If you are out there still reading this…..

I am still alive! Yes from the deafening silence I am getting I think this blog is written more for you than for you. Maybe I should write a bunch of word documents and stored it in my Hotmail account and it will have the same effect, but I like writing on a regular basis as it gets me into a habit of generating content on a regular basis.

So between the last update on the 4th Dec and this update on the 23rd Dec what has changed? Well 19 days!

No that just me being a smartass! Well the first thing is the MASSIVE freezing weather that Europe is experiencing. It was so massive that scores of people were stucked at Heathrow as only around 30% of flights were taking off. My coffee guy Stef was due to fly out on Saturday night to Australia, his flight was cancelled and reschedule to Wednesday!  If its further delay by snow again there is a good chance he might cancel his trip altogether! There were thousands of people stranded at Heathrow from canceled flights and were forced to sleep on the floor, it was like a refugee camp! Confirming the long held suspicion of thousand of travellers of Heathrow’s ultimate purposes. 

Air travel wasn’t the only transport suffering from disruption. Train was also hit hard! Massive queues at the Eurostar St Pancreas with people have to wait upto 6 hours before boarding on the train. They were encouraging people to cancel their travel if they can! Heres a clip that give you an idea!

Surely for a nation that used to queueing this must be a wet dream!!

What they needed to adopt is the Chinese style of boarding trains circa 1980 where people will climb in through the windows and every entry way where a person can fit through.

In other news Eurostar adopt new strategy to ease congestion!

Oh lucky me! I dun have any holidays booked over these period so I dun have to worry about all this travel disruption. Everywhere I like to go I can walk to so I say bring on th snow!! Yes! My life is sad and I do cry myself to sleep at night! Here are some pictures of christmas trees at my local market and a view of the courtyard outside my window. Snow makes the whole city looked very scenic until it start to thaw. Than it turn into a layer of ice thats slippery and reducing your pants to tar coloured!!

Might stick a few more pics when I get around to it. Maybe sometime tomorrow on Christmas Eve!!

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Had a really surreal few gigs the last 2 weeks. Did a gig at the Queens Head 2 weeks ago to a room of around 5 audiences, 7 acts and 2 drunken hecklers. You can tell the night is already heading into trouble waters when the drunk at the front heckle as soon as the Compere open his mouth. The weird thing about the night is theres not one but two drunken hecklers in tonight. In normal situation when theres an audience in you can harness the audience mood and turn it against the hecklers, but tonight the hecklers are virtually THE audience. As soon as one heckler stop heckle the other one will pipe up wanted to give you his/her piece of mind, I felt like I spent the night playing an interactive game of “whack-a-heckler“!

On top of this I was the act opening the show. It’s tricky to open a gig as you set the tone for the rest of the night. At this point the audience is not 100% sure what to expect and a skillful opener can settle the audience down and open the crowd so the rest of the bill find it easier to do their work. Very much like the job of the Opening batsman for the cricket team.

Being the opening act makes the job of dealing with hecklers even more trickier: You have work out on the spot if heckler is there to support you or there to impose their own will. (In oher words being CUNTS) If you on later in the bill you can watch how the audience react to the act on before to get a steer and you get time to prep your attitude on stage and ready a few heckle put down.

That night I did a few “banker” gags and spent the rest of my set yelling back at the hecklers. They were so drunk their heckles were on time-delay, even if they managed to heckled you in time their drunken brains mince their words so badly it makes no sense and there is nothing for you to work with. At one point the male drunk literally stood up and yell at me saying:

“…..Tell us a joke about Hong kong Jockey club….”

Yes! I got a joke about Hong Kong Jockey club! Its in your mum’s anus I been fisting it the other night……..

That should be what I have said but I will just have to remember it for next time. I walked off seething with frustration and set down with other acts. Sarma commented that she has never seen me so aggressive on stage before! Seanie (another act that was amongst the audience that night) commented that it does take guts to walk up on stage to bat away the hecklers but he did comment that you should always make everything you do on stage funny, even if its calling the Heckler a cunt!

The other thing he did mentioned is that there is no ownership to heckle put downs so you can learn a few pre-fab put down or steal another comedians if they apply. One of the stock one is whenever someone say “why are you so fat?” is to yell back “Everytime I F**ked your mum she gave me a biscuit!!”.

I learnt a lot from that Saturday. The following Monday I did a gig at Romford in Essex (Essex is like Blacktown in Sydney) and there was a geezer up the front heckling through the comedian’s set. When I drop the first gag and he stole the punchline with his own anecdote I realise I shouldn’t engage him, so I ignored him for the rest of my set and likewise he also ignored me through my set. It turned out alright in the end sure I didn’t win the heckler over but the crowd was with me most of my set so the heckler backed off in this case.

Two interesting gig, two interesting situation with hecklers, two different approach and two valuable lessons learnt!!

The other valuable lesson I learnt from a  more experience act (Gerry K) is how to sort people out when they decided to talk amongst themselves:

Gerry:(To guys talking) Hey are you chaps ok there talking?

*Guys turned and looked at Gerry*

Gerry: Hey did you guys paid to get in? Coming to a comedy gig talking is like going to a brothel and masturbating….

It might not be Gerry’s exact words, but it was something to that effect but definitely worth designing my own version to put down anyone who decided to talk amongst themselves!

On that note PPl! I am out of here!!

Merry Xmas!! xxxxx