mostly david ephgrave

One song that sends me whizzing back to my student days is ‘And it Stoned Me’ by Van Morrison.   (I was born in the wrong era.) Any time I hear it, I’m suddenly sat in The Smoking Room of the flat I briefly shared with my drama school friends, playing cards late into the night while Van Morrison, Bob Dylan or my band Big Day Out rang out from the stereo. (I'd never put the last one on, by the way. I'm not that egotistical.) We spend a lot of time in that room. It can’t have been good for our lungs. We only knew one card game - the prettily titled Shit Head (presumably named after Piers Morgan) - which we’d eek out for hours, over endless rounds of tea and biscuits. It’s amazing I didn’t become an overweight, oxygen mask-wearing mess. The flat stretched across the entire length of the floor above a car showroom. A large open rooftop space led up to its front door, which led to a big open-plan living room / kitchen. It was a centre point...

The downside of writing a blog post every day is you'll sometimes think of a subject, only for a quick Google to reveal you’ve already written about it. Such was the case today. It didn’t help that I set to work quite late, after spending a couple of hours sifting through old posts looking for ideas for stand-up. The sift proved lucrative, but left me creatively spent. There’s only so much of my own writing I can take in one sitting. When it came to thinking of something new, I kept drawing blanks. That was until I remembered a conversation I’d had with my friend Steve earlier this week. We were talking about caricaturists – as you do – when I recounted the story of the time I posed for one as a kid. For some reason, I took it upon myself to pull a weird face to help the artist out; briefly forgetting which of us was supposed to be doing the caricaturing. In doing this, I scuppered myself, ending up with a picture looking nothing like me. I thought this would be good...

Today I decided I'll take a solo show to the Brighton Fringe next year, provided they’ll have me, of course. I’ve been umming and ahhing for ages over whether to do it. Not in regard to Brighton specifically, but festivals in general. It’s been in the offing for a while, but I wanted to get the timing right. I’m still very new to the doing stand-up on my own and, while I’m pleased with how things have gone so far, I didn’t want to rush into my first hour. There’s a big difference between putting together a short or an extended set. There are a couple of sticking points. Firstly, can I pull together something cohesive? One thing me and Glyn have been guilty of in the past is making our extended stand-up sets too bitty. Our 2010 Edinburgh show ‘Big in Small Places’ was a good example. While there were plenty of nice moments, it didn’t sit comfortably as a whole. Part of this was due to our venue, which didn’t suit our technical set-up, but a lot of it was to do with the ...

This morning, I was forced to listen to the hairdressers beneath my office discuss a male friend going to A&E because he’d inserted “a whole champagne bottle up his arse”. (I wasn't actually forced; I switched my fan heater off to hear the outcome.) You learn a lot when you rent an office above a salon. Some of it you wish you could unlearn quickly. Apparently the bottle was “up there for a day and a half”. I can’t help but question the logistics. I also doubt the stylists’ testament: you couldn't get the whole bottle up. How did he manage to assume a position to slide it in there in the first place? Presuming he didn’t have assistance. Was he then forced to stand for the duration? Why the hell didn’t he see a doctor sooner? The urgency of the situation would negate the embarrassment. Particularly if he didn't take the cork out first. His chosen object sets the mind boggling. There are plenty of other household items and implements he could have used...

I’ve spent the afternoon editing the next episode of Doggett & Ephgrave’s More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast, featuring John Thomson and Nathaniel Metcalfe. I think it’s a good one. They both make interesting and easygoing interviewees. We know Nat reasonably well, having gigged together a few times in the past, but hadn’t met John until the day of the show. We had plenty of reasons to be anxious. Firstly, we didn’t know if we’d get time to record it. We’d hoped to do it pre-gig, but John was waylaid on his way into Hitchin, so didn’t arrive at the venue until moments before curtain up. Thankfully, he was staying in town overnight, so didn’t mind hanging around after the gig had finished – but we didn’t start recording until past midnight, so were very conscious of not wanting to keep him for too long. We were also a little nervous at the prospect. We’ve interviewed a few prominent comics since starting the podcast, so we've grown used to th...

If I’d just overcome erectile dysfunction, I’d smile into the middle-distance too. (Though I wouldn’t use the word ‘overcoming’ in this context.) Was that picture taken pre- or post-coitus? If it’s the former, it’s a flagrant misuse of the couple’s time. While it’s nice to gaze out at the horizon and appreciate the subtle curvature of the Earth, there’s a time and a place. You don’t do it at the precise moment you've cheated impotence. Not unless it assists arousal (which would be a cause for concern). There are other ways to interpret the photograph. Maybe the person who’s recovered is a friend standing out of shot. They could be about to indulge in a threesome, presumably after a very long wait. If so, I hope he isn't doing a run up. There was an alternative suggested to me via Twitter, that paints the picture in a whole new light.  I wish I’d thought of that. Bollocks. Well, nearly.  

