Today I was doing some research on the website of a local radio station that I am potentially doing some production bits for (that I’m not allowed to tell you about so that’s going to make for highly exciting blog material). Like a lot of websites they include a variety of online poles at the end of each page. Normally this has something to do with gauging your opinion on some local issue, for instance, “Which local premiership league football team do you think will be relegated this season?”. As I’m based in the northeast of England, the likely answer is all of them, no doubt resulting in even more job losses for the region (O I’m on top comic form today!). I’m not sure whether the most recent pole is meant as a joke or not (I don’t do jokes) but the current pole on the website is: “Do you ever enter online polls?” If this is a joke then congratulations to the team of highly trained joke maestros for that. I thought commercial radio stations were meant to be cutting costs but evidently not as such a joke surely must have come at a princely price. They’re probably paying them in easy to manage instalments although they’ll be tied up in debt for years for hiring talent like that to write for them. Anyway, I thought I’d give you a little treat today and include something that is actually funny in contrast to my usual ramblings.

Well I was going to end the blog post there but I’ve just had a look at some of the results for previous poles that the station have done. Astoundingly, in answer to the question “Are you interested in the US Presidential elections?” 69% thought that the American election results didn’t affect them because “America is miles away”. In another pole, 78% think that Middlesbrough FC will be relegated this season. One pole on the site says “We all love crisps, but which flavour is your favourite???”. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of mentioning such a pole without providing you with the full summary of results. OK, place your bets. According to the survey, 12% prefer Ready Saulted, a mere 10 % choose meat related crisps, 24% espouse cheese and onion, Prawn cocktail manages to take 26% of the votes but just nudging ahead, shocking though it may seem, salt and Vinegar takes the prize with 27 %. Celebrations in the Lineker camp! Surprisingly, the subject of crisps seemed to resonate with the north-eastern voters unlike the great jam debate which sadly paled into total insignificance. “What’s jam best on?” asks the pole but the public refuse to give their opinion on such a matter. Perhaps they fear the consequences of voting. Perhaps there is a jam dictatorship going on and people are being pressured not to vote. Either way, something underhand has to be going on because this pole failed to receive a single vote. All three categories (in spite of their undoubted high-interest factor) failed to elicit any response. “Jam on bread” sees 0%, as does the “jam on toast” option. 0 % is also the result in the “I don’t like jam” category. Surely there must have been something wrong with the computer that day. Perhaps someone forgot to switch it on and so the results were not calculated or maybe the computer couldn’t handle the surge of voters who rushed to their computers to vote. Also I imagine that many voters tried to cheat the system by attempting multiple votes resulting in terrifying anarchy causing the computer to overload and finally crash. Maybe one day, a super computer will be built that can handle such a voting spree. Until that day, the great jam debate must remain an intriguing mystery. Perhaps the answer will not even come in our lifetime. Still, it’s probably for the best. I imagine the revelation will end up causing a major war. I shudder to think (which is one of the reasons I tend not to).

I’m rubbish! I assumed that because I felt I had an inordinate amount of drivel to supply the world with that I would immediately take to this blogging thing like a duck to water. It turns out that there has either been a dramatic revolution in the duck way of life (and ducks are no longer as keen on water as they once were; it would help the economy if they also disassociated themselves from bread considering the increase in price) or that my duck hypothesis was flawed. I assume the latter but if any duck enthusiasts (I’m talking about the legal kind of course) would like to get in touch to assist with this pointless matter then please do. Perhaps this would be an appropriate moment for a duck joke? No? O well never mind, here goes anyway.

How do you turn a duck into a soul singer?

I’ll reveal the punch line to that joke at the end of this blog post as a reward for reading. So as I was saying, I’d have assumed that blogging would merely be another way for me to incessantly ramble about nothing at all, kind of like I do on the radio. It transpires that I have a proclivity of doing such-like when speaking but I find it much more difficult to convey ideas in writing. “So keep writing for god’s sake and give up the talking!” I hear you cry. I don’t appear to be taking heed of such advice as the latest
Southside Podcast can demonstrate. Sadly there is no mention of ducks but there are pigs. Here’s the included written description of
this week’s podcast in case you needed anymore reasons to not listen:

“This week: Science fiction with David Howe ‘Telos Publishing’ (telos.co.uk), television director Graeme Harper on Doctor Who, Robin Hood as well as his
opinions on recent televisual upheavals. We talk wing-walking and anthropomorphosized flying pigs with PR specialist Rachel Huxford. Plus there’s real-life
drama courtesy of Facebook, the truth behind the credit crunch, a David Eagle rant about mobile phones and possible attempted communications from the dead
to contend with. O! And then there’s our new revolutionary catchphrase! … “POD ON!””

