Racists might get their point across better if they weren't so hilarious.

I've been enjoying watching the progress of one of the latest internet memes, "My Tram Experience". If you haven't seen it, it is both terrible and horrific. Terrific, if you will. Do look it up. It involves a woman sitting on a London tram with her son on her lap, shouting, swearing and complaining about the "loads of black people and load of f**king Polish". After becoming a Youtube sensation, it led to public outrage on social media and the papers and her eventually being charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.

Now, the incongruous nature of her outburst from a social and legal aspect is clear to all, and already widely discussed in the media and by such upright political figures as Piers Morgan (don't get me started on him, that's a whole different rant). This is not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in how she looks when she does it. I've never personally listened to the crazed ramblings of a stranger on public transport and thought 'Hmm, how very astute. Perhaps I ought to change my whole outlook on life'. It's certainly a curious form of social address. I imagine more people would watch BBC Parliament if Ed Miliband stood up and started raving about "all the f**king Tories. Why don't you go get your own house of commons?". I know I would.

You see it quite often. I'm sure in part it's deliberate by the TV stations, picking the weirdos to comment on a groups attitudes towards immigration, but it happens with such regularity. Any news coverage of a BNP or EDL rally is always coupled with footage of a twenty-something skinhead whose own grasp of English grammar is barely enough to tell foreigners to learn the language. One I particularly enjoyed has become a meme himself. A fine young English gentleman, who went on a march because he wanted "Britain to be back British" has had his mangled explanation of immigration pitch shifted and put to music. Google "Muslamic Ray Guns" and enjoy a bit of 'racist'-ism.

I honestly find it hard to be appalled at racists when they're so humourous. It's a wonder anyone took Hitler seriously when he went into politics from being a Charlie Chaplin impersonator.



Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #41: Always plan for the worst case scenario. Have a friend poised to put you down when you start to turn, or just keep quiet and enjoy it. You might like the taste of brains.

When Nouns Attack! (Or become verbs).

Much to the disgust of many an English-conservationalist pedant, I am a great fan of the evolution of language. Slang has always been a influence on common speech and some of the greatest literary minds have absolutely butchered the language and then sewn it back together in a manner they saw fit. I'm pretty sure Shakespeare made up at least half of the words he used, filling the rest out with brand new idioms and bloody murder.

I hear people complaining about the state of the "youth patois", claiming they disgrace our mother tongue with the use of words such as "Innit" and "Bredrin" but I for one salute these modern poets. Who else could have combined the words 'Relax' and 'Chill' to create a word more powerful than the two separately or even together? Only the other day, as I was chillaxing with my home-dogs, it occurred to me that in years to come, we may all have cribs and rides and threads. I know I will.

Another of my favourite etymological phenomenons is the verbing of nouns. For those not familiar with this process, let me explain:

Step 1.
Take one noun, e.g. top-hat

Step 2.
Add "ing" to the end of it, e.g. top-hatting

Step 3.
Use it in a sentence, e.g. "Are you still top-hatting that girl from the library?"

It's honestly that simple. And the beauty of the technique is that it doesn't even have to make sense. The way in which it is used implies the meaning. Whilst my example suggests some kind of sexual practise, it need not be for you.

But I am by no means one of the first users of this glorious mechanism. For many years now we've been texting, blogging, trending, friending, facebooking, IMing and noone bats an eye. The most genius usage of this has to be from the corporate sector. In 1908, W. H. Hoover lent his name to fabulous floor-sucking device and it soon became a household verb. Dyson tried to muscle in late on the scene but with no success. Nobody wants to do the dysoning. I like to imagine the people at Tupperware trying a similar ploy but I have no facts to back this up. The internet is rife with examples, Twitter practically writing their own Twictionary to twefine all the new twords one needs. But the undisputed master of the genre has to be, the all powerful, Google.

Despite not being a real word, the very name of Google seems to imply looking for something, being so close to oogle & oggle, with the double O of look whilst also being reminiscent of binoculars. They master the scene with people googling left, right and centre, no matter what search engine they use. Bing, Yahoo and Ask all fall short and tumble into the category with Dyson. Personally, I've started googling in real life. Googling for my keys, googling for some dinner in Tesco, googling my friends brains for a two-way blogversation. I fear I am alone in the curious venn diagram of eccentricity but it doesn't really bother me.

I am, however, hoping the world may catch up with me, verbing everything possible. Those who do will be Daving, will have Daved and shall forever more Dave.

Thanks for top-hatting.



Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #77 : When choosing provisions, remember to stock up on non-spoiling items. It takes experience to know that a sandwich gaffa taped to the back of a cupboard is not a good idea.

You don't have enough health points for that.

