As I'm in favour of marriage, I found the Coalition for Marriage to contain some rather startling comments.



In the spirit of research, I've emailed them:


I'll report back.

Sometimes my life takes me up the garden path, so to speak.

Thanks to a strike at Frankfurt airport, two things happened. Firstly I was right. This doesn't always happen, and I tend to recall when it does (it's Confirmation Bias people - this is not a drill). However, let's assume that I'm not being entirely partial when I say that the strategy of committing to a contingency plan seems to work a lot more than awaiting a maybe. I have a couple of cases to prove this... I'll come back to the Frankfurt thing in a moment, this is not a digression.

When we were organising Funny's Funny an issue occurred where a showcase was pulled. Rather than organise a replacement, I reasoned that we should organise two, since something was bound to happen. By going for a more coherent contingency plan, rather than just a Plan A on that, we managed to do more and have more success that if we'd just organised a like-for-like replacement... a cancellation of which would have probably broken the whole thing.

The more up to date case is the cause of the last few hours of my life. On Friday last I was supposed to have a day trip to Frankfurt for a meeting. On the day before, there was talk of an airport strike and I started talking about contingency plans so we could do the meeting on the Friday as planned. The plans were basically:

• Go the night before, buying some extra clothes right away and getting on with it there and then
• Switch the flights to a different airport for the following day

After a lot of umming and ahhing, we decided to wait and see, and then discovered that the flight was cancelled after all when I tried to check in. The meeting was postponed to Wednesday and that was that.

Then the next strike murmurs started. I wasn't larking about. "Let's reorganise," said I, "losing the meeting is worse than losing a bit of unnecessary reorganisation fee". As a result, we planned the trip I've just started... and it's complex - or at least more complex than just flying to Frankfurt. So, we organised it, risking that the strike might not happen and the complex trip might not be necessary.

According to news reports, there's a strike that would have buggered me right up!

So, I had to go to Terminal 1 today instead of my favourite Terminal 5 (Heathrow, of course). This was a shit-tip of a Terminal which made me sympathetic to the Twitter Joke Trial chap, Paul Chambers, whose frustration, which came out in a "interpret this as terrorist threat if you're a total anus" tweet that caused him much trouble. I was clever enough not to tweet that sort of thing, but still felt my blood pressure rise as I progressed through their cack-handed systems in the direction of my plane.

The noisy and shabby airside waiting area didn't help, but I found a Pret a Manger and my pseudo-middle-class soul was slightly soothed.

Landing in Cologne, I had to find a hire car. This isn't hard. I got a nice car, but it was hiding on a different floor of the car park, and the other car rental customer I accosted to half ask for help, didn't seem impressed. He was even less impressed when I flagged him down and told him that I thought we were definitely in the wrong place... but he was soothed when I turned out to be right and he got to his car.

The Renault Megane was in German. It was also a Renault - never driven one of these - and didn't have a key. I had to look around where to insert my card. Then I couldn't work out how to get the sat nav to go on... then I eventually managed to get it into English, though I became obsessed with the possibility that "Jane" - the TomTom English speaking voice - was talking with a slight German twang. At some point I'm sure she told me to take the third reich, rather than right, but I digress.

Having fathomed out how to get moving, I discovered I had a hundred miles of driving ahead of me. This was fine, but then I found myself driving over desolate unoccupied German country lanes, possibly taking a shortcut through some hills: I don't know for sure. I felt a little bit like I was being kidnapped. Kidnapped by myself. That's a fun evening out, that's for sure.

I tried to use the distance-to-destination to nickname some of the small towns I was in. I decided that one little town was "basically Burford", and I was highly amused at "Bad Homburg", which I can only imagine is also the way a German dog owner might shout at his errant hound.

