Promotional material for my upcoming Edinburgh show has started to come out.
Many happy returns,
Author Archives: Raph Shirley
Raph Shirley
… is on the internet.
Raph Shirley: Actor. Author. Librarian. Pedagogue. Publisher.
BLOGGERÂ extraordinaire!
Raph Shirley has been winning awards since birth and wowing the world with his award winning awards.
Before GCSE‘s he shared a toothbrush brand with Tom Cruise.
Raph Fought in the second world war… and won. Twice.
Whether you are looking for a friend or a foe or a lover or a petrol station. RAPH shirley provides it. Cheap. Free. Luxurious.
BUY NOW!!!
Like you
May I recommend the following piece of music to enjoy while reading: open in new window.
I recently found out that I have an exceptional IQ.
My…
I…
Q…
is…
zero*. I was not happy. I took the exam and stuffed it in the mouth of the examiner, which I thought should get me at least one point for a slam dunk. Alas, Alan Quantick, 57, of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, was an old bore and called security.
Consider the following question (this was an example, before the test had begun!):
For the following series of numbers, select the number that should replace the question mark.
1,2,3,4,?
Is it 1, 7, 3, 4, or 5?
True answer = how can we possibly know?, or whatever I say it is. Supposedly, the right answer is 5. Why? If the question was ‘what do you think most humans would put in place of the question mark?’, ‘What number produces the sequence of minimum entropy?’ (even then I think the answer might be 1 or 0), ‘do you speak English?’, or even ‘Play ball cunt!’, then yeah I’d put 5, but I honestly don’t see how 5 is a meaningful answer to the question. In short the question asks you to perform induction, which any a-hole knows is not valid. No matter how far Al Gore goes up a scissor lift it remains not valid.
It isn’t intelligence to play ball, or to find similarities between objects, intelligence is the ability to hold contradictory beliefs. Thus I saw the best answer to every question to be ‘How should I know? Now shimmy off you old bastard!’.
Didn’t wanna do well anyway mate,
* I realise that in actuality getting zero points on a test doesn’t give you an IQ of zero. The number of standard deviations from the norm given a hypothetically perfect test i.e. in comparison to an infinite number of humans on a test that no-one scores zero on, would still depend on the minimum number scored by any human. Therefore lets assume a sample of 8 billion (global population) from a normal distribution, with mean = 100**, and standard deviation = 15. Then the IQ that is likely to be attained by the lowest scoring human is 5 ish:
I’m ignoring higher order terms. i.e. the lowest IQ that we would expect exactly 1 person to have in a sample of 8 billion humans is 5ish. However having a score of zero on any good test (that scores no-one else at zero) would yield a negative IQ. I could have said -infinity but I thought that didn’t have the same oomph as zero. So sue me.
** Why is the mean 100? Why not 0? And why not make the sd equal to 1?***
*** More the the point, why bother?
Philosophical Investigations
I decided to upload my 2011 Edinburgh show Philosophical Investigations. Weirdly, it is some audio recordings I made in my bedsit with photos taken during the live show.
My deepest sympathy,
Simple harmonic motion
The further I get from Hemel, the sicker I feel. A malicious electronic communication.
Figure 1: Mood against time.
The setting sun put an orange light across the back wall of my bedsit, which I found beautiful in the way a honeymoon waterfall appears to a lonely woman reading a holiday brochure. the aim now was to stay awake for my nightly dose of cartoons and masturbation.
– Hi James? It’s Raph, have you seen the sunset? It is a really good one.
– What are you, Gay or summat?
– No, fuck off.
and I shut the curtains.
Video 1: Overview.
Toby carvery were offering some sort of deal about as appealing as buy one year get two free on e-dates. I sat at my booth and read a book. It was too good for the occasion so I couldn’t pay attention beyond the first sentence, but based on the quotes it had profound things to say about this and that (this being the human condition and that being contemporary culture).
The noise of the motorway was slightly louder than from my bedsit, which cheered me up.
I caught a glimpse of someone in a hotel window across the car park who was also asking which of our lots was the more existentially repulsive.
Video 2: Deleted scenes.
Fare thee well,
Happy Valentine’s Day!
– What do you do?
Imagine opening with that. We have just sat down. I’ve conceded on location and gone into this stinking Carluccio’s. My preferred McDonald’s is staring jealously from across the street, and she pulls that one out. It speaks of a corruption in your soul to choose Carluccio’s over McDonald’s. On judgement day, Carluccio will have a lot more to answer for than McDonald, whose only crime as far as I can tell is exploitation of poor workers. A far lesser evil than balsamic vinegar at £8.99.
