3rd January 2008

As I hurry to a New Year's gig for 200 gay men, I think of mum in Mecca. It's what she'd have wanted for me

I had been pondering for a few weeks how I was going to make the journey from my home to Piccadilly Circus on New Year's Eve. The torment would remain the same, whichever route I contemplated taking. It would involve stupid amounts of alcohol, stupid numbers of police, and a lot of out-of-tune singing on the Underground.

I was wrong. It was worse.

I left my house well in advance to be at my gig for 9.25pm. As I drove up the road I saw two girls who couldn't have been more than 12 years old, wearing white denim hot pants with black fishnet tights underneath their shorts, drinking from glass bottles and then chucking them over somebody else's garden hedge.

I couldn't help myself. I wound down my window and shouted: "I'm going to tell your dad." It must be my age, but whenever I see young girls in the street these days, I either want to throw them a coat or a bread roll. Any look that screams "I'm dying" just doesn't do it for me.

I got on the Tube and read my book. I really couldn't face people trying to make conversation with me just because it was New Year's Eve. I must have looked like a miserable weirdo, sitting there with a scarf covering my face, head down, not making eye contact with anyone. I came out of the station and was met with tourists, policemen and more hot pants. As I scampered as quickly as possible through Piccadilly Circus into Soho on my way to perform the gig for 200 gay men, I thought of my mother, who is in Mecca. I believe it's exactly what she would have wanted for me. Clearly her prayers have been answered. It was actually the perfect audience: gay men and very old women. There was going to be no fighting or spitting in here.

Afterwards I didn't hang around to feel the fun of the fireworks outside Burger King. I rushed past people who were having their pictures taken with policemen and just got on the Tube home so I could be in bed before midnight with Humphry. Humphry is my new teddy bear that someone bought me for Christmas. He wears a wonderful wizard's outfit and seems very happy in his new home, and I have not had to whip him for any racist or blasphemous behaviour, so I think he's going to be around for a long time yet.

I shall be spending January returning inappropriate Christmas presents and, like every other thin person I know, following a diet. What possesses someone to buy me a toy sports car? Am I a 14-year-old boy? Then to add to this a Batman and Robin bedspread, a Donald Trump tea cosy - I like Donald Trump but not on my teapot - and a book entitled Depression for Comedians? It was obviously purchased in the United States; nobody in this country would be crazy enough to write a book with a title like that.

One chapter is called "How to Stop Drinking Before 9am"; another has the title "Being Depressed Makes You a Better Comic". Being from America, this book is actually written not by a comedian, but by a professor/ doctor/psychiatrist/serial killer with 26 letters after his name, who obviously bought his degrees off the internet. He's lost not only his mind, but his sense of humour, too. I'll definitely be getting £10 back for that.

As for dieting, January reminds me of being at school, where everyone was on a diet the whole time. This was understandable back when you had trampolining on a Wednesday, but if you work at Greggs the bakers nobody will care if you've put on a few stone.

I am going to finish off all the Christmas cake, mince pies and trifle, do one hour at the gym, and then I'll definitely be ready for my white denim hot pants, which I'll be wearing when I go to Miami next month. If I manage more than an hour I'll treat myself to some fishnets. You should all do the same. Men included.

13th December 2007

Corporate Christmas parties are so horrific, it's a relief to be with 500 Germans

It's here. The wrath of the Christmas party has arrived. Christmas parties don't like me. I ruin their fun and sometimes even their lives. Last week was the first of a string of hedonistic horror movies. I drove up to the north of England, to a venue where the tables were lined up horizontally like in a school dinner hall, and along them sat the employees of a well-known high street fashion chain.

They were all wearing paper hats, had whistles round their necks and were popping crackers in each other's faces. They were inebriated to the extent that a manager was standing on top of the table trying to sell his own shoes to the highest bidder. It was 7pm and the show hadn't even started.

It's always the person in the highest position or with the highest salary who behaves the most outrageously. It seems to be a licence for reckless yet entertaining behaviour. The Christmas party became a write-off by 7.45pm. By this time the rather large, boisterous manager was also a write-off, ordering his staff (mainly young, compliant girls with orange faces and their hair scraped back into scrunchies - and who seemed to be used to obeying this man's orders) to drink more champagne."I've paid a thousand quid for this Krug. Bloody well drink it up, you animals," he said with grotesque affection.

It was then announced to the staff that the comedy show was about to begin, and that three comedians would be trying to unleash words on them. I sensed their disappointment as I walked on to the stage. I was not what they had ordered as suitable "entertainment" for their festive occasion.

They didn't want me banging on about solutions to racism, or the state of America, or political correctness. They wanted me to whip up 20 minutes of jokes about clothes. That's the thing about Christmas parties: all everybody wants to know and talk about is themselves and their workplace, and if it's not about them they get bored and trash the place.

I can't wait till the New Statesman Christmas party. No doubt the boss will dance on top of the dinner table and try to sell his employees copies of the magazine.

That was all last week.

I'm now in Arosa, Switzerland. Up here in the Swiss Alps, it's like the Christmas of our childhoods: snow, sledges, reindeer and horses ploughing people through the snow. There are rich people with no taste drinking champagne on the slopes while trying to ski at several hundred miles per hour. This is the first time in ten years I have seen real snow. It has had sufficient impact to make me build a snowman and throw snowballs at old people in the street.

That is the beauty of snow - it makes even adults act like five-year-olds. Snow has disappeared from the UK and has been replaced with postal strikes.

Tomorrow night I will be performing a show at the 16th Annual Arosa Humour Festival. The audience will be made up mainly of Swiss and Germans. I imagine that performing an hour of comedy in English to these people will have its ups and downs, but after the corporate party, I'm quite looking forward to 500 Germans.

Last night, however, I was taken aside by the festival organiser and specifically told: "This is a humour festival, not a comedy festival, so please adjust your performance accordingly. There is a difference between humour and comedy, and German comedy is still in development. Thanks for your understanding."

This was a euphemism for "don't be too funny - that doesn't fit into our agenda". So, basically, I am just going to remove all punchlines from my set and replace them with grabbing my breasts and pulling down my trousers. Rather like the corporate Christmas party.

6th December 2007

If I had a teddy bear I would call it Barbara Moses Vishnu Weinstein so everyone would be happy

Who says Muslims don’t have a sense of humour? Recently, I compèred a comedy show for the Newcastle Pakistan Cultural Society, and it took place . . . in a brewery. In Gateshead. I was greeted by Mr Sanam, a Pakistani version of Jeremy Paxman, who in a Geordie Pakistani accent with inflections of Birmingham greeted me: “Asalaam aleikum pet how ya doin like?” He then interrogated me as to why I’m still not married. He had a friend whose friend had a sister who had a cousin who was available and all arrangements could be made within a week.

Mr Sanam seemed very nice, but a little confused about the modern day. "What does he look like?" I asked about the potential suitor. "Oh, he's very good-looking. If you would like to see a picture of him, there's one on eBay."

The decorative attire of the venue caused me further amusement: the stage was lit up with two large Christmas trees, each with a fairy at the top - one black and one white. Integration and assimilation were well under way in Gateshead, but I didn't realise the extent of it until dessert arrived. It was halal Christmas cake with 40 lashings of custard. Yum yum. And the only bears in sight were in the crackers.

By the exit doors sat a Geordie Pakistani Father Christmas with a big black rucksack full of presents, wearing a black beard, moustache and monocle. He had a name badge with "Geoffrey" written on it and three stars. He had obviously passed all his integration exams and was now a fully fledged British Father Xmas.

My father's name is Mohammed - which he abbreviates to Bob. My mother's name is Sarwat, which she abbreviates to Sharon. John and Helen next door are getting very confused, so we've abbreviated their names to Iqbal and Perveen.

My parents have never received hate mail or death threats accusing them of “coming to this country, stealing our names, disrespecting our culture”. When I was nine I had a teddy bear. It was terribly middle-class, soon became part of our family, and was christened Humphrey Mirza. Not once did

I receive a complaint from Lauren Bacall or the Bogart kids saying that I had disrespected them.

If I had a teddy now, I would not want to offend anyone. I would name it Barbara Moses Vishnu Weinstein so everyone was happy. In all this furore, I wonder why it is acceptable to name your kid Muhammad, yet not your kid's teddy bear? I wonder if the fat kids of Britain were offended by the name Pudsey Bear? I didn't see Terry Wogan getting 40 lashes and being sent back to Ireland.

On Friday night, Selwyn College, Cambridge had its winter bash, the Snowball. I assume this was to do with its being Christmas and not due to the amount of cocaine that could potentially be snorted. They asked me to perform two sets, one at 10pm and one at midnight, after a hypnotist had been on before me, and while the bar was in full flow. So the students were getting as drunk as possible and trying to get off with the boys and girls they’d fancied all term but not achieved anything with when sober.

When I went on, the students had been hypnotised for fun. They were ordered to pinch the bottom of the hypnotist trying to cross the room to get to the stage. It was hilarious to watch, but also uncomfortable. In the middle of my midnight set, drunk, rowdy, slightly under hypnosis, and thinking that they were cleverer than me, the students, instead of heckling, started to debate me.

Only at Cambridge would a student shout: "Ms Mirza, what of the situation in Sudan? Isn't it terrible?" "What of it?" I replied.

You obviously haven't been hypnotised enough. Can't you drink some more, or talk to me in a Pakistani Geordie accent? This atmosphere is far too civilised.

22nd November 2007

“Thank you, it’s just what I wanted. I’ll watch them with my mum.” The audience clapped in that polite Swedish way

Democracy is not the be-all and end-all. What’s more important is making money for your country and making it look good while just surviving. After this weekend I think Pakistan would rather stay stooped in tribalism than succumb to western-style democracy. On Saturday I performed in the basement of a gay club in London’s West End. As I walked up to the main stage, I found a man performing in drag, dressed up as Benazir Bhutto. His two backing dancers were dressed as Pervez Musharraf in Lycra and wore different styles of moustache. One had a Hitler-style one, the other a Freddie Mercury. They were singing a karaoke version of “In the Army Now”. The audience seemed very relaxed, as if they were watching Family Fortunes.

I was surprised that Benazir had become a gay icon so soon after her comeback. I think this kind of celebration is slightly premature. And although such exhibitionism will hardly send tremors of shock around Old Compton Street, rest assured that, as the people of Pakistan struggle to express themselves, the drag queens of Britain are expressing themselves on your behalf. I wonder if, on Saturday night in the basement of a gay club in Lahore, there was a drag act in the form of Gordon Brown with backing dancers, adorned with coral lipstick and Lycra boob tubes, representing Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt. Pakistan doesn't need democracy; it just needs a little camp entertainment to release its repression.

I had been asked to perform at a corporate conference for computer analysts who had gathered from all over the world for an annual meeting. There were 500 men dressed in suits and four women. Two of the women looked like men. I don't know if this was deliberate or if they were drag queens, but they seemed pretty chuffed when they saw me. They quickly moved to the front row to offer their support, and had the best spot to catch the most bizarre ending to the show.

I have spent the week in Malmö, Sweden – where the people are so open-minded it is hard to offend them in any way at all. I had been asked to perform at a corporate conference for computer analysts who had gathered from all over the world for an annual meeting. There were 500 men dressed in suits and four women. Two of the women looked like men. I don’t know if this was deliberate or if they were drag queens, but they seemed pretty chuffed when they saw me. They quickly moved to the front row to offer their support, and had the best spot to catch the most bizarre ending to the show.

