Writer's Block

Down to Kingston last night for The Early November at the Fighting Cocks, a proper tiny sweat box of a venue. First up were A Great Big Pile Of Leaves, the New Yorkers on their first tour of the UK. This quartet have a lot of strings to their bow, from Weezer style alternative rock, to indie and melodic rock. The result is a set that's always interesting. I'll certainly be checking out more from them. They're warmly applauded as they leave the stage and rightly so. You Blew It! clearly have a lot of fans in Kingston already on the basis of tonight's performance. They basically play shouty angsty punk rock without a great deal of nuance. Neither especially bad nor particularly good, there are other bands out there doing this sort of thing and doing it better. So to The Early November. An early rendition of "I Want To Hear You Sad" from their debut EP is my highlight of the evening, with massive singalongs all over the room. It generates a level of energy ...

Previous Weight: 21 stone, 2.5 pounds. New Weight: 21 stone, 2.5 pounds . Weight Loss: 0 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 0.5 pounds . Boom. A sweet sweet maintain. Ostensibly I had started the week well by sticking to the Slimming World plan. Pasta. Vegetables. Oily fish. Quorn. Mugshots (the pasta/noodle snack in a mug perfect for when you can't be bothered with nutrition). A trip to Bluewater* was when it all started going awry. Pizza Express. Doughballs. Fiorentina. Cake. Then to London. Four pints of cider. Late night chips and nuggets. Biscuits. Two cream scones. Some sort of pepperoni wrap from Morrisons that tasted better than it looked. Sausage Roll. McFlurry. A tube of those new Mexican Pringles that are actually pretty underwhelming but I needed to eat all of them to ascertain precisely how underwheleming they were. All of this adds up. But hey, there's always next week.  *I'm getting old and disillusioned with everything now, but Bluewater doesn't...

I took up a belated offer last night and headed to Aces and Eights in Tufnell Park for a couple of Edinburgh previews. Aisling Bea's "Plan B" looks set to cement her position as one of stand-up comedy's rising talents, following her Best Newcomer nomination at Edinburgh in 2013. The show is loosely themed around Bea's upbringing in rural Ireland and her obsession with all things American, culminating in a recent trip to Hollywood. Bea has trained as an actor previously and her performance skills come to the fore in an assured performance. Her recreation of lazy American comedy and in particular, her friends' inability to deal with their four month old baby prove the highlights of a greatly enjoyable performance. Pat Cahill's "Panjandrum" finished off the evening. Spending time in Cahill's weird and wonderful world is invariably a joy and I can't remember the last time I laughed as much. The show has a war theme, with the undeniable hi...

This morning, I received an email confirming that my interview on Thursday had not led to a job offer. The news was not at all a surprise to me but nonetheless sent me into an all day slump at work. I can't pretend it isn't hugely dispiriting to fail again. But as I said in my blog on New Year's Eve, I have to keep going. Going and going. Irrespective of the lack of progress being made. The nagging sense that life is passing you by. The sense that although you are still relatively speaking young, that you have no future. That there's no exit route from this life. Or rather that there is an exit route but people invariably take against the particular course of action. Keep going. EDIT 25/12: Another super negative blog. I do still feel all of the things that I've articulated here on occasion. I do feel time ticking on and am apprehensive about what I'm yet to achieve. At least I found a new job with more hours and I'm in the best financial position I'...

A quiet day today. Little to report other than an ill advised demolition of a tub of ice cream (one of the new Cadbury ones, candy floss and marshmallows were involved) and a truly insipid Manchester United performance in a 0-3 defeat to Everton. Having been 2-0 down at half time, for a United side to show a complete lack of desire or application to get back into the match is unacceptable. Should Liverpool win their game in hand against Hull on Tuesday, the deficit between 4th and 5th will be reduced to four points. With regards to Champions League qualification, it will be what Sir Alex Ferguson would have described as "squeaky bum time". Yesterday saw Sunderland finally drop into the bottom three, the inevitable result of a truly wretched season. For some reason, Sky elected to show their 1-1 draw at Stoke in its entirety as their game of the day. What I saw was a performance reasonably high in application but low in quality. We have every right to wonder where that appli...

