Yes I have succumbed to that retail type of behaviour once again. I did it this time last year and now once again this year there is a special offer for mailing list members to have a ticket for my show next year on March 2nd at The Journal Tyne Theatre at a concessionary price. It's not a bad deal actually considering I'm a lot cheaper than most to start with. £12 for a night of me in my home town with a good support act, one or two surprises and a pint with me and the lads next door in the Bodega?! Come on you know it makes sense. Get back to me once you've read today's entry and leave your email address and I'll get back to you.

My shows are a big pride to me. I almost enjoy the lead up to them as much as the night itself. I campaign like I'm the Lib Dems or the Scottish Nationalists fighting a by election, in that I put everything, absolutely everything into it. I am the small man fighting the giants. To have access to the network television free publicity machine is an exponential advantage when selling theatre tickets, that's why tits sell tickets if they happen to be hot television property and it's why someone like Kitson or Tony Law will struggle in terms of big numbers. Don't get me wrong their quality of audience nationwide will be tremendous, just like mine in Newcastle, but it's a numbers game, it's a bean counter's business right now and the Arenas are where the agents and their accountants will salivate. 

You can see it in popular music now, a once socially cohesive force, which has just turned into a soap opera with tabloid gossip headlines, bitchy heat magazine human interest titbits and a general drip drip drip feed of publicity that keeps these X factor shows thriving. It's all very counter productive because bodies like the BBC feel obliged to talk about it because due to it's massive audience, it is news and you have the bizarre situation of Stephen Nolan on Five Live on a Saturday night, breaking off from the heavy issues of the week to talk about X factor with several guests who talk and argue the toss like it's the US Primaries or the Mayor of London elections.

They talk shite as well. I remember one bloke arguing who was a fuckin expert of music or something. Obviously this accolade was invented by himself. He said that X factor was great and great for music because people look back at something like Punk with rose tinted spectacles and that if you take a look at the charts in 1977 and you see Abba and Baccara and disco type records in the top ten, you'll realise that Punk didn't really affect the charts at all and that this populist stuff was what people were buying and thus people are rewriting history. Obviously I'm paraphrasing the silly twat but that was his general point. Of course it's utter shite, in that although in 76 and 77 none of the British punk bands are really hurting the old order in terms of single sales, young teenagers aren't fuckin interested anymore. Instead they're all looking at the off shoots of this wonderful youth movement. The thing this fuckwit should do is then look at the charts in 1979 or 1980 when you wouldn't see any Baccara in the music charts compiled by Gallup, just a bit of Abba on their last legs and no more silly Butlins bands with beardy men and women with ball gowns on, no more country and western top five hits, no Leo Sayer, no Wurzels, no teeny boppers, no Bay City Rollers, no silly west coast bands singing head up it's arse pigswill. All that shite was dealt with and put out to grass by spiky haired kids and their sleazy retail managers who took on the big wigs and won! What you did see though in 1979-1980 in the British music charts compiled by Gallup was Two Tone, the new wave of British Heavy Metal, Tubeway Army, all that second wave of punk, The Jam getting to number one, Madness having record numbers of top ten hits, Stiff records and all sorts of weird and wonderful hit singles of which most was good, some stuff was pretty rank but it was independant and it was original.

This era in music was about the only time when the Cowells of this world got a good arse kicking, smug fuckers ended up going bankrupt. The famous story is the bloke from A and M that fired the Sex Pistols then began selling carpets in the West Country. As a result of this short sharp shock, they've guarded against it ever since, they've never allowed it to come anywhere near happening again. You can see the same parallels in my industry. It's all so bloody safe, it's a cartel that can't breached unless you do something about it. I certainly am. The trouble is, in my life I've realised that hippies and stoners dow nowt, Socialist and Communists and Marxists are so stubbornly into following their own doctrine, they can do nowt as well. It's the retail people that'll fuck the system and I'm proud to be a retailer. Go on leave your name and get a couple of quid off. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY HOT SOUP. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS WITH THE COLD STUFF. 

Dale farm is getting some tweeters in a tizz expecially with some stand ups who tweet. I have to be honest and say I don't know the intricate ins and outs of the case to have a 'god playing' opinion on the subject. I do know that twenty to twenty five years ago there would've definitely been benefits organised on the ALTERNATIVE comedy circuit and people from that very circuit, which was the one that morphed into this one that contains the suits and the haircuts and the women's institute female comics, would've been on sit ins and been on the front line to rally against the government and their hired private security force ie Her Majesty's Police.

