Writer's Block

Oh lord, it is too hot today. And tomorrow threatens to be the hottest day in living memory. I've been consuming rocket lollies like some sort of madman. Fortunately, I can bypass my inability to get to sleep by watching USA vs Germany in the World Cup semi-finals. Today was made better by the news of the return of The Wonder Years, who have become one of my favourite bands over the past couple of years. Their 2013 record "The Greatest Generation" has become one of my favourite albums, full stop. It's a 13 track whirlwind through what it is to be young, what it is to be depressed, what it is to aspire to do better and to achieve.  I don't think I've ever related to any lyric as much as "Jesus Christ, I'm 26. All the people I graduated with all have kids, all have wives, all have people who care if they come home at night. Jesus Christ, did I fuck up" from "Passing Through A Screen Door". I'll write about that album more in depth...

What a lovely day yesterday was. The sort of day that temporarily makes you forget that your life is going completely awry. In something approaching a good mood, I went to the beautiful Regents Park Open Air Theatre to see Simon Amstell's last performance of "To Be Free". Alex Edelman opened the show, largely reprising the material he had performed on The John Bishop Show the night before with some additional musings about Glastonbury. It was an assured 25 minutes, thought his newer material is not yet at the standard that earned him the Best Newcomer crown at Edinburgh last year. There's currently a vast mirror behind the stage at the theatre which is being used.during the week for a production of "The Seagull" by Anton Chekhov. It feels like an appropriate backdrop for an hour of Simon Amstell's introspective musings. I've related to his bleak existential mindset in the past (he ended a previous set with the words "Remember, death is comin...

As I write this, it is ten to three in the morning. My body clock is a bit out of kilter. Or rather it feels like someone has smashed my body clock against the floor and it's in a permanant state of malfunction. I suspect contributory factors include my medication and poor general physical state but we'll put that to one side for the moment. The current insomnia situation proved useful in watching England vs Canada in the Women's World Cup quarter finals in its entirety, with a 12:30am kickoff BST. We suckerpunched the Canadians with two goals in the first quarter of an hour. Canada dominated the rest of the half and scored courtesy of yet another error from Karen Bardsley in the England goal. Bardsley then went off with an eye injury, throwing in Siobhan Chamberlain at the deep end. Fortunately she didn't have a great deal to do and coped admirably. Canada were below par but England did well at nulifying their attacking threat in the second half, save for a couple of...

Over the past 9 months I've had six free Vue cinema tickets at my disposal. I used the last one yesterday on a screening of Mr Holmes, completing a run including Interstellar, Birdman, While We're Young and Still Alice. An ailing 93 year old Sherlock Holmes (Sir Ian McKellen) has retired from public life, living in Dover with his housekeeper Mrs Munroe (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker). The plot centres on his final case, an attempt to correctly recall and retell a case that has been misrepresented in prose by his old charge Dr Watson (who it is implied has written the Arthur Conan Doyle stories). There's fun to be had with the notion that Holmes lives in same world as his stories, particularly when he reacts in disdain at a cinema screening of one of his fictionalised tales. Anyway, needless to say we are some way away from Guy Richie's pugilist interpretation of the character here. It's a mellow, thoughtful 100 minutes with McKellen excelling in t...

I'm going to be doing some volunteering with the Ben Uri Gallery at Somerset House and went to a training day there yesterday. The gallery is named after Bezalel Ben Uri, a master craftsman from The Bible. Nine years prior to the formation of Ben Uri, the Bezalel School of Art was formed in Switzerland, so the founders elected to use the second half of the name for their new institution. The challenge of getting on top of a collection in terms of knowledge can be tricky but there was a great deal there of interest. The exhibition is a generally chronical look at the history of Jewish emigre art and the history of Ben Uri. My highlights were the particularly haunting "Merry-Go-Round" by Mark Gertler, depicting soldiers on a carousel at the height of World War I and "D-Day Preparations/The Briefing" by Barnett Freedman, an official War Artist, depicting a scene at a military base in Portsmouth.  Celebrating the centenary of Ben Uri, the exhibition is entitled ...

