The Trap - Bad Musical

I hate Edinburgh Fringe.

Mainly because I haven't been and all the fun people abandon me for a month leaving my blog empty and my life just a shell.

However there was the smaller and less known Camden Fringe just a short bus ride away and I decided to see "Bad Musical" by The Trap.

The Trap consist of Jeremy Limb, Paul Litchfield and Dan Mersh and release their own free "Sodcast" every week or two on iTunes. t's an hour long barrage of non-sequiturs, amusing voices and odd logic and if you're a fan of Collings & Herrin or Precious Little then it's well worth a listen. I mainly know The Trap as being 3/4 of Los Quattros Cvnts who perform at The Phoenix on the first Wednesday of the month (shows start again in October after a short break)

Bad Musical was at The Etcetera theatre, which is a small rather warm room above The Oxford Arms in Camden. I got there about 45 minutes before show time and waited for @Neal55 to arrive. It was hot and noisy in the main bar so I decided to wait outside. I said a brief hi to Paul but took a seat in the corner as I don't really like to disturb performers before their show (afterwards is a different matter!)

It didn't look good. I seemed to be surrounded by a group of proper lads in pink T-shirts bearing the words "Rugby Addict", being rather raucous and singing songs about pissing in the sink. At first I thought it could be an impromptu satirical Camden Fringe performance, but I soon realised they were just annoying twats.

We took our seats and the show began. An official voice informed us that the show was written as a 3 hour piece but had to be truncated. Every so often as the show progressed we were informed that the next long chunk of the musical had been removed, which negated the need for any important plot and allowed the characters to get out of whatever hole they had dug themselves into. We were also told that Lloyd Webber had threatened legal action and the song had to be changed.

Starting with "Life Is A Musical", The Trap tried to reference as many musical as possible with increasingly contrived lyrics. Yes, this was living up to its name (in a good way!)

"When you come back from Vietnam and you miss Saigon - that's a musical"
"When you steal clothes from Derek Acorah's line - that's a musical"
"You're a Chicken Kiev eater - that's a musical"

Prizes are available if you can guess the musicals above..

The plot rotates round Dan Mersh's character (Johnny Everyman) growing up in a small town and eventually leaving for London, becoming a banker, causing the melt down of the economic system, becoming homeless, and ending up in space. All the other characters are played by Paul and Jeremy and the array of voices they use is pretty impressive (though regular listeners to the Sodcasts will be used to this).

I just wish I had more reference points for these songs. A great Rocky Horror show style song and the aforementioned Lloyd Webber song with every 8th note painfully changed were highlights for me, as well as the many (well-rehearsed) "technical problems".

As usual for a show I'm enjoying, it finished far too quickly and we retreated downstairs to the beer garden. Luckily the pink rugby cunts had gone. Neal and I spent some time chatting with Paul (mainly about Doctor Who) and as often is the case with Paul, he utterly bamboozled and confused me with his many shifts in characters and voices. And this is after the show! Sometimes an after show chat with The Trap can be as entertaining as the show itself. They are a lovely collection of nelly sweariness.

I do hope the team play some more dates soon. Now the other Cvnt (Michael Legge) has also become a muscial star at Edinburgh with "Gutted" I imagine the next LQC could be quite a camp affair!

Law, Lee, & Legge - Collins, Jones, Douieb.

Show Time !!

I'm proud of that title. It kind of rhymes you see. And scans quite well.

On Monday to Wednesday I went to 3 gigs in a row. I enjoyed all of them in different ways. The first comprised of my second visit to The Camden Head in Angel. My first visit wasn't great when I went to (attempt to) see Catie Wilkins. I wrote about it here

Anyway it looked like I was in for more of the same. The Fortnight Club has been running for 2 decades and is a place where professional comedians can try out new material. A number of weeks ago after London Improv, Tiernan Douieb had recommended that I see Tony Law. I had checked him out on YouTube and found him good. I guess you could descibe him as Eddie Izzard in cowboy boots.

