Dynargh dhe'n Blogofrob

Tuesday 8th February 2005

No, look, I know I've been shit, but I've been very busy you see, what with work and Christmas and going and doing things. Lots of things, which I should have blogged, but didn't. These include:

Xfm's Winter Wonderland;

Xfm's First Friday club night at the Islington Academy;

The Producers;

The Tsunami benefit gig in the Millennium Stadium;

Ian McEwan in conversation and reading from his new novel on the South Bank;

Sunday night improvisation at the Comedy Store; and

Skiing in Champoluc, Italy.

But in between flitting to and from these dazzling events, I've been mostly crouched behind a desk, fingers tapping a yellowing keyboard, back arching into permanent quasimodoism, skin sweating in fear of doing something wrong and brain spasming with horror at the fact I chose this profession: but that's earning a living for you. I only mention it as an excuse for not posting more regularly - that and the fact that I don't own a computer so anything I do post has to be stealthily written and posted during working hours.

Of course, the rolling list of films to the right might suggest that I have had some leisure time: why waste two hours of my life watching 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' when I could be describing Ian McEwan's calm intellect in the face of nonsense questions from an audience desperate to impress, or delineating the beauty of gently carving a path down a piste sprinkled with powder snow? A good question, and one I intend to avoid answering, save to say that if I ever run into Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey or Donald Petrie I'd like to sit them down for 120 minutes and stab them repeatedly in the cerebral cortex with a rusty fork and see how they like it.

In an attempt to stop this becoming a blog just for the sake of it, I did do something noteworthy on Sunday night - Claire and I went to 'Funny Money', a comedy night held in support of Unicef.

Some of the better-known names were Sean Lock, Jeremy Hardy, Adam Buxton, Mackenzie Crook, Jimmy Carr (all brilliantly accomplished) and Arthur Smith (utter dross). These and others motored through 10 minute acts which were interspersed by the compares, Justin Lee Collins and Fearne Cotton. Such a shame. Without these two witless chancers each comedian could have got a few minutes more and I could have avoided squirming with embarrassment at this modern day Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox. They failed to engage with each other or the audience at any level. Justin Lee Collins could have got away with it if he were on his own, despite his limited repertoire of gay 'jokes' and saying 'fuck' a lot. As it was, Fearne Cotton stood at his elbow looking awkward and making redundant comments, her eyes shimmering with the fear of doing something uncool: exactly the same shabby performance she turned in at the tsunami gig - where she actually came off looking semi-professional, next to the full-time cretin Edith Bowman. So it was a bit of luck that the comedy was first class, and made for a fun evening.

70 - posted at 19:16:52
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