I got paid today. I haven't seen my credit card bill yet, so I rang up to find out what the balance was. £4000!? Ouch! That's not right. So, I logged into BarclayCard's website to see what had cost me £4000. I had been a bit worried about the fact that I'd used the local petrol station, a petrol station that has a reputation for credit card fraud. I'd reasoned that they would surely have been sorted out by now, but perhaps they'd managed to clone my card in the few seconds they had it, right under my nose, the other day.

I read through my credit card transactions. I've actually been quite good with my credit card of late. I've been paying off the balance in full and I've been spending a little more wisely than I was. So why were there three payments for over £500 through PayPal? I haven't been buying expensive crap online have I? No. I only buy cheap crap online. This jogged my memory, though. I remember seeing three PayPal emails the other day. They were telling me about PayPal transactions pending. They were for big sums and I reasoned that these were phishing attacks. Phishing is where you socially engineer someone to divulge their personal identity information. One way of doing this is to direct them to a copy of a well-known website and get them to log-in there. Once they're logged in, you've got their login details to the real website. 1-2-3 sorted!

I'd deleted these emails relating to fictional PayPal transactions. I didn't check PayPal.

This morning I checked PayPal and found 4 fraudulent transactions from the last 2 days, amounting to approximately £2000 worth. The other £2000 on my credit card bill represents last month's transactions and the bathroom I bought in the last few days. So, I've had to go online with PayPal and dispute the transactions (one of which was automatically reversed) and then ring BarclayCard and dispute the transactions with them too. I will not be paying for this. Nor will I pay interest.

I have been very quick to point out holes in other people's online security practices - use of insecure Wireless networks, for instance. Yet, it would appear that whatever I do to protect myself from online fraud hasn't quite been enough. I'm not sure how my PayPal account has been hacked. Maybe it's an exploit with PayPal, or maybe someone's managed to either crack or intercept my PayPal password. Either way, I've changed it, and I hope that this is not a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I will be reading my online statements even more carefully over the next few months.

I do technical things for a sketch show called MySketch. Of all of the things I've gotten involved with over the years, this is rapidly becoming a favourite. I get all the pleasure of putting on a show without any of the real effort. My commitment would appear to be a meeting a few days before the show and then turning up on the night and running a quick technical rehearsal before then running the show. As a result of this, I get to steer the cast through their sketches, running the sound and the lights to keep the show flowing, and I get treated like I'm somehow doing a smashing job, when in truth, I'm just pushing a few buttons and moving some sliders, with occasional slips here and there (which maybe only I really notice).

Last night's show was the second and it was reasonably well-attended. It went pretty well too, though, as is probably the case with most sketch shows, some sketches went better than others. We overran by a bit, and we'd already started late, but nobody noticeably minded, which was nice. I'd taken along a microphone so I could do some announcements from the technical box. In addition, I was able to use it to run the technical rehearsal - announcing very clearly what all the cues meant and which bit of the action I needed to see in order to get them right. It was fun.

I like playing with faders and buttons.

I also like meeting new people, people who are a creative mind-pool of talent. That's right, a mind-pool.

I travelled to the show last night by train. I'm getting over-familiar with the Farnborough-Waterloo trip. I had my laptop with me, which was brilliant. I spent the journey writing emails. I couldn't send them, since there was no internet connection, but they sat in a queue ready for sending when I got home. I've this on trains before and it really passes the time. I wish I could gig by train more. Maybe I will. It just takes planning. So many possibilities.

Arriving in London in plenty of time, I went to the bar I was supposed to be meeting some of the show-folk in. It turned out to be where I thought it was, but with a different name than the one I'd been given. I needed the toilet so desperately that I went into this bar to use the toilet and ask where the bar I was told to go to was. That's when I discovered I was in the right place, but with the wrong name, and got myself a drink, and sat down with my laptop to kill some more time.

I ended up editing a script I'd recently received comments on and then re-reading the follow-up script I'd written in the same "series". I laughed out-loud on a couple of occasions reading this second script. I didn't remember it being all that funny. This has encouraged me to consider doing more work on it. If I had any time I probably would.

In fact, I now have time. I'm doing nothing until a week today (excepting DIY, and seeing a friend this weekend, but he's coming to me). So, maybe I'll do some more writing. I hope so. Just writing this blog is good, but it's not the only thing I want to do.

When one of the MySketch people turned up at the pub I had already gone through the script for the night's show and marked on all the cues. We went through it all and I realised that I'd made an error compiling the CD of cues, which I'd done the previous night. This wasn't a problem. I'd anticipated a need for remaking the CD and had brought some blanks. It took all of 5 minutes and I had a new CD. I am suspicious of CDs that only take 5 minutes to burn, despite having 40 minutes of music on. I'm suspicious of dodgy CD players too. This disc, played a bloody treat in the CD player in the theatre. I'm very happy. This is why you should have a nice new laptop and Sony CD-Rs to burn in it.

So, we did the show. Then I went home. It was late.

As I got to Waterloo, I realised I couldn't find my return journey ticket home. So, I did the honourable thing and bought a single (about 30p cheaper than the original return). Then I reasoned that my return ticket must have been with my credit card and if I'd lost the one, I'd lost the other. Worried about the loss of a credit card, I opened my wallet again, and found the credit card with the return ticket sitting right behind it. D'oh!. I explained this to the man at the ticket desk and he refunded me for the single right away. Very good. I don't know if this is policy, but I was polite to him and he responded in kind. It was a good exchange.

I was very hungry and contemplated getting something unhealthy to eat. There was a train leaving right away for Farnborough (well, Southampton) and the next one wasn't for quite some time. I decided to park my hunger and rush for the train. The train was running about 10 minutes late, but this was really in my favour as I managed to board it in the bizarre limbo between its allotted departure time and its actual departure.

The guard never even checked my ticket.

The laptop's battery was too low to bother turning it on.

So I listened to my MP3 player. I have a new favourite album - Twelve Stops and Home by The Feeling. It's cheesy and it's got a few surprisingly good songs on it. A bit of a softcore version Queen/Beatles/Cliff Richard (I know, Cliff!?, but not as lame as Sir Virgin, so I'm going to say that it's what Cliff should have been if he wasn't such a knob). There's no real edge to the album, but sometimes you want to have the musical equivalent of a duvet day.

Stopping only to recommend some books to someone who was reading a Kathy Reichs novel, I lstened to my MP3 player until I got off the train where I got into my car and put the same CD on my car stereo - where it's been since I got it.

Then home, via somewhere that sells late-night-sandwiches. I bought a reasonably healthy wrap and no high-calorie treats. Good me.

I read a blog by another comedian, who is prone to putting his gig number in the header of the post about the performance. I don't quite count which gig I'm on, as simply mark the number occasionally in my performing diary, which I've kept online pretty much since I started. I think it's helpful to measure your performing career in both years and also numbers of performances. In a week during the Fringe, in Edinburgh, I can do 20 odd performances and learn a hell of a lot about the craft of stand-up - much more so than in a week of doing a few gigs around the day job.

Last night's gig was close to home. It was in Reading. I was so close to home that I was even able to hang around after the gig had finished, chatting... on a Sunday... near midnight... and still not fear for my bedtime.

At the start of the night I was asked if I wanted to open or close. Without missing a beat, I opted to close. I felt a bit of a prima donna doing this, but I guess I was playing the odds fairly. I was probably the most experienced act and could, therefore, roll with the punches better regardless of how the audience were going. Opening, I might have a difficult job warming the room up, but I wouldn't necessarily be helping the rest of the night... plus there was a likelihood that a number of the audience would have left by the end of the night (which they did). So I opted to close. I don't regret it. The promoter left a message on Chortle saying that she was glad I chose this.

I still think it's a bit presumptuous to declare yourself the headline act.

Never mind.

It was a new material night. Free entry. No fee (not complaining - it was local). We were in a side of a pub - not a separate room, just a separate area. There were noise-distractions from the rest of the place and there was a fairly small audience, many of whom were acts.

The gig radar had predicted smaller numbers and a more quiet night. In addition, some of the murmurings from the young churchgoers at the back of the room had even made me fear that the audience would tail off quite drastically after the first section of the show. As it was, there was an attrition rate, but it wasn't too bad.

When I took to the stage at the end, I had dithered over what I would do and I even took a notepad with a vague running order on it. I mixed stuff about a bit and did my Britney Spears song, the one I'd forgotten the other day. It's amazing how a bit of time to internalise a song, coupled with some rehearsal (I've rescued a guitar to have in my bedroom) can really improve your chances of performing a song without screwing it up. It wasn't incredibly funny, but I've yet to learn how to make it so.

I had a really good time and by combining three things I think I made a good gig of it. It went well enough that people who had been ignoring the comedy came from other parts of the bar to see what was happening and then they laughed along too. That's good. The three things were:

1. Seeding amusement by faking merriment
2. Throwing myself totally into the performing of the material (I did that more so than usual, though not consistently)
3. Remembering to enjoy it when it was genuinely going well, thus building a momentum of enjoyment, requiring less faking

Simple really. The end result was that we all had a good time. Plus, I was feeling funny.

I think that my previous night watching Bill Bailey give a cracker of a gig that he enjoyed doing had reminded me that part of the secret of comedy is finding funny and enjoying it.

I did about 32 minutes. It's the longest set I've done this year. I've done longer sets and I can't remember for the life of me what I could possibly have included in those sets that I didn't include last night (AND last night I had two new songs!). I probably need to go back over some old recordings and find out what material I've forgotten.

I recorded this gig, as I do with most gigs these days. I listened to it this morning and the recording didn't sound like it was going as well as I remember it going at the time. I guess you had to be there. :)

I hit my 33rd birthday on Saturday. Hit is probably the right word for it. It slapped me in the face like an annual review of where the hell my life is going. It was a confusing day. I didn't know whether to be up or down. I steered myself through the day with determination, but it's very hard to feel a combination of melancholy, excitement, optimism and disappointment concurrently. I managed it.

On the up side, I spent time with family and friends this weekend. On Friday night I had a meal with my sister and my parents (not to mention my brother-in-law and niece, well, I just did). I think that I realise, at my age, the importance of family, though the price of family is sensitivity to their needs. The advantage of family is a wider context in which to set your life. I think that's a fair appraisal.

The exact counterpart of this is relationships. The advantage of a relationship with a partner is a sense of company and a wider purpose than just pleasing yourself. Yet, the cost of a relationship can be a loss of autonomy on things which you need to feel control over. The cost of a relationship can be to make yourself vulnerable. I would always recommend doing that, the benefit of having strength through a relationship should surely outweigh the risks. Yet, a failed relationship is always going to hurt.

On Saturday I had a couple of objectives. I had my parents due to visit the house on Sunday, so I wanted to make sure it was at least vaguely habitable. The toilet was broken, so I set about fixing it. This ultimately resulted in two trips to B&Q and my discovery that it was totally broken and my attempts to "improve" it had ultimately resulted in making it slightly worse, and no longer able to be repaired. So, I decommissioned the cistern and installed the bucket-flushing mechanism. I realised that any more attempts to fix it would end up in "shaving a yak". So I stopped. I guess that was wise. A bit of a waste of time.

I swept up a bit, made the house a bit more presentable, then I got into a smart shirt and went to get a shower before going to Watford for a concert. This was my birthday treat to myself. I was going to see Bill Bailey doing his "Cosmic Shindig", a special event combining Bill and the BBC Concert Orchestra. I was excited at the idea of seeing Bill live, but combining him with the BBC Concert Orchestra seemed like a masterstroke.

Exciting then... except it was tinged with a bit of self-pity. I'd originally planned to go with someone else. My ex-girlfriend. This was planned when we were no longer together, so it wasn't like I expected her to go as my girlfriend. It was also planned when she hadn't started her job, so we didn't figure that her shift pattern would make her unavailable. So, I suddenly ended up with one ticket more than I needed, and on my birthday. You can't just ask any old person to join you on your birthday for a gig - it looks a bit needy. I toyed with various permutations of gaining company to, at least, avoid the seat. I decided not to ask around more than one close friend, who was busy (more on that later).

I didn't ask around the office - too weird.

I did put a couple of offers for the ticket online. I got a couple of potential takers via MySpace and I seriously considered offering the ticket to a student who MySpace contacted me after I did a gig at his uni. I had considered how weird it would be for a 33 year old man to take a 20 year old male student for a night out in Watford. I'd feel like a gay paedophile. But, then I'm neither and Bill Bailey would probably have eclipsed the event. I thought about my own sense of desperation at what I'd become - a man desperate enough for company that he'd court the company of strangers rather than be alone on his birthday. Then I realised that I wasn't that desperate and that I was perfectly capable of going on my own and probably too proud to invite a member of my family, thus clearly intending to be a loner on the matter. Then I thought again. Here's me with a ticket for a great gig and there's a poor student who loves Bill Bailey, unable to see the gig because of money and because it's a sell out. How could I deprive the lad?

In the end, I looked at the practicalities of the matter. I decided that it was simply too much of a faff to arrange to meet this student somewhere, get to the gig in time and then drop them somewhere suitable after getting back into London, where I had a party to get to. Such a shame that some gorgeous woman didn't get in touch for the ticket - she could have come to the party with me. Oh dear.

So, I put on my party shirt and went to the gig alone. I pleased myself. I didn't notice the empty seat next to me. Before the show started, I had a pleasant chat with some people who were waiting for the doors to open. When the doors opened, I left them behind and sat on my own and watched the show. It made me very happy. I didn't have time to contemplate whether it mattered being there alone.

After the gig I went to the party and ended up playing piano late into the night. I didn't get to bed until the small hours (about 3). I was up the following morning for my family's visit.

If I didn't have so much to do around the house I would probably have a long time available for contemplation and disappointment with things. As it is, I have occasional glimpses of things I wish were going better, but my self-preservation/entertainment instincts kick in and I get on with it. It's not easy being a third of the way to 100, but I think I can manage it.

If anyone involved is reading this, don't worry, I'm not angry, I'm just impressed at the sheer scale of circumstances. I mentioned, at the end of last week, that two of my three tenants in Newcastle had decided on the same day to announce that March would be their last month of tenancy. That's their choice and tenancy contracts provide for this sort of thing. It provides a couple of problems. The first of these is a loss of income on a property which I have not been running at a profit for the last year. The second problem relates to what I was trying to do with the house, which was run it remotely by using the presence of tenants whom I know as a way of having some influence on the way it is run. With people I know there, whose behaviour is a certain sort of way, I can reasonably predict how the house will run, make requests here and there and have a good working relationship with the place.

I anticipated that people would leave and I envisaged that I'd replace tenants one by one, the other two people conveying the way things are done to the new third. Over time, all tenants would be replaced, but the ethos of the place would stay pretty much the same because they would all have a sense of how things are meant to be done. That was the original plan. To be honest with you, it was optimistic.

When the third tenant, quite reasonably, decided that living with two strangers might not be in his best interests, I found myself in a position this weekend, where suddenly a house that's a few hundred miles away from me, starts to need more of my attention than I was planning to give it at this point in the year. And money. Always with the money.

So, I guess I'll be working on keeping two houses from falling into the ground and taking my bank balance with it.

If you know anyone in Newcastle who's house hunting, now would be a good time to get in touch.

The story of the external hard disks from eBay continued today when the enclosures arrived to join the disks on my desk. I hadn't got a screwdriver with me and I was expecting to have to wait until I brought it in before I could assemble these devices. For the purpose of experimentation I opened up a box and discovered that no tools were required - save for a paperclip to release a catch. Brilliant.

I assembled and got the first drive working in about 3 minutes. I did the same with the second. Sadly, the third drive doesn't work, so now I have to go to the trouble of returning the drive for replacement before I can think about selling them back on eBay at profit. When I say profit, I, of course, mean "a slight loss". Brilliant!

You know, it's hard to be a comedian. Your success depends on whether people like you. You have to be either specifically liked or specifically disliked by the audience for it to work. Plus you have to gain the respect of your peers and the promoters in order to gain the sense of validation that you need to keep doing it, and, more critically, to get better gigs.

I played the Comedy Store in London about 15 months ago. I got audience laughter and made my set work with enough confidence to come off stage buzzing. Sadly, I was not seen as a seriously good act by the owner of the club. This is for various reasons. It doesn't matter. Although, at the time, I took it on the chin, because I almost expected it, it still bothers me to this day. Maybe one day I'll be in the place where either it doesn't bother me, or I can get a second opinion from the same person on the act that one day I will be doing.

What I'm getting at, is that walking away from a gig where either you've died, or you've been treated like a no-hoper is very difficult. It's hard to go on stage with the required swagger of a stand-up if you've got a real grasp of how poor you're either about to be, or you've been considered to be in the past. That's why the stand-up comedian is a lonely fellow, both on stage, with all eyes on the mic, or off stage, on the lonely trip home.

