The Brilliant O'Briain

Yesterday’s conference was at the Culloden Hotel & Spa, which looks like this:

It has a lovely view of Belfast Lough.

OK, now that that’s out of the way... Today, I decided I’m not sick anymore and went for a run this morning, worked on my utility article all day, played in a golf tournament at 5:20 p.m., then hotfooted it into the city to see comedian Dara O’Briain at 8 p.m.

Today was a day of limits. I hit my limit in terms of wearing myself out. But I also faced a 500-word limit on the article, which I found impossible. And the golf tournament was a contest to see who got the farthest in 60 shots.

Limits are important. For the article, the limit forced me to be very selective in what information to share. For the golf, the limit put pressure on me to make each shot count. In both cases, discipline becomes paramount.

As for Dara, I cannot do justice to his show. One of his bits was about the Gillette Fusion Stealth Power razor and how patronising it is to men to throw random word salads at them that have nothing to do with shaving. He did bits about nuclear power and stealth weapons and Asian cooking, musing over their connection to shaving your face. “We have FIVE blades now, ladies and gentleman, FIVE.” He reviewed the possible purpose of each blade. Like I say, I can’t do him justice. Some of his shows are on YouTube if you are interested.

There’s a breed of comic here who is both super smart and super funny. In addition to Dara, we have Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Mangan, Dara O’Briain, Jo Brand, Alan Davies, Romesh Ranganathan, Noel Fielding, Dylan Moran, Joe Lycett, Jon Richardson, Tamsin Grieg. The list is endless. I’m not aware of the US producing this kind of wonder. If you are whip smart in the US, you probably manage a hedge fund or something else that wastes your gifts. Or you host a talk show, which just doesn’t have the comic intensity of the shows here.

Britain has lots of comedy panel shows. QI, Mock the Week (hosted by Dara), Have I Got News For You, 8 out of 10 Cats, Extra Slice, and my new favourite, Task Master, hosted by the brilliant Greg Davies. I’ll confess to watching more TV here than I did in the states because who doesn’t love a good laugh? Given the headlines in the UK (Brexit Brexit Brexit) and in the US (Trump, Trump, Kavanagh, Trump), how can we not take shelter in the world of comedy?
9-21