Santa’s Journal (Entry 5) – May 16 2013

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Drinking’s a young man’s game. I still feel a little out of sorts after Gundal’s birthday bash. My neural pathways are like never-ending corridors in a vast hospital; thoughts staggering down them like heavily-medicated mental patients with their dressing gowns open. I keep finding clues to my drunken behaviour. Trying to remember the other night is like piecing together a jigsaw made out of fog. Maybe some things are better not knowing. Like how the Jesus from Glasgow’s George Square nativity scene ended up in my bathroom. In May. How in the name of Hell’s bum whiskers did I manage that?

I might have a bit of magic at my disposal, but I thank all that’s good that time travel isn’t among my talents. Think how much worse it would have been if I’d managed to snatch the actual baby Jesus. I guess that’s why Doc and Marty McFly don’t get pished up before they hammer the DeLorean up to 88. I dread to think what Marty would have done to his mum if he’d downed a few bottles of vodka on the way to that dance. Anyway, I’ve wandered off the point a little. It serves a purpose, though. Nonsense talk about time travelling incest is distracting me from the fact that I can hear my heartbeat through my fingers. I’m even sure I can smell my blood, and it smells like Jack Daniels on burnt toast. Blasted bloody hangover! Margaret says I should clamp the reindeers before I start drinking. Or stop drinking. A novel idea. Perhaps I’ll consider it.

It might improve staff relations. Doritch, my most reliable elf, had to fly back to Greenland with Rudolph to pick up the elves I’d left behind. Apparently I kidnapped them. That’s a strong word. I’d like to think I invited them on an adventure against their own will. They weren’t too happy, the boring little buggers, but I’ve given the five of them a week off work, plus a bonus, so all’s fair in rum and war. On the home-front, the conversational cold war between me and Margaret finally has ceased, and relations have warmed. I’ve graduated from being a loutish brute to a lovable rogue again.

My friend Ronald phoned today. He’s flying out next week for a visit. We used to have a wild old time back in the day. We would’ve made Gundal’s party look like an Amish disco. Seems like we’re both slowing down. Age has done it to me, a new-found sensibility has done it for him. Was talking to him about my desire to retire, and he thinks it’s a good plan and I should really push it with Coca Cola. He said we can talk about it when he arrives. I’m looking forward to that. Haven’t seen him in years. Last time I saw him he was a natural fluorescent red. Now I gather he dyes it. Ah, well. I just hope he doesn’t bring with him that drippy friend of his; always gabbing on about this stamp collection and the mating behaviour of woodland insects. I can’t stand the Hamburglar.

Santa’s Journal (Entry 4) – May 14 2013

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Last night’s party for Gundal was so good I woke up in Greenland. The flight home was a bit shaky, because the reindeers were still a bit pissed, too. Six of them vomited into the Arctic Ocean, and I caught a bit of splash-back. I’m sure we’ve left a few elves behind. I might send one of the more responsible elves back with Rudolph later in the day to do a reconnoitre/search-and-rescue thingy.

Margaret was pretty furious with me. Worried sick, she was. She left the community centre quite early in the evening complaining of a headache, and I said I wouldn’t be too far behind her. By this point, however, I was dressed as a polar bear and roaring at elves, so maybe she shouldn’t have put so much stock in my promise. I guess I’m just trying to rationalise in light of my shenanigans. Margaret said to me this afternoon that I should start acting my age and have a bit more respect for myself. Especially since all of the elves look up to me. By the time she uttered that line I was too hungover even to do the obvious and cruel elf-related height joke. So I vomited into a bucket instead.

‘You should be top of your own naughty list, Frank McGarry!’ she told me.

That’s my real name: Frank. I’m not supposed to reveal that information for fear of contractual reprisals. ‘Brand continuity’ and ‘image integrity’ are the relevant buzz-words here, I believe. But I come from a long line of Santa Claus’s. We’re not immortal; just ordinary Joes living in extra-ordinary circumstances, working for a bunch of extra-ordinary arseholes. There are rites of succession, sort of like what they do with Popes. We die, and another Santa takes our place, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

No more journal today, though. My skull feels like it’s filled with explosive eels. And I’ve got a dear wife to crawl to, and sick to scrub.

Santa’s Journal (Entry 3) – May 12 2013

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Spent most of the morning revising my ‘Naughty List’. Coca Cola told me I couldn’t use one anymore, that no child could be excluded from Santa’s services no matter how bad their behaviour. I’ve got the memo here somewhere. Ah, yes.

‘It is not your responsibility as one of our major brand representatives, nor the responsibility of Coca Cola itself, its subsidiaries or shareholders, to comment on or offer judgement upon the behaviour of individual customers or to create criteria under which customers could be excluded from our services based on arbitrary and often subjective codes of conduct. Coca Cola is a profit-driven company, and those profits, and indeed our brand, would suffer if we were to behave in this manner. Moral positions are best adopted and enforced by the church, and penalties best enforced through the legal system. It is not in our interests to attempt to fulfill the roles of either institution.’

