Do Islam4UK have a catch Phones4U hand mime?

This week I tweeted a couple of jokes about the extremist group Islam4UK. Did Islam4UK have a little hand gesture routine like their sister company Phones4U? And how glad I was the government had ignored the suggestion to rename them Islam 4 – UK 5. There’s nothing particularly brave or satirical about these jokes. They’re basically just having a go at the group’s media-friendly name which is remarkably “does what it says on the tin” for an extremist organisation. If they wanted to have a covert agenda then they’ve blown it. Frankly, I don’t hold out much hope of success for their splinter group Bombs4UKOlympicson8thAugust2012.

Of course there’s a danger in making such jokes. If I’m going to offend someone with a joke, I want to make sure I’m offending the right people. Which, unless I’m fearless (I’m not) means: not people who may want to kill me. Is it OK, for instance, to joke about the problem of recruiting Muslims from Britain as suicide bombers because they’re worried the virgins  in heaven will be Susan Boyle and Anne Widdecombe? Again, nothing edgy about this (plus I’m basically insulting 2 women who happen to look not so pretty. Which opens up other dodgy issues). But I suspect there’s a reticence amongst some comics to have a go at Muslim fundamentalism (Christians are quick to point out we have no such fears about laughing at them).

Omid Djalili in the Infidel. I play a Jew in the film. It was a challenge.

Shouldn’t we be bolder? David Baddiel explores putting the funny into, er, funnydamentalism in his new film The Infidel, whilst Chris Morris’ upcoming film on Islamic extremism should definitely put a cat amongst the pigeons. Probably one wearing a belt full of explosives.

The other reason to avoid such jokes is loss of life. Was it right to add that last sentence to the previous paragraph? After all, people get killed in suicide bomb attacks. Though isn’t that’s one of the reasons why people want to joke about it. The greater the fear, ther greater the taboo, the funnier a joke can be. But we still have to know what we’re doing.  Islam4UK were banned after trying to organise a march through Wootton Bassett, the village that soldiers killed in combat are flown back to. And I’ll share this with you, dear blogreader/bleader/whatever the term is, I heard jokes being discussed about the Islam4UK march being attacked by villagers with tea and sandwiches or tombola prizes strapped to their bodies but I don’t think such jokes justify the bad taste. They’re not targetted at the right people, they don’t clearly attack the bad guys.

A terrifying satire about Bono's approval of China's approach to the internet

You have to be careful about targets in satire (though anything attacking Bono is always justified). Recently, I wanted to send up Conservative plans to rely more on charity and the voluntary sector by getting my picture wizard Ross to mock up a pic of some soldiers in tabards saying “British Army” as chuggers, charity collecting on a high street (You see? Satire! How the Tories would have winced!). I found a picture online that would have been perfect but then realised it was of a soldier who’d been shot in Afghanistan. Was the point I would be trying to make with the joke worth that (unintentional) lack of respect? To use a terrible, wrong phrase which in its wrongness flags up the whole difficult issue of comedy and taste – it’s a minefield.

With thanks to @C_Littlebug, @ross_owen for the pics and @Scriblit for virgin inspiration.

Jokes bomb is a post from: David Schneider's website

Related posts:

1. Nicked Jokes. Allegedly. This is a picture of Denis Leary. That's all I'm...
2. Children in Need and some wrong jokes BBC TAKE IMPARTIALITY TOO FAR WITH THEIR NEW CHILDREN-IN-NEED MASCOT…...
3. Bill Hicks vs David Hare George Bush tries some new stand-up material Here’s a thing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Springtime for Hitler. I expected similar results last night.

I’ve had a major breakthrough careerwise. Yesterday I showed an audience my pyjamas. It felt true, honest, edgy – though in retrospect maybe I should have washed them (they were toothpaste stains, ok?! Toothpaste!)

