iCash

Steve Jobs is halfway through an Apple keynote conference.

“Well, we have shown you the new iPod touch, the new iPhone and the new iPad. “What else is there?” I hear you ask. Well, that’s right, I am now going to show you the completely revamped and redesigned Apple iTunes store. “In what ways has it changed?” I hear you ask. Well aside from the obvious aesthetic change which you see before you, you may also have noticed a different constant throughout the page. If you can’t see it then look a little closer at the price of the products. It’s not a dollar symbol or a pound sign if you are within the United Kingdom. No, this is a completely new currency which Apple has developed. I give you iCash.

iCash is the currency which will now be using at the Apple iTunes store. It is safer, more secure and easier to understand than any other currency on the market. What’s more, it is a virtual currency, so any fraud that takes place online, stays online. We at Apple value your custom and as such make sure that real money stays in the real world. Think about it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If you crashed a plane in the virtual world on a Flight Simulator and a number of lives were lost, you wouldn’t want that to also apply in the real world, would you? No. Well Apple are doing the same thing with money. We are keeping the real world and virtual world separate with iCash.

“So how exactly does iCash work?” I’m sensing a few of you have that question in your minds right now, so I shall answer it. It’s all very straightforward. You sign up to Apple with your real life bank account, like any other store. You then purchase iCash in the form of credits. One dollar will give you 10 iCash credits. These can then be used to purchase any item in the Apple iTunes store. Prices start at 10 credits for a popular song or application, like Angry Birds for example, right through to whatever is the most expensive application at the moment. You choose the amount of real life money to change into iCash and the store will calculate the rest. After you spend 100 credits, you get 1 credit back, to use again on the store. Simply, we are rewarding the loyal Apple customers with iCashback and this revolutionary new secure form of payment. iCash. It’s the future.

It will of course soon be possible to use iCash in any real life Apple store as well. For a small fee of 10 iCash credits, we will allow you to transfer your iCash from the store to any Apple product such as the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. This can then be scanned at the Apple store as payment for your new Apple purchase be it an iMac or an Apple TV. Once iCash becomes the main form of payment within just one Apple store, we will support what the customers clearly want and change every store to only accept iCash at the stores.

iCash will help us progress as a company and hopefully you can see the benefits of this new system. It is our intention that as iCash is used more and more often, we will build not just Apple stores but an Apple bank, the iBank, which it will soon be necessary to have an account with, in order to continue to buy anything from Apple, be it a song or a Macbook. We then hope to create an iVillage showcasing all the latest uses of Apple technology. iCash will then help to expand this iVillage into an iTown and then a city. We have already entered into an agreement with a country from the third world to bring it into the first world and amongst the Apple family. This is my next big announcement today ladies and gentlemen, Apple are now the proud owners of the capital city of Turkey. We call it iStanbul and Apple iCash will be the only form of currency accepted in the city once we witness a need from the customers. This loyal fan base will again benefit from our company’s promise to listen to their views and when just one iStanbul resident requests the change, we will make it happen.

Over time, we hope that iStanbul will prosper and it is our belief that the benefits of iCash will help the rest of Turkey join the scheme. We will then look at other cities around the globe to join the Apple family and make it a truly wonderful place which the whole world can enjoy. After iStanbul, we hope that next year we will be able to announce that iCash is now accepted not just in Turkey but also in iOwa City in the US, iBiza in Spain, iWo Jima in Japan and hopefully Manchester in England will agree to be renamed MacChester, but we do not currently have confirmation of that just yet. Following perceived successes in the areas, iCash will spread out into these countries, thus becoming the primary currency in five different countries.

At this point we will move the iCity regime as we have called it, from beta testing into full working order and change not just a single city’s currency, but switch a whole country to iCash with the start of the iCountry scheme. iRaq, iRan, iVory Coast and iTaly in Europe are all within our sights. With iRan and iRaq in particular, we hope that the use of iCash will help solve any current disputes that happen to be ongoing as of this moment in time. It is Apple’s belief that iCash can do this as long as all countries agree to get involved and hopefully iCash will then take over from the unstable dollar, pound and euro as the world’s premier currency. We will of course discuss iCash further at the next Apple keynote but to put it in a nutshell for everyone, iCash is simply Apple’s way of thanking the loyal fan base that have supported us for so many years, by offering them a faster and more user friendly experience in this post-recession world.

So that’s iCash. An apple thank-you. Your money. Our way.”

