Ken Russell is no more, the bloke who directed Women In Love and and The Devils (a film I've never yet seen) amongst others has ceased to be. They did an interview on five live with Glenda Jackson about him and his legacy. She was an arsehole, she was more than a bit rude with the interviewer, she belittled the British film industry and everything about it in a couple of sweeping statements. She was patronising, belittling, downright rude and still managed to sound like a know all about acting at the same time. People like her make you hate the acting industry. I remember her being a prize wanker on Question Time a few years ago when she was a Labour MP as well.

Afterwards it was said that she won two Oscars (a phrase she objected angrily to in the interview) but she never turned up to LA or wherever they hold the Oscars to collect them cos she's no interest in the whole back slapping experience. Right I take it all back. She's instantly shot up in my estimation. The fact that the woman did the acting as a job and that she wasn't interested in the by product of ponsing off to award ceremonys makes me think that her pompousness (which to be fair was still entertaining to listen to and did hold some pertinent points) was allowed if it means there's a bit of principled behaviour going on. Good on you Glenda!

Sorry for no blog yesterday. I was driving back from Glasgow after a tough night there on the Saturday. The jist of it was that I was doing okay not brilliantly but getting by (it was Nathan Caton's gig he'd proper ripped it) then all of a sudden I'd lost it altogether. Some fuckwit did heckle in the middle of a routine but I couldn't get the fuckers back at all. After the show I was standing with Martin Mor as he was selling his CDs and I got cracking to a few punters that had enjoyed the show. One said that toward the end of my set, the coppers steamed into the venue mob handed (I couldn't see this on stage). Apparently some punter had touched up a member of the waiting staff in the break and despite the show manager on her first night begging the cops to wait a few minutes till I'd finished my spot, they keystoned their way to the table where the alleged perpetrator was sat and took him outside. Chaos reigned and looking back it was no wonder it went so quiet.

To be honest when you look back at moments like that cops and all, you think that it would be nice to pick up awards now and again. Mind you Jackson and co have never had anyone in the theatre shouting 'tell us a joke mate', or making snoring noises if you've gone thirty seconds without a laugh. Actually I've decided I don't like the silly twat anymore. Give me Judy Dench anytime.

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He's got to be so macho, he's got to be big and strong enough to turn me on. Yes what a record! I heard it last night at Glasgow Highlight at the 'disco' afterwards that I never normally stop for. Even the poofs don't play this one in their clubs, well as far as I know they don't hardy hardy ha. Actually I went to a set of gay pubs for a night out once about 17 years ago with a mate of mine and his girlfriend. It was in the pink triangle in Newcastle, one the thriving parts of town. As far as I remember it was a good night, the bars were very full and they're all still going strong now with more additions and several more nightclubs where you can see the people who've just gone out of X Factor making an appearance on the one week they're still popular.

Anyway back to 'macho' the big 1980s hit for Sinnitta or Sinita or however you spell the name of the talent free slapper (I've been pulled up for spelling in this blog once before!). It was on before a couple of other dubious record choices. One time someone told me that the last song of the night was 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynard Skynard in that club and loads of toothless neds and ned-esses sang along with all their collective hearts before fucking off to Belshill or Parkhead or whatever war zone they're from on the bus afterwards.

I'd better go back to the beginning though and that would be Thursday due to the fact that there was no blog yesterday. I was in Bangor doing their new student union just up the road from the old tatty one that's just been pulled down with fuck all in it's place (the government cuts are really showing now!). I was compering, not something I love doing but something I'll do to keep my hand in. The first act hadn't heard of me and I hadn't heard of him. He was from Leicester, comedians shouldn't come from Leicester for fuck's sake, but there he was Leicestering it up on stage. He never really mentioned it about coming from Leicester but there was something very Leicester-ish about his act dull, grey, uninspiring. Loads of stories and stuff about his family and little tales of 'stuff that happened' but it was all so Radio 1 and typical of today's acts. He was young, thin, boyish looking and just looked like he'd never fucked up, never lived, never been thrown the lifeline of stand up because he was sackless at everything else, never done nowt. he should have a suit on and be working for AA insurance not travelling the country making audiences laugh or in his case quietly titter nervously. I think when Malcolm Hardy drowned, something drowned with him and that was the comedian as the breed apart. Nowadays you could round up a few swishy hairs in a coffee house, get them to tell people about their confessions and hey presto, another MTV presenter who does 'stand up'.

