Danny Bhoy's Blog

Niagara Falls and Gets Back Up Again

2008-11-03T22:58:40Z

Hello everyone,

I am in a place called Ottawa which I've just found out is the capital of Canada. (My apologies to the nation of Canada, but I genuinely thought it was Toronto). The huge parliament buildings which grace the city centre as I winged my way into the city this morning were my first clue. The second clue was a huge sign as we drove off from the airport saying "Welcome to Canada's capital city of Ottawa" I guess that's why I'm known as an observational comic. We are roughly halfway through this 4-week tour of Canada which has been hugely enjoyable. In one of the many highlights, yesterday I went to Niagara Falls which is only an hour long drive from Toronto, which is sooo not the capital of Canada.

Niagara Falls is only the second 'Wonder of The World' I can vouch to having visited in my life, the first being the great Taj Mahal in India. That was a slightly different experience as I was only 11 at the time and distinctly remember being annoyed that I had to get on a tour bus and leave the hotel pool to go see some stupid marble palace. In fact I remember spending much of the day playing Donkey Kong on an old portable Nintendo while a tour guide bleated on about 'the greatest architectural masterpiece in the World' blah, blah, blah. 'The Taj Mahal was built on 4 levels.' Big wow! Donkey Kong had 8! I remember being similarly unresponsive when being dragged along to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris when I was 13, the difference being I was still underwhelmed when I visited it again last month. But when I found out we were going to visit the Niagara Falls yesterday, I was genuinely excited. Heck, I didn't even pack my playstation.

]]> After marvelling at the Falls from a walkway for some time, we decided to pay the $22 admission fee to venture down an elevator into the depths of the Falls, were you were able to walk out onto a platform and look up at the Falls, oh and get completely drenched in the process. They gave us all a bright yellow bin bag to wear as we boarded the elevator, which is akin to giving a soldier a penknife before sending him 'over the top.' It probably didn't help that I was insistent on trying to get a semi-artistic photo taken of the tumbling waterfall, which involved me sticking my head beyond the clearly marked 'danger' sign. 'What a dumbass!' was the remark from a young kid that I really could have no complaints about.

We were told by the less than enthusiastic tour guide that 1.4 million litres of water gush over Niagara Falls every single minute which is enough to fill 150,000 baths (or something like that, I don't know I was busy playing Mario Kart). The guide also told us that Niagara Falls is one of the most popular places in Canada for Honeymooners to come, to which I remarked they should maybe rename it 'Viagra Falls', a joke which seemed completely lost on the 15 Japanese tourists also on the tour, or they just didn't find it funny....Nah, that's ridiculous, they just didn't get it. My only complaint of the trip was the town of Niagara Falls itself, which has clearly been built solely, and soullessly, with the hoards of annual tourists in mind. I don't think you should be allowed to build any commercial building within 5 miles of a place of natural beauty, it just doesn't seem right. It's something you see all too often in North America, but thankfully not in other parts of the World. While there's definitely a prime market for a food stop after a strenuous hike up a hill, it's probably not a good idea to stick a McDonalds on top of Ayres Rock. Any more than it would be appropriate to erect a Beefeater restaurant on Robben Island, or a Starbucks in Guantanamo Bay (sadly that last one is true!)

When we got back to base still in our dripping plastic yellow bibs, resembling a team of shit marine scientists, I felt strangely morose. As with all great natural wonders, they leave you with an overriding sense of the insignificance of the present. The notion that this great structure of wondrous beauty has predated your existence by several thousands of years, and will outdate it by several thousand more really puts the achievements of the last winner of the X Factor into perspective. I'm reading Barrack Obama's 'Audacity of Hope' at the moment. I am determined to finish it before Election Day. He describes his early days as a budding senator as consisting of long lonely drives across Illinois with map in hand, stopping in on any group of people who were willing to hear him talk. I couldn't help but think of my early days in stand up which were pretty much the same. Yip, me and Obama, we knew what it was like! Of course, as I rattled through the chapters, I realised that this was the only thing we had in common. Yesterday, I watched him live on TV at a rally in Cleveland giving one of his typical dynamic speeches. As the rain started to fall quite heavily, he started to get some really bad feedback on his microphone. He stopped talking and tapped the mic 3 times, and it worked perfectly again. God, I love this guy! Do you have any idea how many times I've tried that, and just got worse feedback?

One of the overwhelming feelings of the book is of a man who simply hasn't wasted a day of his life. After a flawless academic record, and 12 years as a civil rights lawyer and community organiser, he audaciously went after a position in the United States Senate at a time when the man who had the most contacts and money almost always got the job. And he was black. Well, he still is. It made me think I should really use my time on the road more productively, rather than trying to make rude words out of the car in front's licence plate. Obama seems to be a man who has devoted the first part of his life to learning and the second part of his life to public service, and I think that is one of the most commendable traits in a person. Obama won't outlive the great rock of Niagara Falls, but with any luck he will be the next president to be carved into one.

Tomorrow we are off to Winnipeg, which like so many nice sounding places is apparently a bit shit (I give you 'Easterhouse', 'Castlemilk' or 'Red Deer'). We are there for the next 2 days, which means I will be holed up in some hotel room with no phone reception awaiting the results coming in. In many ways, it's the perfect way to see out the last day of a Bush administration. What better place to revel in the impending message of hope, than a cold, flat wasteland in the centre of Canada. "Anyway, hello Winnipeg! ...Is this on?" After that, we have another 10 or so dates on the tour, which will end in Victoria, I believe. Then I fly straight to Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Comedy Festival. Yip, from the icy cold, windswept prairies of Canada to the bright lights and razzmatazz of Vegas...I feel like I'm on a campaign trail of my own sometimes. Of course, I should say, there are no guarantees in life; there is always the possibility of a McCain victory on Tuesday. If that was the case, then I shall be cancelling my trip to Vegas in 2 weeks time as I will never be able to look at another American again.

Yes We Can.

Danny.

2009 Australia Tour Dates

2008-10-24T04:35:58Z

Check back on the 3rd of November 2008 for all the Australian tour dates.