Last night, I watched a fellow act begin his walk of shame and, to be honest, I wasn't wholly sympathetic towards him. Perhaps now, I remember why it's so lonely. Perhaps everyone has to face the loneliness themselves, and maybe getting enthusiastic encouragement from your friends is no help. At the end of the day, it's about what you do when you're trapped in the spotlight, and what people make of that.

I've had a couple of gigs recently that I've walk-of-shame-d away from. I've also had a few which have been absolute crackers. That's the gamble, and like any gambler, I'm addicted.

I have a theory.

My theory is that people, whose name means "beautiful", seldom are.

Here's a good list of examples.

Another 200ish word short story. For why? For the hell of it.

Labels: Friday200

Given that I now, apparently, have a secretary, here's the 7 day diary forecast so that he can answer questions on my behalf.

Friday 23rd - going to my sister's house for dinner after work
Saturday 24th - a sleep in, a day of DIY and then off to see Bill Bailey in the evening (if you're a Bill Bailey fan, then get in touch - I have a spare ticket), then I'm going to a party in London after.
Sunday 25th - receiving my family at my house - maybe it will be vaguely clean and/or heated, then a gig in the evening
Monday 26th - techying for a sketch show in London
Tuesday 27th -
Wednesday 28th -
Thursday 1st -
Friday 2nd -

Yes! 4 days of nothing planned. This means I'll be doing DIY - probably fitting skirting boards or something like that. Maybe some plaster patching.

The plan for last night didn't tally with the reality. However, plans and realities seldom tally, which is probably why I'm still in the planning stage of what I'm presently working on, rather than in the making-it-reality stage; every time I get close to declaring the beginning of a new view of reality, the goalposts move. Though it would be great to drive a stake into the ground (or at least into something), and work from that, I can roll with it for the time being, or, at least, I'm going to have to.

So, planning a night out is more the sort of thing I wanted to focus on. In this case, it wasn't a heavy night's drinking or a night of debauchery. Here's what I thought would happen:

• I'd finish work
• I'd make my way into London and meet at a pub at 6pm
• The sketch group I tech for would do a run through, which I would follow on the script, marking on the sound and lighting cues
• We'd finish and I would head over to the Comedy Store
• At the store I would meet up with a comedy buddy and a couple of his friends (girls)
• We'd hang out until later on when he would be involved in the late show and I would make my excuses and get the train back
• I would have to try very hard to force myself to leave, rather than miss the already late train back

It wasn't a bad plan and it involved girls. It had a few points of failure and I certainly hadn't considered exactly what would be going on at the Comedy Store on a Thursday night, which is odd, since I've done a 5 minute open spot in that situation and know exactly what goes on there.

Anyway, very little went exactly as envisaged. The train ride to London was good. I read the Return Of The Timewaster Letters on the train and it made me laugh like a girl. Again, I was reduced to a giggling heap by this guy's writing. Brilliant. It turns out that one of the members of the sketch group I met with later on used to date him. It's a small world.

Arriving in London, the plan was already going wrong. The meeting had been rescheduled for 7pm. I went, instead, to meet with two of the group at one of their houses, somewhere I'd been before but couldn't quite remember the way to. After going a little wrong with the walking, I called up and got better directions. There was some sitting around chatting, which was nice, some confusing conversations, which was also nice, and then a dialogue which went a bit like this:

Her: Oh, my moods, sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down.
Me: Oh dear, maybe you're a bit bi-polar.
Her: I am, actually.
Me: Oh great, wrong time for me to make a flippant remark about mental health, then.
Her: It's fine so long as you take the medication. I'm on loads.
Me: Good. Good. Erm... I know a bi-polar person too. Erm. Yeah.

That could have been more awkward than it reads. It was fine. Nice people.

Anyway, we went to the pub, sat around a table, and a committee instantly formed. I stayed out of it, noting down some sound cues. In fact, there was no read through. They discussed a running order. It was fine. The people involved seem very nice and very clued up. I am glad not to have to contribute more than an offer to fade the lights up or down slowly or quickly.

The meeting ended around 9ish and I headed back into town. I reached the Comedy Store to find that my friend was alone - no ladies with him at all. Not a surprise, really. I also wasn't surprised to find that there was a show running, rather than him just chilling out at the bar. It's Thursday in London's West End, there's bound to be a show. I got "guested" in and watched the second half. The headline act, Marcus Brigstock, was a bloomin' joy to watch. A true hero. Brilliant. My friend did an open five minute spot in between acts and he got some laughs. I've got a recording of it.

The initial plan had assumed that I'd be forced into staying later in London than I intended, and then would have to hot-foot it to the station at the last minute to get back to my car. In truth, I was back on the train home at 11, which is a bit late for a school night, but not that late. Perhaps in this case, the reality was better than the plan. Though the sketch group met later and didn't do a read through, I was able to get to the Comedy Store in time. Even if they'd met earlier, the read through would have delayed me. Likewise, though the meeting at the Comedy Store was meant to be a mixed-gender more social thing, the simple case of sitting on the back row watching half a night's comedy for free, including a cracking headliner, was probably preferable.

Indeed, had the reality not deviated from the plan, I wouldn't have met my train-companion on the return journey. So, who needs plans? Plans are a waste of time, work around reality, replanning as you go.

The train-companion was a fairly drunk woman, who was sitting next to me on the train (across an aisle, which I find very good for conversation) eating some pizza. She was the worse for wear and opened our conversation by asking whether I was going to be sick on her. That is a bloody humdinger of a conversation opener. No, I wasn't going to be sick on her. Why? Apparently the woman who had recently vacated my seat looked like she was going to be.

The conversation went from there, really. I was lucid and cheery, and the woman, Katja, was not entirely in control of what she was saying and kept forgetting answers I'd given to previous questions. It took her three times of asking before I stopped pretending that I wasn't a stand-up comedian. Usually, I'm quick to claim that I am, but for some reason it made more sense to me in this instance to assert that I wasn't, but that some of my friends are. There are some people in comedy who would nod their heads in agreement to this statement, but those people can go stick their heads in a pig.

I was keen to admit that I work in IT and she told me that she was a barrister. In this short exchange of jobs, we each established, in the other's mind, that we were probably reasonable earners. I say that, but perhaps it's only me that thinks like that. When people over the age of 27 get together and talk about what they do, I'm pretty sure they size each other up as socially/financially compatible. That's my guess. Again, it may be cynical.

She did a lot of talking and I happily let her, asking occasional questions. It was pleasant enough. She was very drunk. I don't really drink, though I explained quickly that it wasn't on some bizarre moral grounds, I just don't happen to be able to fit it into my life very often. Occasionally, I do. Often I don't. Simple.

She turned out to be French, which her accent didn't really give away, and 39, which her face didn't really give away, even on closer inspection. I jokingly asked her secret of long-youth and she explained that it was a cocktail of drink and drugs. She may as well have stood up and said the following:

Hi, I'm too old, too exotic, too much of a high-achiever, and suffering with too many substance misuse problems for you, Mr Geeky Bloggery Man

As it happens, I've pretty much decided my policy on the whole people-you-meet-on-trains thing. People you meet on trains are, by definition, people you'll probably never see again. So, don't get attached and spoil it. Equally, don't worry about what you say to them, just be whoever you want to be.

It turns out that I want to be me, which is nice, and that the me I want to be is quite a sympathetic male figure that the likes of the drunk lawyer types want to give a hug and a kiss (on the cheek, well, neck, but I think she missed) goodbye to. Impassively, I allowed it. She suggested that she thought it would be nice if we should have a drink sometime, I responded by giving her my number and suggesting we do that... only kidding... I, in fact, responded by enigmatically saying something like "maybe one day we will" - woooo. She left the train thinking one of three things:

• Oooh, maybe fate will bring me back in touch with that nice man
• Shit, he wasn't interested in me, was it maybe the bit where I described my cocaine use?
• or (more likely), now, how do I get home? what just happened? was I just on a train now? where am I? (etc)

There's meeting and flirting with strangers on a train, and then there's predatory behaviour which probably ends up with nudity in the train toilet. I think I'll stick to the one which involves words only. Thank you very much.

I returned to my car, and returned home listening to Guys and Dolls. The plumbing in my house is nearly finished, but my toilet has stopped flushing - the valve which releases the water from the cistern is no longer working. D'oh!

If everything went to plan, then only the act of planning would be any fun, as everything else would have an unsatisfactory sense of inevitability about it. As it is, most of the rich experiences I've had in my life have occurred within the framework of a plan, but usually off a tangent from the expected. I prefer it that way.

Right, back to the pointless planning.

It's one of my bug-bears, the way people conduct themselves in theatres. If you've paid £50 or £60 pounds for a theatre ticket, and you have to these days sometimes, then each song costs about £3 to hear. That's more expensive than iTunes. As a result, I like to hear it all. I like to watch it all. I don't like the people around me to be talking or otherwise spoiling it. I like the live audience, and an audience that reacts to what's happening on stage, as a group, sincerely, is a great thing to be a part of.

I absolutely hate the British tradition of talking over the overture. Hello!? £3 worth of entertainment just ruined.

I also hate it when people giggle at a stage gunshot. Idiots!

Last night's show was not ruined. It was, however, detracted from by the following:

• Some talking over the entr'acte (the cast have ways of starting the show to avoid the overture being spoken over)
• Talking at the end of act one, though I think that was between a couple, complaining of:
• Someone bloody singing along - slightly out of time, not very loudly, but providing a definite local-echo of what was happening on stage!
• Exaggerated reactions to what was happening on stage - simpering, sighing, excitable giggling and other childish behaviour

Now... actually... I think it's nice that people love the show enough to be totally overwhelmed by it. I can even understand why someone might involuntarily sing along a bit - even mouth the words along a bit - I was running the songs through in my head concurrently with watching them. However, to be a constant source of disruption to those around you is selfish and ignorant.

Still, the show was so good, I was only slightly irritated. I was very busy with enjoying the way that the show has been written and orchestrated, making excellent use of the band and ensemble. You're not going to get to enjoy such examples of unison singing, belting, whispering and the splits in any other package as neatly as in Chicago.

Having read about this on another blog, I thought I'd post a link too. A victim of the London Tornado (2006) has a certain way with words.

Chicago last night was a lot of fun. I had never been sure whether the staging of it on the tour, which I saw in Newcastle a while back (2003, I think), was a cut down version or whether it was like that on the West End stage. Well, I can confirm that it's staged identically. The band are on-stage the whole time and the action happens downstage of them. It's generally quite minimal staging and it fills the theatre delightfully. Plus, when some of the big jazz instrumental numbers get going, the band really SWING! It's a joy to watch.

Oh, and the stage is full of scantily clad women.

And men.

But mainly women.

I was a little dubious about the various reality-TV-talent-quest stars in the show - an X Factor contestant and a "How Do you Solve A Problem Like Maria" Maria. In fairness to all concerned, it was a really good rendition of the show, and I enjoyed Tony Hadley in the role of Billy Flynn - although he swallowed some of his dialogue, his delivery of the songs was great. Perhaps he could consider losing a bit of weight, it would bring him back some extra lung capacity and reduce the amount of sweating.

Note to self: I should do that too.

Was it weird going to the theatre with my ex-girlfriend, her parents, and her brothers (and their girlfriends), to the very theatre that almost exactly two years previously we'd visited on our first date? No, of course not. Who would ask such a question?

It's definitely not the scintillation of a busy day in the office. I'm in a holding pattern until more meetings can happen to describe what I'm supposed to be doing next. As a result, I'm changing a document here, reading a document there, pondering the wheres and whys and generally keeping myself from dropping off. Yet, I feel reasonably alert. How can that be?

I remember previous years where my diary had become as full as it has been this month, and where I was up in Scotland a lot, spending late nights with a certain promoter, whose acquaintance was renewed last night. I remember being in the office and being knackered in between. Maybe it was the late night drive back from Scotland that tired me out. Maybe it was those first-thing-in-the-morning wake ups to get a train ride back to Newcastle. It always amused me that I got into work early if I was commuting from Edinburgh then 3 miles away.

I think, however, that I'm less tired now because there's better coffee in the office. They have a proper espresso machine in our office cafe, and they have some nice coffee to go in it. As a result, I get a really strong hit from the caffeinated substance and I feel more alert. Having said that, I'm pretty sure I used to OD on Costa coffee on my rail-journeys back from Edinburgh. I don't know. Maybe I'm actually exhausted and not realising it. Maybe I'm actually asleep and dreaming all of this. What a dull, uninspiring dream. I'm dreaming that I'm sitting at a desk typing. Duller than dishwater.

What if dishwater became interesting? That would be weird. There might be a series of TV programmes on it. Hell, there might even be a specialist Cable/Satellite channel for it. The dishwater channel. With programmes such as "Changing Dishwater", "Dishwater Swap" and, of course, "Top of the Slops".

I am overtired.

Still, at least I've got my Amazon order. Delivered this morning. A mixed bag of nuts.

Quick aside: caffeine, when used as an additive, is in fact the actual caffeine that's been taken out of coffee during decaffeination. So someone in one factory is holier-than-thou-ly making "healthy" decaf, while people in another factory are taking that factory and whacking it into Red Bull, or whatever. Brilliant! Recycling in action!

In case anyone is wondering about the story of my central heating, here it is. There are some floorboards up around the house, there are many old ripped-out-pipes. There are some newly installed pipes. My guess is that they're probably going to have to fix a pipe under a new bit of floorboard, but I'm waiting to see what happens with that. The boiler is attached to a wall. The cylinder looks nice. There's no hole in the roof yet for the flue, so there'll be no gas burning yet. The roofer can't get on the roof with his ladders owing to the overly ornate ridge tiles. As a result, there's scaffolding to go up. Hopefully today.

My middle-floor hall light isn't working.

My carpets are suffering.

My electric heater still does a cracking job overnight.

I'm not really in the house more than 7 hours a day, in most of which I'm sleeping.

Allegedly we're on course for getting heating this week. That would be good. I like the heating people, they're pleasant, polite and seem to know what they're doing.

A friend of mine noticed a sign in Reading over a pub. We trekked across Reading to see it and it was well worth it. It's pictured here. It's a classic error on the lines of "except" and "accept". Usually, the error is made with "effect" and "affect", but I think it's in the same family. Just to clarify the definitions:

Except - means "everything but".
Accept - means to receive something willingly.

Effect - is a noun, meaning the result of an action. It can, occasionally be a verb, meaning to make something (this is so rare you may as well not use it).
Affect - to do something which has an impact on something else.

So, the sign above the pub is actually saying that, when it comes to means of payment, the credit card is the one thing they simply do not accept, when what they actually mean is that they do. What prats.

Still, sometimes saying something that's the opposite is a good way of making a point. Perhaps the sign is sarcastic.

Last night's gig was a partial success from a performing point of view. I was confident and delivered a reasonable performance, until a combination of forgetting a new song (I can't get the bugger out of my head now) and being phased by an annoying, non-funny, persistent, unfrightened heckler, put me off my stride for a minute or so. However, from an audience reaction point of view, it was bloody awful. I managed to hold the room, but making them laugh was tricky. The performance was self-contained enough that they could just leave me to it. It was a little frustrating, but I made the most of it.

I have some of it recorded and in the recording, which I reviewed in the car on the way home to see how some new stuff went (variably), there's a moment where the compere, during a dry spell in terms of audience reaction, moved to a pillar opposite the stage. I asked him whether he was signalling me "time's up" or whether it was just a better view he wanted. He chose the latter.

"Ah, so you want to see how it's done, eh?" I asked, which is actually quite funny, given that it was really going poorly. I followed it with - "This audience is laughing so hard, they're silent." which I also find funny. I think I was being funny at that point in time. I was stating the opposite... but, maybe that makes me someone who's "acceptional"?

(No, acceptional isn't a word, but it sort of wraps together these two, otherwise unrelated, strands.)

"At the end of the day she is nothing but trouble" sing the cast of Les Miserables about one of their co-workers in a factory (which is definitely a factory and not a circus). Such was the attitude displayed towards a woman who was mooching around the parked cars at a petrol station I was at tonight on the way back from my gig. I clocked her quickly as a beggar and one who'd been in the wars. Thin, possible substance abuse, missing teeth - just asking people for change, but in a way that involved wandering between parked cars and looking in the windows. People were getting very antsy about it.

After I'd finished buying the sandwich I approached her and gave her some money, after she'd told me her made-up story about needing it. Am I generous? Possibly? Possibly gullible. Or, more likely, just trying to abate a stressful situation. In truth, I smiled at her, explained that she was making people nervous about their cars and asked that, if I gave her some money, she'd leave the forecourt - for both her own good and everyone else's. She understood, took the money, got into a car, driven by someone else, and they sped off.

