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Jamie realises how fat he has become, starts training with Fran and John from FSR Personal Training and speaks to Scottish comedy legend Bruce Morton about what he’s been up to during lockdown.
Visit Bruce Morton's website: brucemorton.net
Listen to his take on hip hop: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfDsgxPZjg-Cs93NrmF94qCcuOikYoyPm
Get Lean For Life with FSR Personal Training: fsrpersonaltraining.co.uk
Jamie MacDonald, the comedian you might know better as That Funny Blind Guy, found out that during lockdown the devil does not, it turns out, make work for idle hands; he makes pies and pints. In the first eight weeks of the coronavirus crisis lockdown in the UK, Jamie ate and drank heartily and put on 10 kilograms. His mental health might have suffered too, but he was too drunk to notice. Deciding enough was enough, he enlisted the help of Fran and John of FSR Personal Training to get back on track. This podcast series charts his progress, from one weigh in to the next. Along the way Jamie speaks to some of his comedian friends about life, lockdown and forced unemployment.
Written and presented by Jamie MacDonald.
https://jamiemacdonaldcomedian.com/
Editing and audio production by Bobby Perman for Inner Ear.
Original music by S-Type.
This podcast is a co-production between Jamie MacDonald and Inner Ear.
Because when you're disabled that you start going out with someone, you want them to find you inspiring.
Speaker 2:Because if not, you're just a blue badge with a nice ass.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to my podcast, 10 lockdown heroes and friends. I am stand up comedian Jamie McDonald, aka that funny blind guy. You know, proper, proper blind, like not a pure sicko. Well, the reason I'm doing this podcast is coronavirus. It hasn't affected me and my health, but it has affected my work.
Speaker 1:Like every other comedian, we've had all our work cancelled since March and for the foreseeable. And it turns out the devil does not make work for idle hands. He makes pies in pints. I have put on 10 kilograms of fat. I think in the first eight weeks of this lockdown I went into a kind of boozy, foodie spiral of despair.
Speaker 1:I think I did have mental health problems but I was too pissed to notice them. But anyway, couple of weeks ago I had a word with myself which is Scottish for recognizing excess and because I am a tax paying comedian, I got a self employment grant from the government and I spanked some of that on a nutritionalist called Fran and
Speaker 3:a professional
Speaker 1:trainer called John. Hiya, how you doing? Over the next eight weeks, I want to lose that 10 kilos. The first eight weeks, despair, negative. The second eight weeks, positive.
Speaker 1:And this is gonna track the journey of it. Over the piece, I am going to interview other comedians. I'm gonna find out how they have turned this awful, awful situation into a positive, and, yeah, I hope you enjoy it. This is the official weigh in. Quite nervous about this because I've not weighed myself for a while, and these are talking skills.
Speaker 1:So I I can't lie. I have the talking skills because I can't see. So brace yourself.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That was in German. Okay.
Speaker 2:Your weight is one hundred and thirteen kilograms. A
Speaker 1:hundred and thirteen kilograms. That's eight weeks of boozing and eating that I will now endeavor to take off. So join me on my journey of getting this weight to fuck.
Speaker 4:So John's taking over your training. I'm gonna be taking over your nutrition side. Excellent. We're gonna be setting you up today and putting some systems in place. So until the aim for the end of this is so that you can work your own calories, own food, have a complete understanding of it, basically have all the knowledge that I've got on nutrition and calories and weight management and body composition, where you store fat, all that stuff in a simple manner so you can take it away and be able to control your weight forever going forwards.
Speaker 1:So the first week of the diet has gone pretty well. I have to eat under 2,200 calories a day, and some of you, your first thought will be that's a shitload of food. Turns out it is actually, and I've probably been clocking in about 1,800 because I've just cut out snacking. That has that has been the the blight of my eight weeks of despair. Those big bags of Walkers Max Crisp, they've become like my normal pack.
Speaker 1:So I've cut them out. I'm eating a lot more fruit. I'm not drinking wine. Actually a calorie killer. Booze in general is quite bad.
Speaker 1:I think what I can have is like a little gin and slimline tonic on a Friday night like a lady from the eighties. So I'm looking forward to that. Food wise, the guy Fran put me on this meal plan that has lots of kind of chicken and cheese and stuff. I think I think there was an assumption that before all this, was into kind of Domino's pizzas and all that, but it was just booze. So I've actually been using recipes from a Gordon Ramsay book called Fit Food and it's nice stuff, so I don't feel like you know the poor guy that was on the diet when you were younger, you were all sitting there having roast beef and he had like a little bit of boiled fish and a poached egg and looked bloody miserable.
