To loose is to win and he who wins shall loose

Some days I wonder if the world is excluding me from decisions.

I mean, are you lot all getting together without me and changing things behind my back? Like, for example, changing how words are spelt?

Where do these meetings take place? Are they held regionally, or nationally or virtually?

Maybe it’s an iPhone* app?

When, to pick an example at random, did everyone decide to start spelling ‘lose’ with an extra ‘o’?

I always thought ‘loose’ was the opposite of ‘tight’, but apparently it’s now something you do to your keys when you can’t remember where you put them.

Sorry, “apparently its now something you do to your keys when you cant remember where you put them.”

I’d forgotten we’ve done away with apostrophes too. I do frequently get confused by the little buggers, but abandoning them completely seems a bit harsh.

But there you go, apparently there was a meeting, I wasn’t invited and the apostrophe had to go.

‘Yea’ instead of ‘Yeah’  – that seems like an odd decision to me, I quite like having the two words mean different things. I guess putting an ‘h’ on the end is just one keypress too many. After all, in the long run, it’ll save ink and paper and fingers and prevent RSI and save the NHS and all sorts.

I guess I’ve gotten so used to ‘your’ meaning ‘it belongs to you’ and ‘you are’ that I don’t even notice it any more.†

Their, they’re, there – far too confusing. Let’s just stick with ‘there’ for all three. Sorted. Next item on the agenda: ‘to’ and ‘too’ – what’s all that about? One ‘o’ to many in my book. ‡

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kind of stickler for correct English usage – fuck, my knowledge of English is pitiful. I can’t spell and I have an unreasonable fear of semicolons and tend to replace them with a dash whenever I think I can get away with it.

Nor am I a strong advocate of stagnating the language – languages evolve. New words are added. Portmanteau words are created. Things do change, no one writes ‘to-day’ anymore and if everyone has decided ‘lose’ is now spelt ‘loose’ then fine, let’s go with that. The point of language is to communicate and as long as people understand what you mean, does it really fucking matter how it’s spelt?

But, then maybe that’s my point? Does anyone else find themselves staring at incomprehensible sentences for minutes at a time before realising there’s a misspelt word in there? §

Some days I see the same word misspelt so often I begin to doubt my own memory. Seriously, I think I look up ‘lose’ in the dictionary once a month – just in case it has changed and no one told me.

Maybe I need a new dickchunairy?

Or just to stop whinging about pointless stuff and get on with some work?

————————————————————————

* I’m loving the new advert for FaceTime. A pregnant mum shows her soldier hubby their baby scans over a video call. Aw. Then you get the disclaimer: FaceTime only available with iPhone 4 and wi-fi.

  

Hang on, you can’t get wi-fi in a hospital.

  

Or a war zone.

  

Or maybe I’m hanging out in the wrong hospitals? (And war zones.) Maybe in private hospitals you can get wi-fi?

  

And maybe that guy in camouflage trousers isn’t actually a soldier, but someone who just likes wearing camouflage trousers and hates furniture and decorating?

  

Of course, if you had any other phone you could just make a video call over the 3G network. ¤

 

So does that mean Apple have created an advert showcasing something every other phone in the world except the iPhone can do?

 

† That’s a lie. It upsets me to the point of violence.

 

‡ Spalling for Begooners.

 

§ My absolute favourite is the misspelt word in a text message which has also been wrongly predicted by predictive text. I can spend days trying to decipher some of those messages. Even when I put the word into a blank message and scroll through all the possible predictions it doesn’t reveal the meaning.

 

¤ Assuming that still works. And you can find two steady 3G signals in the world. Has anyone tried it in the last five years or so? Or did you do what I did – try it once before deciding video calling on a mobile (walking around with your arm stretched out in front of you) is a stupid idea?

The Wrong Door on DVD

 

The Wrong Door, on DVD, today.

Can you believe it?

Two years after it was first broadcast on BBC3, The Wrong Door has finally arrived in the shops.

The Wrong Door, the CGI sketch show I wrote a tiny bit of which had the highest ever audience on BBC3 for a new sketch show.

No one watched past the first episode, but that’s beside the point.

I tell a lie, some people did watch every episode … and then came here every single fucking week to complain about it.

Why not buy the DVD, watch it and then relive some of the abuse here?

Or you could copy some of the more hardcore comedy fans out there and send me a death threat, that was fun. Not quite so much fun as the guy who offered to rape my (then six month old) daughter to ‘teach me a lesson’.

He seemed like a lovely chap.

The Wrong Door! The sketch show The Times called ‘hilarious’ … and then the next day: ‘laboured and directionless’ – both comments aimed squarely at the same sketch … one I wrote.

Fuck it, it’s out on DVD and they’ve even put the characters from my sketches on the front cover.

According to Amazon I actually starred in it too. As well as the Magnificent Seven, Clarissa, Python and (astoundingly, given I was minus 29 at the time) The Road to Morocco. Oh that Bing, I tells ya.

Anyway, The Wrong Door, on DVD today.

Buy it or don’t, your choice.

Proper pointless

There’s something I have to get off my chest.

Most of you will think this is nitpicking, most of you won’t care. Some of you will recognise the legitimacy of this gripe, but will also realise it doesn’t really matter. Some of you might agree. One or two of you might, just might, share my unreasonable outrage.

Those one or two should really get a life.

Seriously, this just doesn’t matter in any way, shape or form.

Except it does. To me.

I’ve been reading scripts again, something I know I should stay away from since it just upsets me; but on this occasion I feel I should speak because …

‘Beat’ doesn’t mean fucking ‘pause’.

It fucking doesn’t.

Stop it.

Now.

You cunts.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you think you’re writing down musical notation? Are you explaining to the (obviously fuckwitted) actors how to leave a gap between the set up and the punchline? Maybe you’re writing beat because you think it’s shorter than pause? Are you that fucking lazy?

If you want a pause in the dialogue, write the word pause. That’s its fucking job, because, guess fucking what? Pause means pause.

Funny that.

If you don’t want to use the word pause, why not add an ellipsis? … How difficult is that?

Not difficult. Not fucking difficult at all.

Okay, so some of you may argue an ellipsis signifies something is missing from the sentence, not a pause. You can fuck off as well. There is something missing from the sentence at that point – all the fucking words.

Beat, in case you’re interested and for some reason don’t know, means to change subject or emotion. It signifies the following sentence is about something else.

                    BURT
What do you call a man with a spade in his head?
           (pause)
Doug!

Is correct whilst at the same time, only funny to six year olds.

                    BURT
You're fat, you're ugly and you smell.
           (beat)
What's on telly tonight?

Is also correct.

Swap beat for pause and they wouldn’t be … EVEN THOUGH THEY WOULD BOTH STILL MAKE COMPLETE FUCKING SENSE, PROVING THIS WHOLE ARGUMENT (AND THUS THIS POST) TO BE COMPLETELY FUCKING POINTLESS.

It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. Do whatever the hell you want, no one cares.

Except me.
(beat)
But, luckily, my opinions don’t count.

Lying bastard

Me.

I am one.

Apparently.

I was boring some people with the mildly amusing tale of something which happened to me a few years back when this girl shouted me down and denounced me for being a lying bastard.

I was a bit surprised, but this sort of thing does seem to happen with alarming regularity.

I’ll tell you the story, see if you can spot the information which so incensed her.

“A few years back, probably more than a few now. What year is it? … Good Lord, is it? Already?

Right, so a lot of years back. probably 2001 or 2002 I was chatting to a friend of mine who had a spanky new phone.

This was back in the days when I thought all mobile phones were evil and didn’t check the web every single fucking day to see if the phone I want has been released yet.

Like I do at the moment.

It hasn’t. Not yet.

Anyway, this friend of mine had a spanky new phone and so did one of her friends.

Did I mention they were both extremely hot, blonde and busty air hostesses?

I didn’t? How remiss of me.

This was before I met Mandy, by the way.

Anyway, so I was chatting to my friend (who manifestly wasn’t interested in sleeping with me) when she received a call from her friend (who, coincidentally, wasn’t interested in sleeping with me either. This state of affairs pretty much describes most of the extremely hot, blonde and busty air hostesses I’ve met in my life) …”

By the way, this is the annotated story. The original version was shorter, but I’m on a roll and avoiding any real work.

“So she receives this call, but the signal’s a bit shit and the call doesn’t connect properly. My friend realises her friend will probably call back in a second, but she has to go and do something. For some reason, rather than take the spanky new mobile phone with her, she leaves it with me with instructions to answer the call when it comes and chat to her friend until she gets back … from wherever it was she was going.

To collect a bag from somewhere, I think.

Doesn’t matter.

So I did. Because, you know, she was an extremely hot, blonde and busty air hostess who might possibly have been interested in sleeping with me if I managed to answer her phone correctly.

You never know, it could have happened!

It didn’t, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, so the call comes and I use the little stylus thingy to answer the call. Before I can say anything, her friend screams and hangs up.

That’s when I realise the spanky new phones are videophones … and judging by the frozen after image on this one, my friend’s extremely hot, blonde and busty air hostess friend made the video call whilst naked.”

This is the point where the girl in the group I was chatting to interrupted and branded me a liar.

Actually, she jumped in just after the word ‘frozen’, missing out on the point of the story.

Can you spot why?

Come on, have a guess. What is there in that story which could drive a young(ish) woman to shout at me and accuse me of being a lying bastard and ‘making it up just to impress people’?

Yes, that’s right – videophones didn’t exist in 2001 (or 2002 or whenever it was) because Apple have only just invented video calling for the iPhone 4.

Fuck me sideways.

LVJ – First Look

LVJ, the film that just won’t die, has a shiny new website and an even shinier new documentary video:

If you look really, really closely you’ll notice I’m not fucking in it.

At all.

Despite dragging my fever-ridden carcass all the way to the production office and talking to a wall for an hour and a half.

They have assured me my absence is nothing to do with being ginger or unaccountably shit. Personally I think they were just blown away by the ‘choices’ I made on the day. I figured the character of ‘Phillip Barron’ probably wears an eyepatch, speaks with a lisp and masturbates furiously.

Apparently that doesn’t fit in with the image of the film.

It’s this kind of narrow-minded lack of vision which has led the British film industry to the poor state it’s in today.

Probably.

Anyway …

Ooh look! A shiny video!

(This one is the same as the one above … don’t watch both, that would just be silly.)

Stranger than fiction

So here I am, desperately trying to dream up the impossible … and I can’t concentrate because immediately outside my window there are two Jamaicans arguing about the best way to spray paint an artificial elephant.

I shit you not.