So, roughly translated: ‘It doesn’t matter if some wee cunt’s put a brick through an old disabled woman’s window, doused her beloved pet-cat in paraffin, set it alight and then taken potshots at its screaming body with a pellet gun; so long as his parents are prepared to spend more money than they have in their bank accounts on Christmas presents, and continue to encourage their Hell-spawn to glug Coca Cola in quantities that would obliterate an elephant’s pancreas, then who gives a flying Yeti’s bawbag?’ I’m no legal eagle, but I do have a first-class honours degree in Reading Between the Lines, and a doctorate in Advanced Bullshit Detection.

Margaret took my blood-pressure again today. It’s high. My heart’s smacking around in my old chest like a jet-propelled pin-ball.

A photo of Snelling, reproduced in the interests of public safety. WARNING: he doesn’t normally look like Barry Cryer. He’s a master of disguise. BEWARE.

Anyway, Innis Snelling. He’s definitely top of the naughty list this year. I won’t go into too much detail and defile my memoirs with a record of his disgusting misdeeds, but suffice to say he got up to some sickening, sexual, banana-related ethnic tomfoolery. And what’s with the lad’s name? He sounds like a rejected Harry Potter villain. No toys for you, motherfucker.

Wee Gundal the elf’s birthday bash tonight. That should relax me.

Santa’s Journal (Entry 2) – May 11 2013

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch. I was walking back from the shop when it really struck me. Scrunch, scrunch. That noise, that sickening noise of boot on snow, like a rat gnawing through my skull. Snow. How much I hate it. White, endless white, it’s all the eye can see. I’d punch it if I thought it would make a blind bit of difference.

I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday. Escape. Screw the threat of legal action and the loss of pension. That’s what I should do, just escape. Get a hold of some false identities, shave off my beard, scoop up Margaret and then the pair of us bugger off to Barbados or somewhere equally sun-kist, to be collected by the Grim Reaper replete with burgeoning melanomas and livers gone wonky through one too many beach-front cocktails. Sounds like bliss to me. Fuck Christmas, fuck children and an extra-special fuck reserved for those sharp-suit wearing sons of dogs at Coca Cola.

I used to really enjoy my job, the status of being Santa – it used to really mean something. And the snow didn’t rankle so much when I felt like I was making a difference. Not now though. It was around the conclusion of the six-thousandth snowball fight that the malaise really kicked in, and shortly after the construction of the nine-thousand-and-fiftieth snowman. How I despise snowmen now. Now, at Christmas time, when I go on my deliveries, I take great delight in decapitating those I find in children’s gardens. Sometimes, with a hearty laugh, I sculpt sets of biologically intricate genitalia onto their icy bodies. The snowmen, that is. Not the children. To pass the long, bitter and freezing days here in the North Pole I’ve taken to erecting rows of snowmen, blindfolding them and mowing them down with an industrial strength hairdryer. Sometimes I douse them in petrol and set them alight. I swear that sometimes I can even hear them scream. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Santa’s Journal (Entry 1) – May 10 2013

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I really want to retire, that’s the truth. But I won’t let those bastards at Coca Cola force me out. When I go, I’m going with my pension. So if they’re unhappy with my performance and general attitude to the work, and I’m unhappy being locked into this uninspiring life of snow and misery, then so be it. We’ll just have to be mutually unhappy; but happy that the lawyers too will be unhappy.

They are a shower of bastards, though, Coca Cola. I asked if I could relocate my North Pole base to the Southern hemisphere throughout the winter and spring months, but they said ‘no’. Gave me some shit about ‘brand coherence and continuity.’ So I’ve got to freeze my balls off like Nicholson in a hedge maze just in-case some kid breaks down in a heap cause they’ve seen Santa sauntering through Spain with a fucking Hawaiian shirt on. As if they’d recognise me. I even said I’d shave my beard, but, no, they said. ‘Your beard is the property of Coca Cola, Mr Claus.’

That’s why I’ve switched to drinking Pepsi. It’s not much, but it feels to me like the first strike of a guerrilla war. I can’t even change this coat, or deviate from the Coca Cola corporate colour scheme for fear of a law-suit. That’s definitely something I don’t want to be wearing. Every time I look down at the blood-red of my sleeve I feel more and more like I’m wearing a strait-jacket.

I remember when I used to be happy here. Where did it all go wrong?

Cunt of the Week (17th April 2013) by Jonny Seaton

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I’m going to set my stall out straight away: I hate the Tories. I can’t stand them, in fact, but my first memory of them was a positive one. In 1975 I remember Margaret Thatcher being elected as the first female leader of a political party, and thinking, as a 6 year old, ‘That’s good.’ My main female role model at that time was my mum, and she was brilliant, a really positive influence on me.

