A dirty comedy poem about sentient ice.
+ Gig retrospective
On July 25 2025, I scrambled my way to the Britons Protection pub in Manchester, England (the UK one) and put together a little free comedy show all about aliens, time travel, and licking door handles.
Shows like this are where I can truly be myself. I enjoy the open mics, but what I am really good at is having more than five minutes, and mixing my surreal sense of humour with odd, sometimes educational, anecdotes about what it means to be human.
Religion, spirituality, the afterlife, time travel, are just some of the topics that came up. Sort of like my books.
So how did it happen?
Roughly a week before, my pal Zuza informed me that a local comedian had cancelled their booked slot at the pub. They were practicing for the Edinburgh Fringe (as I would have been, had I not been saving up for bigger, weirder things) and she said she trusted me to make good use of the time, knowing I did the Manchester Fringe in 2023.
So I signed up. We had about eight days to put the show together and advertise. Nonetheless we had a modest crowd of between four and six people who were passing the pub on the day of the event, and two more who actually made the pilgrimage to see me deliberately! (Hi Kath, hi Ash).
Ash is a comedian friend I met at Bright Club Comedy, and Kath found me through listening to ALLfm radio, where I am sometimes a guest or host. Kath wanted to buy some books from me and had struggled to get them in Waterstones (an issue I am still working on) so I brought her:
The Cosmic Comedy Collection, Who Built The Humans?, and The Cosmonaut Who Died Twice.
And I signed them all.
I then started to tell jokes. I did my Bright Club time travel set (designed to be read to history students and other such nerds, but now reformatted to suit a pub better) and I meandered my way from that onto religion and spirituality, which opened the Mormonism door, which in turn gave me space to do my Mormonism jokes from Wise Guys Utah (April 2024). After these I read some comedy poems, one of which was from 2015, and was my first experience at standup.
That’s right, I started standup comedy as a Sci-Fi poet, at Edge Hill University’s ARTS BAR, just opposite their Rose Theatre. My first poem was about sentient ice, and my second was about free speech. I didn’t realise until recently that both of these have been important to me for a while (be nice to your ice).
The full STORIES FOR LIZARD PEOPLE show lasted about 90 minutes.
A full 90-minute video of the show will turn up somewhere eventually, but for now I am looking into getting someone to clip the suitable bits into soundbites for instagram and tiktok. I might do it myself, as I am about to take my other life as a Minecraft Streamer (which is ultimately, another form of storytelling) to the next level.
Right now I type this on a computer which is beginning to struggle, and which has some delay issues with the space bar. This has made editing WHO KILLED THE HUMANS pretty frustrating, but it will all be over soon, as I am nearly done with the genetic testing for my vast new supercomputer.
The poem.
I wrote this poem a little bit over ten years ago. I’ve been a comedy poet for ten years (on and off) and this is still a fan favourite.
21:04 20/03/15 finished 22:33 on the same day The first poem I performed at Arts Bar Edge Hill Uni, on the night I became a comedian. Phone Sex I woke up one morning, cold and alone Saw an ad in the paper, picked up the phone Cost me three quid a minute, I only needed four I had never been talked to like this before She told me to do things, asked me to beg I imagined myself humping her leg And my flatmate came in, prised me from the chair Asked me how long it had been since I last washed my hair I told him I didn’t know, but that I was in love He said there were complaints from the flat above My telephone love making had worked its way into night And they said they could hardly hear themselves fight So instead they held hands and their relationship was fine I said sorry for putting their misery on the line The woman had apparently been filing for divorce Winding him up all these years, now had to use force I heard one last thud and off she went To some far off land like Spain, or Kent So I picked up the phone and started to dial But my flatmate said I should stop for a while He took me aside showed me the bills I needed to pay in, but got the chills I wanted to call her to ask for advice But he took the phone, showed me the ice It climbed up the window and into the bed And soon enough it would get in my head He said we had only enough for the bills in the account So I asked him if he was sure of the amount He nodded, and I knew that at last I had to decide between my love and the gas It had gone too far my chances lost I had to find a way to cover the cost I called her again, this time for an hour Spent it all on her voice and needed a shower My flatmate said I should get on my feet Otherwise I’d be out on the street So I rang the number one last time Now I too work on the flirting line My love has since quit to go back home But I’m happy here, talking on the phone
I’ve had a few more adventures since, but I think that will do for now.
I also wanted to thank Anja for picking up WHO BUILT THE HUMANS?
Great poem, definitely made me laugh! The phone sex client -> worker pipeline is real. Sounds like you have some exciting (and weird) things coming up - always a good thing!