Why is Bill Bryson so funny?

I've read several Bill Bryson books - Notes From a Small County, Neither Here Nor There, Shakespeare, Notes from a Big Country...and enjoyed them all immensely. Well, maybe not the last one, that was just a bunch of columns strung together.

Anyway, I'm now reading A Walk in the Woods, which is an enjoyable, funny account of his attempts to hike the 2,000 mile plus Appalachian Trail. I'm about two-thirds through.

The thing that has struck me is just how often I keep laughing, out loud, at what he writes. Yet, when I look back at what made me laugh, I don't really see why I laughed. It was an easy joke, and sign-posted a mile off, but he just delivers them with perfect timing.

I've read many travel books where the writer tries far too hard to make jokes in every paragraph and it becomes utterly tiresome and you just wish they'd focus on the traveling.

Bryson does it the other way, spending most of his time talking about the travel or the job at hand, and then throwing the jokes in at appropriate moments, meaning most of the jokes hit their targets with enjoyable regularity.

Green is not a creative colour

 A late night Vimeo session led me and my housemates to stumble across this piece of weird brilliance. For me it's the crow and his direct statements that makes it, as well as the line "Green is not a creative colour".

How do people generate such ideas? The images, words, music, characters, the desire to put it together: it's all the mystery of creation and the huge disparity of brains that exist in the world that mean some can create the videos like the one below, and some can become judges, and others brain surgeons and others carpenters.

A short review of all the books I read in 2011

Another year, another collection of books read. I must be getting slower as I read fewer than in 2010 which was in turn fewer than 2009. Or perhaps I'm reading longer books.

Anyway, a short few lines on each one, with links to previous and longer reviews I wrote during the year where relevant.


1. Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore

An enjoyable and mostly entertaining jaunt around London looking at the history of the creation of the Monopoly board and an insight into how each major square has evolved since that time.

2. Why England Lose - Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

An engrossing read on that perennial question of why the England football team are no good, and it was refreshing to see that we're not just useless in our inability to "get stuck in" but also due to our utter lack of technical capabilities.

3. Nocturns – Kazuo Ishiguro

An underwhelming series of short stories from an author I normally enjoy. Each one seemed too flippant and throw-away to capture the interest and all lacked a plot strong enough to remain in the memory.

4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet – David Mitchell

A fantastic novel, set in isolated Japan during the 1700s when its sole contact with the outside world was an artificial island used by the Dutch as a trading outpost. Probably the best Mitchell of the lot.

5. Notes from a Big Country – Bill Bryson

A slightly tiresome serious of columns collated into a book that sees Bryson riffing on the craziness of the US of A.

6. The Hours – Micheal Cunningham

Seen the film so read the book: very clever and engaging.

7. In Europe – Geert Mak

Some 900-pages of Europe's history told by a journalist travelling around the continent at the turn of the millenium. A long-slog but great insights and anecdotes throughout.

8. Chemistry for Beginners – Anthony Strong

A clever idea of a novel told through science papers (and diary extracts), that started strongly but the plot was slightly woolly and was about 100 pages too long to really sustain the interest.

9. Why We Run – Robin Harvie

A nice, philosophical take on the notion of running, by a chap who regularly runs 40-miles each weekend. That's a lot. It felt strained at times, though, as if the quotations from the great philosophers that he uses were found beforehand and then each chapter moulded to fit around them.

10. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim – Jonathan Coe

Coe always tells a good tale and this one was no different but it just wasn't quite strong enough in any direction, either the characters, the plot or the attempts to show the madness of the world modern (See: What a Carve Up!), as his others, but nonetheless it was enjoyable.

11. The Picture of Dorian Gray  - Oscar Wilde

On purchasing a Kindle I went on a free-classic-book buying spree, with this the first work I downloaded. As witty as you'd expect and surprisingly gothic too.

12. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Man trapped on island and the subsequent adventure he has. Good fun.

13. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

I just kept hearing the voices of the muppets in all the relevant characters having seen the Muppet's version so often during my childhood but the original work still contains plenty of excitement.

14. The Jungle Book – Ruyard Kipling

A collection of stories, rather than a single tale, which contains some elements that went on to form the bulk of the famous film, but is different in many ways. For instance, Sher Khan is killed by a stampede of wildebeest organised by Mowgli - inspiration for The Lion King?

15. Inverting the Pryamid – Jonathan Wilson

A detailed look at the evolution of football tactics of which I still find amazing that the first formations were 2-3-5. Madness.

16. Reading like a Writer – Francine Prose

Reminded me of being back at university but it was interesting to look at some of the reasons why the best writers are just that.

17. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Finally got around to some Franzen. Engrossing and moving in places but the story of Chip going to Lithuania just didn't work for me at all.

18. Trouble on the Heath – Terry Jones

A load of rubbish. Read in a day, found it lying around, waste of time.

19. To the River – Oliver Laing

Another semi-philosophical book akin to Why We Run in essence, using the writer's affinity with Virginia Woolf and the river Ouse to contemplate her relationship with rivers, the writings it inspired, its role in history and beyond. Quite beguiling in places.

20. I’m Feeling Lucky – Douglas Edwards

Man joins small internet start up called Google, the rest is history. A bit dry in places as Edwards worked in the marketing area but nonetheless still a great insight into the madness of a company that grows from nothing to world's biggest in a few years.

21. The Good Man Jesus and the Scroundrel Christ – Philip Pullman

Pullman proves he's quite a good writer once again, with a clever take on how Christ became the cult figure he is today by stealing the thunder of his more humble brother Jesus.

22. The Atlantic – Simon Winchester

A nice read on some of the history of the Atlantic, the people around it and it's role in human history. Some chapters were a touch week but most offered some interesting insights and anecdotes on the cold, wide ocean separating half the world.

23. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

After one Franzen, another. This one was, for me, not quite as good as The Corrections but an interesting, clever, damaged novel with a motley collection of characters going about screwing up their lives in unique and odd ways.

24. Player One – Douglas Coupland

A nice antidote to Franzen's endless words, with this short, fast-paced thriller taking an interesting idea that the world reaches its peak oil production and subsequent mayhem ensues. The idea only five people would be an airport cocktail lounge in a major US airport seemed a tad odd but there we go.

25. The Valley of Fear – Arthur Conan Doyle

A classic bit of Holmes, with Doyle using his two stories in one trick. First he sets up and the solves  the mystery while the second half gives the back story of how the amazing turn of events came about in a sleepy English resort. A lack of Holmes in the second half is a let down but the story was interesting enough.

26. How to be Good – Nick Hornby

Another quick easy read, which took a cleverish idea and ran with it as far as it could before becoming too ridiculous. I liked the character of Katie and thought the ideas of charity and the lack of relationships with neighbours in the streets in which live for years on end were well played out, but it's hardly a Great Novel.

27. A Film by Spencer Ludwig – David Flusfeder

Not sure what I really thought about this one: on one level a simple, fun road-story about a father and son: the father dying, the son a sort of successful film director but also a bit of a failure at life. But, while it flowed nicely, I couldn't shake the feeling the author was trying a tad too hard all the time. I appreciate that's a bit woolly but that's the only way I can describe it.

28. The Sisters’ Brothers – Patrick DeWitt

One of my favourite books of the year: a beguiling, lyrical and engrossing story of two murderous brothers heading to San Fran in 1851, the height of the gold rush, to commit, well, a murder. The historical setting let DeWitt paint some great scenes (one brother discovering toothpaste for the first time, shooting a bear that was killing his horse, meeting a mad prospector by a river), while the story is suitably engaging and strange to keep you hooked throughout. Recommended.

29. The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

The Booker Prize winner and a very clever novel. Short but concise and at times reading more like Barnes musing on life than a novel, but the plot is nevertheless well structured and keeps you guessing until the end and beyond.

30. The Steve Jobs biography – Walter Issacsson

Read for work but I enjoyed this on a personal level too as there's no doubting the impact Jobs made on the world, whether you liked him or not. Jobs comes across as a huge tyrant but one who knew what he was trying to achieve and more often than not he succeeded, with almost those on the end of his tongue-lashings also revealing that their time working with him was some of their best working days.

31. Perfect Rigour – Masha Gessen

A study of a reclusive mathematician who proved the Poincare Conjecture was not a book I thought I would enjoy but Gessen tells the story as a writer first, rather than as a great maths genius (as she is too). This helps make the tale of a genius from Russian surviving the random machinations of Soviet Russia to become a great mathematician working in the US, going on to solve one of the world's most complex maths problems then reject the $1m prize a fascinating read.

32. And God Created Cricket - Simon Hughes

A slightly tiresome read, as Hughes adds a lame joke to the end of every other paragraph charting the history of cricket from Ye Olden Days to The Present Day. There's some nice colour and interesting anecdotes throughout, but the Ho-Ho sarcastic tone is too wearisome to be enjoyable.

33. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

Probably one of the first academic (or semi-academic) works I've read since university, this is an interesting and thought-provoking work examining the reasons why Europe and to a lesser extend Asia became the world super powers (of the last 500 years), rather than the Africas, Americas and Australia.

