Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

Not now silent singer!

Posted: March 4, 2012 in cerebral palsy, comedy, disability, humour, music, News, The X Factor, Twitter
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Gareth Gates

Will I be the next Gareth Gates?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone who couldn’t speak tried to go on The X Factor? Probably not but I have. Probably because I’m a bit of a bastard. I often think about going on The X Factor just to see the look on their faces when they realise I can’t actually sing. Or dance. Or talk. I imagine it would both be very awkward and very funny. I did once apply to be on Pop Idol but that was in the days of applying by post/email and I never heard back. I’d love to be able to tell Simon that ‘I started off in a disabled Steps tribute band. We were called Ramps. That was a bit of an uphill struggle’.

Alas, I have never been able to find out what would happen…..until now. It just so happens that The X Factor auditions are in Newcastle this weekend and all I have to do is turn up and wait my turn. It’s probably not worth waiting in a queue all day just to have a laugh right? I thought that too. So I checked and there’s a ‘special assistance’ queue for disabled people. How nice of them! Getting up dead early for when it opens at 8am will be a bit of a drag but I can live with that.

My plan is to use my iPad to ‘sing’ some lyrics. The interesting part will be how far I get before they send me home. I obviously can’t sing so I won’t get far but will they let me try anyway? Will they feel too awkward to stop me? Will they see the funny side and let me continue? If Gareth Gates can do it on Pop Idol with his s…s…s…st..st…stutter then so can I, right? Maybe I’ll have to play the disability card (last seen on early versions of Monopoly before it got approved). There’s only really one way to find out! I just hope I don’t get barred like these disabled people at a karaoke night.

The other problem is working out which song to ‘sing’. It needs to be something slightly wrong and inappropriate but I haven’t had many ideas yet. I’ve no doubt that my mind will work its magic sooner or later though. My mind is like that. It decides to work at the completely wrong moment…..like at a funeral, the scene of a bad accident or during sexual intercourse. As you can tell, it doesn’t decide to work very often.

My best mate entered The X Factor last year and I wanted to give him all the help and support I could. So I killed his mum.It made for quite a sob story.

My friend once told me to buy Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing In The Name” in protest against The X Factor always getting the Christmas number one. I said, “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” Besides, I was too busy keeping up my own campaign of punching the winners in bookshops.

The irony of all of this is that I hate The X Factor and I even have the hashtag muted on my Twitter feed. That’s probably for the best. If I do make it onto television, I’d hate to think what people would say about my singing abilities. I just think that it represents all that is wrong with all this reality/talent show bollocks on television at the moment. What was wrong with a bit of Catchphrase and Noel’s House Party (except from Noel, of course!).

Anyway, I’ll try to tweet on the day of the auditions to keep you all updated. You can follow what is going on and show your support by following me on Twitter – - or by following the hashtag #CripOnFactor

If you would like to come along at 8am next Saturday morning (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t!?) then I’d very much welcome the company! Just let me know.

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Twitter mourns death of Whotney Hudson

Posted: February 12, 2012 in comedy, humour, News, Twitter, Whitney Houston
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This weekend saw the sad and untimely death of Whitney Houston. As always these days, Twitter was first with the news, first with the outpouring of grief, first with the jokes and first with the ‘it was probably her fault anyway’ line.

However, what you may not have realised is that many other people seem to have died at the same time too. As these tweets demonstrate…

So, please remember all these poor souls in your prayers tonight too. I, for one, hope they can all reset in piece.

Highlights from my debut stand up comedy performance

Posted: February 9, 2012 in cerebral palsy, comedy, disability, humour, News, Ross Noble, stand up, stand up comedy, Twitter
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The past few days since my stand up comedy debut on Saturday have been pretty mental. I haven’t had this much praise since the doctors told my Mam that I was going to be a special child. For starters, the feedback I got straight after the gig was great.  From the initial reaction, everyone seemed to enjoy my set which was both a relief and a huge boost. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I got up on stage.

Then, I got a mention on Alfie and Charlie’s BBC Radio Newcastle breakfast show on Monday morning, which was nice. I also uploaded highlights from my set (which you can see below) on to YouTube on Tuesday and Ross Noble very kindly retweeted it. This made my twitter account go crazy and I spent most of the night replying to very nice messages. I also gained about 100 new followers. Thank you if you are one of them.

The video has had about 2,000 views in just over a day, cue more lovely comments about how funny I am. And, let’s face it, that’s always nice to hear….especially from complete strangers. Not that I’m egotistical……much!