Thing is, I just paid her off. Maybe that was her intention. The fact that she had someone driving her about... maybe the just go around the garages begging/harrassing. Or, maybe this was someone with a genuine case of need and no easy way to express it. Either way, the problem left my immediate sphere and I guess I can't have done her any harm by being pleasant and honest with her.

The gig was middling. The new song about Libraries was funny. The new song about Britney Spears totally left my head the moment I tried to start it (I'd only written it on arrival at the venue and I've a long history of losing songs between writing them and first performing them). I need to rehearse more! I should have a guitar in bed. Not in the biblical sense - they didn't have guitars in the bible anyway.

If I were to write today's horoscope with amazing prescience, it would be as follows (I'm writing it retrospectively, so it's right, albeit cryptically so).

Oooooh. Spooky... that's so right... oooh!

Ooooh!

And.

Woooh!

This is an academic exercise, concerning why a person such as me could so easily have fallen for the girl in Subway, who proved to have such strong religious beliefs that a deep-seated incompatibility was discovered. But, had she not, and had she, perhaps, been a bit older, and had she, perhaps, had some personality traits that were compatible with my own, then here are the reasons that a man like me MIGHT have fallen head over heels:

1. She works in Subway... STAFF DISCOUNT!
2. She knows how to make a really nice sandwich
3. She is good with numbers, able as she is, to manipulate the till to make exactly the same sandwich cost less if you use the right offers
4. She agrees with me that an Oatmeal and Raisin cookie is pretty much health food
5. She is always pleasant and polite
6. She's always washed to at least food-hygiene standards
7. She remembers my favourite sort of bread - I love it when girls remember breads
8. She's a dab-hand with a sauce bottle
9. She can wield a knife near me and I'm not scared
10. She feeds me when I'm hungry
11. I only have to pay £3.49 per time I see her
12. She knows how to handle my 12" - she puts it in the toaster

This got well and truly silly, and went way beyond the 10. It turns out that I'm scraping the barrel before I've even started.

So, it's obvious.

I must actually love the woman in B&Q who sells me power tools.

I don't know who first coined the phrase "the devil's in the details", but it's apt. Today has been a day of details threatening to get the better of me. I went to the dentist to have my mouth cleaned out of plaque around the gums. As a result of this, the hygienist did her usual trick of hurting me. It's such a small area she cleaned, but it hurt a great deal. However, the fact that I've done some better brushing since last time and the fact that it hadn't been years between hygienist visits meant it didn't quite hurt as much. Yay.

This is the dentist who don't have appointments over lunchtime because they want to have a lunch break without patients. Erm... aren't people who work in the local offices going to want to come over lunchtime? Couldn't you maybe stagger your lunches to keep the place running? No? Oh dear, another detail. Still, they were much nicer to me today, when I attended my appointment, than yesterday when I dropped in to arrange an appointment, given that I'd lost their number and they'd not been given my change of address. I think they just didn't like being invaded by a recipient of their service unannounced. Weird!

More details threatened to spoil the day. There were questions on the exact location of the pipes being run in my house. I answered and then discovered that my exact answer came with a practical problem, but one which had already been solved when they rang to explain that they'd ignored me... but their answer is just as good. Still, it required me to think and be involved in the decision making process.

However, the big detail relates to the roofing. The simple fact is that my roof is not practical for a roof ladder to go on. As a result, my roofer is going to have to get scaffolding. In addition, the piece of slate they were going to put around the new flue is not the right pitch for the job, so they're going to have to get another. So the flue hasn't been put in today. This may be a big deal, or it may not. I guess I'll have to find out. Without a flue, there's no heating, but there wasn't going to be a working system today anyway. Hopefully it will all be resolved this week.

In typical busy-Ashley-fashion, my week has now been totally booked up. Here's the plan:

Monday (gone already) - DIY
Tuesday (today) - Gig in Deptford, SE London
Wednesday - Watching Chicago in West End of London
Thursday - meeting, in London, to do with a sketch night
Friday - go to North London to have dinner with my family
Saturday - a day of DIY followed by going to Watford to see Bill Bailey - anyone fancy coming?
Sunday - my family come to see my house, followed by me doing a gig in Reading
Monday - go to London to do the sketch night lighting and sound

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday are all in London. That's not a small number of visits.

Should be fun, though.

So the house will sort of be left to its own devices... or at least those of the plumbers.

Oh, and the stuff I'm working on at work is all right, except for the details... which are the most of it!

I'm presently listening to the first Travis album - "Good Feeling". Despite having a go at Travis during my set, I actually quite like them. In truth, I'm having a go at the idea of whingey music, rather than any specific band. Okay, so maybe I'm having a go at Coldplay - the excesses of their over emotional garbage... but that's not the point. Travis are quite a good band and their acoustic version of the Britney classic "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was probably one of the most useful things I ever learned to play on guitar. If only that weren't true.

For some reason they've decided to sing a song on the subject of not going of not going out with underage girls. Their U16 Girls song has all the sound moral arguments that were displayed in Gary Puckett's "Young Girl". I think in both cases you have to wonder what sort of a person dates a child and DOESN'T NOTICE!

Come on.

I know that when I was about 14, a 15 year old girl seemed like a whole world of maturity, but come on. It's pretty obvious when a child's a child, right?

"So, where would you like to go out tonight? A Tweenies concert? Ok, I'm a bit concerned that you might be underage. What do you mean you've lost your Fimbles doll."

My guess is that both Travis and Gary Puckett were snatching themselves back, at the last minute, from doing something that they always knew was wrong, but had hitherto been kidding themselves was probably going to work out well. But was it the moral implications that stopped them? Or was it the sure-fire knowledge that their younger girlfriend would eventually grow out of them, and that, by the time this happened, a few years would have elapsed and they'd feel too old to be going out looking for a new girlfriend.

I was in bed early. Well, in the early hours. Does that count? The alarm started screeching this morning at 7.20 and I ignored it until about 7.50. Then I was up, and I was dressed, and I was downstairs before the plumbers let themselves in. I don't like the idea of having workmen working in the house while I'm lying in bed sleeping. So, I forced myself to get up. I had a quick word with the plumbers and then got on the road. It's not me to be in work before 9am, but there I was. The day will feel weird as a result.

On the up side, the concept of having heating seems a good one. Last night I had to iron my shirts at my previous residence, where they get washed. While I have an ironing board and iron at my house, I can't do my ironing since the steamed clothes would just stay damp with no heating. In a few short days I will be able to bring my shirts home and iron them. "The ironing is delicious" (definition 1). This is good. I ironed 9 shirts last night using a "guest iron" and board, and quite frankly it was depressing. A bad iron and a bad board make for a bloody awful ironing experience. If you don't enjoy ironing because it's a lot of back-breaking pressing, go out and buy a good board and a new steam iron. Suddenly, the ironing starts to do itself. Genius!

I'm not sure where I get the idea that I can generate money through selling things that I've bought at retail prices and still make money. Who thinks that that sounds possible? Ah, but what if you factor in some sort of value-add? Like buying two things, assembling them into a single thing, testing it, and selling it as a complete item? Surely that would be worthy of some consumer paying more than the component price for? No?

I don't want to make a living from selling stuff on eBay. However, I do have a theory, which is this. I can somehow subsidise my expensive toys and DVD habits by selling items. For instance, when I bought my Bill Bailey Box set for £10, I went ahead and sold two of my Bill Bailey DVDs for about £8. So, the "extra disk" in the box set essentially cost me £2. That's a fair way of doing it. Likewise, when I bought another box-set of musicals, it enabled me to sell the two I already had in order to pay for the third, which I didn't (at least it will once I reclaim those particular disks from Newcastle).

So, yesterday, full of the confidence of my convictions, I bought three large capacity hard drives and some USB external mounting units for them. I want one of these drives for myself. My plan was to assemble three and try to diminish the cost of my one by selling the other two. As with my clever trick of buying a rail ticket in sections, this was better in theory than in practice.

I think I'll break even...

...and have the fun of making three external hard drives...

...and the fun of posting them...

This month, my gig diary went from no gigs to nine. That's one hell of a full-on return to stand-up. In fact, I've not had a 9 gig month since August, and even that doesn't count, because it was Fringe-like gigs. Before that, the last month I did 9 gigs in was November 2005, when I was living alone and managed to clock up 14 gigs alongside weekend trips to see my girlfriend.

What do we learn from this? When I live alone, I gig like a mo' fo' - it's been said before, and I guess it's true.

I can't remember the limit, and there is one, at which I lose my mind through too much gigging. It might be 14. In fact, I remember November 2005 as being a curious month - I quit my job in a haze of negativity. Maybe it was the gigging? or maybe it was the job.

Anyhoo, I'm in the saddle and I'm riding high.

Plus, on top of the gigs, there are other trips to take to do things. I've got one or two appointments in London relating to the sketch night I help out with (doing sound and lights). So February is busier than just the gigs. Plus I'm going to see Bill Bailey on my birthday. Sadly my "date" has pulled out, so I'm going to see Bill Bailey on my birthday alone, with a spare seat next to me. Yay! Extra roomey!

Good Gig
I had a couple of good gigs over the weekend. On Friday I did an arts centre and really enjoyed the small but perfectly formed audience. They needed working, but I worked them and felt like it went well. The headline act was especially worth watching, and I'd originally intended to go along just to watch. However, I found out that the opening act had pulled out and so volunteered myself into the empty spot. It was fun.

On Sunday night I did another small crowd, this time in London. I had a reasonable time, though the day's drinking affected my performance. I wasn't especially drunk, but I wasn't on the ball as much as I could be. I managed to offend a family who had brought their 16 year old GCSE-studying daughter into the basement of a pub to watch stand-up comedy. So, perhaps they didn't want to hear a song about anal sex, but it had a very moral spin to it (i.e. don't do it) and so I felt perfectly comfortable singing a bunch of euphemisms and medical terms. In fact, I enjoyed it. Anyway, the family, clearly not in their natural habitat, left.

It was pointed out to me that I have a few "adult" songs in my repertoire and yet seem capable of writing a perfectly non-adult lyric. The promoter suggested that I think about other subjects for new material. "Maybe write a song about a library" he suggested.

So I have.

I think it might even be funny.

I'll try it tomorrow.

Oh, and some people came to see me perform, but they read this blog, so there's no point in playing up to them. Thanks for coming if you came and thanks for not coming if you didn't. It's all good.

I went back home after work today. This is the first time I've done that in what seems like ages. I actually made time to do some household tasks. I messed about with some electrics, re-doing a job I'll have to re-do again, since the way I re-did it wasn't good enough for me. D'oh! I took of some wallpaper and took some wall with it. D'oh! I ripped off some tiles where the boiler's going to go and that went ok. Good.

The heating engineers have started by ripping out some of the heating equipment that was already there. That's fair enough, given that you can't put a second lot in with the first lot in the way. Still, it feels like I'm moving further away from having heating, even though I know it's a case of it having to get worse before it gets better.

On the subject of it getting worse before it gets better, my attempts at staying on the dieting wagon today were dashed by a packet of yoghurt-covered banana chips and, after I had a reasonably healthy Subway sandwich, some free Pizza from Pizza Express. This is not quite what I'd planned, and now my mouth tastes all garlicky.

The weekend's excesses were so excessive that I really feel the need to be abstemious this week, lest I roll back into the bad habits which pile on the flab.

I continued my chatting up of the Subway girl tonight only to discover that she's a Mormon and, though I'm sure Mormons are good people, her entire religious outlook sounds, to my cynical ears, like a pile of made-up nonsense. Though chatting up a vaguely pretty student, who sells me sandwiches, is a pastime that I enjoy for its own sake, with no illusions that it should proceed to anything outside of the shop, I find myself deeply put off by the person who won't drink tea or coffee on religious grounds (grounds, geddit?).

Hang on. I'm a religiously tolerant person, aren't I? Yes. So? So, I'll just start going to the nearer Subway when it opens and, in the meantime, steer the subject away from the book of Mormon, which describe's Jesus' visit to America (eh?). Ok.

I did some paperwork in the house. Well, I moved some paperwork about a bit, which felt like progress. I paid a bill, but it was only £2.62, so it's hardly a big weight off my mind, or bank balance.

I put a DVD on eBay today too.

I'll post something properly in a minute. Just a quick note to say that this is the 1500th post on my blog. The blog has been going since October 2001, when it started out as a way of passing links to other sites, or content I'd made myself. It started to become more of a diary in May 2002, and really got full-on around 2004.

To those who read, thanks. To myself, for writing all this crap, get a life!

So much has happened this weekend, it's been great. Among that which has happened has been the discussion of vocabulary. A bit of vocab never did noone no harm. "Surfeit" is my word of the day, since it describes my weekend's activities pretty well. It means:

To feed or supply to excess, satiety, or disgust.

I think I managed to do things to the level of excess which I think my addictive personality desired. Just as an aside, as a way of satiating my lust for vocabulary, I have managed to resolve the question of the difference between a vestibule and an atrium. Both are a sort of hall, but a vestibule is smaller and an atrium is more of a central room with a skylight. One day I'd like a house with an atrium. I always wanted to build one with such an architectural feature. It's a classic.

Anyway, this weekend has been awash with everything except DIY (well, not everything, but a lot of things). I had a gig on Friday night. On Saturday morning I got up early enough to go and see my family in London. On Saturday evening, there was a movie which made me holler with laughter. On Sunday, I slept to excess, then had an afternoon's company with a friend, including some alcohol consumption. Then on Sunday evening, I did another gig, with various other friends and people I know present. More alcohol was consumed, and I still managed to get to bed by a "reasonable" (in gig terms) time. I ate unhealthily far too much and generally pleased myself ("pleasing yourself" is acceptable, but "pleasuring yourself" is frowned upon).

A good weekend. I'll probably go into specific stories from it in separate posts, but I thought I wouldn't turn this one into a marathon. I'm increasingly aware that people do read this, so I will try to be a little less excessive in presentation, to facilitate skim reading. Skim reading is something you might choose to do if I ever discuss plastering. See what I did there? No? [tap tap] Is this thing on?

Today the heating engineers started work. Apparently there was a plumbing supplies person ringing my doorbell at around 7. It didn't work, which let me off the hook, since I would have slept through it anyway! The delivery guy also didn't try the other doorbell, which does work. So it's his fault. Ha ha! However, I was up at 8 and helped him in with the stuff. Actually, I helped him in with one item and watched him bring the rest of it in himself. After all, it's his job to be a delivery driver and I don't expect him to come to my desk and help me write this blog or whatever it is I do of a day. I think the main reason for my not helping him was that I was too knackered and had only just woke up.

The heating people came a bit after 8 and I showed them round the house and explained what needed doing. They seem sorted enough and I'm happy to leave them to it. I have been quite specific with my list of requirements, but I think I'm generally focusing on the "what" I want, rather than making too many requirements on the "how". So long as you get that balance right, people shouldn't feel like you're telling them their job. By which I mean, I hope they won't, rather than "they'd better not".

So, there's a risk that there may actually be warmth generated in the house by this time next week (or soon after). The guy estimated 3 days, but I've no idea if that's real. Having hot water and working radiators would be a real boon. Plus, I will be able to start putting the two big downstairs rooms right once this work is complete, since there's little chance that someone will come along and need to take up floorboards again.

Apart from the electrician.

Sigh.

Self-referential is the best sort of referential, as I always say... still, I think it's okay to be self-referential, provided you're not also self-reverential. Useless wordplay aside, I do occasionally go back and read bits of my own blog. I'm interested in seeing whether particular times of year come with similar experiences for me. I'm having a good month, considering, and so I read back a couple of years to see how the month went. I found the following quote:

If I lose the ability to laugh or make others laugh then I'll have had all my allotted time.

This was from a post in which I was partially celebrating what looked like the start of a beautiful friendship. Indeed, it proved to be a two-year-long relationship. So, I was bound to be in a good mood. I was also in a period of working out where I stood with the world. I'm back into such a vibe, it must be said. I am pleased to say that my 30 (nearly 31) year old self was at least as wise on that subject as my 32 (nearly 33) year old self. So, either I found an immutable truth back then, or I've learned nothing in the last 2 years.

This is the first of my "Friday 200" posts. Inspired by a suggestion from here, this is a challenge to write around 200 words on a random subject for the sake of writing. It's meaningless drivel, but it's MY meaningless drivel.

Labels: Friday200

At least, I was funnier than the night before. I had a good gig in Manchester, where the audience started out slightly cool with me, but warmed through fairly easily and consistently through the set. It was fun. Two notable things happened over the course of the trip. Firstly there was a car on fire on the hard shoulder on the way there. It was a Range Rover, with big flames licking out of its bonnet. I guess that's why they call them Range Rovers. No? Secondly, I was propositioned at the bar. It was by a man, but it still counts. I declined. I was like "you want to see my penis? Really? Well that's very kind of you, but no thanks". Just because I'm not gay, it doesn't mean I should forget my manners.

