mostly david ephgrave

The last few days have been a strange mix of being pencilled for a job shooting* in South Africa at the end of January, trying to speed through a passport application in time to get a visa to do it and feeling rough enough to have a COVID-19 test too. Thankfully, I received the good news that I haven't got the virus this morning, which was a relief. The trip to Africa's southernmost point, however, fell through on Friday. And while the job would have been a great way to start the new year (particularly when work's so scarce), I must admit I'm a bit relieved; now's not exactly the time to explore far-off lands, even if I'd hoped to kickstart a collaboration with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The passport situation was stressful. My old one expired on the 31st December and I'd only just applied for a replacement a few days earlier when the request for a self-tape for the job came through. As soon as my agent told me about the pencil, I was on the case trying to fas...

Last night I tweeted that a contestant on BBC1’s popular game show Pointless looked like a tiny-faced Bobby Davro. It was just a silly little joke – a prerequisite of my job: making silly little jokes – but within the space of a few hours, that silly little joke had been spotted, commented on and then retweeted by the contestant in question. Now, I think it’s safe to assume he wasn’t particularly offended; the smiley face and subsequent retweets by him and his fellow teammate would suggest as much. He may even be enjoying the novelty of the temporary fame that appearing on a game show has given him. However, Davrogate does serve to illustrate that the nature of modern social media means you’re potentially just a few short internet steps from direct contact with the person you may be commenting on. This is not the first time I have been stung by this - though thankfully, each incident has been fairly innocuous. A year or so ago I watched an excellent BBC1 d...