Writer's Block

I plan to write a monthly film blog in 2023, as a modest attempt to start writing again. My intention is to write mini-reviews of every film or event I watch at the cinema this year. This is the first of those. Off we go. Corsage Vicky Krieps plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Elisabeth has grown weary of her life and responsibilities, as evidenced in the opening scene where she fakes a fainting fit to get out of one of her rare public engagements. She fears turning 40 and has a somewhat turbulent relationship with her husband, who resents her failure to represent the kingdom that he claims to carry the burden of. This extends to her children, who both chastise her for her behaviour and for falling out of step with the monarchy. At the time of writing, these are certainly topical themes. An amusing scene later in the film sees her daughter compliment her grace and poise during an event, when she has sent one of her servants out in disguise to pose as her. A curious character, she’...

Starting Weight : 25 stone, 13 pounds.   Previous Weight : 23 stone. 12.6 pounds. New Weight : 24 stone, 2.2 pounds. This Month's Gain : 3.6 pounds. Total Weight Loss : 1 stone, 10.8 pounds. Well, this isn't good. A quarter of a stone gain moving me back over 24 stone and moving my total loss under two stone. It has been a pretty dreadful month and I don't honestly know what to say about it other than I have totally lost all desire and motivation. I've moved with ease back into my old patterns. When I'm sad, I eat. When I'm bored, I eat. When I can't cope, I eat. I have accepted that I'm probably going to live with depression for the rest of my life, but I'm never all that certain whether I'm just using it as an excuse for days and weeks and inaction. Nonetheless, a thousand negative thoughts are keeping me up at night at the moment.  Similarly, any forward impetus I might have had to exercise has long since evaporated. Throughout th...

I released an audio album version of my 2016 stand-up show 'The Wilderness Years' last week, because I suppose we all need a lockdown project. It is probably a consequence of wearing headphones everywhere for the past 20 years, but I'm a big fan of comedy records and prefer them to video specials. Having been an enormous fan of his for many years, I was delighted when Daniel Kitson started releasing some of his shows on Bandcamp, allowing me to relive his live work all over again. So I was excited by the idea of doing my own one.  It is the first time that I've revisited the show in depth for three years. It reminded me of the things I used to do on stage that I had totally forgotten. For example, I used to sigh a lot. I did occasionally get laughs doing it but it strikes me in retrospect as a strange performative decision. Probably a coping mechanism of sorts. As someone who constantly battles with self-loathing, I was surprised by the amount of material that still h...

Starting Weight : 25 stone, 13 pounds.   Previous Weight : 23 stone. 11.5 pounds. New Weight : 23 stone, 12.6 pounds. This Month's Gain : 1.1 pounds. Total Weight Loss : 2 stone, 0.4 pounds. I don't know how to judge this really. I am obviously unhappy with a gain after a month but am unsure to what extent I can use the lockdown as mitigation. I haven't been binge eating but I have returned to my comfort foods of choice. Macaroni cheese, cauliflower cheese, anything with cheese. The Pepsi Max continues to flow. Succumbing to the confectionery temptations of Easter has also been a factor. What has been a particular concern is the extent to which I've lost motivation to exercise. I think I've done 10,000 steps a day twice in the past fortnight and on both occasions the amount of physical and mental energy required to get through it seemed enormous. There's only so many times you can walk around your local park or graveyard without getting bore...

I hope everyone's doing ok. I'm muddling through at the moment, sleeping atrociously, eating poorly. I'm trying to stay informed, but feel that social media is having a somewhat detrimental effect on my mental wellbeing right now. I can't help but find it thoroughly dispiriting that at the time of an unprecedented global crisis, we find ourselves in the hands of the most mediocre and ill-equipped politicians in recent memory. Particularly when you consider that recent memory includes Theresa May. It's probably time to transition to one of those less lofty topics with which I am more comfortable. My father admitted the other day that he was missing football immensely and that a world without it was unthinkable. Which was somewhat odd, given that he had also watched season two of Sunderland Til I Die in its entirety. He's coping by watching the various nostalgia festivals being broadcast on Sky Sports at the moment, whilst I have retreated to FIFA 20, where Sund...

I hope you're all well and coping with the lockdown. I've been thinking a lot about stand-up comedy and writing and half past one in the morning seems as good a time as any to blurt some thoughts onto the internet. It is nearly two years since I last did stand-up, when I performed my last show 'The Wilderness Years' on five separate occasions in Brighton to a grand total of twenty people. Poor audience figures by any reasonable standard, but that's the way it goes. However, it was somewhat indicative of my failure in what I would describe as 'the hustle'. I used to treat self-promotion as something that was suspicious at best and downright vulgar at worst. There is a notorious new act/variety night in London which I have never done due to the fact that bookings are taken over the phone at a certain hour of the morning and I would rather chew off my own hands than ring an almost certainly irritable stranger. Another retrospective lowlight was travelling to ...

The second series of Sunderland Til I Die arrived on Netflix last week. As a Sunderland fan, watching it was a strange experience, particularly as I was probably more heavily involved in the 2018/19 season than any other season in recent history in terms of attending matches. The first series, documenting Sunderland's calamitous collapse through the second tier of English football, had a stronger connection with the fans. This time round the focus switches predominantly to new owner Stewart Donald and his chief executive Charlie Methven, as they and new manager Jack Ross look to plot a route out of League One. Methven has become the subject of a lot of social media attention since series two was released, an Old Etonian who perhaps inevitably ends up rubbing people up the wrong way. It is probably true to say his brusque and uncompromising style was unlikely to win many friends, but his assessments of the negative culture among the backroom staff at the club appeared accurate. Th...