TUESDAY AFTERNOONS, YOU CAN HAVE THE REST

2008-09-09T01:11:02Z

Hello everyone,

People often ask me what I do when I have a few days off from stand up? The answer (at least today) is that I jump on an early morning train from Edinburgh to London where I catch a connecting commuter train to Crystal Palace just in time to make a game of football with some of my fellow comedians which happens every Tuesday at 2pm. It’s madness, I know. But it’s quite simply the most enjoyable thing in my life, and why let the slight inconvenience of a 788 mile round trip get in the way of that. The thing is, I’m not very good at football, but then it’s not really about the football. It’s a really good work out especially after a month of excess in Edinburgh, but it’s not really about the exercise either. It’s about the people and the banter.

]]> I was one of the founding fathers of Tuesday afternoon football at Crystal Palace back in 2000. Myself, and fellow comedians Andy and Daniel have at various times in its 8 year long history spent our Tuesday mornings, and sometimes our Monday afternoons trying to rally a minimum of 10 people for a game. It isn’t always easy. Trying to get a comedian to commit to being in a certain place at a certain time when he doesn’t have a call time and ‘cheque to follow’ is a thankless task. It didn’t take long in those early days for us to weed out the kind of people who weren’t right for the occasion. My personal vetting process involved not inviting anyone, who when asked if they wanted to play? Replied “I don’t know, who else is playing?” A policy through all the various transformations, I still employ to this day on the odd occasion I still organise it.

If you want a more serious indication of how much some of us love this weekly tradition consider the fact that I lived in London for 2 years longer than I could bear, just so I could be around for those Tuesday games. I wasn’t even doing gigs for most of that time, just ambling through the void that ran from roughly 5pm on Tuesday through to 2pm the following Tuesday. They were tough times, sometimes I was the last person to leave Crystal Palace Sports Centre, dropping off the pump at reception on my way out, and you could see the sadness in my eyes knowing it was all over for another week.

Very few things have stood in the way of those games. “I’m very sorry Mr. Plowman, but if Tuesday is the only day you can do, then I’m afraid you’ll have to stick your 3 year tie-up deal with the BBC up your arse!” My friend Daniel, a similar fanatic, once got a limo back from a gig in Hull at considerable expense, just to make the game. And indeed, both of us have been know to change long haul international flights so we could make it back in time for kick off, sometimes turning up at the game jetlagged with suitcase in hand. And it’s been worth it every time. Even when the games haven’t been that good, it’s still just enormously good fun.

It’s also a great leveller. There are few arenas left in the world of stand up now where profile and egos don’t result in someone, or someone’s agent attempting to pull rank. There is no room for that kind of bullshit at Tuesday football. This does mean we have lost most of our big names down the years, but if you ask me that has only added to the general camaraderie. I am confident that if Chris Rock called up Andy and asked him if he would be able to move the game to 1pm, so he could make his flight back to LA, he would be given a firm ‘no’, and would probably get a bit of an earful for even suggesting it. “Tough shit Rock, we run a very tight ship.” If Robin Williams turned up late, then tried to avoid his turn in nets, he simply wouldn’t get the call the following week. If Seinfeld repeatedly tried to leave early to avoid shelling out the £3 administration fee collected at the end, he would be forced to take home the bibs and wash them. If John Oliver missed a sitter in front of an open goal, he too would have to wear the shamed red jersey as punishment for the rest of the match, just like everybody else.

The world of stand up had changed a lot in the past 8 years, but despite a few new faces, Tuesday afternoon football has pretty much stayed the same. There is a group of about 8 of us, who are still regulars from the very beginning, and probably another 15 or so, that come and go when they can. I’m probably more in the latter category now, but I surely still hold the record for most miles travelled in a single year to get there (or biggest carbon footprint per goal, depending on how you look at it?) There are many irregularities in the life of a touring comedian. Perhaps I am destined to live my life in the ephemeral world of the hapless troubadour. A world where personal relationships suffer, reality is slightly skewered and stability is an almost laughable concept. There are times when I stand behind that dusty red velvet curtain in another theatre in another town waiting to be announced on stage, listening to the low hum of people chatting to one another, and I do wonder ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ Then I remember that sweet cross I floated in from the right last Tuesday which Lee volleyed home with aplomb. And I remember that the next Tuesday I have off, I’m only ever a tube, a car journey, a train journey, a flight, or sometimes all of those things away from that one constant in my life. God Bless Tuesday afternoon football.

Danny Bhoy.

Home support, but no chance of a medal

2008-08-07T14:36:26Z

Hello Everybody,

To millions of people around the globe, tomorrow sees the start of the 25th Games of the Olympiad in Beijing, but to a considerably smaller group of people tomorrow marks the opening of the 10th anniversary of the Comedy of Danny Bhoy in East Lothian. I’m sure when the Olympic Committee discovered their big opening clashed with such a momentous event on the other side of world they were kicking themselves (which incidentally I’ve always thought should be an event). In fact, there is an argument that stand up comedy requires similar skills to that of our top Olympic athletes. I may not be very good at throwing an object for distance, but I’m not too bad at dodging them. And trying to keep one’s focus and balance while attempting to get through a complicated routine almost perfectly describes my last gig in Port Hedland, Australia. Perhaps one day, falling into an orchestra pit will be an Olympic event, in which case I’ve got the gold in the bag!

]]> After the past 2 months of trawling around old familiar comedy haunts in London armed with a handful of scrunched up notes and an old Sony Dictaphone, I’m finally ready for the Edinburgh Fringe. My opening night tomorrow should be interesting after the calamitous ticketing problems of the edfringe website this year. If you want to know what happened to all those people who masterminded the launch of Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 went after they got fired? It seems they all got jobs at the edfringe box office! Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as I fear, but if you do have tickets for any of my shows at Edinburgh this year, please, please turn up at least 45 minutes beforehand if you can? And let me take this opportunity to apologise to any of you who do have problems.

That said, I am hoping it should be a good show. As previously mentioned I have a nice little surprise for people at the start of the show, a little project I have been working on the past few months, which I am very pleased with. I am currently staring out of my window at the second consecutive day of heavy rain in Edinburgh. If there is a God, it seems he hasn’t been impressed by any shows he’s seen at the festival so far this year, but the forecast is for brighter spells tomorrow...around 7.15pm (do you see what I did there?) Anyway, I hope any of you visiting Edinburgh this month have a swell time. If you are going to see a few shows at the Fringe, my advice would be avoid any shows that list awards you’ve never heard of, or even ones you have heard of. And don’t be sucked in by how many star ratings there are on a poster, any more than you would be sucked in by how many pound signs there are on a ‘how would you like to be rich?’ advert. Try to go and see some of the smaller comedy shows, outside of the big 4 venues. They can be so much more rewarding, and after all, that’s really what the ‘fringe’ is all about. What I’m saying is, if the Fringe was the Olympics, don’t just watch the track and field events. Anyone for ping pong?