Now I don't necessarily agree with all that. I've always considered myself a comedian not an alternative comedian. In fact I'm even a bit embarassed by the word comedian, I like to think of myself as a bloke that gets up and talks and gets laughs. Actually that just sounds right up it's own arse. Comedian will do, blue comedian because I swear a lot. However I'd say that if you feel really strongly then go and do a benefit for them.

I do suspect though that some comics who are really quiet on subjects like this, are deliberately so in order to not be too controversial and thus affect their ticket sales. It's all about image these days. If you're asked to do a Help For Heroes gig now and you're an Arena act and you say 'I'm not sure about doing a job for help for heroes when I feel they've usurped the British Legion charity and besides I'm not comfortable doing an army thing when I was tweeting about the illeagal war on Iraq last week etc. etc.' well don't expect to be an Arena act for much longer, there'll be some keen little bugger ready to take your place on whatever trendy charity is big at the moment.

I think I'll stick to trying to save amateur football clubs in the North East and doing a bit for local appeals, the rest of the stuff seems a bit political for me. I tell you what though, what with the golf playing, umpteen property owning, licence to print money comics these days, watch out for a few of them doing benefits for the local farmers who've had these 'people' on their land for years. We do have the new Monkhouses, Tarbucks and Forsythes kicking about these days, don't be surprised if there's a new Pro Celebrity Golf programme on BBC2. I remember it back in the day because I used to catch the last five minutes waiting for Not The Nine O Clock News to come on (in those days the telly had to 'warm up').

Right enough warbling, got to go. Don't let them make cuts to local BBC. Cunts.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THAT HEAD OF THE POST OFFICE UNION IN THE 70S WITH THE HANDLE BAR MOUSTACHE. 

 I've never seen 'Buzzcocks' for a long time. I was on it once divvent yu knaa, don't check the episode out, I was shit, proper proper shit. Mind you my newly born daughter's life was still in the balance and I needed the thousand pounds so my head was somewhere else at the time. However you can't make excuses, maybe telly wasn't for me. I've always felt a bit of a fake doing panel shows. Kidding on that I'm thinking on my feet when it's common knowledge that you get the questions before hand and nowadays about four different writers write your jokes and your ad libs. That's why Holly Willoughby and the fat cunt from Gavin and Stacey look reasonably witty.

Last night on Buzzcocks it was like the work experience people were having fun in the studio before Lamarr and Bailey and the proper comics turned up. It was fuckin embarrasing. That New Zealand feller from the Pot Noodle adverts was clowning around like a bloke on a corporate bonding weekend with his craziness. Jupitus was as 'hilarious' as ever. There was a rap kid on that completed the team of cunts on the left. On the right there was a woman who apparently according to my missus won X Factor or something and I last saw her on Celebrity Family Fortunes at the weekend. Noel Faulkener was 'captain' and then the wonderful Tony Law made up cunts on the right however he was caught up in such a spellbinding vortex of shite that even his brilliance couldn't escape from it. The anchorperson was Lorraine Kelly and awful wouldn't do that sort of awfulness justice. Not an ounce of comedy timing or any kind of crash bang wallop delivery, she seemed to fall back on threatening to spank anyone who misbehaved. Maybe she's brilliant in an 'ironic way' or maybe I'm too old to realise that it's really 'random' to have her on the show. 

It's incredible that things have turned full circle. We do settle down to watch television and all we see is a lot of smug, self serving, self satisfied 'funsters' playing parlour games and pulling off a trick with editors and writers whereby an illusion is created through the means of a two hour filmed show edited into half an hour where it looks like none of the 'public' who watch the programmes could do them cos they're not witty enough.

There has to be an alternative. Stewart Lee, Dan Kitson, Tony Law and a handful of others are proper stand ups that the public may have heard of that won't just be an hour and a bits worth of trivial nonsense if you go and see them.

Quiet week this week. I'm out on the piss tonight watching Gateshead FC and being treated to free hospitality. Can't be bad. The next gig is on Friday in Halifax.

Mailing list people. An offer will be winging it's way to you this week, watch out for the email.

Anyway must go. Speak tomorrow. Don't let them tell you that 'This Morning' is a really good show.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY TIMBER COMPANIES ON TRADING ESTATES. NOT A GREAT ONE TODAY I'LL ADMIT. I WANT ME DINNER.

