mostly david ephgrave

I'm struggling to come up with anything imaginative this evening, through tiredness.  Today has been reasonably productive, despite the fact I got up late. I've had late nights the past few days and haven't caught up on my sleep. I'm feeling the brunt of it. I'm spending the lion's share of my time writing - or thinking about it - at the moment, so I'm a little creatively spent.  ‎ I'll keep it brief tonight as I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, which isn't conducive to creative thought. It doesn't help that my cat is curled up on my lap, fast asleep; her body language taunting me to join her. Perhaps if I get to bed early I'll be on form tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out.  This could be the shortest blog ever. Naughty, naughty David. ‎

Tonight's performance of Letters Live hammered home my deficiencies as a writer.  This may sound negative, but it isn't. Watching the show was a beautifully enriching experience. It served to remind me how powerful, emotive and evocative a letter can be. It can act like a direct channel to the thoughts and feelings of people of the past; more than a list of dates or statistics in a history book will ever do.  It made me mourn the near loss of the medium as a form of communication. You could argue that the email has replaced it - but there's something sterile and emotionless about an existenceless collection of characters on a computer screen, when compared to sheet after sheet of hand-or-typewritten correspondence. It's less tangible, and somehow less valuable for it. It helped that the letters were beautifully read. A whole of host of familiar faces stepped up to the lectern (their bodies were there too), including Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliet Stevenson, T...

I gigged at the Hope & Anchor in Islington tonight, thus ending my week of performing at venues I used to play with my band Big Day Out.  ‎ It's a lovely venue for comedy. It's a lot less dingy than it was fifteen years ago (a Trip Advisor review if ever I heard one). They now have a theatre space on the first floor, as well as the venue in the basement. I'd be interested to see it's like. I suppose I could have asked if I could peek inside, but I'm British and we never do that.  As I walked up to the front door I had a flashback of being dropped outside it by my band's first manager, Martin, and lugging our hefty amps down the stairs. It seems like a lifetime ago; just under half a lifetime in my case. My world's so different now. My career has taken a tangential route. It makes me wonder what I'll be fifteen years from now; a gymnast, perhaps? Maybe not, at forty-nine.  The audience had thinned out by the time I got on. They were smile...

Of the many sinister things you could spot whilst walking a dog, these would be in the Top Ten. I found them by a village playground, which was an incongruous location. I dread to think what had taken place in the vicinity that necessitated handcuffs. I assume it was sexual, as we were nowhere near a police station. Whatever had gone on must have been disturbed - in more ways than one - for them to be left behind. I bet there was some frantic key fumbling in the last few moments.   I could have misconstrued the circumstances completely. Maybe they're just a toy. They don’t look like one though, as they’re a little too industrial – and there’s a distinct lack of fluff to be Anne Summers product. Whoever they belong to must have a lot of money to leave them behind, as handcuffs of this standard can’t be cheap. Or perhaps they’re disposable. This clearly isn't my area of expertise.

I saw this on sale in H Samuel yesterday for £995.00. If you're willing to spend a grand on a crystal bull, you're an idiot.  Not a crystal ball, incidentally, but a crystal bull - though both are equally useless. Not only is the ornament costly and pointless, it’s unbelievably ugly .   It’s like a physical embodiment of the 1980s. It's Thatcher, the miners’ strike and the Poll Tax riots all rolled into one. At the height of his fame, Robert Palmer probably had one on his mantelpiece.   It was on display by the shop counter like this would provoke an impulse buy. That's pretty optimistic. People with a lot of money to burn don’t tend to shop in H Samuel in Stevenage. So speaks someone who's in the same boat.  Burning the money would be a better use of it. At least then you might enjoy the residual heat. 

Before I wrote comedy, I wrote music. Until my early twenties, I was a songwriter first and foremost. For some reason, I’ve let this go over time. The main instigator for this was leaving my band to tour with various actor / musician shows. The work I took improved me as a musician, but extinguished the spark that led me to write. When I was in a band, I had a format to write for. Without too, I didn’t feel the need. I no longer had a reason to do it. I lost my confidence in my ability too, which was intensely frustrating. Maybe I’ll come back to it one day, when the time is right. Whether I do or not, I’m still proud of some of the songs I wrote. A good example is 'Falling Down'. The content may be desolate, but I like it.  I’m not sure how well the lyrics stand up without the music (it’s hard to read them without hearing the song’s scansion in my head), but here goes.  ...

As I waited to board the bus today, a man alighted eating chicken and chips. It seems we’ve reached the nadir of human existence. The passenger gnawing on a bone as he stepped off the 100 to Baldock unwittingly sounded the death knell. Antisocial behavior is the way forward. It’s each man for himself. The bus driver was too perplexed to do anything about it. It was so far past the realms of decency, it left him powerless. We shared a moment of disdain for the chicken-eater as I got on. I then walked down the gangway and straight into the aroma of fried food from the past. There’s nothing like sitting in a hermetically sealed environment that reeks of non-specific chicken limbs to put you off the foodstuff for life (...so speaks the vegetarian.) I was once told off for trying to bring a cup of tea onto the bus. The driver spoke to me like I was about to commit a cardinal sin. What would he have made of today’s KFC incident? I've been top trumped.