For these reasons, Wringham & Godsil are taking a break from the podcastery but will be back in October for a second series of their sub-par Alphabites programme.

Here’s a picture of the boys with fellow podcaster Mr. Richard Herring at the Birmingham Glee Club last week:

You can still be a part of their independent projects by following Dan’s Twitter feed or buying Issue Three of Rob’s magazine, New Escapologist.

This issue features a conversation with Tom Hodgkinson, David Gross on tax resistance, Leo Babauta on shopping, Brian Dean on anxiety culture, Reggie C. King on the works of Moondog, Dickon Edwards on pseudonyms and truly loads more. Discover what to embrace and what to reject in this bumper “How To” issue.

My personal contributions, as well as overseeing the enterprise, include some words about autonomy, trifles, Montreal, sea-turtles and escape-route plotting.

In my grotesquely biased opinion, it’s our finest issue to date.

For intellectual consumption only. Buy it here!

If, like me, you’re a scowling misanthrope who hates all music, art and sport, you might want to try some standup comedy. The main joy of comedy is in the jazz-like poise of a performer’s delivery but, if you’re lucky, they might talk about cocks as well. Brilliant.

Glasgow is a good city in which to enjoy comedy, partly because of the great clubs and brilliant native comedians but also because of Glasgow’s unique combination of civic pride and self depreciation; and its historic local politics: fertile ground for standup comedy.

The Glasgow comedy “scene” (kill me) is overshadowed by two main forces: Jongleurs and The Stand. Jongleurs is a nightclub-style venue in the city centre where you can expect to see fairly mainstream acts followed by a disco and a midnight sense of loneliness and despair. Ideal for office, hen and stag parties.

If you prefer to see real comedy from comedians, both resident and touring, who work hard and don’t leave you feeling hollow and bereft, The Stand is probably the best bet.

Unlike the Wetherspoony Jongleurs, The Stand has only two clubs – one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh – so it maintains a degree of independence and the comedy experience doesn’t feel mass produced. As venues, they are dedicated exclusively to standup comedy, making the atmosphere conducive to only one thing. The result is a nurturing environment for the performers and the feeling amongst the audience that something unique and never-to-be-seen-again might unfold. Every Sunday, Michael Redmond compares a package show of local and imported acts: Michael himself is a hero of comedy (adored by Graham Linehan and Stewart Lee and plagiarised by the Pasquale family) and it is a great privilege to be able to see him, not just occasionally, but on any given Sunday at The Stand.

The Stand is undoubtedly the best venue for comedy in the city (and frankly one of the best in the whole UK), but there are other fringe venues worth exploring in Glasgow too. Many local bars and cafes run comedy nights: a particularly good one is the ‘Comedy Womb’ at The State bar on Holland Street. Although the club only runs once a week and doesn’t have the heritage of The Stand, the acts are usually pretty good and are angled unpatronisingly toward a comedy-literate audience. This is a good place to catch newer acts. Speaking of which, don’t be put off by the idea of a ‘new acts’ night. A person who has the guts to work a comedy room for the first time will have honed a very tight and intelligent ten minutes: beginners are too nervous to go out there with a half-baked set. Another great opportunity to see newer acts is to try The Stand’s Tuesday night cabaret of new acts, Red Raw.

If the beery atmosphere of a comedy club is not your bag, it’s worth keeping an eye on the programmes of arts centres such as The Arches beneath Central Station and the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) on Sauchihall Street. Ian Macpherson’s “DiScomBoBuLaTe” is a monthly cabaret of comedians and writers, currently based at The Arches and previously at the CCA. You’ll not get any drunken heckling at this sort of event and you’ll get to see some of the country’s top writer-performers: past guests have included Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochead, A. L. Kennedy and Arnold Brown to name but a few. Further west, look out for the infrequent but excellent OMG! night at Gibson Street’s Offshore coffee shop at which a combo of seasoned performers and ‘real people’ read from their teenage diaries. Earnest performances and, instead of beer, you can have a nice cup of tea.

