F***ing Darkie

Something has definitely changed. As I was making my way to Taunton station on Saturday morning , a man in a woolly hat walked past me in the opposite direction. As he did he said something. He didn’t shout. But he made sure that his volume would be enough for me to hear. He said “Fucking Darkie”

Once upon a time I might have been shaken up by such an incident. I might have exaggerated its significance and written an Edinburgh show called “Fucking Darkie”. I might have chased after him and remonstrated. But as soon as the words sunk in , two things crossed my mind. Firstly , the previous night Taunton had been lovely to me. I had thoroughly enjoyed a solo show at the Brewhouse Theatre , the audience had been tremendous. Then I had the chance to catch up with a med school mate , and chat to much of the audience. Then a lovely couple took me to local nightclub Okoko , where I was treated like a star , and hot , hot men queued up to have their photo taken. It turns out that some people admire general knowledge. The most surreal moment was when a young marine , with frankly ludicrously good looks put his arm around me for a pic and said “You’re like a hero to us boys”  Gosh I love straight men.

I’d had a great night. I could not possibly let one idiot spoil my view of Taunton.

The other thing that crossed my mind is just how utterly depressing this man’s life must be. That he couldn’t even walk past a nonwhite person in the street without hurling abuse. How pained he must be about Britain’s multiracial landscape. That he must have watched Somerset’s emergence in County Cricket through gritted teeth , thinking that if only they had got rid of Viv Richards and Joel Garner they might just achieve something. How watching England at football must always be a bittersweet experience , how dull his CD collection , how in his view there are only two Chasers and four Spice Girls , and that Duran Duran produced the definitive version of White Lines.

I tweeted about the incident when it happened. I was a little disappointed at how many people used it as a stick with which to beat the southwest of England.Those people would be appalled if a solitary idiot from their community was being held up as being typical. I met an awful lot of warm , friendly people in Taunton. I am not going to let one sad excuse for a human being cloud my opinion.

And to the guy who said it. You didn’t hurt me. You didn’t annoy me. You surpised me in that I havent heard that sort of base prejudice for quite a while , short of watching Chubby Brown clips on youtube. But most of all you amused me. I found it borderline hilarious that you , a man unable to go about his normal day without resorting to racist abuse , could possibly think you were a better human being than anybody. X

Love and Marriage.

2013 marks the 26th anniversary of the first time that I came out of the closet. I can still feel the sheer terror of the occasion , which wasn’t helped by the fact that I was hopelessly in love with the schoolfriend to whom my revelations were aimed. He was refreshingly sympathetic. So was my next friend. And then to medical school , where each person that I came out to seemed uninterested and unsurprised. The exception was Pankaj Maini , who refused to share a house with me lest he catch AIDS from the cutlery. But he was the exception. I consider myself very lucky. This was an era of AIDS scaremongering,Section 28 , an unequal age of consent , gay people banned from the armed services , and an era where a ferociously rightwing press regularly ridiculed the notion of human rights for homosexuals , where Garry Bushell would attack the idea of AIDS charities as the victims had brought it on themselves. In the midst of that era , I came out to my medical school by having a houseparty where the Take That posters that festooned my bedroom wall were not hidden at all. Nobody batted an eyelid. The response of my medical friends seemed a far cry from the relentless homophobia of politicians and press.

How things have changed , not least that Mark Owen isn’t sexy anymore. I remember the 1994 debate on the equalisation of the Age of Consent very well , the visceral fury of the rightwingers , and Ian Paisley senior being rebuked by the Speaker for describing anal sex in detail. Compared to 1994 , yesterday’s debate on gay marriage was very civil.

It was a good exercise for me to listen to the views of people with whom I profoundly disagreed again and again. Though not one of them managed to explain how anyone’s heterosexual marriage would be undermined by this. A lot of them lied about public support claiming that the public were against it. They should be asked to wear a T shirt which reads ” Virtually every opinion poll of the last 12 months shows a clear majority of the British public are in favour of gay marriage”. Rightwing MP Gerald Howarth accepted this fact , and blamed the British public for not understanding the issues.

To me it is clear that calling them all bigots is not correct. If I have done that before as I suspect I have , then I apologise. A lot of the anti’s clearly had sincere concerns that had been thought through and politely expressed. But their arguments did not stand up to scrutiny. When they ran out of ideas , they turned to falsehoods like “marriage is primarily about children”. A lot of them seemed happy to use their postbag as evidence of public displeasure. Which is intellectually vapid. An MP’ postbag is by its very nature going to contain the missives of unhappy people , not happy people.