I'm now at the hotel. All is well. I released myself from the kidnapping and I avoided the strike buggering me up. It gets a bit more complex tomorrow. I have a day in the vicinity of here and then I'm driving back to Cologne to stay in an airport hotel overnight. I'll wake up on Thursday morning, have a leisurely morning's tippety tap on the computer, and then be back on the plane for lunchtime. Then I'm gigging in Bangor, N. Wales... of course I am. Another bunch of hills and a self-kidnapping scenario.

On the way home from my gig, I turn 38. Will I then immediately grow out of all this shit? Who knows.

Good luck to all who read this.

Someone's on our case - Silly Love Songs on TV Tropes.

As his website couldn't actually process this email I intended to send to him I'll put it out there on the internet for everyone to read - if you know Dr Hilary Jones, please pass this on.

On Saturday, I was involved in running a comedy workshop. At some point the tutor said "and the secret to a proper punchline is..." and I drew a big line across my notepad and poised my pen ready to write down whatever she said. She observed this and brought it to everyone's attention. We were both in the right. If you're about to give or receive a good bit of advice, then you should make a moment of it.

So, prepare yourself.

I'm going to tell you the secret to how to be a good human. I mean the sort of person who is successful, happy, stimulated, as bright as you can be: all that good stuff.

Ready?

Here we go then. Be curious.

That's it.

What does that mean? Are you asking that? If you're not then you're not being curious. Go back to the start of this and try again. If you're also asking "What the hell does he know?" and by "he", you mean me, then well done. You're being curious. That's the point of this. There's a lot of information out there for the finding, and if you're not curious enough to ask questions, to look for the answers, and generally try to work stuff out for yourself, then you're going to lose out to people who are.

I'm not entirely espousing my own philosophy here. I'm agreeing with the fabulous Richard Feynman whose book Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character shows this philosophy in sharp detail. For someone who comes across as a bright eyed kid within a lot of his stories, Feynman actually discovered and refined a lot of aspects of Physics that would put most people's achievements into the category of relatively minor.

So what's the alternative? I'll give you an illustration of what happens when people don't act in a curious way, or don't assume curiosity.

[Scene - a works cafeteria, a woman is showing two guests round]

Her: So here is the coffee machine and it makes coffee if you want it. You press the buttons on the front. The cups are on top. Over here we have a fridge with some ready made sandwiches in it, there's salad in the bottom with ham, tomatoes - there, and drinks. Here are some fillings you can have - there's tuna, cheese, and you know. There's rolls over there that they use. Then over here there's fruit.

[Cut to the writer, seething in the background]

Why was I so pissed off? I'll tell you why. Nothing that woman said was anything other than self-evident. You can see that these things are there - they don't need describing. If someone can't see it for themselves, will telling them the fucking obvious actually help? If they're so stupid that they need the self-evident pointing out, then the problem isn't that they need a tour of the flaming obvious, it's that they need some help. Serious remedial help. If they could, and I suspect they could, see for themselves what was being shown to them, then the problem lies with the patronising idiot who feels like their own observations are more important than providing the way for someone to be free to make their own.

Sure, some things are not self-evident, like etiquette, or hidden items of stock (they can make a pizza if you ask them, kind of a thing)... but we shouldn't live in a world where you expect the self-evident to be pointed out.

Looking at things the other way, let's take Amazon.co.uk as a positive example of how curiosity works for the better. You don't expect someone to tell you how to use Amazon, or to come to your house and tell you how many pages a particular book has, or what the weight is of a particular bit of electronics. You don't expect someone to jump up and information dump you with all the details of everything. You have to look for it yourself. Frequently it's on the screen, or clickable from the screen you're on. Your expectations are low, and you have to do the work. As a result, Amazon sells you items, related items, makes you aware (if you care to look) of delivery dates, and doesn't require any human interaction to do it.

So, when people get the wrong end of the stick, fail to notice information that's right under their very noses, or expect the flaming obvious to be laid on a plate for them, they're not putting the effort in themselves, they're not being curious, and they may as well come and join the canteen tour above. Let them eat the obvious cake of their own idiocy.

For those people who work it out for themselves, you're going to be successful. You don't need nanny, and yours shall be the future.

