Woke Comedy

Mike Bodnar will never do stand-up again...

Never again...

There's some comedy I did twelve to fifteen years ago that today would get me in trouble. Obviously I can't say what it was, because, well, see above. Let's just say that times have changed, and the woke brigade takes no prisoners.

Were I to tell you the plastic bag joke, for example, the crowd would be baying for me to resign as a comedian. They'd put up a statue to me just so they could tear it down in anger. I would be trolled on social media, and I would have to publicly apologise.

Then there's the 101 Dalmatians joke. Nope, can't tell you that one either sorry. All I can say is that no animals were harmed during the telling of it, but I would be reviled today. Maybe I could sell it to Roy Chubby Brown (although it would be a bit tame for him).

The point is, I can never do stand-up comedy again; I'd be too afraid. I would have to write, edit, and rewrite my material multiple times to ensure there was not an ounce of anything that could cause offence. So much analysis would have to go into my material that any humour would end up crumpled in the waste basket and I'd end up with a sermon instead.

Not that I've ever given offence. Not once did I ever write sketches with the aim of causing offence, and I doubt many comedians do (except RCB maybe). But today offence is too easily taken, and there's the thing: people take offence where it has never been given or intended. So who's to blame? The giver - who may not actually exist - or the recipient? 

A bar waiting for a joke to turn up

I could not, for example, even fall back on that good old stand-by joke that starts, 'A man walks into a bar.'

What?? I’m sure to offend someone from the get-go with that. A man? No no, no, that just won’t do. What if the man identifies as a woman? Or used to be a man but has undergone surgery and is now female? Exactly; I am presuming too much. And anyway, does the gender matter? Well it might further into the joke, but by then my woke audience will have walked out, or thrown something at me.

So, 'Someone walks into a bar'? No, that won’t do either. What if they’re gender fluid and can be more than one gender at any given time? They are therefore not someone, but sometwo. Or something. They have the right to choose their own pronoun, to which I am not party, which puts me at a disadvantage.

Seriously, I cannot say, 'Something walks into a bar' because that doesn’t conjure up the right image at all. I mean, that something might be a stapler. Or a dishmop. Person! Yes, that will do. Let’s start again.

'A person walks into a bar...'

But wait again. Walks? Uh-uh; this is not inclusive, because of course not everyone – or everything – can walk. I could therefore say that a person wheels into a bar, but that excludes those who can actually walk, unless they're a cyclist. Enters, then. Let’s go with that.

'A person enters a bar...'

The blackness of the audience. No offence.

Why does it always have to be a f****ng bar? something calls out from the blackness of the audience. And when I say blackness I’m referring to the fact that when a comedian is on stage it is usually very difficult to see any further into the audience than the first couple of rows due to the glare of the spot lights. That’s assuming of course that there are any more people beyond the first two rows. I should be so lucky. Anyway, don’t shoot me for being racist about dim light. I’ll admit to being lightist, but that’s it.

But in this case I know there are more people beyond the front rows because one of them has just shouted, 'Why does it always have to be a f****ng bar?'

Well, er, it’s because a barman features further into the narrative.

A barman? Oh pur-lease. I hear a seat flip up and the exit door slam.

Okay, okay (sigh), a bar tender. Or barkeep. Whatever.

The remaining audience is strangely silent, their own glares outperforming the spotlights. This is going to be hard work.

Bill Bailey: funniest man in the world

So let's have an interval. This is where I declare my admiration for the world's funniest man, Bill Bailey. He can stand on stage for two hours and not offend anyone. People laugh till they cry, and where Bailey does occasionally make an acerbic reference to some societal failure or political indiscretion it generally has the audience applauding and whistling in agreement. He does it with panache, and in the knowledge that anyone who has paid up to £80 for a seat in the venue is unlikely to want to be easily offended.

Unfortunately, many casual stand-up comedy venues don't charge admission, so those audiences have no investment in enjoying themselves and can bring all their attendant frailties and cultural worries with them.

I am of course at a disadvantage in that I can't play any musical instruments. Bailey can play an entire orchestra's worth and be funny at the same time. I can't wring a tune out of a tambourine. (But come to think of it, who can?)

So, leaving musical instruments out of it, here's my take on Bill Bailey telling 'a man walks into a bar' joke and getting away with it; interval over.

A person rides into town on their horse, dressed as a cowboy - the rider, not the horse, obviously - and stops at a saloon for a drink. They enter the bar. Not the horse - I'm using 'they' as an all-encompassing pronoun for the rider here. 