After he was on there was an improv group. Need I say more?!! It's not my sort of thing but fuck me it went on forever, more or less pissing on the chips of Steve Hall who was closing and who is very funny. I managed to get a flyer and drove through the night listening to my talking book. 

Yesterday I didn't stop with all the admin work and stuff, something I'll have to get on with today. At 6 I drove to Glesca to do night one of my two nights at Highlight. It was a good show all told, Martin Mor compered, Nathon Caton opened and I closed. We got away with it, they were okay people, there was about 300+ there and despite old Stock Aitken and Waterman hits being played afterwards (I genuinely don't mind that song, it pisses people off that say they like 'proper pop music' which to me is just as inane as that pish!) I think it's a canny club.

Right if you're in Newcastle tomorrow, get along to The Stand and see me with two newer acts and to close the fantastic Jeff Innocent. See you all there.

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Ideal got axed. A lot of people are upset that the plug has been pulled after however many years and about 5 series. Apparently it got it's highest ever viewing figures of wait for it.......536,000! Fuckin hell I know it's a BBC3 show but I mean it's hardly a tidal wave of success is it. Little Britain, a show I couldn't watch and I certainly didn't laugh much at, was getting to be fair, ridiculously big audience figures so it was switched to BBC2 and these figures went up to 8 figures I'm sure, so a fat Geordie with a less than four figure per week readership can't really complain, put your goals on the table Supermac used to say. I know also it's not fair to compare viewing figures of today with viewing figures of the 1970s when there was only three analogue channels however things do come to an end and I think, after several years of doing okay, Johnny and co have had a good run and it's time to walk away and do something else.

Here's a couple of quotes I lifted from Chortle, (I don't care, he lifts press release quotes from me and implies that I gave him an interview)

‘Thank you BBC,’ trade magazine Broadcast reports him sayin. ‘When the numbers have never been higher, you’ve cancelled us.

‘I’m being fired by the man who commissioned Kerry Katona… so I’m proud to do anything else that you’re not involved in.’

To be fair I'd say that the bloke probably wasn't working on comedy when he comissioned Kerry Katona and probably wasn't at the BBC but it is nice to see someone spitting back at people who mystifyingly get jobs commissioning comedy. There are good people out there but there are so many fucknuts who a lot of the time worked in commercial radio or are just BBC former corridor watchers that've worked their way up and now are making decisions like pulling Bill Bailey's fantastic comedy show after 1 series back in the late 90s. Imagine how many great shows Bill could've made by now 13 years later, but there you go Sophie and Jeremy know best with their 'Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor', 'Little Miss Jocelyn' and their 'Horne and Corden make cunts of themselves for 6 weeks'.

Also why is Johnny so pissed off? He was accepting an award when he was making his mouth go. I do like Johnny, he's one of the nice blokes in this business and he's also a complete one off, a footnote in comedy history and if I had to tell my grandchildren that I worked with one person, he would be the name. But when you accept awards, do the chat shows, go on comic relief and generally be a celebrity, you have to accept that the bastards will piss on your chips one day, which is precisely what the BBC have done.

John Cleese was interviewed by the One Show last night. He's got nowt to lose, he doesn't have to curry favour from the Beeb. Therefore he says what he wants. He said that Monty Python wouldn't be made today, they wouldn't have took the risk like the old fuddy duddies running the place in 1969 did. No one trusts their guts as to what's funny anymore because the BBC is weighed down with marketing groups, social strata codes and pitching dynamics. I've made all them up but it sounds good. Q5,6,7,8,9 and 'There's Alot Of It About' wouldn't be made either. Neither would 'Till Death Do Us Part', 'The Goodies' or most definitely 'The Young Ones'.

All is not lost though. What Vegas and co should do is do the next series on Youtube or do that Foster's Lager thing and get people to watch it on their comedy website, like what the Fast Show, Vic and Bob and Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge have done. The thing is, I suspect that Fosters won't be that interested because those aforementioned did have huge followings and are proper laugh out loud funny and have a place in the heart of this great nation with a great sense of humour and silliness however Ideal is comedy drama and had a cult following. Nowt wrong with that but when you get a cult following, don't expect it to buy you a luxurious property in Dubai. There's only sacked Newcastle managers that take the huff with the BBC that can afford that.

