Dad's The Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh.

The big news is I'm taking a show to Edinburgh this year, and I'm trying to get as much of the admin sorted as swiftly as possible so I can clear time to write it.

As it stands, I'm creaking toward that kicking-off point. The show will be about my dad (the one slated for 2020 until Covid hit and put paid to that), and I'm excited and apprehensive about the task ahead. There's so much I want to get across - as my pages of scribbled notes already testify - but primarily, I want to capture my dad's character so that the audience leaves the room feeling like they just met him, which is no mean feat. And I want to tackle what's it like to lose a loved one without forgetting that the show's a comedy (which, as far as challenges go, is worthy of fully spandexed Anneka Rice).

What's helped so far is the groundwork I did in 2020. For example, I already had a blurb that just needed tightening up. And I've also got a lot of material about him already, which I'm sifting through to see what might work in this context, along with various blogs I wrote as he got more ill. So I feel like I'm at a reasonable starting point. And I intend to use the few work-in-progress dates in the diary to blow a bit of life back into that old material as I re-engage an aspect of my personality that's been hibernating for a few years: i.e. me as a stand-up.

That last bit is perhaps the most challenging. I've come out the other side of events of the past few years feeling like a different person, and my self-confidence took a battering. And my energy's not what it was, though I'm working on it. It's that old maxim about riding a bike: I know how to do it if I can access the right parts of my muscle memory.

Shakerpuppetmaker.

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...

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...

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...

mostly david ephgrave

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