I got to the venue at opening time and went upstairs to find the tech guy sitting forlornly. He explained that not only was there no audience but none of the performers had turned up! I went down for another pint. I tweeted my situation and someone suggested I could do a set of Keith Chegwin's recent stolen material. I'm glad I was sober or I may well have suggested it! I popped up again to find that all the comedians had arrived as well as another audience member. The acts actually thought they had 3 in the audience until it turned out the 3rd person was a barmaid collecting glasses. I made a little small talk, fully expecting the gig to be pulled, but Tony Law insisted on doing it. Two of the comedians wimped out (but who can blame them?) and the gig began.

Tony Law

The compere found it odd to compere considering we had all been sitting and chatting for the past 15 miuntes but he did a good job. Tony Law was up next and he did remarkably well in front of 2 of us (plus 2 of the performers) I found myself subconciously laughing louder than I should have, and I do hope it didn't come across as sarcastic.

I can't remember the name of the next comedian, but she was reasonably good, going through a lot of one liners and getting us to judge if she should "Tweet or Delete" them. Though because I don't know her name I don't follow her so can't see if she did or not...

Milton Jones

In the middle of Tony's act, Milton Jones had arrived and sat at the back. MJ is one of the better performers on Mock The Week and I was very glad when he decided to try out some of his new stuff as well. The other half of the audience was an American guy, so was quite fun to see Milton explaining some of his jokes as he went along for his benefit!

The next night was my long awaited Stewart Lee gig at Fat Tuesday. I have never seen him before other than a quick 10 minute set at a benefit at Hackney Empire and think he is probably the best stand up performing today. Tonight just confirmed it. I had also met up with @Misswiz and we managed to get good seats at the front.

Tiernan Douieb opened with a preview of his new show. It was rather odd as Fat Tuesday is Tiernan's club, and he usually comperes, but he got the chance to perform his full show tonight. He was a little worried at first as originally Stewart Lee was scheduled to open the gig, and I don't think many comedians would want to go on afterwards, but luckily for everyone, the running order was changed. Tiernan put in a sterling performance and if you do go to Edinburgh please make time to see his show.

Stewart Lee came on and the crowd roared their approval. He told a long-winded story about being in the same school as David Cameron, very similar to last year's story about Richard Hammond. I'm sure it won't spoil it for you by telling you that he confesses at the end that this story is not true. He also managed to speak for around 20 minutes about crisps.

Surprisingly, he ended the set with a lovely acoustic ballad all about The Bullingdon Club. I wish i could say more about this gig, but I was looking forward to it so much that it vanished from my mind in all the excitement. I had a couple of quick words with Stew after the gig and wasn't told to fuck off, which was a nice susprise. I was much more nervous than usual and determined not to make a dick of myself. I think I JUST got away with it! He was less grumpy than I expected.

On Wednesday it was another return to my comedy temple, The Phoenix, to see Andrew Collins completed "Secret Dancing" show. I have already blogged about a previous show here. I met up with my mate who I occasionally bully into coming to comedy clubs if no one else is available. Though it was his birthday the next day and somehow my treat to him was to buy a beer and a comedy ticket for him. It was almost a present to me.

I also met my new comedy plaything, Richard who I used to work with and basically lost touch but have now been in contact with a lot more as he has enjoyed seeing Legge and Ince, as well as Richard Herring.

Other people I arranged to meet were Yan, aka @MightyBlackout as well as the legendary Reverend Peter Organ (the legend beginning during Herring's warm up one time befiore an AIOTM (or was it a Collings & Herrin live podcast?)  when he pointed at Peter and told everyone he looked like a comedy vicar. Peter tweeted back to say that indeed, he was a vicar!)

Anyway, it was lovely to meet Muki as always, even if she was hungrily devouring a fish finger sandwich (the BEST sandwich as I hope we all know.)