Diamond's argument is, roughly, that a combination of temperature, the abundance of animals and plants fit for domestication and the availability of certain materials, and a resistance, or lack there of, to disease spread by these animals, helped these areas of the world develop at a faster, more technologically advanced rate, than those without, which lead to an unfair balance when they first came into contact.

Why Fox should cancel The Simpsons

The Simpsons was one of, if not the, greatest TV shows of all time. It was smart, funny, moving, charming, enjoyable, intelligent yet simple and always managed to create stories that were a fantastic combination of the sublime and the ridiculous.

Yet, over time this quality has, perhaps not surprisingly, ebbed, and not flowed back.The writers have clearly run out of plot ideas of what to do with a bunch of character stuck in the same age groups and have used up almost every idea they could possible use anyway.

The news Fox may have to force the stars of the show, the actors voicing the characters, to take a paycut makes me think they should just can it altogether.

I always remember seeing the episode where Lisa convincesBart and Homer they have leprosy and so they get themselves sent to an island retreat to be cured and thought, for the first time, "well, that was a load of rubbish". 

 The film was the first time in a long time I felt I was watching The Simpsons again. It wasn't incredible, but it was funny, and it had the characters acting as their true selves, not as their caricatures, which is often how they are now portrayed.

Homer has gone from one of the greatest comic creations of all time to something of a boarish oaf who shouts and screams a lot without much redeeming qualities. He is hard to like in many episodes and does things far beyond his character's former, realistic, comedic boundaries.

If you ask me, Fox should just cancel the show and have done with it. It has nothing to prove to anyone and there's more than enough quality in the first eight to 10 seasons to ensure the show remains a classic that future generations will plough their way through on DVD or through online streaming that no-one will, for once, think any less of Fox for pulling the plug.

Stand up comedians

I finished Stewart Lee's new book this week, How I Escaped my Certain Fate, and it was a very interesting, informative read from the 41st best standup comedian ever, 3!

Following his progress from up-and-coming star on TV and stage, to despair with the profession, back to his triumphant return to comedy (said in best Krusty the Clown voice), the book contained the three transcripts from each of Lee's three most recent stand up shows, with footnotes littered throughout explaining the origins of certains jokes, references being made, or asides to other comedians.

This was the most interesting aspect of the book, hearing Lee explain in detail, often over a page in small, footnotey font (why is footnote font so small?), about his time working with Harry Hill and Robin Day, or explaining that he bought a certain joke from another comedian to help lighten the mood of his otherwise often long-winded affairs.

Reading his scripts without knowing the delivery would give you no clue as to how funny Lee can be, the way he repeats jokes over and over again, with changes throughout perhaps, to build laughter from what could be awkward repetition. Or that, as Lee admits, sometimes is just awkwardness and the audience fails to get the delivery and therefore the jokes.

A final point on the book I found interesting, was Lee's choice of introduction music for his shows.
For each one he used piece of jazz to help him identify, or even turnaway, potential troublemakers: "If they can't handle the music, they probably won't like the show" is Lee's (paraphrased) rationale behind this and certainly one that seems to make a lot of sense.

Overall then, if you're a fan of the man and want to know more about the thought processes behind his shows and the world of interesting, clever, thought-provoking comedy, this book is one for you.

I give it 41/100.

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Thoughts on returning from Latitude

There are many mediocre comics in the world: The comedy tent is always a good place to stop by and enjoy some, well, comedy, but this year there seemed to be a blight of utterly mediocre and downright boring comics on the stage. So many just churn out anecdotes “I swear this is true”, that aren’t really that funny, or just endlessly talk about their “embarrassing sex life” that it was quite painful to watch at times.

The winner of the young comic of the show award (name escapes me), did nothing but silly voices, terribly improv and even “I pretend to be French when approached by charity muggers! I’m mad I am!” It was awful.

And another thing, so many of them say, “I’m such a geek!”, as if this is what makes them so uniquely comic, but the thing is, we’re all geeks now. We all like Twitter, Facebook, all discuss mobile contracts, network coverage, our phones capabilities, we all look at random stuff on the internet, and all these other various things they think make them geeks (more or less). Stop saying it to endear us too you.

Also saw Josie Long doing some comedy musings in the literature tent on Saturday night, which was also pretty terrible. Just because someone is cute and whimsical doesn't mean what they say is funny, and the stuff she did was almost cringeworth. (A cartoon picture of Nye Bevan talking in a mad, screechy voice).

Saying all this, David O’Doherty on Friday afternoon was probably one of the funniest live comedy I’ve ever seen.

