Panic Over

Don't worry everyone you can change the batting order to include me on Stickcricket. Thus rendering the last blog entry redundant. Apologies for wasting your time.

Narcissism!

Great news ladies and gents/geezerbirds. The Everest Test has been made into a computer game http://www.stickcricket.com/gameeveresttest.php. The bad news is I'm not in the starting XI, which I'm assured is not a reflection on the actual starting XI. I, however, as a stand up comedian love being the centre of attention and detest exclusion like my father detests there being no second helpings. So my solipsistic pride has taken a bit of a basting. I may try and pay someone to make a rival game called ChrisMartinstickcricket.com. A game where everyone is me: batsmen, bowlers, fielders...commentators, members of the crowd, the umpires, the streaker (who will obviously have to have an uncomfortably large sack). This game will probably not be quite as popular amongst those people who do not share my name or face. Perhaps Mr Coldplay and New Zealand cricket's Chris Martin will join in.



There you have it. I have come up with an award winning idea which is marketable to 3people in total.

me, me, me, me, me

Self indulgence over...for a few minutes

Send Off Party and Fitness reality check

It's been a while since I've written an entry as I have been either busy with gigs, busy with fitness, busy with sports coaching or just too tired to type away in my spare time. Arguably typing on a keyboard isn't the most operose of tasks, however, often you develop a mental block to doing such facile activities. For example, I haven't tried to write any new jokes in the last 5 days, even though it is a process that ultimately only involves me walking around my bedroom repeatedly saying funny swear words to myself in a disparate accents.

I, however, feel that the send off party has produced enough material for me to write about that you lovely readers will enjoy digesting with your eyes. It was a suitably smug and pompous affair in the best possible way. To me, extremely classy events such as this can encourage intolerably self important prigs to acts like helmets and generally be an irritant. However, these events also mean a plethera of extremely attractive and well to do females. I don't want to sound like a horny teenager but I have always believed the matra: write about what you know. Let's just say that I was doing the belt-trick for the majority of the evening. The place was full of chaps that I would normally detest but the event had such a convivial atmosphere that it meant that everyone was polite, pleasant and playfull.

I'm not going to bore you with every minute detail of the event but things that stick out in my memory are, my invitee Ian Gamble using a long white cusion as a pugil stick in a Gladiators type fashion; beers costing £6 a pop, which in the worst economic crisis for some time, seems more than reasonable. I'm of course being sarcastic, £6 a beer= !?*SF**%£!!! (which is Welsh for 'rubbish'); and the world's most narcassitic male toilet. It was made purely of mirrors, which I think is important as they were above knee height. I've always wanted to look at my warhammer from 8 different angles. Now I know that it should always be photgraphed on the left hand side as it's my good side.

Now to fitness matters. I completed my second half marathon in Bath the Sunday before the party in a slower time than my Great North run exploits. I did it in 1hr 51, 12 minutes slower than my 1hr 39 in Newcastle. Factors, which may explain my decrease in time despite generally feeling fitter include running abreast of BJ because it was more enjoyable although probably slowed me down, drinking a few pints the night before and having 2 urine stops during the race. So despite my knees aching the next day at work I was pretty happy with my efforts.

I'm writing this blog just over a week after the Bath Half and I feel more fatigued and dejected as it's the aftermarth of the staff versus 1XI football match. I haven't played an 11 aside match for 2 years and I had forgotten just how knackering it is. The heavy limbs and drained body are even weightier and more baron if you were part of the team that lost 4-1. I played so average and was not helped by the fact I was played on the right of midfield next to all the spectators including my under 16B team in the second half. This means every touch, dribble, falling over (yup that happened) and missed header I did was scrutinissed by the tumultous crowd. I got an extremely scaled down version of what it is like to be Emmanuel Eboue playing at the Emirates and it is bloody awful. I will from now on try my best to never tut or sigh a bad touch from a player as it's really mean. Hopefully on Base Camp there will be no crowd right next to me when I'm fielding otherwise I may have to sub myself off.

Also I hate losing so...

...Yours angrily

Comedy Night- Done!

It's the day after the Comedy Store fundraiser and my few minutes in the spotlight seems an eternity away as I sit at a desk adorned in tracksuit bottoms whilst adolescent boys are told how best to get their heart working anaerobically.