Michael came on and did around 20 minutes of material, bantering with the audience as usual. He read out his Quinola blog again. Now I've heard him read this before, but it works very well in a live situation. Both times, michael has found it hard to stifle a laugh when ever the phrase "Then, something worse than Lion-rape happened" arrives. It's a phrase I want to weave seemelssly into conversation but haven't managed yet.

An inspired comment went down a storm when he apologised to a man for calling his wife a bizarre love triangle. Yes I know it doesn't sound that funny reading it out but it's all in the context! Michael pointed out Andrew Collins' wife in the audience to us and we felt special. She has always been a nebulous figure; never spoken about, but I can confirm she does exist. Now let's say no more about it.

Andrew's act has moved on since the last time I saw it. It seems more structured and starts with ACTUAL dancing, then Andrew talks about the concept of a journey, and the fact that journeys are not what we see on Masterchef or reality TV shows, but comprise of actual movement from A to B. He discusses his wishes to be kissed (voluntarily) by a duck and his experience of walking next to a pigeon and hoping onlookers thought they were mates, as well as discussing the mystery of the asterisk without explanation on a bottle of Plax. He demonstrated Secret Dancing and got a rather drunk volunteer up on stage who seemed a little over confident and talkative for a Secret Dancer. He certainly had nothing on the Precious Little takeover at the Hen & Chickens show !

All three evenings were very different but all were fun in their own way. Tony Law and Milton Jones on Monday was totally bizarre, Tuesday with Tiernan Douieb and Stewart Lee was completely awesome, and Wednesday with Collins & Legge was ... well, Wednesday was confortable. If I have to choose between totally bizarre, completely awesome, and comfortable, I'd probably go for comfort.

(Actually I only wrote that in case Michael Legge reads this blog. Of course Stewart Lee was the best !)

Thankfully, I managed to finally get rid of that chocolate oat milk! Enjoy Andrew.

The March Of The Podophiles

"Michael and James, what will they say on the podcast today? The answer is precious little."

Michael and James looked absolutely astonished that the entire crowd was singing the theme tune, dissolved into fits, and cut the playout of the jingle to let everyone carry on. A good way to start the podcast I'm sure you'll agree.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You've seen the #preciouslittle hashtag on my tweets but have been either too scared or disinterested to ask me what it is.

Well, I'll tell you. Precious Little started around 40 weeks ago after a drunken conversation Michael Legge (Michael) and James Hingley (James) had in a bar at the Edinburgh festival. 2 podcasts are released most weeks - the main one usually lasting an hour or so, followed by a mini one a few days later. Basically it's 2 men sitting in a room and talking. It started out with a very similar vibe to Collings & Herrin (dismissively referred to as "The T-shirt Salesmen" but over the months has developed into something very different. We have been introduced to ghost hippos, upsetting stories on trains, catchphrases - "What's WROOOONG", and James' mum's infamous bucket.

But who ARE Michael and James? Michael is a stand up comedian who has written an almost daily blog which is an essential read. Nothing much is known about James, but his mum does keep the house very tidy and he has very nice hair. James has never been photographed. In fact the image at the top of this blog shows what happens when it's tried.

As the weeks wore on, M&J had an idea. To record the 40th podcast in a cellar in front of 40 podcast fans (or podophiles for short). Invites were applied for, emails were sent out and like a cold war spy drama various codes on twitter were used so that only we special people would know where it was.

It was at The Phoenix. Everyone was shocked.

I arranged to meet up with a group of podophiles at The Old Explorer just opposite, where @Neal55 and I often enjoy fish finger sandwiches. We had about 10 people join us there. I may forget people, but there was Vicky Harsehole, Barry Skellern, Ian, Neal Peters, Neale Hitchiner, Nicola Woolhouse (and big thanks to her for putting these pics in the public domain so I could steal them!), Graham Lock, Mister_Boris, and Sven. If I have forgotten you, please let me know and I'll make sure you're added.

