February 2009

Slightly updated list of places and venues below. Go to the GIGS page for details and links.

[A note on Inverness: I’m really sorry this date was pulled. Apparently the venue were unable to confirm my booking, so we had to bow out. We’re hoping to put a show on in Edinburgh that night instead. Which will be great, as I’m not going to the festival this year, but a bit sad, cos I really wanted to get further up north. Sigh. ]

Manchester Lowry; Derby Assembly Rooms; Warrington Parr Hall; Swansea Grand; Swindon Wyvern; Cheltenham Town Hall; Cardiff St Davids Hall; Southampton Guildhall; Norwich Theatre Royal; Buxton Opera House; Dublin Vicar Street; Brighton Dome; St Albans Alban Arena; Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall; York Grand Opera House; Cambridge Corn Exchange; High Wycombe Swan; Birmingham Town Hall; Coventry Warwick Arts Centre; Bradford St Georges Hall; Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall; Bristol Colston Hall; Reading Hexagon; Newcastle City Hall; Perth Perth Concert Hall; Dunfermline Alhambra; Edinburgh Usher Hall; Glasgow Pavilion; Aberdeen Music Hall; Bournemouth Pavilion; Belfast Ulster Hall; Sheffield City Hall; Oxford New Theatre; London Hammersmith Apollo; Northampton Royal & Derngate; Nottingham Playhouse; Birmingham Symphony Hall.

So, just a couple of weeks til I start my tour of the frickin world. By which I mean Australia and New Zealand. And by New Zealand, I mean Auckland. And by Australia I mean some bits. The shows are selling pretty fast with some already completely sold out, so I reckon you should book, eh. 

EDIT: this was a post in which i replied to an email sent to me by a Homeopath who had found some comments I made in an Australian newspaper disparaging. A justifiable criticism, as I am often disparaging towards alternative medicine in both my act and – if the topic is raised – in interviews. 

I have removed it, as my job is to find funny ways of putting these opinions across, and in posting my response unsatirically I was crossing over into science blogging – a very well-populated sphere.

I am glad I posted it, because it created a conversation, and hopefully even made a few people look a bit further into this particularly insidious form of mumbo-jumbo. 

However, I don’t want to get into a situation where people Google me and find an abrasive essay on alternative medicine. I’d rather they found a stupid song. 

If you are interested in this topic, there are a million places to go. Check out Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog. Or go to Quackwatch – an extremely thorough resource. Steve Novella’s Science Based Medicine blog is- like all his work – wonderful.

Or for some building blocks type any of the following phrases into Google or Wikipedia:
Causal Fallacy
Confirmation Bias
Falsifiability
Scientific Method
Pseudoscience

… and get in amongst it.

This is the shit that gets me excited. This is my porn.
Is that wrong?
Happy reading. Tim.x
[insert laugh track]