I almost got onto season 2 of Take Me Out. The was a 50/50 chance of me getting on and I didn’t. If you’ve never seen the show, here’s what I would have been doing…

Actually being on this show, based on me having a self-esteem about level with Joseph Merrick (google him if you must), would have been one of the stupidest decisions of my life. Being on prime time television with a viewing audience of 5million, getting judged primarily on my looks would have probably killed me.

Even knowing all of this, I still filled out the application form. Having thought about it even more and realising it was stupid, I still did my best on the telephone interview. Looking at myself in the mirror and realising, “I really need to get in shape as this show films in 3 weeks” I got through a face to face audition at the Talkback Thames studios.

2 weeks before the show was due to be filmed, I got a call from one of the producers saying they liked me, but they needed to see me and a few others, one more time before making a decision, where we’d do a live run through of the show to see if I actually had enough banter to play the game properly on national television.

So again, I trotted up to Talkback Thames studios to do this live run through. There was 4 of us who had been called back, two of which made it onto the show, 2 of which didn’t.

You’re probably thinking the same thing I was thinking which is that when they say “live run through” there will be girls, and there will be a set, maybe even paddy mcguinness, but no. It was typical dingy fluorescent lit office meeting room with the tables pushed to the side, the senior producer sitting on a table with his to assistants either side of him taking notes.

No introduction, no pleasantries, just as soon as I walked into the room he said, “So we’re just going to go through the game, exactly as it is on the show, no frills, no music, we just want to get a sense of how you’re going to play the game. So when you’re ready we’ll start.” And suddenly, in a random office near Tottenham court road, we’re playing the game.

First thing the producer says “Ok, Paddy’s doing his thing and he says “single man reveal yourself,” your music starts playing and you’re coming down the lift, so start dancing.”

So in the random office meeting room near Tottenham court road, suddenly, I’m dancing to no music, in front of 2 guys and 1 lady all very clearly judging me.

To be honest, I’m not going to go any further with what happened with the game, as I know I lost them there. I can’t dance at the best of times, so I’m sure you can imagine that what my body did in front of 3 judgemental people with one of them saying “go on, let yourself go, give us your best dance” was not much fun for anyone to watch.

I got a phone call from them the next day saying I wasn’t successful. The guy who called said that on the plus side, at least it meant that I wasn’t so weird and awful that I got on as one of the joke contestants.

He then asked me if I wanted to be on standby as a reserve in case they had a drop out. I asked if I was a joke reserve or a proper reserve. He said he couldn’t tell me. I said I‘d pass.

I think people give bankers way too much of a hard time.

Truth be told I don’t think it’s just bankers. I feel sorry for footballers and estate agents as well for the amount of crap they have to put up with, and you should too.

You see it annoys me that people are so quick to jump on the bandwagon of hating these people. I’ve heard it so many times at comedy clubs, a comedian on stage saying, “They’re cunts. We should take their bonus and give it nurses and teachers.” It’s jumping on a bandwagon to gain cheap support when you don’t know all the facts and you definitely can’t say with any certainty that that banker is a cunt. Statistically they probably are a cunt, but that’s not the point.

The point is, it’s because people like us create a stigma about the people in these jobs by calling them cunts, that they get such big bonuses that they don’t deserve. 

A lot of you are thinking “well I’d happily have people call me a cunt if I got paid that much” and that’s exactly the point. They get paid that much because people constantly do call them cunts. It’s written into their job description, “can cope with being constantly called a cunt,” and that pretty much doubles the salary of the job.

Let’s imagine two scenarios:

In both scenarios you’re on a date. In scenario one you’re a firefighter, and in scenario two you’re a banker. When asked “so what do you do for a living” it’s without a shadow of a doubt that in scenario one, you are proud as hell to tell your date, “I’m a firefighter.” It’s probably going to get you laid. Where as in scenario two you know as soon as you tell your date “I’m a banker”, they’re thinking “he’s a cunt but at least he’s rich.”

Let’s make the banking job something anybody would be proud to say they do. That way more people will want to be bankers, and if more people want to be bankers, they won’t be able to ask for so much money because they’ll know there’s someone right behind them who will do their job for less. Salaries will go down, then suddenly bankers are on a par with nurses and teachers. They’ll probably still be cunts, just not overpaid cunts.

You wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I’ve spent some time in jail.

I was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery.

I should say now, I was acquitted within 24 hours as it was clearly mistaken identity. I mean look at me. There’s no way I could pull the trigger on a gun. I grimace when I open a can of coke.

It was 4 years ago, I was living in North Carolina, and I’d just split up with my girlfriend. In commiseration, I got very drunk at a local bar

Walking home, continually drunk dialling my now ex-girlfriend (I don’t remember doing it but my phone call history says I did it a lot). A police car with sirens blazing came racing towards me and screeched to a halt about 20ft from where I was walking. Two cops got out and immediately pulled guns on me shouting at me to, “put my hands up and get on the ground.”

My initial thought wasn’t, “Holy shit, these cops have pulled guns on me,” it was, “Holy shit, I had no idea North Carolina had such strict laws regarding drunk dialling ex-girlfriends.” 

