Andy Parsons Gruntled Live

This programme contains strong language and adult humour.

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MUSIC: Suite No. 1, Op. 46 - "Morning" from Peer Gynt by Grieg

-SYNTHESISED VOICE:

-Ladies and gentlemen,

good evening and welcome.

The Sun is a low to medium mass star, which through nuclear fusion

will become a Red Giant and then a White Dwarf.

Even if the Earth should escape eventual incineration by the Sun,

all the Earth's water will be boiled away and the vast majority

of Earth's atmosphere will be lost -

everything on the Earth will die -

die a tragic, elongated, painful death.

Everything will die, die, die,

die, die, die...

It will have all been for nothing.

Now time for some comedy.

LAUGHTER

So, ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Andy Parsons.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Lovely.

Super. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Very exciting to be here. How are we all, all right?

-ALL: Yeah!

-Oh! Fantastic news.

Obviously, when you go on tour, you get excited,

you play these beautiful theatres and then you look at the brochure

and you see that they've sandwiched you in between

the psychic Sally Morgan,

the Tiger Who Came To Tea

and Peppa Pig's Party

and Peppa Pig is playing two nights...

LAUGHTER

Before we get going properly,

I would like to make you aware there is an ongoing campaign.

Zarganar is a Burmese comedian, he's been locked up for 35 years.

35 years, and what did he do?

He basically criticised the Burmese government for their efforts

during flood relief during a cyclone.

35 years.

Let's face it, you could criticise David Cameron,

you could shout that criticism at him,

you could call him a wanker, you could chuck an egg at him,

you could go up and slap him round his chubby cheeks with a wet fish...

And let's face it, the longest sentence you would probably get

is around six months, suspended for good behaviour.

And a lot of people would regard that good behaviour as slapping

David Cameron round his chubby cheeks with a wet fish.

APPLAUSE

We do have a Liberal-Conservative coalition, the first coalition

since the war, Liberal-Conservative obviously two words that

should never go together. Cos they mean completely opposite things.

It would be like having voted for a free-market Communist coalition...

..or a no-swearing fuck party.

LAUGHTER

And I think we can afford to feel disappointed, can't we?

Because they said this general election will be close -

we need your vote, go out and vote. And we went out.

We voted and each one of us here

got a government that in fact nobody voted for.

We managed to get rid of Brown,

but we still now have this glorious mixture of blue and gold...

So it appears we have brown all over again.

And as Chancellor, we have George Osborne,

a man who when the growth statistics came in for the winter, blamed

the fact that they were disappointing on an unseasonably cold December.

Then, when the disappointing growth statistics

came in for the spring, he blamed it on an unseasonably warm April.

If the economy does ever pick up,

it's obviously no credit to George Osborne,

it will be down to seasonably, beautifully average conditions.

Let's not forget George Osborne is the man who has a £4 million

trust fund, although he said recently, and I quote,

he is on the side of the poorly-paid worker,

who gets up at six o'clock in the morning to go off to work,

but then is disappointed to look across the street

and see somebody sat there in their lounge with the blinds down,

living a life on benefits.

And I thought, let's have a little closer look

at that statement from George Osborne.

How could you possibly see somebody sat there in their lounge

if the blinds are down?

And who gets up at six o'clock in the morning

to go and sit in their lounge

if they are in fact living a life on benefits?

You're hardly going to do it, just so as you can wind up

the bloke across the road, who's got a poorly-paid job.

Ha! Nnng!

APPLAUSE

I've been counting how many U-turns the coalition have done so far.

They reckon it's at least 12.

My favourite one is when David Cameron put his private photographer

on the public payroll and then very quickly had to take him off again.

A man by the name of Andrew Parsons...

Some of you spotting a little link there, ladies and gentlemen.

I nick his pass, I can become David Cameron's official photographer

and let me tell you, those photos will look very different

when I'm in charge.

I will not rest on your behalf until I have a photo of David Cameron

snorting cocaine off a naked Nick Clegg...

..hopefully whilst sharing a twin bedroom with William Hague.

Because they say, "Oh, we need to have all these cuts",

but we know that when they've got their pet projects,

they'll find the money, won't they?

David Cameron has said that he basically wants to recognise

marriage within the tax system

and what this means is that for married couples, you'll be

getting an extra £150 a year to encourage you to stay together.

Because that's going to make all the difference, isn't it?

Three quid a week.

"I hate you! I'm leaving you!

"I don't know why we got married in the first place!"

Come on...

There's £1.50 in it for you...

APPLAUSE

And they haven't done some of the things we were hoping they WOULD do.

They haven't done anything at all on bankers' bonuses,

and basically they've done some research,

both International Labour Organisation

and PriceWaterhouseCoopers and they have found that

whether a company pays big bonuses or little bonuses,

they reckon makes very little difference

as to how successful the company is.

But that's not what they tell us at the banks, is it?