Who doesn't enjoy a blog written in the small hours of the morning because there's no time to write it tomorrow? It's good to take some time away from the voices in my head that amongst other things are keeping me from sleep. I listened to the episode of WTF with Marc Maron featuring Barack Obama and thought the President came across very well. I wasn't expecting him to speak with any great candour, but it was an interesting conversation touching about his motivations, his family life and relationship with his father. Maron gently steered towards some interesting topics of discussion while giving Obama the space to talk at length. Unusually for WTF, the podcast was recorded last Friday and released on Monday, giving the interview a sense of immediacy. Maron took the opportunity to ask Obama about the Charleston shooting a couple of days previously. His response went as far as I felt he reasonably could in terms of expressing a desire for gun legislation ("It...

Back to the Star and Garter in Putney last night for another gig with the We Are Funny Project. I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind going into it and I wasn't entirely sure which material I was going to do, which is unusual for me. I know many comedians who go on with a handful of bullet points in their mind to work from. I pretty much have to know every word that I'm going to say. There was a point during yesterday's set where I asked how long I had left, which is a bit hypocritical when it's something that annoys me in other comedians. But if you are going to lose your place, the place to lose it is at an underpopulated open mic night. I believe there were about four punters to compliment the group of acts and given those circumstances I thought I did a respectable job combining old and new material. A couple of bits have a future, while a couple of others won't. I was also pleased to get some solid adlibbing in and to stay "in the room" to ...

I have approximately seven minutes to write a blog today before I'm off out into London to see my job coach and to do another spot at We Are Funny in Putney. With that in mind, I wish to congratulate England's women on their stirring come from behind 2-1 victory against Norway last night, exhibiting the sort of character that is seldom seen from the male counterparts. They play the hosts Canada in the early hours of Sunday morning in what should be a tight contest*. A long term listener of Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, I was surprised and intrigued when he announced last week that President Barack Obama would be appearing. I've greatly enjoyed his long form interview podcasts over the past few years and the show has gained traction and popularity in that time. But I (and I suspect many others) didn't think it would necessarily attract the attentions of the Commander In Chief. I plan to listen to it in full on my journey out today. * We won! Suck it Canu...

I went to see Spy this afternoon. It concerns Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy), a desk bound CIA agent helping to direct her partner in the field, Bradley Fine (Jude Law) to locate a nuclear bomb which is to be used to blow up New York City. On a mission to ascertain the weapon's location, Fine is terminated by Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) who informs the CIA that they possess intelligence on each of its currently active field agents. The CIA then agree to send Cooper undercover to observe and report. A great deal of action and hijinks subsequently ensue. I enjoyed this a good deal more than I expected to. It's refreshing to see an action comedy that genuinely delivers on both counts. McCarthy is a fine comedic talent, but here she demonstrates an ability to carry a film with a well rounded likeable character. Byrne also excels as the part spoiled brat, part psychotic killer Rayna. Jason Statham nearly but not quite steals the show, showing an aptitude for self-parody as Rick Fo...

Save for procuring a card featuring one of Matt from The Telegraph's excellent cartoons, this Fathers Day has not been greatly different from any other Sunday. Another busy work day saw 1059 people visit the Studio, the second busiest this year following May's Bank Holiday madness. We've invariably popular at the weekend but it's still quite unusual to break four figures. In typical form, my Dad and I then proceeded to lament England U21's uninspiring performance against Sweden, belatedly getting away with it courtesy of a late Jesse Lingard winner. He certainly hit it true, the undeniable highlight of a dire encounter*. I vaguely hinted towards an introspective blog yesterday which I've since lost the enthusiasm for. It wasn't tremendously different to things that I've said before. At 27, I'm ashamed of the position that I find myself in and I regret some of the decisions that I've made (or not made) in the past. But if I'm to put myself i...

