was incredible but they paid their dues on the live circuit too.

Does this influence other, newer comics do you think? Are people getting into comedy expecting instant success, instant BBC3 series etc.?

I think so, but those sort of people realise pretty quickly that it isn’t like that and either put up or give up. If you don’t go and see a lot of live comedy you might turn on BBC3 or E4 or Channel 4’s Comedy Lab season and wonder where these people come from. The chances are they’ve been going for years doing live stuff or tiny roles in bigger shows before they get given their own vehicle. Success in one of the big new act competitions can bring you to the attention of the industry but, at least in the short term, it very rarely leads to much more than better paid gigs where you’re allowed to do a bit longer onstage.

Occasionally you’ll see someone who did stand up for 18 months and landed a TV presenting role or a role in a sitcom, but that’s not the same thing. If you’re doing comedy to get a role as a presenter then you’re ‘doing comedy’ and that’s a very different thing to ‘being a comedian’. In the 1990s Rob Newman was arguably the biggest act around, at a time when comedy was sexy and exciting and described in the same hushed tones as music was and is. He doesn’t play Wembley any more but he still performs, sometimes to just a handful of people. Presumably- and I don’t know him so I can’t say- that’s because comedy is an end in itself for him.

Do fans follow you around?

Sort of. With stuff like facebook and myspace it’s very easy to get in contact with people who make stuff you enjoy and to follow them around online. It also means that ‘haters’ can follow you around as well but the less said about that the better. There are a handful of people who make it a habit to come to most of our gigs, especially in London. One of the nice things about doing the Edinburgh fringe several years in a row is seeing people coming back year after year. Every year we’ve handed out badges at the end of our shows and it was genuinely heart warming to see people with badges from last year and the year before. This year it reached a strange zenith when a group of girls arrived with t shirts they had made themselves which had pictures of us on them and phrases from the last two shows. Edinburgh in August is a city populated by my comedy heroes but these girls were the only people who reduced me to my 14-year old self, shy and nervous and unable to make eye contact. I’ve included a picture.

What's the secret to keeping one's integrity when the money starts rolling in and bigger venues come calling, do you think?

I’ll have to tell you when that happens. In seriousness, I think that the live circuit is the greatest leveller. It teaches you tremendous humility in that no matter who you are, or what TV shows you’ve been on, if you aren’t making that audience laugh at that moment your presence will not be tolerated. We had a couple of big shows in the Soho Theatre last June and so we decided to do a few smaller shows to warm up. The night before we were due to open we were booed offstage by about 40 people in a pub in Angel. Dying onstage is always horrible, but when you’re dying onstage dressed as an owl, sweating into the rubber gloves on your hands- that’s a special kind of horrible. The live circuit constantly teaches you that you can’t be complacent and you can’t assume that your audience will be on board immediately. Equally, if you find yourself in a situation where it feels too easy, there are always venues and audiences that can bring you down to earth. Many of them are in Nottingham.

Bonus Episode: Just The Comments!

2008-10-01T19:56:00.002+02:00

I’ve been a bad blogger recently. If you’ve managed to find the time to watch every episode so far of Crowned, the Mother/Daughter Beauty Pageant Houseshare Reality show (which I have) then I could have at least written a few words about my time spent at the world’s biggest arts festival. Look at 2007 in the archive! 117 posts to my paltry 23 in 2008. Appalling! There are 90 days left in the year, even if I post every day I can’t beat it.

pauly said...
Come on man, don't leave your public waiting!
yelsie said...
Are we already going to mourn the loss of the Readable Podcast?
Anonymous said...
update! love you.

Apologies.

My favourite was this one.

Katharine said...
'NSFW'? Maybe, but I read it at my desk anyway, office protocols be damned. And despite the fact I am evidently two months late jumping on the bandwagon, I very much enjoyed it. If another blog entry crops up in the future, I would probably read that too. I don't think the management would like it if they knew I spent a vast proportion of my time reading about comedic genitalia, though.

With encouragement like that, I thought I’d give you all a bonus episode in which I answer all your comments- and, hopefully, inspire some more! LOL! RFOL!

Here we go.

Sophie said...
Could you please grace us with some "smug smarts"?
Here Sophie is referring to a review we received. Being called smug was neither hurtful nor inaccurate; what did get my goat slightly was the journalist who said that “one of them looks like a mini-Woody Allen.” See if you can guess which word bothers me in that sentence. Mini? Woody Allen can only be an inch taller than me.

Sophie also said...
Welcome to Edinburgh. I hope your first show went well.

All the shows went well; not just the first one. We had a really good time and, as my pal Andrew J Lederer correctly notes in his piece in the Scotsman, I thought it was my happiest fringe so far.

Obviously me gushing about the wonderful friends I made doesn’t make for particularly fun podcasting. So fuck all that, here are a few things that happened that weren’t necessarily ‘happy’.

In the Pleasance Courtyard, where Pappy’s were performing this year, they’d devoted an entire wall to press and publicity clippings. As I was perusing these one afternoon before the show a couple came and stood next to me. The woman in the couple pointed to a picture on the wall and said, “Look at his weird squashed up face, he looks just like Charlie.” I looked over to see that she was pointing at a picture of me. As I did this she turned, looked at me and embarrassedly walked away. I still don’t know who Charlie is. But at least I have a good idea of how others see me: a squashed Woody Allen.

