155: The last taboo of comedy is...?

Obsessive blog writing over Christmas whilst staying in someone else’s house is shaping up to prove harder than I expected.  I’ve spent the eight or so hours helping prepare tomorrow’s dinner and tonight’s party food, as I consume more incessant Christmas music than I have ever heard in my life.  And as far as days go it really couldn’t have been more comfortable; beer, cheeky mouthfuls of mozzarella, chorizo and bruschetta; watching a gigantic turkey having its skin baggyfied then forcibly stuffed with pounds of pork and spice.  Good stuff.

Now I must force this blog out as quickly as possible and at the same time take the opportunity to listen to a brief slab of sane-maintaining non-Christmas music.  Nick Cave’s Grinderman and the infinitely incredible (I don’t want you to) Set Me Free should do the trick; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again the simple but wildly expressive guitar solos on this track cannot be matched by anyone.  I originally only had it on a downloaded pre-release copy which I listened to for years before hearing the post-release on spotify.  The pre~ had none of the amazing lead guitar parts, and all these years (like, one and a bit) I had being missing out on the complete tracks.  Doh, what a dolt.

So what to write about... tum tee tum, do do diddly diddly do doooh...  Maybe I’ll just put up links to previously well written posts and hope the essence of good bit seeps through into today.  What’s the html for that?  Err, where was I?  Lost in amongst any amount of ideas that can be prefixed with the word self- no doubt.  So let’s try and look outside as opposed to constant inward and shoe-ward gazing.  There is snow everywhere, and today the sky flirted with dropping a bit more.  Very cheeky, don’t you think?

Who can be bothered blogging when there is music to be heard, food to be gorged and other things to do, see, hear, observe, absorb, engorge, excrete and fall over?  Less importantly I recommend to anyone still reading that there are certainly better ways to spend your Christmas Eve.  Close the tab, and do something festive like watch Tim Minchin’s Christmas song White Wine in the Sun or something fun like watch Tim Minchin Prejudice.

This really may be the most honest beautiful Christmas song of all time; celebrating the true meaning of Xmas - the warmth and safety that only family can provide:



In If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask for One Stewart Lee states that the last taboo of comedy is someone trying to do something sincerely and well.  He then goes on to break that taboo by playing a cover of Galway Girl.  Tim and Stewart are at the forefront of creative and innovative comedy, it's true, it's true.  I would repost the Stewart Lee song, but it comes at the end of an extremely long context building routine that needs to be seen to really help the song release its power.