Thoughts of the day.

  The New Guy. A new guy has taken up residence in our street these last few months. He’s also in the drinking game. He sits in the small square near the library. I pass him each day on my way to the newsagents. He drinks beer from cans and lines up the empties as if it’s some kind of competition, and he’s counting.  His clothes are clean but ruffled. His face is tanned; he could be a teacher or even a writer; each time I see him, he gets older.  Now and then, a woman sits beside him; she looks like the social worker type. Usually, she’s talking while he stares into the distance, drinking.  Once, I saw her give him a packed sandwich from the local bakery; when I returned, she was gone, and the sandwich lay untouched on the bench next to him, the following morning, birds were fighting over it.

  Our street. #1 Sitting on a bench across the street from where his local Bar used to be before its recent closure, the place where he used to be 'first in' and 'last out'. In the Bar, he felt at home. There he was somebody. He got to talk to people - at least before the alcohol kicked in. In the Bar, people would get worried about him if he didn't show up for a day or two. He was part of the colourful fauna of folk there, part of the family, and then it closed. The locals have long since found other places to sit, drink and argue about the world and what it all means. He remains on the bench across the street as if he still believes it will return, the time when he was part of something. Now he sits here and drinks from a can (more are in the bag). People pass him by, nobody stops to talk, and the Bar becomes a distant memory; one day, he won't be around and fade as if he hadn't existed.

  I write. Therefore, I write. Whatever the thoughts on this, at least I'm off the mark, doing this writing exercise, writing even though I have nothing to say. I need to put in the effort.   At least writing can be done working from home, something stand-up comedy could never be. I like writing but have never found anything that interests me so much I want to write about it. Even comedy, even the gigs, and especially the people who come to watch me. The people, I love them and love them a little less simultaneously. They are comedy's lifeblood and the vampire that sucks it out of you all rolled into one. When they are into what I do on stage, I feel like I'm surfing; words come easy, and jokes appear out of nowhere. When they aren't into my act, it's hell; every minute is like an hour, and the mind stutters and, in the worst case, stops functioning. The mind races and opens all the drawers, trying to find jokes and anecdotes of years gone by to help retrieve the si...

  Why I don't 'do' flags anymore. Once again, we will be judged by our social media profile. Are we on the 'right' side? Do we have the flag of the oppressed posted so everyone can see how compassionate we are? At the moment, the Palestinian flag is the 'go-to flag' to cover the cracks of hypocrisy we here in the West are so keen to hide.  Don't get me wrong, Palestinians need our support. The only hope for future peace in the region is a two-state solution, and one day, let us hope both sides will agree on it and get around the table to accomplish it. Meanwhile, thousands are dying, and protest is needed. But let us remember there are not just two sides involved in this conflict. For example, I have noticed that a lot of people who vehemently oppose Israel seem very quiet when it comes to Iran - and their involvement with Hamas, and also their treatment of women within Iran. We 'progressives' like to think we are always on the right side, but ar...

  Let it go. Saturday 21 October '23. I take the advice of my meditation teacher and let my mind go where it wants without thinking about it too much. This page is the result: me just rambling on a keyboard (not really a keyboard, is it? There are no keys on it), just letters, numbers and little things that I don't know anything about or what they do.  Let your head go where it wants, he told me. I have watched so many Netflix docus on serial killers that I could pull off the perfect murder if I had the guts. I can't even murder a spider. Most of the time, when I see a spider at home, I ignore it and hope it goes away unless my wife has seen it and wants me to get rid of it - sounding like she means it 'Maffia style' - but usually it ends up me sliding a piece of paper under an upturned Tupperware box where the bewildered spider is trapped, I chuck it out in the garden, and try and run back in before the spider overtakes me - it's warm inside, I do wonder what s...

  Tuesday 26th of September 2023 It’s not so much that I’m tired of people telling me what they think and how I should be, what really pisses me off is that I listen to them and try to change myself. I Think I’m spending too much time surfing all these ‘self-help’ podcasts, youtube tutorials, and memes. They aren’t self-help, they are people you don’t know telling you how you should be, what you should eat, how you should exercise, and especially what you are doing wrong. Why should you even listen to these people? They don’t know you, or your situation or your expectations, or your capabilities.   So I weigh a few pounds over my ‘so say’ ideal weight, so what? I’m not happy and friendly all day and every day? So what, I’m human that’s how we operate. I’ve come to the conclusion that we all should search deep within ourselves, get to know ourselves better, work out what we want and want to be and then find the tools to make it happen, and if it doesn’t make us happy? Re-think ...