The harder you work, the better you get and other such cliches with a right wing slant. Gary Player famously said when accused of being a lucky golfer 'funny that, the more I practice the luckier I get'. The trouble with cliches is they tend to be correct. I've worked all week doing some bloody awful jobs and some really nice rewarding ones and last night in Hebden Bridge (the antithesis of Saturday night's gig) was the best of the lot. Doing all sorts of different spots this month, coming quite recently off the back of doing the Edinburgh fringe where you're confronted with challenging situations nightly makes you more than match fit and when the last gig of a trying week is in a fantastic little room in a quaint Victorian old money town on the Yorkshire/Lancashire border, it makes for a great 35 minutes on stage.

Aye Saturday was hard graft. I was on in the Mayfair rooms in Seaton Carew. A bollocks old seaside town right next to Teesside, named 'Seaton Canoe' these days after the infamous missing man presumed dead as a result of being out at sea on his boat only to resurface in Panama a couple of years later. Life insurance can bring the worst out of people.

Anyway the gig itself was a benefit for a hospice and in honour of a lady who died a few years ago. Apparently it's an annual gig and has been going a few years now. When I got there, I saw the crowd and the balloons on the table. I saw the size of the place and the fact that it was one of those ones where I was playing to everyone at the side because there was a big chasm of a dance floor in front of me. I insisted like a bolshy bastard that the house lights get switched off when I was due to be on and that the mike gets turned up. Still a third of the room talked while I was on. I ploughed on though and did the thick end of half an hour and got 5 minute routines out of it despite playing to a Pheonix Nights environment. The compere was like a Vic Reeves character without any irony. I asked him to do a bit of material before I went on which consisted of 'any football fans in?......eeeeh bad result for Hartlepool today.....any Liverpool fans, how about the Boro?........What about Sunderland.......any Newcastle fans.........Right well let's get the next act on and it's a comedian'.

I walked out of there during a tab break with a bit of dignity. I could've died fuckin horrifically but got out there intact after imposing my comedy muscle on to them. John the bloke that run it said it was all fine and I went up the A19 feeling that I was over the worst in a long old week.

Last night was a piece of piss though. Hebden Bridge, another double barrelled name was treat to the old three comics and a compere show, the thing I'm used to and what I do best and this was the only sort of normal gig of the week. I went on and fuckin destroyed it. Welcome back normal gigs! Mick Ferry's lad Sam was on the door. It looked like what Micky could've well looked like 25 years ago. A decent chap and another great gig ran by Rob Riley who you just can't keep down. A great old Northern character.

Right then it's a busy old books and admin week with a couple of West Yorkshire gigs at the weekend. Howay the lads.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY PEOPLE WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT PEOPLE WHO HOG THE MIDDLE LANE ON THE MOTORWAY, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. 

The last time I was in Ramside Hall just off the A690 near Durham, was about 19 years ago at my second cousin's wedding. That ended (like most of the weddings I've been to) in a quickie divorce so that's the only memories I've got of the place. The very mention of the place probably brings a sour taste in the mouth for my second cousin (who now is on to her second marriage and living happily in Ross on Wye with a Scotsman and a labrador) but I just saw it as one of those daft arse pretendy olde worlde hotels where people pay a bloody fortune to hire out a room called 'The Neville Suite' and sit and drink champagne and wear silly hats. Not to mention the boat loads of bonding days for firms or corporate sponsorship get together days they have at the place. The staff wear waiscoats and give you receipts with your drinks. It's so as to give you a sense of a reality check looking at the breakdown of the round because you can't believe that that is the fuckin price! As you can see I'm not a fan of these places.

Last night however, I was in a good mood leaving the place. I'd just done a Sportsman's dinner for Esh Winning FC. They're a Northern League Team and it was their annual do. I was on with Dave Watson the ex Everton centre back who was a great bloke and a good speaker. I'm a fan of all those old stories and such, so it's always nice to hear stories of Sir Bobby, Gazza, Howard Kendall and the like. It's always the same engaging characters that come up in these tales. Not surprising that they always tend to be from the North East, Geordies in particular. Anyway no doubt more of that in the 'And In The Sport' column next week along with a match report for In Administration's game on Monday.

Right tonight I'm in Seaton Carew (is it you? yeah yeah yeah) doing a benefit for a hospice. I've never been to the missing Canoe man out at sea town ever before. Probably the last place in the North East I've never been to. I've never had the need and I think I've been to Winlaton maybe 1,493 too many times out of the aprroximately 1,500 times I've been there so it's no slight on the place that I've never been. Hopefully it'll be a good'un then with Hebden Bridge on Sunday, it'll round off a busy bloody week via Blackpool and Belfast and then dinnered out at the weekend. Do keep buying tickets for my show next year on March 2nd at The Journal Tyne Theatre. Tickets via a link on the home page. Speak tomorrow people.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THE BLOKE ON THE LIVER BIRDS WHO ALWAYS TENUOUSLY STEERED THE CONVERSATION ROUND TO STUFF THAT HAPPENED ON HIS BUS. HE WAS ON BROOKSIDE YEARS LATER. HE'S PROBABLY DEAD NOW.