A further realisation came in the form of a physical encounter on the Grassmarket (a street with a number of bars on it that can be a bit rough) one evening. I was heading to perform with Pappy’s at Political Animal (I’d imagine we were probably the least political act that played that have ever played that gig) when someone came up behind me and ran their fingers through my hair. If this had happened anywhere else in the world I would have freaked out but, seeing as I was likely to run into someone I knew about once every three minutes, I just assumed that it was a fellow performer. In fact, I assumed it was a specific performer: Matt Forde. Matt is the single most tactile man I have ever met and has a penchant for complimenting people in tremendous detail. At one point during the month he compered a comic onstage at his superb panel show, On Heat, with the words “this man has the best upper body of any comedian at the Fringe.” Anyway, it wasn’t Matt Forde. It was one of two massive, drunk Scottish blokes. I smiled back, not knowing what was coming next. The hair stroking had been quite tender. The non-hair-stroking of the pair leant into my face and slurred, “Y’alright, Screech?”

I can only assume this is a reference to Dustin Diamond of Saved by the Bell fame. The award for shittest lookalike reference definitely goes to that guy. Here’s the proof…

Weirdly, the fantastic Michael Showalter has a track on his latest comedy CD, Sandwiches and Cats about looking like Screech. The case for him is a little stronger.

See? What was annoying about these guys was the lack of thought. You can’t just look at a guy with glasses and apply all of nerdome upon him. Besides Screech didn’t even wear glasses. I should never have gone out in my Mork fancy dress outfit.

For fans of Matthew looklike anecdotes, please see here.

Sophie finally said...
Let me ask you this - What's the best show on in Edinburgh this year? What should not be missed?

I realise that it’s pointless now but here are a few things that were brilliant and thus should not be missed if they ever come around London or wherever-the-hell-you-live-I-could-care-less:
Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved, Alpha Male by Adam Riches, Axis of Awesome, Kiosk of Champions, Mould and Arrowsmith, Will and Greg, Because It’s There by Adam Brace, Josie Long, Andy Zaltzman, Dan iel Kit son, Matt Forde’s On Heat.

The latter was a daily panel show hosted by Forde and captained by Jon Richardson and Mark Olver. Pappy’s were guests both as individuals and as a team but we made an effort to be there most days as audience members and unelected adjudicators. The final show pit us against our biggest rivals, The Penny Dreadfuls. The Pennies dismissed us as S Klang Jnrs and it, quite rightly ended in a ruck. Tables were upturned, shirts were removed and justice was served. Thanks to Isobel for the photos.

Charlie said...
Were there bits in the lucozade-vomit? In my experience of throwing up at inopportune moments, there's always very shady-looking bits that make the whole situation worse.

Charlie?! Could you be the one the couple thought I looked like? Do we look alike? Anyway, this is inreference to Brendan making me laugh so I hard I threw up Lucozade (Episode Six). The answer is no. Bile but no bits.

An eager bigOCTOPUS had these two similar messages to add to the mix.

bigOCTOPUS said...
Stumbled across this, your writing is quite witty. Amazing to think you taught in Cumberland once (or is the jig up when I say that?) : )
Erd

bigOCTOPUS said...
Stumbled across this after I thought I recognised you on the television. I shall subscribe to your RSS feed and read, it all 'looks' funny when skimmed :) Keep up the good work.
Erd

His blasé tone is scuppered by his leaving two messages. Yes, this is an ex-pupil of mine from when I taught in an East London comprehensive. Hello again, Erd. How is everything with you? Please do subscribe. I will update further.

I’ve had quite a few ex-pupils getting in touch recently on facebook. My favourite comment came in the form of a comment on my profile photo: “wow sir man u look bare diff!! do u memebr me?” My favourite bit of that is either “bare diff” to mean very (bare) different (diff) or using the suffix ‘man’ on the word ‘sir’. I loved hearing teachers get called Miss man or Sir man, usually in the a sentence telling us we were being “extra”. “Homework, sir man? Why d’you have to be so extra?”

On the subject of the youth of today, Dr Lobb dropped in to call my professionalism into question.

Dr Lobb said...
Matthew, did you say "f***ed" on CBBC? 7 minutes 50 seconds into the first Colin Actus youtube video.

The video’s from Episode Two and, as you can hear, it's 'bucked'. But good lord. I could have cost a lot of people their jobs. Of interest to some will be Bill Kelso’s assertion in the comments section of this post, that I am a “fucking racist.” I’ve addressed it as a comment underneath his message but, once again, sorry to Bill for the misunderstanding.

Finally, S. said...
Have you seen this? What do you think of it? Does Have Your Say depress you? It does me.

I’ll answer your three questions, S.

1. What is it? I can’t see anything! What am I supposed to be looking at?
2. 2. Think of what? What is it? I can’t see anything! What am I supposed to be looking at?
3. I can’t concentrate on this question, I’m all bugaboo about the last two. Seriously, what is it? I can’t see anything! What am I supposed to be looking at?

Bye for now!

Episode Seven: Not a real episode

2008-09-27T03:04:00.003+02:00

Once again my real life took over from me writing about my real life. Sorry if you’ve checked this page in the last six or seven weeks and found nothing new. Hope this begins to make up for it.

Although you could easily have enjoyed my work on other, more audio podcasts. I appeared as a guest on the Polsom and Sankey podcast. This was super fun and the back episodes are equally awesome. Check them out here.

Also Pappy’s appeared on episode two of the Fix podcast. The latter was recorded late in the evening next to some toilets and was the most censored podcast Channel 4 have ever produced. Well done us, eh?

Speaking of Channel 4, our Comedy Lab went out on August 28^th and led, almost immediately, to us not being commissioned for a series. That honour went to our friends School of Comedy (whose show I saw in Edinburgh and really, really loved). Congratulations to them all. What am I talking about? They’re younger, funnier, better-looking and more talented than us! I hope they meet a horrible demise. All of them.

Anyway, our show felt very much like a well meaning first try. If you didn’t see it, here it is.

In the meantime here is a story for any fans of the Puppies Fan Club anecdote of Episode Four.