I went to The Stillery in Camden last night to see The Folly. My friend Chris, who has made a strong claim as the only person who has read every one of these blogs, plays the bass for them. He's anticipating a review here. Unfortunately, I subsequently got drunk and ended up in Mile End and can barely remember anything about the night as a consequence. I recall being very impressed with their performance and their brand of melodic rock though, with some funky guitar grooves thrown into the mix. They've got a new record entitled "City Ghosts" available for free download here and I'll be reviewing it shortly. I was briefly discussing with Lucy Fraser (their lead singer) what constitutes an album and what constitutes an EP. I generally consider between 3-6 tracks to be an EP, 10 plus to be an album and 7-9 to be a mini album. The Folly are certainly treating us with 9 free tracks and I look forward to listening to it soon. `I had a rather pleasant bus journey th...

It was with a little trepidation that I returned to Up The Creek last night for The Blackout. I'd picked up a last minute spot the evening before and was in a bit of a funk post interview. Also, having done the gig last month, selecting material was also an issue. The Blackout doesn't seem to get an awful lot of repeat custom, or at least not the sort of punter who attends every week. I was torn between wanting to experiment and wanting to get to the five minute mark. In the end I elected to run through some of the newish material I'd performed last time, a little bit of new stuff and some of my best material. It seemed to do the trick. I opened the second half, made it to five minutes and was quite chuffed with the reaction. In particular, there was one joke that I gave a debut to last night that got a much stronger response than I had hoped for. It was enough to give me the "victory" on the night, my reward being a bottle of white wine that I've donated el...

I've just returned from my interview. I'm hugely confident that I didn't get it. The occasion was probably most notable for the young person's choir singing "Mad World" by Tears For Fears as I left the premises. Probably not the best song for a long term unemployed/underemployed person to hear, but it provided a suitable backdrop to my melancholy mood.  I've picked up a last minute spot at The Blackout tonight, so it's back off to Up The Creek shortly. AND I FIND IT KIND OF FUNNY, I FIND IT KIND OF SAD, THE DREAMS IN WHICH I'M DYING ARE THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD. EDIT 25/12: Obviously, I didn't get it. I'm the master of sitting awkwardly in a car park for half an hour having badly mistimed the amount of time required to make a journey to an interview. Again, I feel better about this in retrospect. If only because I've got a new job and made some progress blah blah blah etc. But it will certainly be an integral scene in the si...

Last night, I went to the Dogstar in Brixton for one of Laugh Out London's increasingly popular gigs. Indeed, I had procured one of the last two remaining tickets the best part of three weeks ago. Holding the evening together was Tom Webb, someone I've gigged with many times and invariably a safe pair of hands as MC. He was given a great deal of fodder to work with tonight, with an IT specialist blurting out apropo of nothing that she was ignorant about hardware. One of those evenings where the "characters" in the audience revealed themselves largely unprompted. Having seen his last three Edinburgh shows in various incarnations, I know what I'm going to get from David Trent. A man standing in front of a projection screen mocking various videos from around the web. I had grown a bit weary of the formula and the subjects of his ire have not changed dramatically. In the past he's focused on Google Glass and Nick Griffin, tonight it was the Apple IWatch and Kat...

Previous Weight: 21 stone, 4.5 pounds. New Weight: 21 stone, 2.5 pounds . Weight Loss: 2 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 0.5 pounds . Yeah, back in the black. Barely. I don't think I had a tremendously disciplined week (I seem to recall there being mini Mars bars, pancakes and Lindor) but I've managed to arrest the decline, it seems. I need to lose about ten pounds to get back to where I was before Christmas and that's got to be my goal in the short term. On the Slimming World plan, I am permitted up to 15 "syns" a day and as of 5:30pm have not exceeded that number, which is a start. Off for more comedy watching with Darren Maskell tonight at the Dogstar in Brixton. A review will follow tomorrow, I should imagine.