• Sunset Boulevard - the original
• The Sky's The Limit - in which Fred Astaire does a dance that involves kicking glasses on a bar

When I posted the photo the other day, I put a file on my computer's desktop called "Camper". This has served as a reminder to write another reminiscence (can you remind a reminiscence?) from my days of summer camp leading.

I worked at a summer camp in the summers of 1991-1993 inclusive. In the first year we were stationed in a boarding school in Brecon, Wales. In the second and third years we were in a different boarding school somewhere near Banbury. In fact, I later met someone who had worked at that school, which has no relevance to the story, but shows how apparently random things can link people to each other.

Anyway. I learned a lesson from the story I'm about to tell you. I think it probably happened in the 3rd and final year that I did summer camping. Before I tell you the story, I'll tell you the lesson. I think you can see the same lesson in a Mel Brooks movie - possibly High Anxiety. The lesson is this. People don't notice something you want to conceal if you make something else more conspicuous. For example, once I was worried about how out of place I looked, gatecrashing someone's restaurant visit, when I was really in need of some drinks and not in need of some food, so I did something much more memorable than the gatecrashing.

So, bear this in mind. If you feel like you're about to be embarrassed by something, try to upstage that embarrassment with something different.

This story begins at about 11 o'clock at night. I was trying to get to sleep in the "house" where we slept a bunch of 10-13 year old boys. They were a spirited lot, and had decided not to behave. I heard a disruption and so had to go and sort it out. I discovered that I was the only member of the staff in the place. The "staff room" was in the adjacent building, and I was loathe to go over and ask for help right away. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, I was in my pyjamas and dressing gown. Secondly, in my view, asking for help quieting down a few excitable kids shouldn't have been necessary.

So, I went upstairs and started quieting down the kids. I got the disruptive room sorted, then the next room set themselves off. I went and sorted them out, but the first room got going again. As I returned to that room, the second started up, then a third. To be perfectly honest, it was snowballing and it needed a gang of adults to come along and shout a bit and stop it. I was smart enough to realise that I wasn't enough of an influence to fix the problem. So, I had to go and get help. I also didn't have time to get dressed. This was a source of embarrassment to me. I couldn't delay. I had to go and get help. However, there were girls in the staff room. Yes, I was still at an awkward stage in my relationship with women (things are so much better now... excepting the broken relationships and general geekiness).

Frankly, the thought of wandering up the stairs to the staff room in my pyjamas to say (imagine I had a nasal twang for this) "Er, excuse me, could I have some help please? the kids are bullying me" seemed like too shameful a thing to do. So, how do I fix this. I used my general purpose upstaging-the-embarrassment trick. I climbed up the fire escape in my slippers and PJs. By which I mean the fire escape of the building where the staff room was located, rather than there being a fire escape in my clothing. I know now that it was a silly thing to do, to climb up a fire escape ladder wearing only slippers - this would not pass a health and safety exam on the subject of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). However, I was young and quite capable of pulling this off without injury. Then I walked across the flat roof of the building and knocked on the window of the room in which my co-staff-members were sitting drinking and smoking - two things I didn't do. Ah, the gulf between me and the cool kids.

It got a laugh. People might remember "that time Ashley came in through the window". Maybe they won't. Maybe only I remember it. I certainly don't think they even noticed that I was in my PJs. Job done.

I left via the window aswell. It would have been inappropriate otherwise.

The minor incident in the house was sorted out and everything was fine with the world again.

And that's the story. I remember very little else from the summer camp, except the night we got pissed on chocolate milk.

Ah you want to hear (read) that one? Ok. It was after everyone had left the place. End of week 4. It was my job to put things back as we'd found them. Generally speaking this involved reversing the process of lugging beds about that I'd done 4 weeks previously and incrementally over the course of events. There were other things to return to their rightful places. I had a colleague to help me with the job. He was a school friend who had, coincidentally, joined the staff that year. We both lived in Leeds so had already returned to the city for a day - to get our A-Level results (I drove back so fast, I'd had to lie about the time we left, or it would have been obvious how much I'd been speeding). Anyway, these random facts aside, we had been left to lug stuff about. Once we were done, we got to go home. We'd been left with some money to go out and buy food, and a school full of random physical-labour jobs to do.

The day went quite well. At some point, the liaison officer with the school asked us how we were doing. Mike said to him, and I quote: "Not bad, though I'm having trouble with my libido". There was a pause. Then no reaction. Then we got on with our work. I was confused about what he meant. I was convinced there was something wrong with what he'd said, but I didn't know whether the word "libido" had a meaning other than "sex drive", so I assumed that Mike, a smart guy, wouldn't have made a mistake. The reaction from the liaison officer hadn't been shock, so I assumed it was some exchange between them that went over my head.

I later discovered that Mike meant "lumbago". It still makes me chuckle now.

Anyway, we laboured and laboured and pretty much finished. Then we went out for a pizza hut and pigged ourselves. We had a few jobs to do when we returned. We bought some celebratory chocolate milk for after we'd completed them. We slaved some more and then, tired but in good spirits, we sat down, cracked open the chocolate milk, and giddy with calories and exhaustion, we got giggly. All I remember is that I said something like "I think the way girls masturbate is absolutely SMASHING" and then a wave of utter drunken confusion hit us and we laughed so hard that it hurt. We may as well have been drunk. After all, we had our pints (of chocolate milk) and we were friends. And that was a good feeling.

Later, as a student, I would order chocolate milk and a pint glass to pour it into (I know the bar staff at my student union were deeply unimpressed with that), but it was never the same.

Last night was unusual for me. I think that I peaked too soon and turned into the more naggy, less hilarious version of my comic self. As a result I didn't really get that many laughs in the 8 or so minutes' stage time I'd travelled all the way to London to get. However, the experience wasn't entirely a negative one.

I left work at a reasonable hour (in other words, I'd been there for a reasonable amount of time). I got onto a train holding The Timewaster Letters, which I'd received in the post yesterday morning - better than any gosh-darned Valentine's day card in my opinion. To cut to the end of this story, I finished the book before the gig even started. Most of it was read on the train where I was laughing so much, generally silently, that people noticed the hilarity - almost to the point of being in pain - and asked me what the hell I was reading that was so good it could achieve such complete destruction of my senses. I guess I became a walking giggling advert for the book, which is very good.

Today I bought the follow up.

I arrived at the gig in plenty of time, so adjourned to a nearby cafe where I completed my book and had a nasty cup of coffee.

Then I went to the gig. I bantered with some comedians, I prepared what I thought might be a 10 minute set. I was later asked to make it a 5-10 minute spot, so I was prepared to stop at the best laugh around the 7 minute mark. I was put on later in the night than first expected, and then I hit the stage.

I never really got the audience on side. I delivered a rare combination of groaners and bad taste which didn't suit me or the room. As a result they were left with the distinct impression that I was trying out some sort of racist agenda on them. They were as wrong in that assumption as I was in my choice of material and delivery. I don't think I've fathomed bad taste out. I know it makes me laugh, but I don't know how to present it. As a result, I alienated the audience, and almost left the room in disgrace.

Almost.

Although the promoter got in touch today to demand exactly what I was trying to achieve, I can't be too dismayed at what transpired. I learned an important lesson. Don't do that sort of thing... at least not like that. It's very simple. Better I should learn that lesson like that than at a high profile gig where the prospect of "dying on stage" could be coupled with that of "being beaten up outside".

Thing is, I can envisage about 75% of what I did last night actually working if I practiced it, pared out some of the unnecessary stuff and took my time. Still, I'll probably do most of my gigs by relying on the usual musical stuff. However, the occasional slap across the face with stuff I'm not good at should be good for me. Assuming, I don't build up a name for myself for being something I'm not in the process.

Tonight I was not funny. It was fun anyway.

The photos came back from Monday night's gig. Well, at least, some of them did. There was one notable photo (a photable?), which I have included with this post. I know exactly when I do this, but I never realised how camp it looks. Well, maybe I realised that it might look camp, but I've never seen it quite like this before. What I like about this photo, apart from its grainy black-and-whiteness, is the fact that I'm in a combination of a rock pose AND a camp pose. Brilliant.

I'm perhaps being a bit sarcastic and self-deprecating too.

Still, it's a mark of self-confidence that I can post an uncomplimentary photo of myself and not be in the least bit insecure about it. If nothing else, it's nice to have the first picture of the new shirt I bought especially for the gig.

Last night I laboured in the house for a couple of hours. I think that two or so hours is about the right amount of time to dedicate to general-purpose DIY in a given evening. If there is a specific task that takes longer, then it can be laboured at indefinitely. However, if I'm doing a series of bitty tasks, then two hours is a reasonable attention span. As a result of yesterday's labourings, I achieved the following:

• Bagging the remainder of the rubble from the bathroom (some of which I chipped away from the walls freshly)
• Raising some floorboards to expose pipes and cabling - accidentally exposing some rotten floorboards that will have to be replaced
• Installing the hall light for the downstairs hall ceiling
• Applying plaster-patching to the remaining holes in the downstairs rooms, and repatching some bits that I'd not managed to patch properly the last time
• Having a general-purpose sweep up around the place

Not bad for a couple of hours. Most notably, though, I made another schoolboy error. I failed to check how complicated the wiring was for the downstairs hall light. I assumed it would be another 12 wire job, in need of a junction box. It proved to be drastically simpler than that - 3 wires. No need to raise floorboards at all. However, the upshot of raising all of those floorboards was that I discovered some rot. I have sections of floor that need rebuilding anyway in the bathroom, and it won't harm the work of the heating people if there are some boards already up when they arrive.

There's not going to be an awfully large amount of time available for house things before the heating people come. Then, in the following week - their first week in the house - there's probably not going to be a great deal of time either. As a result of this, I need to focus on making the place as habitable as possible, in the occasional times I get to dabble with DIY in it, as I have my family coming round to have a look in a couple of weekends' time. Though they won't judge me badly if it's a mess (given that it's not going to be down to bad housekeeping), it would be nice if the place were at least slightly habitable, so we're not forced to keep our coats on and then adjourn elsewhere to spend time together. We'll see. It will go at its own pace.

I must, in fact, empty my car of crap and go to B&Q and buy my bathroom fittings. I know what I want. That's quite an important task to do. I don't know where I'm going to store the fittings, though. I have a few ideas. In fact, I even have a shopping list I wrote when I was writing a verbose letter to the person who's doing the work.

Labels: DIY

And why not? Some people consider the man to be a pariah and a cynical plagiarising businessman. I am not convinced that these are fair criticisms. I can see how ALW has managed to buy up a lot of the West End and make good business out of it. I can also see that he makes shows which are at least a popular success. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're lowest common denominator shows. In fact, he's written some shows which are much more Fringe in their appeal. It's not necessarily the case that his lesser successes are a guarantee that he's made something that's a work of art that's not been appreciated. It doesn't matter. I like listening to his soundtracks with few exceptions (Joseph is one notable exception).

I was reading another blog and the blogger had posted a video of the love song from The Woman In White. I decided to listen to the original soundtrack of this show, and it's set me on an Lloyd-Webber kick. Today I shall listen to only Lloyd-Webber soundtracks. That's how I'll celebrate Valentine's day. With my love of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. And also my love of Roger Lloyd-Pack. Well, I can't let ALW have the sole place in my affections. Sole? Place? For want of the letter "I", this is all getting desperately fishy.

ALW is definitely a good parodist. He can ape musical styles very well, and I think he borrows and adapts where necessary. In some cases, he reuses his own tunes or phrases. In fact, he has a definite signature in his writing. As a result, listening to one ALW musical can leave you thinking of another. I left my sole visit to The Woman In White humming tunes from Whistle Down The Wind. I like it when a composer's touch is so obvious in their work. It makes their entire catalogue a thing in itself. There are a few composers that I notice this about. I can blend the whole Lerner and Loewe catalogue together, and Alan Menken's writing is always a joy.

I remain a fan... of what is almost immaterial.

This morning, I approached the letterbox with trepidation. Would something come for me? Yes!

I have my copy of The Timewaster Letters, which I shall read on the train journeys I take tonight, to and from my gig. There is a blog I read which is similar. It's called the Customer Service Blog.

So, the day is going well.

I don't know why, but I keep hearing the words "Keyser Soze" in my head. I should point out that I'm hearing it in my own internal monologue voice, rather than via auditory hallucination or "voices in my head" of any other sort. I didn't even know who or what this was. I first thought that it might be "Kaiser Sozer" - perhaps some sort of Germanic leader. I really had no clue whatsoever.

I eventually got around to Wikipedia-ing the phrase and it's apparently a character from The Usual Suspects. As a result of this name going round and round in my head, I've just gone online and bought the movie which Keyser Soze is from. With a bit of luck, having seen the film and put some sort of flesh to the bones of what is currently a recurrent sound in my head (like a catchy song, but without the music or any lyric beyond the two words), I will no longer be addicted to just the words. After all, I'll be able to consider the whole character and then forget about it.

That's the idea.

But how did it get there? Has this been some ploy by the makers of the movie to sell DVDs? They get people to suddenly obsessively think of the name of one of their characters so they have to buy the movie in order to exorcise it. I've no idea.

Let's hope I don't get a tune by the Kaiser Chiefs stuck in my head. If that happens, well, I don't know what to predict. A riot, perhaps.

Casting one's mind back to the distant past is fun. It's amazing the things that you can and can't remember. Stories which haven't been told for a while need dusting off and telling.

For some reason I can't remember the name of the girl who was head-girl at LGHS in 1991. This is not important. All I know is that every time I try to think of her name it comes up as Maxine Carr, which is clearly not right.

Anyway, I was the geeky kid. My time at school was divided equally between lessons, the model railway club and the library - behind the desk, I wasn't doing schoolwork, I was being a librarian. God how sad does that sound?

Anyway, I have a bizarre memory which is really simple. Step 1, this girl turns up in the library and I have a brief chat with her and show her to the archives she'd come to research in. Step 2, I'm at some sort of sixth form disco, and I wander over to her to say hi, some rugby lads in the upper sixth, seeing the geeky kid talking to the pretty head girl, grab me by the shoulders and, kindly, but firmly, remove me. The message being something like "Sorry son, but you're simply not allowed to talk to her, you're the geeky kid and she's too hot".

It probably looked hilarious to onlookers. I was bundled in a non-bullying sort of way, away from this pretty girl, and left to contemplate the simple fact that she was not only out of my league, but I wasn't under school rules, even allowed to talk to her. I didn't mind. I was drunk. That was the school disco, held off site, where, if I remember correctly, I drank so much I was sick, and I asked the DJ for a request. The request was that I be allowed to sing the hymn Jerusalem. He let me (idiot!) and I'd brought a tuning fork especially for the occasion so I could get my key a capella. I think there was some subversive element to this cabaret, that it wasn't me just singing my favourite song unaware of how big a dick I looked. I think I put on a faux cabaret persona for the purpose.

I may be retrospectively misremembering it to make me look funnier than I am.

I don't remember the tail end of this story first hand. I'm going on what I was told. So, this next bit may or may not have happened. We were being given lifts home after the drunken night of debauchery that was this ball, held at the Astoria ballroom on the border of Harehills and Chapeltown (basically that's like saying it was no further than a stone's throw from the nearest prostitute/armed robber). Apparently I got into the back of the car, which was being driven by a friend's dad, and which would take me home. I forget exactly what the driver said that provoked the reaction I apparently gave. But let's imagine that it went something like this:

Driver: I hope you're not going to be sick in the back of my car.
Drunken Me: Shut up and drive. Cabbie!

What a dick!

Still, they were more innocent days, when a bottle of Holsten Pils could knock a man out.

The BBC reported this story about how a Florida comedy theatre has renamed The Vagina Monologues as The Hoohah Monologues in order to avoid causing offence, after receiving a single complaint on the subject.

I was actually quite incensed by this needless censorship, so I sent an email to the theatre:

I'll admit that I couldn't quite resist a couple of puns in the letter, but I still meant what I wrote.

At my previous employer's, we had a system of holiday rollovers. This system was in place for a number of years before some canny HR person pointed out that it was a bloody stupid idea. As a result, the geekier members of the team, myself included, with perhaps less imagination concerning time off, managed to accrue many tens of spare days. In the last 3 years of my last job, I was able to take tons of time off and still have tons to spare. The more time I took off, the more holiday days I seemed to have left when I returned. I took an entire month in Edinburgh, during which time I gained another two days' holiday.

I eventually managed to run my time off down to 0, just in time to leave the place.

At this place, I started with a lower number of holiday days than I was used to. I used to have 25 per year. I started with 23. It will rise each year of service until 25 (I believe). Last year I used 20 and got to roll over 3. However, I can't just take 27 days this year. I have to take 3 of them before March 31st, or they disappear. I don't know how flexible that disappearance is (i.e. whether I can negotiate it) but let's imagine that I've set out to toe the line and not try to be a special case. It means that I have to get shot of these days in the next 6 weeks or so.