Here endeth the rant.

I'm very excited to be able to sell my album digitally online:



I'm rather hoping it will also pop up in iTunes and Amazon soon.

If you only read my blog, you'd thing I had nothing to say the moment.


The council announces a public ban on signs

Of course I've got stuff to say. I'm Mr Saying-Stuff. You'll find me on Ian Fox's Blog as a guest poster. I'm trying to write something for every day I sit here waiting to go to the Fringe, which has started without me!. I can't believe they would go ahead and just do it when I'm still a week from arriving.

In other news, my album of The Seven Deadly Sings is now on release at CDBaby, and should make its way to Amazon and iTunes soon. This is very exciting. I'm now official. I even have a product number all of my own!

So, plenty to say.

Although I've decided to blog daily until I go to the Fringe on Ian Fox's Wordpress Site, I've not forgotten about this particular blog, which has been chronicling my life on and off (and a lot of off) since October 2001... sort of. Wow. Nearly ten years of writing shite about myself.

In the spirit of sharing something "exclusive" on this feed, I'll say what I had for dinner. Sort of.

Despite the fact that I left work at a reasonable hour, and had already been to Tesco once that day, I had another Tesco trip to do, and needed petrol. This meant that I didn't arrive home until 7.30pm. That's my life. The 75-90 minute commute will do that to you.

However, on the plus side, I'd bought enough salad to kill a man, along with some nice fish cakes (perhaps my early tweet: It was my goldfish's birthday. I got him a fish cake. He didn't like it. It was his mum. inspired me). So, with salad consumed, it was time to start watching the new series of Torchwood with my intended.

After one episode, she said "I'm going for a shower... and then let's watch the next". Result.

I spend episode 2 making the CDs for my fringe run. I've had some CDs duplicated, but they came without inlay cards, which I'd had made separately. I needed to cut the cards down and add them to the CD wallets. Only 100 to do. It was easy enough.

That's the sort of rock and roll nights we have at my house. We watch TV, I cut out some cards, and then it's time for bed. Still, it's good recharging time, given the insanity that's to come in a few days' time.

If you wish to buy one of the original CDs, with a wallet that doesn't need a separate inlay card, then please visit my store.

Well, not exactly. I'm doing a pre-Fringe blog. Please check out the two entries so far.

T-Minus Something or other
Flop Sweats

Back in April a chat on the internet led to what has been a fascinating, challenging and ultimately rewarding 3 months of my life. You can read here all about Funny's Funny, the event of which I speak.

As we pulled this event together, people fell into one of a few categories:

• Disinterested - if this is you, then feel free not to read, or maybe do read in order to see if your interest can be piqued
• Nay-sayers - it's easy to have a go, and some people mystifyingly decided that it was in their interests to ridicule what we were doing
• Supporters - in truth, the majority of people we heard from fell into this category

Now the dust has settled a bit, I think it's time to say some heartfelt thanks to the latter category. I could thank the few detractors whose pointless bile made me even more resolute to do a good job, but I suspect their contribution was an overall zero.

To the people who put on the 21 (22 if you include the cancelled one) showcase events, I say a big thanks. Being there on the night, pulling together people, audience, publicity and other logistics: it made the difference. The atomsphere at the shows was universally praised and this is in part thanks to the organisers.

To the MCs who held shows together in a professional and supportive way, even though they had a dozen acts on the same bill, a big big thank you. The acts appreciated the way they were treated and introduced and we were glad to know the shows were in safe hands.

To the judges who sagely calculated scores, wrote constructive notes, and gave the acts feedback as requested, a huge and respectful thanks. Judging comedy is hard going: fairness and personal taste are not always easy to resolve. We wanted the fairest and most comedy-focused judging, and we believe that this was achieved to a very high standard by our volunteer judges. Thank you all.

Various online comedy journalists wrote about our event, interviewed us, or gave us platform to talk about what we were doing. This helped spread the word and also opened up the debate surrounding the problem we were addressing. It really mattered. Thanks.