They say we need to pay those big bonuses so as we get the best people.

But as we found out from the banking crisis, a lot of the people

they THOUGHT were the best people...

turned out they were shit.

I think we should find a way of holding onto these bonuses

in limbo for a little bit, maybe five years,

something like that, until we can work out exactly whether they

HAVE made a genuine profit or whether it is merely a speculative bubble.

Because let's face it, any arsehole can make a short-term profit,

can't they? You sell your house, you will make a massive profit.

It's only going to come back and bite you in the arse next year,

when you realise you've got nowhere to live.

Isn't it amazing what we hold up as great British business?

Usually, I'm always amazed on The Apprentice

that when somebody gets fired, they get up, don't they,

and they go to Lord Sugar, "Thank you", and they leave.

Surely, that is a perfect opportunity for you to tell Lord Sugar

exactly what you think of him.

"Well...I'm not sure I wanted a job with you anyway, Sugar.

"Because I used to have an Amstrad computer when I was younger

"and it was utter shit."

"Thank you."

LAUGHTER

Who are the people we usually hold up,

right, as great British businessman?

Usually the top three, Lord Sugar, Richard Branson, Philip Green.

Now Amstrad was shit,

Virgin Trains ARE shit,

Top Man IS shit.

If you followed our three best businessmen,

you'd be using a computer that didn't work,

on a train going nowhere,

looking like a prize wanker.

LAUGHTER

So...welcome along, ladies and gentlemen.

Obviously, I am keen to talk about what is going on in the world,

but I am painfully aware there's a very thin line

between being passionate about something

and boring the hole off people on their night out.

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen!

I got into stand-up really because I was quite scared of it.

I'd seen it and I was quite excited by it,

but I was quite nervous about it and almost for a dare,

I signed up to what they call open spots.

I had to do five minutes on a bill with established comics

and I came out...

and first couple of minutes was going OK,

then suddenly I completely blanked,

completely forgot what I was supposed to do,

but I'd had the foresight to write down on a bit of paper all the jokes.

So I got the bit of paper out of my pocket, but I was so nervous,

I dropped it.

There was a lady in the front row, she picked it up

and there was that moment when I'm looking at her, going...

HE MOUTHS

And she passes it back to me, she leans in, she goes, "Keep going!

"You're doing really well!"

I thought, well, that is the sort of heckle I can handle.

I think basically if she'd lent in, screwed it up,

chucked it over her shoulder and went, "You're shit!"

I think I'd have started crying, maybe wet myself,

maybe done a small poo.

I have cried on stage. Yes. I once had giardia.

Some you may know what giardia is -

it's a waterborne salmonella-type illness.

I lost a stone and a half in ten days.

Some of you thinking, "I don't need a diet, I need giardia".

I wouldn't recommend it.

I went to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases,

cos the GP didn't have a clue exactly what was wrong with me

and they finally worked out what was wrong with me

and they said... Doctor gave me some drugs and said, and this is a quote,

"Take these for two weeks, but don't do anything -

"these will fuck you up."

LAUGHTER

Now, I had a gig to do that night, so I phoned up the gig,

said, "I can't do the gig". They phoned back, said,

"It's only 20 minutes, we can't find anybody else, can you do it?"

I was crying before I came out on stage.

I cried for the entire 20 minutes,

I cried as I left the stage.

They fucking loved it.

LAUGHTER

It must've been the most surreal thing ever.

Some bloke trying to crack some funnies, tears pouring down his face

and the whole audience going, "Oh, that is good! THAT is good".

People always want to know the horror stories you've had on stage...

I once did a double act and we came out on stage,

two mics were set up for us and as we got on stage,

we realised that in fact, only one of the microphones worked.

So you could hear the setup to a joke,

but you couldn't hear the punch line.

So you can imagine after a little while,

audience getting a bit restless,

some bloke at the back shouted, "Fuck off!".

And I thought I was being terribly clever,

cos I had the microphone that worked, so I said, "Oh, no, mate -

"we're only going to fuck off if the whole audience tell us to fuck off!"

Lasted about another ten seconds...

Another time, I'm with a friend who's a comic.

He says, "Andy, there's something about your delivery".

He says, "There's a rhythm to it, there's a lilt. It's funny anyway."

He said, "You could say anything, it doesn't matter what you say,

"I'm laughing regardless".

So I thought, this was rubbish,

but we were working together the next night, so I thought, for a laugh...

He introduces me, I bounce out on stage, I go,

"Nnyyha, huh, huh, nyhuh, huh, uuuuugh".

Let me tell you, jokes need words, ladies and gentlemen.

A series of nasal grunts is not sufficient.

I do get asked about the nasal side of my grunting.

Transpires when I was very little, I did struggle to breathe, which

was obviously a slight impediment if I wanted to get any larger...

My parents nicknamed me because my breathing was so bad,

they nicknamed me "the traction engine".

