mostly david ephgrave

See below for a short conversation - recorded verbatim - that took place today while distributing Mostly Comedy posters around town. NEWSAGENT: "So, who've you got on this month?" ME: “James Acaster.” NEWSAGENT: (after a moment's thought): "...no." Hitchin likes to keep you in your place. I mentioned he’d been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award a record five times, but this didn’t placate the unimpressed vendor of news. Telling her he’d done plenty of television - including Have I Got News For You - provoked a shrug, though she did concede “I’d probably recognise his face.” Pointing to his picture on the poster to an unwavering expression was the final nail in the coffin of our chat; I may as well said he’d just completed a summer season in Rhyl for the lack of reaction the whole thing got. This only goes to show you how the impressiveness of a man’s achievements can vary accord...

For me, no morning would be complete without a visit to the world’s rudest newsagent. I’ve been going there on and off since I was a student, but judging from the reception I receive you wouldn’t think that was the case. If anything, the atmosphere suggests I’d once willfully, maliciously, taken a dump on the floor – and then eyeballed the owner whilst stamping it into the carpet. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the concept of customer loyalty and regular patronage is actually the height of rudeness. Maybe it’s not a newsagent at all; whenever I’ve asked for a paper they’ve sold me their own copy out of ‘politeness’. In this shop customers are an inconvenience; an unwelcome spoke in the wheel of an otherwise smooth-running business. I think I'd only ever be welcomed if I aged thirty years, took up pipe-smoking - and walked in asking for a lifetime subscription to the Daily Mail.     This wasn’t alwa...