Mark Watson the Comedian

Just over a week ago, I wrote a slightly provocative blog implying that the closure of 6Music didn’t matter as much as everyone thought, because really everyone ought to find new music for themselves and listen to it on their lovely MP3 player and not bother with music radio at all. (I’m making myself sound slightly more crass than I was, but that was the gist of it.) I then realised that not everyone has an MP3 player because a lot of this blog’s readers are not multi-billionaire comedians, like my good self, but students trying to make £1.19 last for a week, like my good self ten years ago.* Accordingly, I decided to take the opportunity to launch the first COMPETITION of this decade-long blogathon. I would buy a cheap MP3 player and give it to the person who made the most convincing claim to need it. In this way I would contribute to the furthering and enjoyment of new music. I then decided, in the spirit of the 24-hour shows, we should make it our mission to convey the prize from me, to the winner, by means of a human chain. What fun.

30-odd people made a play for the MP3 player and I have whittled them down, slightly unfairly, to a shortlist of eight. My criteria were, roughly: poverty; desperation; obvious enthusiasm for music; fun distance away from me which would make it amusing to try and get to the prize to them; sheer cheek, but not so much cheek that it would take the piss if they won. I apologise if you didn’t make it. It’s not some sort of rejection, it’s more to do with this whole thing being very silly.

Anyway, the shortlisted entries are below. Once more in the tradition of the marathon shows, it is now over to the audience (you) to choose the winner from the entries from England, Scotland, Holland and France. Decide who you want to win, leave it as a Comment. The recipient of the most votes wins the music player, simple as that. We then start planning to get it to them, ideally in the most ludicrously overcomplicated way we can. 

Voting closes last thing on Wednesday. Please do not vote after this time, you may still be charged, etc. And the lines are open… now.

*NB I am not really a multi-billionaire or even a uni-billionaire. I shouldn't need to say that, but people sometimes take things very literally.

ANNA For the sake of my son, you should give me this MP3 player. You see, I was cool once. I had pink hair, I went to gigs, I knew who was number one in the indie chart. But, gradually, without me even noticing it was happening, I started to get old. These days, my hair is a very sensible colour, and the last gig I went to was 18 months ago ago (Frank Turner, in case you’re interested). I’ve no idea who is number one in the main chart, let alone the indie chart. In short, I’ve turned into my mother. Of course, to do all of this, I need something to listen to all this new music on. Mark, I implore you, help me with my TYSIC, save my son from a lifetime of his mummy living in the past, and give me an MP3 player.
Thank you.

CARL Last month my beautiful girlfriend Beth, who I’ve been lucky enough to have not driven away for almost a year, had a bit of an accident. We were in a rush to leave the house – my fault – and during the commotion her drinks bottled exploded in her bag, filling her iPod with water. Not a pretty afternoon.

So I would love for Beth to be awarded with this iPod, not me. Mine is fully functional (and caused a dent in my ex’s wallet) whereas hers looks all sad and moist during the final months of her degree, which, in my experience, requires some relaxing tunes to help you power through.

THOMAS The reason I need an MP3 player so much is simple: Radio 1 is played at work all day everyday, and it is terrible.

That good enough?

LIZZIE I think that I need this mp3 player the most for this very simple reason: my iPod fell in the toilet. Properly.

And yes, it’s more easily done than you think; one minute it’s safely tucked into the waistband of you pants after a session of dancing around to Kaiser Chiefs in your kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed, the next moment you are peeing happily when you hear a verrrry suspicious plop. And you know it wasn’t natural. Alas, its little LCD screen stares mournfully up at you from the depths. What to do? You can’t flush, you can’t ignore it, so you must bear the humiliation of lifting your own iPod from an (all too full) toilet bowl. And only after this ordeal do you realise that your prized music player shall never function properly again.

BETH Dear Mark, Please find attached my plea for a new MP3.

I have  always been and will always be a big music fan. I currently listen to music about 11 hours a day, I love everything from Brand New to Girls Aloud. However tragically my mp3 decided not to charge just before Christmas, so it was given to my dad to try and fix, even though I was going to take it back as it was within warranty. My dad refused saying he could fix it, then claiming he had. The day after my warranty runs out I go to turn it on and it unfortunately had passed on to mp3 heaven. I refused to let my parents buy me a new one as they do a lot for me, and didn’t want them to be spending more on me. So I currently have a very small, unnamed brand of mp3 player, that fits about 2 albums on. The only thing keeping me from going insane at work from the loud shouting lawyer and the very noisy eating man opposite me. Please help me remember what other albums exist other than the ting tings!