Cos they were sensitive sorts...

And then they took me to a traction engine fair

so I could see what one fucking looked like(!)

What this meant was, I had to spend quite a long time in hospital,

various visits, where they sort of broke open my nose,

chipped some bone out, trying to get me to breathe more easily.

You can imagine this was fairly traumatic as a child.

It did though introduce me to drugs at an early age...

What would happen is they would give me a general anaesthetic

and then as I was coming round, after the operation,

they would wheel me back into the kiddie's ward

and each time I was being wheeled back in, for no reason,

I would sit upright in the bed

and I would start waving to the other children and even then,

there was bit of my brain going, "I have no idea why I'm waving.

"None of these kids want to be waved that,

"I don't want to wave to them, but I am off my tiny tits."

And so...

I know my voice has been described by some people

as like a man trying to go for a shit

and failing.

So if we do have any doubters in this evening, ladies and gentlemen,

I'd like to let you know I have had quite a few plaudits

from the national press.

Oh, yes, Evening Standard described me as,

"A potato-headed Mel Smith lookalike."

Guardian described me as,

"A bullet-headed, frustrated town crier."

And the Daily Telegraph described me as,

"An alarmingly well-informed fruit-and-veg seller."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That is normally what I get - bullet-headed, egg-headed,

potato-headed, cueball.

And I always think, how can you be all of those things?

I can't look like a potato, a bullet, an egg AND a cueball.

When have you ever been in a pub, looked for a pool table, found

a pool table, looked for a cueball, not found a cueball,

and thought, "Fuck it, let's use a potato?"

LAUGHTER

Cos things can annoy you, can't they? Things can get on your tits.

Often it's to do with British foreign policy.

We've now been in Afghanistan ten years. Of course,

we first went into Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan

to try and find Al-Qaeda.

Now it appears that Al-Qaeda have in fact left Afghanistan

and gone into Pakistan, but we're not allowed to go and look for them

in Pakistan, because Pakistan is our friend

and they're still helping us look for them in Afghanistan.

APPLAUSE

The Americans' weapon of choice at the moment, the predator drone.

Now, the statistics are that they reckon

for every militant the drones kill, they kill ten civilians.

Not only is that illegal, but it's also a US military estimate,

so goodness knows exactly what the real figures are.

They have killed so many people

at weddings in north-west Pakistan,

you are amazed if anybody gets married there at all.

"Does anybody here know any reason

"why these two should not be joined together?"

Yes, it makes a whirring sound

and it's coming round the sodding corner.

And you think some of the things that we've put in place,

are they proportional to the threat that we actually suffer?

You may have noticed that now,

basically because of the Christmas Day bomber, if you fly to America,

for the last hour of your flight,

you're not allowed out of your seat to go to the toilet.

The reason is, when they were circling over Detroit,

that's when he tried to detonate his bombs.

They thought, we know how we can stop that -

for the last hour, you can't go to the toilet.

And you're thinking, will that make any difference?

Surely, if you've got a bomb on board, you'll know that

and you'll just detonate that bomb 65 minutes before you're due to land.

You're not going to be sat there in your seat,

strapped with plastic explosives

and suddenly see the "fasten seatbelt" sign come on and go,

"Fuck me, that is me foiled".

There's obviously still ongoing difficulties in New York.

Still a lot of outcry about this proposed Ground Zero mosque.

Quite a few problems with it, not least of all

cos it's not in fact at Ground Zero. And it's not in fact a mosque.

We know that 9/11 changed the world, if for no other reason than that

Nation of Islam used to be massive in America. No longer.

Loads of black people were joining Nation of Islam -

not so much any more.

It's tough enough being black without becoming a Muslim as well.

Be like being gay and then dying your hair ginger.

You don't need the extra hassle.

APPLAUSE

Not that I'm having a go at ginger people, I want you to know that.

Gingers and baldies need to stick together against those hair fascists.

A carrot-top/potato-head vegetable alliance!

But if we ever go on a rally and the sun is out,

there'll be a lot of factor 50 on show.

My real problem with the Ground Zero mosque is that basically

it's equating Islam with terrorism.

There is a lot of anti-Islam feeling around the world today.

In Switzerland, you may have noticed they've banned minarets recently.

One of the reasons they said they wanted to ban them was because

they didn't want a call to prayer at four o'clock in the morning.

Turns out it was a bullshit argument

cos these minarets were only ever supposed to be symbolic

and you can see why that would be the case - you would hope in 2011,

most people in Switzerland would have a powerfully accurate alarm clock...

which has the advantage that you can turn it off.

Not quite so easy to get up, tap the Imam on the head

and put him on snooze.

But I did hear the argument advanced, why does it matter?

Surely a call to prayer is exactly the same as church bells?

And I thought, no, I don't think they are exactly the same thing,

because let's face it,

if you heard church bells at four o'clock in the morning,

you would think we were at war,

the Nazis were at Dover or the vicar was fucking HAMMERED.