Stand Up - People

So here is a random full routine I just wrote on people, intended for a student audience hence the opening paragraph. It contains swearing. Deal with it.

Alright? It’s a pleasure to see you all here about...ooh about 3 hours after you all got up. Yeah, I know what it’s like. I’m a student too. Lunch at four. You know it’s great to see that the UK will still be okay with us in charge in ten or twenty years time because people, well, they don’t half annoy me at the moment.

I used to work in a petrol station and I had a woman come to my counter. She goes, “Yeah, umm, the prices of petrol are cheaper down the road.” What does she expect me to say? “Ahh, gee. I’m sorry about that. Must have been an oversight on my part, I didn’t realise you were popping in today. I’ll just change that for you.” I mean come on, lady. If their cheaper down the road then go down the fucking road. And then as if to insult me she goes, “Well, I’m going to be taking my business elsewhere.” Ah shit. You know because the £10 you were about to put into your mini cooper was really going to keep this place afloat. I don’t care. I’m on £5.70 an hour. Give a shit if you don’t come back. Not my problem. Take your business elsewhere. But then before she leaves, “Oh and I’ll have a twenty Marlboro lights.” So, I sold them to her and said, “I’m sorry you’re gonna have to take your business elsewhere.” She missed the joke. I don’t care really, she’s dying of cancer soon anyway.

People do just get on my nerves though. I went to the cinema a few weeks ago and this moron behind the counter, you know, the kind of guy that is just a little bit over friendly and is probably a paedophile? He says to me, “Going to see a film huh?” “Ah gee, I was actually here to buy some over priced food, I’m doing my weekly shop but now you mention it, yeah. Why shouldn’t I see a film as it’s a FUCKING CINEMA!” Anyway, I show him my student ID and he’s just typing in the tickets to the computer or whatever when he turns to me and says, “Sorry was it a student or an adult, I forget. Haha!” Haha? Whatever they’re paying you it’s too much.

I’m surprised that people like that guy have even got a job when you know, immigrants and asylum seekers need jobs too. “Oh my god they are taking our jobs!” Yeah, well it’s because all our natives are dumb as shit. The recession was probably caused because they forgot to carry the one. I just despair when people say that thing though, “Come over here, taking our jobs.” Why should you care? You have a job. And the people that don’t are the people that don’t care. Cinema boy is proof that anybody can get a job. The only reason the Polish are here is because we’ve relocated all their Delicatessens anyway. They need to get a plane to complete their weekly shop. You know the people that I don’t get are beggars.

When you live in any big town or city there are bound to be beggars or tramps, some through no fault of their own on the street. It’s a given. It’s sad but you move on. The ones I don’t get are...well I moved to Bournemouth about 2005, so I was fifteen. And walking into town I gave this guy 50p or so for a hostel apparently. The next day he asks again. It’s four years later now, and he is still there. Now what part of this, is a good idea to him? “So Son, how is your career going?” “Yeah not bad Dad, out on the streets everyday.””ever thought of going on the dole?” “The what?” In the time that he has been on the street I have gained qualifications, got halfway through a degree and visited some beautiful countries. It’s just bizarre.

Another one I like is the beggar who never has enough for a return fare to his home. “I need to get a return to my house.” That sort of thing. And the first time you give it but the second or third time you don’t. And as I walk I think, what kind of an idiot gets the bus in the morning without thinking how to get home? Why has he even left if doesn’t have any money to spend in town? When I go out, I normally make sure I know how I’m getting home. Once maybe, but three times you haven’t learnt your lesson? You deserve to not to get home for being a dumb ass motherfucker. And that’s the truth. God, people piss me off. He hasn’t yet answered to that complaint. Anyway, that’s all from me, before I go though, can anyone lend me a bit of money to get home? Cheers.

Heckler

My brother has pointed out to me that if I said we like to play spot the twat when on stage, a heckler would probably say, "He's on stage."

So I have tried to work out a way of defecting that. My best idea so far is simply to say, "Hush please, I said we were playing spot the twat not wanker of the week." But that could come off as me saying I am a wanker...hmm.

Maybe, "Schizophrenia's a terrible thing." Is that a bit vague?

Maybe, "But you aren't on stage." Is that a decent deflection? Probably not. Or maybe...

