mostly david ephgrave

While walking my dog past the travellers' site in Hitchin today, we were chased down by a pack of angry Chihuahuas; it was like that bit where the horrible guy dives behind a log in 'The Lost World' to be savaged by the Compsognathus (which isn't a euphemism). I should probably have substituted the last c-word there with 'those tiny vicious dinosaurs' for ease of reading, but you take my point. Yet, however I phrase it - and however small the dogs in question were - the experience was no less stressful as they ran us into the road. Elwood, who was on his lead (because I actually care for his and other's safety) was a little flummoxed by the whole affair, but still behaved impeccably, and yet it bothered me that no-one from the camp even looked up when their pets - who were barking mad, literally - sprinted towards us; such was the level of animal welfare awareness amongst this particular travellers community. I must admit, people who let their dogs roam...

A joke that didn't read while discussing our choice of music at the funeral directors' today: ME: He quite liked the Everly Brothers.  MUM: Which one? ME: I don't know. Don? To be fair, most of my gags don't tend to land with my mum for the simple reason that she never hears them. This issue is a point of discussion every time we talk, as it's reached the stage where just about everything I say I have to say twice, which presumably makes my mum think I'm permanently irritable, because of the slightly pushed tone that pervades each second reading. (Although I am permanently irritable, to be fair.) It doesn't help that I specialise in undersold delivery, which isn't possible when the punter in question - as that's how I view everyone from my perspective as a comedian - doesn't have the audio range for subtlety; with my mum, the diaphragm has to be fully activated for anything to hit home. I sometimes wonder if Brian Blessed would be a bet...

I haven't really achieved much today, but I guess that's to be expected, considering the circumstances. Yesterday, I cancelled the last of four proposed work-in-progress dates on the Brighton Fringe, which was another run pulled to match my two shows on the Bath Fringe in April. This was a shame as they were put in the diary to help me work towards this year's Edinburgh, but in all honesty, I haven't written anything new anyway, as most of my time had been taken up with looking after my dad. I wouldn't have wanted this to be different - this was inevitably my priority, but it does leave me feeling unfunny and unprepared. There's still time to turn this around, however, particularly as I always intended to treat this year's Edinburgh as an unofficial Best Of, with the work-in-progress dates there to give me a chance to see if the muse struck, more so for the future than for now. The only potential issue is the lack of previews booked in between now and Au...

A lot of my day has been spent responding to some of the lovely messages I've received on Twitter after posting about my Dad, who died on Sunday evening. https://twitter.com/David_Ephgrave/status/1132945034637189122 It's too early for me to get a handle on it. The past couple of months - the past few years, really - have been overshadowed with the many twists and turns that went with navigating my dad's illness, which became particularly tough once he came home from hospital for the last time. For those last few weeks, his house was a hive of activity with carers, physios and occupational therapists constantly coming and going - along with endless Amazon Prime deliveries of the bits and pieces I felt would help make him comfortable - while my dad essentially remained immovable in bed. Now, I look in via the doorbell camera - because we live in a dystopian George Orwell-like future - and it's all silent. The response to my tweet in tribute to my lovely Dad (for he ...

For the love of God, we can't end up with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister; the man is a self-serving, self-interested ignorant shit of the highest order, who puts the 'in' in 'inept', and his bumbling jokey persona is a facade developed to mask the calculated conniving of an ambitious manipulator. If people vote for that then we're in deeper cack than I thought; there is no way a man like BoJo should be the spokesman for our country. To be fair, there aren't many who are suitable for the job if you push Johnson to one side. Michael Gove? NO. Andrea Leadom? NO. Jacob Rees-Mogg? Christ Almighty, NO; I can't bear to type their names, let alone countenance them in a position of power. I know Theresa May wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but as both Kylie and Sonia put it, 'Better the Devil You Know', which is sage advice when most of the contenders could make a case for being Beezelbub himself. I also don't see how a change ...

An incident on the bus today (which you'll find first below) inspired me to draw together a list of a few intriguing bus-relate moments that have taken place in the coming few weeks (as originally shared on Twitter). Pressing the bell immediately after someone sneezed on the bus made it sound like they were using a spittoon. ON A BUS FULL OF CHILDREN TALKING LIKE THIS. When three people on the bus pressed the bell at exactly the same time today, I expected us to be thrown into another dimension. When I pressed the bell on the bus today, only the last four letters of the 'STOPPING' sign lit up to spell 'PING'. I'm all for happy accidents. There's a man on the bus sniffing like he wants to inhale the whole planet. Overheard Luton Bus Conversation of the Morning: MAN: "Gravestones are expensive, in't they?"  WOMAN: "I don't want a grave though; I'm going to be burnt". Man on bus, talking loudly & confiden...

