mostly david ephgrave

Tonight, another Strictly series started in earnest with an opening show as long as a Peter Jackson film, only more chintzy.  As per usual, I found myself tweeting along with the action. See below for what was said and when should you be interested.  7:05PM: I'd like to remind you once again that the #Strictly studio's the same room where Jack Nicholson went mental as the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.   7:19PM: "Kicking off 2019". In September   7:32PM: All us musicians across the land, waiting for the edit.   7:36PM: 5-5-5-5: my PIN.   7:38PM: AJ: "How did you start vlogging?"    Saffron: "Well, my dad was a vlogger..."    7:40PM: Finally, AJ has a partner that makes him look like the adult.   7:47PM: Mike's miming break looked like Father Dougal doing Elvis. Fun though.   7:54PM: James Cracknell's channelling Paul Nicholas.   7:58PM: Tonight, Tess Daly's wearing an old man's trou...

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 ...

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...

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...

This afternoon, I had my own smallscale Twitter moment; let's relive it in real time: 4:21PM:  4:22PM: (Just to clarify, we're not imprisoning him.) 4:24PM: Look at it. It was a work of art. LOOK AT IT.  4:24PM: My money's on him having eaten it. 4:25PM: It was the healthiest Filofax on the planet. 4:27PM: It was all the colours of the rainbow. Literally. 4:27PM: Apart from the ones you can't see. Which is ironic, as now you can't see it. 4:36PM: If I run out of time to write a new show for Edinburgh, can I just dispense seven-day pill-organisers to the audience like a shopping channel made flesh? 4:42PM: I've ordered a new one. Fuck it. 4:43PM: LOSE THIS ONE, DAD, AND YOU'LL RUE THE DAY. 4:46PM: (I've also ordered him some scourers, but I'm worried the colour scheme will confuse it.) 4:46PM: WHY MUST EVERYTHING BE SO JOLLY? 4:52PM: Perhaps I can develop a mechanism that'll dispense tablets directly to his mouth...

Like much of the country, I've been watching the recent Brexit coverage like misery porn, unable to look away as much as I do my best to avoid it. It's like one big dose of anxiety you just can't shift. It keeps grinding away at my subconscious, leaving me a wreck. I'm tired of the chaos that never ends. Like many people, I turn to Twitter as a place to vent my frustration, which is, in and of itself, a blessing and a curse. Today, in lieu of a blog, I thought I'd share some of these ramblings in no particular order; if you can pick up on my political leanings you win a prize. 13.03.19: For politicians to keep stating "What the public wants" while not asking is a contradiction in terms. 10.03.19: My favourite moment on this morning's BBC Breakfast: "So, you would have voted to leave and yet you moved to France. What's that all about?" 05.03.19: IAIN DUNCAN SMITH IS FULL OF SHIT. 12.03.19: It says a lot about our recent political...

I wrote a wittier introduction to this blog about yesterday’s Blackpool-based Strictly last night only to fall foul of a technological gremlin that caused me to lose it. I’m not saying it was comedy gold - more perfunctory   - but the frustration as result of my computer swallowing it and my consequent attempts to recover the file (to no avail) have zapped away the spontaneity from the original post, making me loath to rewrite it. I’m not even sure why I choose to compile my tweets like this anyway, other than it fills a page, which is not exactly the best motivation. So it’s probably best for all concerned that I post this and move on; normal service will be resumed imminently (subject to not being on the receiving end of another IT-based spanner in the works): 7:02PM: Flying in on a giant phallic rock = the right way to kick things off. 7:03PM: ...some much-needed PRS for Gina G. 7:06PM: Tess Daly's Guide to Presentin...

I’ve tweeted about Strictly less over the past few weeks, which is probably best for all concerned, though it’s fair to say that when I feel the need to pass comment, it’s usually on the same subject. That subject is Tess Daly, who hosts the show like she’s recently been discharged from hospital following a full frontal-lobotomy. While I’m sure she enjoys the programme really, she sounds like she's barely paying attention, so much so I suspect she sneaks off for a cheeky fag whenever anyone's dancing; if she attempts to connect with what’s going on she winds up sounding like an android with a dodgy faux-emotion chip. It all boils down to a simple misunderstanding of comedy. Since the days of Brucie she’s delivered her set-ups as punchlines, which makes the gags fall flat; she’s so busy gurning and overdoing it, she kills the joke stone dead. This is particularly evident when she does a link to camera with Claudia, where her hamming up of th...

Forgive my hyperbole, but I was so shocked by Manon’s surprise exit from tonight’s Bake Off I’m still recovering from the whiplash. While he’s been a clear front-runner throughout the series, judging from his performance this week I thought it was a done deal that Rahul would go. I was so certain I’d metaphorically brought his car around to the tent entrance with the engine still running; even he looked sure too, displaying the low level delirium (if there’s such a thing) of a person who’d fully come to terms with the state of play and was relieved to be done with it. So why did Manon get voted out? The answer is I don’t really know. Paul Hollywood made a few references to her baking more like a French person than a Danish one tonight (which was the theme of the show) but even this feedback sound like it had been tacked on afterwards; her baking may have been a tad less complicated this week, but there’s still no reason to banish her when someone else had so clearly struggled und...

Tonight’s Strictly was the most enjoyable of the series so far for me, so that must mean I’ve finally settled into it. You know what it’s like when for the first few weeks you can barely remember which of each couple is the celebrity and which is the professional dancer; that’s until they dance, of course, when it becomes obvious in nearly every instance. It tends to wash over me for a while until I find my stride and get into it, though it probably helps that Week Three is Movies Week as it gives me extra reason to connect with the routines and their themes. There are a few contestants who stand out for me at this stage, be it for their personality or their dance-ability; off the top of my head I’m thinking of Graeme Swann, Danny John-Jules, Katie Piper and Lauren Steadman (though I did really enjoy Stacey Dooley’s routine this week too). The most memorable moment of tonight’s show for me was also the funniest, and that was the concept of a sexy f...

…and so the live-tweeting along to Strictly Come Dancing started tonight again in earnest. This is what was said; READ IT: 6:19PM: They can't be emotive yet. 6:20PM: I had a dinosaur poo once that was petrified. 6:27PM: No-one defines what I do when I walk down the stairs. 6:34PM: I like how no-one reacted to Tess' "one cool cat" joke. 6:36PM: The vocal sound for Top Cat was excellent. 6:38PM: Queen could perform under pressure live too. 6:43PM: Seemed like a very low-tech camera to film the news with. 6:44PM: I was oozing too. 6:46PM: That's my favourite Beatles song: "We Can Work on This". 6:53PM: Lauren needs to dance to the theme from Going For Gold at some point. 6:54PM: 6667: Lauren scored the Number of the Dance Beast. 7:04PM: Each time the judges' score my PIN I down my drink. 7:08PM: Graziano won't feel the ben...