Andy Ward talks to himself.

I didn’t get round to blogging yesterday as I must have been doing something in the morning (though I have absolutely no idea what it was now), and set off for my stand-up course fairly early on in the afternoon. There wasn’t much to be said yesterday really though, though I did go to a pretty good restaurant in the evening before my course. It was a Thai restaurant called Sabai. It was cool. You could buy wooden elephants. I didn’t, because they were about £50, but if the desire had taken me, I could have owned a wooden elephant. Probably not the most important factor to many people when deciding whether to visit a restaurant or not, the presence of ornate animals, but I liked it. The food was also great. Overall, my review of this restaurant is: very good. Mind you, I’m happy eating anywhere, apart from, as we’ve probably established in an earlier tale from this very blog ‘Hank and Alan’s Mushroom and Onion Shack’. I don’t go there anymore.

Anyway, I had my stand-up course. I practiced some material. It went well, so I’m happy. I’ll continue to try new material every week until I’ve got to what’s known as a ‘killer 5′, which is, I’m led to believe, a level up from a ‘great 5′. I’m not quite sure where a high 5 fits into this heirarchy, but probably fairly high up. Although no doubt it’s probably been demoted considerably from where it was in lieu of Halifax deciding they’ve not had enough fun ruining the economy, so have seemingly set out to vanquish high fives with their almost impossibly annoying adverts. I say I’m working towards a killer 5 anyway, though I don’t actually have a ‘great 5′ yet. I’ve probably got a ‘fluctuating 5′. There are good parts. I like it, or at least, I seem to remember I liked it before I became so used to it I can’t remember whether or not it was funny.

I spent this morning at work, assembling promotional cubes for the National Lottery Euromillions draw on Friday. This required me to use my brilliant engineering talents to fold cardboard and insert tabs into holes. You’d think this was easy enough, indeed, many people would be hard pressed to mess this up. I did though, and my first attempt became some kind of hideous mutant cube. Before I could correct my mistake though it scuttled off and hid in the air conditioning system. I decided not to say anything, and continued to craft cubes.

Having finished my craftery, I found stood around with about 4 Euromillions cubes. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was meant to do with them. I had several ideas, though I’m not entirely sure customers would have appreciated being pelted with cardboard cubes by a man shouting ‘IT’S A ROLLOVER!’ as they walked into the shop to pick up their newspaper. Besides, they had bigger concerns. I heard the padding of tiny feet on metal, and looked up at the air conditioning vent. There was a brief moment of silence, then the vent flew down to the ground, and a nearby customer who had just come in for a bag of sugar and a Caramac got dragged in screaming. I tried to save them, but could only half-heartedly shout ‘It’s up to £85 million you know…’ as I gently threw another Euromillions cube in that general direction. I was quite tired, and to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered serving any more customers anyway.

Shortly afterwards, there was a growl, and then a giant ballpoint pen spewed out of the vent. I helped the ballpoint pen to it’s… point, and asked if it was ok. “I’M A BALLPOINT PEN!” It screamed in anguish. “I ONLY CAME IN FOR A BAG OF SUGAR AND A CARAMAC!”

I somehow felt this was my fault. After all, I was the one who had released the mutant cube into the wild, and now he was regurgiating people as ballpoint pens.

“Ah, don’t worry about it.” I said, as I patted the manpen on the back. “Think about how much time you’ll save on signing cheques!” I quickly realised this made little to no sense, but I reckon this manpen had greater concerns on his mind.

“Isn’t there something you can do? Can’t you do something? DO SOMETHING!” Shouted the pen.

“I could probably let you have a Caramac for free.” I said.

“BUT I’M STILL A PEN!”

“A pen with a Caramac.”

“BUT A PEN!”

“Oh fine, look, I’ll see what I can do.” I said. I’d been up since 6 AM. Going toe to toe with a mutated lottery cube was the last thing I needed right now, but I could see I was going to have to do something. I picked up a nearby broom and hauled myself up into the vent.

It was dark in the vent. I struggled to see exactly what I was doing, though somewhere in the distance I could hear the chattering of teeth. Lottery teeth. I crawled through the vent, using my mobile phone to light the way. The chattering of teeth got gradually louder, which meant I must have been going in the right direction. But then, it’s a small shop, our ventilation system isn’t the largest. Anyway, as I rounded the corner after crawling for 7 miles, my phone illuminated the small figure of a Euromillions mutant. I had cleverly managed to sneak up behind it. This was my chance to take him down quickly and easily. I reached for my AK47, but as I did, I accidentally banged my elbow against the side of the vent. “Argh!” I shouted. The cube leapt round and let out a piercing battle cry of ‘DREAAMMM NUMBEEEERRRRRRR!’ I panicked and began to fire my AK47, spraying rounds all over the place as the tiny cube leapt about the vent like a rubber frog. After I’d fired off about 150 rounds, the trigger began to click. My heart skipped a beat as I realised that this was not good news. Thankfully, my panic was short lived as I looked across to see the mutant cube lying still at the other end of the vent, bleeding numbers, dead.

I shuffled back the way I’d come and out of the vent.

“Andy, you’ve freed me from my curse!” Shouted the manpen, now just a man, as he danced with his Caramac.

“Please, I was just doing my job.” I said, as I brushed the dust off myself. “Now let’s scan that Caramac and forget about this whole thing.”

“Andy, I need to have a word with you.” Said my supervisor, emerging as a character from nowhere. “There are 7 corpses in the vegetable aisle riddled with bullets. Do you know anything about this?”

