P.C.B.A.T.P.A.T.S.D.A.S.C.T.I.T: Part One

Hot on the heels of last week's B.I.F.O.P., the first part of a new feature I'm calling 'Paul Can't Be Arsed To Post Anything Today So Does A Stupid Card Trick Instead, Tuesday'. The rules are simple...





More next time!

(Update: As requested by Emma - version two, without the covering hand, and in a format that can be frame-by-framed. Pft.)

Funny or Direct to video?

Flicking, belatedly, through the current issue of Wired, I stumbled across The Human Giant's guide to The Next Web-to-TV Stars.

The idea of the piece is simple: comedy web-to-TV cross-over stars, Human Giant predict the comedy web-to-TV stars of the future.

It's an interesting enough list, although the implied premise - that these are shows that TV execs should be looking at next - doesn't entirely stand up when the chosen five include Michael Showalter, Hardly Working plus shows on Super Deluxe and ComedyCentral.com. It's a fair assumption that the execs have probably already spotted those - as have most Wired readers who spend any time watching web video. (If a web TV show falls in the woods and Michael Cera isn't guest starring, does it make a sound?)

But what it also underlines is how concentrated online video comedy is: visit Super Deluxe, College Humor, Comedy Central, Funny or Die and The Onion and you've covered most of the bases. And God knows, you better find American humor funny because if British humour is more your bag, you're basically fucked. BBC iPlayer et al don't count - they're not web TV, they're just TV - and 18 Doughty Street went bust - so what else is there? Seriously; answers on a saucy postcard.

Sure, there are millions of subjectively funny one-off videos online: mash-ups of Family Guy scenes with the Matrix trailer, or dramatic chipmunk prairie dog clips, but where are the consistently funny - and yet unsigned by big media - comedy shows? Shows with actual writers, writing actual original material.

What can compete with last night's Daily Show or the latest Showalter showalter when I want to lean back and laugh as I eat lunch at my desk? What glaring gems am I missing?

Email me - blog@alljustwords.com - and I'll do a round-up of the best suggestions in the next few days. Feel free to suggest your own show too. As I said to someone earlier, if we can't indulge ourselves, how on earth can we expect others to do the same?

We built this city on... eww... wait... tell me that's not... oh Jesus Christ...

Now officially the most expensive city in the world, according to the current issue of Newsweek, and with an old Etonian as its new mayor, London is certainly having something of a crisis of cool. And by crisis, I mean absolute and total hemorrhaging.

Streets awash in politically bankrupt free-sheets that prove the maxim, "you can't put a price on total shit", Johnny Vegas sexually assaulting girls at the Bloomsbury and - fuck - when the So Solid crew starts recruiting shotgun-toting Barristers, surely it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. Although not via Terminal Five, obviously.

I've spent a bit of a manic few days hopping all over the city, catching up with a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in a while - pedalling a boat on the Serpantine with Rob and Richard, lunching in Farringdon with Angus, networking on the Southbank with Mike Butcher and the great and the good of UK.com and finally last night partying in Soho with Zoe, Maggie, Anna, Michael, Tom, Scott, two Alexes and a whole bunch of others. And while the people were as cool as ever was, there was something - a definite something - missing.

Take Soho - I swear drinking around there on a Friday night used to feel vibrant and fun. Rammed, sure. Overpriced, f'real. But fun; and with the sense that adventure - a new bar, a bizarre conversation, a brilliant joke, a girl with an infectious laugh - could lurk around any corner. But last night - standing outside Cafe Boheme, surrounded by boozed-up runners and shaggy-haired APs who, at the first sign of sun, had crowded on the streets to smash glasses and shout 'oy oy' at their mates - I could easily have been standing in a G2 article about provincial binge drinking. This wasn't my beautiful Soho.

As Alex and Zoe - both recently back from the US - observed; no one in London seems to give a shit any more about barging past you or invading your personal space. Even on St Patrick's day in Dallas, in a bar packed with paralytic college children, there was more basic courtesy. And not least the courtesy not to charge you the equivalent of $100 for lunch and $40 for a bottle of house white.

