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!

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.

Festive Thoughts

It's now officially the time of year where no one does anything apart from eat and argue with their families. The week before New Year's Eve is a temporal no man's land and I'm in the middle of it. It can't be all bad because now I can write more blogs.


I thought I would make this a general catch up about what's happened in the last couple of weeks rather than going back to June 2008. Although, it is this time of year when people reflect on the year just gone and generally say, 'It's been a rubbish year, let's hope next year is better'. This is either because British people are always negative and cynical or every year is in fact pants. Someone you know always dies and something global and crap happens, this year it was the credit crunch. My prediction for next year is that a great great great Uncle will die of old age and a global herpes epidemic will have hit Britain.

Fitness has undoubtedly declined slightly as I have been eating ridiculous amounts of tuck and imbibing grog everyday for the last week, which has taken a toll on me especially as I have reduced my alcohol intake over the last few weeks. Although, as many of my pals who have real jobs have time off at the moment, we have played a few games of 5-aside football courtesy of the sports hall I have free access to.

As a team we have chosen to change one of the charities from Sport Relief to The Lord Taverners, who are a cricket charity aimed at helping disabled children feel more integrated in society with their sporting programmes. It may not be such a Hollywood charity as Sport Relief but they have been much more keen on our project and want to work with us. I know charities have many things to organise and sort but if you are not going to get behind a project like this then that seems, in my humble opinion, to be foolish. Anyway on a positive note I'm about a 3rd of the way to my personal fundraising target and let's hope the project keeps building momentum.

Kirt and Curry are currently in Nepal sorting out some logistical stuff, so my thoughts are with them: That makes them sound dead, they aren't. Just to clarify they are alive and well and are probably drinking Nepalese beer whilst having women of the night push their services upon them.


in a bit

Pub Crawl in Aid of Everest- 31st May 2008

After the initial team selection there was a pub crawl arranged to help celebrate the early stage of the trip being put in place. This is fantastically British. We are going to play cricket on a mountain to raise money for charity so naturally we all have to go and get hideously inebriated. I reckon even if we were raising money for 'AA', we would kick things off with a massive bender (apologies for the double meaning- if your visualising a huge bloke in a tight t-shirt waving a rainbow coloured hankie, you're very immature).

For the pub crawl we were all kitted out in cricket whites because we are an extremely professional outfit. There at one point was the suggestion that we took sport relief buckets out with us to cajole the general public into donating. I, however, think that a bloke with yak covered cricket whites, asking strangers for money in aid of a good cause might well be pushing the boundaries of public generosity towards charitable causes. You would be especially sceptical is you handed some sheckles to a man who one minute later starts downing a jug of lager whilst other men shout, 'down it you tool!'.

Obviously it was a great afternoon and no money was raised but it was a good way to meet other older team members who seemed to be on exactly the same wave length as me despite being a bit older. All the 6 year age gap between me and others meant is that there are some references to early 90s TV that they might not get. All of us, for example, appreciate how great a programme 'Saved by the Bell' was although none of them really have an opinion on the more recent 'City Guys', which as any 22 year old with access to the channel 'Trouble' as a youngster knows was a poor alternative to the Californian set children's sitcom.

Shabadoo joined later as he had been watching Wasps win the Premier League again and in doing so securing him a massive payout of £750 from some ridiculous accumulator bet he had done. He is genuinely the luckiest man in the world, I think he must have been blessed as a young bear. True fact about Joe: he has never dropped a piece of toast butter side down, I read it on Wikipedia so it must be factually accurate. By the time he arrive I was MC Hammered, groping some poor girl with the words 'I just love Penis' (it said a naughty version of this but i've been censored) written on my back and a drawing of a climactic penis next to it. Give a man a black pen, a white canvass and a few beers and there is one inevitable result- a doodled penis. By 11 I was so cut that me and Joe had to leave for the Casino. I didn't want to gamble; for some reason in my drunken mentality I decided that 'Golden Nugget Casino' was the most obviously place nearby to get some chicken wings.

We nearly didn't get in. Here is the conversation that occurred with the Golden Nugg staff.

"You're not allowed in wearing a track suit"

"technically mate, these are cricket whites"

"so?"

"they are much smarter than a track suit"

"OK...go in"

second guy behind the till leans in a makes the very valid point:

"some people might not appreciate whats written on your back"

"fair enough, I'll turn in inside out."

Somehow turning the penis ridden shirt inside out was enough to quell their concern and so I managed to get my chicken wings and be in bed by midnight.

Fitness and Cricket on course...sort of

I decided to join in on a bleep test at the school where I work, with the 4th form (13-14 yr olds). I've no idea why posh boys' school's don't just call them by the correct national school year names? Even upper 6th and lower 6th are called upper and lower '8th'- it's just plain annoying when you meet people who went to different schools. For example, if someone tells me they did something when they were in year 8, I never know how old they were, in my head I guess that they were...eight: which is confusing and disturbing if they are referring to when they last their V plates.