Cheers,
Danny

Father Bhoy

2008-06-21T01:36:58Z

Hello Everybody,

I am back in London after a week long mini tour of Ireland where I played some delightful little venues up and down the country. Ireland is the ultimate ‘wind down’ country. There really does seem to be nothing there that requires immediate attention. I was asked by the front of house manager in Sligo if I had a policy on latecomers? I said I didn’t mind if people drifted in after the start of the show. “Thank god!” she said “otherwise the show would be completely empty!” I was travelling round with top Australian comic Adam Hills, who had a week of holiday planned after Kilkenny, but like all comics started to itchy feet…well, foot. We started in Ballybofey up in the North of Ireland, and then did shows in Roscommon, Carrick On Shannon, Galway, Sligo and Cork. I was, of course, concentrating hard on my forthcoming Edinburgh show..so much so, that I nearly missed an easy 3 foot putt on the 15th at Strandhill. It was a brilliant week. One of the highlights for me was the gig in Roscommon where I conducted a mock Communion with some audience members including a prominent local Member of Parliament. Allow me to explain...

]]> Adam had apparently promised to buy the whole audience pizza in the first half (I prefer to let my comedy alone win them over.) Anyway, at the end of the show I dutifully asked the audience if they had any questions? The rather blunt reply came in the form of another question “Where’s me fuckin’ pizza?” Ahhhh, that lilting Irish brogue, you just can’t…ignore it. I had no idea what the fella’ was talking about having been busy playing Tiger Woods golf on the PSP backstage while Adam was weaving his comedy tapestry in the first half, so I looked at little perplexed as this line of questioning sparked real discontentment.

Adam walked back on stage and explained what he had promised the audience, and that he had completely forgotten to put the order in. ‘That’s all very well Adam’, I thought to myself, but we are now faced with a hungry, and pretty angry Irish crowd, and as history has told us, this is absolutely the worst kind of Irish people to confront. Adam then dashed back stage to see if he could still order the pizzas, while I was left floundering around on stage. Eventually he returned with the news that the pizza delivery place was closed, and so instead he had bought 30 packets of Pringles from the local shop. That’s right, Adam Hills decided to mock the good people of Ireland not only by not delivering the food he promised, but by trying to buy them off with a few flavoured…POTATOES! And to think, all night I had skilfully managed to skip around doing one of my most famous catchphrases?

Ok, so how else can we offend these people, you may be asking yourself? Well, how about feeding an audience member on stage, by getting them to kneel down in front of me and accept the crisp in the mouth after a dodgy blessing from Father Bhoy. This really could have ended up in the headline “Comedians Burned Alive As Locals Fail To See The Funny Side” (which incidentally is an actual headline from the Baghdad Post), but fortunately the chosen audience member was a seemingly unpopular local MP, and the audience seemed far more accepting of open blasphemy when it was at the expense of ridiculing a politician. The whole thing was recorded and I’m rather concerned it may end up on YouTube.

Anyway, I am back in London now, where I will be for the next few weeks in the lead up to the Edinburgh fringe. I must be one of the few comedians in the world who in the month of August actually gets to spend some time at home. I guess I should take this opportunity to give the new show a plug. I am told after a box office catastrophe, that tickets are now finally on sale, so if you are in Edinburgh and want to see the fruits of my labour, then I will be appearing at the EICC from the 8-19 of August.

All the best,

Danny

Someday? Somewhere? Someone?

2008-04-21T00:07:02Z

Hello everyone,

And welcome to my first April blog of 2008. It seems like months since I last sent a few paragraphs about my life out there into cyberspace, hoping that someone somewhere reads them with mild interest. I’m still here in my flat in Edinburgh which hasn’t changed much since my last blog. Oh, actually, I bought a chest of drawers yesterday from a local charity shop which now stands proudly in my bedroom supporting a flatscreen TV. The charity shop had neglected to clear out all the items belonging to the previous owner from the drawers, which means I am now the owner of a pair of legwarmers, a nearly full pack of cards, a French textbook and a black and white photograph of a child standing next to a circus elephant. It’s understandable that the charity shop probably thought such items were not really sellable as individual pieces, but to smuggle them into my chest was a little underhand. Shame on you Dr. Barnardo.

]]> I’ve been thinking about who the previous owners may have been? It’s certainly not a loot that tells me much about them. It’s difficult to date the pieces. The legwarmers suggest the 1980’s but I know they have recently come back into fashion. The image on the front of the French textbook suggests the 1970’s, but then so do most images of French people. The black and white photo looks much older, but could well have been passed down from a previous generation for some significant reason. And playing cards tend to have a fairly timeless design, so they’re the least help. On the back of the photo there is an inscription which simply reads “Linda. Sheffield.” It’s a long shot, but if this is you, give me your address and I’ll happily forward the items. Or come to think of it, maybe Linda is the name of the elephant? Do you know an elephant in Sheffield that speaks level 4 French and wears legwarmers? If so, I’ve got a little surprise for you...

It made me think what 4 items I would leave behind in a chest of drawers that would best reflect my life? I reckon a mechanical pencil, because I only every write with them. A blue denim hoodie I bought in Boston nearly 15 years ago, which has survived all my changes in fashion over that time, and remarkably still gets the occasional outing. A DVD of Alan Partridge, which is for me the funniest show ever to appear on TV. And a faded yellowy listing from a copy of London Time Out in 1999, that I’ve kept because it was the first time I was ever listed as a comic. Ok, so they spelt my name wrong, I was listed as ‘Danny Buoy’ but still, it was just the most exciting thing to see my name appear in the comedy section for the first time. Such things are of no use to anybody except me, but surely that’s the point? If I left anything valuable in a chest of drawers it would almost certainly make its way into the hands of someone who owned it for that reason. If someone in 50 years time found my 4 items in a chest of drawers I hope that they would only keep the listing, that’s the important one. Just like this blog so far, is really of no interest to anyone, but it doesn’t stop me hoping that someday, somewhere, someone will find it and read it again. Maybe you?