I did an interview on BBC Radio Leicester today and, just before we went on air the DJ was telling me how much he’d enjoyed the Comedy Lab. This immediately made me feel good about the interview. Most start with me having to explain “exactly what it is [we] do” to an interviewer who couldn’t give a shit. Luckily here was someone who actually knew and cared about our work. The dulcet strains of Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel faded out and the DJ’s voice came through loud and clear: “This is Chris Baxter on BBC Radio Leicester, I’m taking to Matthew Corby of Pappy’s Fan Club…”

Back soon with a real episode.

Episode Six: Ediburghinings

2008-07-30T17:32:00.003+02:00

In this episode: Edinburgh, The Dark Knight, cockiness, a quick plug for Funergy, News of the World readers, Latitude, my cock, music of Black Origin, vomit, lucozade, Brendan’s cock, jumping the shark, a smackdown for Rollins.

Welcome to a belated episode six of my Readable Podcast. Here are a few things that have happened to me in the past few weeks, starting with this week…

I have arrived in Edinburgh for Pappy’s third year at the Festival. Last night we decided to go and see The Dark Knight and so sent out a message to other friends who might be in town and might want to relax on the last night before the festival begins. 100% of replies told us that the recipient could not join us as they were working on their show. At first this made me feel like the school kids who laugh off important study leave time for days in the park. Should we be working on our show? It was only after the 7^th or 8^th message to the same effect came in that I realised that, rather than being the hip kids who don’t care, we were actually the annoying swots who’d done their homework on Friday night. I only hope that our genuine request for company at the cinema didn’t come across as a arrogant declaration: “Our show’s ready, we’re partying! What’s that? Still working the night before the big day?” Besides, I’m not even sure our show is ready. We’ll soon find out. The show goes up in three and a half hours.

By the way, if you are in Edinburgh, please come and see our show. It’s called Funergy. Tickets and all the information you need is available through our website.

Mediocre Travel Story of the Week
We did an exhausting tour of the UK and Ireland that resulting in both sickness and the neglect of this Readable Podcast. Just before Latitude we flew to Galway for a show at the Roisin Dubh. As I was waiting in WH Smiths at Bristol Airport, a man in his twenties approached the newspaper stand muttering loudly, “News of the World? News of the World? News of the World?” After circling the stand twice a great revelation came over him, “It’s not Sunday, is it?” It was Wednesday. I’ve never seen a truer archetype of that paper’s readership.

After Galway was the Latitude Festival, which brings us to Sophie’s comment:

Please tell us your latitude tales. (I think you should focus on the final night, eh? eh? know what i mean?)

Of course I know what she means, and of course she knows that I know what she means. She’s referring to the moment when I drunkenly exposed myself to a packed literary arena, by arriving onstage to sing a song from our show wearing a tutu, a blonde wig and no underwear. It was a mistake. Let’s all move on. Thank God for facebook as it now allows anyone who wasn’t there to enjoy the moment from about 15 different camera angles.

Generally, it was a wonderful weekend. We performed our show at 1am which should have been a shitstorm but wasn’t. We must have been at a perfect drunken equilibrium to the festival or the audience or the universe. You know the way that you often bowl better on the third pint than you do on the first? That was what happened that night. And you know how you often bowl horribly when you’re on your sixth or seventh pint? That was what happened on the last night.

Black Kids played and were great, prompting Tom and I to consider putting on our own Black Fest. Only bands with Black in their name can play. Black Kids, Keys, Lips, Flag, Eyed Peas, Francis. It wouldn’t be a bad line up. Highlight of the festival musically was Grinderman. Lowlight musically was a cobbled together Book Club band playing a version of Sweet Child O’ Mine. Tom from Pappy’s danced onto the stage, drunk as a lord, and decided it would be funny to pretend to collapse. What he didn’t realise was that the song had about eight more verses to go. With a Stanislavski-like commitment to the role, he lay motionless onstage for the remainder of the song.

The only downside of the festival was that my girlfriend got sick and spent Saturday in the tent, throwing up into a bag. When I went to throw the bag away the next day I found that, in the interests of recycling, all bins were manned by a steward to ensure that we threw each item into the correct receptacles. It was with some shame that I had to answer her question of, “What’s in the bag?” with a vague and sheepish, “Someone threw up.” Landfill, apparently.

Speaking of throwing up, I rode to Latitude in the car with Ben and Brendan. By the way, this story maybe NSFW. As we travelled the conversation turned to the thorny subject of ethnicity in pornography. Ben professed to a penchant for Asian ladies but not so much for black women. Facetiously (and, I should add, mainly for humour) asked if he liked little white girls who loved big black cocks. He replied to the affirmative. Suddenly and without warning, Brendan leaned forward from the backseat and very quietly said, “I’ve got a black cock.” This caused me to suck the gulp of lucozade I had just taken right into my lungs, which in turned caused me to throw up orange bile all over the front of Ben’s car. The dashboard, front windscreen, glove compartment and my clothes were all dripping with flurescent liquid as my still-filled lungs screamed and grasped for air. I was drowning. It was like a scene from a Wilfred Owen poem. If Owen had drunk lucozade and chatted about porn. Brendan, still laughing at both his quip and the fact that it was in the process of killing me, smacked me on the back and Ben contemplated pulling over. Eventually, after making the noise the Alien makes when it gets burned for about three minutes, I managed to get my breath back. On the many occasions I’ve imagined my death it’s never involved lucozade and Brendan’s black cock. Often one, never both.

A weird tangent has cropped up in the comments sections courtesy of regular commenter, Matthew, who said...

I remember seeing a website which was just a list of opinions of when tv shows, bands etc 'jumped the shark'. For example, a lot of people thought my beloved Cheers jumped the shark when they replaced Dianne with Rebecca. Farcical stuff.

Any ideas where the phrase comes from?

Quick as a flash, The Sound of The Ladies, shot back with basically the correct answer [it was water-skis]...

