A proper gander at North Korea

I was watching a repeat of BBC Four's excellent documentary film 'North Korea: A State of Mind' yesterday. It followed the day-to-day lives of school girls training hard to be prepared for the Mass Games, celebrating 55 years of the revolution. You got to see their intimate family lives, their school lessons, day trips, picnics, parades, their hopes and fears and them just mucking about and being kids. All in the context of this cartoonishly menacing Big Brother state. It felt like a throwback to 50 years ago and was utterly captivating.

Don't confuse this with Panorama sending John Sweeney to North Korea in the imaginatively titled 'North Korea Uncovered' in which our heroic reporter destroys communism by dicking about. "This is an electricity factory" says Sweeney "But none of the lights are on." BOOM! Nice journalism, Sweeneyator. "Look, I've snuck out of my room after lights out and might try and climb over a fence. Aren't I the naughtiest boy in the dorm?" At one point he 'interrogates' a nurse in an empty hospital. "There's no one in this hospital is there? Come on! You can't fool us." I'm not quoting him directly here. I don't need to. You can imagine his voice: "BLAH BLAH BLAH!" That's probably the most accurate quote of all. Sweeney is a panicky, irksome, shit-stirrer. Plain and simple. It's quite incredible that he was able to interview the obnoxious, fraudulent and loathsome Church of Scientology and still somehow make them seem less revolting by comparison. He has all the subtlety and investigative instinct of a breeze block being hurled from the top of a flyover.

John Sweeney. The arsey, loud-mouthed Just William
 of investigative journalism.

In fairness to Sweeney, his team did manage to get some secret filming showing just how bad things had become (people scraping about in the mud for food, or maybe they'd lost their contact lenses. It's hard to tell), but 'A State of Mind' managed to hint at just the same thing whilst, presumably, satisfying the North Korean junta that they had nothing to fear from the film. One of the mothers of a schoolgirl talking about the 'Ardous March' (the euphemism for the terrible famine that is said to have killed millions in the 1990s) and how difficult things had been was particularly moving. More fortunate North Koreans had to live on one chicken and six eggs per person per month, plus anything else they could lay their hands on. Even though she could only talk about hardships in party-friendly terms of self-resilience and striving forward for socialism and the dastardly machinations of the American Imperialists, the strain in her eyes when papering over it all was painfully telling. Certainly more telling than Sweeney visiting a library and saying "Have you got 1984 by George Orwell?" and then giving the camera a look which said 'That's right. Bringing down communism, yeah?'

What was so majestically appealing about the documentary was the ability of normal people to live almost normal lives under the most difficult conditions. This may seem vaguely patronising (after all, we capitalists manage it) but under the jackboot it seems that people can still laugh and relax and have close relationships. The propaganda may be relentless, the living conditions may be harsh, but you can't spell 'totally communism' without community, and there really did seem to be a great sense of that. Almost a 1940s Blitz mentality to it all; a glory in strife, a real sense of togetherness. That's probably no coincidence. The best way to spy on your neighbours is to share dinner with them.

"Bringing down America one
red ball at a time."

Or maybe I'm just seeing what they want me to see. Kids will talk freely about how much they like dancing before then slipping in to "My dream is to dance for our dear leader and the father of our nation on top of a heroic mountain." The television constantly seems to feature either cartoons about revolutionary squirrels or some pretty sweet close-formation marching. The grandpa of the family made the off-the-cuff yet carefully pre-rehearsed comment: "Even those arrogant Americans will tremble in fear to see such discipline." As this was shot in 2003, most of the world news on state TV was about the American invasion of Iraq. It was fed to the North Koreans as American world-domination, ordinary people seemed fascinated by it. Yet one individual (who was a member of the state assigned 'intellectual classes') said "I like to learn about the world. I recently learned that this (holds fingers up mimicking Winston Churchill)  means justice. I didn't know that before." North Koreans aren't kept in total ignorance about the world outside, they're just told certain things in a certain way, and some of those things are quite surprising, quite trivial and sometimes seemingly at odds with the party cause. It's utterly bizarre.