I am currently working on my new show, which is taking me through the usual aches and pains of trying to come up with fresh and original material. This will be my 8th visit to the Edinburgh festival, which impresses and depresses me in equal measure. I will be doing lots of warm up gigs and shows in London throughout June and July which I usually enjoy more than the finished show itself. That said, come along! Tickets are on sale as we speak. Other than that, there isn’t much more to report. I joined a gym last week which made me feel a bit fitter, in the same way that when you buy an intellectual book ,(that you know you’ll never read), you feel a bit cleverer. I bought Steven Hawking’s ‘Brief History of Time’ a little while ago, and as I left the bookshop I felt I was already half way to understanding the universe. I have actually been to the gym twice already, so hopefully if this work rate continues, by the time Edinburgh comes around, you’ll barely recognise the well-buffed Adonis that walks out on to that stage….to introduce me.

I didn’t realise just how unfit I was until I took to the rowing machine for the first time and barely managed 10 strokes! Mind you, that little dwarf sitting at the front shouting at me didn’t help much? I had a little more success on the bicycle machine managing to complete a 5km circuit …which wasn’t easy with all those other fitness machines in the way. Anyway, they do say ‘healthy body, healthy mind’, (although I’m not sure Steven Hawking would necessarily agree with that?) So I intend to see this through for the next few months at least. I’m even going to take a gentle jog to the post office right now. I’m mailing my little nephew a French textbook. It’s a bit dated, but I don’t think the French language has changed much since the time it was published. I’ve thrown out the pack of cards, but the black and white photo is staying in the chest of drawers. It might mean nothing to me, but it means something to someone, and that’s a good enough reason to keep it. Right, I’m off. It looks a bit frosty outside, if only I had some kind of additional leg heat?

See you,

Danny.

End of WA Tour

2008-03-04T00:24:38Z

Hello Everyone,

It’s the end of my tour of Western Australia which started on the 5th of February in Perth. It has been another amazing if slightly draining tour. As one woman said to me at the last show “Danny, you’re looking tired.” We have covered another three and half thousand miles by car, and god knows how much by air to visit as far north as Karratha, as far East as Alice Springs and as far south as Esperance. The tour has taken us from the hedonistic nightlife of Kalgoorlie to the gentle rolling vineyards of Margaret River. (From Skimpys to wrinklies). There are places I would have liked to have stayed longer and places were one night was too long, but everywhere I went I got some truly fantastic audiences, so thank you.

]]> Once again, I have been left quite breathless by some of the scenery this country has to offer, a country I can’t quite call my own, but it’s certainly my favourite foster mum. Yes, there were a few mishaps along the way. In Port Hedland we made the mistake of hiring a 4 wheel drive at the airport in anticipation of doing a bit of mad off-roading, but we were so tired we only really used it to get to the hotel and back. When we returned it to the rental office with only 15km on the clock, the guy looked at us like we were the biggest wimps in history. In Kalgoorlie, I went on a brothel tour, which I made the mistake of thinking was a tour of an old historic brothel, rather than a current one. That wasn’t ideal. I know you all want to know more about this, but why ruin what is almost certain to become a bit of material?

In my final show of the tour last Thursday I was in a small, boutique theatre in Albany. It was easily the toughest gig of the tour. The theatre was quite small and had no air-conditioning. As the room got more and more humid, I felt the audience starting to mentally drift away, but to their credit no one had dared to get up by the one hour mark. Then a ‘Rosa Parks’ moment, when one woman right in the middle of the theatre defiantly rose to her feet and made her way to the exit. It was a very tense moment. If I didn’t handle this sensitively, it could be the start of a mass exodus. But, in one of the most remarkable moments I’ve ever had on stage, the woman calmly walked up the front of the stage, and said to me “I’m really sorry Danny, but it’s just too hot. You look tired, you should go to bed.” There’s really no reply to that. She was polite, she was honest, and most important of all, she was totally right. I did a bit more, and finished the show on more of a poignant than funny moment. I commended the audience for their patience, in the same way you commend a child for being good in church, and that was that. I had so looked forward to the end of this tour, but truth be told, it was all a little emotional. I sat backstage for some time afterwards, listening to the theatre slowly empty while twiddling with my lapel mic in front of the brightly lit dressing room mirrors. That woman was right, I was looking tired.

I’m over in Melbourne now, where I’m planning to spend a couple of weeks catching up with a few friends (well, one friend). After that, I will be heading home to the UK to start work on the Edinburgh show, I’ve got quite an exciting beginning to the show planned, but it will depend entirely on the logistics of the venue. It doesn’t look like I’m doing shows in South Africa in April anymore, apparently some guy called Chris Rock, has decided to do some shows around the same time, and the promoter doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have us both. (Too similar, I guess!) So it looks like I’ve got the next few months back home in Edinburgh, which is probably not a bad thing. I’ve got a horrible feeling my residents parking permit in Edinburgh has expired which means my car will almost certainly be rusting away in a car pound in Leith. It should be spring when I get back, which is my favourite time of year. I can’t wait to take that first walk down my street, and breathe in the almost menthol air of freshly cut grass, while gazing jealously at the first signs of regrowth on the giant willows that protect the posher gardens at the far end. J K Rowling lives on my street; did I ever tell you that? I thought it might be quite funny one day to dress up as Gandalf and just stand in her front garden, I don’t know why?

I have a few exciting things on the cards this year such as a run in Canada and a UK and Ireland tour (including the Mecca that is The Edinburgh Fringe.) In addition, I have begun writing a book, well more of a diary really. I started it at the beginning of this tour, and surprised myself at the fact it’s still going. I’m planning to keep it for the next 6 months to provide people with an amusing and hopefully interesting insight into the life of a stand up comedian. Later in the year, I will take it to a publishing house and see if they like it? If not, then it will be the longest blog you ever read! (Or didn’t read). Anyway, that’s really it for now. Thank you again to all of you who came out to a show in WA. I’m not planning anymore shows in Australia this year, but I’ll definitely be back in 2009. Chris Rock, or no Chris Rock.

Cheers,

Danny

Happy Burns Night

2008-01-27T22:42:17Z

It was, as I’m sure you will all be aware, Robert Burns Night on Friday 25th January. It’s a traditional night when us Scots get together, drink lots, eat crap and recite bollocks to each other….or as it’s known throughout the rest of the year, a Friday! I was unable to take part in the festivities this year, as I was in London over the weekend trying out some new material for the forthcoming shows in WA. Thanks to those of you who gave up their haggis dinners on Friday night to come along to the gig, and experience a different kind of offal. I do like going to down to London for a couple of nights, now that I no longer live there. I particularly enjoy the look of complete contempt I get when I attempt to pay for anything with a Scottish banknote. My cab driver on Friday night insisted that I go to a shop and buy something with my Scottish £20 note, so I could pay him in English money with the change. Unbelievable!

