I’ll be visiting Streatham’s Hideaway this Sunday as Jeremy Jitler, so any south Londoners should therefore feel obliged to pop down, I know I would. In fact I am, that’s why I’m suggesting that you come. Even if you expect to be seriously disappointed, I still recommend most highly that you come and pay your hard earned money, it’s the only sensible thing to do. In fact if you don’t, that woman who lives over the road from you is probably going to start posting dogshit through your letterbox.

For those living in and around the Midlands, Leicester is the place to be next week, I’m making my debut at the Leicester Comedy Festival at the Crumblin’ Cookie, on the 16th and 17th. It’s probably the last chance to see my Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand show in its entirety, so get yourself a long and tell all of your mates, and drag anybody in that happens to be passing by. More details of this and all my upcoming gigs including the Legends of Alternative Comedy tour at the gigs page.

Last week the publisher of my autobiography, Stuart Wheatman, was a guest of Paul Weller at his gig at Newcastle Arena. Stuart was taken to the concert by a friend who had placed a winning bid for the privilege of a pre-show meeting with Mister Weller at an auction for Teenage Cancer Trust. Stuart assures me that his friend was ‘a bit pissed’ when he made the bid, and followed suit on his visit to Mister Weller’s backstage area, asking well-thought-out and probing questions of the Modernist legend such as, “Aye, so, why don’t you play Uh Huh Oh Yeh, then?” Stuart managed to take a photograph of Weller writing out his set list, on the table next to him is clearly visible his copy of him off the Viz. I hope he isn’t a disappointed with it as his friend probably was with his set.

Weller NOT writing Uh Huh Oh Yeh

If you’ve not seen it already, here is a link to a piece I have written for Northern comedy review website Gigglebeats about an ordinary day in the life of me, myself, Simon Donald, him off the Viz. it’s already received upwards of three comments, but one of them was from Greek George so that doesn’t count.

Have a good weekend, and remember kids, just say ‘no’ to the Nazis and paedophiles and heroin and ghosts and all shit like that.

The completion of my book was a difficult process, like all such things the amount of time allotted at the start eventually ran into a complete logjam of frenzied activity in the buildup to the final deadline. The unfortunate net result of this being a lack of time to have the book properly edited, so there are a number of typographical errors which haunt me to this day. They whisper in irritating voices from the bookshelf, like some sort of ill-conceived episode of the Twilight Zone.

I completed all of the graphics for the book whilst on holiday in Italy and I have to say I’m very pleased with the result.

My ambition in writing my life story was never to sell bucket loads of books, moreover I wanted to write down my life in anecdotes and see where it took me. My greatest ambition in the work was that it was well received by those who read it, and I’m absolutely delighted to say that the book has been so well received that , of all the print reviews giving star ratings, it has scored consistently five out of five, alongside two book of the month reviews and a solid five stars per customer on Amazon’s readers’ reviews section.

The icing on the cake I feel has been a fabulous review from Steve Bennett of Chortle, who has given my book a thorough going over with very positive results. Considering the laughs I had on a daily basis at his expense during the latter part of the fringe in 2010, I feel obliged to ease off the low abuse and crank up the  cap-doffing, for the time being at least.

Read the review here

The tour of Waterstones shops was rather hit and miss, from the Ferrari-packed-with-supermodels-and-sweets magnificence of Leeds to the downright forgettable damp-and-cold-non-starting-tractor of Durham. The quieter events, in the absence of Arty Fufkin, were cheered up by my cheeky offers to uninterested customers. I told those not interested in the book that I would happily come around and post dogshit through their letterboxes.

After spending my Christmas break mainly on a cold hard marble floor at Heathrow airport, I have just about got the Simon Donald bandwagon on its jolly way again. The gig calendar is looking very healthy in the coming months, including another lovely weekend in the company of the feckless drunks of Glasgow at my favourite comedy club in Britain, The Stand.  Shortly after the Scottish dates I’ll be trying out my first Leicester Comedy Festival, with what could well be one of the last chances to see my five character show of 2010 Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand.

Keep your eyes on this space for news about potential releases of recordings of some of my material, more details as soon as I have them.

Tomorrow night sees me singing and playing for charity once again at the legendary 100 Club. I’ll be a guest of The Random Blues Band, raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust. I know it’s short notice but I expect to see you all there, with your neighbours, friends, relatives and anybody you’re strong enough to drag down the stairs from Oxford Street.

Tickets here

There’ll be lots more posts about the show here in the coming weeks, but take your chance now to guarantee yourselves places for my first solo Edinburgh show.

ORDER HATSTAND TICKETS ONLINE HERE

Also Tonto Books are offering special early edition signed copies of my autobiography HIM OFF THE VIZ. The offer is open until the end of the month, so if you want to take advantage I recommend you do it now.

ORDER BOOK ONLINE HERE

Fry yesterday.

Stephen Fry may be seen as an eccentric intellectual by some, which just about justifies my headline. He hit the nail on the head in his speech calling for better television programmes at the annual Bafta Television Lecture.  Nice to hear someone with a track record of excellence say that telly has been going in the wrong direction in recent years.

The obsession of commissioners to follow trends set down by Hollywood and by motormouthed pyramids of university educated producers, could sound the death nell of good TV in our time. These people are destroying British creativity. Mike Leigh recently criticised this increasingly formulaic structure for damaging young British filmmakers’ chances of making an original British film, saying the results of interference by those justifying their own place in the management structure, are to turn the films into something “Quasi Hollywood” This results inevitably in the films falling heavily between stools and proper knacking their arses.

