A Moral Panic has been set in motion, not by the disturbing news that a fox has attacked two children, but by the reporters covering the story. I’ve now seen four news programmes and two news websites asking what should be done to deal with the problem.

A Fox yesterday.

Does anyone have any recollection of this kind of attack ever happening before? The BBC even quote a wildlife expert who says in 40 years he’s only had two reports of such incidents, one turned out to be a dog and the other a cat. Domestic pets injure thousands of people every year, and kill a few too, but no one is calling for all pets to be destroyed.

According to BBC London news there could be 10,000 foxes in London alone. So, on maths alone, it looks like as many as 1 in every 10,000 foxes might be dangerous.

Remarkably, it’s now considered acceptable for serious journalists to enroll the opinions of fuckwittted members of the public by soliciting email from them and then broadcasting the drivel that comes back as if it’s somehow newsworthy content.

I highly recommend this piece on the BBC site, not for the writing, but for the comment from Mr C Quinn of Ilford. Mr Quinn appears to suggest wolves should be put into the environment to deal with the foxes. Mr Quinn even reins himself in slightly for the sheer stupidity of what he’s said, but it hasn’t stopped the BBC from publishing it.

Room with a view this morning, yesterday.

… not for Mrs Richards and not from a Torquay hotel bedroom window, but for me from the guest accommodation at the Flying Horse in Rochdale this morning.

I had been expecting a view of Rochdale’s magnificent Town Hall, a building that came to the attention of nasty and bad man Adolf Hitler, who was said to have admired it so much that he wished to ship the building, brick-by-brick, to Nazi Germany had Rochdale been defeated in World War II.

I was told last that he’d stayed in the Flying Horse in order to admire the Town Hall from his bedroom window, however, far from historical documentation there seems to be little more than speculation that the mustachioed mass murderer ever visited the area.

My gig at the Flying Horse won’t go down in history, a low turn out, but a fun crowd nevertheless.

Likely Lads – Match Abandoned…

The Likely Lads yesteryear.

Bad news for anyone who had heard about my plans to tape the England v USA game on Saturday and then watch it in the theatre bar after the game. The cost of permission for the venue to do it legally is prohibitive, so we’ve just got to go home and watch it, unless anyone has any bright ideas.

I’ve been thinking of keeping a live internet feed going on stage, so I can fill in the audience at appropriate times with the scoreline, however this may be distracting and those who’ve deliberately booked to see a theatre show in order to avoid the football might not be best pleased.

Edinburgh PR Plans Afoot…

I have an idea to create something, or perhaps somone, entirely new in order to promote my Fringe show… More on this very soon.

St Barts Hospital today, yesterday.

I spotted this heart warming message at St Barts Hospital in London today. It appears that whatever you find yourself doing, give it rice. God will smile on you. I assume this includes wanking. I assume he doesn’t include murder and suchlike.

I met Lucy today who’s doing the PR for my Edinburgh show and that’s all looking good. Sat in the sun with her outside a cafe while a cheerful Harold drowned out our very thoughts with his incessant jovial hobo Big Issue sales patter.

Filmed in the afternoon with the MS documentary crew, which involved an interview sitting outside a pub in the sun with a beer. Nice day.

Been working on the book again all night tonight. I’m remembering some good stories from the late eighties at the moment, I hope I’m doing them justice. My next is about the time we attacked the table of a rival publication at a posh awards dinner, chanting obscenities. It’s all in the book, very good value.

Oh… and despite having been a Mac user for twenty years or so, and absolutely loving their products and delighting in their rise from obscurity, iPads are for cunts.

For those of you wanting to book for my Soho Theatre shows on 23rd and 24th July here’s a direct link to the booking page: SIMON DONALD SOHO TICKETS

Not actual size.

I was up til 4am creating this ‘artwork’ to promote my show in the Just the Tonic Edinburgh Fringe brochure. It’s a warm and wonderful ‘tribute’ to my 1989 piece the Johnny Fartpants Farting Figurine, which you can download at the Viz website

I’m going to use the Foulmouthed Figurine on the back of my Edinburgh flyers this year too, and it’ll also be available to download here at my website in the run up to the Fringe.

I’m off to Dirty Dicks daaahn Laandaaahn to see Stewart Lee tonight. Laaaverlee jaaaaableeee.

My frenzied autobiography writing has had me cooked up for what seems like a very long time indeed.

I did manage to travel north to see my long-time writing partner Alex Collier a few days ago and we breathed a bit of life into some previously shelved ideas for my website which will hopefully see the light as soon as the book work is all finished.

I also made a speech at a book launch for a book dedicated to my Dad and based on his historical research. Jesmond Mines to Mansions is available from Tyne Bridge Publishing

While I was there I met Geoff Laws, a remarkable caricaturist who’s also bringing out a book of his work soon, I’ve been lucky enough to write a foreword for it. In return Geoff has done this amazing picture of me.

I had a great photo session for the cover of my book with Ian West, a great photographer and old friend with a studio in South Shields. Ian did a lot of work with Hungover Stuntmen when I was working with them and he’s just been on tour with the Futureheads. I got the shot I wanted for the cover and I’ve since worked on the cartoon of Sid which is jumping from the page. I’m very pleased with it, but a little more work is needed before the final version goes to print.

