mostly david ephgrave

One of my favourite moments of last Thursday’s show was revealing Jim Bowen was 44 in this picture for a guy at the back to shout, “Fuck off’. It’s easily the best reaction the photo has ever had as it perfectly mirrors what I thought when I first discovered it. It’s shocking enough to want to trace Bowen’s birth certificate in case he’d been rounding down his age considerably or had a similar ever-present existence to Pennywise from Stephen King’s It. If Bowen was genuinely in his early-to-mid forties he must have seen some truly terrible things in his lifetime akin to what Winston saw in Ghostbusters II; that or he never troubled his local chemist in search of moisturizer. I don’t mean to cast judgment so much as register my disbelief; you could add twenty years to his age without flinching. I can only hope that when I reach Bowen’s age in seven years I won’t look as old as him; it’s not too much to ask for, is it? I keep myself rel...

I briefly met up with my mum, my dad and their friend Anne today for a quick drink to mark my mum’s seventieth birthday. I’m sure she’ll be pleased that I've committed her age to the internet, though to be fair, she uses the line ‘I’m nearly seventy’ so often as an excuse to not do something that it’s become a running joke. I sent her a text yesterday to remind her she only had twenty-four hours left to roll out her catchphrase before it became inaccurate; I’m that kind of son. Pushing my gentle teasing aside for a moment, my mum is one of the most youthful and active ‘nearly / actually seventy-year-olds’ I know. Her job is demanding, yet she approaches it with energy and humour, and is clearly very good at it. She’s an organiser and a problem-solver; traits I think I picked up from her myself. She’s also - dare I say it? - funny and easy to talk to. I wonder if she’ll lend me fifty quid? I’m proud of her for all she’s achieved. I’m also grateful for her support. I ...

This afternoon, I’ll be taking part in what is the Ephgrave family equivalent of playing with fire: I will be sitting around a table, playing board games with my mum. Her problem is she is incredibly competitive. Not in a friendly, low-key, “I'm having a bit of laugh” way; more in a high stakes, no-holds-barred, “I must succeed at all costs” way. The ruthless ambition displayed when she has a plastic counter at her fingertips must be seen to be believed; if one of her ancestors was responsible for a totalitarian dictatorship, I wouldn’t be shocked. Unfortunately, my mother’s killer instinct will often bring out the worst in me; I evidently inherited the same cutthroat genes, in a slightly watered down form. She will also delight in my personal gaming misfortunes; the unabated joy she exudes when I get an answer wrong is similar to that of a multi-million pound lottery winner. She also doesn’t play fair. A good example to...