Every time I hear a police siren, I sing the beginning of The Bill's theme tune in my head. This is an almost constant affliction, thanks to the dodgy area I live in, that is starting to get on my nerves. Anyone who doesn’t believe I do it should take a look at the first episode of mine and Glyn’s 2010 Edinburgh video diary (specifically at the 9.41 mark) for evidence. See? What a dick. What makes it worse is it’s now a retrogressive reference. The Bill’s final episode was broadcast on the 31 st of August 2010, yet I’m still going strong. I’ll never stop. If in fifty years time the planet is on the other side of nuclear Armageddon, with only me and a police officer surviving, if their car was functioning and they passed me on the street, I’d still sing it. Providing their siren was working as well. (That situation was too specific.) It’s not just police cars that set me off, but any klaxon-blaring member of the emergency services. I don’t discriminate. Any excuse...

On Friday I climbed up the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, more commonly known as Big Ben. (In case you don't know what it looks like.) I went up the inside, not the outside, by the way; I’m no Peter Duncan. While I once took part in a circus-skills workshop led by him at the Gordon Craig Theatre as a child, we didn’t cover how to cling to a massive clock face. If we had, I’d have shimmied up Stevenage Clock Tower like a shot. I was surprised by how small it was on the inside, like a TARDIS in reverse. It confused me how something that dominates the skyline and public consciousness could be so compact. I’m not saying you can fit it in your pocket, but its relatively slight scale was marked; particularly when you walk around the inside of the faces. The tour is planned impeccably. It’s done tightly, to a stopwatch. We’d left Portcullis House reception at 9:10am and by 9:15, we were a third of the way up. We were in the ...

I’m too tired to concentrate today. I haven’t slept properly since Thursday’s Mostly Comedy. By the time we’d interviewed John Thomson and packed everything away, it was 2:30am. I then got up at 5:30am, ready for my trip up Big Ben (which I’ll cover in tomorrow’s blog). Last night’s sleep was similarly broken, thanks to the back pain sustained from climbing 334 stairs to see a massive bell. I like to moan. While I know the essence of what I want to say today, I’m finding it hard to word it succinctly. I don’t want to waste an interesting story by getting it half right. Rather than forcing it and being unsatisfied by the result, I’ll call it a day. I don’t like writing posts like this. It’s not what I set out do when I gave myself a daily deadline. But there’s no point in burning out my tiny brain when it’s hard to find a replacement; something Steve Martin would vouch for. I need a quiet evening and a good night’s sleep. So I'd better get on the case. I’ll leave yo...

Today I saw a policeman use a urinal: the ultimate leveller. (I don't mean Mark Chadwick.) Are they allowed to empty their bladder in full view of the public on duty? Seeing him stand there took away all the mystique. It also lowered his status. He's hardly in a position to uphold the law when he's up, holding his thingy. (Insert a truncheon joke here.) What would he have done if I'd committed a crime while he was in mid-flow? I can't see him running after me. That would be horrific. He'd need exceptional control to ‘close the faucet’. Either that, or he’d have to chase me like a crab so as to not soil his uniform.  He’d technically be breaking the law himself. Perhaps our two crimes would cancel each other out. It would make for an amusing game of cat and mouse. I saw this Pee-C in the public toilets at the Houses of Parliament. It says a lot about my state of mind that I visited both the House of Commons and the House of Lords today, and ...

At tonight’s Mostly Comedy I got to introduce John Thomson in his guise as Bernard Righton, thinking how I used to watch him do the selfsame character on my copy of ‘Steve Coogan: Live and Lewd’ as a thirteen-year-old. What made it particularly ridiculous was, while we were talking over the introduction backstage, he said ‘If you could just mention that Bernard used to be racist and sexist, but has seen the error of his ways’, not realising how often I’d heard Steve Coogan say much the same on my overplayed VHS over half my lifetime ago. They say you should never meet your heroes. I’ve yet to be disappointed. John Thomson was a case in point. He was lovely. He also had the exact same onstage sparkle behind the eyes that drew me to his performances as a youngster; a look that says we’re all in this together, we’re all on-side. It was also a good night for me. I did my longest solo set thus far, and felt I’d started to turn a corner. Half of ...

Today, I switched a socket on with my first finger while my ring finger was wet. I’m a maverick. It’s official: I live life on the edge. The edge of electrocution, it seems. The buzz I get taking risks is akin to the buzz I'd have got if I'd pressed the switch with the wrong finger. I like to practise extreme sports on a small scale without leaving the house. You should see how I iron: standing in a bath full of water, letting the flex tease the surface. I lick my cheese grater clean in a downward motion. I kick windows open, gargle bleach, and climb inside my preheated oven on cold days, closing the door behind me. I’m addicted to the rush that comes with peril, without wanting to commute to the source. I'll risk my life, as long as I don’t risk missing the beginning of The One Show. I can't live without Matt Baker’s cheeky face and winning banter. The chances I take are nothing compared to that of my friend’s mum. She once...