– Oh, you know, bedroom comedian, writer, thinker, philosopher… I lead a rich inner life.
– Seriously, what do you do?
– I work part time at an offlicense. Fuck sake. What do you do?
I might have a massive knob for all she knows. I am getting irritated. There is actually nothing wrong with my knob. It’s fine. Good even; I wouldn’t swap it for the world. I would swap it for the world. I’m not stupid.
– I’m a lawyer.
Yeah, that fits. I maintain that I might have a massive knob for all she knows.None of this bothers me because I’m a feminist. I would happily have sexual relations with a woman who could partially fund my lifestyle. She looks at my steak, visibly regretting her salad.
– I only ordered this fucking thing cos you decided to play it Cosmopolitan.
This is reference to her mulling over the menu in a way that revealed she was going to order in a self concious manner thinking I both noticed or cared. I’d rather be eating three double cheeseburgers, three chickon mayos and three medium fries, but you don’t see me forlornly staring across the street.
As if the situation wasn’t bad enough it becomes increasingly apparent that she is going to put out. It is a general principle if mine that I won’t have sex with any woman who would stoop so low as me. So on top of the contempt I now feel sorry for her. Just as I’m thinking of all the ways I might change her mind, including such wild possibilities as frequently using the word knob. I see her hand bag move slightly to reveal Dawkin’s The God Delusion. That is a step too far. It’s not the atheism that bothers me but the sheer basic level of it. I can just imagine her nodding innanely at phrases like ‘the wonder of the universe’, ‘the beauty of the universe’, or even ‘the wondrous beauty and mystery of this most complex universe’. That final one is too much to think about and I let out an audible “eurgh”. I’ll save you the embarassment of the rest of the evening, especially from the gross Dessert Ordering Fiasco. It is plenty to say that we did make… not so much love or hate as an affront to nature. I’m not going to bother with the comic tropes of impotence and bathos. They aren’t the worst of it. The whole shag was just the biggest lie I ever told. To add to the depravity she actually managed to climax. To further add to it she used the frankly hackeneyed ‘yes’, with about six ss, and more exclamation marks. Finally, to cement this occassion as winner of Most Vulgar Sex Act, she lay back in faux contentedness and said… brace yourself for embarrassment… ‘yummy!’ All this inspite of the depressing nature of instigating it in my Hemel Hempstead bedsit in front of The Terminator looking on from my adolescent poster. I think the anthropologists need to revise their theories because I have uncovered new evidence that Hemel Hempstead was built on a native American burial ground.
Her great tragedy is to have the mind of an fifteen year old trapped in the body of a thirty four year old. Returning to her orgasm (with apologies): she came with excessive vocality as if she was proud of her pastiche of pornography; the parody of love1. Her ability to climax efficiently only revealed to me that she masturbates excessively, mind probably still glowing from some banal fact about a spider. I call this Her Grand Lie.
She did at least have the dignity to sneak out at 5am and block me on e-harmony.com.
– e-anharmony more like.
I say to a friend in an email.
Glasses raised to Sam Harrigan, attorney at law.
Love from,
1 Martin Amis said this sometime.
Thoughts, theories and a description
His hair was as greasy as a Christmas pudding (solid opening line). His hair looked like someone had stuffed a Christmas pudding on a bald man and then carved a bit away from the eyes and then run a fork down the sides to make it more hair like. It really was remarkably like a Christmas pudding. I am talking about myself. I just described myself because this is a story about my kidnapping, in the youth club where I was then working, and without having a clear picture of me you will not be able to visualise the horror that I experienced. Finally (we are nearing the end of the paragraph), it is a story about redemption, retribution and absolution (with escaped chipmunk as priest – see later).
Did I mention this blog was set in 1998?
Video 1. Advanced lesson on creativity.
I was workin’ a few extra hours at the youth club at 4 per. I was hot and young. I was mad and dangerous and something about that fire breathing personality (fucking shed loads of C2H5OH 1, on a Fri’ night mate) did not chime with the kid’z ultra conservative herd mentality. And on the night of 12 December the little grubfaced schoolyarders acted on their prejudice and hatred for those who dare to be outrageous, like the UK legal system circa 1949. Wilde/Turing/Shirley (unified by brilliance/not sexual orientation. When it comes to batting for the other side, I would intentionally let the bowler knock my wicket off in order to sabotage their team. Seriously, I am not gay.)