If two-and-a-bit months in the US taught me anything, it's that Samuel Johnson was wrong. Being tired of London does not necessarily mean one is tired of life. Au contraire; being in San Francisco, for example, showed me just how un-tired it's possible to be with life when eating a gigantic cheesecake on a sunny roof terrace, while San Diego revealed the perfect pleasure of lying on a sun lounger between conference sessions with good friends, catching up on business reading. The perfect business / pleasure Venn diagram.

Call me a hypocrite (you won't be alone) but being back in London I miss being around people who aren't cynical about everything because it's cool to be too cool for cool school. I miss getting a ton of work done but still feeling relaxed and healthy. And I miss having lunch and getting change from fifty quid.

So, for all these reasons, I was really pleased yesterday to get the booking confirmation for the first stop on stage two of my travels. An 'office' in the mountains of Valle de Abdalajís, replete with high-speed Internet, but also hills for parascending. Six weeks (to begin with) in an amazing place that once again costs far less than even a modest flat here - with plenty of work space and time and with the benefits of healthy mountain air and the possibility of some actual exercise.

Adam Kay suggested the perfect phrase the other day, to describe what I'm aiming for: being a 'technomad.' The world as the ultimate open plan office, paid in Sterling and using geographic arbitrage to maximise real earnings in Euro, Dollars or whatever feels most appropriate.

But it's not all work, work, work and so I'm equally delighted that, like last time, plenty of London will be coming along too, at different stages. It's like packing up all the adventures, jokes, bizarre conversations - and, who knows?, girls with infectious laughs - of London in a maroon suitcase on wheels and taking them with me, away from the madness.

Of course, I'll come back to London - lots. I'm still in love with it, more than anywhere else, and always will be. But for now, my heart needs to grow fonder. And we all know how that works, right?

Free The Stress Test One

A huge thank you to the 7.3million people who have emailed me in the last 48 hours to ask variations on the question "have you been kidnapped / murdered by Scientologists?"

No - sorry - I have not. Just having a busy few days - normal blog service will resume... etc.

(Of course that's exactly what I would say had I been kidnapped by Scientologists.)

Tom Cruise: losing his religion?

So, Tom Cruise has a new official website.

Just for the record, and to satisfy the 'criticism/review' defence, let me say this: it's shit.

I mean, really bad. Just a bunch of photos and an over-long video and rambling biography bad. Designed by a student for drug money bad.

Seriously, Tom, if you're going to have a badass countdown thing then what's on the other end better be really fucking good - not just the world's most narcissistic Moonfruit site.

However Cruise does deserve kudos for one brave move. Look at these terms and conditions of use...

C. Prohibited Activity

The following is a partial list of the kind of activity that is illegal or prohibited on the Website and through your use of the Services. We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in our sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communications from the Website and reporting you to law enforcement authorities. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to activity that, in our sole discretion:

...is patently offensive and promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual...

harasses or advocates harassment of another person...

is false or misleading...

involves the transmission of "junk mail," "chain letters," or unsolicited mass mailing...

Constitutes, furthers or promotes any criminal or tortious activity...

involves commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes...

uses any information obtained from the Services or the Website in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person...

Wow - no harassment, unsolicited mail, bigotry and hatred, pyramid schemes or other kinds of harm allowed on the site? Is it me or did Tom Cruise just ban the Scientologists?

Now if only he'd go to Tottenham Court Road and up-end all those 'stress test' tables.

...

Important legal disclaimer: The Scientologists are a notoriously litigious bunch so I think it's important that I point out that in the above post I was just kidding. Describing Scientology in the title as a religion was just a joke. It is of course a lunatic cult, created by a science fiction author with the specific aim of fleecing gullible people out of their money. Ok, lawyers? Sheesh.

B.I.F.O.P Redux: here's one I made later

After posting the first installment of Brilliant Ideas For Other People this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that there might be some cynics out there who would doubt me.

Cynics who would think that I wasn't giving away these brilliant ideas through generosity or because I couldn't be bothered to do anything with them, but rather because I lacked the ability to implement them myself.

That hypothetical lack of faith worried me.

So, just to put the imaginary haters in their fictitious places, I have just spent the most ridiculous two hours of my life making real an idea that I was going to give away in next week's installment.

