The Poorly Child Procedure

Last Friday, my daughter woke up complaining of stomach pains.

It's the nightmare scenario - 7:30am on a workday, your child sitting on the edge of their bed, clutching their stomach and looking very forlorn. Time is ticking away. Your kid is not even dressed. You are going to be late for work. And Junior is going to be late for school. Again.

You start to panic. After all, schools get very arsey about lateness these days. You'll probably get one of those letters from the Head of Year insinuating that you're an unfit parent. Next thing you know, Social Services will be knocking on the door and a magistrate will be sending you on a parenting course. You'll have to listen to some well-meaning imbecile in a pink shirt lecturing you about "boundaries" while putting up slides of runaway children on crack cocaine.

Worse still, if the illness is genuine, you may have to phone your boss and tell them you can't come in. They will try to act all understanding in an "I don't want an industrial tribunal on my hands" kind of way. But really they are making a mental note that you are a liability to be disposed of in the next "restructuring".

OK. Don't panic. It's time to implement The 5-stage Poorly Child Procedure.

Stage 1: Denial

Simply ignore the complaint and breezily change the subject.

"Dad, I've got a really bad stomach ache."

"Ooh...is Family Guy on tonight? I think I like that even better than the Simpsons...what shall we have for tea?"

On this particular Friday, though, denial didn't work. The complaints continued and, after several attempts at completely ignoring her, I escalated matters to the next level.

Stage 2: Acknowledgement Without Commitment

Sometimes kids just want a bit of sympathy. They are not looking to completely disrupt your day with a full blown sickie - they just feel a little bit poorly. So try offering a brief acknowledgement before quickly moving on to the day's business.

"No but Dad it's reeeaaaally bad..."

"Oh dear, is it love? That's awful. Here are some clean socks. Your dinner money's on the kitchen table."

Unfortunately, this time, Brady Jr was having none of it.

"Dad! I mean it. It's really bad!"

OK. On to Stage 3.

Stage 3: Gentle Interrogation

You need to find out if your child is telling the truth. And Quick. But you can't sound too accusatory, or the situation could escalate into a screaming match.

The following questions should be asked, with as casual an air as possible:

"So...what subjects have you got today?....How did you get on with that maths homework that was due in this morning?....How are you getting on with your friend, Amy/Ellie/Jo?"

While asking these questions keep a careful watch for any sudden eye movements. If it helps, pretend you're in the CIA.

Sadly, on this occastion, Brady Jr barked back - "Look I'm not trying to get out of school - OK!?"

Then she doubled up in what looked very much like pain. Time for Stage 4.

Stage 4: Accentuate the Negative (with thinly veiled threats)

The situation is now quite serious.

If your child is faking and you fall for it, the consequences could be dire and far-reaching. They may realise just what a gullible idiot you are. This could mean spending the rest of your life being taken for a ride, culminating in them persuading you to sell your house and move into an old folk's home so they can afford a breast enlargement operation.

What's more, schools dislike absence even more than lateness. They've got attendance targets to meet and they don't want your lily-livered lack of interrogative skills to screw things up for them.

The only option now is to raise the stakes.

"Oh dear. I really don't want you to be ill - you'll miss horse-riding/the cinema/your friend's party/etc"

This is quite sneaky really. What you're actually saying is: "Even if you are not genuinely ill I will make sure you have a miserable day."

She knows it. You know it.

On this occasion, Stage 4 brought about the realisation that Brady Jr would be unable to sing at the school concert. She'd been rehearsing for weeks. But now she was too ill to perform. She was totally inconsolable.

It was now time to enter the final phase of the procedure.

Stage 5: Give In and Feel Like a Lousy Parent

"OK. I'll phone the doctors," I said.

Two hours later, we emerge from the doctor's, get in the car and head for the hospital.

She looks at me accusingly from the passenger seat. "Acute appendicitis! That's Acute appendicitis!"

I try a charming smile. "Oh well, better to have a cute appendicitis than an ugly one."

"Very funny," she says, solemnly clutching her abdomen. "You should be a comedian."

Newsflash: Plane Crashes. Repeatedly.

Last Sunday we went to a family gathering at my mum and dad's.

My two little nephews had been given a remote control plane for Easter. It wasn't exactly an expensive, top of the range model - that would have been madness. In the hands of two small boys, this plane's prospects for survival were akin to Oceanic 815 flying over Lost Island.

The lads were desperate to get the thing into the sky. But my Dad would not give clearance for take off from his back garden. He was understandably reluctant to see it smashing through Ernie's greenhouse next door. Ernie is a lovely old bloke. But he loves his garden. To him, crashing a plane into his greenhouse would have been like another 9/11.

So the lads asked if they could take the plane down to the Bottom Field.

The Bottom Field is where I used to play football and rugby with my mates when I was a kid. It's a strip of grass that somehow manages to have both a steep slope and bad drainage. It is the perfect playground for young lads, as it provides the opportunity to get absolutely filthy, which is particularly satisfying when you're dressed up for a family do at your grandma's.

So a gang of us went down to the Bottom Field and, on the way down, the two nephews formed a plan. Nathan would hold the plane while Thomas fired up the propellers using the remote control. Nathan would then let go off the plane and it would soar up into the sky.

So Nathan stood there with the plane in hand. Thomas hit the controls and the propellers fizzed into action. For about a second. Then they stopped.

Thomas pushed the lever every which way but the propellers wouldn't shift. It was clear that the plane was dead. The lads looked very disappointed.

That was when my cousin, Jonno, stepped in. "Don't worry, " he said. "I'll have a go. When I throw the plane, you press the lever and then it will start."

Jonno launched the plane into the wind and luckily it caught the breeze and sailed through the air in a satisfying arc before touching down lightly on the nearby road. The lads cheered. We laughed in disbelief.

Sadly, that initial success turned out to be a false dawn. As you might expect with a remote control plane that doesn't actually work, further launch attempts resulted in failure. For about ten minutes we laughed hysterically as Jonno tried to relive the heady heights of his maiden flight. But effectively, the only spectacle he managed to conjure up was that of a grown man, repeatedly throwing a piece of red plastic to the ground.

The boys were starting to lose faith in the plane. I decided to step up and have a go.

"The problem is," I lied," that you're not pushing the lever at the right time. Now, I'll count to three, and then you push the lever. OK?"

"OK!"

"OK...get ready to press the lever...1...2...3...GO!"

I launched the plane. It caught the wind and swooped vertically into the air. Then the wind dropped and it came vertically down again, planting its nose firmly into the mud and remaining there, like an arrow stuck in the ground.

I looked at Thomas with mock incredulity. "Did you press the lever?"

"Yes!"

"You can't have done!"

"I did!" He protested.

"You have to press it on the count of 3..."

"I did! I did!"

"OK," I sighed. "Let's try it again. But this time push the lever."

"I did!"

OK so I admit - this was more for the entertainment of the adults than for the kids. The concentration on Thomas's face as he tried to perfectly time the lever was hilarious. It seemed like only yesterday that I was playing the same tricks on my sister - his mother. I felt like a teenager again.

We repeated this several times and, for me at least, it didn't seem to be getting any less funny. But Nathan and Thomas both started to protest. "It's not working! It's broke!"

"No," I said. "You just have to push the lever."

We tried again. And finally, by the law of averages, the plane caught the breeze and swooped around the sky above us, changing direction three times before gracefully landing on the grass. The boys jumped about excitedly. The plane was working after all!

"Well done!" I exclaimed. "You pressed the lever at just the right time!"

Now the boys were really having fun. In their excitement, they snapped the ariel off the remote control. Amazingly, this didn't seem to affect the performance of the aircraft at all. It still plummeted into the ground 9 times out of 10. But then on the odd occasion, it caught the wind and took flight.

Nathan took charge of launching the plane, while Thomas focussed on pushing the lever.

With practice, Nathan got better at launching the plane into the wind and making it glide. Unfortunately, Thomas took all the credit for this, putting it down to his increasing mastery of the lever.

Eventually we'd had enough and we all marched back with the shattered wreck of the plane and big smiles on our faces. It was one of those magical times when you feel lucky to have a family you can laugh with.

Unfortunately, I got a little bit too giddy and told young Thomas a made-up story about the Baby Jesus and a Vauxhall Corsa, which he later repeated. That got me a bollocking from my sister.