"Delivery for The White House. Sign HERE!"

I started writing this blog as an alienated individual living in a Western democracy yearning for a bit more community and common cause, and I'm aware that this sounds naive. Perhaps I shouldn't complain about the ease of my life or the petty annoyances that are the bi-products of a free society. Nevertheless, I'd rather have a pint of beer and listen to some good music than engage in fruitless, bullish debates about the issues of the day. I'd rather leave democracy to other people. If there was a vote to ban the kind of democracy we live under, would I be allowed to abstain? Churchill had it right: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." I was always impressed by Tito's era in Yugoslavia, a kind of open communism under which the country seemed to thrive, Yugoslavians could travel freely and gulags remained impressively empty. Croats may have a problem with Serbians, and Serbians may have beef with Bosnians, but everybody seems to love Tito. Rose-tinted nostalgia? Perhaps. But nobody is more loved than that rarest thing of all, a reasonably benevolent dictator.

Mmm...capitalism.

John Sweeney presented a desolate, totalitarian wasteland and then compared it to South Korea: a Garden of Eden of bustling streets, disconnected i-phone junkies going about their lives under the searing lights of mega-malls and super brands. The idea being to show how superior the latter is to the former. But I really didn't like the look of either.

North Korea is a time-capsule, a Stalinist museum of a world fifty years passed its sell by date. Its inhabitants dress and look like they belong to a former age, right down to slender men with side partings and secondhand suits and soldiers in green fatigues from a by-gone era. It is a museum and its people are living exhibits, whether they like it or not. It is unsustainable, bleak and oppressive, and yet the spirit of its people and the fact that it exists at all is undeniably compelling.

You can't spell BUBONIC without BBC.

When I moved up to secondary school I had a primary school friend with me called Daniel Goodall. Daniel was a smart, creative guy and a good friend. However within two weeks of secondary school he started hanging around with “the hard kids”. He started smoking in the playground, swearing profusely in the local Glaaashire (Gloucestershire) accent, bunking off and generally doing anything which would endear himself to these monstrously thick, violent kids. I had effectively lost him as a friend, and we both knew it. Sometimes, when we were alone together, something of his old self would re-emerge, he would allow himself to be eloquent and thoughtful and a little bit of shame would flash up in his eyes. But he couldn't sacrifice his new social position or fight peer pressure. He was weak and he knew it. I once said to him “If all the boys in this school started wearing dresses, would you?” He didn't even have to think: “Yes.” Some people choose to do that. They dumb down. They give up. They don't usually want to, but they feel they have no choice.

And that's what the BBC have done.

The stock expression of Ben Elton
makes for uncomfortable viewing.

I watched the first episode of “The Wright Way” on BBC One the other day. It was dreadful. It was basically Ben Elton using capable comic performers as mouthpieces to do a weak and curmudgeonly stand up routine about why shop assistants at the counter pick up telephone calls before they actually deal with people standing in front of them and why is it that young people always text and what is it with that Jafakin' accent that all kids put on these days. Elton's concerns are actually probably already 10 years too dated, but you kinda get the feeling that he's been sitting in his volcanic lair planning this for a while. Elton recently said that he's as excited about this sitcom as he was the Young Ones, thus further digging up the corpse of his legacy, crudely applying lipstick and parading it about it drag, just to make sure that no drop of credibility remains. Fortunately for Ben, he's timed his new low perfectly. For no matter how bad “The Wright Way” is (and there IS a camp guy in it who acts all camp) it'll only be the second worst sitcom on TV at this or any other time.

The BBC were able to sell the show on twitter by stating “Fans of Mrs Brown's Boys should check out The Wright Way.” YES! One crime covers the other. “Hey guys, I've projectile vomited all over the bathroom, so if anyone wants to go in and piss on the floor, nobody will be able to tell.” If you want to smuggle cannabis into a country, hide it in a big sack of heroin.

Mrs Brown is finally forced to watch Mrs Brown's Boys.