Unfortunately, the locals have a habit of picking on strangers, which this person is. When they'd finished their drink, they found that their horse had been stolen. They went back into the bar, deftly flipped their gun into the air, caught it above their head without even looking and fired a shot into the ceiling.

A man, or possibly a woman or something

“Which one of you sidewinders stole my horse?” the person dressed in cowboy garb yelled with surprising forcefulness. No one answered.

“Alright, I’m gonna have another whisky, and if my horse ain’t back outside by the time I finish, I’m gonna do what I dun in Texas! And I don’t wanna have to do what I dun in Texas!”

Some of the locals shifted uneasily. The rider, true to their word, had another drink, walked outside, and found the horse had been returned to the post. The rider saddled up ready to ride out of town. The bartender wandered out of the bar and said, “Say pardner, before you go… you mind tellin' me what happened in Texas?” 

The rider turned, spat in the dust and said, “I had to walk home.”

PS: I unreservedly apologise to all those who find walking difficult or can't walk at all. And those who can't ride or are allergic to horses. The bar, just so you know, also served food - vegetarian, and vegan choices were available, the bar nibbles were complimentary and were accompanied by a little sign warning that they 'may contain nuts.' There was a space reserved outside the front of the saloon for disabled riders, and the bar was wheelchair accessible. The firearm used in the joke fired blanks only.

Smile - You're Caught on Camera!

 Mike Bodnar investigates the rise and rise of doorbell cameras, and asks, are they any good?

A popular video doorbell.
Image: The Sun

Ding-dong! It's a sound that always makes us drop everything and head to the front door to see who it is. An unexpected parcel? A surprise visitor? The bailiffs again? We don't know of course until we open the door itself to find out. Or at least that's the way it used to be. Now of course we can see who's there from the safety and comfort of our home - or even overseas if we're lucky enough to be there - thanks to doorbell video cameras. 

While intercom-type doorbell systems have been around for decades, and ordinary electric doorbells much longer (since 1881 in fact), video camera doorbells only really captured the market big-time around 2012. Their rapid rise in popularity since then has been aided by developments in Internet and wireless technology, plus the fact that there is plenty of competition in the marketplace and prices have been dropping steadily. Home security has never been so affordable, or convenient.

But just how useful is video doorbell technology? The answer is both positive and negative depending on the circumstances. Let's start with two negative case studies, because bad news always travels fast.

Lorraine has a video doorbell camera installed at her suburban home in Surrey. It gives a good view of her driveway, her car parked outside, and the front of the property where the driveway meets the street. It also works at night, although the video capture is in black and white.

Caught in the act on Lorraine's video doorbell

One evening recently she was alerted to some movement out the front, and, on investigation, she discovered that a thief had come up her drive, grabbed her two topiary trees in their planters from beside the front door and had run back to his car and driven off with them.

Furious at the brazen nature of the theft (her front porch lights were on too), she took to social media and posted the video of the culprit stealing the plants in the hope someone might be able to identify him.

Social media quickly responded - not with a positive identification unfortunately, but with some helpful suggestions as to what to do next. Despite the modern camera, it was night, the culprit is a bit blurred in the video, and the logo on his shirt is not clear. His car, parked across the front of her driveway, is identifiable as to make and model, but no registration number is visible as it's seen side-on. Its colour is also unknown.

A better image kindly provided by a local

But one amateur sleuth noticed that a public bus had driven past at the time the theft was taking place and suggested that since buses usually have dashcams maybe the company could supply footage showing the thief's car's number plate. Someone else provided a link to the bus company's website, while another Facebook follower enhanced the culprit's image for Lorraine.

Many others shared the footage far and wide, and of course recommended she tell the police, which she had done.

Alas, when I contacted her about a week later, the plant thief was still at large and the case remained unsolved, despite an outpouring of community rage and concern. The bus company wouldn't provide their dashcam footage - citing 'data protection' - while the police, Lorraine says, hadn't responded. (Anyway, if they had caught the thief with the stolen goods he probably would have claimed it was a plant. See what I did there?)

Joking apart, Lorraine is very disappointed that despite the culprit being caught in the act there's not enough clear evidence for any action to be taken. The only good thing to come out of this is the way the community responded with suggestions, advice and of course sympathy. There are still some good people out there.

Case study number two is a cautionary tale, summed up simply as: if you've got a video doorbell camera, use it.