Thank you if you have been one of these supportive people. I’ve added a gigs page to the menu at the top of my site as many of you were asking where you could see me next. I’ve also made a section with all my clips in.

Hope you enjoy the highlights……

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It’s time to face the music!

Posted: February 4, 2012 in cerebral palsy, charity, comedy, disability, humour, News, stand up, stand up comedy, Sunderland, Twitter
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So, tonight is the night that I make my stand up comedy debut. Naturally, instead of practicing my set, I’m writing this blog instead.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been a bit taken by surprise by all the support and interest that I’ve received since announcing my plans to try stand up a few weeks ago. The low key first gig is definitely out the window! I’d just like to say thank you to each and every one of you who has wished me well, passed on my link, donated sponsorship money or just haven’t told me that I’m completely insane! It is that support that has made me believe in myself a lot more than I did when I first blogged about this.

Strangely, at the moment, I’m feeling quite excited about tonight. I thought I’d be more nervous or scared but none of that has kicked in yet. I’m sure you’ll be able to see it on my face just before I walk on stage though.

I’ve been surprised by the level of media interest too. In fact, I’ve been a bit of a media whore in the past week or so. First came the Sunderland Echo article, then I was featured on the Giggle Beats website and yesterday I was interviewed for BBC Radio Newcastle (see below), BBC Look North and Sky TV. To be fair, that was a pretty mental day. The time for talking is over though (well not quite, but you know what I mean!) and it’s time to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do this. Again, special thanks goes to Hannah and Nathan for convincing me to give this a go.

See you at Mission in Sunderland tonight from 7pm. I’ll be the one trying to find a place to hide!

My year in tweets – 2011

Posted: December 29, 2011 in comedy, humour, News, storify, Twitter
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Let’s face it, I tweet a lot. In fact, I tweeted about 5,000 times in 2011 from my main account – @lee_ridley. Most of this was admittedly bollocks but some of them were good…..honest! I’ve trawled back to bring you what I think are my best tweets and retweets from the last 12 months thanks to Storify.

My tweets in January included stuff about dead elephants, Gerry Rafferty, the uprising in Egypt and the fact that http://www.conjunctivitis.com is a site for sore eyes.

February was a month where I bizarrely got asked to move out of a disabled seat on the Metro by another disabled person, where Newcastle United made THAT comeback against Arsenal from 4-0 down and where it was proved that making jokes about Margaret Thatcher will make you popular on Twitter.

My tweets in March seemed to revolve around the time where I changed my voice for a week for Comic Relief and became a media whore in the process. It was also the month I turned to the dark side and bought the iPad 2.

April was the month of the Ryan Giggs superinjuction and the wedding of Wills and Kate….or Wate as I like to call them. I was also very cruel to a cold caller.

In my top tweets of May there isn’t a Star Wars ‘may the fourth’ tweet in sight (thankfully), proving that I do have some limits after all! There is still more poking fun at Ryan Giggs though. Margaret Thatcher was also rumoured to be dying….comedy gold, I’m sure you’ll agree!

My tweets in June were mostly about the hot weather and old TV shows. Clearly an exciting month then!

July was the month when the News Of The World came to be no more, I went on a trip via train and David Cameron fucked up the country a little bit more.

August was a bit of a crazy month. The London riots happened, I dressed up as Colonel Gaddafi, Steve Jobs resigned and I got told that not being able to talk was ‘a bit of a pisser’. Who knew!

September saw my trip to Ibiza, November the 9th remembrance, Talk Like A Pirate Day and the birthday of a search engine called Google.

My tweets in October included stuff on National Coming Out Day on October 12th. Which is a shame if you wanted to come out on the 11th. Steve Jobs and Colonel Gaddafi also died. Can you guess which one made me sad?

November saw the Michael Jackson doctor trial come to its conclusion and Mike Ashley TRY to change the name of St James’ Park to much anger from everyone…ever. I also went on strike. Or as I like to call it ‘go to work with a benefit cheat day’.

Finally, December came and went and surprisingly enough I tweeted a lot about Christmas. Not much baby Jesus content in there though. I was more concerned about Roy Wood wishing it was Christmas every day. He hasn’t thought this through. He’d never get any post or milk delivered for a start.

And there you have it, my year in a series of 140 characters or less. I hope you enjoyed at least 140 characters worth of my year and decide to keep following me in 2012. On Twitter I mean, not in real life. That’d just be weird!