Hour back... Get it?

1. Played a gig with my new band, The Extraordinary Gentlemen, and much adulation ensued.

2. My left knee is now merely the size of a small Mexican boy. I have named it Tiago Rodrigues.

3. Skyfail, more like. It never hits the heights of the mediocre title song. Javier Bardem as Silva hams it up more than a horribly mutated, genetically modified pig. He gives a magnificently camp, rip-roaring performance. He's amazing considering what little he's given to work with.

4. Jimmy Saville, eh? Who saw that coming? Actually, Jerry Sadowitz did. Back in 1987. 25 years ago he suggested Uncle Jimmy was a paedophile who used his charity work as a cover for his evil deeds. Jerry had to withdraw the CD from sale when the threat of a libel action reared its head. Jerry Sadowitz once won a bet with fellow comedians at the Comedy Store by saying to the audience of the celebrated, at the time, Robben Island inmate: "Nelson Mandela, what a cunt. You lend some people a fiver and you never see them again."

His BBC Television series The Pall Bearer's Revue, which featured magic tricks, sketches and stand-up routines, received a record number of complaints and the Beeb have promised never to repeat it or release it on DVD. A tad hypocritical given the criminal barbarity of Russell Kane on BBC3's Unzipped. The only thing I really remember from this series was a sketch in the final episode in which Sadowitz, playing the role of a US Army General, suggests that a strategic nuclear strike against himself and Andrew 'Dice' Clay is the only way to make the world a better place.

I was in a bar with a friend and his American girlfriend when I told her how much I liked Andrew 'Dice' Clay. Incensed, she spat her drink out in classic Hollywood slapstick style and then began rummaging in her handbag for a napkin as she mumbled about what a jerk he was and what an idiot I must be. I got the distinct impression that she was contemplating punching me in the face.

What to say about Andrew 'Dice' Clay..? I've always regarded him as the Italian-American version of Barry Humphries' Sir Les Patterson. A hideously hilarious caricature. Less enlightened people, or morons if you prefer, have convinced themselves that he is deadly serious and that the Diceman is not a brilliantly grotesque invention. I became aware of Dice for the first time when a Channel 4 arts programme featured excerpts from his live act to illustrate how utterly repellant he was. He was legitimised as an artist, in my eyes, when he starred in a film (The Adventure Of Ford Fairlane) which featured both Morris Day and Sheila E: acolytes of Prince's Minneapolis Funk sound. It was directed by Renny Harlin who had come straight from abandoning work Alien 3 and, on the strength of his work on this feature, went on to direct Die Hard 2.

Dice will forever be known for being the only comedian to sell out two nights at Madison Square Garden and his adult Nursery Rhymes ("Mother Goose? I fucked her"). I would contest that he should also be known for recording perhaps one of the greatest comedy albums of all time: The Day The Laughter Died.

Unlike the scripted profanity of his other albums, this one, produced by the incredible Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Adele, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake) was entirely improvised. It's like a jazz album. Across an hour and a half, Dice describes a thrilling organic arc of a performance: starting off tentatively and disinterestedly describing his first Christmas kiss and ending with the rousing finale of the piano accompanied Something Soft via conversations with a sparse audience which sees their number dwindling as people walk out in disgust. Genius. 

I've got a Richard Pryor boxset which collects all seven of his albums for Warner Brothers and they're a laugh riot: filled with pathos (his Mudbone character especially), sagacity and a razor sharp wit, but there's nothing which matches the surreal absurdity of Dice's Hour Back... Get It? routine;

"Ya know, this could take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour... Back! Get it?It could be a minute. It could be a half-hour, or an hour... Back! Get it? Hour Back!Ya don't get this bit? D'ya think I do? Think about it, I'll wait... Take an hour... Back! Get it?"

The present equivalent of Jerry Sadowitz is Frankie Boyle - Jerry Sadowitz calls Mr Boyle a tribute act - who recently won a libel case against the Daily Mirror who had called him a "racist comedian". He won his case, which seems fair enough. He's a lot more politically astute than his digs at Rebecca Adlington and Katie Price would indicate. In episode 4 of Tramadol Nights, which was cited in the case, he succinctly summarises British Foreign Policy:

"We're fighting a couple of wars now. Well, we call them wars basically we're just murdering a whole bunch of fucking shepherds. And what gets me is our callousness as a society, when we read out our dead on the news first because our lives are more important. Other people's lives aren't worth as much. 'A bomb went off in Kandahar today killing 2 British Servicemen, 3 UN relief workers and a whole bunch of Pakis.'"

Mr Boyle ends the show with a routine which analyses the results of his wife getting fucked by a Black Cock. As this could constitute a clumsy male compliment does that mean it isn't racist. Think about it, I'll wait. Get back to me in an hour. Back. Get it? No. Neither do I.