“No…” I said, as I folded my origami AK47 behind my back and subtley placed it in my back pocket.

“Well, in that case, as you were.”

“Ok. Now, I’ve just got one last question for you.” I said, as I turned to the former manpen.

“What is it?”

“Do you want one bag of sugar or two?”

We both laughed, high fived, and froze as we watched the credits scroll up the screen to the music of Duran Duran. That was pretty much the end of the day. Neither of us had anticipated that it would take up around 1200 words on a blog post, but you know, sometimes that’s just the way it goes. Now I’m off to eat some tiny pancakes like a Shrove Giant.

That’s how my day can be summed up. I think I’ve probably had about 5 Activia yoghurt drinks at this point, as well as some Greek yoghurt, and two scones. It’s been amazing. I also tested my microphone, having faced it the right way round. It’s still rubbish. Looks like I’m going to have to splash out around £115 (around two weeks wage), for a decent one to make some podcasts at home.

That’s about all I’ve done really. I’m sitting around writing some more stand-up at the moment to test at my course tomorrow. I haven’t actually done a gig since last November, due to me having been fairly poorly organised recently, but I do have some booked at some point this year, so with any luck by then I’ll have the solid 5 minute set I’ve been working towards, that would be nice.

I wrote a short paragraph of a new thriller I’m going to be working on today too. It’ll hopefully make me the new Agatha Christie, or Robert Ludlum or whoever. Somebody like that. The thing about my writing is that it’s not good writing in the traditional sense, but instead, it’s so utterly dreadful that in an odd way it does become sort of good. That’s very much the route I’m having to pursue now, the route of being so awful that I actually come right back around and become good somehow. I’ve managed to derive a fair bit of stand-up material from how thoroughly inept I am, so thankfully my continued uselessness has some benefits. Anyway, with any luck I’d like to invest in a new microphone and have completed the first in this series of thrillers (and I use that in the loosest possible sense of the word) by the end of February. I think it’s going to be a crime thriller, but it could spin off in any direction at this point. Basically what I’ve done is, I’ve come up with the title first, and worked from there. Fans of Llamageddon can thus probably imagine the kind of monstrosity that it’ll be, probably on a par with the often forgotten ‘Jingle Bills’. Happier times.

Tonight I’ll probably treat myself to a ‘Moscow Mule’, which is made through mixing vodka and ginger ale. I don’t want to come across as a complete alcoholic. I don’t just spend my days at home mixing my Activia yoghurt drinks with shots of Jack Daniels, but I figure that while we seem to have some vodka and ginger ale in the house (and I don’t know why there is any ginger ale in the house, evidently at some point we’ve robbed the Famous Five), I might as well try one. It might be good. Maybe one day I’ll be known for my love of Moscow Mules.

“Ah, there goes Andy Ward, he sure does love a Moscow Mule.”

“Yeah, shame about his series of novels though isn’t it?”

“What series of novels?”

“You know, the ones based around a laboured pun that he was hoping would really propel him into superstardom and save him from that shop.”

“Oh Christ, yeah, I’d completely forgotten about those. Didn’t they burn all the copies five years ago?”

“Yeah. Suppose that’s why he drinks so many Moscow Mules. The raging alcoholic.”

“Oh my god, I think he’s spotted us! Run before he hassles us for ginger ale!”

Something to look forward to, being an old man with ginger ale dribbling down his chin, regaling pubs with the tales of the time he once nearly worked for Channel 4, but then didn’t. Spending my nights shouting abuse at Bobby Charlton’s house because Activia didn’t reinforce my skull like he said it would.

On the plus side, at least I’ll be outside, and that’s something.

I’m fairly sure I’ve actually had a blog post called ‘A day of nothing’ before. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if, looking back through all the blog posts, around 60% of them were titled ‘a day of nothing’. That’s the life I lead. It’s always white-knuckle stuff.

Anyway, as the title suggests, I’ve not really done anything at all today. I’m starting to think that it’s not facebook that’s getting in the way necessarily, it’s just that I have a spectacular ability to waste time on all sorts of things. Today I just lay down and stared into space for a while. That was kind of cool. Didn’t really achieve much though. I was actually meant to be going out tonight, which was quite exciting, as I don’t really go out at all these days. I can’t remember the last night out I had. This is partly because I’m obscenely poor, but also because I don’t really know many people around where I live, having moved here after I’d finished sixth form, then gone off to university. I know some people now though, and we were going to go out into town to drink and do the usual things that I assume people still do on nights out, discuss monocles, sit by a roaring fire and take turns telling scary stories to all those gathered, drink sherry, maybe talk about the repeal of the Corn Laws, all that kind of stuff. That’s what people were doing when last I went out, I can’t imagine things have changed much since then.

Anyway, suffice to say, we’ve had to cancel going out this week, so what I’m going to do instead is sit down, watch Heroes, drink port, and maybe try and explain Sylar’s backstory to the dog again. It’ll be fun.

Also, further to my mind-numbingly dull microphone conversation with myself yesterday, I’ve discovered that my microphone may actually work better than I thought it did, as I may have been speaking into the wrong bit. I think if I turn it round and speak into the other side, the sound quality may be a bit better. I mean, I haven’t actually tested it yet, but this is what I’m hoping, otherwise I’ll just be stuck sounding like an overly polite dalek. Maybe I can use this to my advantage. Make recordings of myself and sneak up on elderly technophobes.

“HEY YOU!”

“What was that voice? Who are you?”

“This is the voice of the internet! Bake me a cake!”