Someone told me the phrase comes from an episode of "Happy Days" where The Fonz actually jumps over a shark on a surfboard [insert music-hall joke here]. Although that show figuratively jumped the shark on the first day it aired.

Basically, there’s a website called JumpTheShark.com that is devoted to picking moments went a TV show went off the boil. “When Ted Danson rips the shirt, Curb Your Enthusiasm really jumped the shark.” Apparently, according to Tom, Ralph Little’s character in Two Pints of Lager replicated the moment from Happy Days and died in the process. There’s loads of examples on Wikipedia. “When Pappy’s cockily suggested we go and see the Dark Knight on the night before their first show, I knew they’d jumped the shark.”

Finally, I walked around the Pleasance this morning and found that they’d put up some articles to preview shows that are happing during the Festival; including an interview I had done with Edinburgh Festivals magazine. In it I had said how I had been inspired by the work ethic of the band Black Flag and tried to reflect it in our own gigging schedule. The journalist had focussed on this suggesting that I had said that Pappy’s were like Black Flag and had added that it was ironic that Henry Rollins (lead singer of the Flag and a hero of mine), who is also performing at the Festival, wasn’t doing as many shows as Pappy’s. Basically, the way it appeared to read was that I had said that Pappy’s were tougher or harder-working than Black Flag. It’s the first time I have, albeit unwittingly, slammed someone in the press. You heard me right, Rollins you puss! Bring it on!

No photo of me recording this one as I don’t know how to make them go from my phone to my computer (Helen Saucepan usually does that). Anyway, thanks for reading despite the lack of eye candy.

Episode Five: Loose ends

2008-07-15T13:10:00.007+02:00

In this episode: another plug for Answer Me This, me on another podcast, feedback, too much time spent on comments, LIOP, Boosh Fest, Limehouse, an anticipatory apology and diversion to some old material.

Word up and welcome to another solo episode of Matthew Crosby’s Readable Podcast. Thanks for all your positive feedback about Helen Zaltzman’s guest appearance; I have a great idea for a guest for episode 8. And, if you did enjoy her work on my podcast, please check out her work on her own Answer Me This podcast. You can find more about it at www.answermethispodcast.com. Her boyfriend (and the soundman of her podcast), Martin Austwick, also has his own podcast. It’s called The Sound of the Ladies podcast and features a song by his band (the titular Sound of the Ladies) each month. This month I was lucky (or conveniently placed) enough to be a guest on that podcast. Unfortunately I was a tad under prepared, hear the underwhelming results here.

Due to last week’s Guespisode there’s a two week backlog of comments so here are my responses to a selection of the last fortnight’s. In fact, firstly, here are a few of the responses we got from Helen’s appearance

Ildikó said... I like Helen Saucepan.
Nathalie said... Great Cast ;)
Chris said... i've not read this yet. I will soon.
Henry said... I am fairly new to the world of podcasting so at times failed to keep up with the frenetic pace of this 21st century communication technique. However, saying this, what I did manage to catch I thoroughly enjoyed
Whereas Anonymous said... if you're asking what I thought, to be honest I read the others but didn't read most of this after half way, it was a bit long, it shouldve [sic] been just a bit of the podcast, like a magazine show where you chat to some one for a bit then go back to other stuff.

Thanks for your feedback. Apologies to Anonymous. It was by far the longest episode I’ve done. Hopefully, with the next Guespisode, I’ll either be stricter with my editing, chat for longer or find a more interesting guest. Only joking Helen!

And here are the answers to some of your questions…

chris-coltrane asked “When is the last time you remember seeing something that made you sad and also made you want to laugh at precisely the same time?”

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before but I once saw an old man wearing a baseball cap that he had customised by sticking an A5 piece of card with a hand written message to the front of the hat, just above the brim. I’ve changed the name, because I can’t remember it, but it read something like, “Paula Wilkins is an anagram of a four letter word." He’d clearly been so hurt by this woman that he felt the need to warn the entire world. It was so silly but, at the same time, very upsetting.

PB said... “Did you really think Primark weren't using sweatshops? Surely that was kind of obvious? If you can afford to charge £2 for a t-shirt, it figures your outlay is pretty small...”

Excuse me for trusting huge companies. If only someone had written an article or made a documentary or authored a book about this problem, I would never have been in this mess.

agb said...”have you have heard the eternal footman hold your hooded top and snicker?”

I think I saw them supporting And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

Mat said...Who is your favourite marvel hero/villain and why?

I was always a DC fan. Batman and Superman cannot be beaten. I know: Doomsday, Grendel etc, I just meant they’re really good.

paulypaul said... Incidently, did you get the feeling that that outro sequence [of Iron Man] was designed as for the opening credits? Perhaps that was just me.

It may well have been just you.

He also asked, Did you see Adam Buxton's MeeBox?

I did and really enjoyed it. I though Joanna Neary was genuinely brilliant, especially her impression of a fish. A quick apology to pauly (who was part of the reason last week’s episode was a bit late- I met him for a drink in a lovely Spanish bar) I promised I’d include a photo of me and him sitting in a bar not podcasting. And I forgot.

Nathalie said... “Talking about ironing why do you need supersteam in irons? Is that better than normal steam, is it faster”

I genuinely don’t know anything about ironing. But now you mention it, SuperSteam is my favourite Marvel hero.

Chris said... “I got an email today from facebook's compare people app. it told me who my hottest friends and stuff were. This is an exact ctrl c and ctrl v of the email. * "Who is more desirable to date" 1. Matthew Crosby (164 points, voted 252 times) what's all that about?”

I left that rhetorical question in for obvious reasons of vanity. Although I take exception to Chris’ tone. I’m a goddamn hottie, that’s what that’s all about!

Those glasses aren't mine. Thanks as always for your comments. Please keep them coming. Special comment section mention goes to Monsterwork and Ildikó for their awesome misheard/garbled mes anecdotes. Bearing in mind Anonymous’ comment, I’ll keep the main meat of the podcast mercifully short, like myself.