APPLAUSE

Islam, it obviously encourages a lot of devotion.

One of the ways it does this is that people have to pray five times a day.

Anything you've got to do five times a day,

you tend to take pretty seriously.

We're all supposed to eat five fruit and veg every day.

Now, we struggle to do that.

Imagine you had to eat those five fruit and veg at set times every day,

when some bloke up a tower started wailing fruit and veg at you...

..at which point, you had to start reciting various passages

from Delia Smith's healthy cookbook,

whilst pointing in the direction of Norwich.

APPLAUSE

People get cross with comedians.

"How come comedians always take the piss out of Christianity,

"how come they never talk about Islam?"

So, it was nice to mention Islam to begin with, but obviously

it would be a shame to miss out on Christianity altogether...

There are five major world religions.

Four of them have got to be wrong.

And they often seem to have nicked bits off each other, don't they?

Jews, they don't eat any pork, Muslims don't eat pork,

Hindus don't eat any beef and Christians,

they seem to eat virtually everything,

including at Christmas a beef sausage wrapped with a bit of bacon...

as a big "fuck you" to all the other religions...

APPLAUSE

But it does seem things might be changing slightly.

We did have the Pope this year telling us

that he thought it was OK for male prostitutes to wear a condom.

So if you ARE Catholic and you DO want to wear a condom,

there appears to be only one way to go.

LAUGHTER

And it does seem surprising, doesn't it,

that in 2011, basically we still have a man who has never had sex

who is telling one billion other people how they should be having sex.

The Pope is saying homosexuality is unnatural.

I was thinking, surely the most unnatural thing in the world

is not to be having any sex whatsoever?

Virtually every living organism on the planet is having sex,

apart from amoebas and Catholic priests.

If God hadn't meant us to have sex, God would not have put

so many pleasure receptors around our genitalia

and I for one am not going to let God down.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Apparently, one in five people in America don't think Barack Obama

is a Christian, they think he's a Muslim,

although he goes to church every week.

These people, they don't think him going to church every week

makes him a Christian, they think it just makes him a bad Muslim.

Most of these people are from the Tea Party,

or as they are otherwise known, Teabaggers.

LAUGHTER

Obviously, that means something very different in this country.

I can't wait for Sarah Palin to turn up in Britain,

touch down at Heathrow and go, "Hello, I'm a teabagger".

Some of you laughing,

some of you may need the word "teabagging" explained to you,

at the end of the show.

HE GIGGLES

Somebody going, "Yes, I would fucking love to know what that is!"

But if you don't know much about the Tea Party,

they have got some great characters.

There's a woman called Christine O'Donnell.

If you don't know her, Google her.

She comes out with some great statements.

She's often on Fox TV, comes out with statements like,

"Masturbation is sinful and the equivalent of adultery."

The thing is, she is actually quite fit,

so I wonder how many people in America watching her on the telly,

are trying to crack one off,

and then justifying it as an act of political rebellion.

I've noticed there seems to be more than just wanking out there now,

there seems to be an increase in super-wanking.

Wanking plus strangling - auto-asphyxiation.

I mean, who takes their trousers down for a wank, looks at their belt

around their ankles, thinks,

"That's doing nothing at the moment...

"I think I'll strangle myself with this?"

Who has done the research?

Who said strangling yourself

and starving yourself of oxygen was going to make things better?

I have held my breath underwater at a swimming pool before now

and let me tell you, it didn't give me a ginormous stiffy.

For which I am grateful.

I think if I was having a wank and I started strangling,

I think it would put me off the wank!

I don't think I'd be able to relax and enjoy it.

I'm not fantastic at multitasking as it is!

I think if I was wanking and then started strangling,

I'd be worried I was doing too much strangling and not enough wanking.

I don't think it'd help, they go, "Don't worry if it goes wrong,

"no - you'll die with a smile on your face!"

I don't think you would.

I think you'd die with a look of sheer panic on your face, going,

"I knew it was too tight!

"This isn't how I want my mother to remember me!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That came out a bit from left-field, didn't it?

This is the point where some of the slower members of the audience think,

"I don't think this IS Peppa Pig's Party..."

It's amazing what people can get into.

If you spend some time in a spa hotel in Britain, there is every chance

that they will currently offer you Hopi ear candling.

For those of you who don't know what that is, that's where they try

and stick a hollow candle in your ear

and light it to get rid of ear wax.

So, to try and get rid of wax, they're melting wax in your ear.

It is insanity, isn't it?

It would be like if you're constipated,

trying to go for a shit by shoving poo up your own bum.

It's that new health campaign, isn't it? Drinkaware.

-Woo!

-Yeah! So, somebody IS drinking aware, as we speak!

According to Professor Nutt, the ex-drugs tsar of the government,

he reckons that alcohol is more harmful

-than either crack cocaine or heroin.

-Rubbish!