Figure 1. Self portrait with hand signal.
Simply put, they led me into the store cupbard with the promise of a Spliffy bomber2, locked the door behind me and left me for dead until the next youth club meeting, a fortnight later, when, surprised by their scheme’s success, they let me out. They messed with the wrong youth club worker.
Video 2: My thoughts on inequality.
Perhaps you can imagine spending 14 days in a youth club store cupboard? Perhaps you don’t see the big deal? Perhaps you would have the resourcefulness and strength of character to eat nothing but strawberry laces and quench your thirst with nothing but cherry pop, without so much as a tooth brush? Perhaps, ignorant reader, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about mate? Like, seriously, my teeth were furrier than a, like, Sylvanian Families figurine, or some shit.
The kids arrived two weeks later and found the doors open, the lights on and everything stolen. They opened the door to the cupboard. They were scared when they saw me. I was wild. I was shaking and screaming madly. I stank from the two weeks worth of soiled trousers from fibre free food. The biggest of the children untied me. I quickly and efficiently set about the children and locked them in the cupboard. Their fear of my mania compensating for my weakness. Ten minutes later their patents were back having been phoned up. I threw my useless phone from its position outside the cupboard at the biggest dad who had broken the door down. It hadn’t rang once. I had one text from T-Mobile. We paused a while to regard each other. I was the first to run. I ran all the way to my bedsit. I cancelled all my shifts at the offlicense for a month. I set about debasing myself with Dominoes Pepperoni Passion and PlayStation 3. All I can remember from the month is possibly watching a couple of Family Guy episodes.
I was free. Gradually my wounds healed and I readied myself for the systematic attack on the innocence of all the children who wronged me. What follows is my catalogue of retribution:
| Name | Retribution |
|---|---|
| Arthur Browning | Hamsters head in bed (his (both)). |
| Ben Kingsley | Urine filled super soaker (mine (both)). |
| Sarah Amis | Showed her her parent’s internet sex page. |
| Kalif Abdullah | Campaign of hate against his mother’s YouTube cupcake cookery course through obscene comments. |
| Autumn Shirley (coincidence) | Air rifle pellet in dad’s Ford’s wing mirror (he ended up beating me up; I sued; I won; I paid fee; who’s the real loser?). |
Table 1. Repercussions of youth club terror.
Autumn’s dad is… eugh. I told him I’d get him and I mean it. He has beaten me up three times now. I mean come on.
Figure 2. Dignity. I’ve always been interested in oriental culture ever since I first saw Enter the Dragon.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. Here’s what we can talk about next time:
Video 3: A song about Chessington World of Adventures.
I’ll tell you more about the trip to Chessington another time but the key thing is that while I was hidden out in Bubbleworks I met a hamster that I’d earlier freed and told him all I have done and he told me that god forgives me.
Yours feeling the searing heat-pain of truth,
Footnotes
1 Booze you idiot.
2 A type of jacket.
The stomach of a fifty year old British male
A soft Hovis loafish catastrophe. A white sagging mess with blue accoutrements in the opaque soup of a cold and second-hand bath.
“A man should get married, because if he has a good wife he’ll be happy, and if he has a bad one he’ll learn to be philosophical” – Socrates. I wonder what the great philosopher’s wife made of that.
Yours faithfully,
The monogag
Here is a gag I’m working on at the moment built out of a load of old hat jokes I’ve written over the last few years.
Bon apetit,
The continuing adventures of Jackie Smith
Just because you’re no longer MP for Redditch doesn’t mean you still don’t care about issues. On the contrary, you live an exciting life of stuff that happens to you and others.
See you round,
XOXO
Lessons from a provincial dickhead
I woke up at 1523h and checked my mouse trap. It was missing! I made myself a tea n’ dried milk and ate a couple bags o’ penguins (Buy 1 get 2 free).
Video 1. A lesson about how to act.
I go to get my lunchbox (made sandwich yester’) but what do I see when I peep under the bed but a little mouse with a trap round its conical face. It squeaks and I feel sorry for it so I let it go. It runs straight into my shoe (that explains a lot) and I reset the trap out side of it.
Figure 1. Mouse trap and shoe orientation.