We went over to the Phoenix and met up with the now legendary William Tennant and awaited further instructions.

As you can see from the picture opposite, certain podophiles clearly loathed each other.

Now, Neal and I had a good idea that Collings and/or Herrin may be appearing as they let slip a little clue on their previous podcast. We already had biscuits for The Gentleman's review, had a whipround for M&J's drinks, so we got some Haribo and Oat Milk for the special guests. But then the sad tweet came through from Collings: "I will be with you in spirit. In other words, I won't be there". What the hell was I going to do with a litre of chocolate oat milk ?

We were called downstairs where the podcast was being recorded and we found our seats. Which is where we started.

Pam Ayers, aka "@mushybees" performed some of her poetry to get the crowd warmed up which seemed to go down very well, but as Michael later pointed out, 2pm on a Sunday is a very unusual time for Madeleine McCann jokes.

The podcast was done completely live and had a similar feel to a regular podcast. Precious little is fairly interactive anyway, but Michael seemed to thrive in front of a live audience, and surprisingly, James did too. The two were at their best today. Along the way we had to deal with the tragic story of Lauren who couldn't come in as she was only 17 (although there was another 17 year old lad in attendance!), Mushybees' youthful antics with Raoul Moat, and of course The Gentleman's Review who I have only recently got into. The hour and a bit flew by, and we were given an official 5 minute break before the recording of the mini podcast.

This was dedicated to the "last ever" "Fuck-A-Thing". Michael has been doing FAT on Twitter for some time now which inevitably ends in Michael losing a number of followers as he retweets any answers that he finds funny and annoys the people who arent playing the game. Today's FAT was "If you had to fuck a sitcom, which sitcom would it be?" Jingle Jim (aka me) was summoned to the stage where he rather nervously at first strummed his uke and started bellowing the tune. Luckily for him, all the podos and I think most people on stage shrieked along. Apologies to Martin Wolfenden for performing this with my arse in his face.

The answers were read out.  "Two And A Half Men" seemed to be popular (though I have never heard of it). I thought mine was great. "I'd fuck Hi-De-Hi -  I'd give Peggy a good yellow coat" although no one seemed to understand it. i found the Gent's Review and Precious Little boys' surprisingly naive lack of knowledge of watersports rather charming.

Then, it was all over.

Not really. the next six hours were spent boozing. first at The Phoenix, before a hardcore crowd went to The Blue Posts in Newman Street where Michael's prediction that there would be no body there was literally correct! We had an entire pub to ourselves. We could have just done the podcast there and saved all that walking time.

Next venue was an unusual choice. We went for a drink at The Royal Festival Hall. It was lovely and en route, Hitch's pineapple was dispatched into the Thames. He also appeared to have broken one of my uke strings though he firmly denied it. I had resented that uke as I had to carry it around everywhere. Now I had had a number of drinks and things were getting hazy. I decided to set it on fire.

It didn't want to burn.

I heard the name "Jimi Hendrix" and I ordered Hitch to destroy the fucking thing. I was rather disappointed that the first two bashes on the concrete floor weren't enough to do the job, but delighted that the third blow smashed it into a number of pieces held together with the remaining strings. I was then disappointed again as the security people didn't enjoy our larks and gave me quite a ticking off.

I apologised like a scared girl.

I soon received a few tweets about this. Most people were utterly horrified that this had happened. However I had offered my uke to anyone that would listen for a measly tenner. I was already bored and annoyed with it before we left (or even arrived at) The Phoenix. No one wanted it. So who are the real villains of the piece? Me and Hitch, who ruthlessly destroyed it on a cold  hard floor? Or the tight fisted bastards who wouldn't give me a tenner? I think we all know the answer to that.

Anyway, have a listen yourself !

Precious Little Podcast 40 (Live)
Precious Little Podcast 40.5 (Live - Fuck A Thing)

And I still have the fucking oat milk.

Are You Here For Comedy?