Tom from Pappy’s Fun Club’s brother was married last weekend, meaning that we were a three man team for our gigs at Laughter in Odd Places and Boosh Fest. The Laughter in Odd Places show was held at the London Museum and comprised of four of five stages with three or so acts performing on each, meaning that you could wander around from stage to stage choosing which performers you watched. This meant that we were on stage at the same time as Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Luke Wright and Simon Munnery. Our stage was next door to Stewart Lee’s and, when a large crowd gathered to see us, we assumed that a gaggle of Lee fans had mistakenly found us instead of him. I made a quick announcement to rectify this situation only to find that just one person had made this error and was expecting to see the 41^st Best Stand Up. The rest were there to see us. The show went off with hardly a hitch (read the Chortle review here) and the whole evening felt like the perfect festival. Indoors, in London, with superb acts and only lasting 2 hours. We were all in the pub by half nine; a happy reminder of the social aspect that awaits our arrival in Edinburgh in just (holy shit) 14 days time!

The Boosh Fest was a quite different proposition. Not to say that the festival didn’t have superb acts (Josie, David O’Doherty, Arnab Chanda, Arj Barker, Ross Noble, Tony Law, Tim Key, Tom Basden, Oram and Meeten) but I was slightly dreading playing such a large comedy tent as a three-man Pappy’s. I need not have worried; it was brilliant fun. Luckily, due to Mark Watson getting stuck in traffic, we were bumped from an 8pm slot to a 3.40pm slot. This not only allowed us to go on to a crowd that wasn’t too drunk to care (although that was never really the case, they remains a lovely attentive crowd) and, most importantly, allowed me to enjoy the rest of the day knowing that we’d done a good job. Here’s a great photo of Ben and Brendy, working their magic. I was also onstage but I’ve no idea where I am in this photo. Note the appropriate sign. Thanks to Ros for the photo.

I was nervously anticipating the Boosh’s headline set on the main stage all day. I’ve loved the Boosh since I saw them perform Artic Boosh at the Riverside Studios a few years ago and it’s been a strange experience seeing them go from a parody of cool to actual cool. The festival was populated by people dressed like them. Not in fancy dress as one of their characters (although there were lots of them too) but people who go about their day to day life dressed like a famous comedian. There’s something quite dangerous about being cool; I think it’s very hard to be both cool and funny. So when Noel Fielding arrived onstage riding on a 20ft high galleon, arms outstretched like Jesus, I thought I heard the sound of a shark craning its neck to see what had just jumped over it. I was brought up short by the arrival of Julian Barratt rowing frantically in a tiny dinghy. It was hilarious and a perfect puncturing of Fielding’s rock n roll posturing. Just exactly as they’ve always done. The main problem I had was that an outdoor stadium is no place to see comedy, all subtlety disappears. Checking my phone the next day I found that I had drunkenly texted myself the following cryptic message: “Boosh fest: Where comedy lost its shoes.” I know it’s a paraphrased line from the movie New York, New York but I’m not sure entirely what I meant by it. It made sense at the time. Perhaps it was my way of explaining the Boosh’s dilemma of how to deal with their phenomenal popularity? Headlining a festival seems like something of a Shea Stadium moment for a comedy act.

Mediocre Travel Story of the Week
Leaving my girlfriend’s house in Limehouse, East London, a few mornings I saw a tour bus passing through with a guide sitting at the front of the coach talking into a microphone. She seemed to have a lot of information to impart. I have no idea what she could possible have been saying. It’s Limehouse.

That just about wraps up another, fairly lengthy (sorry Anonymous!), episode. I’m not sure when I’ll do the next one as I’m leaving today for the part of Pappy’s tour that takes in Bristol, Galway and the Latitude Festival. I’ll be home on Monday but potentially too exhausted to podcast. In the meantime, why not check out the things I wrote about last year's Latitude? Here you go!

Episode Four: Guespisode Zaltzman

2008-07-07T19:53:00.011+02:00

In this episode: a typo, Steely Dan, an aborted jingle, train adverts, Kent, a cess pit, names, TV, Clive James, B*Witched, a better jingle, editing, trousers, codpieces, Peter Sutcliffe, News of the World, chastity belts, trannies, special awareness, surgical stockings, hand me down pants, an aborted plug for Answer Me This podcast!

Welcome to a slighly belated fourth episode of my Readable Podcast. As promised this is the first episode to feature a guest and this week it's Answer Me This! podcast's own Helen Zaltzman. A hero of podcasting and my housemate. We spent about an hour on gchat; below are the highlights of that chat. We don't answer any of your comments or talk about my trip to Boosh Fest so I'll do all that in next week's normal podcast. Please tell me what you think of this lengthy experiment. Oh, and check out Helen's Answer Me This podcast here!

me: Hey Helen. Welcome to Matthew Crosby's Readable Podcast. Helen has gone to take a phone call. Unprofessional.

helen.zaltzman:
Sorry about that. I just got a call from a woman asking me to be in a focus group about mobile phones. However the interruption caused by her call made me jaundiced against mobile phones.

me:
That ruins my first question: “what do you look for in a traiff?” Or, as I should have typed, tariff.

helen.zaltzman:
In a tariff, I look for free text bundles. In a traiff, long legs and brown eyes.

me:
What's a traiff?

helen.zaltzman:
I'm surprised you're keen to pursue this avenue. It takes people years to understand the true nature of traiff.

me:
Is it like a Snark?

helen.zaltzman:
Certainly not. Only the uninitiated would think that. Who'd've thought a simple typo could prove so fruitful to a readable podcast?

me:
It's our best episode yet.

helen.zaltzman:
I like the fact that we're sitting in silence, even though we are two feet from one another. It's like it's our silver wedding anniversary.