Perhaps it was my doctor father’s left-wing leanings, or perhaps it was the 80’s and the height of political comedy with Ben Elton and Spitting Image vying for our attention at putting down those in power; either way, I realised that the Conservative Party were not the party of the people….unless of course the people you were referring to were ‘society’s elite,’ a phrase that was something of an oxymoron in the 80’s, as Thatcher had denounced society, and claimed that it didn’t exist. As she put it: ‘There’s no such thing as society.’ (‘Elite’ is also open to interpretation: by elite I mean the rich, or the wannabe rich.)

Major: like an old Clark Kent, minus the Superman.

But after introducing the poll tax, the vicious attacks on the unions and strikers, the denationalisation of once great industries, the initial steps in privatisation of the Health Service and so on, Thatcher was eventually deposed by her own party. There followed a slight move from extreme right-wing, blue politics to closer-to-centre, grey politics with seven years of John Major – a man so dull that not even the later revelation that he had had an affair with Edwina Currie could liven up his image. And it was image that the next PM, Tony Blair, was all about. Tony will be remembered for a few things, most notably an illegal war; a war that I totally agree with, if I am honest. Saddam Hussein was a bad man who committed genocide against the Iraqi Kurds, and if that was the reason for the invasion there would have been a lot less of an issue. The official reason was Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), but none were ever found – they were never going to be found. What Iraq did, and does, have in abundance is oil; and with the USA calling the shots, we were always going to war.

Gordon Brown squeezing an imaginary Tony Blair heart.

The collapse of the financial services led to Labour’s downfall, despite a couple of years of a good man, Gordon Brown, whose biggest problem was timing. Blair’s legacy was that the next Prime Minister was going to be a Tory. A big reason for this was the collapse of the financial services and the plunging of the UK into recession; interestingly enough a collapse that can be accurately traced back to the US policies of Reagan, which had been copied by Margaret Thatcher in the 80’s: greed, self and money; a man mind thyself attitude.

David Cameron: even his own shadow thinks he’s a cunt.

So on 11 May 2010 the public went to the polls, and nearly 30 million turned out to vote, which is a great turnout (about 65% of those eligible). The Tories won 308 seats, which wasn’t enough for a majority unless combined with the seats of the Liberals – and don’t get me started on that! Many saw this as a protest vote, but whatever the reasons the Conservatives were back in power.

So 13 years since we last had a Conservative Government we had another, and the ‘everything now’ society in which we live caused people to forget how bad it was the last time. There is a feeling amongst the electorate that all the parties are much of a muchness. The bland politics of Major and Blair did nothing to dispel that. They are wrong: Cameron is very much one of Thatcher’s children. He has been in power for less than 3 years, and what have we seen?

Cuts to the armed forces and an end to the Scottish Regiments, replacing them with one cheaper Scottish Regiment. In the best traditions of Thatcher, this is a Scottish-only thing.
An end to the separate Scottish Police Forces, being replaced by one force…. another Scottish thing
Cameron is continuing the gradual erosion of the NHS
Cameron is undoing all of the good that came from the Beveridge Report, which fought the ‘five giant evils’ of Ignorance (Education), Idleness (Work & Pensions) and Disease (NHS)
Iain Duncan-Smith claiming he could surive on £57 per week
The introduction of a Bedroom Tax, potentially forcing the most vulnerable in society to take in unknown lodgers
The phone hacking scandal, and Cameron’s disclosed closeness to Rebekah Brooks, the editor at the height of the scandal. She is set to go on trial in September this year but I doubt anything will come of that. Am I cynical, perhaps?

Thatcher’s coffin being led to the ground by the BNP, who won the competitive bid to run her funeral.

So on this, the day that Margaret Thatcher is buried, you would think that my cunt of the week is the Conservative Party. Well, I am afraid you are wrong. Yes, I despise them; I hate everything they stand for and wish they did not exist. However, what they stand for is well documented: they are the party on the right; they are the party of money; and the party that likes to keep that money circulating amongst themselves….

My cunt of the week is… well it could be you? Did you vote? No. Do you complain about the Government? You do? Well, it is you then. Voting is the right of every free person over the age of 18 in the UK. It is a democratic right, and one that if you forego then you forego the right to complain that this party – which has always been composed of cunts – continue to do what they have always done.

Jonny Seaton

THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER Jonny Seaton is fast becoming a regular and favourite on the Scottish stand-up circuit. Last month he reached the grand finale of Radio Forth’s Big Comedy Audition, and received great praise from the judges. Outside of comedy, Jonny works as a fluffer for the animals on David Attenborough documentaries. ‘When David Attenborough wants to see two elks fucking, then David Attenborough GETS to see two elks fucking,’ explains Jonny. ‘But sometimes they’re not in the mood. David won’t accept this. He’ll say things to me like, “I didn’t fly all the way to Africa and trek through bloody jungles and across deserts getting my arse bitten off by mosquitos just so that these two lazy cunts could ruin my money shot.” Oh, he can be quite brutal sometimes. That’s where I come in. Sometimes you need to be tough, with a vice-like grip, sometimes gentle, like you’re shaking hands with a brittle-boned Oompa Loompa. Yes, I love my job, but it can be challenging. You try wanking off a tiger.’

