For This Machine Kills Wasps, my new music and comedy night, I have returned to Facebook for the first time since Nick Clegg was popular.

This was solely in order to set up an event page, but I have realised that 95% of open mic bookings in this city are still on that dystopian corner of the internet, so I will use it for that too.

Initially I signed up as the Japanese for “owl conglomerate”, but was immediately banned, so grudgingly I gave them my actual name.

I do not plan to spend any time in Mark Zuckerberg’a walled garden, but my housemate, a user, asked me a few questions there for promotional purposes. My answers are below.

100 words or less on who you are – why you got into comedy etc

Hello, I am James, an awkward man from the suburbs.

I put on indie discos in my twenties and early thirties. I’ve put on comedy nights in my forties. This is my first attempt at combining these two loves.

I cannot remember why I got into comedy but I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t a crucial part of my life. 

My parents showed me lots of brilliant but age inappropriate things when I was very young, like Airplane and Blazing Saddles. 

My dad was savvy enough to explain that it’s the white guys we’re laughing at in the latter, and stupid enough to show the former the night before my first ever plane journey. I was six.

Likes (5)

International socialism, the sea, Björk, Ursula Le Guin, and long rail journeys in a well observed quiet coach.

Dislikes (5)

TERFs, Tories, cars, guns, and the concept of “banter”.

Aesthetic.

Ageing indie kid / bad folk musician, depending on beard.

What you wanted for your 10th Birthday.

I have very little recollection of being 10 but I think the Cold War was coming to an end, so I likely desired my own nuclear powered Soviet submarine. My interest in militarism ended with puberty, as it should for everyone. 

This Machine Kills Wasps’ debut show is on 2nd February 2023 at The Folklore Rooms in Brighton.