“But my limbs are made of sawdust and breadcrumbs aggravate my gout!”

“Quiet! Or I’ll chip and pin your face! When you’re finished baking my cake I want you to knit me a jumper!”

“A jumper? Why would the internet need a jumper?”

“Sometimes the internet gets cold.”

“Are you sure you’re the internet, this doesn’t sound very convin-”

“DON’T TURN AROUND! FACE THE FRONT!”

“Sorry…”

“I want a Blade Runner jumper. Something futuristic. The internet appreciates futuristic threads, so you’d better be knitting with space cotton!”

“But I don’t have any space cotton! I don’t even know what it is! I’ve only got this ball of wool!”

“Then you’ll have to go to space! I’ll prepare the shuttle!”

“But I don’t wan-”

“FACE THE FRONT! I’M PUTTING YOU IN THE SHUTTLE NOW!”

“But the shuttle aggravates my gout!”

“LEAVE THE SHUTTLE ALONE! IT’S THE SHUTTLE OR THE PIT OF BREADCRUMBS! ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, YOU’RE GETTING GOUTERISED! NOW LET’S GO! THREE! TWO! ONE! BLASTOFF!”

[Explosion]

“Argh! Fire aggravates my gout!”

“You’re fired! Get it? You’re fired! As in The Apprentice? You see? That’s what he says! He says you’re fired! Funny no?”

“Stop it! Catchphrases aggravate my gout!”

“How old actually are you?”

“I’m 900 years old.”

“You should really be dead.”

“Death aggravates my gout.”

“None of this seems very plausible.”

“Not like space cotton?”

“You’re right, let’s end here.”

It’s not good that my first thought is about how I can use my microphone for evil, and bullying helpless old people into knitting me a limitless supply of jumpers. In my defence, I get quite cold sometimes, and, well… this isn’t really going to happen. I would however, absolutely love a knitted Blade Runner jumper, so if anybody is reading this and fancies knitting me one, as Captain Picard might say ‘Make it so’. And he’s got stacks of Blade Runner jumpers, the greedy rascal.

Anyway, it’s nearly time for Heroes and port, so I’m going to go now.

The heralded microphone arrived today, that I’ve been hoping will allow me to make lovely podcasts at home, and cart a laptop about the country like some kind of electronic David Dimbleby to revive the Llamageddon podcasts too. It came in a big box, which was very exciting. I rarely get parcels, and when I do they’re just full of severed hands and notes saying ‘I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’, which has got quite tiring now. They can’t even be meant for me, I didn’t do anything last summer. I went to Edinburgh for a few days and did a number of shift at One Stop, I don’t know whose wrath I could have incurred for that. Presumably the wrath of a man who hates two things, haggis and convenience stores. They call him ‘The Convenient Haggis Killer’. If your Haggis isn’t overly complicated, to the point where you can’t even open it because it’s sealed with a cryptex, I’d lock your doors.

Anyway, yeah, the microphone arrived today. It’s a Logitech USB Microphone if anybody cares. I was very excited. I’d started planning podcasts I was going to release. There were lots of exciting plans. Then I plugged it in and gave it a try. It is, for want of a better word, bobbins. Spectacularly bobbins. I mean, admittedly, it only cost £16 on Amazon, but it had some really good reviews. People were saying things like “This microphone is surprisingly good for £16! Wowzers!” etc, and I thought that it would thus be a great product. It is not. Unless you want to sound like Robocop, and most of the time, I don’t. I had some Robocop pyjamas once, when I was around 5 or 6. I think they’re my favourite item of clothing ever. How I miss them. Anyway, the microphone. The final insult is that when it’s assembled, it actually looks like a giant middle finger. I can’t help but think this is deliberate.

Looking for better options, I can see that I’m probably going to have to fork out around £100 if I want something properly decent. This is a considerable amount of money when you’re working part-time in a rubbish job. I should really look into getting sponsored. Perhaps by Pure Waffle. There could be absolutely no more perfect sponsor for our podcast than Pure Waffle I believe. I’m pretty much already their spokesperson without earning any money. Anybody I’ve spoken to for longer than about 5 minutes will attest to this, and yet, as far as I’m aware, none of the many people I’ve recommended Pure Waffle to have yet listened to what I’m saying and actually gone there. It’s near Selfridges in London. Look it up on Google Maps, and when you go there, don’t let yourself by fooled by the nearby ‘Gourmet Wonder Waffle’ stands. They’re not what I’m talking about. Pure Waffle is pretty much the Mecca of waffles. Maybe I should organise a coach trip there. We’ll all pile onto our bus and sing songs about waffles, before we

I’VE GOT SOME SOUP DOWNSTAIRS!

Sorry, I just remembered that. I bought some this morning. I’m going to have some soon, that’ll be fun.

Anyway, we’ll pile onto our bus, and sing songs about waffles, then all bundle into Pure Waffle, to the delighted smiles of their patron, Mr Waffle (I don’t know his name, but he’s always there, and he seems very friendly), who’ll say “Andy, finally this sponsorship has paid off! Have a lifetime’s supply of cash!”, to which I’ll reply “Don’t be silly Mr Waffle! I’ll just have one of your pecan and butterscotch waffles and a glass of horlicks and we’ll call it quits.” Then he’ll probably say something along the lines of “God bless us, every one” and we’ll all eat the biggest goose in the city. It’ll be magical.

Failing that, none of you will actually turn up, apart from me, who’ll chug up in a dusty old megabus, vomit up a chair that I accidentally inhaled because it wasn’t properly secured to the floor, then proceed to be sworn at by Mr Waffle for three hours straight because the 200 customers I promised haven’t actually materialised.

