"Cunts Are Still Running The World!" Noel Faulkner On Jongleurs, Yuppies, Jarvis Cocker And His New Career As A Rapper

By John Fleming: Before I interrupted myself in yesterday’s blog, I was about to say that I had a chat over a meal with Noel Faulkner near his Comedy Cafe Theatre in Shoreditch. It becomes relevant, in a moment, that Noel is Irish, so bear this in mind.
“How is Shoreditch?” I asked him.
“More twats,” Noel told me. “More 5-star restaurants. How far can people go up their own asses? I don’t know. It’s not what it was 24 years ago when I started the Comedy Cafe.”
“What was it like then?”
“It was full of thieves and printers. One half stealing money; the other half printing money. It was all printing presses around here. I don’t know why. Before that, it was cabinet makers. I don’t know why.”
“So you are feeling pissed-off?” I said.

“No. I’m very happy.”
“You are???”
“I have three meals a day, my house is comfortable and it keeps going up £100,000 a week in value. I moved to Hackney 13 years ago because I liked the vibe and now all the Yuppies want to be in Hackney. I thought I could live in a neighbourhood where I wouldn’t see pompous assholes but now the only thing my neighbours talk about is the value of their property and how they’re doing an extension and ripping the whole house out.

“I told my neighbours: My house is worth more than yours.
“They said: Oh no no no. Ours has got a garage.
“I told them: Yes, but I don’t have any Irish people living next door to me.”

The successfully diversified yet slightly grumpy Noel Faulkner

“Where did you live before Hackney?” I asked.
“I was sleeping above the Comedy Cafe with a gun that held blanks to keep the thieves out.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. The police had a word: We know it’s not you, Noel, but somebody’s got a gun poppin’ off.”
I blew my nose.
“What’s your blood group?” Noel asked me.
“O-Rhesus something,” I said. “A dead common one.”
“Stay off wheat,” advised Noel. “It’ll help your allergies.”
“I think it’s just a tiny bit of hay fever,” I said. “I think I got it in China.”
“You know what they say about dogs in China?” Noel asked. “A dog is not just for Christmas. If you’re lucky, there will still be some left over for Boxing Day.”
“So,” I asked, “at what point did you decide you didn’t care?”
“I never cared what people thought of me… If we can’t be racist, what can we be? The lovely thing about getting older is I really don’t give a fuck. Not one iota. I am thinking of writing my own blog.”
“Bastard,” I said.
“I am going to call it Angry Man On The Roof.”
“Why?”

Noel in his Shoreditch office last year – a man who likes yachts

“I’ve always liked roofs because no-one can catch me there. As a kid, when there was snow, I would convince my mother I was sick and then I’d go up on top of the roof and make loads of snowballs and, when all the kids were getting off the bus, I would pelt them with snowballs.”
“And,” I said, “you’ve been pelting people with snowballs ever since.”
“Yep.”
“Why do you want to do a blog?”
“Because people are insisting I should get my wonderful calm persona out there like the Dalai Lama – just give people hope that there is peace on Earth and tell everybody who’s a cunt that there are a cunt, because nobody else seems to want to tell them. Have you heard Jarvis Cocker’s song Cunts Are Still Running The World?
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. It’s strangely gentle.”
It is on YouTube.

“Any new business plans?” I asked Noel.
“I’m taking on Jongleurs’ format for comedy,” he told me. “I’m going to open sixty clubs throughout Britain. Any cunt who drinks and pisses and shits can come into the club and make as much noise as they like. I’ll provide lots of work for lots of comics, but I’m not going to pay any of them. I think it’s a great business plan.

Noel this week, paying the bill for our meal

“If comics had any bottle, they would go on strike and say Nobody works for Jongleurs and, the next day, Jongleurs would pay every comic they owe money to. But each comic is thinking: Oh, I’ll keep my head down and I might get some more Christmas gigs off them. The comics are actually helping the dragon devour the babies.”
“But any real plans?” I asked.
“I’m working on a rap song.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. We’re just putting the music down. It will be a video. It’s called The Comfort Zone.”
Noel started rapping:
“Got me a pad I call a home I got a big TV, Twitter on ma phone I watch the president killin’ people with his drone But it don’t bother me Cos I’m in the Comfort Zone”
“So you’re going to re-invent yourself as a rap artist?” I asked.
Noel started rapping another song:
“Fukushima Fukushima I wonder why There is that great big cloud in the sky No fish in the ocean but look at the glow Radiation sure gives you a great light show”
“Are you going to perform on stage?” I asked.

Jimmy James Jones performing at the Comedy Cafe Theatre

“I’ll be the oldest Irish rapper. I’m going to do a video with me and comedian Jimmy James Jones on YouTube. I’m in my suit; he’s in his hip hop gear. He’ll push me out of the way; I’ll push him out of the way and then, in the last scene, he’s in my suit and hat and I’m in his gear and baseball hat.”

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