The night appears to have been an unequivocal hit. Not only did we raise 6k for charity but all of the comedians had absolute stormers. I will give a very quick summary of the show; emphasis on very quick as most readers will have been there. Howard was brilliant as usual despite saying he was trying new stuff out, Jarred Christmas had me absolutely wetting my pants with his Ninja joke as well as his material getting his unborn child to pronounce Guacamole incorrectly. Benny Boot the languid Antipodean was top quality as usual and Lloyd Langford who has the world's greatest Welsh accent smashed it with his effortlessly amusing stories.

Now I guess I should give a bit of self analysis of my own performance. Admittedly I was in an unfair environment as a lot of punters knew me but I still had to not be crap. ITN were filming for London tonight so I had been wracking my brains trying to think of cricket material and I opted for what, no matter how you glaze it, was a pretty cheesy pun. It should hopefully entertain the old dears watching the news at 6pm.

Kyle Bubbly just about managed to follow my wake :). No in all seriousness he was hilarious-not just material wise but also his face, hair and pseudo African American voice with a geezer twinge had everyone in pieces. Matty Grantham's slow paced punchy delivery was a welcome change in pace before Mr Jack Whitehall closed the show brilliantly even if he does wear skinny jeans. it was all hosted by the lovely hobbit geezer that is Rich Wilson. I just hope it has a knock on effect and helps boost interest in the send off party on 19th March, which should be a top quality bash.

I imbibed a few beverages last night for almost the last night. And for anyone who loves slightly well known people, I ended up drinking in this private members bar in town where Mathew Horne and Kathy Burke were drinking. I didn't actually talk to them I just said, "Gavin and Stacey' & "Kevin and Perry Go Large" really loudly near them. As soon as I can get my mug on the TV it's private members bars ahoy!

Update

I write this blog sitting in my friend James's room in Bristol having been made to go out drinking in a Casino till 5am: a backwards step in my training has occurred. I had hardly been drinking till last Friday, however, going to visit my old Uni buddies in Newcastle is not a good idea if you want to continue a path of temperance. It's pretty safe to say that the fact Gazza is an alcoholic and from Newcastle is not a monumental coincidence; more of an inevitability. I'm the worst person in the world at saying 'no' to my pals hence the reason I went up to Newcastle, spent money on drinking and the horses (aka lost almost all my bets) and then after doing a gig in Bristol last night couldn't resist the orders of my friend James 'the imbibing bison' Gibb. He is 23 years of age and still drinks like a 14 year old supping on a bottle of 'White Lightning', desperately trying to seek the approval of other equally socially awkward adolescent gimps.

On a more positive note, the compere at the gig last night introduced me as Chris 'buff' Martin, so perhaps aesthetically I look in shape even if currently I don't feel like it. I now have less than 3 weeks till the Bath Half Marathon so I definitely need to stop getting on the smash and start getting on the track- that should be on the back of a 'No Fear' t-shirt.

The comedy night line up is sorted. We have Russell Howard and Jack Whitehall from the TV plus loads of other top notch rib ticklers, including myself (hopefully I'm not going to let the side down). So if you want to know more about this google 'Stand Up on Everest' and book tickets for 9Th March. It should be a cracking night for one and all.

yours guiltily...

Dartmoor Weekend 30Jan-1st Feb

As BJ, Kirt and I progressed smoothly down the tarmac gateway that is the M4 I knew that it was going to be a mirth filled weekend. Not just because of the company but because BJ handed me a piece of paper with the Bloomberg top 25 funniest names in the world: my personal favourites are Donna Bumgardener, David Moron and Dario Diklik. Incidentally I'm not swearing, I'm simply quoting people's names. If you consider these to be swear words then you are in fact deriding the innocent people who live with these names every day of their silly named lives.




We arrived in Dartmoor late Friday night despite the Sat Nav's best efforts to thwart us by sending us to a field. Just a field. Luckily we bumped into Kiwi and Glenn who were also lost but had the foresight to bring printed instructions of how to find the Dartmoor centre we were staying at. Without them we would have genuinely had to drive into a patch of vegetation and shout the names of our team mates and hope for the best.

The weekend was a real cliched male team bonding experience. It turns out that no matter whether you're 22 or 32 it is inevitable that somebody backside will try and show off in front of a room of other males and generally your audience will oblige by giggling like little school boys. We seemed to only talk about hackneyed male experiences, which I can't really divulge over the Internet as it would possibly lead to me being locked up or at least cautioned by the cyber police. Let's just say we joked about rambling and walking!

