Writer's Block

Every time I contemplate getting rid of my Netflix subscription, they reel me back in. This time, it's the return of the terrific House of Cards for season 3. It opens with now President Frank Underwood urinating on his father's grave. As my father pointed out, you wouldn't have seen Ian Richardson doing that in the British version. Episode 1 was nonetheless a solid start, largely focusing on Doug Stamper's recovery (having been presumed dead at the end of Season 2), Claire Underwood's political ambitions and the president's dwindling approval ratings. Netflix's content distribution encourages binge watching, but I'll have to try and find a more leisurely viewing schedule. In late 2013 I watched all five seasons of Breaking Bad in two weeks. That was unwise. In other news, Mark Watson is currently in the process of a 27 hour comedy show for Comic Relief . Watson is the pioneer of these marathon efforts, having previously performed 24 hour shows in Ed...

After a stressful but ultimately successful exam day, I took a long overdue trip to Peckham Plex (which basically looks like a cinema that the characters of Saved By The Bell would attend) to see Selma. The film's title refers to Selma, Alabama, the town in which Martin Luther King Jr and the supporters of the civil rights movement organised a march to Montgomery to highlight the continued disenfranchisement of black Americans in 1965. It's a flawed but important film. Selma excels at demonstrating the sheer level of brutality towards the black population by the white southern establishment, first with a truly shocking depiction of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, then with the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson and finally with the breakup of the first attempted march, broadcast live on TV. David Oyelowo's nuanced performance as Dr King is truly impressive. What he lacks in physical resemblance is more than compensated for vocally and he shines when replicating King...

The past four days have pretty much exclusively been about readying myself for my accountancy exam tomorrow. It's the most challenging of my five modules (for reasons that are too boring to go into) and if I can pass it, it'll be a big step forward. A positive result tomorrow would set myself up nicely for an eclectic weekend. On Saturday, I'm heading to The Valley for Charlton vs Huddersfield where I hope not to see the scenes described here . Then it's off to the Islington Assembly Hall to witness the musical joys of Andrew McMahon and his piano. Sunday is my first working day of the National Trust season which starts this weekend and therefore I anticipate being swamped by heritage hungry visitors. FIFA have announced this week what everyone in the world of football has long suspected. The 2022 World Cup awarded to Qatar will be moved from the summer to winter with the prospect of the final being held on 23rd December. Everyone apart from the powers that be had a...

I started online dating in 2012, through Plenty of Fish and OKCupid. Last year, I also moved onto Tinder where there has been nothing of note to report, save for a couple of curiously explicit messages. But I always considered that an idle distraction. POF was always a waste of time, largely populated by the illiterate and people with profiles so brief as to be completely pointless. I had held out rather more hope for OKCupid. In the past three years, I have dated five woman. I'm still in contact with only one of them on a friendly basis, having ended a long and turbulent association with another a little while ago. I'm not sure why I'm saying all this. Without going into specifics, I've been single for a very long time. Not really through choice, but I've come to accept that I'm the sort of person who it doesn't happen for. I had assumed that something would have just naturally happened for me by now or that I would have found an easy mutual connec...

Another busy day of preparing for my next accountancy exam. I've done three mocks today, I badly failed the first one, improved with the second and passed with the third, so I guess that's progress. I belatedly caught up with the results of the Oscars on Sunday, as my prolonged period of underemployment has resulted in me becoming a semi movie buff over the past couple of years. I was pleased that The Grand Budapest Hotel was acknowledged with four gongs. It was the film I most enjoyed watching last year at the excellent Phoenix Cinema in Finchley. Ralph Fiennes is terrific in it, it's visually fantastic and it's genuinely very funny in places too. A well deserved best actress nod for Patricia Arquette was the only award for Boyhood which some people have described as a snub. I enjoyed Boyhood very much but wouldn't say it was the out and out best film of the year. Shot in various spells over a twelve year period, it's a remarkable achievement from Richard L...

