Saturday 9 June 2012

Reading Room Live

Me at the Reading Room Live event at the LPAC. With my favourite T-Shirt, T-Shirt fact fans.

New Rules Of Facebook


New Rules Of Facebook
No-one is allowed to post anymore pictures of funny cats with captions. If you want to look at a funny cat you will have find an actual cat doing something funny. Or persuade him to do something funny possibly with the promise of some tuna or a squeaky mouse thing.

No more use of the letters LOL. It’s not a word.If it’s funny say it’s funny, or type Ha ha ha ha at least. The letters LOL are only allowed if using words like Lollapalooza or lollipop.

Don’t type anything unless you are sure it’s more interesting than watching a toilet flush. Admittedly one man’s Keats is another man’s Peter Andre. But unless you would happily have it etched on your gravestone as the one thing people will remember you for don’t type it.

From now on nobody is allowed to tell the world what day of the week it is. Monday’s on Facebook have turned into an endless stream of the same words. “I can’t believe its Monday” “I hate Mondays” “Where did the weekend go?” over and over like an internet with Alzheimers. Similarly when it is Friday even someone that’s favourite film is Home Alone 3 will have managed to figure out that it is indeed Friday, so we don’t need 89 lines of “Thank God its Friday” or “Friday Yay”.

Be. More. Specific. If you are feeling angry, upset, happy or sad don’t just type “is really mad now” or “is so angry now” as your status update. If you don’t tell us why we will assume that you are the biggest drama queen since Christian from Eastenders stole Elton Johns favourite cushion and are attention seeking at a level not seen since Jessie J singing along to songs on The Voice.

Holiday photos. Before posting 435 photos of your trip to Spain ask yourself this; if my friends were at my house now would they want to sit through each and every one of these photos? If the answer to this question is yes, then ask yourself why none of your friends come to your house anymore.
If these rules are broken, even once, then you will be instantly banned then arrested and sent back to My Space for 200 years.

Saturday 26 May 2012

Beige

When was it decided that everything should be beige? or magenta? or any of those colours that are the equivalent of retiring and watching those Michael Parkinson adverts while slowly shrivelling up until you look like a giant walnut with slippers on. They should have colour charts that describe these colours more accurately. So instead of Barley; Death By Deal Or No Deal. No more Harvest Moon. Replace it with Hell On Tea. Get rid of Autumn Sunset, lets call it Midsummer Murdered. When approached by the sales guy in the carpet shop I was in last week, after being asked ‘if I was looking for anything particular’… ‘yes I was looking for a Tuba but you don’t seem to have any in stock IN A CARPET SHOP’. He proceeded to take me through the seven stages of beige, each one being more dusty and boring than the one before. All the while I am being slowly brainwashed by inhaling the evil carpet dust and having the sudden urge to buy the daily mail and eat a nice bit of sponge cake when I get home. No! I refuse to comply to the beige army. I want carpets made from the same material as Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat but fluffier. I want carpets that are the result of a loom being connected to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland played at full volume. I want my stairs to look like a waterfall from a Salvador dali painting so that everytime I walk up and downstairs I feel like I am in the Yellow Submarine. What I don’t want is BEIGE.

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Reading out loud in a big room with people watching