There we go, somebody's done all three as an experiment...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

..and is still coherent enough to shout out, "Rubbish!"

And do you know, sir, what he reckons is the least harmful of all drugs?

Mushrooms.

Not only does it get you off your tits,

but it's also one of your five fruit and veg a day.

I, myself, have recently taken up wearing contact lenses

and let me tell you, taking those out when you're pissed,

oh, that's an event!

Usually, you manage the first one,

you manage to scrape that off your eyeball and then often,

you're so pissed, you're looking for the second one in the same eyeball.

You're having a panic that it's all up inside your eyeball

when it should be pretty obvious that it is, in fact, in the other eyeball

because it's the only eye you can see fairly well out of.

We have our health secretary, Andrew Lansley,

who has decided to introduce a new minimum price for alcohol -

21 pence a unit - to discourage us from drinking.

AUDIENCE BOOS

Shepherd's Bush are furious!

Even the bloke at the back there's going,

"Well, fuck it, I've always got crack cocaine."

Basically, they did some research.

They were trying to work out how many supermarket offers

were being affected by this new minimum price for alcohol.

They did 400, tested 400 supermarket offers,

found out that only one was actually affected, and this was

an offer which was basically 24 cans of Strongbow for a tenner.

Now, when you hear that, do you think, "That is ridiculously cheap?

"I am good that this government are doing something about that!"

Or are you thinking, "Oh, that's a bit of a bargain.

"I think I will check out the Department of Health website

"to find out which supermarket was offering this."

Police have been criticised recently for a number of things.

You may have seen that they're keeping our DNA,

DNA on their database for 12 years, even when we're innocent.

They said, "Well, we should do that," quoting some statistics

from the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science.

Now, I have a problems with the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science,

not least because they've yet to find the killer of Jill Dando.

It would be like having a Lord Lucan missing persons helpline.

They've also decided that they are going to have Sarah's Law,

they're going to put it through the country.

They started with a few little areas to see if Sarah's Law would work.

This is basically a campaign from the News of the World

where you can find out how many paedophiles live on your street.

The police won't actually tell you exactly where they live,

they'll just tell you how many there are so's you can have a good gossip

with your neighbours trying to work out where you think they are.

Obviously helps if you live on a short street.

If there's only three houses on your street,

there's going to be a lot of suspicion falling on the old bloke

who lives across the road who's just lost his job with the ice cream van.

And they were also criticised for during the volcanic ash crisis,

they used terrorist legislation to prosecute a bloke

who's recently lost his appeal, and charged £1,000 for causing a menace.

What did he do? Well, he went on Twitter. He had 600 followers.

He was hoping to go and see a girl in Northern Ireland.

He went on Twitter and said, "Crap, Robin Hood Airport is closed,

"I'm giving you a week and a bit to get your shit together,

"otherwise I'm blowing an airport sky high!!"

Now, surely that is fairly obvious that is an attempted joke.

It would be difficult to assume that that had come from Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda don't tend to tweet, do they?

Or use exclamation marks or the word "crap"

or give you a week and a bit "to get your shit together."

They've also been criticised because they'd used some Tasers

during the Raoul Moat killing,

two Tasers that they weren't authorised to use.

Turns out in America, 43 out of 50 states,

it's legal for the police to use Tasers.

But it's also - get this - legal for the general public.

Doesn't that blow your mind?

Oh, if you had a Taser in your back pocket,

oh, you'd be tempted, wouldn't you?

Some yob is driving their bike on the pavement, bumps into you - Taser!

Somebody jumps the queue in Tesco - Taser!

Next door neighbour's cat shits in your garden - Taser!

God squad knocking on your door nine o'clock Sunday morning,

"Can you see the light?"

"No, but you're about to..."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Don't forget the Underground!

That was a very bizarre heckle.

That sounded like, "Don't forget the Underground."

-Was that exactly what the heckle was?

-Yes.

Er... I won't forget the Underground.

No, if you...

I appear to have been heckled by a Womble, ladies and gentlemen.

APPLAUSE

If you are worried about missing your Tube, you are safe.

I will make sure that we get done by that time.

-Was that you what you were worried about?

-I don't...

Or was it you just wanted me to remember the Underground

as if I was often wandering round London going, "Fuck me,

"I wonder how I should get from Shepherd's Bush to Oxford Circus?

"If only there was a convenient public transport I could use -

"Oh! The Underground!"

People are very sensitive now about comedy, especially the BBC -

anything to do with religion or crime, very, very sensitive about it.

And because the BBC is licence-fee funded, any complaints they get

they have to take it very, very seriously.

So for those of us who wouldn't normally complain,

we almost need to complain to balance it out against those people

who are always complaining. And you can actually do it really nicely.

It's very easy. Go on e-mail, bit of fun -

"Dear BBC, I believe some people last week,

"I believe they found something offensive.