 Previous Weight: 20 stone, 9 pounds. New Weight: 20 stone, 8.5 pounds . Weight Loss: 0.5 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 8.5 pounds . WOO. HALF A POUND. I can scarcely contain my joy. There is very little reason for me to continue to post my weight up here. I'm still making a lot of poor eating choices. In particular I have been consuming more than five doughnuts a week because I am apparently a stereotype of a fat person. Hopefully I can get back on track, blah blah blah. I don't even believe myself any more. In other news, I passed my second AAT exam today. So things are tentatively on track for the moment. I've also been catching up on a few podcasts. Last week saw the sudden passing of Harris Wittels at the age of 30, a comedy writer and producer on hugely successful sitcoms like Parks and Recreation and Eastbound and Down. I listened to his episode of You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, during which he revealed that he started using drugs at the age of 12 and...

I'm grateful that for the most part recently I've been able to handle my mental health issues. It's also roughly three years now since my last mental breakdown. There are nights where my depression rears its ugly head though and last night was one of them. Laying in bed for three hours, willing yourself to sleep while your brain hurls variations of "You're a fat useless cunt" at you isn't a great deal of fun.  It was my dad's 67th birthday today, many happy returns to him. Obviously I don't really need to mention that here. I offered said returns in person, on the basis that we both continue to live under the same roof. Which if I recall correctly, was another theme that my brain persisted in returning to last night. We celebrated in the time honoured fashion of watching three football matches back to back, with a good win for Liverpool at Southampton and a couple of Desmonds (2-2) elsewhere. I've got a challenging week coming up, with asse...

I headed to The Borderline last night to see Tim Barry. Opening the show was Sam Russo, the English representative on the bill. He fluffs his lines on a couple of occasions and is endearingly frank about his limitations as a performer and his recent failure to record a new record. There's nothing groundbreaking about him but his songs show potential and it's an enjoyable start to the evening. I was concerned about the scope of Cory Branan's songwriting when he opened with an ode to Jack Daniels, but I need not have worried. Finger picking furiously, Branan plays with such energy and verve that the rest of the room is swiftly swept along. The crowd sing the penultimate number "Wayward and Down" like a hymn and his closing tribute to "The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis" feels electrifying. It's the perfect warm up for Barry himself, starting with a rousing rendition of "Dog Bumped", a song about taking care of your family even if it means ...

Apparently people still care about EastEnders. That was one of the few things I took away from last night. An insufferable "whodunnit" plot line that has been become so ubiquitous that even I'm aware of it was resolved last night after a ten month wait. Some kid killed his sister or something. If I was one of the people who wanted to get rid of the BBC, I'd heavily cite EastEnders as part of my reasoning.  Still, I suppose it's reassuring to know that Danny Dyer has somewhere to go. I was alternating between revising and watching Premier League Darts instead. If someone had said in 1995 that twenty years from now, people would flock to see darts in arenas around the country, they would have been considered quite mad. Indeed, perhaps many of the people who go are also quite mad. It seems to me that even with the assistance of big screens, people are paying £30-40 a ticket and can see absolutely nothing of the action. On TV though, it can be absolutely brilliant. ...

Last week was the tenth anniversary of Banquet Records opening in Kingston and as a long time customer, I'd like to show them some love. Owner Jon Tolley and his team deserve recognition for their contribution to the south west London music scene. The shop itself is one of the few places in the UK that caters for punk/pop-punk/emo fans like myself, stocking vinyl that simply isn't available elsewhere on the high street. But leaving that aside, they've worked tirelessly to put on shows of all different sizes in all sorts of venues, from the tiny room in the back of The Fighting Cocks to the more civilised surroundings of the Rose Theatre to their club night New Slang.    Tolley has written about his experiences here . I love this blog and not just because it's the only time I'll ever see New Found Glory and Kevin Devine name checked in the Guardian. I love it because it sums up everything great about Banquet and the enthusiasm and passion that goes into everything ...

Previous Weight: 20 stone, 10.5 pounds. New Weight: 20 stone, 9 pounds . Weight Loss: 1.5 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 8 pounds . Given the week I've had, this loss came as something as a surprise. But I'll take it. I'm still yet to entirely lose the weight I put on over Christmas though. There are also some ongoing issues with discipline/stress eating/comfort eating that I'm yet to entirely resolve. But onwards we go. Last week was difficult for me personally but I've put it behind me now. I have two accountancy exams next week that present different challenges. One of them I'm particularly apprehensive about but hopefully I can cover enough ground through my revision in the next few days. I neglected to mention that I completed my ECDL Extra course last Thursday and now have an accredited IT qualification. It's a busy six weeks coming up but after that I plan to kick on and start applying for some accountancy work.   Today, I also bagged a t...

