into the neon sun

old school

2012-01-27T16:12:00.000Z

thought i'd join in with this meme...

where are you?

2011-12-17T11:50:00.002Z

i don't really write much on this blog anymore. if you're interested (why you would be, i have no idea) in what i spend all my time doing now, you need to go here:

bicycle

2011-07-18T21:17:00.000Z

five cars that are now so ubiquitous and dull, that simply buying one signals an acceptance of how generic you are:

1: BMW 3-series
2: Mini (the new one, not the brilliant classic)
3: Audi TT
4: Peugoet 206 cc
5: Smart fortwo

i want the blues

2011-06-10T11:34:00.004Z

#Photoshop help sought!

I'm working on the flyers for my Edinburgh Fringe show, but when printed it looks much too purple. Is there any way I can keep the bright red of the clothing accessories, but make the blue clothes look more blue? I'm already working in CMYK. If I just lower the red-tones, I'd lose the vibrancy of the bits that need to stay bright red.

Any ideas welcome, I am totally self-taught in Photoshop, so there's a lot of things I don't know about.

Thanks!

3 is the magic number

2011-04-28T11:46:00.004Z

i like this piece of marketing from the No To AV crowd. for a start, it's the first one that appears to resemble anything truthful. by that, i mean i can believe that someone called "Alice" lives in a place called "Islington". it's far better than some of their other propaganda.

the reason it amuses me, is the poster relies entirely on the concept that popularity is directly linked to how good something is. it puts faith in the theory that 'if more people like it, then it must be good / if less people like it, it must be bad'.

but loads of people like The X-Factor. Whigfield had a Number One single with Saturday Night. Katie Price's latest morony still sells thousands of shitty twat-mags, and the film Titanic won several oscars.
none of them have even an inkling of any value.

and don't forget BetaMax, MiniDiscs, Banksy, The Sex Pistols, sharks, De Lorean cars, linux - all very unpopular, but nonetheless all fucking brilliant, and usually much better than their rivals.

that poster, No To AV folk, is an argument with as much validity as saying "this new shampoo can give you ten times more colour radiance".

AV takes more points of view into account than just one very basic sum. the election of who runs our country should be more complicated than it is. you should be able to have an opinion if your first choice is that of principal. politicians should have to work harder.

if you're unsure of how democratic AV is, let some lovely zoo animals explain

hey ya!

2011-04-12T17:04:00.003Z

way back in january i wrote about the 50-hour improvathon that i nearly watched all of. one of the highlights was a character called Tony Ferrari whose catchphrase "eeeeeeiiiyyyyyyyyy" became part of my everyday vocabulary.

joyfully, i was in vienna for work last week (yup, freelancing is working out allright). the joy wasn't particularly the work itself, but that i managed to get to see an improv show on the friday night at the Drachengasse Theatre, somewhere near a viennese church, somewhere in the city.

Jacob Banigan, the improviser behind T. Ferrari was in the show, and was happy for me to fire a bunch of questions at him in a somewhat amateur way. here is what/how it went down:

Jacob Banigan began improvising over 20 years ago in Edmonton, Canada, with the revered Rapid Fire Theatre. He's since moved to Austria, where he performs regularly with Theatre Im Bahnhof in Graz and The English Lovers in Vienna. He travels all over the world to teach and perform.

How did you discover improv?
JB: I first saw it when I was a teenager, when my sister told me to go see TheatreSports. I always knew I wanted to perform, and when I saw improv I realized the players were really enjoying themselves and the audience was with them the whole way. The world of stand-up looked pretty nasty, from a distance.

What do you really love about improv?
With improv, the audience accepts all your ideas. If you say you’re 10 feet tall, they just go: “Okay”. And if you act a little bit that way they see it even more. We can paint the picture as fast as we want. What sustains it is the reality of these ridiculous situations: audiences come back for the true moments, instead of the comedy of it.

What was your favourite ever improv moment?
In 2006 I got to do a World Cup of TheatreSports in the Canadian team, with two very good friends of mine: Steve Sim and Derek Flores. That was a super highlight for me. But I’ve worked with so many great people. I go to Edmonton and we have fantastic shows. Sometimes just me and Mark (Meer), sometimes with others. And Jim (Libby) and I tootle around doing a lot of two-man shows. We created a board game show where you roll the dice and it tells you how long the scene is. We both play all the characters. It’s a mix of short- and long-form.

You were in the 50 hour Improvathon, and you’ve done ultra-long Soapathons. What’s the best thing about them?
The stories can take so long and get so complex, and when you try to back-track through one you realise it started two days ago! In the Improvathon, Ruth (Bratt) and Mark (Meer) had a funny little boob-poke right near the beginning. It was so early, but it paid off throughout, and at the very end created the most romantic, touching scene. There would be no way to predict that, or make that happen, if you were writing that story.

Did you have any out-of-body experiences?
I had some brain farts, yeah. Nothing that was transcendent, just embarrassing. Part way through a scene you think: “Am I still here? Am I still talking? Fuck!” There’s always a time in the Soapathon where everyone is flumping on stage. But everyone comes back.

Have you ever had a totally shit show?
Oh yes. In Wetaskiwin, Alberta, a small town. We did a fundraiser gig for The Wives of the Mounties. Full of small-town ladies with power issues (because they’re married to Mounties), all hammered. We got there and the place was already a riot. We couldn't wait to get off the stage. It felt like forever. They hated us. They threw pennies at us. They even came on stage and said: “SHUT UP AND GET OFF!” I got mad. I’ve promised myself never to get mad on stage again. We did maybe 10-15 minutes… We were supposed to do 40.

Do you perform in German when you do shows in Austria?
I perform in German sometimes, very bad German. My characters are usually foreigners or animals. Or objects.

Did you have to adapt your humour in any way?
Performing in another language forces you to simplify. You can’t be clever. You can’t make jokes. If I lose track of what’s going on in a show that’s mostly in German, it’s usually because people have started making jokes or doing wordplay. If you keep it to what’s real, and what’s here, it’s no problem. It can be really helpful for people to travel and perform in another country where you can’t just make references to your own pop culture.

How would you describe your own style?
I don’t mind giving life to objects or to dogs. Again, don’t play the dog like a crazy dog - just be a dog. The reality of that is interesting, too. I don’t mind looking stupid, because it’s not me, it’s the character. If I went out there and tried to be funny and charming I’d be dead. You don’t have to defend your ideas or sneak them in emotionally, you just have to bring them to the stage and connect them to the other people. People respect that. Sometimes people take the serious stuff too seriously, that’s bad theatre. It just needs to be alive.

What was your favourite improv show you ever saw?
The first time I saw Crumbs in Winnipeg they just blew my mind. Their style was so different from anything I’d seen before and I immediately wanted to steal from them. I was watching their show looking for a structure, and afterwards they told me they didn’t have one. They just start: no games and no hooks! They just kinda play. It was a revelation.

Do you have an improv hero?
Mark Meer. Everyone is just trying to catch up to him. Actually when I’m playing with him I’m not trying to catch up to him, I’m trying to knock him off his balance. I learned years ago not to try to play the same game he’s playing, because you won’t be able to. If you’re in his game, great, but if you’re not - don’t even try. My job now is like: “Okay, Mark seems to know what he’s doing, I’m going to try and make him trip.” But he totally glosses over, like that’s part of his world too! There’s nobody else like him. And he does it with pure joy.

Do you think improv works on TV?
It’s on in America occasionally, but I don’t think it’s exactly been done properly. ‘Whose Line’ is fantastic, for what it is. There was this show called ‘The Green Screen Show’ [where actors do a short-form show in front of a green screen, then environment and props are animated in before it’s broadcast]. I liked that it was about suggesting something that could then be put in afterwards. You can’t do that on stage. I think that’s the way to go, just without all the ‘funny-funny’.

Jacob is currently working on an improvised movie. At the moment he's not sure exactly how it will work.

If you would like to read the whole unabridged interview you can: HERE

what have you done for me lately?

2011-04-12T06:55:00.004Z

oh. yes. i have this blog don't i? i sorta forgot for a while. i've been doing this instead, putting a website together so that more people can experience improv in the world.

improvisation is now, well, kind of a full-on addiction. it's basically forming about 40% of my thought processes. that's quite a lot considering i spend 63% of my life asleep, and/or enjoying the throws of passionate freelancing.

anyway; 8bit have a gig this weekend and it's going to be a right royal phenomenon. without the royalty, those guys are basically pointless.

broken flowers

2011-02-24T00:03:00.003Z

what with my mum, sister, niece and nephew being in an horrific car-crash (pictured) on monday, the terrible earthquake in new zealand, gaddafi fulfilling his murderous tendencies in libya, witnessing a video of a government van willfully plowing into a crowd of protesters in egypt and me falling down some stairs while carrying an 8' x 4' set panel yesterday... i can't help but be thoughtful on the fragility of human life and how people should stop being shit and help each other out.

this is why i started an online argument today with some girl who thought it was acceptable to book an airline flight from cardiff to newcastle. i don't have kids, and probably won't as i wouldn't want them to grow up breathing this idiot's carbon output.

why don't we make up?

2011-02-21T23:50:00.002Z

here is the promo for my improvised musical comedy group/troupe who do improvised comedy musicals with music and songs and comedy in. feel free to enjoy it more than tractors (who are total fuckers anyway).

i don't like myself in film, so i cunningly only put myself in it for a split second. well done me.

quadrophenia

2011-01-25T18:55:00.000Z

i don't know anything about this film, but i love the poster design.

wall-e

2011-01-23T16:57:00.011Z

my #improvathon ended earlier than i wanted. which was annoying. what is more annoying is the reason.
it wasn't due to tiredness - i'd pushed through two horrific walls of sleepiness and had got to a point where it really was a downhill stretch. if i could make it to 38 hours of watching a show, i could make it to 50.
it wasn't due to the the quality of the show - yes, it had some bits that were better than others, and some of the worst bits were really quite bad; but that's part of the show. even with total sleep deprivation, the cast were still finding some absolute genius from somewhere within.

it was due to drunk people. yeah. annoying. i hate drunk people at the best of times. being drunk can often turn even the most pleasant of people into arrogant, selfish pricks. when those selfish pricks are there ruining a show you are trying to watch, that's just too much to bother with.
and for some reason you can't tell them to shut-up, because you would be the one classed as unreasonable. the response would be "oh they're just having a good time, leave them alone."
i would argue that's total balls. they're drunk, they're being twats, they should just automatically be asked to leave. or they should be put down in the stalls, leaving a chill-out zone in the balcony. or something.

so, accompanied with my tiredness levels it just pushed me to the end of my tether. and i just couldn't be bothered anymore. which is annoying, because the first night was really pleasant. you could just sit quietly and watch the show until dawn came or lay down and absorb it just through audio. but saturday night was this: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - repeated to infinitum.

as i write this, the show is still going. and the performers are nothing less than heroes. it's a mighty accolade, but for the most it's totally deserved. the most notable performances are as follows:
(in no particular order, and not knowing some of the actors names so i'll use their character name or a description)
Mark Meer - even at his lowest points he was a better improviser than i can ever hope to be. his Hunter S Thompson is magnificent. he is quick, witty and clever. and his physical comedy is a pleasure to watch.
Dylan Emery - never ceased to retain plot-points and keep the story in some semblance of an order.
Jacob Tony Ferrari - the only man who will finish this with a catchphrase. Really entertaining and a superb improviser.
Ruth Bratt - is constantly brilliant, but had a meltdown on stage and kept improvising to perform the best song of the show. Her love story with The Geek will be one of the few stories everyone will remember.
Paul Foxcroft - i really enjoy watching Paul. he has a knack of playing around in scenes that i envy, and the fooling about never seems to ruin the truth of whats going on.
Woody Allen - the guy's impression of the neurotic film director was brilliant. and he was brilliant with it. His story of obsession with Annie Hall was my favourite one of the whole show.
The Country Girl with the animal milk obsession - was just really enjoyable to watch and i missed her when she went.
Oliver Senton - his impression of Tom Waits was perfect.
Josh D'arcy - his security guard character was utterly convincing and never put a foot wrong.
Seamus Allen - totally brilliant drug-addict comedy role and a brilliant clown.
Charlotte Gittins - her 'Hot 30' was always the best one of any episode.
Sarah-Louise Young - apart from a weird time dressed in a silver bikini; was slick, professional and wonderful at all times.
Donovan Workun - just brilliant.
Alan Cox - an enviable pallet of abilities.
Vackith/Vackis or something (she was a russian dancer anyway) - always enjoyable to watch and never seemed to lose energy.
Bryony And Tonic - i was always very relaxed when she was on stage. this could have any one of a number of meanings.

but by far my ultimate hero, someone who was consistently incredible, funny, witty, sexy, energising, committed, convincing; who powered into any role that was thrust upon her, did a brilliant impression of a well-known character, astounded me with her improv-abilities, energy levels and contributions to the show.. was Cariad Lloyd. she was absolutely fucking brilliant and stands out a long way as my favourite performer of the show. amazing.

do i regret not seeing the whole thing out?... yeah, a bit. but now i get to go and have a curry and a pint. so that's pretty ace. and i still saw most of the show.
as for personal achievements; i stayed awake for something close to 52 hours, so i'm feeling pretty good about myself.

forget paris

2011-01-22T16:15:00.000Z

I just re-read my hour 16 #improvathon review. it was REALLY negative. that's crazy. I guess it was tiredness being an ass.
basically the whole improvathon thing is genius, and the actors should be praised. yes, some bits aren't as good as other bits... but that's because improv is unpredictable, and because the actors are battling extreme levels of tiredness. they are encountering all the tiredness things I'm going through, but multiplied by at least 10. exhaustion, paranoia, confusion.
it is amazing that they are still pulling out hilarity at regular intervals.

there was a bit earlier where I didn't care what was going on, but that fell away like a wave and I'm back to loving everything that is happening.

there is currently a Jesus puppet doing the title role of an improvised version of Jesus Christ Superstar. it is amazing.

this whole thing is still weird. but that's why it's brilliant.

in the night garden

2011-01-22T11:24:00.000Z

we're about 16 hours into the #improvathon . by my calculations (if they are at all trustworthy) that means I've been awake for 28 hours, bar the twenty minutes I spent in a horizontal position on a wooden slat when I hit a tiredness wall at about 6am this morning.

it would be impossible to try and recollect what's happened in 16 hours of improvised nonsense. it's gone through times of brilliance and times of rubbishness.

some memorable things are:
- carrie fisher has sex with a lot of young boys.
- hunter s. thompson is being played magnificently by mark meer.
- my favourite storyline has been that of woody allen and annie hall, a lot to do with how brilliantly they were played.
- there have been a couple of actors, that I have no idea why they've been allowed on stage. they are terrible.
- there was a dark time through the early hours of this morning, where only mess happened, and plot was thrown aside.
- there was a great bit where an actor was called to stage, but he was asleep on the front row. he was awoken by demons, and delivered halfway through the scene. and was noticeably fucked up by the whole thing.
- the lighting fell asleep and a scene ended up being strung out for ages until he woke up and went to black out.
- there has been a lot of racism.
- woody allen & annie hall had a baby and it was Jesus Christ, who turned out to be evil, so they had it murdered.