Then there were the bigots. Yesterday was a bad day for the DUP whose members looked like desperate dinosaurs of a bygone age. Ian Paisley Junior managed the impressive feat of sounding more idiotic than his father. I do wonder how he felt when he was being laughed down by his colleagues at his ludicrous claims about Spanish and Portugese heterosexuals not getting married because of gay marriage.

And then there was David Simpson. The DUP MP for Upper Bann. Supporter of creationism and homeopathy. His big moment arrived. What was his big argument ?

“In the Garden of Eden , it was Adam and Steve”

His one chance to make a moronic , irrelevant point. And he blew it. It was hilarious.

It was almost as hilarious as the frothing at the mouth of Tory Roger Gale – so committed to the sanctity of marriage he has divorced twice – and Bob Blackman – who had an 11 year affair behind his wife’s back. It seems that some members of the Tory right have no shame in embracing both “family values” and “hypocrisy”

I doubt whether anyone’s opinion would have been changed by yesterday’s debate , but it was  good to watch , and I do feel that free votes give us a better, less stage managed debate , and it is surely healthy that politicians can express their opinion without fear of party rebuke. I have no desire to conduct an ideological witch hunt against those who voted against , I don’t think consensus is a politically healthy thing.

But I am jubilant that the constant lies of the Mail and the Telegraph about the issues only had one effect – to harden public support in favour of gay marriage.

I am happy that we have now reached a stage where to be homophobic is considered more risible than to be homosexual.

I am glad that the DUP and certain members of the Tory right exposed themselves horribly yesterday.

And I am pleased and grateful to the hard work over decades of the “gay rights lobby”. Bashed in the media and sometimes literally , they fought the good fight for years with very little gratitude from the people whom they sought to defend. Their reward was for two politicians , Tony Blair and David Cameron, to fight their cause on a point of principle. It is an irony that two of the most reviled politicians of the modern age should be the ones to make a difference. Neither man is exactly renowned for his principles. I’d like to thank them both.

I’m a Celebrity ??

I’ve been nominated for awards before. But it was different. In 2006 I was very much the surprise nominee for the If.comedy award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe. But I knew I was never going to win. The bookies made me the outsider. On the morning of the award , Daily Mirror tipster Derek McGovern tipped his readers to bet on me. His reason – in the light of recent terror threats , giving the award to an Asian comic would send out the right message. Unsurprisingly the committee didn’t use that as a criterion , the brilliant Phil Nichol won , and I was able to enjoy the ceremony knowing full well that I had no chance.

In 2007 I was up against Josie Long in the “Best Breakthrough Act” at Chortle Awards. Again , no chance. In 2009 I was astonished to find myself up against Rhod Gilbert , Andrew Maxwell and Milton Jones for “Best Headliner” at the Chortle Awards. Not only did I know I had no chance , I did wonder if I’d be the first nominee to pick up precisely no votes. The nomination was announced less than a month after my “worst gig ever” that I described in my previous post. So when I heard about the nomination I smiled wryly and forgot about it.

But last night was different. When I heard that The Chase had been nominated in the “Best Daytime” category of the National TV Awards , for the first time in my life I thought – a win is not out of the question. We were up against the behemoth that is This Morning. A show that has made quite a habit of picking up National TV awards. A show that was bribing the public with free chocolate for votes. We were never going to be favourites. But up against Come Dine With Me – an enjoyable niche show , and Jeremy Kyle – a grotesque series of sub/dom games between an arrogant ringmaster and the working classes – I thought it not unreasonable to consider ourselves second favourite.

Yesterday afternoon didn’t start well. We were meant to get a boat at Westminster Pier at 5pm. The boat left without us at 445. We waited in the Marriott Hotel for cars to take us to the O2. The first pleasant surprise of many yesterday was finding Greg Davies sat in the bar writing a sitcom.Coincidentally as part of celebrated sketch grop We Are Klang , Greg was one of my rivals back in 2006. Greg’s recent rise to stardom has been a joy to behold and it was great to catch up.

