In the bottom drawer in a desk in my flat I keep a little black book. Instead of containing a roll call of lovely ladies’ phone numbers, ready and willing to satisfy my rampant libidinous urges at any time, the book lists the names of people whose obituaries I’m looking forward to reading in my lifetime (and I’m planning on hanging around for quite a while). This morning I was able to draw a line through a target which I’d highlighted and marked with several asterisks, namely that of Mr Bernard Manning, ‘comedian’.

There were many things to find odious about Manning (I feel sorry for any journalist who had to interview him while he was in his trademark vest and y-fronts), but the way in which he used to defend his odious material as being “just jokes” I always found the most distasteful.

Manning knew only too well there was a particular demographic for his trademark racist and sexist ‘comedy’, and it’s a sign of the changing (I hope) times that police officers used to be particular fans of his race relations material. Just because Manning would occasionally challenge the preconceptions of his audience doesn’t change the fact that generally he would pander to the worst kind of prejudiced societal stereotypes in order to keep himself in gold watches and off-white y-fronts.

Manning was renowned for running his own club (the Embassy) in Manchester, which was just as well considering from the 1980s TV executives were reluctant to provide him with a showcase for his line in comedy. His appearance on the Mrs Merton Show in the late 1990s demonstrated exactly why this charmless fuck was kept off of the box as often as possible.

Manning spent much of the show being relentlessly unfunny, and mocking Richard Wilson (a fellow guest) for having a bit more than one foot in the grave, which was an odd thing to do considering Manning was five years his senior. Manning’s request for Wilson to “say hello to Roy Orbison for me” now seems deliciously ironic considering Wilson is still gainfully employed in this life and Manning is (or soon will be) six feet under.

As a sideways tribute to the bigoted fuck’s passing, I can’t resist re-telling Caroline Aherne’s wickedly barbed quip, which was one of the only occasions I found myself laughing when Manning was on screen.

Mrs Merton: “I went to your club once Bernard and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was the night it burnt down!”

Working in the NHS means you’re guaranteed one thing (apart from MRSA): being subject to periodic wheezes whereby some middle manager's brainstorm leads to an attempt to build a touchy-feely team spirit.

For reasons unknown, we have to have an unflattering mugshot taken so it can be put on the wall and sniggered at by patients and staff alike. A couple of other departments have already been press-ganged into this, which means they'll no longer be suffering in isolation. I’ve always taken particular pleasure at sniggering at the dork-shots outside certain departments, and informing the individual in question when I meet them that the camera does indeed lie and they look nothing like as bad as their print-out portrait suggested.

Having seen the rest of the team’s photos I have so far resisted this, and am currently involved in a battle of wills with the rest of the world ward manager insisting on taking the shot. For some unspecified reason, providing a photo of my own which I can just about live with is not acceptable. This is a shame, as I really think the photo below captures the TKK essence to the max.

So more 'news' from the couple the phrase “oh do fuck off!” was invented. Pete and Jord are rutting again (the video’ll probably be released in a couple of weeks). Apparently Jordan knew that hubby was on the road to recovery once he started shaving his pubes again.

What next mundane news from these two? Peter Andre in backed-up for two days shocker? “Jordan rang the 3am desk to say our Pete’s been constipated for the past couple of days, but he just went into the bog with a Daily Mirror and I think I can hear him whistling…”

I’d also like to dedicate a big fuck off to the following people:

Frank Lampard (if you do score on Wednesday don't gloat too much seeing as it's only Estonia you're up against)
Danni Minogue (I hope it’s in your contract you have to blow Simon Cowell every show, you old hag)
Rihanna (I’ve no idea who the fuck you are, but you sound pretty annoying to me)

And you won’t go a long way.

Like most relationships, the majority of bands will not hit the big time. They will be undignified affairs which tend to fall apart in an unceremonious fashion in the back of a dodgy pub with lager being spilt all over the equipment.

On Friday I spent the evening at the Windmill in Brixton watching four bands redefine live music as public entertainment. If John Wilkes Booth had been present at this occasion I’m quite sure he would have been allowed to carry on shooting throughout the evening.

Initially, I was sat in the best seat in the house. I could see the band and the football merely by turning my head slightly. The toilets, bar and cigarette machine were all close by, as was the pub dog that greeted my entrance by, er, greeting my entrance.

Unfortunately, the individual I was out with insisted on going eye-to-eye with the bands, so we had to give up the best seats in the house. *wipes tear from eye*

The first band I can’t remember much of and neither can most of the pub, being as they had the unfortunate luck for their set to start just as Becks flighted in a patented cross from the right onto JT’s head. Again, most of the pub missed much of the second act, although this was due to technical problems with the band’s equipment. The lead singer at least was able to improvise with some style by making use of the interval and his working microphone to bellow at the bar staff: “I’ll have a pint of Kronenburg!”

The third band got the pub in the festival spirit, if by that you mean everyone had the urge to piss in a bottle, leave the top unscrewed and chuck it at the stage. And the last band were so soul-crushingly smug and piss-poor that they launched a rush for the cigarette machine (led by yours truly). In a cruel twist of fate, the fags woz all gone. Ok, so there probably were Silk Cut left in the machine, but you normally have to smoke so many of them at the same time to get a hit it makes it look like you’re playing the panpipes.

The reason these bands will never make it to Wembley? In their heads I’m sure they already think they are. The opening band were handing out flyers for the ‘launch party’ of their new single: £5 entry, unless you were on their ‘guest list’, in which case it was £2. A ‘guest list’ for a band playing in the back of a pub in Brixton? Do me a favour.

Most of the bands seemed to have plenty of friends (or large extended families) at the gig, so there’s the false impression of people being into your music, but asking your friends for their opinion on your music is generally pointless unless they’re employed at EMI. They’re guaranteed to say something pleasant about your music, in the same way they’ll generally not say you look a dick in your gig clothes. That’s why they’re considered friends and not some lairy cunt in the pub.

And having girls dancing at your gigs means nothing. Girls will dance to anything. If you look at the Saddam Hussein hanging video again you’ll notice a couple of women in the background shuffling their feet almost in time to the swaying of the noose.

While not every band in the world wants to hit the big time, surely the point in playing in public is to entertain beyond the ends of your own shoes?

In a particularly smug moment, Stewart Lee once stated before a performance that if the show proceeded without the audience being present the evening would still have artistic validity. Maybe so, but I'm sure he'd much prefer a shag over a wank any day of the week.