Annotating the political dross that's come through my door to send it back to the parties in question minus a stamp - and with their own headquarters as the return address - was my good deed for the day. It felt good to have a right to reply, rather than just seething to myself when I received them it and this going no further. I don't want to be on the mailing list of companies like this (which was the case with the UKIP and Brexit Party, both of whom actually sent me the leaflet). It's a load of sensationalist bullshit, designed to stoke up hatred to get what it wants. They don't care about spreading misinformation as long as their rhetoric brings about the desired end result, which in this instance it probably will; it's very depressing., Stlll, at least I managed to make my point...and their expense, hopefully. (Let's be honest though: when it comes to people in thin veils, Farage just isn't interested. I can't trust a party whose p...

It's very hard to write anything here that isn't about my dad, as his care is overwhelming everything at the moment. I hadn't intended on visiting him today as I'm back there tomorrow to assist with a physio appointment and oversee the delivery of a new washing machine, as his old one decided to give up the ghost last week in the midst of all the madness. Then, when I was out walking my dog, I was mulling it over and decided it would be good to go today to reorganise his medication; ultimately I'm glad I went, as the scene I arrived to was pretty bleak and needed some intervention.  The biggest sticking point in all of this is my dad himself, who is essentially refusing to eat or drink properly, or do any of his exercises, or even attempt to get out of bed. I understand how difficult it must be for him right now, but as ever, his biggest enemy is himself; the situation has been compounded by his inactivity and lack of self-care and we're all being sucked int...

Much as I have done many a year previously, this evening I found myself tweeting along with tonight's Eurovision Song Contest. I decided to immortalise my commentary for the sake of future generations. Here goes:  8:01PM: Surely all the contestants should travel separately though, like with the royal family.  8:04PM: Didn't I see the host sitting on top of my nan's toilet roll once? 8:05PM: Will Theresa May step off the plane to the tune of Dancing Queen? 8:07PM: Dana International forgot to take her outfit off its coat-hanger. 8:10PM: Because pyros & planes definitely mix.  8:13PM: I can't wait for Papa Bendi. 8:19PM: Malta: poor man's Joss Stone.  8:20PM: Sometimes, I perform in the second position. 8:23PM: Having to halt my #Eurovision viewing experience to call my dad to remind him the Amazon Echo name he needs to remember is Alexa.  Not Melissa. Not Electra.  (I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it to his bedside table) It's ALEXA. 8:25P...

I pulled up my dad's pants today. Happy birthday to me. It wasn't an ideal situation, even without the nudity. When we arrived at his house in time for a physio appointment I'd arranged in the hope it would help him become more mobile again, he was lying in bed in next-to-nothing, nowhere near ready to do anything. And all this while knowing exactly when we'd be coming over. At least half an hour then followed with me coming in and out of the room to see if he'd got himself together, which culminated in the pants-pulling-up when it became necessary. I wrote the first line of this blog on the day of my birthday on Tuesday and, being honest, things have got worse since then. My dad's grown apathetic to the point where he's almost unprepared to do anything. It's impossibly hard to see and so relentless. He never agrees to get up or actively respond to any stimuli outside of basic conversation - so no reading, listening to the radio or watching the telev...

Tonight's special charity Mostly Comedy at the Queen Mother Theatre was a resounding success, proving just how much nicer it is to run the gig in a proper theatre space over a function room. It just so happened that tonight was also the first time we've let slip that, after three and a half years at The Sun, we're moving to pastures new. As it stands, our unofficial/official home will be Hitchin Town Hall - that's certainly where our main shows have been shifted to up to the Summer - although that's not to say we wouldn't happily move to the QMT if we can make our diaries align. Everything about their setup is more conducive to running an event like Mostly, plus we've definitely reached the point where we're tired of having to set up a venue from scratch. While The Sun was integral to the club's growth over the past few years, the nature of the space meant we'd gone back a few steps as regards our pre-and-post-gig workload, so whether we perman...

