Hello there. Have you heard about the latest online romance disaster? It’s an amazing tale of love, deceit and divorce in Second Life. Read about it here to save me going into all the gory details, but in summary; David Pollard, unemployed, and Amy Taylor, unemployed, married after a whirlwind affair in the virtual world Second Life, which is cyberspace’s attempt to trap you inside a bad eighties movie. At least Tron had cool games and still looked kinda groovy when I saw it on telly a few years ago. And everyone likes Jeff Bridges.

Taylor moved from London to be with Pollard in Newquay, Cornwall. She probably thought this would be romantic, but I’m from down that way and, believe me, Newquay is a long way from paradise.

‘ With Hip Hop, all forms of House, Alternative Rock, foam parties and many more fun ideas, it’s no wonder top DJs all want to guest at Newquay’s nightclubs! The nightclubs are open seven nights a week until 2am throughout the summer season…’

That is a quote from the official website of the Newquay Tourist Information Centre and says it all. Taylor’s Second Life alter ego is Laura Skye, a nightclub DJ, maybe that’s what attracted her to Cornwall. Pollard called himself Dave Barmy, a nightclub promoter in the virtual world, but that is the kind of name a Newquay DJ would choose. That name conjures up images of a DJ who spins bad cheesy platters in the worst club in town, the one you go to when you are so trollied no other establishment will let you in. And then you and your mates waver about trying not to throw up while the DJ uses the microphone far too often and attempts to get off with under age girls between tunes.

Laura Skye caught Barmy cheating. Of course she did. Dave Barmy was never going to be a one woman kinda guy. He’s Dave Barmy out there living it large. He’s crazy Dave Barmy, the virtual girls love him and the Cobra helicopter gun ship he flies about in. Don’t try and tie Dave Barmy down, he’s a heartbreaker and a Second Life taker.

It’s no surprise that both Taylor and Pollard are apparently jobless. Have you ever been into Second Life? I had to go in ‘for research purposes’ a few months ago. And I spent hours just trying to get around the navigation area and making my avatar look ridiculous. I never wanted Pasty Trevellion (my Second Life name) to look like this, but he does….

Poor Pasty doesn’t know where he is and why his hair is bright red. To be fair he looks like a pretty shit nightclub DJ, but that’s due to my incompetence in Second Life, not my own fantasy fashion tastes, honest.

The problem was that the time I spent in Second Life made me feel like I was sucking everything out of my first life. I’ve just popped in there for 5 minutes for this blog and I feel dead inside. No, worse, I feel like I’m having a virtual panic attack. I wandered around bumping into all these cyber f*ckwits….

…and they were all just chatting to each other saying things like ‘I haven’t worked out how to put clothes on in here yet,’ and ‘how do you kiss?’ I don’t know and I don’t want to virtually kiss you, there are virtually loads of people here, what kind of man do you think I am? The kind of man that weaves drunkenly about a Newquay nightclub slobbering for a snog? I’ve only done that once. And I was drunk, so stop going on about it, okay?

I got some pleasure from flying away from it all (you can do that in Second Life, great isn’t it? No don’t get caught in it Matt, quit now.)…

I quit and relaxed.

The unhappy couple have sold their story to the tabloids via a pair of journalists from South West News who donned the guise of Second Life avatars to get the scoop. What dedication. I don’t know many journalists who can send an email with an attachment properly, so well done to them. It is all a bit sad though, isn’t it? Lonely introverted people seek an outlet for their more adventurous side only for their online romances to turn to real romances before going horribly wrong due to other online romances. Or due to online sex with a virtual prostitute as in one of the many incidents in this case.

It’s much healthier to engage in more natural activities on the internet. For example, take my dalliance with online backgammon. It was lots of fun, although I got beaten by lots of very skilful Turkish men who were interested to know whether or not I was a woman and when they found out I was a man would refuse to play me again even if they were thrashing me.

My backgammon obsession came during a short-lived bleak and lonely period, which was enlivened by my one and only virtual sex encounter. It seems that most people go into Second Life to pull and have online carryings on. I promise you, hand on heart, that I started playing online backgammon with an American lady purely with the intention of getting my checkers home first. But you can chat while you play and, you know, one thing lead to another. What can I say? My online personality is sparkling and uninhibited unlike the shy and retiring real life me.

The romance didn’t last and I didn’t agree to marry that American lady I never met. She didn’t ask. How rude? But it was a bizarre chance encounter that could never have happened in real life. Maybe I’ve experienced just a tiny bit of the excitement Dave Pollard and Amy Taylor found in Second Life. But I knew that it would burn my beautiful red hair. Pasty Trevellion is staying locked inside my hard drive… for now.

Lots of love and don’t get sucked into cyberspace. ‘Only virtual love can break your heart’ as Neil Young’s avatar would probably sing.

Matt

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Popularity: 26% [?]

Hello everyone. Have you noticed that the world has changed? The Conservative Party has decided to sack David Cameron and replace him with Derek off Big Brother.

I’m obviously a brilliant campaigner. My efforts to get Radio Devon’s Gordon Sparks on Radio 2 have reached 102 youtube views and 25 members of the facebook group. It’s incredible – I should have been on the Obama team – there’d be no Republican states on the map at all.

I don’t want to gloss over the significance of the US elections. But I’m obviously going to be whimsically cynical about it, because that’s how I am. Can we change the world? Yes. Can we change our own personalities? No. Not without prescription drugs and therapy and I’m not going for either of those just yet. I’ll wait ‘til I become a celebrity and have a breakdown, thanks.

Many commentators are drawing comparisons with the ’97 election in the UK. Of course, we have less global significance, but after growing up under the shadow of Thatcherism and post-Maggie Tory sleaze, this felt genuinely momentous. And as a 24 year old radio news reporter, I was right in the thick of the election night action at the count in… Plymouth Guildhall. The atmosphere was electric. I felt like David Dimbleby, Peter Snow and Jeremy Vine all rolled into one, only physically smaller than that combination of political humanity would be.