We got to the O2 about 1815 I think. The red carpet. In all the time spent discussing with our driver what the directions to the red carpet might be , I had never stopped to think what the experience might be like. I honestly had no idea. Then the four Chasers bundled out of a people carrier and into the gaze of a screaming admiring public. I looked to the left. And I looked to the right. And it was quite clear that very few people had a clue who I was.

Luckily the penny started to drop when people recognized the giant one , the black one and the woman one. And people started asking me to sign things. It was all a bit of a blur. I can remember celebrated film star Keith Lemon flitting in and out of adoring fans. I can remember saying hello to fellow comics Lee Mack and Rob Beckett. I can remember a man who looked like  Barry Mcguigan saying hello to me , and me not realising that Mrs Brown had just said hello. And then I realised I was in everybody’s way. Because I was blocking peoples view of Tulisa. Tulisa , pop star , diva , sex symbol , cousin of a prize bell end. I tried to get out of the way , but some people were still asking me for autographs. So I obliged. And then I met my nemesis. A paparazzo. An angry , hateful paparazzo. Who shouted at me “Can you get out of the fucking way !”

At the time I was still signing autographs. Obviously I had sympathy with his position. After all Tulisa is famously reclusive and never poses for photographs. If he missed this shot , he might never get a chance to photograph Tulisa again. But I had no truck with his rudeness. I thought of all the hours of work that I’d put in to get to this position. Hours spent learning US presidents , winners of Celebrity Masterchef , Nobel Literature laureates. Just to be shouted at by a dickhead. I smiled and carried on signing autographs in a position which utterly minimised his view of Tulisa. And it felt good.

Inside was a drinks reception. And almost immediately Joey Essex caught my eye. I am nothing if not shallow at times and I decided to get a photo with him. What there is no defence for was my opening gambit….. “My sister is a big fan of yours”. Kill me.

Once in the main auditorium , it became apparent that I had never been anywhere as star studded as this.We were sat near the front. Around us were proper celebrities. Hoy . Havers . Bonneville. McFly.

I’m glad This Morning’s victory was announced early on. It meant we could just relax and enjoy some booze. Except there was no booze till ten o clock. Apart from a public bar miles away. Me and Shaun decide to trek up to the public bar. Our reward was to meet a sporting legend whose achievements outweigh even Joey Essex. I give you David Weir…..

At about 2205 the show ended , and every single nominee got up to make their way to the VIP post gig bar. And inevitably what I suspected might happen did happen. Luke Campbell started heading to the same part of the queue as myself.

Regular readers of this blog will know that ever since July I have been rather smitten by the brilliant Olympic gold medal winning boxer. Not just his skills and his looks , but also his refreshingly positive attitude towards embracing his gay audience , such a nice change from certain other sports.Everyone remembers “Super Saturday” and rightly so. But I am also a fan of the sequel “Superb Saturday” which started with me at Eton Dorney cheering for Ed McKeever and finished with me drunk and weeping over the twin successes of Mo Farah and Luke Campbell. So last  Sunday during Dancing on Ice ,when professional gay Jason Gardiner started delivering one of his withering assassinations on Luke  I felt compelled to tweet “Leave Luke alone you vile man”.

What I wasn’t expecting was Christine Bleakley to read out the tweet live on air in front of a slightly confused looking Campbell and Gardiner. I was genuinely mortified.

Seeing him in the queue for the VIP room I thought – I am never going to get another chance to say hello to my hero. Then suddenly he left the queue to go to the disabled toilets. My chance had gone. Then I looked again. He had gone to the disabled toilets to help out a man in a wheelchair who was having trouble with the door. Having done his best impression of Clark Kent he returned to the queue. I asked the woman in front of me “Are you any good with an iphone camera ?” She said yes. So i gave her my camera , walked up to Luke and said “Hello Luke. I am a massive fan , would you mind if I had a photo with you”. And he smiled politely and agreed. And that was that. Or so I thought.

Once in the VIP room I looked at the photo. It looked ok. But it wasnt a photo. It was a one second video clip. Curses. So near and yet so far. In the VIP room were a glittering assortment of stars. But I only had eyes for one of them. “Hi Luke. I hope you dont mind. I didnt get a photo last time , it was a video clip. Would it be possible to get a photo ?”

” You’re the guy that stuck up for me on twitter on Sunday night ?”