Musically, some bands I saw I hadn’t heard before but enjoyed were Chief, Schools of Seven Bells, and Midlake and also Temper Trap were surprisingly enjoyable. Saw lots of other bands, but these stuck in the mind most. Flo was good, but a tad over long, Vampire Weekend quite enjoyable, and Belle and Sebastian predictably cute and nice, but also fun and worked well for the festival’s vibe.

Sebastian Faulks is such a cliche of the quiet, well spoken, thoughtful English novelist it's unreal, but he is also interesting, so that saves him.

Although the news of what happened at the event was terrible I saw nothing bad happen anywhere else on the site of any description, and thought the security was as reasonable as necessray, i.e. not heavy handed or over the top, but suitably present at relevant points. But then again, after what happened, I'm probably wrong.

My hatred for festival food (over priced, bland, tasteless, and unfulfilling), got another layer of disgust this time when I got some mild poisoning during Saturday (from a burger or noodles, not sure), and was promptly ill later that night. Joyous.

Overall though, a fun weekend.

The Quiet Carriage

Rattling home on Thursday night on the 18.03 out of Paddington I was sat in the Quiet Carriage, A, enjoying my book and the views when suddenly some woman started talking on her mobile phone. Very poor form.

Some old boy, sitting in the seat in front of me said very loudly and matter-of-factly to her, "This is the quiet carriage, you can't use your phone in here". She replied, "I'm talking to my children, I haven't spoken to them for three hours and I need to check if they're okay". "Well, that's all well and good but it doesn't put you above the rules, if everyone thought like that the system wouldn't work. Why don't you do what every one else does and take yourself to the section outside the carriage and make your call there". She replied about having been sat down for three hours and very tired, which made no sense but nevertheless ended her call.

About two stops later she stood up to get off and you could see she was still fuming. As she walked past him she said, "I hope you enjoy the rest of your journey you moaning old man (or words to that effect). I almost said to her, "He was right, you should have just gone outside like other people have been", but didn't.

Instead, I leaned forward through and seats and said to the man, "Good for you, you were spot on". He rolled his and said, "Well...", in an exesperated manner, as if dealing with such moronic persons was all part of his daily crusade against quiet carriage abusers.

You go old man, you tell 'em.

Comedy thoughts

Why is Russell Howard suddenly popular? He's rubbish. Like Justin Lee Collins he seems to have confused being constantly upbeat about everything as the same as being funny. It's not, it's just annoying.

Harry Hill is upbeat, manically so sometimes, but what he says is inherently funny as well. Howard just tells lame, pub-banter quality jokes that sometimes raise a smile because they are at least not unfunny, but why he has suddenly become the nation's darling is beyond me. And anyone who appears on Mock the Week, the worst panel show for years and years and years, instantly loses points. Including Frankie Boyle (I insult people, therefore I am funny. Or not).

I read a review of Howard's stadium show in the Guardian yesterday and couldn't help but wonder who would choose to spend all that time, money and effort to see a comedian of such limited ability. Apparently one segment included him imaging the Queen having sex. Wow. Hilarious. How original.

In the review it also noted that he says that 'Anne Robinson looks like "a fox in a wind-tunnel"'. This is a complete steal from Stewart Lee, a far, far better, edgier, cleverer, interesting comedian, who, on his Comedy Vehicle earlier in the year, described Andrew Lloyd Webber as looking like a "monk in a wind tunnel". Shameful.

The Burp

Went to the recording of Harry Hill's TV Burp last night in Television Centre, home of the B B C. We queued, we got some free beers, I bought a cheese and pickle sandwich from the canteen, we queued some more, we went in, sat down, they told off people for taking photos (why I have no idea; it's on TV right?) and then we watched the show being recorded.

The show was a typical Burp of this season, a peppering of great sketches and observations, with a couple of weaker, less good bits too. Hopefully the editing will drop the poor bits and keep the good ones. The director Spencer Millman is regarded as one of the top comedy directors you see so I am sure he will. I know this because the warm up act Bobby Bragg must have mentioned his name about 25 times during his warm up / continuity patter. It was very tiresome. He's clearly there to make Mr Harry's jokes seem even better by comparison and to make the funny clips a breath of fresh air against his laboured jokes, which are truly bad, yawn inducing stuff. I'm not being nasty, he seems like a nice chap, but even so...

I happened to walk past him at the end and overheard him say to a security chap that he'd back for My Family next week. But who on earth would go to a recording of My Family anyway?

D is for...

Dick Dastardly.

In Wacky Races Dick Dastardly would spend the entire show zooming ahead of the other racers to set elaborate traps. Hilariously these would always back fire leaving him looking foolish and his 'faithful' hound Muttley (great name) laughing at him - until scolded for doing so.