The reason they’d pulled guns on me was because an APB had been put out for an armed robber supposedly matching my description, so I was handcuffed and arrested.

You’re probably thinking, “That must have been a very sobering experience.” You’d be wrong, I was still hammered. The sobering experience wasn’t until the next morning when I woke up in my cell.

As a drunk English person in what was essentially a redneck police station in North Carolina I couldn’t help but think “Wow, this is just like in the movies,” which made me smile. The redneck police officer then shouting across the room at me, “what’cho smilin’ at boy?” only made me smile more.

Just like in the movies I got my 1 phone call. So using the police phone I DRUNK DIALLED MY EX-GIRLFRIEND AGAIN.

Anyway, they put me back in my cell and left me to sleep. A police officer friend of mine told me, “You can always tell who’s innocent and guilty because the innocent people never sleep.” In my drunken state on that concrete bench, I slept like a baby, for 8 straight hours. It wasn’t until a police officer shook me awake at about 9:30 in the morning that I even realised I had a cell mate.

My cell mate was sitting in the far corner of the room just staring at me. He was a big scary looking criminal type (I’m not racist so the skin colour isn’t important), but when he looked at me there was fear in his eyes. He was scared of me. He’d obviously seen me sleep through the night on accusation of armed robbery and thought, “that’s one bad dude,” and I’d never been prouder.

At this point the police took me into a room, and told me I was free to go, and that they’d found the guy who actually committed the crime as he’d tried to rob another place that morning. There was no apology, not even an offer of a ride home. The police officer just looked at me with distain, his eyes were saying “You got away this time, but you’ll slip up. It’s just a matter of time.”

Leaving the station I saw the guy I was mistaken for. He was a 350lb grizzly bear of a dude in his late 40s, the only thing we had in common was we were both white.

Walking home, I thought back about the previous night. About why my cell mate was scared of me, and about why even after being found innocent, the police were still disgusted by me. It made me thinking that maybe there is something about me that looks dangerous.

But then when I got home I realised that the reason for their reactions was probably more for the fact that I was blissfully unaware that while I was drunkenly asleep in that cell, I had heavily urinated myself, staining jeans, shoes and white shirts alike.

So what did I learn from this?

Number 1: If you’re drunk and need a piss, take a piss, always better safe than sorry, and the police won’t give you a ride if you have wet jeans.

Number 2: The most obvious answer is probably the right answer. If you’ve never looked like a tough guy, people aren’t scared of you because you suddenly look dangerous, you’ve probably pissed yourself.

Number 3: If you are danger, just piss yourself. If a robber pulls a knife on you, just stare the criminal right in the eye and start urinating. If you’re willing to ruin your trousers like that, they’re going to think you’re pretty mental.

And finally, Number 4: If you get offered one phone call, never call your ex-girlfriend.

I get a lot of shitty emails through and this one was no exception. Basically, someone asked me if I wanted to give advice for what is clearly a very crap running column. They sent me some shit questions, so here are my equally shit responses.

The reason I got into stand up comedy, and I’m certainly not alone in this, was because I assumed that comedians on the circuit, must get a lot of sex and I wanted in on that action. It made sense that if a sexy woman was in the audience and she saw you on stage being hilarious and engaging and confident in front of a group of strangers she would instantly fall in love with you.

This does not happen.

At least it didn’t happen, until Friday night. After 2 years of gigging around the UK, my ultimate comedic goal of getting laid as a result of comedy was finally realised.

It wasn’t quite the fairytale I’d anticipated. At the end of the gig, an extremely drunk lady came up to me and asked me where one of the other acts was because she thought he was by far the best act of the night. She told me it wasn’t an insult as I wasn’t that bad, he was just a lot better.

Paraphrasing the next hour, we had a few drinks, she basically said “you’ll do” and I went back to hers for an awful night of sex. I’m not going to go into detail, suffice to say it was an awful night of sex.   

On the 6am train home I thought back over the last 2 years of the comedy rollercoaster that led me to this one night of awful sex, and something dawned on me.

Before comedy, I was having sex relatively frequently because I had a girlfriend. Because I wasn’t having to travel to Hull on a Wednesday evening, followed by Exeter on the Thursday, I could sustain an actual relationship, which meant I had sex on tap, albeit a tap that had been turned too tightly so I wasn’t strong enough to turn it on 99% of the time.

And even when I wasn’t in a relationship, I would still occasionally get sex because I had time to go on lots of dates, most of which did not go well, but if you bang your head against a wall enough, you will leave a mark.

But that being said, the thrill of coming off stage after a great gig, adrenaline pumping, only to go home to an empty house by myself feels just as good as sex… I can’t even convince myself of that one.

I think I need some time alone, and by alone I mean with Lisa Left-Hand Lopez.

Guard 1: Have you heard about this guy who keeps trying to pickpocket people?

Guard 2: Yeah I had run in with him yesterday. He is an awful pickpocket, but there’s no way I’d mess with him again.

Guard 1: What do you mean?