Speaker 1:Now this is actually nice stuff, and the first thing I noticed about being on diet and not having a hangover every day was the kind of positive, nice feelings I had in the morning. You know, was quite I've been quite clear headed, and then I woke up about 07:00 with a lovely clear head and I'm thinking what have I got to do now until 10:00 tonight till I go to bed?' But I have now started writing a bit more stand up because during the first eight weeks I was trying to write stuff on coronavirus, but it was just coming out as angry. And I think you guys who know me as a stand up, I'm I'm not an angry comedian. That that doesn't that doesn't fit my bill. I'm a kinda chirpy guy.
Speaker 1:So I was kind of making angry stuff about fuckers and supermarkets, social distancing and being angry with me for, I don't know, not not following the one way system around Tescos and all that kind of shit. So I've kind of mellowed out, and I've started to write stuff about Jesus in the Bible curing blind people as a miracle and recognizing that as a PR stunt, because if he was God, I should have just been born with sight. So there we go. That's what's happening with my diet on this week. I think I will update you the rest of the week of the diet at my weigh in.
Speaker 1:So on to my first comedian that I'm gonna be having a chat to about the lockdown. Now this guy is a hero of mine. He has been in comedy for about thirty years, and he's a fantastic guy. He was really supportive of me when I started out in this game, and he's supportive of all other comedians that he likes. He was the first ever winner of So You Think You're Funny in 1988.
Speaker 1:He is a playwright. He has been in Still Game. He has done it all. He was part of the the Funny Farm, which is the kind of collective of comedians back in the nineties who really created the Scottish scene, and the herald described him as a moth god, and he is the treasurer of the Great Shollands Republic, which is a hilarious political movement seeking for independence for the South Side Of Glasgow. I was very, very happy to chat to the wonderful Bruce Morton.
Speaker 1:Morton.
Speaker 2:There we go!
Speaker 1:Bruce? Bruce?
Speaker 3:Yes, Jamie.
Speaker 2:How are you getting on?
Speaker 3:I'm alright, I'm alright, just sitting around, yeah. I went up the street today, I was up early Jamie, went up the street, got my provisions in the supermarket, and then I said to the guy, Oh by the way, give me four bottles of Peroni. And he went, Well, you're gonna have to wait another ten minutes. And I said, What the fuck? He said, It's only ten to ten.
Speaker 3:I went, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:You stay in Shollans? Are you still in Shollans?
Speaker 3:Just slightly off to the side of Shollans just over in Governhill which is kind of Northeast Of Shollans.
Speaker 2:Are you still the treasurer of the Great Shollans Republic? Because I'm asking that, it's a good question because I'm thinking if the Great Shollands Republic, if they got the autonomy to do the lockdown in the South Side Of Glasgow, would you do anything different to the national effort?
Speaker 1:Would there be certain
Speaker 2:statues you'd chuck into the Clyde? Well,
Speaker 3:I'm not sure about that. I did like the thing I saw yesterday and I saw that when there was a notion to take down some of the street names in Glasgow which are dedicated to slave traders I saw that some artists had not taken those things down but I'd built very similar things and pasted them up beside them so that beside Cockroach Street it had something like Shaker Bayou or Rosa Parks Street you know like that.
Speaker 1:Thought that was
Speaker 2:one of
Speaker 3:those things ever man, that was really nice.
Speaker 2:It is mad, I'm torn because I think like the mob taking down a statue of a dickhead, I mean what do
Speaker 3:you do? Well they've done that in Bristol, the mayor in Bristol and the police in Bristol just went yeah you know what, fucking throw it in the river they were all about it and people just went yeah this thing's coming down they tore it down it was like the images from when in Iraq, when they tore down a massive statue of a Saddam and people started throwing shoes at it. So it was kind of like that, in a sort of microcosmic Bristol type style and scale, it was great. Did you know that within about twenty minutes on the Wikipedia page if you looked up that statue it said can be found at the bottom
Speaker 2:of Bristol's chopper? Isn't that great?
Speaker 3:That is beautiful.
Speaker 2:Nice. I've been met by John, my personal trainer. Say hi, John.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. What's the first brutality. Well, I'm just gonna do warm up first. Won't be too bad. And I'm gonna do a full body Porsche warehouse.
Speaker 2:It'll be fun.
Speaker 1:It'll be fun. Right. Come on. You bastard. Oh, jeez.
Speaker 2:I mean, have you found yourself behaving any differently over this last, what, had thirteen weeks of this now?