To Steve Bennett of Chortle, who supported the event by organising the final, a massive thanks is due. The quality of the final and judging panel gave the event a credibility that we might not have achieved single-handedly. In addition, the fact that someone else had taken on the organisation of the final allowed us to focus on the performers and showcases more. Ultimately, it was an excellent climax to our event.

To the 252 women who signed up to our site, thanks to you. In the end, we managed to secure bookings for 224 of you, and had a surprisingly low drop-out rate. It seems that every performer came to this event with the right attitude and made the best of their showcase for both themselves and their fellow acts. To those who spread the word and generally told us how much you appreciated us, an extra special thanks. To those who sorted themselves out via our website with barely an email exchanged: we may not have spoken to you SO much, but it was a companionable silence and kept our workload down.

And finally to the other members of the Funny's Funny team, I can't say how much of an honour it was to work with you all. Rob, you did a huge amount of show organising while appearing to be gigging every day and doing everything else you do - the number of contacts and details you pulled together in a short space of time was amazing. Thanks. Jane, you were working in a different time-zone to the rest of us, but still managed to keep us on the straight and narrow, pull comedians in for performing, make the judging criteria equitable, and get the acts connected with the right showcases in record time. Okse, your design work and mentoring was really appreciated - the posters looked great, the logo was brilliant, and those hard moments when a friendly voice was what was needed, were provided for. Beth, your help in getting us off the ground, and your encouragement during what was a difficult time for you was greatly valued.

I could write a lot more on why this was such an amazing event to be a part of, but let's keep it brief. All I'll say to conclude is that if you put a bunch of people together with a shared goal that is worth achieving, then magic can happen. It took a lot of work to achieve it, but I think we got more out than we put in.

Thank you all.

What follows are some random musings. I don't mean they're totally random. A totally random musing would involve choosing two words from two books and seeing what happens:

"and McNally" - there: that's a random musing.

I mean that here are some disconnected unrelated thoughts that are sitting in my head.

If You've Got It Flaunt It
It's the time of year when we all try to write press releases to make ourselves look good to try to attract an audience for the Fringe. Despite outward appearances, I actually have a lot of trouble in saying good stuff about myself in press releases. I'm a generally honest person, and all the promotional stuff I write always feels like lying. It's not that I think I'm no good, it's just that I think it's not reasonable for me to be the judge of how good I am.

I've noticed a friend of mine, whom I helped with their Edinburgh show, has taken one of their principle difficulties and broadcast it across the media as a selling point. I mean that they've done it honestly. By highlighting what might be a weakness, they've made it a talking point and virtue. I think that's brilliant. Perhaps I should be looking for things about myself that I would rather not talk about and start whacking them into press releases.

If Not Now, When?
I made a few resolutions about a year ago when I had a health scare. One of those resolutions was to sort out my weight problem. I also decided I wanted to get married to my girlfriend. I have achieved one of the two of these. Given the impending wedding, if I don't sort out the other, then I'll be married in widescreen, and nobody wants that. I've run out of excuses. It's time to take weightloss seriously.

Be Careful How You Act
I'm principled and opinionated. I get in there and get involved. Sometimes this is appropriate and sometimes it's not. I hope I've the instincts to pull back if I've overstepped the mark, but we all make mistakes.

I'm afraid I wind some people up. It's not intentional. It's hard to act in a way that makes you totally inoffensive - I wouldn't know where to start with that; I also can't really be bland. It's all guns blazing or nothing with me.

That said, I don't like it when some people reflect my behaviour back to me through the fairground hall of mirrors that is a difference in personal perspective, and I see myself as being a bunch of things that I don't think I am. This is where you can say perception is reality. For someone to interpret me one way is almost as much my problem as it is theirs. Well, I say that... it very much depends on the person.