But, hey, you can't win 'em all.

Seat Anxiety

Sometimes, with my day job, I have to take the train over the Pennines to Leeds.

This is a very pleasant trip if you've got a seat. But too often, on the return journey, I find myself standing in the aisle with aching legs, apologising every five minutes for accidentally braining a fellow passenger with my laptop bag.

It's often a bit of a lottery with rush hour trains. You never know how many coaches they will put on, what time the train will arrive and whether all the seats will be reserved.

The result is Seat Anxiety - a form of mass hysteria where sane, rational people become pathologically fixated on a single goal - to get their arse on a seat ahead of everyone else.

It doesn't matter if the person next to you is elderly, pregnant, disabled or in a coma. If their game plan isn't good enough to beat you onto that train then that's tough. It's a jungle. We'd all like to be generous and compassionate - but those things come at a price. Having no seat can mean up to 40 minutes of moderate discomfort and a nagging feeling of resentment. And that's a price I'm just not willing to pay.

So yesterday, I was determined that this would not happen to me again. No Mr Nice Guy. I was getting a seat on that 1708 to Liverpool Lime St, come what may.

I was supposed to be travelling home with my old friend and colleague, Martin. We'd been in the same meeting together. But he has an annoying habit of asking lots of awkward questions at the end of a presentation when it's time to go home, so I deserted him and set off down the hill to the station.

On the station concourse, I grabbed my bag in my hands like a rugby ball and stepped nimbly through the thronged mass of humanity with the agility of an international scrum half. I strode up the escalator two steps at a time. As a mother pulled her small child out of my path, I heard her say, "Why people have to run up a moving escalator, I'll never know!"

Oh you naive fool, I thought to myself. Don't you realise that a delay of a few seconds could be the difference between sitting or standing for the next 40 minutes?

But then I thought, hang on - maybe she's onto something. Being with a small child is an excellent strategy. Little kids are brilliant at forcing people to give up their seats. If necessary they will cry very loudly in the face of a fellow passenger - something that I wouldn't feel able to do without risk of arrest.

I briefly considered obtaining a juvenile travelling partner, but the plan was fraught with difficulty. For a start, I don't think they would let me bring a small child into the office. And who would lend me one anyway? And on the whole a small child would only slow me down. I might miss the train altogether. And even if I got a seat, travelling with a small child would be a nightmare. They're always bellyaching over something, aren't they? They want to lie down when there's nowhere to lie down. When there's nothing to drink, they're thirsty. And they always need to wee at the most inopportune time. My God - I think I'd rather stand in a child-free carriage than sit down with a kid and have to deal with that lot.

Anyway as I approached platform 16a, I had left the naive, the slow and the physically impaired behind and was running with the leading pack - an agile and ferociously competitive bunch of people in suits, each bearing a laptop bag and a look of grim determination.

I punched the air in triumph as I realised that the train was not yet in. That meant that I could fight my way to the edge of the platform and achieve pole position before it arrived. This I did with aplomb and when the train pulled in I found myself standing right by the door, in a prime position to be the first into the carriage. For the first time in my life I had achieved the exhalted position of Door Tribe Leader!

Each carriage on the train has two doors - one at either end. When the train arrives, an unruly mob gathers around each door. At the front of each mob is the Door Tribe Leader. It is their responsibility to hit the Door Open button the very second that the doors are activated by the driver, allowing their Tribe to enter the carriage.

The Door Tribe Leader carries a lot of responsibility. If they are too slow, people at the other door for that carriage could flood in and take all the seats before his or her own tribe can get on the train. Many times I have stood in the middle of the mob and mentally urged the person nearest my door to hit the button quickly, cursing them if they allow the other lot get ahead of us.

Being Door Tribe Leader is a high-pressure situation. So it was with some trepidation that I adopted the "ready to board position" - one foot forward, arm half-raised in anticipation of pressing the button - and waited.

I stared at the Door Open button, waiting for it to light up. I was scared to blink in case it lit up while my eyes were shut and I wasted a valuable nanosecond. I stood like this for what seemed like an age. The door button wasn't lighting up! This was torture. Why were they taking so long to activate the doors? Behind me I could feel the members of my tribe thinking "Don't blink, man. For God's sake, don't blink!"

Then a horrible thought occurred to me. What if the light on my Door Open button was broken? What if they activated the doors and I stood there doing nothing while the rival tribe piled into the carriage through the other door. Imagine the shame! Imagine the social disgrace!

For a moment I contemplated repeatedly hitting the button just in case, so that the moment it was activated I would be in. But with all those people watching me I felt too self-conscious. Anyway, maybe that would be cheating. Perhaps I would be breaking some sort of unwritten platform code of ethics. So instead I gave a nervous glance to my right, just to make sure my rival tribe's door hadn't been activated. No - their tribe leader was still standing there staring with all her might at her Door Open button.

My rival looked like a fairly frail, oldish little woman. Surely her reaction times couldn't be better than mine? But then again she had got this far. You didn't get to be Door Tribe Leader unless you were up to the job. The race for the platform was a very efficient process of natural selection.

So now I was alternating my stare between the Door Open button and my rival at the other end of the carriage. My eyes flicked from side to side at an alarming rate. I must have looked like I was having some kind of fit. I could hear people in my tribe starting to become concerned. "Is he alright? What if he drops dead? We'll never get a seat then!"

Then suddenly, like the traffic lights at a F1 Grand Prix, the green light appeared. A jolt of addrenalin shot through my body and I felt my hand lurch forward as if driven by some invisible, unconscious force. The doors flew open and, with a blood-curdling cry, I led the charge onto the train like a sword-wielding Captain leading the 500 into the Valley of Death.

With a feeling of intense elation, I threw my laptop bag down onto my seat as if I was plunging the Union Flag into the soil of some far-flung corner of the Empire. I had done it! I had led my tribe to victory. They had entrusted me with the Door Open button and I had not let them down!

But my sense of triumph was short lived. As it happened, on that particular day, the train company had laid on an extra carriage and there was plenty of room. No need to rush at all. In fact half the carriage was empty. All that Seat Anxiety for nothing! I couldn't believe it. I slumped down into my seat with a sense of utter dejection.

Still, at least I was sitting down and that was what really mattered. I took a deep breath and relaxed into my precious seat. Maybe I would have a little nap.

Then, just as I was drifting off, I realised I had company. Out of all the seats she could have taken, the woman from the escalator with the small child chose to sit opposite me. I glared out of the window and cursed my luck. Meanwhile the small child let out an ear-piercing whine. "But I don't WANT organge juice! I WANT COKE!"

Christ. I hate kids, don't you?

If It Ain't Broke...

I won’t be getting Election Fever this year. I’ve been innoculated against it by 41 years of hype and disappointment. However, since I’m going to have to live with the outcome of this ruddy debacle, I suppose I’d better get involved with it.

Yesterday’s election theme was “Electoral Reform”. A lot of people seem to be getting excited about Proportional Representation. (I know... get a life!)

Personally, I think it’s a daft idea. After all, wasn’t that the electoral method that made Nick Griffin MEP for the North West? I wouldn’t mind but he’s not even from the North West! (They come over here taking our jobs...)

That’s the problem with Proportional Representation. It tends to give a slice of power to exactly the kind of people who should never have it – the kind of people you wouldn’t leave in charge of a pan of hot milk, let alone a nation.

The only sensible people who want Proportional Representation are the Lib Dems. And fair enough – in the long run, it’s the only way they are ever going to have a proper say.

The other two main parties don’t like it though.

Despite constantly telling us that they want “Change”, the Tories are fairly keen that the electoral system stays just the way it is. And who can blame them? Short of them getting a credible leader or some actual policies, the First Past the Post system is probably their best chance of being elected in future.

Labour don’t want to change it either. It’s the last thing they want. But they have to pretend to be a bit flexible just in case they need to do a deal with the Lib Dems after the election.

Anyway, the point is that, for once, I think that Labour and the Conservatives are right. So here are four good reasons not to adopt Proportional Representation.

Reason 1: The Scottish National Party

Scotland has got lots of oil. If Scotland became independent of Britain, they could lord it over us in the same way that the oil-rich nations of the Middle East do today. That means they could do anything and we would have to carry on being nice to them. The Scots might well follow other oil barons and buy up all our best football clubs. (Let’s face it – theirs are crap.) Before you know it they’ll have enormous yachts, racehorses and an atrocious human rights record. And we’ll have to grin and bear it.