Anyway, yeah. Maybe they’d sponsor us. I’m off to get some soup now. Maybe soup would sponsor us. Not Heinz or anything. Just soup in general. Llamageddon, sponsored by soup. That would make my life.

Today I have deactivated my facebook account. Probably only for a week, but who knows really? The point is that I’m doing it to see whether it’s really as much of a drain on my time as I think it is. Quite often I’d just log onto facebook and just mindlessly sit there doing nothing for ages, getting no writing done as I did. There’s a lot of writing to be done this year, especially since, annoyingly, I’ve recently discovered that the idea for the sitcom I’d finished has already sort of been done about 30 years ago. At least, I think it has, I’ll probably need to do more research into that. There are lots of other ideas to be worked on anyway, so with any luck, not being on facebook should help me do a bit of this.

So far in my time away from facebook I’ve not done too much of any great use, but then, to be fair, it’s only been about 4 hours. I’ve looked for laptops, and think I’ve decided on the one I’m going to get, so will try and acquire that within a week or so, which should allow the Llamageddon podcasts to get back on track. Though the recording quality from recording on a laptop will probably be lower, it’ll be both cheaper and easier than recording in a studio which we’d have to book in advance. We’ll be able to record wherever, which will mean we’ll hopefully be able to get them out fairly regularly. More regularly than the ‘once every 4 months’ average that we managed last year anyway. Being able to record anywhere also gives us the scope for more interesting things. Potentially. I say interesting things, in reality this’ll probably just be us sitting in a bar recording as we get progressively more drunk, leading to an altogether more aggressive version of ‘Jafar? Cakes?’ in which every incorrect answer is punished by a chair being thrown. Exciting.

In other news, the company I went to for an interview last week haven’t contacted me at all. This is very good news. It means they’re obviously taking their time drafting a lucrative contract full of exciting benefits. I can’t wait for it to arrive. In the meantime, I’ve got some exciting yoghurts in the fridge, some of them are chocolate, some of them are toffee. It’s really very exciting if you like toffee and chocolate, which I kind of do, so maybe I’ll treat myself to one of those later.

I can see that at some point in future, I’m going to have to make a blog post titled ‘yoghurt experiment’. I probably spend more time discussing yoghurts and eating them than I do on facebook. That’s the real drain on my time.

Anyway, things to do this week:

- Try and finish this new sitcom.
- Book some more stand-up gigs.
- Eat a yoghurt (I’ll tick this one off fairly soon).
- Maybe have some port? Does port assist with writing? Find out.
- Build a fort. A writing fort.
- Have some port in your writing fort.
- Find something else that rhymes with port. Incorporate it into your fort.

I’m an ambitious man.

This is my first post of 2010. Let me just say, there’s no evidence as yet that this will be a good year, but I’d rather hope it was. I am going to start optimistic and let the optimism gradually leak out of me like a morbid teapot. Anyway, what have I been doing so far this year I hear none of you cry? Well, let me tell you!

Nothing.

Actually, that’s not true, I’ve been doing a few things. Today I even had an interview. I thought it went ok, by which I mean I didn’t say anything particularly stupid. Oh, the times we were having, we all laughed, I sipped my water casually, as if to say “Hey! I’m sipping my water! Casually! I’m one of you guys! Eh? Eh?” Let me tell you, if we’d each had long enough arms, I’m sure we’d have all been sat round slapping each other on the back in a jovial manner. Alas, the distance between us was somewhat too large, and it would have been too disturbing to actually get up, walk across, slap them on the back, then slowly limber back to my seat in silence. Perhaps if I’d had Go Go Gadget arms then it would have been a possibility, but the fact is, I don’t, so it would have been even worse if I’d tried to engage them.

“And then I said, hey, that’s not a biscuit, that’s my cat!”

“Hahahaha! Good one! GO GO GADGET ARMS!”

[Silence]

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. ABORT! ABORT GADGET ARMS!”

“Ok, well… ooh, is that the time? Well, you know, we’ll… be in touch…”

“Thanks! GO GO GADGET HELICOPTER! BYEEEEEE!” [Crash through door]

It was something to do anyway. No doubt they’ll be in touch within a few days with the traditional ‘Well, thanks for coming in, unfortunately, there were a lot of strong candidates…’ etc, but hopefully not. Seeing as this is the year of optimism and everything, I’m going to predict that in a couple of days they’ll be in touch with a six-figure salary and a shiny jacket that says ‘KING OF THE BUILDING: ASK ME ABOUT MY GADGET ARMS’. This will happen.

I’ve also started another stand-up course. This is an advanced course, following on from the beginner’s one I did a few months ago that I’ve discussed on here. It’s great. Basically, every week I just get to get on stage, practice material and get feedback on it before I take it out to gigs. It’s a lot of fun, and everybody is very friendly. I haven’t actually done a stand-up gig since November now, as I’ve run out of bookings, but I’m hoping to get back into doing it soon. I should email more people. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.

I also hope to finish another script this month, which would be a hell of an effort, since it’s only 1/3 done, and there’s only 11 days left. Let’s make that a draft perhaps. A draft of the script would be nice. Oh, and also I’m hoping to revive Llamageddon for a better run over the next few weeks. More regular podcasts rather than just one every 4 months or so. That would be good. Maybe release some other stuff too. That would be super good. A good megazord. Anyway, I’m quite tired and I’ve got to go to work soon, so I’m going to end here. Bye!