The cost of failure can be high. On one occasion Jonny failed to excite two apathetic rhinos into having sex, and so Attenborough ordered Jonny to put on a rhino costume, and fucked him himself.

Jonny once went to France. He liked it.

Not all of this biography is true… Jonny fucking hated France.

FOLLOW JONNY ON TWITTER: @BalernoDad

USA Declares War on Scotland

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Megrahi: Guilty of a terrible crime - those glasses are fucking horrendous.

al-Megrahi: Guilty of a terrible crime – wearing those fucking horrendous specs.

CIA files leaked earlier this week reveal the extent of the hostility felt by the US towards Scotland in the wake of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s (but buddy, you can call me Al) release from a Scottish prison in 2009. US officials were so incensed by the decision to release on compassionate grounds the Libyan man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 that a plan was set in motion to destabilise Scotland by sabotaging its national cultural identity and legacy.

“I WANNA SPEND MY LIFE WITH YOU!” Nah, you’re alright, pal…

The first victim of this diabolical plan – codenamed Operation Bomby Scorch land – was Scottish ‘musical’ act The Proclaimers (it’s a fallacy that The Proclaimers consists of two brothers; in reality, The Proclaimers is a single entity, believed to have been created in a laboratory). Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny McAskill, the man ultimately responsible for releasing al-Megrahi, received a ‘Letter from America’ informing him that the Proclaimers had been brutally murdered. A mysterious phone-call followed:

‘The Proclaimers are dead,’ said the anonymous caller.
‘What have you done with their bodies?’ demanded MacAskill.
‘You’ll find them if you take a look up the rail-tracks, from Miami to Canada.’
‘That’s quite a long route,’ said MacAskill, ‘could you be a bit more specific?’
‘Oh, all right, then, their corpses are just outside Miami Central Station.’

The US army: ready to kick Scotland right in the bad teeth.

Thankfully, it was a false alarm. The Proclaimers were alive and well. Government spooks had accidentally murdered two very, very ugly guys wearing shit glasses who had travelled to Florida from Glasgow on holiday. Their families were informed, and they just laughed. ‘Aye, they do look a wee bit like The Proclaimers, right enough,’ said one mother.

‘Daft cunts,’ she added.

Despite The Proclaimers setback, the CIA pressed on with their mission, and successfully managed to:

Go through every episode of the original Star Trek series and change Scotty’s name to ‘Englishy.’
Spread a rumour that the Loch Ness monster is a homosexual communist with ties to Yemen.
Convince every American celebrity to refer to Annie Lennox as ‘Tranny Lennox’, and always make the gesture of possessing a massive cock whenever she walked past. The joke was on the US, though, as Annie Lennox later hung herself. No, I’m sorry, I read that wrong… what I meant to say was, it turns out Annie Lennox WAS hung after all.
Fund a tourism campaign, with the slogan: ‘Don’t go to Scotland, it’s shit and they don’t brush their teeth.’
Destroy every existing copy of Braveheart, and then reshoot the movie with an uzi-toting Arnold Swarzennegger as King Edward, and the guy who played McLuvin as William Wallace. They also changed William Wallace’s name to ‘Full-Blown-AIDS McCunty’.

X-rated Krankies: a black helmet pushing through a big purple cunt-hole.

The US only backed down from its onslaught when McAskill threatened to deploy The Krankies on US soil. A US government spokesman said: ‘OK, we’ll back off. But know this: if you assholes ever again even think about sending The Krankies to America, we’ll melt your disgusting little country into hot mush like it’s a fucking petrol-laced welly boot in a microwave.’

Use of any Krankie as an instrument of warfare, either singularly or in conjunction with another Krankie, is prohibited under International Law, and is in direct contravention of the Motherwell Convention of the United Nations. The Krankies are currently the only weapons of mass destruction to regularly appear in panto.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ‘ICKE DON’T BELIEVE IT’ MAIN MENU, and more bizarre news stories.

Young Jamie: Kindergarten Cock (Part 4)

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

First off, not a great interpretation of the ‘back-to-front schoolboy’ look. I’ve clearly glued a sanitary towel to a cardboard box, and then put it over my head. Ta-da! Eat your heart out, Gaultier. I don’t know. Memory’s a tricksy thing. It was all a long time ago. Maybe that was my school uniform. I can’t remember. Fanny pad aside, though, how sinister does that combo look? If that’s an accurate representation of how I looked when I was out guising that year, then the mortality rate for old ladies with heart conditions must’ve been unusually high. I look like a Poundland version of Michael Myers: ‘Put the sweets in the bag or prepare to be gored like a bull, my old friend.’ Admittedly, it would’ve been hard to stab anyone without any hands. The text tells us alot. I especially like how my little capitalist brain has ranked my relatives in descending order from highest to lowest based on how much money they gave me. ‘30p? Try not to insult me, cus. Take a leaf out of your maw’s book and give me a quid next time. Grandpa? 50p’s a kick in the nuts, son, and you know it. If you want to top the list next year, you’ll have to dig deeper into that fucking pension.’ Interesting that the teacher has corrected the direction of my pound sign, but left uncorrected the spelling of ‘ant’. Are you saying my mum’s sister’s got mandibles, ya cunt??