The Football League held their annual awards ceremony last night and presented the Tom Finney Award to Kevin Phillips. The award is essentially the FL's equivalent of a lifetime achievement gong and in my view, there is no candidate more deserving. He is simply the best player I've seen to put on the red and white stripes and play for Sunderland. In August 1999, my father and I made a rare trip to the Stadium of Light to watch the newly promoted Sunderland play Watford in the Premier League. I remember one thing only from that match. Phillips picked up the ball on the edge of the penalty area and the crowd rose to its feet. I rose with them, but being 11 years old and rather small, couldn't see the pitch. Between the arms of the two spectators in front of me, my vision was restricted to the right hand corner of Watford's net. A second later I saw the ball fly into that tiny pocket of space. Bedlam followed. Sunderland went on to complete the first of two consecutive...

A day on, £18 is still too much to pay for a cassette tape. But Death Cab For Cutie's Kinsugi is a rather good record and "The Ghosts of Beverly Drive" is a stone cold banger. There's not much else to say about today. Another typically busy Sunday shift at work, with 720 through the doors of the studio. Other than that, I was invited to my first interview for an accounts role which will be this coming Thursday. I also neglected to mention that I officially passed my AAT Level 2 qualification this week. Which is obviously pleasing. I've mostly been brushing up on interview technique and the finance sector. As someone who has had very little success in them, I'm somewhat conflicted about interviews. While they do represent an opportunity, I often find myself overwhelmed by the situation. That feeling is exacerbated in this instance by the fact it's my first interview in a new sector.  In the past I haven't always presented myself in the best way and ...

Today, I participated in my second Record Store Day. For the uninitiated, RSD is an event that takes place on the third Saturday of April each year, celebrating independent record shops with specially pressed vinyl releases. Last year, I visited my record shop of choice, Banquet Records in Kingston. I got there at about 7:30am and gained admission at around 11am. By that time, most of the coveted releases had gone, although I did succeed in picking up The Muppet Movie soundtrack. Because Banquet make their remaining/late arriving releases available online the following Saturday, I succeeded in filling most of my gaps. I was uncertain how to feel about the experience. It's certainly no fault of Banquet's that they're a popular destination on RSD and it seems to have become a greater issue this year. They reported yesterday that their first queuers arrived at 3:30pm on Friday, 16 and a half hours before the store was open to sell the limited edition items. I think most rati...

A relatively uneventful day yesterday at work was followed by a trip to Ryan's Bar in Stoke Newington to watch a couple of Edinburgh previews. Accompanying me were my friends Joanna and Charlotte, as well as TV's Darren Maskell. With the Edinburgh Festival not starting for another three and half months, I was curious to see where these shows were in the development process. Darren revealed that he had seen an unnamed act earlier in the week perform a 20 minute "preview", spending approximately a third of that time telling the audience that it wasn't ready. I feared a similar occurance, but both acts made it to the obligatory hour mark. Holly Burn was first up, in character as a hyperactive Geordie teenager. The conceit, such as it was, seemed to be that Holly had rescued the girl from her squalid Newcastle life to put her on the road to showbusiness stardom. How much you enjoyed this depended on your penchant/tolerance for screeching voices, overacting, strange ...

Previous Weight: 21 stone, 2 pounds. New Weight: 21 stone, 4.5 pounds . Weight Gain: 2.5 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Gain: 1.5 pounds There's a stage in one of the bootlegs of Daniel Kitson's Edinburgh shows where he stops mid thought to ask himself "Was there more material in that bit? No, there wasn't. Wait, yes, yes there was" before telling the audience "It takes guts to be this incompetent". Well, despite setting up a section of the blog to declare my weight every week, I am now heavier than I was at the start of the year. I feel that that is an act of incompetence that should be admired. Here's the thing. I just want to eat and eat and eat all the time and am continuing to find new and preposterous ways to do so. Last week I ate an entire cake shaped like a sheep from the Co-Op. It was freaking delicious but an unbelievably stupid thing to do. For the record, it was basically just jam, sponge and buttercream but with icing for the sheeps ...