Fry the day before yesterday.

I’ve encountered far too many self confident know-alls in positions of power in the media who haven’t a creative bone in their bodies, have never had an original idea, yet will preach all day long that art is a science, and by following the correct equation success will follow. They’re a bunch of cunts.

Put Stephen Fry in charge of the entire world. Immediately.

Apologies to anyone who planned to come.

News coming soon of a new character I’m developing, whose only purpose will be promoting my Edinburgh show this August. Jacques Prattle of Prattle and Twaddle PR will appear very soon. Watch this space.

More damage than the FA Cup tackle? Yesterday

The biggest impact from an England star so far this week appears to have been made in a taxi rank on Tyneside. Paul Gascoigne has been involved in an accident on Newcastle Quayside, in which a taxi rank signpost was destroyed. Allegations of drink driving have been made against the female driver. Fortunately it appears no one was seriously hurt.

Poor old Gazza has been cursed through his life with sublime skills and joyful childishness in equal measure, making him the ideal party companion, which in turn makes him his own worst enemy. I fear he may get more headlines in the coming months for worse offences than wearing plastic tits or telling Norway to fuck off.

No sign of Paul Rogers, but this is bad company.

I’d heard, as I’m sure many of you have, rumors of him drinking around the North East in recent months. I’ve thought for a while that the only possible saviour of Gazza from himself would be a change in the company he keeps, but it seems he may be carrying on down the road the fans watched George Best go down. I don’t want to see Newcastle Airport renamed in similar circumstances, but there’s a feeling of inevitability about his journey that I wish wasn’t there.

I know he’s had mental health issues, I just hope someone comes to his rescue. I don’t think he’s strong enough to do it himself.

He’s given me not just some of the best football moments I’ve ever witnessed, but some of the best laughs. Here’s to the better times, raise a glass (of pop) to Gazza’s return to health, and keep your fingers crossed it’s not just wishful thinking.

He could have been at my show instead. Yesterday.

Thanks so much to all the people who turned up to my show at Newcastle’s Live Theatre last night, despite it clashing in a nasty head-on collision with the biggest TV event since that elephant pissed on the floor on Blue Peter in 1969. There was a close-to-full house, despite the football being on and and I managed to keep my Likely Lads promise to myself and avoid the score until watching the recorded game later on ITV’s website. Unfortunately, or maybe that should be fortunately, the coverage was in two halves and the icon for launching the second half was a freeze frame of Robert Green looking as sick as a chip. I quickly worked out that if his face was the most significant image of the game then there must have been no score in the second half, and I thus avoided wasting 45 minutes watching it.

Unbeknownst to me there was a reviewer at the gig from NE4me online magazine Ann Graham gave me a very nice review indeed, a sample of her words here:

“This was so near the knuckle it left cuts…

Donald was, simply, brilliant in each role. His range of accents, voice modulation and body language was spot-on and he made the stereotypes believable – horribly so in the case of Bingo…

He even apologised to the audience for staging a show on the night of England’s first match in the World Cup. I know I made the right viewing choice.

Incidentally, Ross Noble is also something of a fan, declaring Donald as Newcastle’s second-funniest man. Watch out, Ross – you’ve got competition.”

See the whole review HERE

A disgrace yesterday.

I spotted this disgraceful slur to the character of upright citizen and dog’s cock joke specialist Rob Rouse while I was working at the Edinburgh Stand last month.

This sort of thing should be taken in hand. It should have been pulled off as soon as it went up.

If you do get a chance to see Rob get out there and do it. I was nearly sick with laughing when I saw his show last year.

Probably best not to take your maiden aunts with you.

Speaking of which, my aunt is coming to the Live Theatre on Saturday, may play down the material on the Queen Mum’s twat.

You can follow Rob Rouse on Twitter HERE

The wrong Bingo yesterday.

This is not an invitation for the middle-aged heavyweight ladies amongst you to get too excited, it’s not an opportunity for you to wave your blubbery arms aloft, shouting “Hooooosey! Hooooosey!”

No, this is not about the joys of life-destroying addictive gambling dressed up in a big shed on an out of town retail park as a glittery social opportunity. No this is about my return to the Grinning Idiot at The Alexandra in Sunderland this Friday, where Bingo (from Benton) will be “Deein’ topical”

For those of you who’ve not seen Bingo dee topical, he’ll be looking into the week’s news in depth and discussing the issues raised, with his own, diverse perspective. And swearing a lot.

The line-up is tremendous, a Canadian I worked with last year called Wes Zaharuk, who’s act has to be seen. I’ve tried to describe it to people and it just sounds wrong, you’ve just got to come and see him, and the ever-brilliant Danny Deegan, a young deadpan Mancunian with a razor sharp tongue.

Right Bingo, all a bit wrong, yesterday.

Saturday night will see me cleverly try to compete with the England game in the World Cup, I’d like to say I’ll sack my agent, but I booked this one myself. I’m hoping it works like one big ‘toilet trick’ – where going to the bog makes your team score, so missing the whole game should see us thrash the Ham Shanks.

I look forwrad to seeing all of you who’ll be coming to this weekend’s gigs.

Finally a big thanks to Jason Manford who sent his Twitter followers to my blog yesterday, sending the hit rate through the roof.

Leeydaaaaaazzzz