Young Jamie: Kindergarten Cock (Part 3)

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Let’s not beat about the bush here: this is one fucked up kids’ party. Not only is there an adult man there who looks like a) a Wild West saloon owner from 1889, or b) the lost member of the Village People, but also there’s a little blonde child perched on a rock with a mighty blue boner sprouting from his stomach. Plus, the moustache guy’s pissed himself. Was he thinking about the blue boner? Or was he thinking about the dead child with the green trousers who’s lying next to him? Jesus, we really knew how to rock and roll when I was 7. IT’S NOT A PROPER PARTY UNTIL THERE’S A DEAD CHILD LYING AT THE FEET OF A MAN WHO LOOKS LIKE HE’S ESCAPED FROM A TINTIN COMIC. Interesting to note that ‘I wasn’t dancing atall all (sic) through the party.’ Not much has changed. This is because when I dance I look like a spasticated sex offender. Sometimes, my top half will be doing a dance from the 1990s, whilst my legs are pulling off moves from the 1970s. Not a pretty sight. I prefer to stand around looking like I’m above it all, but really it’s because I’m conscious that any very limited sex appeal I might have possessed will be eliminated the second I begin dancing. My rhythmic style could charitably be described as ‘disturbingly epileptic.’ Anyway, back at the party I was content to go around ‘pretending to spray people.’ Maybe that was me with the big blue boner…

On the Death of a Pet – Piece Published in The Cat Magazine

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

This is a piece I wrote following the death of our family cat a few years ago. The article appeared in various national cat magazines, which is my way of saying that I’m rock and roll. It’s a little departure from normal service, in that I show compassion and sensitivity. Well, as much compassion and sensitivity as a man can show when he’s cynically exploiting the death of an animal to get himself in print. This article should accentuate my humanity, or perhaps confirm that I like animals more than people.

Click on the pictures to view the full-size text. Or, if you’re an eagle just read it as it appears on the page, you show-off.

Young Jamie: Kindergarten Cock (Part 2)

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

What a nice, caring and sharing child I must’ve been. You can see from the first panel on the left-hand-side of the page that I’ve got a new comic. You can also see that I’m rubbing this fact in the face of a poor, sad little baseball cap wearing boy. ‘CHECK OUT MY COMIC, YOU PENNILESS OAF! I HOPE YOU’VE GOT GOOD EYESIGHT, PLEB, BECAUSE THIS IS AS CLOSE AS YOU’RE FUCKING GETTING TO IT!’ The wee capped guy probably isn’t that bothered, to be honest. He’s got bigger problems: like being trapped in a cement block without any arms. PS: What in the name of cemented children is a LOINheart? And why was I not content with a single one? Perhaps the comic was pitched at kids who enjoyed raw meat, and so its publishers routinely gave away strange butcher-meat hybrids. FREE WITH THIS EXCITING ISSUE – HALF A POUND OF COCKBRISKET.

Jamie Andrew on Jamie Andrew

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I remember being 18 when Jamie Andrew – the other Jamie Andrew – was in the papers following a mountaineering accident in France. Naturally, I cut the headlines from the front pages and selotaped them to my wall – as you would. Jamie lost his limbs – and his friend – when a snowstorm hit as he was scaling Mount Blanc He was lucky to survive, and paid a high price for it.

Many years later I set up a website to showcase various writing projects and found that I couldn’t use my own name as the domain for the site, because the rather more famous Jamie Andrew had nabbed it. Once everything was up and running I tried googling myself, only to find that I was probably somewhere on page 6,532,000 in the rankings thanks to my brave namesake. I called my website ‘The Magic Torch’ to get around the problem.

Another few years passed. I started playing on the Scottish stand-up circuit as an open spot, which I still am, and reflected on the impossibility of gaining recognition because of the Jamie Andrew situation. There was no malice in this, but I thought I could put together a darkly humorous set by acting like the kind of person who would personally and childishly object to finding his promise of ‘fame’ snatched away from him..

I’d hoped that my on-stage rant would be taken with a pinch of salt, given that it’s very over-the-top and cartoonish. I wanted the audience to realise that being jealous of a quadruple amputee and coveting his fame instantly turned me into an incredibly tragic figure, and certainly not one to be admired. I’d hoped that the laughter would ultimately come not at the other Jamie’s expense, but at mine. Because it was so blatantly pathetic and ridiculous. And because the set wouldn’t be funny at all if the other Jamie wasn’t braver, more noble, more decent and a stronger human being than me. Otherwise I really would just be having a pop at a disabled guy.