Jayne lives on our street where there's no private parking - everyone has to park on the roadside. Her partner's motorbike was outside her house on the kerbside, but one morning they discovered that someone had apparently backed into it, or even over it. The handlebars and front forks were bent, bits of fairing were detached, but - bizarrely - the culprit had picked the bike up and put it back on its stand a couple of car-lengths down the road before driving off. No note was left, no offer of compensation or admission of guilt.

Luckily Jayne has a video doorbell camera. Unluckily it was switched it off at the time the damage was caused. No evidence, no culprit, nothing. To say that she feels embarrassed and annoyed is an understatement, and you can be sure she will keep the camera active at all times from now on. But of course it's too late. The motorcycle has been written off by the insurance company with little prospect of recouping any costs. Her partner is still fuming. And hitching rides.

A trawl of the Internet shows there have been many, many instances where thieves have been snapped on camera, but not always caught in real life. Police responses to video footage from door cams vary hugely - some instances show police immediately recognising a culprit from previous offences, others demonstrate what appears to be a complete lack of interest.

Amazon have bought the Ring company and
are partnering with police departments.
Image: The Sun

Here in England in 2019, The Sunday Times and The Sun tabloid revealed that Amazon's Ring Video Doorbells were being offered to various police forces for them to promote to their communities - either handing them out free and/or offering discount vouchers for purchase.

 A Ring spokesperson was quoted as saying that its technology 'had led to amazing results,' while Detective Superintendent Andy Smith of Suffolk police added, 'This is massively powerful for us.  We have had at least four prolific criminals captured as a consequence of Ring doorbells.'

Media however also reported concerns from privacy and criminal justice watchdogs about the partnership between Amazon's Ring doorbells and the police, citing worries over privacy and the 'Big Brother' implications of the surveillance technology. The Guardian reported disturbing evidence that in the United States Amazon had even created press release templates for police departments to use in promoting the Ring partnerships, even going as far as requiring sign-off of any media releases by Amazon executives before dispatch.

A video doorbell with security concerns,
according to Which? magazine. 
Image: Which?

Meanwhile, consumer watchdog magazine Which? revealed that some of the cheaper video doorbell options widely available online are extremely prone to hacking, often not encrypting passwords. Some can very easily be stolen too as they are not hard-wired to the house, and then on-sold. In fact, just last month police in Poole, Dorset recovered 18 stolen video doorbells, possibly the most ironic example of theft given that the doorbells themselves are designed to deter thieves.

A Poole police spokesperson said, 'Following a spate of Ring doorbell thefts in Poole North, enquiries have been made at two addresses and suspects identified. Eighteen camera doorbells have been recovered today and I am in the process of linking these back with their owners.'

Oh the irony! Stolen security video doorbells.
Image: Daily Echo

Actual statistics of just how effective video doorbells have been in catching criminals however are hard to find. Usually such success stories either detail one specific crime caught on camera (such as this story, 'Delivery driver and passenger steal bike'), or vague statements like this from last year by Edinburgh police: '...[we] have been able to make "a number of good arrests across the city" thanks to the technology.' Well, two is a number, but how many arrests did they actually make? We don't know.

Of course, not everyone captured on a video doorbell is a criminal. Sarah, another Surrey resident recently snapped a man on her doorbell video who was doing a good deed. He had found her daughter's lost wallet and personally returned it to her. She said on a local Facebook group page, 'In the midst of an emotional meltdown ... I didn’t thank him enough. I didn’t ask his name, or offer any gesture for his kindness and I feel awful. He went above and beyond and his timing was perfect to allow us to make a really important appointment. Please let me know if he is in this group or on Facebook?' She included a very clear image of the man ringing her doorbell, and not stealing her plants.

Know this kind gent?

Despite being shared 228 times no positive identification has been made to date, though the kindness and honesty of the gent has elicited much praise from the community. In an update Sarah commented on Facebook, 'Sadly we haven’t managed to find him. I hope he realised in my moment of elation and frenzy that the effort he went to was truly appreciated and made a difference to our day. Thank you whoever you are.'

So, is a video doorbell effective as a crime deterrent and evidence-gathering technology? Obviously it depends how clear the image is, what has transpired, whether the actual crime was clearly caught and recorded, and whether the police show any interest in the footage. Good luck with that one. And that's not even touching on whether you as a householder have worries about hackers or Big Brother privacy issues.

In the end it's up to you the householder to decide whether the potential security benefits outweigh any privacy concerns, and whether you are determined enough to maintain your video doorbell security and keep it active at all times. There's lots to think about. Maybe the moral of the story is: don't make a snap decision.

