A massive gamble like spending £1000 on a horse race or trying to get an operation on the NHS...

Oh hey internet, how is everyone? Come on, I asked you a question and I would like you to answer out loud. How are you?

Ok if you just spoke to a cold, lifeless monitor, more fool you because I was joking. Now I returned yesterday from my weekend jaunt to the Edinburgh Fringe where there were much better jokes than that one. At some point I will write a proper blog entry on my experiences but i'd like to do it properly rather than rush it but until then, let me say this - amazing.

What the Fringe did do was to inspire me to stop blogging about writing and to actually get on with some. Except blogging about writing is writing. But proper writing.

So i've started. Which is nice. Now i'm wondering if I should start to publish my stuff on here. This does pose something of a risk. What if I stick something on here that i'm really proud of (like a picture of homemade burgers. Or a script. Either) and someone copies it?

This is a massive gamble. Like reading a a Katie Price novel (what if you actually enjoyed it? It wouldn't be worth living surely.)

Saying that, I believe that if you're a good writer you should be always having good ideas. If someone wants to nick one, then just come up with ten more. So blog readers, as a reward for getting this far through this rather dull entry, enjoy a five minute sketch about Star Wars, tramps and fathers disappointed in their kids.

If you like it, leave a comment and let me know (or tweet me @AmardeepSSandhu)

If you don't like it, let me know why.

Click here to read 'Look, i'm your father'

Excited and tired. Tex-cited....

That sounds like i'm in anticipation of a faux-Mexican meal. Anyhoo it's been a long week. Such a long week that I'm using phrases like anyhoo - mucho apologies (?!)

I know what you're thinking - it's only Thursday Amar, how's it been a long week? Well without getting into the intricate details of my employment, you'll just have to trust me that it has.

Which is why I don't feel like blogging tonight. Except I have. But not properly. What I did want to say is that this time next week, I will (theoretically) be enjoying an ice cold  luke warm beer and watching some comedy in the beautiful British city of Edinburgh. As you can imagine I am riduclously excited.

For now, until a more in depth, interesting, blog entry, let this picture sum up how I am feeling at this moment...

(Thank you to the guy who uploaded this picture. Basically the Edinburgh Fringe is the Jenga blocks, i'm the moustached guy and the space between said moustached guy and everyone's favourite wooden brick based game is the time between now and next Thursday. His smile says it all)

What's it all about....Amar?

If you imagined Cilla Black singing the title of this entry, congratulations you win. If you leave a comment and include your address, i'll send you a pen.
If you didn't (and thus don't get the reference to the era defining Michael Caine film, Alife), you lose. Comment on this entry and i'll send you a pen.
My overly generous distribution of stationary is the topic of today's update. Not the pen part but the rewarding for comments made.

I (in my incredibly limited wisdom) decided to 'plan' today's blog, rather than just writing my usual nonsensical stream of consciousness stuff (I call that the Katie Price technique). However when I started to plan, I suddenly thought;

 - Who is this for?
 - Why am I dedicating 1 minute and 37.5 seconds of my day to it?
 - Is there actually anyone out there?!! This dog seems to think not

And he's right. There is no-one out there. Which means if you're reading this and you're not me (only you'll know that) congratulations you win. Comment, address, pen.

So what is the point? Well I want to be a writer someday. This blog allows me to hone my voice before unleashing it on the  E4  BBC3  Channel 4 Sky Living audiences.

It allows me to think creatively and work my creative muscle harder (sound dodgy? No didn't think so) than Mr Bumble used to work Oliver Twist (sounds a lot more dodgy now).

Anyone who wants to produce art should do it for themselves. Create it and then if it makes you laugh, cry, warm inside, cold inside, dizzy, nauseous, constipated or racist, then the chances are it will make someone else a erm......dizzy constipated racist and you're halfway there.

And so the answer is, dear reader, I do it for me. If I make people (anyone....please someone!) laugh, then my sole purpose in blogging is complete.

Short of that, i'm just going to start randomly posting pens to people; comments?

Like buses, you wait ages for one...

And then two blog updates turn up. And they're disgusting and have chav's in them.

Which brings me to my next point. Katie Price.

Like the razor sharp satirst I am (do you know how razor sharp I am? It took me three attempts to spell satrist. Satirist. There we go. Told you!), I thought I would rip it out of the Olympics.

And do you know what, I can't. Against my very nature (forged by constant mocking during P.E lessons), i'm quite enjoying all of this sport. So I thought I would mock Katie Price instead.