Speaker 3:Has my behaviour changed? Well I'll tell you what, just this morning when I was going out to go up to the supermarket and get my bits and pieces, Jamie, I do the usual checklist just before you leave the door. Have I got my keys? Yes. Have I got my wallet?
Speaker 3:Yes. Have I got my phone? Yes. Alright, we're cool. And just as I'm waving at the door I go, oh shit have I got my mask?
Speaker 2:Oh god. I'm in Sheffield so it's a bit different now between here and Scotland. Think we have to start wearing masks on buses trains from next week and Scotland I don't think anything's mandatory have you decided to go down the I'll wear it anyway route?
Speaker 3:Yes I have, yes. Because I've got a friend who's a complete fucking degenerate but he's taken it very very seriously and when I see this degenerate taking it seriously I think well yeah okay let's get on board here.
Speaker 2:I think I would if it wasn't for the Twitterati you know this kind of of this like if you don't wear a mask you're a monster and it's just like I don't know, I'm just gonna feel like don't worry guys, being a dickhead is an underlying health condition. Know everyone is like you should wear a mask, you're just stupid not and it's like based on what? You've got a plate and a whistle. And I know that the governments aren't like perfect in any way but you can't just start listening to some random bleating knob head on Twitter calling you and your family monsters.
Speaker 3:I agree with you and that is one of the reasons why about six months ago I just stopped using Twitter. Know, a mad body echo chamber and when it's not that then you've got some crazy maniac shouting all sorts of nonsense so what is the bloody point of it? It has always seemed to me Twitter in the end was like somebody sending a text message to nobody in particular.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Calling them a cunt.
Speaker 1:I'll take it just follow-up.
Speaker 3:Oh, possible
Speaker 2:Yeah well this interview that I'm doing today, I've been excited about this for weeks. This is the first job I've had for you know, the reason why I'm doing this is because the first eight weeks I spiraled, you know, like not knowing when I was ever going to work again. I hit the food, I hit the booze, I put on eight and a half kilograms and I was thinking about this other week, it's like, I? What were you eating? I just, do you know
Speaker 3:what I did Bruce?
Speaker 2:I reinstated elevences.
Speaker 3:What, having a snack at eleven you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, after brunch.
Speaker 3:People haven't been doing elevenses since the 1950s, no?
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure if my mental health had suffered because I was so pissed. Yeah so about two weeks ago I decided to do this kind of check-in with other comedians and find out what they're doing in these I mean I don't know if it's unprecedented times. We had the plague! That's happened. Yeah so the way I've done it is I've gotten with this personal trainer and I've gotten this diet and I've now been doing the training for a week and the diet for two days and I'm starving!
Speaker 2:I don't really want a pint!
Speaker 3:Dude tell me your address man I'll send you a pack of Jaffa cakes or something wrong with this.
Speaker 2:You know what, the box wouldn't even be left.
Speaker 3:It's not like people are going to come around to your house to visit and go Jesus Christ Jamie's put on about a week.
Speaker 2:That's because they can just do it with looks to each other. Why are you being quiet guys? So yes so I mean I'm in the park with this, he's a lovely guy called John who's this Liverpudlian personal trainer and he's like 24 and he's making me like bunny hop around the park. It's like you know you're bunny hopping thinking maybe being pitched is better. I think for my mental state I wanted to do this kind of yin and yang thing of eight weeks of spiraling boozy despair and now eight weeks of spiraling starvation and speaking to other committees because we're all in the same boat I mean you've been in the game though for well '88 you won so you think you're funny didn't you?
Speaker 3:I have to correct you on that that was a fringe just before the outbreak of the first world war
Speaker 2:The
Speaker 3:prize at that time was five capstan cigarettes.
Speaker 2:And a gas mask.
Speaker 3:And a gas mask!
Speaker 2:But still, but still you won with that classic stuff about the Boer War?
Speaker 3:I was topical at the time.
Speaker 2:But you mean, probably was World War One was the last time where we didn't have gigs?
Speaker 3:It's a dreadful situation, mean our field of work, our industry if you like, it's been hammered just like many others, I mean we've seen a little bit of easing, like I was talking about some of the cafes opening just gently a little bit and all that, but venues man, clubs, theatres, art centres, gigs, it's gonna be like February or so before we're gonna get back on track man and that's maybe an optimistic projection.
Speaker 2:I know what you mean. The preview shows and stuff in the stands for this year's August then for Fringe. Obviously they've been put back a few times and the standers are saying now you know they're gonna be looking to open from September. But five weeks ago you thought okay that's good and now you're thinking September doesn't seem far enough away you know and I'm thinking when am I going to book my shows and because I don't think I can take the heartbreak of rescheduling them again And and and also I I think it'll be hilarious when all the puntles in the stand have to take separate hula hoops and sit in the watch you.