Summertime, and the Living Ain’t Easy

 Mike Bodnar has the summertime bad weather blues…

Image: Mike Bodnar

There is no better way to become an intense weather watcher than to be without a roof. We know this because we currently don’t have one.

Not that it’s blown away or anything – our builder has recently removed all the tiles from it, along with some of the rafters, and is now carefully building a new roof which will be the crowning glory of our house renovation. I can’t wait.

But wait I have to, and in the meantime we are covered in a patchwork of tarpaulins. When these are removed there is nothing between us and the firmament. As I joked on Facebook the other day when I posted a picture of the sunlit clouds above a few remaining rafters, ‘Look! We’ve had Sky installed!’

Look! We've got Sky!

However it’s been no joke. We chose ‘summer’ to have the roof done because, y’know, sunshine, warmth, blue skies. Bollocks. We’ve had precious little of any of those, just the odd ‘mini-heatwave’ as the tabloids would have it, interspersed with ‘cooler than average temperatures for this time of the year.’ And rain, rain and, well, need I say more? Yes I need.

So much rain that when I looked into the garden recently to see how our little boat was coping where it’s moored in the river there were all sorts of creatures queuing up two-by-two to get on it. Which confirmed it was a downpour of biblical proportions.

Meanwhile, as the rain came down in stair-rods, infiltrating any nook or cranny in the tarpaulins and overnight soaking our broadband modem, I am reading about heatwaves in Canada and Siberia (I mean, Siberia, seriously, WTF?), wildfires in Greece due to the extreme heat, and various other parts of the world where SPF 50 sunblock just isn’t going to cut it. California is running out of water, while at our place we have it running in.

During July I was brave enough to watch a bit of TV news (ref. a previous blog about bad news affecting my mental health) so I’m slowly reintroducing myself to world events, starting mainly with the weather. It didn’t do my mental state much good.

Of biblical proportions. Image: Daily Express

There seemed to be a pattern emerging, where the forecaster would stand beside the map of the UK and Northern Ireland and point to low pressure systems building in the Atlantic Ocean and heading for our green and pleasant land. This, they would apologetically warn, could bring widespread showers, thunder, lightning, and the possibility of flooding in some areas.

They would then – somewhat tentatively it has to be said – touch on the longer-range forecast which showed potential for improvement in about three days’ time. Always in about three days. But, bollocks again.

Image: Manchester Evening News

Three days later, guess what? Another surprise low pressure system forced down from the north and squeezed from the south brings rain, wind and yes flooding in some areas. But it’s okay, because in three days things are looking brighter! Well, the grass is always greener and all that, but you know why don’t you? Because rain.

And this cycle of a new low every three days or so has been ongoing through summer. If we’d bought this thing called ‘summer’ in a shop we’d be asking for our money back by now and complaining about the misleading information on the packaging.

Meanwhile, all around the UK– across to the west, above to the north-east, and over to the east and darn sarf it’s blistering – endless sun and heat, lovely warmth, sweltering. Okay, and on fire, but hey.

Under canvas

But then – hallelujah! A forecast last weekend promising us ten whole days of no rain, some sunshine, gentle breezes and okay temperatures of around 20 to 23 degrees Celsius from Tuesday. Yay! This would mean our builder and his helpers could crack on and get the new roof well advanced. I breathed a sigh of relief, and the animal pairs queuing up at our boat mooring scuttled, loped, flew, trotted and slithered back to their homes.

But no. By Thursday, after a measly two days of reasonably clement weather – nothing you could call ‘summer’ by any stretch – the clouds came over and guess what? Showers.

Luckily our builder has stoicism of biblical proportions, and, like Noah, continues to saw, screw, hammer and drill even as rain sweeps in from yet another shifty low pressure system that’s snuck its way across the Atlantic.

Stoic Trevor and Big Dee

Okay, we can blame climate change, which we’ve been told for some years now is about extremes: more intense heat here, more rain there, more misery everywhere. But knowing where the blame lies doesn’t change the forecast, or my current mood, or indeed my optimism.

So thank God for Trevor our builder (‘Treasure,’ my wife calls him), who I can hear on the roof right now whistling and singing as he works, even as the grey clouds gather ominously and the first few spots of the next downpour begin. I just hope it doesn’t take him forty days and forty nights to get the roof finished because by then it will be too late.

Now if you’ll excuse me I just need to go and do a better job of marking out
where the animals should queue up beside the boat. Just in case.