JORIK I feel a bit awkward about leaving this comment, but as I’ll spend it begging for some electronic music-face-gear I’ll just go and do it.

I’m one of those seven freaks who follow the UK comedy scene from the continent (in my case, Holland. I am Dutch myself; officially. English is my second language. It is. It really is.

I lost my mp3-player when I was staying in a horribly dingy Youth Hostel in London. I suspect the slightly frightening Argentinian alcoholic physician (this is what he called himself (not the alcoholic bit, obviously)) took it, trying to trade it for some booze. I pitied him so didn’t go after him. Also, as I said, I was scared of him.

I believe I deserve the iPod for prolonging the misery of this clearly troubled man and not helping him trying to sort out his problems. Also: I’m foreign, so that’s double points.

I am ashamed of what I have become. 

HELEN I live in France in a town in the middle of nowhere (in fact it’s only an hour south of Paris but certainly feels like that way). My town has a speaker system set up so that broadcasts the town’s local commercial radio, the joy of which follows you wherever you go. I’m training for a marathon at the moment so could really do with something to block out the annoying adverts (avez-vous pensé de votre enterrement? appelez monsieur harreau pour discuter touts vos besoins après la mort) and the terrible music. The French stuff is fine, it’s the terrible choices of english music that is upsetting, I heard 50 Cent and The Nolans in the space of one run – although it did make me run faster in attempt to get away, so maybe an ipod would be counter-productive..?

And also getting it to me in France might be a challenge, but a fun one perhaps?

SEAMUS Why do I deserve an MP3 player from you? Well, music is what my world revolves around. I make music, listen to music, play music, everything. However, my MP3 player broke some time ago, and for the past 4 or 5 months I have been borrowing my mum’s, as she doesn’t use it that often. However, this is far from ideal. As you pointed out, even “cheap” MP3 players cost money, and that is my problem. If I save up to buy myself a new player, I won’t have any money left to buy any new CDs to put on it.

The problem with money could easily be solved by getting a job, but there are 2 problems with that. 1, I’m 16, and my exams are in a couple of months, so revising is a higher priority, and 2, I live in the Scottish highlands, so even if I had the time to get a part time job, there simply aren’t any within an hour’s drive of me.

So, ummmm, yeah. An MP3 player would be nice.

And today, an even bigger example of something which already exists, and I’ve kind of copied without meaning to. My friend, the excellent comedian Josie Long recently did a project where she asked people to do one good thing, once a day, for a hundred days:

http://www.hundreddays.net/

Despite being her friend (two examples: we hung out in Adelaide, went to a light show and played Boggle; my wife and I went for Mexican dinner at her house and  everyone had to invent a game), I had either not heard about this undertaking of Josie’s, which ended this week, or forgotten about it. In any case, I feel slightly silly for trumpeting my own Self-Improvement project as though I’d split the atom when, in fact, I’m more or less retreading the ground she went onto first, plus I don’t even know how you split an atom. Of course, it’s not a competition – and there are lots of differences, notably the fact that, being more pretentious, I’ve set a 10-year course for the TYSIC rather than 100 days. And I’ve spoken to Josie over Twitter, which these days is the same as actually speaking to someone, and she was fine about it, being the sort of person who genuinely wants to see the world made into a better place, rather than wanting to claim a lot of credit for doing something clever. In fact we’ve collaborated on clearing up the planet’s problems before, during the 24-hour shows. So it’s all fine.

But the least I can do is to draw your attention to her website in this manner. The collection of resolutions and good deeds and personal achievements should be an inspiration to us all. I will speak to the charismatic Long and see if there is some way we can honour and continue her work in our own Challenge. Just as soon as she comes out of The Bubble, where I believe she is about to disappear to.