I’m not trying to claim that the jokes are somehow devilishly subtle and provide a profound statement on the human condition, or that I’m some angry genius savant, or any guff like that. I’m an amateur stand-up who does coarse and often sick jokes. Tongue-in-cheek, but hardly Hicks.

I only say all of this because tonight I performed my set to an audience which I later discovered included some of Jamie’s relatives. Statistically, it was inevitable that one day this would happen. I’ve always defended my set on the grounds outlined above, but this is harder to do when you’re faced with people who have been directly affected by the issues you’re joking about, and love the person around whom they revolve. I suppose it’s easy to think of a person in the abstract; not really existing outside of a comedy routine.

Well, there was nothing abstract about being advised to sit upstairs to ensure my physical safety after one of Jamie’s relatives became understandably angry. I felt like Salmand Rushdie.

I know I should probably stick with the old maxim, ‘Never complain, never explain,’ but I felt the need to explain that although I tread a fine line in my set I’ve never regarded the other Jamie with anything less than complete awe and respect. I’ve also read his book, which is both heart-wrenching and inspirational in equal measure.

And let’s not forget that – given the amount of time I’ve spent talking about him in my set, – without him: I’d be nothing.

Now That’s What I Call Funny – @ Glasgow International Comedy Festival

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I’m taking part in this three-hander of comedy in Glasgow this March, as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Do come and have a giggle with me, Richard and Ross. And tell every person you meet about it, and get them to do the same. Your ticket money means the difference between me getting a train home after the shows, or hitch-hiking on the M9.

Click here to buy tickets, which would be a smart move because a) it’s a cosy and compact venue with a limited number of seats, and b) the tickets will go like hot cakes that have been sealed in a rocket and fired into the heart of the sun to make them even hotter. Megan Fox will be in the rocket, rubbing the hot cakes all over her nipples. You get the idea: the tickets will sell fast, right?.

The Recipe for Kitchen Nightmares US

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I know Kitchen Nightmares is a heavily-manufactured, manipulative piece of reality TV guff, but I can’t help but love it. I also can’t help but notice how each episode is constructed pretty much identically. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. But you still watch them all, because they’re immensely entertaining. God bless you, Ramsey, you angry little shit. Here’s how things go down: every single time.

Ramsay arrives at the restaurant, and makes some bitchy comments about the decor/menu/the discovery of a rat on the doorstep.

The owner tells Ramsay that the restaurant is losing money, which they can’t understand because the food is awesome. Ramsay’s concerned frown and receptive eyes betray the fact that within the hour he’ll have them in tears after shouting at them like they’re the unwanted step-child of a second marriage.

Ramsay orders three items from the menu, and declares each in turn the worst dogshit he’s ever tasted in his life. The serving waitress agrees with Ramsay’s assessment, and adds that the owner, her employer, is a waste of space as a human being, and a terrible manager. She’s pretty sure the owner won’t mind her honesty once the show is broadcast.

Ramsay rampages into the kitchen and discovers a rotting corpse beside the pizza oven. The owner gets defensive and says, ‘What’s your problem? That’s our mascot: Davey.’ Ramsay then discovers that none of the food is fresh, and all of it is kept in plastic bags beside a heater, next to a cardboard box filled with arsenic and rat shit.

Ramsey’s jaw muscles go into over-drive as he unleashes a volley of vile swear words at the owner. The words are bleeped so we viewers are spared the horror, but Ramsey’s such a clever curser that even the rhythm of his bleeps spells out a verbal attack in Morse Code. The owner sulks like a baby, and then tries to blame the staff/their partner/the Norse God Thor for how shit they now realise their restaurant is.

Ramsey gathers all of the staff together. He itemises the worst things about the restaurant: the Chef’s Specials written in dust on the wall; the fact that semen is an ingredient of the clam chowder; the twenty-three cats that live in the dining room. He then says ‘bland’ and ‘no passion’ sixty-three times whilst jerking his finger around like a conductor having a stroke. The chef says he was only following orders and blames the owner for everything, including 9/11. The chef goes on to confess that he would rather brush his teeth with bird shit and gargle a vial of AIDS than eat the diseased muck his kitchen serves to customers. ‘Anyway,’ says the chef, ‘I’m a bricklayer and I don’t even like cooking.’ He further confesses that ‘he’s never heard of eggs before.’ Ramsey stares at the chef like the chef’s just sharted on a child, and then calls him a c***.

The owner threatens to kill the chef and then accuses the staff of being lazy thieves who spend their time texting instead of working. In fact, it’s so bad that they text the customers asking for their orders, and then text these to the chef, who promptly ignores them. A mouthy Polish waitress tells Ramsey that the owner spends every night crying at the bar, cradling his dead mum’s ashes and throwing olives at customers. The owner throws an olive at her, but a beef olive this time. The rest of the staff just sit there smiling and blinking because they’ve just arrived from Puerto Rico and can’t speak English yet. Ramsey tells them all to fuck off, and storms out.

