Intelligent Design?

Creationism is making a comeback in American schools in the form of Intelligent Design. I admit that Darwin’s theories are just theories, but the idea that a God created the world is slightly less watertight.
Recently, a Christian attempted to have a conversation/conversion with me, and he said that because everything on our bodies, like our tiny eyelashes, were so intricate and so perfect, they must have been built by someone. He had obviously never had any work done by the builder who fixed my roof. Intelligent Designers created the world in six days? My builder took seven to put back a tile.
Intelligent Design? If this so-called designer was so intelligent, why did he give men nipples? Why didn’t he give us wings instead – something useful. Why didn’t he give us rocket packs, or helicopters coming out of ours heads like Inspector Gadget, or a trunk so we could drive cars with no hands, or skills to attract women without having to get them drunk. Something useful. No, we get nipples, appendices, wisdom teeth, and sideburns. Cheers.
I believe that all life started off in the sea as bits of slime. Eventually this led to man. Mobile phone salesmen are living proof of the link. Animals don’t need designers, they learn to evolve, they adapt to their surroundings. For example, the jellyfish in Port Philip Bay have evolved to look like floating plastic bags to blend in to their environment. And because of all the people taking photos of the Penguin Parade on Philip Island, the penguins have actually developed gossip magazines, and paparazzi minders. Isn't Mother Nature wonderful?

Planes and Nuts

I was on a flight recently and the stewardess came on the tannoy and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special passenger on board today. Our special passenger has a peanut allergy, so in the interests of passenger safety can I ask that you refrain from eating any nuts or nut products throughout the duration of this flight.” Like some nut DNA from my snickers bar is going to fly 50m to back of the plane and lodge up someone’s nose.
In the interests of passenger safety? What about in the interests of me and my snickers bar. What about the interests of passengers nibbles? If their nose is that sensitive, they shouldn’t be on the plane – they should be working at customs as a sniffer dog.
I sometimes get a rash when I wear polyester but I didn't make an announcement asking all the boguns to take off their tracksuits.
A fellow comic told me that he won’t fly on planes anymore because he can’t go that long without having a cigarette. That’s a good lifestyle choice, trading in international travel and life-changing experiences in favour of lung cancer. Nice move.

Happy Birthday Liz

It's The Queen's 80th birthday today, and according to the BBC she has received 20,000 cards and 17,000 emails. On my last birthday I got 1 card and 1 email - both from my mam. I only have a small mantlepiece so it was probably for the best.
But I was bored reading just the one card, so I can only sympathise with HRH having to trawl through 20,000 messages of "If the socks don't fit, I've kept the receipt." But if she was like me, she would have only read the ones with money inside anyway.
Last year, my mam pushed the boat out and sent me a cardigan. The label had M on it, which must have stood for “Massive cardigan that I’ll never wear” because it wasn't a medium. It was massive. It was like a cast-off from The Biggest Loser. So I called up my mam to remind her how big I actually am, and she said, “Well, you’ll just have to eat more, won’t you, until it fits.” Which is entirely logical if you are an idiot. But it got me thinking that perhaps the high obesity rates throughout the world aren’t due to a poor diet and lack of exercise… it’s because of big cardigans and bad logic. The bigger we make them, the more they will eat.
In December, my mam did pretty well in the gift-buying department. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her to get me a surprise. She got me an Easter egg. I hadn't expected that. Mothers, eh?

Everybody needs...

Am I the only Englishman living in Australia who hasn’t been on a ‘Neighbours Tour’?
Every day I see my fellow countrymen cramming into a bus in St Kilda, eagerly awaiting their 45 minute drive through Melbourne’s least interesting suburbs, hoping for a glimpse of a woman putting out a dustbin. They are an embarrassment to my nation.
Nothing against the stars of Neighbours but they are hardly Howard Hughes. If you want to meet these people, you just have to go to the opening of any supermarket within 20 km of the city.
Someone once asked me ‘If you were having a dinner party and you could invite any person, dead or alive, from Neighbours, who would you invite?’ I said I would probably invite Harold and make him do the cooking. And if I wanted conversation, I think Bouncer would be the most interesting. He was a great actor – a dog who didn’t cock his leg up at the rest of the cast even though their acting was akin to that of trees. And he never chased Kylie even though she was both wooden and a stick. He should have won a logie, or whatever token prize is given out at the oxymoronic ‘Australian Television’ awards.
Untalented British thespians can be found on The Bill. And if I ever go back and live in England, I will start a ‘Bill Tour’ where pissed-up Australian backpackers get driven around the roughest council estates of London in the vain hope of meeting a policeman. And for that really authentic Cockney experience they’ll be able to upgrade to the deluxe tour where they get their wallets nicked as well.

Strange gig

I had a bad gig for the first time in years last night. I wanted to try out some rather under-prepared new material so (to be on the safe side) I opened with my 100% banker of an opener which always gets a great laugh.
Except last night.
Comedy pause. No laughs. Punchline #1. No laughs. Punchline #2. No laughs. I couldn't figure it out. Then I stumbled into some underdone material and managed to mumble my way through to a half-hearted round of applause at the end.
After the show, another comic came up to me and told me that 30 minutes earlier (while he was on stage and I was on my way to the gig) he had just done an almost identical joke.
The audience must have been thinking "Who is this English twat doing the same gag again? What an arsehole." Hence the uphill battle.
It’s the first time it has happened, and I'm actually surprised it hasn’t happened before. I've been doing that gag for six years, and the chance of no-one else thinking along the same lines is zero.
Having similar gags is not the problem. The annoying thing is that wasn’t able to judge the impact of the new gags because everyone thought I was a twat.
They might be right.

Silly games

It seemed that Australia during the Commonwealth Games turned communist – every time I turned on the TV the national anthem was playing. It was like North Korea without the weapons, and fancy goose-stepping. But that Aussie bloke who won the walking competitions looked just as silly. Walking - what a crap event. If people want to walk fast, they should run. Oh, but they have to keep both feet on the ground, don’t they? What a skill. What’s the point in putting such restrictions on an event? It’s like having a long jump competition where everyone has to wear a backpack to slow them down.
And now it’s Grand Prix weekend where fast cars and overweight mechanics cruise around my neighbourhood making far too much noise. And there are helicopters. Why can’t they use a camera on a stick? Why is a camera shot of a car moving down a road more valued than my peace?
Maybe they should have a Grand Prix event with the restriction that you have to go as slow as possible. But with Mark Webber racing we would probably have to listen to Advance Australia Fair yet again.