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Mar. 19th, 2007

9:48 AM

Wow, snow. Ooh.

Am now exhausted, after a long weekend of parental-type visits. Spent Saturday helping my dad to do up his garden (pressure washed the patio! Woohoo!), by the end of which I was muddy, exhausted, and happy (I love all that - miss having a decent garden to muck about in). Then on Sunday, visited A's mum and her husband, and had a very civilised lunch and chat and look at photos of A when he was a baby (so cute! Whatever happened?).

Oh, watched the '100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians' on Channel 4 last night. Hmm. Not sure I entirely agreed with the choices made, but hey. And, my god but Jim Davidson's an unpleasant man. As is Bernard Manning (not that this is news...). Was reminded of how much I love Bill Hicks - died at 32, which is sounding younger and younger. And I love Bill Bailey's arcane knowledge. And the way Dylan Moran uses words. And Eddie Izzard's glamorous weirdosity. And Mark Thomas's intelligent activism. And don't find Al Murray funny (what's the point of that frickin' Pub Landlord thing?). And I remember when Jasper Carrott had me crying with laughter, ditto Billy Connolly. And Victoria Wood is a genius, but I wish they'd stop playing that one damn song. And I wish they'd put more stand-up on TV.

edit: A fun afternoon:

http://www.markthomasinfo.com/

http://www.dylanmoranrules.com/

http://www.billbailey.co.uk/

http://www.eddieizzard.com/home.izz

http://www.billhicks.com/

Things that go bump in the night

By DYLAN MORAN

"The normal person sleeps for about eight hours a night" - A whole bunch of scientists

THE normal person, as you all know, was invented on a rainy Tuesday afternoon while the scientists were waiting to see what happens when you empty a packet of quarks into a bowl of fission.

I can't sleep with the window closed. V. can't sleep with a draught. I cough and blow my nose and ingurgitate medicines and nasal spray for three to four hours before actually lying down. V. categorically does not snore. She does however, produce a noise through her nose that sounds like a very powerful lawnmower chasing a brace of wild geese through a tin vaulted hall with popcorn carpeting.

In her defence, I will say that I steal the duvet as though my life depended upon it being a crushed ball that I can clasp to my chest, and I jigger and jolt as though as being simultaneously attacked by bats and electrocuted. She tends to favour dramatic sleep positions, such as the diagonal crucifix or centre stage starfish.

You might think all of this could create problems but we are mature human beings, capable of compromise. Now neither of us get any sleep.

ME: "I can't sleep".

V: "Zzzzzzzz".

ME: "I can't sleep because my mind is too busy. You know, I mean I worry I will forget how to breathe. What if my body just forgets? Or the roof caves in? That's possible. Or spontaneous combustion? I read about this family in Argentina. They were all sitting on the porch eating ice cream and whompff. . . six pairs of sandals in a circle around six choc ices. Are there any nylon fibres in this duvet? You could be dangerous you know. You give off a lot of static. When you get angry I can see little tongues of fire flit round your knees."

And if you can't sleep, you don't want anyone else around you to sleep. Which is why you wake the person next to you and say things like: "Why don't we go to Crete and raise glow worms - there is not a lot of money in it but we would have enough to get by." And at that time of night, these "ideas" make more sense than anything you have thought of before.

V: "Go to sleep."

ME: "O.K. Zzzzzzzzzzz."

V: "I can't sleep now. You know how you get cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes and beef tomatoes - what is it with tomatoes - why doesn't it work with, say, carrots and if tomatoes are fruit how come you never get tomato yoghurt? Did you know that the stomach can hold 21 pints of material? I'm only thinking about this kind of crap because you woke me up. Sometimes when I am sleeping I think I am a bird. Or a flower. Or a flower that flies. Wake up. Am I a flower?"

ME: "Mnah-Mnah ... Yes."

V: "That flies?"

ME: "Yes, of course that flies! What else would be the point?! And I'm a pint of moonlight and a burlap sack."