Today marks the 26th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, where 96 football fans lost their lives at an FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield. It's something that continues to resonate with all football fans. That a group of fans of any team could go to a football match and not come back is something that's very difficult to come to terms with. It also provides a reminder of a time in the not too distant past, where supporters of a sport that I and many others love were branded as hooligans and criminals.  It is my hope that the findings of the new inquest into the tragedy (currently ongoing and set to resume in Warrington next week) provide some closure for the families involved. Not only have they suffered the loss of their loved ones but also years of obfuscation on the part of the authorities to erroneously place the blame on the Liverpool supporters. The Guardian has reported today on news concerning another great stadia related di...

On a post derby high, I headed to the Phoenix for Gavin Osborn's record launch show. It was hosted by Isy Suttie, easing her way back into live performance following the birth of her first child. We were treated to some of her party pieces, including her impression of Lady Gaga singing down a well. Her ability to capture and recreate the foibles of the people she meets results in a reliably entertaining set. MJ Hibbett took the stage looking like a cross between John Oliver and Danny Baker. Him and Osborn are great friends and touring buddies, sharing a penchant for low key, unassuming folk tunes. The highlights of his set were "That Guy", amusingly touching upon his fears as a mature student at university and a surprisingly touching number about the romantic angst of an IT support worker. Grace Petrie came next, describing herself as a protest singer and promising to halt the atmosphere. She's certainly one of the left's angry young women but possesses some c...

"They say April is the cruellest month. It's unlikely TS Eliot was talking about football, but..." Martin Tyler there, during injury time of yesterday's Manchester derby. Frankly, that goes straight in near the top of my favourite pieces of commentary ever. Along with the previously noted "JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII"*. Having questioned the passion, desire and fundamental direction of this Manchester United side in this blog in the not too distant past, it would be churlish not to note yesterday's 4-2 win over the rivals that have held an Indian side over us of late. I was stood in a sports bar in Bromley smiling throughout proceedings. Honestly, I can't remember the last time that watching United made me feel that happy. On Monday Night Football, Gary Neville's invariably excellent analysis focused on Wayne Rooney's contribution to the proceedings, explaining how his excellent positioning frequently caused problems...

I'm currently watching football again. I'm not entirely sure why after the horrors of yesterday. My father's current prediction for the uninspiring QPR v.s Chelsea fixture at the 50 minute mark is "If Mourinho doesn't change something here, an upset could well be on the cards". Most observers content that Manchester United v.s Manchester City match later is the first time in a long time that the home side can be considered favourites. To me, that's the inevitable precursor to defeat. But we shall see. I went out for a few drinks last night for a friend's birthday. I enjoyed it, as much as I ever enjoy the realisation that we may never leave the same small town suburbia we've existed in all our lives. I had hoped that drinking might suppress such thoughts. I'd not previously had the pleasure of Cornish Orchards cider, which was a nice drop. As was Fruli, the German brewed strawberry beer of champions. I'm off to the Phoenix tonight to se...

After the euphoria of last weekend's derby win over Newcastle, Sunderland reverted to type. An utterly embarrassing second half capitulation resulted in a 4-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. The first three goals were scored in the space of 6 minutes. Following a similarly embarrassing defeat to Aston Villa last month, it's an outcome that's difficult to fathom. These players are seemingly uninspired to perform in front of crowds of more than 40k, humiliating their supporters with drubbings doled out by bottom half opposition. I've never been more certain that Sunderland will be relegated to the Championship at the end of the season and deservedly so. But with Burnley currently 1-0 down to Arsenal at half time and with QPR to play Chelsea at home tomorrow, they will in all likelihood remain in 16th place at the end of the weekend. I'd rather just be put out of my misery at this point. Speaking of being put out of my misery, I was struggling to sleep in the early hours...