me:
Shall I play some music to break up the silence?

helen.zaltzman:
Yes. Where's your sense of ceremony? Where's your theme tune?

me:
I've gone for Steely Dan. Reeling in the Years. [I play a bit of the Dan on my iTunes]

helen.zaltzman:
ah, there it is! Rock rock rockitty rockitty rock

me:
Right off we go. Welcome to the Readable Podcast.

helen.zaltzman:
Thanks! It's a lot quieter than my own podcast. Fucking hell, Steely Dan are shit. No Steely Dan on my podcast!

me:
We'll talk about your podcast in a bit. I've done many jingles for your podcast Answer Me This, can you do a jingle for me? I've stopped playing Steely Dan to facilitate this.

helen.zaltzman:
that's very considerate. I'll probably be quite influenced by Steely Dan in my jingle, though, and therefore the jingle will sound like shit:

It's the readable podcast
not the breathable podcast

me:
It wasn't very strong.

helen.zaltzman:
you just interrupted my jingle there!

me:
I thought that was it?

helen.zaltzman:
no no, that was merely the beginning. my flow has been ruined now. you've made me self-conscious now. stupid quiet 'podcast'

me:
Alright, let's get onto topic one: why do they always have adverts for theatre shows and books at train stations and not much else?

helen.zaltzman:
Is it because there's usually a theatre just beyond the buffet car on a train?

me:
The theatre train?

helen.zaltzman:
Choo choo! Calling at Beckett, Ibsen and Lloyd Webber, where this train will terminate.

me:
There's the quiet carriage and the Am Dram carriage.

helen.zaltzman:
Christ. Imagine being stuck on that for four hours outside Leamington Spa.

me:
It used to be the Smokers carriage, when it was run by Cambridge Footlights.

helen.zaltzman:
LOL. that is the first time I have ever written 'LOL'. I was using it ironically. I merely smiled inside.

me:
I'd quite like a bad production of My Fair Lady to while away my journey. Anyhow, I went to the cinema this week.

helen.zaltzman:
Did you, by jove? I didn't. I went to Kent.

me:
Right, I also went to Kent twice so let's talk about that. Where in Kent?

helen.zaltzman:
I went to the hamlet of Cousley Wood, just outside Wadhurst but 50 yards on the right side of the Kentish border.

me:
There's only a right side to the Kentish border.

helen.zaltzman:
East Sussex?

me:
I mean RIGHT side. You're either in Kent or you can fuck off. That's the Kentish way.

helen.zaltzman:
that's strong talk for a grammar school boy.

me:
A Kentish Grammar school.

helen.zaltzman:
Anyhoo, I went to have Sunday lunch with my parents, except I ended up cooking the lunch whilst they tried to fix their cesspit.

me:
They have a cesspit? How did that come about? Do you parents produce an excess amount of cess?

helen.zaltzman:
Moderate cess. They do not want to mix their effluent with that of illegal immigrants. That is the Kentish way.

me:
Even their shit must be pure.

helen.zaltzman:
It is pure, because they are Jews. It is the chosen poo.

me:
Are your parents traditionally Kentish racists? As Jews I'd imagine they're not.

helen.zaltzman:
they're not at all. Especially because my dad himself is an immigrant, as was his father before him. Plus, they like Polish sausages and pickles.

me:
Good call. It's hard to be racist with a surname like yours.

helen.zaltzman:
No it isn't, you ! I couldn't even bring myself to write 'coon' or 'dago' there, so you must be right about the surname thing.

me:
Speaking of which, what's the worst bastardisation of your surname that you have encountered?

helen.zaltzman:
Saucepan. Yours?

me:
I used to get Raspberry by the kids I taught.

helen.zaltzman:
Matthew Raspberry is a lovely name. Not as good as Mr Crispy though.

me:
I'd forgotten about that. Did someone honestly thing your surname was Saucepan? I went to school with someone called Bracken Kitchen.

helen.zaltzman:
They were the child of imbeciles, I assume. boy or girl Bracken?

me:
An incredible name, I thought. A boy. He had a bowl haircut. You know [comedian and writer] James Kettle.

helen.zaltzman:
I've met him once. He whistles when he's ready.

me:
That's a great surname, let down by a mor first name. Boiling would have been a great name. Boiling's a great first name anyway. Boiling Crosby.

helen.zaltzman:
Boiling Zaltzman not so good. Don't worry, maybe he'll marry someone called Chips. What about Screaming Jay Crosby?

me:
Howling Wolf Kettle.

helen.zaltzman:
'Howling whistling Kettle-Chips'

me:
I'm sure James will have heard that a million times.

helen.zaltzman:
that's as stupid a word mixture as 'Strictly Baby Fight Club'

me:
What's that? A TV show?

helen.zaltzman:
It's a documentary about child boxers, but why did they have to put 'Strictly' in there? MAKES NO SENSE! take THAT, TV pricks!

me:
You're like a less erudite Clive James.

helen.zaltzman:
I'm less bald too. and less Australian. and less old.

me:
Have you seen Clive James’ Edinburgh poster?

helen.zaltzman:
I painted his Edinburgh poster.

me:
With what? Lipstick?

helen.zaltzman:
I just threw an egg at the wall.

me:
He's wildly sunburned.

helen.zaltzman:
the egg was a bit off

me:
My favourite mess up of a name was when a comedian was introducing my friend Holly Walsh. And he clearly wanted the applause to cover up the fact he'd forgotten her name. But there was only about 7 people in and so we all heard him introduce her as Wuzzy Walsh.

helen.zaltzman:
Ha! "Please give it up for [quiet cough]". That's a pretty name

me:
He did it in a big showbiz way too. "Please would you welcome Wuuuuzzzzzeeee Waaaaalsh!"