Ok so after rehearsing infront of my two cats for a few hours in the morning (one walked out and one fell asleep, tough crowd) I made my way to the LPAC and to have a look at the stage. Although it wasn’t the 02 Arena it was much bigger and lit better, than my living room. Although funnily enough I was less nervous now than when I had been practicing infront of the cats, and better lit.
After a few minutes a couple of the other performers (Abigail, Michael and Jodie) arrived and after being shown to our dressing room (complete with complimentary biscuits, yes that’s right COMPLIMENTARY BISCUITS) we hastily made our way to the cafĂ© to calm down by drinking coffee and prepare our voices by eating sandwiches and crisps.
What became clear very quickly is how well we got on in such a short space time. Before the show I had visions of half a dozen people all sat in corners practising their acts whilst listening to relaxing music on their ipods and not really saying much to each other.
It was the complete opposite, just a few friends hanging out on a Saturday night, having a laugh and relaxing (I refuse to use the word chillaxing. Unless someone gives me the power to destroy words by saying them really loud, which doesn’t seem likely before Saturday at least).
Then the very man himself; Robert Llewellyn arrived. We all went quiet and waited to see how he would be……
Well we needn’t have worried, he was down to earth, funny, told some brilliant stories and quickly became part of the “friends hanging out on a Saturday night” gang. So after all that fun, we were reminded we had a show to do.
Rather like a strange showbiz Doctors waiting room we were called out one by one, hearing the applause from the acts on stage made us feel good, but also we wanted to make sure we lived up to the previous act!
After collecting the last lines of each of our scripts, which lead to a great conversation with the singer/songwriter Michael:
“so how will we know when you have finished”
“I will have stopped singing”
And then again with Jodie;
“What the last line of your act?”
“The End”
“Er ok maybe the one before that one then….”
I made my way to the side of the stage to listen to Mike and prepare to go on afterwards…
After some words of encouragement from a couple of the others I confidently strolled on stage. By “confidently” I mean “nervously” and by “strolled” I mean “shuffled”.
Initially it was a bit of a blur but after a few minutes I began to settle as people began to laugh in the right places. After a few minutes I even started to enjoy myself which was a pleasant surprise and then it was over, people were still laughing and I left the stage to enjoy the rest of a wonderful show. Then a few drinks afterwards to celebrate what had a been a pretty extraordinary night!
NOW I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

DVDon’t.

So anyway after spending the entire afternoon in blockbusters you finally decide which dvd to watch. There is no pressure but your entire weekend depends on this film lifting you from the beige of suburban chores and greys of getting groceries to the dizzy heights of Technicolor dolby surround 3D HD Bluray stingray stuff.

You put it in the DVD player.

Then following several bouts of frantic whirling you take it out the dvd player as it fails to play. You repeat this at least 4 times, for some reason whoever borrows films the week before I do coats his hands in strawberry jam, plays Frisbee with the disc, then uses it as a plate for his dog before giving it back to the shop.

After polishing the disc with a variety of cloths, towels and the cat you do the ‘breath on it’ bit for no obvious reason other than its what your dad would probably do (or bleed the bloody radiators), and try one more time.

Hooray the magic box is working!

You do “the magic box is working dance” around the living room with your cat, unless you have a cat like mine that refuses to dance. He also categorically refuses to part-tay but that’s another story.

Then you watch the trailers.

This is where it all goes wrong.

What appears on screen are three trailers for the most amazing, mind blowing films ever made. The make The Matrix look like Police Academy 6 and the Matrix 2 look like….well the Matrix 2. Starring every actor you’ve loved ever, even dead ones, directed by God with a soundtrack by the Beatles and cinematography by Salvidor Dali. They look so amazing you would sell your gran for the chance to watch one of them tonight.

But you don’t, you watch Isn’t She Quirky and isn’t he Funny 3. For 2 and a half hours, then, when you can finally lift your depression of the sofa at yet another failed weekend you take the disc back to blockbusters – but can you remember the names of the films from heaven?? Of course not – so you potter about for another decade and hire Isn’t She Quirky 4 instead.

Monday 23 January 2012

Damn Machines.

In the olden days when we were cavemen and big brother was only on once a year getting up and going to work in the morning was so much simpler. The sun would come up, you put your caveman suit on, stick the kettle on, remember the kettle hasn’t been invented yet and then go out to work.

Nowadays it’s a miracle we even manage to leave the house without having an Arthur fowler type rocking chair breakdown and steal the Christmas club money. The alarm clock goes off, you spend five minutes checking the time on your phone to make sure it’s the same time as the alarm clock and stumble into the shower grumbling like a goth Boris Johnson with a Bells whisky hangover.  When you leave the bathroom, as you are halfway down the stairs, before you even set foot in the kitchen, you check your phone for text messages. Then you check your Hotmail, check you work email, check facebook, wishing people you never speak to and never intend to speak to, a happy birthday smileyfacelol, check twitter, check the online bbc news even though you are actually listening to the actuak real life news on the real life actual radio just in case the news on the radio is a rather elaborate matrix style alternate reality, check the weather on bbc, check the weather on the met office, listen to the weather on the news and this is before you even leave the house!


It wouldn’t be so bad but you then do  it all over again twenty minutes later when you get to work.