Ian also took the ‘author’s portrait’ for the inside of the dust jacket. It still makes me laugh just thinking of it. I hope it has the same effect on prospective buyers.

On Thursday I did my final Doggets gig on the Southbank before the summer break. Sadly Phil Nichol had to pull out, but I was able to do two sets as a result, meaning I‘ve now managed to perform sets as all five of my current characters at Bob’s slack-as-a-welly-top gigs. Bob Slayer was a wonderful disgrace, as ever. I did a whole load of new material as Dominic Farquhar, which was great fun and went a storm, just need to tighten it up and mix it in with the older stuff a bit more.

Despite my hairy schedule I went to see my friend Jo Burke perform with new 4-woman troupe Funbags in Stockwell on Sunday. Her Mary Magdelane act stole the show and her new burlesque piece for the character had me crying. The girls should have a really strong show by the time they hit Edinburgh, there were some stand-out pieces including a nice modern take on the class attitudes sketch made famous by Cleese, Barker and Corbett in the sixties. I also loved Mercedes Benson as performed by Gemma Layton.

Despite the rather unfortunate clash with England’s first game in the World Cup, my show at Newcastle’s Live Theatre on 12^th June is fast approaching a sell-out. As of 1^st June there are only 11 tickets remaining, so get onto the box office on 0191 232 1232 if you don’t want to miss out.

Working now on a piece for the Just the Tonic brochure for Edinburgh, the Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand Cut Out and Keep Foulmouthed Figurine. Watch this space to see how it comes out.

My autobiog Simon Donald – Him Off the Viz is now available to pre-order through both the publisher Tonto Books and through Amazon

Here’s what the sales bumph says about it…

Simon Donald re-invented the Great British sense of humour, aged just fifteen.

He was a founder of the sales-phenomenon Viz Comic, setting up the magazine in 1979 with his brother Chris from a bedroom in Newcastle. He worked on its editorial team for twenty-four years. Staying with Viz four years longer than his brother, Simon left the magazine in 2003, before becoming a stand-up comedian.

This is the story of an extremely colourful life.  It tells of Viz’s staggering rise from a modest fanzine selling to 150 people at punk gigs in Newcastle pubs, to outselling every magazine in Britain’s newsagents with only two exceptions; the Radio Times and the TV Times, and all in a period of just ten years.

But it’s not just the story of how Viz itself was born, it’s not just the real-life stories behind what inspired its characters, and it’s not a simple Geordie-made-good rags-to-riches story.  This is also a very personal story.

Simon faced many private challenges growing up in a rocky family home torn by hardship, illness and loss. Both sides of his remarkable story are told here for the first time.

This is the story of a life with some amazing highs and lows. Scoring a goal for Pele, being thrown off live breakfast TV, owning nine virtually identical cars… at the same time, the violent school riot, Noel Gallagher’s connection to Sid the Sexist, tabloid headlines after a nightmare awards dinner, smashing all Viz’s awards with a golf club, four years of madness on the road with a rock n roll band… and much, much more.

“In a small way, Simon Donald changed the way the world laughs, for ever. We had a sneaking suspicion that flatulence was funny, but it took this Geordie visionary, this Giotto of flatus, to free us from the shackles of our sensibilities.”

Stewart Lee

“Brilliant. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. Donald is clearly Newcastle’s second funniest man.”

Ross Noble

The Soho Theatre yesterday.

After a crazy few weeks of gigging all over the country and writing my book ’til the early hours of the morning, I’ve been and went and gone on holiday. Although it’s a break, I have to write a couple of thousand words a day if I’m going to reach my target before the deadline at the end of June. I’ve not managed to write anything since I’ve been out here in Italy, however I’ve managed to sit in the sun and play the guitar, eat pizza from an outdoor log-fired oven, drink wine and neck the occasional impossibly strong coffee and sit around on my arse quite a lot, so that’s an achievement in itself, obviously.

I’ve decided to write this short blog to get myself back in the mindset for writing and also to keep you up to date on what’s happening this summer.

Firstly, the great news came in that the Soho Theatre will be hosting my full Comic to Comic show on 23rd and 24th July. This is a fantastic breakthrough as it’s one of the best venues in central London and it’s thanks to those of you who joined my Facebook group that the Theatre was aware people were out there wanting to buy tickets. To book call 0207 478 0100 or to book online visit the SOHO THEATRE BOX OFFICE

The next great news came in the form of the confirmation of ’Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand’ my 2010 Edinburgh Fringe show. It’ll be my first solo Edinburgh show – last year I did a show with Maff Brown and my only previous Fringe run was another two-man show with Alex Collier in 2004.

This year’s show will be at the Caves again with Just the Tonic from 5th-29th August. More details to follow soon.