]]> I’m got back to Edinburgh on Saturday evening, and settled down to a night of live CNN feeds from the US primary in South Carolina. I have become a bit obsessed with the American election, I think my neighbours may be wondering why they hear a whole lot of whooping and yelling at 3 in the morning… but they will hide in my bookcase. I know a lot of you have been waiting to see which candidate I endorse? Well, I’m pleased to announce I am officially throwing my political weight behind Barack Obama. Just watch his ratings go through the roof when this story leaks. “What’s that? Bhoy’s backing Obama? That’s Bhoy and Winfrey now. This guy’s a stick on!” The reason I’m backing Barack, is because I was listening to his speech after the South Carolina victory, and by the end of it I realised I was standing up and couldn’t remember at what point in the speech I had risen to my feet. That it quite a strange and uplifting experience. His campaign message is “Change We Can Believe In”, which ironically is exactly what my cab driver wanted from me on Friday night!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to heading out to Australia this Friday. So much to do, I have no idea where to begin, but I think putting on some pants might be a start (I’ve only got 3 minutes of credit left on this computer anyway.) I will hopefully be announcing some Edinburgh Festival and UK tour dates very soon, so keep checking back on the website, as you know those Hull Truck Theatre tickets go like hot cakes (in a room full of diabetics with heat-sensitive gums). There may also be some South Africa and Canada gigs this year, but still awaiting confirmation on both of those. I’ve just realised that this will be the first time I will be returning to Australia officially as an Australian resident. How exciting? I better learn my Koalas from my Kookaburras…you don’t want to cook up the wrong one for Thanksgiving. And god forbid I get the words to your national anthem wrong on Australia Day next month. I better start practicing now. Once a jolly swagman camped by a Billabong……

All the Best,

Danny Bhoy

p.s. I know, I know. Happy Australia Day!

Not over 'til it's over. And even then, it's probably not over

2007-12-23T23:44:41Z

Hi Everyone,

I trust you are all enjoying your festive season. For those of you reading this in Australia/New Zealand, you ought to know that last night the temperature in Edinburgh dropped to -8. If you’re not sure what that feels like, put your hand in the freezer for 5 minutes, then rub that hand all over your body (don’t do it to someone else without their expressed permission).

]]> “Well Danny,” you’re probably thinking. “It’s just as well you are heading to Australia in a few days.” But, you’d be wrong. I had planned to be in Australia for New Year, but a few things have happened, or rather haven’t happened since the last blog. The writers strike is still going on in America, which has put everything on hold for me over there. As a result, it now looks like I won’t be needed in those parts until March.

“Well, that’s nice Danny. That means you can have a proper break.” You’d be wrong again. Being the helpless comedy junkie I am, I have decided to use this time to do the dates in Western Australia I wasn’t able to fit in on this year’s tour. So, I’m now coming back to Australia in February, not January, to do the shows I said I wasn’t going to do until next year, because I’m not sure if I’m going to be free to do them next year. Keep up! Will you?

At the moment, it’s only 17 dates, including 2 in Perth, but there may be a few more added, we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s obviously very short notice for these shows, so it might turn out to be a complete disaster numbers-wise, but what the heck! We’ll just have fun! Anyway, the dates have just been put on sale, so if you live in WA, and you’d like to come along to a show, I’d be delighted to see you there. Details of the new dates are now up on my website and my myspace page.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who came along to one of my shows this year wherever in the world it was. I have had some of the best gigs of my life, and a good few adventures off stage. I hope we get to do it all again sometime….

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Danny Bhoy.

The build-up begins...

2007-12-03T00:00:00Z

Hello everyone,

And a very warm welcome to my new website. I can’t take all or indeed any of the credit for it. The opening page is what they call a ‘flash page’ which allows the viewer to click on things and watch things happen. I’m sure you’ll work it all out long before I do. I hope you like it, and welcome any suggestions, ideas you would like to see on it. I personally have requested that the beautiful beach scenery slowly changes in line with the gradual destruction of the environment. I thought it might be nice to highlight the cause by showing over time a darkening of the skies and muddying of the waters due to pollution, the gradual eclipsing of the beach due to the polar ice caps melting and the odd beached whale which you click on and oil spurts out of its gills. So, for the time being the image will remain purposefully upbeat, and pretty, but it’s up to all of us to keep it that way….

]]> In other news, you will shortly be able to download one of the Montreal ‘Just For Laughs’ shows onto your Ipod, and in the new year I’m hoping to start broadcasting monthly podcasts. If there is anything else with the word ‘pod’ in it, that I can think of doing, I will. Maybe, I could set up my Ipod on a tripod, and do a podcast from a pod. But then there’s always the risk that people start referring to me as a podophile, and I don’t really want that to happen.

As far as stand up is concerned, I am definitely going to be doing a tour of the UK in the autumn of 2008. If/when I’m not needed in the States, then I will be working up the new show at pubs/clubs either here or in Australia from the start of next year. I’ll keep you all up-to-date with any ‘secret’ or non-secret gigs that might be happening in the spring, it’s always good to get an early indication of how far behind I am. There are currently no shows planned for Australia or New Zealand next year. It will be the first time in 5 years I have not toured down there, but I think we need to take a break (it’s not you, it’s me).

The festive season is upon us and for the first time ever I was in Edinburgh to see the traditional turning on of the Christmas tree lights in Princes Street Gardens last week. One of the guest speakers was a middle-aged woman from a small town in Norway called Hordaland, which for the past 30 years has provided Edinburgh with it’s magnificent tree on the Mound. I would like to thank her for her little faux pas at a time when the crowd was getting very cold and restless. She beamed from ear to ear as she announced that every year she enjoyed “pissing through Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens at Christmas time.” Of course, I’m assuming it was a faux pas, perhaps we just didn’t pay for the tree!

