My Day (in Reverse).


I listened to this evening’s In Your Inner Ear when it went out, so I could tweet the relevant pictures along with it, as per usual.

I laughed quite a lot at the content, which is always a good sign. I sometimes got a little annoyed by my tone, but I guess there’s nothing new here; everybody suffers from the old ‘not liking hearing a recording of their own voice’ syndrome from time to time, though as a performer, you get over it pretty quickly, otherwise you’d never do anything. Seeing and hearing yourself goes with the territory (unless you’re Roger Daltrey in Tommy, that is; *rock opera reference*).

Today was also one of those few occasions in my life when I felt the urge to catch up on some housework. First off, my budgies’ cage has needed cleaning out for an embarrassingly long time; so much so, it had got to the point where I could barely see the birds for the pile of birdseed shells. I also took out the recycling and the food bin and vacuumed my flat. That’s possibly the dullest sentence I’ve ever written, but it describes the makings of a tidier household, I can tell you.

Prior to all of this housework activity, I popped into the office for an hour or so, to run through some of the material I’d been working on this week. I made a point of not hanging about, as I’ve spent far too much time there on my own lately, which has made me a little cabin-feverish. Time seems to disappear rapidly when I’m in there, so it’s good to escape before another day flies by. The only setback today was that nothing seemed funny, though this was probably just the mood I was in, rather than an accurate reading of the content. I’m my own worst critic and, like with the radio show, I sometimes tire of my own voice. Hopefully things will look better tomorrow on fresh ears. I hope so, otherwise I’ll have to employ a ghostwriter for my forthcoming shows; I hear Ewan McGregor’s pretty good it, apparently, considering what he did for Pierce Brosnan. There’s nothing like an obscure reference to a Roman Polanski-directed film of a Robert Harris novel to round off a blog-post.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...
Read more