mostly david ephgrave

They say that Christmas is a time to think of those in need. Bearing this in mind, I’ve yet to see anyone in a more desperate situation this festive season than this pair: "You better watch out..." I spotted them outside a beauty salon in Hitchin this morning. I assume they were put there with the intention of enticing people in. Either that, or the staff hoped their clientele would be too terrified to leave the premises once they’d seen them. At first glance they appear to be the epitome of Christmas cheer. Then you notice their mangled legs and the horror of their situation becomes apparent. What if they come to life like Kim Cattrall did in the Eighties? One can only imagine the hideousness of their gait; a lifetime of physiotherapy couldn't put that right. It certainly doesn’t seem like much time was taken over their decoration. Perhaps they were dressed at gunpoint? I hope their staff put more effort into a ma...

The plus side of not having a Wikipedia page is I don't have to be confronted by my own, open-ended death date. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve looked someone up to be faced with such morbid information. That said, it can be fascinating to see a person's life and career summed up in just a couple of short sentences. One can imagine the glee that some must feel when updating a person's entry with a bit of breaking news; it's like playing a small administrative part in someone else's life story. I dread to think what mine would say. It would probably bug me.     It like the time I Googled myself to discover that the most popular related search was this :   The question is: how many people entered that for it to become a standard ? I can only hope that MySpace has a sudden surge in interest, so I can subtly redress the balance.

Today, I became what I most despise: a name-dropper .   I promise it wasn’t intentional. It was also justified within the context of my conversation. This doesn't matter; I still did it.   I was discussing my least favourite episode of Doctor Who (the one that features Peter Kay) when I mentioned, without irony, that Noddy Holder told me he was lovely. The reverberation as his name hit the ground would have stretched as far as Guernsey. It probably had more impact than when Noddy shouts, “It’s Christmas”. It’s worth clarifying that I’ve only met him once; it’s not as if we have each other on speed-dial. Paul McCartney has also called me “man” on two separate occasions, but that’s another story. Thankfully, I have enough self-awareness that this won’t become a habit. If I ever do it again, you can slap me in the face. (Though Dave Hill might step in to break things up.)  

Yesterday, I had my own personal ‘Yesterday Moment’. (The second yesterday above refers to the Beatles song, Yesterday; the first to when the moment took place. Have I made my meaning any clearer? Probably not.) It’s fairly well known that the song came to Paul McCartney in a dream. He awoke in the bedroom of his girlfriend Jane Asher’s house with the melody fully-formed in his head. He crept over to the piano (carefully negotiating his way past all of the cake-baking equipment) and worked out the chords to accompany it. Yesterday, the same thing happened to me (minus the house-proud redhead). While I was sleeping, a brand new song began forming itself in my mind. My only problem was that when I woke up I couldn’t remember how the bloody thing went. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s very frustrating: why can’t my brain have some sort of tape recorder incorporated into it. What if Macca had had a similar probl...

Music often acts as a soundtrack to my life. This is partly due to my job; as a professional musician (*stifles a laugh*), I spend much of my time learning songs en masse for a gig or show. As a result, it’s probably unsurprising that music evokes so many memories; just a few bars can instantly send me back to another time and place. Bearing this in mind, I thought I’d introduce an occasional series to my blog; sharing a few of the songs that make me reminisce (like Desert Island Discs, without breaching any copyright). Song number one is Blur's The Universal . I can pinpoint the event this reminds me of to a specific date: Tuesday 2 nd of April 2002. Not because I have an amazing memory; I just used to keep a diary. This was the first day I firmly believed my band would get a recording contract. Me and BDO's drummer Chris Hollis, biting fists before a gig at Bombora (2000). Big Day Out had been together in one form or another since 1996, though thi...

Yesterday, I visited my mum for Christmas - and while I was there, I spotted something that drove my OCD through the roof.  I noticed it when I popped upstairs to use her bathroom (I won't share too many details). Whilst using the facilities, I looked down to see an ornament sitting next to the toilet with 'STARBOARD' written on it.  My problem was the ornament was situated on the port -side of the room. (I know: I'm pathetic.)  If I'm honest, I wasn't certain - but being the sort of person I am, I looked it up (thank God for Wikipedia). I was right: 'port' is left and 'starboard' is right; meanwhile, my mum's objet d'art was sitting in the port position, burning a hole into my retina.  I don't know why it bothered me so much. It must be the seaman in me (...steady). My grandfather was in the navy; if he'd ever used my mum's bathroom, he never would have stood for it (u...

"So this is Christmas - and what have you done?" I'll tell you what I've done, John: I've written this. Not that you'd care; you've probably got plenty of things to busy yourself with in the festive afterlife, rather than bothering with the ramblings of a person that you've never met.   (NB. I stuck the word 'festive' in front of the word 'afterlife' to make this blog more Christmassy.) This would also be an unfamiliar format; sadly, you missed out on the internet. Yoko is pretty au fait with it, though; she's even on Twitter (something that I've already covered here ). I've cheated a little bit with today's post, if I'm honest; despite uploading it on Christmas Day, I'd written it the day before. I'm sure this is allowed: even the Queen pre-records her Christmas message.  This does come with an element of risk. What if a major, catastrophic event occurs on Christmas morning, to...

