In the early days of the Jakarta Comedy Club we were lucky enough to catch some of today’s comedy superstars on their way up the ladder to fame and fortune. The headliner for our first ever show in April 2001 was Jason Byrne, who is now the biggest selling act of all time at the [...]

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While I was on holiday in Malta with some friends a few years ago we booked a boat trip to the neighbouring islands of Gozo and Comino. The package deal provided all food and drinks for the day, including breakfast, so we woke up early and set off for the harbour under a bright morning [...]

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Brian Warken was never going to win a Nobel Prize. He was the sort of guy you watched whenever he did anything just to see how badly it would go wrong. He was, however a very nice guy and a very hard worker so I didn’t mind having him as my driver’s mate when I [...]

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The first Jakarta International Fringe Festival is over and what a week it was! Bill Bailey was in town with 15 other top international comedians from all over the world and I don’t think I have ever laughed so much. As you can probably imagine, drinking beer with 16 of the funniest people in the [...]

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The performing arts and entertainment scene in Indonesia is set to enter a new era in November with the launch of the country’s first ever International Fringe Festival which will be held on November 7-11. The event, organized by the Jakarta Comedy Club, BeritaSatu.com and TheJakartaGlobe.com will feature five days of continuous live acts, exhibitions [...]

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“Oy! Elvis! It’s your round!” The words sent shivers down my spine. Not because I was in a pub with Elvis (I wish), but because the words were aimed at me and they were spoken by a six-foot tall, 250 pound, heavily bearded Hell’s Angel called Grizzly. I pretended I didn’t hear. “OY!!” he yelled [...]

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I had been in my local pub watching the now legendary 1979 Silverstone 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix and I was on my way home on my Honda CB250 doing my very best impression of Barry Sheen chasing Kenny Roberts. I was laying the bike into a long sweeping left hand bend on a road I [...]

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In 1987 I bought my dream car. No it wasn’t a Ferrari or a Porsche, it was a five-year-old Mark II 2.8 litre fuel injected Ford Granada Ghia. It was my dream car because prior to that I had been driving a Datsun 260Z sports car which, although I loved it, had given me nothing [...]

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One night in 1998 after a gig in Manila, a woman approached me and my band and asked if we would like to be in a movie. Scenes of fame and fortune flashed before our collective eyes and we immediately began discussing how we were going to spend our millions. “Wine, women and song and [...]

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  When I was 15 years old I used to work on weekends as a glass washer at a country club. One night after all the bars were closed and only the landlord’s 30 year-old son Eric and I were left in the place, I noticed he was having a great deal of luck on [...]

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I have decided I am going to be completely honest with everyone from now on. No more lies, no more pretence. When I meet people I don’t like, I’m going to punch them in the face straight away. When someone asks me a stupid question, I’m not going to answer politely any more, I’m just [...]

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My friend Tony and I were coming back from a party late one night on his Suzuki 250 motorcycle when he misjudged the angle of a tight left-hand bend and hit a three-foot high graveyard wall at almost 50 mph. I remember using Tony’s back as a ramp as I flew into the air and [...]

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We call the magical device we have in our pockets a “phone”, but it really should be called a “communicator”. Amazing advances in technology in the last few years have turned the simple phone (which was amazing enough in its day) into a multi-platform multimedia communications device that gives us the ability to communicate in [...]

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I woke up early on Christmas day 1984, seriously hung-over after an inpromptu party the night  before. The planned party at my place had been abandoned due to a lack of real beer (see previous issue), but we had made the best of it and had a great time with all the other revellers down [...]

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