If you want to see a mainstream giant such as Peter Kay, The Mighty Boosh or Glasgow’s own Frankie Boyle, you’re most likely to catch them at the nearby SECC, a capacious venue famous for having the shape of a giant Dasypodidae. You can also try BBC Scotland where they film comedy pilots and require a studio audience. This often means free tickets to see very famous comedians and their less-famous but often talented warm-up acts.

The Glasgow Comedy Festival, though very fledgling compared to other comedy festivals, is an annual crossing of comedy leylines and a great opportunity to catch big names like Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery and Jerry Sadowitz, himself a Glaswegian whose act leaves you feeling as though you’ve had your brain snogged during open-skull surgery (a good thing). While some comedians trade on the mostly imagined rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh, the two cities can be of mutual benefit to one another as far as comedy is concerned: during the internationally renowned Edinburgh Festival, many London acts will take advantage of their being so far north and will also perform at Glasgow, especially at The Stand, for a mere sheckle.

It would be a shame to leave Glasgow without taking advantage of the diverse and brilliant standup it has to offer. Go and see Michael Redmond at The Stand on a Sunday evening and take it from there.

It is not an unreasonable question. My voice sounds like two Mancunian butchers trying to hold a conversation while crossing a corrugated bridge on a tandem. “Yah, yah, yah,” I say, “Blah, blur. Blur, bloh, Bleh?”

Arsevoiced and scatterfashion, my accent is untraceable and my odd turns of phrase have origins everywhere and nowhere. Some people suppose I am from Liverpool or thereabouts but they are as wrong as this analogy about a nailbomb in a crèche.

The explanation for this wonky bumvoice probably lies in a childhood spent watching American cartoons. I have always been especially prone to American colloquialisms and to Canadian raising. My old friend Bladders, a real television junky, was similarly afflicted. In fact, our entire education probably came from American cartoons and the way we speak is just the tip of the iceberg:

In the early 90s, the Wringham household didn’t have satellite television. Just the usual shitty four channels for us. When Channel Five became a reality, my sister and I would sit dot-eyed with anticipation in front of the promotional Spice Girls “Power of Five” place-holder that aired for weeks before Five began their actual broadcasting. We did this for hours.

Bladders, however, despite being as poor as a Dostoevsky protagonist at the end of a tax year and smelling constantly as if his pockets were filled to the brims with haunted yoghurt, had been mercifully blessed with an illegal cable package. He had the poker channels and the weird documentary channels and everything: he even knew the number of the channels you had to flick to in order to catch the 60-second porno previews at midnight. So whenever I could, I used to go over to Bladders’ house specifically to watch new American imports like The Simpsons.

Together he and I developed a love for the character Hans Moleman. We had both spotted him in the early days of the series. I didn’t know the character’s name but Bladders was under the impression that he was called “Edgar Allen Poe”.

The source of Bladders’ confusion lies in an episode in which Hans Moleman is seen pootling along in his new car only to be driven off the road into into the front of a roadside house, which then burns to the ground. A signpost outside the now-destroyed house reads “Birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe”. The joke, obviously, is that this old man has inadvertently destroyed a piece of irreplaceable American heritage, but the young Bladders believed that the comedy arose from Hans Moleman/Edgar Allen Poe driving into his own house.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know who the real Edgar Allen Poe was at this age. This must seem strange to the American readers of this blog, but in England we are not taught about Poe at school. Here, we’re taught proper literature like Shakespeare and Dickens and that story about the prosperous dung beetle.

Yet the words “Edgar Allen Poe” did seem familiar already, so I had an inkling that maybe this Simpsons character was not so named.

Oddly enough, it was a Simpsons Halloween Special that taught me who Poe actually was. The education I received from American television shows may have been slow but it got there in the end.

Never having a pen myself, I inevitably make use of the silver bullet in Steve’s absence. I’ve probably saved about 0.3p on ink so far. That’s cash in the bank, that is.

