For the past week my new podcast, The Comedy Cannon, has been featured on the front page of the Apple iTunes podcast app. A week ago, it was being promoted in the Comedy section, and for a brief period before that it was on the Arts homepage too. However, it seems someone at Apple really likes the show as they’ve bumped…
Leave a CommentThose of you following me on social media will already know, but I’m happy to inform the rest of you that my new podcast, The Comedy Cannon, has now gone live. It’s actually been live for a week as I uploaded some older interviews into the feed to test it out. The first official episode under the Comedy Cannon name is now…
Leave a CommentIt’s one of the world’s most successful religions, with an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion adherents. Yet, thanks to misrepresentations of its tenets by its opponents, and by Muslims themselves, it’s a staggeringly misunderstood ideology. Even a cursory review of the Islamic belief system, versus how it’s perceived, shows a huge disconnect between what the scriptures say and what both…
1 CommentMy journey south from Marrakech towards the Moroccan Sahara was going to be in three phases. First we travelled through Tizi n’Tichka – the highest mountain pass in North Africa. Then we took a short detour to Aït Benhaddou, which is a fortified city that featured in lots of famous films like Lawrence of Arabia, Time Bandits, Gladiator and The…
Leave a CommentCasablanca is the financial centre of the country, but it’s not exactly the most culturally interesting place to explore in Morocco. Therefore, I planned to spend just one night there. Most people probably know the city from the 1940s WW2 film starring Humphrey Bogart. For me, however, Casablanca’s claim to fame is that it’s home to the third largest mosque…
Leave a CommentThe train journey from Fes to Rabat was a mere three hours and once again I’d booked myself into the hotel next to my destination station. And once again it was a wise move as the Ibis proved a great base from which to explore the Moroccan capital. Rabat Medina The first day’s exploration would, naturally, start at the city’s…
Leave a CommentAfter an eight hour train journey from Marrakech I arrived in Fes, and being organised I’d booked myself into a hotel right next to the main train station. I’m a big fan of Accor hotels and the Ibis is a brand I’ve used and trusted for a long time, so it was a welcome sight after a tiring journey. And…
Leave a CommentThree months ago I attended a paid “workshop” in Bristol, which promised to help new comedians improve their chances of winning comedy competitions. One by one, more than a dozen of us got up and did seven minutes of material to each other, and were subsequently judged, X-Factor style, on our performances by a professional comedian and a left-wing comedy critic/booker.…
Leave a CommentAutumn 2015 and I was back in Marrakech – for my FOURTH visit – and once again playing tour guide for family members who have never been before. Only this time, I was also going to use this trip as an opportunity to visit lots of different cities in Morocco. Before we did that though, we spent a few days…
Leave a CommentHebron is a city inside the West Bank, and was occupied by the Israeli army in 1967. It’s a holy city for Muslims, Jews and Christians. The Prophet Ibrahim and many of his family are buried there. This was an exclusively Muslim city for a long, long time. Then the Zionists moved in 400 colonists. And more than 4000 soldiers!…
Leave a Comment