I am not feeling that tired right now. I'm definitely on a second wind, that was fuelled by three things:
1. a bacon and egg sandwich as Dawn broke.
2. having a big shit.
3. sarah-louise young's bottom writhing about when she was being a lapdancer.

it is messy. it is scrappy. we are experiencing the full range of 'good' levels of improv, but that's to be expected.
the performers are heroes.
this is a weird thing to do.

la science des rêves

2011-01-21T13:08:00.005Z

tonight sees the start of the 2011 improvathon. a bunch of improvisers get together for perhaps the ultimate theatrical challenge: to improvise one 50-hour play. all in one go. battling all the things that sleep deprivation throws at you. they will hit depression, angst, exhaustion, fear, paranoia, hallucinations. why anyone would willingly do that to themselves is almost beyond understanding.

except that i'm going to attempt to sit through the entire thing. attempt. this will be no mean feat, and as an audience member i will be hitting similar walls that the actors will; only i might be able to catch the odd wink of sleep from my uncomfortable seat in hoxton hall. i will be blogging and tweeting all the way through, so if you would like to read as a man slowly loses grip on reality, immersing himself in a fictional 1977... stay tuned to this blog.

and follow the whole thing in tiny, progressively non-sensical bursts on twitter. everything will be hash-tagged #improvathon.

at time of publishing i have been awake for 5hrs 45mins.

careless whisper

2011-01-15T13:08:00.020Z

so #FastandLoose happened. impro is finally back on mainstream TV, at least for 8 weeks anyway. we had an impro-watching party around the main event, watched some made-up-on-the-spot telly such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Reno 911, and we watched some YouTube clips of brilliant groups like Beer.Shark.Mice and the fucking amazing Upright Citizens Brigade (video below). which were all magnificent, but by far the central reason for our evening was Fast & Loose.

there has not been a mainstream British impro TV show since Whose Line Is It Anyway? 15 years ago, so the expectations amongst the impro community could be felt like a build up of silence before a tidal wave hits... so did the wave hit with the full force of a 15-year surge and a burgeoning contemporary impro scene? well, um,... -ish... sort of like... sort of.

the twitterverse was lit with swathes of commentators. i would say it was mostly positive. interestingly, the good complimentary stuff seemed to come from the 'normal' TV viewer. lots of people thought it was hilarious. that is great. the dissenters, however, appeared to be people from within the improv community. there was a noticeable voice from improvisers all over the country that was disappointed and unsatisfied.

i am mixed. i thought the show was okay, but felt very calculated and safe. one if the most joyous aspects of doing impro is that the audience call out suggestions. this does two things:

1. proves that it's improvised.

2. gives the improvisers completely bat-shit crazy unexpected suggestions to work with.
there was no audience interaction whatsoever on Fast & Loose. why the hell not? they managed it 15 years ago with whose line? so why take a backwards step now?

the cast list included pippa evans and humphrey ker. these are two perfectly decent improvisers who could cope with any suggestion the audience could muster. future cast members for the series include ruth bratt and dave reed, who are also off-the-cuff masters. the Fast & Loose decision-makers are happy to use less-well-known but entirely capable improvisers, but it appears that due to some wet fear of risk-taking they also had to go down the danger-free route of stand-up comedians and a fail-safe format. the name of the show ended up being quite the opposite of the truth. series two should be called "Slow & Constrained".

my lady-cohort observed that if you wanted to broadcast a show about mime, you would go and talk to some mime artists; find out if there was a community of people who do mime and which performers those mime artists respect most. you would work with those maestros to form the best mime format you could for your TV show and the best mimists for your cast.

why then, didn't Fast & Loose work with prominent people in the improvisation circuit? there are people out there who've practiced incessantly on the art of improv for years and years and are regarded as figureheads in the community. Dylan Emery is one of the creators of Showstoppers, performs in Grand Theft Impro, runs the Crunchy Frog Collective, part of the astounding School of Night and is well regarded as a bit of a powerhouse in making existing improvisers work harder and be better since he took up the mantel that Alan Marriott left behind when he moved back home to Canada.
Steve Roe almost single-handedly runs Hoopla! and you won't find anyone battling harder to get improv out of dingy pub cellars and into the public eye. He is also an effing brilliant improviser himself.
Katy Schutte is just about one of the best improvisers i've ever seen and imparts the knowledge she has gained from training in (impro-Mecca) Chicago to our little island.

any one of these people could have given Fast & Loose a list of incredible, reliable, hilarious improvisers (including themselves) who would have astounded the audience. they'd have had some pretty brilliant ideas about show formats too, that certainly wouldn't have felt as stale as F&L did for a lot of it. these are people that trust in the abilities of fellow improvisers, and prove it by performing in front of real-life audiences with them. 'them' includes me, and i'm a long way away from the best improviser in town.

when you perform live you don't even get to edit out the poorer bits in post-production like they can with TV. if F&L producers were scared of going the whole hog and committing to impro, they really needed to have at least watched some impro shows and realised how risk-free it can be.

Fast & Loose just didn't seem to stray that far from the sterile safety we saw in mock the week; a show that pretended it was impro but was not even close.
Exhibit A, it didn't have improvisers in it.
Exhibit B, it had stand-up comedians in it.
Exhibit C, everything looked rehearsed.

hmm.

wow. that's all pretty negative. there are positive things that came out of the Fast & Loose series debut. for a start, with the list of evidence above you can now delete Exhibit A.
F&L did actually have improvisers in it. it's a start.

also, there were some bits that were actually impro. the dinner scene was a TV evilution of a 'Scene Replay' impro game, albeit rushed through.

the sideways floor thingy near the end was pretty much a classic 'Genre Swap' but with an added aspect you can't easily do live on stage in a room above a pub, with no budget because it's hard to get a decent-sized audience because no-one knows about improv because TV execs have been too scared to put it on TV even though everyone liked a show that was on 15 years ago. that game worked really well and the twitterverse was almost unanimous in it's appreciation.

so, i guess in summary; it was frustrating for improvisers or impro-fans who've seen just how good impro can be; and what can possibly be achieved live on stage. those who have seen entire musicals and shakespearian style plays created in a moment, those who have been whisked along an intricate weave of intertwining storylines and characters, those who have seen skilled actors work together to create miraculous and hilarious things on stage... will have been rather underwhelmed.

but for anyone who doesn't know about improv and hasn't been exposed to it, well, it may have opened their eyes to a whole new form of comedy that isn't the standard vanilla much-repeated one man stand-up routine. which can only be a good thing. it's a tentative toe-dip in an improv pool that can only be improved by a braver jump into the shallow end. and then a doggy paddle.
or if you're a newcomer, already into the idea of diving from the top board, why not try the 50-hour improvathon?

for impro virgins with a whetted appetite, there's so much to discover (shortform, longform, musicals, theatresports, impro soaps, harolds). if you want to discover more don't limit yourself to a TV show that's controlled by TV executives, seek out the good stuff:

in london:
hoopla!
showstoppers
music box
8bit
grand theft impro
school of night
horse aquarium

in brighton:
the maydays
the noise next door

anywhere else:
start from the crunchy frog collective website, and work outwards.

and then demand that TV execs allow this kind of thing to happen:

double team

2011-01-07T09:45:00.011Z

gleatings comedy fans.

this year looks like it might be the year of 'Cor-Blimey-Thats-Genius' impro double bills, and to kick your ImpDubble-Bil year off in WonTon style and enviable joy: 8bit will be teaming up with the mighty powers of THE INFLATABLES for a night of fast-paced, hyper-bole, bum-good improvised comedy joygasm.

The Inflatables present the ultimate fast and funny quickfire short-form impro show with lots of games and rapid scenes.
Cast: Andrew Gentilli, Steve Roe, Becca Gibson, Dylan Buckle and Matt Andrews.
.... and if that cast list doesn't tickle your fancies nothing should, you heartless mung bean.

8bit bring you Chicago-style longform impro in a teacup with a Union Jack on it; creating an intricate weave of stories and characters from your idea and taking you on a journey the likes of which has never been seen before or since. Or now. Or before.
Unscripted... live... right there in front of you. Yeah, Right there. Yeah. There. Mmmm. Unnghgh....

COME!
Doors 7:30pm, Show 8pm - 10pm with interval, 26th January, The Miller... get along to have your funny bone touched in a way you never thought possible.
Available for £5 on the door, or reserve tickets at www.wegottickets.com

Where:
The Miller
96 Snowsfields Road
London Bridge
London
SE1 3SS

back to the future

2011-01-04T08:32:00.004Z

and there we are. 2011 plops into place as predictably as 2010 did. and 2006. happy new year, you hobos.

welcome to a year that starts under a useless government and will finish under a useless government, that much is guaranteed. so what am i going to do about it? bend over and take a flaccid iron rod, or spin round and grin menacingly into their eyes?

every year for about the last seven, I have said "this was the best year of my life," and it is not without truth. my enjoyment of the world has increased in leaps and bounds since I managed to put behind me how fucking awful i found school, how disappointing university was, and how sorrowful the time i ended up working in sales and retail became.
thankfully i'm out of all those things now.

the only thing about 2010 that i didn't enjoy was my job. i liked some bits of it, but the rest was dragging me down. i have now cured that as i sit face-to-face with my own freelance future. i'm happily putting aside the fact that my first freelance booking has been and currently is, covering my old role in my old job; because now i'm doing it on my own terms. it makes a big difference. now i actually care about what i'm doing.

every other aspect of 2010 was the best i've ever had it. i had brilliant friends, i had a brilliant family, i had a brilliant hobby and i had a brilliant lady-freund. i still have all those things in 2011, and now i also have a job that i'm excited about.

2010 was the best year of my life.
2011 will be the best year of my life.

don't let go

2010-12-31T12:54:00.000Z

this is barry. he drives a crane. for some reason, he has painted his credit card pin number on it.

"hey barry."

barry once used the website www.webuyanycar.com
they gave him a tiny amount of money for his immaculate 2002 nissan micra. barry felt like this wasn't enough, but the people on the helpline told him he should have read the small print better.

four lions

2010-12-27T10:16:00.000Z

i like to go to theatre workshops.

that sounds a bit gay and rubbish.

I'm sorry you think that. what do you like to do in your spare time?

oh, I like to watch 22 men run around a field with shorts on.

oh, right. what else do they do?

sometimes they kick a ball into a net. and every time they do they get a point. the more points they get, the better their chance of winning.

that sounds brilliant. so I guess that happens a lot then.

normally about 2 or 3 times in a game.

but you don't have to wait long, right?

sometimes ninety minutes can pass by without a point. and then no-one wins.

that's like fishing and not catching anything.

but when someone does get a point, loads of people cheer. and the players celebrate by having a little tumble. it's really great.

do you get your money back if no-one does a point?

nope.

so, do the players get paid less if they don't do their job properly?

nope. sometimes they get given £50,000 for a week.

for what?

for trying really hard.

so, if your team doesn't win any points, do they say sorry?

no, normally they blame the quality of the grass or something.

if you watched archery, and none of the archers hit the target, that would be rubbish wouldn't it?

but sometimes there ARE goals. sometimes.

how many on average...?

about two per game.

and how long do they last?

ummm... they're sort of just instant.

so potentially, in an hour and a half, you probably only get a couple of moments of good bits?

sometimes games are longer than that.

it sounds pretty dull.

there are loads of attempts at points. loads.

an attempt isn't an actual achievement though, is it? I mean, if I ATTEMPTED to draw a picture, but ended up not drawing a picture, I might as well have not bothered even picking up the pencil. hey that's a nice t-shirt.

thanks, its the away shirt for my team.

I like it. how much can I buy that t-shirt for?

£40.

WHAT?! for a t-shirt?!

yes. my team won a competition last year. they scored 33 points in ten months. I will buy another t-shirt this year.

Jesus.

when my team lose, I get really sad.

oh dear. sometimes in theatre workshops I get to kiss girls, and my girlfriend doesn't mind. in fact she normally watches, and then says how good it was.

sometimes I pay £30 to watch a game where no-one does any goals.

oh.

christmas present #7

2010-12-25T19:09:00.000Z

my nephew dressed like a christmas idiot.

christmas present #6

2010-12-25T19:04:00.000Z

a lovely dry bottom.

christmas present #5

2010-12-25T16:08:00.000Z

shit joke.

christmas present #4

2010-12-25T15:29:00.000Z

a fine spread.

christmas present #3

2010-12-25T14:19:00.000Z

a raging fire of heat.

christmas present #2

2010-12-25T12:45:00.000Z

pyjamas with 'men' and 'mom' written on them.

christmas present #1

2010-12-25T12:44:00.000Z

the fuck-birds

here comes santa claus

2010-12-20T08:28:00.001Z

unusual conference set-up this morning. aside from the fact that they've gone with a hawaiian theme for santa's christmas grotto, it's not what you'd normally expect to find on the presentation theatre stage on a Monday morning.

"hello little boy, whats your name?"

"it's ken, santa"

"and have you been a good boy, ken?"

"well, i was the deputy co-team-leader for the investment & adherence focus group on the TODGER project."

"and what would you like for christmas, ken?"

"i'd like to shift any blame for the state of the world economy right away from me."

"oh well, ken, was it your fault?"

"i'd like to think i had nothing to do with it. i was merely a pawn accepting orders and only made a bad decision when it meant i made more money for my bonus pot. some of which i'd spend on my family."