After the lights came on there was the regulation fireworks. I challenge any other city in the world to prove they have annually more unnecessary fireworks displays than Edinburgh. “It’s New Year! Let’s have fireworks!” “It’s the end of the Festival! Let’s have fireworks!” “It’s Christmas! Let’s have fireworks!” “It’s Friday! Let’s have fireworks!” “I lost my keys up at the castle! Let’s have fireworks!” Having said that, they truly are spectacular, a castle lit up by fireworks, might be my favourite thing in the World. I then went to the German Christmas Market which is just outside the Art Gallery on Princes Street, where I was enchanted by rows of small wooden huts selling everything from German pastries to…well, German pastries. £3.50 for a donut on a stick, looks like the grinning Norwegian women wasn’t the only one taking the piss.

Well, that’s really it for the moment. I will write another blog shortly. Please leave a message on my myspace page (www.myspace.com/dbhoy), if there’s anything you want to see/don’t want to see on the site?

I will speak to you all again very soon,

Danny

They're on a blue Saab keyring

Thank you good people of Nordaland

Los Angeles and India

2007-10-09T10:03:32Z

Hello everyone,

It’s October the 9th, which as we all know is National Blog Day, so here’s mine. I’m back in Edinburgh until further notice, which rather sounds like I’ve been sent home from a war, but just means that I’m currently enjoying some time off. If stand up was like war, then I feel like I’ve spent at least some of the past 7 months on the front line. In fact there are some gigs where I would have happily delivered my show from a bunker, and would have been comforted to see a roll of barbed wire between me and the audience…you know who you are Dubbo.

]]> Fortunately, most of this year has signalled ‘peace in our time’ on the stand up front. I am delighted to say that the gigs in India at the beginning of September were some of the most enjoyable I’ve ever done. I have performed abroad on many occasions in the past, but this was something entirely different. For a start, this wasn’t one of those foreign jaunts to some club-cum-nightclub in Hong Kong to perform to a bunch of leery ex-pats who I would studiously avoid back home. No. This was a proper 850-seater theatre in Mumbai full (or nearly full) of polite, erudite, open-minded Indian people. My hosts for the trip were 2 delightful young promoters called Nevil and Nicole, who, while running around trying to get everything right for opening night, were also kind enough to field an endless succession of “do you get this here?” or “is it ok to say that here?” More often than not, they did get this and you could say that, so in fact any fears I had of having to do a largely edited performance were unfounded. I seem to remember jokes about English cricket going down particularly well. Funny that?

I flew straight from India to LA, for some meetings with some writers. I’m currently writing a pilot for a major American network, but that’s as much as I can tell you about that at the moment… I got to hang out with Brett and Jermaine from The Flight of the Conchords which is always fun. They took me to the HBO Emmys party, were I got quite drunk, and think I nearly started a fight with one of the Sopranos? Apparently, you can’t just sit anywhere at these things! Al Gore was also there, but for someone so clued up on the environment, he didn’t seem to care much for my recycled gags? What else? Oh yeah, I met Gabrielle Byrne at lunch one day, and he told me how his mum and dad got together which was a little weird given that all asked was for him to “pass the salt, please?” I don’t know, sometimes these celebrities just don’t seem to know when to button it.

So, there you go. Not the most informative blog, but there’s really nothing to tell at the moment. What have you guys been up to? Anything interesting?

Cheers,
Danny

New Zealand and Montreal

2007-08-29T00:22:40Z

Hello,

I’ve just finished my tour of New Zealand. I love New Zealand. It’s a bit like Scotland except there is less brown grass and horizontal rain. I had way too much fun, for some one who was supposed to be working. This was mainly due to the fact that I travelled with a support act by the name of Charlie Pickering, who just made me laugh all the time. I don’t often get to tour with other comedians these days, which is a shame, because generally it’s a far more enjoyable experience. We did some amazing things, when we had a bit of spare time. In Christchurch we went Jet-boating, which was fun for the first 10 minutes, until we realised we really should have taken more heed of the clothing advice offered to us in the pamphlet, which strongly recommended ‘warm clothing’.

]]> There was a general vibe on the tour that we were ‘renegades that played by no one’s rules.’ On this occasion, that motto nearly resulted in us both dying from hypothermia. The combination of bitingly cold air and unrelenting rain is an unattractive option at the best of times. Probably then, not a great idea to add the variable of racing through it at speeds of up to 60km an hour, with no protection on our face other than our increasingly less cool-looking sunglasses. We were as kiwis might say it, “a right pair of ducks (dicks)”. I’m told some of the river gorge scenery we sped through at breakneck speed was pretty spectacular, but was never once able to open my eyes to verify this for myself. I could be mistaken, but I think at one point Charlie cried.

New Zealand is a country that is all about thrill-seeking. There is any number of people at any one time queuing up to throw themselves off a building, or ski down a cliff face, or walk up the K Road in Auckland at night. It took our early experience of Jet-boating to realise that we weren’t really built for such extreme pleasures. We were more interested in adventure. A scenic rail journey perhaps, or a fishing trip…”hey, what about fishing Charlie?” And so began the best day of the tour, and possibly of our lives. I called up several fishing charters in the Auckland area to see if at extremely short notice, they could take a couple of eager young comedians out on to the open seas, to catch their dinner. After the first few rejections, I decided to start lying about our fishing experience, in the hope that they would think they weren’t dealing with a couple of dumb tourists (which of course, they were). Eventually, we got directed onto a fellow named Eugene, who wasn’t listed in the yellow pages, or recommended in any of the hotel ‘what to do’ guides…yeah, this was the kind of guy we were after.

I called up Eugene on his mobile, only to discover that he was currently 2 hours north of Auckland taking part in a 4-wheel drive competition….yip, definitely the guy we were after. I asked him if he knew of anyone who could take us out fishing this afternoon. “Yeah” he enthused. “Me.” I then heard the screech of tyres on dusty clay and Eugene yell out “sorry, fellas I’ve got to go.” 2 hours later, myself and Charlie were standing in a disused part of a marina just outside Auckland, awaiting the arrival of the now, almost mythical, Eugene. We were the only people there. We waited and waited. This wasn’t looking good. Then, around the corner chugged an old beat up blue Nissan Sunny pulling a medium sized bright red dinghy. We both looked at each other with a look of pure regret.

The car slowed down and we picked up our bags and reluctantly trudged towards it with all the trepidation of 2 civilians who had just been handed a rifle and asked to get on the next boat leaving for Dunkirk. Then, at the last minute, the Nissan showed remarkable throttle for its appearance and sped past us. Bullet dodged. Our mouths breathed a sigh of relief, followed by an enormous grin as round the same corner followed a 4x4 land cruiser pulling the coolest boat I’ve ever seen with THE EUGENESIS in shark lettering emblazoned on the side of its shiny silver metallic hull. This was our man...