So far this year, I had a day off to move house. A day off. And I did it too. I remember when I bought my first house, I took weeks off. This time I was quicker - a day and that was that. In that day I managed to fill rubble sacks and get moved in, and even get my heating system condemned. I've also planned a half-day off for late March, when I shall go up to Scotland for a weekend. It's a bit of a con of a half-day off, since I'll spend it traveling, but that's the way these things go sometimes.

So, I have a day and a half to fill, lest I lose it.

What could I do in a day and half? My ex suggested I take a long weekend, maybe take a trip to Paris. Nice thinking. I'll just take myself, alone, to one of the world's most romantic cities. Maybe not.

So, any suggestions?

I suppose there's always the chance of a DIY emergency requiring me to labour intensively sometime in March for some reason.

I wrote my blog last night at about 12.30, aiming to get to sleep around 1. However, my ex-girlfriend was online and suggested that I might like to take her out to get some late night snacks. I'm nothing if not flexible, so I headed over. It turned out that I did like the idea of a late night visit to a petrol station. I'm an expert on late night petrol station visiting.

Thus, I had the opportunity to demonstrate the shirt I was wearing - the first I'd bought without assistance in a year or so. As you can guess from the title of this piece, the boy done good. Now, technically it's nothing to do with my ex what shirts I wear. However, I think it's nice to respect someone else's opinion, especially since a number of garments I now wear (as a result of her influence) and wouldn't have thought to wear before (like the very jumper I've got on now) have been widely regarded as suiting me.

Having said that, many of my favourite clothes were chosen by me, and only a certain percentage of them were chosen on the basis of size alone.

Listen to the entirety of the Tedstock Concert. Why worry about missing a gig when you can hear it online a few days later!?

Tonight I was a comedian.

I don't know exactly what spurred me into such a good frame of mind. I think it was a combination of things. I was recently put in touch with someone I used to know when I was a kid, and I think that some of what we got into discussing - the whys and wherefores of what we do (what a lot of w's) reminded me of why I go out of my way to put myself in front of an audience. I think also the surprise of being in touch with someone I didn't expect to be in touch with was a real boost to my feelings of wellbeing.

Life can be a good thing.

This lunchtime I went for a haircut, but emerged from the hairdresser having been texted with the offer of a last-minute gig, which I immediately accepted (I already posted that). What happened between accepting the gig and me sitting here writing this was a journey. I organised myself around the gig. I had work to do, and the gig wasn't going to interrupt that one bit. However, I had a jumper on, and gigs and jumpers don't mix. This is not an image thing; it's a sweat thing.

So, at my designated departure time from the office, I headed to a Tesco and bought a shirt. I don't know if I would have bought this particular shirt on one of the myriad visits to Tesco with my ex-girlfriend/style-guru in tow, but this was no time for Trinny and Susannah. I needed a cotton shirt and I needed it FAST. The size nazis were not in force. I found a shirt I liked, and it was on sale, and it was cotton and a nice feel.

I sat in my car ripped off my coat and jumper and put on the new shirt. Then I drove to the gig. I was even early. Ready, able and early. Brilliant.

In the car I'd been daring myself to do some new material surrounding something I'd seen on TV before Christmas. My comedy instincts was that it was funny, but couldn't necessarily be written down. At the gig, I sort of wrote some notes ordering this new material and weaving it into some existing material. I was going to try to do a bookended set of music opening and closing with some spoken material in between. I felt that I had the right to play with the set, since I wasn't being paid and it was an easy going crowd and room.

I never once felt uncomfortable on the stage. I never once resorted to regurgitating the script. I was in the moment the whole time. When it came to the bits I'd barely constructed into material, I just improvised my way through it, making what I wish I had the ability to just sit down and write. It was a moment of "being funny".

Don't assume that I'm sitting here smugly bigging myself up (as the kids might say), content in a job well-done. It's far from that. It's good compared to myself. I went out there with confidence, good humour and a sense of spontaneity, and that's something that's been desperately missing from the other two performances I've given this month. As a result, the audience responded and I felt like a comedian, which is something I've had serious doubts about.

I'm glad I took the gig. I'm also keen to start working on new material. If I put the hours in I may have a non-musical set, or at least a set which I can look at and say "this is nowhere near as lame as once it was" (and that's the sort of flowery language I'd use). I also think I know some of the "comic voice" that comedians refer to having to find in themselves.

All I have to do is keep doing what I love doing.

Simple.

It's been a bit of a John Barrowman weekend. I think it was around Friday night that I heard John Barrowman on the radio talking about his appearance in The Producers movie. He was also talking about his stint on Radio 2, Sunday, filling in for Elaine Paige. On Saturday night I happened to catch the bit of The Producers he was in. He was very good. On Sunday, I heard some of his Radio 2 broadcast. That too was good. I like the guy. He's done the whole musical theatre thing and done it well. He's also got the kudos of having been in both Doctor Who AND his own Doctor Who spin-off - Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who). Having said that, I've not seen more than a few seconds of Torchwood, so it might be crap.

I bought the DVD of The Producers movie, despite being fairly disappointed by it when I saw it at the cinema. From the section I saw on Sky this weekend, I was right to be disappointed by some of the movie. A lot of it is still very very good. The big problem has one name - Uma Thurman - she ruined most scenes she was in. The other problem is that the things which made the stage show funny didn't translate very well to the screen. They wisely tried to make some things bigger for the screen, but they don't seem so absurd in the technicolor world of movie musicals, where they seem outrageous when played live in front of you.

Still, I am a big fan of the show and I'll make time to watch the whole DVD through, if only for the frequent facial expressions of Nathan Lane, as he mugs at the invisible audience, through the camera.

If I had my way, I'd be both talented enough and given the opportunity to play Max Bialystock in this musical. It's a dream of a part. Hell, I'd even play Roger De-Bris (I think I could do camp).

I'll just return to my desk and do some more typing, shall I? Ok. Well, I'm already here, but I'll stay here and type something different. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

I got a gig offered to me this lunchtime. It's my policy not to turn things down that I can do. So I said yes. The gig is in South West London. I work due South West of London and live due West of the place. So it's a relatively local gig. It's 50 miles there and about 30 back home. Had I still been in a relationship, I would probably have thought twice about saying yes. Being single, with noone to worry about but myself, I can just say yes.

I'm not sure if this is totally about being single or otherwise. It's certainly a plus point of returning to a life of self-interest that I can do as I please without it affecting anyone else. Given that I'm worried about buying energy saving lightbulbs and subscribing to an electricity provider that uses renewable sources, I'm clearly not totally self-interested. Hell I even recycle. I'm quite self-interested. Given that I'm spending £40 a throw whenever I visit a petrol station or DIY shop, I decided to go on an Amazon splurge this lunchtime, and I'll be receiving various CDs and books in the post this week as a result. Looking after number 1 is fun.

One can be fun.

One can also be pretty lonely, actually. (Note: I'm aware that I'm paraphrasing an old Peter Baynham routine)

But I remain optimistic. Plenty to do, and if some of that "plenty" involves going to a room full of students and parading myself, then I say "bring it on".

I mentioned that I'd changed electricity supplier. I received a call from my previous electricity supplier. She was trying to get me to stay with her company. She ended up being exceedingly rude and almost shouting at me. I would have to say that that strategy didn't work very well for her.

I recently helped a friend register an Orange pay as you go mobile phone. This involved talking to a computer, which had sufficient powers of voice recognition to be able to take details like her name and address and repeat them back with 100% accuracy. This was very impressive. The older voice recognition systems were much more binary "Say yes now if you want me to do this". What was most amusing about Orange's system is that the script writers had made their android-operator cover the processing time between taking data with a pretence that "she" was writing the details down - "One moment, I'll just put that in for you". I'm sure that the obvious double entendre of the last phrase has led some readers to envisage how this technology might be used for X-rated purposes.

I like talking to machines on the phone when they work. It can be frustrating when the machine totally mishears you and suggests something ludicrous, as happened to me with the booking line for Travelodge. However, if Orange's technology is where things are heading, then there's a lot of Indians and Geordies who will be out of jobs in the coming years.

I'm reminded of something which happened when I was arranging my mortgage. My middle name is Spencer, which is also the name of one of the people at work. I was talking to a human being about my mortgage application and he asked my middle name. I said "Spencer", which immediately piqued the attention of the person whose first name that is. Then the mortgage guy, not hearing it correctly, asked me to repeat it. I said it again, louder and more clearly. I had said very little before it, and very little after it. To Spencer, all he saw was me, on the phone, saying his name, then a pause and then me saying his name again. In his mind, I was using an automated service for ordering a hitman:

Please say the name of the person you want us to kill. Spencer
I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that, please repeat. SPENCER
You said "Spencer" is this correct. Yes

I'd never do that. Honest.

On Saturday I arranged to pay my water rates by direct debit using an automated service. Once they had my account number they could basically take my bank account details and arrange the direct debit. The system worked brilliantly with an automated guide. It worked brilliantly until it went horrendously wrong. I owe about £50 for the remainder of the financial year and then they're going to charge me monthly for next year once they've worked out how much they're going to charge. The computer correctly deduced that my first payment by direct debit would be on 2nd March and would be for £50. Then it tried to calculate the payments that would follow. It then told me that it would be followed by 8 payments of £0. This suited me, since I knew that it would be recalculated and I'd be charged next year's rate when it was ready. However, the computer, which had clearly been programmed with some "boundary conditions" wasn't convinced that it should be promising me a payment plan with any payments of £0 in it. So, having completed a whole direct debit setup process, I was then told that it was broken, and I had to speak to a real person.

The real person I spoke to was lovely. She was very helpful, as efficient as the computer at taking down details, and much more efficient for explaining answers to questions like "so how many payments will there be?" and "when will next year's bill be calculated". She even helped me take a contract out on one of my workmates.

So, the moral of the story is that computers that can pretend to be humans, following a script, can be as much fun as humans that follow scripts in call centres (though they wouldn't pass the Turing Test), but there's no substitute for a helpful real person. Human contact is valuable, which is why I'd never have someone murdered, not even if there were a convenient online system for doing it.

I have an electric toothbrush. It runs off batteries. When the batteries are good, my teeth get very clean, when the batteries start to fade, the toothbrush does a lesser job. Because I use the toothbrush so regularly, I don't notice the fading of the batteries. One day, the sound seems more dull than it should be and I wonder whether the batteries have ebbed to the point where the brush is nothing more than a novelty item, and no use to my dental hygiene.

Today I fitted two new Duracell Batteries into my toothbrush. There's a reason why Duracell are considered the best makers of batteries. It's because they make good batteries. My toothbrush was turned into a powertool of the utmost cleaning power.

I'm still buzzing.

If I told you that Pat Boone had written an article on Intelligent Design, you'd be like, "Who? Really? That's weird!". I think that it would only be weirder if it were Frankie Vaughan who'd written it.

I've decided to give energy saving lightbulbs a go. I do want to reduce my impact on the environment and it strikes me that a bulb which uses a sixth of the electricity and lasts a lot longer can't be a bad thing. It's cheaper for me, probably, in the long-run, maybe.

However, my first impressions of energy saving bulbs seemed to adhere to the following logic. The bulb which uses 11w cannot possibly delivery as much brightness as its 60w "equivalent". Now, I realise that a 60w bulb isn't delivering 60w of light, but I want a bright room. Energy saving bulbs must surely save energy by lighting dimly.

I say this was my first impression. A lot of the original energy saving bulbs I saw gave off a very dim glow and, quite frankly, depressed me. Bright light is a way of keeping darkness out of your life, and a nice bright room can be very appealing. A dim-lid shadowy room feels less appealing.

The new bulbs, bought this weeked seemed also to be quite dim. At first. However, once they warm up, they start delivering a pleasing amount of brightness. However, herein is a problem. I light a hall to go up the stairs without falling over. Then I turn the light off. The energy saving bulb has barely gotten going by then. If I left the light on, it would look good, but that would be a waste of electricity. So, what I think I need is a hybrid bulb. I want one which uses a standard bright 60w bulb filament to make the room instantly light. Then, as the energy-saving mechanism gets warmed up, the old filament can be cross-faded with it and I'd never know that my 49watts of power saving has kicked in.

I doubt anyone will think to do such a thing.

Edison would have thought of it if he were around today.

DIY fans, this is a post for you. Non DIY fans, you may aswell skip it.

I'll admit now that I had a lazier Sunday than planned. This was probably for the best, since I slaved away for much of Friday night and Saturday. I had a list of things to achieve for the weekend. I achieved much of them, I missed one thing off, but did a bunch others. It's been quite good fun.

On the way home from work on Friday, I stopped at a B&Q, bought some wood - one piece of MDF for making cupboard doors with, and one piece of knackered chipboardy worktoppy stuff from the offcuts department, which I was going to make into a plinth for my TV - it's a temporary plinth, so the wood wasn't worth much to me. I paid 50p for my plinth wood. Result. The MDF was cheap as it too was an offcut. I also bought a workbench. This was B&Q's own workbench and it cost under £10. The aim of a workbench for me is to have something a bit like a vice and of a height suitable for sawing on.

I used to have a theory that, in time, everything vaguely furniture like, left in my garage, would eventually become a sawhorse. This was probably a truth, but now I have a workbench I need not worry about it happening in my new place.

I arrived home via the Subway shop and proceeded to assemble my workbench. Then I went on a frenzy which involved using the most dangerous tools I possess in close succession. Tool one, on the most dangerous list, is the circular saw. I cut my pieces for my plinth. I also screwed up a bit, managing to fail to account for the accuracy of my measurment and also the width of my saw blade. So my plinth was bound to be wonky. Bear in mind that this is a temporary bit of furniture (which means I'll live with it for years, meaning not to!). I also managed to drop it after screwing it together, which make it a bit wonkier. However, once it was screwed into place, it was pretty solid and I didn't mind putting my TV on it. My second tool of the dangerous variety was the angle grinder, which I applied to my cast iron bath, thus cutting it in twain.

With my ears ringing from the angle grinding, my head burning from the sparks, soot in my eyes and joy in my heart, I headed to Tesco to buy some pencils, a ruler and a TV aerial to go with my TV. The plan was to get an amplified indoor aerial and try to get my freeview box working.

At Tesco, I bought some mechanical pencils and a two-piece ruler. The two-piece ruler was a few pence, so I wasn't going to argue - it may be useful, it may not. It doesn't matter. Ultimately, I'll buy a long metal one for DIY (though I later found that a metal carpet strip is as effective). I commented to the assistant, working nearby in the stationery department, that I'd never seen a two-piece ruler before. The ruler is hinged. I guess that this allows you to store it in the space of a 6 inch ruler, even though it's a 12 inch one. The woman, who spoke with an Eastern European accent and was quite grandmotherly in appearance, smiled with an infectious joy and tried to sell me this 63p ruler. She explained that it was great that it was two pieces because you could use it to measure small things and also big ones. What a lovely explanation. I wonder what she'd do with a tape measure.

At the till, my head still ringing from the angle grinder, and my face (unbeknown to me) covered in soot, I spotted a couple of lads in front of me. They were buying various items, including a box of CD-Rs. I remarked thus:

"CD-R eh? I've got a few of their albums. Very quiet."

Not a brilliant joke. The younger one worked it out and didn't laugh. The older one was deeply confused. Really put off. Very phased. In the end his brother explained it to him. He was still freaked out by it. Apparently he'd just come off a plane from Tenerife. My CD-R joke... what a pointless waste of air.

A grabbed a shower and then headed back home for some shut-eye (bear in mind that I shower at my old place of residence, not yet owning a working shower).

Saturday morning, I woke early enough to be awake when my garbage collection expert called round to give me a quote, but not early enough to be out of my dressing gown when this happened. Essentially, I've got a couple of skips' worth of crap in my garage and I want shut of it. I reckoned that paying some man to tip it might be cheaper than skips. He reckons that he can charge 75% of a skip-hire-charge. I reckon that I'll not bother. I may as well hire a van and drive the stuff to the tip myself, or, at the price he was charging, buy an old Ford Mondeo, drive the stuff to the tip, and then leave the Mondeo there for scrap when I'm done.

I did many things on Saturday. I made my MDF into doors for a cupboard. This took more attempts than I'm proud of. However, the doors look okay on the cupboard. They'd have looked better if the cupboard had been square to start with. Running out of things to do from my list, I went back out to B&Q and bought more things to fit in the house. In this case, I bought a bunch of lights for my three halls (one on each floor) and some energy saving lightbulbs.