When I get back from my day in the park, the job is finished. I take it out to the trash but on the way I notice it is a different mouse because I can tell by the eyebrows. I feel like that guy in Saving Private Ryan when he lets that German go and then later he kills his friend except not so strongly.
Video 2. A li’l tour o’ my quarters.
Yours with a damp right sock,
Video of Edinburgh 2012
Here’s a full HD 1080p digital video of my 2012 Edinburgh show; a memoir shot at a cheeky angle.
You may watch this video as many times as you like and you may also ‘like’ it using as many, like, YouTube accounts as you like!
A portrait of a provincial dickhead
Walking down Hemel Hempstead high street in the half light of an autumn evening, the industrial estates rising upward against a violet-blue sky, is a pleasure unparallelled. Sexual ecstacy, the embrace of a fat woman, intellectual breakthrough, and moments of realisation and creativity are but hundreds and thousands to the Walls Cream of Cornish ice cream of sittin’ in Has Beans coffee shop with a coffee and two scoops of the aforementioned. x
The hotel where I lost my virginity.
A bottle of JD mate.
Just off Leighton Buzzard Road is where I go hunting on a Sunday.
the hum of a distant city
orange through leafless trees
looks like an eyelash
The gutter I vomit in.
– Oh yeah which way did you go?
– M25 at that hour?! Oh no, not a good idea mate.
Nice one mate,
US enters new era of post election US
Something very remarkable happened to me last Saturday. I was going about my business like any Saturday. Except it wasn’t Saturday and it wasn’t happening to me but the USA. It was 2008 and they’d just elected their first Hawaiian president. You may have heard of him. A man called… Barack was it? No. Because we are conducting an outrageous thought experiment where America had voted for John McClane. Yippee kay ay mother… no, just mother? You guessed it, it’s election time again, the jolly democratic carnival is back in town, and this time the outcome depends on the voters… again. It. Where Americans everywhere and especially in America go into a little box to place their plops and drips in a pool of water before heading out to vote, but sometimes they get it the wrong way round, something Tony Blair benefited from in 97. It is often said that up to 95% of Labour votes that year were actually accidental toilet-roll/voting-slip mishananigans, but the true figure may be much higher. And John McClane was from Hawaii.
I’ve been spending the last two weeks gauging emotions, and not to mention political temperatures, after mentioning it that one time, in the streets, and roads, and cul-de-sacs, and carparks of the people of this great place of Hemel Hempstead.
Figure 1. Militant? As in you take up arms?
I’ve spoken to the fishmonger who smells so bad that she can’t get a job since November. ‘Who will you be voting for?’ I ask with clothes peg nasality. ‘I don’t have a vote’ she says, as if entirely aware of the gross inequality facing gross fishmongers every second in every way just because of their Britality. I’ve spoken to the schoolteacher who smells so bad she can’t remember the one times table. I’ve spoken to my brother who smells so bad that I realised the smell was coming from me.
Figure 2. A display of my disdain for the actor Daniel Radcliffe. He is seriously pissed off about this.
“One man is a president. The other has a magic hat” – Ricky Gervais, on Letterman. Yeah, but Obama supposedly believes in the virgin birth.
But when it comes down to it, there’s only one poll that matters. There’s only one poll every four years that matters. There’s only one poll every four or two that matters the most, more than the polls which gauge opinion and are not true indicators given the small sample sizes, but there’s only one poll that matters because I know about politics and important things in the world.
But one way or another, we’ll have a new world leader come Wednesday. It is important. It will have a profound influence on you because you don’t understand it like I do. Perhaps that fishmonger will be able to sell her fish for a few extra dollars, but come Romney, or Obama, or a strange hybrid monster of the two, or a total surprise like it was all a dream, politics will be important. Have you ever eaten a meal? Politics. Have you ever seen a tree? Politics. Have you ever fought in a war? Politics affects every aspect of your life except your ear size. Accept your ear size! Listen to what democracy is telling you.
Your man in Hemel,
An attempt to provoke a lawsuit for publicity purposes
Dear St James’s Palace,
Please consider suing me for posting the following image. It would be very useful publicity for me. Ideally I could take the Daily Mail approach and feign dissaproval of the original publication and still give my readers the tillation of the thought of a young woman’s breasts. This already commercially viable approach, if muddled with the popular mythology surrounding the tragic death of a mother, has the potential to become a winsome narrative/self fulfilling prophecy and could make us a lot of money, while maintaining adoration levels for your vulgar traditions.