In the lead up to the election I also had a chance to interview Tony Blair. And I took that chance with both hands and gave him the grilling of his life. Never in the history of political interviews has a future prime minister had to answer so many questions about Plymouth in five minutes. It was nerve-wracking. I arrived at The Moathouse hotel with the most ridiculously antiquated radio transmitting equipment strapped to me – it looked like one of those really old rambler’s back packs with a metal frame, bright orange canvas and a huge microphone spurting out of it. So I felt like a massive dick before I’d even started. I was transmitting the interview via a truck to the studio where they would record it in time for the 5 o’clock news. I also had a recorder, so I actually had two microphones, just to make sure I didn’t screw the whole thing up and to make sure I looked super-ridiculous.

I was lead into Tony Blair’s suite where our future great leader was sat casually in a shirt and tie with a cup of tea. I thought he seemed too relaxed about it all. I’d be sh*tt*ng myself at the prospect (of leading the country, not of being interviewed by a Plymouth Sound reporter). A vision came to me – this is the kind of guy that would happily take us into a war without getting too stressed about it – he’d just be sipping his tea on the phone to his mate in the states going ‘yeah let’s do it!’ I never said anything at the time, because who’d listen to a young whippersnapper like me? And anyhow I had important questions to ask about Devonport Dockyard, how long it takes to get from Plymouth to London on the train and something about fishing.

The start of the interview was masterful. I set the scene for our listeners, you know, with one of those preambles that low-level broadcasters like to do. ‘Here we are, me and Tone, in a hotel room with complementary tea and coffee making facilities, a view over Plymouth Sound (the harbour seafront) and it is a beautiful morning. So Tony…’ It was, indeed, sunny and beautiful, but it wasn’t the morning, it was 4pm in the afternoon. Lucky it wasn’t live. I didn’t notice and ploughed on, thinking why are they looking at me funny, while my colleagues back in the studio were simultaneously laughing their bits off at my ineptitude and hoping I didn’t screw the entire interview up.

All seems exciting though doesn’t it? The actual interview was hilarious. I just had a list of Plymouth, South Devon and South East Cornwall (the Plymouth Sound transmission area) related questions that I had to get through. ‘What about the dockyard, the military, council tax and finally, Mr. Blair, what are you going to do for the fish?’ You had to get as much material from the interview as possible so you could run different stories in news bulletins over the course of the next day or so – that’s how it works. Still, it’s a story to tell. And yes, he was an impressive, charismatic and imposing presence. You don’t get to be Prime Minister without having a bit of that, even if you’re John Major, who according to my colleague who interviewed him was incredibly charismatic in real life. Loser McCain’s first name is also John, so it just goes to show.

The election night was an experience. Even in Plymouth Guildhall and even though I had the ridiculous backpack on again, running around grabbing wannabe MPs, elected MPs and losing candidates. And the barely, no not even barely concealed joy amongst almost all the journos there when it became clear that Labour were going to be elected by a landslide. Where was I for Portillo? In the Guildhall with an orange backpack running around like a demented rambler with a microphone.

Back then, we youngsters thought the times were-indeed-a-changin’. He was the people’s prime minister. Blair would lead us to the Promised Land. Well he did some things in that general direction… In the USA Clinton was dragged down by a scandal involving someone who looked like my ex-girlfriend (before we went out she even featured in a paper in a story with the following tagline ‘I can’t get a boyfriend, because I look like Monica Lewinsky.’ She did too, but I’m not going to drag this piece further into the gutter with talk of dress stains and cigars) See, still at the heart of global events.

Obama’s election is a far more significant event in world history than Blair’s, but there are parallels. A charismatic young challenger after a period of turbulence and controversy (although comparing Major’s tenure with Dubya’s is a wee bit unfair, even when you think back to the mental image of Norman Lamont in a bath), great hope amongst large sections of the electorate and the feeling that change was not just inevitable, it was utterly necessary.

It’s not like Blair did nothing good, but it’s impossible to meet expectations and Barack Obama doesn’t need a former Plymouth Sound radio journalist to tell him that. (He is a Tillerpop subscriber, though) He knows to manage expectations, but at the same time he has to work his nuts off to get as much done as quickly as possible before the shine wears off. He needs to plan meticulously for his takeover in January and not make any rash decisions. But I fear he is already doing just that. The announcement that he’s getting a dog for his daughters to take to The White House is a worrying first move. Remember Barack, a puppy is for life, not just for the presidency.

That’s all for now.

Lots of presidential love

Matt

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Popularity: 42% [?]

Hello

A lot of people have asked me, ’Why haven’t you done a podcast about RussellBrandJonathanRossAndrewSachsGeorginaSatanicSlutGate?’ Well three have. And thank you for asking and then accusing me of being afraid to tackle this media storm for fear of upsetting someone important. Well know this naysayers, I’m a fearless commentator, so here goes… The BBC is brilliant. I love the BBC, it’s a great and wonderful institution. Mark Thompson is a fabbo DG. And I’ll keep saying that until they sign me up for a multi-million pound deal and then say what the f*ck I like.  And I will say f*ck a lot, because it is a fundamentally funny word.

A mate of mine thought I worked for Jonathan Ross and that was the reason I wouldn’t tackle this tricky subject, but I don’t; he sold his stake in my employer Channel X years ago and now has a new company, Hot Sauce. I have worked for them in the past and I wasn’t afraid to speak up there, I can tell you. He once came into the office in some kind of teen skater get up, so I said to him, ‘What the %&* is that Ross, you look like a total dick, you’re in your forties for Christ’s sake,’ and he laughed and obviously took my advice on board, because he’s been wearing ridiculous suits ever since instead. That was a lie. I said ‘Hello Jonathan’ and went back to concentrating hard on my monitor internalising my laughter and confusion (It really was quite silly garb).

