mostly david ephgrave

I had a lovely time gigging at Comedy Bubble in Shoreham-by-Sea tonight, except for the moment I dropped my phone down the toilet. Pulling a face in a place (01.02.17) There were good and bad points to this particular little accident. Well, “good” is pushing it a bit; more in the sense that things could have been worse. Thankfully, I managed to retrieve my mobile before it was completely submerged, but - and here’s the horrific bit - let’s just say it went underwater before certain things had been sent to the coast (which is a confusing image, as I was by the seaside at the time of the incident). (I’m sorry about this.) Before I move on from this topic, I feel it necessary to point out that we’re not talking number twos, thank God; either way, it was the sort of status-lowerer I didn’t need in a public place. The gig itself, though, was great. I was on first, and unfortunately had to dash off straight after my set to aid my jour...

I feel like most of my evening has been wasted, through trying to set up my new mobile phone. Such is the way with modern technology. While it’s always exciting to be armed with a new bit of kit, far too much time can be spent initially, in making it work. All those fail-safe ways to quickly transfer data or install a backup never seem to work in practise, or maybe it’s just me. It doesn’t help that every moment devoted to setting up my new handset should really have been given over to something else, such as compiling material for next week’s Bath Comedy Festival work-in-progress dates. I purposely upgraded my phone before I went to Bath, so I could make the most of its facilities for recording my sets and putting together the show. I’m still pleased I did this, I just wish I hadn’t taken so long to do things today, as it feels like another day was lost that could have been used for more important things. Other than wrestling with my new B...

There’s a woman who lives near me who I can honestly say I’ve never once seen not on the phone. (Brief hiatus for you to work past the ‘never’ and ‘not’ to understand the gist of this sentence.) This isn’t an exaggeration. She’s on it every time she walks past (and I’m going to apply the oft-misused word ‘literally’). I see her every day, usually more than once. I don’t want you to think I’m spying on her - I am , I just don’t want you to think it – but it’s very hard not to notice her telephonic proclivities, particularly as most of her conversations take place right outside my window, any time of the day or night. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was addicted to speaking to people she can’t see; if there’s such a fetish, it’s sick . I’m not the only person to notice it. My wife has spotted it too. It happens so often, it’s comedic. She may as well have a handset skin-grafted to her palm. She usually adopts that annoying hands-free technique favoured by teenagers ...

I bet your day didn’t start with an answerphone message of two old people repeating your phone number to each other as if they’re trying to work it out. Mine did. I picked it up first thing, while I was making a cup of tea. It’s pretty perplexing. It’s also hilarious. So much so, I’ve saved it. I'd like to keep it forever. I’d share it here, if it weren’t for the fact the whole world would then know my number. If it can be deciphered from the two elderly voices, who certainly seemed to struggle with it. What makes it more confusing was it was left at 6:57am. Who’s discussing my contact details that early on a Saturday morning? Why are they being passed around? I don’t know many geriatrics. I can’t think of any who’d have my number. At least two do now. One had it before. It’s confusing. I’ve since retrieved the caller’s number from my voicemail provider. I don’t recognise it. I tried Googling it, but it brought up no results. I could call it, but I’m scared. Who know...

I’m using a replacement mobile phone for the next few days as mine is faulty . In the meantime I shall closely resemble a member of my dad’s generation as I try to fathom out how to work it. It took long enough to set it to vibrate. No function is stored in the logical place. I felt like I was using somebody else’s hands. Frustratingly, the people in-store were unable to migrate my contacts to my replacement handset. For the next week or so, answering my phone will be an exercise in pot luck. Each call could be someone offering me work or asking for money, with absolutely no warning as to which. If only I'd been clever enough to memorise my numbers. If I had, I could have gone on You Bet!. That's their exclamation mark, not mine. I’ve sent off my old phone because of an abnormally high bill due to an inexplicably massive use of data. I normally pay around £50 a month; my last bill was £256! That exclamation mark was mine . ...