Anyway I'm off to do boring shite like write, write and chase up money. Speak tomorrow. Sorry Moz, no more drugs.

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No blog yesterday. I don't know where the time goes. Probably most of it is spent behind some slack Sunday driver on one of her majesty's motorways. I don't know if the motorways belong to Elizabeth Regina Saxo Coburg Windsor or whatever her name is, but some people should be strung up for the way they fuckin drive! I know it's now descending into a Dave Allen routine written by Neil Shand about the funny way people behave behind a wheel but it's no wonder driving routines reasonate when you're sick of being stuck on, in my case the M1 the A1, the A1(M), the M62 and my favourite because I could probably do it blinfolded the A1 from Newcastle to Edinburgh.

I'd gigged at only Balham on the Saturday night. It was sort of okay. Once again it was all over bar the shouting by the time I'd went on. They'd had a long and varied night and Henning Wehn just before me, had done a good job solid if not slightly overrunning. I went on, took my time and had a good gig. It was a much better performance that Friday night's, I was snatching at punchlines on the Friday in order to go toe to toe with Henning who had proper pissed on them. Saturday though I just played my game and they came to be ever so slowly. I didn't do anything ground breakingly new but it was a solid show and I used up my experience rather than any kind brilliance or inspiration to bring the boat home.

Yesterday was the turn of the second night of Gavin Webster's Northumbrian Assembly at The Newcastle Stand. It was that inevitable anti climax from the triumphant first night a week ago with over 100 in and me turning 42. There was 33 people which in that room can look a bit ghostly. Thankfully a lot of the room is curtained off so it makes for a more initimate show.

All in all it wasn't too bad at all, everyone seemed to enjoy it. There were three acts on the bill, the first one was a feller from Carlisle who's name escapes me. He was very funny. Genuinely dark, one of those blokes who looked awkward and made the audience feel awkward with his slightly pissed off tone and his social spastic type remarks. You could see the chip on his shoulder from the back of the room because of the league of gentleman city that he comes from and his murderer type of voice was bloody funny as well. I turned to Steffen Peddie while the lad was perfoming and said 'I love the psychopaths'. It's not the straight people that say dark sick things to try and be 'dangerous' rather the genuine 'psychopaths' that have a place in the heart of the British with their dark humour. Also some of his facts were wrong which is also funny. Turns out the lad is actually from Brampton Cumbria, home of course to Derek Batey of Mr and Mrs fame, something he didn't actually know himself.

Next week, I'm hoping to make it a stormer. We've got none other than the greatest cockney act there is Mr Jeff Innocent next Sunday at the show. Get yourselves down to that one on the 27th, it should be a stormer. I'll be having a pint or two at the gig, I might even nobble the meat draw and win the fucker myself.

Thanks to everyone for coming, hope you'll all be back. I've got a week that gets exponentially more busy as it goes on. I'm at Glasgow Highlight on Friday and Saturday, by all means Scottish supporters get yourself down to the city of sin and vice and watch a Geordie underachiever at work. Speak tomorrow people.

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I woke up in Epsom, I've driven to the Sutton/Richmond/Kingston area, I might take in a football match in Merton and then I gig tonight in admittedly slightly more scummy Balham. We all wonder what social class we are and whether we are deserting our roots but forgetting that, I do feel like the antithesis of a punk rocker or a travelling Methodist minister trying to change people's attitudes to life. Sometimes comics want to be Woody Guthrie and John Wesley rolled into one with touches of Led Zeppelin coming in occasionally. We tend to end up like a 1950s Hoover salesman, travelling around in our cars peddling our wares. I don't mind, it's a funny old life and better than manufacturing industrial brushes on the Team Valley, one of my many ridiculous posts from the past, working for cunts and working with largely cunts.