There’s a serious point in there somewhere. People are afraid to tell big personalities that they’re either looking or behaving like massive tools. And when they have the power to hire and fire their underlings it makes matters worse. I’m sure that if Russell Brand didn’t like a producer, who maybe occasionally said ‘Russell, that bit’s not funny,’ he could have a word in the executive’s, or maybe even the station controller’s (formerly Lesley Douglas at Radio 2) ear and the producer might have to move on. Of course, I don’t know if that’s the case and I have no idea how good or bad Russell is to work with, but it has been reported that several producers have worked on the show. And the guy producing when PhoneF*ckUpGate was broadcast is 25 apparently. Now, you can have loads of experience by that age and you can be a strong personality, but would I have had what it takes to run a show hosted by a big star with a reputation for taking risks in my mid-twenties. I don’t think so. Although I could have calmed him down with a soothing lullaby on my guitar, the poor darling. (For the record Ross was perfectly nice to work for and never rung my granddad reporting on any of my dubious metropolitan activities).

There has been a trend in recent years for talent to form production companies (many independent companies started that way, like Channel X, in response to Channel 4 needing producers to make shows for them as they have no in-house production). This can work pretty well – look at Graham Norton and So Television. And I’m being nice about them even though…

(Here’s the story – I applied to be a producer in spite of the fact that I didn’t have much experience and most of my work had been in factual shows, not entertainment. I wrote a whimsically amusing letter and got a call saying that I was going to be interviewed in front of a panel including Graham. Exciting! Yes it was. I imagined myself flirting away with Norton, everyone’s laughing, and they all love me.  Obviously, they offer me a lot of money to work on the show on the spot. What actually happened was I went into their fancy HQ quite nervous, but ready to grab the panel by the goolies – which would have gone down well. After a short while I was greeted by the producer who just ushered me into his office. What no So Graham? No, so Matt Tiller’s plan to use the ‘might be gay’ card was screwed. Every answer to my interviewer’s questions was ‘I really wouldn’t give me the job, I’d be rubbish. Really bad. I’d probably make massive editorial f*ck ups too. Best get this over with and shuffle me out of here pronto.’ Amazingly I got the job.

I didn’t get the job. That last sentence was a fantasy. Anyhow, it’s probably a good thing. I’d have been riding around on a scooter naked with a webcam for the next six months or something.)

Many presenters and actors do have production companies, but they are usually set up in conjunction with very experienced producers who know how to handle their stars. Jonathan Ross’ Hot Sauce is no exception. However, there is another phenomenon – the production companies set up by agents. Some like Avalon and Open Mike (connected to agency Off The Kerb, who represents Ross) have been successful, but this seems to be more of a compromise. An agent is not a producer. Sure, they want to guide their client through their career and make the right choices, but they also want to make the most money. I’m sure that many shows have been commissioned where another producer (either in house or independent) might have made a better show or had a better concept. They can also be somewhat blind to criticism of their clients. Yes, they are fantastically talented, that’s why they got signed, but even the best comedy talent needs producing, directing and editing.

That paragraph was a bit serious, wasn’t it? Well I can’t make cheap gags in every section. Especially when I’m sat up in bed typing this and its well into the afternoon – I know, decadent. I was up late at a Halloween party where I was asked to play some tunes. It was a shambles, but I made up some stuff about the girl dressed as a tampon and the bloke in the baby outfit…edgy. BrandRoss eat your dark, black hearts out. What have those costumes got to do with Halloween?

Anyhow – I haven’t really expressed an opinion on this, but it goes in line with any sane person. I do understand why young people are supporting Brand and Ross, but I don’t get why many are supporting the prank. Are we all disappearing in a welter of cruelty where laughing at old men whose daughters have sex with people is cool. Most granddaughters will have sex at some point, even ones who aren’t Satanic Sluts, but is rubbing that in granddad’s face funny? My mum and dad don’t even know my sister has had sex and she’s got two kids. (Hi Erica – that’s what you get for complaining about me never mentioning you in a song! x) Mum and dad aren’t on the internet, so that bit’s okay – if you’re a friend of theirs with broadband, don’t tell ‘em.

Oh and, as for the BBC, It’s a great thing, but like any big institution it screws up sometimes and ‘tis a shame that big media corporations and their bosses seem so slow in times of crisis. Just like Andy Duncan and BigBrotherRaceRowGate, Mark Thompson seems slow out of the blocks. I hope that, whatever he’s saying in public, he sorts out the real problems in private. By the way, during the Big Brother Race Row someone shouted ‘Racist!’ at me. I was sporting a Channel 4 umbrella in Manchester – it was raining. What are you going to do about that Andy Duncan? I’ve been damaged by that incident. And I’ve since lost the umbrella. It was a really good one too, although to be fair I did nick it years ago when I was working on the Channel 4 coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. It’s been a rock and roll life people. I can die knowing I lived it to the full.

I think that covers it. The whole palaver is just another sign that we’re all doomed. Come angry waves of globally rising seawater. Drown us now and take us away from all this.

Lots of love and recession-busting happiness.

Matt

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Popularity: 41% [?]

I’m currently attempting to solicit a donation from Oleg Deripaska so I can get an extra page on this site and maybe give you some free stuff. It’s not illegal for me to accept foreign donations and I haven’t been indiscreet about any dinner party conversations, so come on Oleg, where’s the bleeding cheque?

What an absolute prize nobber George Osborne must be. I went to lunch with my mate Alan today. We had fish. It was lovely, although we were both a bit hungover. I had a glass of wine, however, and he didn’t. Who’s the real man now Alan eh? It’s me and it didn’t even give me a headache, though I did have a quick snooze while he popped to the lav. The waitresses commented on it, which was embarrassing. Was I snoring? Dribbling? Fidgeting inappropriately? Even that would not have been as bad as Georgie ‘Bigmouth’ Osborne. He’s even managed to make Mandelson look cool, while he’s the naughty schoolboy hauled off for punishment. And what’s worse is he’s not being given a right good thrashing by the headmaster, he’s being whacked with a cane by the rich bully boy of the class who shouldn’t have the authority, but in reality controls the place.