"is there anything else you'd like for christmas, ken?"

"money."

"haven't you already got some of that, ken?"

"want more."

"'want' is not a very nice word, ken. the elves and i always say 'i want, doesn't get.'"

"i'd also like a prostitute to sniff cocaine from."

"next child please."

water of life

2010-12-17T22:44:00.000Z

please enjoy our delicious mulled urine.
nappy rolidays!

give peace a chance

2010-12-17T09:11:00.004Z

for today, you can get the 4'33" track for FREE!
and to top it off, money still goes to charity and it still affects the music charts.

so lets get this straight: you can make a contribution to some great charities, take an active role in the battle against mediocrity AND send a message of disinterest to simon cowell - without paying any money.

1) register or log in at mflow
2) click on your name in the top right of the screen
3) on the drop down menu click 'redeem code'
4) Type in XMAS to the redeem code box - it then puts £1 credit in your account
5) Search 'Cage Against The Machine' and then click to buy it with the credit.

say it loud

2010-12-17T08:21:00.004Z

ME: hello sir, i've just come to put a microphone on you.

HIM: i hate those things. do i need one? i can project.

ME: you have an audio conference call on this event, so you need to speak into a microphone otherwise people calling in won't hear anything.

HIM: can't i just shout?

ME: from london to mumbai?

punch drunk love

2010-12-16T15:20:00.001Z

this is the next movie i'm excited about:

also this:

let's get retarded

2010-12-15T11:21:00.004Z

in my last couple of weeks of full-time employment, it's refreshing to know that I've made the right decision.

today a conference I am running has an audio dial in. for those not in the know, this means that I've connected my sound desk to a telephone line and dialled it into a conference call so that bank workers all around the world can log in and listen to the meeting.

there is also a similar facility where people can log into a website to watch the PowerPoint slides I am sending out.

a section of this meeting had a slide show showing the department's achievements for the year, while playing the theme tune from Mission Impossible.

half way through this section, the events girl (who has spent all morning coming back and forth every 2 minutes to ask me questions like "can I dial a normal phone number on a phone?") came and said she'd just had an email from someone listening in on the conference:

HER: the people on the phones are saying they can only hear music.
ME: that's because we're playing music. there's nothing else going on.
HER: but they're saying they can't see anything on the phones.
ME: see?
HER: yes, they can't see anything.
ME: on the phone?
HER: yes.
ME: ....
HER: they can't see anything on the phone. can you make sure it's working?
ME: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. do you mean they can't see the slides?
HER: I guess so. hmmm.
ME: have they logged into the slideshow website?
HER: on the phone?
ME: on their computers. they need to do that. they had an email explaining it all to them.
HER: oh. maybe they haven't done that.
ME: I expect so. could you get them to do that, if they look at what I'm broadcasting they might be able to see it.
HER: ... and then they'll be able to see?
ME: yes.
HER: ... the presenter?
ME: the slide show.
HER: oh. so they won't see the presenter?
ME: no. we don't have cameras in this room.
HER: do you need them? can you just put it on the computer?
ME: I'm afraid not. to get a camera shot of the presenter, you need a camera.
HER: so what will they see?
ME: the slides.
HER: but they need to log in to the website for them?
ME: yes. they were all sent log-in details via email.
HER: does that not happen automatically when they dial in on their phone?
ME: no. their phones and their computers are separate pieces of equipment.

[she gets out her blackberry]

HER: oh. I've just had an email saying that some of the others can't hear anything.
ME: are they dialled in on the phone line?

[she goes away and returns a few minutes later]

HER: do they need to do that as well?
ME: yup.

[she disappears again]

while she is away I send an email out to anyone online informing them of the correct phone number.

shortly after I start hearing loads of people dialling into the call.

she returns.

HER: people can hear now.
ME: okay.

....

these are the people who run your bank. these are the people who're in charge of your money and the world economy.

ace.

killing in the name of

2010-12-13T11:35:00.023Z

dear simon,

i thought i should bring something to your attention. you may already know about it, or your personal assistant army of bikini-clad chavscum may have missed it while they were engulfing your unbelievable manhood with their desperate lips. if you have missed it, it appears that a bunch of nobodies - including suggs (who?) and the kooks (what?) - have got together to record a single in the lame attempt to knock your x-factor single from the much-deserved and arbitrary Christmas Number One slot.

this group of artists that no-one has ever heard of have decided to cover the legendary John Cage's track "4'33"", which is just four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. how silly! who would even want that? i mean, if people didn't want to hear the x-factor single they could just turn the radio off. i'm listening to 4'33" right now, actually. (i bought the album, including all the remixes.) it's so incredible to think that people would rather pay money for silence than listen to your release.

i haven't bought the x-factor single yet, and as such i don't even know what it is. to be honest i missed the x-factor final as i didn't know when it was on. partly this is because i was normally out meeting other humans on a saturday night, and partly it was because someone offered to gouge my eyes out with a dagger. perhaps you should think about spending more money on advertising, or organise some sort of ridiculous media frenzy surrounding all the performers on your "talent" show, then it wouldn't be so easy to ~~avoid~~ miss it.

actually thinking about it, i think i did accidentally catch some of the x-factor show. the television was on while i was getting ready to go to a music gig of music performed by a real-life band of guys who had worked hard on their art and written the songs themselves. we temporarily lost the signal to the channel we were watching and searched for another one that worked. we ended up on ITV (because that button is largely unused and was therefore easy to operate). we saw about 3 or 4 minutes before my girlfriend vomited and i'm pretty sure it was the x-factor even though it looked like an advertisement for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

during that 3-4 minutes we saw a humanoid who looked like cheryl cole spout-forth a classic hit by music historian Jay Zee which is a re-hash of an annoying song from an old musical starring an precocious little drama-school girl. luckily it wasn't cheryl cole, though; otherwise i think i may have shot myself (that awful pikey scumbag is famous only because she is pretty, and no-one seems to have realised how much of a talentless, wretched bottom-feeder she is). i'm so glad you haven't fallen into the media trap so many others have and allowed that racist on your show. no, luckily this spitting image of cheryl was completely different, even her name "cher" was nothing like "cheryl." and instead of miming to an autotuned backing track like (violent offender) tweedy does, cher stood proud in her complete inability to sing. this bravery was astounding, and i hope that she was rewarded by some sort of fix that enabled her to win the x-factor celebration. i can't imagine there was anyone better.

a christmas without the x-factor single being at number one wouldn't be the same. it would be reminiscent of that horrible year some time ago, when half a million people bought 'killin in the name of..' by rage against the machine instead of whatever that song was that whoever won x-factor did. do you remember that? do you? most of those people probably hadn't even heard of rage against the machine, so they might not have even been buying the song 'cause they liked it, only because they didn't like you. that's hardly a reason to buy a single.

why would no-one like you, simon? why?! you're totally rich and you've made your money by your own level of integrity and the integrity of the people who keep telling you how great you are. you remember 'saturday night' by whigfield, right? that song didn't get to number one because it was good, it got to number one because it got into people's lives and was almost impossible to ignore. like an infection. that's like you, simon. you're like an infection. you've slid into consciousness and remained there despite any attempts to remove you.

your magnificent offering to the integrity of british music has some real backing from some significant people. for example, drugged-up fuckhead Pete Doherty didn't even turn up to the 4'33" recording. i think that was probably in support of you and [insert name of x-factor winner here]. billy bragg was so desperate to not be at the recording of 4'33" of absolutely nothing, that he had to provide his contribution from a mobile phone that sat in the recording studio. he probably even had to pay for that phone call.

the chances of this ridiculous behaviour even achieving it's goal are entirely slim. compare it, for example, to the other online cause of over 630,000 people who are backing the track 'surfin bird' to win. loads of those people would be from other countries like america, so if they buy it the sales won't even affect your x-factor single progress. and americans are from a different continent, so they probably haven't even heard of you. therefore it can't possibly be a reaction against your torrent of musical disease.

perhaps if all the people in the world who didn't like (or even despised) the x-factor got together with one plan they would obliterate you from the music scene altogether. ten thousand here, half a million there, six hundred thousand people somewhere else. coo, there's a lot. however lots of those people have wide and varied tastes in music and don't take too kindly to one single command telling them what they are and aren't allowed to like. if only people weren't such free-thinkers, simon, then this would all be much easier. for example, some want to buy 'surfin bird,' some want to buy '4'33"' and some want to throw their own fecal matter at your hair. not a chance of winning there. millions of people who hate you will have no impact whatsoever. ha!

simon, i once heard that you were thinking of doing the same thing to politics that you did to the british music industry. i heard that you were going to attempt to create a television show where the sorts of viewers that watch the x-factor would also have a contribution to the way our country works. is this true? i hope so, that would be hilarious. imagine the x-factor demographic running the country, it would be like a dickhead being given a shotgun. SO funny.

i should tell you that i also bought surfin' bird by the trashmen to see if it was better than the x-factor single that i haven't listened to. you should also know that i am now going to buy all the other tracks suggested by the various different online rages against your machine. i think i can only draw a fair argument against them if i make sure i've listened to them all. i already have most tracks, but i thought i should buy them again just to make sure i have the latest version. i won't need to buy yours as loads of other x-factor fans will (if their dole money is enough). the money i save not buying yours will be used to buy 4'33" again, to make absolutely sure i am totally up to date. i do this in whole-hearted support of you and your manufacturing system.

i have my fingers crossed that you win this year. that way, people will get to hear a new improved version of whatever original song you decide to recycle. and there will be an overwhelming amount of self-satisfaction for anyone who believes that any proceeds will go to a charity. it will also get loads of airplay on radio stations, which would be better than DJs having to play four and a half minutes of dead-air. i stopped listening to the radio ages ago because it seems to be full of shit, so DJs playing silence would be no different to me. however loads of people still buy compilation albums like Now That's What I Call Music, so there must still be a call for mediocre songs performed by mediocre people.

good luck, simon. you may only have a short time left before the nation can't take it any more. i can't wait for that day.

vote dukakis!

lots of love and kisses from
F. House

legion

2010-12-08T08:31:00.010Z

jay rhoderick is an new york based improviser who teaches improv for businesses. he shows them that when people in business collaborate and encourage each other's wide and varied skills, then businesses will flourish and leaders can become inspirational. to you and me it seems obvious that an atmosphere of encouragement and support can lead to people performing better, but i work in a business environment and i see on a day to day basis that business folk are much more comfortable with stifling and self-importance. in my experience, business people tend to be of the 'no but...' culture of negativity and limitation. and most of them are happy in the tiny world they create for themselves and not being seen to think outside their self-inflicted box.

google didn't flourish because it constantly set limits. apple certainly didn't restrict itself to a pre-decided square. innocent smoothies didn't accept it when they were told 100% recycled bottles couldn't be done.

on jay's twitter feed, he recently posted the following quote by american critic walter lippman:

"When all think alike, then no one is thinking"

... and i haven't been able to get it out of my head.
what i think lippman was referring to was the crowd mentality. often when there is a big group of people the ability of that crowd is much lesser than the sum of it's parts. a crowd will stand looking at someone who has fallen over, and no-one will offer to help.
the x-factor is a good example. have you ever watched it? (i did once, it made me want to drive over a child). when someone says something critical in the x-factor (and they have every right to do so) the audience only have one reaction - to make a booing noise - regardless of whether it's a valid opinion. say anything positive, anything, and the audience will go mental with joy.

SCENE 1 [participant sings really really badly.]
judge: "you didn't sing very well."
audience: "BOOOOOOOOOO. what an invalid opinion."

SCENE 2 [participant sings really really badly.]
judge: "you have a nice pair of shoes on."
audience: "WOOOOOOOOO YEEAAAHHH!!!! that was great!"

i think they probably don't even need a studio floor manager to cue the audience on that reaction. i imagine the average x-factor audience member to only have basic responses to stimulus anyway.

the result is that the x-factor continues to churn out unimaginative, mediocre acts that won't be remembered in ten years time. and the people who subscribe to ITV's celebration of mediocrity remain totally happy with that.
no-one strives, no-one achieves, they all remain stagnant.

i attended a jay rhoderick workshop earlier this year. in it we learned that one of the best catalysts for interesting things to happen is when opposing forces meet and are changed by each other. the world expands inexplicably when - rather than sitting still and not standing out - people explore their differences and allow those differences to grow into something new. if everyone just sits in a room and agrees with each other, nothing will ever change.

when fire meets fire, it just makes more of the same destructive force.
when fire meets water, it makes steam.

although when water meets fire, it can put the fire out. so, fire service men are like overbearing managers who put too much control on the flame of creativity, and all you are left with is a sodden mess that's no use to anyone. what you need is a skilled arsonist who can burn down a square building in such a way that it collapses and lands in the tinder box of a steam-train. and sometimes metaphors can go too far.

CHOO CHOO!

this blog is a prime example of what happens when i try to write while being distracted by my job every ten minutes. that is: a big fat list of non-sequitous gumpf. i think i'm going to start putting a word limit on my entries. wait... a limit?.... DAMN!

as you like it

2010-12-06T15:01:00.007Z

sometimes comedy just gets you right there. you click with it or you don't.
as any fine regular readers are unavoidably aware, stand-up doesn't usually do it for me.
but these guys do:

the beta males picnic (great name) played the hoopla christmas cabaret last night; a gig that i was running tech-stuff for. and they were brilliant. they sat really well with me and i easily found their level of humour. it was playful and silly, but wrought with intelligence. they defied preconceptions, had some fantastically dark sketches and were fundamentally hilarious throughout.

best of all, each one of them came independently to thank me after the show, for doing the technical bits. it's a very simple and easy thing to do, but it makes a huge difference. i hope they are recognised for the brilliant sketch comedy they perform, because they are lovely chaps and totally deserve it.

the good, the bad and the ugly

2010-12-06T12:22:00.005Z

GOOD
a new impro show is coming to your screens in the very near future, and it's pretty blaardy exciting. fast & loose looks to be a short-form show, similar to whose line is it anyway?. ace.

improv hasn't really been in the world of mainstream entertainment in about 15 years or something, so this is a fresh and exciting time. it's pretty darn marvelous actually, because not only will it bring improv back into the forefront of people's minds and give us all a little bit more exposure, but it will be fricken funny to watch - judging by some of the acts that are on it:
pippa evans
humphrey ker
marek larwood
ruth bratt

all brilliant. brilliant. brilliant.