Reason 2: Plaid Cymru

The Welsh have no oil. They used to have loads of coal but those days are sadly over. Now they have to eke out a living running caravan parks and down-at-heel fun fairs. And all in the pissing rain. They don’t really want power as such. What would they do with it? But a bit of sympathy wouldn’t go amiss. And they do like a good moan.

Reason 3: The British National Party

Although they are not a racist party, and have no links at all to Nazi ideology, they still want anyone who is not pinky-white to go and live somewhere else. They also don’t like gay people, although it’s unclear exactly what they would do with them. Send them back to Queerland, probably.

The BNP don’t have a clue about running the country or representing their constituency. They are also a bit shaky on History. And facts. But what they lack in actual knowledge, they make up for in enthusiasm. At least their supporters will bother to vote.

Nick Griffin is rumoured to be stepping down after the election in favour of someone who doesn’t come across as quite so much of a snivelling fascist worm. It will probably be a nice, cuddly, middle-aged woman with a respectable husband and well-behaved children. I’m guessing this time they will go for someone who has never been filmed doing a Nazi salute or gone on record as saying the holocaust never happened.

Reason 4: The UK Independence Party

They want us to get out of Europe and they want to make sure we keep the pound. I’m not sure how either of these things would help us. But it would certainly make the UKIP people feel better about life. UKIP seems to be made up of extremely posh old men who wish they were still living in 1929. Some people suspect that UKIP share the BNP’s hatred of everyone who is black, or gay, or who speaks with a funny accent. But unlike the BNP, the UKIP chaps are far too decent to make such a song and dance about it. They might be bonkers, but they are not vulgar.

So there you have it. The First Past the Post system has one simple advantage over Proportional Representation – it protects the sane majority against the lunatic minority. It’s a kind of filter through which extreme Nationalist views have so far failed to pass.

And, frankly, thank goodness for that.

5 Things I Hate About Hair Cuts

Yesterday I went for a haircut.

I went to a barber rather than a hairdresser because I like to think of myself as a proper man. And proper men go to the barber's.

In fact there is absolutely no difference between a barber and a hairdresser in terms of what they can do. Anyone is allowed to cut hair, wax bottoms, singe scalps and take people's money for it without any qualifications whatsoever. And anyone can call themselves a barber, hairdresser or stylist - which title you choose has more to do with how camp you are than what services you offer.

But even though I know there is no real difference, I still prefer a barber. Because I am a proper man.

Traditionally, the British Barber has always been a jack of all trades. A few centuries back, barbers could pull teeth, apply leeches, give enemas, and saw off troublesome limbs. These days they mainly confine themselves to cutting hair, making small talk and dreaming up amusing names for their premises.

Anyway, to celebrate the tradition of the Great British Barber, here are 5 things I hate about going for a haircut.

1 Barbers' Shops Have Stupid Names

Barbers are in a class of their own when it comes to giving their businesses stupid names. They usually involve some kind of crap pun, like The Hairport or Hair Today Gone Tomorrow. I came across one in Birmingham recently called Head Cases. Why would you want to have your hair cut by a head case? What the hell were these crazy Brummies thinking?

But my favourite is in the place where I was born – Billinge, near Wigan. It’s called Villagehairs. I think it's a pun on the word "Villagers". Unfortunately, the pun only works if you say it with a Billinge accent – Vill-ige-uurrs.

A much cooler approach is to give your Barber’s shop an American sounding name, and my local barber's has done just that. They have called it The Men’s Room. That's the American phrase for "Toilet". You might not think that’s very cool. But imagine if they’d stayed with a more English phrase. The Shitter, for instance. It simply wouldn’t have had the same appeal.

2 How do you want it?

I'm a 41-year-old, straight, Northern male.

I don't know how I want it.

However you cut it, I'm not going to turn into Robert Pattinson.

So just cut some of it off and let me go home.

3 Looking at myself in the mirror

I don't like to be reminded that I’m getting older. I usually overcome this difficulty by never looking in a mirror unless I really have to.

But at the barber's I have to sit in front of a mirror for a full twenty minutes with my big fat pasty face staring back at me.

When I was younger, nobody warned me that my face would inflate. Nobody prepared me for that night when I gazed out of the window, admiring the full moon, only to realise it was actually my reflection in the glass.

As a teenager, I enjoyed trying to chat up a young female hairdresser. But not any more. It’s hard to get flirtatious with someone who is shearing a thick clump of fuzz out of your ears.

4 Product

"Do you want product on it?"

Product? What kind of product? Rice Krispies? A TV set? A Ford Mondeo?

When I was young it was called hair gel. But these days they just call it "product". It's as if even they don't know what's in it. They don't like to commit themselves. And the strange thing is that the less specific they are, the more expensive it seems to get.

No I don't want product. Just dust me off with that giant floppy brush and I'll be on my way.

5 Too Many Questions

In order to be a hairdresser, you have to be a nosey bugger.

“Are you going away this year? Where you going? Have you been before?”

How is it any of their business? Anyone would think they were conducting a survey. They should have a clipboard and a badge.

“Are you working? What do you do?”

What? Who are you? The DSS?

Next thing he’ll be on the phone to the Benefits Fraud Helpline.

So that was it. I got my haircut. I ought to write an amusing end to this but I haven't got time. Goodbye.

Laugh or Cry?

Have you ever had one of those nights that are so surreal that the next morning you wonder if you dreamt it?

Wednesday was one of those nights. I was doing a gig at this trendy bar. I'd done my set and was sitting with a pint of Guinness, waiting for the compere to introduce the headliner.

That was when things got really weird. The compere, Jim, was enjoying a little bit of banter with a girl in the audience. He had been chatting with her all night and had built up a nice rapport with her.

It all seemed to be going very well. Then he made a remark about her boyfriend and everything changed.

"My boyfriend's dead," she said.

The place fell silent. Jim's comment had been fairly innocuous but it had clearly upset her. Her body language had changed and she looked like she was fighting back tears. Her friend sitting next to her looked horrified and covered her face with her hands.

I looked around the audience - every single person was staring at their shoes. The tension in the room was unbelievable. Meanwhile, all the colour had drained out of Jim's face. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times - but what could he say?

The girl got to her feet and fled to the toilets. Jim watched her go. He still didn't say anything. It wasn't just the show he was worried about - he was plainly upset at the distress he had caused. Eventually he turned back to the audience who were now all staring at him. "How was I to know?" he pleaded.

As a comedian, these are the situations you dread. A heckle can be dealt with. A drunk punter can be put down. But exposing a person's genuine suffering in front of a room full of people is pretty hard to turn around.

In establishing a rapport with an audience you are creating an illusion of intimacy. The joy of this is that everybody feels like they are spending a few hours among friends. They relax. They drink. They laugh.

But actually you don't know these people from Adam. Their problems and vulnerabilities are hidden below the surface of their happy faces like emotional land-mines, just waiting for a joke to fall wrong-footed. Jim had just walked blindly into a minefield. The girl was in tears. The audience were silent. And Jim looked genuinely devastated at upsetting the bereaved girl.

Then, just as I was wondering what the hell he would do or say next. The girl emerged from the toilets.

"April Fool!" she said.

I have never experienced such a complex mixture of collective emotions. Here was a crowd of people who just didn't know what to feel. Some laughed. Some jeered. Some were silent.

Jim himself was a good sport - laughing with sheer relief, I should imagine. I don't know what he felt inside. But I was really angry. I felt like punching her. Like the rest of us, Jim had worked his balls off to try and get the gig moving and give everyone a good time. And then this daft cow had undermined it all with a cheap and pretty sick practical joke. I had a complete sense-of-humour-failure. And a weird sense of betrayal.

And it wasn't just me. Everyone seemed to go weird after that. A string of bizarre hecklers emerged from the shadows: a man in a wedding dress; a small bearded man who looked like Mr Tumnus from the Narnia Chronicles; and a woman who kept shouting out something about a goat. It was as if the girl's sick joke had caused a complete breakdown in everyone's idea of what is normal.

It made me realise that behind every social situation there are unwritten rules about how to behave. There are jokes, and there are those things beyond a joke. You don't have to be a comedian to overstep the line. And, often it's not clear where the line is, until you're standing on the other side.