Eugene was one heck of a guy. He was the prototypical adventure man, who without any precautionary questions or safety advice dropped his boat into the water and yelled “hop on fellas!” Out we went into the abyss of the deep sea (well, heavily patrolled Auckland Bay), but still this was going to be special. For the first hour there was little chance to drink the beer and idle chit-chat as one snapper after another nibbled away at our bait almost as quickly as we could drop them down. Our unrelenting early pressure on the ocean finally paid off with our first catch. A beautiful gleaming red and silver snapper. Charlie showed an unsavoury grin of one upmanship, which goaded me into making what turned out to be and extremely unwise bet of dinner to whoever bagged the biggest fish. That market closed less than 20 minutes later, when Charlie reeled in the biggest fish I have ever seen outside of a Discovery Channel special. A snapper measuring 21 inches, even Eugene was impressed.

After that, nothing we pulled out of the ocean was ever going to compare. I caught 2 snapper, but frankly they might as well have been starfish for the derisory look I got from Charlie and Eugene. The next 3 hours were fairly inactive times for our rods, we’d had our window for fishing, and we happy with our catch. So, under the sporadic cameos of the Auckland sun, myself and Charlie, put their rods in their holders, cracked open a bottle of Italian beer and listened intently to Eugene’s tales of bagging giant Marlin, grappling with 25-foot swordfish, and an awkward stand off with a brown shark. As sundown began its beguiling fade to the west of the Auckland city skyline, we headed back to shore, promising not only to do this kind of thing again, but to do it more often. Mick Jigger was wrong. It’s not at drag at all, getting old.

Before New Zealand I was in Montreal (has it really been that long since my last blog?) I did a total of 10 shows at the Gesu Theatre which was handily located just across the street from the hotel where all the comedians were put. This was my 3rd visit to Montreal, and I have to say, the most enjoyable. The shows went really well. I found Canadians to be some of the most enthusiastic crowds I’d ever played to. Highlight of the trip had to be getting to meet my all-time favourite comic and idol, Mr. Billy Connolly. After my last show on the Sunday night, I ran to catch the 2nd half of his show in the main auditorium, and at the end of the show I was lucky enough to be invited backstage to meet the great man himself. I was, of course, a blubbering idiot for most of the 20-minute long exchange, but he was the perfect gentlemen, and profoundly funny. The next day, we happened to be on the same flight back to Scotland, so I drank tea with him in the lounge at Heathrow airport.

It is very rare in this life that you get to meet an idol, who doesn’t at least slightly disappoint in the flesh. I’m pleased to say, Connolly was one of those people. He didn’t have a massive entourage; in fact he had no entourage at all. He was happy to wander through the airport with everybody else, bowing his commanding frame with gratitude to anyone who cheered “alright Billy!” I could have sat and talked to him all day. Having watched some of his show the night before, he showed that he was still as fiery and funny as ever. And off-stage he still showed the same passion and love for stand up. Good on ya’ Billy!

I’m on my way back to the UK as I’m typing this. I stopped briefly in Melbourne for a severely under the weather appearance on Rove (sorry about that, very bad cold), and now I’m headed home at last. I’ll be back in Edinburgh for just 4 days before I head off to India for what could be some very interesting gigs….After that, I will be off to LA for a couple of weeks, perhaps longer. It’s all very exciting. I’m taking an extended break from stand up for a while, to concentrate on writing more. I hope to be back on the road at some point next year with a new show. As I mentioned before, I’m hoping to do a proper tour of Scotland around autumn next year. I might not get back to Australia or New Zealand until 2009, but I’m sure you lot must be sick of the sight of me by now. Thanks again to all the people who have joined me on my stand up odyssey this year. We’ve had some pretty fun times, and I hope there’s plenty more to come...

A Scottish guy I met in Montreal

Inside the beautiful Gesu Theatre, Montreal

All the best,

Danny (August 2007)

Back in Edinburgh

2007-07-10T00:32:14Z

Bonjour,

I’ve been back home in Edinburgh for the past 10 days. It’s very strange being back in my own flat for a change. I’ve become so used to hotel living over the past 6 months, that I’m finding it slightly difficult to adjust. When I heard a knock at my front door the other day, I instinctively shouted out “nothing needs replaced from the minibar!” This left a very puzzled look on the face of the guy who had come round to fix the TV ariel?

I returned home to a mountain of mail which is always fun, fun, fun. It’s amazing just how much shit can pile up in 6 months. I had an unpaid parking ticket from January that now seems to want my house as payment. I had a letter from my telephone company saying they had noticed I hadn’t used my home line in 6 months and therefore presumed I was dead, but if I wasn’t dead would I be interested in their new homeplan upgrade? I also got a letter from the local council back in April telling me that unless I had any objections, they were going to dig up the pavement outside my house and ‘have a look at some pipes.’

]]> So to recap, in the space of 6 months away, it appeared to my neighbours that I had died, that my house was about to be repossessed, and that for some inexplicable reason I had requested to be buried right outside my front door. All in all, not the best news to come back to. I was also rather annoyed to again this year get a Littlewoods Christmas catalogue through the post in May! Despite the fact that last year I wrote to them asking them to stop sending me (and millions of other people) this completely pointless and destructive waste of paper. What kind of asshole orders Christmas presents in May? There was a whole section of children’s clothing. Surely, it’s better to wait and see how much they’ve grown come December? There was even the opportunity to pre-order a bath belt which offered ‘safe bathing solutions for the elderly’ I mean if you’re that frail? Well, look, all I’m saying is 7 months is a long time.

Anyway, it’s genuinely great to be back home. On some of those countless long, dusty car journeys around Australia this past 6 months, I would often daydream about some of my favourite things I would do when I got back to my beloved home town of Edinburgh….

I would get up early one morning and climb up to the top of Arthur’s Seat (one of Edinburgh’s pretty surrounding hilltop landmarks) and glide my eyes over the entire panorama of Edinburgh. I would lie back under a large mature beech tree in Princess Street Gardens and gaze up at the majesty of Edinburgh Castle. I would eat a slice of carrot cake and suck up a glass of ice cold appletizer in the outdoor cafe at back of the Modern Art Gallery while leafing through a book that was far too pretentious for my humble tastes….

