tear down the old

So, one month until voting day, my fellow enfranchised citizens. The Tories' hideous billboard campaign has already started. Some public-spirited soul in Hackney took advantage of a burst of wet weather to pull down the bottom right-hand sheets from the latest one, thus removing the party logo, which is replaced with the Orange ident. You see, Mother Nature is a socialist.

The hardier amongst you may care to journey down to dingy Deptford (birthplace of Squeeze) this weekend, to a two-day event called the Fleamarket II. Keshco will be there, amongst 50 other artists displaying their work; say hello, press the flesh, put it away in a suitable drawer. The art is on show from 12-6 both days; followed by a varied programme of music through the evenings. Keshco will be playing (plus projections) on the Sunday, along with the Swedish Folk Song Project, Nigel Burch & the Fleapit Orchestra, and Mandicant. Do come along, it looks set to be a veritable cornucopia of curiousities and creativists. We'll have CDs, badges, and maybe a DVD to sell or swap. In the meantime, if you have been, then carry on and you'll know where to find the bathroom.

fantastic funnymen

Keshcologists! The new series of "That Mitchell And Webb Sound" begins on Thursday night, beamed out through the skies (and this is the amazing part, quite invisibly) from those boffins at Radio 4. I do more than urge you to listen. I point you towards the nearest radio set and hand you the ear-freshening buds. You don't know how to work these modern machines of metal and microchip? Well come round to mine and have a listen from here. I'll not have anybody going without their weekly quota of Mitchell And Webb, for the next six at least.

From heroes of the future, to hoary old warhorses (of the shed-bound variety). Sunday night. A mediocre Channel 4 programme about pop videos. Aphex Twin secretes himself about halfway down the list, the filthy so-and-so. Suddenly the screen cut to a statement read by his "representative"... Frank Sidebottom. Of all people. How the heart soared, much as if I had inadvertently discovered my old Transformers sticker album (long since gathered to God). Even better, there was no Little Frank in sight. Check out the great man's site. Read his newsletters. Listen to his records. Visit Timperley Aquatics. You'll gush. If you're loose that way. He's trying again, the mojo rediscovered? Has he been waiting for us to catch up, or has he just caught up with his overdraft and suddenly has time on his hands for papier-mache larks? Should I fear he'll be taken up by Hoxton hipsters and leave us behind, the Spec-chums and soggy soldiers who made up his constituency for the best part of the last two decades?

I am spending all my spare hours curled up with felt pens and some homemade animation grids. Intensely satisfying for an otherwise sullen elf... you can see the results very shortly, via the Keshco site. Or maybe I'll keep them to myself. The Mustek DV4000 is very light, but hardly a prestige product. Meanwhile, people with more money make worse things look better on high-end equipment. Hey ho. Let's stick some Pram on, shall we?

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...