Last night's two gigs were not so much a game of two halves but two much of a muchness shows that never hit any real heights. The Highlight Camden bill was pretty good. Scott Agnew compered, Ian Stone opened, I closed the first half, then Jeff Boyz, Steve Gribbin and Joe K were on in the 2nd half. Balham was a good one as well. Amongst others Andy Fury was down doing an open spot, hopefully that's him in there now. Sorry if I've put the kiss of death on it Andy by saying that. As a crowd they threatened to be great but just like Camden, it was the proverbial pumping up a lilo with a hole in it show, a big laugh and then it dissapated straight after and you had to start again. Henning Wehn had just stormed it before me and that's always a difficult thing to do follow a gig of the season from someone but I got away with it.

Tonight I'm just at Balham as it stands and then it's my difficult second album up at Newcastle Stand tomorrow. Do come down. You know where it is, just in case though, all the details are on the website www.thestand.co.uk See you all tomorrow.

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After being entertained last night by watching the last ever episode of Six Feet Under, the drama series from the early nougties of the Fisher funeral directors, I now, after two days off have to go back to the grind of doing gigs on the (in this weekend's case) London comedy circuit. When you look at the actors that took part in the critically acclaimed, much loved but at the same time slightly overlooked 5 season drama serial, you realise that a lot of people will be famous for one piece of work and one piece only. The actors will be remembered for it not the creator Alan Ball. Indeed in this country, you just think of the ginger squeaky voiced ex England world cup winner when the name Alan Ball is mentioned.

I'd like to write more, Im actually doing some deadline writing now, on the one hand you don't get the credit for the funny joke but on the other you don't get the hassle in Asda, or in the case of the people I'm writing for, Waitrose. It's a funny old business. The bloke that was in the Barclaycard adverts with Rowan Atkinson was actually paid by Barclaycard a retainer so he wouldn't be in other adverts in the periods between them adverts being made and then broadcast.

On a much smaller scale I'm doing the same tomorrow night. Due to a bit of a fuck up, I wasn't sure where I was going to be this weekend. As it happens I am actually working in London. I'm opening Camden and then closing Balham tonight. Tomorrow I was opening Camden and then doing two gigs in Balham in one of those classic London Saturday night gig trilogys. However one of the Balhams has gone due to the computers being down this week and thus sales suffering, also I'm now what they call 'spare' at Camden on  Saturday, where you hang about and you'll be called at the last minute to do the show if need be. Watch out for a last minute substitute's call at 8.15pm.

I do find it weird to be paid to do nowt but no more weird than when I get repeat fees for a voiceover programme I was on last year and the year previous. Indeed it must have been weirder being 'Bough' in the Barclaycard adverts, your biggest earner in your life or being Claire in Six Feet Under, probably the biggest millstone yet the best break you'd ever get in a self indulgent, pretentious industry.

Good luck to anyone who gets a piece of piss licence to print money moment that gets drawn out for years and just like a middle aged man pissing at a urinal, when you think it's all finished another generous amount comes out, conversely we do have to grind away for fuck all for years making nothing on pet projects.

Right it's a strange weekend coming up. While I'm 'spare' on Saturday, I won't fall asleep or watch 'blue movies' like they famously did at British Leyland however I will indulge myself in listening to the radio or eating an Indian Meal. And to think I have to buy the meat draw myself on Sunday.

Don't forget Sunday by the way 'Gavin Webster's Northumbrian Assembly' starts at 8.30. Ava Vidal is the main guest, there'll be two more as well. Either get tickets by going to www.thestand.co.uk and follow the relevant links or just turn up and pay. Either way we'll see you there.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY 'LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY, MOTHER OF THE FREE/SHUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP. WINDSOR DAVIES COMEDY LEGEND.

 The gang of four, the ones that coined the phrase, aren't that well known. People just remember the ones dubbed the gang of four by the press like the four breakaway Labour Politicians that started the SDP. Also there was a Gang of Four from Leeds, a post new wave early 80s combo, who sounded a bit like Devo and were probably an influence on The Wedding Present also from Leeds, as was Ernie Wise, one of the fellers from The Mighty Boosh and hardly anyone else.