DREAMS can wake you as well. The thing about dreams, as the psychoanalysts have been telling us for years, is that anything that we repress rises to the surface in our nocturnal imaginings. There is a rigid system of symbolism which never lies. Hence if you have a recurring dream about spanners, it means you are sexually attracted to spanners. And if you have a recurring dream about sex this also means you are sexually attracted to spanners.

The mood created by dreams naturally filters into the wakened consciousness. You may arise one morning feeling confident, full of joy and convinced that you are a truly worthwhile human being. This, you tell yourself, is a result of the resolution of a personal crisis. But really, it is due to the thousands of little men made out of bent cutlery and olives who have been hard at work all night blowing raspberries into a wardrobe full of your boss's neckties.

Anything can trigger off insomnia. Your brain gets exhausted but the mind is full of goodies. I once woke up a friend of mine who was happily ensconced on the couch by roaring "We can't use the typewriter because Sherlock Holmes has it inside the whale!" And while this may have been a salient point, Thomas explained to me that he would have preferred to discuss it later.

On a number of occasions I have gone so far as to get out of bed to jot down the essence of a wonderful joke/novel/light opera only to find next morning in bold letters a single word scrawled across the paper, usually something less than earth-shattering such as "yoghurt" or "beekeeper". This kind of promissory note; does not always convince producers and the like of a surefire hit.

If you wake up tired, you can, lose a lot of time at work, although this suits some people very well. Stockbrokers, for instance, do" their best business on sleep deprivation.

BROKER/1: We might net fidicicory margin on the incoming maturity if we sell now . . . then do we sell?

BROKER/2: No, let's gild the shark and wait for the tartlets to crumble.

BROKER/3: . . . Assuming the corsage underwriting steeples a whuoflink.

BROKER/1: Right.

That's why nobody really understands business, you have to be the kind of person who is kept awake by fluctations in the yen to speak this level of gibberish.

The rest of us just get ratty with tiredness. A lot of our morning conversations have sounded like this.

ME: "Where is the xxxxing thing?!"

V: "How the xxxxing Hell should I know. Do you think I am a xxxxing calculator?!"

ME: "xxx? Alright. I just xxxing asked. I'll xxxing get it."

V: "xxx! xxx; xx xxxxx?"

ME: "xxx!! xxxx!! xxxing over Mexico."

If you are having trouble yourself drifting off, I want you to close your eyes and imagine a beautiful garden, all round you rambling tufts of grass and lavender bushes undulating in the breeze. A bird flaps its languorous flight to nowhere in particular, the air is heavy with the scent of evening flora. Then, in the roseate distance, shimmering between the poplars, you can just discern several thousand tractors heading your way.

edit 2: For anyone interested, the top 10 stand-up comics, as voted for by Channel 4 viewers - with my comments:

10 - Ross Noble (what the hell is he doing in the top 10? I've seen him live. Rather dull)
9 - Chris Rock (I've only seen clips, would like to see more)
8 - Victoria Wood (should be higher. And could they stop playing that song now, pls thx)
7 - Bill Bailey (puts much more effort into his act than he's given credit for - he doesn't just 'look funny'. As A remarked, Andrew Lloyd Webber looks funny, but doesn't make me laugh. BB has worked at it.)
6 - Bill Hicks (disgracefully low - my #1 for his soul, wit and performance)
5 - Harry Hill (sneakily funny - always watchable)
4 - Richard Pryor (shockingly open - seemed to live his comedy)
3 - Eddie Izzard (v. funny, but I'm surprised his more obscurely erudite funniness is this highly rated)
2 - Peter Kay (will I get lynched if I say I don't think he's actually that funny? He shouts a lot. Phoenix Nights looks okay, but this is about stand-up)
1 - Billy Connolly (hm. Apparently he hasn't managed to kill off his audience's love, after all. Used to be funny - fantastically so. I still rate others higher)

And just a few observations: For fuck's sake, what is Jimmy Carr doing at #12? Bill / Billy is a disproportionately popular name for good stand-up comedians. And IMO Steve Martin, Steven Wright, Omid Djalili, Rik Mayall, and several others, should have been much higher. But this was voted for by 'the public', so what do I know.