If this blog has any devoted followers, they will have noticed that I have stopped monitoring my weight on a week by week basis. I have elected to leave Slimming World, for the time being at least. I have weighed myself at home and assuming that the scales there are vaguely similar to the ones I own (perhaps presumptuously), I am roughly the same weight now as I was three weeks ago. Anyway, in a vain attempt to offset my issues with gluttony, I have returned to the gym, with today being my third visit this week. I invariably do 3 miles worth of brisk walking/jogging, 5000m on the rowing machine and some cool down cycling. Generally there's little else to report. The bank of TV screens above the treadmills have recently been tuned to Sky News. The debate about the extent to which Sky News is becoming some sort of British equivalent to Fox News will have to wait for another time. What has struck me on my visits this week is the high volume of really shit news at the moment. I kno...

Yesterday saw the opening night of the first ever Croydon Comedy Festival, an event largely consisting of Edinburgh previews that will run into mid-August. Many of the gigs will take place on the outside stage of the Oval Tavern, a reasonably high platform in front of a selection of picnic tables. I was a bit sceptical about how this would work and indeed opening act Caroline Mabey struggled to engage the whole audience, some of whom were clearly more concerned with having a pint and a natter than watching the show. I'll touch upon the unacceptable standard of audience behaviour at pretty much all the live performances I attend some other time. It appeared most of the 50-odd crowd had come to see Matthew Crosby, Ben Clark and Tom Parry, collectively known as Pappy's and were in rapt attention throughout their hour long set. The trio are clearly working back towards match fitness on the live scene having spent the past couple of years focusing on their BBC3 sitcom "Badult...

This is one of those particularly quiet weeks in a particularly quiet life. It seems to me that for better or worse, football was the glue holding this blog together. Even with the Women's World Cup and the upcoming Under 21s European Championships, I am bereft. Still, off to watch sketch trio and mega legends Pappys* in Croydon in a bit.  I would like to flag up this post from Stephanie Wittels which I read last night entitled "The New Normal"*. It concerns the aftermath of her brother Harris' death in February at the age of 30. Harris was a hugely talented comedic writer and performer and it's a very difficult but a very important read. She's particularly insightful on the nature of grief and the form of anger that it can take. I consider myself exceedingly fortunate that to date, I have not lost anyone close to me in these sorts of circumstances.  EDIT 25/12: I read this article again recently and again it hit me right the gut. Harris' second appea...

A largely uneventful day today. I misjudged how much it would cost to post a particular item I had sold on Ebay, resulting in me losing money on it. Tremendous. One must live and learn, I suppose. Consoled myself by perusing HMV's increasingly impressive vinyl selection and chatting to my friend Bobby who works there. I elected to continue my Death Cab for Cutie collection by picking up "Narrow Stairs" on CD. In other news, the Raspberry and White Chocolate Frappe at Caffe Nero is sadly something of a disappointment*.  This evening saw a better performance from England's women against Colombia, with a 2-1 victory. They were good value for their 2-0 lead at half time (Carney reacting sharply to a parried Houghton free kick and a Williams penalty) but couldn't maintain the verve and energy in the second half, conceding an injury time goal for the second match in succession courtesy of the superbly named Lady Andrade. I expect that this lack of concentration will c...

Off to the Bloomsbury then, for the annual Resofit benefit for Resonance FM. I've probably seen Daniel Kitson more than any other comedian other the past ten years. I'm ultimately very biased about him. I will always enjoy watching him do stand-up and as MC he was on sparkling form, riffing silly ideas off the top of his head, bantering (his mock indignation at a pregnant couple of latecomers was a particular delight) and warming the audience up to perfection. The perfect host and the funniest comedic performer in the UK. I'm not prepared to debate that. Stewart Lee was up first. I had a conversation with one of my friends on Facebook in the small hours of this morning. Of Mr Lee, I said "He is both one of my favourite comedians and supremely frustrating". Last night's was a technically accomplished performance but I couldn't exactly endorse the subject matter. I'm uncomfortable with the notion (as expressed by Lee) that anyone who flies an England...