BAD
i'm slightly worried about how impro will translate to our TV screens, and it totally depends on the bravery of some TV executives. Fast & Loose is from the creators of Mock the Week, which was a show that suggested that it was off-the-cuff but was so transparent you knew it was all lies.
Mock the Week was partly created by Dan Patterson, however Dan was also a big genius-hand in putting Whose Line is It Anyway? on our screens. hmm.
hopefully he is allowed to do actual impro this time, like in the heydays of Ryan Stiles (consistently hilarious) and Josie Lawrence (impro singing master) and not the annoyance of Andy Parsons (just has a weird delivery) and Gina Yashere (just does african accents).
thankfully the cast members suggest actual impro, as the ones i know are very talented improvisers and not stand-up comedians. huzzarp!

UGLY
from the press release:Suzanne Gilfillan, Executive Editor for the BBC, comments: "Fast And Loose is warm comedy entertainment with a modern twist, with a rich mix of established performers and new comedy stars in the making, reflecting the wealth of new and exciting improv talent on the stand-up comedy circuit."
... improv is not fucking stand-up!

lilac wine

2010-12-05T15:56:00.001Z

in tribute to my recent blog about The Canton Arms in stockwell, I had a Sunday roast in their style.

you see before you "le dessert de la yorkshyre with a black pepper dressing, winter vegetable jus, and a rouge chili and parted garlic accompaniment."

it's CONCEPT food, yah. I had it with an ironic mug of sainsbury citrus cordial with a freshly pumped hydrogen/oxygen solution.

it was dee-licious.

waiting for guffman

2010-12-05T00:10:00.007Z

"change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same, for the NSPCC. until Monday (december 6th), there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of childhood memories. this is a campaign to stop violence against children."

... is what i read on facebook today.

oh for pity's sake. talk about following the crowd and not questioning the reason. like blind religious faith/idiocy or voting on the x-factor.

so I'm told that by uploading a picture of Top Cat i would be taking a valid stance against child abusers. phew, i'm glad that's all i have to do. what a powerful force this social networking site is; that if people do something with completely no social impact, violent abuse will end. you don't even have to donate any money or anything. or consider the logistics. or invest any thought whatsoever.

a while ago it was suggested that not logging into facebook for a WHOLE day was enough to support anyone with autism. and remember when telling everyone the colour of your bra would cure breast cancer?

brilliant. now doing absolutely nothing for those in need has extended to ACTIVELY doing nothing for those in need on a website. thank god.

y'know, if that's the case why stop at child abuse and mental illness? here's my suggestion:
replace your profile picture with your favourite military assault vehicle. do this until 12th December and we can stop wars. by the 12th, facebook shouldn't have any human faces, but be an invasion of aggressive battle weaponry. spread it around your friends, or we'll all die...

feel free to join me and tens of others in this pointless and nonsensical task. i have chosen a SCUD missile because it reminds me of the war that was on when i was a child.

another dick with no balls

2010-12-04T23:31:00.006Z

the canton arms in stockwell used to be a pub with a welcoming hug and a friendly smile. run by some cheery Australians it was 'your local' where you could stretch yourself out on a sofa and enjoy your evening. now, however, it's run by an owl who likes to masturbate into his own face. long gone are the days when you could pop round for a heartwarming plate of chips and leave with a friendly wave. no, now you'd be lucky to even find a member of the bar staff as they're more likely to be up their own rectum searching for new desserts for 'The Most Pretentious Menu In London'.

i tried to eat there a little while ago. i tried, but instead of what you'd expect from a pleasant little pub that used to be a glimmer of class in a dubious area, instead of a nice gastropub burger and chips with a sticky toffee pudding, my choice was rabbit shins or something written in french.

if i wanted a menu that came from the sphincter of a hunting jacket and get it served by an elitist member of the hipster scumniverse, i'd go to shoreditch. i want a pub. a real one. with a menu that doesn't make me feel like a dick just from reading it.

aside from that, if i go to a pub i don't want the pub staff to talk to me like i'm a piece of fecal regret.

yesterday evening i tried the place again. i thought they might, by now, have realised the folly of their shallowness.
the place was busy and i didn't immediately log the genre of clientele.
"hi, we'd just like a drink please." i asked. being a pub i considered this an ordinary request, although momentarily i thought it slightly abnormal that i felt i'd had to justify my attendance to a public house, but...

there were plenty of seats available.

"this is the FOOD area, please go over THERE," blurted a 'trendy' waiter. the boy's beard was not as good as mine. ah, thought i, that's another reason why i stopped coming here; because the staff are rude and cunty. and rude.

i was with my lady-girl. we paused for a moment to consider whether to get a dessert to justify us being allowed to sit in a public house. maybe they'd be serving something resembling food this time, and not kitten-licked chocolate clouds.

"are you waiting for friends?" another member of the staff interjected. he had an ironic moustache.
"um, no, we're just decidi_.."
"well could you move, i'm working here," he expunged from an ironic sneer.

my instinct was to tell the pretentious prick to fuck off, but despite being in the presence of a moron with an over-inflated sense of himself i was still able to retain basic social abilities.
my second instinct was to suggest that his job is not dissimilar to working in a Wimpy bar, but instead my lady-part simply said (with just the right level of sarcastic venom for me to find it pleasurable) "actually, we'll just be leaving thanks."

part of me would like to suggest that you should avoid the canton arms, but i'm aware of the chance that some of you are total wankers. some of you would really LIKE to see sheep-cheeks and garlic foam on a pub menu. some of you are dickish media types who'd actually enjoy being in the company of other dickish media types, even if those dickish media types run a badly conceived gastropub filled with old semen.

the cunton arms: obnoxious and awful.

within ten minutes walk of the canton arms - if you want a pub with a good atmosphere and a pleasant environment - are The Cavendish Arms and The Fentiman Arms. both of them are non-pretentious, warm, friendly and great. the staff don't talk down to you and you don't feel your soul being drained when you read their specials board.

the cunton arms: as my non-pretentious and beautifully human lady-hand said, "worse than having no local at all, is having a local that you just wish would burn down every day."

yep.

simple

2010-12-03T09:17:00.000Z

there is a kind of inexplicable aura that when you first meet someone you can tell if they aren't completely there. when you first meet someone a 'little bit special' there's a strange knowledge that they aren't necessarily firing on all pistons. I think it's a human empathy thing, dating back from the days where people actually cared about each other. without knowing exactly why or how, you can see when someone has mental illness and this leads to immediately feeling sorry for them and wanting to help them with simple day-to-day tasks like filling a bowl with cereal or tying their shoelaces.

it's found in a slight vacancy or dullness behind the eyes, like all processes end at the cornea and behind only a slowly swirling void exists. it's sometimes a look of constant surprise that they have managed to remember to breathe. it can also be a real determined concentration on any very basic motor function.

JLS stands for 'Jack the Lad Swing'

panic on the streets of london

2010-11-30T14:48:00.006Z

as i write this the streets of whitehall are being overrun with spotty teenagers, and bright yellow police chaps are playing 'it' with them for the third time in about two weeks. and i think it's great. not much gives me more pleasure that a few thousand people going into westminster to shout "screw you david cameron, you vapid, snivelling sphincter. you damp, elitist swamp of pointlessness. you horrid, horrid, wet lump of old toilet roll.
screw you, david cameron; and screw your poor excuse for a chess-team cabinet and their flappy vagina-faces."

those squealing little kids are embodying the fury that is felt across the country by people who would happily join in the taunts, if they didn't have to spend every daylight hour working their dicks off to cover the cost of their council tax. i don't condone the stupidity of the runt who threw the fire extinguisher from the tory HQ roof, but i must applaud the sentiment of the whole get-together.

screw you, david cameron.

and you, nick clegg. don't pretend this has nothing to do with you.

if only the 'riots' had any hope of making any difference. if only those waif-like pimple holders could change the age-old fact that political decisions are all made and finalised by a bunch of wealthy people in a room full of mutual masturbation and social detachment.

well done, children. good for you. smash that window. light a fire.

sadly, of course, even if it does make a difference; even if the average human is able to afford the "accessible" higher education system in the future, what they won't realise is it is largely pointless. even if they do make it to a university, chances are it will be a shit one with budget problems and half-arsed facilities. okay, i admit it, i didn't enjoy uni that much. i mainly wish i hadn't bothered. i mean, it's not like it's benefitted me in any way - it hasn't added endless fortunes onto my salary, or anyone i know. i reckon.. no, i'm certain i would've been better off financially if i'd just used that three years to start a business, or train in something useful. all my degree got me was two years running a clothes shop for a man who thought "make more money you stupid cunt" was an acceptable form of staff motivation, and an ability to write a Curriculum Vitae in basic english - good enough to get me into a job in which i'd learn everything i'd need to know for doing that job.

of course this may have been improved if i'd gone to a good university. instead, i went to northampton. aside from the fact that northampton is a soulless grey square with only a couple of sweat-holes (night clubs) to change the view, there was nothing to do. not one student club appealed to me. not one. the uni was geared toward people who made leather and muscled dumb-wipes who liked stroking the phallus of sports science. that's why i spent most of my free time visiting troubadour at Royal Holloway uni.

actually Royal Holloway was quite nice. a pretty campus and legions of beautiful, unobtainable women. and the syllabus was apparently good too. of course, there's no way i would've got in because entrance was based on what academic grades i got at a-level; not how awesome i am.
and i only got two a-levels because when i realised in the first couple of weeks that i didn't want to continue pursuing the pointless folly of Physics, my school decided there was too much paperwork involved for me to change to something else.

for the £300 my parents spent on extra physics classes i'm sure plenty of underpaid teachers would've happily filled those forms in.

oh well.

those little vandals currently infesting the streets around parliament are great, but sadly their efforts are a waste. sorry guys. get a job; under our coalition government those are easy to come by.

or if it's the sex and drugs of uni you're interested in, just grab your free-travelcard and wriggle your way down to clapham. you'll find all the STDs you want down there.

the santa clause

2010-11-30T10:12:00.005Z

i have resigned. like i said i would.

like the most cunning cunner in the land, i have timed it so my last day is christmas eve. that means any time i see a countdown clock ticking the seconds away to the festival of cheer, rather than the dread i normally feel i now get a little wave of excitement.

this banner features not just a badly designed HTML code, but also a spelling mistake.

end of days

2010-11-26T12:19:00.000Z

totally fascinating and in some ways beautiful documentary about The Aokigahara Forest at the base of mount fuji.

it is japan's most popular suicide spot, and more than two people every week go there to take their lives. this doc is sympathetic and wise, but by no means for the faint of heart. seriously, if you are easily saddened or disturbed... do not pass go.

monsters inc.

2010-11-23T11:05:00.002Z

this is pretty beautiful. yes, it's dangerously close to crossing The Cheese Line, but the message is clear and valid.

now, if only they could make one for creative, geeky people who don't fit into the nonsensical structure of the academic education system (which was probably about 90% of Pixar staff), that'd be ace.

jaws

2010-11-22T16:02:00.000Z

rob card has only gone and got himself a bigger boat.

underneath your clothes

2010-11-22T09:02:00.023Z

i frequently get asked about the ideas i store for walking up on stage and doing improv. if something amusing happens at work, someone will very likelyly say, "ha! that was funny. i bet you'll do that in one of your shows!" if some crazy happening happens in my outer-life, i'll often get a word in my ear to the effect of "you should write that down so you can use it in your next performance." despite how often i describe what impro is and what we do, people still assume that i go up on stage armed with a series of sketches and events that i then just act out.

i've had it after shows, too. even when a friend or colleague has come to see an improv gig, even if they themselves have provided one of the audience call-outs that determined what happened in the show, they still might ask which scenes we decided to do before the show started. after they've had it explained to them that the success of the great bits is nothing to do with extensive pre-planning of every detail, but extensive working on the skills needed to facilitate those things happening. you don't think up a character before the show and then walk into whatever scene and somehow make it fit. at no point do we ever think of a storyline, make sure all the performers know all the details about how its going to go down, then walk out onto stage fully prepared for every nuance. we don't do that. it's called improvisation for a reason.

some people do that. it's called 'acting'. it's a very different art-form.
or it's known as 'sketch comedy' (also different).

a good sketch comedy group will spend a year finding good material worthy of a show. as an impro show is different every time, imagine the physical impossibility of writing that amount of material. go on, imagine it. i rest my case.

oh no, wait, i've got a series of other points to make. deal with it, i have nothing better to do with the these hours i spend sitting next to my job.

when alex ross paints his immaculate images for comic books, no-one suggests that he just takes a photo and then traces it. people don't say to him, "that's really good, who did you copy it from?" alex ross is the incredible artist he is because he worked at it. he practiced. yes, he must have been born with some amount of natural skill, but that's not enough. he didn't just pick up a paintbrush for the first time and come out with a pile of photo-realism. he first needed to learn how paint rests on paper, and the way the brush fibres react under different pressures, and how much green he needs to add to get the colour he wants. he studied how light works. he found what textures rested easily on the eye. he also needed to find what worked for him, specifically. rather than just saying to himself, "picasso used oil colours, so that's what i need to do to be a good artist," ross needed to find what tools suited him; what brushes made sense in his fingers, what types of paint he understood.

even after learning all those skills, a brilliant picture doesn't just miraculously appear because alex ross is good at painting. he needs to use those skills and actually do the painting bit. then the miracle happens.

when an improviser heads up on stage, they do it armed with tools. they have things they have worked on that help them, skills that they've developed. they don't just walk out thinking they're funny and everything will be alright, that's called arrogance and arrogance has a very limited shelf-life in improvisation. first there are basic skills that help create successful improv, and then there is the relentless development of those rules to encourage better performances.

note my language here. at no point am i suggesting that anything guarantees a successful improvised performance. you can work on your skill until you're red in the face and your skin is falling off with physical and mental tiredness, but never at any point does this provide you with any certainty. alex ross still has to use an eraser every now and again. neil gaiman has to go back and re-write the odd paragraph. (so. many. geeky. references.)