Mrs Brown's Boys is the worst comedy programme that has ever existed. It make Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps look like Fawlty Towers. Imagine Father Ted wri

tten by Roy Chubby Brown and then remove all of the jokes. Yet, it is INSANELY popular. It is so massively popular that the BBC have no choice but to keep making it forever and to roll around crying in the massive revenues that DVD sales alone will bring in. Even the continuity announcer has to pretend that it's good. “Now on BBC One...it's err...it's *cough* Mrs Brown's Boy's *cough*...what? I didn't say anything...can I go on lunch now?” When the BBC announce that it's on via twitter, they are barraged with heckles. Why? Because people who know how to use the internet without typing all sentences in capitals and who don't think that lol is the way to end a sentence HATE it. They have access to entertainment, they have seen things like Arrested Development and Parks & Recreation. They are incredulous that such a thing can even exist, like they have awoken in a parallel dimension where it rains diarrhoea and Little Chef is considered fine dining.

Perhaps I'm being a snob. Perhaps the awkward comedy in the mould of The Office has left a large amount of middle-aged suburbanites and lobotomy patients behind. I don't need to take the monster to pieces. Go on to youtube, watch a few episodes, and then look at the comments section. If anyone is unwise enough to suggest that the show is less than genius, there follows vicious attacks by loyal viewers which accuse detractors of being “too PC” (Oh yes! The defensive position of the cretin), of being homosexual and of having (and I quote) “GAIY BLACK ADES LOL.” Despie the fact that this is probably just standard youtubese there is still something very worrying about it all. The real concern is that there is a large section of British society that truly think the show is good. The idea of sharing a country with such people is bearable, but sharing a TV channel with them is beyond the pale. It's like sharing a flat with Peter Andre.

Andre: unrepentant
mayonnaise thief.

It's hard to tell what the commonalities of this demographic are, so it's not like we can intern them. It's not so straightforward as class or age. I know highly educated people who think it's great, upper class people that cry with laughter and yet plenty of slow-witted dole monkeys who think it's dismal. It's very hard to generalise, as much as I'd like to. Perhaps, if you've never read 1001 Jokes for Kids, you actively enjoy office banter or you think that Christmas Cracker jokes are the highlight of the season, you just might like it.

The comedian Jarlath Regan (who has no trouble writing a funny joke) actually defended it to me. He said “It's a live experience. You have to be there.” That's all well and good, so why broadcast it on national television?

I wonder what Daniel Goodall thinks of it. I wonder if he watches it in a dress.

Is there life on Mars? Nope, just manic depressives in a Rotastak.

Space exploration has been the enduring dream of mankind for at least, well, since Star Trek. Columbus discovered America (sort of), Neil Armstrong visited a film studio (allegedly), James Cameron went into an ocean trench (definitely). That's right. Decade by decade, humankind's discoveries and exploits have got exponentially more lame. And now the crowning cat shit on the urine-saturated sofa: Under the guiding hand of the Mars One project, humans will establish a branch of Center Parcs on Mars.

Let's take a holiday to the Great Outdoors...
and then just stay indoors...which looks like the
outdoors somewhere else...for some reason.

Actually that's not quite fair. Center Parcs has much better facilities than the Mars settlement will have. There will be no water slides, very little in the way of karaoke and  hardly any vending machine to vandalise at all. Instead the lucky volunteers will be swept away on literally the trip of a lifetime 40 million miles away to a small inflatable hamster cage on a barren rusted planet UNTIL THEY DIE. At least Center Parcs has laserquest.

Of course it's easy to be cynical about the venture. It's only because Science Fiction has taught us to expect so much. It's 2013 already. Where are the interstellar star ships and the robots and the huge breasted alien women...oh....and the other aliens? How are we to be expected to conquer the galaxy when we can only muster the technology to propel a tin can one-way across a minuscule corridor in space for the world's worst camping trip? The ambition is large. The means are feeble.This is the equivalent of Christopher Columbus hopping into the Atlantic Ocean with a rubber ring, crossed fingers and a packed lunch.