Ramsey observes a typical night at the restaurant. The owner thinks, ‘This is my chance to show that British bastard how awesome my business is.’ We all think: ‘This show’s not called Kitchen Awesomeness, you fool.’ Lots of customers pour in because they want to be on TV. They agree that each dish on the menu is dogshit, and send everything back. A feral cat jumps up and steals some salmon from a customer’s plate, which is snatched from its mouth by a rat. The rat gets involved in a salmon-related mouth tug-of-war with a cockroach, which is only ended when a waiter crushes them both under his heel. The waiter places their fresh remains on a plate and serves it to another customer. He drizzles some sauce over it and says it’s their ‘Vermin of the Day.’ Ramsey rustles up a smile that conveys both smugness and hatred.

In the kitchen, Ramsey sees the chef vomiting over a breast of chicken, and then chucking it straight into the frying pan. Ramsey goes bat-shit mental, and the chef just shrugs, and then scratches his balls. With the chicken. The owner, too pissed by now to walk, starts crying because he can’t live up to his dead parent’s restaurant-running standards/is about to lose his marriage/can’t afford to keep his business going/it’ll make good TV.

Ramsey screams, ‘Stop what you’re doing! I’m shutting this kitchen down! You’re going to bloody kill someone.’ Sure enough, a customer keels over into a bowl of spunky clam chowder. The owner drags the customer’s corpse into the kitchen and puts it next to Davey.

The next day the entire staff watches a film on a giant cinema screen. It features every single person in town telling them how shit their restaurant is, and how much of a cock the owner is. The owner either a) cries and vows not to be such a cock in future or b) says it’s a Jewish conspiracy.

Ramsey gets the set designers from Prisoner Cell Block H to revamp the restaurant. Then he devises a new menu and cooks up some samples. Every dish is now ‘rustic.’ When Ramsey uses the word ‘rustic’ we know he really means ‘microscopically tiny portions at double the price.’ The staff are like, ‘Wow, these taste so good it’s like a world-class chef made them.’ Uh-huh. Because they were. By now the audience know that there’s zero chance Chef Cum Chowder is going to be able to match that standard once Ramsey buggers off.

Despite some before-the-last-ad-break editing that suggests relaunch night is going to be a disaster – it’s not. Well, we can’t have Ramsey’s reputation wrecked by a bunch of filthy plebs. Ramsey tells them they achieved it by themselves, and should be proud, even though they clearly didn’t, and they shouldn’t. Ramsey hugs them all, which is tense and unnerving, like watching a cobra giving somebody a hug.

Ramsey strides outside and gives an awkward recap to the audience, during which he swishes his finger like it’s a fencing sword, and keeps jerking his gaze down to the ground and back up at the camera again like a serial killer battling ADHD.

The restaurant closes down.

The Best Shittest Films: Twilight (2008)

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I don’t like Twilight. Hardly surprising, given that the film wasn’t produced with my nearly-dead demographic in mind. I’m an incredibly miserable, hairy and lumpy man in my early 30s, not an angsty, hormonally-unbalanced teenage girl who dreams nightly of being violated by moody, scowling vampires. In fact, the whole process of rubbishing Twilight is about as futile as criticising the dearth of symbolism and poor cinematography in an episode of The Chuckle Brothers.

That being said, I consider Twilight a boring, irritating, and thoroughly worthless piece of shite, so I’m going to do it anyway.

They’ll drink your blood.

Let’s put our cards on the table. If you’re a guy, you’ve probably watched this film a) because of a girl, b) because you’re a girl, or c) because you’re a connoisseur of crap films and enjoy shooting sarcastic wisecracks at the screen (or so you keep telling yourself, Mr b) ). And, girls? If you’re young, young at heart, or young at mind (a polite way of calling you a drooling, bum-houking simpleton), or all three, then you’re going to love this film. Vampirism aside, it ticks all of the traditional romantic boxes for a teen love film. There’s the new-in-town, pretty-but-awkward girl, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), whose personality has been forged in a cold fire of loneliness and intra-parental antipathy. There’s the mysterious, brooding outsider, Edward Cullen (played by a young Charlie Brooker), who puts up emotional ice-screens to protect his fragile, wittle, achy bweaky heart from being broken. Where the plot differs slightly from that of, say, Grease, is by virtue of its male protagonist being an immortal vampire who feasts hungrily on human blood.

Fit like, min?

The two kooks are brought together when Edward intervenes to rescue Bella from an out-of-control car, and in the process reveals to her his superhuman strength and speed (car-crossed lovers, you might say). Bella quickly figures out the entirety of Edward’s secret, which isn’t that much of a puzzler, to be honest: the deathly pale skin; the weird and pale family; the aversion to sunny days; everyone steering clear of him: he’s clearly from Aberdeen.