So I haven't blogged for a bit, due to being at the Edinburgh Festival and being knackered through hard work and hard not work. But to keep my avid followers and my ego (which misguidedly thinks I have avid followers) happy, I'm doing a small post.

Therefore, here is a picture of a dog wearing a kitten as a hat...



...and a poem that I wrote about Batman.

Enjoy. :D


If I Was Batman

If I was Batman, that would be great.
I'd always get to stay up late.
The dark avenger, instrument of fate,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, that would be cool,
I'd never have to go to school.
I'd fight the Joker and Ra'z Al-Guhl,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, that would be neat,
I'd beat up gangsters on the street,
All the girls falling at my feet,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, that would be ace,
Noone would ever see my face.
Disappear into the night without a trace,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, I'd be Bruce Wayne,
With a billion dollars and a private plane.
I'd eat caviar and drink champagne,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, my parents would be dead,
I'd have Alfred, the butler, instead.
It's possibly worth it, all things considered,
If I was Batman...

If I was Batman, I wouldn't be me,
And I'm pretty awesome as you all can see.
So I'll stay as I am and I think you'll agree,
I'm cooler than Batman.




Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #21 : For the worst case scenario, always keep few people close who are slower and tastier than you.

Anbody know a good spandex seamstress?

I am genuinely quite astonished that there aren't any real life superheroes. I'm not expecting them to be crowding every street corner but with a global population of over 6 billion, you'd expect at least a few. But no. No something-mans or incredible whatevers, not even a human-thingamabob.

Now obviously I'm not expecting any aliens from dying worlds or supernatural powers resulting from radioactive termite bites. Laser eyes are unlikely and telekinesis even more so (unless you're a jedi). But I'd honestly expect to see one or two heroes from the Batman, Iron Man fraternity. Ordinary guys with too much time and/or money who utilize fighting or technology skills in order to help mankind. I have heard it said that batman is symbolic of class warfare: Rich, white male uses inherited wealth to beat up street level criminals; but even if that is the case, my point still stands. Where are the spoilt little rich kids with slightly twisted views on justice, running around in tights and masks? As far as I'm aware, the closest thing we've got are fathers so desperate to get their kids that they feel the only way to prove they are sensible, responsible adults is to dress in lycra and try to climb buildings.

Some of you may be aware that I gave serious thought to filling this void myself a while back. Ever since a Lord of the Rings fancy dress party, I own a cape, and despite lacking any kind of physical combat training and possessing a minimal amount of villain foiling gadgets, I thought I might give a go. Utilising the more theatrical and mysterious sides of hero-dom, I felt I could at very least, get an article in the local paper, and if I was lucky, it would demand my capture and unmasking as all the best vigilante's press does. However my plan fell down slightly at what I would deem the second hurdle (the first being the cape, which I had covered quite stylishly) in that the closest thing to regular street crime in the area I live is small groups of 12 year olds in hoodies. And as satisfying as it may be, beat them up would have given me possibly more bad press than I would prefer.

So, alas, the world remains without a symbol of hope and justice. Maybe one day. Maybe when I've got a robot arm and cybernetic implants in my brain and I lead the revolution against our metallic overlords...


Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #18 : Destroying robots with microwaves is easy. The hard part is getting them to stay in there while you close the door.

Mark Zuckerberg Hashtagged My Girlfriend

Anybody else think that a decent internet connection should be part of our basic human rights?

So I've become a little bit of a professional social networker. Placed in charge on updating a website, facebook page, twitter account, vimeo feed and anything else I can think of that would increase what I believe the trendy professionals would term "groundswell".

I create a video blog that's uploaded to vimeo, which sends an automatic update to twitter saying that I've uploaded a video/vimeo (can I use that as an improper noun?), I then reference this tweet on the facebook page to keep those particular people in the loop, one of them copies the link to that FB post on their twitter account with @s & #s, which I then retweet on the first twitter. Not to mention the constant tagging and references at every possible moment, creating an interweb net big enough to catch a preverbial publicity whale. Not so much going round in circles, more "doing a spyrograph".

And I'm only making it worse with this blog, which I shall post to facebook, retweet to twitter, draw doodles of on post-it notes and stick them to peoples faces, you know, the usual stuff.

One day, when the robots have taken over, blogs will be the new underground revolution. However there'll be no internet so they'll be written on pidgeons and carved into street corners, perhaps becoming more than the such insignificant tripe that for the most part they are now. Not including me of course, I'm a vital cog in the machine of the survival of the human race. And not insane either. My therapist says so.

And on that note...


Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #13 : Ice cold baths are great for hiding from infrared vision. Good luck finding a working freezer.

A rose by any other number would still smell as sweet?

So tomorrow morning I travel up to London to start rehearsals for a musical I'm lighting up in Edinburgh. And the list of people I'm going to be working with is certainly an interesting one. There's someone who the public deemed "not as good as Jedward" (but then the public have always been morons), someone I've never heard of because I don't watch Eastenders and a guy whose professional surname is "7".