The only reason we're going to Mars is that it's our only real option. There is nowhere else even remotely near or remotely feasible. And for what? To live in a collection of zorbs? If the idea is to flee a planet whose life support is failing for a life elswehere then there's no point if we're just going to another planet that gave up the ghost millions of years ago. Couldn't we do exactly the same thing on earth? Couldn't we just colonise a previously uninhabitable area of land using the same technology? Antarctica, say, or Grimsby.

Your opportunity to live in Mars' first trailer park.

It's even easier to be cynical when you look at the website. The whole recruitment process looks like it's for a new series of Coach Trip. Even the organisers only have letters of intent from private companies suggesting they can provide all the necessary equipment. It's like an spectacularly shaky pitch on Dragon's Den. According to a company spokesman, the project will be precariously funded by media interest in an ongoing TV series that will follow the new Mars colonists. Through the training and planning we will get to know hopes and dreams of the first handful of colonists...I'm sorry.  IS THIS ACTUALLY REAL? Rather than some International Space Federation effort to boldly go we have Big Brother on Mars, except this time we get to see them slowly grow old and insane as the mainframe starts calling them all Dave and encouraging them to do away with each other. The Truman Show has actually come to life, and somehow it's way more bleak and scary than the film version. Even more bleak and scary than Liar Liar. Charlie Brooker must be fuming. As the Dark Prince of chilling techno-dystopian tales, unfolding reality is starting to make Black Mirror look like Byker Grove.

Nonstick frying pans were a bi-product
of the moon landings, and potentially
the catalyst of the first Mars murder.

And what about these volunteers? What about these pale, glassy-eyed heroes of the final frontier? Thousands are expected to apply. Thousands feel so alienated from life on this planet that they would rather be doomed to eek out their days in a plastic bubble where oxygen supply depends on ratings than spend another day on their lush, magnificent home-world. So eager are they to escape their realities, they sign their lives away to a Dutch Media Firm who only have a tenuous grasp of photoshop.  What does that say about these new space pioneers? The company behind the venture says that: "Mars exploration offers an opportunity to celebrate the power of a united humanity" but does it really just establish a really expensive and really remote treehouse for angry loners? My flatmate is actually thinking about applying. He is the same flatmate who used wire wool on my non-stick frying pan. Confined spaces, no leaving the tiny life support area you depend upon, the same people having to put up with the same prattle day in day out. He better beware. In space, no one can hear you scream...unless they finally install that waterslide.

The Campaign for Real Men...

'Campaign' suggests that action must be taken, and it must be taken now! Campaign against climate change, campaign to cut banker's bonuses, campaign for real ale. All pressing issues demanding immediate action. For if we don't address these emergencies we end up with the human race in peril, huge inequalities in society and Foster's lager.

Non-fictious women

One campaign which seems to be on the minds of most glossy women's magazines is the 'Campaign for Real Women.' The feeling is that there is a great pressure on women to adhere to some ultra-skinny form which, if they don't achieve, they are worthless and unattractive. Seeing as most of the women who are hooked on this shit are largely variously-shaped office workers, it's probably a good idea to make the readership feel better about themselves. So, every time a celebrity pops out a sprog and then decides not to lose the extra weight a great cheer goes up from the editorial desks of Heat and Grazia. Every time a celeb drops a few dress sizes she is suddenly a treacherous bitch. What this essentially boils down to is that The Campaign for Real Women believes that immediate action must be taken to keep women a bit podgy. We must empower them to sit on their arses and not cave into societal pressure by ta
king care of themselves or doing any exercise. We must remove the guilt associated with troughing. Stop crying when eating your chips, unless you like them salty.

Now, I'm being unfair. Women are expected to do all sorts of things everyday that men don't even have to think about: plucking, waxing, painting their face, peeling off skin, balancing in high heels, squeezing into clothes. It's all a form of subtle but accumulative torture which, when combined with the ridiculous burden of a fully functioning baby factory and a brain whirring with extra-sensory perception, leaves me amazed that more women aren't in constant breakdown mode. All I have to do before leaving the house is wipe the crumbs from my beard and smooth my hand through my hair. And even then I'm quite picky! It's really not fair.

He looks in good sh...oh, no he doesn't.