I’m going now but I am going to try and write an update every single day. I also need to work on promoting this damn thing when I finally get more material up on here. At the moment I haven’t actually told anyone that this exists and so if you’re reading this then you are a pioneer, an explorer, or simply a very lonely person with nothing better to do. Still, you get to discover the end of the duck joke so I guess things are looking up for you.

So … How do you turn a duck into a soul singer?

Answer: Put it in the microwave until its bill withers!
Get it?
Bill Withers!
Well I imagine you’re all quacking up right now! Hahahahahahaha!

Byeeeeeee!

P.S. RIP
Sir Clement Freud Although I’ve interviewed
Nicholas Parsons a few times I never spoke to clement Freud, despite the fact that he was in the room next door to Nicholas during one of the interviews. It’s such a shame as he’d have probably lived for another twenty years if he’d only had the revitalising joy of hearing my duck joke. Heyho!

Due to lack of internet access I have been unable to post regular blogs. I’ve had to steal next door’s wireless internet connection whenever I needed to use the internet. I use the word steal since they aren’t aware that I am using it and I didn’t go round to ask for permission. I assume that they don’t read this blog so my secret remains safe. I would imagine that they haven’t read my blog since if they had done they would surely have come round on a daily basis laden with gifts to show their gratitude towards me for providing them with such entertaining and informative insights in to that crazy little thing we call life.

Anyway, you can hear more about my devious wireless thieving antics, along with Sir Jimmy Savile sharing his ‘Rolling Stones’ and Elvis Presley anecdotes and informing us that he’s never played a record in his whole broadcasting career by
downloading this week’s Southside Podcast!

If you enjoy it then my neighbours are partly to thank since it is there internet connection that is allowing me to upload it for you. If you don’t like it then I’ll let my neighbours take full responsibility.

Have a good Friday! Oo! I’ve just thought up a rubbish joke to leave you with. What about a special TV show for the Easter season hosted by Jimmy Savile called ‘Jim’ll Crucifix It?’ … no? OK then … bye.

At first I thought it was an April fool. I switched on my computer to get on with some production work and everything went wrong. I assumed that the fooling would abate after twelve midday but alas, no such luck. I tried informing the computer that traditionally April fools were only valid before midday (which I was always told when I was younger, although this was probably my parents telling me this in the hope that I would have stopped my fooling by the time I got home from school) but the computer wasn’t listening. It continued fooling all the way through the day and night and all through the next day too.

I try not to get annoyed. I try taking deep breaths. I try imagining nice things – birds, flowers and pretty things that look nice, but that only acts to remind me that I’m blind and so I give that up as a bad job. I try imagining nice sounds but it doesn’t take long before the bloody tweeting birds in my head start to irritate me and so I give that up too.

I start to go mad. As I just mentioned, I am blind, therefore my computer talks to me. After a few hours in front of a computer that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do and keeps on talking to me (telling me that it’s not going to do what it’s supposed to do) it becomes difficult to rationalise that the computer is not an evil sentient entity, deliberately antagonising me. After awhile I begin to get paranoid. In my head the voice takes on a personality. Its intonation changes to reflect my feelings. I imagine the computer is goading me, laughing at me, deliberately refusing to do what I ask it to do. Eventually I start to talk back to the computer. I start to threaten it as if it were able to hear my warnings. It reciprocates with more error codes, but in my head it’s different. Instead of error codes, I’m hearing more goading, jeering and belittling. It’s tearing into my soul, my very core.

after a prolonged period of malfunctioning from the computer I start to talk to it as if it were a person. This generally starts off as an inquisitive question to the computer as to why it insists on being an arse. As time goes on I get more threatening and launch a verbal onslaught unto the computer, but surprisingly it doesn’t respond with anything that I consider to be satisfactory.. If the problem persists then I often start to act out the part of the computer and have a full conversation with it. I don’t have a specific accent for the computer although I generally do give it some kind of voice. A sensible approach I think; It would be rather embarrassing if I got myself and the computer confused. And so I’m sitting in a room by myself with the computer, shouting threats to it. This is then followed by me reciprocating in the voice of the computer giving me some cocky reason why it refuses to co-operate. I don’t know why I do this, and I wonder whether anyone else does this?

