mostly david ephgrave

Like most people, I'm gradually easing into 2023, quietly hopeful of what it may bring. Admittedly, current world events don't create the most optimistic backdrop. Only today, the attention-seeking, Tribble-headed man-Muppet Boris Johnson disclosed a phone conversation with Putin early last year, in which old Vlads let slip that a UK missile strike "would only take a minute" (a statement I found less upsetting than Boris saying, "He called me on the blower" like the walking caricature he is). Optimism is a matter of perspective, really. Personally, my January's been a drudge, as it often is. I had a near-miss workwise when I was pencilled for a job that I ultimately didn't get, which was frustrating, though at least it broke the seal casting-wise. By this stage of my career, I've had enough pencils to fill a Ryman the size of Jupiter, but what can you do? It's better to be nearly wanted than not wanted at all (and the less said about my recen...

I'm feeling tense about the Government's proposed lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions in ten days. While I accept how difficult it is to find the sweet spot between balancing case numbers, the percentage of people already vaccinated, seasonal advantage and the economy, to choose now seems tenuous, particularly when not everyone's had their second dose. And to remove mandatory mask-wearing at the same time is just reckless. Surely keeping them a little longer is the perfect bridge between total lockdown and normality? People who take issue with wearing masks except for the medically exempt should grow up, frankly. I mean, seriously, what's the problem? It's an act of kindness to anyone with a compromised immune system. Imagine taking a packed bus ride to a chemotherapy appointment in fear of the highly transmissible delta variant. Wouldn't you feel safer if nearly everyone around you wore a mask? Catching the virus is still a matter of life or death. Should avo...

Last night, we interviewed the brilliant Rory Bremner for our More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast - the second guest to join us via Zoom since lockdown - for what was a predictably witty and insightful conversation. Rory, making us laugh with his Michael Howard last night. While it's fair to say Rory was always on my wishlist, he's someone I would never have dreamt would appear at Mostly Comedy before he did. He's an act like Paul Daniels, John Thomson or Ardal O'Hanlon, who appeals to the kid/teenager inside me, who grew up watching these performers for them to have a formative influence. And as I said to him during our interview, it was his satirical shows of the early-1990s - alongside 'Have I Got News For You' - that first educated & informed me of politics and its innate ridiculousness. Despite not believing we'd secure an act of his calibre at the club, we were delighted when he first agreed to do it in 2016 and overjoyed when he turned ou...

Today, I voted for my local Lib Dem candidate, Sam Collins; the first time I haven't voted for the Labour Party in a General Election. That's not to say I've switched allegiance - I still want Labour in - but I'm thinking tactically. And locally, as Sam would be an absolute asset to Hitchin as our MP. I put this out there in the hope it'll give anyone umming & ahhing over whether to vote tactically the reassurance others are doing it. four out of the five tactical-voting sites in the image below suggest voting Lib Dem in Hitchin & Harpenden; let's get duplicitous Boris Johnson and the Tories out. Remember: endlessly intoning they'll "Get Brexit Done" after all the "dither and delay in Parliament" is simple and memorable, but it's devoid of substance. And it's a lie too, as even accepting the Conservatives' current deal will not be an end to it.  That's my two penn'orths; Ephgrave, over and out....

The fact Boris Johnson's attempted five-week prorogation of Parliament was unanimously deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court today is exceptionally good news from my standpoint. When it comes down to it, Johnson's motivation was blatant, and - like so much of his approach - deeply questionable: he used the excuse of preparation for a Queen's Speach as a tool to prevent Parliament from debating and discussing his actions related to his much-repeated supposed final deadline to leave the EU. To do this was disgusting and, ultimately, illegal, and it's only right he should be held to account for it. Most importantly of all, Parliament will resume tomorrow with the wind severely taken from Johnson's sails. And once again, it can do its job. There will be many Brexiters who'll attempt to rubbish the ruling but the facts of the matter shouldn't be ignored. And Johnson needs to stop riding roughshod across democracy like the amateurish dictator he is.

For the love of God, we can't end up with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister; the man is a self-serving, self-interested ignorant shit of the highest order, who puts the 'in' in 'inept', and his bumbling jokey persona is a facade developed to mask the calculated conniving of an ambitious manipulator. If people vote for that then we're in deeper cack than I thought; there is no way a man like BoJo should be the spokesman for our country. To be fair, there aren't many who are suitable for the job if you push Johnson to one side. Michael Gove? NO. Andrea Leadom? NO. Jacob Rees-Mogg? Christ Almighty, NO; I can't bear to type their names, let alone countenance them in a position of power. I know Theresa May wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but as both Kylie and Sonia put it, 'Better the Devil You Know', which is sage advice when most of the contenders could make a case for being Beezelbub himself. I also don't see how a change ...