Between all of the churlish behaviour we managed to do some walking...actually walking. I managed to 'break mine boots in', which is the technical term for wearing some boots. It's a needly aggressive and euphemistic expression: I prefer to tell people that 'I popped their cherry'. We ambled around the moors and tors for most of Saturday, which must have been just under 20 miles.I would have loved to have taken in the picturesque Dartmoor scenery but for some meteorological reason which I don't fully comprehend, the land was caked in mist. The range of conversation during 8 hours of walking with different people is phenomenal: you go from one conversation to someone about their job to anopther one with someone else about the funniest name for a pornographic video. Eclectic, best describes the day; maybe smutty.

Sunday was also great fun as we split into 3 teams and got ruthlessly competitive like greyhounds chasing a stuffed rabbit around the baron moors of Devon. The challenges involved carrying 20kg fertilizer bags up a hill, carrying cooking equipment then making fried eggs up a hill, running up a hill dressed as a gorilla (I pulled the short straw on that) and carrying buckets of water from ages away...over a hill. The general theme was doing tiring stuff on hills. Having been comfortably in the lead after the first 3 challenges we choked like all British athletes and ended up tied with the other teams. I guess you could say the overall winner was team Hillary! You could then also say that I'm a cheesy man who needs somebody to dip some bread on my fondue like body to remove that stench of melted Jarlsberg.

No ranting this week. Just thought I would thank James Peterson for his organisation of the weekend, although he could have done something about the mist; at least we missed the snow storm, so well done for that. On that note, I think it's hilarious how in the current economic climate where 90% of the population are desperately grasping onto their jobs and trying their up most to save their pennies, that that same percentage of people looked out their windows and thought, 'I definitely can't go to work today because it's a bit snowy'. Special thanks go to London's bus drives for legitimizing everyones' excuses for bunking off. My faith is restored in humanity.

Peace, Love, Save the children

The Press Launch on Tuesday 27th February

Above are some snaps from the press launch...obviously; you wouldn't set up a cricket pitch in Trafalgar square and not invite a few people to watch. There were genuinely loads of people with cameras gathered so I think a big thank you has to go to our PR team Captive minds for getting me on London tonight (although you see me for about half a second). I didn't get to field or bat in this match but most people don't know that. I will be now telling everyone I smashed a 6 into Nelson's Column. It's like when somebody asked if I was playing cricket on the very top of Mount Everest; of course that's impossible and the girl who asked was obviously a little bit intellectually selective (that's a PC way of saying thick). I told her we were not doing this but in retrospect I should have said 'yes', because it sounds cooler and as a moron she wouldn't know that I was massively equivocating.

The PR was really useful, however, I'm now going to rant about PR and advertising. A lot of my friends work in this field and although it has its uses I really resent the whole industry. This fire of hatred has been reignited in me after a discussion with my friend Be about blogs. He loves advertising and always bangs on about the importance of blogs in the modern world. When I asked what he thought about mine he said it wasn't niche enough. I'm writing about playing cricket on Everest: seems pretty bloody specific to me. He meant that I digress and talk about different topics too much therefore it will never get a lot of people subscribing to it, which I would love to contest but then again I'm talking about PR and advertising in a cricket blog: I have been caught with my hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.

It's this criticism of his that irks me about the media industry. Why can't I write a blog about what I want and digress and talk nonsense about social situations and things I notice? Apparently because it's not what people want to read and will not get me anywhere. That is exactly what is wrong with the world of the media, and this is a word which I think encapsulates it in one, manipulative. It's a world that is concerned with how everything you do, whether it's a blog, the way you dress or the angle at which you scratch your right buttock, can help project an image to others. I'm obviously aware that as a stand up comedian it appears that pandering to other people is something which I'm paid to do. I, however, say stuff that I think is funny and hopefully other people do, which means I have fun and enjoy myself. Therefore, why do people always worry about every minute detail in their life and how it will reflect upon them? Instead, do something because it's enjoyable and don't worry whether you have catchy angle. This may not be profound but I'm just sick to death of listening to people talk phony nonsense about unimportant crap using buzz words such as, 'niche', 'demographic', 'social trend' and phrases like, 'an idea I fully believe in'.

Now just to clarify I'm not a hippie or anything like that but if I want to digress and talk about pointless stuff, so what? It's enjoyable and is for my own pleasure not to appease some random bloke called Marcus, who dresses trendy and is totally in touch with the new socio-economic trends of 2009.

rant over.