Today has brought an end to my long and turbulent association with Megabus, following a 1 hour 45 minute wait for my coach home from Nottingham this afternoon. We've had some fun times. And by fun I mean "profoundly uncomfortable". It's difficult to imagine a time when I has the physical and mental fortitude to travel from London to Edinburgh and back via Megabus. I am too old for this bollocks. I'm throwing myself at the mercy of the rail network from now on.  Last night's gig certainly had the virtue of brevity, with three acts each doing ten minutes. There was a decent crowd of about 50 in the basement of Das Kino, a cinema and table tennis themed German bar. They were largely up for it, fortunately. Having listened back, I thought my ten was solid if unspectacular. I suspect though that when I gig in new places in an attempt to impress new people, being solid but unspectacular isn't enough. I also elected to keep the microphone in the stand and looki...

Last night I went to David and Polly from Up The Creek's new gig, with standing room only at The Ivy House in Nunhead. Able support was provided by Kae Kurd's musings on gentrification in Brixton and Katy Lucas' vindictive songs. The evening was kicked off by Pat Cahill, whose offbeat sensibilities I've always been a fan of. His recreation of sabotaging a hippie's drum circle with his lack of rhythm proved a particular highlight. It's a stoney hearted person who can't find something to enjoy in his finale "Tapping On An Old Man's Helmet" where he uses mime to great effect. Headlining the evening was Jeff Innocent. The 60 year old circuit veteran never fails to entertain with his no-nonsense material about life in East London. It's a superbly well honed persona, capable of making eloquent points and touching on issues surrounding stereotypes before subverting one. After sensitively acknowledging the gender politics issues surrounding the us...

This definitely counts as a daily blog. Definitely. I went to work today. The nature of my job means that I am not at work more often than I am at work, so that's worth making a note of, surely? On the way I listened to A's "Hi Fi Serious", a record that I haven't heard for years but repurchased from Poundland the other week. It still stacks up as a decent entry level rock record and the guitar solo in "Pacific Ocean Blue" is absolutely tremendous. I choose to forgive them for the couplet "I want to be the grass underneath your feet, I want to be the shops on your high street". I'll also forgive them for calling themselves "A". It was supposedly on the basis that they would be first in the CD stacks in record shops. The band clearly didn't anticipate the rise of the internet age where predictably they've become ridiculously difficult to search. They seem to be doing a one off gig headlining the fourth stage at the Down...

Previous Weight: 20 stone, 12 pounds. New Weight: 21 stone, 2 pounds . Weight Gain: 4 pounds . Total 2015 Weight Loss: 1 pound .  This very quickly became one of those weeks where I simply didn't give a toss about what I consumed and am paying the price here. It's not really ended. I'm eating a cake right now. But I checked the calendar and saw it was Easter which my mind interpreted as "permission to eat all of the chocolate in the world". As a result, I've pretty much done that, tipped back over the 21 stone mark and the result is that I'm practically the same weight now as I was at the start of the year. But hey guys, we're all going to die so what does it matter? Am I right? Who cares if I succumb to heart disease and multiple organ failure several years before the average life expectancy of a British male? Yeah?

There are certain things that never change about working at the National Trust. The main one is that on bank holidays, we are busy. A sizable 812 people came through the door of the Studio during my four hour stint, with probably close to 2000 through the main gates. The car park was already closed at 11:45am with a 15 minute queue backed up down Mapleton Road and Hosey Road. The punters at least got to enjoy a lovely day in the sunshine for their troubles, with Cadbury eggs and nature trails aplenty. The National Trust and Winston Churchill will be two of the themes of the stand-up show I've started writing, entitled "The Wilderness Years". As I put it on Facebook earlier: "It's about the National Trust, Winston Churchill, loneliness, depression, romantic failure and cruise ships, with lashings of the self-deprecating wit you've all come to know and tolerate". Those are the topics that I'm hoping to cover, although it's very much subject...