Have a restful but still personally challenging Sunday. Tomorrow, the contest to win an

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I’ve been aware for the past few weeks that I’ve come crashing into the blogosphere like I’m the first person ever to write and publish my thoughts on the internet, laying claim to an audience I don’t necessarily deserve, while other people have been conscientiously a-blogging away for years without making a great big fuss about it. It feels a bit like being one of those people who get into a band slightly after everyone else, and then buy twice as many T-shirts and name-drop B-sides to make up for lost ground. So today, in keeping with the ‘taking a bit of a break’ theme of my weekend blogs, I’m going to recommend some other blogs that you could profitably read. While you do this, I’m off to watch the rugby and be wee-d on by my son. A lot of people are far more familiar than I with the Kingdom Of Blogs, so if you know a good one, do leave a comment recommending it. Feel free to use this shamelessly to promote your own. I’m always using the internet for shameless promotion. I think I’m probably the first person to think of it.

http://tombasden.blogspot.com/   Witty, good-looking chap out of Cowards, and the second series of my radio show. Funny pictures, songs, and so on.

http://lloydwoolf.blogspot.com/  Witty, rake-thin chap out of Cowards. Amusing, low-key observation.

http://annawaits.blogspot.com/  Perceptive stuff about TV and other artforms by a thoroughly nice, and clever, TYSIC participant.

 http://michaelleggesblog.blogspot.com/  One of comedy’s most celebrated blogs, foul-mouthed, misanthropic, bitter and funny.

http://tiernandouieb.blogspot.com/ An extraordinarily long-sustained blog by an amiable comic colleague of mine.

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It’s Friday. Normally at this time of the week, I make a brazen effort to promote my forthcoming novel (Eleven; it’s on Amazon, but that’s as far as I’m going with the plugging today), but try to redress the balance by offering some encouragement to other writers at the same time. I’m going to resume my series ‘Poorly-Organised Thoughts On Writing’ next week. Today, my focus is on the other side of my little career – stand-up. I shall try to flog the fruits of my humorous efforts and then list some tips for anyone thinking about doing comedy.

Firstly, then, the self-publicity. I am doing a tour this year and the dates are elsewhere on this site and please come and see a show and prop up my emotional wellbeing thank you kindly. Also – a DVD. I’m releasing a DVD! At last. I am one of only ten comedians living in the world today who haven’t done this yet, and there’s a quite powerful fear of failing to sell copies, looking like an idiot compared with certain friends of mine who have sold shitloads, ending up in HMV’s ’20 for £5’ bin, and overhearing someone in WHSmith pick it up and say ‘I saw this guy, he’s shit’. Optimism is my personal challenge these days though, so I’m putting all these things aside and releasing it. It will be a combination of a DVD record I did in 2008 (at the Bloomsbury), and a kind of ‘greatest hits’ show which I’ll do for one night in Edinburgh, and which you might be able to scrounge free tickets for if you go to the fans’ forum shortly.

Anyway, here’s the Amazon link. http://tiny.cc/buythisbloodydvd

It will be quite good, I think. Lots of extras. Lots of jokes, and so on. I don’t know – I don’t often watch stand-up DVDs myself, but if you like that sort of thing, yes, I think you could do worse. Was that suitably optimistic but not too cringingly in-your-face? Good.

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A week since the official start of the TYSIC, and all over the country (in some cases, other countries), people who don't know each other are busying themselves with tiny but fulfilling tasks. The range of responses to this has been, as I've said enough by now, surprising and lovely. It's also been slightly more than I can keep up with - well, that's not quite true, I've read everything that's been written, but it's hard to do justice to everyone's efforts here. I'd strongly suggest looking through the Comments from the last couple of blogs to get up to date with how things have been advancing. There are a lot of small-yet-significant moments, and a couple of remarkable claims from people who've got out of the blocks quickly. It might provide inspiration if, like a lot of commenters, you are struggling to get underway yourself.
 
Here's a very brief survey of the week's efforts:
 
-Someone wrote to Noam Chomsky and got an almost immediate reply, which made her day/week/life;
-Someone is busily tracking down bees for his beekeeping challenge, someone else has researched goats and chosen a breed to focus on;
-Lots of people writing, anything from a paragraph to a few thousand words;
-Lots of people practising musical instruments, including many who've never played a note before. One person has learned Mull of Kintyre.
-Plenty of people running or doing other forms of exercise. I like the idea two of them could have passed each other on the road. One TYSICer dug out his mountain bike, came off it, and broke his collarbone. This is perhaps the most distinctive performance so far.
-Someone got hold of two albums that had been recommended to her, listened, didn't like them. Someone else tried swordfish and found it 'awful'. This is all part of the process.
-People have applied for jobs. Waiting for the first person to answer the interview question 'why were you drawn to this job?' with the answer

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