He’s almost too NICE to be a comedian. He came on with a big smile that never wavered, even when a god squadder took vocal exception to his (really, very inoffensive) ruminations on religion. In response, he sung a ‘typical hymn’ – “God is Great, we’re all shit”. Bull’s eye, I think he may have encountered this kind of heckler before. I thought the interruption would fire him up, but it didn’t break his meandering stride – Danny is a good humoured and very (very) laid back character.

His observational comedy gently took the piss out of the Scots, Aussie cricketers, Kiwi men buying drinks, himself and, hilariously, chickens, to name just a few. He has the same trick as his fellow Glaswegian Billy Connelly of going on monumental tangents that make you worry he won’t finish stories he started – but like BC, he always came back.

DB is a physical comedian, skipping about the stage in delight for much of the show, particularly during his musical routines. Charmingly, he finds himself very funny, and gets away with it – he had the audience queueing up to eat from his hand. He seems like a lovely bloke, the kind you’d like to drink heavily with, and then have on your side when talking your way out of trouble. A highly recommended and refreshingly positive comedian.

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– Every week, since about oh, 1998, The Onion has made me laugh. That’s a lot of laughter, and this warning that people’s drunkenness does not impair the Alligators’ ability to inflict enormous physical harm made me spray the screen.
– Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of the 50 worst songs ever recorded. Was compiled before ‘My Humps’, obviously, and being American, they’d never heard Fat Freddy’s Drop.
– At this years’ Oscars, the Wilson brothers talked about the Wes Anderson short that became Bottle Rocket that started it all. Now, thanks to YouTube, you can see the original version. I’ll say it again – God bless the internets.

No matter what you think of Jamie ‘aw-wight? Luv-ah-lee’ Oliver, the guy can really cook. Inspired by a quick rifle through one of his books, I whipped this up last night:

First, get:
1 Chicken Breast
1 strip Bacon
1/2 Red Onion, cut up
1 Green Pepper, cut up
1 Red skinned potato (cut up and microwaved for a couple minutes first)
1 splash white wine
1 knob butter
Rosemary / Garlic / Pepper / Fresh Basil

Then:
Fold the whole lot up into an airtight tin foil ‘envelope’ and bake for 25 minutes or so.

That’s it – no washing up, etc. Apparently JO used to make these parcels the lovely Jools and leave them for her to heat and eat. It’s bloody inspirational stuff, and now I have visions of making parcels like this and bringing them to work, taking them to friends’ places and forcing them to eat what I made, and so on. The chicken was sooo tender, everything was infused with Rosemary and wine, it had a nice creamy sauce to pour on, and the whole thing took about 5 minute’s prep. I’ve gone with the Italian herbs this time, but with a bit of Coriander you could do an Indian or Malaysian parcel…

I’m not cooking anything else ever again. Probably.

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We WON the quiz last night. This seems to be happening more often.

Interesting points to emerge:
– There were only three of us in the team.
– We got out to a huge lead in the first half, then steadily got crapper as we went, but somehow managed to hang on and get into the crucial tie break question, which AP got exactly right.
– When ‘Theresa Gattung’ was read out as an answer, the crowd booed and hissed. Public apprvoval isnot high on this evidence.
– That’s $50 for next time. Schweet.
– To quote Richie from Filthy Rich and Catflap – “We did it all by being stupid”. Sums up Katz FB most weeks, really.

What’s Katz FB, then?

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– Rob Manuel, co-founder of B3TA is an inspirational kind of guy, as you can see. I’ve been thinking about creativity and burnout a lot recently, you will find all the answers you need here. Possibly.

– I’m a WICKED procrastinator. I sat down to write this blog post and… and… Hey that was COOL, I wonder what happening over on the internet? You see? It’s as easy as that. Lifehacker’s got all the answers, though, this post reminds me of being at Uni and couldn’t possibly THINK about studying until my bed was made, my room was tidy, and that pesky box full of old Rip It Ups under the bed was all cleared out.

– Sesame Street pinball video, the one that goes “One, two, three, FOUR FIVE, six, seven, eight, NINE, TEN, etc etc. I use to hum this for ages as a child, usually while kicking shit out of something. Happy days.

…..aaaaaaand we’re back.

BTW, how come blogger’s spellcheck doesn’t recognise ‘blog’? I think we should be told.