Now, Sky Living are competing with the BBC's ambitious use of our TV licence fee (what's that Beeb? 10 hours of coverage?! Take my £12.00 a month....Shhh you're enjoying it Amar remember?!) by broadcasting a documentary on Jordan. Which is an unusual move because I can only imagine her life would generate enough interesting footage to fill one of those annoying adverts you get at the beginning of YouTube videos). Here's the programme description;

"An appearance on Celebrity Deal or No Deal moves Katie Price to tears as she competes to win £250,000 for charity. Later, she and her friends head to Las Vegas, where a day of shopping for puppies and designing perfumes is followed by a sky dive and a zip wire almost 4,000ft above the Valley - a prospect the former glamour model finds terrifying. Back home, an old friend who is now an urban artist helps her create a new self-portrait."

Now if it read like this, I would watch it;

"An appearance on Celebrity Deal or No Deal moves Katie Price to tears as she struggles with the concept of picking random numbers. Later, she and her friends head to Las Vegas, where the idea of shopping for puppies and designing perfumes terrifys the "glamour" model. Back home, an old "friend" ("honestly sweetheart he's just mummies friend who pops round late at night and stays till the morning. What noises? Oh mummy was just playing a really fun game sweetie") who is now a monk helps her create a new self-portrait using colouring pencils"

Instead i've decided to watch the Olympic Swimming. Now when Claire Balding interviewed the brothers Shaune Fraser and Brett Fraser, she came out with a couple of blinding questions;

""You're brothers. Do you fight over breakfast, who gets the sugar and the milk?"
- Yes Claire, that's what world class athletes, hold on, grown men do.

"Did the little brother follow the big brother?"
- Chronologically speaking Claire, he didn't have much choice

"Your parents, they must get extremely nervous"
 - Yes I imagine they do. Especially when the boys start fighting over sugar, milk and who has to answer daft questions.


"Oh but it's just a bit of fun Amar, like when you rip off Stewart Lee's ranting in the third person"

No no it's not. Balding reduces jockeys to tears. Remember that.

I might watch Jordan after all....

The Dark Knight Rises. By Dark Knight, I mean me. By Rises I mean writes. I should have titled this The Me Writes but that doesn't make sense.

So next week i'm off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which I am incredibly excited about. Not the funniest opening line for a "funny" blog but that is my point. I've lost my...I want to say groove but that's a horrible word and reminds me of this classic Simpsons moment;

[CLIP HAS BEEN REMOVED BY 20TH CENTURY FOX ON THE BASIS THAT IT MAY POSSIBLY NOT EXIST]

Ok I can't find what I was talking about. Basically Homer watches a film called How Stella Got Her Groove Back. I'm not sure what it's about but I imagine it culminates in Stella getting her "groove back". Educated guess.

Anyway i've lost mine. I haven't written in ages and if you're a dedicated follower of this blog you've probably noticed that it hasn't been updated in a while. Saying that, I felt that in the run up to what should be a 'fest of creativeness (Edinburgh, in case you've lost my original point. It's ok it happens) I thought I would start writing this bad boy again.

See you in six months!!!

Weekly humour

So I write for this programme called Newsjack on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

I say I write for it, like it's a regular gig. It's not. Basically every week, for six weeks, they invite submissions for  topical jokes from members of the public like me and you. Yes even you Kerry Katona.

As I wannabe sitcom writer/ hot air balloon stuntman, I enter every week, desperately hoping i'll get something on and you know what, last series I did. It was an insanely unfunny joke-

(Prince Philip Impersonator) I see the Greek government is asking the Germans for help with their debt. They want to be careful; the last time a German helped out a penniless Greek, she gave birth to Prince Charles.

Told you. Anyway the eternal battle to get a joke read out to a huge audience of 43 has begun again and every Thursday I'm like this woman-

Applauding myself for the amazing jokes I've written, only to pause mid clap when I realise they're not going to be on.

So alas, do yourself a favour, read these topical jokes and clap like a woman from 1973...
(The JackApps are pretend phone calls people make to the show. The corrections are when the show pretends to apologise for a mistake in a previous show)

The JackApp

- (As The Queen) I thought a Greek bail out was what I had to do when Phillip upset someone... 

- I heard that people are reportedly stealing chewing gum to use as currency in Romania?! Nah...that won't stick in court

- (Australian accent) So Dutch researchers think they've created the world's first completely artificial beefcake? Err I think you'll find that Peter Andre's mum got there first.