Egg On A Muffin: Can We Afford The Risk?

I often hear people say, "You can't be too careful."

What if they are right? Maybe I am being far too cavalier in my attitude towards risk.

For instance, when I'm working at home, I like to treat myself to a fried egg on a muffin. As snacks go, it's probably not the healthiest choice. I should probably have some fruit instead. Or something brown and grainy with seeds in it.

But who in their right mind could resist a fried egg, smothered in ketchup, plonked on a toasted muffin and washed down with a mug of tea? If that prospect does not get your stomach rumbling then you are abnormal and immoral and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

The Sciencey Bit

However, eating an egg on a muffin is potentially a risky business. For instance, I've discovered that there can be structural problems. If the muffin is over-toasted and hard, and the egg is over-cooked and rubbery, and you add a bit too much ketchup, then you are at risk of creating an incident that could embarrass your neighbours, corrupt the nation's youth, and even pose a threat to the future of the human race.

The hard-muffin-rubber-egg-copious-ketchup scenario (as I like to call it) is a dangerous set of conditions. It results in a reduction in the amount of friction between egg and muffin - friction that is essential for holding the egg in position.

In effect, what you have done is hardened and flattened the two surfaces (i.e. that of egg and of muffin) and then lubricated them with ketchup. It could almost seem like a deliberate, bloody-minded and reckless attempt to lose control of your egg altogether.

It might even be useful to ask yourself whether, at some subconscious level, you have deliberately created a potentially hazardous situation. Perhaps you need a little excitement in your life. Or maybe you are on the edge of a nervous breakdown and this is some sort of pathetic cry for help. Either way, that egg is in serious peril.

As you bite into the muffin, the chances are that the top and bottom slices will push together and squeeze the fried egg out.

Apocalypse

The best you can hope for in this situation, is that the egg lands on your plate, affording you a precious second chance.

In the worst case, you can expect your fried egg to shoot across the kitchen and out of an open window, skimming across a cloudless sky where it is inadvertently photographed as your neighbour takes some snaps of a Redwing in a nearby tree.

Later the neighbour will look at that photo and notice a strange flying object in the sky. Its weird, fried-egg-like shape and colour will immediately lead him to conclude that it is a space-ship carrying alien life-forms on a surveillance mission of the Great Sankey and Penketh area.

He will send it to the Warrington Guardian. Their readers will be shocked. Some will say that it is not an alien craft but a flying fried egg. But UFO believers will dismiss that idea as nonsense - what would a fried egg be doing flying through the Cheshire sky? Ridiculous idea! Far more likely to be aliens in a spaceship.

And then what? Panic on the streets? Emergency meetings of the local council - resulting in the diversion of important resources away from serious issues like fortnightly refuse collection or the plans for new traffic lights outside Asda?

In a radical move, the council may decide to cut the policing budget in order to build a giant observation tower in the local park. And, with fewer bobbies on the beat, local youths will run riot.

Even those kids who were previously well-behaved will now buy hoodies from that skateboard shop opposite the market and will take to the streets, using foul language and listening to unpleasant music.

And once our children have become hoodies, we all know that there can only be one outcome - the total downfall of mankind.

What will the aliens find now but the smoking ruins of a once great civilisation?

All Your Fault

Except that, of course, there are no aliens. There never were. It was just your egg. The egg that you shot out of your kitchen window like an exocet missile, driven by your unconscious need for attention in a lonely, friendless world.

My God, I hope you're proud of yourself.

The Apocalypse is upon us. And all for the sake of an egg on a muffin.

This is what went through my mind this morning as I stood waiting for my muffin to toast. By the time the toaster popped I felt quite distressed. I don't want everybody to die, I thought.

So I decided to give the egg a miss and have raspberry jam instead.

After all, you can't be too careful.

Money Troubles

Yesterday I decided to try and be all clever and grown-up and listen to the Budget.

I know! What was I thinking?

Actually, some of it was good. I liked the shouty bits where everyone starting laughing and jeering. I even joined in a couple of times.

But the talky bits... well... they weren't so good. "Tax Relief... blah blah blah... Stamp Duty... blah blah blah... ISA's blah blah blah blah blah..."

I'm 41, I'm a dad and I have a university degree. I probably ought to be interested in all this stuff. But, in truth, I'd rather watch seven hours of golf. And I hate golf.

The only good bits were when they started having a bit of a barney about whose fault everything was and what they were going to do about it. But even that felt a bit like listening to your mum and dad have an argument.

All married couples know that financial problems are the source of many a good row. We've all stood there in the kitchen with our loved one, arguing the toss about who spent what and where all the credit card debt came from. He wants to invest the savings in a new flat screen TV - she wants to blow it all on shoes for the kids. And food. And the gas bill.

Well, the Budget was a bit like that. And, like all marital tiffs, it wasn't pretty. I mean I know Cameron was a bit upset but I couldn't help feeling that a lot of what he was saying wasn't strictly fair or even true. But then Darling did seem a bit shifty - like a man who's been caught watching the next door neighbour sunbathing. In the end I felt like a confused child, waiting for the break-up and wondering who I was going to end up having to live with.

At first, Alistair "the husband" Darling tried the old soft soap approach. He admitted that times were going to be a bit hard - not that that was anyone's fault - times were hard for everyone. But he said that, basically, it would all come out in the wash and there was nothing to worry about. We just had to leave it to him and everything would be alright. "It's not all doom and gloom," he said (I'm paraphrasing here, but sod it - I'm not Hansard), "there is some good news too." And he went on to tell us some things about mortgages and stamp duty and such like. (OK I admit I drifted off at that point).

Anyway, he said his piece and sat down and, for a minute at least, he seemed to have got away with it.

But he should have known better. Wifey Cameron went ruddy ballistic. "HAVE YOU SEEN HOW MUCH WE OWE?! One hundred and seventy five billion zillion squillion English pounds! And you want to go buying more stuff?!"

"But..but...'" stammered Darling, "... we need to invest in the country so people don't all lose their jobs."

"Oh, right!" yelled Cameron, "And where are you going to find the money for all that? Down the back of the sofa?"

"Well we could take out another loan...?"

"WHAT?!! No, I'm sorry. We have to tighten our belts. You're going to have to sell that record collection of yours. And a few hospitals... Actually, you know what? Why don't you just GO! Me and the kids will be better off without you. You can leave us to clear up your mess! As usual!"

(Which, to anyone who remembers the 80s, might seem a bit rich.)

Anyway, I don't think I'll bother listening to the budget again. I think I'll do what everyone else does and wait for the newspapers to explain it the next day. Somehow they manage to sum it all up in a paragraph: "Petrol's up. Alcohol's up. But if you've got seven kids, a donkey and you were born on a Tuesday, you can claim tax relief on any income earned from juggling fire, as long as you can be bothered to fill in a 72 page application form and queue for six hours."

I'll read the first few sentences of that. Then I'll turn to the sports pages and forget all about it.

Food Tech

It's Food Tech at school today.

That's what they call it these days. It's always had a fancy name though, hasn't it?

When I was at school they called it Home Economics. As if inserting the word "Economics" would suddenly put your slightly soggy apple crumble on an academic par with an essay on the distribution of wealth in East African dictatorships.

It didn't fool anyone. You don't ever meet posh people who boast that they went to the London School of Home Economics, do you? You don't even meet chefs who went there. Or school dinner ladies.

Anyway, the word "Economics" is no longer good enough. For some reason kids consider it a bit... well... boring. Education today is all about sending the kids home feeling inspired. And, let's face it, it takes more than the word "Economics" to sex up a home made Lasagne.

Today's world is all about Technology. iPods. Internet. Mobile phones. MSN. Facebook. YouTube. These form the fabric of the teenager's universe. Technology is exciting to young people because they understand that every new advance gives them more opportunities to share information and ideas, comment on the adult world they're about to enter into, and laugh at videos of monkeys riding on motor scooters.

So, educational administrators have abandoned Economics and jumped aboard the Technology bandwagon. Food Tech. Genius!

I can only think that Economists must feel shattered by this fickle rejection. As if the poor sods don't have enough to deal with. First world poverty. Then a global recession. Now this.

But, if their loss of association with "Food Tech" is getting them down, they can always console themselves with this thought - it's only cooking.

