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!

It's all happening.

I'm involved in a storm of unrelated activities. There's the day job and the variety of challenges that that presents. Most of those challenges seem to be caused by human frailties. We're not perfect or logical creatures, we humans. We don't see things objectively and we don't necessarily play fair, or even agree on what fair is. That's day jobs for you. You'd only do them if they paid you.

Then there's the stand-up. I've been gigging doing different sorts of sets at different sorts of clubs. Not a huge amount of regular sets at the moment, mind. I've other fish that I need to fry.

There's the Edinburgh Preview season. Unlike some of the people tweeting today about their mad panic in June to have a show ready for previews in July, I've been ready, as I have for the last couple of years, by May. That said, this year is a bit of a cheat, since it's last year's show with edits, which is clearly much less work than writing a new one... or is it?

Well, It probably is, but I'm not noticing the benefits of apparently having more time, since I'm somewhat engrossed in the organisation of Funny's Funny. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time: "No, it'll barely take any time," I erroneously stated to my long-tolerating fiancee. She's done well and left me to it. In fairness, some great stuff has come out of this event, and I'm proud to have been a part of it. It's just been time consuming. Very. Time. Consuming.

Last night we went to showcase 10 or 11 (it's hard to say which, since two were happening on the same night; let's call it showcase 10. It was in Birmingham and had 10 comedians and a headliner and MC. The comedians all did well and each was very distinctive from the others. Such diversity and quality in just one showcase - it makes me think that this event is a hotbed of talent.

But then I'm bound to say that. As an organiser of the event, it's in my interest to look at it positively and to portray it as such. I can't help it. I'm clearly biased. However, if we're talking about reaping the benefits of something like this, I can genuinely say I was grateful for the positive feedback from all I met, and was thrilled to think that we've been able to bring something of this scale together. It makes it so much more real to be there in person.

My fiancee came along to the night, and we jointly facilitated unifying all the judging scores into a single answer - into the system it went and we'll find out who the finalists are in a few days.

Tonight and tomorrow I've got Edinburgh Previews. The showcases for Funny's Funny continue, collectively run by the promoters and organisers and other members of the Funny's Funny team. There's always someone doing something for Funny's Funny. I need, now, to focus on my Edinburgh show. I believe there'll be an audience. All I need to do now is remember the script.

I think an in-car rehearsal is coming up.

A snapshot from my life.

Love.

Ashley

I had a performance anxiety dream last night. They happen every once in a while, usually caused by the combination of looming shows and a feeling of being underprepared. I won't go into the details of the dream. It didn't bother me too much, and is probably just a part of the normal wash cycle that a busy brain goes through between sleeping and waking.

Today was the first gig of the Funny's Funny Female Comedian of the Year showcases. The gig was in Edinburgh. The next show is in Cirencester. Today I also had an Edinburgh Preview show, in Cirencester. I'm starting to wonder whether Edinburgh and Cirencester knew they'd be connected in such a way.

Reports back from Edinburgh suggest that the show went pretty much as expected. Cirencester went better than expected, to be honest.

Overall, then, I can sleep tonight, safe in the knowledge that the world is still spinning on its axis. The right information got to the right people just in time for the show, and the right jokes came into my head just in time to say them out loud to the audience.

As June progresses, things will get more challenging, I'm sure. As it is, though, I think it's a good start.

Sorry to people who don't like that word, but the word I mean is cunt. Cunt, cunt cunt cunt cunty cunty cunt. There. Got over your aversion to it? No? Well go and see The Vagina Monologues and get back to me later.

So, why bring up this word now? Is it the only C-word worth talking of? Well, there's another c-word in my life right now: competition. I'm currently in the process of organising a national comedy competition for women. Of course I am. It's the year in which I'm getting married, and I have an Edinburgh show to put on in a few weeks, with new material and previews to sort out - of course I should be running a national comedy competition for 12 weeks.

I've wondered whether this is a subconscious pre-marriage thing. Is it like a sort of last-ditch bit of batchelor-hood to lure 230 women into giving me their phone numbers? I'm going to go with no, but my psychologist may get back to you on that one.

What's any of this got to do with the cunt word? Well, I got an email from a participant. I won't name her. She wrote:
Print that out. It's a classic question. Put it on a monopoly-chance-card-like thing and have it in your back pocket. In any situation of massive irritation (and I've been through a few of those recently) you could just pull it out and show it to someone. If they agree, then you can vent your spleen with that oh-so-effective syllable.

Why would a female comedian ask me whether she's allowed to use this particular word? It has to do with precedent. Let's imagine that some women are adamantly against this word. Imagining it? No? Then you probably don't need to see The Vagina Monologues (or the Va-hoo-haa Monologues if you're a prudish American theatre who couldn't even bear a medical term on a poster). If you HATE that word, then it's sort of understandable; swears activate a certain part of the brain and maybe you don't like that feeling... it might be worth seeking some counselling though.

Shouldn't women comedians set a good example on stage? Well, if they want to, yes. And what is a good example? (Not starting a sentence with "And" would be one.) I think it depends on who you are and what you do. If any comedian wants to use any word that is, in itself, non-oppressive (actual racial slurs and homophobia don't deserve a platform in my view), then they should use it. If a comedian wants to be an example of something, then great. If a comedian wants to just tell their jokes their way, without the demands of a subtext, then that's kind of the definition of being a comedian.

The problem with making female comedy into an issue is that it kind of presumes that female comedy is in a different social bracket to male comedy. I'm proud to say that I co-run an organisation called Funny's Funny (www.funnysfunny.org.uk) which is defined by the belief that comedy is comedy, regardless of any demographic classification of the performer. This means it makes no difference whether the comedian on stage chooses to use a word or another - they're not representing anything and the rules for them are the same rules for any comedian.

Why would a female comedian feel some burden of expectation on them as to what they can and can't say? Is it society? Is it the comedy industry? I'm afraid to say that it isn't. There exists an organisation who claims to be in favour of female comedy and claims to be all about promoting female comedians. This organisation asserts that there are disadvantages imposed on female comedians by the rest of the comedy industry; they claim to redress the balance. Unfortunately, it's this organisation who has created a number of insecurities and discontentments in my fellow comedians - the ones who happen to be female.

Why would an organisation who claims to offer support do the exact opposite? Why would they try to cramp and stifle the very thing they're supposed to nurture?

Can I use the c-word!?

I've never been a female comedian and I have only the anecdotes of my colleagues to draw on. No personal experience. I have, however, received about 50 pieces of feedback about "the other competition" from female comedians within the event we're running. This feedback would anger me just as much if it were male comedians complaining about any competition.

From tomorrow, a series of events will be happening nationwide. Please try to go to them if you can. See some new and not-so-new acts giving their best under normal comedy club conditions. They happen to be women. They're funny. The best of them will go into a final where they'll compete for a prize and get excellent exposure in the comedy world.

I hope they never need to use the c-word... off stage, at least.