It’s often said that comedy = truth. Which isn’t totally correct otherwise the statement “Weasels vary in length from 6 to 17 inches and have long slender bodies” would be funny. Which I guess it could be if I said “weasel” is a euphemism for “penis”. But generally, although not everything that’s true is funny, everything that’s funny is rooted in truth.

Weasel. Not a euphemism for penis.

For stand-ups, it’s important to know your own truth. Because if you don’t the audience may well tell you. I should know: the gap between being introduced onto a stage and getting to the mike is the sort of sub-atomic measurement that only the Hadron Collider team could calculate, but when I was doing standup there were at least three occasions when that was enough time for someone to shout “Big-nosed c*nt!” at me. (A different person each time, in case you were worried I had some persistent gig-to-gig stalker). Still, impressive stuff – as not only did they instantly spot I had a big nose but they also realised I’m a c*nt.

(I’m not.)

In order to avoid these situations, most stand-ups will always:

a) Identify their distinguishing feature: “I’m I’m fat/thin/tall/ginger/Pam St.Clements off of Eastenders”

b) Identify their minority status: “I’m black, gay, half-goat/half-fawn (I did a couple of gigs at Jongleurs, Narnia. Tough crowd)

I’ve never really been that sort of performer. Never really talked about myself on stage. Until last night at a gig which I’d come to know as “In Future Learn to Say No”.

I’d agreed to do some material about the Holocaust – whether’s it’s possible to make jokes about this very taboo subject? I won’t share them with you now as what I realise is it’s all about context. You have to know that I’m not the first Jewish Nazi and I have to know that you, dear blog reader, dear “bleader”  (if I may coin a hip Web 2.0 contraction that’s bound to catch on)  aren’t one of Nick Griffin’s fascist pet dogs.

But the material I wrote did make me talk about my background for the first time in that stand-up way. I enjoyed ranting about the Holocaust obsession of my upbringing, about how truly paranoid it’s made me, spotting potential anti-semitism in everything, from a neo-nazi door-handle that snags my jacket to the most innocent of requests on Facebook to, ahem,  “become a fan of Auschwitz” (what next: “John Demjanjuk Wants To Be Friends – Confirm/Ignore”?).

Which is where my pyjamas come in. Obviously, ladies, I mostly sleep in the nude. I’m that kind of sexy kind of sexy guy. That’s the image I want you to imprint on your brain. But if I have to wear night attire, I do have a favourite pair of pyjamas – it’s an OCD- type thing, I get my best night’s sleep in them. And to my shock, I realised as I was writing my material for the Night I Should Have Said No To, that they were blue and white striped ones. OK, they don’t have a yellow star, but hell, what does that mean about what’s going on inside my head?

So yes, last night I showed an audience my pyjamas. And they laughed. It’s something I believe we should demand of all our public figures -  Gordon Brown, Arsene Wenger, Susan Boyle. Only then can we really know them. Show us what you wear to bobbies and we’ll tell you if we like you or not.

Schneider in honest performance shock is a post from: David Schneider's website

Related posts:

1. Jew travels to Germany shock Here’s a thing I wrote about 10 years ago...
2. Bill Hicks vs David Hare George Bush tries some new stand-up material Here’s a thing...
3. EasyFail You can just imagine the pitch meeting at Easyjet: “We’ve...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I presume it’s just a case that they didn’t think it through,  didn’t quite realise that the photoshoot might be in poor taste. And I guess when you look at the full name of the memorial it’s easy not to realise its meaning. They probably had a conversation like:

PR: What do you think about taking the photos at the Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe?
Senior executive: The Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe? Can’t see any problems in that at all.
PR: Cool. I’ll meet you at the Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.

This guy looks far too Aryan if you ask me

To be fair, Easyjet made it clear they didn’t realise. They’ve apologised massively and withdrawn the pictures, replacing them with some great pics of clowns having a custard pie fight at Hiroshima (I jest of course). And I know some people will feel it’s important for that memorial not to be too taboo, it’s a structure, a sculpture, kids climb on it etc. But it is what it is – a place to commemorate the dead – and I’m sure no-one wants to be accused of dancing on people’s graves. Except for these people (found by @videogum).