people often say that if you put ten thousand hours into anything, you become an expert. after 10,000 hours of practice, you should be really very bloody good at something. painting, acting, piloting a plane; with a little bit of natural ability and 600,000 minutes of your time you should be brilliant. by my calculations, if you put a fair amount of time into impro each week - if you attend loads of workshops, shows, rehearsals, practice sessions etc. 10 thousand hours happens after about 8-10 years.

but even then, there's no way you can be absolutely certain that you're going to alley-oop yourself on to stage and provide the best thing an audience has ever seen. i've seen some of the best improvisers in the country lose their way in a show, fall out of a scene, resort to cliche.
and that's the joy. that's the humanity. as the troubadour says, it's a highwire act. part of the theatre of impro isn't the guarantee that what you're seeing is the best comedy act of all time, ever, but that the performers could fail at any point. they could be the best improvisers in the world, but still they're jumping in front of the audience's headlights and playing chicken with their expectations.

the same joy extends to the performers themselves. the reason we aren't doing plays or sketch-comedy, the reason we're absolutely not going up with pre-decided skits, plans, characters... is because it wouldn't be fun for us. it would be pointless. you wouldn't feel satisfied with the job you've done. it'd be like popping into a newsagent and seeing the magazine cover you designed, and suddenly realising you completely forgot to fill in the back section of megan fox's coat. you haven't done enough. you've been lazy. what you should've done is pasted a breeze-block over her bland fucking face.

as an improviser you have a responsibility to the audience. no improv performer wants to provide a paying member of the public with a half-arsed show. but the responsibility doesn't extend to 'planning the funny' in advance, it is about preparing yourself to find the funny once you're up there. anything else is dishonesty. and taking public money and pumping it into dishonesty is reserved for other types of people.

improvisers love that they're going up on stage without knowing what's going to happen. so that's what they do. i could go up onto stage with the best idea i've ever had emblazoned on my chest beneath my shirt. i could go up onto stage and tear it open to reveal the funniest set-up for any joke ever, guaranteed to kill the audience with mirth-power like some sort of super-human comedy machine... but then all i'd need to do is just call myself a 'sketch comedian' and... well, i'd probably get bigger audiences actually.

but i wouldn't have as much fun. and i'd have to sit down and learn a script (urgh).

waterworld

2010-11-19T16:01:00.001Z

hey, if anyone out there is still worried about rob card's boat trouble, stop panicking. they are floating the barge back to the surface as we speak.

i expect you're as relieved as i.

words

2010-11-19T13:30:00.010Z

this blog has been rated U, by the writer himself.

suitable for everyone.

the nazis were great censors. they successfully managed to censor anything they liked, on whim. books, newspapers, music, jokes. did you know jazz was illegal in nazi germany? if you listened to it, you could be arrested, beaten and sent to a concentration camp. or worse. if there is anything worse.

instead of reading work by brecht or listening to mahler, the nazi police made sure that your creative influences were limited to a strict list of pro-nazi, pro-hitler, pro-racist gumpf. like mein gumpf. they decided what was good for you, and they made damn sure you didn't get much say in it.

censorship is power over people. power over the way they think or feel. power over their pool of resources. it is the restriction of liberties. none of this paragraph is particularly groundbreaking; suggesting censorship is a way of strangling the people you're oppressing is almost as obvious as saying 'royal blue' is one of the colours you could categorise under the title: 'shades of blue'.

the russians have been pretty good at censoring stuff over the years too. throughout history they've been in and out of censorship laws, making sure that you didn't get to reap the diverse culture that the world has created, in favour of government-chosen material that encouraged you to believe the government were ace. if one were to write "i don't think the government are doing a particularly good job" in something, it would be an automatic banishment to the depths of a secret library a thousand miles below moscow. imagine if we had that now, we wouldn't have any newspapers except The Daily Telegraph. yoik.

the chinese officials are well known for their stance on censorship; they love it. they love deciding what can and can't be read by the 'free' people of the people's republic of china. you've heard of the Great Firewall of China, i'm sure. ask a chinese teenager about the disaster at tianmenman square and they'll look at you blankly, or think you're talking about the colour of the flagstones or something. instead of the truth, they get a rewritten history that is as irrelevant as it is misleading.

iran! there's a good one. iran's regime is one rife with censorship, and if i'd written this blog within their walls i should expect to be whisked away, twatted in the face with the butt-of-a-gun and hidden evermore in an underground room with limited access to comfort or vitamin D.

iran loves a bit of internet censorship, particularly. they even have restrictions on broadband speeds, supposedly so that if you did somehow manage to get into a site that was deemed inappropriate, you'd get bored of waiting for it to load way before the pictures of boobies appeared.

iran officials also think it's okay to chuck stones at a woman until she dies, which does make me question their judgement as to whether something is suitable for general consumption or not. also they eat carrot jam and make gravestones that look like cocks. irany?

thankfully, we live in a country where we have free access to all the creative exploits of humans throughout history. we live in a country of free speech and free media. what a joy it is that we don't have to worry about whether what we're reading is indeed the full story. we can even read mein gumpf if we want; without fear that someone will batter down our front door and punch us in the face.

and we are allowed to say what we want, as long as it's not with the objective of inciting violence (fair enough, that's just rude).

thankfully we can be sure that our voice is heard, even if it is not listened to (this blog for example). it's a basic human right and we get it, so that's nice. support your local library.

so what about this?
... what's that for?

in a really backwards way, some MPs are trying to get a bill to stand against the idea that internet service providers are allowed to decide what we can and can't have free access to. rather than ISPs asking for the right to censor material, and being told by our democracy, "no, fuck off," our representatives (heh) in parliament are having to fight it. having to fight, for example, sky broadband deciding what news websites appear on our google search.

have you ever watched sky news? it's like the sun is having a posh wank on camera. and then vomiting. when i type "news" into google, i don't want sky news to be my option, i want real news, not this grubby nonsense.
fuck me, it's hard siding with peter andre. that poor, simple man.

hm.

sky is also a business. it is run by executives. therefore it's motivations are finally financial. i think it's safe to assume, then, that if sky broadband get to decide where your internet fun is heading they'll probably lean towards the places that result in a bit of cash in their pockets. or lining the fuel tanks of their aston martins.

what if there was a story about a Sky executive committing fraud or having an illegitimate child. of course, people in powerful positions never ever do anything untoward, but what if...? does Sky then have the right to restrict the news and prevent as many people as possible finding out? where would that right stop?

and i don't want to read fucking sky news.

even if you did want to read sky news (i'll just pause for my prejudices to take root........ there we are) the decision whether you can or can't should absolutely lay with you. i may not agree with your beliefs, but i will fight to my death for your right to believe them. for internet companies to be granted the right to point our thoughts in certain directions, we are one step closer to the censorship in iran. and one step away from the freedom of the speech.

so watch out for that.

----

next on my list of things to do is send a very slightly edited version of this to my MP (basically i'll remove the video of peter andre). my local MP is a human rights lawyer in the labour party, so he might be able to read some of the longer words.

feel free to copy and paste anything you want in a letter to yours too.

get up, stand up

2010-11-18T09:16:00.007Z

i am regularly asked how my stand-up comedy is going; "how's your stand-up comedy going, arsehole?" "you got any stand-up gigs soon, monkey-boy?" "hey ugly man, you do stand-up don't you, ugly man?" .. that kind of thing.

many improvisers are familiar with this kind of faulty questioning, it is a common series of mistakes. as soon as you mention that you do comedy people immediately consult their limited library of reference points and assume that you do stand-up comedy. i don't do stand up comedy. i have done, i enjoyed it...
i prefer improvisation.

stand-up is really very fundamentally different to improv. i'm going to have to generalise, but basically stand-up is one person on stage telling jokes that they have thought up, written, improved, worked on, honed and then put into an order that makes them compliment each other and provide a calculated series of laughs. you know that, you've seen stand-up, everyone has. stand-up is well known and the 'stars' of stand-up comedy are like rock gods in the comedy world.

improv is better. i reckon. improv is better because stand-up comedians try and do it and they usually can't, and when i saw 20 improvisers do stand-up as an experiment they were largely brilliant. that means improv is harder (fight me). you probably won't have seen the improvisers-try-their-hand-at-stand-up show (most of the population of the world didn't make it), but the standard of stand-up was surprisingly high. actually, using the word 'surprisingly' takes away from how good it was. it was consistently brilliant.

as a contra, try watching an episode of Mock The Week - a quiz show that's apparently a bunch of stand-up comics improvising funny answers to questions and mini stand-up routines based on suggestions. but you see that it's not improvised, right?
you see that they have rehearsed the show and had all day to come up with the 'funny', right?
you can tell by their delivery, right?

okay, if you don't see that you should definitely get yourself to an impro show, because your mind will literally be blown out of the top of your head. literally.

i find impro better because it is about improving the world. it is about collaboration. it is about people working together to make something wonderful happen. an impro group will work as a team to build something out of nothing using only the power of their wit and the relationships they've formed with each other. new worlds, new characters, new situations. new places, stories, relationships, issues, songs, ideas... more more more

"improv is constructive, stand-up is destructive." - me

there's a tag line for you.

stand-up seeks to - yes - explore the world, but then it deconstructs it into it's component parts to find the subtle and not-so-subtle nuances that make life on earth ridiculous and amusing. it is holding a mirror up to ourselves and taking the piss out of the crazy nature of living. "people do silly things at weddings, don't they?" "the government are a bunch of numpty's, aren't they?" "here is a pun" that sort of thing.

stand-up uses what's already there. improv makes something new.

there are of course, exceptions. there are a lot of great stand-ups who do great comedy. it tends to be the ones that have a constructive comedy routine that make me laugh the most.
- eddie izzard, for example. he creates weird and wonderful situations out of every day objects. he adds to the world to find the comedy. (he is also a trained improviser, trained by a brilliant improviser i know called alan marriott.)
- bill bailey... creates songs for his performances.
- ross noble is brilliant. ross noble improvises his entire set and it's different every nigh... what..? wait a minute.. yes, he improvises every gig. oh. he's an improviser.
- daniel kitson is warm, generous and offers you comedy on a plate of his mum's best china. he also writes plays.
- steve coogan created alan partridge.
- russell howard .. is animproviser.
- michael legge .. is an improviser.
- nina conti is hilarious, has a fantastic relationship with her ventriloquist puppet monkey and... oh yeah, hang on, she's an improviser too.

what about the americans? bill murray, tina fey, larry david...?
improviser.
improviser.
improviser.
there are brilliant stand-ups who don't particularly add to the world to make their comedy, but they are less in numbers. stewart lee, dylan moran, lee evans in his heyday. god bless their existence.

if i was going to publicly list stand-ups who i think are vastly, vastly over-rated (of course i won't, that would be terrible).. that list would include ricky gervais, jason manford, russell brand (ohmygod), michael mcintyre (holyfuck)... people who are more famous than talented. a bit like paris hilton.

i don't do stand up. that's brilliant, i do improv. it is less well-known, but it is better. do you remember who's line is it anyway?.. ? good wasn't it?

there are shit-loads of impro shows going on, every day. just because it's not on TV all the time doesn't mean the improv community isn't alive and thrilling. the only reason it's not really on TV is because TV execs want to know the exact content of something before they give it money. before it goes on air. that's probably why 'improvised' mock the week is rehearsed so many times and then heavily edited. you see that, right?

basically, our choices about what comedy we get to watch on TV is governed by people in business suits. not even funny people in business suits.

you could have more of it in your life. and it's cheap too. a fiver will usually get you a whole evening of hilarious comedy that'll will only happen the one time. and if you speak up, the show could be all about something you shout out. better than telly, that.
start here for your next show. if we all start going to them, the TV executives might notice.

two can play at that game

2010-11-17T09:21:00.015Z

today i sail on waves of a thrilling age. as ripples of mirth clear in my wake, i gaze at the horizon with a chorizo in one hand and an old copy of The Beano in the other.

i am in two improv groups. the joy this brings my face is effing sweet, and the result is a barrel of win.

8bit is the first. 8bit is a seven person troupe who do American style long-form improvisation. you may not know what these words mean, so I will tell you in the next paragraph.

here we are! American style long-form improv is a thing where a group of improvisers take a single suggestion at the beginning of the show, then create an entire story from it. you could almost call it a 'play' if you like. if it goes perfectly you will have multiple characters who all go on their own journey and are changed by it in some way, an underlying theme, an over-all story arc, believable locations, interweaving things and relationships and stuff, and constant hilarity throughout (more of that in a later post). 8bit operate on a harold. that's an odd sentence.

a 'harold' is called such after the first time one was ever performed, one of the improvisers suggested the name as a joke in tribute to a george harrison gag in the film "a hard days night." later the improviser (Bill Mathieu) said he wished he'd picked a better name.

tangent.

8bit have sort of grown organically out of The Ministry, my first impro group. we had been doing a bit of short-form, but there are a lot of groups doing amazing short-form stuff in this country and we wanted to find a thing that made us different. after a flirtatious brush with long-form at the edinburgh fringe festival this year we all got excited and dedicated ourselves to learning how to do it. it was like learning to walk again.
the group grew from the four original members of the ministry to seven of eight bit. it was really exciting. it happened as numbers add to themselves. it happened as nature grows in the wild, and without realising it we had a small group of people that felt 'right.' we could sit round a table, looking at our fellows and think 'yup, this works in my head. this makes sense.' it was joyous.

for all the joy, it also bought a fair amount of pain. we work with some brilliant brilliant people, and there was a big want to try and include everyone we love working with in the group; and we knew that some of these people would want to join in the goodness. improv is an inherently inclusive thing, but we had to say that the line had been drawn. we had a group that had 'happened' and it felt good. seven was a good number. it made me have a warm tingly feeling in my breeches.
any more would feel messy, any less would feel sparse.

8bit are seven. and it is nice.