The nominations for this year's Chortle Awards came out today. I wangled admission to last year's ceremony at the Ministry of Sound and it was a largely joyless affair. Groucho Marx refused to join any club that would admit him as a member. I refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of any VIP area that permits me access. Anyway, the list of nominations are here . Here are my picks. Best Newcomer Alex Edelman, Dane Baptiste and Phil Jerrod have all impressed me in the past year and any of them would be a worthy winner. Breakthrough Act James Acaster is one of my favourite acts full stop, so I have to go with him here. Nish Kumar had a strong Edinburgh show though and was a big hit with Milton Jones' audience as support for the strange haired punmeister. Club Comic Jeff Innocent gets the nod. He possesses complete control in his appearances at Up The Creek, no matter what the type of audience. An honourable mention for Carl Donnelly who excelled in a headline slot at...

To the Scream Lounge then, an alternative bar probably better known for hosting local metal and rock bands than a comedy night. I went on second on the basis that a fellow act who shall remain nameless didn't want to follow me. I'm still not entirely surely whether that was a compliment or a dig. In any event, he was much better equipped than I probably would have been to cope with a crowd who hadn't quite settled down yet. As he acknowledged, the diversions he was sent on distracted from the material he wanted to perform. I then made the conscious decision to plough through the distractions unless I was directly addressed. I dusted off a couple of old chestnuts and did some Croydon specific stuff that went down well. Given the size of the crowd (about 15), I was generally pleased with the reaction and had timed my 10 minute set just about perfectly. Gradually, I'm getting a better idea of what stuff is working and what needs to be dropped. An act had brought their ...

It's safe to say it's been a turbulent week for Sunderland fans. Losing 2-0 at home to a QPR side who haven't picked up a solitary away point might be considered bad enough. Today they surrendered their place in the FA Cup to a Bradford City side who currently lie 9th in the third tier of English football. I caught the second half and it might have been the worst performance I've seen from them all season. Bearing in mind Sunderland lost 8-0 to Southampton in October, that's quite something. They could barely pass the ball to each other on the agricultural surface at Valley Parade and were hustled easily by the opposition. In terms of opportunities on goal and can only recall a Connor Wickham header and an adjacent effort from Adam Johnson. Johnson also ignored all the basic laws of defending to present the ball to former Sunderland player Jon Stead in the penalty area, who couldn't really miss. Once they gifted them that goal, they rolled over in front of tec...

I picked up a late return for Mark Thomas's new show Cuckooed at the Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells tonight. As I've come to expect from Mr Thomas it was an intelligent, incisive and thought provoking 70 minutes. Due to my commitment to publishing a blog every day, I only have 28 minutes left to publish this so I will have to amend this to elaborate further in the near future. EDIT (03/10): A lot of people.would argue that eight months later exceeds the classification of "the near future". Of course as a consequence I've forgotten an awful lot about the show (I bought the play script but have subsequently lost it). It was largely about Thomas' work with Campaign Against Arms Trade and the revelation that a man referred to as "Martin" had been working as a spy for BAE Systems. As the show unfolded, it became clear that as much as Thomas and his fellow activists felt betrayed, Martin's decision had taken a heavy toll on him too. Thomas' i...

I've been afflicted by a mood of despondency in the past few days. I feel slightly better for going to the gym tonight for the first time in a while. Tonight's gym TV viewing was a man swanning around Italy eating fig gelato, unconventional cheeses and ear shaped pasta. He seemed to be having a good time. The big comedy news of the week concerned The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart announcing that he is stepping down as host after seventeen years. The decision adds to the state of flux in US late night TV, following Stephen Colbert stepping into David Letterman's shoes on The Late Show (a very interesting choice) and Jame Corden replacing Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show. I have a suspicion that US audiences will take to Corden in the same way they took to Piers Morgan but you never know. I think it's an astute decision from Stewart to go out at the top. Or somewhere near the top. For many years, he's delivered a topical comedy show of the highest quality that ...