That's essentially what it is. Cooking. And that's all it ever was.

Back in the 80s, there was never any Economics involved in it (apart from your Mum looking at the list of ingredients and saying, "How the hell am I supposed to afford this bloody lot?").

And today there is no actual Technology involved. (And no, talking about vitamins and nutrition isn't technology. And neither is turning on an oven.)

OK. Let's cut through the bull - let's talk about what Food Tech (or Cooking) really involves. The teacher comes up with a recipe, including a list of ingredients. This list of ingredients usually contains something weird like "lime curd" that nobody sells. The night before the lesson - usually about 9pm on a Sunday - your son or daughter gives you the list of ingredients and asks you to provide them.

At this point it is customary for the parent to swear a lot, exclaiming, "What the hell is Key Lime Pie anyway?" and launching into a diatribe, making all the points I have covered in the first few paragraphs of this post.

You then go to every late night Spar or Co-op in the area looking for Lime Curd, wondering how kids get on if their parents don't drive, or are poor, or just couldn't give a monkey's.

Eventually you get everything together, wedge it in a bag with a tin and a ceramic dish and present it to your son/daughter to take to school. The bag now weighs roughly the same as a small car. Your child grumbles as they sling it over their shoulder - the spare shoulder that is not already carrying the PE kit and the trombone. And you watch them stagger up the road under their burden, worrying about the back problems they will develop in later life, and wondering what state the Key Lime Pie will be in by the time it arrives home.

I'm glad to say that Brady Jr will be dropping Food Tech when she chooses her options this year. I can't wait.

I think it's good for kids to learn to cook. But why do parents have to buy all the ingredients? And why do kids have to carry them? There's a kitchen at school that orders food in bulk every day. Can't they just add a few extra things to the order?

And it's not Food Tech. It's Cooking. OK?

It's got sod all to do with technology. Let's face it, they don't even have the technology to order a few extra tubs of Lime Curd.

Vote For Change?

I was very excited yesterday when I received a letter from David Mowat, our Conservative candidate, telling us all about why we should vote for him.

"Give me five minutes of your time and your vote," he said, "I will give you five years of mine."

Well, that sounds very generous!

But hang on a minute. There's nearly two hundred thousand people in Warrington. If we each give him five minutes of our time, that's a million minutes. Which is actually nearly two years. So we'd be giving him two years of our time.

That seems a lot less dramatic than the "five minutes for five years" originally offered. But even so, we're getting five years in exchange for two. So we're still getting a good deal.

Or are we? Apparently not. It turns out that David isn't giving us his time at all. He actually wants paying for it. He isn't, as first seemed, offering to perform the role of MP for nothing. He's kind of hoping to get about £325,000 for his trouble (although the prospects for prodigious expense claims are not what they used to be).

Change

Of course, we, the voters, won't go empty-handed either. In return for the million minutes we collectively spend voting for him, he promises to give us CHANGE.

David likes "Change". He talks about it a lot. There's a basic assumption that "Change" is good.

But I'm not sure if "Change" is good. It all depends a bit on what it is he's thinking of changing.

Having read his letter, I'm still not really sure what he's got in mind. And, to be honest, he doesn't seem at all sure himself. Or, if he is, he's decided to keep it a secret for the time being. Perhaps he wants to give us all a little surprise later on.

Surprise!

But, just like "Change", surprises aren't always welcome. If it was surprises I wanted, I probably would have voted for Jeremy Beadle. Jeremy would at least have spiced up Prime Minister's Question Time. "Oh my God, there's a suicide bomber in the Chamber! Oh no...ha ha ha...it's just the Home Secretary wearing a rucksack and a funny false beard!"

But I'm a bit worried about David Mowat. I'm worried in case he changes things that I would rather not change.

What if he changes all the road signs and replaces them with huge sticks of Peparami? What if he changes our hospitals and turns them into jungle-themed fun parks complete with performing animals? What if he repeals the law of gravity and we all float into space? Speaking personally, those are changes I wouldn't want to see.

Then, on the other hand, he might have some great ideas for change. What if he wants to change the rules of cricket so that the players all have to wear enormous rubber boots like they used to on It's A Knockout? That would be marvellous! Or he might be thinking of changing the way we experience time so that we can go backwards as well as forwards! That would be cool. Although it could be quite confusing, I suppose.

Anyway, whatever these CHANGES turn out to be, we are assured that life will be better for families. And the poor. And the sick. And young people. And old people. And... well... everyone. Particularly David Mowat. He will be cockahoop with his swanky new job. Blimey. He already writes to us every month. What will he be like if he actually gets elected? There'll be no shutting him up!

Why Vote for Change?

David assures us that he won't be the only one with a new job. There'll be more jobs for us too. (Phew! Thank goodness.) And the economy, well, that will be brilliant.

He will also give us better local healthcare. Although - like the five years of he time he said he'd give us - he doesn't mention that we might have to pay for it.

But How Will This Miracle Happen?

So how will all this be achieved? Well, David doesn't go into details. He probably didn't have enough space to fit it all in - after all, this latest mailshot is only 4 tabloid-sized pages long.

But who knows. Maybe someday David Mowat and his chums will get around to telling us what they are actually going to do.

Now that would make a "Change".

Man Flu

"Hi Sam. How are you?"

"Fine thanks. Apart from a bit of a cold."

"Ah. Man Flu."

"Er... no... a bit of a cold."

She was only trying to be friendly. She hadn't phoned up to discuss my health. She was actually calling to offer me a job, for which I should probably have been more grateful.

But she said two words which are guaranteed to get under my skin.

Man Flu.

What is this obsession with Man Flu? Every time a bloke sneezes - "Ho ho! Man Flu!"

Even men are at it now. I've actually heard a man say to another man - "I've got Man Flu." Good God, mate, where's your dignity? You're a disgrace to your gender.

The whole premise behind Man Flu is that men make a terrible fuss if they feel a little bit ill, craving sympathy and lying round doing nothing. Women, on the other hand, just knuckle down and get on with things without complaint, no matter how ill they are. A woman could lose a limb, and she'd still run a department, get the kids to school, do the shopping, take the bins out, go to the hospital to get the limb sewn back on, and still be at parents evening on time with a list of colour-coded bullet points to discuss.

What a load of cobblers!

If this were true, I can't help thinking history would have been a bit different. If Our Lads had spent the First World War lying in the trenches whining, "I don't feel well," where would we be now? We'd have had a German royal family and be ruled by Europe. (Hmmm...imagine that.)

And just think of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole in the Crimean War.

"Come on Corporal, shape yourself! It's only Man Flu!"

"But I've got no legs."

"Oooh! Men! Give us that rifle. If you want a job doing properly..."

But, hang on, Sam, you might say, Man Flu is real. Scientists say it is. I read it in the paper.

Yes I read that too:

"Men succumb to manflu because women have stronger immune systems, claim scientists." The Daily Telegraph, May 12 2009

"Man flu is not a myth: Female hormones give women stronger immune systems." Daily Mail, May 13 2009

"Man flu: it really does exist, girls." Daily Star, May 14 2009

"Hormone is aid to girls' protection." Daily Mirror, 14 May 2009

But when you read the words "Scientists say" in a newspaper, it's usually bollocks. And this is no exception:

"The research this story is based on did not look at infection with flu viruses, and cannot prove whether ‘man flu’ exists or not... Only one infectious agent was used in this study: a bacterium called Listeria that causes food poisoning. Flu is caused by a virus, as are most colds... These results cannot be directly extrapolated to infer a gender difference in flu in humans."

NHS Choices Website

The truth is that it's the same for men and women. There are some of us who take pride in battling on even when we're at death's door. And there are those who take every opportunity to lay in bed watching day time telly. And for all of us, there are things we feel motivated to do no matter how ill we are, and those things we will find an excuse not to do, given half a chance.

As it happens - even though I have a cold - I did a full day's work yesterday, and wrote a blog post, and took my car for an MOT, and mucked a horse out, and did the shopping, and wrote some jokes.

And No, ladies. I do NOT want a ruddy medal.

Now, you might be sitting there thinking, "OK Sam. But when this woman rang you to offer you a job, why did you tell her you had a cold? She didn't need to know that. Looking for a bit of sympathy, were we? Looking for a bit of female TLC? What a sad old man you really are." Or something along those lines.

