The Rant – Robin Ince

Welcome to The Rant, the place where comedians let rip about the things that have been getting right on their wick.

And who better to be the inaugural LiF ranter than Robin Ince? Here, he responds to the criticism he has received for organising a secular, Christmas-time celebration.

 

In quiet moments, which I try to limit by taking on more work than I can manage and living in constant fear of deadlines, I come up with dumb ideas that I think might be fun.

This year’s second dumb idea* was to put on a show entitled Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, a rational celebration for Christmastime. It takes place at the lovely Bloomsbury Theatre and the bill includes some brilliant comics – Stewart Lee, Josie Long and Mark Thomas – the singer-songwriter, Robyn Hitchcock; writer and documentary-maker, Simon Singh; writer of the Guardian’s Bad Science column, Ben Goldacre and acclaimed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

Mistletoe and whine – The Rant

Following Robin Ince’s fine Rant is Bennett Arron, who, while being totally down with Christmas, is livid with its pauper cousins like fireworks night and New Year’s Eve. Just light the touch paper and stand well back…

So Christmas is almost here. You can tell that as all the shops have started displaying their Easter eggs.

I do enjoy Christmas time; the excitement of finding out which unknown celebrity is going to switch on the town’s lights, which bookies are going to lose the most if it snows on Christmas day and whether the shops you go into will be playing Merry Christmas Everybody, Do They Know It’s Christmas or I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.

Sexism in comedy – it’s as if alternative comedy never happened

Kate Smurthwaite, regular at several Soho comedy clubs and prolific blogger, argues that UK stand-up has regressed to the pre-alternative comedy days of throwaway sexism. Not only is it offensive, she says, it’s boring.

Women eh? The trouble with women is… I’m not sure what the trouble with women is but I think the trouble with quite a few men on the comedy circuit might be that they’re comfortable doing boring, boring sexist material. And I’m not just talking about a few new acts struggling on the peripheries of the circuit. Last time I saw Chris Rock he did twenty minutes on the false premise that women talk more than men. The whole time I was thinking that I wish he’d talk a bit less.

Ian Smith – doesn’t have a wheat allergy

It’s not all glitz and glamour for Ian Smith, he of BBC’s Popatron and Leicester Square Comedian of the Year podium placer. Last Christmas, the lad started experiencing terrible stomach pains.

Here is his moving account of what happened next.

Person A – “Hey, would you like to try some of this bread.”

Person B – “Yeah, sure. I can eat bread.”

This is an example of the type of conversation two people might have about a wheat-based product – perhaps on a first date, at a football match, or via a series of signs if scuba-diving. But, for one month of my life, this was a conversation I

Ian Smith … needs to finish something

In the second installment of Ian Smith’s monthly blog, we learn about his procrastination. How every time he tries to finish off a job, he ends up playing Funky Snooker on the internet. But has he found the solution? Is his life about to change – forever?

Person A: “Hey, did you finish that thing you meant to do?”
Person B: “Not yet, now get out of my house.”

This is an example of a conversation two people (one an intruder) might have about intending to do something, but putting it off. Like paying the bills, performing heart surgery or registering the birth of a child. I can relate to this, for I, Popatron’s Ian Smith, procrastinate – and it’s becoming a problem. For example, this article was due in six months ago!

The tale of Ian Smith and the Twitter cake

All of my articles so far have, to some extent, involved wheat-based products. So I have decided to complete the trilogy.

When I wasn’t allowed to eat wheat, I became slightly obsessed with baking gluten-free cakes, and have consequently become a quite-good-to-good cake-baker. This article isn’t an elaborate euphemism, and if you were beginning to think it was, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself (also not a euphemism), because it really didn’t seem like one.