The Holocaust is a very tricky area (see Wikipedia: “understatements”). Obviously as a Jew I can be bolder in what I say, I can even (maybe) get away with making some jokes. Would it be acceptable for me to say, even as satire, that I was worried that the PR at the Easyjet pitch meeting might even have said the Holocaust was a perfect match for the Easyjet brand because its transports were the very essence of No Frills. It’s a dangerous area, one that’s easy(jet) to get wrong. Although if you want my advice I’d say, as a general rule of thumb, linking sexy fashion shoots with brutal mass murder and genocide is probably something to be avoided. Probably.

EasyFail is a post from: David Schneider's website

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Do you want to see one of these kids cry?

So the nominations for the Comedy Awards are out. And Charlie Brooker gets a nom for Best Male Newcomer. Which makes total sense (apart from the “newcomer” bit). But there’s something faintly GaryGlittered about the category. There he is, a man of a certain age, and with him are his two fellow nominees, the two kids from Outnumbered: Daniel Roche and Tyger Drew-Honey (it must have been hell on the council estate with a name like that). Now, “Outnumbered” is brilliant, funny and oh so true, and the kids are brilliant, funny and oh so true – but it says a lot for the state of new comedy at the moment that the jury couldn’t find anyone else for Best Male Newcomer (do you even count as male before your testicles drop?)

In fact if you take away the Pulling Special and Outnumbered, Charlie Brooker wins both Best Male and the Best Female Newcomer. Are there really so few new comedies of quality being made? So few breakthrough performers?

Maybe the jury are just liberal right-on Outnumbered-style parents themselves. The sort who feel that school sports days should all be conducted in the dark, with hoods on and with no spectators so noone knows who’s won (actually that sounds more like a Ku Klux Klan lynching). Maybe that’s why they’ve nominated all three kids (the girl is nom’d in Best Female Newcomer) – so no-one “goes without”, a parent’s greatest fear. If they had a dark Psychoville sense of humour, they would have nominated just one of the kids and sat back and enjoyed the tears and tantrums. And whether they like it or not, when the winner’s announced, someone’s going to cry. And it may well be Charlie Brooker.

I remember being at the Comedy Awards the year Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted, had died. He was nominated for Best Comedy Actor and so was Steve Coogan. I’m pretty sure they’d flown Dermot Morgan’s wife in for the ceremony and God only knows what noble face she managed to pull when they announced the winner was Steve.  Steve was as shocked and embarrassed as the rest of us. But you have to admire the jury’s fiendishly dark sense of humour.

So I’m torn. The Islington New Parent in me says it’s not fair to just give one of those children a Comedy Award. Every child in the country should get one, every day, like we used to get milk and a biscuit every morning before Thatcher the milk snatcher had her way (one for the over-40s there). But the cruel comedy man inside me says: give it to Charlie, (or Tyger, or Daniel). If a child wins, the others are going to feel rubbish. If Charlie wins, they both will. And they won’t yet have learnt their well-done-they-deserve-it faces with accompanying-nod-and-smile for the moment after it’s announced.

Let the games commence!…

Don’t make the children cry, Charlie Brooker. is a post from: David Schneider's website

Related posts:

1. Children in Need and some wrong jokes BBC TAKE IMPARTIALITY TOO FAR WITH THEIR NEW CHILDREN-IN-NEED MASCOT…...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Marcus Brigstocke. He's mentioned in this article

Here’s a thing I just wrote for the Sunday Times. For a list of nicked jokes (allegedly) and some interesting youtubery, click here:

Stand-up comedians abhor the same crimes as everyone else: murder, assault, the fact that John and Edward are still in the X-Factor. But if there’s one crime that riles them above all others, it’s joke theft. The latest victim of comedic light-fingers is stand-up comic Gary Delaney. He’d noticed that several of his previously sure-fire gags were floundering as badly as Gordon Brown in the polls. A quick check on Google revealed that 34 of his jokes had been posted uncredited on the website Sickipedia.org, a sort of virtual multi-storey car-park for un-PC one-liners and dodgy gags.