But the only reason I told her I had a cold was because my voice was croaky and my nose was blocked and my friend who had called a few minutes earlier had said I sounded like I'd been crying. I mean - crying! A man of my Northern, working class, rugby league playing credentials! I couldn't have this woman thinking I'd been crying, could I? Well, could I?

Anyway, the point is this. Let's stop saying "Man Flu." It was funny at first but now the joke's over. It's a bit sexist. And a bit boring. And quite wrong.

And, by the way, my cold's getting better now . Thanks for asking.

The Hanging Gardens of Crappylon

Someone has hung some little bags of dogshit along the fence near our house.

At first when I saw it I couldn't believe it. I actually said to myself, "I can't believe it."

I showed Mrs B. "I can't believe it," she said.

Little packets of dog poo, all arranged in a line with an insanely obsessive neatness.

For a moment it occurred to me that it might be a work of Modern Art. I imagined a minibus turning up full of Turner Prize judges, come to peer at some dog excrement and marvel at it's power and post-modern poignancy. But that thought soon evaporated and I remembered that things like that don't happen in real life - only in the lonely corridors of my deranged imagination.

So I could only conclude that this was a work, not of art, but of madness. It was the product of a mind that had been twisted, probably by an early potty-training trauma, and which now was driven by the urge to display excrement in a public place.

I took a photo of the poop and Mrs B emailed it to the council, asking for it to be removed.

The man from the council was very nice and explained that the phenomenon was not art or insanity, but a political statement. Apparently these poo creations are being constructed by disgruntled dog owners as a protest against a lack of poo bins. Their attitude seems to be: "We are going to the trouble of picking up our dog's crap - the least the council can do is provide bins for us to put it in."

Personally, I come from the "It's your dog and your shit, and you can damn well take it home with you so my council tax can be spent on something more important" school of thought.

How can these ruddy people think they've got the moral high ground? They expect the rest of us to pay for them to have bins installed and emptied regularly, just so they don't have to carry their dogshit home and put it in the bin. Anyone would think they are doing us a favour by picking it up in the first place.

Anyway, the man from the council explained that he couldn't get the crap removed because it's on private land.

Its removal is the responsibility of the land-owner, David Wilson Homes, who, despite it being directly opposite their sales office, do not see an artistic arrangement of shit-filled plastic bags hanging from a fence as an obstacle to selling houses.

They have agreed, however, to put up a sign. I don't know what this sign will say. Maybe it will be one of those little information signs you get next to paintings in art galleries: Dogshit in Plastic, Anonymous, 2010. A poignant comment about local government's reluctance to pander to the whims of arse-lazy dog owners.

OK. I admit that it's better than not picking it up at all. When I was a kid you couldn't walk down the street without having to dodge dog poo every few feet. That's why we learned hopscotch at school - it wasn't so much a game as a necessary life skill.

But the bins only exist to make easier something that dog owners should be doing in the first place. They're not an integral part of a dog owner's human rights. They're not something you can really protest about - like a lack of police presence or the slow response of ambulances. And a lack of them certainly doesn't mean it's ok to dangle poo from a fence.

If I'd wanted to look out of my window and see a row of little shits hanging from a fence, I'd have bought a house opposite a school.

Oh, look, they've made me go all right-wing now. This happens more and more with the onset of middle-age. The next thing I'll be constructing a gun turret on my roof and writing to the Telegraph. I'd better go and meditate or something. Bye for now.

Good Vibrations, Bad Bleeps

It seemed simple enough.

"Just make sure you do exactly 20 minutes - no more, no less. They're very strict about running on time."

As well as being a living legend in the comedy world, Agraman is a promoter I really like and respect (and one of my best sources of paid work), so I took his instructions really seriously. "They don't have a red light or anything so you'll have to time your set yourself."

"No problem," I said. And I was confident. After all I had a secret weapon. I had bought it on the internet from the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. A silent, vibrating watch.

I first got the idea from Justin Moorhouse (Young Kenny from Phoenix Nights and drive-time presenter on Key 103) when I worked with him at the Comedy Store. Not that any of that has any bearing on the story at all. But I don't have that many names to drop, so I get them in whenever I can. (Did I mention that Roy Walker from Catchphrase once recognised me in a club and came over to say hello?)

Anyway, Justin had this funny, white, ladies watch on. He told me it was programmed to vibrate at various points throughout his set so he knew how much time he had left. This way he knows what routines will fit into the remaining time and when to bring in his closing gag.

I thought, I'll have one of them. But I found one that seemed even better. It was from the RNID and it was a man's watch in black. It is specially designed for the profoundly deaf. It has all sorts of vibrating timers you can programme. Just the job.

So as I strode into the theatre, I felt full of confidence that, no matter how funny or how crap I was on the night, I would at least do my agreed 20 minutes. No more. No less.

The venue was impressive. Waterside Arts Centre is a nice, modern little theatre in the centre of Sale. I've got used to doing pubs, clubs and bars but this was only my second ever theatre gig.

Theatre gigs are a bit different. When we sit down in a pub or a club with our friends we become kids again. We loosen up, we chat, we joke, we make fun of each other. But a theatre has quite a different effect. When we sit in a theatre we suddenly become all grown-up and intelligent and middle class.

Theatre audiences are not naturally geared up to get involved in conversations with the acts, or to be publicly mocked for comic purposes. They just sit there in rows, gazing at you expectantly and waiting to be entertained. And fair enough - they are in a theatre after all.

So, as I stood in the wings, waiting for the compere to announce me, I had a few more butterflies than usual. That's when I remembered I needed to set my watch. So I pressed the button to set the timer to 20 minutes.

It bleeped. Loudly.

That's right. My silent, vibrating "especially designed for profoundly deaf people" watch frigging bleeped.

This hadn't happened earlier when I had tried it out at home. But now, here I was, standing in the dark and I must have pressed some random, unknown button and set it to "bleep". In a blind panic I tried to sort it out, pressing buttons left, right and centre. Bleep Bleep Bleep Bleep frigging Bleep.

Why would a profoundly deaf person want a bleeping watch, for God's sake?!! It could be doing that all day and they would never know!

And not only was it unsuitable for the profoundly deaf - it was totally unsuitable for the profoundly panicking...Bleep Bleep Bleep...Aaaaaggh!

I popped my head out into the corridor where one of the other acts was standing. "Hey do you know how to work one of these watches? I can't stop it bleeping!"

He just shook his head and muttered, "Oh. F**k."

I went back to the wings. The compere was still warming the crowd up. I pressed every button again. Twice. Then - miraculously - the bleep stopped and was replaced by a reassuring vibration. Thank Christ!

The compere cried, "Ladies and Gentlemen...Sam Brady!" and I walked onto the stage feeling mighty relieved.

I was so relieved, in fact, that I forgot to set the timer running.

I think it was about five or six (or ten?) minutes later that I realised. It was too late to panic by then. I was too busy trying to get some laughter out of a theatre full of people on their best grown-up and middle-class behaviour. I just set the timer running and carried on. When it vibrated, I said my goodbyes and got off.

But as I left the stage, I was horrified. I had over-run! The one thing they told me not to do!

I had even had a letter from the theatre the previous day stressing the importance of sticking to time. And I had gone over by... I didn't even know how long. Would they be angry? Would Agraman ever hire me again?

I went back to the empty dressing room to get my coat. I wanted to stick around for some reassurance from the compere or the stage manager but I had promised Mrs B I'd join her and some friends at a party straight after my set. So I walked straight out into the night, taking all my anxieties with me.

This was on Saturday but I've been fretting about it ever since. I imagined Agraman being really pissed off. So this morning I bit the bullet and rang him up to explain.

I told him the story and, to my great relief, he laughed. "Well if you've got that much material," he said, "I'll have to start giving you longer spots." What a top bloke.

In the post, this morning, I got a letter from the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. Had they discovered that their vibrating phone bleeps? Were they writing to offer me compensation for stress and potential loss of earnings?

No. They were offering me a special deal on a telephone. Apparently, it flashes...

Buddhism, Beer and Crap Telly

In my stand-up, I often refer to the fact that I'm a Buddhist. And I do a couple of gags about meditation and rebirth and people laugh.

But a part of me feels a little bit dirty. Because I don't believe in or practice a lot of things that people expect Buddhists to. I don't even know whether I should be calling myself "a Buddhist" at all.