The top hall was in the most need of a light, its dangling lightbulb holder no longer capable of supporting a light. I started work on the wiring in of a new light. I turned off the power to the house first (once bitten, twice shy) and worked by the light of the fading sun, the emergency lighting (handing for this sort of thing) and a mini torch in my mouth. The old light fitting had been able to support the myriad wires coming in from the ceiling. The new light fitting was intended to connect into a couple of wires most. You couldn't use it as a ceiling-based junction box. This complicated matters for me. To cut a long story down a little, I ended up doing wiring with my head in the loft and one arm also in there helping. The torch, held between my lips, was particularly useful. It wasn't especially comfortable.

I got my light working and I was pleased with it. However, I felt the need to use a proper junction box for future lights. I also felt it was a lot of effort to do even one.

Saturday night included time spent watching Police Squad on DVD.

Sunday morning was a late wake-up, followed by a slow start to the day. Eventually I decided to go back to Tesco to get breakfast and to return the piece-of-crap indoor aerial which had proved not to work at all when I tried it on Friday night. No complaints at the returns desk:

"Is it faulty?"
"No, it's just not very good."

Having visited B&Q on Friday after work and on Saturday afternoon, I decided to break with tradition and visit Homebase. There I bought various electrical things. I bought new light switches - many of the switches in the house are old and nasty-looking. For £2 they can be replaced with nice new onces. Easy. I also bought some wire and junction boxes - those other lights wouldn't beat me.

Back at the house, I set about doing the electrical work I'd set out to do. This was interrupted by a visitor who had come especially to help me move the last two pieces of the bath out of the house to join the increasingly voluminous (and expensive to dispose of) collection of rubbish in my garage. That was sorted in a few seconds, and was followed by a tour of the in-progress house.

Then back to the electrics. Many switches were replaced (not that many, but I figured them all out) and the second floor hall light was installed, which involved me taking up floorboards on the top floor and re-routing wires so that I could get everything to meet up at my junction box in an accessible bit of space in the floor.

All my electrics worked first time, even the two-way switches.

Then I set about finishing the cupboard I was working on. The cupboard was a four-door affair, the top two doors of which were missing. I had replaced the doors yesterday and attached magnetic catches to the new doors, which are hinged with piano hinges. As a result of my incompetence, my first attempt had resulted in a between-door gap of 15mm, which was way too much. I fixed the problem on Saturday by cutting a larger door, larger by just under 15mm, funnily enough. This solved the problem perfectly. The doors didn't hang square, but there was no way I could have solved this problem, outside of making non-rectangular doors, and that wasn't going to happen. I'd bought knobs for all of the doors, and I wanted to convert the lower-two doors, which were supposed to close with some sort of metal catch, into magnetic-catch doors too.

I removed the redunant door-furniture and then tried to screw the magnets into the frame of this cupboard. It took a lot of effort and th destruction of many of the screws provided before I went downstairs to my collection of screws (which I'd sorted through and put into a special container on Saturday) and brought up 4 that did the job perfectly without causing me to strain anything further.

But the door magnets need a magnetic strip on the door to catch on, and the placement of these strips needs to be quite precise. My solution: I got into the cupboard with a torch in my mouth and a pencil in my hand. Closing the door on the magnetic strip, attached to the magnet, I was then able to draw around it.

I wonder whether any of the neighbours saw me doing this.

"Ooh, look at the new guy. He just got into his cupboard. Where's he think he's going? Narnia? Mind you, he does emergy from his house all sooty from time to time. What a weirdo."

I'd like them to think I'm a weirdo. Maybe they'll fear me and stop parking in front of my drive.

I stopped work at about 5 on Sunday, the plan being to get a shower and go out for the night. I succeeded in this plan. I went to see some comedy, then I came home, then I wrote this (and the previous blog) over the course of an hour while my bedroom warmed up... then I stopped...

Labels: DIY

I didn't have time to write anything on Friday. I'm not quite sure why I didn't have the time, since my memories of being busy on the day don't extend to the reason why. Perhaps the work was so engrossing that it stole both my attention and my memory.

In fact, I do remember two notable events on Friday. One was that I think we made a breakthrough on discovering what it is I'm supposed to be making next. This is very good. Secondly, I attended a job interview. I was in the role of interviewer, rather than interviewee. I'm doing this a lot, and I find it both deeply depressing and strangely uplifting. I'll explain.

In a technical job interview situation, it's important to establish whether the person you're interviewing really knows their stuff. Now, the truth is that you can sit most intelligent people down and get them to do quasi-intelligent things, given enough time. With computers, there's enough possibility for trial and error that any imbecile can knock together something which has resembles a success. However, if you're trying to recruit people to join a team, it's important that the person you're dealing with is compatible with the team in terms of ability, and can communicate about shared knowledge in a way that's easily understood.

On technical interviews, we first make the candidate sit a test. Some people do poorly on the test and don't get an interview. Some do well on the test, but then prove to have been just lucky. There are some, though I'm yet to meet one, who do brilliantly on the test and then just ARE brilliant in an interview. Bear in mind, that I've never once set out to prove that a candidate is useless. Far from it. I like to cajole the candidate into saying things which I agree with so I can like them. Despite my best efforts, some recent interviews have left me feeling empty inside.

The truth is that we just want someone who really knows enough to join in a group of people who tend to know enough too. Then we can all get along, using our shared sense of knowing enough, and our shared language for expressing what we do and don't know. We use a simple diagram and very rarely do we use practices or patterns that you couldn't read out of a university-level textbook. Obviously, experience means a lot in this field. However, at interview, I'm expecting someone to be able to reel off stuff I remember learning in first and second year at university.

It shouldn't be difficult. I know that sometimes I'm trying to backseat drive the interview. I'm trying to give so much help to the candidate that all they need to say is one word and I'll be happy that they "get it". Of course, if they can't see what I'm getting at, then I'm making things impossible. But we're talking about the basics here. In some ways, maybe I'm making this hard for people who are basically clueless and really easy for the right person to shine in the interview. I don't know.

I remember my own interview, which was presided over by the person with whom I now interview, and another technically proficient colleague of his. At the time, I found their questions both frustrating AND easy. They were frustrating, because I'd be halfway through my explanation of something, and I was trying to give solid textbook explanations, and then they'd ask me the sort of question to which my instinctive reaction was "What? Don't you even know that? Surely it's a given?". At the time, I knew that they were asking the questions in order to test whether I knew it clearly or superficially, and to test whether I could hold my own in that situation. In some ways, it was fun. In fact, I think it was the interview I enjoyed the most of all I took, even though it had a difficult technical test before it started (which I guess I must have passed).

On Friday we had someone in from France. On paper he was well-qualified and fresh. Despite his low test score. Very low. We decided to go ahead with the interview, given that he had, on the face of it, travelled from France to be with us. Perhaps his experience wasn't best suited to the exact test we'd given him. We tried to make him get through the interview stage. I liked the guy. I think it's fair to say that most interviews are determined largely on personality. Sure there's an element of ability in choosing the right person for the job, but it's a bit like buying a house; you imagine yourself and your stuff in the house. So with interviews, you end up imagining the person on your team, working with you, doing what's necessary. Personality is important.

Yet, despite liking the guy, despite the cliches about not liking the French (in fact, I think I liked him because he was French), it wasn't enough. This guy didn't "get it". To define how much he didn't get it, I can put it like this. There's an early chapter in many books on programming which describes how a particular technique might be applied to a drawing program - one which puts different shapes on a piece of paper. This is a good example, which illustrates many of the techniques we hold dear. We started getting the candidate to design a solution to this problem. Given that I'm an ex-computer-graphics-programmer, I asked a simple question - "How would you get your program to calculate the bounding rectangle of all the shapes?". Now, I realise that there may have been a language barrier here, English to French, though I felt the conversation wasn't obstructed. I also drew a picture of what I meant. I also used the word "rectangle" a lot. What I expected was some sort of description of how all the rectangles around all the shapes could be somehow combined to make the enclosing rectangle. I expected some description of how to solve the problem that each shape's bounding rectangle would have to be calculated differently. In short, I expected a professional computer programmer's answer.

Maybe I expected too much. At one point our candidate was talking about a rectangle having four values (top, left, right, bottom), which is correct, and I suggested maybe modeling those four values as a "rectangle" in a separate bit of code. In truth, this is the "right" way to do it, especially since there's almost always some existing "rectangle" thing you can use from somewhre. The so-called "programmer" told me that it was a bad idea and unnecessary.

There will be three groups of reactions to the above:

• Programmers who know their stuff will go "What!?"
• People who don't understand programming will probably try to stifle a yawn, assuming they've even read this far
• People who do understand it, but don't give a damn, will feel like they may have missed the point, or just feel like I'm being all geeky again

All I'm trying to say is that there are people who have a knack for programming and people who don't. Both of these groups of people seem to manage to find work somewhere and given the salary expectations of some of them, they're managing to both find work and be overpaid for their abject ignorance.

A few paragraphs ago, I said I find it depressing when I meet these poor candidates. It's a shame. I can't believe people can get through university, probably with better degrees than I managed, and yet not know chapter 2 of the "book for beginners". However, I find it uplifting too. I do understand chapter 2. I reckon, I probably get most of chapter 3. Not only that, but I'm fair minded enough to interview people in a positive way, and yet not just go on personality. That's got to be a job worth doing.

I set off home tonight with a mission. I was going to remove the toilet and then the tiles behind it. This toilet had given me some sort of rushing of water last time I flushed it and so I had decided to take it out (I think I did the joke on that already). To take out a toilet involves both capping the pipe feeding its cistern and also removing a cistern that is full of water and cannot be flushed without mimicking niagara falls.

Fun.

Last time I turned off the mains water, the neighbours were shocked. Today I went to them all and warned them. I promised no more than 30 minutes' outage. I already had the compression fitting cap end to stick on the end of the pipe. What could go wrong? Well, I wasn't feeling too cocky.

I turned off the water, cut the pipe high up and drained it into a bucket. A little seepage onto the floor, but largely successful. Then I cut it where I was going to cap it, capped it, and then went downstairs to try putting the water back on. Essentially, I was turning a tap which would allow a bunch of water back into my pipes. These pipes also contain some air and there is no tap to let this air out through (since the pipe is now totally capped). In one single turn of the mains stop tap outside, I was allowing a water pressure, possibly pushing against an air cushion, to build behind my two capped ends (one from today and one from Saturday). This, to me, seemed like something which could cause a cap to decide to come off.

I ran upstairs to look for signs of problems. The sign would be something like sweating, dripping or gushing. There was nothing. I'd done it. 5 minutes and job done.

Wow.

I still had a cistern full of water and a toilet which apparently wasn't connected properly to the soil pipe. I also had some water in the bottom of the toilet.

It was time to try to drain the cistern. I had three buckets on standby. I also found that the cistern pipe didn't seem to be fully connected to the toilet. In fact it was loose. Perhaps it was the cistern pipe that was gushing the other day, rather than the waste. Overall, I think that would have been the best thing to happen, since the waste would contain, well, waste.

I held the open end of the cistern pipe over my bucket and flushed. The water came. The bucket filled. I swapped buckets. There was some spillage. The water stopped lng before the second bucket filled.

This was great.

I set about removing the cistern from the wall - it was tough, but I managed it without slopping the water, left in the bottom of it, anywhere it shouldn't have gone. I pried the toilet off the floor and emptied its remaining water into a bucket.

Essentially, I didn't mess this up. I now have no bathroom fittings at all fitted in my bathroom and today I sent a cheque, along with detailed instructions, to the guy who's going to fit new stuff. All I have to do is clear some rubble sacks, do a few more passes at sweeping the room out and cut the cast-iron bath up some more, so I can remove that. Sounds pretty doable.

Labels: DIY

Just thought I'd post on something that wasn't DIY related.

I watched two clips here from the Tedstock concert where double act Lee and Herring performed as a double act for the first time in absolutely ages. Years it's been, and they were doing the same old material... except it seems so much funnier.

If you're a Lee and Herring fan, reserve 20 minutes or so and watch the clips. Excellent.

On this subject, though, isn't is absolutely amazing that people are really doing this? They go to a concert, record it on a mobile phone or digital camera, and then whack it on the net within a few hours. It means that you need never miss any live event ever. Just google the thing you would have gone to and watch someone's home-made footage. Though this could have an impact on the revenues of such acts, I think it's more likely to have an positive one. We can now see a clip of this or that as a punter would from within the audience. It makes you want to go and be there for real.

At least, it did for me. I had a crazy notion of going to see this show, but by the time I looked for tickets, they were gone.

I wasn't there, but I've enjoyed it almost as though I was.

It sounds simple doesn't it? Tell the truth on your CV? Maybe that will mean that you won't ge an interview. Maybe if you do lie and get an interview, then your sins will find you out. Maybe if you do lie and you interview well, it will be a long time, if ever, before you're found out. However, there's an argument for not putting yourself into a role you're unsuitable for, especially by deceit.

Let's imagine that we're talking about technical jobs here. Let's also imagine that, for some weird reason, the people interviewing for technical jobs actually KNOW their stuff. They may not be perfect at doing what they're planning to employ you to do, but they know enough to see any holes in your ability. Let's also imagine that they're reasonable people who reckon that you could learn things you don't already know, but that you should be, at least, good at doing the things you say you can do. Seems like a reasonable interview scenario.

Now let's look at the job application stage. You're trying to write your CV. You could amalgamate a list of acronyms that you've heard of and dabbled with. You could even mention a bunch of projects you've worked on and "big up" how important you were in their success. Then you pass this CV on to an employment agency. Their money comes from successfully placing you with an employer. They're not going to lie for you, but they will make you admit to skills you don't really have, if you're not careful. These skills that you've hinted at having, but don't really have, might be the core skills required by the role that our friendly but perceptive interview panel plan to interview you for. See the problem?

So, you've blagged your way into the interview. The first thing the company does is set you a test. The test is an adaptive positive AND negatively marked online piece of wizardry which fairly reliably establishes whether you were bullshitting. Bad luck if you fail the test, you shouldn't have claimed to be able to do that which you actually couldn't do. Maybe you scrape through. In which case, you're in front of the panel. After the initial yada yada, they want you to show them that you know your stuff. Amazing breadth of knowledge with no detail would be bad. Amazing depth of knowledge in one area would be great, provided it's not a narrow and limited thing. A fair depth of knowledge in a few areas would be very good.

Step one, you're asked to describe the last thing you were working on. How did it work? Could you draw a standard diagram on a whiteboard of it? What you can't draw a diagram? Really? Ok, well, can you explain this technique? Really? You can't get any consistent terminology, or ge the message across? And you claim to have the skills for communicating software design? How does that work? And you claim to have skills for managing projects efficiently using an "insert buzzword here" method? How did that method work? What? You're describing something that's almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the method you claimed? Ok...

...it's amazingly frustrating being the person on the panel in this situation. I want to believe that the basic things I know are so basic that any computer programmer who expects to be paid more than £22,000 per year ought to know them without thinking. They're in all the textbooks, they're standard, they're the basics. That's how they got their name. They're basic!

Maybe I'm misremembering how much I knew when I joined here a year ago. Though I think I'm not.

The upside of interviewing is that I'm starting to feel like I, at least, have some sort of rating in the software engineering world. If there are people out there with salary expectations similar to my own, and they can't even draw a frickin' diagram to explain the basics of a system, and they don't even know the fairly standard methods of designing software... well, maybe I'm not as useless as sometimes I feel.

Or maybe I go into interviews to try to make the other person look stupid?

Though, in fairness to me, I tend to ask questions intended to make the interviewee's eyes light up with joy at the obviousness of the answer. I am, to job interviews, what my French teacher was to French Oral exams. The exam would be taped so that it could be marked by the external examiner. Though it was under exam conditions, the teacher could still point to the exam paper to show exactly which bit of the conversation we were at. He wasn't telling me the answer, but he was telling me when to say which bit of the conversation. He was also giving me smiles and a big thumbs up when I got stuff right.

I am Mr Milner. As far as job interviews go.

Maybe I should go and work in France?

Too far to commute.

I'm convinced that the above line is from a movie, but I can't remember which one. It might be a "Frank Dreben" quote - him off the Naked Gun movies and also Police Squad (the DVD of which is winging its way to me as we speak). Alternatively, it might be something that Steve Martin said in some movie or other. I don't remember. I shall religiously watch these movies until I find out. Google didn't help me this time. Shame.

Today I knew that there was going to be snow. I knew it when I went to bed. I knew that there was actually snow when the alarm clock woke me up with local radio (shudder) telling me of local snow (shiver). Despite this, I still failed to motivate myself out of the bed. I wasn't sure whether it was general morning aching, or a stomach bug, when I felt twinges in my stomach. I didn't want to face the cold house outside of the bed. The bedroom itself, runs a heater on low overnight, so isn't all that cold, but it's still fairly cold. It's the 8th today and the heating engineering doesn't start for another 11 days. I couldn't stay in bed that long.

I could.

But I wasn't going to.