I found out Catie Wilkins was playing a gig literally 5 minutes from my house. I shouldn't go out - I should be sensible. I'm up at 5am, but hey - I'd be home by 1030. Unfortunately there was a mix up with Time Out. "Are you here for comedy?" said the compere? Looking around, I said "I hope so, but I'm not sure" - Catie had already warned me in a tweet that the gig was sparse and it turned out I was the first one. Another two turned up before they decided to pull the gig.

I think it was unnecessary of the compere to go on stage and tell the 3 of us this through the microphone though...

Anyway, I decided to hit Shoreditch to the Storytellers' Club to see Michael Legge. Turns out I'd already missed Bennett Aaron. Damn. Anyway, I got my pint from the completely empty bar upstairs and headed down.

The first comedian I saw was rather dull. Actually he was shit. He came out and told us his "crazy" stories from Glastonbury, but the only people laughing seemed to be the people that ran the club and the nervous people at the front. Most of his material seemed to be in jokes though. Thankfully he finished. But seemed to go on for ages.

I went up to get another beer and the bar man said he had ran out of pint glasses. They were all downstairs. There were only about 40 people downstairs. They must have more glasses than that ?! He retreived a couple and disappeared into his secret room for 5 seconds. He came out brandishing a dripping pint glass and poured my beer into it.

"Have you cleaned it?"
"Oh yes I gave it a good scrub."
"I think I'd prefer it in 2 half pint glasses."
"Sure"

He poured the beer from the scabby pint glass into a half pint. I looked at him with disappointment.

He sensed this and poured 2 new half-beers from the tap.

After all this waiting around and nonsense I went back down to see a funny woman (whose name I can't remember) say funny things for a bit. I wish I could remember her name. And I wish the bar man got me my drink quicker so I could have seen more of her. Havng said that I wish the beer had run out as I had earlier met up with a mate - to help him shop for a hard drive in Argos - and had started the beer thing much too early. But in my defence, I wasn't planning on going out tonight at all.

Michael Legge came on next. The audience seemed undecided. Though the reading of his "Quinola" blog seemed to eventually get them on side. After Michael left the stage, the rather bland compere (name unknown) decided the audience wanted an encore. To be honest I think the audience should decide on these things for themselves.

Michael came back and read his Li Ping blog which seemed to go down very well, though I do think if he wants to use these stories he should learn them as routines rather than read them out, He has a stack of material he could base a lot of gigs on as he writes  I think at the 'Pointless Anger - Righteous Ire' shows he does with Robin Ince they work better when read, but that is probably because Robin spends some time ranting from books too.

Read Michael Legge's blog here...

As It Occurs To Me

Those of you who know me will already know that I'm a big fan of comedian Richard Herring, best known for "Fist Of Fun" and "This Morning With Richard, Not Judy" - his 90s series with Stewart Lee. I listen to all his podcasts (Collins & Herring, Collings & Herrin, and of course, As It Occurs to Me, or AIOTM (pronounced A-Eye-Aw-Tim-Uh) and I guess I could be described as a bit of a fanboy.

As It Occurs To Me is a stand up and sketch show which Herring writes on the Sunday, performs on the Monday and releases for free on the Tuesday. It's a brave venture, and one that originally looked destined to fall on its arse, but every week without fail some pretty amazing comedy is produced. The USP of this show is that Herring does not edit anything out, and the whole thing, no matter how successful or otherwise is released. As Richard explained in one of the previous shows "I don't want to patronise our listeners. is 'patronise' the right word? No, I don't want to 'respect' our listeners." (paraphrasing).

The idea came to Richard during the aftermath of the Ross/Brand incident. The BBC had to be extra careful with what could be allowed on the radio, and bypassing the broadcasters seemed like the best way to get the comedy out there.