Guard 2: I don’t know why he does it, as it’s the mentality of a 5 year old, but he seems to think people can’t see him if he crouches.

Guard 1: So what? He picks someone’s pocket, then runs away and crouches somewhere?

Guard 2: No he literally just crouches next to people and takes stuff from them. I watched him take someone’s clothes off the other day

Guard 1: And the person just let them?

Guard 2: Well this guys crazy, I don’t really think they have a choice. I think it’s a case of either pretend it’s not happening or die

Guard 1: And you didn’t help out?

Guard 2: I’m not touching him, he’s crazy. A few weeks back, another couple of guards confronted him and they started fighting. Halfway through the fight, he just started eating

Guard 1: Eating the guards?

Guard 2: No, just regular food. 8 pre-made bowls of stew, and 4 entire wheels of cheese, during a fight…

Guard 1: How could you eat that much?

Guard 2: Tell me about it. I don’t think I could breathe eating cheese like that

Guard 1: Guess he must love cheese

Guard 2: It can’t be good for him, I mean he looks really sick. Oh god, that’s him over there, don’t look

Guard 1: WHAT IF I’M THE DRAGONBORN, ONLY I DON’T KNOW IT YET?

Guard 2: Why the hell did you just shout that?

Guard 1: Not totally sure. I thought maybe if he thinks there’s a chance I’m the Dragonborn he’ll leave me alone

Eeylop: Harry Potter! A pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Eeylop’s Owl Emporium, please do come in.

Harry Potter: I really do appreciate you interviewing me for this job. It’s a really difficult job market right now, especially for graduates like me.

Eeylop: Of course, always willing to give “The Chosen One” a chance. But that does bring me onto my first question. When you say “Graduates like me”…

Harry Potter: Well, when I say graduate, I mean I’ve left school. I would have finished, but with Voldemort coming back to power and Snape becoming headmaster I couldn’t really go back to Hogwarts for my final year.

Eeylop: I thought Snape was friends with your Mum?

Harry Potter: It’s a long story

Eeylop: Couldn’t you just sum it up for me?

Harry Potter: Not really, I mean its 7 whole novels

Eeylop: Ok, well I suppose we can just take from this that you have room for improvement when it comes to communicating complex scenarios. Probably something you’d have learned in your final year of school

Harry Potter: That hardly seems fair

Eeylop: Well for first-time job hunters like yourself there’s very little we can judge you on other than your education, as you have no work experience. Do you have any hands on experience dealing with Owls? It says on your Resume you have an Owl called Hedwig, how do you feel that’s prepared you for this job?

Harry Potter: Oh, I thought I’d taken that bit out of my Resume. Unfortunately Hedwig passed away last year. But I would say that in the time that I had Hedwig he taught me a new found respect for the intelligence of owls, and through trial and error I learnt how to look after him and keep him happy.

Eeylop: Wait, didn’t you get Hedwig from me about 5 years ago? Owls live for about 25 years and he couldn’t have been more than 3 years old when you got him. How did he die?

Harry Potter: He was hit by a killing curse

Eeylop: Are you serious? Number 1, that’s illegal. Number 2, where would you even be where an owl could get hit by a killing curse? And Number 3, I was going to ignore it because you’re the chosen one, but I’ve heard rumours about you killing creatures before.

Harry Potter: You can’t blame me for Hedwig, Griphook, or Dobby’s deaths though.

Eeylop: Who the hell are Dobby and Griphook? Is one of them the snake you supposedly killed?

Harry Potter: What? Nagini? Nagini was a pretty evil snake, and even then, it wasn’t me who killed it. I just told my friends to do it.

Eeylop: …

Harry Potter: Ohhhh, you mean the Basilisk. Yes, I did kill a Basilisk, with the sword of Gryffindor

Eeylop: Get out…  

I’m 25. It’s an age where pretty much all my friends are getting married and having kids, and this is fine, I’m happy for them. I just wish they’d stop ruining Facebook for me.

I get it, your kids are cute, you’re proud of them, and you want to show them off. But that’s not an excuse to have them as the sole person in your Facebook profile picture?

Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to wake up hungover on a Sunday morning, check my Facebook news feed and see what looks like 4 babies having a discussion about how drunk they got the night before. What’s worse it says I’m in a relationship with one of them.

I downloaded the Facebook app for my iPhone. What I didn’t realise was that when I downloaded that app, Facebook decided to go into my phone contacts, and link every person in my phonebook with their Facebook profile picture.

I’ll be honest, this has taken all of the fun out of the sexy text messages my Single-Mother Girlfriend sends me. 

Seeing her 4-year-old Son’s picture show up next to a text message saying “I can’t wait to see you tonight” makes me think, “great, we’re starting to bond.” 

But when the message continues to say “I’m going to put my tongue places you’ve only dreamed of.” It makes me think, “I have been sending out entirely the wrong signals to this kid.”

I can’t reply to these messages any more, I’m paranoid. What if I lose my phone, it then gets handed in at a police station, they check the messages to see if they can figure out who it belongs to and uncover what looks like an inappropriate dialogue between me and a 4-year-old.