"Now, not only did I not find it offensive,

"but I found people finding it offensive offensive.

"And what is more, I would find it even more offensive

"if you didn't repeat the supposedly offensive material

"so as I could enjoy it one more time but in fact,

"enjoy it all the more now

"knowing it was reoffending the easily offended!!"

"I'm giving you a week and a bit to get your shit together."

My favourite complaint to the BBC was in fact

when Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

The BBC had pledged that whenever he was released,

they would cut to it live.

Turned out it was in the middle of an episode of EastEnders.

And the BBC got a complaint from a lady -

"Dear BBC, Nelson Mandela had been in prison for 27 years.

"How come he couldn't have waited another half an hour?"

And as a small example about how sensitive

the BBC are at the moment, you'll never hear on any BBC TV show,

you'll never hear the word "mental" in a comedy show,

cos they believe at the BBC,

they think it's offensive to the mentally handicapped.

My argument would be you actually use it in a very different sense.

You might say to your mate,

"Oh, let's get down the pub and get mental."

You would never say to your mate, "Oh, let's get down the pub

"and get mentally handicapped."

You would never say that.

But according to the BBC, right,

the correct phrase to use is "cognitively impaired."

Now, is that going to catch on and if it does, won't we have people down

the pub taking the piss going, "Let's get cognitively impaired!"?

Basically, you then think,

what are the words the BBC are happy for you to use?

Very happy for you to use "nutter," that's fine. "Nut job," fine.

"Demented," even, they're happy with that.

And you're thinking,

"Well, how come those words, how come they're any better?"

Surely, you know, you'll have nutters watching the television going,

"I can't believe he said that!

"I'm not a nutter! I just went a bit mental."

Sometimes you despair of television, don't you?

There was times during the Royal wedding on the BBC News

I heard a BBC reporter say, "Is Kate the new Diana?"

No. No, she's not and how freaky would it be for William if she was?

That is the sort of thing

you might have seen in the News of the World, but no longer.

CHEERING

It appears to have gone down fairly well with this audience.

I guess this current obsession with celebrity,

partly it's to do with boredom, isn't it?

It's amazing what people get up to because of boredom.

I was recently in a Costcutter supermarket in Edinburgh.

I bought myself a jar of Hellman's mayonnaise.

Good times.

I got that jar home,

I opened it up looking forward to mixing it with tuna, put my spoon in.

There was something apart from mayonnaise in that jar.

And I pulled it out

and it was a pair of underpants.

So I thought, "This is quids in. Quids in!

"Let's send this back to Hellman's, I'm going to get some money."

Couple of weeks later, I got a letter back from Hellman's.

This is a photo copy of the letter they sent me.

I'd like to read you little bit of it, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go.

"Dear Mr Parsons,

"We refer to a complaint regarding a 600 gram jar

"of Hellman's light mayonnaise."

Looking after myself.

LAUGHTER

"We have now received a report from our quality control laboratory.

"Following an examination of the contents of the returned product,

"our quality manager identified the foreign item present

"as a pair of underpants.

"The jar was only half full of mayonnaise,

"indicating some product had been removed prior to the item being added

"and there was only mayonnaise present on the underpants

"on the areas that were touching the product and the sides of the jar.

"We can definitely confirm that there is no factory source for such an item

"and furthermore, it would not pass through the filler nozzles

"present during the manufacturing process.

"Given these facts, we are sure you will understand our conclusion

"that the underpants did not enter the product

"at the point of manufacture."

They are basically accusing me

of sticking my own underpants in the jar.

APPLAUSE

And you're thinking, well, why didn't I sue them?

Well, basically it turned out I couldn't sue them

because I hadn't actually suffered any damage.

I hadn't swallowed the underpants

and the only emotional distress I'd been caused

was phoning up everybody I could think of going,

"You will not believe this!"

How unlucky was I?

In Willy Wonka, they bought a chocolate bar

and they won a trip round a factory.

I had bought a jar of mayonnaise and won somebody else's underpants.

And I presume it was a Hellman's employee -

they were bored, they hated their job, they thought,

right, I know what I'm going to do, here we go."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going commando!"

But I am slightly nervous of telling this story,

if only because I'm worried that Max Clifford might find out about it

and then at some stage in the future,

I might see some ex-Hellmann's employee

holding up a jar of mayonnaise in a tabloid

with the headline, "Andy Parsons ate my underpants."

Well, I guess this Hellmann's employee,

I guess they were just trying to cope with life

and I guess that's basically, when it comes to sensitivity over jokes,

that's essentially where the two debates are.

It's basically the dividing line

is people and their coping strategies for tragedy.

Some people, they decide the best way to cope with tragedy

is to tell what other people regard as sick jokes.

And then some people go,

No, that's wrong, that's flippant. I don't want to talk about things,

"I want to block it out. I don't want to acknowledge things go wrong."

And I think they're both valid coping strategies for life.