The cast comprises of Herring, Dan Tetsell, Emma Kennedy and Christian Reilly, all of whom have worked together before. The show starts with Herring doing around half an hour of stand up, which along with a few tried and tested routines, mainly consists of riffing with the audience. He can be quite rude to the people he picks to chat to, but it is always done with a cheeky grin, and I think all of the audience secretly want to be called a "fucking idiot" by Herring!

I started my evening with a visit to The Stockpot on Old Compton Street. This is a great little restaurant whose menu (or prices) don't seem to have changed much since the 1970s. Its a good place to eat alone, but a dreadful place to take a date, unless you're planning to break up with them anyway.

I'm going to detour briefly here. I used to be the assistant manager of The Admiral Duncan in Soho, and every day without fail I would see Smurf. Smurf was one of the many homeless guys that would base himself in Soho. He clearly had a number of other problems as well as the obvious, but Smurf was a really nice guy. My boss and I knew quite a lot of the regular homeless people in Soho and we all had a good relationship with them. We would both give a small amount of money each day to the first of the regulars we saw and it was inevitably Smurf. In return he and the other regulars would let us know about any dodgy people that were coming into the bar, like an advanced warning system. It was very much a mutually beneficial arrangement. After a year or so, Smurf wasn't around any more and I had heard that he was either in prison, hospital, or dead.

However it was great to bump into Smurf this evening and chat with him. His mum had just died and she had left him her house in Ireland which he has put on the market. He has moved in with his dad in Kent after not speaking to him in 29 years and things were finally starting to look up for him.

Anyway, off to the theatre and took my seat. Herring did a good half hour of material, including a short preview of his upcoming "Christ On A Bike" show. he does need to work on relearning the genealogy of Jesus though...

During the break I met The_Phosphene who I had been chatting to on Twitter & we arranged to meet after the show. I'm not going to review the whole show as you can easily download it here or from iTunes (as you can for the next 4 Tuesdays - or even better, go along to the gig!), but needless to say, Tiny Andrew Collings (absolutely NOTHING to do with Andrew Collins, Richard's podcast partner and respected broadcaster and writer) was the star of the show with Herring trying to apologise and backpedal for going too far in last weeks show. It did look like the apology was going well, but in the end I think it made things much, much worse.

It was a shame I couldn't get my hand high enough to catch his attention during the part where Richard asks the audience what has occurred to them that week. I was going to apologise for not being able to attend last week's show due to seeing Michael Legge and Andrew Collins instead, but was confused at seeing Andrew Collins chatting with Tiny Andrew Collings. This had blown my mind. But I soon found out that it wasn't Dan Tetsell, but his doppelganger Danny Wallace (who was an extremely nice chap.)

After the show finished I chatted at the bar to The_Phosphene (aka Jack) as well as the ever-lovely Rob Sedgebeer. I have met Herring on quite a number of occasions, and only recently have I stopped being a bit of an over-talkative drunken dick while chatting to him. Richard is a very affable guy in real life and always has time for a chat. Although one Irish guy did tell Richard that if he didn't play in Ireland more he would punch him in the face. He said it with a smile so I can only assume he was joking but that in itself seemed to make it more threatening to my ears! Though things cheered up as Jack regaled Richard with his 3some story, which I found very touching <aside - I didn't..>

Highlight of my evening was getting to finally touch an actual pinpod*. Emma Kennedy had hers with her and I simply had to ask her to let me hold it and prod it. I'm not sure if I'll get a pinpod* yet, but if I had a few hundred quid I wouldn't miss then I definitely would. It's a lovely thing.

Jack and I headed toThe Porcupine by Leicester Square and swapped comedy memories, eventually chatting with a young lad at the bar and trying to explain AIOTM to him. This is actually quite tricky after a few beers and trying to explain the in-jokes, but if he turns up next week, then I think Richard will owe me at least £5. Which will probably through some unusual logic result in Andrew Collins owing him twice as much.

* no explanation will be posted here in tribute to Andrew's confusion at the lack of an asterisk explanation on a bottle of Plax, but all is revealed on the podcast!