The organiser, a distinguished old gentleman, took to the stage after my performance and shook my hand. He made a short speech thanking me for coming to Sweden and then presented me with a gift. How kind, I thought. It was beautifully wrapped and, because everyone was watching, I realised it would be rude not to open it. So I excitedly ripped open the silver paper to find a pack of five DVDs, which were all porn.

I froze; I stopped breathing; I nearly fainted. What on earth was going on? Surely, it was a mistake. All those people were just staring at me, waiting for me to tell them what it was. I opened my mouth but no words came out. I just stood there. My mouth went dry.

I turned to the organiser, who smiled at me and raised his eyebrows as if to say: "Yes? Do you like them?" I frowned and said, "Are these for me?" "Of course," he replied. I turned to the audience and said, "Thank you, it's just what I wanted. I shall watch them with errm . . . my mum, thanks." The audience started clapping in that polite Swedish way.

I squashed the DVDs back into the silver paper and put them in my bag. I was still hoping that maybe the esteemed, well-mannered, well-spoken organiser would realise he'd made a mistake and got his wife's birthday present mixed up with mine. But this was not to be, and as I packed my bags for the airport the next morning I became extremely agitated that I would get stopped at customs and have to explain what seemed an unlikely story. So I decided I would have to dump them somewhere.

I went into Starbucks at the airport and ordered a hot chocolate. As I collected it I dumped the DVDs by the cookie jar. If this was Pakistan, I would never have had to do that.

8th November 2007

“You’re not a proper comedian are you?” said the AA man. “Not like Bernard Manning”

It has been a sinister few weeks. A man who I don’t really know terribly well, and have only met on a handful of occasions, asked me to accompany him to watch a film at the London Film Festival. It was at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon in Leicester Square, and it was also Halloween.

I agreed to meet him because I've never known anyone like him in my life and I need the material. He is a lot older than me, has a red face, white hair like Father Ted, and wears a green tie with shamrock on it. I said I would meet him only if he dressed up as a wizard: of course I was only joking.

As I walked up to Leicester Square on this cold afternoon, I saw a man perched on a bench in a big black pointed hat, green face, white string beard, white shirt, bow tie, long black jacket, and a silver wand. The public were walking past pointing and laughing at him. For a moment I thought it was a setup and that Jeremy Beadle would soon jump out from behind a tree and laugh in my horrified face.

As I stepped closer, I recognised his shoes and then his hair. It was him: he had dressed up as Harry Potter. I felt a chill running down my spine, sweat pouring from my legs and the hairs on my chest stood on end. I thought I was turning into Fatima Whitbread.

"I did it for you," he said. "Thanks, but can you just put your normal clothes on and act your age?" I replied.

On Friday night, while driving up the M6 north to Bradford in horrendous traffic, the accelerator cable on my car snapped. I quickly pulled over to the hard shoulder and called the AA. It was extremely efficient and a van arrived promptly. The mechanic said: “I’m afraid I won’t be able to fix this at the roadside. Could you get in my van and I’ll tow you to Bradford.”

This all seemed fine, till I got in his van and there was another man sitting there. "Hello," I said, to which he blanked me. The mechanic said: "We're very busy tonight and I just need to drop this man off first and then I'll take you to Bradford."

There was silence in the van, till the first passenger got dropped off. Then I moved into the front seat and the AA man asked me where I was going? I said: "The Beehive Inn." "Oh, Peter Sutcliffe's old joint," he smirked. The venue where I was performing was an old haunt of Sutcliffe's and, as the man kindly pointed out, it was situated in Bradford's red light area and down the road from where a few Ripper murders had taken place.

The battery on my mobile phone was very low, it was pitch black outside and the conversation in this van was very weird. As we travelled up the motorway past a sign for Saddleworth, he said: "Are you into Hindley and Brady?" "What?" I shouted. "Are you fascinated by them? Read any books on them?" "No," I said, and tried to change the subject. AA men have obviously been trained in making women feel comfortable when they're on their own and their car has broken down.

"Will we get there on time?" I asked. "We'll get there at around 10pm. What do you do?" he said. In a desperate attempt to lighten the conversation, I said: "I'm a comedian." He laughed in my face. "I had you down as a singer. You don't look like a comedian; you're not a proper comedian though are you? Not like Bernard Manning."

I tried to divert the conversation back to serial killers but it didn't work. "Oh, I loved Manning, he was hilarious, funniest man I've ever seen. We need more like him these days. What do you talk about luv?" "Oh, just everyday stuff," I replied. "What, like this journey: will you be talking about that?" "Yes I will, it's been a laugh a minute. Thanks for the material."

I couldn't wait to get out of the van; where is a wizard when you need him.

25th October 2007

Dying in public is bad - but at least it's better than being shot for being a Brazilian

I’d like to talk to you about failure. More specifically, I’d like to tell you about one high-profile failure I’ve suffered this week. I’m no stranger to failure – in fact, we’re quite good friends. It all started in the egg-and-spoon race at infant school; I was beaten by an Indian girl and my mother hasn’t spoken to me since.

I was asked to perform at a corporate event for the distinguished members of our community who are respected and admired by the public - when they aren't shooting innocent Brazilians on the Underground.

I was quite excited about going to perform for them: I had heard in advance that they had a really good sense of humour. Their behaviour in public may be incredibly PC, but behind closed doors they repeat my jokes to each other, as if they were me telling them.

I was meant to do a 15-minute set, but I only managed to reach ten minutes. The situation was so excruciatingly painful that if I hadn't left the stage, someone would have had to come along with a shovel and lift me off it.

It all seemed to be going well to begin with. Everyone was laughing. Then, after about five minutes, they looked at each other all of a sudden and stopped. It was as if they'd all agreed, "We can't allow people to see us laughing at bombs, burqas and anal sex - it's not right and it's certainly not politically correct." So the laughter stopped and I started a slow death on stage. Men on the front tables began burying their heads in their hands, there were cries of sympathy, and women took hold of their husbands' arms as if to reassure them the agony would soon be over.

I felt nothing but pain, humiliation and shame. The reason they call it "dying" is that people smile sympathetically and come to offer their commiserations after the show. It was like standing naked at the top of the Eiffel Tower and having the whole world point and laugh at you.

To top it all, I had to get on the Tube home. As I boarded the train, a man in a tuxedo got on and sat down opposite me. He stared. I realised he had been at the dinner that I'd just died at. As he got off, he looked me in the eye and said, "I wish you luck in your life."

I was happy it was just a comment, and that he didn't try to shoot me.

It’s half-term, and all the Tubes, streets and cinemas are full of kids and their fathers – single fathers who have to entertain their kids for the week. Some of them just can’t seem to cope. While the mothers, who do the real work the rest of the year, take a few days off, the fathers are struggling for things to do.

When I popped into my local cinema yesterday to pick up some tickets, I noticed a man in his fifties looking at me as I waited in the queue. I turned to look at him, and he smiled. I smiled back, thinking maybe it was someone important.

"Have we met before?" he said. "No," I replied, "I don't think so." Then his eyes slowly travelled down my face and settled on my chest. I began to feel very uncomfortable. I mean, it was 2pm and I was wearing my fleece jogging bottoms.

He asked what I was going to watch. “Nothing today,” I replied. Then he said: “Would you like to come and watch a film with me and my son?”

At which point, a scrawny-looking child with Nike trainers and too much sugar in his blood came screaming round the corner, shouting: "Dad, are you trying to have sex with women again?"

I died - not for the first time this week. "Kids, hey. Who'd have 'em?" giggled the man nervously.

I smiled sympathetically and politely declined both the father's offer and his son's. As I turned to leave, the little boy removed a toy gun from his coat pocket and pointed it at me.

"I'm not a Brazilian, dear," I said, and walked out.

11th October 2007

My birthday was pants. Next time I want a donkey and a cake with arson-sized candles

There have been many anniversaries lately. First the tenth anniversary of that famous drink-driving accident, then the 50th anniversary of the Holmewood council estate in Bradford, and then my birthday.

The Holmewood is one of the largest council estates in West Yorkshire. I was asked to perform at their celebrations, although I didn't realise that even council estates have birthday parties. But they do, and it's not birthday cake, party hats and balloons - no, it's more like bonfires, wild animals and goldfish. I appeared on a small stage in the middle of the estate's football pitch at 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon to a sellout crowd of four people, two of whom had hearing difficulties.

As I arrived, a young boy was riding a donkey through the petrol station. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating due to the drug-induced atmosphere surrounding the place. I quickly slammed on the brakes, which caused the donkey to make a loud noise, and which seemed to cause all the other cars behind me to brake. A torrent of abuse was thrown in my direction. I only caught the tail end, which was: "I'll f**k you in the eyeballs." What a novel idea, I thought. How on earth is he going to do that? They don't mess about in Bradford, anything for a bit of fun.

On the estate I found quite a few young boys riding donkeys. I asked one if this was part of the birthday celebrations. He replied: "No, a donkey is cheaper than a car."

A few weeks ago, when I got into a rickshaw in London, the driver became really excited - he said it was the first time he'd ever picked up a passenger who was sober. A rickshaw really is the transport equivalent of a kebab, but you don't see me riding one through Texaco Brent Cross.

The white tracksuit is the Gucci suit of the Holmewood council estate. Either these kids are really healthy, or they've been dragged backwards through JJB Sports. The women all wore necklaces saying "mum" around their necks. Why do you have to remind yourself that you're a mum? Unless you've abandoned your kids in a Lidl supermarket.

My idea of a birthday party involves at least a birthday cake, so I asked where Holmewood's was, to which a vociferous white woman with blue dreadlocks shouted in reply: "We don't have cakes with candles, it leads to arson." I decided it was time to go. All my efforts to entertain were being met with total apathy.

My set ended with a 70-year-old man acting as the DJ taking requests from the very small audience. Teenage boys shouted: "Oi mate, do you have any 50 Cent?" He responded by playing "Come on Eileen", which capped off a pretty weird Saturday afternoon.

It was my birthday on the Wednesday, but they're no longer exciting to celebrate. It's not like being nine and getting really excited about approaching double figures.

I had some weird presents. One man sent me his underpants through the post. He had signed them in crayon and had attempted to decorate them with glued-on dead flowers and blue glitter. My manager opened them and screamed. I think it was just a minor shock because she hasn't seen a pair of man's underpants since 1971, and hasn't seen a man since 1942. She said she suspected it was a New Statesman reader, as "clever people always have weird private lives".

I quite liked the underpants, and am thinking of wearing of them on stage. The only disappointment for me was finding inside a sticker saying "Primark - not to be sold separately". He'd obviously bought five for £1 and distributed his love. I was one of the chosen ones. What people don't realise is that I'm a really simple girl, and what I actually wanted for my birthday was a donkey and a birthday cake with arson-sized candles. Remember that for next time.

27th September 2007

The news storming across America is Britney. She is bigger than that Iranian - literally

I was awoken at three o’clock this morning in my hotel room, television still on and O J Simpson blaring out of it, shouting: “I didn’t do it!” I thought to myself, “Not again.”

I am in New York. Ten minutes ago I was standing at the taxi rank in Times Square when police started screaming, "Move along out of the street. Move, move." A boisterous woman shouted back, "Why?" "Because we need to clean the streets. It's the UN convention tomorrow," replied the officer. "What's the UN?" asked the woman. "It's that place full of stupid presidents from here and there."