It's an alternative to TinyURL.com for people who hate acronyms. I call it UnbelievablySmallUniformResourceLocator.com.

Simply take an existing TinyURL (Twitter is full of the fuckers), enter it into the site and let UnbelievablySmallUniformResourceLocator.com do the rest! You'll be the envy of your friends.

Take that, theoretical doubting Thomases!

Brilliant Ideas For Other People: Part One

Like most brilliant people, I often come up with brilliant ideas for businesses that I know I'll never bother to do anything with.

And then, inevitably, a few months later, some other clown has the exact same idea and gets all the credit. And rightly so, I suppose. It was kind of inevitable that someone else would come up with 'Clitter' - my brilliant idea for female orgasm microblogging.

But no longer! Starting today, I'm going to blog all of the brilliant ideas I can't be bothered to implement in a new irregular feature I'm calling 'Brilliant Ideas For Other People'.

The way it works is simple: all of the ideas are yours for the taking on the condition that you do something with them. I don't even want any credit if you turn them into the next Facebooks (good luck with that) - just know that when you're on stage being interviewed by The Lacy, I'll be sitting smugly at the back, whispering to anyone who'll listen about how you stole the idea from me.

Let the egotistical pre-demonstration of intellectual provenance begin!

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Idea Number One: shEbay

So, she finally dumped your sorry ass, huh? Don't worry - there are plenty more fish on plentyoffish.com and you were too good for her anyway. And she was probably nuts. And cheating on you. With someone rubbish.

But - wait! - what are you going to do with all the crap she's left in your house? The 'going out' shoes, the hair products, the hoodie that actually belonged to her previous ex? That's where shEbay comes in - the world's first auction site specifically for offloading crap from exes. Includes a special tool for listing hairclips by the dozen. You'll be finding those fuckers for months.

Potential pro: Additional advertising revenue from Match.com.
Possible con: The domain is already owned by an accountant called Andrew Shebay.

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Idea Number Two: UncharityGifts.com.

Looking for the perfect gift for the self-righteous dick in your life?

Want to feel better about your own karmic impotence by investing in anti-social projects around the world?

Then UnCharityGifts is the site for you.

What is UncharityGifts?

UnCharityGifts is a completely for-profit site, allowing you to offset the good done by the self-righteous, orphan hugging sons of bitches amongst your friends.

Perhaps you’ve experienced that most disappointing of disappointments: tearing open a birthday present from someone who you thought was your friend – only to discover that, in lieu of an actual gift, they have chosen to send a goat to an African village in your name - or to provide sanitation to a third-world orphanage.

Or maybe you’ve booked a hugely expensive transatlantic flight, only to be offered the ‘chance’ to pay even more money for the airline to plant a tree to offset your carbon emitions. Either way, we’re sure your reaction will have been the same: “Just. Fuck. Off.”

But finally there’s a way to undo all of this self-righteous faux-generous non-gifting...

UnCharityGifts.com!

The perfect return-gift for your self-righteous friends: for just £2.50 ($5) we’ll send a poacher to an African village to steal a cow – in their name! Or for just £5 ($10) we’ll pay local workers to fill in a much-needed well with concrete or raze an entire classroom to the ground.

As with Charity Gifts, you’ll receive no actual proof that we’ve done any of the above, rather than just pocketing the money to cover admin costs, but who cares? The important thing is that your friend will receive a handsome certificate of authenticity to make them think long and hard about what they’ve done.

Remember: if you steal a man’s fish, you’ll make him hungry for a day – but steal his nets and you’ll keep him hungry for a lifetime.

Or why not treat yourself? Next time you fly long-haul why not offset someone else’s carbon offsetting? For just for just £5 (£2.50 short-haul) we’ll dig up a fully grown tree from a sustainable forest and burn it. You’ll receive a zip-lock back containing its ashes and a certificate confirming how much carbon offsetting you’ve offset.

So what are you waiting for? Do your bit by undoing someone else’s bit now! It’s the gift that keeps on taking!

Potential Pro: I've already registered the domain. If you build the site, it's yours for the asking.
Possible Con: Eternal damnation.

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Idea Number Three:
Passive Aggressive Goats.com.

This one still needs some work.



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More brilliant ideas next time!