helen.zaltzman:
Please would you welcome Maaaaatttttt Raaasspberryyyyyyyyyy!!! I get irked on your behalf by people calling you "Matt."

me:
I'm not bothered by that. I have a new thing to be bothered by: this week we were billed as Puppies Fan Club.

helen.zaltzman:
you don't even LIKE puppies. Apart from ladies' chest-puppies I guess

me:
I have a photo: "Stand Up with Puppies Fan Club", like some sort of comedy Crufts.

helen.zaltzman:
hey, they got 'Club' correct. Unless they'd spelt it 'Klub'

me:
They spelt it Klan. Awkward. Our ghost sketch seemed inappropriate.

helen.zaltzman:
Only because the ghost lynches people.

me:
Lynch Ghost. It's our best character. The ghost of Bet Lynch.

helen.zaltzman:
Imagine the adventures she and David Lynch could have.

me:
With YouTube hero Stephen Lynch doing parody songs about their misadventures.

helen.zaltzman:
They could hook up with Boyzone's Shane Lynch and Keavey and Edele Lynch from B*Witched.

me:
Who remembers the individual names of B*Witched? What's wrong with you?

helen.zaltzman:
gallstones. It's one of the side-effects.

me:
I mean, "What are ya loike?"

helen.zaltzman:
like my dad. Furthermore, I fight like him. I feel we have reached a bit of an ad break in the 'cast.

me:
Which one of B*Witched would you most like to fight? We'll be right back. Cup of tea?

helen.zaltzman:
yes please. Is it real tea, or readable tea?

me:
Drinkable tea on the readble podcast.

helen.zaltzman:
aahh you're blowing my tiny mind

me:
I'll make the tea, you can come up with a new jingle.

helen.zaltzman:
ok.

"Matthew Crosby keeps people in the basement
He traps them there for his sexual entertainment
nobody else can hear them screaming
because he always plays 'California Dreaming'
at a very loud volume."

me:
I like it. Right, let's get back into it.

helen.zaltzman:
I'm soooooooo ready.

me:
What do you think is the secret to a successful podcast?

helen.zaltzman:
sound.

me:
Oh.

helen.zaltzman:
kidding! I kid! I think editing is the secret to almost any artistic endeavour, though I know you are crazy for a 14-hour unedited podcast.

me:
I enjoy an unedited podcast. Richard Herring and Andrew Collins don't edit.

helen.zaltzman:
they should though. Else I edit them by listening to Adam and Joe.

me:
Never Not Funny, that doesn't edit. I may have to edit this. I think you can still sustain an interesting podcast over an hour without editing.

helen.zaltzman:
no, I definitely can't!

me:
We couldn't, as we're proving.

helen.zaltzman:
I think it CAN be sustained, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't still benefit from the slack bits being removed.

me:
I actually do a podcast about slacks, Slack Bits. It's sponsored by Dockers.

helen.zaltzman:
Crosby Trousercast, it's great but it's always about the same pair of trousers.

me:
This week: Corby Press or Iron?

helen.zaltzman:
Neither - put the trousers under your mattress for the night

me:
Farrah or Faux-rah?

helen.zaltzman:
Faux-rah, princess of power. "Why do you never see loon pants any more? Eh?" "cycling shorts, do you remember them? Mad!"

me:
I tell you what is coming back: couilots

helen.zaltzman:
do you mean 'culottes'?

me:
No couilots are a type of tariff.

helen.zaltzman:
Stop it, you! I'm just waiting for pumpkin pants to come back in. I know fashion goes in cycles, but it's been nearly 400 years...

me:
They are coming back. I saw a girl wearing pumpkin type ones on the train.

helen.zaltzman:
that wasn't a girl, that was the ghost of Christopher Marlowe.

me:
Good Lord, what was he doing in Tulse Hill?

helen.zaltzman:
He got on the wrong service from London Bridge so was waiting for a connection

me:
Bloody Sunday service. What this girl was wearing wasn’t the full blackadder with codpiece, but puffy and short-like.

helen.zaltzman:
if you haven't got the codpiece, what's the point?

me:
Exactly, why has the codpiece gone out of fashion. Cameo tried to bring it back.

helen.zaltzman:
Cameo, and early Take That.

me:
By the way, you're listening to codpiececast.

helen.zaltzman:
If Peter Sutcliffe had worn a codpiece with his rape jumper, would it have been better or worse?

me:
For those who don't know, Peter Sutcliffe used to wear a jumper under his trousers. With his legs down the sleeves and his genitals exposed by the v neck.

helen.zaltzman:
he was wearing it when he was arrested. But for some reason, that wasn't brought up in his trial. you would think it would be quite compelling evidence that he had premeditated the crimes, rather than had pretend-schizophrenia.

me:
They asked him why he was wearing it, and he said, "I was cold"

helen.zaltzman:
he was so cold, he had to have his cock out. And knee-pads on the jumper's elbows

me:
And the warm body of a mutilated prostitute to stick his hands into.

helen.zaltzman:
that was the fashion in the 18th century. Peter Sutcliffe was a Georgian-retro dandy.

me:
Did you read that they are doing an X Factor style show for the residents of Broadmoor. This was in yesterday's News of the World.

helen.zaltzman:
Wow! Is it to find the most loopy inmate? The one who does the most imaginative killings? I bet they ALL sing Anastacia songs there just as a matter of course.

me:
You have to do a Britain's got talent turn. They specified it couldn't involve swearing, but they didn't say you can't murder someone.

helen.zaltzman:
I read in the News of the World that Katie'n'Peter haven't had sex in 6 months

me:
Oh no. With each other or at all?

helen.zaltzman:
what are you suggesting? That they would stray?

me:
Of course not. Watching their TV show they do seem quite asexual.

helen.zaltzman:
they do, which is weird considering both their ascents to fame were predicated upon sexuality. although they are both sexual parodists.

