The self service till is, I think you’ll agree my friends, the work of genius. It is the sort of idea that should be used as an example of what separates  us from the beasts. Who ever invented it should be knighted or at the least have a street named after him, or her. No longer do we have to wait in a queue behind a mum doing the weekly family shop. Or the man with a shopping cart full to brimming in the three items or less line. No longer do we have to stand and be tempted by the wonders surrounding the tills, tempting stuff like chewing gum, pain killers or bags of coal. I thought all this last Sunday morning while I was standing waiting in a queue to use a self service till.

Ok so you may still have to queue, but you can serve yourself with no shop assistant judging what you’re buying. You can serve yourself!  Can you get your head around that? Yes? Ok, did the old lady who was looking not only lost but around and wondering why no one was sat at the till? NO, no she could not. In the end a shop assistant had to come over and do the old lady’s self service  himself. The poor boy was pulling each item from her basket running them across the scanner and then bagging all on his own. With each new product he did try to show the old bird how the process worked but just got a nod and a “yes dear, it is good” from the old lady.

There were still six tills though and only one member of staff running them, that’s still pretty cool. Oh no, hang on, the couple in front of me have just used a cash only till and are now telling another member of staff that their card is not working and that, the just pointed to, by the shop assistance, cash only sign, is too small. Ok two members of staff and six tills. Well it would have been but, shop assistant number two only works weekends and can’t cancel the self service items so he would need to call a supervisor. A supervisor whose job it is to supervise self services tills? Am I missing something?

Three workers for six tills that still a fifty percent cut in staff. Sorry, no I’ve not taken into account the broken till.  Apparently there has to be one till that does not work. No one knows why, there just does. Also this till should never be clearly signed as broken. I think it’s some kind of rule as unwritten as the “out of order” sign that was not written and not hung on the till. People trying to use this till would after the realisation that it did not work have to rejoin the back of the queue behind the couple I told you about earlier, who now have to rescan all their goods at a till that will accept their card. Or form a new queue to complain to sub duty manager who has popped onto the shop floor to see what all the fuss and noise is about.

So now it was my turn to self serve myself. I had done it many times but that thrill never left me. I could live the day dream that I was working in a supermarket. Some dream I think you’ll agree my friends. Marvel at the way it knew if I had put stuff in the bag provided. Wonder at how the tills, with just a bar code to go by knew all and everything about my shopping delights. What does “item not recognised” mean? It’s Jaffa Cakes everyone knows Jaffa Cakes surely? The till did not. No matter how I swiped, scanned, slid or swore the till was blind to my Jaffa Cakes.

It was about that time security was being called over to restrain the man with the problem with his Jaffa Cakes and bring the staff/till numbers in to equilibrium, that it really struck me. The invention of the self service till is amazing and I can’t wait till it happens.

Hello my friends, it’s been a while since I last blogged. Partly due to doing comedy things. Some of which I got paid for. I know! I was surprised as well. Also I think I’m still in for a sketch being on the radio. I know! Someone somewhere is smiling on me. The main reason I’ve not been here is that I forgot my login. I know! I’m a right cock at times.

There is a saying I heard once. Some people talk about them self’s. Some people talk about other people and some talk about ideas and things. I want to be the latter. So here is the first of my new weekly blogs. I will be endeavouring to write about ideas and things. So if you sitting comfortable I’ll begin.

After ten years I have finely joined the twenty first century. Oh I’ve been here all the time but never really embraced what it is to live the noughties dream. At the stroke of midnight 1999 I was at a party, as I’m sure many of you my friends where.  A good party it was, with many good people and many drinks and the world did not end as many predicted. This was a good thing.

But when I finally rose the next morning I lived much the same life as I had done for all the hours, days, months and years before. My car was no hover car, my first meal of the twenty first century did me the world of good as is often the case after a night drinking, but it was not in pill form. I put on normal sneakers not rocket boots. All in all nothing had changed much.

I’ll be honest the sci-fi I had watch as a child now seemed like a lie I had eagerly lapped up. Where was my home help robot? Where was the communicator linking me to the rest of the world? Where was the sexy green women I would need to fight a life or death battle to bed? Where was the future? I found out last week.

For last week I got an I-phone. With it I can phone people. Wth it i cn txt shrt msgs 2 ppl. This is not new but with it I can get the world at my finger tips. LOL? I thought I’d shit myself. I had to meet some friends recently. Did we phone each other? Oh no. Did we text? Oh no. It was all planed down to the second by way of email we were all party too. How cool is that? One email to all of us we could pick up anywhere. I picked up mine on a train and promptly updated my face book stasis, down loaded Mumford and son’s music (you should all do that the CD rocks), did a quick bit of gaming and then replied to the email. All on a train, all on an I-phone. I’m living the dream. Could life get any better?

Well, yes, yes it could. I had no idea where the place was we were going to meet . This information would have made life oh so much better. But wait, what’s that? A link to a map?!?. A double tap and there on my phone was the future. I was looking at where I needed to be. Not only that but I could get a photo of the place and even get direction. At that point I started to live in the twenty first century.  The future rocks my friends and the future is now.