However, I must accept that I come across as know-it-all, overbearing and judgemental from time to time. Then I sometimes come across as cheerful, warm and supportive at others. The trick, I guess, is to watch my own behaviour a bit more carefully, since it's clear that others are watching it and sometimes seeing something in me that I don't want to be.

Searching For Identity
One's identity is very important. I don't mean bank details. I mean who you think you are - what you consider your life's purpose and work to be.

I try to be many things, and I think the thing which drives me to irritation most is when someone questions my right to assume those roles/identities, or in some way denigrates me in those roles. Call me a fatty bum bum, and I'm not bothered. Call me an unsuccessful comedian, and I'll have sleepless nights.

Funny, eh?

Being Bright
A while ago, I recorded a 15 minute comedy radio programme with a friend of mine. It was a project for her university course and has never been even considered for broadcast. It was purely something we knocked up in my, at that time, incomplete house. We called it "not too bright" and I still occasionally listen to it. I kind of wish we'd found a way to do something with the core idea, but perhaps it didn't have legs.

When I script comedy for myself in a double act, I frequently put myself in the role of the idiot. I guess I was the "non bright one" in "not too bright".

Last night, though, I was required to consider my brightness from a different angle, as I did The Bright Club in Cardiff. This small but perfectly formed gig was brilliant fun, very supportive, and a chance to see comedy of all sorts, mixed in with some rather over-thought-out-but-excellent powerpoint presentations.

I had a lot of fun with the crowd.

I also sweated quite a lot. I was so bright, I was positively glowing red!

Intermission
Yes. I know. Blog posts should probably be shorter and pithier than this. I'm just enjoying writing one, so please bear with me. It won't be much longer.

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You
With last night's try out of some last minute tweaks for my show, it's pretty much time to do the last two previews and then take it to Edinburgh. Friday night has me in Hexham and 1st August has me in London. On 3rd August, I'll do some excerpts from the show as part of a stand-up set in Nuneaton.

My show is The Seven Deadly Sings and my stand-up gig list is on www.ashleyfrieze.co.uk/gigs. Come if you can.

Making The Merchandise
It's almost a sort of witchcraft. You go onto some sort of website, upload a file from your computer and then T-Shirts, CDs, Mugs, postcards, flyers, posters and the like all suddenly get made, stuck into a van and sent somewhere.

I've been making pretty much all of the above for various reasons. The Vistaprint racket of claiming everything's free, except charging you whole bunches of extras (and not quoting VAT) is a simple fact of life. In general, though, I'm pleased to have the CDs to sell and give away (Vistaprint don't make CDs) and things like flyers and posters are a negative - i.e. if you DON'T have them, then it's BAD.

In a chance of strategy this year, I'm going to be paying for some flyering and postering services in Edinburgh. This is primarily to increase my exposure. I intend to make a success of this year's Fringe. The show's good enough - now I need to focus on the audience.

More...
I'll be blogging again shortly. For now, please take a rest from reading my outpourings.

And thanks.

Or sorry.

Choose which suits you best.

Things don't always go right first time. Sometimes you don't know what to do for the best. Sometimes you're not clear which option is best for you. What should do you do?

I think it's important to have a contingency plan. Now, here's a thing. Contingency plans cost effort. However, a risk, in itself, has the potential to cost the whole thing you're working on, so the effort of a contingency plan is worth it to cover a risk. But... if you're not sure what may or may not work, then you can't be sure that one particular plan is going to be totally worth pursuing. Should you be more cautious than throw effort at a potential unviable contingency plan? Is there a benefit in being more conservative?

I have been bothering people a bit recently with my approach, which is to have multiple plans running in parallel. You don't invest heavily in each plan, but you do investigate it and its sibling options a bit. What then happens is that you have a bunch of open options ready to use if you need them.

If you only have one possible plan and wait for it to fall through before generating an alternative, then the elapsed time is greater, and your options start to reduce the longer you wait. If you keep a few irons in the fire until you know more exactly what you need, then you're always much more likely to be able to do something.

So, it's apparently more effort, but you get a lot more in return.

Keep your options open!