- I found those recent Ryanair adverts really offensive because to suggest that anyone would want to fly with Ryanair is massively offensive. 

- Elton John's playing Blackpool? So not so much Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, more like Hello Vomit Stained Path... 

- I want to tune into that new Carlos Tevez programme tonight. One Mancini and His Dog...

- I know Twickenham Studios is closing in June but it'll probably be July once they've done all the adverts and trailers and stuff.

- Ofcom didn't think Clarkson was offensive? They should be taken outside and shot in front of their families. We never get to see the day to day life of an Ofcom official and a family photograph would be nice. 

- (Yorkshire accent) I'm glad that old naked rambler has been fined for ruining the West Yorkshire landscape. It's an absolutely appalling, disgusting sight and not one that needs to be further ruined by some naked bloke.


Corrections

- We'd like to apologise to Ryanair for suggesting that their flights to Edinburgh were as popular as haggis. In retrospect we realise that comparison was offal. 

- We'd like to apologise to the Duchess of Cornwall, after her visit to Sandown this week, for suggesting that she was the same as any of the horses there. We've since found out that she was in fact the clear favourite that day and won the race by a full furlong. 

- We'd like to apologise to the House of Commons for our suggestion that Welfare Bill was actually the alias of a notorious benefits cheat. 

- We'd like to apologise to James Murdoch for suggesting he was going to avoid the phone hacking scandal by hiding in outer space. It would appear we misinterpreted the headline that Rupert Murdoch was going to launch Sun on Sunday.

Comeback....

Just like Steps, I've decided to make an ill advised, wholly unwanted and completely unnecessary comeback. If you want excuses for why I haven't updated this is a while, feel free to make up your own.

I thought i'd update this as I've managed to make my own funny picture. That's right, no pinching off the interweb tonight. This is a bonafide original. Found on Digital Spy nonetheless. Let's just say me and Harry Potter had the same reaction to the story i've circled....

So I hope you, my loving audience of one (you know who you are) enjoyed this picture and brief comeback. And make sure you do comeback because you never know, I may make another comeback. Comeback.

Thursday's are the new Friday

Thursday's are basically the new Friday's. By that I don't mean I work four day weeks. I'm normal.

What I mean is Friday nights are now over-rated. Everyone expects you to go out after work on a Friday and finish the night throwing up an Italian BMT (best Subway sandwich by far!). Thursday nights however are like Christmas eve. You know that something exciting is just around the corner and living in anticipation is far better than the moment itself.

So it's because of that excitement that the walk home on a Thursday is always a happy one. It doesn't matter what happened at work, how much you screwed up or who you killed because tomorrow is Friday and the end of the week. The walk home is a great time to listen to some tunes and dance in my head. When I say in my head, if my limbs actually tend to copy the moves in my head, that's not really my fault. It just means passers by will see me doing this....

Or not. It's more than likely I end up looking like this...

Aww screw passers-by who are jealous of my 'mad skills'. If anyone said anything to me, i'm just throw a chair at them (don't ask me where i'd get the chair from, walking down the street. It's a tenuous link to a pretty funny video!)

 I'm off to the pub quiz.

I hope you have an exciting Thursday evening everyone and may your future's be filled with strange Indian men dancing, chair throwing and resurfacing half digested Italian BMT's!

Birth of a legend (not me!)

It's Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday today and if those grills he made weren't enough to prove what a legend he is (I'm joking. I know it wasn't him that invented the Lean Mean Grilling Machine. It was George Formby), here's a video of him saving a man from a suicide jump

Actually when you watch that and you hear Muhammad Ali call the guy his brother, it's kind of disappointing. No wonder he ran to help when he found out it was his brother who was going to jump! Maybe he's not a legend after all. George Formby on the other hand...

The things we do to pass the time...

How do I pass the time between retiring to my bedroom and going to work? I stay up until ridiculous o'clock (no that's not some kind of Irish timekeeper, I mean I stay up till about 1/1.30amish.......That's am-ish as in 1.30ish, not am-ish like the technologically challenged stars of the Harrison Ford classic Witness) writing blogs, misusing brackets and reminiscing. Awww.

When I was younger I loved to play my Amiga 1200 till the early hours of the morning. Not because I was super cool but because my parents believed a child should develop integrity by having a games console which took staggering amounts of time to load. Who wanted the near instant hits of the Megadrive? I had Frogger (a game which ironically took longer to appear on screen than it actually did to kidnap a frog from the local pond, make it live with you against it's will for several years until it developed Stockholm Syndrome at which point, after some persuasion, it was quite happy to throw itself across the nearest motorway in a mad effort to reach the other side of a river. Albeit a river which it drowned in, if it mistimed its jump from whatever lily pad it was riding on. Who's says computer games are too close to reality?!)