Anyway, so I did it and was comfortably chugging along determined to beat level 12.2, which I had achieved in July. Around level 11 it was me and one kid left, he looked extremely comfortable but I was confident he would drop off. At level 12 I was not comfortable whilst he looked like he could have been jogging and simultaneously composing a sonnet while being fed grapes. To sum up, he was comfortable. I started to realise I was not going to beat him and dropped out at 12.6, which although was an improvement was gutting because I'd been beaten by a child. Turns out I had in fact chosen to run in the class that contained the national pentathlete champion for that age group. Shit! I guess there shouldn't have been any shame in that but since I hate losing, shame on me. Pentathlete champ or no Pent. Champ- It's not like he's a real athlete because if he was he would have done the Decathlon, which is twice as manly- Daley Thompson can back me up on that.

Played cricket today at indoor nets and was the first time I'd played properly in 10 years. I was not proper rubbish but I was by no means what one might describe as OK. I was RU-OK. Thanks to some pointers from the very talented Kiwi (I think he's from NZ- it's a sophisticated nickname), he actually showed me how I should stand etc when batting and bowling. It's mentally tiring, you actually have to concentrate all the time, which may sound ridiculous but I only just worked this out and have decided cricket players are no as rotund and lazy as I first thought. Just keeping your head in line with the ball is tricky!

We also did nets after another bleep test followed by 5-aside football. It was a good session and gives some insight into how tired we might be at Base Camp, when we have to bat and bowl at ludicrously high altitude.

Right I have to go as I'm pooped. Don't want to lose to another small child any time soon.

Claire Balding & BJ: Going back to the first talk and Everest application

I've decided to write a book about Everest Cricket- all of you are extremely lucky

This is not a nonsense idea that I have thought of after 10 pints, which I will never back up, I genuinely want to do this.

One of my colleagues asked if I was writing a book on the trip and I said, 'I'm too busy'. Which does seem reasonable as I have a day job and gig around the country in the evenings including Northampton- lucky me! (seriously never go there, it smells of regret). I, however, realised that I do in fact spend on average 1-2 hours a day checking and re-checking my emails, going on facebook, tidying out my balls, tidying out my balls over people on facebook and finally- drinking tea (my drug of choice, after the drug of LIFE!, which I'm already high on, only joking: only wankers say that). Therefore, If I minimise doing the above for 2 hours or even combine some of them whilst writing this blog I reckon I can be well on my way...obviously drinking tea and writing is far easier than playing with yourself whilst trying to punctuate correctly.

So the plan is to write a little something everyday in this blog by going back to the very beginnings of signing up to this trip, whilst sprinkling in bits of what's currently going on re: fundraising, fitness, anecdotes about Everest test. There will be a 6 month time shift for the first few weeks of this but as I only just thought writing a book was a good idea today, November 7Th, it will be a bit hap-hazard. I want to reiterate that I never decided to do this expedition just to write a book. The reasons I want to do this trip are these, in no particular order:

1. Raise lots of money for international and domestic causes, which need it
2. Break a world record and so make Kris Akabusi finally proud of me
3. Test myself, on a physical and mental level
4. Something to talk about at dinner parties and a great device to snaffle beatches (can I say that?!)


These blog entries will form the basis of the book and help me write a final copy before I forget everything. So now all of you (sing./plural) know whats going on relax your flaps and enjoy the ride. It's OK to laugh at the phrase 'relax your flaps', I will not tell anyone, If anyone hears you laughing and says 'what you laughing about?', just say 'exquisite political satire', however we both know it's the phrase 'relax your flaps'- If you don't appreciate the immaturity of it, I hope you appreciate how resonant the assonance of the wording is.

long story short, buckle up!

any feedback duly appreciated.

Touching each other for Charity

Any new readers out their put on some protective goggles because otherwise you might get some of the gold dust below in your peepers.

Me and BJ's touch rugby tournament has just finished. The slightly self indulgently titled Jarman-Martin Invitational.

The day seemed to go really well. Everyone seemed to have a smashing day out and me and BJ's 100 odd sandwiches ranging from marmite, ham, cheese and ham&cheese seemed to be much appreciated.

In terms of results the teacher's team beat by old friend mat and nick's team in the final after a questionable decision by the referee (me). I have a new found respect for refs as it is really hard especially when your adjudicating your friends. I was respected about as much as a Russell Brand giving a speech on phone etiquette (topical? not funny. but topical). I did receive a volley of verbal abuse so when I played in a couple of matches I thought that I would not question any of the ref's decisions, however, I still complained the most showing what a hypocritical Henry I really am.

Also something I always knew about men which got reaffirmed in my mind that no matter what the occasion if there is a trophy to be won they will always be over-competitive and take everything too seriously. It's in a our nature. I genuinely think you could have a £5 trophy up for grabs at funeral for the most upset person and men would rub onions into their retinas, stab themselves in the chops, burn money just so they can win.


anyway me and BJ should have raised about 200 snakes each (you can say almost any word and it means money) e.g. droplets, pies, sheets, boys, badboys, snickers, twigs, knuckles etc

special mention to The Sherpas (Kirt, Tom, Neil, JC, Jules, Blinky). Also to Jules for helping by kindly giving us such wonderful prizes. Steely and Gemma for representing the females in the tournament. Is that patronising and sexist? probably