Speaker 3:Face masks on. Shoot.
Speaker 1:One more set of them. Yeah. Oh, about thirty seconds rest. Unless you wanna go right now. I mean, I'd love to.
Speaker 1:But I don't think you can give mouth to mouth. You have to get a two meter long pipe. Have
Speaker 2:you done anything to try and fill your days with anything more creative? You know, mean, taking the exercise. I liked it when Nicholas Sturgeon said you can now exercise twice a day and everyone's like 'fucking hang on' We're not a nation of athletes
Speaker 3:That's for real.
Speaker 2:Have you done anything to try and focus your creativity?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit. Nothing that's going to make me any money Jamie but I've got some new software and I've been using that to pull down instrumental tracks from the net, sort of hip hop y things and all that and then write stupid rhymes about Covid and the local situation and how the shops are not shutting the line and also making some little daft videos so in a sense that's an aspect of some kind of creativity. Definitely I mean this
Speaker 2:podcast form is part of that. It's just doing something. I did a couple of the online stand up gigs and yeah it's good effort and people are going for it and we all did our bit but not one person on those shows would say this is better than being in a live show or a live gig.
Speaker 3:No, it's not the same man, it's not the same. The power and the beauty of a good stand up gig is because it's like, it's community, it's like being with a bunch of folk in your living room, it's, at it's best, it's kinda like a party. Yeah. And when you can't have that, the beautiful osmosis, know, the energy transferring from the crowd to the performer and back again, And that's gone because you can't quite get that if you're doing it remotely. All you can do is essentially tell your jokes.
Speaker 3:And that's okay. That's good. That's alright but it's not the same.
Speaker 2:I've not watched any. Have you watched any of it? I've been involved in it. Fuck.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Good. Now you're there. Keep going. There we go. Last one.
Speaker 1:Nice. One. Oh, nice one. Tress ups. Hope we got the next boss.
Speaker 3:And how about you, man? Are you missing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I've come into 2020 in quite a good back of steam and I had a really nice venue, The Fringe with the Gilded Balloon. Gigs were coming in great. The Scots has got a so that's getting filmed at some point. Came in at one side being like this is a good year, it's gonna be a good year and then this all hit and it's the same as everybody else, it's like everything's gone to shit.
Speaker 2:You know people are saying hairdressers will be opening at this point, hotels at this point. Nobody's said anything about sweaty basement clubs yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. We see that some reports say that the number of infections and deaths are falling. I read that yesterday there were no deaths at all in Scotland so that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I heard about that? Weekend reporting, they don't report it as fast on the weekend. Ah, the control comes
Speaker 3:out on a Monday but yes, the reports come in to the doctor's office.
Speaker 2:They could be asked on a Sunday, told them tomorrow but they are low but they're very low but I you see if there's a big second wave
Speaker 3:would you think they'd be able to lock us all up again? Because they've demonstrated that that doesn't work. They're not locking us up but we are being strongly advised to stay at home and don't do any non essential travel. Strangely enough, and I won't name names, I saw that somebody, where, where he was trying to set up an open air drive in comedy gig, at a place called The Rotunda in Glasgow, where people could drive their cars in there, presumably with one or two friends or family members, and sit there and watch someone 200 feet away on a stage, telling jokes, I saw that the line up was actually very strong, but it was about £30 a ticket and you got a pizza thrown in, right? But you think, wait a minute, whoever is promoting this is essentially paying no heed to the guidelines, no heed at all to this thing about essential travel, because come on, let's be honest here, is driving to a car park to watch some stand up essential?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. And you get instances like that where, here's someone who wants to make a buck by putting people's lives at risk.
Speaker 2:Well I don't want to comment because I don't want
Speaker 3:to get viciously trolled online. Anyways, yeah, yeah. I know
Speaker 2:what you mean, in that one I just wondered when people went for a piss. The ashtray's been redundant in the car for a while.
Speaker 3:When they gave you the pizza through the window of your car, right, they also added you an empty Evian bottle. Yeah. So, Gardeloo!
Speaker 1:Are you there? I used to do 10 k's. I've done half marathon. But something I actually wanted to do is a Lagrangio half marathon. They do it
Speaker 5:in Spain. And they do it up in
Speaker 1:the wine growing region. Every Every mile you get a glass of wine. And I thought 12 glasses of wine before don't get how small they are. 12 glasses of wine before during a half marathon. Like, 11 must just be covered in spew.
Speaker 3:But you know, it's not just this industry Jamie, mean it's like hospitality, catering, hotels, factories, car workers, airline people as I mentioned, I mean the whole thing is that I've never been through anything with this.
Speaker 2:And you started before World War one?
Speaker 3:That's right, I mean I'm three zero eight years old. I'm about one year older than Tina Turner and I've noticed you've not been booking any world tours lately, well fair play to Tina because she knows the score.
Speaker 2:Genesis? They were about to tour weren't they?
Speaker 3:Well thank fuck, thank fuck
Speaker 2:with Covid. They'd gone through him like a scythe.
Speaker 1:We are on the last set of the session. We've done fucking everything. Puppies, squat thrusts, thrusters, planks, what else have we done? I can't remember. I can't speak.
Speaker 1:What do you reckon? Can can can you move me back to my former glory? Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.
Speaker 1:Eight weeks. Eight weeks. Eight weeks, and then we'll lose that 10 kilo you put on. One week for every fucking week on the piss.
Speaker 2:Do you know, incident, you'd like to get in? Do you wanna I was
Speaker 1:gonna say,
Speaker 2:do you wanna promote anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, because I got a lot of stuff lined up, Jamie. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you wanna give me a run of your cancelled gigs? I think it should be out sometime next week because I've got to do a weigh in so I weighed in yesterday A what? A weigh in? Aye because this is what keeps people interested it's like will the fat bastard lose the weight? Bruce Morton an absolute pleasure as per usual and yeah keep positive buddy and hopefully see you in better times.
Speaker 3:Jamie I'll see you on the other side brother. Bye bye.
Speaker 2:Take care pal. Cheers.
Speaker 1:I love talking to Bruce Morton man. He talked about the online hip hop raps he's doing about Covid. We couldn't put them on the podcast because of copyright, but I think they're on his YouTube channel that there'll be a link to it somewhere on this page. And I think I think it proves that every comedian in the land has decided to spend lockdown creating online content, myself included. And I am now one week into this day, and I've got to say I am feeling very good.
Speaker 1:I've had to cut out so much crap. You see when you've got like a calorie count to make, so 2,200, it starts to be like a little game. You know, you think about, alright, if I have a banana here, that's 80, and an egg, that's 60. Two eggs and a banana, oh, it's 240 for breakfast. And then you get to kinda dinner time and you've still got like a thousand to go.
Speaker 1:So what I found on Friday night, that is a steak with salad, a glass of red wine, and a gin and slim. And yeah, really nice. I feel energized, but the the proof of the pudding is in the pints. So I'm going to go through now to the bathroom where the weighing skills are to see how much I have lost. This time last week, I was a hundred and thirteen kilograms.
Speaker 1:Here we are. We're in the bathroom. It's slightly echoey like every good bathroom. I'm gonna put you down next to the talking scales. Let's see what we get.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 2:Your weight is one hundred and nine
Speaker 1:point Beautiful beauty. Do hear that? Hundred and nine point nine. That is three point one kilograms. I have no idea what that is in pounds.
Speaker 1:That's about five or six pounds in a week. That's nearly half a stone. You dancer. I'm blind and you can do that. So if you're feeling negative and you wanna feel positive, yeah, it's it's it's easy done.
Speaker 1:It just flakes off if you stop drinking like like an alky and eating like a fatty, it just all falls off. So aye, that's great. I'm I'm delighted with that. 9.9. Yes.
Speaker 1:So next time on the podcast, I'm gonna be speaking to awesome comedian Rosie Jones, see what she's up to. But I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you have, please send to a friend. If you want to follow me on Twitter funnyblindguy. But yeah, I think that's a success.
Speaker 1:Let's see if I can take three more that's the challenge, isn't it? Take three more kilos off for next time. Thank you guys. Goodbye. But for us regions, we are without a doubt the warmest, friendliest
Speaker 2:folk on the planet. According to us.
Speaker 1:We do fucking love ourselves don't we right? Yeah, we weigh ourselves very highly because it's simple here. You're either a cunt or a good cut. And we are friendly. We're friendly but it's not normal friendly.
Speaker 1:Australians are friendly at you. And you better be fucking friendly back. Your bone v bone better match the happy weechie. As the friendly Achooes bomb got exactly all there is going to be bother.
Speaker 2:But what's there not to like
Speaker 1:about some hammered heat case invading your personal space and locking you there via a permal handshake. As he rants his kebab flavoured saliva plate Shine right to your face. He doesn't know it's Tuesday morning. He's a good guy. This was a Jamie MacDonald production in association with Inner Ear, with music by S Type.
Speaker 1:No unauthorised broadcasting please.