If the problem persists further and I am really having a bad day then I will start to blame god for the problems. I suppose I am looking for someway to rationalise the problems and so I pick on God. I don’t particularly believe in a God but I find it much more rewarding and fruitful to shout at God than blame a random, unconnected series of particles for my pains. A random series of particles can’t really answer back. Again, after awhile of God bating I start to get frustrated that (like with the computer) I am not receiving any satisfactory answers back. Therefore, I will start to play the part of god, and so I end up having an imaginary, animated conversation with God. He threatens to damn me to hell which doesn’t go down well with me I can tell you. Sometimes these conversations with God will start getting theological. I mean it’s not everyday you get to talk to god is it? It would be a shame to waste the opportunity. So I start asking a series of deep theological questions to God. His answers leave a lot to be desired, to be frank.

Recently, I came across a recording of one of my angry outbursts. Until this point I had never heard how ridiculous these outbursts actually sounded. Obviously, I was hearing them while they happened but I’d never really heard an outburst in the calm and rational light of the future, when it no longer mattered. When I heard this recording I burst into hysterical laughter. I ended up playing some of the recording out on one of my
a Young’uns Podcast.
I got loads of people writing to say that it was one of the funniest things they’d ever heard, certainly the funniest thing that I had ever done. I was pleased of course but a little bemused and disappointed that this random, unscripted angry outburst (which generally consists of me maniacally and incomprehensibly stuttering) was apparently funnier than all of the features and sketches I had actually taken the time to sit down and write but heyho! br />
In this clip I am getting annoyed at the telephone for refusing to connect a call to a guest who was meant to be featuring on one of the podcasts. After repeatedly trying (without success) to connect the call I start shouting at the telephone operator who’s automated voice with it’s repeated negative announcements was seriously starting to exacerbate my anger. The title of this blog post, “You get paid enough, I’ll rip off your head” is one of the many facile comments I angrily come out with during this clip. Thank goodness the operator was automated, otherwise I’d probably have been arrested by now. You can listen to it

Remember this is by many accounts the funniest thing I’ve ever done, so if you don’t like this then there’s not much hope to be honest.

Right, so, how to start? Yes that’ll do, that’s how I’ll start. There’s no point starting too brilliantly because then you’ve got nothing to build on. Surely, I can’t fail but to build on this first couple of sentences. I’ve given myself plenty of room for improvement. What a clever blogger I am.

Wow! My first paragraph in blog world or the blogosphere as it’s apparently known. O yes, I have done my research. You didn’t think I would just go into this whole blogging thing with no clue about what I’m doing, did you? I have conducted meticulous research into how to create the perfect blog. I am merely easing you in gently, separating the men from the boys (purely to ascertain who can handle my amazing pros, you understand; not for any dodgy reasons. I wouldn’t want you thinking that I was separating the men from the boys for anything sinister).

My research comprised me reading a number of articles about how to create an interesting and successful blog. All of the blogs I read claimed that one of the most important components to creating an interesting blog was originality. Ironically, I read this helpful hint on all the blogs, I read, which somewhat undermines the point, as the blogs became less original and less interesting the more I read. Now I’ve gone and perpetuated that same old advice further by mentioning it in my blog. Still, if anyone has stumbled across this blog by doing a search for “how to create an interesting and successful blog”, then I’m sure they’ll have realised by now that this is the perfect source for all they desire to know. Simply read and learn my friend.

One problem I have discovered since I started writing this blog post, is that Microsoft Word’s spell checker does not recognise the word blog, and tries to change the word “blog” to “bog”. I wonder how many reckless bloggers have hit autocorrect on the spell checker, not bothering to check their work back before sending to the blogosphere. Perhaps someone was too embarrassed to admit their carelessness and decided that, rather than suffer the condemnation of fellow bloggers – the blogosphere can be quite a harsh and cruel place apparently – they would instead create a bog blog. Perhaps they would go around sampling toilet flushes, taking pictures of various toilets both public and private and recounting (perhaps even inventing) toilet anecdotes just to cover up their initial mistake. I suppose this person might have called these toilet anecdotes lavastories. The creator of the bog blog would even go so far as to change his name to Allan and undergo agonising and dangerous plastic surgery to shape him in to a dice. All this just to substantiate his new nickname, Cubic Al. O and he’d obviously relocate to Looton. At first Allan was amazingly keen to update his bog blog, in fact he made it his number one priority. Sadly though, after a while he started to lose interest and he found it more and more difficult to release his creative juices, in fact he would really struggle sometimes to come out with anything at all. He really had to faucet.
Anyway, before this post goes totally down the swanny, I’ll bid you farewell and leave you with this
link to a website that contains many colloquialisms for the word “toilet”.

The blogosphere has evolved!