At the end of my run with Maff last year I did one or two dates solo when Maff was off working on other projects, from those rather random gigs I got the idea to do an hour this year showcasing all of my five characters. Recently I did toy with the idea of a Barry Twyford one-man show, but as I’ve been writing longer sets for each of my characters for the Southbank residency at Bob Slayer’s Dogget’s gigs, I’ve really got the taste for using the best of all the new material for each character and putting it all together in what will hopefully be a pretty tight show. Barry Twyford may get his own hour in 2011, we’ll have to wait and see.

Once my book is out of the way I intend to start putting some video here on the site, so, come July, Bingo from Benton should be doing some topical news reviews and Barry Twyford will be talking about the world inside market research and giving some money-saving tips on packed lunches.

Sorry to be so brief, I need to devote my most alert moments to the autobiography. Get those Soho tickets bought, if they go anything like as fast as the Live Theatre ones you’ll need to be quick.

Arrivederci per ora.

That London. Yesterday.

Thanks to everybody who came to the January show at the Live Theatre. The place was rammed to the rafters and a great night was had by all. I felt that the second half of the show, the part in which I do the characters, went particularly well and I think I probably did the best Rick Kestrel and Jeremy Jitler I’ve ever done. I’m pretty sure now that for Edinburgh this year I’ll be doing an hour of the five characters, and calling it Simon Donald is Completely Hatstand. Your thoughts are welcome.

I’ve started a Facebook group to try and assess how many people in London would like to come and see the full Comic to Comic show. I know it’s already sold out at an incredible rate in Newcastle, but in London I’m as yet a new artist with little in the way of a following. I am asking people to join the group if they think they would like to buy a ticket to see the show, so hopefully I’ll get an idea of what demand is like before I book a venue. You can join the group by following this link FACEBOOK LONDON GROUP

This is just called St James's Park. Yesterday.

Happy New Year to one and all, and thanks to everybody who came to all of my shows over Christmas and New Year. The picture above is dedicated to all who attended the NUST gig at Gallowgate. The Christmas shows were all fantastic fun, and all went ahead despite the appalling weather. As well as seeing great crowds turn out, it was great to catch up with some of the other comedians who I’ve not seen for a few months and it was especially good to work with both Gary Delaney and Sarah Millican again. Sarah has always been hilarious and now seems to be on the cusp of the national celebrity that she so richly deserves. Gary, king of the machine-gun paced one liner, is still as relentlessly funny as he ever has been. Lovely to see so much new material from both of them.

Sorry I’ve been out of touch for a while on the blog front, I’ve been very busy and I’ve also been down for a few days with the Rangoon Crut. After my gig on the 20th I fell ill and spent almost all of the days leading up to Christmas on the sofa, managing only a two-hour slog around the Metrocentre on the 23rd to cover everybody’s Christmas shopping. This jaunt wore me out to such an extent that I wasn’t able to travel up to Northumberland on Christmas Eve, having instead to return to the sofa to recuperate.

Christmas successfully out of the way I’ve returned to writing my autobiography. I say writing, I’ve actually been reading and editing and compiling sections rather than actually writing anything. I was very happy to find that I’ve written more than I thought I had, and a lot of it still makes me laugh, which I hope is a good sign.

Leading up to Christmas I was working on the science project which I flagged up here a while back. It’s a documentary looking at stem cell research into treatment of multiple sclerosis. I’m working on it with my long-term colleague Alex Collier, and his animations for the show, created by his Oddball Media partnership, are looking fantastic.

It’s going to be a brilliant documentary, we’re having loads of fun with it by using animated cartoon sections, but it’s a really good science adventure at the same time. I’ve been recording the voice characterisations for the cartoon sections and I have to say that’s some of the most fun there is to be had in tv work. It took me back to recording the soundtrack of the Sid the Sexist cartoon in 1992. On that occasion I had to share a microphone with Bob Mortimer who did his absolute best to make me laugh whenever possible. Not surprisingly he made me laugh rather a lot. Needless to say the story of that day will be in my book.

If any of you use Twitter you may notice that a Twitter update section has appeared in the right-hand bar of the blog page. I’ve been on Twitter for some time but have never really seen its point, hence I hardly touched it. I’ve decided to give it a go and try to update regularly, but the last thing I want to do is be one of these people who announces to the world everything that they do via Twitter. There are people on there who share the most inane facts, for instance what they are about to eat for their tea and what they might watch on television. I’m almost tempted to go into graphic detail every time I visit the toilet, talking about the consistency, colour and smell of my stools. Instead, I’ll try to use Twitter only as a useful tool to share information, or to share any funny or interesting thoughts that I have, rather than which fucking shoes I have chosen to wear today. Anyway, I’ll give it a try for a while, let me know your thoughts.

I’d like to give a special thanks to everybody who has bought tickets for my Newcastle Live Theatre show Comic to Comic. The show, as many of you may already know, was scheduled for 10 December the exact 30th anniversary of the launch of Viz Comic. Much to my surprise the tickets sold out before the show had been publicised, and my spend on flyers and posters was completely wasted. I booked an additional date for 30 January for those people who’d missed out, and I’m delighted to tell you that I have wasted another packet of money on publicity posters and flyers for this show, which has also sold out before I could begin the distribution of said printed stuff. Thanks so much for wanting to see my show.