Oh yes I'm going to be dinnered out by the time Sunday comes. I'll be relieved to get into doing a straightforward gig format after the weekend's formalities. Tonight I'm at The Ramside Hall in Durham doing Esh Winning FC's dinner with Graeme Forster and ex Everton captain Dave Watson. Last night I was well oiled at the annual Wallsend Boys Club dinner at the Gosforth Park Hotel. Our table did order a lot of beers and supplemented it with a lot of red wine. Cheers Buster and thanks to his firm for the seat. It was nice not to do a set at that one, I'd reckon they'd have beaten me last night, they looked like a tough nut to crack. More of that night in next week's 'And In The Sport' column.

Saturday night I'm doing a benefit dinner in Seaton Carew (what the fuck to expect of that one is nobody's business) and then on Sunday I'm down at Hebden Bridge doing a normal comedy night. Hectic but I'm glad of the work keeping the bills paid.

Not long now until the Stand opens. Nothing is ever confirmed in this game. You never know the fuckin thing might be a complete disaster, it just might not go whatsoever. I'd reckon it will work. I HOPE my night works. It would be great to get a following from day one but I'm not naive, it'll need building slowly but surely and I'd say the spring of 2013 would be the time to moniter it's progress and not before.

Right I'm offski. Sorry it's a relatively short one again. The work is just piled high at the moment and the admin doesn't let up. Speak tomorrow people. Don't let them park so badly that you can't physically get an empty space next to them bastards.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY RICKETTS, NOT THE FOOTBALLERS BUT THE PREVALANT CONDITION DUE TO MALNOURISHMENT IN THE 1920S AND 30S.

Right this is going to be short, don't blame me blame the useless broadband package that I'm on that keeps putting me off line like the bloody Soviets jamming signals during the cold war. Mind you that was my biased, patriotic Dad talking perhaps it's all shite. Anyway this morning I did a long piece that I was proud of having a go at the same old same old when it came to the new series of Live At The Apollo but when I'd finished the 5 or 6 paragraphed piece that took me fuckin ages, the bastard thing went off line! So it's with that, I'm doing a short one instead with bare bits of info rather than a big editorial piece that I'll do tomorrow.

Tuesday up in Belfast was great fun. Flying in to International, a bus straight into town and then a walk from the bus station to my hotel and then a meet up in a cafe to catch up with my mate Darrell from Coleraine. We watched the Scotland match from my hotel room because everywhere in town was showing either the proddys or the diddley dees. Afterwards he invited his girlfriend to the gig and I had guests with me at the Empire for the first time in my many years of doing it.

Once again it was the usual Empire crowd, raucous, noisy and talky. Colin Murphy was his usual inspirational self with some great piss take of some of the diddleywhaks in the crowd. The first act (can't remember his name) was a feller from Dublin with a beard and tattoos. They quite liked him and he seemed to connect with the young folk in the crowd. Very much an away match I thought. The second feller was a bloke a few years older than me from south of the border in Monaghan. He did okay, I thought he was funnier actually but the talky crowd were not giving much back.

By the time I went on it was a tough one. I did okay at first but felt that I'd lost them on about 10. It's at this point I thought I'd just dig deep and do it like a rehearsal to talking. I got them back to an extent and did one of them good, good performances in front of relative indifference. It's why I get booked baby. Any cunt can storm it in front of a lovely crowd, it's a different kettle of fish getting some form of dignity to walk off to while it's difficult. Any reviewer in there tonight would've hated me, that's why they're largely pricks. They don't get the day at the office gigs which Tuesday was. It was one of those run of the mill nights where perversly I'm proud to be a stand up.

Anyway speak tomorrow, I'm actually out on the piss tonight.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY 'IT'S ON' BY 'FLOWERED UP'. GREAT TRACK.

Sorry about no blog yesterday. I know a lot of you like your dose of Monday rant when you're supposed to be getting on with something else at work. I was and still am very busy this week. It's one of them non stop ones. I'm in the middle of my books and it coincides with a 6 gig week and attending a dinner on the day off.