But if I had to choose between one or the other,

I would always prefer to talk about something

because otherwise, to me, if you shut things away,

there's a chance you might find yourself aged 65, say.

Maybe your partner's left you,

maybe you've realised your kid's on drugs.

Maybe you think, "I've fought for 40 years,

"nobody's ever said thank you."

Maybe you've realised your body's fucked,

your pension's worthless, your dog's got a tumour and there is no God.

And you're thinking, the only way is to hang yourself

and the tragedy is, at that moment,

you wouldn't even know you could be having a wank at the same time.

Comedians, we are always supposed to be the most depressed.

That's what people say. "Oh, yes, tears of a clown."

Yeah, smiling on the outside but deep down they were miserable.

And if you meet a lot of comedians, most of them aren't like that.

I always think the reason that people think comedians are miserable

is that whenever they meet them off stage,

they weren't as funny as when they were on stage.

But surely that is logical?

You'd be quite surprised, wouldn't you,

if you walked past my house at six o'clock in the morning

and I was sat there with the blinds down going, "Ahhhh."

Comedians want to be happy. We all want to be happy.

You'd have thought that Adele would want to be happy, wouldn't you?

Adele's had two multi-award-winning albums - 19 and 21.

21, supposedly the best selling album this year in the world.

You think, "Surely she should be happy?" I don't think she is.

I'm sure some of you've got the album.

Track number one - Rolling In The Deep.

Talks about the relationship between her and a man,

saying they could have had it all but they haven't.

Track number two - Rumour Has It.

Well, find out why they haven't had it all

because this bloke has gone and run away with another woman

and they have it all.

So then, track number three - Turning Tables.

This is where Adele says that her and her bloke are fighting a war

but she doesn't know what they're fighting for.

I'm guessing they're fighting cos he's fucked off with another woman.

Then we have, Don't You Remember? Track number four.

No, he doesn't remember because he's still fucked off.

So, track number five, she sets fire to the rain.

But, sadly, the rain burns and she cries.

So we move on to track number six...

Don't You Remember?

It's a repeat of track number four, cos I've got a bootleg copy.

APPLAUSE

Proper track number six - He Won't Go.

Fairly obvious exactly what's happened here.

He fucked off, he came back, now he won't go.

So we go on to track number seven - Take It All.

This is where he has now decided to go and he's taken everything

and she's not very happy. Track number eight - I'll Be Waiting.

This is where he went, he wouldn't come back, he did come back,

he wouldn't go, he took everything

and she's now waiting for him to come back.

Track number nine - One And Only. Sounds a bit more promising.

She has decided that he is the one and only.

Sadly, he hasn't decided that because he's still fucked off.

Track number ten - Love Song. You are thinking, "This is good.

"Surely she's got it together here?" You listen to the lyrics.

It goes, "Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel fun again,

"Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel young again."

She's only 21!

How young does he make her feel?

It sounds like she's finally found somebody to love

and it's a paedophile!

APPLAUSE

So we go to the final track of the album, Somebody Like You.

This bloke has gone and married somebody else,

so she wants to try and find somebody like him.

This is the bloke she fought a war with, made her cry, fucked off,

came back, took everything, fucked off again,

married somebody else and made her dress like an 11-year-old.

Why the hell does she want to find somebody like him?

Surely she should write a song,

Somebody Nothing Ever Like You Ever, Ever Again -

After 12 Songs I've Learnt My Lesson.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I will be going in a little while, ladies and gentlemen.

Obviously, it's very sweet of you but we've got tubes to catch...

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Obviously, the tradition is when the comedian leaves, you applaud.

And depending on how much you applaud

will depend on whether the comedian comes back.

Obviously whenever I go and see other comedians,

I like to applaud really, really heavily,

especially when I know they haven't in fact got any material left.

But my advice to you, ladies and gentlemen,

when I do in fact finally go, not to bother to clap too hard

because regardless of how hard you cap, I'm not fucking coming back.

That's at the very end. Obviously, about two minutes before the end,

like a lot of comedians, I will pretend to go off

and then if you could all go absolutely apeshit,

I promise to come back.

I'll wrap it all up really, really nicely,

otherwise I'll eke it out very painfully,

maybe start crying, maybe do a small poo.

We do want to be happy, and maybe perhaps surprisingly,

David Cameron has picked up on this.

He's decided he wants the Office of National Statistics

to get back to him with a happiness index

to find out how happy Britain in fact is.

Seems curious timing, doesn't it?

When the economy is tanking,

his government are making loads people redundant,

there's riots all over the place,

trying to find out how happy Britain in fact is.

If he really give a toss about how happy Britain was,

maybe he'd think about having his bike nicked again.

I don't know about you, that was a funny day for me.

If your day ever stinks, dig out the YouTube footage of David Cameron

coming out of Tesco basically with his bike helmet going...

LAUGHTER

It'll cheer you up no end.