Chairman Mao would be good for young people these days, getting them to write in their little red books and express themselves culturally. Also he'd make sure they were fed properly and not obsessed with chicken and Lucozade Sport. I reckon if there was a Chairman Mao figure around today, stuff like Shooting Stars would never see the light of day. It would be regarded as very decedant, trivial and not the sort of healthy pastime young people should be interested in whereas the Russell Howards of this world would go right up to the top very quickly. With his 'good news' and that, Mao would have loved someone with a talent for getting young people to like shit things, laugh at non routines and made up observations said by members of Russell's family that we have no proof of, just his word and think things were amazing that had just happened that day on the bus and stuff, diverting attention away from an erosion of power and influence for the general populace.

In case you didn't know Shooting Stars has been axed by the BBC. I don't know where Vic and Bob can go now. I hope Channel 4 chuck something at them. Maybe the kids aren't interested anymore. That's fair enough if they're not, everyone gets their run. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all said a famous person once, I think it was Rico from Six Feet Under the HBO early noughties classic series, or it might have been Denis Skinner, MP for Bolsover. Regardless it's a great phrase and to put it into practical use as far as my job goes, I don't know whether I could cope with a career where I had instant adulation for a lot of years and then no one being fuckin bothered a few years later. There's a lot of famous comics these days. 17 DVDs were released this Monday, probably mostly male white comics, I'd say all would be in big theatres with a minimal set and gel upward lighting and I bet if they weren't wearing T shirts, they'll be wearing Burton's suits ha ha and you think it's funny, turning this rebellion into money.

Some of them will last, maybe just one or two. However just like the money men did to popular music, comedians are now programmed to be popular for around 30-36 months and then it's a case of let's get rid of them and deal with the next well dressed cheeky monkey.

Mao would love it, an endless supply of young men doing the propaganda for the government. Mind you I'd prefer Chairman Mao to Chairman Derek Llambias at NUFC, however the cloned Chairman Mao's in television at the moment makes you think that instead of stopping at Tibet many years ago, I'd say they followed the silk trail and got themselves into the corridors of power at Television Centre and South Bank studios. Aye and the Roswell incident was real and Diana's death was faked and and oh I've got to go. I've got to write for a famous person and I'm not lying. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY MICHAEL BATES GETTING LAUGHS IN 'IT AIN'T HALF HOT MUM' FOR SAYING 'CLEVER DICKIE' IN A COD INDIAN ACCENT. 

 No it's not the wheat based carbohydrate nor the sure fire front runner in the most throw-up-ably bad sitcom of all time and then some injury time added on by Carla Lane who should never go anywhere near to Final Cut by law. No the title of today's blog is inspired by the hit 'Guitar Man' by the group Bread who seemed to be every footballer's favourite band when I used to read 'Shoot' magazine back in the day when Andy Gray used to have his own regular column telling everyone about the latest goings on at Villa Park and then Molineux when he transferred to them. Nowadays nearly all footballers like R and B and people would rather read about the latest accountancy goings on at places like Villa Park and Molineux and how they're thinking of new revenue streams to make their clubs self sufficient. 

It's a big thank you to stand up comedian John Scott for letting me have his wonderful Yamaha acoustic guitar that I've been playing for the last few days. I will be trying to pen some new live favourites with this particular machine in the next few years divvent yu knaa.

In a week where 17 different DVDs came out of comedians in celluloid shutter speed mode in large auditoriums, I was thinking of doing another CD. I know the CD market doesn't sell as such, I do think it's nice though to have a laugh in the car and CD's can provide that, even if people will download it on to their i thing and listen to it that way. Whatever way round, I've never felt the urge to buy a comedian's CD even of people I think are very funny like Sean Lock or Tony Law who've both got CDs out in different formats these days.

It's a short one today because of a trip to Winchester University tonight. Fortunately I'm compering a great bill of Tom Wrigglesworth and the peerless Adam Bloom so it should be a good'un if not a noisy old dressing room. Right speak tomorrow, enjoy your Tuesday.

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Yes it's after the lord mayor's show for me. Yesterday on my birthday, I debuted my residency show 'Gavin Webster's Northumbrian Assembly' at The Stand in Newcastle. More on that later. First of all sorry for no blog on Saturday or yesterday. It gets very busy at the weekends and this last weekend was a right down then up then back down again drivefest. I felt like Ian Botham doing some sort of ridiculous charity event in the 80s. Friday was Aylesbury, Saturday Aberdeen then last night back to Newcastle. Not the best scheduling but you must take work when it comes otherwise you can talk your way out of everything and you end up unemployed, I've seen it happen.