I then got in a cab, where the driver, a black man from Haiti who called himself Matt, got very frustrated at the volume of noise being made by police cars, fire brigades and horses. He said: "It really is the most annoying thing when a cop is trying to protect an ambassador and a horse worms its way in between the cars and tries to dump its load."

Matt had no time for pleasantries. As soon as I got in he went for the kill. This man was the Alan Sugar of cab driving. "Where are you from?" "London," I replied. "Do you like Bush?"

He was so direct that I wondered if it was a trick question. "Um, um," I said, "do you like him?" He got louder and said: "Are you crazy? What an idiot. I'd rather see Hillary Clinton run this country - I hate her, too, but not as much as him." All this for $12. In New York you don't just get a cab; you get entertainment, free political opinion and interrogation, all in 15 minutes flat. If you want to know what the people of America really think, just get in a cab.

It may be the UN convention and President Ahmadinejad may be speaking at Columbia University, but the news really storming across America has to be Britney Spears. She is bigger than Ahmadinejad - literally. She recently performed at the MTV Music Awards in Las Vegas dressed in black hot pants and a black bra. The debate on every channel in the past few days has been not whether she should have appeared nearly naked on stage, but whether she was too fat to be naked. A celebrity going from size 10 to size 12 is enough to start serious discussion on every news channel in America.

I myself have done nothing but eat strawberry cheesecake and cream cheese bagels since I've been here. I'm a size 10, and last night, after leaving a diner, I was immediately handed information on the street about "the Zone Diet". I told the woman I'd never heard of it. She said: "Oh, it's OK. Jennifer Aniston does it."

But never mind Jennifer - I am pleased to announce that Oprah Winfrey still owns America. She has turned the book The Color Purple into a musical on Broadway. Whatever next? O J: the Musical? Obviously the producers would not consider using "Guilty" by the Bee Gees as the theme tune.

Amid the chaos of the city, I think I may have found the quietest place in America. It is the top of the Empire State Building. Last night, when I went up to the viewing floor, there must have been about a thousand people around at any one time, all standing and just watching in silence. They were mainly Americans from Ohio on holiday in New York. I had difficulty getting down to the bottom again without becoming completely out of breath, but I blame myself for that, as I’d just visited Dunkin’ Donuts for the third time in one day.

I am looking forward to coming back to Britain, where I know my discipline will return immediately, there will be cakes for me only on special occasions, I will not waste all day watching documentaries about celeb serial killers, and when I get in a cab the only questions I'll ever be asked by the driver will be: "Would you like some coke? Would you like a hooker? And can you tell me how to get you to your house, mate?" Cheers.

13th September 2007

A stretch limo came to pick me up. How over the top, I thought. Where's my Nissan Cherry with the dents in the back?

I’m looking out of my hotel room window and all I can see is rows of palm trees and the American flag protruding from the corner of every building. It is very hot and it feels like summertime when I was seven years old. I’m in Silicon Valley, California. Silicon Valley does not manufacture the world’s greatest breast implants, but it does manufacture loads and loads of money. Not only does this town smell of money, but every conversation I’ve had with anyone since I’ve been here has been about money – and not just any old money, but billions and trillions of dollars.

These people sent a car to San Francisco Airport to pick me up. It was a stretch limo with the windows blacked out. How over the top, I thought - it's only me. Where's my Nissan Cherry with the windows smashed up, dents in the back, foam coming out of the seats and big furry dice in the window? That's what I'm used to, and it would suit my Matalan suitcase a whole lot better. What's the point of me being in a limo? No one I know is here to see it, and it's no thrill for me if no one's going to be jealous.

I'd been invited to perform at a university reunion for a class of engineers - the class of 1966, who now all work in Silicon Valley. Just imagine the scene: a load of middle-aged engineers who clearly hadn't seen each other for many years because they'd all been avoiding each other, and then some bored person with no sex life goes and arranges a reunion, so they all have to turn up and listen to everyone else talk about how well they're doing, and so everyone gets inappropriately drunk . . . and around the same time everyone realises why they've never kept in touch.

I hate reunions. Why do people have them? There's a reunion for everything nowadays - school, work, even holiday reunions. Why would you want to reunite with a bunch of strangers you met on holiday for a week? You're on holiday; you want to get away from your friends, not reunite with some stranger you met in a Jacuzzi at midnight. Next time there's an earthquake, no doubt you'll hear a whole load of Americans shouting: "There's an earthquake in California - let's have a reunion!"

Next stop was Berkeley and then Marin County. Marin County is so rich, it's the only place I've been where the homeless have homes. You walk down the street and instead of waving a cup at you they wave a chip-and-pin reader. This morning, I went to buy a paper from the local store and they had Whitney Houston playing in the background, pictures of Bob Marley in the window and the man behind the till, who was wearing a pink and black bow tie, said: "Sorry, ma'am, no papers, but would you like to try a super protein blueberry B Monster?" All of a sudden I had cravings for Brixton. I said, "No, thank you, but do you have a cookie?" "I don't have one small cookie. I only sell them in the large size." He whipped one out from behind the counter. It was the size of a pancake.

The sound of Yorkshire is always comforting, and tonight two women in the front row of my show in Berkeley brought me a box of Tetley’s tea bags. I wondered if they did that just for me or if they would do it for Tom Jones as well. If Mick Jagger had come would they have brought him some Crème de la Mer?

The two women, who very quickly divulged to me that they were lesbians from Yorkshire "on the run" (they didn't tell me what they were running from, but I suspect it's Emmerdale), advised me not to spend too long in the United States: "Because you start missing the simple life - like sheep, and people who say, 'All right, luv' at 8am at a bus stop." I know what they mean. I'm beginning to miss small cookies and food with no vitamins in it. I'll be coming home soon: I miss The X-Factor. And no, no one's heard of Simon Cowell over here - it's all a big lie.

30th August 2007

For my US tour I've been asked to remove any material relating to the electric chair or Tom Cruise

I'm still at the Edinburgh Festival. I've been here 27 days now. Time flies when you're being held hostage. Tonight is the last night; I know this because the cafe round the corner from our flat has run out of serviettes, paninis and posters. It's like the calm after the war.

I shall take home with me some vivid memories of this festival. The one most worthy of reporting happened near the end.

At the back of my show sat a handsome old man aged about 70 - I thought. He wore a dark red cashmere jumper, a printed blue cravat, gold glasses, and occupied a great set of teeth. He dressed so well, he could have easily passed for borderline homosexual.

He laughed a lot until halfway through the show when I noticed he had his eyes closed - he was either sleeping or dead. I figured if he was sleeping, eventually he would wake up, and if he was dead I could arrange for a stretcher after the show.

So I carried on, hoping no one else would notice, until the man started snoring at full volume. At this point most of the audience turned around, the house lights came up and there he was in all his glory - Nicholas Parsons! Without any tact or any intention of being remotely amusing, I shouted: "Oh my God, Nicholas Parsons is asleep!" At which point he woke up with a huge grin on his face. It was obviously a filthy dream he was having.

His wonderful performance didn't end there. He then came backstage to charmingly tell me: "I really loved your show. I'm so sorry I fell asleep. It's my day off and I've been drinking all day - I think it's gone to my head. I'm 83 you see."

"Wow!" I said. "83! That's amazing! I can still remember Sale of the Century and you're 83! That's a lot! " And for some reason I then developed ageist Tourette's where I just kept repeating: "You're 83? You're 83? 83? 83?" - like Friday night at a bingo hall on the Isle of Wight.

He then invited me on to his chat show, which takes place in sober conditions at 5pm in the afternoon and is consistently packed with loyal Nicholas Parsons fans. I always enjoy being a guest on his show, he's very entertaining and I now refer to him as Uncle Nicholas. Not because he's 83, but because he looks after me and supports me very well.

He also buys me Smarties every time I do his show, which is really touching, because the last time someone bought me Smarties was when I cleaned out the lost-property box at junior school when I was ten. So he introduced me on to the show, and it went great - till I fell asleep and started snoring uncontrollably.

I will be preparing this week for a long tour of the US. In the next few weeks, I'm off to San Francisco, Connecticut, New York, LA and maybe Texas. Texas is still under discussion for, as much as I love adventure, I draw the line at performing for the Ku Klux Klan. The Americans have already sent strict instructions to omit certain topics for fear of disturbing sensitivities in that country.

For my show in San Francisco, I received a letter instructing me as follows: "Kindly remove all material directly or vaguely associated with the electric chair, death row, or any other necessary means of punishment." That's a shame; some of my best material revolves around this hilarious topic. The letter went on: "Any material regarding Tom Cruise or George W is also to be deleted from performance." Tom Cruise? I presume this is a joke since I can't imagine anyone spending time at home writing sublime material on Tom, his teeth, his imaginary wife and Chinese child. All I know is that I have been robbed of a great opportunity to educate and enlighten the people of America on the oddball behaviour of a Hollywood A-lister.

Let's hope they don't all fall asleep and start snoring.

16th August 2007

Everyone in Edinburgh lives up four flights of stairs. It's really funny watching the smokers

I am performing at the Edinburgh Festival. I have discovered there is more to Edinburgh than just the homeless and the castle. Each morning I wake up to the sound of a little Scottish man in a red kilt playing bagpipes outside our window. He’s not very good and sounds like a tramp has crushed a load of bottlenecks and a sound has escaped which resembles something Scottish.

Edinburgh is a geographical phenomenon in that it's the only city in the world where you are always walking uphill, no matter which direction you are walking in. By the time this festival ends, I'll have calves the size of beer barrels.

Being in Edinburgh for a month is like existing in a glass jar with many other paranoid versions of yourself. It is a wonderfully unrealistic cocoon to be in. There are no bills to pay, no meetings to attend, no floors to clean.

I talk to normal folk with normal lives who reside in the real world. I ask them what they are up to and they tell me things like, "I am recycling padded envelopes." A part of me quite envies them.

Everyone in Edinburgh lives on the top floor. I am living with two other comedians in a flat on the fourth floor of a big Victorian house. I have never felt healthier and have to leave for my show two hours early to embrace the four flights of stairs. It really is entertainment having to watch the smokers. Each afternoon we sit around the kitchen table discussing how it went the night before, and how we made the leap from being amusing at home to arrogantly assuming we could start charging people to listen to our nonsense.

My audience is full of ever-reliable, white middle-class Guardian readers, and I do like to point this out to them as they smile awkwardly through my gags about racism and guilt.

But tonight they shouted out: "No, we read the New Statesman!"

I became very afraid; I knew these people would know some truths about my life. I take for granted that, thanks to this column, people know what I've been doing. It's like they've been revising me. I'm waiting for a particularly learned member of the audience to interrupt me and correct me on the details of my anecdotes. "Excuse me, Ms Mirza. I think if you refer back to the New Statesman, 27 February, you'll find the man who stormed into your dressing room said your comedy was 'terrible', not 'shit'."

The levels of alcohol consumed, together with the heat in the venues, tend to have a detrimental effect on people. A lovely young woman came to my show a few nights ago, but had to leave after 25 minutes. I asked her where she was going. "I have an appointment," she replied. I quite admired her ambition of trying to fit a comedy show in between appointments. The strangest moment came when a couple left 15 minutes into my show; trying to make a hasty and unnoticed exit they said, "Sorry, we're in the wrong show." What? And it took you 15 minutes to realise I wasn't a shouty Australian with a handlebar moustache?

