Warming Up

As a comedian and writer you can never really ever go on holiday. If anything going somewhere where you can relax is often the best way to come up with new ideas, even if you are attempting to reach oblivion by making your decision to go all-inclusive worth it (I found out today that a pint of the beer we are drinking cost six euros, which means we might actually consume more than we paid for if we put in a bit of dedication). Today by the pool my mind conjured up a great bit of comedy. And I broke my Twitter embargo to let the world know. Here's what I wrote "Any chance of reassembling the Diff'rent Strokes cast? I've come up with a great bit where Willis is going on about precious rings and elves and Gary says,“What you Tolkein about Willis?' And the sister and dad look on & laugh. Who do I need to talk to about making this reality?”

I then tweeted about how you have your best ideas on holiday.

I thought the joke was pretty obvious, but I had forgotten that Twitter is the home of literal morons and so was able to do a mini international men's day, by replying to every tweeter who informed me that all but one of the cast were dead, “What you talkin bout” and then adding their name. It was strangely satisfying. Especially when I got to write â€œWhat you talkin bout Space Christ.”

Someone else accused me of stealing the joke - I imagine they meant the Tolkien one, though they thought I was being sensitive when I pointed out that that wasn't the actual joke and then blocked me (I love it when over-sensitive people accuse you of being over-sensitive). Someone told me that I had spelled Tolkien wrong, but they underestimated me. I think that is the way that Gary Coleman would have pronounced it.

Others told me to stop tweeting because I was on holiday, but a) it was raining and I was stuck inside with the kids whilst my wife had a massage, so this was my one release from Hell and b) you should do what you like on holiday and the thing I like best is subtly undermining idiots on Twitter via the medium of repetition.

It didn't matter if you didn't like that one though, because I had another great comedy idea, which I then tweeted , "Also had an idea of REM re-recording “What's the Frequency Kenneth?” And changing the lyrics to “What you talkin' bout Willis?” Anyone have any idea how to make this happen?”

Admittedly most of my brilliant ideas on this holiday involve the 1970s sitcom Different Strokes and Gary Coleman's catchphrase from the show. But it's a rich seam of comedy and I am proud of myself. It's good to know I haven't lost it.

Well I might have lost it. I had one and a half pints of beer and some ice cream at this point. All for free. Depending how much I can manage to consume in the next six days.

Fans of true comedy will be glad to know that something properly funny happened just before bedtime. The kids were safely ensconced in night time club, where they watch a film/sleep as the parents all get drunk and pretend they never made the stupid decision to have unprotected sex. As we went to pick them up, my wife popped to the loo and I sat on a plastic chair by the reception desk. There was no one around and I thought I'd be OK to let out a little silent fart. But it was quite a big fart and it wasn't silent at all and the plastic chair acted like a guff megaphone and projected the loud fart so it echoed through the vestibule, just as the receptionist was returning to his seat. I didn't make eye contact, but presume he didn't either, as we tried to pretend this affront to humanity had never happened. Which was tricky as the reverberations had already destroyed the restaurant area, burying the other guests beneath methane encrusted rubble. It's lucky that the hotel was relatively empty I guess and management is still trying to assess the number of casualties. But luckily both the receptionist and I are so embarrassed by the social faux pas that neither of us have felt able to admit what really happened and the disaster is being blamed on shifting tectonic plates.

Other than that, it's a nice holiday so far.