It is Darren Maskell's birthday today. Happy birthday Maskell. We are celebrating by going to the Bloomsbury Theatre in old London town for Resofit, a benefit gig for the Resonance FM radio station. It will involve the two of us watching Daniel Kitson do stand up for something like the 100th time, along with Stewart Lee, Kevin Eldon and all sorts of other names. My attempts to sell all of my possessions on Ebay continue apace. I have sold four items for £8.45, including two vinyl singles, a t-shirt and a beanie hat. It appears my hopes of evading financial ruin through online auctions will not come to pass. Yes, this is another one of those blogs where I have nothing to say and no time to write it in. I for one am looking for 2016 when this madness will end.  EDIT 25/12: The madness is so close to ending, Richard. Hang in there. In the meantime you've got to try and find another 100 words for reasons that you yourself don't understand any more. There's no point in...

Whether it's the warm nights or my imbalanced mental state, I am not sleeping well at the moment. Both are probably factors. I sweat a lot generally but even more so at the current point in time, while that the part of my brain that has taken to informing me that I am a useless piece of shit is still very much in operation. The upshot is that I am back on my depressive sleeping pattern from a couple of years ago. I've also taking to napping in the afternoon, which might be permissible were it not the fact that I sometimes don't wake up until the afternoon in the first place. Anyway, I will shortly be off to Hoxton to celebrate the birthday of social butterfly Darren Maskell. I imagine that the great and good of London's alternative comedy scene will be there. Fingers crossed that there will be at least one mover there and possibly even a shaker. I travel armed with John Robins' "This Tornado Loves You" which has just been released via his Bandcamp page. ...

It has in the main been a lazy Saturday. Yesterday I picked my parents up from Ebsfleet following their European train jaunt and only suffered a couple of anxiety attacks when confronted with the challenges of a solo trip on the M25 near rush hour. Apparently the other drivers don't like it when you're not 100% sure which lane you need to be in when going around a roundabout. Still, I'll chalk it up to experience. I also witnessed an accident on the way back, where one car inexplicably shunted another twice on the other side of a roundabout. I'm yet to commit such an error or be on the receiving end and touch wood, that'll be the case for a while. Anyway, the upshot is that I've spent most of today in my pajamas eating marzipan filled chocolates with the image of Mozart purchased in Saltzberg whilst watching Season 2 of Community on Netflix. As always, I've become distracted by football, with John O'Shea reminding Sunderland fans what they're missi...

In between three music gigs, I went to The Star and Garter in Putney on Tuesday night for We Are Funny's weekly open mic bonanza. I've been putting off writing about it in part because I had been convinced that I'd died on my arse. Having listening to the recording back a couple of times, I can identify 24 different laughs during my 11 minute opening set and have thus concluded I was a little bit hard on myself. I'm not normally that forensic in terms of analysing my set, but on this occasion I found it somewhat reassuring. It's not an amazing hit rate, but not a terrible one either. I'd also accept that I wasn't fully on the top of my game, with the audience struggling to get behind some of my newer stuff and botching the intro to one of my sections. I stayed for most of the first half and saw acts getting a much better quality of laugh during their set, which didn't improve my poor mood at the time. There is the "going on first" variable to...

What a delight this was. I love a rock gig in an actual theatre and the Brighton Dome is an absolutely lovely venue. The staff also greeted us with politeness and warmth rather than with suspicion and a frisking. Top marks all round. The Scandals from New Jersey opened the show, who appeared to have a strong relationship with tonight's headliners (I've since discovered that Brian Fallon produced their most recent record). Gaslight have clearly influenced their brand of sharp riffed 3 minute punk rock but it certainly doesn't feel derivative during a most enjoyable 45 minute set. Having seen two examples of it so far this week, I much prefer one support act doing 45 minutes than two supports doing half an hour in terms of retaining the momentum of a show. This was my fifth Gaslight Anthem gig and I've learned to expect the unexpected. Not many bands would open with a bonus track from their most recent record (the mellow lament of "Have Mercy"). What follows...

