Stories, Rhymes and Brain fallout.

I’m getting off social media as a cure. The continual stream of bullshit is unfathomable, the only good thing to be said about the whole thing is that social media keeps some of the worst maniacs off the street. What did all these nut jobs do before social media? How did they express themselves then? Are these the people that would otherwise be into wife(or husband) beating? Child abuse ? or have we created a whole new sort of human? a sort of social media superman/superwoman -meek mannered off the keyboard but an abuse wielding warrior once the cursor flickers. If so I wish I knew what their kryptonite is, could it be satire? irony? I doubt it ,but we can try. I’ve tried sending love letters to trolls, blowing them cyber kisses, none of it works, they just go on and on and on, well at least they’re not breeding (let us hope). So it’s bye bye Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Fuxk it all, stop the madness. Let’s make humans great again.

Hello, These are the first words so I really want to get them right, I want to lure you in, this is a journey I’m starting on, it would be great if you could join me.  At the moment - everything is temporary after all - I’m a professional Stand-up comedian. I’m British but have lived most of my life in Antwerp, Belgium. This is where I started doing Stand-up, about twenty years ago when all other options had dried up, the bar I owned had gone bankrupt, there were no more factories that would hire me, so at the age of 44 I started to spend my weekends doing open mic spots at a local bar. Stand-up had just started getting popular in Belgium and I was in at the beginning - after a few lucky breaks and a lot of serious hard work I ‘made it‘ , I was actually ‘Big In Belgium‘ (Flanders actually, the Dutch speaking half).   That’s the short story, I’ll fill in the rest on the way. What’s the journey? Well it’s me again,starting out anew, I’ve just reached 65 and Stand-up, though s...

28th of October 2018 Birthday  Today was my birthday, another year passed, another number, another reason to evaluate, another moment to take stock of what’s gone and what is yet to come (maybe). For my Birthday weekend me and my wife organised a three day trip to Budapest, I’ve been there before to perform comedy a few times and there is something about the place that intrigues me. A city that has had it’s share of tears and fears, the Hungarians sided with Hitler until 1944, Hungarian nationalists played a big role in the deportation of thousands upon thousands of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and everyone else who defied the nazis. The role of the Hungarian nationalists gets ‘played down’ by the present Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, himself a nationalist, but there are sites all over the town that still bear witness to the deportations and the murders.  Not far from parliament on the edge of the Danube there is a monument to the place where Nazis and Hungar...

I went for a walk this morning, not far, just the streets around where I live, I need the exercise after my hip operation. It surprised me how many nods and smiles and 'good mornings' I received. I remember thinking to myself ‘there must have been a ‘purge’ of all the miserable negative people overnight’, or they might all be indoors tweeting or whatever it is that we are all supposed to be doing nowadays. Maybe it’s the solution to safer and happier streets, if all the moaners and the groaners and the ‘end is nigh’ folk stay indoors and argue online, then the rest of us can get on with our lives and each other. This being said - I am a ‘twitter warrior’ myself, spent hours the last couple of years, on twitter or other ‘social media’ outlets letting people know about my views, provoking, disliking, annoying etc etc ,it was good fun - annoying people that have different political or social views than I have. But it changes nothing, nada , sod all. When you tweet nothing happens...

It’s a great time to be human! Why? Because........(drum roll)..........we won! yeah ‘we are the champions’ etc . We absolutely won, beat all other species into submission or extinction. ‘We do what we want, we do what we waaaaant we are human we do what we want!’  We used to sit cowered in our caves afraid of all the big animals out there, but where are they now? Gone! Dinosaurs? gone, only living family members are chickens - chickens ffs! so who’s afraid now dinosaur ? Not us, the animals are on the run, soon to be just a memory - we won hands down. This planet is our ‘hood’ and only ours, if you want to be here you better be usefull or you’re out- if we can eat you, screw you or take photos of you for instagram then you are on your way to the ‘little book of extinct animals’.  A truly great time to be human.

As far as I can remember it all started with the Brexit referendum in the UK, America -not to be outdone by the Brits- organised their own 'Apocalypse Now' moment by electing 'Big White Rich Bully' Donald -Brain Damage- Trump as president to follow that and since then nothing, absolutely nothing is as it was. It's only been a few years, but the speed with which we are losing all respect and dignity is mind boggling. I have just watched the President of the United States of America mock a woman who came forward to give evidence about her trauma of being sexually abused during her student years. What a complete asshole Trump is, whatever you think of her testimony it's obvious she suffered, and it took guts for her to come forward. The venom and spite that bully Trump spat out on her will not only verify the fears she had about coming forward but it is also a message to all other women saying " even the president of america will heap scorn on you if you dare...

Time moves on, it's Saturday now which means I've been home from hospital almost a week. I'm gradually easing off the pain killers and other meds, my blood (clotting) levels are back to what they should be and Monday I'll have my first gig (in Flanders) again and pretty soon the operation will be a distant past and all the little ups and downs I feel will have to be kept to myself as people don't really want to know how you are when they ask that question. Most of the time I don't want to talk about my bigger and bigger collection of replacement joints that I seem to be collecting either, nowadays ,with the science and technology we have ,it's not such a big deal. I've known for some years that one day my knees and hips would 'go' and would have to be replaced, so I taught myself to build up for it, get the leg muscles fit before the op, leave the op to the best professionals there are in the area, 'post op' do all the exercises and move...