Now obviously it isn't unusual for actors, dancers, creative types to have a stage name. I know a guy who swapped his first name and surname round so that he could register with equity. But a numerical character is certainly the other end of the thought train. As far as I understand it, he's a hip-hop/street dancer so I guess it's his right to be a little bit wackier and seemingly more cool than the rest of us. And who knows, maybe it'll catch on. Would certainly make double barrel names easier. Although "John 9-3" sounds a bit like a question from a maths teacher.

In actual fact, for a short while I spelt my name with a silent 3 in the middle. It had no real effect on anything in my life other than adding an extra 20 seconds of explanation to any given conversation. It's an idea that I possibly borrowed from a Milton Jones joke and I didn't exactly apply it in any real situations. A mantra I mostly find to be true is that things that are funny on the internet, not necessarily so in the real world. For example, if a cat genuinely asked you if it can "haz cheeseburger" you'd freak the hell out (or possibly just correct it's grammar).

So I'm sure 7 is a nice guy and not a member of the Borg Collective. And who knows? If non-traditional character names really takes off, maybe my friends &y and K@ won't seem so strange anymore.



Surviving the Apocalypse Tip #7 : Dehydration can be as unpleasant as having your brains chewed on. Drink lots of water.

Blogging is the new man standing on a corner wearing a sandwich board

So I've decided to start a blog for a number reasons:

1. Several of my friends do it and I rather enjoy theirs. We'll call it being inspired.
2. As an ongoing effort to increase my internet presence, maybe at least get in the first 100 pages when I google my name.
3. A lot of humorous things happen to me and if I don't write them down, a) nobody else will be able to tell me just how funny they really are and b) I'll forget them almost immediately.
4. To coincide with a new, more creative phase of my life (more on that later).
5. I feel in 2011 it's been a lengthy enough period since the time when everyone was blogging about every little thing, therefore it managed to simultaneously become both cool and not cool.

Now there's probably a few things you need to know about me from this point on. I am hoping that there may be at least one person who reads this who isn't a close friend or a member of my immediate family so assuming a minimal level of Davonomics seems the wishful thing to do. I am what would be known in my circles as normal, yet to an outsider could be seen as clinical insanity. The point at which the surreal meets my relative thought pattern is more blurred than an astigmatic fruit fly. At many points in my life I have given serious consideration to becoming a superhero (I made my own cape), thought about getting a star wars based tattoo and spent countless hours in conversations about how to survive the coming zombie/robot apocalypse.

Now many of you may not take this last point seriously but I always think it's better to have a plan and not need it than have you're brain eaten by the living dead. There was a story in the paper a while ago about a guy writing to his local council to ask why they didn't have zombie contingencies in places. They didn't take him seriously either. In my eyes he's a modern day Nostradamus. So myself and a few like minded people have weighed the options and developed a basic plan. For the zombie version that is. The plan for the robot revolution is currently the same but I don't expect to live as long. Plus I think we get a bit more warning on that one so we put it on hold. If you want to know the plan, you'll have to convince me why you're worth bringing along.

So I'm a little odd. But sensible's overrated and rather counter-productive with alfresco-box-thought. Which brings me back to reason number (scroll up the page to remind myself) 4. In the past months I find myself turning a most creative streak. It started in ways not so out of the ordinary for me; building a prop bench, printing a custom monopoly board, making half a horse for a fancy dress costume, you know, the usual stuff. But also in more artistic ways. I have a background in music so comical songs have always been a small part of my spare time, but other members of the "arts" family start crowbarring their way into my interests. I took up street art with stencils and spray paint, started writing poetry, both funny and serious, turned my hand to script writing and found both an enjoyment and an apparent proficiency. I even made a very small forray into fashion, in the form of a suit jacket customised using the tools of my street art. And all of this worried me, always being a very technically minded person, suddenly I'm thinking like the dark side.

However I'm not one to be dramatic (I'll leave that to my many friends who live on the dark side) so I'll admit it worried me very little. And now I guess I embrace my new role as creativish and stick the talismans of my new phase around my neck. I have a little black book to write all my random thoughts, shorts and ideas of sorts, my witticisms and one-liners that at the very least, make me chuckle, I'm a founding member of a comedy circle which currently has no aims or goals other than to be slightly amusing (The Dead horse Society - I'll let you know if we do anything more substantial than update our twitter feed), I've got a sketch being performed at the Edinburgh Festival by a group of fantastically able and somewhat attractive actors and to top it all off, I've a jacket that looks like a hoodie's GCSE art project.

And if the zombies arise in the next week, my next blog may be the most important thing you ever read in your life.