Friday was a typical Friday on the roads. Stop start stop and then 18 hours later I racked up in Aylesbury. Poetic licence is allowed in this job! Aylesbury Civic is no more. Always a gig where you got no response, I once did it with Daniel Kitson back in the early noughties and that was a typical silent one, I assumed that the same sort of people would sit in sombre silence at this gig being that the newly built council owned venue is just over the road from the now demolished Civic. Well stone me as they said back in the 30s probably in places like Aylesbury this gig was none of those things. I compered and had a great time. A responsive crowd, they took to my nonsense really well despite me introducing a not great bill to say the least (more on that if you want). I was looked after with beer and sandwiches and crisps and took to the road after the show staying over in a place just off the M1 in Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire (who cares, it's only Cloughie, a Northumbrian that made these places famous). Sitting with a bottle of whisky in bed watching Ken Dodd on Heroes Of Comedy on Channel 4 is seedy but wonderful. Sarah Millican, Ross Noble, you don't know what you're missing refusing to take Alcohol!

On Saturday I drove home and then drove onwards to Aberdeen. I was almost following Bonnie Prince Charlie's road to his doom. You know Derby up to Culloden (I know it's Aberdeen I was headed but go with it). The granite city looked resplendent with it's lit up buildings, monuments and wide streets, well street! Once you get out the city centre though, it's like a fuckin shanty town with what looks like army dormantries littering the outskirts. Torry?!! I wouldn't walk through Torry even with Jeff Innocent and that Gary bloke from Glasgow who was jailed for robbing books by my side, Aberdeen a tough old Highland fishing port with North Sea oil and people that all speak monotone like they work at the civil service. A fine gig though. It was in a small room upstairs in a rough old tatty pub called The Blue Lamp. I love pubs like this. Wooden panelling and a cafe style lino floor. Looks like the last time it was tarted up Fergie was manager up there. Mind you a sign of the times, I was on with a 17 year old who was there with his dad. Afterwards we chatted with the locals who'd seen the gig outside then realised that wasn't such a good idea, the words planks and short spring to mind if you know what I mean. Afterwards we had a laugh at the promoter's house and that's definitely one for the book. It turned 12, I turned 42 and managed to get to sleep pretty much the next morning.

I was just running on adrenaline yesterday. Maybe we should just put that in the tank instead of stolen farmer's red diesel, I bet that's only 50 pence a fuckin gallon and I bet it doesn't drink it round the doors. I drove home from the granite city and got back around 2 only to go to town to The Back Page store up at The Darn Crook (Chinatown) to get a load of postcards of ex Newcastle players and then get across to Tescos for some Pease pudding. These were quiz prizes by the way, I wasn't intending to get pictures of Kenny Wharton or Irving Nattress up on my wall held up by pease pudding, although even though they don't get into the Beardsley/Ginola category they're infinitely better than anything served up by our near neigbours over the last 40 years and by that I don't mean Gateshead, Harkus and Bowey could've pulled on the black and white shirt, mind you they might have been sweating Brown Ale with twenty minutes to go.

The gig last night was a solid start. A bit chaotic but good crack. Some of the crowd were great, I recognised a few. There were some weird fuckers, we'll soon filter out the wankers who will vote with their feet. If you don't like what I do, you tend to fuckin hate it so the haters will not return. A good gig all round, if you want to know more about it, then come along next week or the week after or whenever, it's only £6 and even less to members. On the 27th of this month, the one and only Jeff Innocent is on. Don't miss him, he's a very funny man, and he doesn't suffer fuckwitts, that's why some don't take to him.

Right I'm off, Prince Charles is 63 today, a couple of years time and he'll be on the state pension, sorry he's been on that all his life, up the revolution. Let's find a direct descendant of King Oswald, it's probably a steward in Wallsend Coronation club and march on Westminster. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY HILTON VALENTINE, GUITARIST IN THE ANIMALS AND POSSESOR OF A GREAT NAME. 