About to leave a local cafe today, I see a slightly manic-looking lady struggling with the electric door from the other side. She is seemingly played by Michelle Gomez from Green Wing and her stressed demeanour suggests, “Let me in! The vein in my head has stopped throbbing, which means I need coffee!”

The door is one of those wheelchair-accessible doors that requires you to hit a wall-mounted pad upon approaching. It causes much confusion, as I’ve seen in the past, partly because the pad will be significantly behind you by the time you reach the door and partly because there is an eye-level sign reading “Automatic Door”, which it isn’t.

I hit the pad on my side of the door to let the helpless lady in. The kooky door opens outwards and the woman, not seeing how I’d achieved such a miracle from so far away, shoots me an expression of gratitude and amazement. To her, I am a magical door-opening shaman. With a big cock, probably.

Needless to say, I decide to milk this for a bit

By way of explaining my door-opening powers, I produce the silver bullet from my suit pocket. “It’s easy with a Sonic Screwdriver!” I say, waving it back and forth.

People often say I would make a good Doctor Who. These people are correct. I would spend my twelfth incarnation TARDISing around, rescuing people from confusing electric doors all over the universe.

Instead of the “Oh, you dashing cad!” I had both expected and deserved, the lady’s expression of amazement melts into one of loathsome pity. Perhaps she doesn’t understand. I wave the silver bullet around in the air a little bit more. “Sonic Screwdriver?”

Her look is one of positive revulsion. Reflected in her eyes is a contemptible nerd with a pen.

I decide not to say “Sonic Screwdriver” for a third time or drop into a Doctor Who-themed breakdance, instead silently returning the pen to my pocket and leaving.

Reading a book, I was only dimly aware of his presence at first, but it soon occurred to me that the man was staring into the side of my head, like an off-duty phrenologist who doesn’t believe in a work/life balance.

Too bashful (okay, frightened) to challenge his gaze immediately but too distracted to return to my book, I instead looked straight ahead for a second as if exchanging glances with the studio audience.

As I did so, I realised that the pub was relatively empty. He had selected the table next to mine above all the other tables to choose from. My one free moment in an otherwise hectic week was being tarnished by a staring nutter.

I decided to risk a glance in his direction. I did so with trepidation in case his eyes were mad, whirling pinwheels or ghoulish empty sockets in his head.

But no. Normal human eyes. And as I met his gaze, the man immediately stopped his staring and looked down into his pint instead. At least he wasn’t bonkers enough to think that staring at other people in such close proximity is normal behaviour. In fact, he didn’t look mad at all. He was a youngish man, conservatively dressed and drinking a pint of Ruddles County Ale.

A mad person wouldn’t drink Ruddles would he? Yet he had sat down next to me in an otherwise quiet pub and he had definitely been staring. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and return to my book.

But I couldn’t. I soon felt the tractor-beam tug of his horrible eyes.

Reading Dostoevsky while suspecting being stared at is like trying to urinate in the presence of an expectantly blinking kitten. Despite conscious efforts, it is impossible to relax the correct muscles.

I looked up at him again and he quickly returned his attention to the froth of his Ruddles. It was becoming a fairly silly game.

As if God in his Heaven was tiring of this silly game and had decided to throw in a plot device, I suddenly needed the toilet. I didn’t want to take my coat and bag with me and I had half a pint of my own Ruddles left to enjoy.

I decided to put the man’s staring powers to good use.

“Would you watch my pint while I go to the bathroom, mate?”

He responded with a cordial and perfectly un-insane affirmative gesture. Excellent. A good leader recognises the special skills of his followers and this man was good at staring. He could look at my things and prevent them from being captured by crows while I was micturating.

Upon returning, I was dismayed to find that my pint had gone. The staring man had watched my pint very well. He had watched it disappear into the hands of the glass collector.

I shot the man a “WTF” expression but he seemed too distracted to notice.

“Yes!” he said suddenly. I followed his gaze to a television screen mounted on the wall above my table, upon which a phosphurdot footballer was celebrating his goal.

The mad staring-eyes man had not been looking at me at all. He’d been looking at the screen above my head.