No more need be said. Haway. EDIT 25/12: But of course, I'm going to say more anyway. Newcastle fans will often claim their team's superiority over their neighbour's up the road in Wearside. But the statistical evidence has not been with them for an awfully long time. At the time of writing, Sunderland have beaten Newcastle six times in a row*. This one was number five and one of the less spectacular victories of recent times. But it was settled by a goal worthy of winning any match. A long clearance from Costel Pantimon was met by Steven Fletcher who headed the ball into the path of Jermain Defoe. Defoe hit a first time volley on an absolutely flawless trajectory into the top corner, with precious little that Newcastle goalkeeper Tim Krul could really do about it. I believe this was the same weekend that Charlie Adam scored from his own half at Stamford Bridge in Stoke's match against Chelsea, so it was a bit overlooked. But nonetheless a ray of sunlight in what ...

Having concluded House of Cards, my Netflix viewing has moved on to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Ellie Kemper plays the titular Kimmy, a 29 year old woman attempting to build a life for herself in New York City having spent 15 years underground as part of an apocalyptic doomsday cult. She becomes room mates with Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), a struggling would-be actor, finding employment as the nanny for the wealthy Voorhees family. It is, to be honest, a totally ridiculous premise. This is Tina Fey's new project and for anyone familiar with her work, that will be apparent from the off. Comparisons with 30 Rock are inevitable, not least as the two shows seem to share an almost identical setting, very similar incidental music and Jane Krakowski. Krakowski plays Jacqueline Voorhees, an affluent, pampered, vain matriach who is not a million miles removed from her character in 30 Rock, the diva Jenna Maroney. The dialogue is also a reflection of the scattershot style of joke writ...

This Easter has a bit of a Christmassy feel about it, at least in terms of overeating and far too many football matches on TV. I can confirm that the new Cadbury popping candy and jelly ice cream is a bit of a mixed bag. Popping candy very much a welcome addition, the jelly pieces very much not so. Also, you should not eat a whole tub of it when you're allegedly trying to limit your calorie intake. Saw Bournemouth draw 1-1 with Ipswich and Derby throwing away a lead and a man advantage to draw 2-2 with Watford. With 2 points seperating the top 4 and just 1 point separating the next 4, it looks fascinatingly poised for the end of the season. I would not be adverse to seeing the current top 2, Middlesborough and Bournemouth, promoted automatically. Both play excellent attacking football. As I've discovered on my various travels this year so far, the Championship is a fun league. I just hope Sunderland aren't playing in it next season. On that front, it's the Tyne-Wear...

A largely quiet day today. Went into town for a frappuccino, a Crème Egg McFlurry and a trip to the gym. Because y'know, I'm a complicated guy. I also went to Iceland and discovered the existence of the Pot Noodle Easter Egg. I find the existence of such a thing unfathomable. If it was an actual Pot Noodle with an egg in the top, I could understand. Having done a small about of research, I've discovered there is also a Marmite easter egg. It would be the perfect gift from someone who hates me. The TVs in the gym have seemingly stopped showing Al Jazeera in favour of a more traditional selection of Sky News, BBC1 and ITV1. I was treated to my favourite subtitling typo of all time during the BBC London section of the news at 6. "That's the Ken Dodd news we want to hear". I got home in time for Judgement Night at the Manchester Arena. Not as I had hoped, the Almighty rocking up to Earth ahead of the Rapture, but a night of Premier League Darts. The "judg...

Fortunately, I've not been subjected to too many April Fool's Day shenanigans today. My friend Darren Maskell briefly attempted to convince me that it has always been his dream to watch Great Britain play ice hockey in Nottingham. The Bishopsgate pub and open mic comedy night venue Dirty Dicks sent me an email informing me that the name of the pub was to be changed to Dapper Dicks. Woefully unfunny. Anyway, I had my last exam today at AAT Level 2. It concerned computerised accounting. I think I completed all the tasks moderately successful but made a couple of errors with the final reports. To what extent I am marked down for those will ultimately determine whether I pass or not. But I've put a lot of work into this over the past three months, so I'm not going to beat myself up about the outcome. If I have to retake, so be it. But I won't find out for another two weeks. I'm looking forward to resting over the Easter weekend before heading back on the jobs trai...