However, such fantasies were crushed from the moment I set foot off the plane, by the onslaught of one of the wettest June’s on record in Scotland. As a result, I have spent a lot of time indoors watching films, which I guess isn’t the worst way to spend a week. Apparently, the day I leave for Montreal, the weather is forecast to get considerably better, which is bloody typical.

I’m only back for another week before I head off to Montreal for the Just For Laughs Festival. This will be my 3rd visit to Montreal, although the past 2 times I have just done a few 5 minute spots there. This time, I will have my own show which is very exciting and a little daunting. I’m going to be doing 10 shows over a week in a converted church venue called the Gesu*, which I am told is French for ‘Jesus’ – they obviously haven’t seen my latest show! Montreal is very much an industry festival, which usually means lots of important people from LA puffing on big cigars and telling me how much they love my ‘Irish’ accent. Then I correct them by telling them I’m actually Scottish, and they say something like “what’s the difference?” And then I go to bed. Still, there are a lot of my personal comedy idols heading over there this year, so I’ll just be happy if I bump into a couple of them in the elevator.

After Montreal, I’m off to New Zealand for a month long tour there, and then I’m doing a few shows in India. Needless to say, I’ll probably drop a lot of my religious material from those gigs. It’s one thing getting a letter of complaint; it’s quite another thing to get a fatwa on my head!

I’m very sorry that I will not be performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh this year. I’m planning a tour of Scotland next year which will include a run at a theatre in Edinburgh, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some dates announced for that in the coming months. Doing Edinburgh outside the festival? That’s right folks, I’m a maverick. My DVD is out on the 15th August in Australia and New Zealand only, but I think anyone else wanting it will be able to get a copy through the website. Finally, I’d like to give a special mention to one of my most supportive fans in Australia, a young lad called Nicky, who came to almost as many of my shows as I did this year! He recently set up a fan site for me on myspace which I promised I’d mention. Last time I checked there was all of 4 members, one of whom was my manager…Bless.

The address if you’d like to sign up is http://groups.myspace.com/dannybhoy

On the subject on myspace, I’m sorry I haven’t got round to replying to some of your email messages and questions. It’s all a bit new to me. I will endeavour to take a more active role in the future. If you have sent me a myspace email with a question, and I didn’t reply, please send it again, and I will get my act together this time…

Cheers,

Danny

Ballarat Fall

2007-05-27T21:27:40Z

Well folks, here it is. The moment I fell off the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre in Ballarat. It’s an audio file, to the best of my knowledge no one filmed the incident, which is perhaps no bad thing. What you are listening to here is the very beginning of the show. The opening sequence requires me to be silhouetted from the back and dry ice pumped around my feet (those of you who have seen the show will know why). When the bagpipes finish, the stage lights come up, and I usually walk forward to reveal a rather amusing gag (wink, wink). On this occasion, three things went wrong. Firstly, whoever was in charge of the dry ice machine got a little trigger happy. Secondly, the stage lights that shone directly into my face were bright enough to light a football stadium. And thirdly, and crucially, the only part of the theatre in complete darkness was a 12 foot orchestra pit drop at the front of the stage…which I didn’t know was there! As I now mention in my show, the whole set up couldn’t have been any more dangerous if it had been designed by Al Qaeda and built by the first 2 little pigs.

Enjoy this, but not too much...

To hear the audio, you need JavaScript enabled and the latest version of Flash Player

Tragedy and Comedy

2007-05-21T23:12:40Z

Hello,

I've just realised that my last blog was from Adelaide, so it's high time I wrote a new one. I've just got back from a week in New Zealand, and I'm now back in Melbourne for the final leg of the regional tour of Australia. Tonight I'm in Frankston, which I am told is a large suburb of Melbourne full of bogans? I'm not sure what that is? Maybe an abbreviation for tobogganists? Or just a friendly term for the locals? I'll soon find out, I guess...

I finished up at the Melbourne Comedy Festival 2 weeks ago. Thank you to everyone that came to the show. It wasn't the easiest room to play, but when I got used to it, I really enjoyed the shows. It was good to spend some time with some of my comedian friends after spending so many months on the road on my own. I was back out on the road the week before last doing some shows on the Gold Coast. In one of the freakiest moments of my life, I met childhood legends, The Krankies, who came to my show in Surfer's Paradise. Unfortunately, the little boy wasn't there, just his dad and, I presume, his mum, given the striking resemblance (actually, wait a minute....)

]]> Lismore was also a fun gig, given how many people appeared to be stoned off their tits. I joked that it was nice to see a few people in from famed ‘alternative’ town Nimbin, but as it happens that wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed. It was a longer night than either of us had planned. Maryborough was also an interesting experience. If I had to make a list of things you don’t want to be told 2 minutes before you walk on stage, high up on the list would probably be “hey mate, did you hear about the attempted murder in town today?” And that was the venue manager! As it happens, a local shopkeeper had been stabbed by a crazed man in the town that very morning. It was a very tense opening to the show. Do you mention it? Do you not mention it? Do you run on dressed as a mentalist wielding a knife, then pull off the mask and say “just kidding. Tough crowd?” Always a difficult one to judge. On a far larger scale, I once did a gig the night of September 11th and faced a similar conundrum. Was no one going to mention it was the 5th anniversary of this tragedy?

The day of a major tragedy always spells a tough night for a comedian. I remember doing a gig the night Princess Diana died, the atmosphere was very subdued, my quiet beginning followed by “hey, who died?” was in retrospect unwise. The MC was close to tears as he announced the gig was to go ahead, and I didn’t blame him, when I saw who else was on the bill. What better tribute to Princess Diana, than the 3rd act of the evening, who stapled cards to his forehead (ironically, one of which was the Queen of Hearts). There are 2 ways of looking at it, either such tragedies prompt the need for mournful and contemplative respect, or such tragedies call for a guy to walk on stage in his underpants and staple things to his face. (Sorry, did I forget to mention, he was just wearing underpants). It’s simply down to how you look at these things, I suppose.

Anyway, staying on the subject of stage deaths, you may know from a previous blog, that I literally nearly died at a gig in Ballarat at the beginning of this tour. Well, now that I can finally see the funny side, I have decided to post the soundtrack of the infamous fall on this website for your amusement. Check back in the next few days, and you should be able to click on a link, or whatever it is you have to do, and hear one of the most physically painful moments in my life. For those of you who get off on this sort of thing, shame on you.