Anyway so I, at the tender age of 16, would toddle off to bed at 6pm to start my Amiga loading for the inevitable gaming session at 1 a.m. (OMG my parents were actually really clever. Buy him a computer that takes ages to load so he goes to bed early?! Genius! More importantly I just used OMG in a sentence. That's embarrassing. I blame my parents).

My point is, if the makers of this video had actually had the foresight to incorporate this kind of technology into the disks back then, it would have made the wait for the game that bit more palatable. Honestly waiting ages for something really average is depressing isn't it? Just ask anyone who has voluntarily read the last four paragraphs in order to get to this video. Fine! Here it is;

How do you pass the time at the early hours of the morning? Well if you're me, you make up slightly exaggerated lies about the loading times of Amiga 1200's. Night all. Night Commodore. Night Frogger.

I'm Barack Obama

You know the kind of day i'm talking about. You're the President of the United States of America, you're being watched by adoring Irish crowds and when you go to leave, your car gets stuck on the security gate.

Yep so that's been my day. Obviously with less Irish people and motorcades but basically the same.

If you think that's bad Obama, at least you've never been mistaken for a drag queen. 

Margaret Thatcher 'mistaken for drag queen'

It's the drag queen I truly feel sorry for to be honest. Imagine being confused with Maggie T. Terrifying. 

On second thoughts, it could be worse. However bad your Monday has been, at least you're not this guy. 

His chances of having a nice garden have been well and truly blown. I'll see myself out....

Depressing (French ironing)

So according to our local radio station, today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. I don't have the 'Heart' to tell them they're wrong (Heart....radio station...get it? Of course you do. It just wasn't very funny). According to Wikipedia, the most depressing day of the year is supposed to be next Monday (23rd) and Wikipedia is never wrong about anything.

Every Monday morning, I dream I'll wake up with this kind of enthusiasm for the week....

Instead I end up feeling alot like this guy...

Have a depressing Monday everyone!

Is animal cruelty ever funny?

The simple answer is yes. Well sort of. Take this video for example;

Some people would say that promoting this video on this blog encourages animal cruelty. Some people, after wiping the tears from their eyes, may want to pat me on the back and say it was hilarious. Most will probably do that indifferent shrug that we all like to do when people show us videos on the web ("yeah it was alright")

Is it cruel to show this cat at it's most stupid? If it were a human that got stuck trying to climb into a window, we would all think it was hilarious and salute the fact that a less than savoury character had got their comeuppance on YouTube.

Ok you may argue that animals don't know any different. I can assure you, having owned a Pomeranian that once vindictively ate a whole box of chocolate liqueurs resulting in a hangover the next day, this is simply not true. The greatest trick the animal kingdom ever played was convincing humans that they "don't know any better".

Don't get me wrong, i'm not an evil man. I used to regularly donate money to the Cat's Protection league (albeit because I was under the understanding that it would provide me with feline bodyguards if the occasion ever arose). I just think videos such as the one above are hilarious.

If anyone is still disgusted, here's a "cute" video to counter the one above. Enjoy.

Police fail

Genius. In this guy's defence, police car's aren't the easiest vehicles to identify when they're rapidly approaching you with their blues lights flashing.

My favourite picture of all time

So my favourite picture of all time is this one. I appreciate it's not a painting of a woman with an ambiguous smile ("oh the Mona Lisa is so enigmatic. What does her smile really mean?" It's not mysterious, look closely. She just looks uncomfortable. Da Vinci was probably painting her with his trousers off or something), but for me this sums up the world.

Some people really want to damage society by blowing buildings up or sending you to Rick Astley videos  when all you want to see is the latest Batman trailer. Other people harbour ill feeling towards others but don't really have the ambition to attempt anything dramatic. So they do this. Brilliant. 

Why am I doing this?

So basically on Graham Linehan's advice (we're like that) i've decided to start a blog on things that are particularly funny (when I say we're like that, it doesn't really work if you can't see me doing this finger thing) and as I usually bombard Facebook with videos, pictures etc I thought it would be better to just stick them on here instead (you know the finger thing. When you cross them and say "yeah we're like that") so go ahead and enjoy all the things i've stolen off other websites. And occasionally I might actually use a full stop and have shorter sentences, you never know.