I headed to Smithfield last night for a rare headline slot. I was somewhat apprehensive about it. It's reasonable to say it's not something I'm called upon to do very often. I'm also quite conscious of the fact that in the recent past, the occasions where I've been paid have not been the most enjoyable gigs. The bizzare evening in East Dulwich where I took the bullet as the opening act, the deathly silence in a Kinks' theme pub and the bafflement of an elderly audience somewhere in the Kent countryside spring to mind. I don't exactly feel bad about it. I've performed a lot of gigs where I've been very good to excellent and not been paid. But struggling on stage bothers me, whether there's cash involved or not. The promoter told me he sensed I was rusty at the start and there's some truth in that, having not gigged for nearly a fortnight and having not performed 20 minutes for a while. The crowd of about 25 had warmed up as the evening had g...

I headed to Soho Theatre last night with my friends Rosie, Anna and Dasha for Dracula, the latest show featuring Nick Mohammad's excellent Mr Swallow character. The conceit is that we are witnessing the final dress rehearsal for "Dracula! The Musical" of which Swallow is the star, supported by his put upon director (David Elms) and the other cast members Jonathan (Kieran Hodgson) and Sally (Joanna Grace). The theatre is a fine setting for Mohammad's ludicrous, camp creation allowing Mr Swallow to show off his diva-ish tendencies. The introduction sees him singing while whizzing around the stage on roller skates, setting a tone of slapstick lunacy. Much of the humour comes from him undermining proceedings at every turn, fumbling with props, improvising lines and even characters in one particularly amusing section of the show involving a female Liverpudlian ticket collector. His clashes with his weary director are a particular highlight. Les Dawson was able to play ...

Previous Weight: 20 stone, 7.5 pounds. New Weight: 20 stone, 10.5 pounds . Weight Gain: 3 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 6.5 pounds . THUD. That's the sound of me falling off the wagon. It's been a poor week but I'll have to try and put it behind me. Or just ignore it again and continue a self-destructive pattern of compulsive eating.

I've felt very down the past couple of days. My body seems to crave more and more sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open in my AAT training session today. In the last hour, I've also had a piece of news that has exacerbated this mood. Ultimately I don't know who might read this so I think it's best not to elaborate. But it's another personal setback, let's leave it there. I probably watched the perfect film in regards to personal setbacks at the weekend in Frances Ha by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Gerwig plays the titular Frances, a 27 year old dance apprentice struggling to make a living in New York. The film is an example of "mumblecore" a subgenre that I don't know an awful lot about but is apparently "heavily focused on naturalistic dialogue". The consequence of this is that the first half forces us to spend time with a group of pretentious big city twentysomethings who speak frequently and say nothing. It's a good job th...

When talking about my football teams here thus far, I've tended to focus on Sunderland rather than Manchester United. Watching Sunderland is often quite depressing but generally you know what you're going to get. A team with a history of underachievement continuing to underachieve. Watching Manchester United has an increasingly tragic feel to it. A team who once might have genuinely claimed to be the greatest team the world has ever seen (as the chant goes) now play some of the most turgid football imaginable. Following the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, I expected a transition period. For the club to struggle to adapt to life without him. I did not expect the club's playing style to disintegrate in this fashion. As I write this, Daniel Taylor of the Guardian has tweeted the following:  All a bit joyless watching Manchester United these days. When they were losing, chasing a game, used to be most exciting sight in football. He's absolute right. Under Fer...

I accepted a late invitation from my friend Joanna to attend Red Bastard's show at The Vaults underneath Waterloo Station. I had heard a number of things about this act and asked her more than once "Am I going to be molested?". It turned out I wasn't, but the evening was about to turn a whole lot stranger. Clowning is very much in vogue at the moment and Red Bastard shows its more malicious side. He's a lyra clad grotesque, filling his outfit with balloons and space hoppers to give him a backside of Kardashian-esque proportions. There's some playing around with the concept of "needing to do something interesting every ten seconds" in theatre before attempting to exert his dominance over us. He barks out commands, demanding we switch seats and splitting us against each other. And God help you if you refuse to do as he asks... This particular audience seem to be more difficult to control, however. A group of latecomers, when asked why they were lat...

