Writing scripts can be a difficult task because you think you’re doing really well then you pause and read back over your work only to realise that you have only written several minutes of material. However, today I managed to write a piece of material that made me laugh so much that I couldn’t read it out properly without laughing. I know comedy is something that can divide opinion (some people laugh at Celebrity Juice for example, I know) but if your own words can do that to you then I consider that a good day at the office. Unfortunately this sketch, less than a minute long, is for the project that won’t have my name on it. Myself and a couple of friends are writing an audio pilot that has a main character we have given a libelous name to and therefore we are simply going to release it into the wilds of the Internet to take care of itself, I won’t even be able to ask for donations through my PayPal. I am tempted to lead to it with a trail of clues but it would be risky.

I am writing this blog having just come back from a gig that didn’t happen. The band in question advertised it on their Facebook page but curiously didn’t set up an event for it, I had been looking forward to going so took the tram into town knowing I could stop at a particular shop for cigarettes and to use the cash machine. The streets were quiet, even for midweek, and I put this down to the post-Christmas belt tightening that would have affected those who were paid before the holiday and now had to wait until the end of January for payday. Even so, there were fewer people around than I have ever seen. As I turned the corner into the road that the venue is situated, I became aware that the usual throng of people standing outside smoking was non-existent and it wasn’t until I got to the place that I spotted that it was closed. Rather than walk straight back to the tram stop, I attempted to check the band’s Twitter and Facebook to see if perhaps I had the venue wrong, but public wifi is so shit that I couldn’t latch on to anything. Standing at the tram stop in the Market Square, I was able to connect to Starbucks for just long enough to find the band on Facebook and see that the post about the gig was still there with no follow up to say that they had cancelled.

My night out at a gig turned into an hour long round trip to town and back and so instead I settled down and cracked open my series two DVD box set of Happy Days, a Christmas present from Mandi. The episodes I have seen so far are new to me so when Channel 4 used to broadcast this in the 1990s they must have only had the rights to much later down the line. My biggest surprise was that Chuck Cunningham was still in it (although I reckon he was played by a different actor) because I thought he only appeared in the first series. He is a pretty useless character so I can understand why he was forgotten about, but I thought that the television industry expression ‘Chuck Cunningham syndrome’ referred to first season appearances rather than disappearing at some point. The feel of the show is more as I remember it, having given the characters a chance to settle in, although Arnold is still a talked about character that has yet to appear on screen. Despite some good writing I so far haven’t found it laugh out loud funny to be honest, not when compared to the thing I wrote earlier today. Maybe comedy has a new benchmark for me now.

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This week’s edition of The Sunday Alternative is here.