The veneer of respectability Cameron has tried to pull over his party disappears before our eyes with the publication of those Bullingdon Club photos. And it shows how influential these people still are. The one that’s a worryingly small stone’s throw from real power is called an ‘Oik’ for going to a lesser public school than Rothschild. And when I looked at the date of the photo, I discovered they were both at university at the same time as me. And I’m an inter-continental ballistic missile’s range away from power. In Manchester. Where’s the justice? Gordon Brown… this is something you need to address. Sod the credit crunch. I want real power now. If politicians don’t do what I want, I’m going to hire a barge on the Thames with a big PA, moor up by the Houses of Parliament and busk singing silly songs about them all until the do. Okay?

I think this is an important issue and I’d like to write more about it, but it’s very late and I should head to bed, contemplate my existence and sleep. By the way, if you were in Hull – thank you. If you came to the Manchester show, thank you too. Gigs have been lots of fun recently so let’s keep on popping.

Thanks

Matt

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Popularity: 31% [?]

Hello all. Ahead of my shows in Manchester on Monday and Hull yesterday I appeared on the radio chatting and singing. Here are the interviews for your listening pleasure.

With Matt White on BBC Manchester. I wrote a song - didn’t quite get the words right, but it kinda worked…

Here I am with Steve Redgrave on BBC Humberside - not that one. Steve has no olympic medals, but is an olympian of the airwaves…

Popularity: 35% [?]

Hello there. I’m currently on ‘holiday’ in London – I have a flat in an exclusive area of the city (Peckham borders) that I rent out and my tenant’s away so I’m having a credit crunch city break.

But I arrived to find the current ill winds have gone beyond the banks and blown through my flat – it’s a crisis that threatens to bring down my entire system and leave me in my own personal Iceland. My boiler’s broken and I have no hot water or heating. I won’t be broken though and refuse to let myself become unclean. I summoned up my spirit and gathered all my saucepans together, gave them a rousing speech and prepared to boil enough water for a bath. With each trip from kitchen to bathroom carrying pans of boiling water and kettles full of limescale, I became stronger and more determined that I was going to have a hot soak. No faulty old boiler was going to stop me.

And as I scalded myself with the overflowing pans of steaming water I thought, ‘this is what it must have been like during the war.’ If any of my grandparents were alive today they’d say it was just like Dunkirk. But I know they’re looking down from above with pride at my resilience and I’m looking up to them saying ‘don’t’ worry its okay for you to look down, I’m not xxxxxxx. At least not for a few minutes.’

Spirit like this will get us through these dark days. Courage, togetherness, stiff upper lips and good honest British grit (without any nasty stuff like racism or Robert Kilroy Silk).

We’ve forgotten these important principles now all our children want to be Kerry Katona. Kerry is a living embodiment of the conspicuous consumption that’s got us in this mess. A few months ago we discover that she’s in a financial sesspool up to the neck hoping for another advertising contract from Iceland and now we’re in the sewage too. Thanks for tipping us over the edge, Kerry.

In the midst of the financial hullabaloo, I’ve read that several UK High Street stores are partially owned by Icelandic companies, one of them is, of course, Iceland. There’s something amusingly satisfying about knowing that, not having any idea of the origins of the store until I just looked it up on Wikipedia – it was a British firm and the Icelanders bought it out in 2005.

While everything goes tits up in Rekjavik and Iceland itself stands on the verge of collapse, Kerry must be hoping that the Iceland (store) marketing budget remains in tact. Ironically, as it is a budget store it might do okay. There’s also Icelandic investment money in Gordon Ramsey, so every cloud… and maybe it’ll put a stop to Bjork.

We should all resolve to stop running around throwing our money somewhere we hope might be safe and desperately wishing our property increases in value. If this crisis means I don’t have to engage in another tedious conversation about house prices, then maybe, just maybe it will all have been worth it. I bought my flat to live, love and have hot baths in (even if they are a logistical nightmare due to a knackered old boiler).

It is abundantly clear that none of us has any clue what we’re doing, least of all the bosses of the banks. They are fundamentally selfish and evil while we are fundamentally selfish and too busy to read the bleeding Financial Times.

I’m going to do nothing and hope that when we reach the primordial soup towards which we are inevitably heading, the fittest survivors need funny songs to cheer them up. Then, at last we, the comedy songwriters, shall take the place in society we truly deserve. We shall rise above Kerry, Gordon and Bjork and pimp our predictable rhyming couplets to the scary thugs who roam the Earth - me, Bill Bailey and Mitch Benn desperately strumming for survival. Bejesus

To all my grandparents in the stars above, please forgive me. Just remember that day I sorted myself a hot bath with nothing but saucepans, a cooker and a kettle.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Hello Tillerpoppers. I have resolved to blog a bit more so here goes. It’s going to be great, apart from the fact that you’ll get loads of email notifications. But in this world of spam it’s just one more piece of processed web-meat.

So, as we all descend rapidly into the chasm that is the credit crunch/banking crisis/economic meltdown, let’s not forget that we’re all in this together. Apart from the fact that I’ve got a mortgage with Northern Rock that I can’t get out of. In that sense, I’m very much in it up to the neck and not even Peter Mandelson can get me out of this one. I’m on my own. But if it does all go tits up I’ll ring my mum. She may not be able to persuade my dad to pass a bail out bill through the Tiller family congress, but it’ll be a more mature debate than in Washington. What’s $700 billion between family friends?

My latest songcast speaks the truth – I do have a Northern Rock mortgage and Bradford and Bingley shares. I used to have a look at the financial pages, check out the share price and think ‘when I’m 90 these 250 shares that I undeservedly received just for having an account with a balance of £37.29 will pay for me to go to Florida and swim with dolphins.’ Now I’m left thinking that demutualisation really wasn’t worth the dolphin hope. Don’t worry, I wasn’t a carpetbagger (do you remember them?) I just had a building society account with the B&B. TO be honest having those shares has just added to my admin over the years.

