Upcoming gigs:

June 1st, 2019: Avantgarde Bar, Ottawa, from 6pm to 7.30pm.

My recent Voix de Ville performance at the Wiggle Room was whoopingly received … the critic said “🤩this guy. If you want to listen to an oddly calm British dude singing about bongs and hating on Justin Trudeau check out Chas Warlow for all your comedy needs”

Here’s a taster of that performance: the “National Weed Anthem” – a song crying out to be written about the legalisation of da weed

 

Upcoming gigs:

May 18th, 2019: La Vitrola, 4602 Boul St-Laurent, Montréal, QC H2T 1R3 – It’s the launch of the new The Ever After EP and I am emceeing the event. Also performing are: Waves & Windows and embrasse-moi l’hiver.

June 1st, 2019: Avantgarde Bar, Ottawa

My recent Voix de Ville performance at the Wiggle Room was whoopingly received … the critic said “🤩this guy. If you want to listen to an oddly calm British dude singing about bongs and hating on Justin Trudeau check out Chas Warlow for all your comedy needs”

Here’s a taster of that performance: the “National Weed Anthem” – a song crying out to be written about the legalisation of da weed

March 29th (“Independence Day”) has come and gone. With no end result yet in sight, here’s my contribution to understanding Brexit

“Take Back Control” – the story of the break-up of a long-term relationship in a song (you’ll need to turn the volume right up to hear it properly)

 

And this – a “brilliant original topical song” (Marc Nerenberg, Yellow Door Coffeehouse)

Greta Thunberg is fifteen years old and she’s worried about climate change – she’s so worried that she’s missed school to do sit-ins outside the Swedish parliament every Friday. Thousands of students in Australia staged a protest march recently about the same thing: time is running out and our politicians are not doing enough to stop runaway climate change.

We have to get behind Greta and these young people to give them a decent future!

After likening herself to Geoff Boycott (snap, Theresa! Geoff is also one of my heroes) earlier this week, who better than the PM to teach our future Test cricketers how to “stick it out in the middle”?

Here is my take on it all ….

 

…it’s just about equality, isn’t it? They’ve got their flag, why can’t we have ours?

Or not.

This is the story of the black and white “straight pride” flag flown in a village in New Brunswick, Canada.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-brunswick-village-faces-backlash-after-council-raises-straight/

Imagine getting a letter from the government telling you that you have one month to leave the country or you’ll be deported … when you’ve done nothing wrong and you’ve lived here for ages. It’s like some kind of Kafkaesque scenario. But it’s true – it’s happened to hundreds of EU nationals who are perfectly justified in being here – and staying here indefinitely. Luckily it was an administrative mistake – but … makes you wonder.

Still, keep on smiling and the world keeps smiling with you, eh?

It’s time to review the last twelve or so months and assess the massive impact my songs have had on world politics and culture.

Don’t forget that you can get all the songs from the first six months of 2016 at https://chaswarlow.bandcamp.com/album/tax-ass-and-europe

1. Last year I celebrated the fact that the most well-known search engine on the planet had agreed to pay retrospective corporation tax of £130 million. Of course, the result was bittersweet – or rather, bittersweetheart – since the company in question should have paid much more. Breaking news, however, is that the taxpayer now appears to owe the company concerned £31 million. What in Buddha’s name is going on? http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/taxpayer-s-31m-debt-to-google-qvgqpxm96
2. Back in February last year, I highlighted the muddled thinking behind the Government’s insistence on saving money while still spending £80,000 a year on vellum (calfskin) for its formal copies of legislation. Obviously someone was listening to my song, ‘cos the House of Lords decided that laws will henceforth be written on hard-wearing paper. A win!
3. Also in February, my song “Never Fall in Love Overseas” highlighted how hard it is for UK citizens to get their foreign-born spouses over here to join them. Some UK spouses appealed against this but … they lost. Boo.
4. In March, I wrote the song “Back to the Thirties” as a reflection of the similarities between the 1930s and our own era of populism. Since then the topic has been taken up by hordes of commentators across the national media. That’s ok, guys, but just credit me next time.
5. Also in March, I wrote about the “Heathrow 13”, who staged a sit-in at Heathrow to protest against the expansion of the aviation industry. They were given a suspended jail sentence plus community service – see more at http://www.planestupid.com/blog?page=2 .
6. Ze English hooligans again: earlier this week some idiot football fans displayed exactly why my song “Germans in our subconscious” is relevant.
7. “Raif Badawi’s blog”: Raif was a blogger in Saudi Arabia who was arrested and sentenced to 1000 lashes. He is still in jail in Saudi Arabia – he’s been there for 4 years now. What more can you say? It’s a disgrace.
8. In September I wrote about the 11 billion euros of taxes that the European Commission told Apple it owed the Irish Government. The Irish Government decided it didn’t want the money and has appealed against the Commission’s decision. Meanwhile, the deadline for payment has passed and the amount has increased to 13 billion euros. It seems that Apple has for many years been paying only 1% corporation tax. That doesn’t seem fair to me. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner admitted that collecting the money was a “tricky thing to do” because the sum was so large.

“The basic income is a big idea with a pedigree. It owes its roots to Thomas Paine, the 18th-century radical, who in 1797 proposed paying all 21-year-olds a £15 grant funded through a tax on landowners.” (Guardian newspaper, 19 February 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/19/basic-income-finland-low-wages-fewer-jobs)

Tom Paine was a renegade revolutionary whose works such as “Common Sense”, “The Rights of Man” and “The Age of Reason” supported republicanism and democracy. For more on Tom Paine, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine.

This brilliant song was written by Dorset songwiter Graham Moore and I first came across it via a recording by Dick Gaughey. I’ve stuck fairly closely to Dick’s version of the song.

Apparently, Diogenes the Cynic was the first person to claim global citizenship – he was the first cosmopolitan, and since then lots of people have jumped on the bandwagon. Until recently, it was a good thing to be a citizen of the world – it meant you cared about people outside your own circle of relations, friends, fellow nationals, and that you cared about issues like global justice and climate change. However, it is now officially a BAD THING to be a citizen of the world. It means that you lack an identity. But identity means being the same as someone else.

Enjoy the track.

 

‘Tis the season of good cheer and good will, folks, so here is another tongue-in-cheek offering from the Chuckmeister.

You will have all heard about our Prime Minister’s choice of lounging, ‘at-home’ wear while being interviewed by the quality press – leather trousers. And why not? So they cost nearly a thousand quid – so what? A woman’s got a right to flaunt it, right? A man doesn’t. That’s double standards for you. Just kidding – I don’t care either way. I just find it amazing that anyone cares.

The story’s here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/06/theresa-may-sidesteps-question-about-995-pound-leather-trousers

(I hope that gives me the right to use the Guardian’s photo – if not, I’ll remove it asap)