Now this may not seem like a big deal, but for a comedian – and I am one – jokes are our babies (though we are allowed to have real ones too). It was as if some internet Madonna had come to Gary Delaney’s village and taken 34 of his children away for adoption.

I know how he feels. I once had a routine ripped off on an amateur talent show on TV. I was furious at first, though soon my ego kicked in and I wondered if it got any laughs. I was strangely pleased it did. That’s not everyone’s reaction. More typical is the fight I witnessed several years ago between two comedians about who came up with a gag about panto star Frank Bruno’s latest boxing match where the spectators all shouted “he’s behind you!”. Somehow it felt right having fisticuffs over Frank.

Plagiarism was never an issue on the mainstream circuit of old. Never Mind the Buzzcocks star Phill Jupitus remembers doing a gig with Little and Large: “Bernard Manning came into the room and said to Eddie Large: ‘That Princess Diana joke of yours is going really well. I’m using it every f**king night’. Eddie just shrugged and said ‘Alright, Bernard’”. That’s not an attitude you’d find on what used to be known as the alternative circuit. There, the joke thief is a pariah, though often a pariah who does really well. American comic Denis Leary is hated by many in the comedy community for allegedly stealing from Bill Hicks, whilst Robbie Williams was recently turned on for (again, allegedly) using comedian Jack Whitehall’s gag about him feeling that somewhere his Dad’s looking down on him – he’s not dead,  just very condescending.

But nowadays it’s not just fellow comics we have to beware of. It’s everyone – thanks to the internet. Earlier this year, in a fit of stage-rage, Lee Hurst, the cheery cockney comic from They Think It’s All Over, cheerily smashed the mobile phone of a punter he thought was filming him for youtube, concerned it would allow people to rip off his material. But Hurst would be the first to admit that the only website he’s likely to look at is Luddite.com. Fellow comedian Marcus Brigstocke is more typical. He has no problems if his TV or radio work ends up on the internet: “I’m always flattered. It’s very clear that it’s me who wrote it, it’s me who’s doing it and it makes people want to see my shows”.

The problem occurs when it’s not made clear who wrote it. A few years ago one-liner virtuoso Tim Vine had 20 of his jokes pasted in an email and spread across the net claiming to be jokes used by Tommy Cooper. Some people refused to believe the material was Vine’s, even though the fraudulent emailer helpfully left the punchline to one gag as “Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet”. I suspect he or she does not work in espionage.

Gary Delaney posted one of his jokes – “Old Macdonald had Tourettes: E, I, E, I, C**t” – on Twitter only to see it re-posted by Lily Allen without

Lily Allen. Whose side are you on?

crediting him. Before posting it, Delaney did a Google search to make sure the joke hadn’t been done. It now yields 167,000 (uncredited) search results on Google. It must hurt to see your baby being so damn promiscuous.

Marcus Brigstocke had a similar experience with a joke about the computer game Pac-Man: “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music”. The joke went viral, appeared on tee-shirts and was even credited to Bill Gates. Brigstocke is philosophical about his joke’s crazy bid for freedom: “I kind of let it go. In any case, my guess is my legal team will be fractionally smaller than Bill Gates’”.

But why is it so important to us to be credited? We’re comedians so why the sense of humour failure? Shouldn’t we be flattered by the success of our gags? Tim Vine, though keen not to whinge, doesn’t hold with this: “You wouldn’t say: Ooh! That burglar must have really loved your DVD player to have nicked it!”. The real problem is – and this is where I suspect I may lose some sympathy – it takes a lot of work to make a good joke. I know it’s not work as in 7-year-old-child-down-an-Angolan-tin-mine work and I also know some jokes just pop out spontaneously. You can see this on Twitter whenever a celebrity death takes place (I remember being so impressed when TV Burp writer Daniel Maier posted  “Dead Man Moonwalking” within seconds of Michael Jackson’s death).