I spend most of my time leaping from one Wi-Fi signal to another. It’s like an addiction: I MUST HAVE FREE INTERNET. I’m like a monkey swinging through the trees; though in my case, the vines have been replaced with iCloud, 02 and BT Openzone. It’s a clunky simile that almost works. It doesn’t help that the Doggett & Ephgrave office doesn’t have a hub of its own. We’re both with BT, so have opted to just use their hotspots (“…and what is a hotspot not?”). This is fraught with pitfalls. Yoghurt pots connected by string offer a more reliable service. I open my laptop each day, hoping for the best. It’s the same when I’m out and about. One of the first things I’ll do on entering a public building is attempt to connect their wireless. I’m not the only one to do this. It’s become a part of most people’s routine. While the prevalence of free Wi-Fi is convenient, there’s a hidden expense. It affects face-to-face communication. Watching...

Listening to conversations on the bus this morning made me think of the Beach Boys song 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times'.  You could argue that it's my fault for eavesdropping. These interactions were none of my business. To be honest, I can't help myself. I always do it; something I've covered here before. It's often a good source for material.  It was the unnecessary aggression that got me. One couple were swearing at each other under their breath while discussing vegetable oil. The man had bought the wrong brand and the woman was furious. The hissing curses batted back and forth suggested it wasn't about the oil at all, but something much more deep-seated. He’d probably also bought the wrong butter.  A couple of seventeen-year-old schoolgirls chatted animatedly about how the majority of their friends either had children or were pregnant. This didn't shock me. If anything, I was more concerned about...

As of six o’clock tonight, I take over the Hitchin is Yours Twitter account for a week; a stewardship I’m anxious to get right. I’m proud of my hometown. It’s a great place to live, with so much going for it. I've always sold it to my non-Hitchinite friends; so much so, that a lot have gone on to move here. Any town expansion plans are partly my fault. Feel free to picket outside my house. I love its history and architecture. Take St Mary’s Church, for example. The building is beautiful inside and out, and huge for a town of our size. There has been a place of worship on site since the 7 th Century. Much of the present building dates from the 1300s. You wouldn't get that in America. (Don't forget the British Schools Museum too.)  Hitchin is a hive for creative people and a hub for the arts. It boast two theatres, two comedy clubs, a couple of art galleries, a festival for world music and a thriving music scene. This drew...

I find walking through town on a Saturday extremely stressful. There are far too many people about, most of whom aren’t looking where they’re going. Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s me. Perhaps I'm the only one with the problem. It doesn’t help that I suffer from labyrinthitis on and off. I know it sounds like an 80s David Bowie movie vehicle, but it’s not. It’s a virus-induced inflammation of the inner ear that causes permanent damage, which sends confusing messages to the brain regarding balance. (Call me Mr NHS Direct.) When it hits, I feel like the world is spinning around me. It takes all my concentration not to fall over. What makes it worse is no-one knows anything is wrong except for you; walk into someone by mistake and they just think you’re a dick. It also affects my concentration. Even writing this was a challenge. Not just ‘this’, but every word around it. I’m confusing the point. As a result, I try t...

Some days, I’ll start a blog post and then lose the will to finish it. This was the case today. It’s not that I’ve gone off the idea as such; it’s just that I’m a little too tired to do it justice. It doesn’t help that I didn’t start writing until late. I spent the morning doing work around the house, then met my parents for lunch, then carried on with the housework. By the time I got to the office and sat in front of my computer it was pushing 4:00pm and my creative mojo had gone. I was working to the clock, as I’m meeting Glyn shortly to record some links for our podcast. If I start with the clock ticking I find it hard to relax. This isn’t conducive to good content. The good thing about abandoning a post is I know I can come back to it when I’m stuck for material in the future. I usually won’t pick it up the next day, as by then, something else has often happened that’s worthy of writing about. Instead, I’ll return to it a few weeks later, when ...

Clinton Cards recently rebranded themselves to Simply Clintons. In doing so, they made their name more complicated than it was in the first place. Not affiliated to Mick Hucknall. You used to know what they sold. It was there in the title. Now, in an attempt to streamline their corporate identity and clarify their position in the market place, they've dropped the one word that explained what they did and kept the one that didn’t. They’ve created more confusion in exactly the same word-count. That’s not an improvement. If anything, they should have called themselves 'Cards'. That would be simpler . Perhaps they're trying to be more like M&S Simply Food. Maybe they thought Simply Clintons sounded classier. Simply Food works because it’s a subsidiary to Marks and Spencer's main store. That’s not the case with Clintons. Also, who or what is this Clinton? Are they the proprietor? If so, there should be an apostrophe between the N...

I’m just waiting for final word from our venue regarding cancelling tonight’s London Mostly Comedy. If we do cancel, it will be due to insufficient sales. Promoting a show in London is difficult. It’s so hard to predict. There are many different factors that can potentially throw a spanner in the works. The big one, of course, is competition. People in London are spoilt for entertainment. It’s almost impossible to make yourself stand out. (I have a similar problem with my willy.) The start time also plays a part. London Mostly Comedy usually kicks off around the 9.00-9.15pm mark, which is late for a midweek gig. We take this slot purely due to availability. Most months there’ll be a show on in the same space immediately before us. Longer runs will always take preference. The only thing we can do to counteract this is to book the best possible line-ups. Even then, nothing's certain. A few months back we had Josh Widdicombe on the bill – and despite his huge exposure...