Yesterday I had a gig in Blackpool at the world famous Sands rooms. Blackpool and everyone from that Blackpool era like to prefix their venues with stuff like world famous yet if it really was world famous, you wouldn't have to put world famous in front of it QED. I wasn't aware who the gig was for or if it was a specific gig for anyone but this became apparent when I arrived and when it was explained to me. It all fell into place after listening to five live on the way down and there was an interview with Ken Dodd talking about it.

The gig was for people (builders, planners, patrons etc.) who worked on this comedian's carpet, a granite horizontal thing that has every comedian known to man written on it. A record if you will, of the comedians past and present so that future generations can look at it and chart the names. It sounds like a good idea, I'm all for heritage like that and it will appeal in the future to enthusiasts and people with passing interest alike. I never had a chance to see it but will when I go there again.

I did the gig with Dave Johns, Mick Ferry and John Moloney. You can guess what's coming next can't you. It turns out that out of the four of us, three didn't have their names on it. There was only Moloney who's name was on the carpet. As I'd only heard about this project while I was travelling down, it didn't really rankle with me. I didn't have enough time to get keyed up as to whether I was carved on to the granite and whilst listening to the radio, I was led to believe it was only the old Blackpool comics who's names were on there. Also I've had far too many knocks and snubs and instances of being overlooked at the expense of some jumped up, talent free herbert, that I'm quite immune to this sort of thing. It's all part of the course and part of the knocks you get and the showbiz nemesis god that wants you to pack in.

Dave Johns however was quite, nay very upset about it. He mentioned the names that were on it and was gutted that he wasn't. He said that he felt sad after all he'd done for comedy especially in the North East. Mick didn't seem so down, he was largely the same as me. It didn't really affect me but as I say, I only found out about the whole thing on the night so there was no period of not knowing. I'm a bit shallow (you learn to be when you're paying your mortgage and have a rewire to save up for) and I feel that we were the real winners because we got paid good money on a Monday to do the gig so effectively we've got more out of it. Also the amount of money I'm earning this week more than makes up for a being on something which isn't the be all and end all. I bet Bobby Thompson's not on it, I bet Mike Elliot's not on it, I bet Tony Mendoza's not on it. There you are, the three most influential North East comics there ever was.

I know I'm rattling on a bit about money and the job is so much more than that but that is the reality of this job. It's not called showbusiness for nothing, even the most well off people have to fuck off and do something else when nixy is coming in for your efforts on the stage. Also, I know Dave was thinking about his young daughter perhaps in sixty years, showing her grandchildren the carpet and pointing out that her granda was on it. Once again though, the outwardly athiest people are 'worried' about what people will think when they're gone! Why give a fuck!?!!?!

Simon Fox, a camp old variety comic, said to me that there's an old music hall phrase 'you don't leave showbusiness showbusiness leaves you'. This is all to do with money and stuff but as I say, it's when you stop being booked, that's when you've no place or no legacy left to give in this job, not if you're agent has forgot to get you on to a list of people on a granite carpet in a seaside town that people overlooked for the Costa Brava in the early 70s and it's been downhill quicker than the big dipper since.

Blackpool, nice place in it's own way, but it's not the comedy capital it thinks it is. Cheer up Davie, you're a funny man. Who wants to be on a list, the nazis had lists.

Anyway I'm off to Belfast tonight. You don't want to be on anyone's list in a city like Belfast! You won't have long to go. Speak tomorrow. Don't let them resist putting extra lanes on the A69 because of some enviromental excuse.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THE 'WORLD FAMOUS' ANSON PUB IN WALLSEND. 

 Yes you never know when you're heading for a dreadful fall, it can take place during, it would appear any mundane moment or while life is decidedly run of the mill. Not that owt has happened, I just was thinking of an original title for today's blog. Last night was a busy one but a good one. I had a busy day yesterday that's why there was no blog. Sorry about that.

Thursday was a decent gig. I was at The Greystones on Greystones Road in Sheffield. This was part of the Sheffield Comedy Festival which is getting so big at the minute, it'll be festival time most of the days of the year in Sheffield in the next few years. Apparently the Greystones Road area is very middle class. This was difficult to tell driving through it, mind you the audience were very middle aged and Lyle and Scott-edd up. It was good to be in a real ale pub as well. Good to know that these places are thriving while the lager piss wannabe 'in bars' have the Wadds wood in the window and the for sale signs plastered all over it.

Aye I'm in Edinburgh at the moment. Last night consisted of a half decent closer at Highlight. Short attention spans from the crowd but I steered the ship home. I'd say they had a good night and that was down to the skill of the acts. A good bill that Chortly man who wrote for the Daily Mail would've hated. John Scott compere, the hugely underrated Gordon Southern as support and I closed. It's the same tonight with A N Other. Nowt fancy but loads of jokes and 5 laughs a minute all night. 

