mostly david ephgrave

If you're finding the coronavirus situation difficult, that's okay; It's not easy, by definition. At the moment, there are so many triggers to panic; if you're not worried about you or someone you care about getting ill, you're probably concerned about food or money. We've never had circumstances like this in living memory, so there's no precedent to reference; the nearest comparison is probably the second world war, but that's only glancingly similar. In the past few days, my plans for 2020 were upturned, with my main work focus - taking a new show to the Edinburgh Fringe - excised from the diary, with the other two festivals I'd been down for at least postponed if not cancelled too. On top of this, my day job - Mostly Comedy - is on indefinite hiatus, with a JustGiving page offering a temporary lifeline, but the longterm gameplan's concerning; the money we're raising will cover some of our running costs, but I'll be unpaid unt...

Today is Paul McCartney’s 75 th birthday; a fact which seems to have slipped below the radar despite the furore over the fiftieth anniversary of Sgt Pepper of late. Sadly, his constant presence at high-profile events in recent years seems to have resulted in a dip in popularity (and an increase in cynicism) particularly in the UK. He still sells concert tickets by the bucket-load, but there’s a sense this is purely because he’s the only living Beatle who co-wrote the lion's share of their material - which he trades on heavily live - but perhaps that’s where the interest in his work should end. As someone with huge respect for him as an artist, this makes me very sad. Only today, I stumbled across an internet poll that deemed him the third-best Beatle; the man who wrote Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday, Let it Be, Hey Jude, Blackbird, She’s Leaving Home, Here There and Everywhere, Helter Skelter, Golden Slumbers and You Never Give Me Your Money to name just a sizeable few; for...