The excellently named We Were Promised Jetpacks opened the show. The Edinburgh indie rockers seemed a decent fit to support, with their pleasant tunes made more distinctive with Adam Thompson's thick Scottish vocals. 8 minute long songs and extended outros are perhaps somewhat ambitious to perform in front of a crowd who haven't come to see you though. It was a low key start to proceedings from Death Cab For Cutie, with a muted rendition of the very good opening track from their new record ("No Room In Frame"). I wondered how effectively these songs would translate to a live setting. I need not have worried, with the room kicking into life with the energy of "Doors Unlocked And Open" and "The Ghosts of Beverley Drive". What followed was a perfectly judged set, comprising old and new material. The highlights for me were the salvo of the hauntingly beautiful "What Sarah Said", followed by Ben Gibbard's solo rendition of "I Will F...

A long overdue return to "the arts hole of Tunbridge Wells" last night for a rare opportunity to see the infuriatingly named "A". First up are MassMatiks, who are clearly very young and clearly influenced by emo. Neither of those things are bad in themselves, nor is the fact that their music is largely unremarkable at this stage. What lets them down is their singer, who has no discernable vocal talent, yelping in a cockney whine over all of their songs. Thank goodness then for Newcastle's Boy Jumps Ship, who are much more distinctive with a nice line in anthemic rock tunes. These chaps know how to write a chorus and their half hour set flew by. I will be checking out their stuff soon. A were in short, rather good fun. It's pretty much the original lineup with Andrew "Shay" Sheehy from the recently disbanded Kids In Glass Houses deputising for Daniel P Carter. Sheehy stuck out like a sore thumb, looking (and probably being) half of the age of ...

As Sundays go, this one was rather good. I invited my friends Anna, Rosie and Dasha round for lunch, one of whom in particular is frustrated that they aren't mentioned in this blog and that our relationship hasn't provided any fodder for my hilarious stand-up material. I hope this mention goes some way to placating her in the short term. It was a much more pleasant day than I had anticipated and we took to the garden patio for drinks. One of the advantages of living where I do is that it seems vaguely like I live in the countryside, although I would probably trade that for returning home from an evening engagement in London before midnight or 1am. Anyway, it appears that I can make a passable moussaka and apple pie and a good time was had by all. I then took the trip to Tunbridge Wells to the Forum to watch forgotten early 90s rock heroes "A", which I will discuss in more detail in a later blog. Much to my surprise, my parents texted to inform me that they were st...

Finally, the European football season is officially over after a Champions League Final scheduled so late that I had completely forgotten it was actually happening. There were possibly 12 minutes in this match where Barcelona's triumph didn't feel like a foregone conclusion. The opening 2, when Barca's defence appeared jittery under Juve's high pressing and in the 10 minutes that followed Moratta's equaliser, gratefully snatched after Ter Stegen could only spill Carlos Tevez's shot. Prior to that, it was a cagey first half following an early Ivan Rakitic goal in a superb move featuring every single of Barcelona's outfield players. Lionel Messi, for my money is the greatest footballer I've seen in my lifetime. He had a less imperious evening last night but still confounded Buffon with a shot that much like Stegen, could only be pushed into the grateful path of Luis Suarez. Both him and Gareth Bale have scored in the Champions League final in the season ...

I went to work this morning, rejoining humanity in the process. I worked out that of the past 72 hours, I had spent 8 of them outside my house. Which frankly is a ludicrously small amount. Most of that had been heading to Dirty Dicks on Thursday evening for a pair of Edinburgh previews. It demonstrated the bargains that are available to the discerning comedy fan at this time of the year. £5 to watch Ivo Graham and Josh Widdicombe do 50 minutes to an hour each is excellent value. There are many good reasons for me to resent the young, privileged former Eton student Ivo Graham. It's frustrating then that he's really rather good. He's quietly cultivated a strong stage persona over the past couple of years, an awkward, bewildered young man trying to make his way in the world. As he notes, the subject matter of a young stand-up comedian uncertain whether or not he's a proper adult is not exactly groundbreaking stuff. But he makes it his own with some clever writing and a f...

