September 2025
A trip to Ireland, finishing the office job, and a return to form as a musical comedian
This month I finished my office job because my role had run its course. So I stepped aside to let the important people complete the more complicated work. But overall I am busier than ever.
Output
I headlined at The Old Monkey in Manchester, a popular comedy venue. I booked the venue back in March, and the plan was to debut some of my strongest ever material, and tweak some existing material to keep it fresh.
In the buildup to the gig, nothing went right. Almost everyone who I wanted to come was somehow unavailable. On the day it rained non-stop, there was a bus driver’s strike, and traffic was dense and noisy as a third-world capital. As soon as I got on stage, I noticed my guitar input jack had fallen out, and an audience member had to fix it with Formula 1-level efficiency.
In the end, some good friends arrived, I got several walk-ins, both support acts smashed it, and my set got a volume and frequency of laughs that would please any comedian. It was by far my best gig since Academy 3 in 2022.
Next year I will tackle the Manchester Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time. It will presumably be even harder to get people to show up, since I will be competing against thousands of performers who would sell their own mother for a bit of attention.
In other output, I uploaded this Bob Dylan guitar lesson to my non-silly music YouTube channel
And I uploaded a cover of one of my favourite Mandopop songs. On top of this, I finished a new comedy song about the loneliness epidemic, which I will record properly and debut soon.
Activities
Early in the month, I travelled to Ireland, taking in Dublin, Limerick, and Killarney. From Killarney, I took an Uber to Mount Carrauntoohil, which I climbed in 2022 and wanted to experience in a less regimented environment.
Limerick takes at least three days to fully enjoy. As well as the Limerick Museum, there is the Hunt Museum – which has an entire floor dedicated to Hollywood hellraiser Richard Harris – and King John’s Castle. Built in the thirteenth century, the castle was central to seemingly every major conflict in Irish history, including the Flight of the Earls, the Cromwellian conquest, and the Glorious Revolution.
I don’t like travelling that much, because it means being away from home comforts and at least doubling one’s own living costs (because you can’t cook in your own kitchen). But it was a great little trip.
Wider World
The extent to which I struggled to get people to come to my gig shows I am far from being a celebrity or person of status. But this is probably for the best, judging by what has happened to a lot of big-shots this month.
Falls from grace included that of UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who was forced to resign over a tax error; US ambassador Peter Mandelson was sacked over resurfaced connections to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein; and former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy received a jail sentence after a second criminal conviction. At the same time dozens, perhaps hundreds of people across the United States faced professional consequences for remarks about the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk.
There have been lots of great insights about this phenomenon. Senior Fellow at The New Culture Forum Philip Kiszely told TalkTV: “The problem with clever people is that they’re stupid.”
The single-mindedness required to achieve high social standing is one of the main reasons why positions of power are often occupied by vacuous people. The so-called career ladder is not just greasy, but often a moral, intellectual and creative dead end.