Me trying desperately not to look embarrassed “Yep”

“Cheers. I appreciated that”

And then , for the second time in my life I got to chat at length to one of my sporting heroes. ( If you are wondering what happened on the first occasion , tune into episode 4 of the Alternative Comedy Experience , at 11pm 26th February Comedy Central ).  He was charming , frank and I think only too happy to talk about boxing. I was just the correct side of drunk. Thankfully.

It was an entertaining evening on a number of levels. I learnt on the red carpet that I don’t think I will ever be comfortable with the idea of calling myself a celebrity – it really isn’t me. I learnt that in a certain light Joey Essex looks more Indian than me.  I learnt that people will vote for any old drivel if you offer them free chocolate

And I learnt that sometimes meeting your heroes can be a positive thing.

Worst gig ever.

One thing has become very clear from writing this blog. Nobody wants to hear about your good gigs. This is of course entirely understandable. Having good gigs is my job. Me talking about good gigs is like Barack Obama talking about hiding neocon militarism behind a liberal veneer. Nevertheless , there is a much discussed financial crisis in standup comedy at the moment and anything I can do to highlight gigs which deserve to thrive , then I will.

So today I wont be discussing last Wednesday’s gig at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford , other than to say it was a delight , and deserves to flourish. Instead I would like to take you back to December 2008……..

Of course my worst gig ever would be at Christmas time. It is a horrific time to be a standup , a season where onstage nuance and subtlety meet a grisly end. However the wages are excellent , so up and down the country comedians choose financial pragmatism , change their joke about Freud into one about a huge throbbing cock , and keep their fingers crossed that the  room of office parties dislike them rather than actively hate them.

My first gig that evening , the last Saturday before Christmas had gone okay. In this season , ok is a triumph. So I jumped in a taxi to Shoreditch to do my second gig , a headlining spot at a club where Ricky Grover had been the opening act.

Under any circumstances this is a hard task. Ricky Grover , more recently best known for his role in Eastenders , is a viscerally hilarious as a comedian can be. Fantastic jokes blend with superb use of obese physicality. Comedically very few comics have more tools in their arsenal. In Shoreditch , however , the task of following him is not hard. It is impossible. Ricky is untouchable to any audiences east of London Bridge. He is their king. Now I , with my middle class sensibilites and sideways glance at sexuality and multiculturalism have to follow him.

When I get there it’s the interval. “How has it been ?” I ask of the compere. “Great.” He answers. They didn’t look great. They looked like a room maxed up on the one cocktail that in their eyes isn’t gay – beer and cocaine. If they were “great” in the first half , then that can only be a credit to the compere and the unbreakable Ricky Grover.

I walk on stage. I am only too aware of the degree to which the crowd judges you instantly when you walk on. There is a hierarchy of expectation in a lot of comedy crowds. It’s complex , and it is usually beneficial to morbidly obese comics , black comics with confident swagger , and TV names. It is less beneficial to women and the overtly middle class. I always used to think that because there is no real template with Asian comics of knowing what to expect , audience prejudice is not so acute. But from the moment I walked onto the stage , it was clear that the audience were thinking ….. “Who the fuck is this prick ?”

I gave it a go. I tried oneliners , stories , audience interaction. It was clear after about 15 minutes that I had done my best , and failed. Not failed badly. Just failed. Unfortunately I was booked to do 25 minutes. And I am professional. The next ten minutes was torture , as the audience looked baffled that I was still onstage interrupting their Christmas party conversations. Conversations which grew louder and louder , and eventually much louder than an exasperated man with a microphone. I was just about to call it a day when a guy got up and made his way towards the stage. As he approached , he was being cheered by the crowd.In their eyes anything that was a change from my routine had to be a good thing. At this point I had rather forgotten that people are simply not allowed to get on stage without being asked , and i watched passively as he got onto the stage and grabbed the mic off me.

Security could not have been quicker. Well they could have , they could have grabbed him before he got to the stage. But that’s another debate. Two burly security guys ran onto the stage and forced him off. One of them said to me in a very knowing way “Go to the kitchen”.

So I went to the kitchen. And sat there for 45 minutes. On the floor. While chefs looked at me with a sympathetic smile. During those 45 minutes I heard a mass brawl take place inside.   All I could hear was a cacophony of increasingly angry voices. Eventually I heard one voice , which seemed to be just outside the kitchen door. “You can tell that last act to fuck off back to Pakistan”

What I wanted to say was….. “I’m not from Pakistan. I’m from Crystal Palace. My parents were originally from India. I’ve been to India. I could fuck off back there in theory. But I have never been to Pakistan. So I can’t. I wasn’t even pro partition. Can you imagine the cricket world without partition ? Imran and Kapil Dev in the same team ? Kumble and Saqlain ? Tendlukar , Dravid and Inzaman ?”