But more often than not the birth of a joke is a long, painful process, without gas-and-air or epidural. I once posted this on Twitter: “UK for Dummies: There are 2 Browns. Derren and Gordon. One gets everything right, the other gets everything wrong”. I agonised over the punctuation for at least half an hour before posting: colon? Full stop? I just couldn’t decide. But that’s our job. We sit in a damp room with one halogen light bulb that needs replacing (just me?) and try to think up funnies. We try them out in front of an audience, we hone and polish them. We love our jokes. We’ve watched them grow. We would willingly give a false address to get them into a better school.  Which is why we hate it when they go and call someone else Daddy.

The problem is sometimes it’s hard to prove paternity. Last month the comedian Josie Long ran into trouble when she performed her joke about the cost of taking part in sport at Hogwarts being a quid each: “I did the joke and people shouted ‘Adam and Joe!’”. It turned out a member of the public from Australia had passed off the joke as their own on Adam and Joe’s Radio 6 show. The alleged joke thief, one James Hewitt (not, I think, the one who dated Princess Diana) was adamant he’d made it up himself. He’d never even heard of Josie Long.

It’s almost impossible to know for sure that a joke you’ve come up with is one no-one else has ever thought of. This is especially true of topical gags. They’re jokes that you grab and forge quickly and the chances are others are having similar ideas. I once wrote on Twitter: “one thing you can say for gender-vague athlete Castor Semenya – at least she had the balls to compete”. I got an irate reply from two Twitter users who’d posted pretty much the same gags a few minutes earlier. I hadn’t seen them – honest – but the fear of accidentally stealing a joke is so intense I spent about 2 months apologising.

And it’s not just topical jokes. Phill Jupitus once saw one of the most succesful comedians in the world perform a major routine he’d done about lions and antelopes: “when I saw it I almost burst into tears. It meant I wouldn’t be able to tour or do a live video that autumn”. His fury only abated some years later when a friend showed him a Richard Pryor video from way back in 1972 with the same lions and antelopes routine. Some might say that’s proof there are no new jokes. Though I suspect Richard Pryor never did a routine about Swine flu or whether anatomist Gunther von Hagens allows you to keep your skin on during sex.

Richard Pryor: Joke thief with a time machine?

One-line merchants like Jimmy Carr, Tim Vine and Gary Delaney will always suffer more from plagiarism than other comics because their jokes are so portable. Comics who tell stories or have a distinctive stage persona like Eddie Izzard or Lee Evans are far less vulnerable. The secret, according to Phill Jupitus, is to be unique so they can’t steal from you: “That’s what comics should think about: it’s not the jokes, it’s about themselves. It’s about your personality. They can’t appropriate ‘you’”.

So maybe we should all just chill about this joke ownership thing. So what if it’s our living? We can always just go write another joke. As Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take things to”. But then what did he know about comedy? – Oh, and that quote was told me by comedian Peter Serafinowicz. It’s important to make that clear.

This article first appeared in the Sunday Times.

See also my Bill Hicks vs David Hare post

For more about this see Jay Richardson’s article on the Chortle website (he’s @jayirichardson on Twitter). I think I should also say that Sickipedia have now made sure that comedians can be credited for their jokes.

Stop! (Joke) Thief! is a post from: David Schneider's website

Related posts:

1. Nicked Jokes. Allegedly. This is a picture of Denis Leary. That's all I'm...
2. Bill Hicks vs David Hare George Bush tries some new stand-up material Here’s a thing...
3. Lee Hurst loses it Heading out to Docklands to meet comedian Lee Hurst in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.