Skip to main content

London, Brighton, Hitchin, Peckham.


Today's been a good day, but a busy one, with a gig in Brighton to round things off.

I caught the train into London this afternoon to meet a potential PR for Edinburgh at The Ivy (he said, as if this was an everyday occurrence). Before arriving, I'd had visions of being turned away at the door for being insufficiently important; I was so unsure as to the club's rules for admittance that I meant to ask a friend who'd been in The Mousetrap at the theatre over the road if I needed to wear some sort of blazer-and-cravat combo or learn a special handshake. Thankfully, i needn't have worried, as a mention of the chap I was meeting didn’t provoke confusion or a punch in the face; in my life, you can't ask for more than that. 

The meeting was encouraging - and that, combined with me having watched a video of my set from last week's Mostly before leaving for London and enjoying the content gave me a much-needed shot-in-the-arm of confidence to carry me through the rest of the day. I made my way back to King's Cross to catch the train from St Pancras to Brighton feeling strangely positive for a man of my disposition; it was nice to know I had a long enough journey ahead to relax for a bit, read my copy of Private Eye and listen to this week's (excellent) episode of The Missing Hancocks that I'd had the foresight to download to my phone before leaving the house; it helps that the journey to Brighton is one I'm very familiar with; it doesn't feel that long to me now I've done it so often. 

(I'm rambling.)

Too easy.

I arrived in Brighton just after 6pm, with enough time to find the venue and sit in the park opposite, so I could flick through my notes before going in. I walked upstairs to find the gig's host and her techie in the room, setting up. We chatted briefly about each other's forthcoming Brighton Fringe shows before the room filled up (with more acts than audience) and the show kicked off. 

Brighton: the Meaning of Bowie's Life.

I closed the first half with ten minutes of an equal mix of new & old material, which went down well for a room filled with more comics than real punters. I said a quick thank you to the host and then sprinted out the door to the train. This sprint wound up being more ambitious than I’d first thought, as it was mostly uphill with a large flight of steps at the end of it. Still, it was worth it, as I managed to catch an early enough train to be home before midnight; all in all, it was a successful day, even If the burst of exercise towards the end of it proved I’m not as fit as I thought.

Popular posts from this blog

Not The Bayeux One.

The Carole King album Tapestry has been my 'getting-ready-in-the-morning' soundtrack for the past few weeks.  It's been a favourite album ever since I was a student, which makes for a pleasantly gentle way to usher in the start of a day. I've always been a fan of a well-crafted song, which is something of a Carole King hallmark, ever since she started writing with her first husband in the early Sixties. Tapestry may be an unimaginative choice for a favourite LP, as it suggests I haven't delved that far into her career, but it's still an undoubted classic; anything with '(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman', 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' and 'You've Got A Friend' on it can't really fail; if nothing else, it proves she likes writing songs with long titles.  Next month, she's set to perform the album live in its entirety for the first time at a gig in Hyde Park, which I would have loved to have gone to, if it weren...

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."

While I’ve been practising meditation for quite some time now, I’ve recently taken to using the mindfulness app 'Headspace' . If you’ve never meditated before, or you’re an old hand at it, it’s a great resource, offering daily ten-minute guided meditations that create a sense of progress, rather than stagnating and going through the same process every day. Until I started using the app, I’d often listen to a handful of audio guided meditations I have on my phone in case of a brain emergency. If you see me with my eyes closed and my earphones in on public transport, I’m probably doing this (unless I’m sleeping and using this blog as an elaborate alibi). While the tracks on my phone are great, they can get a little repetitive as I become too familiar with them and start to anticipate everything the person on the recording will say. This is where Headspace is great, as it offers you a daily course with a different focus each day, as well as pl...