(although i kinda think of 8bit as eight people, because i include our coach in our number. our coach was the beautiful and generous tim sniffen, then he went home to the US&A and his mantle was taken up by the inordinately talented katy schutte. they are both fundamental in our show and they are both included in my love-reach)

music box is a whole different kettle of fishes. actually, no it's not. it's a slightly different kettle with some of the same fish swimming around inside. and a whole bunch of new fish. and all the fish are singing.

music box do a long-form musical. they (we) take a couple of suggestions from the audience at the beginning, then before the audience's very eyes a musical appears. a whole musical. characters have needs and dreams, relationships have trials and tribulations, aliens have guns and funny voices... and the whole thing is accompanied by music and song. over an hour, a musical - a real life musical - rises from nothing. and it is wonderful.

andrew lloyd-webber spent months writing Love Never Dies, and all that he came out with was a bunch of shit that's having to be re-written as we speak because audiences hate it so much (i saw it last week because my friend was standing in for the main part. she was great, the show was awful).

music box create a musical in an hour, and it as fucking great.
i auditioned for music box. i auditioned in a big workshop audition-thing, and i got in. it was crushingly flattering and it was three tonnes of affirmation on my abilities as an improviser. i'm incredibly grateful to be in the group and it feels like all the hours of workshopping, rehearsing and accepting-the-criticism-of-all-the-teachers-who've-been-doing-it-longer-than-me, have paid off. which is good, because if i add up all the money i've spent on learning this stuff i'd probably cry a bit.

anyway, i'm in two groups. they are both brilliant and i love them. there are ridiculously fun times ahead and doing shows with them is a pool of cream i will swim.

i'm also going to write more about improvisation in the future because it is good and it will enrich your lives. watch this space.

up

2010-11-12T16:43:00.000Z

I just got called 'the main man' by a work colleague. I find this one part hilarious to two parts confusing.

it was by a cover staffer, (a technician that gets bought in to cover the gap in my team when one of us is pretending to be off sick). he was on the same shift as me, but while I was changing out of my bell-boy uniform to go home he sat there studiously waiting.

"you know you can go home, right?" I said.
"I was waiting for you to give me permission." says he.
"what?"
"well, you're the main man. I was waiting for you to say I could."
by that point i was halfway out the door. I could only muster a facial expression that resembled when you accidentally drink orange juice instead of milk.
"huh?"

firstly, I don't know what drew him to that conclusion. I wasn't introduced as the team leader or anything. yes, my 'official' title is senior technician, but it's only circumstantial and doesn't mean anything. and besides, at no point was that title revealed to him.

secondly, I am stumped as to what gave him the impression I was in charge. I have about as much motivation in my job as the average dog-crap bin, and am by no means dynamic. my general aim is to not have to get out of my chair unless I need a shit. I tend to regard my paid job as a side-project to my thought processes. I do both, but my main focus is on the stuff floating around my head.

I don't really get hierarchy in humans. perhaps that's why working on the 2nd floor of a 34-storey building belonging to a determinedly hierarchical corporation doesn't sit that well with me. actually, there's no real 'perhaps' there. I disagree with it. and it disagrees with me, rather like a bad prawn salad. bring on my resignation. not long now.

all humans are born the same. some are better at some stuff than you, but you are better at some stuff than them. but essentially, we are the same. your yin is my yang, and together we keep the earth-machine alive and ticking.

pretty much all people fit into this category, except for people in the x-factor and sales-staff for Phones4u.

on my team I am better at AV-stuff, mike is better at computer stuff and owen is better at pretending he gives a shit. none of us are in charge, but we get everything done.

that's the way the world should work. don't screw it up by putting people on a higher level, that doesn't make sense.

is it just me?

2010-11-12T15:49:00.000Z

what's the argument against disbanding political parties? seriously, this is a genuine request for information. I don't know the reason.

the way I see it, we have been let down by politicians; not by parties. if you are an MP, you supposedly have committed to dedicating your life to improving the lives of people of your country (an optimistic platonic ideal, admittedly). therefore, regardless as to whether your party is in power, you have entered into a team (parliament) of people who are meant to be working together to make everything better.

currently, if your party is in power you (usually) have the majority and because of the way politicians are directed by their boss how to vote on house decisions, it's easier to pass bills.

as a member of the opposition, your task is to challenge bills and make it more difficult for those in power to just make laws willy-nilly.

if parties didn't exist, bills would be voted for on their merits and be much more a representation of the population of the country than the ideals of a few people sitting round a big wooden table.

here's the idea:
- make political parties a thing of the past.

- make and police the law that you can't tell a politician how to vote, as currently happens in parliament. I don't know the details of how you would do this but if people had to make full plans before they had ideas the human race would never have left a cave.

- every politician is an individual, voted for by his borough on his individual merits and stances on political issues.

- we would have a separate election for a prime minister, but his/her cabinet would have to be made up of the elected MPs.

please feel free to discuss this with me. I am open to criticism about the idea, and for people with a better grasp of these things than me. I just can't see how it would be a bad thing.

mean girls

2010-11-12T10:51:00.004Z

if you are a man and you like comedy, there is (or should be) a big part of you that wants to fuck tina fey. even if you don't find her physically attractive, you should at the very least want to moisten yourself with her comedy talent.

she says some great, succinct stuff about impro(v) in this here video, and that makes me a happy dick. i mean it makes my dick happy.

i like the word rekjavik. it is the capital of somewhere. part of it rhymes with dick.

although, i must say i take a very different stance to her on the pie/cake argument. that could be to do with the american definition of 'pie' being rather different to the UK version. for them a pie is a soft, creamy nonsense. for us, pie is a basic human right.

explosivo

2010-11-12T10:00:00.007Z

that teapot is a bomb and the sushi in my chopsticks is a detonator. i'm going to use it to blow up an airport, or something.

of course, that's not entirely true. although the teapot really is a bomb.

if you follow the twitter universe at all, you wouldn't be able to avoid coming across the news that a man was arrested, fined and given a sentence for tweeting the following as part of his flirtatious relationship with a fellow tweeter, while they were trying to meet up for the first time:

"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

paul chambers has subsequently been tried as a menace to society, on the understanding that his tweet was a genuine threat to bomb the airport. which it clearly wasn't. clearly. right? you see that, don't you? even though it's an accountant making the joke (and they are hard to spot) you see it, right?

if you don't see that, perhaps you should get a job with the police, or as an influential part of the judiciary system. it's a pretty easy job either way: basically criminals tend to announce their intentions on a public social-networking site and you can pop round and arrest them. and they don't put up a fight, because they're usually kinda stunned that you even bothered turning up.

i hope your application goes well.

in the meanwhile, i'm going to toodle off now; i have a nuclear missile in my pants and these london underground stations won't raze themselves, y'know.

live wire

2010-11-11T09:09:00.001Z

for some reason my generation have lost the ability to fix stuff, and would much rather buy a new one. i know people who would buy a new gadget if their old one had so much as a scratch on it.

i'm a big believer in fixing stuff yourself. if your brake pads are wearing out, buy new brake pads and change them.
if a button has come off your coat, sew a new one on.
if your lady gaga CD has a scratch in it, good.

it's better for the environment, it's fun, and it's way cheaper if nothing else. it saves that thing where you get a bill at the end and gasp when you look at the section called 'labour charge'.and besides, scratches add character.

days of thunder

2010-11-11T06:55:00.000Z

i can't help thinking that this encourages dangerous driving.

titanic

2010-11-10T08:17:00.001Z

you might not believe this, but this is a photo of absolute carnage.

this is a shot of the construction going on outside my workplace. i mentioned it a while back. have a look at the previous entry that that link links to and play a wee game of 'spot the difference' if you like.

i'll give you the answer, those who couldn't be bothered. in shot 1, there is a big barge-thing full of earth.

in the shot above, however, it has been replaced by a big area of water and three workmen in fluorescent jackets wondering where the barge is.

can you guess where the barge is?

i can tell you where the barge is, if you like. or you could look at that burst of bubbles on the right hand side and make an educated guesstimate.

this morning when i got into work, there were no fluorescent jackets on that site. there was just the last 8 feet of a barge slowly sinking out of sight. there was a sign nearby, with a phone number and the instruction to call Rob Card for construction related issues.

we did that.

a very abridged version of the conversation went like this:

"morning rob. your boat's sunk."
"what?..... fuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkk!!!!"

that's rob card in the photo, in the orange jacket. he is having a bad day.

the frog princess

2010-11-09T11:18:00.001Z

i really like tadpoles. no, not the tiny little black fishy things, you idiots... i'm talking about three wheeled vehicles with two wheels at the front and one at the back. of course i am, stop being obstinate.
for some reason i just think they look fricken ace.
what a delight, morgan are reuniting the world with an updated version of their iconic threewheeler. i think this new version is beautiful.
look, fool, the engine is an 1800cc harley davidson v-twin, mounted in front of the radiator grill. then there are matt-black straight pipes running down the shiny bullet shaped bodywork. it's got tan leather interior and black spoked wheels. and... oops, i've just made wet patch in my pant-pants.

jenny from the block

2010-11-09T11:15:00.003Z

this blog is not me. this blog is an outlet. if you read it and think you're getting an accurate reading of who i am, stop being a moron. this blog is where i channel the negative bits of me, and usually in a way that makes me laugh.

i am a positive person, but i channel all my positivity into improvised comedy. you won't really see any of that unless you get off your fat, blog-reading arse and come and see a show i'm in.

if, for whatever reason, you really like the hate-spouting, pained, judgemental dick version of me; remain upon your arse and wallow in my spit.

schools out for summer

2010-11-08T15:58:00.002Z

this sums up everything i feel about the education system in a much more eloquent way than i could ever do. knowing me, i'd just use the word fuck repeatedly.

sir ken robinson knows his shit. the fucker:

watch it, it's important. especially if you're a teacher.

i want pussy

2010-11-08T10:35:00.006Z

my second guerilla graphic hath happened. i'm not that pleased with it. it's pretty scrappy and lacks the care i like to put into my work. i did do it in a hurry, but i was worried about the cat-health and wanted the improved poster out as soon as possible.

if you've seen this cat, give it a lift.

the poster is in brockley park and it's discovery is all thanks to clive.

if you see a poster you want me to 'guerillaise' .. email me: gorilla@funkhouse.me.uk

house

2010-11-07T12:34:00.001Z

the angle of the first wall makes it look like this row of houses is just a fascia. I like it very much. I am sitting here with a face full of joy.

if you can guess/tell me where this is, you'll win a prize from my own multitudous offering. a sex prize if you're very lucky.

99 problems

2010-11-07T08:44:00.000Z

three tiny excerpts from the life of me (audio visual technical support for some of the 'greatest banking minds in the world').

presenter: "I can hear my voice coming through the speaker, is it meant to do that?"
me: "yes, that's what they're for."

---

presenter: "the stage lights are shining in my eyes"
me: "that's because they're pointing at you"
presenter: "can you you point them away from me?"
me: "then they would be illuminating the wall, which sort of defeats the object"
presenter: "oh."

---

then later, during the conference;
lady in the audience: "in order for our business to become less complicated, we need to become more simple... "

I think some of them are quite simple enough.

magic bus

2010-11-04T09:35:00.006Z

london transport is generally regarded as a piece of dog turd caught in your dreadlocks, and rightly so. it is amongst the most expensive public transport systems in the world, takes a massive chunk of your wages to get you to work, and lacks any of the reliability you can take for granted in countries like japan and china.

the people who run it are paid vast oceans of cash, and seem to give nothing back but a slow, faulty dirt-hole filled with rude, incapable bus-drivers and signal problems.

not even a tube strike seems to work properly. supposedly we had one yesterday, although i caught the tube to work and back with an extra trip to a clients' office... with absolutely no impact. it wasn't even busy. i just caught the tubes and got to my destinations.
even their tube strike is half-arsed.

now and again on the tube, you might hear them announce "all london underground lines are running normally." it amuses me greatly that this is considered such a feat that they make an announcement. if that's a regular thing to do, i might start wandering around my workplace shouting that I am "DOING MY JOB!"

whenever i hear from L.T. that 'everything is working as normal', i immediately assume that means 'everything is pretty fucking awful, but at least there aren't any bombs'.

if only driving cars to work every day was a viable option. i have a car. it's a nice one. it's made by renault and i can't help thinking (after seeing their recent ad campaign) that renault is a car company that identifies with me.

.. wait.. what? am i saying a massive, multinational car-manufacturing company identifies with me, an individual human? no, of course they don't. they're a huge corporation led by money. they don't give a shit about humans; they just want cash. that's how businesses work (see fig.1: London Transport).

nope, renault don't identify with me any more than you, dear alienated reader, but renault's recent advert proudly states that the daily mail disagrees with them, which is a badge of honour if ever i did see. i almost read the daily mail yesterday, a man gave it to me while we were waiting for blood tests. i managed about 6 lines of a two-page criticism of stephen fry before i wanted to chew my own arm off in disgust.

woolly bully

2010-10-28T08:54:00.000Z

lamb and mint pasty; 100% pure ingredients.

as opposed to a balti chicken pasty, which is made from the dying wishes of a knife-fight victim.

idiocracy

2010-10-28T00:30:00.001Z

a very brief complaint i just sent to the 'right honourable' george osbourne. georgie pays accountants to search for loopholes in the law to avoid paying tax. he's dodging about £1.6 million in taxes that would otherwise go back into the damaged-by-people-like-him system that we're having to live in at the moment.

"we're all in this together" - george osbourne

so it'd be nice if - being a multi-millionaire - you helped out a bit.

of course, the spin-doctors would argue that he's not doing anything illegal and it's just attentive book-keeping. wouldn't it be nice to even have the option of paying £1.6 million?

dear george osbourne,

stop being a prick. seriously. how do you ever expect to be respected as a valid member of society if you place yourself above it in a self-decreed god role. this is no different to the billions in tax dodges that multinational companies operate around the world, that takes money away from the struggling people in the countries they operate.

honestly, that's just a real dickish thing to do.

from
[my name]

gorillas in the mist

2010-10-27T10:51:00.002Z

i will be giving local, personal adverts a makeover.
i will be taking all the content from shit posters and creating much nicer ones with pretty graphics.
i will then replace the poster with my better version.
i will have one rule: the content will be exactly the same, including spelling errors and grammatical dickery.this is the first one. it is situated on a bus stop in tooting bec.
if you see any more that you want me to 'guerillaise' .. email me: info@funkhouse.me.uk

stars of CCTV

2010-10-27T10:15:00.000Z

"this is a business conference in a cool room. in early winter. why are you wearing a tight fitting, short sleeved shirt? that just looks weird.
I suppose it would be okay if you were a young, good looking chap.. although I'd still consider you a tool. but you're old and bald. and you must be freezing. seriously, what possible justification do you have for this terrible fashion dickery?"

