Bon Jovi! And Happy Post Bank Holiday Blues Day! I trust everybody that had the extra day off this weekend went barmy, all relatively of course. If you are usually in bed by 10 on a school night, i imagine you spent sunday up a little later catching up on your favourite American series and spoiling yourself with some popcorn. Adversely, if you usually stay up all Friday and Saturday drinking booze and doing cocaine, then maybe this weekend you pushed it to the extra day and threw in some MDMA and possibly heroin to celebrate. Regardless, we are all back in the saddle today.       

        Im not sure if it’s a good sign we didn’t notice HERE COMES TROUBLE was released on a bank holiday. Most of the shops had it from last week, so i suppose they have to actually have it in stock a few days before they put it up for sale. We did notice though that some shops put it up for order early, but i imagine that’s ok. Anyone that checks the site should know that WE can sell a limited number here for £10 including postage and packing, more on that to follow. Also we will be bringing them to the forthcoming launch nights, so if you are coming to either London or Birmingham to hear me or Ben Mi Duck or whoever, then you can save up to buy one their. I will sit by them all night looking sad, with a big pen waiting for someone to ask me to sign one. Then i will probably sign it ‘J.R Hartly‘, in reference to the 1980’s Yellow Pages add.      

        Another weekend and thankfully another gig. Manchester’s now infamous ‘Friends and Family BBQ’ was a real eye opener, not least for the 100 or so mentalists standing outside in the pouring rain jigging to Broke’n'English as we arrived. A genuine pang of worry filled me for a second as i realised that alot of these people were hanging through the rain because Strategy and DRS are SOOOOOO good at crowd interaction, owing a little to their ‘Whose Rhyme Is It Anyway?’ section of the show, where they take random topics from the crowd and freestyle them into very tight, amusing verses. There were some quite unimaginative suggestions though, a particular low point being ‘Big Earrings’, although DRS deftly included it. I can just imagine someone trying to look about for something to shout out, and his eyes quickly resting on the large golden hoops of a Manc bogle queen.  But with the  crowd vibed up from Hip-Hop and Dub-step, i knew this wasn’t gonna be a set i could include any Joni Mitchell. So i rinsed it, for an hour, and smacked them up with my junglistical stylings. BANG the new N.E.R.D, BANG Future Rage, BANG some other stuff! Yep, it went well, although my shoes and trousers were quite sodden when i got back to the hotel. I quickly dried off though, and celebrated a successful gig with some Salt and Vinegar Mckoy’s. ‘ROCK AND ROLL!’ eh? Other crisps are available.      

  Sallie, my wife, was with me the whole weekend, and on the drive back she told me one of the funniest stories i have heard in a long time. Im not sure how it will work in print ( you will see what i mean), but here goes. Our brother in law, who is from Ireland, reported his sister was over in the Bedford area once to go to a seminar or something in Milton Keynes. She met up with a random representative from the company sent to meet her and drive her from Bedford to MK, via the villages and greenery of the A421 (or is it the a428?). Anyhow, she instantly felt uneasy around this driver, the silent tension building with every mile of silence. They hadn’t spoken since their initial ‘hello’, and both clearly felt as if the silence should be broken, and soon! The driver finally piped up “Do you get much rape in Ireland?”         

    Now for a woman on her own, in an unfamiliar car, on an unfamiliar journey with an unfamiliar man, this was understandably un-nerving. She started to blurt out frantically about recent rape cases in Ireland, how the law differed slightly from the UK and how friends she had known had come close to attacks but fought their would be attackers off. The driver fidgeted a little awkwardly and gestured to out to the fields through the passenger window. “No, i mean Rape Seed “, he mumbled nervously, “Do you get much of that?”  

     I wasn’t sure that would work in text, but it is fine because rape is spelt the same in both cases. Good one. This is the only case i can think off in which rape can be funny, so apologies to anyone who it conjures up disturbing memories from their past. I often find myself in theses situations, for example talking to someone at length about how lovely labradors are, to find their longest childhood companion Bouncer has just bit the big one. Or more recently gone on about how much of an a-hole Mark E Smith from The Fall seems, when flung into a muso conversation with a DJ from Estonia, only to discover he was his biggest fan and visibly hurt by my endless tirade of abuse and use of the c-bomb towards Mr Smith.   

   For these, and my possible proverbial foot in mouth in the previous anecdote, i can only apologise. There is a side to my humour, born from years of appreciation of Chris Morris, that likes to drop in the odd reference to something quite ugly and offensive to raise a childish giggle at the mention of a taboo. Recently i have taken ‘Paedophile’ to be my insult of choice to anyone who slightly annoys me, be it on the road, in the street or on the internet.  But i should stop and think sometimes that this is a harsh and quite disturbing subject, and one not to be used quite so lightly for my own amusement.  Equally disturbing that in a recent Fairy Liquid advert, comedy TV chef Ainsley Harriot demands ‘more power’ over his unruly dog, and then in turn for his washing up. My immediate response was for him to dress up as Hitler, not realising how instantly distasteful the idea of a black Nazi was. But what i mostly find funny in this world is ironic juxtaposition, and the previous image is quite a clear and distinct example of this comedic style.         

    Well, i have rambled on long enough now i am sure. Please tell your friends about this blog and the website, i WILL be discovered as the broken beat scene’s hidden literary genius before the year is out, and you will all help me. THIS I COMMAND!              

  Till next we meet, tek care, stick to the path and don’t go on the moors.