I was working at a dinner last night in Piercebridge near Darlington with Dermot Gallagher the ex Premier League referee. He was a great bloke and told me one or two things about the game at the moment. More on that in next week's 'And In The Sport' column. I do feel like a fake sheikh these days with all these revelations coming through about football. The sports people tell me these things and I duly tell my blog readers which are ever so slowly growing in number. Admittedly those numbers are rising at the rate of gestation levels in a small village in North Yorkshire but they're rising all the same.

It looked like they might just go for Dermot's crack and then get into the whole auction thing and that would be that but when I went on they were a brilliant audience and got right into my shouty schtick. Graeme Forster (the host and compere) had a good time as well and by comparison to what I'm used to, a drive from the Durham/Yorkshire border up to North Tyneside was a piece of piss and I got in and fell asleep on the setee without any extra drink. The rock and roll has all but gone!

Today I have to drive to Aylesbury to do The Waterside Theatre and compere the bastard. These satellite towns with a market in them near to London are hard gigs to start with. To actually compere them is var nigh impossible. People tend to just stare at you if you ask them a question. I've a long long drive down there as well and then a drive up the road to sleep somewhere on the way back because on Saturday I'm in Aberdeen and who knows what to expect in the granite city which does have the feel of City Of The Living Dead, Race With The Devil and Royston Vasey all rolled into one.

I'm certainly putting myself through the mill before the sanctuary of my own show on Sunday. Right I must go. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY ST. JAMES' PARK, THAT FOOTBALL STADIUM IN EXETER. 

First of all thanks very much to Mike Ashley. I've actually got some proper up to the minute pertinent local material to start my first show with on Sunday. Thank you ballatty. Now I don't have to look at every fuckin story The Shields Gazette or The Berwick Advertiser has thrown up this week trying to find faldy daldy human interest stories, 'hilarious' in their trivialness and thus try to look like some latter day Cyril Fletcher.

The comedy story as far as myself is concerned, is undoubtedly the 3,000 (and counting) extra hits I've had this week for my 'Gateshead Council Third Reich' routine on Youtube. At first I couldn't understand why the thing has all of a sudden skyrocketed. After inspection though, it turns out that with council in the title, it's been a very innocent but effective link from a big Youtube hit about some cunt falling off his ladder that worked (past tense the bloke has now been sacked) for Morrisons the builders and they were doing a job for Gateshead council. I think that's the meat of the story, if I've got it slightly wrong well I'm sure no one will mind, as I always say, research wastes time so I'll just have to go with my initial understanding of this. It's a funny clip like, I'm sure if you put Morrisons and Gateshead and falling off ladder into Youtube you'll find it. You know how it works, I mean I try to hide this blog as much as possible but you all seem to find it and thanks for the extra hits recently, things are gannin through the roof at the minute, admittedly the roof of a porch canopy, not a high rise flat but through the roof all the same.

I've a dinner tonight, who knows what to expect. It's down in Piercebridge, first time I've been there since me and the lads stopped for a piss once in 1987 when a TWOC motor incident went on during a very out of control part of my life. That's all I'm saying. It should be half decent, you never know with these dinners like and on Friday it's a gig at Ayelsbury at The Waterside Theatre. On Saturday I'm in the other direction at Aberdeen. I know it seems like Chas fuckin Chandler is doing my diary but it was me as it happens putting as many dates in as I possibly can to keep the wolf from the door. He's been on the drive for about 6 years and me talking to him about my garden and family matters with a bit of football thrown in to stop him coming up the drive. Bloody wolves (and that's not the football team who's fans chant at us 'Where were you when you were shit', aye average crowds of 4,000 in the 80s lads, I'd keep your black country mouths shut if I were you).

Right I'm off for another rehearsal. Don't expect me to be brilliant as a result of these rehearsals by the way, I'm just rehearsing my speech when I accept the award for runner up in Youtube hit of the year about stuff in Gateshead. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY THE BLOKE FROM NORTHERN IRELAND THAT'S PART OF FIFA SAYING THAT POLITICS AND FOOTBALL SHOULDN'T MIX. THIS WAS IN A LIVE INTERVIEW DIRECTLY AFTER A.........GLENTORAN AGAINST LINFIELD MATCH!