Of course this point of view was probably more true ten years ago. Nowadays men are plucking, waxing, felling, oiling and shaping themselves to look more like the perfectly smooth cyborgs of Blade Runner. In the good old days, sex symbols were lanky, pokey and wonky faced like Mick Jagger or had their flabby bodies squeezed and shoehorned into big pants like Kirk Russell. Men were smelly, hairy and strangely proportioned, but could always fall back on the sense of security and smugness that comes with penis ownership. Nowadays men are expected to take the form of muscular, aerodynamic dolphins. Being the CEO of a willy just doesn't cut it anymore. If anything, it increases drag.

Well, women probably deserve to get
raped...yo check out my abs.

Partly, we can blame popular music. As content has given way to packaging, superstars of today have become bodybuilders. Commercial rap and successive boybands have taught us that the making of an album happens as much in the gym as in the recording studio. Everytime Justin Bieber says something deeply offensive, his usual strategy is to take pictures of himself topless and post them on twitter. We live in a visual, disconnectedly voyeuristic, socially available age and thus seem to be slowly losing sight of what a 'dickhead' is. Twenty years ago, if you were to take a photo of your body and go around showing it to people, you would have been thought of as a bit pathetic, needy and socially maladjusted (the very stuff of a true dickhead). Nowadays, it makes an excellent profile picture and the 'likes' roll in.

Daddy.

Perhaps it's time for men to be judged on the same terms as women. Perhaps it's about time that we should feel bad about our appearance because we aren't willing to spend hours every day in the gym conforming to the new expectations. But the truth is that men have never really had particularly high expectations of women. Most men aren't even aware of female imperfections. The amount of perfectly intelligent women I know who will get upset by the fact that their shoulders aren't quite the right shape or their toe is 2mm short of the national average or are convinced that the proportions of their earlobes make them look like 70s wrestler Big Daddy. Minor details which are imperceptible to the male eye. Most men are just delighted to be able to touch a woman without receiving a restraining order. Women have always had the keys to the city whilst men are merely overly eager Labradors waiting by the backdoor to be let in.

unBelieberble...

An increasingly paranoid shortass megalomaniac who has lost all touch with reality has been alienating the world and making threats this week. Also, Kim Jong-un's been on the news. (And that's how you write jokes for Have I Got News for You.)

With the escalating Korean situation, the pending humanitarian crisis in Syria and the dreadful bomb attacks in Boston, I can't help wonder what Justin Bieber makes of it all. After all, the rancid little turd's been very vocal on all manner of issues he doesn't have the first inkling about: abortion, gay marriage, rape, Anne Frank and each time he has shown incredible ignorance and insensitivity, handling each subject as skillfully as a dog handling a balloon. It's like asking Ebenezer Scrooge what he thinks about housing benefit. Or like asking George Osbourne what he thinks about housing benefit.

A Rancor, yesterday.

The problem with JB is obviously not only that he is a tiny child who is prone to say stupid things, but the disparity between the image of him that his management are still desperately struggling to preserve (i.e. clean-cut Christian) with the reality of the man that Bieber's becoming (i.e. massive prick). It's America's fault of course. Their insistence that regular popstars must seem outwardly moral and religious makes the rancor all the more pungent when they come crashing down. You can't have someone spouting homely values when they're clearly wallowing in the kind of sin that most if us just don't have access to. In the UK, there are no such expectations; allowing One Direction to continue their campaign of spreading VD on an industrial scale.

It's no surprise that Bieber has threatened his neighbours or appears two hours late for shows or attacks photographers. If you give a child everything they could possibly want and a constant supply of hysterical adulation, they're bound to go a bit iffy. Michael Jackson, Macaulay Culkin, the list stretches to at least two. And, with the adequate research I'm not prepared to do, possibly many, many more.

Voice of an angel. Face of a shit.