The problem is with the label. When I say "I am a Buddhist ", what people seem to hear is "I conform to a set of behaviours that qualify me to be a part of the group known as BUDDHISTS". And being a member of Genus Buddhistus seems to invoke all sorts of weird expectations from people. Like believing in reincarnation, knowing kung fu and saying "Ah, grasshopper!"

But hang on. It's even worse than that. There are some people you meet who actually know a bit about Buddhism. They know it's about wisdom and compassion. They know it's about being mindful and calm and kind. And they ask awkward questions as to why you are none of those things. And they say stuff like, "But I thought Buddhists didn't...."

Don't get me wrong. As far as I'm concerned the Buddha had things pretty much spot on. Every day, in my life, I see his teachings proved right, time and time again. In short, he was one clever son of a gun. And I do try to keep in him mind and let his wisdom inform my daily life. Honest. But it's bloody hard to live up to. And some times I... well... I can't be arsed.

In Buddhism we talk about "going for refuge" to the Buddha. This means facing up to life's uncomfortable truths and shunning all other false comforts, like chocolate and alcohol and crap telly.

Right now, as I write this, I am going for refuge to Buddha. I feel steeped in an awareness of the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence.

But in about 5 minutes, I'll be going for refuge to Rugby League, a large bag of cheese and onion crisps and a bottle of Marston's Pedigree. Believe me, the Buddha will be the last thing on my mind.

The goal of Buddhism is to gain Enlightenment. But, if I'm honest, I don't believe that I can become Enlightened.

I'd like to be an ardent meditator. But I can't even sit still for five minutes without thinking about naked ladies.

I'd like to renounce alcohol and keep a clear mind. But I really really like beer. I mean really.

I'd like to transcend my ego. But being on stage and hearing people laugh and clap and cheer is much more fun by a mile.

So the fact is, I make for a pretty rubbish Buddhist. And - here's the controversial bit - if you know any Buddhists, be nice to them. Because they are probably pretty rubbish at it too.

One of the best talks on Buddhism I have ever heard was by a lovely and clever man called Ratnaguna who (paraphrasing Shin Ran) said something like, "I am a total divvy! But you are all total divvies too!"

And he was right. We are all total divvies.

The worst kind of foolishness is to take ourselves too seriously. And "Buddhist" seems like a pretty serious thing to be.

So that's it. I'm not a Buddhist. Like the rest of mankind, I'm just a ruddy idiot.

But then you all knew that.

Didn't you?

An Evening of Progress

Yesterday was "Progress Evening" at my daughter's school.

It started at 3pm and involved a painful process of dashing from teacher to teacher, each one being more stressed and further behind schedule than the one before. I'm used to doctors' appointment times being somewhat over-optimistic. But this was like waiting for several doctors one after the other. I can only assume that the title "Progress Evening" is meant to be a joke - "at this rate of Progress, you'll be here all Evening!" Boom Boom.

My experience of Progress Evening was given something of an edge by the fact that I needed to be at a gig in Burton-on-Trent by 8pm. I got so anxious I kept standing up and sitting down again, causing Brady Jr to eventually say, "Dad you look like you've got OCD. Chill!"

Anyway, the good news is that Brady Jr is clever and that she shows particular promise in Drama, Music and English which makes me very proud.

The bad news is that I almost burst a blood vessel as I crawled through the roadworks on the M6, trying to get to my gig.

I got there though. I didn't make it for 8pm but I got there before the show actually started at 8:30 and I was on in the middle, so everyone was cool about it.

The gig was a lot of fun. It was in a pub called the Wetmore Whistle. It's a fantastic pub. It's a Free House, lovely inside, good atmosphere and great beers. And best of all they have created a great little space for performance, with room for a crowd of about 70 and a neat little stage with good lighting.

The Burton crowd are a good laugh as well. I played about with them a bit and took the piss out of most of them. They loved it. The material got some great laughs. I tried a few new bits and they went well. I'll be listening to the recording over the weekend to see what I can learn.

The quality of the comedy last night was excellent. The compere, Matt Turner, did a great job - a good compere makes such a difference to the evening.

The opener was Geoff Norcott - a very clever observational comedian with a very distinctive style. All through his act I found myself thinking - damn! why didn't I think of that?

And the headliner, Alex Boardman, was just exceptional - much better than most of the people you'll see on TV. (So go and watch some live comedy!)

To quote one happy punter: "You was all f**king brilliant!"

You can't say fairer than that.

Working From Home

Too much being at home on my own is sending me slightly bonkers.

It's fun at first. You can dance. You can sing. You can do silly voices. In short, you can do all the things that you can't do with a teenage daughter in the house.

But after a while you start to go a bit strange. You're still singing, dancing and doing silly voices. But you've kind of forgotten that this is not normal behaviour.

Your frenzied thoughts bat you around the walls of your house like a rubber ball at the mercy of an enthusiastic infant. That's when you engage with the slow process of thinking yourself to death.

Before you know it you begin to wonder if other people really exist at all. Or whether it's all a joke at your expense. Kind of like the Truman show but without an audience.

It's not like I'm not used to spending time on my own. I've been on solitary retreats before. Totally alone. No telly. No radio. No iPod. They tend to go like this:

Day 1 You sit there on the first day, buoyed up by good spiritual intentions. You get all your little bits and pieces out: incense (check); little Buddha figure (check); herbal tea bags (check). Then you rearrange them a bit. Then you sit down to meditate and spend two hours on a cushion thinking about all the jobs you should have finished off before you left home.

Day 2 You calm down. Meditation is good. You feel alive and connected to the fabric of the universe.

Day 3 You giggle. A lot. I don't know why. You start to wonder if you need psychiatric help. But you don't care. You just look at the four walls around you and laugh out loud.

Day 4+ One of two things can happen. Either you regain equilibrium and find an inner peace that has previously been lacking in your life. Or you are taken away in an ambulance.

But I'm not on a solitary retreat. I'm working. Having insane thoughts. And reading emails from other insane people who are also working from home.

That's right. I'm working from home.

And, when you're working from home, no-one can hear you scream...

Early Start

My wife gets up at 5 o'clock every morning. Yesterday I got up with her and it nearly killed me.

I was fine at first. I thought, This is good. I'm getting loads done and it's not even breakfast time yet.

But around 10 o'clock fatigue kicked in and I spent the rest of the day bumbling round the house in a daze, being angry and walking into things. Hopeless.

I managed to waste a lot of time yesterday doing things that don't matter, producing work that nobody will ever see. I think it's called displacement activity. What I was doing was even more boring than what I was supposed to be doing. But at least it had the attraction of not being what I was supposed to be doing.

I'm in limbo a bit at the moment with my day job. I'm waiting to hear if my contract is going to be renewed. My current contract expires in a couple of weeks and there are no jobs out there at the moment. A part of me hopes they don't renew me so that I can just sit in my underpants, eating chocolate and watching old episodes of Fawlty Towers all day. But then another part of me doesn't want to die in abject poverty. It's a toughie.

It would be fabulous to pack in the day job and do comedy full-time, but I can't at the moment. For one thing, I'm not experienced enough. I need more time to build up and test material and hone my stage skills. And the other thing is family. Being a full-time comedian means being away from home a lot and spending every Friday and Saturday night performing. My family is not at a stage where I can even contemplate that.

The time will come though. Although, in the long term, I will probably concentrate on writing comedy, rather than being out on the road all the time performing. I think it would be good to see my wife every now and then. She's nice.

Me and Brady Jr had a frustrating time at the stables yesterday. We wanted to do an exercise with Murphy The Horse that involved him belting round an 18 foot pen in a giddy canter. But we were asked to stop by a riding instructor who was worried that her student's horse was going to join in with the fun and hare off with her around the paddock at breakneck speed.

I could see how that might have been problematic. And possibly fatal. But teenagers struggle to deal with disappointment and Brady Jr complained bitterly. Then I got sick of her moaning (my teenage moan threshold gets lower every day) and told her to shut up. And things kind of escalated from there.

After that I spent what felt like a year stomping round Asda in a terrible mood. I was supposed to be doing a "big shop" but I couldn't be arsed. I just got a few essentials and went through the Self Serve till. I then spent ages waiting for someone to help me deal with an unexpected item in my bagging area. It was a bag of spinach. A bag of spinach in a supermarket. What's unexpected about that?!!