Eventually, after the final involuntary snooze, I emerged from the bed, a little earlier than I had the previous day. Given that I'd been late for work without snow the previous day, I fully expected to be late today. On a normal day, I'd be early, but there was snow to clear from the car and snowy roads to negotiate. It wasn't looking good.

I packaged up two DVDs, both of which I'd put on eBay last night. Following over a year's agonising over Bill Bailey DVDs, I eventually had bought the box set for £10. This contained the DVD I didn't have, and two I did. It also MAYBE contained a slightly extended version of Bewilderness, compared with my existing copy. I had had to watch my box set copy of this show to find out that, yes, it had a SLIGHTLY extended version of the show. Anyway, my plan was to sell my older discs, thus allowing me to recoup some of the cost of the new box set. Plus, it would put the DVDs in the hands of people who might watch them. When I compared this option to the possibility of spending over £10 on just the disc I didn't have (which also came with a copy of Bewilderness that was SLIGHTLY extended), it seemed that I'd hit on a plan. Last night I had just finished putting the discs on eBay when I got an email saying that I'd sold one of them. I will get a little under £5, once I've taken off various fees from the purchase price. So, my box set is half paid for already. If the other disc sells similarly, then my extra disc will have cost a few pence.

So maybe agonising for a year has proved worth it?

Or maybe not. The disc I hadn't seen was good, but not awe-inspiring. Bill has definitely improved since his original one-man-shows.

Back to the travelling to work story. Why is irony so damned ironic? Well, I got to work earlier than the day before. Despite the adverse road conditions.

Not much of a climax to the tale, but at least there's a bunch of words to read on the way.

People have complained that I spend too much time itemising my DIY activities at the moment. I write about what I know/do. At the moment, I'm doing a lot of DIY type things. However, last night I didn't. I'd planned to, though my list of started jobs is getting longer, my list of finishable jobs, shorter, and my list of things I want to start, looking fairly small too. In other words, I wasn't that sure what the hell I should do. I didn't sit down and totally plan the house from the off. Some things clearly needed doing and I started a bunch of them. Largely finishing what I needed to finish.

I can do a lot more in the way of decorating and finishing once the heating and electrician people have been. Plus the new bathroom will give me a lot to do. I still have rubble to deal with and I may as well take out the toilet. By which I mean remove it from the pipes, rather than go on a date with it. Though, it has to be said that my prospects for a meaningful relationship in the short-term are so poor at the moment that I may as well date a toilet. There are many ways in which a toilet can be a good date. A toilet, for instance, will not judge you. It will deal with whatever shit you have going on. Blah blah blah - I can't actually be bothered to write a whole treatise on why a toilet would make a good date, you get the idea.

Anyway, the point is that I returned back to Reading much later than I expected last night, following a meeting at work. Once I'd gotten some food and picked up a box of DVDs (two of which I planned to sell) from my old house, it was too late to start messing about with rubble or plumbing - two of my favourite things to mess with. So, I decided to plan the kitchen and bathroom. This is the one part of the house which has most been worrying me. I used a program called SketchUp. I used a bunch of semi-accurate measurements and estimates of the sizes of various appliances/fittings. I drew the space I was dealing with, in 3D, and started dropping in the fixtures and fittings. I was able to arrange the space and see where I'd need windows, sinks, ovens and so on.

The time flew by and it was very late when I eventually got to sleep last night. I do now have models of both the downstairs space and also the showerroom, I'm presently rubble-ising. I'll post some pictures some other time.

It's the 7th of the month and I feel broke. There's like £50 in my current account, and I'm not due to be paid again for weeks. At least this is the shortest month and it's not a leap-year. Ok, so technically I keep very little money in my current account anyway, transferring it all to my savings account to maximise interest, but that's not the point. I'm shelling out money left right and centre and that's got to hurt. I know I've got the money sitting in an account for this exact purpose, but that's not the point. Though there's plenty of money at the moment, there's also plenty of work to do. As a result I've written some budgets which pretty much convince me that I'll either have just enough, not quite enough, or plenty less. They're not very accurate budgets.

On the money front, there's news that pay conditions at work are changing so that we're not getting bonuses anymore. Instead, we're getting what we might have gotten as a bonus added to our salary. So it will seem like there's a rise in my pay in the next pay check or so - some of this may even be backdated (perhaps enough to pay for my new computer and TV). You'd think I'd be happy, but I guess I'm aware that, had things been different, I would have worked for and earned exactly the same bonus. So, I would probably have exactly the same amount of wealth by this point. The only advantage of it happening like this is to avoid the "bonus effect" that a friend of mine talks about - where a bonus is spent several times over because you imagine you have more money than you do. In this case, the bonus happens to pay for things I bought because I suddenly found myself having to buy them. Maybe the net result is the same, but with different expectations. Maybe I'm actually doing the bonus effect with the X-amount of money, presently sitting in my savings account, which is allocated for developing the house. I keep imagining that it will cover ALL the jobs that need doing, when it wouldn't take too many of them to go wrong before I'm in trouble.

Pay rises will happen at some point. It's possible that mine will happen in 2008. As a result, I may feel like I'm not getting any more money, especially coupled with the rise in my living costs, as a result of living alone in a house that I'm progressively destroying and making less tenantable.

It's not really money that bothers me. Being able to do something is far more important. Actually doing things is even more important. If I fail to get the house sorted in time, then it will cost me even more than planned/reasonable. It has to succeed. I'm basically putting two hours in per night. It's hard to find the energy to do too much labouring, and not all jobs can be completed in one sitting.

I'm having a bad day. Things don't seem so rosy today.

Last night I did some plaster patching. The stuff I used may or may not be good enough for the job. It went on ok, but will need sanding to flat. All surfaces will be wallpapered over, so flatness is all I need - it doesn't need to hide cracks especially well, or be perfectly smooth. Last night I also did some wrecking in the bathroom. I'm still wary of rupturing my cistern. So, I was careful. It was some hard tile-chipping. At one point stuff was falling off the walls and taking my collection of tools off the windowsill of the bathroom. I was worried about losing them in the rubble.

When I'd tidied up the job, I thought I'd made a reasonable fist of it. (I think that's a phrase people use.)

I'm an idiot. Did I mention that?

I discovered that something had gone awfully wrong when I flushed the toilet late in the night. I don't know exactly what is wrong, but I do know that the connection between the back of the toilet and the pipe outside is not water-tight. I know this because a quantity of water (and god knows what else) escaped into the room at quite high velocity. I managed to leap out of the way, grab a mop and deal with this water before it did too much damage. What the hell's wrong is not something I even want to know. I do know that I'm going to disconnect and remove the toilet very very soon.

I went to sleep grumpy as a result. I woke up grumpy too.

This lunchtime, I organised the builder to do the bathroom. He can worry about making the toilet not spew water everywhere when it's flushed... it will even be a different toilet. I suppose I ought to go out and buy the toilet I'm expecting him to use.

I hadn't just had a poo in it when I flushed it.

I couldn't wake up this morning. When I eventually did, I ended up in an hour of traffic to work, which got me there late. Annoying.

This lunchtime, feeling a bit moody, I decided to break my resolve to eat healthily - I found out last night that a brief spurt of weightloss has been reversed (not in the extreme, but enough to annoy me) - and went across the road to get Fish and Chips and mushy peas, with brown sauce. The bastards didn't even have any. I couldn't even eat unhealthily. I ended up with the vaguely healthy lunch I usually have from the cafe of this office building.

Buying a DVD at lunchtime didn't help alleviate my grumpiness.

On the plus side, one of my blisters is healing nicely.

Also on the plus side, though I'm grumpy and annoyed in my head, I'm not raging with pain/annoyance physically. Sometimes you can get so fussed that you feel physically buzzing with it. I'm physically quite calm - probably exhaustion.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do tonight, but I would like to do something which feels useful. It may involve removing a faulty toilet (I have a downstairs loo too, which was pretty grim, but is now the best loo in the house).

I've dealt with worse things than today.

Labels: DIY, money, plumbing, stress

I have just planned a trip to Edinburgh. I'm taking the train because it should be the cheapest way to do it. The plane is fast but not good for the environment and more costly when you factor in taxes, parking and petrol to and from the airport. The drive to Edinburgh is way too long and the petrol would also be costly.

I thought I would use the best wisdom on the matter and not buy a return ticket. Instead, I hear you can get the price cheaper by buying singles or breaking your journey. So I played the game this lunchtime. I used the Gner booking site in conjunction with one of their special offers. Initial cost of London to Edinburgh return was 117. You may as well drive at that price. By varying day and getting singles, I got it down to 90 something, but that still wasn't good enough. So I tried to get singles to and from Newcastle, knowing full well that the train goes through there. 44 for the Newcastle leg as singles. Then Newcastle to Edinburgh. Some of the single prices were very cheap. I could have got tickets on the train I was on from the London Newcastle leg, but introducing a one hour pause, in which I could gan to starbucks in the toon, got the price down. The total: 64 pounds. I bought it, well them. Four tickets as a testament to a rip of rail service. Annoyingly, I later discovered that, travelling at those times, I could have done two London Edinburgh singles for 57. I could have sworn that they were not available when I started. So, I'm not a booking genius, but I've still saved a ton and also made my journey more interesting.

There's a lot of dust in my life at the moment. I'm not speaking metaphorically. I mean literally. Here's a fact: when you remove tiles or wallpaper, you can either weaken, or expose the existing weaknesses of the plaster behind. If you remove the plaster behind, and I recommend a mask for this job, you get a lot of dust. If you intend to put patches of plaster back in some of the holes, then you need to avoid the dust, since plaster doesn't bond well to dust.

With these things buzzing round my head, I took an odd route home after work last night. I went via B&Q. I'd chickened out of buying some PVA during one of my THREE trips to B&Q on the weekend, thinking that the plaster I'd bought would magically bond, but the thought of the plaster dropping immediately back out of the holes I was slopping it into was playing on my mind. So, off to B&Q. Anyway, I also wanted to check out skirting boards and electric mitre saws. I spent a few good minutes with each of these tasks and even bought some more grinding wheels for my angle grinder.

I needed to make a solution of 1 part PVA to 5 parts water. I also needed to stir my PVA. As I passed the Morrisons the answer hit me. I'd buy a cheapo measuring jug and some spoons. This is a cooking answer to a DIY problem. Excellent. As I was at the till with my slightly not-cheapo jug and my very cheapo spoons, I happened to discuss with the till assistant what the jug was to be used for. She was impressed. I explained that it was a man solution. "Man use jug in garage to mix paint" sort of thing. She admitted that she'd once used a knife for a screwdriver. I said that that was a very woman solution. I asked what she'd used for a hammer? A spoon? Or maybe made some pliers from two forks. I left her with the advice to use an insulated handled knife - maybe a wooden handle - for electrical screwdrivering.

Oh, how smart and clever did I feel after riffing on the subject of cutlery as tools. Oh what a smarty pants. Oh Mr Comedian, you are so intelligent, making your mockery in Morrisons. My bubble burst quite quickly as I had to spent about 6 minutes searching for my car. In my hurry to get into the shop, I'd totally failed to make any attempt to memorise where I'd parked. What a knobhead!

Back home, I made my PVA mix, mixing it like a chef might mix a custard. Then, having brushed the debris from all my plaster holes, I painted in the PVA. The holes should now be sound. This took much less time than, say, finding my car might have taken if Morrisons were a bigger store. With nothing else to tackle downstairs for the time being, I set about working on my bathroom again.

I took the radiator off in the bathroom, expecting at least some vagrant liquid to seep out of it. Of all the radiators I've removed, this is the one with the least risk. The radiator itself is headed for the dustbin. The pipes are due to be moved/replaced. The flooring is both waterproof and also headed for the dustbin. This is the radiator where it doesn't matter if it all goes wrong. It was totally empty of liquid and came off with no problems at all. Arse!

I'd already removed all the tiles and plaster from two walls of the bathroom. The walls remaining are the one with the window (partly de-tiled) and the wall at a right angle to it on the right hand side. Between the two walls, at 45% to where you'd imagine it should be pointed, is the toilet. The toilet's cistern is supported on two metal arms at eye level. I started work removing tiles on this wall. I was wary of going too close to the cistern. The way I saw this going wrong was that I'd remove some innocent looking tile and then there'd be the tile equivalent of a landslide, which would result in the cistern, full of water, falling off the wall, drenching everything and blocking my exit from the room. Then the pipe, feeding this cistern, would start gushing mains pressure water at me. There'd be no way out of the room, unless I dug through the now sodden and muddy plaster, and then the only way to get the water to stop gushing, once I'd tramped muddy footprints across what's left of my carpet, would be to cut off the water supply to the whole street again.

This was the scenario I imagined. So I was careful. And I avoided it. And I think that the arms holding the cistern are probably embedded deeply in the brickwork, but I'm not sure. I will have the toilet cut off in a couple of weeks and then remove it.

I filled four rubble sacks with... well... rubble. Then I called it a night. I'd done about 2 hours of labouring. My arms really ache. It's a bad combination of general RSI and the straining of muscles I never used to use until a hammer became my new friend.

It was around 8.30pm when I went to get a Subway sandwich. Having eaten this in the shop I returned home to warm up with my electric heater, which felt very ineffective, and watch the remainder of Catterick, Vic and Bob's 2004 comedic drama. I was immediately distracted from this by a couple of MSN sessions and an email I'd received, containing some comedy script work from another comedian. I read this a couple of times and gave a detailed dissection/assassination of it. I hope that this was useful to its author.

Eventually, the computer went off and Catterick went back on. It was a curious series which sort of worked and sort of didn't. Bob Mortimer's straight acting isn't really what it should be, and some of the scenes didn't quite work. Matt Lucas played three characters, one of whom's accent seemed to slip in and out of the cod-Indian he was aiming for. However, it was a nicely surreal piece with some excellent supporting performances from Morwenna Banks (I always liked her and now I like her more) and Tim Healy (by far the funniest delivery). Vic Reeves was, as always, on excellent character-acting form. I'd missed this series when it was first on - I was probably too busy with The Musical! or something. It was good to finally catch up.

Oh, and the title of this post, is a quote from Matt Lucas in Little Britain, which sort of wraps together the whole thing. I was trying to seal dust in, I generated some dust, and then I watched the king of dust in a DVD.

Dust.

Labels: comedy, DIY, DVD

I seldom do this, but it seemed appropriate. The following is an extract from an email I sent a friend. It's something like an outline of my current life plan.

I haven't got a great deal of time for reflection at the moment. I just have to keep doing things which take me in the right direction and hope that I'll like it when I get there. There are a few phases to go through. Here are some:

1. Rubble trouble - far too many bare floors and dusty piles of rubble
2. Partial service - new bathrooms that need tiling, rooms that are still unusable, but basically sound.
3. The basics - the house will be in a condition where I could move a tenant in, if only there were a bedroom ready other than my own.
4. Decoration - maybe I do a splurge of decorating, or maybe I do a room at a time, bringing in a tenant as soon as it's ready.
5. Housemate hell - all of a sudden I'm living with 4 other people. I have no privacy and either love having people around me, or, more probably, start planning to buy another house so I can get away as quickly as possible.

When I get to step 5, I'll see how I do. It's possible that I'll start house hunting sooner, or it's possible that I'll suck it and see. I've no idea how much physical labour and upheaval I can cope with in a given year, but I'm prepared to find out.

I forgot to include, in the email, that I plan to have some holidays this year too. As a single man, I now have no ability to promise my girlfriend that I'll eat healthily while away from home... so, I'll have to find some other excuse.

My back aches from the straining I did with that cast-iron bath. My hand aches from the combination of exertion and having been hit with a hammer. My headache has gone.

In yesterday's post, I didn't mention Friday night's gig, which had me aching from laughing. I'm assuming, though, that the nerves which sometimes give me a tight lower back, and the laughing, which can sometimes hurt my sides, have not been responsible for my discomfort this morning. Anyway, back to the story of the gig.

It was quite a cramped bill on Friday. This was my fault. I'd asked the organisers of the gig for an open spot, just so I could have a "live rehearsal" of my material in front of an audience. I have been very worried about my time away from the stage and I want as many gigs as possible in order to loosen myself back up. I think that I'll have to call an end to this worrying in the middle of the month, since it's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I say to myself, I'm a bit tight and out of practice, so it won't go so well, and then I go out and give a twisted-tight performance which doesn't go so well. Not the best combination.

Anyway, I was due to go on second in the first section, following Sean Meo, one of the nation's chief comic performer/writers. I was waiting outside the room as he performed, so I didn't hear a word of his set, at least not clearly. I quipped to my fellow comedians, as we stood in the hall - "That's the thing about these professional comedians: they're so muffled". I went on and did 15 minutes - it had a bit of a lull in it, and a few moments where I was expecting a laugh or at least a bigger reaction, and foundered a bit as I recovered my flow. However, it was a gig that it took me less then 10 minutes to drive home from, and I got enough laughs to justify going on stage, so I'm pleased I did it.