Yesterday, my umbrella bit the dust. I bought it in August of 2008; just a few days into mine and Glyn’s first Edinburgh Festival. It was purchased out of necessity – anyone who’s experienced a Scottish summer will know what I’m talking about – and stuck with me through thick and thin ever since. In all that time not a single bad word has passed between us. I probably shouldn’t be surprised by this: after all, it’s just an umbrella . But what an umbrella. I bought it in Boots at the foot of the Royal Mile, during a brief respite from a depressing day of flyering (there were plenty of those). Glyn got one too - though our third cast member, Cal Tumminello, decided to opt for just a plastic bag instead. It was the wettest summer the city had seen in years; consequently, Cal soon became the wettest Italian. Our matching pair of brollies was a source of constant confusion; the handles were a slightly different colour, though I co...

Today, I popped by my friend Sarah ’s studio to exchange Christmas cards. While I was there, she made me a cup of tea in a Take That mug. This gave me ample opportunity to pull my ‘holding a Take That mug’-face. (Twat.) I never realised I had a ‘holding a Take That mug’-face until I posed for the picture - when, all too soon, it became apparent. All it took was a couple of seconds of being looked at through a viewfinder for my natural, relaxed expression to be replaced with a gurny, pointy, cuppy-holdy one. This is often the case when someone gets out a camera (except for the cup-holding bit). This leads to me to worry that in years to come, all that will be left of me will be a string of face-pulling photographs. It reminds me of the time I posed for a caricaturist as a kid. For some, inexplicable reason, I decided to pull a face throughout the sitting that I’d never done before or since. He picked up...

If television programmes are to be believed, the Seventies were brown . As I was born in 1981, I'm unable to comment on this theory first-hand. Whilst being a couple of years shy of the opportunity to offer an eyewitness account, I’ve certainly seen a lot of secondary evidence.   A nything that wasn’t brown was a brownish-grey or orange. Take Columbo, for instance. I’m a big fan of the dishevelled detective, owning the complete series as a DVD box-set. There are two things I’ve learnt since watching so many episodes back-to-back: that instances of homicide in 1970s' Los Angeles were alarmingly high – and that most were committed to a sepia backdrop. It’s as if they’d decided to work to a very specific colour-scheme: nothing darker than Peter Falk’s cigar; nothing lighter than his raincoat.   If only the perpetrators had stuck to this formula with more rigidity, they could have got away with murder. A young David ...

I’m spending far too much time in coffee shops at the moment. It’s become an almost daily occurrence: either to kill time before a casting, or to finish off my daily blog. It’s helped me to be more productive – I’ve more inclined to work when out of the house – but I do get a little fed up with the enforced solitude. My caffeine intake has also gone through the roof; I’m currently shakier than an overworked Judy Finnegan. (This must be a by-product of being married to Richard Madeley. For her; not for me.) The hardest part is the constant flitting from one extreme to another; starting the day with a couple of hours in your own company, before psyching yourself up to walk into a casting. I always function best when I’ve had direct contact with others first thing; the longer it takes to have a proper conversation, the less likely I’ll be at ease when it comes to it. Thankfully, I’m not the only member of my social group who’s ...

We’re now just a few days away from the dreaded C-word. I refer not to c**t, not to cancer, but to Christmas . I used to love Christmas when I was a kid. I can remember staring at the Postman Pat clock at the end of my bed; tracking the painfully slow progress of the minute-hand as it dragged its way across the clock-face; waiting for the allotted time that I was allowed to check my presents.   One year I became the proud owner of a Big Yellow Teapot. Looking back, this seems an unusual concept: a strange marriage between a dolls house and an outsized drink-dispenser. It’s the sort of thing that never should have caught on; Eighties children just had different expectations. Another year we got a ZX Spectrum. I remember sitting in front of it for hours with my dad, whilst we programmed a primitive tennis game from scratch; entering the seemingly endless code from the back of the manual. (I’m not entirely sure that it was worth the eff...

I’m addicted to taking amusing photographs. Well, I find them amusing. It’s a little subjective; some people may not find them funny at all. Regardless of what any detractors might think, I just can’t help myself. I've grown used to the strange looks I get when taking them. I’ve been faced with countless flummoxed expressions whilst documenting something seemingly innocuous. I try to be discreet, though I'm often unsuccessful: I was once thrown out of a bookshop in Cork because I took a photo of this: (God knows what they thought my reason was for taking it.) I've come to accept that it doesn't matter what people think; the end usually justifies the means. It's also been the source of a lot of comedy material; the best pictures often end up incorporated into mine and Glyn's live act. (I'm thirty two years old.) My problem is I’m a natural pedant (any Daily Mail readers should look this up before scrawling it on my wall). I'...

I derive far too much pleasure and satisfaction from being the first person off of a train and through the ticket barrier. I consciously plan ahead for it. It's pathetic. I'll position myself in the optimum carriage (the second from the front for Hitchin; the first for King's Cross) and will be by the door with my ticket in my hand before we pull into the platform. I do this because: (1) I'm late, (2) it's late, or (3) because I'm a bit of a dick.  I'm never rude about it. I don't push and shove; I use subtlety and stealth to ensure I'm out first.   If alighting from public transport was an Olympic sport, I'd probably be a multiple gold medallist.