Raging in the Park

I'd been counting down the days to see Rage Against The Machine for weeks and finally the day was here ! As you know, after quite a groovy Facebook campaign, the British people mobilised and bought the 1992 hit "Killing In The Name" in order to stop the predictable 5th consecutive Christmas number one by The X Factor. Finally the charts were getting interesting again. Fans were asked to donate to Shelter, and the band put all their royalties from the sales of the song to the same charity.

So back to the day. I met my mate at The Garden Ladder, a little pub on Green Lanes near where we both used to live for some Sunday lunch (at 430pm - is it still lunch then?) and then headed off to the Old Ale Emporium (or OAP as we affectionately call it). Its a traditional old man's pub that plays football at any opportunity and seems to have a constant stream of 70s rock music playing. I should hate it but I don't. It used to be our local even though I have nothing in common with any of the people that seem to go there.

We were going to originally get to the park for around 8.30 but I was told on Twitter that I really should see Gogol Bordello (or whom I had zero knowledge) and I'm so glad we changed plans and caught them. (Thanks @IanReentrant). They were amazing. Not sure how to descibe them. A mixture of punk rock, accordion, violin, and a general gypsy vibe going on. Like a modern day Dexy's except actually good. They ended the set by throwing one of the drums into the crowd which was followed by the drummer launching himself into the crowd in order to retrieve it. This ended up with the crowd supporting him on the drum, as though it were the base of a statue.

After a beer break we got back into place for RATM. The crowd was getting more packed and more people were trying to get into their prime spot. One lad with a large rucksack kept banging into my mate (accidentally) until he snapped back. I calmed the situation down and tried to explain that people are always going to be banging into him and to not worry about it.

Immediately after that a rather large man apparently catapulted himself past us rudely pushing everyone aside. "Don't be a dick" I said and was told to fuck off. I gave him the finger (as did at least two others) and I explained to my mate that this situation was different to the one that he found himself in, and that I was acting in the right. (obviously)

We were beside two girls with wooden spoons who were admonishing any rude people who pushed in with a sharp thwack to the back of the legs.

We liked them !

It was time for Rage, and the opening was done with a real sense of humour, with a cartoon Simon Cowell introducing the band before they launched into "Testify". Al the sings you would expect to hear were played and the only gripe I had was that the overall volume could have been louder. but then again, i'd say that about any gig.

Zack encouraged the UN to take action on the blockade of Gaza, but other than this, the politics were kept to a minimum (which was a shame). The band brought on the organisers of the Facebook campaign and hugged them, before presenting Shelter with a giant cheque, however we didn't find out how much it was. Anyone know how much was raised?

A security man told a guy near me that he wasn't allowed to make his own beer in the park. He turned to him and said "Fuck you, I won't brew where you tell me" (This bit didn't actually happen.)

The show ended. But no "Killing In The Name". However, SURPRISE ! The band came back on to a montage of quotes and stats from the Christmas campaign, each provoking lots of good natured boos and cheers, over a soundtrack of the X factor song. The place exploded as it had done back at Reading Festival in 1993 which was the last time I had seen them.

As the track ended we started heading to the exits. Once out of Finsbury Park it struck us that the tube would be rather hideous so we decdied to go to the pub on the corner till things "died down". This was rather naive as the pub soon got rammed not long after we had got our drinks and when we left it turned out that nothing had died down at all. We decided to walk into the crowds and get to Manor House where he could get on the tube easier and i could get my bus home.

Oh yes, incidentally, most of my pictures of this gig were taken via the giant screens. The reason for this was the far too tall man who stands in front of me at every single open air gig I attend. Here he is >>>

As I was waiting for the bus I was told I was at the wrong stop. I turned and said to them "Fuck you, I won't queue where you tell me." (This didn't happen either but I really wish it had)

Los Quattros Cvnts

I was in a great mood yesterday. I had change in my pocket and even though I was rushing from Wandsworth to the West End in order to get to the Phoenix by 7.30, I had time to stop and give a pound to a smiling homeless guy with a dog. I don't give money often enough to nice smiling homeless people so this made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The evening would end slightly differently

I got to the venue in record time and met up with @RobOxley and @Tainted_Harmony and her two friends. The queue for the basement was rather large and slow-moving but we got there in the end and nabbed our special reserved table (after Muki hassled the poor guy who was sitting at it). Anyway we were soon joined by @misswiz and @kateweb and the show began...