me:
They probably oversexed themselves in their youth.

helen.zaltzman:
I also read about a man who put on a chastity belt and had to call the fire brigade to cut him out of it because he lost the key.

me:
Where did he find a chastity belt? How do they work?

helen.zaltzman:
they are like a sumo belt made of metal, with a few decorative cut-outs which presumably also allow bowel evacuations

me:
And they stop you getting an erection?

helen.zaltzman:
they certainly stop it going anywhere

me:
I though they were for women?

helen.zaltzman:
they are for women. he's a tranny? He was trying it for a bit of pervy self-fun

helen.zaltzman:
why don't cross-dressers ever opt for a burqa? They always go for glamorous dress.

me:
They might do. You'd never know.Some cross dressers just go for cardigans and skirts. Joel Elnaugh [open spot, nutcase and transvestite] used to just dress up like a librarian. Hang on.

helen.zaltzman: ok hurry up Matthew, you've been gone hours! .

me:
I’m back. I was listening to my ipod the other day and it makes you a bit less spatially aware. Has that occurred with you?

helen.zaltzman:
That's right. Just like wearing sunglasses makes you deafer. I am not very spatially aware anyway. I have astigmatism, which means your spatial awareness is shit, and you can't do magic eye pictures. It has started raining loudly, we'd better tuRN UP THE MIKES.

me:
SHALL WE DO THE REST IN CAPITALS? FUCKING HELL IT'S RAINING HARD. WHERE WAS OUR LOVELY SUMMER? IT HAPPENED ON STAURDAY, DIDN'T IT? THAT WAS SUMMER.

helen.zaltzman:
IT FEELS A BIT RUDE, THIS SHOUTING. let's just turn it up in post-production. we can add compression or something

me:
Ok. I was talking about spacial awareness.

helen.zaltzman:
special awareness?

me:
I walk in people's way more often when I'm listening to my ipod. Anyway, I was walking along in Kilburn a few weeks ago when I realised I'd been walking alongside an old woman for about a minute, matching her pace.

helen.zaltzman:
hobbling?

me:
I looked to the other side and there was an old man, also matching the same pace.

helen.zaltzman:
mimicry is a form of flattery

me:
Like an idiot I'd been walking down the street between an old couple. Like I was their son.

helen.zaltzman:
did you link arms?

me:
I tried to do that swingy thing.

helen.zaltzman:
wheeeee! . were you dressed the same as either of them?

me:
I was dressed a bit like the old woman, but that's because I'd stayed over at Joel Elnaugh's house.

helen.zaltzman:
nice callback.

me:
Do you know Joel Elnaugh?

helen.zaltzman:
yeah, Joel Elnaugh and I go WAY back. We're shopping buddies. Does he wear support tights as well?

me:
Surgical stockings.

helen.zaltzman:
Surgical stockings are £50 a pair! I went to visit a friend in hospital, drew a colourful smiley face on the foot of his surgical stockings to cheer him up, and got told off by the nurses

me:
Do they reuse them? That can't be the case.

helen.zaltzman:
yes - because they're FIFTY QUID A PAIR.

me:
But they're like bandages.

helen.zaltzman:
We also decorated the cardboard urinal bottles and kidney dishes, to give the nurses a bit of a treat.

me:
By decorated, do you mean 'used'?

helen.zaltzman:
We made them very smart. It's much more fun for them to dispose of a bottle of piss when said bottle is done up to look like a Rhinemaiden.

me:
I can’t get over them reusing surgical stockings. It’s like reusing bandages. You can't reuse bandages.

helen.zaltzman:
my friend was in traction, he wasn't gushing blood and pus

me:
But it's gross.

helen.zaltzman:
I'm sure they wash them

me:
I wouldn't wear someone else's tights.

helen.zaltzman:
yeah you would, you would pay good money for that.

me:
If you had to wear someone else's underwaer, who would it be?

helen.zaltzman:
someone who wears the same size as me. I'm a pragmatist. whose would you choose?

me:
I've actually worn my brother's pants before. Oh, I just remembered, my Mum got me second hand boxers when I was a kid.

helen.zaltzman:
she had four kids to clothe, and it was an expensive business before Primark

me:
Hand me downs from another parent whose kids were a bit older than us. But the weird thing was, they had put velcro on the fly of the boxers.

helen.zaltzman:
at least they hadn't put buckles

me:
At least there wasn't a lock and key. But, the one material you don't want anywhere near pubic hair is velcro.

helen.zaltzman:
Did you have any pubic hair at this stage?

me:
I was born with pubic hair.

helen.zaltzman:
surely you also don't want to get gaffer tape on there

me:
OK, the two materials...

helen.zaltzman:
your audiotextcast is making feel a bit sick, is that normal?

me:
Are you sure it's not the image of velcro, pubes and Fred Flintstone boxer shorts?

helen.zaltzman:

me:
Shall we wrap it up?

helen.zaltzman:
let's bag it up, baby!

me:
Want to plug your slack free podcast? Big up Answer Me This!

helen.zaltzman:
oh! Thanks. Yes, please listen to my own audible podcast, available on matthewcrosbybumsgoats.org [http://matthewcrosbybumsgoats.org]

me:
I tried to give you guys a big break.

helen.zaltzman:
you tried to give the goats that too. Hahahahahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

me:
You could have had 4 new listeners, but you had to play blue. Finally: if there was one question you wish I'd asked and one question you wish you'd asked me, what would they have been?

helen.zaltzman:
I'd like to have asked you, "Seeing as you have been living here for more than 18 months, when are you going to unpack?" And I wish you had asked me, "What do you think of this goat I'm bumming, eh?" I was out of ideas, sorry.

me:
Helen Saucepan, thank you.

helen.zaltzman:
Matt Cribbscauseway, thank you.