"Very witty, very clever of you. So you know it's quite hard for someone to walk on stage and try to tell jokes to an audience they don't know and yet you try and make it even harder. What, did you punch your mum as you were being born? Yeah? Or do you step on the fireman's hose when they're putting out a fire? Hmm? 'Cos the way I see it, you're not currently standing up here with a microphone. You are just sitting in your own corner of misery, sipping from a pint of desperation wondering why the fuck you're so lonely and you have so far amounted to nothing in life. So am I really the twat here? Or is it you, the man who tried to be funny in an attempt to get respect and some friends to help ease his depression and in a return got a verbal backlash he wasn't really ready for. I'm the one with the microphone remember, think before you speak. The real sad thing is, you did. And look where that got you."

But... Maybe that's too harsh.

Girlfriend and the Internet

So, some older people don't seem to understand that relationships can form through the internet, that for some reason it's difficult to forge a meaningful partnership with someone through the internet without meeting face to face. They also claim it's scary - what kind of odd and bizarre people do you get online? But with the advent of social networks and instant messengers I don't subscribe to this view. I mean I met my girlfriend through the internet. She doesn't yet know she's my girlfriend...

Tickets and Tours

I don't know about you, but it really annoys me when yu visit a band or comedian's website and their tour dates proudly proclaim that they are 'Coming soon to a town near you!'. I have two problems with this. firstly, London isn't a town and secondly, it's nowhere near me.

On the odd occasion a tour does come nearby, you get shafted for tickets anyway. Who knows what a booking fee is really for? YOu never pay it if you buy from the venue in person, but for booking over the internet it seems you pay 2 quid for the computer to save the fact yu are going. Which you probably put in motion by booking it yourself.

now the booking fee has been around for a while, and sometimes it rounds off the price nicely - 13 up to 15, 18 up to 20, etc. But then you click to the next page and there is a handling charge. A what? Yes, a handling charge. You get charged for someone pressing print and handling the tickets into an envelope. 2 quid! For that! It's clearly their bloody job to do that. It's expected. What if there was a handling charge in a supermarket?

"Yeah, I served you today, that's 2 quid on top of what you should pay..."

A stand-up thought

I had a thought tonight. Yes, a real one. My thought surrounded the start of world war 3 and what I'd do if it ever happened. I'd like to say I put lots of thought into whether I'd sign up or not but I didn't. It took about 3 seconds for me to come to the conclusion of 'fuck that'.

I wouldn't of course, not be helping at all. I would just help the war effort in other, less dangerous ways. I'd offer to protect Bournemouth beach for instance. Deckchair, sunglasses and suncream included. During Winter and at night time, I'd probably hire someone to do it for me. I wuldn't not do anything during Winter either though, oh no!

During Winter, I'd pop over to Australia and protect the allies beaches. That's me, going that extra mile, or in this case, 10,650.6 extra miles on top of that original mile. All for free to the British taxpayer in exchange for a nice flight over.

The probem with modern warfare these days is that there just isn't a checkpoint, is there? You can't respawn if you make a mistake. You can't work out that you have been fighting for 4 or so hours and are therefore halfway through the war. I say that's a problem with mordern warfare but it's pretty much a problem with all warfare, ever invented.

Unless of course you own a time travelling DeLorean, in which case you can kind of work out exactly what will happen.

"Ah, this is Dunkirk, this is a hard level!"

Talking of Back to the Future, I have a problem with that film. Well, the second one anyway. I recently watched it and had to re-watch it to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. But seriously, if you watch it really closely there is a massive mistake. Huge. They go to 2015 and not once did Marty McFly shake.

Seriously though, if Michael J Fox doesn't win the Oscar in 2015 for that performance, he'll have been robbed. Which incidentally, is a lot easier to do to him these days. Except in an Earthquake, that puts everyone on a level playing field. In fact, if there is an earthquake then it gives a chance for Michael J Fox to steal from others.

How would you know if he is scared of a horror film?

"He's shaking!"
"He does that anyway...Michael, I want a drink, here's some flavoured milk and ice cream. See what you can make with those ingredients."

Truth be told, not a lot. I thought milkshake and you no doubt thought the same. No. It went everywhere.

So yeah, I've given Michael J Fox a lot of flack here, somewhat harshly. But ah, he should be able to shake it off.
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So there you go. As i started writing this, I had only got up to the Bournemouth beach part. I have actually written a good minute or two of material there. That I'll doubtfully ever use. Whoops. But if people actually do find this funny then...who knows, one day.