Afterwards I had a lesiurely drive down to South Queensferry to close The Boat House. Jojo Sutherland was compering. Her husband and daughter who I last saw two and a bit years ago when I played football against her at Meadowbank Stadium (funny old life) were also in attendance as were a funny old crowd with a strange mix and no real dynamic. There were a few women stage right that looked like Women's Institute women. It's weird seeing that type of woman close up then it dawns on you that a fair few of them are discernably younger than you. No matter some of them laughed like drains whilst others were looking at me like I was holding them all hostage. I suppose I was in a way, well in a terrible kitchen sink literary way.

It's just a straightforward Highlight tonight and then it's a steady drive home tomorrow with Scotty. A busy week next week, the season is in full swing but without anything crazy happening yet. So far the biggest points on the board has been the Radio 4 appearance on Great Unanswered Questions which appears to have been plaigiarised and pantomimed up by 'Ask Rhod Gilbert'. Mind you Rhod's a funny man and so is Greg Davies and Lloyd Langford. Nice to see a funny show on telly. Watch that one get axed after the BBC cuts and not some teen rebellion crap on BBC3.

Right it's time to wake up properly. I'm getting hints from the hoover outside my hotel room door from the Lithuanian chamber maid. Speak tomorrow. Don't let them pretend that qualifying for the Grand Prix is a TV spectacle.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THE EVENING CHRONICLE'S SPELLING MISTAKE IN THE 70S. SOMETIMES THE WAS SPELT 'HTE'. 

It was at the time, the epitomy of everything that was shit, but it would be nice to think that something like that could return. I suppose it has in the form of Miranda but when you look at teen stuff like Fresh Meat (which to be fair I haven't seen but then again I've never listened to a whole album of Bros, Stepps, Brother Beyond or Boyzone) you do wish that sitcoms would concentrate on being funny rather than stylish.

I haven't had a bash at a sitcom since a couple of years ago when one bod connected with BBC Scotland wasn't too keen on mine and Scottish comedian John Scott's effort but liked the 'ned' in it who was just a peripheral character but of course having a 'ned' in a Scottish sitcom is as important as having 'the vicar' in a 1970s English one so the bloke got excited about a few threatening weedgie one liners.

Note to self and indeed everyone else: DO YOUR OWN THING AND DON'T RELY ON COMMISSIONERS.

Speaking of which there is going to be just one ten minute act and one headliner at my Sunday night show at The Newcastle Stand 'Gavin Webster's Northumbrian Assembly'. It will be nice to see an up and coming act on the night and also a decent headliner coming down to do the gig. There will be a middle section for quizzes, sketches and musical interludes. Obviously I've got to keep some of it under wraps but get yourself down to the first night and we'll hit the ground running. I am my own director, producer, editor and everything else in that show, so if it goes down the pan then I carry the bloody can. Actually carrying a bloody can sounds a bit Jack the Ripper-ish, I'll carry a can full of smart observations about what we all do everyday and everyone in the audience who'll all be under twenty five can guffaw and women can scream for no reason.....fuck I thought I'd got over the worst of that!

Right believe it or not I'm off for a rehearsal to try and get my Stand residency, my show next year at The Journal Tyne Theatre and stuff beyond that in ship shape and bristol fashion. Speak tomorrow citizens.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THE TOFFO ADVERTS FROM THE 70S.

 As the beginning of Series 10 of Rab C Nesbitt is about to be broadcast, I sort of don't feel any shame peddling out some jokes and one liners that I was doing about 16 years ago and there is one whole routine that's actually 14 years old that I still rely on to this day especially whilst doing longer sets. There are some of my peers (I'm not in the mood for naming people today) that turn lots of stuff over and have done for the 16 or so years I've known them but I wouldn't swap what I did for their stuff regardless of whether they wrote it last week, a couple of years back or before anyone knew who Liam Gallagher was. That's a bit of patronising advice I'd give a young act today, try and write a big routine that's profound but above all funny and you can have it for a long long time.

Loads of people haven't even seen some of my more 'celebrated' routines. I can still do the most requested stuff at say a sportsman's dinner in County Durham and it's all virgin stuff to them. They'll not have heard long routines from the sort of comedians they already book and also, the set pieces I do will have not been all over the telly or out on DVD (unless Mark Watson's done it on his latest DVD 'I'm A Great Bloke And Very Talented' or whatever it's called).