It made no sense. He had the fastest car. If he didn't stop to set needless traps he'd have won ever race by an absolute mile.

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Last night I watched Psychoville, the new BBC2 comedy written by Steve Pemberton and Reese Shearsmith (who wrote and started and the League of Gentlemen too) and it was, for want of a more pithy phrase, bloody brilliant. So much so I even risked hitting the red button (something which usually result in a system crash - and did, but it recovered quickly enough so I only missed about two minutes), and watched the second episode immediately.

The show is part mystery thriller as well as comedy, with a series of weird and wonderful characters receiving letters from an anonymous, faceless individual who claimed, 'I know what you did'.

In receiving these letters we saw the day to day lives of the characters - Mr Jelly the terrible clown with a missing hand (he claimed was caused by rival Mr Jolly), and this was used for a quite brilliant joke of a mother paying him for his (terrible) performance at her daughter's party by placing the money in his fake hand and passing it to him through the door (after he had been kicked out) with the pay off "as agreed, cash in hand". There was also a blind man obsessed with teddies (and a hilarious eBay bidding war to win a legendary toy alligator), a dwarf with weird powers and many more. You can read about them all here or here.

The humour was mined careful, not letting a good joke pass by, but not over doing it, which in turn allowed the engrossing, mysterious story to tick along as each scene played out. Not only this but the production levels were immaculate too. The attention to detail was perfect, the colour tints spot on, and little touches like the style and sound of handwriting that appeared on the screen to introduce the location of each character done with a panache rarely seen.

It's refreshing to see such a well constructed, thoughtful and engrossing story that, has so far, managed to mix a balance of humour and plot without one compromising the other. The very best shows manage to do this, such as Arrested Development, and I'm hopeful this show will continue as strongly as it has in its first two outings.

Counting down

Today is the last time Carol Voderman will host Countdown. When I saw Tim Vine a few years ago he did a joke that went as follows: "Tonight is the last time Carol Voderman will be on TV, so it means that it's..." - from the PA system came the rocktastic chorus of- "The final countdown..." from European rockers, er, Europe.

Now that's what's happening in real life. Enjoy it here! Rock!

Ah ha!

This reminds me of this:

Comments and debate

My first Guardian blog was published on Tuesday and it drew quite a response. Probably more comments then this blog has had several times over, despite having been running for almost two years. My second blog went LIVE! today and those who know me in real life will know it is a subject close to my heart.

It’s nice to be writing pieces that people read and react too, even if they don’t agree with you, because it’s pleasing to see subjects you regard as interesting creating debate.

One Louder

The BBC’s Iplayer is really good and great for catching shows you might have missed but I don’t understand why the volume goes up to eleven. I mean why not make ten louder and that be the top number?

Some Good News

Arrested Development to return? Let’s hope so. The best comedy of all time? I think so. And with a 9.7 average from over 20,000 votes on IMDB so do a lot of people.

Sign of the Times

Sitting on the bus to the train station to begin the epic journey home (see post below) an amusing incident took place that I thought nicely summed up just how de-sensitised our society is becoming.

Two young children got on, no older than eight, and sat at the back, “Mum”, they shouted, “come and sit at the back with us.” The mother replied, “No I want to sit down here at the front.” Quick as a flash one of the boys said, “But what if a peado gets on and snatches us away.”

Rather than stunned silence or outrage there was a general sense of amusement.

Hot Fuzz Review

Turning to the film world...

Hot Fuzz, the latest effort from the team that made Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, is a cop-buddy movie with a classic, rural, Wickerman style spin. (The classic, British film, not the bizarre, bee based, American remake...)

Full of comedy violence, a la Final Destination, great dialogue, homages to numerous films in the same genre, namely Point Break, and yet all driven by the unique style that Simon Pegg has created and used so well throughout his career, it's the perfect comedy/ drama mix.

Timothy Dalton is superb as the blatantly evil, and yet somehow charming, supermarket owner, while Nick Frost is perfect as the slightly incompetent yet likable sidekick to Pegg's character, Nick Angel.


Some have criticised Pegg for playing such a straight character, but by the time he's leaping through the air to kick an old lady in the jaw, and the audience react to this with laughter and even cheering, it's hard to know just how straight his character really is...

On another point it's nice to have a film that manages to mix violence, comedy, good characters, a far out storyline and great scripting and still treat the audience with a level of respect and intelligence. So many "comedies" these days are nothing more than a pathetic plot, stretched out with tired and predictable sexual jokes and gross out scenes.

And special mention must go to the Swan which plays a minor, yet vital role, throughout the film...