We're still not done with the terrible jokes and won't be for some time. Big Dick Advocaat's rolling back into town to take charge of Sunderland next season. The fans for the most part seem to be pleased about this development, an experienced manager taking hold of the reigns at least in the short term. I think it's the right call, particularly given the lack of other outstanding candidates. Burnley's Sean Dyche was the subject of a great deal of speculation in the past week. Although Dyche has done a remarkable job with limited resources, I among with many others was sceptical about him taking on the role at a club of this size, particularly having just suffered relegation. Allegedly Advocaat had declined initially to keep a promise to his wife that he was going to retire from football management. Sunderland fans have responded to the turnaround by raising £2,000 (at the time of writing) to buy Mrs Advocaat some flowers. Or rather that £200 will be spent on flowe...

I caught Richard Herring's "What Is Love, Anyway?" before it disappeared off Netflix. In it, Herring sets his stall out to "destroy love", having been intrigued by the reaction of his audiences at the end of his previous show "Christ On A Bike", who took against the idea that love was equally as flawed a concept as religion. Spoiler alert: After an entertaining (if baggy) 90 minutes, he fails to destroy love. I would have liked to seen the show in its original 60 minute Edinburgh Fringe incarnation. Unusually for a DVD recording, we get both 45 minute halves of the touring show. This naturally causes a loss in momentum and serves to highlight some of the less strong material earlier on. The first half largely focuses upon Herring deconstructing a poem written by his teenage self, pompously condeming a promiscuous boy he knew at the time. It's funny, but undeniably goes on a bit too long. The tropes I've come to associate with Herring are us...

After dropping my parents off at Ebsfleet ahead of their 10 day railing holiday around Europe, I've had something of a quiet day. It's had quite a few hallmarks of depression type behaviour (overeating, napping, watching too much TV) but a full on mental breakdown is yet to materialise, so that's good. I'm about halfway through the first season of Community. It's well plotted and cleverly written, but lacks the innate humour of something like Arrested Development (which also possesses a stronger ensemble cast). Earlier on, I caught some tennis for the first time in a while as I flicked through matches at the French Open. Novak Djokovic became only the second player to ever beat Rafael Nadal at the tournament with a straight sets victory. Djokovic displayed the sort of form that's seen him rise to No1 in the world and Nadal was simply unable to get near him despite a spirited fightback from 4-0 down in the first set. Still, beating the best player on clay in th...

The day that us football fans thought would never come has finally arrived. Sepp Blatter's 17 year reign as FIFA President came to an end this afternoon following his resignation. My father's reaction to the news was to shout "YES!" and to do a fistpump. Which gives you some idea about what this means to football fans. The allegations made by the US authorities last week against FIFA didn't really come as any great surprise. We've all been aware that the entire organisation has revolved around corruption for years. Yet throughout, Blatter seemed untouchable. Last Friday, when he won yet another term as FIFA President, it appeared as though it would be business as usual. This morning, evidence was released suggesting Jerome Valcke's complicity in a $10m bribe to Jack Warner of CONCACAF, in return for his vote for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup. As FIFA's general secretary, Valcke's proximity to Blatter ultimately could not be ignored. P...

Nothing to say, no time to write it. Again, not doing this in 2016. I've just made Sunday lunch for next Sunday. But the people who are eating it might read this and I want it to be a vague surprise so sadly I can't say anything. Also I've been screwed over by StubHub. Yes, I know I shouldn't use StubHub as it's basically legalised touting but sometimes it can work in your favour in terms of the prices. Today it has very much not worked in my favour. Ho and indeed hum. EDIT 25/12: It was mousakka. It is probably only reasonable to say that StubHub successfully resolved the issue that I had. But it's still probably reasonable to describe their service as "legalising touting". At it's best it allows people to get cheaper tickets for gigs on the eve of the event but more often than not it seems to be used by touts to buy masses of tickets for events that subsequently sell out before being made available for hundreds of pounds over the face value. ...