Wednesday night saw a trip to the Churchill Theatre in Bromley for One Man, Two Guvnors. The play is set in 1960s Brighton and the mood is set by "The Craze", a skiffle band who performed short sets prior to the start of the show and during the interval with songs about train lines, debt and crossdressing siblings amongst other things. The show itself is a comedy of misunderstandings, a farce in the great tradition of British comedy. Adapted from the Italian play Servant of Two Masters, it follows the buffoonish Francis Henshall working for two employers who (without giving too much away) are both trying to find the other.   The show is a bit looser than I had anticipated with occasional moments of improvisation. Perhaps a little too loose at times, with Gavin Spokes practically breaking character as Henshall to rebuke a man who literally offers to give him a sandwich as per his request. "This is a National Theatre production, not a pantomime. These questions are rheto...

I took my first trip of the year to Up The Creek in Greenwich to watch LBC listener and Croydon shadow Darren Maskell perform in a show to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Malcolm Hardee's passing. Hardee was a larger than life character on the comedy circuit and an instrumental figure in the South London scene, first at the Tunnel Club and later at Up The Creek. The proceeds from this night went towards funding a new documentary about his life. It was certainly a memorable evening that celebrated his anarchic spirit and showcased the new wave of alternative comedy. The night was hosted by the man himself, or rather Terry Alderton channelling Hardee. Riffing darkly on the circumstances of his death, it was a fun opening to proceedings. Martin Soan's first appearance was unforgettable, wandering on stage naked and threatened to recreate the occasion Hardee pissed on a member of the front row. Fortunately for all concerned, he was unable to deliver. More successful were his...

Can you hear me, Richard Osman? Your boys took one hell of a beating... Of course, that's untrue. Sunderland put my father and I through the wringer at Fulham tonight but came out the other side in the FA Cup Fifth Round, where we will play giant killing Bradford City a week on Sunday. There's something magical about walking towards a floodlit ground at night and I took the pleasant stroll along the Thames to Craven Cottage feeling cautiously optimistic of a result. I've got a lot of time for Fulham and always enjoy going there. I just hope that if we're back next season, it's in the cup again. My main recollections of the first half concern Fulham's structurally sound defending despite Sunderland dominating the ball and winning an awful lot of corners. Fulham scored with their only meaningful effort of the opening 45. As my father predicted, both sides prevented Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone from getting to the ball at a corner on the 28th minute. Man...

Previous Weight: 20 stone, 8 pounds. New Weight: 20 stone, 7.5 pounds . Weight Loss: 0.5 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 9.5 pounds . I celebrated this half pound loss by eating a small chips, a battered sausage, a chicken club sandwich, two salted caramel muffins and a bag of mini doughnuts. This is becoming less of a motivation blog and more where I come to confess my gastronomic sins. So after yet another aberration this year and being half a pound away from returning to my pre-Christmas weight, I'll probably be another 2 pounds further back next week. Hooray! There will be longer blogs about more interesting things later in the week.

Mercifully I got a decent night's sleep last night and wasn't subjected to the horrors of American Football or Katy Perry insisting at length that I'm a firework. Last week, a website revisited the principles of comedy as laid down by Bill Hicks (or rather posted in the green room of The Laughing Skull in Atlanta in 1992). When I was awarded runner up in the Comedy Knights Fresh Comedian Of The Year 2013, promoter Bobby Carroll gave me a notebook with Hicks' words printed in the front. To my shame, I have not written a single word in the book in the 16 months since. I attribute this to a paucity of ideas and preferring my Moleskin. Anyway, I thought I'd revisit them too. 1. If you can be yourself on stage nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered. I'm very much in agreement here. I personally feel that I'm still in the process of "finding my voice" and I hope to get there some day. In the meantime, two comedy crit...

Yesterday I completed a month of daily blogs. It's not exactly been the catalyst to write lots of top calibre stand-up comedy that I had hoped. But I've enjoyed doing it, so I'll continue. I neglected to mention that I passed my opening AAT exam on Friday. Given that I knew little to nothing about the technical workings of accountancy a month ago, I am genuinely chuffed about this. There are greater challenges ahead but it's a promising start. Due in part to the inclement weather in this part of the world, I was stood down from my duties at Chartwell today. This gave me the opportunity to watch the majority of the Australian Open final between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. I came in at the start of the second set and was treated to a whirlwind 80 minutes of twists and turns, with Murray deservedly taking the set on a tiebreak. What happened after that felt somewhat anticlimactic, as Murray meekly surrendered an even looking third set before slumping to a 6-0 whitewa...