The Cvnts are a sketch troupe made up from Michael Legge of Precious Little and Dan Mersh, Jeremy Limb and Paul Litchfield of The Trap and they perform together on the first Wednesday of the month at The Phoenix (home of the still to be blogged about London Comedy Improv). Guests they have had previously include Andrew Collins, Jason Manford, Robin Ince and Jeremy Lion, and this week saw the mighty Richard Herring close the show.

The Cvnts threw in a number of great sketches this time including Michael and Jeremy unsure whether the "animal sketch" was one about animal porn or animal vets, Paul's cornish homoerotica (eroticker) and Dan trying to get Doctor Pub to give advice to viewers problems (though I did miss Doctor Party - please bring him back.)

The handover to Herring included a great sketch where various rather posh lords were meeting and chatting about their more famous wives, including Lord Gaga, Lord Sovereign, and *ahem* Lord Boy! Naturally Herring had to trump them all and arrived as King Latifah!

I've seen Richard Herring a number of times, downloaded the podcasts, read the blogs, bought the book,  bought the DVDs, and, yes, bought the T-shirt so I'm quite familiar with hs work, but he always, but always makes me laugh. I think it's a combination of his stage personality which can range from insecure ("I just want to be back on the telly") to full on ranting in the blink of an eye. Even @Tainted_Harmony's grumpy friend cracked a smile (so I'm told!). I particularly loved how he could still shock and surprise this audience of mainly liberal comedy regulars with his routine about having small hands, the size of a 7 year old girl's, and to the dark fantasies where this led.

After the show I spent some time with Rob and Vicky outside with Paul Litchfield (who very rarely appears to switch off) before we headed inside for a lovely time chatting with Michael and James and the ever-lovely Ewen Macintosh who had managed to survive a potentially awkward situation where he had to buy 'The Office' DVDs in a shop. I'm not sure if he felt the need to excuse himself to the shop assistant and come up with some excuse for buying his own DVD, but I like to imagine he did. By the way, it wasn't for him - it was a present for someone and he could only get Ricky Gervais to sign it that day.

I got the bus home, but rather predictably fell asleep and woke up in Seven Sisters. The wait for the bus took ages but Twitter managed to entertain me. I was grumpy though. Especially when a Scottish man gestured at me when i had my earphones on. I assumed he wanted a light so I fumbled in my pockets for my lighter. He still looked like he wanted more so I unplugged myself and it turned out he wanted a whole roll-up ! How rude. Well I was happy to give it to him and I guess he worked out that I was also from Scotland. "Where are you from?" he said. Now the only reason Scottish people ask me that is to see if they know the town I grew up in and regale me with stories of their home town. I wasn't interested. "Angel", I said, simultaneously putting my headphones back on. He looked disappointed. I was getting grumpier.

Then another man appeared to be staring at my face, slightly too closely, obviously saying things. I unplugged myself again and he was saying "Give me a couple of quid.". Not asking me nicely, but almost ordering me to. I didn't know if he was a polite mugger or a fucking rude beggar. He clearly wasn't homeless, so I told him I didn't have anything to spare. Which was true. Yes I had loads of change. But I wasn't going to spare any to this dick. We were at an impasse.

"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Fucking tight stingy bastard!"

He walked off and although my meeting with this guy was vastly different to the lovely homeless man I had met earlier I was glad I didn't give him my money. It made me warm and fuzzy inside.

The Cvnts are taking a break for the summer but will be back at The Phoenix in September.