Was it a total bleeding waste of time? All that demutualising and privatising. Do you remember all that? You could get some money for free, simply buy the shares and sell them immediately. It’s a nonsense. Everyone just thinking about cashing in. I know there was other stuff going on – market forces, competition bringing efficiency, but it’s not looking quite so efficient now is it. Vive la revolution.

Like I say in the latest vocal rambling, I do hope you’re all doing okay. Batten down the hatches, panic buy and kill the weaker people. They’ll be gone soon anyway and you’ll need them in the freezer when the world is a wasteland. Have you seen I Am Legend? Only Will Smith will survive and he ain’t me or you sister.

(northern) Rock on!

Lots of love n all

Matt

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Popularity: 39% [?]

What follows is a compilation piece I threw together about the whole Giles Coren thing including the email he sent me, that wasn’t abusive…

Taking the p*ss - when hate figures let you down.

It’s a comedian’s job to lay into things and people who irritate us. Well it’s our job to squeeze laughter out of stuff, but often that means getting irritated and angry with people and that’s okay, it can be a force for good…

About six weeks ago an email that Giles Coren sent to a sub editor was leaked and the columnist/TV presenter really didn’t come out of it too well. The sub had removed an indefinite article, which ruined Giles’ weak saucy joke in a Times restaurant review and his reaction was, well, pretty spectacular. It seemed to confirm that he was a truly obnoxious media tit who deserved to be punished somehow; being sacked by The Times for example or at least forced to review McDonalds, Burger Kings and Greggs the Bakers in perpetuity.

For most of this year I’ve been writing topical songs and making them into little video podcasts for my website, youtube and itunes and that week chose to tackle this very important subject.

Here’s the first verse of the song…

Giles Coren has the charm of an oily garlicky snail

It’s no surprise he sent such an obnoxious email

He may be right about the copy, but he’s still an irritating bloke

his angry email was ten times funnier than his shit blowjob joke

As ever, the video was a massive hit (a few hundred views) and prompted a flurry of comments (3 comments). But then, long after the fuss had died down, I found a new post….

gilescorencunt (3 days ago) Show Hide

That’s so funny. That makes it all worthwhile. You rattle off a fucking nothingy stupid pissed off email to some fuckwit of a sub and months later it gets in the guardian, which is no big fucking deal, and it goes viral, who gives a shit, and then you get a whole actual song! the only bummer is that to post this message i had to create a youtube account and they said that the username gilescoren was taken (so i had to call myself gilescorencunt which is a bit demeaning). who’s got it? why?

Was this the real Giles Coren and did he actually like the song, or was he being sarcastic about my warbling commentary? Being a sensitive artist, I suspected that he hated this barbed attack, hated the song and was just continuing with his superior c*ntery. Although calling himself gilescorenc*nt is quite endearing. No, he was just trying to pull the wool over my eyes, the evil b*st*rd.

I reacted thus on my blog…

Exciting news. Giles Coren has commented on my song about his snotty email. You can see the comment here. At least I’m guessing it must be him. It’s good of Giles to engage in the debate. Except he hasn’t really. Actually there isn’t much of a debate – I’ve sung the song and some people have posted comments. I don’t think he likes the song, but is pleased that someone went to the effort of writing one. There wasn’t much effort into it really – it’s not my best tune, let’s admit it. Actually I just listened back to it and the end’s quite good.

It’s weird that people have posted about Giles’ racist views on youtube

(2 of the 3 comments on my song said Giles was a racist) I hadn’t heard about that – anyone got the evidence? I can’t be arsed to do a google search on it right now. Anyhow, it’s always nice to be noticed, even by the victim of your powerful musical invective, which has surely shaken the media establishment to its foundations. Odd, very odd.

And I thought that would be the end of it, but lo! I check my email inbox and…

Message:

tried to put a comment on youtube but i’m a bit shit at that stuff. just to say: someone sent me the link to your song about me. it’s fucking funny. Maybe it’s just because i’m a vain cunt and nobody’s ever written a song about me before. The whole thing, the jokes, the tone, your sort of diffident manner, is fucking great. and the max moseley thing at the end is the cream - i wish i’d kept that copy of the guardian now, just for that. anyway, there you go. Really funny. and, in its way, far nicer than most of the shit i got over that.

all the best (oh yes, i just always sign off like that, no matter what)

giles

(now i want to write as a refrain:

all the best giles

all the best giles

all the best giles… )

also - you’ll notice that email ended on a stressed syllable.

————————–

That has been published with the author’s permission – not a surprise as he’s being nice, which is nice, but infuriating.

I haven’t pulled him up on the fact that he had managed to put a post on youtube that I’d already seen either, but just then another comment appears…

Lizzie31 (2 days ago)

That is hilarious. What a brilliant song. I’m going to be singing it for weeks.
(Although the two people who think Giles is racist or even “rascist” are twats who have no idea what they’re talking about. Of course he bloody isn’t).
Victoria Coren

This prompted utter fury and anguish as vented in another blog. This is a short extract…

An update on The Coren Situation. The massive t**t has only gone and sent me a nice email. What an utter sh*t. And now his sister’s weighed in with a lovely comment on youtube. Jesus, how can I get angry with the seemingly smug progeny of a much-loved member of Britain’s media establishment when they are being nice to me? This is a complex moral dilemma. Am I so shallow that I succumb to flattery in a nanosecond? Yes. Or have I misjudged the man? We’ll see. If he invites me out on a man date I’ll give you a full personality assessment. I could do one of those minute by minute blogs on my mobile filling you in on his behaviour. It’ll be interesting, but lack any sense of analysis or proportion. Also, it may make the actual dinner chat somewhat stilted. It’s unlikely he’d buy me desert or a digestif.