I thought that what with it being the last day of the year, I should post up a summary of exactly how the year has gone. It’s probably fair to say it’s not been the best year I’ve ever had. At the beginning of the year I made some resolutions, well, not resolutions as such, but I wrote myself a list of things that I wanted to achieve this year. There were about 8 things on that list, and I’ve not achieved one of them. I don’t know where it all fell apart, but somewhere along the line it did. Hence, it has not been brilliant.

Back in January, I was still on the dole after about 6 months of joblessness, which was broken up by a week where I worked in a bottle factory screwing the lids on bottles. Oh, the times we had. The japery we got up to. “Hey! Screw those lids on those bottles!” “Ok.” Ah, banter. This was made more disappointing by the fact that the end of 2008 had been so promising. I’d had a series commissioned by Channel 4, I’d won an award and been nominated for another. It kind of felt like things might be ok. They were not. Obviously, the series commission fell through because of a lack of money, but as well as that, I don’t think I capitalised on what I’d achieved enough. I kind of sat back and hoped that somebody might notice me. This was a mistake, since nobody did. Also in January, I actually did professionally produce the ghost stories I’d written with Demus Productions in Glasgow. This was hugely important, since whilst their production was spot on, I managed to mess up what had been good through changing what worked, based on feedback I’d received from some judges at the Student Radio Awards. This made me realise what a thin line there was between something that works, and something that doesn’t, and it’s something that since then has almost driven me to obsession. If you were to read back through my blog posts throughout the year, you’d see just how much I’ve talked about a sitcom I’m writing, and how it was ‘nearly finished’. It’s been in this state of ‘nearly finished’ since about April or May, simply because I’ve become obsessed with every aspect of it being perfect. Not perfect in the sense of ‘oh, this is the best thing I’ve ever read’, because I’ll be honest, it’s not The Sopranos or anything. It is, however, what I want it to be, and this may be all I want. I’d sooner have something brilliant that never makes it to TV than compromise and produce something I wasn’t happy with simply for the sake of having my own show. It actually is finished now though, or at least, the first episode. Over the next year I’d like to do something with it, hawk it about to some companies and see if they’re interested. I don’t know what’ll happen, but at least it’ll be something to keep me occupied in 2010.

I had some job interviews this year too. I’d do a roll call of companies who have turned me down, but you’d just be scrolling down the page for days if anybody does read this. It would have been nice to have one of those jobs, if just for the improved quality of life, but in all honesty, I’m not sure that’s what I want to do. I’ve never really known what I want to do as such, all through my life I’ve thought “Well, I’ll work it out soon.” When I went to university, I thought that by the time I came out I’d have worked out what I wanted to do with my life, and I still hadn’t. Thankfully, because of the economic crisis, this wasn’t a problem, as there weren’t any jobs anyway, so I still had time to think.

Have I mentioned that I ate two pieces of fish today by the way? I did. That’s not what I wanted to do as a career, but it’s an interesting aside. After one piece of fish I started to think ‘can I really get through the second, and all these chips?’ And I did. If only I’d written this on my list of things to achieve at the beginning of the year then I could have at least ticked one thing off. I’ll put it on my list of things to do in 2010, then I can consider myself to be a success next December. It would count as cheating if I were to add ‘eat a Kinder Bueno’ to my list of things to achieve in 2009 now wouldn’t it? I’m going to do it anyway. I smashed it yesterday. A genuine sense of dread spread across my body as I realised I’d crushed the Kinder Bueno in my bag with a bottle of water. These are the issues that really hit me hard. Crumbly Bueno. I’m practically Jeremy Paxman with my no nonsense grasp of the world’s real issues.

Anyway, I digress. I think I may now have worked out what I want to do with my life. There are certain things I truly love, and comedy is one of them. It really does make me happy (that’s kind of the point of comedy though I suppose). I’d like to commit more effort to pursuing this in 2010. I get the feeling that if I don’t give it a real go, then I’ll just look back on this with regret when I’m older, and I’ve already got more than enough regrets to last a lifetime. I’ve had a lovely time doing stand-up fairly casually this year, and even though I’ve had some catastrophic gigs, I do think I’m improving quite well now. I think one of my highlights from this year was the stand-up course I did, which really did help me realise where I was going wrong and helped me develop. I’m starting an advanced version of the course in about a week or so, and I’m quite excited. I’m not sure where I’d like to be in a year’s time in regard to stand-up, as there’s no marked-out path as such. I’d love to be on a bill with a professional comic or two though. That would be brilliant. I’d like to make that happen. Maybe it will.

I realise that things might not be good at the moment, working part-time at One Stop was never exactly my dream, but I genuinely believe that it’s still possible to turn this round next year. I’ve been ridiculously lazy this year, and I’d like to think that next year I’ll work harder (despite saying this at the beginning of every year, a resolution that typically lasts for a good 3 weeks before I get annoyed and sit about watching repeats of Friends and eating marmalade cake. Though I have also got into Countdown a bit this year, because it’s brilliant. I also resolve to get at least a 7 letter word at some point). If at the end of 2010 I’m still in this same position, I’d like to at least know what it wasn’t through lack of trying, which is what really annoys me about 2009. Good riddance to you 2009! You rogue!

So, in conclusion, my resolutions.