Figure 1. Pwooooaaaar! Please note that I am not the copyright holder for this image. I made the rare decision to post it anyway for purely selfish reasons.
Kind regards,
PS for the manipulation of my google page rank may I politely say “Kate Middleton Kate Windsor duke and duchess of Cambridge topless Wills and Kate Prince William British Royal Family French paparazzi peeping tom”.
Life on earth
And in the ancient earth, where empty ground held vacant sky, magic and sorcery gave this nothing a new vanity. Proto-life was born in an inclement world and the day’s order was suffering. The injured rock took more punishment in quantity unbound when animals looked around. And final indignity came in man making a mirror for chimpanzee to inspect her own arse.
I should like to tell my son about the birds and the bees; how the virgin queen leaves her cell and vows to kill the others until the survivor celebrates by mating with many drones in a “drone congregation area” and uses that mixed seed for the rest of her life until she is too old and must be superceeded; that when a new queen is available, the workers will kill the reigning queen by clustering tightly around her until she dies from overheating. That went down well but the birds with their rape and infidelity, with their murder and most of all the pecking out the sperm of a rival from one’s lover’s vagina left the boy frightened. He asked why no animal had ambition beyond basic personal suicide. Why does no animal set a noose round life? “Technical difficulties” I reassured. And anyway plants aren’t so bad. We watched a Venus fly trap in slow motion on the telivision for pure entertainment value.
All the planets gossip about earth catching life. They giggle at the itchy green patches and vulgar animals; particularly the literate ones. They wonder if earth the slut caught it off an asteroid from out of town like Mars insists. Or whether “it just developed naturally” as earth says, through a sneeze. There is only one cure says Jupiter. But how to throw earth out? How to deny the addict its vice; its Sun?
“It is gossimer thin! This veil of ugliness hides a pure heart of rock and fire. Let me have light. You will not catch it. You are safe.” But they are not secure. They are in great danger. They have let the host free too long.
I hope you enjoy my new and bawdy direction,
Edinburgh 2012 summary
I got two reviews. One was one star. One was four stars. That pretty much sums up the audience responses. Average star rating was therefore 2.5, half a star down on last year, but I got 2 more stars in total. Yippee! I only need a two star review and a five star one and I’ve got the whole set (I suspect the two might come easier than the five). Also, not a single person this year threatened to beat me up shouting “it’s not fucking funny, like your fucking act”. Not a single one! I am progressing. No-one said “I find this deeply offensive”, and no-one said “How long have you been doing this?”. There is a part of me that thinks that means I’m actually regressing in some sense. “When you’re a misanthrope, the praise of others is effectively scorn” – Raph Shirley, in his critically ignored 2011 Edinburgh show.
What I did have, was a lot of walkouts. I had about five shows go seriously southward, frequently involving mass walkouts. I don’t mind a single mass walkout, but little dribs and drabs throughout the act is depressing. But listen yeah, when you are a great artist like me, people will sometimes be confused. They know not what they do. “Let me tell you about another so-called ‘wicked’ guy. He had long hair and some wild ideas and he didn’t always do what other people thought was right. And that man’s name was… I forgot… but the point is… I forgot… Marge, you know who I’m talking about. He used to drive that blue car.” – Homer Simpson.
* * *
Figure 1. Self portrait at end of festival (a copy of a Matthew McConville painting).
* * *
A sample of quotes:
“Raph Shirley is not funny… [He is] an unpleasant, smug, petty-minded, delusional geek who thinks he can make it as a stand-up.” – Tristram Fane Saunders, absurdly named reviewer for the absurdly titled BroadwayBaby.com.
“Tristram Fane Saunders is a mad, pathetic, evil, and wormlike weasel, who may well hit kittens in their adorable little faces, and doesn’t understand proper use of conjunctions in lists… Petty!? Would a petty man write a rigorous refutation of an accusation of pettiness?! Huh?!?! Would they Tristram, you dreadful man?” – Raph Shirley, cool dude.
‘ “Raph Shirley is… funny” – Tristram Fane Saunders, BroadwayBaby.com.’ – Future press release for Raph Shirley.
No, but seriously, I wish him well.
“This has the potential to be fantastic alternative character comedy… a lot of promise, and it’s certainly original.” – Liam McKenna, FringeGuru.com.
“Liam McKenna is the finest reviewer the world has ever known.” – Raph Shirley.