The full blog goes on about an incident that involved Victoria (at least I think it was her) at university, so go and read the whole thing if that tickles your interest. I’ve cruelly sub-edited this out of my own article, because it’s an irrelevant tangent.

So, how can I go on hating them now? I can’t write a nice song about Giles, it won’t be funny. And will Madonna post a comment on my song about her baby adoption obsession or will Boris Johnson, Ronnie Wood or Princess Diana react thus? Erm, unlikely.

Many newspaper columnists have written about facing people they’ve slagged off in print, some people get angry, some columnists run away in a cowardly middle class fug of embarrassment. I stand by the song – Giles’ email was a highly unpleasant way of pointing out someone’s error, and the joke the sub-editor ruined was a shit joke – but his reaction to it makes me think he might be human. What a way for a hate figure, such a perfect target for comic abuse, to undermine that very status. What a total gilescorenc*nt.

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An update on ‘The Coren Situation.’ The massive t**t has only gone and sent me a nice email. What an utter sh*t. And now his sister’s weighed in with a lovely comment on youtube. Jesus, how can I get angry with the seemingly smug progeny of a much-loved member of Britain’s media establishment when they are being nice to me? This is a complex moral dilemma. Am I so shallow that I succumb to flattery in a nanosecond? Yes. Or have I misjudged the man? We’ll see. If he invites me out on a man date I’ll give you a full personality assessment. I could do one of those minute by minute blogs on my mobile filling you in on his behaviour. It’ll be interesting, but lack any sense of analysis or proportion. Also, it may make the actual dinner chat somewhat stilted. It’s unlikely he’d buy me desert or a digestif.

As for Victoria, I have mixed feelings. I quite like the fact that she plays poker though. Maybe I’m just in the gutter looking at the stars – when I’m massively successful I’ll change and never speak to my old friends from Plymouth – that’s you John. I’ll just be hanging out with the Corens, Stephen Fry and Gordon Ramsey, engaging in witty intellectual banter and eating sh*t-hot food.

I have one distinct memory of Victoria from university. At least I’m pretty sure it was her – we did go to the same place at the same time - although I didn’t know she was the daughter of a notable humorist, or indeed what her name was then. In fact I can’t be in anyway sure it was her, I just have a feeling it was. I was attending a ‘comedy workshop’ and to be honest it was terrible, amateurish embarrassing sh*te, but because the other people were so bad it made me feel good, because I was being quite funny in comparison. So then this girl turns up with a couple of flunkies trailing behind, pokes her head through the door, takes one look and does that disgusted head turn thing.

And I was internally shouting (quite loudly) ‘just stop for a second you judgmental snoot. This may look like sub-standard improvised comedy performed by personality-vacuums lacking one funny metatarsal, let alone a more significant bone in their futile bodies, but I’m here and I’m hilarious. Take me away from all this, snog me (this is the 19 year old me talking, I’d wait ‘til much later now, say 5pm), then home to meet your dad. He’d be won over by my provincial charms and get me a job as a highly paid columnist. You’d get to do a column for The Observer and present TV shows and stuff in due course, but let’s get our priorities right. I’m the one who needs a leg up.’

But she just walked off and I went to work at Plymouth Sound Radio. It’s payback time, Victoria. It might not have been you at all though, and if that’s the case this is going to seem very odd and somewhat mental. That’s okay; it’s about time I got that off my chest. It’s definitely helped me somehow.

I’d like to thank them for their comments though – they made my day. And I should mention that Victoria has resolutely defended her brother against the accusations of racism that have been levelled at him via the comments section on my little song. Where did they come from and why are they using youtube to vent them?

So there we go. I’ll keep you updated on this developing saga, though I reckon that’s probably about the end of it.

Lots of love.

Matt
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Exciting news. Giles Coren has commented on my song about his snotty email. You can see the comment here. At least I’m guessing it must be him. It’s good of Giles to engage in the debate. Except he hasn’t really. Actually there isn’t much of a debate – I’ve sung the song and some people have posted comments. I don’t think he likes the song, but is pleased that someone went to the effort of writing one. There wasn’t much effort into it really – it’s not my best tune, let’s admit it. Actually I just listened back to it and the end’s quite good.

It’s weird that people have posted about Giles’ racist views on youtube – I hadn’t heard about that – anyone got the evidence? I can’t be arsed to do a google search on it right now. Anyhow, it’s always nice to be noticed, even by the victim of your powerful musical invective, which has surely shaken the media establishment to its foundations. He even had to create a youtube account to make the comment and then complains about the fact that his name’s been taken (he has hilariously called himself gilescorenc**t, if it’s him that is). There may just be someone else called Giles Coren, Giles. Odd, very odd.

Lots of love.

Matt
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Hello Tillerpoppers! This is exciting as there are now some people reading this who might possibly be interested. Not all of you, obviously, but that’s okay. Actually the people who are not reading this shouldn’t really be addressed at all. Be more assertive, Matt. F@*£ em!

To those of you who came to see the show and gave me your email so I can bother you with my words and sounds, thank you. I had a great time playing the gigs and am glad you enjoyed it too. A particular thank you to Jason who came to the show and has emailed me from the Falkland Islands. Although it’s probably as easy to do it there as it is for the rest of you. Still, the Falkland Islands! Amazing.

I am just about recovered from Edinburgh – yes it’s taken me two weeks. I went straight back to work and went mental. But I’m okay, don’t worry. I addressed the issue with a combination of booze, anti-depressants and bad films in the early hours of the morning (one of those isn’t true). I’m wild. A trip to the beautiful city of Plymouth also helped. It was sunny and I saw the sea. These two things can be an amazing combination. I am refreshed and ready to rock. God help us all.

I’ll be getting back to songcasting with new stuff soon once I’ve done some basic admin. I’ll keep you posted.

Lots of love.