1. Eat two bits of fish again. Maybe video tape it?
2. Eat a Kinder Bueno.
3. Get at least a seven letter word on Countdown.
4. Discover a secret cavern full of treasure.
5. Sell some treasure.
6. Buy lots of Kinder Buenos.
7. Dole out Kinder Buenos whilst shouting “They Kinder Buenos are on me!”
8. Deal with lawsuit from the Milky Bar Kid.
9. Counter-suit the Milky Bar Kid.
10. Taunt the Milky Bar Kid.
11. Visit the Milky Bar Kid in jail. Bake a cake for him with a file in.
12. Wait until Milky Bar Kid escapes from jail.
13. Hunt the Milky Bar Kid for sport.
14. Capture the Milky Bar Kid.
15. Place the Milky Bar Kid in Alcatraz.
16. Wait for Milky Bar Kid to take over Alcatraz, despite it being abandoned.
17. Dress as Sean Connery and break into Alcatraz to try and take him down.
18. Deal with lawsuit from Sean Connery.
19. Try some eggnog?
20. Counter-suit Sean Connery for all the eggnog he’s got.
21. Buy a garage for all your eggnog.
22. Field questions from the press on ‘why does your garage smell of eggnog?’
23. Stop listening to ‘A View To A Kill’.
24. Reverse the polarity of something. Maybe a lute.
25. Connect 5.

I think that’s about enough resolutions for one year. Looking back, this hasn’t been so much a summary of 2009 as it has been a rant about the things I’ve ranted about all year. Suffice to say, this is why I won’t be appearing on Jools Holland’s annual Hootenannay this year. “Yeah Jools, and do you know what else I hated about 2009? Screwing on bottle lids! Yeah, you heard me! Anyway, let me tell you about my sitcom…”

[2 hours pass]

“… and if I could be a bit better at stand-up, that would be cool too I suppose.”

“We’ve missed the clock hitting midnight thanks to you you stupid bastard!”

“Oh shut up Jools! It’s not even New Year’s Eve! IT’S NOT EVEN NEW YEAR’S EVE YOU FRAUD! IT’S OCTOBER NOW! IT’S PRE-RECORDED!”

“I’ll give you pre-recorded!”

“Bring it on you jazz hobbit!”

[Cue brutal bloody battle]

I’d watch it if it were like this. Anyway, happy new year to everybody. I hope you all have a good year.

“What the hell is that?” I stammered.

“Oh, this?” Said Donald, pointing to the monstrosity that stood before us. “This is what you can do with a little imagination.”

I stood in front of what can only be described as a mutant mushroom. It was at least 10 foot tall, muscular and with two hideous mouths. Thankfully, it seemed to be sleeping. “Is that Jonty’s mouth?” I asked, though I think I already knew the answer.

“It is.” Confirmed Donald. Turns out my answer was incorrect. “And that’s just the beginning. When we’re finished with you this thing’ll be unstoppable. Who can stop a beast with so many limbs? With so much power!”

“But why?”

“Why? To crush the parsnips, that’s why.”

“But why crush the parsnips? They’re a lovely people, they gave us chicken drumsticks!”

“Drumsticks…” Donald paused. “Schmumsticks?” And there it was, a mistake. Donald had broken his cool, he was no longer the untouchable he had once been. This was my opportunity.

“And what’s your surname, Donald…” I thought for a minute, I couldn’t use Smells again. As hilarious as it had been the first time, I needed something stronger.

“Andy, use the swearsies!” Shouted Carl.

“I can’t use swearsies, it’ll corrupt us both!” I protested, but I knew I had to. It was the only hope. Now if only I could think of a swearsie that would fit with his name. Something that rhymed with butter, or maybe the cups part was the best opportunity. I would require a swearsie that began with C, something so brutally harsh that when utilised it had the possibility to take down 10,000 Daily Mail readers at 100 paces. But what could it be? A c word, a c word… come on Andy, think! And then it hit me. I smiled, ready to unleash my devastating force against Donald.

“Donald… Buttercups?” I laughed, then realised I’d failed miserably. This actually was his name. I cursed myself, but had to plough onwards.

“You’ve let yourself down Andy. Now, are those your last words?” Sneered Donald.

“No.” I said, proving myself right through the very utilisation of more words.

“That’ll do.” Said Donald, as he pushed a button next to the mushroom. There was a roar as the mutant mushroom awoke, and got to its feet. It towered over us now. It’s fists were the size of my fists. Times 15.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Said Alan. “Resident Evil 1.”

“I was thinking more Return to Castle Wolfenstein.” Added Hank.

“This is no time to be demonstrating how geeky we are!” I shouted. “Run!”

We turned and ran back into the corridor. The mutant mushroom threw a fist that smashed the wall behind us. This attracted the attention of the mushroom party next door, who also ran out into the corridor to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately for them, it turned out that the mutant mushroom did not discriminate between who was or wasn’t on its side, and crushed them underneath its feet. We bundled ourselves through the exit door to find ourselves in a large courtyard. 200 yards in front of us lay the drawbridge. “This way!” I shouted as we all ran towards our escape. The mutant mushroom was too fast for us though. He leapt in front of us and prevented us from reaching the drawbridge.

“Any ideas?” I said. Then there was a scream.

“Yeeeeeeeeee-haaaawwwwwwwww!” Shouted Old Man Parsnip, as he came swinging down from nowhere! “I’VE GOT BARBECUE SAUCCCCEEEEE!” We watched as he swung triumphantly towards the mutant mushroom. Then we all watched as he swung triumphantly past the mutant mushroom. Finally we watched as he swung triumphantly into the moat of lava and triumphantly went up in flames.