But I suspect he was more of a football man.

So i sat there silently for 45 minutes contemplating the degree to which so many people who claim to care about Christmas actually have no idea whatsoever. How comedy more than any other art form inspires utter hatred from those who dont like you.And how following Ricky Grover at a club gig in East London might just be the hardest comedy task in the world.

Police sirens were now only too audible. They had come to quell the mini riot. I was a 21st century “The Rite of Spring”. Eventually I was bundled out of the back door of the kitchen into the open air and straight into a cab. As I looked to my left I saw “comedy fans” still fighting amongst themselves and with the police. Merry Christmas. I did make sure of one thing though. I made sure I got paid in full. I had done my 25 minutes.

 

January Quiz.

1. What was abolished by Harold Macmillan and reintroduced by Tony Benn in 1967 , who defended it by saying that it stood for “Excellence , England , Europe and Entente” ?

2. The 1980 film which was the first ever winner of the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture was a biography of which famous/infamous pop group ?

3. Actor Billy Zane , star of Titanic , made his screen debut as a school bully in which celebrated 1980′s high school comedy ?

4. Which singer in 2012 became the third act to succeed where Huey Lewis and the News and Celine Dion had previously failed ?

5. Who has recently become the youngest actress to be twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress ?

6. Which star of Oceans 12 and Cars 2 was in 2009 the most recent winner of a Special Achievment Award at BBC Sports Personality of the Year ?

7. Celebrating its 26th birthday this year , what was named after Fernando Duarte ?

8. Joe di Maggio  , Roy Campanella and Mickey Mantle are the only three baseball players to achieve what feat ?  They did so within minutes of each other in 1989.

9. The US decathlete Tom Waddell , whocame 6th at the 1968 Mexico Olympics , went on to found which sports event which last took place in Cologne in 2010 ?

10. What began in Eire on New Years Day 2011  , the title character having dropped an “e” .

 

To vote for The Chase at the National TV awards. http://www.nationaltvawards.com/vote

What a difference a year makes.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/james-delingpole/7482608/thank-god-i-dont-have-that-ghastly-sense-of-entitlement-that-eton-instils/

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/james-delingpole/8802841/im-proud-to-come-out-as-an-eton-parent/

 

 

END OF 2013 QUIZ

1. Singer Emeli Sande was chosen to sing “Read all about it” during the elective caesarean section of which member of the Royal Family ?

2.  Which Eurosceptic political party had to withdraw one of its  election candidates after they were seen wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I’m glad Mandela’s dead” ?

3.   Whose autotune remix of Nick Clegg saying “Look I’ve said I’m sorry , why won’t you fuckers  forgive me ?” received over a million youtube views in 2013 ?

4.   Which South Korean rapper followed up his 2012 success with “Inchon Blues” , an album of folk songs inspired by the Korean war ? The album flopped with one critic saying “Just do the dance , fatty”

5.  Rafa Benitez , Jose Mourinho , Mark Hughes , and Roman Abramovich all managed which Premier League football club in 2013 ?

6. Thanks to a shock decision over Scottish devolution , which tennis player became the first to win both Sports Personality of the Year , and Overseas sports Personality of the Year in the same year ?

7.   Which annual event , which commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 , was cancelled this year due to all the fireworks having been bought up by the North of England two weeks previously for the state funeral of a former Prime Minister ?

8.     Which mayor of London’s approval rating went up to 100 % , despite killing a man in a row about stilton ? “That he would kill a man in an argument over cheese shows that he has both passion and character , something sadly lacking in today’s politicians” gushed a Daily Mail editorial.

9.   Jimmy Krankie. John Craven. Peter Duncan. Bernard Cribbins. Bobby Ball. Russ Abott. Who is the only one of the above not charged with a historical sex offence in 2013 ?

10.  Who was forced to resign as chairman of the NRA after saying at a news conference “People are missing the point.It doesn’t matter how many innocent lives are lost. Holding a gun gives me and millions of others a huge throbbing erection , that at my age I am only too grateful for”