Edinburgh in August is like a month-long annual general meeting of the comedy world. You see faces you recognise and say polite hellos to them. Then everyone gets drunk in the evening and pretends to like each other. All anybody wants to know is how good your reviews are. Comedians base their lives around a five-star system. If there are floods, a comedian would only ask: “Yes, but how many stars did the flood get? Is it a good one?

Edinburgh can be magical. I woke up at midday then went to watch the brilliant poet John Hegley at one in the afternoon, followed by a comedy show about a woman and her stalker. It made my stalker look quite tame. I might call him when I get back into the real world and ask him to recycle my brown envelopes.

2nd August 2007

The door of my hotel room has bars. Prison decor is all the rage here

I am in Cork, Republic of Ireland. I have just arrived to find my picturesque hotel situated at the top of a hill, surrounded by cans of Special Brew. The hotel is so old the lift can only elevate itself to the second floor, where I have to get out with my bags and walk up another two flights of stairs to the fourth floor. On approaching my hotel room I discovered the outside of the door to be tastefully decorated with metal bars, Belmarsh-style. Apparently prison and chav decor is all the rage in Cork.

I asked for a room with a view, and they very kindly gave it to me. As I looked out of my window, the hotel's quiet was shattered by the gangs of kids hanging around street corners with their mothers and their 25-year-old grandmothers. Middle-aged women in dreadlocks, Burberry shoes and fleas: this is officially Hotel Hackney.

Cork is one big hen and stag night. It seems that everyone is getting married to everyone else. There are lots of women around but not as many men; apparently the men tend to leave Cork and head to bigger cities to take up other professions such as fighting, non-stop talking and stalking.

The people of Cork are very nice. They speak a bit too fast and get slightly excited and over-friendly after midnight, but they were very helpful and extended their welcome by taking me to "the best Irish kebab house in the world", called Abrakebabra. I don't know about the best, but it was definitely the most dangerous: it's the only kebab house I've ever been to that has bouncers on the doors at 10am. Their kebabs are so dangerous that apparently they jump up from behind the till when you're not looking and blow your face off.

There is a slight feel in Cork - like in Luton - of going back in time. I woke up this morning and switched on the television to find old episodes of Bergerac running on two different channels.

I am off to the Edinburgh Festival tomorrow. I have been having sleepless nights for the past few days because I don't know what to wear. I have been dressing like a lesbian on stage for a few years, and now even the lesbians are writing to ask why I dress like a lesbian. I'm obviously not doing them justice either. So I'm thinking of letting it all hang out – crop tops, hot pants, cellulite, the lot. It's what my audience wants to see of me. Now the time has come and I am ready to let loose.

I am normally a confident, positive, happy person. All this will end tomorrow when I head up to the festival for my annual grilling. I will be performing my new show and within the space of a few days I will become an insecure, irritated, inane caricature of Courtney Love.

I will sit and watch other people's shows and I will realise I wasn't as funny as I thought I was. I will realise that my struggle will have to continue for a long time yet, and I will wonder why I didn't just marry that doctor and opt for an easy life living in a mansion in the country. I'd be driving a Mercedes by now and have a couple of servants and a double-barrelled surname. Instead I'm heading up to Edinburgh to tell a room full of strangers some personal anecdotes about myself, in exchange for a few laughs and a public berating.

Twenty-seven days is such a long time to be at the Edinburgh Festival, especially if it's going badly. But then again I've been through so many horrendous times there that each time I come back I think it can't be worse than last time. One year I got locked up in a kebab house 20 minutes before my opening night, and the mad shop-owner wouldn't let me out unless I agreed to give him a free ticket to my show. Fortunately it wasn't called Abrakebabra, otherwise I may never have escaped. It can't get any worse than that, can it? I'll let you know in a couple of weeks.

19 July 2007

Stand by for the Gay Muslim suicide bombers - they're the ones with Christian Louboutin briefcases

It is really been a bad day at the office if you're a suicide bomber going home. It is noxious enough that whenever I turn on the TV it's one of "our lot", but now to know that they're actually rubbish at doing rubbish things: that is just devastating.

I understand that wages on the NHS are pretty poor - it's enough to drive anyone to suicide - but not only are you still alive, I don't think the NHS is going to have you back either. I think it's instant dismissal.

My mother always wanted me to carry on the family tradition of either being a doctor or marrying a doctor. She is devastated that medicine is not the sacred profession it once was. Now it has become less selective, she has her eye on the local mechanic.

The recent events have made me wonder - is there no end to the aspirations of the middle classes? We even have middle-class suicide bombers who shop at Waitrose, holiday in Tuscany and prefer a Mercedes to a Nissan Micra. But what worries me is that al-Qaeda's car got towed away. Obviously, because the bomber hadn't put the correct parking ticket on the windscreen. Typical Muslim - always trying to do things on the cheap. The security services really need to erect surveillance cameras at Waitrose on Marylebone High Street - this is where aspiring terrorists hang out, not the foothills of Bradford. That's so 2001.

In the days before suicide bombing became fashionable, I used to think the motives were sexual. Now they seem to be more political. But when the sexual mixes with the political, that's when the real fireworks happen.

With the IRA it used to be basic bombing, but the Muslims thought, "Anything you can do, I can do better," so we threw in suicide and the game was up for the IRA. Now the poor Irish must be thinking: "Bloody hell - those Muslims, coming over here, stealing our jobs."

There are still more male suicide bombers than female, possibly because the incentives for a male suicide bomber seem more lucrative. They apparently get 72 virgins. What do Muslim women get if they blow themselves up? A day off. Not really worth it, is it?

I am worried that, with the middle-class Muslim suicide bombers exposed, things are going to escalate further and we will soon see the rise of the Gay Muslim suicide bomber. They've taken a while to emerge, as they've been hidden away in the closet, posing as horny clerics. The Gay Muslim suicide bombers will carry not rucksacks, but Christian Louboutin briefcases. MI5 needs to get on to this straight away. Gay Muslim suicide bombers will not fail; they are meticulous planners.

I was stopped by the police on a dual carriageway a few days ago – not for being brown, or because my Peugeot 206 was veering dangerously close to Stansted Airport, but because I was on the phone without my hands-free kit on. It had dropped on the floor and I put the phone to my ear just as the police pulled over. As I wound my window down the officer shouted very loudly in my face: “Do you want three points?” “What prizes do I get?” I asked.

He ordered me out of the car. The whole road stopped to watch. I told him I was only joking. "It's not funny," he said. "This is a serious offence." Then he asked for my name and occupation. When I told him I was a comedian he said: "Right, that's enough! I want you to come down to the station with me." "No, I really am a comedian," I said. He asked if I had any proof. "Well, I've got a tight ten-minute routine I could do," I replied.

He looked at me in utter disbelief, and started shouting. "Why are you shouting at me?" I said. "Is it because I'm black?" He said: "Right, you, that's three points." I said: "Can I have your phone number? You're husband material." My mum will be pleased, because he's not a doctor.

5 July 2007

In this war zone everything was brown, even the white people

Being Asian, I love doing overtime. I don't feel human if I haven't worked a 900-hour week and opened up a couple of new businesses.

This week was no different. On Saturday I was asked to perform at the opening of The O2, the old Millennium Dome, in Greenwich, at an event organised for O2 staff. I am so glad O2 has brought a sense of purpose to the most useless invention since Paris Hilton.

I performed in three consecutive variety shows, starting from 2pm in the venue's more "intimate" 2,350-seater arena. I almost wet my pants as I stood backstage, thinking: could I warm up 2,350 people, make them laugh and then end on a high, all in five minutes? It's amazing what you can produce under extremes of fear and pressure. I just ran out thinking I was Madonna at Wembley - blonde wig, pyramid cones, gold tooth and fearless determination.

The shows ended at 6pm and I drove to the Hackney Empire to perform my fourth show of the day. I was very excited, as Julian Clary was compèring and I had never met him before (even though we occupy the same page in the NS). I walked backstage and saw a very tall man wearing tight, crushed black-velvet trousers with the buttock area cut out.

"Wow," I thought, "what's that?" Julian turned round and said, "Hello, so nice to meet you." I could hardly breathe. If I ever see another man's bottom in my life, I think I'm going to be very disappointed. Later he invited me to his dressing room, which was a cross between the Taj Mahal and the make-up counter at Harrods.

I could very easily marry Julian. My mother has some wonderful saris and gold nose rings that he'd look great in, and my community would love him - apart from the fact he actually likes having sex with other men.

After this show ended at midnight, I picked up my brother and some friends and drove to Glastonbury, eventually arriving at 4am in what looked like a war zone. Everything was brown, even the white people.

My gig was on the Sunday afternoon in the Left Field tent (5,000 people) in a show called Get Up Stand Up - No To Trident! Every generation produces people who have enough courage to make a change and I had the privilege of performing alongside two of them. The first was the political legend Tony Benn and the second was Mark Thomas (another member of the NS alumni).

As Benn walked up to the stage, he received a rock-star welcome. I had never seen any politician greeted with screaming, cheering and applause without the aid of armed police and propaganda. Tony is clearly a man of the people, with too much integrity to enable him to run the country.

It was cold and wet, but I could feel sweat dripping off my shirt. I had never been so nervous, and the Hackney Empire seemed a million years ago. Also, my brother was in the audience and if I did badly he would tell my mum, who in true Asian mother fashion would ask me, "Why weren't you the best?"

But the ever-supportive Thomas reassured me that everything would be OK and the audience's response would probably be aided by narcotics. As I stepped out, all I could see was fear in the faces of the audience. The sound of laughter soothed me like a warm cup of camomile tea; it was an experience I enjoyed in hindsight.

I ended my Glastonbury experience watching another legend - Dame Shirley Bassey. She was a sparkling diamond in a damp and muddy swamp; as she stepped on stage in her pink gown and custom-made wellies, looking 45 years old and not 70, I wondered who her surgeon was. The 86-year-old man in front of me said, "She's still got it, hasn't she?" He wasn't wrong.

I left looking like a grimy mudball, so I'm taking the next couple of weekends off to wash my clothes, but don't tell my mum.

21 June 2007

I asked the tall woman what her name was. "Bianca Jagger," she replied icily. I laughed and said, "Of course you are"

Don’t you just hate worthy people? They make non-worthy people (that is, everyone else) feel terrible about themselves. I also often find worthy people are not actually good at anything, so they opt for a career in worthiness instead. I tried to be worthy this week, but as usual it's no fun for me if I don't sabotage the situation for my own entertainment.

I did three shows for charity, none without misfortune. Charity shows are never a barrel of laughs - I'm always worried about offending someone, and then I get bored and dare myself to offend anyway. I think: "I'm not getting paid - what can I get out of it?"

First stop was for a charity I support called Trees for Cities. The evening was made painless mainly because I had the pleasure of sitting next to the highly entertaining Jon Snow, whose opening line to me was, "What are your roots, darling?" Before I had a chance to answer he said, "I love Iran, it's an acquired taste, but I love it." I said, "What do you love about it?" With a smirk on his face he said, "All the people are young, they're all about 24." I couldn't work out whether this man was winding me up.

