Me and my mate Malcolm spend quite a bit of time stood outside the office these days. The reason for this is that we’re both smokers. Now before you run off and tell the police, perhaps I should just clear up a few popular misconceptions about people who smoke. Firstly, we do not all carry a small puppy around in our pocket to stub cigarettes out on. Neither do we purposefully flick lit matches through the open windows of old people’s homes (that was an accident and no charges were brought).


Never the less, we remain social pariahs; stared at like carnival freaks outside restaurants, chased from public parks by angry mobs. This is our life now, thanks to the over hyped phenomena that is passive smoking. Anyway, that said, we do abide by the rules and we try not to moan and, getting back to the shelter outside the office, we kind of enjoy the regular opportunity to grab a chat. This morning’s conversation (we have to have equal amounts of topics and cigarettes so here’s a tip girls: if you’re serious about finding Mr Personality, go get yourself a twenty a day man) was about global warming, specifically that frequently misunderstood and much maligned gas, carbon dioxide.


During the course of the discussion we roughly calculated the contribution of CO2 in the atmosphere from you’re average set of lungs, and this totalled up globally to about 30% of the annual USA CO2 emissions. Big number that, but what struck me was that this is the figure calculated at rest. Imagine how much this increases during exercise when your lungs are pumping hard to drag 200lbs of flab round Central Park. My point is this. If we, the smokers, are to feel the full brunt of the law because of a possible link between poor health and passive smoking, shouldn’t those same agencies who persecute us be banning sweat suits too?


The people who jog, sweat and grunt their way through life are not only, for the most part, offensive to the eye but also breathing too much and hurtling our world ever quicker towards its ultimate demise.


Just a thought.


Andy Tilley
Author: Recycling Jimmy

I still don’t know my RSS from my elbow…


And why the hell would I? After all, I’m just an author and an author writes stories doesn’t he? Shit, how I sometimes wish that this were true, for it’s become clear to me over the past 2 years that actually writing the bloody story is just the start of it! You see, once the prose are finished and the characters happy in their new place, these days the author then has to spend pretty much all of his time presenting himself and his work to the world outside of his book. Now that used to mean occasionally sitting around in carefully selected book stores (preferably near your house), sipping crap coffee and smiling at browsers in an effort to convince them that your book about assisted suicide would be a better buy than the cookery book that they actually came in to the shop for. It used to mean, if you were lucky, radio interviews and newspaper ads. Today though marketing means blogging and any author who tells you otherwise is in denial (as I was until my publisher recently and rather brutally beat me into submission). So now I have my own blog. I guest post to blogs. I read blogs. I comment on blogs. I still don’t know my RSS from my elbow but I will do one day; and this from someone who only six months ago thought that blogging was for losers. In fact, thinking about it, now would be a good time for me to set the record straight on this point because, in my ignorance, I could not have been more wrong. It turns out that the blogging community is ram packed with vibrant and talented people who simply couldn’t produce the quality of work that they do without fully engaging the world outside the blog. For me bloggers are producing some of the best writing, the funniest observations and the sharpest comment (political or social) that you can read today and I personally am pleased to be able to contribute to that achievement at whatever level. But aside from the fundamental things that blogging provides (whether it be commercial opportunity, freedom of expression, communication of ideas, friendship or just plain fun) I still gotta ask, where the hell is all this going? Big question I know, and it isn’t one that I intend to try and answer here, although I would like to close by putting a rather strange thought out there.


You see, last weekend I was reading the latest issue of New Scientist. Now I’m not a regular subscriber but me and the girlfriend were on our way to Greece and she likes me to look clever at the airport (this while she fills her boots with copies of Heat magazine and pictures of celebrities without make up…..and by the way, have you seen Cameron Diaz without filler? Scary shit). Anyway, there was an article in the mag’ that laid out an alternative way of considering reality (bear with me) and a possible answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. If the boffin is to be believed, it turns out that the answer could well be 42. He argued rather convincingly that, whilst the scientific community generally accepts that the universe and everything in it can be defined by maths, more fundamentally than this, the universe is maths. As far as I understood it, his theory would mean that you, me, everything we see and experience is simply the result of some as yet undefined (but very simple) mathematical operation. And here’s the crunch. If you can accept this, or even consider that it may be possible that reality is a mathematical expression, then it may go some way to understanding why humanity seems to be moving, with every new fangled gadget and dogs bollox processor, ever closer toward representing itself in a digital format. Weird I know, but maybe not such a stretch if you put the ideas of evolution and a mathematical reality together because after all, wouldn’t that be the result; a super species that disappears up its own digital arse?


Andy Tilley
Author: And why the hell would I? After all, I’m just an author and an author writes stories doesn’t he? Shit, how I sometimes wish that this were true, for it’s become clear to me over the past 2 years that actually writing the bloody story is just the start of it! You see, once the prose are finished and the characters happy in their new place, these days the author then has to spend pretty much all of his time presenting himself and his work to the world outside of his book. Now that used to mean occasionally sitting around in carefully selected book stores (preferably near your house), sipping crap coffee and smiling at browsers in an effort to convince them that your book about assisted suicide would be a better buy than the cookery book that they actually came in to the shop for. It used to mean, if you were lucky, radio interviews and newspaper ads. Today though marketing means blogging and any author who tells you otherwise is in denial (as I was until my publisher recently and rather brutally beat me into submission). So now I have my own blog. I guest post to blogs. I read blogs. I comment on blogs. I still don’t know my RSS from my elbow but I will do one day; and this from someone who only six months ago thought that blogging was for losers. In fact, thinking about it, now would be a good time for me to set the record straight on this point because, in my ignorance, I could not have been more wrong. It turns out that the blogging community is ram packed with vibrant and talented people who simply couldn’t produce the quality of work that they do without fully engaging the world outside the blog. For me bloggers are producing some of the best writing, the funniest observations and the sharpest comment (political or social) that you can read today and I personally am pleased to be able to contribute to that achievement at whatever level. But aside from the fundamental things that blogging provides (whether it be commercial opportunity, freedom of expression, communication of ideas, friendship or just plain fun) I still gotta ask, where the hell is all this going? Big question I know, and it isn’t one that I intend to try and answer here, although I would like to close by putting a rather strange thought out there.


You see, last weekend I was reading the latest issue of New Scientist. Now I’m not a regular subscriber but me and the girlfriend were on our way to Greece and she likes me to look clever at the airport (this while she fills her boots with copies of Heat magazine and pictures of celebrities without make up…..and by the way, have you seen Cameron Diaz without filler? Scary shit). Anyway, there was an article in the mag’ that laid out an alternative way of considering reality (bear with me) and a possible answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. If the boffin is to be believed, it turns out that the answer could well be 42. He argued rather convincingly that, whilst the scientific community generally accepts that the universe and everything in it can be defined by maths, more fundamentally than this, the universe is maths. As far as I understood it, his theory would mean that you, me, everything we see and experience is simply the result of some as yet undefined (but very simple) mathematical operation. And here’s the crunch. If you can accept this, or even consider that it may be possible that reality is a mathematical expression, then it may go some way to understanding why humanity seems to be moving, with every new fangled gadget and dogs bollox processor, ever closer toward representing itself in a digital format. Weird I know, but maybe not such a stretch if you put the ideas of evolution and a mathematical reality together because after all, wouldn’t that be the result; a super species that disappears up its own digital arse?


Andy Tilley

Author: Recycling Jimmy

Finally, jokes have made it across the Atlantic.


And I‘m not talking about the Beckham’s here either. I am of course referring to the out dated cliché that British and US humour are so far apart, you could easily fit Bernard Manning between them. Come to think of it, the middle of the Atlantic wouldn’t be such a bad place for the fat git. Looking back though (and I’m biased here of course) for some time the difference between US and UK comedy culture was indeed vast and I would argue that we were well ahead. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a ‘funny quote’ from one of America’s most zany funny men from way back when.


"The Doc told me I had a dual personality. Then he lays an 82 dollar bill on me, so I give him 41 bucks and say, "Get the other 41 bucks from the other guy !"


Any guesses who siad this? Well that was Mr Jerry Lewis supposedly making the world laugh. Okay, it’s taken out of context here and the gag may work better if delivered to a sultry Deano by a stumbling, stuttering clown, but still.


Staying with the money theme, the UK riposte is delivered here by Spike Milligan, one of our all time greats.


"All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy."


Granted, it isn’t side splitting but it is funny and it is clever. And let’s not forget, the man was officially insane.


Next up for the Yanks, and from roughly the same era, here’s Bob Hope, a smirkin’ an’ a grinnin’.


"I grew up with six brothers. That's how I learned to dance waiting for the bathroom !"


Now I’m sorry and I don’t care who I offend here, but you can put as many exclamation marks as you want after that punchline and it ain’t ever gonna work. Compare this with the brilliance of a British Bob (Mr Monkhouse) who was an equally smarmy but oh so talented wit setting out at about the same time.


“People laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they’re not laughing now.”


Pure genius. But what gives the Brits a 2-0 half time lead here? Well, the difference between these gags is quite simply irony. At least I think it is although I must confess, I’ve never been too confident with the definition of this illusive concept. I mean, is it ironic that I’m basing a whole blog on something I can’t define? Who knows and what’s more who cares. Okay, I could argue that Gervaise’s supremely funny ‘reality’ TV show, The Office (and later The Extras), has led the way recently, but this is in only one genre. I also have to admit that his challenge has been met admirably by the likes of Reno 911 and Corner Gas (or is that Canadian??). As for the standard sit com format, for some time now we’ve had nothing to compete with the likes of Friends, Just Shoot Me and Fraser. Re-runs of Flowery Twats (still a mystery how Mr Cleese got that particular opening sequence of Fawlty Towers past the BBC censors) doesn’t count. So to me, for now at least, the game is up and looks to be heading toward a resounding American victory (and this before they even consider bringing on an offensive line led by the likes of Futurama and the Simpsons).


The point I’m trying to get to here is this; if it’s true that once upon a time the US didn’t do irony, then they sure as hell do now. When you look at the wealth of high quality American comedy shows today, either popular comedy or niche, the British are in danger of getting seriously left behind. As a novelist who deals in comedy writing (dark as it may be) and being fortunate to be published in the US, I find myself more and more looking west to get an appreciation of what people are really laughing at. I know too that if I don’t, it will be easy to lose touch with the latest trends and get set adrift in the mid-Atlantic with only fat Bernard to keep me company.


To quote Homer, "I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman!"


Andy Tilley


Author: Recycling Jimmy
Publisher: Kunati Inc. (September 1, 2007)

ISBN-10: 1601640137