  Sunday the 27th of August 2023. When sitting alone, in the quiet of my own small corner of this house, I like to think about this thing called ‘me’. What makes me ‘me’? Nowadays, with the ‘takeover’ that social media has acted out on our collective consciousness, it’s hard to know if that original thought I had this morning, was actually real, actually original, and not just some seed that was planted by AI. Would it really matter? I think what I think, that’s it, end of the story, although to be honest I rarely identify actual ‘thoughts’   it seems.   It’s all very tiring.   Generally, I like the peaceful life, a life of few complications, that’s one reason why I don’t have many friends, and nobody that I would actually count as a ‘soul mate’ or as they say these days a brother from another mother. Friends complicate things, I have never really worked out what to do with them, the stress of having to fit them into my schedule for starters. I have my job and my fam...

  Social media health guide. Social media is lots of things but it’s also a continual stream of people telling you ‘how to live healthier’, ‘how to live without stress’, ‘how to get a good nights sleep’, ‘how to meditate’, ‘why not to meditate’, ‘how to exercise’, ‘how coffee helps you’, ‘how coffee destroys your health’ in short, how to do everything and anything… It’s the best way to feel bad about yourself watching some - white painted teeth - always upbeat - influencer tell you how to get out of bed refreshed every morning at 6 am go for a 5 mile hike, then come back home write a fucking book have a nutritional breakfast to activate your brain, and the day hasn’t really started yet… Meanwhile it’s 8 am and you’re still contemplating whether you need a shit or a pee, and realise there is no bread or milk and you feel tired because you didn’t sleep well.   The reason these ‘always happy’ nut jobs are so smiley all the time is because every time you click on their madness the...

  Stuff my phone tells me to do. Eat better, find yourself, try this miracle weight loss programme, do these exercises, try this green stuff, eat more bananas - eat less bananas, Avocados do it, upload more content, be happy, relax with this special cushion, watch this endless series, like this, like me, give a like, follow me, follow him , follow her, check your gender pronouns, watch your age, switch your phone off, buy crypto currency, sell it sell it sell it, hate this bloke - cos he’s a man, love this woman-because she’s a woman, retweet, repost rewind, buy this new podcast studio, listen to this 56 hour podcast by this macho Neanderthal, use generalisations to fight discrimination, hate old people (just because they made it) , hate young people because they have a longer future, scroll, scroll, watch ads, order on line now! Order on line now!   Use this celebrity’s death to get more likes, pretend to be sad, look at me! Look at me! Look at me!… press the button turn it o...

  Good Days with bad edges. I was up and out of bed this morning before the alarm clock could wake me, the alarm was set for 6:30 at 6:15 I was wide awake and just led there with my hand above the alarm clock ready to slam down on the ‘stop alarm’ button as soon as the bastard screamed its noise. I had slept really well, the new pillow from Ikea done the job, at last I seem to have found the perfect pillow after years of searching, although to be honest those were the thoughts I had when I bought the last one - also at Ikea.   Lack of a comfy pillow is the main cause of my frequent insomnia, I have always had problems with finding the right pillow, is it my head? Is it too heavy for the average pillow? When I was young my Mother used to tell me how ‘huge’ my head was, even at birth, she would tell me in gory detail about how my head ‘tore her open’, my head has been a constant worry. Not being ‘head confident’ has formed a part of my being, I never let my hair grow too long be...

  Child of Confusion. Sometimes one of my Comedy shows will get a review written by one or other journalist with one or other sense of humor, or even by journalists without a sense of humor but a sense of duty, this being to warn their readers of any form of humor which doesn’t coincide with the definition humor that they had searched for on google specially for this occasion. One such journalist once described me as a ‘Confused Comedian’, ‘jumping from topic to topic, only to return to the main topic where he started out’. He obviously meant ‘Confusing’ instead of ‘Confused’, a difference which would say more about him than me, but I digress. To be honest, I am confused, there, I said it. I have always been confused, confused about most things, I think my birth sign was a question mark followed by an exclamation mark or just a confused emoji.   It all started more or less at the beginning, when I first realised that not all families are constructed like ours. The awakening to...

  Climate, now here’s my take. What do I think about climate change? What do you think? I left school when I was 15, I worked in factories and had my own bar that went bankrupt and you’re asking me about climate change? What the flipflop do I know? I can’t even get the central heating working properly. Climate change, yeah it’s getting hotter and hotter and the weather generally seems to be a bit fucked up, more than that and you’ll have to ask an expert and that isn’t me.   In most walks of life, I have to depend on the consensus of common sense and hope experts are getting it right, I wear a seat belt not just because it’s the law but also because going through a windshield at 70km an hour doesn’t sound like a thing I’ll enjoy, so I belt up.   Same with the climate, I’ll recycle, wear a sweater indoors and turn the heating off or lower, I’ll take a shower once every two days and not spend long doing it, I’ll even start eating less and saving energy by turning off gadget...