mostly david ephgrave

I wonder if I was the only person to misread the reason for the price rise on "onions". I wouldn't have been that surprised if Chris Grayling blamed the cost increase on a vegetable, as it's my considered opinion that Chris Grayling is full of shit. This is the man who somehow managed to keep his job as Transport Minister last spring when the UK's train services came to a near-standstill thanks to impractical changes to the country's timetables that didn't take into consideration the amount of drivers and trains needed to make them work; I mean why concern himself with such a piddly little detail as that?  I had a fair amount of dislike for the wetly inept individual Grayling is, and that was before I actually heard him speak for the first time via a Twitter link tonight. The tweet included a section of an interview he gave for Sky News today, in which he laughingly tried to suggest things with the rail network were on the up and up; all this while...

I feel for the camera operators who had dreams of doing groundbreaking work, but get to film the torsos of fat people on the street for reports on obesity instead. It’s like the folk who photograph kebabs for takeaway menus, or Piers Morgan’s co-hosts on Good Morning Britain: they do a job no-one would envy. There are plenty who are worse-off, but their occupation still can’t bring much satisfaction; imagine being Susanna Reid just for a moment; she swapped cuddly Bill Turnbull for the Devil incarnate and can never go back. Whenever I see a news article about the overweight (of which I regrettably currently find myself on the cusp) I wonder if the people in the footage signed a release form for it; you’d have to be pretty fame-hungry (poor choice of wording) to agree to be featured in this context, even if your anonymity is reasonably secure. Or is the midriff copyright free? I don’t whore my trunk out for just anybody. Still, I suppose it ...

One thing you're often asked in the lead-up to Edinburgh is to put together short written-to-order pieces to act as promotional material for your show. A couple of weeks ago a publication got into contact with me via my PR to ask if I could supply a short article relating to this year's 70th Anniversary, speculating as to what the festival will be like in seventy years time. Here's what I said:   In seventy years, the Royal Mile will have been renamed the Royal Fifteen-Thousand, Eight-Hundred-and-Forty Hands to acknowledge Scotland’s post-Brexit acceptance of this ancient form of horse measurement. A hand’s equivalent to four inches, so here’s my workings: The castle road will be so chock-full of contemporary dancers, the Fringe will attempt a leotard amnesty to curb numbers; likewise, anyone staging a youth musical production will be asked to leave town immediately or face the wrath of the Elaine Paige Society; it only has six members, b...

I had a moment of reassurance tonight when I listened back to a few little recordings of bits of material I’ve been working on with a view to going in my show and they actually made me laugh. I’ve been doing everything in fits and starts of late, that I haven’t been able to get a handle on what’s been done and whether it’s any good. I’d hoped to use this week to really get down to it, but inevitably, things kept getting in the way. I didn't have time to do anything today until late, so I decided to take stock of what I’d been tinkering with recently, rather than start anything knew - and the benefit of having had a little space from it all helped to put things back into perspective. I’m actually enjoying the slightly more robust style of what's coming out, partly as a result of being more faithful to the blogs I’ve written, while using projection to punctuate them. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I feel heartened by what’s coming together, o...

Today, I thought I'd share an article I spotted in the paper years ago, and cut out and kept. I’ve copied it verbatim, for your entertainment . It’s worth noting the pointless inclusion of everyone's age (except the badger and the 'expert') and the unnecessary mention of the father's occupation. Oh, and here's a little spoiler: it doesn't end well. BADGER’S 3HR ‘WAR’ ON FAMILY A family were trapped in their home for nearly three hours - besieged by a crazed BADGER. The animal chased Luke McCoy, 12, and four pals to his house after spotting them getting off the school bus. Then it waited outside the front door and refused to budge. Luke’s mum Rosalind and dad Michael - both 43 - were also inside. Michael said yesterday: “I realised we had a problem when it tried to force its way through the locked catflap. “It was scraping at the flap with its claws and trying to push it open with its snout”. Racehorse breedi...