   Now some of you may find this hard to believe but I’m no Brat Pit (no come on girls let’s not fool ourselves). I will not be worrying Tom Cruise when it comes to big movie rolls. Harrison Ford is not ringing me up for tips on what he should be doing in tomorrow’s key scene to be filmed. There are two reasons for these things. One; I’ve never meet any of these people or had any meaningful contact with them (manly due to the restraining order, what scientology is a load of crap) and two until last week I had never acted. Now that has all changed, I’m an actor lovey, a thespian darling and no one should mention the name of the Scottish play (Macbeth for all you non actors) in my company.

   Now my acting was not something I’d planned just something that happened. I had been invited along to a comcomedy.com film shoot (I know, get me and my crazy show biz life style). They were filming some sketches ready for their web site going live later in the year (information on LCW web site). The first two sketches went well as far as I could tell, but knowing nothing of this strange art call filming it may have been a total disaster. Most people where smiling and much good words where said, so I guess all was well in the world. So then came the third sketch, the difficult third sketch. A sketch that involved one more person than was in the room. But I was in the room and as all eyes slowly turned in my direction it became clear that it was to be an actor’s life for me. Well an actor’s afternoon any way.

   Now I must say at this point that no awards will be finding their way on to my mantle piece for the acting I did that day. I don’t even have a mantel piece for them to find their way on to anyway. The part I was playing did not even have a name, but I like to think of him as “man who holds up paper and pretends to be shot” with a gun. See my mistake there? It’s not pretending is it, It’s acting I’m sure my acting friends would say (or they may try to get their point across through interpretative dance). Whatever it was, it was fun. I have no idea how many times I had to pretend sorry no, act like I was being shoot by a shoot gun but I loved it and was given as many mini flapjacks to eat as I liked. Now if that’s not the life for me then I don’t know what is.

   Now is the winter of our discontent and other such great lines are not something I’m drawn to but this comedy acting is cracking good fun and I want more. I want a speaking part next time (you hear that comcomedy.com? yes a speaking part) and then a staring roll in a sketch. Then I want to do a movie, get a clothing line, my own personal after shave, underwear, I want a star on Hollywood boulevard, I want to buy a child from a third world country. It’s funny that the first week I do stand up I end up acting in a comedy sketch it’s all most as if this comedy thing I’m doing is meant to be. And it’s a far far better thing that I’m doing now than I have ever done before.

   Now we all know that comedy is sexy. Come on that’s why we do it. Ok mental illness also has to be taken into account. But manly cause it’s cool, hip, and funky and well let’s face it sexy. I proved this recently with my first every stand up gig. Oh yes my friends I said I would and I did. Don’t worry if you missed it (and let’s face it you did) I’ll be doing it again soon. If any of you my friends wants to give stand up a go and join me, feel free. I’m thinking of starting “joke club” within the London comedy writers. If you want to do stand up “the lion’s den” is a cool place to start and if you don’t want to go on your own or invite your friends encase your shocking (and not in a good way) then why not grab me at the next meeting and join the small but growing band of current members that are making the other free Tuesday unofficial stand up night. But that’s enough about you, back to me.

   Doing my first stand up gig (I think gig is over cooking it somewhat) did remind me how sexy comedy can be. Well it reminded me of the first time I had sex. It barely lasted five minutes, it was in a dark room, I stumbled through it hopping I did everything in the right order and there was regular laughter. Unlike the first time I had sex the laughter was a good thing. Strangely enough it also came at all the right times which is something I did not do with the sex first time (“it’s all right we can try again in twenty minutes” she said). Every time I got to where I had written what I thought was a punch line the crowded room, the mod, sea of faces, the assembled masses, the unloved, the unwashed, the in some cases the unhinged (about 30 people at most) did laugh. In one case a small ripple…… err……. rippled a round (sorry mum it was an anal sex joke that did it) which was great cause I had forgotten where I was in the routine and just stood there trying to think “whatsthenextgagwhatsthenextgag”. They may well have just been laughing at me, not with me but I’ll take any chuckles or sniggers over silence.

    For some others silence was their reward for standing up and committing them self’s to the will of comedy divinity for a short time. The god of giggles, the deity of dirty jokes, the messier of mirth may not throw lightning bolts but something worse that feeling that, as it turned out you where the only person who thinks that was funny. Luckily for me I fluked it and have yet to look out over a sea of faces with that look of disappointment in their eyes. (Well not to do with comedy any way. yes, with sex all the time). As I said I’m planning to do stand up again and next time I’m going to try anti comedy. Comedy so unfunny it’s oh so funny. It could go well and be the next big thing in the playgrounds and work places all over the country. OR, it could go down like a nun (that’s a sex reference again) not well and leaving a feeling of guilt. For all of you unaware of anti comedy here is one of the jokes I’ll be bringing to the party.

   A Rabbi, a Priest and a Muslim fundamentalist are sat at a table in a pub. The rabbi says “Jesus was the king of the Jews”. The priest says “my entire belief systerm is based on his teachings”. The Muslim fundamentalist says “yes to me he is a great profit” and they all got along like a house on fire once they realise they had so much in common. There is a side note to the joke. Only the priest had any pork scratching which did make him feel a little bit  uncomfortable.

   Wish me luck my friends or come and have a go if you think your smart arse enough.