“Right, any other ideas?” I said. Everybook shook their heads. This was not good news. The mutant mushroom raised its large fist as we all huddled round and prepared to die. Then, a bang. A single bang this time as I don’t need to string things out so much. A hole had been blown in one of the castle walls. And through that hole strode the most magnificent machine we’d ever seen.

“BEHOLD THE ROBOT ANDREI KANCHELSKIS!” Shouted the Parsnip King, as both machine and Parsnips began to stream through the hole. The robot Andrei Kanchelskis advanced on the mutant mushroom at a pace that fitted entirely with the blistering pace of the real Andrei Kanchelskis. A single punch to the chest was all it took as the robot’s fist crashed through the torso of the mushroom, who collapsed to the floor, dead.

“MY MOUTH!” Thought Jonty, who was still unable to talk.

“Thanks King Parsnip!” I shouted, as I ran across to high five him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some trash to take out…” I said, utilising a piece of dialogue that wouldn’t have been out of place in a 1980s Sylvester Stallone film, as I flicked my cigar across the courtyard. The parsnips and the mushrooms were now engaged in full-scale battle. I ran across the courtyard and back to the laboratory, where Donald was hastily packing away his stuff.

“Going somewhere Donald?” I said, as I picked up a cigar and then flicked it away again from dramatic measure. Donald looked up and smiled.

“Oh Andy, are we really going to have this duel?” He laughed.

“I was rather hoping so, it would seem like a good end to the story don’t you think?”

“That depends on your weapon of choice.”

“Well, swords are probably too stereotypical. Maybe pistols? But that’s a bit cliched as well… I don’t know, fireworks?”

“We don’t have any fireworks Andy…” Said Donald, always the pessimist. “What say we settle this with our fists?”

“Oh do we have to? I’m useless with my fists. Alright, so I’ve got a green belt in Karate, but that was over 10 years ago, I’ve forgotten it all now.”

“We settle this like men Andy.”

“Oh fine.” I said, as I put my dukes up. The very fact that I was referring to them as dukes should have made clear that I’d never really done this before. We circled each other for a while. I stubbed my toe on a chair as we did. Donald punched me in the face.

“You bastard! I stubbed my toe! Didn’t you see?”

“There are no rules against toe stub hits in this battle Andy.” Said Donald.

We began to circle each other again. Once more I stubbed my toe. Donald hit me swiftly in the ribs.

“DAMNIT! Can’t we just move these chairs? They’re really hindering me here!” I asked.

“Deal with it!” Shouted Donald, as he swung another punch towards me. This time I dodged it. Donald went flying past me. This was my opportunity. As he toppled past me, I picked up the chair which had been so bad to my toes and crashed it down on him. His head did something that can only really be described as exploding.

“Christ, this has ended a lot more brutally than I’d been expecting. This certainly isn’t going to make for a very good children’s story…” I said. With that in mind I made sure to kick his now headless corpse in the groin on the way out. “Take that Donald…” I thought for a moment. “Buttercow.” I gave up. I was never going to nail this punchline, no matter how many cracks at it I had.

As I made my way out of the laboratory and back into the courtyard, I was relieved to see that the battle was over. The mushrooms had surrendered to the parsnips, their King and many of their soldiers having been slain by the Andrei Kanchelskis robot.

“So this is the end of the story?” I said, as once more I high-fived the Parsnip King.

“I guess so Andy.”

I sighed. Then a voice in the distance. “Andy!” It shouted.

“Shesnip!” I said, as I ran over to hug the Shesnip.

“My name’s not Shesnip! If you don’t give me a name now then you never will!” She said. And she was right. I thought about all the horrors we’d seen over the past 6 days. We’d all suffered, but one more than most, and in their honour, I was going to name this Shesnip.

“Your name…” I said. “Is Jontina.”

“You know what, I think I preferred Shesnip.” Said Jontina.

“Well, it’s your own fault.” I said.

And so it was that Donald Buttercups came to be destroyed, and the mushrooms fell from grace. The Parsnips ruled over the land now, in their own friendly way, and all vegetables learned to live together in peace and harmony. As for me and Shesnip, we split up a week later because it turned out she’d didn’t like waffles, and there was no recovering from that. Myself, Jonty, Carl, Hank and Alan all returned to our own land shortly afterwards. What a magical adventure we had had.

And that really is the end. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I have, but then I would, I wrote it. I’m forced to like my stuff my default.

Bye!

“Ok, this wasn’t part of my plan.” Confessed Jonty.

“DAMNIT JONTY!” Shouted Hank, in what was fast becoming a kind of catchphrase for the series. We found ourselves chained up in what can only be described as a stereotypical dungeon. It was dark, it was cold, it was a dungeon. There was maybe an old, dead, shrivelled parsnip in the corner. I don’t know, just imagine a stereotypical dungeon and you’ve basically got what I’m thinking of.

“Soooooo… anybody got any ideas?” Said Carl, more out of hope than expectation.

“Ain’t no point tryin’ to get out o’ here!” Said a voice we hadn’t heard before.

“Who are you?” Said Alan, unable to turn to face the voice as he was too busy hanging upside down.

“The name’s Old Man Radish! Been here for so long I can’t even remember anymore!” Said the Radish.

“You know, you sound surprisingly like you come from Texas.” I said.

“Darn tootin’!” Said the Radish. “Would you like some barbecue sauce?”. He’d fast become an entirely different character to the one I originally envisioned.