"ich habe grosse muscles"

"okay, bruiser. well done"

dawn of the dead

2010-10-26T06:53:00.003Z

a tiny but majestic perk from the top floor of corporate nonsense-land.
well done iPhone.

free willy

2010-10-25T08:45:00.000Z

this cloud looks like a fish.

wake up, boo

2010-10-22T13:33:00.000Z

99% of corporate presentations cannot ever hope to fall into this category.

paranoid android

2010-10-22T13:28:00.000Z

good presenters don't use presentation software.

a simple plan

2010-10-22T13:11:00.000Z

if you can't present properly, get the fuck out of my presentation theatre.

still fighting it

2010-10-21T20:14:00.004Z

the things that make me weep uncontrollably are usually things to do with collaboration.
- a welsh male-voice choir hitting a particularly haunting harmony.
- a group of disabled people finally reaching the atlantic after a hike across south america.
- ewan mcgregor and charlie boorman making it round the world on motorbikes.
- my friends and I doing a show at the edinburgh fringe this year.
- the coalition government.

*sob

on another note, I also cry like a little girl when father/son relationships are portrayed in films and music.
dunno why. maybe i think my dad is awesome or something.

wheel of fortune

2010-10-21T11:58:00.000Z

CONSULTANT
CNSULTANT
CSULTANT
CULTANT
CUTANT
CUANT
CUNT

the taming of the shrew

2010-10-21T11:22:00.002Z

10 ways I could resign (but will probably do it normally so I stand a chance of getting freelance work):

1. distribute fliers advertising my new seminar on "how to avoid your work-based pedophile ring being detected".
2. release a flock of canadian geese into the restaurant.
3. punch the next woman I see in the neck.
4. sit on my boss's lap and make out with his ear.
5. spend all day, every day on my laptop, not talking to anyone or taking my job seriously. oh, I already do that.
6. ride my bike to work, then all around the building. inside. my motorbike.
7. smear all the computer keyboards on my floor with my own fecal joy.
8. start taking a well-advertised poll on which member of the Exec. Committee likes to spend horizontal time with stray dogs.
9. while someone is presenting, fade out their microphone and play-in excerpts from hitler's recorded speeches.
10. write another letter like when i wrote this - letter of resignation

help yourself

2010-10-20T14:29:00.001Z

i don't need to comment on this at all. i needn't have even written that. or this.

the man from uncle

2010-10-19T17:00:00.000Z

a letter i just wrote to my MP about a vote this evening to cut BBC funding:

Dear Sadiq

I know that the current government are massive pricks, content on slowly destroying the way of life for average British people all over the country, but if there is any way you can help with the BBC that'd be ace.

The beeb is one of the few things remaining that make me proud to be British, and has been key in creating our finest exports: Monty Python, Dr. Who and Stephen Fry... without which we might as well give up as we're only left with Cheryl Cole, teen pregnancy and football hooliganism.

Please do all you can, if you can. Admittedly it seems that all hope is a waste of time and the results of the last general election warrant that, but we live in a country that celebrates mediocrity and one of the last bastions of aspiration and achievement lay within the walls of BBC Television centre. Don't let it fade away like an old, forgotten pensioner.

Thanks.

steamy windows

2010-10-19T08:48:00.003Z

I reached a conclusion with some friends a few days ago. it's a conclusive part of that whole PC vs. Mac argument.

mac users are widely criticised for their apple-evangelism, and it's well warranted. even as a mac user myself I've found the militant apple-vangelist to be irritating and the whole argumentative dialogue to be fruitless. I've tried to convert a few people, with the genuine motivation to improve their life. a lot of the time you get in return 'but they're so much more expensive' ... and suggesting that they'd have to buy 3 or 4 PC laptops to cover the life of my one MacBook seems to fall on deaf ears.

so basically the conclusion is this: if you want to use a PC... fine.
see if I care.
if you want to spend your life failing to connect to a wifi network for no reason,
or worrying that every new Microsoft update is going to ruin your week,
or losing 10 hours of word processing to an emailed trojan virus,
or waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting..
...
fine.

look up at that bilboard for PowerPoint 2010. is that the worst written caption for a poster of all time?

"I want to make
it great because
you will agree
with what I have
TO SAY."

holy crap. is that meant to be some sort of haiku of something?! how did Microsoft let that happen? did they not hear alarm bells when they said it out loud and it sounded like their marketing was being conducted by an angry tramp in odd shoes?

still, I'd put money on the media company who did the poster design having done it on iMacs.

to catch a thief

2010-10-14T07:01:00.001Z

"a study of two things" - photography by j. funkhouse

1. note the silver glint of the forensic powder placed directly on the glass. deliberate and convincing.

forensic powder is the substance police use to try and convince you that the burglars will be identified and your property recovered. if you have the spare time to waste, and have sat through any one of the CSI:Propaganda episodes (they're all the same), you may be under the impression that the soft sheen of fingerprint powder is a route to justice.

however if you are like me and have been subject to a (now) total of 3 burglaries, 1 motorcycle theft and 1 car broken into, forensic powder is just a weird looking mess that's almost impossible to remove from a painted wooden surface.
it is false hope.
it gets on your clothes when you're trying to secure your home by screwing metal strips to your broken kitchen window.

2. note the split in the central wooden structure; now difficult to see after you've forced splintered wood back into it's original position and secured aforementioned metal strips. when the window lay open to the world - freshly crow-barred - the split was easy to see. now it is more difficult, a mere ghost, but still undeniably there.

undeniably there like the niggling spectre of discomfort that someone has been unwelcome into your home, touched your things, crept about in your sanctuary. undeniably there like the uncertain security of your house, your home, teetering on a fulcrum. undeniably there, juxtaposing the existence of three laptops and an iMac... which are now - undeniably - not there.

fuckers.

doll on a music box

2010-10-13T13:25:00.003Z

what do you see
you people gazing at me?
you see a doll on a music box
that's wound by a key

music box is a long-form improvised musical company based in london, run by some friends of mine who are all excellent.

they are auditioning for new members!

if you are a keen improviser and you're looking for a group to be in; that statement should bring you to a slather.
if you fancy auditioning for this group, who do regular gigs around london and are totally up for the world... go here: music box casting .. and seek out your new, brilliant future.

how can you tell
i'm under a spell
i'm waiting for love's first kiss.

all your base are belong to us

2010-10-13T11:47:00.008Z

i've just given myself brain ache trying to get this signature to appear at the bottom of my macmail emails, as a clickable HTML banner.
it took fricken ages as macmail doesn't support HTML signatures.
ouch.

TEL: 07971 284 979

EMAIL: INFO@FUNKHOUSE.ME.UK

WEB: FUNKHOUSE.ME.UK

philadelphia

2010-10-08T22:20:00.000Z

right this minute I am on my own, wandering through the streets of london. I have nowhere to go and nowhere to be. I am slightly alcoholed and have just spent the evening with a good friend and building full of immersive theatre.

good friday to you.

three small words

2010-10-08T08:21:00.003Z

when you see a banker out on the street, on public transport or self-destructing in all.bar.one, nine times out of ten you probably don't know you've seen one. there are tell-tale signs, oh yes. they'll probably be in an unjustifiably expensive suit and tie. they'll be talking loudly so everyone knows they make a lot of money. they'll probably try and flirt with you despite you and all your friends clearly displaying aggressive disinterest and pointing out the wedding ring on their dangerously rapey finger. that sort of thing.

the one thing that you might've thought would be a dead giveaway, probably isn't. if you see someone out and about wearing the Uniform of a bank, they probably aren't to blame for the shit that leaves your purse half empty every day. if they're in a uniform they are most likely a receptionist. or a branch worker. or a cleaner. or an.... audio visual technician at head office. hello.

hyper rich investment bankers have earned the human right to wear their own clothes to work. we peasants, however, have to bear the constant embarrassment of a cheap, airless polyester suit with a shirt/tie combo that makes a Jeremy Kyle guest look tasteful and interesting.

yeah, if you see someone in a bank uniform, before you make a snap judgement as to whether they're a world-fucker, check their eyes. more than likely you'll see the infinite sadness of someone who goes to work every morning only to be moaned at by some over-rich over-fed over-confident asshole, because the asshole doesn't know how to use the room booking software properly. or how to shit inside the toilet bowl. or what button to press on their computer to make the letter 'A' appear. the uniformed are so marked against their accord; like 'thief' branded on the forehead of a petty medieval criminal. and they probably earn less than you.

those in uniforms are no more to blame for your mortgage troubles than an IT network technician at Sony Records HQ is responsible for the crushing inner torment you go through when you're strapped down and forced to listen to a lady gaga song. they probably hate their job and the idiots they work for as much as you hate everything their plastic bell-boy costume stands for.

except phones4u sales staff. those guys are prominently wankers.

look for those dead eyes. chances are they've the constant anguish of their soul dribbling out, memory by memory, every hour they're at work. any remaining sense of self pumped out of their ear by the air-sterilising unit conveniently positioned next to their head. if it's near the end of the day give them a cuddle. it is very likely they've spent the day with accountants and crave some form of human interaction.

it can have an excessive effect, that torment. for example; this morning I went to do my daily AV checks in the VIP suites (meeting rooms reserved for the very wealthy clients, because in the bank world if you're richer you're a more deserving human). as I walked past the receptionist her eyes focused on somewhere nearby my left ear and, as a sorrowful tear fell from her lifeless glance, she said to me without punctuation, "morning did you have a nice weekend" ...

it is friday today.

even the basic ability to make small talk totally failed. she couldn't make sense of the week. time had become even more abstract than the concept of time already is. I wanted to rest my hand on her shoulder and tell her it's okay, she's not going through this on her own, but there's probably some corporate-branded document somewhere that tells us basic personal contact is automatically regarded as sexual harassment by robotic soul police. she'll have to wait until she's out of the confines of our work facility before she gets respite from her vicious circle. sad.

come on people of the outside world, give us a hug. we need it.
look at this blog again. that's not the writing of a mentally healthy person.

red

2010-10-07T13:47:00.002Z

by all accounts, this plate of food should never have existed. it might not still.

this was one of those times where you literally have no food in, but your saddlebags and wallet are informing you to avoid phoning up Mr. Pizza's Chicken Shack and getting them to deliver you a kebab.

so this is not a bad plate of food, considering. here are the ingredients that made this meal a possible antidote to total failure:

some potatoes. a beetroot. a small tin of tuna. some old spinach that should've been in the bin. 8 tiny chili-prawns that hadn't been finished from a snack lunch. two carrots. a bit of old broccoli. salt remnants.

in some lights that portion of potato/beetroot mash looks like churned up offal, doesn't it?

mo money, mo problems

2010-10-07T12:14:00.006Z

yup. a hitler moustache.

it's tempting. richard herring attempted to bring it back into the mainstream last year with his hitler moustache themed show, and according to interviews seemed to get reactions that ranged from down-right horror to total apathy when he walked round the streets of london.

some real great men have sported the toothbrush moustache. that bloke from On The Buses, what i never watched because it looked a bit average. charlie chaplin had a hitler moustache and he was one of the funniest men in the world... hmm... wait.. actually that sentence is not entirely correct.

adolf hitler had a charlie chaplin moustache and he was one of the funniest men in the world.

... that'll have to do.

moustaches in general are pretty fricken ace. even if you don't care for a magnificent fascist one you could grow a lip-adornment reminiscent of burt reynolds, ron jeremy or jason lee and be satisfied.

or a generic cowboy situation on your face would burst pleasure all about.

i've just signed up for movember and invited a fair collection of sea-faring gents and lady-hangers-on to join together in raising some money for prostate cancer... when i say for prostate cancer, i actually mean against it, but thats the way the english language works sometimes.

if the team comes together we will spend the entire of november forcing out some facial sprouts and hopefully get some financial praise for our efforts, which we will deliver (indirectly) up the rectums of men around the world who've had to suffer from the frightening infection of the smooth muscle just up behind their perineum that helps us all provide a steady and fluid ejaculation. and we all like ejaculating, don't we?

you can join my team if you like. we're called 8-foot M0LEcule. i'm not exactly 100% on why, but that's the name i gave the team. in hindsight, i wish i'd called it Smooth Ejaculate, but that's what you get for doing the research after the team name. cart before the horse and all that.

anyway, speaking of come .. come and join us! grow a tash! make money for some bloke's gunpowder!

wise guys

2010-10-05T05:44:00.004Z

norman wisdom died yesterday. I remember watching his films when I was younger and it wasn't a case of whether or not I liked them, it was just a fact that they were good comedy films and you have no other option but to enjoy them.

about wisdom, the news would (and probably did) happily spout that happy allegation, "Norman Wisdom was one of the 'true greats' of British slapstick comedy."

it's true, he was.

he's part of a dying breed. an actual dying breed. a breed of great entertainers that include Ronnie Barker, Bob Monkhouse and Graham Chapman. and loads of others, too numerous to list.

would it were that I could say an unending list. how good that'd be. unfortunately it's not, and that's what wisdom's death made me immediately consider.