I’ll admit that the first twenty minutes or so of the movie weren’t irredeemably awful, and I was ready to give myself a slap on the wrist for letting my preconceptions over-ride my critical faculties. And then I realised that my preconceptions were bang on the money, and the film really was a massive and steamingly hot, six-storeyed tower of giraffe shit.

Call me cynical if you will, but it’s the speed and nature of the lovers’ relationship that had me groaning the most. Guys, I’m talking to you again. Bella and Edward, a human and a vampire, fall into deep, I-will-kill-and-die-for-you love within about four seconds of meeting. Maybe I can’t remember what teenage love feels like anymore, but Bella comes across like she could boil rhinos, never mind bunnies, and Edward seems like an emotionally maladjusted crackpot who’s a mere few missed meals away from using a hitchhiker’s jugular as a straw for his Irn Bru.

I’m furiously playing with my golden Gamesmaster joystick.

And let’s not forget that Edward – made immortal during the First World War by a bite from his now-foster-father – is 108, despite outwardly having remained a 17-year-old boy. He’s 108… she’s 17. I know my girlfriend’s younger than me, but come on? A 91-year age difference? Imagine if the film had opened with Patrick Moore mind-raping a boy and stealing his body, which he then spent the remainder of the film using to shag teenage girls… Actually, that’s a great idea for a film. Especially now that he’s dead. We’ll call it ‘The Pie at Night – New Moore.’

*(please note that this review draft has been on my computer for years and I’m only just amending it. I could have used a Jimmy Savile joke there, and didn’t. Too much class, you see?)

Bella meets Edward’s nutty vampire family; luckily for her they’re good vampires, in the respect that they eschew chewing humans in favour of getting stuck in about animals. Not long after this we’re introduced to some bad, human-eating vampires, who show up just as Bella and the Cullens are enjoying a baseball game during a thunderstorm – isn’t that always the way? (Little note on the baseball game itself: it looked and felt so Quidditch-like that I half hoped and expected Harry Potter to whizz past on his broomstick, if only so that the bad vampires could catch him and rape his dead corpse) (I know that’s tautology, but there’s something so satisfying about a dead corpse: especially Harry Potter’s) (sorry for all the brackets).

So, ace, right? We’ve got ourselves some bad vampires who want to kill Bella and rumble with her boyfriend’s family! Amazing! Some action, some bloodshed!! This film’s about to get good, right? RIght?? Wrong. By this point in the movie there had been twenty-million too many crummy pseudo-philosophical Bella voice-overs, and at least eighty-thousand million too many sickening professions of eternal love and sacrifice for the chase segment of the movie to kindle within me any sense of excitement. Not even the fact that Edward himself had problems controlling his urge to eat Bella – despite his insane love for her – could inch me closer to the edge of my seat. I just didn’t – and couldn’t – give a fuck. Bon appetit, mate. Have a wee chew on her thigh bones, Eddie. Sook the meat off them like they’re a pair of barbecue spare ribs from Wongs’.

I just wanted it all to end. End fast. And end like 30 Days of Night: with half a town torn to death and a man frittering away like burnt toast in a hurricane.

Avoid. These vampires are a total bunch of fangies.

Young Jamie: Portrait of a Serial Douchebag (Part 10)

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Was I trying to fuck my dog, or asphyxiate it. Or both? Maybe I had a silk noose and an orange in there, too. Yes, I’d crawl into my dog’s bed, wrap it tightly in a sheet until it started choking, and then let it have a gulp of air seconds before its terrible death. Then I went away. I don’t know why I thought the addition of the phrase ‘the light was off’ was necessary to the understanding of the piece, but it sure adds a whole meaty dollop of sinister to proceedings. I might as well have written: ‘And then I drank from his knife wound.’ Surreal and sinister accompanying picture, though. The picture bears almost no relation to the accompanying text. In the picture, it looks like I’m holding an Etch-a-Sketch captive in a dingy basement dungeon, and I’ve had to cut him for stepping out of line.

The Answer Bag Ball Bag – Part 3

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

Young Jamie: Portrait of a Serial Douchebag (Part 9)

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Jamie Andrew

I was ahead of my time as a joke writer. At the age of seven I’d already decided that set-ups were superfluous. The real secret to comedy magic, I knew, lay in omitting integral qualifying components, spelling shit wrong and moving straight to the punch line. Hell, sometimes a free-floating punch line is all you need. ‘To get to the other side! He smells terrible! I’ve got some cream for that! I’m here all fucking week, ladies and gentlemen.‘ So why, you may ask, is the narrator baa-ing when there’s been no mention of sheep? Who cares??! This shit’s funny! Regrettably, that joke is still funnier than anything I’ve written since. Nice screwdriver joke, though, Young Me. It’s not my favourite screwdriver joke of all time, though. My favourite screwdriver joke is the one where this nun walks up to a broken-down bus, and she sees its driver mucking about with wires and panels. He’s desperately trying to repair it, and she looks him up and down and then shouts to him: ’Do you need a screwdriver?’, and he shouts back, ‘Mmmmmooooooooooo!’