Hopefully after I've bedded in at The Stand in Newcastle doing my weekly Sunday, I'll have some brand new greatest hits that can be thrashed out in ten years time at Mickfield Cricket Club's annual dinner and people will book me the next year and I'll be able to do thirty year old stuff that's new to them. Sometimes it's very handy when you're not famous.

More dates are being added this month. I might start filling in the diary again however I'll always put the big gigs up on the home page. Do get down to The Stand on November 13th. www.thestand.co.uk and then follow the link. Let's fill the place! Speak tomorrow. Don't let them sell you a telly and then expect you to just plug it in and it work straight away.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY MY HP PRINTER, STILL HANGING ON IN THERE DESPITE BEING ON IT'S LAST LEGS. GAN ON BONNY LAD.

Thought I'd call it Sex today because it's not been the title of the blog yet. I believe there was a group called Sex once. I think it was one of those awful glam influenced poodle haired heavy metal bands from the 80s. Heavy metal was the genre for silly names of groups. They had names that took the fuckin biscuit like 'Death'. Mind you there was a Steve Death who used to play in goal for Stockport in the late 70s early 80s. Ironically enough I think he's dead now. I've just checked on Google and he is dead and it turns out he was a goalkeeper for Reading with 471 appearances. It just goes to show you doesn't it! Stockport are no Reading are they and here was me about to pass him off as a Stockport County player.

You can tell it's a slow news day today. It's that middle of the week nothingness. It starts in earnest this week gig wise and pretty much ends in earnest. On Thursday it's a gig in Sheffield at The Last Laugh up in Hunter's Bar at the legendary Lescar pub. I've been going up there now for 18 years and the room where the comedy takes place hasn't changed in the slightest. Obviously society has but the old fashioned function room is still as exciting to play as it was when John Major was starting his third term in what seemed like a different generation (well I suppose it almost was). In those days Oliver Double was the compere and people like Helen Austin and Keith Dover were on the bill. The crowd were sort of the same, perhaps a bit more studenty but that is a gig that's largely stayed constant down the years as everything else on the circuit has changed beyond recognition.

Friday and Saturday I'm at Edinburgh doing Highlight and also on Friday I'm up at a late night gig at South Queensferry, gawd knows what to expect from that one!

There's a day off on Sunday and then I've got a stupidly busy week next week with some bloody bananas gigs.

Right speak tomorrow. Don't let them jog when they're not jogging to train for anything they're just jogging.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY DEPARTMENT S AND THEIR TOP THIRTY HIT 'IS VIC THERE?'

Yes this stuff stays up forever unless I take it down and I reckon I will take it down at some point, maybe get rid of all last year's bile and give it till the end of the year before I get rid of this year's swill. However I'd say the hard copy of a book or a magazine stays forever. Like Eric Gates saying that he supported Newcastle United, like Paul Weller saying he'd probably vote Tory, I'm sure there's more but they are the two that I thought of off the top of my head.

It brings me to comedians bringing books out, I think Rob Brydon and Lee Evans are the latest big names alongside Jason Manford's book that came out last week. The one that's getting the bloke from Chortle who wrote for the Daily Mail into a hot woman's flush is the new Peter Kay book which has a few funny jokes and observations in it for his fans. Apparently some of it's been repeated from other Peter Kay books which in Chortly's mind constitutes some terrible rip off. It does seem that these days someone can't be mainstream in the privacy of their own books without the comedy police getting all blustered about the fact that a working class bloke is earning money and staying at the top of the popularity stakes with the great British public. I know mate it's a bit like someone giving people good reviews because they advertise on their 'honest' website. Can't imagine anyone doing that though.

I have to say I've never really read comedy books or autobiographies of comics or comedians or funny people. They seem to be in two parts these days with the end of book one where they did their first gig and then book two where they talk about their struggle on the circuit to the end of that which is about their runaway success that they have now. All very predictable. I was once written out of a part of a chapter of an autobiography book where there is a story of a legendary night in Melbourne involving a hasbeen stoner film actor and three comics amongst others. Fair enough I'm not famous enough but they are fame and namedrop books and pretty much everything I don't like in showbusiness. Actually the word showbusiness and the whole showbiz thing is very much not me and hopefully I'll not get trampled to death when the inevitable backlash comes to the fore in the next few years sweeping the silly 'Mr Saturday Night' comics to one side as the exciting young things change the way the youth view the world. Yes it all sounds implausible at the moment but give it time.