I've been working in IT for 20 years, but I still can't get through the Self Serve till without needing assistance. And I take failure badly. That patronising woman's voice - "Please wait for assistance." There's even a big red light above your head, flashing like an enormous beacon of incompetence. "Look! This blokes 41. And he can't even scan a pack of Quorn pieces without all hell breaking loose! What a nob-head!"

Eventually, my technical issues were resolved - by a 60 year old woman called Dorothy.

Everyone in Asda hates me. Yesterday they all decided to move as slowly as possible. Some of them didn't even seem to be shopping. Just milling about, blocking the aisles with enormous trolleys containing nothing more than a tin of baked beans and a toilet duck.

It was only later, when I sat down to eat with the rest of the Brady bunch, that I relaxed a bit and realised that I was knackered. Getting up at 5 had put me in a lousy mood for the whole day.

So I apologise to Brady Jr for my harsh words at the stables. And to the pensioner in Asda who I fixed with a hard stare over the fair trade bananas. It seems I'm just not cut out for early starts. Sorry.

Pyjamas

ON MY BIRTHDAY, last weekend, I discovered that I am now at an age where I am genuinely delighted to be given new pyjamas. This is slightly alarming. Remember the disappointment you felt as a kid, when you opened a present hoping that it was an Atari games console and discovering it was a set of Rupert Bear PJs? Even though the package was clearly soft and pyjama-shaped you hoped against hope.

But these days I'm pretty chuffed to get them. OK maybe not Rupert Bear (I think he's dead, isn't he?). But those nice ones from M&S which are always modelled by good-looking adonis-types lounging on a chair, barefoot.

Perhaps the reason I like getting PJs as presents is that I tend to end up wearing them all day. A friend of mine told me the other day that in any given telephone conference, 8% of the participants are not dressed. That'll be me then. In my day job I often work from home. I'm still in my pyjamas when I see my daughter off to school. And usually I'm still in them by the time she gets on the bus to come home. I always makes sure I get dressed before my daughter comes home though, partly so as not to set "a bad example" and partly so as to avoid her giving me one of those self-righteous lectures that teenagers are so good at.

There is something fantastically decadent about doing a teleconference in your pyjamas though. Preferably whilst lounging on the sofa sipping coffee from your favourite enormous mug. It makes everything feel a bit less like work and that can only be a good thing. I feel cool and casual like the guy in the M&S adverts. Although I probably look more like something you might encounter on a prostate ward.

So. Why am I telling you all this?

I have absolutely no idea.

But anyway it's what I did yesterday. Until just before Brady Jr got home. Then I had to get dressed and pretend to be a grown-up.

YESTERDAY EVENING was one of those evenings when time seems to disappear and suddenly it's 9pm and nobody's had any tea. (Or dinner if you're a Southerner).

I went with my daughter to the stables to help her do some groundwork with Murphy The Horse. Her confidence is suffering at the moment and we thought it might help her form a better bond with him. It's difficult to do anything like this in the Winter, but now the weather is picking up we can do more of it. With the help of a lovely woman called Katrina who happened to be passing by, I taught Brady Jr how to use Monty Roberts' join-up method. Monty Roberts is the real-life horse whisperer who the film was based on. I'd like to say I learned his technique whilst staying with him on his ranch in California. But I didn't. I learned it from You Tube.

Anyway, Brady Jr did the business. After a little while, me and Katrina looked on as Murphy voluntarily walked up behind Brady Jr and put his head over her shoulder, accepting her as his herd leader. It was a magical moment. Brady Jr's face was a picture.

WARNING: The next bit's about football. If you hate football, don't write to me moaning about it. I don't want to know. Just move on. Go on. Off you go. Go and read a book of poetry or whatever it is you people do.

OK. Have they gone? Right. The icing on the cake yesterday was listening to Wigan Athletic beat Liverpool 1-0 on the radio. I wished I could have gone and even felt a bit guilty for not being there to support them. But life's a bit busy.

It's tough being a fan though, isn't it? The last ten minutes seemed to go on forever. I was convinced Liverpool would snatch at least one late goal. And Wigan were only one point from the relegation zone.

Sitting anxiously by the radio, as if at the outbreak of World War II, I probably didn't look like I was having much fun. And I wasn't. Being a sports fan isn't about having fun, is it? It seems to be about suffering unnecessarily over something that, objectively speaking, doesn't actually matter and over which you have absolutely no control. My mum thinks it's bonkers. But then again, she watches Eastenders.

But maybe that's the point of being a fan of sport (or Eastenders). While we're suffering over the threat of a last-minute goal (or some cockney being beaten up by a gang of "slags" and dumped in a canal), we don't have time to think about the mortgage or Haiti or the bleak emptiness of our own futile existence.

On that bombshell, I'll bid you good day.

I am 41

This weekend was my 41st birthday.

I had my presents and cards early on Saturday morning as my wife had to go off to a conference. Lots of nice books and some iTunes vouchers (as I am old-fashioned and still believe in paying for my music).

While Mrs B was at her conference, I went with my daughter to a music festival that her school choir was singing in. I was blown away by the performance. Their music teacher is a total gem. She's young and bright and enthusiastic and lifts all the kids up so they want to do well. The sound they produced was astonishing.

I felt myself welling up. I was so moved - just to see someone who is so devoted to helping kids fulfill their creative potential, it was... Well, maybe you had to be there. Anyway, I wasn't the worst. There was an old guy in front of me blubbing his eyes out.

Of course, when Brady Jr appeared I had to act all cool. My daughter is not into public displays of emotion. Or private one's for that matter.

Saturday night was my first free one for a while and me and Jane slouched on the sofa catching up on Lost. I love that show even though I have no idea what the hell is going on. It's an accurate analogy for Life - even though it makes no sense, you keep going, with a vague feeling you ought to be enjoying it more.

On Sunday morning, Me and Brady Jr went over to the stables to see her horse, Murphy. Brady Jr has been a bit stressed out over the pressures of horse ownership over the winter, but the sun was shining and there was a relaxed and optimistic feel about the place. It was the first weekend this year that has really felt like spring. People were all full of plans and projects for the summer.

In the afternoon we went out for a late lunch with my mum and dad. I ate and drank too much and thought I might have to be winched out of my seat. It was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon though. I pity the poor wretches who spent it being dragged round IKEA. Jane remarked that I was uncharacteristically quiet. I think I was just a bit talked out.

On Sunday evening, Me and Jane went to the Frog & Bucket to see Richard Herring's Hitler Moustache. What a great night! The show was funny and clever and thought-provoking and inspirational. He took on difficult subjects like racism, fascism and political correctness in a way that was direct and intelligent, without being preachy, or woolly-minded (or, worse, unfunny). All the way home, me and Mrs B were gushing about how great it was.

As well as being a fab night out, the show also reinforced my feeling that this is the kind of thing I want to do in future. It's different from stand-up. With stand-up, the emphasis is on laughs. People don't necessarily want you to say anything of any consequence - they just want to be entertained.

But a one-man show is different. The audiences are generally more intelligent (and more sober) and they have different expectations. You can't do a one-man show (at least not one as good as Richard's) unless you really have something to say. And the format gives you space to do that - you don't have to be cracking gags the entire time. It's a challenge and an opportunity that really inspires and excites me. (Or maybe, like all middle-aged men, I'm just desperate for the chance to force my views and ideas on other people.)

Anyway, something else also happened at the Frog. I was pricked by the slenderest shard of fame. Someone who I didn't know recognised me as Sam Brady the stand-up comedian. I have always thought I didn't want to be famous and would hate to be a celebrity. But even just being acknowledged by one stranger in a Manchester comedy club was enough to inflate my ego to an uncomfortable level. Fame is such a potent drug. Even the tiniest dose, it seems, can get you hooked. I need to be careful of that. I reckon once you start chasing fame, the fun is probably over.

There were also quite a few comedians and promoters there in the audience. Ben Heal from MUCK came over to say hello which was nice. He even offered to lend me his Richard Herring DVD collection. Might take him up on that.

New Website

NEWS

A new website will be appearing here soon at sambrady.co.uk

This blog will stay at blogspot but I don't know how often I'll update it.

Cheers

Sam