If I were to jot down my Knebworth Park gigs list in its entirety, it would read like this: •1996: Oasis. •2019: Dog Fest. Is that a progression? Today's trip to the canine festival to end all canine festivals (with Elwood in tow) was very pleasant. It's fair to say I've never seen so many dogs in one location, though they were surprisingly well behaved, with no real trouble at all; I'm not sure if the same could have been said for the Oasis gig all those years ago; I'm sure a few Kangol jackets were thrown in anger (without looking back, no doubt). Considering the sheer volume of dogs at the event I'm surprised Elwood took things in his stride, though he did have some jumpy moments when confronted by a couple of the mutts on the planet to be bigger than him (yes: I used the word, "mutts"). Outside of that, he was impressively easy going and didn't flinch when given 'the nose' from his colleagues; he's a very good boy,

I've inevitably cancelled tomorrow's work-in-progress date in Brighton as the situation with my dad's taken over so much I haven't had time to think about it. I'm hoping that scratching the show from my diary will open up time to think about next week's one, though in reality, my dadmin seems set to overwhelm all other plans at the moment. On top of this, a load of interwoven Mostly Comedy work that had to be completed very quickly has taken up what little brain space I had left. My main motivation right now is my dad's safety, but it's proving hard to keep on top of this when he's become so lapse with the basics. Today, my aunt and uncle went over to visit to report back their concerns to my mum, who called me, asking if I could try to get hold of him on the phone as no-one else was having any luck. In the end, I pulled rank by dropping in on the Amazon Echo I bought him primarily for this reason (I always give him the option to answer first but...

The last few days have been punctuated with some perhaps overly-honest tweets. Put simply, I've been having a tough time lately; really tough. And in my bleakest moments, I've needed help. This isn't a new experience - by God, I've been in this position more times than I'd like to count - but the nature of depression is that when it hits, you feel you've never felt this way before; it somehow wipes the slate clean to leave you with a new one even messier than the first. Now, as I've intimated, I'd usually keep this to myself. But sometimes, for whatever reason, you need to reach out a bit. We are not infallible, much as we disguise our foibles, and it is probably this tendency to play down our vulnerabilities that spreads the message that to show weakness is wrong.  Put simply, that's a load of shit. There's nothing wrong with letting your guard down to be open about your mental health (says the man who, despite a lifetime of trying to gent...

I took the dog to see my dad today, which seemed to be a good call as I think it helped. It was the most cheery I've seen him in weeks, which was nice. I haven't taken Elwood over for a while as the new setup at my dad's house seemed a little too cluttered to risk it, but now things are a bit more in order again I thought it wouldn't be so bad and I was right, so bully for me. It was lovely to see them greet each other. My dad is currently in a hospital bed that's downstairs in the living room and the layout was so different from Elwood's last visit that he didn't even notice him in it at first, but when he did, he gave him an appreciative sniff, which is all you can ask for. My dad also watched him belt around the garden, which lifted his spirits too. The difficulty is how to keep his mood up. He's unsurprisingly worn down at the moment and my family and I are pretty much equally run into the ground by it all, particularly when considering the amo...

Why is it always the most unpleasant things people say to you or the disrespectful treatment that sticks in your mind the most? Yesterday, I was involved in an argument that stemmed from someone not being prepared to take in the content of what was being discussed, yet had the bravado to plough on regardless for the sake of it, like listening would somehow show weakness. It wasn't so much the disagreement that was upsetting, as their refusal to let me reset things at the end of the conversation so we could work together in future without issue. For whatever reason, they decided early on in the meeting we were having - which was our first - that they would not be able to communicate with me in future, so they would sooner cut me out. When I said that was ridiculous, they wouldn't drop it. Everything I'd said up to that point, they had disagreed with, not through any genuine disagreement - as I got the impression they'd barely considered the situation they were going ...

I, for one, like cutting Quasimodo-like shapes to administer earwax remover in the bathroom. As high-status moments go, it's in the top ten (probably wedged between someone stepping on the back of your shoe while you're walking and having a twitchy eyelid) and is the only thing you can do to try and guide the magic fluid down your ear canal. It's like miming a header or trying to bend down as you step under a low archway and is perfect for making you look like a dick; it's certainly not recommended when you're 'with audience'. At least whether I managed to navigate the liquid into my right earhole is, frankly, by the by, as this evening I decided to pull rank and have booked an appointment at my local chiropractors - for they do ears too - tomorrow to get my head gunk flushed out. It won't be the first time I've subjected my nut to irrigation. It's a strange sensation but is ultimately satisfying when you come out the other side with crystal ...