“[laughs] That isn’t even minimum wage! That’s less than a tramp gets.” – Shop worker on hearing how much money I took that day.
“Hi, we saw you last year and came back. You were the best thing we saw on the Free Fringe.” – nice person after show.
When thinking about reviews and reviewers never forget the following fact: the film Love Actually was generally positively reviewed.
* * *
I had one catastrophe of a show (last year, I had about five), when I asked two people to leave because they were “annoying me”. No, but seriously, they were really annoying me though. The atmosphere in the room instantly fell to the floor and I never got them back. I’ve made a graph:
Figure 2. Vibe verses time during final show when I asked some people to leave.
* * *
Love to all my fellow humans (-1),
Non-cynical non-ironic PS:
Thank you to Peter Buckley Hill and everyone else at PBH’s Free Fringe 2012. Thanks also to the extremely friendly and helpful staff at The Globe Bar.
A parody of 50 Shades of Grey by replacing Grey with Brown
Before we begin, may I politely remind you that my Edinburgh Fringe show, Computer Programmer Extraordinaire, opens tomorrow of all days! 16:45, at Globe Bar, Niddry St, 4-25 August (not 14), Free.
Warning: this post contains scenes of a deeply pretentious and pompous nature.
50 Shades of Grey has successfully duped the last major group of people still unaware of free online pornography; middle aged women. I’m going for another, not so major group; materials scientists.
She came in to the room and looked at his dick. “mmmm, nice knob” she… SHOUTED… seductively! It is fair to say that he was hard. As hard as steel. As hard as diamond. Literally harder than diamond. She took a Vickers hardness tester out of her vagina and struck his cock with it. His penis… scratched… the diamond. Yes, it was a fucking 2000 on the Mohs scale. Coincidently the number of years since Christ’s visit to Jerusalem? Me thinks not. Assuming Dawkin’s proto-theory of the penis in human males fulfilling a kind of health display role, like the Peacock’s tale (they do spin a good yarn!), his blood pressure was fucking insane, indicating this guy had certainly been taking his cod liver oil supplements, if you know what I mean1. He was so fucking hard that his sex organ… fucking… popped. “There’s plenty more where that came from” he… SHOUTED… seductively, before sprouting a new one “down there” like a lizard grows a new tail. Yes, it is fair to say that Chris Brown (strange direction?), is, capable of autotomy. His blood dribbled down her face like a money shot gone awry. “Odd” they thought.
1 I mean I find the book offensive in it’s mildness. A kind of stark symbol of the timidity and lack of imagination of modern humans.
Figure 1. Vickers hardness tester.
“Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. They reached sexual ecstasy in Unison (they were inside the HQ of the public service trade union).
Now.
He produced a contract. A patent. She looked upset, as if there was something distasteful about deriving sexual pleasure from simulating literal and intellectual bondage. A concept that is, of course, completely abhorrent. Oh, did I mention he was a… billionaire. It was Bill Gates pretending to be the violent Chris Brown.
Infinite suffering was inflicted upon the woman. Sensory and cognitive oblivion. Wastes of pain and horror. Sexy pain. Sexy horror. He also, and more importantly, provided financial security, something that is all too rare in the current economic climate.
But she wouldn’t do anal and he wouldn’t do gay.
* Â Â Â Â *Â Â Â Â Â *
Claire Sarahly left the stage of the Canal Cafe theatre. Her satire had gone down a storm. As in everyone wished it hadn’t happened. Forty years of her life flashed before her. She looked back at her younger self with scorn and said ‘I was a bit of an idiot for writing that’. She died poor and alone.
Yours with love and devotion and an erection,
PS As a little bonus, if you insist, you can listen to a stand-up set I recorded recently sans audience:
[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/RaphShirley-BBC-NCA.mp3]or download it for your portable digital media players here
Jesus’s left one
Another little video for you heathen sons o’ bitches.
All the best,
“Hangin’ Out” unplugged session in F Major
Hello,
A little web cam’ vid’:
There will be no songs in the show. Thank god!
Best wishes for the future,
P.S. You may watch this video as many times as you like!
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Bonus material - Philosophical Investigations Conclusion in unexplainable high definition audio
As part of a scheme to promote my forthcoming Edinburgh show, I am releasing an audio recording of last year’s show, Philosophical Investigations. I’m releasing it in six parts. This week we conclude with the Conclusion:
[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/PhilosophicalInvestigations/Section5.mp3]Or download it for your mp3 player here.
*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************