But what David Cameron may find

is that they've already done loads of studies on happiness.

Britain is always well down the list of happy countries.

Top four countries in almost any happiness study,

usually the Scandinavian countries

and they reckon that they're the happiest countries

because they're the most equal.

We in Britain, we've got a lot wealthier in the last 40 years

but we've become much more unhappy because we've become more unequal.

Is it any wonder, maybe, that people in Britain aren't that happy

if somebody who went to Eton, married to the daughter of a baronet,

cousin of the Queen, worth conservatively estimated £5 million,

and is the leader of the country then has the cheek,

along with his Chancellor, to come out with things like,

"Oh, we're middle-class and we're one of you

"and we're all in it together."

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, THAT is cognitively impaired.

LAUGHTER If David Cameron...

APPLAUSE

If David Cameron is middle-class,

most of us are halfway up a chimney going,

# We're a little bit na-na

# We're a little bit na-na. #

This is the man who may well actually see

the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Scotland may decide to leave

and that must be a tragedy for a Prime Minister

whose full name is David William Donald Cameron.

That'd be like losing Yorkshire

when your full name is Harry Ramsden Boycott Tetley.

APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, we have talked about quite a few things tonight.

If you ever do go up to a comedian

and quote some of their jokes back at them,

you may be surprised to find out they're not that happy.

People don't like people coming up to them and telling them their jokes.

Me, I love it. If you could remember some of the jokes, came up to me,

anything about International Labour Organisation or Zarganar,

I would love that. But my guess, basically,

if you do ever think about this gig tomorrow morning,

all you'll be able to remember

is that I once found some underpants in a jar of mayonnaise.

APPLAUSE

And if nothing else, one should never forget the Underground.

LAUGHTER

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and good night!

CHEERING

Thank you.

Well, that is very kind of you, ladies and gentlemen(!)

That is most unexpected.

We do, we do want to be happy.

It does appear that people try and achieve it in different ways.

Some people, they achieve happiness

by sticking their underpants in a jar of mayonnaise.

Other people appear to achieve it

by strangling themselves with their own belt

whilst watching Hannah Montana.

Oh, has that been the one that pushes you over the edge, has it?

"Say what you like about Afghanistan

"but don't you talk about Hannah Montana!"

I did that joke in Manchester, right?

Some bloke at the back shouted out, "It's OK, she's 18 now!"

And if you do want to be happy, think about getting a pet.

Apparently, it will add years onto your life

and you'll be much happier.

My advice to you, not to get a cat.

We already have 10 million cats in Britain

and they apparently kill 300 million creatures a year,

including 55 million birds.

They are evil fuckers.

And they are even more evil when you find out that, in fact,

even if you put a bell on them, they're sufficiently evil

that they can learn to walk along

without ever moving their neck whatsoever.

I think, not only should they have a bell round their neck,

they should have a bell round each of their paws and their tail as well.

They should be a feline equivalent of a morris dancer.

APPLAUSE

But however, however well things are going,

don't be too smug and complacent.

Things can change incredibly quickly.

As an example of this, I was recently in Finland,

trying to work out quite how happy those Finnish people were.

I went to a place called Rovaniemi. I went in the middle of summer.

You can go see the midnight sun, 24-hour sunshine.

I cycled all the way up to the Arctic Circle,

six miles up a big steep hill, went to see Father Christmas.

He was in fact on his lunch break when I went.

Oh, yeah, he can deliver 6 billion presents simultaneously

but he still needs an hour for his f... lunch, ladies and gentlemen.

So I'm cycling down this hill back into Rovaniemi

having not seen Father Christmas.

It's a summers day, I've got my shorts on, having a lovely time.

As I'm going down this hill, a bumblebee goes up my shorts.

And you can imagine, I've got a bit of momentum going down the hill.

It's not easy.

I take me feed off the pedal and I'm trying to get them bumblebee out.

You can see the bumblebee blowing around in my shorts.

And I'm going, "Don't sting me cock! Don't sting me cock!"

And I can't get it out, and I aim the bike towards a ditch, and I throw the

bike down and I throw my shorts down, and I knock the bumblebee out.

It's not stung me, hooray!

It's at this moment I realise there is a group of schoolchildren

coming down the hill, having been to see Father Christmas.

And I'm there going, "Bzz, bzz, bee! It was a bee!"

And they seem unimpressed. There's a teacher with them.

He's basically looking at me very suspiciously and I'm thinking,

"Well, I'm in a foreign country, I could be in a bit of trouble here."

But I'm thinking, "My wife's cycling behind me,

"she'll back me up, everything should be fine."

What I've not thought, how it looks like from my wife's perspective.

All she has seen is me cycling like an idiot down the hill,

screaming me head off, heading toward some schoolchildren,

pulling my trousers down and going, "Wahey!"

So, fair play to her, she cycled straight past.

APPLAUSE

Thank you again. Good night.

CHEERING

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd