One Year

The London riots

Hola. Hope you are well.

I had technological difficulties last night as my mobile phone packed in. I say packed in, it stopped working after I’d dropped it on our wooden floor, after enjoying a few pints, so you could say it was down to human difficulties. The weird thing about it packing in, was that earlier in the day ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ was talking about upgrading her phone and debating whether to get an Iphone or Blackberry, (her time in Kenya has made her appreciate what is important in life). At the time I was thinking that I would wait til my phone ceased to work before I thought about getting a new one. This mindset could be illustrated by the fact it  already had a massive crack in it and so was hanging together by the skin off its teeth, but as it stilled worked, I was happy to keep using it. To be fair to the phone, it had done the rounds, it was originally ‘HWOPJ’s’ mum’s, then ‘HWOPJ’ had it briefly and then it came into my possession. Not someone who is too proud to accept charity I’m currently using ‘HWOPJ’s’ Auntie’s phone.

On last week’s blog post I mentioned how I lost my Oyster card and the wallet it was in, the wallet ‘HWOPJ’ bought me for my birthday (she did get me other gifts), well last week I saw a student walking in the street who unwittingly dropped his student ID, as he was walking off I picked it up and handed it to him. Which surely means I’m in the black with the Karma Police, if that’s how these things work.

Tomorrow 29th Nov, I am doing another 3 Prong Attack gig, this time we are at the Victoria Comedy Club, Duke of York Pub, 130-134 Victoria St. There are some established acts on, including Benny Boot and  Yianni Agisilaou, and we will be doing about 8 mins. The show starts at 8:15. Tickets are £8 and need to be bought in advance. (See here). The nearest stations are Victoria, Train and Tube station.

This gig works out well for me because on the following day I’m not at work as my school is closed due to the public sector strike. I know there’s more to this strike than me having a lie in, but a lie ins a lie in, especially if it comes after a night when I’ve been out and about.

In other 3 Prong news, Prong 2 and I attempted to record some short film clips and put them on the internet. In typical 3 Prong tradition this turned out to be an epic fail as we only managed to do 2, one min clips before the camera packed in, with neither of us capable of sorting out the problem. Maybe better luck next time.

Today marks my first year in London. I think my biggest achievement is that I am still here. Overall it has been an interesting year both personally and for London, what with the riots and the protesters at St Paul’s. I should really write-up a review of my year, that’s what a proper writer would do, I on the other hand won’t commit to this as I know there is a good chance I won’t get round to doing it. Having done a year, I can at the very least say I’ve lived in London. It also enables me to spout my prejudices of London from a point of strength. For example, before moving here, I always thought London was too big, with too many people and was too expensive, a year on and I know it to be too big, with too many people and too expensive.

And Finally…. Next week’s blog post will probably be on Tues as I think I have another 3 Prong gig on Mon. I just need to confirm with Prong 2 that we are booked into this gig. As soon as he gives me the green light, I will put the details on my website, www.juliandaniel.co.uk. I wonder if Michael McIntyre operates in such a way.

Til next week, (probably Tuesday) stay safe!

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A roller coaster week

Octopus's Garden

Hola. Hope you are well.

The good news is that I’ve managed not to lock myself out of my flat (see last week’s blog post) but I did lose my Oyster (travel) card but it had no money on it, and when I say no money, I mean nothing ie. £0:00. I suppose if you are going to lose your oyster card then you’re best doing it when there’s no money on it. Although I still had to pay £5 for a new one. As you can see it’s been a roller coaster week for me.

As well as not getting locked out, I think my biggest achievement whilst ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ has been away is to not put on the heating for all but 30mins and that was just to dry some clothes. I think I’m destined to be one of those guys who are found sat in a chair in a bed sit, covered in a blanket and wooly hat, for warmth all because they didn’t want to put the heating on. I’m sure when the gas bill comes my sacrifice won’t be noticed, not to worry it’s the satisfaction that my stubbornness brings that is the real reward.

Last week, I also went shopping at my local supermarket, for a few bits and after the woman had tallied it all up it came to… £6:66. Was it a sign of something sinister? Probably not. If anyone can think of any puns based around supermarket names and the Devil/Satan then feel free to let me know via the comments button, I think it would elevate this anecdote. Cheers.

I also had a very white meal, it was cod, potatoes and cauliflower. If I keep eating this meal I might turn into a white.

I also did something that I’m sure I’m not supposed to. As I was out on Thursday, I missed Children in Need Rocks Manchester, so on Friday evening I watched it on Iplayer but I feel I have to admit to skipping through the video clips of the serious bits and just watching the bands. This probably doesn’t show me in a good light. Maybe I should donate the minutes I saved by fast forwarding through these bits to some kind of charitable activity or I could just donate some money, that usually alleviates guilt.

Also last week, Martin Johnson stepped down as the England Rugby team manager. Normally I wouldn’t blog about this but the favourite to take over from him is Jim Mallinderwho was the head of PE at my school. In fact it was him who ended my Rugby career, don’t worry he didn’t nobble me, he just didn’t pick me in my last year of school, despite me having been in the school team all through my time at the school. After I was snubbed for both the first and second teams I decided to make myself unavailable for selection and so affectively brought down the curtain on my rugby career as I knew I wouldn’t be playing rugby again once I’d left school. Anyway after many years of therapy, I’m over it, honest.

And Finally… I was talking to someone at work about the Beatles and she said her favourite Beatles song is Yellow Submarine. I’m not a Beatles aficionado but I’m pretty sure that song is not representative of the Beatles finest work. It did make me think that one of my favourite none obvious Beatles song is Octopus’s Garden. Also sung by Ringo, which of this poll of two people shows who was the real talent in the Beatles. Feel free to let me know what your less obvious Beatles song is.

Til next week, stay safe!

The magic 500 words

Frankie Cocozza's bum

Hola. Hope you are well.

I was back at school today after having a day off on Friday due to the school having a training day. As I am agency staff it’s not worth them paying for me to be trained up. I have to admit I was very pleased to have a day off. If anything I was way too pleased. As a novice to this working 5 days a week malarkey, is this reaction to a day off normal? I think the secret to having a day off is not to try to do too much as you won’t get everything done. You’ll be pleased to know that over the years I’ve managed to build up the skills necessary to not doing too much. That’s one for the CV.

On last week’s blog post I mentioned that I read in a newspaper that blog posts should be no longer than 500 words as the modern person can’t deal with anymore than this without blanking out. At the time of writing this last week, I was past the magic 500 words but still went on to mention details of a gig I was performing at. As one of the regular readers to this blog (Simon) pointed out, it might be worth putting the gig details on before people switch off. He’s probably got a good point, so with this in mind…..

I will be performing as one half of 3 Prong Attack at Up the Creek, Comedy Variety Night this Thurs, 17th Nov. Here is the blurb about the night, 15 new comic acts trying to win over the crowd in a mere five minutes – whilst our big name host guides us through the night. Doors open at 7.30pm show begins at 8.15pm with Bar and Restaurant open all night. Admission is a mere £4. Venue, 302 Creek Road, SE10 9SW, nearest Tube, Cutty Sark.

In other news, ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ is currently in Africa for work. This seems somewhat unfair as my job currently takes me to SW London and my ‘glamorous comedy career’ seems to send me to an assortment of bars dotted round London. One of my big concerns with her being away, after her personal safety (naturally) is that I forget to take my keys out with me and therefore lock myself out of the flat. If this happens when she is here, it would mean I’d have to hang out, probably at the local library until she got back from work. And although this would be annoying, and I would miss Neighbours, it would be manageable but if I were to do it now, that would be a weeks worth of Neighbours I’d miss. That would be a disaster, how would I follow the storylines after missing a week?

And Finally… on to Frankie Cocozza and for those who don’t know who he is/was, he got kicked out of X Factor last week for breaking the ‘Golden Rule’. The Golden Rule being, watching Strictly Come Dancing, or was it boasting about taking cocaine, I always get them two things confused. Anyway it was something bad. It wasn’t all bad news however as his departure still allowed ITV and The X Factor to make money by opening the phone-lines to allow someone back into the competition, who had previously been dumped out of it in the first week. The person who went through was Amelia Lily, who apparently is now the favourite to win. Only in the X Factor can the favourite to win at the half-way stage be the person who was eliminated in the first week. Apologies for anyone who is not interested in the X Factor, but as this paragraph has gone passed the magic 500 words mark, you would have switched off whether you were into the X factor or not.

Til next week, stay safe!

Fools gold

tea and muffins

Hola. Hope you are well.

I went to St Paul’s yesterday to view London‘s latest to see tourist attraction, the ‘Occupy the Stock Exchange’  protestors. I had a good look around, I viewed the tents from ground level, from the stairs of the church, read some of the placards, my personal favourite being “If criminals can’t print money, why can the banks?” (or words to that effect), I listened to a few minutes of a public debate and felt I had done my bit towards the revolution and then went over the road for a pot of tea and muffins.

In all seriousness, I have sympathy for what the protesters are saying. I’m no financial expert but it would appear that the current financial model isn’t working, after all countries are going bust, Europe is looking for China to bail them out and even the mighty America has lost one of its A’s (it’s no longer a triple A rated country). It would appear to me that the problem is down to the fact we don’t seem to make anything these days, our great idea is to try to make money from money but that isn’t tangible, it’s just numbers on spread sheets. It seems the only people making actual products in this country is the knicker factory in Coronation Street and even that is on its last legs.

Talking of ways to make money brings me on to the Pakistani cricketers who have been imprisoned for their part in a betting scam. The scam involved people betting huge amounts of money on predicting when no balls would be bowled. It does surprise me that anyone thought this plan was going to work or at the very least not arouse suspicion. For if you could really predict when a bowler was going to bowl a no ball, you are a wizard and should be given your own TV show to rival Derren Brown. The agent of the cricketers was also sentenced, although I thought in the spirit of fairness he should have taken 20% of their sentence as well. That’s satire Ladies and Gentleman. (I think it’s satire)

Another sports story that caught my eye, involved the caddie Steve Williams. Who’s he you may ask? Well, he was Tiger Woods’ caddie for 12 years until Tiger let him go to Steve’s dismay. He then went onto Caddie for Adam Scott, who in their first tournament together won and at the time Steve described it as the, “greatest victory of his career”.  On Friday he was honoured for this over the top celebration, winning ‘celebration of the year’ at the Caddie of the Year awards. After accepting the award he was asked why he said it was the greatest victory of his career, when he had enjoyed 13 major tournament wins with Tiger, he responded by saying, “I wanted to shove it up that black arsehole”.

I think this comment should be put into context, the context being that despite being a caddie, for many years Steve was the highest earning sportsman in New Zealand (he’s from New Zealand) on the back of Tiger’s brilliance. If Tiger earnt me a shed load of money and then decided to part with my services, I can hand on heart say I would be eternally grateful, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about shoving anything up his areshole, unless of course he asked me to. But my second point is that people should learn that if you are going to insult a black person, just avoid using the word ‘black’ in the insult. If for example you are a footballer and insulted Anton Ferdinand by calling him a c*** you would probably get away with it but if you are the same footballer and were to call Anton Ferdinand a ‘black c***, it would change the context and that footballer would probably be investigated by the police. Having said all that, I do think the most shocking thing about this whole story is that caddies have their own awards ceremony.

And Finally… As I recently read that blog posts should be no longer than 500 words and I’ve already written over 650 words, I thought I’d better wrap things up here, as you have probably already mentally switched off, but before I do, I should mention I will be taking part in an open mic comedy show as 3 Prong Attack this Weds, 9th Nov. It’s at the Alchemist Bar, in Clapham Junction, 225 St Johns Hill, London SW11 1TH. Nearest train st Clapham Junction. We will be doing 5-7mins. Show starts 8pm and is FREE!

Til next time, stay safe!