Some journalists have suggested this could be the beginning of the end for Bieber, but this may just be wishful thinking. Certainly Bieber wouldn't be the first worldwide star to effectively disappear, neither would he be the first ostensibly Christian-spouting pop superstar to fall from grace. But in this case, it's clear that we're not getting off the hook that easily. He writes some of his own songs, he can actually play an instrument, but most importantly of all he is an egotistical fuckbag who thinks he runs the world, and you can't keep that type down. Ongoing carcrash simulator Britney Spears has revealed herself to be both clearly insane and stupidly offensive, yet she keeps finding her way back. I fear the same will be said for Mr Biebtard.

The question about North Korea and Syria is should we let things fall apart of their own accord or is it time to intervene? Likewise with Bieber, should we set the charges or will Beaker implode on his own? For now we will just have to put up with him and hope he says something dubious about Islam whilst on a shopping trip to Dubai. Unlike Kim Jong-un, the shortsighted USA don't consider Justin to be a national security threat. Not unless he was responsible for the bomb blasts in Boston, which he clearly isn't and would be in poor taste for me to even suggest such a thing...

He's been awfully quiet about all that.

Why does ITV want to enable middle aged comedians to destroy their reputations?

"I'll be rounding up sheep, or is it the other way round?" asks Rory Bremner as he fucks about in a field and "That's the one officer" while pointing at an entirely innocent sheep. No, this isn't some terrifying peyote induced nightmare, this is "Rory Bremner's Great British Views" on ITV. Rather than doling out steaming portions of ripe political satire, he's vising a pencil museum and saying things like "That's a big pencil" when he sees a big pencil. The production is twee, the background music is chirpy, his presenting style is terrible and he has nothing interesting or funny to say. He just bumbles around and looks at things and nods appreciatively visiting the kind of places that drive pupils on school trips to glue sniffing. Nothing...ever...happens. And he's not alone.

Former iconoclastic punk comic Ade Edmondson is even more guilty as he presents the unbearable 'Ade in Britain.' It's like River Cottage meets queuing. His small talk is so tedious that even the business owners he interviews look like they want to wander off mid-sentence. "We're potty about pottery" he chirps as he visits a factory that puts varnish on pots, to the obvious discomfort of the staff. If his character Vivian had worked there, he would have grabbed a box of pots and slammed them over the head of this bumbling old fart. "No, no, no...I hate it, it's so bloody nice."

Edmondson is trying to become the "loveable middle-class eccentric" that Vivan so hated and perhaps he isn't entirely to blame. It is quite clear that ITV are throwing money at these people, and as neither Edmondson nor Bremner seem willing to put out any comedy at the moment, piss weak daytime TV formats must seem preferable to downsizing or bizarre and mawkish Aviva adverts (sorry Paul Whitehouse, but there's no need. How dare you use your considerable talents for evil. Wait. You've died and you were a ghost all along watching over your family? What?) Ever since Michael Palin went around effortlessly charming the pants off normal people across the world, execs at ITV must have assumed that this was a skill shared by all middle-aged comedians. Sadly not. Perhaps ITV are trying to appeal to the elderly or the terminally unimaginative, but there must be a better way to showcase the scintillating wonders of the biscuit making process. At least get that witless twat-du-jour Phil Spencer on the case. His entire career is built in a shame-free vacuum.

Rik Mayall: Selling out with dignity.

I suppose we must allow people to grow up and grow boring, but there must be some better way to put your kids through private school without defecating quite so openly on your own legacy. Hats off to Rik Mayall. He may be doing beer adverts but at least he does plenty of his trademark shouting in the process.

Gun control in the USA will lead directly to a Mongolian invasion, everybody agrees.

Controversial new proposals to ensure that Americans don't arbitrarily fire rocket launchers into the air "for fun" may appear sensible from the outside but like a toffee apple or Jordan's breasts, something far more rotten and sinister lies beneath.

President Obama with his 'right hand man', 
Tsakhia Elbegdorj of Mongolia 

Barack Obama flew to Mongolia last Friday to begin clandestine talks with Tsakhia Elbegdorj, the Mongolian spelling mistake. Although the purpose of the exchange wasn't clear, furtive whispers were heard from the President's "Secrecy Yurt. No Girls Allowed" which included the words "zombie king", "stirrups" and "and."