- where are the new 'true greats' coming from? -

who is there under the age of 30 that will one day be called a jewel in the entertainment crown? who is having the impact now, that the truly great entertainers have had for the last ten decades?

of course, this accolade has to be earned and when Norman Wisdom was 25 years old people probably hadn't predicted that he would become Great. we probably do have these people in our midst but we don't know who they are yet.

but who the hell are they?

simon cowell sure as buggery isn't searching for them.

ride a cock horse to banbury cross

2010-10-01T11:50:00.004Z

BRIEF NOTE TO ALL EMPLOYERS

what workforce would perform better?:
a group of people who are trusted, democratic and given free reign to be creative in their job,
or a line of workers micromanaged into boredom, low morale and submission?

creativity vs. uniformity.
which one makes for a constantly vibrant, ever-changing, always improving workplace? which one makes a workforce feel like a bunch of mindless nobodys?

for me it's a no-brainer, but then I don't spend my working day creating problems where there are none.

falling down

2010-09-28T18:54:00.000Z

I'm doing stand-up tonight. for the first time ever. there's still time to come and watch if you rush.

the miller
snowsfields
near London bridge
starts at 8pm
free

come on. support your local idiots.

no pretence

2010-09-27T13:58:00.001Z

you should look up louise golbey if you like good soul music. that's a given.

look who's talking

2010-09-27T10:31:00.000Z

I don't see my family enough. this I am guilty of. if they moved an hour or two closer this would change. I'm surprised they haven't really, I am pretty cool and worth uprooting your life for.

this is a picture of my new nephew getting christened by my grandpa this weekend. I like them both, they are excellent in very different ways. for example, grandpa is intelligent and witty and selfless. Oscar is the opposite, but really very cute.

the adjustment bureau

2010-09-24T10:44:00.013Z

our review finally came out! hurrah! feel free to read it here, if you like.

or here:

obviously i slid down a big ramp of disappointment as i read it. i know for a fact that our show wasn't a 2-star unfulfillment, and other independent reviews prove my theory is not misled self-awareness.

i thought i'd check out other reviews by the same reviewer, and - good for her - she's managed to write six reviews for the edinburgh fringe. that's a lot of work. they're each at least 120 words each. that works out more than ONE HUNDRED words every week since the beginning of the fringe. that's a lot for a student on summer break. phew. i wish i had that pace when i was writing Slides of Chaos, then i'd still be doing it. and i loved the process of writing it. it was amazing. i was working with some brilliant people, making something brilliant happen.

and then we came to actually do the show, which was met with a resounding thunderstorm of positivity. for a free show that the audience could have wandered in and out of, we had regular audience members who stood (we often ran out of chairs) and stayed standing for the entire show. even ones who had to eventually be tugged out of the room by their partners because they had expensive tickets for another show starting somewhere else.

this happened more than once.

so i read some other reviews by 'georgina evenden' - our prolific ThreeWeeks.co.uk wordsmith. this one was my favourite:

or - in short - "eerily pretentious"

please feel free to have a read of her other reviews. i did. if you want a summary, basically she doesn't like comedy that much. except for a night of comedy that had different stand-ups on every night including Robin Ince and Stewart Lee (41st best stand-up of all time), which she gave a whole-hearted 3-stars-out-of-five. it seems a bit odd that someone who doesn't like comedy is asked to review comedy (a genre that requires audience members to have wholly generous, giving spirits). if you're going to do that, you need to send someone who can view the performance in an educated, unprejudiced and erudite way. and do it with a degree of conviction.

our reviewer used the term "tits up" and then happily put her name at the bottom.

so be it.

that's our review. that's how some review websites have to work. ThreeWeeks attempted to review two-thousand shows in a short time, and had to make do with some of the people who volunteered as "budding young journos."

i'll continue to base the opinions of the audience on the opinions of the actual audience. which looked something like this:

“that was the best free show i saw at the fringe, and one of the best shows over all.”
- audience member 22/08/10

"i loved the unashamed geeky references."
- dylan emery of Showstopper!: the improvised musical 28/08/10

“a massive two fingers to the world of suited, booted city slickers. too good to miss.”
- impro-junk 22/08/10

“better than a lot of stuff you have to pay for. very clever, very funny, with excellent timing.”
-mark duqueno 24/08/10

“very slick and humourous.”
- matthew somerville 24/08/10

“original and excellent.” 5-stars
- online audience review 27/08/10

“i thought this was a fantastic show, especially as it's free. a clever script, slick and endearing performances and incredibly creative use of technical wizardry all make for a very funny and very entertaining show.” 5-stars
- online audience review 27/08/10

of course, i'm only bitter because it was a bad review. i wouldn't have to've spent the last hour collating all those nice things people said into one place if Georgina Evendon (a student reviewer who only likes Dance and Glee shows and simply has to keep mentioning Italia Conti in much of her work, and even if a show is "occasionally stale" or "verges on the pretentious" she'll give it 4/5 if it's dance) had written "this was very slick, inventive and must've taken ages to produce and rehearse due to all the incredibly difficult technical aspects of the piece. audience members around me were commenting on how close the parody of a terrible place to work is, compared to their own working environment. impressive and dedicated work, 4-stars"...

it's okay, georgina. it's okay that you've only just left university and have no experience of anything referred to in my show. you're only a child, you've never had to do a days work for an arsehole. it's okay that your writing hasn't reached a level of maturity that makes it credible in the public world. you will learn. yes, your review currently says "i didn't like it, then i thought it was good, but i didn't like it." and you released it - pointlessly - three weeks after the thing finished, but don't let that stop you pursuing your dream. this country celebrates mediocrity so you'll fit right in.

i'll rise above the negativity and carry on receiving up-beat commentary, and georgina can work her arse off (100 words a day) to finally get a badly paid job at the daily mail where some coked-up bigot can attempt to moisten her dried up vagina facility.

the hole in 3d

2010-09-17T12:17:00.001Z

the best thing, the BEST thing, the best thing about my job so far has been watching this go on outside the window.

when I finally move on from my job, my fondest memory will be the warmth I felt while watching boat-cranes and barge-mounted diggers scoop out the riverbed and turn a canal into a dry building site. many a time I've stood staring out of the window at hundreds of little men in fluorescent jackets driving trucks about and moving thousands of tons of earth out from under the water and on to barges. then with glee I'd study every detail of a little tug-boat coming to tow the gunk-filled barge away and replace it with an empty one.

slathering at the lips, I've seen every size and shape of construction plant come and go and bring and take away; slowly and surely turning a little man-made section of the Thames into the underwater foundations of an underground train-station and a seven-level shopping mall.

this bit of my job is awesome.

nuns on the run

2010-09-16T12:48:00.009Z

the pope is in the country today. the furore around it has sparked fine conversation between intellectuals, and nonsense from publications such as the daily mail. it put this video in my periphery...

... which spoon-fed a fair amount of chat between me and some of my cohortry.

comments included the quoting of this:

"‎(Religion) With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

it's a quote that is almost easy to accept in the modern world, if you don't pause for long enough to justify it or think of a counter. lest not ye consider the idea that religion could equally lead evil people to do good things, and has throughout history.

the thing I respect most about the stephen fry video is that he doesn't tar all religion with same brush. he takes pains to distinguish that he doesn't disagree with religion, and that for millions of people it's just a way that helps them understand a complex and mysterious world.

the problem is the imperialism, the self aggrandising, the arrogance of people in power drunk on the power of that power.
this is not limited to religion. bankers didn't fuck up the economy because god (or god's "earthly representative") told them to.
oil companies and governments don't rape and raze countries because of the words of Allah in a book somewhere.
a man doesn't sexually abuse children because Jesus said he should in John Chapter 4 verses 11-19.

some people are evil. some of those people end up in religious organisations. some of them progress high up in those organisations.

for good people to do evil doesn't only take religion. it can also be greed, coercion, desperation, despair, fear, peer pressure, depression, ignorance, mental breakdown. yes, these things appear (far more than they should) in religion, but not exclusively.

religious belief/faith in a god isn't bad. organised religion can be, sometimes, depending on who is running the show. it annoys the fuck out of me when those two get mixed up.

the catholic church isn't evil. a 'church' is a collective of people gathered to worship. the modern catholic church is mostly a vibrant community of good people who gather for coffee mornings and toddler groups. unfortunately their organisation is run by self-righteous self-appointed gods on earth, who would rather cover up unforgivable crimes against humanity than consider the fallibility of human beings. the appointment of a human as god's representative on earth is the problem. it is a joke. especially when he is granted infallibility. that's just screwed up.
and the get-out clause of all sins forgiven and forgotten, whatever they are, after confession is nonsense... but not a far cry from what people get away with under diplomatic immunity.

ramble ramble ramble. hierarchy of humans pisses me off.

... was my offering to the conversation.

a good man called robert suggested this:

"when push comes to shove, the lovely people believe in God, and they believe that the Pope is God's first chosen representative on Earth. If they didn't, they wouldn't be Catholics.
And so, nobody shouts too loudly about their gay friends, or contraception, or child abuse. They just mutter over their cappuccinos, pretend they don't use contraception, keep putting money in the collection box and hope silently that one day it will all change."

i don't know who said it originally, but this reminded me of a hugely important and concise thing i heard once:

the best way for evil to flourish is for good people to stand by and do nothing.

quite.

with the papal visit this week, it simply comes down to this:
there are men who raped children, who are now walking around as free men.

dark angel

2010-09-16T11:01:00.001Z

normally I would consider the idea of printing a load of stickers that say 'fuck' on them and spraying them around town to be bass and uninspired. however, look at the attention to detail - the proximity of colour, the accuracy of the font.

well done folk, well done. I applaud you silently from within an unnamed bank headquarters.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

2010-09-14T10:50:00.003Z

I'm working on a stand-up routine. it's hard.
the thing that makes it harder is that it's going to be put on in front of an audience in two weeks.
no pressure.

"be funny, Jon"
"okay then"

yup. I'm doing stand-up. Tuesday 28th at 8:00pm at The Miller near London Bridge.
it's a free show.
a whole bunch of us are doing it, all for the first time, so it may well be worth you turning up. you might end up laughing with us, you might end up laughing at us. some routines (certainly mine) will just be laughable, ... but y'know.. screw it. at least you'll be laughing. so that's good.

come along. did I mention the bit where you don't have to pay? and that some of it will be funny?

blackadder goes forth

2010-09-13T23:00:00.004Z

it must be odd. it must be odd walking from a stage in a prominent theatrical venue with thousands of applauders thanking you for an hour and a half of your time, and an hour and a half of excerpts from a book you have penned about your own life. the level of egotistical spurnings should be debilitating. it should elevate your sense of self-worth to that of a smirking x-factor victim facing a seven digit viewing figure for the first time.
it must be odd.

stephen fry manages to (somehow) withstand that tectonic pressure. despite thousands paying money and making the trip to come and see him, traveling from such distant shores as Newcastle and Gorey (sp?) with the undeniable fan-boy sensibility that can drive people to pay money and travel from distant shores just to watch a man read a book; despite the seismic readings that must occur from that amount of ego polishing, 'Fry Secundus' maintains the warmth, humanity and humility that makes him so deserving of the respect that is offered. Christ alive, that was a long sentence.

I don't do celebrity worship or undeserved gushing as a rule. Michael Schumacher only got a "cheers" when he gave me a Ferrari hat. kanye west was (quite rightly) snubbed and Tony Blair didn't even manage my eye contact. I've got more of a rise for a nice piece of marmite on toast than I got from Cheryl Cole's bare midriff.

yes, there was that unearthly embarrassment I experienced when confronted with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Lucy Davies and Kate Ashfield staring at me from behind a fold-out table and a handful of marker pens, and the subsequent dumbfounded, starstruck burble that discharged from my quivering gob... but let's not go into that.

I will, however, wax lyrical about Stephen John Fry, a man who is more talented, more erudite, more well-read, more witty and more intelligent than you'll ever be. he is aspirational. he is a devout humanist, but in all the positive aspects of the word and none of the negative. he is passionate and brilliant and masterful, a rare national treasure in a country that seems to worship mediocrity.

above all, and I must come back to this, he is humble. this is what makes him likeable. despite declaring at the end of his gig this evening that part of the reason he does what he does is for the praise and recognition of other humans - he also does it with kindness and generosity, and he does it as your equal.

I make no apology for my disgusting release. the man is excellent.

quite remarkable was the excerpt from his book that he read about the forming of his comedy relationship and friendship with Hugh Laurie, of which he described as "falling in non-romantic, comedy love" with. every word of that section resonated with me and my thoughts over the last 15 years of knowing my friend The Troubadour. and if we were to ignore the path that Fry & Laurie took, if Chris and I ignore the work and achievement of Andrew & The Slides of Chaos and not try to work hard on the next project, and the next, and the one after that; we should regard ourselves as feckless and lazy.

see, he does good work that posh-talking, public school educated fop. carry on, mr. fry.
and thanks.

play that funky music, white boy

2010-09-13T09:03:00.000Z

another idiot called me a DJ.
i am not a damn DJ.

I considered pissing on his chair and ripping a dick-shaped hole in his Delegate Pack, but then he asked if I "could play YMCA, ha ha!" and I exploded in fury and punched him through the window.
then I found his address from his driving licence - that I'd slyly lifted while my fist was making contact with his wind-pipe - and traveled to his house, where I put fireworks in his dog and touched his daughters inappropriately. his grandma was visiting, so I filled her with heroin and put her in the basement.
then I re-tuned all the channels on his TV so they were in the wrong order and set his sky box to record every episode of X-factor.
now I'm on my way to the primary school where his wife works with a bucket of goldfish and a funnel.

I also have plans to get in touch with his old school bully and get him barred from Sainsburys.

I am not a pricking DJ.

shallow grave

2010-09-08T14:11:00.002Z

I have discovered a new part of London. I love it when that happens.
the rotherhithe tunnel is my new favourite London thing.

I love it for two reasons:
1. it is a much better route to work when I'm riding my customised motorcycle (what i have called Peggy-Jean). it is warm, less congested than my normal route and - if it's raining - dry.

2. it is intensely boring. it has no exciting features. you don't get that heart-leap that happens in other tunnels. there is no relief when you exit, or a gasp for air. it is unremarkable.

I even looked on wikipedia to see if it had an exciting history.

nope.

it is 3689 feet long, and was opened in 1908. nowadays it is serving much more traffic than was intended, when it was designed for horses. the speed limit is 20 miles per hour (32 km/h).
during peak hours it gets very busy, although my work hours have led me to avoid this.

the tunnel has turns at right-angles, which were put in to avoid horses seeing daylight too early and making a bolt for the exit (but the Blackwall Tunnel also has this, so it's hardly unique).

yawn.

but wait! in 2003 a survey found it to be the tenth most dangerous tunnel in Europe! OMG!
now the adrenalin pumps and I loosen my bowels with the thrill that I might use it again. one day.
watch me tap-dance.

there are only NINE more dangerous tunnels in Europe. holy fucking shit. wow. barf.

the rotherhithe tunnel, ladies and gentlemen. the rotherhithe tunnel.

super mario brothers

2010-09-04T12:22:00.001Z

well scott pilgrim vs. the world is pretty ace, isn't it? admittedly it's got a weird pace to it, and some bits felt a little out of place with the style of the rest of the film... but no matter, it's great. a total geek-fest with loads of in-jokes for the likes of me and my 30-year-old-mind-clutching-on-to-the-youth-of-my-youth.

see it. or something.