Matt
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A five star and a one star review in one day.  I have swerved from being a witless loser to comedy genius in less than 12 hours.  That’s Edinburgh.  The truth is somewhere in between.  No, the truth is definitely in the five star one.

The bad one came from Three Weeks which is a kind of studenty festival paper.  To be fair to the reviewer, I unwittingly picked him out of the audience to be a helper and also it was only the second show and things were still a wee bit unsteady (like the show’s ever slick…)  He seemed like such a nice boy too.  The glowing one was on website boredtonight - does it count any more or less.  Definitely more, definitely, absolutely. 

If you have seen the show (and liked it) - do go the fringe website and do a little review or rate the show if you can - it all helps.  If you didn’t like it, why are you reading this?  Leave me alone.  I don’t need to be a part of your life anymore.

In the meantime, I’m trying to have a relaxing Sunday.  Off to see Daniel Kitson’s show in a sec and then to bed… sweet dreams.

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Hello. Edinburgh is like the internet. You get bombarded with information, most of it factually incorrect, editorialised and written in overblown prose by someone who likes to use long words for the sake of them. If I use a long word I shall probably have had to use a wiki-dictionary to find the meaning before confidently using it in a spontaneous fashion.

I am bombarding people with information about my show. When I hand out flyers I say things like ‘there are songs n that’ and ‘if you like musical comedy then that’s a start, if not then probably best not bother.’ So far it’s been fun. First show on Saturday was pretty poor, but I’ve got it together and it’s going well now. I have an interactive element to the Tillerpop show experience and my main interaction involves dragging someone on stage to help proceedings. In my second show, my volunteer was, of course, a reviewer. I need to be more aware of these things – though the sneaky blighter didn’t even get a notepad out and sat in the second row, so how was I to know? The review hasn’t come out yet.

An all female sketch show, Ladygarden, was pretty good with an excellent bunch of young performers. Some of the sketches didn’t quite hit home – I won’t flag them up in case you see it – but the standard of writing was high and the performances were bang on. I loved the p*ss-take of vintage clothes-loving types and lots of other ones.

I am just settling in to my Edinburgh routine. It is, as usual, mental and hectic. I have had precisely one celebrity encounter (Adrian Edmondson – not bad on the scale of things, particularly as Neil and Christine Hamilton were high up the list last year). Hang on, Jerry Sadowitz bought an apple before I was about to buy some strong mints – not as good as the other one, but memorable nonetheless.

Went to see Dan Antopolski on Sunday and he was… okay. He’s had some good reviews and is back on the fringe after a few years off. Saw him several years ago and he was good, but, as with many things in Edinburgh, unable to live up to the hype. He was amiable and good fun, but the material (the sandwich rap and a few other bits aside) was fairly uninspired. Maybe I’m bitter, but comics in their thirties going on about their kids leave me a bit cold.

I saw an enjoyable sketch show at midday today – If You Like – part of the Free Fringe. Energetic young performers who got away without seeming too studenty, onlyjust on occasions, but even that’s quite an achievement when you’re a bunch of middle class young people doing sketches.

Cheero for now from Edinburgh.

Matt
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I’ve just been to Edinburgh for a flying visit (I didn’t fly though, I’m carbon conscious) ahead of my two week run which starts on Sat 9^th.

Dragging three people from a bar into a sweaty upstairs room to watch a comedy show is the kind of festival experience I always crave for. That was the story of a gig I did on Saturday, but it turned out well and I now have three new fans from Loch Lomond. Big up the posse from the bonny banks. There is a naturist colony on the island in the middle of Loch Lomond - just a wee fact for you there. I can’t imagine it being much fun when the midges come out. I once camped by Loch Lomond with a girlfriend when I was young and I can tell you there’s definitely not something in the air that makes you want to cast your garments aside. She kept hers firmly on the whole weekend. And who can blame her?

Apart from this funny gig I also got to work my way around PBH’s Free Fringe, a wonderful institution set up by a wonderful lunatic, Peter Buckley Hill, which I am, this year, a part of. It gives people the chance to perform at Edinburgh without incurring several thousands of pounds of debt and multifarious psychiatric problems. The cost to Britain’s economy of the wastage wrought upon some of the nation’s finest comedic minds probably runs into billions. Many very funny men and women are left broken and scarred, while Jimmy Carr scythes his way to stardom, although he did leave his soul in the gents’ toilets at The Pleasance.

There are some great shows at the Free Fringe from both known and unknown performers. Robin Ince and Josie Long are doing things, Andrew O’Neill is funny, so is Tom Bell and they are also doing things. I saw a preview of John Cooper’s show and it looked like it was going to be an excellent first fringe show – very funny and poignant. I was also impressed by an Australian comic, Alison Bice, who did a spot at the shambolic gig I sang at, she has a full hour. There are others and I’ll mention them when I’ve seen them.

I did go to see a load of shows elsewhere, so I should probably tell you about them, shouldn’t I? My favourite stand up show so far was Michael Fabbri’s Dumbing Up. Very, very funny all the way through with some proper can’t stop, jaw-aching laughter. His writing has always impressed me and there’s always been a shambolic edge that could occasionally tip the wrong way, but this is confidently performed while retaining that sensibility.

Ah Shit! It’s Mick Sergeant is a great character comedy show - properly funny, not just gently amusing or ‘well-observed.’ Mick also does press ups, which for a 48 year old man is impressive. Although Lee Fenwick who plays him is definitely younger than that. But if he’s in character then there’s the ‘truth’ that he is 48, because he’s a committed performer, so it must be very tiring. He’s never divulged his actual age, however.