So what can all this mean? Eminent Bullshitter at The Institute of Guesswork, Professor Spec O'Lation believes he has the answer, just now over dinner. "Everybody knows that China is soon to become the world's greatest power ending in 'A' but do you know else what ends in A? Mongolia? And is it just coincidence that Mongolians look a bit like Chinese people if you squint your eyes? And they certainly both do that" said the possibly racist academic. And that's not all. Once we'd bought him a milkshake, O'Lation split the beans. After we'd wiped his shirt clean, he told us more.

Professor Spec O'Lation's interests
include pork.

"The King's Speech was one of the biggest box office draws in 2010. It's like we were being prepared to accept a new King George. That was King George the sixth. Simple mathematics shows us that it would be half as easy to like King George the third." The pieces started to fall into place. Once the professor had finished the puzzle we'd bought him, he returned to the subject in hand.

"As everyone knows, the second amendment to the constitution was created specifically to guard against a resurgent King George. Well, now we have one. On Wikipedia it said that cloning technologies may well be close to resurrecting dead European kings (citation needed) so what if the Mongolians plan to invade the USA and re-install zombie king George III on the throne?" I had to ask: "And stirrups?" "Yes please. But only on the side of my pancakes."

Professor O'Lation's case is a compelling, and he's not alone in believing it to be the case. Over 9 out of 10 Americans surveyed refused to talk to us. So why the secrecy? Why are they so hoarse?

A Mongolian Horse Archer showing off.

The answer could lie in Mongolian Horse (sounds the same) Archers. According to a recently repeated documentary on The History Channel that we fell asleep in front of in our hotel room, The Mongolian Horse Archer was the unstoppable war machine of its day. In less than two generations, the Mongols controlled an empire that stretched from the Chinese pacific almost up to the then European Atlantic (based in Turkey). In the end, the dominance of the Horse Archer was ultimately stopped by firearms. And later, by....guns.

So could the gun controls actually be a devious plan to remove the last obstacle between the crushing of American freedoms under the hooves of a zombie King George led Mongolian invasion. When we asked robot Professor Stephen Hawking about something else, his answer was astounding. He simply said: "Yes." 

But can these seemingly unconnected pieces of misinformation sellotaped together really be enough to form a Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece? The answer, dear reader, is yours to decide...

...but yes. Obviously.

Moment...ummmm.

Pre-progress umming and ahhing. How Not to Succeed in Comedy Without Really Trying.

If you want to progress in comedy, you need momentum. Momentum comes from constant gigging. Through gigging you get good, your name stays buzzing around the heads of acts then promoters then agents then critics then producers and finally everybody else. What's more you have to live and breathe comedy. You socialise with comedians, you know individual agents and their proclivities, you're at every festival. You become the furniture of the comedy bedsit. Status is important, comparison is important, momentum is important. Not for your mental health or relationships, largely it's disastrous, but it's the price that comedy demands.

This guy knows what he's doing.

I haven't been willing to pay that price for a long time. I lost my momentum long ago. Every year I've watched acts below me leapfrog over my head. Firm circuit friends will now ignore me because there are others around me more worthy of their attention, some established acts who I started out with will look at me in bewilderment and ask me what I'm doing and even offer me some pity one off gig with acts several rungs up from me, but promoters are no longer excited about the prospect of asking me to gig for them. A few promoters still hold me in high regard and book me for well paid gigs outside London, but my lack of positive press quotes and inflated five star reviews do not go unnoticed when it comes for them to send posters to print. To date, Newbury Today's five year old estimation of me still appears on flyers for regional clubs.

I'm certainly better and more consistent than I've ever been but this means nothing when you no longer have the momentum. Better to be fresh and raw and brimming with potential than to be seasoned and discounted and yet more complacent. The fire quickly goes out unless constantly fueled. Somehow I have become a hobbyist.

I have to decide whether I'm willing to bury myself in the feverish core of planet stand up or to continue coldly orbiting the maelstrom from afar. There is no halfway. The inescapable truth is that success in any field usually requires more of yourself than you're willing to give.

Follow Ed O'Meara at @edfomeara. It won't help ya none.