The conversation then escalated to him revealing to me that Gordon Brown only has one eye, and a tongue so big it doesn't fit in his mouth. All the people on our table roared with laughter at the entertainment provided by Mr Snow. But his successful after-dinner routine came to an immediate halt when he announced to the table, "Inside every serious man, there is a stand-up comedian waiting to get out." We all became very afraid.

I cannot understand people who introduce themselves by their full name in day-to-day conversation. I was at an awards ceremony last week when a friend of mine introduced me to a tall, dark woman whose face I didn’t immediately recognise. I said, “Hello, I’m Shazia.” She said, “Shazia who?” I felt like saying “Shazia from Muswell Hill”, or “Shazia the grim reaper, time’s up love”. I avoid saying my whole name because said fast it always sounds like “Show us the murder”. And I’m not Taggart.

I told her my full name, feeling like I was in court, and asked what her name was. "Bianca Jagger," she replied icily. I laughed in her face and said, "Of course you are." Everyone stared at me with embarrassment. I suppose for some people it is very important to state their surname - without it they are nothing. However, I still believe the only person who should be allowed to say their surname in day-to-day conversation is James Bond.

I am concerned about the environment and have been doing my bit this week by ramming my car into cars with Friends of the Earth stickers on. Hypocrites. I wonder if people are going to start snorting ethically sourced fair-trade cocaine? All these middle-class Guardian readers who make everyone else feel guilty because they haven’t got the latest organic kitchen composter, but quite happily sustain one of the most corrupt and dangerous industries by snorting something that has travelled 6,000 miles in a primary school teacher’s rectum.

For the first time, I am performing at Glastonbury. As a Glastonbury virgin I have been having nightmares about it for weeks. I’ve been in training by sitting in puddles surrounded by empty lager cans and fire jugglers. I haven’t been in a tent since the Brownies. Furthermore, I am deeply concerned for Shirley Bassey, who is performing in the Living Legend slot. Her dress costs more than my house and is accessorised with a helicopter and its own security team. I hope she doesn’t kill the look by wearing a pair of Ugg boots with her outfit – that really would be so Cardiff.

07 June 2007

A crowd of Nobel Peace Prize winners and my lust for John Major.

A few days ago the Nobel Women’s Initiative

held its first international conference in Galway, Ireland.

Six Nobel Peace Prize winners gathered for an event called Women Redefining Peace in the Middle East and Beyond. On their last night they had a dinner and dance. I was the entertainment.

Many of the women couldn't speak English, so my set was translated into Arabic, Farsi and Spanish. My jokes have never seemed less funny. I have enough trouble with my first language - my ill-conceived ideas and Frankie Howerd-style innuendo don't travel far beyond Watford, never mind the Middle East.

At dinner I sat next to the great Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting human rights in Iran. After meeting her I decided to avoid all jokes about cocaine, shoplifting from Oxfam and stalking men.

I always worry about performing at women's things. These women were hardcore feminists: I felt like Pamela Anderson at a physics convention. I wondered, "How butch should I be?" One woman was wearing camouflaged army dungarees, wellington boots and a tank top. There wasn't a whiff of Chanel anywhere. I quickly threw off my Manolos, smudged my make-up, and walked in looking like I'd just been dug up with cement still on my face. I didn't want to let the sisterhood down.

The gig began, though the laughter didn't start until ten minutes later, like a very long satellite delay. When I was on joke number six, they were still laughing at joke number one. The Farsi translator had difficulty finding the word for "pound-shop hoodie", so she demonstrated it physically. I don't know if you've ever seen an Iranian woman doing impressions of Snoop Dog, but it turned out to be funnier than the actual joke.

This was overcompensated for by the rowdy enthusiasm of a table of American lesbians who all looked like Mr T. They particularly appreciated my stories about women with moustaches. Some jokes need no translation.

The tone changed when I mentioned how much I fancy John Major. They gave me daggers, as if to say: "Stop right there, sister - there are limits." Lesbians are always very supportive, until you start talking about the men you fancy. Conclusion: I think instead of helping the peace process, I have confused it.

I have decided to have my garden done. My friend Christine recommended a man called Bob, who comes over

to do odd jobs such as turning my mattress, hanging up mirrors and cleaning my taps. Bob has been round three times now and I suspect he likes either me or my house. I don’t know anything about men. A man could rip my clothes off and sit on my face and I’d think – why’s he doing that? Bob is actually quite pleasant. I feel safe despite the large skull-and-crossbones tattoo across his neck.

Recently he's started to call me with meaningless stories about garden brochures and his van's MOT. It's not so much the brochures and the van that worry me, but the lingering looks he gives me when I walk downstairs in my fleece jogging bottoms and 10am shadow. I'm thinking I should dress like this more often.

I wish I could read the signals people send when they like each other. My antennae

are dormant. When I like someone, I just stare at them, follow them home and sit in my car looking up at their window all night.

Bob was round last week and my alarm clock went off. My parents bought me this clock from Bahrain. The alarm sound is the Muslim prayer call. As it went off he looked frightened and disturbed and asked where I'd got it from. I said, "Argos." He quickly gathered his tools and said, "I've got to be off now."

I haven't heard from Bob since. I think he's gone off to redefine the peace process in the Middle East.

28 May 2007

Red carpet queens, Tarantino, and Tony's plot to become pope

Last Tuesday I went to the première of Shilpa Shetty’s new film. So I'm wandering down the red carpet – and let me tell you, if you like false breasts that look like pith helmets, the red carpet is the place to be. If a bomb had gone off inside the cinema, the only way these women could have been identified was by the serial numbers on their implants.

Thankfully the only bomb that went off inside was the film. It's called Life in a . . . Metro. Which is ironic, as the only way they'll be able to get people to see it is if they give it away for free in those blue bins you see on station platforms. Even then, I'm pretty sure people are still going to feel ripped off.

Now I'm not intimidated by the red carpet, because when I was growing up in Birmingham our whole house was covered in red carpet. It wasn't because my parents wanted it to look glamorous. It's because it was 99p a square metre from Carpet World.

They had the living room, the bedrooms, even the shed fitted with red carpet. This is not a joke. Once my dad thought it would be a good idea to cut up the leftover pieces and arrange them on the wall in squares, modern-art style. It was like living in a recording studio. Little-known fact: UB40 recorded their Labour of Love LP in our living room.

At the première, I was a tad surprised to see Danielle Lloyd. Danielle's been going out of her way to prove she's not racist, but dating a couple of black guys and having a few curries for the photographers doesn't exempt you from the charge, in my book.

The crowd was full of Shilpa fans and mostly Asian. To my horror, Danielle was signing autographs. I don't know who was worse: her for signing them, or the Asians for wanting them. I actually heard one Asian man shout, "I don't care what she's done. She's famous. Sign my sock!"

What is going on? Have people forgotten what she said on that reality show? It was only four months ago. Who are Asians going to swarm over next? Nick Griffin? Stick him on a red carpet and let's find out. Do you think if Hitler had lived after the war they'd eventually have let him do a goodwill tour of Jerusalem? And how about having Peter Sutcliffe as a guest on Woman's Hour?

A friend of mine came over from LA this week and couldn't contain his excitement at the Queen visiting the United States. Everyone saw the pictures of her at the White House, but we all know that's not the real reason she went. Ever since she won that Oscar, the Yanks can't get enough of her and it's gone to her head. In between meeting dignitaries, the film-star monarch found time to lunch with Harvey Weinstein and is said to be considering a number of projects, among them a martial-arts extravaganza with her favourite director, Quentin Tarantino (working title: Kill Phil). There’s also talk of a time-travel comedy with Adam Sandler. However, most expect Her Majesty to plump for a sequel to her Oscar-winning smash – The Queen 2: full throttle.

In a continuation of his holy war against Islam, Tony Blair has now announced that he's converting to Catholicism. Ever the shrewd operator, Blair apparently held a secret meeting with the Archbishop of Westminster over a candlelit dinner at Granita at which the archbishop agreed to support Blair on his ruthless, inevitable climb to popedom.

Blair is said to want to modernise the Catholic Church, planning to pull it out of its dark, unelectable days and drag it kicking and screaming into the 16th century.

I'm looking forward to when he quits midway through a third gruelling term as pope and announces, on his deathbed, his conversion to Islam, after which a very grateful Allah will reward him in heaven with the eternal affections of 72 Blair Babes.

I bet he can't wait.

14 May 2007

Revealed: Tony Blair was the sixth Spice Girl

Tony Blair was our first metrosexual celebrity prime minister; he had enough personality to be gay, yet caused enough atrocities to be straight. He was the sixth Spice Girl. It was easy to warm to Tony; he had a great smile, the smile that crashed a thousand F-117s. He seemed fun; he played You Say We Pay on Richard and Judy, and told Catherine Tate that he wasn't bovvered. He appealed to young people from all classes, and cultivated the common touch - which enabled him to communicate with George Bush.

But when a prime minister retires - that's when we really find out what he's like. That is when the skeletons come out of the closet. That is when we discover that Tony Blair has been conducting a rampaging affair with Ann Widdecombe in Margaret Beckett's caravan, and she in her biography reveals all about his black leather thongs, whips, chains and handcuffs tucked away under the picnic chairs - which perhaps offer an explanation for that permanent grin. Then Cherie will cause further stir by agreeing to an interview with Martin Bashir and disclosing: "There was too much Bush in this marriage. It got a bit crowded." That's when we'll get to know the real Tony.

The Queen will of course invest him with the usual honour for a departing prime minister, and bestow upon him the title "Lord Blair of Baghdad". The going rate for this title is £2m - so Tony can afford it. He'll soon become the darling of the after-dinner speakers' circuit, charming corporate fat cats with tales of wars and peerages as they tuck into their crèmes brûées.

Thinking back to the 1980s, I realise that Margaret Thatcher was a far more divisive figure than Blair, because 50 per cent of the country hated her - while 95 per cent hate him. Unity is always welcome, but this seems unfair; Blair certainly had convictions. It would take an incredible amount of self-belief for me to go it alone and start a war knowing that most of my colleagues didn't support me. Maybe he heard voices from God? Or maybe he'd just dozed off with his Bluetooth headset on and George had called. Sometimes I hear voices from God telling me to do naughty things, but when I wake up, I make a conscious effort to stay away from ricin, planes and the fertiliser section at B&Q. Sometimes it's good to doubt your imaginary friend.

Blair had real qualities. Maybe we won't fully realise his greatness until after he's gone? But it's time to move on: time, as it were, for a regime change.

I can't believe that anyone other than a delusional, megalomaniac grocer could think Prince Philip is a murderer. He's a lovely man. I was invited to meet him last year, and we got on great. He asked me what I did; I told him I was a comedian. "Marvellous!" he replied. "Do you have any funny stories?" I said: "No - but I've got a few racist jokes. Maybe you'd like to hear them?" So we had a competition to see who could tell the most racist jokes, and of course - he won. Tactless maybe, but a murderer definitely not.

Despite my brush with royalty, I haven't bumped into Tony Blair recently, but perhaps, now he's not going to be quite so busy, we may bump into each other some day on Celebrity Weakest Link . . .

30 April 2007

Parrots, pugilists, and why anonymity is the new celebrity

People are not who they say they are. This week, my national tour took me to a theatre in London. Noticing posters of Peter Kay on the walls, I asked if he was playing there.

The receptionist confirmed he was and said that there were plenty of tickets available. Peter Kay at a theatre in London not sold out? She then said: “It’s not the real Peter Kay, though. It’s a tribute act.” So there is a man going around the country pretending to be Peter Kay, but it’s not Peter Kay. Does Peter Kay know about this? Do his lawyers? I could understand this if Peter Kay were dead, but he’s still alive! Surely if you wanted to see Peter Kay, you’d go to see the real one?

On stage that night, I wondered if people had come to watch me or an impostor. I decided that if the show went badly I would announce that I had been a Shazia Mirza tribute act; if it went well, I would just say I'd been myself. It was pretty average, so I told them I was Salma Hayek.

This week, I also took part in a travel game show on which a panel of comedians guess where the celebrity guest has a holiday home by asking them a series of questions about themselves and their home. It was harder to guess who the celebrity actually was than where their home was located, as I seemed to have developed a memory problem.

The first celebrity was the boxer Henry Cooper. I mistook him for Tommy Cooper. That's Tommy Cooper who famously died on stage 23 years ago and has remained dead ever since . . . I proceeded to ask Henry where his red hat was and started repeating "Just like that, just like that", like a parrot. Henry Cooper looked extremely bemused, but continued to tell me how he was the first person to punch Muhammad Ali to the floor with a big left hook. "Why did you do that?" I replied, at which he looked confused. I heard the producer shout, "Thank God this isn't live."

I was dragged off set into the green room, where a nice researcher explained the difference between Henry Cooper the boxer (living) and Tommy Cooper the comedian (dead).

I went back on set, and overcompensated for my huge faux pas by dropping in the names of every single boxer I knew, from Frank Bruno to Rocky. In the end, I couldn't guess the location of Henry's holiday home as I hadn't heard of that area either.

The next guest was Debbie Arnold. I didn't recognise the face, but I did recognise the name, as I had read about her in the paper the previous day - she is the soap actress who is Chris Tarrant's new "friend". I wanted to ask her many questions, none of which was about her holiday home. But I decided to keep my mouth shut, and was just relieved I didn't get her mixed up with Debbie McGee. Anonymity is obviously the new celebrity.

I performed in Aldershot on Friday night. It was not an average Friday night. The audience was small and included a cat food distributor who claimed that if human beings ate cat food they would grow whiskers, two women whose usual night out was hanging out at the 24-hour Tesco, a man with a spider web tattooed all over his face claiming he was the original Spiderman, and one man who turned up with two wives (apparently still married to both). An hour into the show, he informed me that he was deaf. Remarkably, he regained his hearing when I called him an ugly bigamist.

An hour-and-a-half show turned into three and a half hours, and during the interval the audience got so drunk that they entered the second half doing the conga. At the end of the evening, they refused to leave, saying they wanted more. I had to march them out in single file, which they thought was hilarious. As I got in my car, I thought: "What on earth am I doing with my life? Any more bad shows this week and I'm going to start pretending I'm Benazir Bhutto."

16 April 2007

Lists, loyalty cards, and why all deranged fans should check their spelling properly

Are you on a list? If not, you’re nothing. You don’t exist. You are a non-entity. Anyone who is anyone is on a list: 100 greatest this, 100 worst that, 100 most influential people we have never heard of. The only list I’ve been on is a shopping list – when my parents tried to sell me to the highest bidder while on holiday in Tunisia. They’d have sold me too, had the buyer not peeked under my balaclava and decided I wasn’t white enough for the white slave trade.

We are becoming dependent on loyalty and rewards. I am scared to go into supermarkets in case the cashiers terrorise me at the till. Do you have a Nectar card? A Clubcard? Each time, I freeze in a panic – have they brought in a tough new ID card system without telling me? Am I going to be dragged off to Guantanamo Bay?

As I scour the rest of the queue, looking for that nice Lady Liberty to come to my aid and rebuke the store's fascist regime, I remember that the loyalty card is just a nice way of giving me extra things. Spend £600 in our shop and get a free carrier bag, that sort of thing. Some people are addicted to their Clubcards. You see them in the supermarkets - stick double points on anything and they'll grab at least two. Some poor man's been eating Pot Noodle for the past two months because they had double points in November.

Saying that, these loyalty cards probably hold more personal data than any biometric identity card ever could. As I write, some Whitehall code-breaker is adding the fact that I buy Domestos bleach to my potential terrorist profile. No part of my life is safe from loyalty cards; I get offered them everywhere. At Primark you get extra points for putting the clothes back on the rails. The beggar at my local cashpoint has given me a card so that, for every ten times I give him my small change, I get to walk past one time guilt-free.

After the screening of my comedy doc F*** Off, I'm a Hairy Womanthis week, the BBC were so pleased with the programme’s ratings that they asked me to front some more shows. One of them was about virgins. I couldn’t think of any way to make this funny, unless the show was based on me experimenting with celery sticks and organic carrots, so I turned it down. They said they’d come up with some more “Funny Ideas”. I can’t wait.

One of my reasons for turning down the virgins show was that I thought it would be asking for stalkers and the disturbed people in our society to put my life in danger. However, after going through my mailbox, I think it may be too late.

Call me a cynic, but a 29-year-old Essex computer tester who sends you pictures of himself taken on the Tube, who is excited by body hair, and who says things like "You go, babe" is in need of specialised medical attention. Another letter said: "After watching your programme I have lost all respects for you. I feels offended that you wear a leopard-print bikini and say words like chav. I advice you to do your research better when choosing swimwears. PS: I am speaking on behalf of all people." My main concern is the spelling. I really want to mark these letters with a big red pen and send them back. Must try harder. Insult me, criticise me, but at least use good English.

Perhaps the most bizarre was:

Dear Shazia, I love women. It started over 30 years ago when a woman in the bed opposite me in hospital smiled at me. I thought wow, this is it.

Yours sincerely,

Youneedtocontactmeilovewomen@hotmail.com

Such messages enlighten me to how many strange, odd and just plain bored people are out there. Still, by accepting their bizarre messages, I am providing a service. Maybe one day I'll make it on to the Top 100 Stalked Comedians.

02 April 07

The great Stringfellow gave me a million-dollar smile and a handshake. But where had those hands been?

Never in this lifetime did I imagine our paths would cross. Rather than our eyes meeting across a greasy pole, they met across a crowded chamber, the debating chamber of the Cambridge Union. The motion: "This House believes that gentlemen prefer blondes." I was proposing, and my opposition was: Peter Stringfellow.

The panto started inauspiciously at a Turkish restaurant, where I was introduced to my team-mates. I asked one charming old gentleman (who wasn't Stringfellow) about his occupation. He replied, without irony: "I am Britain's number one playboy." Not being au fait with ageing Lotharios, I took his word for it. He was clearly observant, as he then remarked that I had beautiful wrists. I wasn't sure whether this was shorthand for "great wrists - shame about the face". But he was already on his fourth bottle of wine, so I didn't take it personally.

All this was mere foreplay to the main event - my meeting with the great Stringfellow himself. He flashed his million-dollar smile, then shook my hand confidently. This made me nervous, as I was unsure about where those hands had been (or hadn't yet been). Still, he was friendly and reassuring, and as the debate was about to begin, he whispered in my ear: "Debating is like sex: it really depends on your position on the table." I said: "I'll bear that in mind when I'm next lying on a table at Wimpy."

I started the debate by saying: "Gentlemen prefer blondes, but they marry brunettes. This has been the case throughout history, starting with Jeffrey Archer." He began: "All women can look beautiful - that's why I have dimmer switches in my bedroom." I was liking this man more and more.

After the debate, hordes of young, intelligent, sassy girls fought to have their photo taken with him. I was one of them. He then offered me a lift back to London, an offer I couldn't refuse. After a couple of hours in his chauffeur-driven Bentley, I found him to be extremely intelligent, charismatic - and rich.

I thought I wouldn't get on with him, but we had a hoot. I can't understand why people from different backgrounds find it difficult to coexist. We're all the same really - he just has a lot more sex than most. For a woman like me, who has in many ways lived a sheltered life, a trip down the M11 with Peter Stringfellow turned out to be a life-changing experience.

When we arrived back, he said: "It's been a pleasure, Shiraz." I wanted to thank him for enlightening me, but didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Indeed, his chivalrous behaviour proved that gentlemen really do prefer blondes, because I spent an entire evening with Peter Stringfellow and he didn't make a pass at me once. I was offended. I can't even say I turned him down.

If it's Thursday, it must be Norwich, and I performed this particular show in a church. It was not an ideal atmosphere for comedy, and the anal sex gags went down particularly badly.

The good people of Norfolk arrived in dribs and drabs for the duration of the show, and, once there, appeared reserved. At the start of the second half, I heard howling at the back. An elderly lady was being carried out on a stretcher. I carried on.

Afterwards, a man approached me in the bar and explained that he had brought his mother to cheer her up after her husband's death. She had never seen stand-up comedy, and when I mentioned death, she had become hysterical. Suddenly, the lady walked up to me and howled in my face: "My husband has just died. He's dead."

I stood there, shocked, as the woman staggered off and fell flat on her face on the pavement outside the theatre. The son dragged her to her feet and hissed: "Get up, Mum. The bus will be here in a minute." Comedy ain't what it used to be.

19 March 07

My wedding will be at Dudley Zoo - or maybe in Lapland, where I'll be given away by a reindeer

Weddings have been on my mind. Maybe spring is in the air . . . I plan to have my wedding day at Dudley Zoo. I shall arrive on an elephant with a couple of camels in tow, and I would like all my guests to arrive on donkeys. I’d like 20 page-boys, ten page-girls and five buffalos, all in Jean-Paul Gaultier coned basques. Out of respect for my Pakistani heritage, everyone would then play cricket.

These celebrations will continue for six weeks, after which I would like to transfer my wedding to a village in Timbuktu, as this is one of the few places I have never visited; or, if my husband is from Lapland, I'd like all celebrations to be transferred there, where I'd like to be given away by a reindeer.

In accordance with the traditions of Timbuktu, I would be ceremoniously smeared with lemon and lime by female guests, and then bathed in Tango to wash away all evil. In the morning, my guests, 250 security and catering staff and a police convoy will head off for an alfresco banquet under the stars in the desert. A Bedouin village will be constructed with running water, and 300 tents will be erected. The tents will have chandeliers, bidets and butlers.

My wedding will be covered exclusively by I'm a Shallow Vacuous Narcissist - Who Am I? magazine for 20p. Pictures would include: a) me trying to have a good time on my wedding day but I can't, really, because the camera's on me, and b) me pretending to know the people at my wedding. I would like Leo Sayer to sing "You Make Me Feel Like Vomiting", and my guests will include Dirty Den, Samantha Fox and Ken Dodd. Your goody bag will include a giraffe, a castle and a diamond.

Whatever happened to Marylebone registry office?

I’ve been doing a show in Zurich. Where? That little pond full of money, penknives and six varieties of Toblerone.

On Sunday night I was so bored, I spiked my own drink with Rohypnol. On the plane on the way there, I dreamt that Shirley Bassey would come to my show, love it, and invite me to her house on Lake Geneva for tea, where she’d give me one of her dresses. This dream kept recurring, which

I took as a sign that it would take place. On arriving at the gig, I realised there was more chance of Shirley Williams turning up.

You would think a wealthy place like Zurich would be virtually free of crime and that people would be quite well-behaved.

No. Someone stole my shoes. Can you believe it? Someone walked backstage and stole my £10 Matalan shoes. That they're from Matalan is not the point. I love those shoes - they have been with me all over the world. When I've been tired and hungry those shoes have kept me company and given me comfort. Now someone has stolen them!

I asked the manager if the venue had a lost-property box (I felt like I was at infant school again) and, surprisingly, she said yes. I told her that I needed a pair of shoes to walk back to my hotel, and to wear to the airport for my early-morning flight the next day. She looked at me strangely and said: "You've got a choice. You can either have these Jackson slippers [slippers with Michael Jackson's face on them] or these size 9 men's green rambling boots." I wanted Jackson, but I had to put practicality before fashion, so I took the rambling boots.

The next morning I walked through Zurich Airport looking like a homeless person. I was wearing a tight-fitting beige jumper dress and size 9 men's rambling boots. I am a size 6.

On the plane I sat next to a respectable-looking woman who asked sweetly if I had been out all night. Had I been to a fancy-dress party? It would have been more believable. I didn't know what to say, and so, hoping to win round the suspicious passengers, I replied loudly: "Oh no. I'm doing this for charity."

05 March 2007

I am currently touring the UK with my show Fun, and this week I brought my fun to the Leicester Comedy Festival, Basingstoke, and then Windsor. I have been enjoying the glamour of Moto service stations and Travelodges immensely.

My shows were sold out. Why? How? I was sure they'd made a mistake. Sold out? It makes me feel nervous. These people are the reason I have a career. I don't want to disappoint them.

On stage I was thinking, "Are they enjoying this? Is it funny enough?" I need a laugh-o-meter, like in a cheesy Seventies game show. It's an odd relationship.

I tell a roomful of strangers why my hymen is still intact, we all have a good laugh, I walk off stage as if I've just read them a story from Jackanory, then I spend all night wondering and worrying if I've satisfied these people and if we'll ever meet again. If we do, will they only be thinking about my hymen? If they are not satisfied, can I make it up to them?

What offends someone in Basingstoke will knock someone out with laughter in Leicester, and as for Wales, the people there love a medley of hymns. The next time I go to Llanclymedeasheagogo I may perform a selection of Arabic hymns, sure to get a great welcome across the valleys.

In Windsor I expected a friendly, maybe rather upmarket audience. But I had a shocking post-show encounter in my dressing room.

There is a psychopath who lives in Windsor. It's not the Duke of Edinburgh - it's a six-foot, bearded Muslim man whose attitude to women is pre-medieval, and whose attitude to women in comedy is pre-Barbara Windsor.

He stormed into my dressing room and shouted, "I don't like your show. I want you to give up comedy." Imagine storming into WH Smith and saying: "I don't like the way you folded that newspaper. I want you to give up your job."

He said, "It is not respectable what you are doing. You'll answer for this on the Day of Judgement."

I suggested that maybe Allah likes my jokes. The man went mad.

He said, "I came with white people from work and I feel ashamed. They are already attacking us, and knowing that we are arguing among ourselves. It will only give them more ammunition. You deserve all the hatred you get. You should be putting us in a good light by saying positive things about our people."

I said, "Was it the joke about your mum being on Jerry Springer?"

The diatribe continued for an hour. It was like being on Question Time, except I had no right to reply. In the end, I was saved not by David Dimbleby, but by the theatre manager, a gay man who barged through the door wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words Debbie Does Dallas.

The Muslim man said: "Is this one of your fans? Gay! The only type of person who would want to come to your show. Think about what I've said. What you are doing is wrong."

I replied, "Would you like my autograph? If not, please leave. I'm very busy and need to prepare for my next show at the Jewish lesbian club down the road. Thanks for your feedback."

I drove home feeling guilty. Why do I feel guilty? Am I doing wrong? Should I stop? I do feel guilty for not being "loyal to my people", even though they have mistreated me.

Surely our only loyalty should be to the truth? Am I not doing a disservice to people if I don't do what I'm good at because I am scared of what other people will think?

So, if that man is reading, I'm sorry you didn't like my show, but I am not going to change it. I have been thinking about what you said, though, and you are right: I may well have to answer the important questions on the Day of Judgement - but in the meantime I'd rather do it on The Weakest Link.

19 February 2007

Birmingham terrorists are the worst kind because they are terrorists with a Brummie accent

My name is Shazia Mirza. This week, I started my first national tour, performing my first date in Dartmouth, where I was introduced as Shaver Minzad. I walked out to an audience who looked at me as if to say: "How unfortunate."

There was clearly only one of me in the village: I was the most exotic thing to have walked through their doors since Lenny Henry. The audience demographic was very old people in fleece jumpers, which I didn't mind because I myself am on the lookout for a 96-year-old wheelchair-bound billionaire. It worked for Anna Nicole Smith.

Do you think she married J Howard Marshall for the money? I think he married her for the conversation. She might have loved him. But if cleaning your husband's backside when he is old and dying is love, then I think the servants loved him more than she did

Now that poor Anna Nicole has passed away, three men are fighting for paternity of her baby, with one saying the father could be one of more than 30 men. I'm not saying she was promiscuous - just disorganised. Surely a simple logbook or Rolodex filing system would have avoided such mistakes.

In Dartmouth I was reminded that you should never judge a book by its colour, as they were the loveliest, warmest people I have met for a long time. I didn't mind that they had got my name wrong - it could be worse. I was walking through the town the next day when I got talking to a woman who had just named her newborn son Yo Yo, to join her daughter who was called Ya Ya.

There is a woman who lives around the corner from me, and I don't mean to judge - but she's quite trashy. We talk occasionally in the 24-hour shop - I go in for milk and hummus, she goes in for Pampers and scratchcards. She is pregnant for what appears to be about the tenth time and asked me what she should call her child. She's worked her way through the names of biscuits and doesn't know what to call little Hobnob's and Ryvita's new baby brother or sister. I said: "What about Tescocarpark - after the place it was conceived." She said: "That's a good idea. I might get more points on my Clubcard."

If you really want integration in Britain, parents should remember: integration starts at home. I think all little white boys should be called Mohamed and all little brown boys should be called Barnaby. Mohamed Stafford-Clarke, and Barnaby Al Fayed would definitely confuse M15. Think of all those lovely homes in Richmond being raided by armed police at five in the morning.

It's nice to go to sadistic medieval places outside your comfort zone, which brings me to Birmingham. A few weeks ago, I had a phone call from a holiday programme who informed me that Birmingham was now a great new holiday destination. Great - if you like your holidays in the Gaza Strip. That's like saying Saudi Arabia is now the world's greatest nudist camp. It's never going to happen. Terrorists from Birmingham are the worst kind, because they are terrorists with a Brummie accent: hearing them speak is enough to make anyone behead themselves.

On Friday I travelled to Glasgow, where my hotel was situated directly opposite the police headquarters. I was a bit bored so I looked out of my window and ended up watching the officers at "work" for two hours. I saw two men reading - well, looking at Nuts magazine - and drinking endless cups of tea while throwing paper aeroplanes at each other.

I assumed this indicated one of two things. Either there was a coded clue to a devious and brutal terror plot cunningly hidden between Jordan's breasts, or the number of rapes, muggings and brutal murders in Glasgow has dropped so drastically that the police have nothing to do. So I slept soundly that night, feeling safe and secure, the only worry being how they'd say my name in Glasgow.

5 February 2007

I'm sorry, luv, I'm in America. The rest of the world? What's that?

Shilpa deserved to win because she was the best cook and the best cleaner

This week I was in San Francisco. I'm always popular in California, because they think I'm Mexican. People come up to me after my shows and speak to me in Spanish. I talk back to them in Urdu; it's a lot of fun. I performed ten shows in one week. That's what I love about Americans. They don’t mind me going over there and stealing their jobs.

One show was in Marin County, one of the richest counties in the USA. The theatre had blue velvet curtains and a Persian rug on the stage. I had to take my shoes off before getting on the carpet to do my set. The poor people in the front row were totally put off by my crusty toenails.

I informed the audience that I was not the Puerto Rican cleaner, but a comedian, there to entertain them. I get a huge thrill performing in places like these where people like me do not exist. Money cannot buy a sense of humour. There is a relationship between wealth and political correctness - the richer you are, the more overtly PC you become, because "it's not fair to laugh at people less fortunate than ourselves". They just laugh at them when they get home.

There were certain phrases the Americans had difficulty comprehending: these were "my trainers", "weight loss" and "will you please stop talking". After the show a man approached me and said: "I loved your performance." I didn't trust him, because he had no expression - he'd had so much plastic surgery, he looked like a walking Burt Reynolds convention. It is disturbing to see a town full of middle-aged men with faces scraped back into a ponytail. They don't look young, they look like aliens.

It is so easy to get sucked in to the vacuous hole that is America - country of extremes and excess. When I am in England I hardly ever go shopping or watch TV. When I am in the States, all I do is flick through 360 channels, and then complain there is nothing to watch, eat nine meals a day, and go to Victoria's Secret to buy lace G-strings that I am never going to wear and no one is ever going to see. Why? Because it's almost $2 to the pound and I feel I must.

Last Tuesday at 5am San Francisco time, I was awakened in my hotel by a tirade of phone calls telling me there had been racism in the Celebrity Big Brother house. I foolishly answered the phone in my sleep to hear: "Jade Goody is a racist." I thought I was having a bad dream. Jade Goody? This woman is haunting me.

America is a cocoon. I had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world - but I did know that Al Pacino had just had another facelift. At 11 o'clock that night I had a phone call from NewsNight in India. The woman was shouting down the phone, saying: "Shazia, you must come on our programme tonight. We need you to discuss why our girl Shilpa Shetty is being treated so badly in England." I said, "I'm sorry, luv, I'm in America. The rest of the world? What's that? Have a nice day. Goodbye."

When I returned to England a few days ago I was shocked by what I saw. I am inspired by Shilpa's calm dignity. If that was me, I would have locked those girls in the diary room with no food, then given them a medieval-style ducking in the Jacuzzi.

It's ridiculous that people are saying the result was rigged. You can always rely on the people of Britain to play fair. I voted for Shilpa because I am British and I support the underdog. There are about 500 people in my family and I know they all voted for her, too.

Shilpa deserved to win, because, like any well-brought-up Asian girl, she was the best cook and the best cleaner and never stooped to the level of those silly girls.

An Asian woman wins Big Brother? I know it's only a game show, but whatever next? Maybe we'll be driving buses and speaking in public soon.

22 January 2007

The girls are intelligent and attend a good school. I ask them for their role model. Jade Goody, they reply

Britain loves people who, when asked, "Who was Winston Churchill?" reply, "He was the first black president of America." It loves people who say, "East Angular - that's abroad, innit?" Useless is good. Useless is the new success. Useless gets ratings up.

I was in conversation with a man the other day and expressing relatively strong opinions about something. He interrupted me to say he was "scared" of women like me. I glanced at his polyester shirt and replied: "That's OK, because I'm scared of lighting a match near that top. You'd better get off to Primark before it shuts." It made me wonder how dangerous having opinions can be these days.

It seems that if you sit there like a piece of plankton dosed up on Quaaludes and saying stupid things, Britain rewards you with hollow fame, money, cars, sex, love, TV shows, column inches and new teeth. And just in case the public's attention begins to falter, punch a granny in the face next time you go to the cinema and people will love you even more.

You cannot read or write, but you do have great plastic breasts and have flashed your kebab on national TV. You will be deemed interesting enough to have three TV shows by the end of the year. Don't waste brain cells watching Newsnight when you can watch people locked up in a house or lost in the jungle. That said, even I am intrigued by Celebrity Big Brother, because it's got a Bollywood star in it. I've been keeping one eye on the live footage to spot if the entire house breaks out in song and dance, though I really didn't want to see Jade's mum in a wet sari.

I was filming this week, and had to interview an 11-year-old girl and her 16-year-old sister. These girls were intelligent and articulate, and attend a very good school. I asked who their role models were. They replied without any hesitation, "Jade Goody." I asked them why. They said, "Because she's herself." I had to agree. She is definitely herself. I thought back to when I was 11. Who was my role model? Freddie Mercury. He inspired me to grow my moustache and wear string vests. How times change.

Last night I was a guest on a late-night radio show. I went on air at midnight and sat in the studio for an hour and a half listening to people calling the programme to comment on the day’s events. I'm scared of people like that: people who sit in their bedrooms boiling with rage about the issues of the day, until they call in to a radio show and release it all in a tirade of profanity and malapropisms. I suppose it's better they do that than go knocking on people's doors and shooting them. That's best left to the police.

The hot topic was David Beckham. I have three brothers - my sister and I grew up having to endure football on the TV and radio and in the back garden for many hours a day. It was a large part of our life. The first time I saw a man cry in public was when my dad took me to see Aston Villa play. They lost and I laughed at the man and called him a "cry-baby". My dad told me that most people cry when they go and see Aston Villa, so I'd better get used to it.

The callers to the show unanimously loved Beckham, which is good because, unlike many celebrities, he has actually done something. Now that he's off to America to make a change, I hope he doesn't come back with plastic breasts and false nails, though if anyone can carry it off, he can. Apparently the move will help his wife, Victoria, launch her career in Hollywood. We've had Ugly Betty; next season it'll be Skinny Vicky. Maybe one day they'll be ready for hairy Shazia. Until then I'll just have to keep pestering my agent to get me locked up in a bathroom, bungalow or fish tank. People will love me - I'll just be myself.

8 January 2007

How much fun can wearing a mad hatter's hat, pink fairy wings and getting obliterated on WKD be?

Fun is overrated. I am no good at having fun; I get excited when there's a pattern on my toilet roll.

I am so glad it's the New Year and the "fun" season is officially over. On New Year's Eve I drove to Manchester to perform to 200 of the most outrageously drunk people I have ever seen. While I was on stage an inebriated/nearly unconscious man in the front row tried to pull my trousers down. I screamed and he said: "Sorry luv. I thought it was my pint." He claimed to be having "fun".

On the way out of the venue I found a screaming woman walking in diagonals in the middle of a dual carriageway and singing "I Will Survive". She was obviously having "fun". As I approached my car I saw a middle-aged woman rolling down a one-way street wearing stilettos, with black eyeliner smeared across her face and a hairpiece that had slid from her head down to her neck. "Are you Dave?" she asked me. The local CCTV operators must have thought they were watching Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video - though at least in that, the walking dead were choreographed.

People seem to measure how much of a good time they've had by how little they can remember. I have friends who say, "I had a brilliant time last night. I can't remember what happened." Well, actually you vomited down a drain and got groped by a bouncer, so it's probably best you can't remember. People seem so intent on showing the world they're having fun that it just looks like desperation. How much fun can wearing an oversized mad hatter's hat, pink fairy wings and getting obliterated on WKD be?

Being "forced" to have fun is even worse. Hen nights? You are meant to be celebrating your best friend's impending marriage and what do you do? You dress her up like a slag and drag her round Blackpool in -plates and vomit.

I find fun in smaller things, like watching a Range Rover being clamped on the King's Road or giving tourists the wrong directions. It's even more fun if you can remember.

It's January, so sales of ridiculous fitness videos starring gyrating Big Brother contestants are going through the roof. Everyone's got a fitness video. Who next? John Prescott – with "How to exercise on a table without breaking it"? There is an industry built on post-Christmas guilt. Don't buy in to it. Buy a half-price Christmas pudding and spend January watching UK Gold. Get fit and healthy in spring, when the weather is warmer and you discover that last year's T-shirts and dresses cut off your circulation.

Even Saddam Hussein has a new DVD out. Available at all good Texan record shops from 29 December 2006. Priced $11.99. All proceeds to the Bush Foundation for International Relations. Last year I got the Bin Laden collection of bunker-made DVDs volumes 1, 2 and 3 - with subtitles if purchased in America. What is this obsession with filming everything? I blame Paris Hilton - she started it with that sex video.

My New Year's resolutions are to grow my body hair and to stop shoplifting. That'll do me till

1 February. I am making a film for the BBC about hairy women. As part of the show, I walked the red carpet at the British Comedy Awards with armpits full of fake hair à la Julia Roberts. The idea was to see how the paparazzi reacted. Behind me was Harry Hill, and all

I could hear was people shouting: "Harry, Harry!" In my confused state I thought they were shouting, “Hairy, hairy!” so I started shouting, "I know! I know!" It was the most degrading thing I have done. I cannot understand why people want to be famous for the sake of being famous, and trawl around any red carpet having their picture taken for no reason. I'd rather grow an allotment in my armpits any day.

18 December 2006

Britain: hotbed of terrorist talent

Christmas in Mecca - no not the bingo hall

I'm in New York. I love America. It really is the land of opportunity. Unless you're black or gay. Thankfully I'm beige, and it's definitely in this season.

I flew first class on Virgin - it's so nice to have an airline named after me. I didn't eat anything on the flight. It wasn't that I was trying to avoid polonium-210 radiation poisoning; it was just that my mum told me never to accept food from strange men in red aprons. I sneaked a packed lunch on board. I was amazed it got through security. How could they tell that the fish paste in my rolls wasn't Semtex? And we all know what an offensive weapon a banana can be.

The plane landed safely and the pilot received a round of applause. Why? Because we survived? When you get off a bus, do people clap? When I get dropped off by an illegal minicab and I haven't been raped, I clap. But I do feel a bit offended if they don't try. At customs the immigration officer asked me, "Are you Muslim?" I said only on Fridays. Another officer walked behind him and said: "She's Muslim, but it's OK - she's British." Why should that be OK? All he has to do is read the papers - Britain is a hotbed of Islamic terrorist talent, and it's really put Tipton on the map.

My show was at the famous Improv Comedy Club, off Broadway. All the people who I really admire have played there – Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, Robin Williams. There was no backstage area, so I had to get changed in the laundry room, wash my face in a public toilet, and take my suitcase to the side of the stage. I must really love what I do.

The show was an hour long, and it went just great. The New York audience was open and accepting of even my edgiest material. It was not at all like India, where I had to tread on eggshells. In that sense America really is the land of the free. Maybe Borat warmed them up for me.

After the show I was taken to Room 501 of the five-star Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue. Before I'd even unpacked I'd stolen everything from the bathroom. The room looked like the inside of Buckingham Palace, complete with four-poster bed and rose petals on the floor. I have stayed in so many great hotels recently. When I walk in now I just think "what a waste of a good mattress". A great hotel is great only if you're having a marathon champagne-fuelled sex session in there, not if you're sitting up all night watching The Simpsons and ordering courgettes from room service.

Nobody does Christmas like the Americans, and I love Mr Bush. Because of him, it is two dollars to the pound and that's why I am able to buy six pairs of Christian Louboutin heels. New York is my Santa's grotto. What Christians feel about Christmas is how I feel about shoes.

When we were growing up we didn't really celebrate Christmas, but being Asian, we always had

to have the biggest tree. Ours was the size of Everest, with a small Muhammad on top instead of a fairy. Well, originally it was a fairy, but we painted its face brown to make it feel part of our family. Chrismus (a combination of being Muslim and British) is a time when we take presents; we just don’t give them.

This year my mum is spending Christmas in Mecca (not the bingo hall). It's not your average Christmas holiday destination. I have never walked past Thomas Cook and seen "Xmas in the Sun - Mecca, £599. One Way". She is going to do the haj for the eighth time (surely she must be forgiven for running down that Jew by now). My dad, who is also a devout Muslim, will be spending Christmas at home getting pissed. I'll be spending the time getting tipsy from brandy butter and weeping through the Queen's Speech. At heart, my family is British through and through.

11 December 2006

Watching gay football

The changing-room chat was all about salon-quality hair products and there wasn't so much as a whiff of Lynx deodorant

My best friend is rich, handsome, intelligent, successful, funny – and has a huge house. So obviously he is gay. This week I went to watch him play gay football. This is not like straight football, where they score goals and bite ears off if they don’t win.

In gay football if someone starts scoring goals they are viewed with suspicion. At gay football the changing-room chat is about salon-quality hair products, there was no scent of Lynx deodorant, and, I was pleased to note, Kappa tracksuits and baseball caps were quite clearly out of bounds. Imagine my relief when I arrived to find no cheap shoes within a two-mile radius.

The players strolled on to the pitch in a catwalk-style single line. They very politely took their positions, smiled at each other with their £3,000 porcelain veneer bonded teeth, and then played about for an hour, saying "Sorry", "Thank you", and "Are you going to the Shadow Lounge tonight?" In this match, Alexander McQueen was not a label, he was the goalkeeper. There was some serious grooming on show that would put Victoria Beckham to shame.

I grew up with people who sported the dishevelled intellectual look - which may sound familiar to readers of the New Statesman but, believe me, doesn't wash at Stonewall Football Club. I never let heterosexuals near my hair. The only people who allow heterosexuals near their hair clearly enjoy looking like my dear friend Andrew Neil (we've met only once but in show business that makes us best friends), who increasingly looks like he's been dragged backwards through Allied Carpets. An afternoon at Stonewall Football Club, and with any luck he'll come out looking like Melvyn Bragg.

The football strips were immaculately ironed and I could smell the fabric conditioner from the terraces. The best thing was that the stadium was bereft of men who wear anoraks over their suits (shoot them!). I showed my support to my friend by standing on the sidelines doing impressions of John Inman.

On inspection of the changing rooms, I noticed that their football kits were individually made and there was no "One Size Fits All" - because gay people, like all of us, are individuals. Except where music is concerned, in which case it's Kylie all the way.

It was highly entertaining. The match ended when someone nearly scored. This is how football should be - a nice polite glamorous game where all the players wear Manolo football boots. After the match everyone had a pint of poppers and went home relaxed.

Of course I am exaggerating the stereotypes, but it was refreshing to watch a football match where manners seemed to count and Wayne Rooney lookalikes were frowned upon. If all football was like this, I might be tempted to buy a season ticket for Wolves.

I had been invited to take part in a debate at the Cambridge Union on Monday night. The dishevelled intellectual look was in full swing and there was enough dandruff to carpet Santa’s Grotto.

Some of these students don't know how lucky they are. I used to be a teacher in Tower Hamlets. On parents' evening (which was more like singles night) I would say, "Your Dylan is doing well", they'd say, "Who's Dylan?", I'd say, "He's your son", they'd say, "How is he? We haven't seen him for a while."

My opposition was a delightful group of boys from the Footlights. They invited me to dinner, where I was served what tasted like Pedigree Chum. They agreed and apologised in that uniquely English way. What they lacked in culinary finesse they made up for in alcohol. There is nothing funnier than watching