Merry Christmas

December 20, 2009

Hello Everyone,

Well, it’s that time of year again when children find it hard to sleep at night and not just because Gary Glitter’s back in Britain. I am also back in Britain, but please note that is where the similarities end. I’m spending a few days in London before heading up north to Scotland which last week appears to have reentered the Ice Age, so that’s nice. A cab driver made me giggle here yesterday when he told me he was dreading a white Christmas because he had promised his 4 year old boy that if it snowed, he would be able to see Santa’s footprints on the roof on Christmas morning. And there’s only one way he could keep that promise… I have begun my quest to buy suitable presents for a sizable list of nieces and nephews. The problem is that they range from 2 years old to 13 years old, so it is practically impossible to buy a one-toy-fits-all type of gift. I have found the worst thing you can do is think ‘now, what did I like when I was 7 years old?’ because then you risk almost certain disappointment when the poor child unwraps ‘Daley Thomson’s Decathlon’ for the ZX Spectrum and a tangerine orange. I have come to the conclusion that anything with the letter ‘i’ in front of usually makes people happy, unless that thing is a rack. One of the most frequently received Christmas presents I used to get when I was a kid was a ‘Guinness Book Of Records.’ In fact I think I got one every year without fail from 1983-1993. I never quite understood the reasoning behind this tradition? Other than the fact that none of my other presents were sponsored by a brewery, the main problem was that most of the records didn’t change in that period, so I pretty much just got the same book every year for 10 years. Occasionally, some guy in Mexico would beat the previous record for continuous hopping or something? But other than that every new edition had a serious case of déjà vu. ‘Oh look, I see no one has challenged Michel Lotito’s record of eating the most amount of metal in one sitting? Ah yes, and looks like Lee Redmond still holds the record for the longest nails? Well really, they could have at least changed the photo?’ Having said that, there was something rather comforting about getting that thick, heavy book at the bottom of my stocking, it made the initial weight of the stocking seem far more exciting. I suppose Guinness Book Of Records’ sales have dramatically decreased with the presence of the internet in every home now? After all, I imagine it’s a lot simpler to just type into a search engine ‘biggest feet?’ than to get down that ton weight from the shelf and spend 15 minutes leafing through it’s gigantic pages, which is a shame because in my experience whenever you looked up one record in that book you almost always found yourself absorbed in it for the next few hours which was by no means a bad thing. Well anyway, I suppose better get on with the shopping…

I will get some new stand up dates up on the website in the New Year. It looks like I will be doing some solo shows in Canada in the spring, then I’m hoping to put together some kind of tour in the UK later in the year and I’m sure there will be more….

A very merry Christmas to you all!

Danny

P.S. For those of you wondering, Robert Pershing Wadlow, of Alton Illinois, has the biggest feet ever recorded at a whopping 18 1/2 inches long. That’s a size 37 shoe…Imagine seeing those footprints in the snow on your roof!