Get in the swing

The last few days have been enlivened twofold, firstly by grabbing a few words with delightful kitsch chanteuse Lorraine Bowen at her new fortnightly Vibe Bar residency (trendy area, anathema but that can't be helped); and secondly by the visit of my friend, bandmate and comedy partner Robert, who is a good 48 days older than your correspondent but still young at heart. We spent yesterday working on the voiceovers for an episode of our little film series, Johnny Cocktail, before the evening where we were due to play said film at the latest Creative Swing night, at Rampart (not the Lynx game) in filth-encrusted Hackney. My "Bleached Meadows" animation (burnt onto a RiDisc), albeit of uneven quality due to some parts being improv and my lack of a stable tripod, went down well with a couple of people, and then we put JC's guide to festivals (burnt onto a Datawrite) into the laptop, wherein he got into rather a strop and froze the computer. Filmgoers had to put up with a still of Robert's head mid-sentence filling the screen whilst we tried to extricate the disc. Evidently, Datawrite have some compatibility problems. Or perhaps it was a knackered laptop. Or both.

Girl sat next to Robert: Gosh, is that you on the screen? I didn't recognise you, he's very sexy!

JC in said episode is sporting an accidentally-trendy mohawk in homage to Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver". He's grown it out now.

The night was very good though. Yes. Honestly. I heartily recommend it for anyone desirous of friendly conversation and free food. If you can travel in time. Best film that we saw was a quickie titled "Delphine, The Baker's Assistant" (if I recall correctly... yes I do); you really should seek it out, yes you should. Yes. Honestly. If you fancy seeing JC (or the animation), just whisper in the old earlet...

Good gracious!

So here I am, at quarter to five in the morning, setting up this thing for the benefit of the viewing several. It's all very nice, isn't it. Just type and...

...well indeed. The inspiration for starting this should be credited to two sources; to lovely Luke, soon to be Stateside, who has had a blog of his own; and also to a Mr James Bachman, whose blog I was perusing earlier this morning in search of information about his burgeoning comedy career. Not in a stalkerish way, just.. perusing (You'll be able to hear his dulcet tones on Radio 4 in "That Mitchell and Webb Sound" some time in February). Reading about his own choice of blog, I was led to something called Movable Type, which seemed fascinating and accessible... until I read the installation instructions. Now, normally I consider myself fairly techno-literate but something in the rather starchy setup document just made me think "Bah! Un-user-friendly!" and shut down mentally. Whereon I headed for the relative ease of Blogger. And easy it is. Cheers. Can't be bothered with the other, even if it has bells on. I have bells in my cupboard.

Homemade carrot cake gives a momentary sugar rush but still the tired legs complain of poor circulation and will me to climb the wooden steps to my own little cabin in Bedfordshire. You may care to recreate the scenario; for this you need a PC with fan set to "annoying" and a CD of the Pet Shop Boys 'Fundamental' playing at low levels (therefore difficult to make out over said fan, rather akin to listening over earphones whilst on a noisy bus).

Why am I here? Could it be because I still haven't made it down to WHSmith to purchase one of their damn fine silver day-to-page diaries? We'll see. Nighty-night...