“I’m not sure that’ll help right now, but you know, maybe later I suppose…”

“Sure thang! I’ll be branding cattle if you need me!” Said Old Man Radish, as he began to hum the theme tune from Dallas. Solitary confinement had obviously driven him crazy. This would probably happen to us in time. Maybe we’d all be Texan in a month, we just didn’t know. We would have to keep our minds active somehow.

“Does anybody fancy a game of twenty questions?” I said.

“I suppose may as well, doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.” Said Hank.

“Ok, ok, I’ve got one.”

“Is it a mineral?”

“Nope.”

“Is it a vegetable?”

“Yep.”

“It’s a radish isn’t it?” Sighed Carl.

“IT IS! YOUR GO!”

Before we’d had chance to move onto round two however, the dungeon door swung open. “That one.” Said a voice. Two mushrooms came in and began to unchain Jonty.

“What’s going on?” Said Carl. The guards didn’t respond. “What are you doing with Jonty? Jonty! JONTY!” Jonty was taken down and dragged away. The dungeon door slammed again. We hung in silence for a while. Nobody really wanted to ask what might be happening to Jonty. Apart from Alan that is.

“What do you think might be happening to Jonty?” Said Alan, almost as if he’d been reading the previous paragraph. There was a silence. Hours passed. We began to suspect we were never going to see Jonty again. Then the door crashed open again. In the light we saw the silhouette of Jonty being dragged back into the dungeon and chained back up. Then the mushrooms left.

“Jonty, what the hell happened?” Asked Hank. There was no reply.

“Jonty?” Said Carl. There was still no reply. Then we managed to turn our heads just enough to find out the horrfying reason why.

“JONTY’S GOT NO MOUTH! WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY DONE WITH JONTY’S MOUTH?!” I screamed. Jonty was obviously unable to respond to this, since his mouth had disappeared off his face completely. He looked somewhat strange, sort of like an uncomplete Mr Potato Head. The mushrooms had even given him a bowler hat to add to this look. The scoundrels.

“We’ve got to get out of here. First they steal Jonty’s mouth for who knows what, then what? They’ll take Hank’s eyebrows? Where does the horror end?” Said Alan.

“Ain’t no way out o’ here!” Shouted Old Man Radish again. Adding a yee-haw before he clicked his spurs.

“What was that?” Said Carl.

“If I’m not mistaken, that was the distinctive sound of some spurs clicking.” Said Hank, who was familiar with such a sound. Hank line-danced every Wednesday night. He once owned a shop that specialised in cowboy boots. He wrote a musical entitled ‘The Sound of Spurs Clicking’. In short, he knew what spurs clicking sounded like. Then, the idea hit us.

“We’ll use the spurs to pick the locks!” Shouted Carl.

“It’s easy to say that Carl, but I think it’s a hell of a lot harder in practice.” I said.

30 seconds later, we were all free from our chains.

“Ok, I suppose I was wrong.” I admitted. “But now what?”

“Now we gon’ have ourselves a rooting tootin’ barbecue sauce party!” Said Old Man Radish, as he put his boots back on.

“You’re really not going to let that go are you?” Said Alan.

“Darn tootin’!” Replied the Radish.

“Ok, well, you stay here and have a… ‘rooting tooting barbecue sauce party’ was it? We’ll go look for a way out.” I said.

“Darn tooti-”

“Shut up.”

“Ok.”

We approached the dungeon door, opened it as slowly as possible, and peeked into the corridor. It was a long corridor, full of doors. An unremarkable corridor, with lots of doors. There were many doors, and not much that stood out about the corridor. It was the kind of corridor that in retrospect, probably shouldn’t have been described in text. It was however, empty. We began to slowly creep down the corridor, afraid that at any moment we could be ambushed by mushrooms. We figured the door at the end was the exit. It was larger than the other doors, the oak wood that it was crafted from was noticably worn around the edges, the handle had taken on a much duller tone, almost as if it was used more frequently than the other doors. All these were signs that suggested that this might be the exit. The green exit sign above the door was also a clue of sorts, but detecting this wasn’t quite as Poirot-esque. We would have to sneak past several other doors to get to this exit, many of them ajar. Were these rooms full of mushrooms? Who knew? Should we gamble?

“GAMBLE!” Shouted the studio audience, who, up until this point, we’d been completely unaware of.

“I think we’re going to gamble Vernon.” I said, to rapturous applause from the assembled berks who were always going to recommend we gambled because they had nothing invested in the story. We continued to slowly creep along, passing door after door. In one room, there seemed to be a party going on. I recognised the sound of the cage dropping onto the mouse in Mouse Trap. I’d once written a musical called ‘The Sound of the Cage Falling Onto the Mouse in Mouse Trap’. Between me and Hank, we’d written a number of wildly unsuccessful musicals. No wonder we were so hideously poor. As we approached one door though, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Jonty. he was pointing to his mouth, and then to the door. “What is it Jonty?” I said. I suddenly felt like the boy from Lassie. Then I realised. This was the room where Jonty had been taken. A chill spread across my body. What was in this room? Surely it was only wise to take a look?

“Andy! Come on!” Whispered Carl, as he and the rest of the group reached the exit door, but it was too late, I’d already begun to inch the door open. As I peered through the gap, nothing could have prepared me for the horror that I saw.

And that’s where it ends for today. Many people would say ‘Wow Andy, well ended on a cliff-hanger there, it’s almost as if you got to that point and then hadn’t actually thought about what you saw and needed time to go away and maybe think about what it was that you saw’, to which I would reply ‘Well that’s a long sentence. And yes’. Anyway, I have other things that need finishing. This story may even end one day. Who really knows anymore?