Last night was a good one. Thanks to Stefan Peddie for a great spot at the final (for the time being) Three Tuns gig up on Sheriff Hill in Gateshead. I'm going to be otherwised engaged on a Sunday from now on, well from November 13th where I'll be compering The Stand Newcastle's Sunday night show, details on the home page. There's no more local stuff for a little while now, in fact the next local show will indeed be the 13th of November so get in sharp with the tickets.

Right I'll speak to you folks tomorrow. Don't let them ruin your tomato harvest.

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Yes one of the blokes from the writing partnership Croft and Perry died this week, I've forgotten which one but RIP anyway. I wasn't a huge devotee of Dad's Army like some people but one thing is for sure, it's one of those sitcoms that wouldn't get comissioned today especially from a rookie writer. Why? Well because it looks very ordinary on the page and execs need to be spoon fed as to what is and isn't funny and also unless it's pure filth, they'd need convincing to epidemical levels. I've been there and there are some people in that corporation, well there certainly were some people in that corporation that wouldn't know good comedy if it smacked them in the face. They suggest the most ridiculous things that through there insistence end up in the pilot script and they tend to be the things that people higher think 'what the fuck did they put this in the script for?'. It's okay mate it wasn't the writer who knows what is and isn't funny, rather the Bacon Grill in a tin head who is there to spot the talent on 70 grand a year who's royally fucking up everyone's big chance and that's why we have licence money spent on pish.

Anyway I preferred 'It Aint HAlf Hot Mum', that was one of their efforts, not for the humourous Indian accents or the laughing at the mincing queen played by Melvin Hayes, well actually those parts were funny but the class divide of it all and the slapstick and I don't know the over exagurrated performances. Ha ha we'll never see their like again. 'Are You Being Served', 'Hi De Hi', 'Sorry', I can take or leave but I don't see big sitcoms being made in the future that'll get the whole nation quoting the lines or having a great level of affection for the characters.

Last night when I came home from the Hyena (not a bad gig as it happens, not many in though) I arrived in the house to see Jonathon Ross smacking the lips on Ewan Macgregor while Macgregor had lipstick on applied I'm told by one of the women from Ndubz or however it's pronounced or spelt. How is that cunt still on telly? The crowd were whooping like he was sucking him off. What fuckin asylum does this studio audience come from?! The set was so Conan O Brien, now even chat shows like supermarkets are being patented so now so there's only one model around the world. No imagination from comissioners, writers, presenters, editors, directors and most of all agents and managers. Come on young comics, pack this shit off to bed!

Right I'm off for some breakfast then I'm going to enjoy my Sunday, not that breakfast isn't enjoyment. I'm going to work on next week's And In The Sport and I'm back to dailys on the blog. Speak tomorrow. Don't let them push in at those traffic lights at Sheilds Road and Benfield Road where the Railway Pub is.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY FOOTBALLERS WHO WROTE BOOKS THAT PLAYED LEFT BACK FOR CHARLTON ATHLETIC AND STUFF.  

 Is a failure to communicate @Cool Hand Luke. A great line and I can liken it to the lack of blog entries in the last couple of days. No particular reason, I've just been busy recently. Here I am now doing the blog on a Saturday afternoon. I can't let this blog go. It's been up, it's been down, I've had good'uns, I've had anemic efforts but it's an addiction that I can't kick.

It's great to be home on a Saturday afternoon. On Wednesday I was doing a voiceover for a website. A piece of piss and being paid, you can't complain. Sorry to sound sanctimonious but it's been a nice week. Thursday I did a local double. First one for Whickham FC at As You Like It, the second one up at The Village Hotel on the Cobalt Business Park. Both were more than reasonable and they looked a bit shit before I walked on. Good on you John Smith for putting me on and to Della and Dave for what the three of you are trying to put together in North East comedy. What with The Stand coming, I feel that for the first time being in Newcastle is now a distinct advantage not a discernable disadvantage.

Last night I was on in Chester at The Laugh Inn. Not a disaster by any stretch. Another more than half decent one. I listened to Mitch Benn's comedy collection in the car on the way down. One of many CDs donated to me by Alex Collier who got rid cos he's got them all on MP3 files. Some good ones, some a bit pish. I have to say I prefer Half Man Half Biscuit for comedy songs. Mind you he's a great mimic. He is Elvis on Ask Elvis on Steve Wright on Radio 2. He doesn't like people to know that. There you go another exclusive on the GW blog!!

Tonight I'm doing a private do and then tomorrow it's the turn of The Three Tuns in Gatesheed. I've a few days off then it kicks in big style after that.

A decent effort tomorrow and then back to consistent ones next week. Don't let them fuck you about with refuse collection, your council taxes should be able to cover emptying bins for fuck's sake.

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