I’m not going to mince my words, because I don’t think it’s necessary: Jacob Rees-Mogg is full of shit. I don’t know what makes the quasi-Edwardian bond villain think he’s spokesman for the nation and Chief Righter-of-wrongs within the Tory Party (and saver of Brexit, which is an impossibility in-and-of itself), but his confidence is misplaced; the idea that a man who'd conceivably wear a stovepipe hat about the house to be casual is likely to win over the country with his rhetoric is about as plausible as me portraying Richard Pryor in a Richard Pryor biopic. (By which I mean, “slim to none".) It was while reading an article today on the BBC News website that Rees-Mogg got my goat (and sacrificed it to Beelzebub, drinking its blood in the process for he looks the sort). The piece - which inevitably covered Mogg's attempt to gather the right amount of letters expressing no confidence in Theresa May to trigger a Tory leadershi...

Today has definitely been a day to be frustrated with many of the main players in UK politics for their duplicitous conniving. For the day to start with the resignation of Dominic Raab - the latest Brexit Secretary to go, following the loss of the gurning, giggling git David Davis in similar circumstances - the morning after the Cabinet had supposedly got behind the proposed draft EU withdrawal agreement, was a definite act of cuntishness of the highest regard, setting about a chain of events that only added to the chaos. Like many of the people who are so keen to distance themselves from the actual negotiations of a Brexit deal without offering any viable altenative (Davis, Boris and Jo Johnson and Rees-Mogg, not to mention Gove and Leadsom who dropped out of the leadership race with Boris too, rather than be tarnished by being connected with the process) Raab was thinking only of his own career, and trying to score some personal damage-limitation...

There’s been a lot of mockery of the festival Labour Live in the media lately, but imagine what the Tory equivalent would be like, with music from James Blunt, comedy from Jim Davidson - and lectures on keeping your hair as soft as goose-down from Boris Johnson, how to form all opinions from a point of utter ignorance from Katie Hopkins and how not to change a nappy from Jacob Rees-Mogg. Not everything has to be an instant landslide success to be valid; at least the Labour Party are trying to connect with younger supporters, and while it’s not had the massive interest they might have hoped, even the most lackadaisical Labour arts event would cack all over a Conservative one; and if the Tories need a social gathering, wasn’t Thatcher’s funeral enough? I just find the Tories so out-of-step. Take my local MP Bim Afolami for example, who’s on Twitter and Facebook, but practically in a broadcast only sense. He also manages to smile identically in every ...

From my personal political standpoint, today was a very depressing day.  I got home from packing up Mostly Comedy late last night, shattered by the events of the day; so much so that I barely remember writing my blog, as I was falling asleep as I did it. Literally; I woke up on my sofa at 5am, with my cat on my lap and a crick in my neck - but no sooner had I checked the BBC News website and seen the lay of the land Re. the Referendum than I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep easily. The political landscape had changed in a day; the deal that was struck six years before my birth was unravelling: Britain was about to leave the EU.  I watched Tuesday's BBC Referendum debate with irritation. Were we not supposed to notice the Leave campaign's decision to use the soundbite "take back control" in answer to very question?; a statement that's as vacuous as it's lacking in substance or meaning. Were we meant to be oblivious to the thin veneer between Boris Johnso...

I have an alarming habit of passing famous people on the street.   It happens often enough for me to worry I’m an unwitting stalker. If I found a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in my house, I’d check in to my local police station, offering myself up for voluntary arrest. Either that, or get a job writing the Mirror’s 3am column. They’re not fussy. They'd accept stories in potato print. It started when I saw Frank Carson in the mid-90s, drinking a can of lager on a Stevenage park bench. That opened up the floodgates. Now the list is endless. I’ve seen Suggs so many times I've lost count; the most notable being at The Enterprise Pub in Camden, when Madness were rehearsing in the same room after us. They didn’t do their trademark walk as they passed us on the stairs, which made me feel cheated. I spotted David Tennant on the Tube, making me terrified of an imminent Cyberman attack. I didn’t fancy being assimilated. I’ve had Boris Johnson cycle past me (stupid hair...