Fellow Geordie Seymour Mace takes on The Bible in his show Testamental. Seymour is always funny, but I am biased because he plays a game where two members of the audience compete as God and the Devil and they have to make a new species of good and evil animal out of plasticine. The audience vote on the best animal. I was the Devil and I won. Yes, Evil triumphs over Good, which is ironic given the fact that my show is about doing good things. Maybe I was just venting my dark side. My creature did include a cheap knob gag played out through the malleable substance of a long lost innocent youth. I don’t feel good about beating God to a pulp artistically, but to be fair his animal was shit. I won a pair of furry cow hairgrips, which I’m hoping to offload as quickly as possible before anyone suspects that I am not of sound mind or… you know, it’s a paedophile gag coming, so can we just move on?

I was really impressed by Dave Longley. He sets up his cut through the bullshit shtick (in a very funny way) and then tells the story of how he told an ill-judged joke about Madeleine McCann and Rhys Jones… in Liverpool. Just Google it and you’ll find a Daily Mail article that makes it immediately apparent what a nonsense furore the whole thing was. Dave immediately apologised for the joke, but the story went round the world and was, basically, a bizarre nightmare. Challenging, on the edge in a very good way. I had one minor criticism which I passed on to Dave after the show and then felt bad, he has since called me a very bad thing and I am deeply offended. F*&k you Dave (that’s me being controversial). Go and see the show.

Bethany Black’s, Beth Becomes Her was a great story and an enjoyable hour. She’s relatively new to the scene but has an amazing story to tell, which more than makes up for that relative inexperience.

Dan Nightingale is lot of fun to spend an hour with. He’s a very enjoyable comic you can’t help but like. I also saw a theatre show – You Don’t Need To Know That which was well performed, brilliantly staged and funny.

I haven’t seen a bad show yet, which is odd. But then I’ve only been up for a few days. There’s still time to see plenty of broken and battered comedy bodies. And on that cheery note. Goodnight.

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Welcome if you have stumbled upon this site. Otherwise hello again.

So Giles Coren is a prize festering pillock. Well, we knew that. Okay, so he’s not Radovan Karadzic or a terminal illness, but writing songs about either of those could land me in hot water. Although there is the hilarious ’alternative health practitioner angle,’ but when it all boils down to avoiding arrest for the worst genocide in Europe since the Second World War it kinda puts a dampener of any thoughts of finding that tricky rhyming couplet.

What rhymes with genocide anyway. Insecticide, decide, all the other –cides, but not cider. They’re all essentially bad, including decisions. And cider.

Right. I’m going to bed now before this gets ridiculous. See you in Edinburgh if you’re coming. I’ll write a blog about that, or something.

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Hi.  Check out the latest songcast – I’ve done it on a ‘Tillerpop’ background just for fun.

I was actually planning to stick myself on a picture of an exotic beach and pretend that I was in the Caribbean and podcasting back to you from there, but it looked really silly and much less funny than I thought it might be, so I gave up on that idea. 

Still, the psychedelic orange and red thing is fitting given the fact that I’m singing about an old rock n roll star.  Ronnie says ‘I don’t mean any harm, but I just go off the rails.’  Well, that’s what Genghis Khan said and they hadn’t even invented the train then.

It’s been a short while since my last confession, so to fill you in… I’ve been finishing off the Tillerpop album, which will soon be available from a website near you soon.  Well here, basically.  And I’m also working on the Edinburgh show, which is coming together while remaining a total shambles, but hopefully in a good way. 

Meanwhile, we should all get very excited about the Comedy Lab Channel K has made with Peter Slater called Slaterwood – there will be a trailer going up on our site very soon – it’ll be on Channel 4 some time in August.  Don’t miss it.

I am excited about other things too.  But not about Peter Halmosi going to Hull City, which is neither exciting nor surprising news.

Lost of love n all.

x

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Hello. You may or may not have noticed that I’ve had a short break from the songcasting.

That is because I’ve realised that I have a show to write and organise and I start performing it in a month. It’s not far off finished, but it’s a fair amount of work, so all you 9 viewers will have to wait for the next one. It’ll arrive soon.

I am also going to be in Nigel Martin-Smith’s new boyband Asbro. It said that he’s looking for a fifth member in the Manchester Evening News. The band will sing about knives and street things. I am up on all that and am not one of those ballady Take That types that he doesn’t want, so I’m deffo in.

Tonight I’m previewing the show at Long Live Comedy in Newcastle, which should be fun and I’m trying out a load of new video stuff and a couple of songs I haven’t done before, so fingers crossed it doesn’t descend into shambledom.

Today, I’m looking forward to it. I wasn’t last night when everything technical was falling apart around me again. Why does everything we use have to be updated and get better and more complicated? I was happy with my software in 2004. It seemed fine then. Everything was much simpler back in ’04.

For anyone having audio problems with the clips – it’s something to do with audio formats and Macs - I’m trying to sort it out. Hopefully at some point in 2008 we’ll all just be able to get along.

So, that’s it for now. Goodbye and good luck. I shall keep you posted on my movements.

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Hello. Tillerpop is now fully here. The latest songcast has at least one funny line in it, but frankly the melody is sub standard.

My recommendation is to go back to the Facebook one, Princess Di and High Visibility Invincibility and enjoy them first before you start throwing tomatoes at your monitor. As for me, I’ve got three Danone Activia yoghurts in my fridge that are well past their use by date that I’m thinking of chucking at mine. Maybe I’ll chuck one at my guitar. After all, without it this shambles would never have happened.

I currently have three new songs at various stages of development. An Ode to the Environmentally Guilty is a good idea and a nice song, but not yet funny enough – a B side for my third single at best. I think that a new line about the aforementioned yoghurts may be a winner. I’m also trying to write a song about weapons firm, BAE Systems, but so far the best line is basically a w**k gag and I can’t keep doing that with every song I write. Meanwhile I have written a song about self abuse that is very funny, but I’ll be saving that for the Tpop live experience, for fear of offending the online audience. It’s not actually offensive but I don’t want to be pigeonholed as a peddler of base material.

Still no word from the Black Sheep Brewery. Which is disappointing as I would expect that my 5 subscribers on itunes would be enough of an audience to warrant a free crate of ale for Tillerpop. It is a global audience.

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