I'm also pleased that I stayed around for the other acts. Nick Page was very good in the middle section as was newer act, Wendy Wason. Headliner, Rob Deering, was everything I wanted him to be, and more. I remember seeing Rob in 2002's Fringe and putting him on my list of must-see comedians. I've seen a couple of his Fringe shows since then and I've been on the bill with him a couple of times. It's always slightly embarrassing that his guitar playing simply urinates on mine from a great big height, but he's such a pleasant guy, and so funny with it, that I can't feel jealous, nor does he act like I'm inferior (even though we both know it).

I've seen a lot of Rob's material before, but hearing it again raised big laughs from me, and some of his newer stuff was similarly crippling. I honked and hooted through the 40 minutes or so he was on stage. It was excellent. I've missed stand-up.

So, there was laughing until it hurt, self-injury with DIY, what else could I do to myself this weekend to cause pain? Repetitive strain injury, perhaps?

Well, the jury is still out. I have so many pains in my hands, back and wrists, it's hard to say whether any were caused by the hours I spent at the keyboard this weekend. I should point out that I'm not in agony. I'm just hamming up my mild discomfort. Don't call an ambulance just yet. Whoah there.

I spent a while at the keyboard this weekend working on an article for Micro Mart. When I started writing it, I had no idea if it would hang together, or even meet the lower end of its word-count range. 1800-2400 words seems like a lot when your first word count comes in under 400. However, I used my usual technique of writing a skeleton outline of the piece and then filling in various sections once I knew what I wanted to say. As is often the case with my writing, I used a combination of anecdote and opinion, rather than vast quantities of hard technical data. It is a piece on the use of computers and the internet for cheating and I used the internet quite heavily to research it. Perhaps this is perverse? Perhaps not. I made sure that I had hard facts and sources for many of the things I asserted, which probably made it one of my better pieces. A lot less vague.

The writing had been started on my old laptop the week before last, but the new laptop proved very good at allowing me to pick up where I left off. I did a couple of hours of writing on Saturday night in front of the TV without even having to plug the machine in. Yes! A battery that works! I finished the piece off last night. I'd finished the overall draft on Saturday night, but needed to review it a couple of times to try to shave it down and to make sure it made sense. It had been written piecemeal, and the pieces needed to fit together. Each section needed a start and end, and the conclusion needed to be solid. I wasn't certain if it fit.

Despite my worries that I'd not make 1800 words, the finished piece came in at 3000 words! I had to offer the editor the opportunity to ask me to cut it further, or invoice him for a shorter piece. He seemed happy with the draft I sent him, though. Phew.

To get the finished article (pardon the pun), I used a technique that I seldom use. It works well. I speed read the piece out loud. I suppose that living alone helped me with this. While reading it out loud, I was quickly aware of difficult sentences or missed words. I hope the printed piece looks as fluent as it felt on my screen last night.

How to end the weekend? I ended it as it began. I watched some musical comedy. In this case, it was Bill Bailey's Cosmic Jam DVD. A DVD I've agonised over buying for the last year. It was alright. Bill's definitely improved a hell of a lot since 1995, when it was recorded, and the recording had a number of technical problems which probably prevented them originally releasing it. Only die-hard fans would put up with occasional camera goofs and some awful sound problems. I'm a die-hard fan.

Labels: comedy, DIY, writing

To create some sense that I'm an imbecile who should not be allowed near tools. I will disclose that I managed this weekend to cut off the water supply to several houses in my street and injure my hand. I will also add more suspense to the equation by admitting that I bought an angle grinder this weekend. Exactly how these facts fit together is the subject of the next few paragraphs. For readers of a nervous disposition, I'd like to assure you that I'm typing with full use of all of my hands, fingers and, that I can breathe comfortably.

The mission for this weekend was to make it possible for the heating engineers, who are coming in two weeks' time, to gain access to a corner of my bathroom that was occupied by a knackered valueless cast-iron bath. The reason I describe this bath so is to avoid any sense that I would have been made very rich had I decided to transport it, intact, from the property for sale somewhere. It's essential that I believe that this was not some valuable antique, but simply an old piece of junk that was getting in the way of both my heating engineers and the new shower unit I plan to have installed when I can get someone in to do it.

Anyhoo. By the time I'd smashed a bit of the rim of this bath off with a club hammer, its value was going through the floor. The bath itself, though, was going nowhere.

On Saturday, I decided I was going to un-plumb the bath from the water supply. I headed out to B&Q and bought some caps that go on the end of pipes to stop water coming out. This is a reasonable thing to put on the end of a pipe that once fed your bath time and which you don't want water to gush out of. Having returned from B&Q, I set to exposing the pipe-work behind the bath with a view to capping it. You can't cap a pipe while there's water pressure, so I turned off my stop-cock and drained my hot water tank. Once the downstairs sink had stopped allowing any water out of its two taps, I thought I'd dealt with this. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when the...

...who thought that I'd sawn into a pipe to get covered in water? If you did, you're a cynical soul. I had vowed that I wasn't going to stuff this job up. For me, the pre-requisite test before severing a pipe is to try the tap at the end of it. If the tap runs, the pipe stays unsevered. So, in fact I was surprised when I discovered that the tap still ran. I couldn't sever the pipe like this, so I went out into the street and turned off the stop-cock that's down a hole outside my house. Problem solved.

I then had the problem of how and where to sever the pipes. Ideally, I wanted to sever where the pipe hit my bath taps, but leave the washbasin still supplied with water so I could brush my teeth. It soon became apparent that I'd be better off capping the pipes lower down - more accessible and requiring of fewer tools-that-I-did-not-have. So, I cut the pipes, moved the redundant bits out of the way and set about putting the caps on. These used compression fitting where you basically tighten one nut against another, thus squeezing the fitting on the pipe. This requires two spanners and I've done this sort of thing before. However, I didn't realise that I'd done it before on thinner pipes. I was on 22mm pipes this time and my spanners didn't go up that high. So I had to call an end to the pipe-capping exercise for the time being. No problem, I could go out, get lunch, get a bigger spanner and finish it later.

I'd had a busy morning. Apart from eating way too many biscuits (and that's a form of busy-ness) I'd also done a lot more with the bagging and generation of rubble in the bathroom. At B&Q I'd bought my new favourite tool (until I later bought an angle-grinder) - the Utility Shovel. This is a metal hand-shovel ideal for scooping up debris and bagging it. Marvellous. I'd really gone to town on the rubble and followed up my success with an unprovoked attack on the metal bars at the head of the bath, which were covering the pipe work. Why they chose to put metal bars there I've no idea, but they were clearly not thinking of my back, which is distinctly sore.

Out I went. I bought lunch, I took my time, I went to B&Q again and bought a very expensive adjustable spanner. Then I returned to my house.

Quite a surprise to find a neighbour knocking on my door. Had I turned off the water? Erm... yes... why? Because the stop-cock in the street is not my personal stop-cock, but one for the whole street. Thank goodness someone hadn't taken it upon themselves to put it back on, or I'd have been looking at the Poseidon adventure in my bathroom. I apologised profusely and then returned to the bathroom to try the two-spanners trick on my new pipe end-cap with my new spanner. What had been the risk of minor inconvenience to me (where I might compromise the use of my toilet and kettle) had now become a task which the whole street depended on me completing successfully. I tightened. I tightened some more and then I went out into the street.

With someone posted inside the bathroom giving me updates on whether the toilet cistern was filling (water) and whether the new end-cap was dribbling, sweating or gushing (bad water), I slowly opened the stop-tap on the street.

My neighbours got back their water and my compression fixing held. Thank goodness for that!

Sunday involved waking up with a plan to sort out the cast-iron bath. Hitting it repeatedly with a club hammer, fun though it was, was not really getting me anywhere. A few pieces chipped off the rim was bound to make the bath lighter, but was not going to make it light enough for me to carry, and nowhere near as easy to manhandle as if it had a nice convenient rim to hold on to.

I'd decided that I probably needed an angle grinder for the job of breaking the bath up properly. I also decided that, having never used an angle grinder before, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I went to B&Q again (10.30am - early B&Qage) to find out what my options were. I stopped off at the toilet aisle and was accosted by a member of staff who wanted to show me their stock. In fairness to him he was more of a walking catalogue than a salesman and he expertly showed me round the range of items they had. Every time I put a problem to him, concerning what he'd just shown me, he had a different product which solved that problem. I liked him. We had fun looking at the different products until we eventually hit on the strategy I'll use. Ironically, the strategy involves buying the exact item that I was looking at 30 minutes previously. However, I now know how I'm going to "upgrade" that item to be the specification I'd like and I'm happy. Job done.

Given that it was Sunday morning, and I was awake and out of the house, I decided to get breakfast. This was done at the B&Q cafe, where I contemplated how I would get the right tool for my bath-smashing. I decided I would simply explain my problem to some power-tool people and see what they suggested. Here is what happened when I first tried:

Him: can I help you?
Me: I need some help finding the right tool for a job.
Him: Oh. I'm not usually based at this particular shop, so I don't know my way round so well. Unless it's a general tool enquiry...
Me: It is. You tell me what tool I need, and maybe we could find it together.
Him: Ok. What do you want?
Me: I've got this cast iron bath, it needs breaking up and hammers won't do it. What could I use to break it into pieces.
Him: Oh... er... a circular saw?
Me: (thinking that maybe this teenager wasn't the man for the job) Well... aren't they usually used for cutting wood?
Him: I'll just ask one of the others.

Luckily, I got to ask someone who knew what the hell they were talking about and I won't bore you with the exact details, but the upshot is that I ended up leaving the shop with a Black and Decker angle-grinder and 5 grinding wheels. It cost me less than I spent on petrol for the car later in the day.

Back at home, all the wood I'd ripped from the old-fashion plaster walls, was disposed of. Once it had been a plaster, with an angle-grinder in action it would have quickly become kindling. I put on a mask, some goggles and some gloves. I looked like a space-alien. Then I tried the angle grinder on the bath. It sparked a lot. I made an incision. It took a lot of doing. Eventually, 4 cutting wheels later, and a lot of wrangling as I still ended up having to move the bath, so I was cutting through it from its outside - which meant rotating it in the already confined space I was cutting it up to free it from - I made the last cut and it fell into two pieces, both too heavy for me to lift alone. D'oh! Along the way, I'd created a lot of sparks and soot, and even managed to blow the fuse on the machine, which, I guess, is better than burning out its motor.

The bath was history (though not in the antique sense).

I stopped work, went around the corner for a coffee and an assistant, and then returned to move the head end of the bath out of the house and into the garage. This turned into a marathon session of moving rubble sacks out of the house and into the garage. I should order a skip. I'll easily fill it with all the crap that's in my garage.

The cut I made was a third of the way into the bath. I'm not sure why I didn't bisect it. Perhaps I intuited that I'd probably be unable to move half the bath. Either way, it didn't matter. Though there's 2/3rds of the bath still in the bathroom, I can deal with that later on, or maybe even ask the heating people if they wouldn't make doing the lifting with me or for me. The bathroom is now clear enough for them to put their pipes into the space we agreed.


The alcove in which the pipes will go.

Entertainingly (for me at least) the remainder of the bath looks a bit like it's taken a Titanic-style nose-dive into the floor:


A sunken bath?

Given my overall clumsiness and the difficulty of moving a cast-iron bath and capping mains-pressure water pipes, coupled with the use of a tool I'd never used before - one with a fast rotating cutting edge - I think I can be proud of escaping this weekend basically unharmed.

I did mention that I was injured. This was simple. I managed to get my hand trapped between the head of the chisel and the head of the hammer as I was doing some hammering. Not my whole hand. That would be a very incompetent grip. Just a little bit of flesh. The hammer hit the flesh and I got a small blood-blister under the skin. No big deal. What's the big deal? I'm clumsy. I'll learn to be less clumsy more quickly if I have to go through a few minor nicks and scrapes.

I was feeling quite hairy last night. I usually have my hair trimmed down to the level usually found in the photo to the right. However, it was much more bushy than that. This makes me look quite scruffy and also gives facial itching. Never a good thing. This lunchtime I went out to get myself trimmed down and I now feel more myself. Given that I never used to get my hair cut so short, it's interesting to find that I now consider it "more me" to be trimmed down. I guess this is part of the legacy of being changed by my ex-girlfriend, and an appreciated legacy too. Perhaps she'll remain in her role as my "style guru" a personal Trinny/Susannah if you will.

Talking of hairy, and this isn't some convenient aside, as much as a contrivance to shoehorn two subjects into the same post, last night's gig was quite something. To put things into context, my last gig was December 7th. It was a spoken gig. I didn't do my musical stuff, nor take it especially seriously. So, the real last gig before my break was at the end of November. I had a similar two-month break last year. The first gig back is always going to be tricky, and this particular gig in Grantham was a first night and in a room which did not help the comedy atmosphere. Listening back to the gig, though I felt on the ropes at the time, I cheated my way into the audience's affections and managed to keep it going. It was by no means a barnstorming performance, the likes of which I'm capable of turning out when I've got a following wind and a lot of practice in. However, it was vaguely credible.

I made the mistake of dropping my usual opening in favour of something which I think is quicker to the funny, but is actually a bit of a groaner, which I can get away with, once an audience are used to me. As a result, my opening foundered a bit. I want to ditch my usual opening, but if I'm honest, I still haven't got anything better to put in place of it. I need to work on that. Work on it, I shall!

I also had some weird response to the usually bankable material on Bernard Manning being a racist. Basically, the word "racist" was an instant silence to the room. It was a longish room with a high ceiling, which made it seem very silent when it was silent and made the back of the room hard to reach with laughs. However, I'm experienced enough not to let the occasional silence get me down too much. Once I got into the ruder stuff, the audience really started to play along. Though it didn't start out that strongly, I acted as though it was going well, which seemed to help. The opening gag got a half-laugh/groan, which I leaned on and then added "I see I've found your level" which was, in fact augmented in my head by "and it's not this".

I've been missing gigging and I'm glad to be back on the horse, if not as firmly as I've been before. The late night drive home was a good opportunity to think about DIY. How sad is that!? I didn't get back too late, though the 140+ mile journeys are going to take some getting used to again. It seemed to take a very long time to get back home. I suppose that the loneliness of an empty house might get to me too, but I shall, hopefully, be in a position to bring in tenants in a few months' time. These long lonely car journeys will give me the time to think about how I can expedite that.

Maybe it is perfectly normal for a nearly 33 year old man to own a hand cream. I'm not the only one in my office to do so. In fact the particular brand of cream I use can be found on someone else's desk. It's just that my hands have been getting awfully dry and this has been exacerbated my Diy tasks. I went to a chemist and asked for something non greasy. So a politician was out of the question. A hand cream is, apparently, a special medicine for hands. It works. They should market that.

I didn't buy hand cream because I'm worth it. I bought it because my hands were sore.

Bod, eh? What were that all about?

Apparently this could track my weightloss...

One of the things about MySpace is that people start asking you to be their friends. I have a rule. I will only approach someone to be a friend if I have a link with them in real life. Equally, I'll only take on a MySpace friend if either I know them, know one of their real friends, or if they look particularly interesting.

I frequently reject new friends.

Today, I accepted Mokya, who are an Irish spoof pop band. Well, they make spoof pop music. I listened to one of their songs and it was good. There is a problem with doing what they're doing, and it's the fundamental problem of musical comedy.

Firstly, when you write a song it needs to have substance as well as style. This is particularly true of comedy songs, where laughs only come from substance. In comedy the style can also make laughs, but the style is part of the comic substance, so let's just call it substance too. In pop songs, there's a lot of repetition. Unlike other sorts of song, this tends not to dilute the substance, since pop is about simplicity and repetition. Fair play to it. Of course, a bad pop song's chorus might not bear hearing more than once, even within the same song. A good pop song's chorus might be so good that you don't want to stop hearing it. This is the basis of the catchy tune, which gets your brain addicted to its sound so much that you end up singing it to yourself.

So, someone writing comedy pop has a problem. The pop song is about repetition, but in comedy, once you've heard a joke, it's seldom funny a second and third time. You can add substance to it, by exaggerating later performances. If the chorus is made of particularly strong words or imagery, or if the chorus changes its meaning as the rest of the song's resets the context, then it will bear repeating. However, overall, the comic song can die when its chorus stops being funny. So, comedy pop. Difficult.

The final thing about song-writing is down to length of song. The 2 and 3 minute pop song is a nice bite-sized time. Other styles of music require longer songs. Big production numbers in musicals want to be longer than a couple of minutes. Artists like Pink Floyd would have been desperately constrained with shorter times to play with, and only Weird Al Yankovic can perform the classic Bohemian Rhapsody in less than its allotted 6 minutes. Weird Al does it as a polka at double speed. There's a case where style is the substance - it's bloody hilarious hearing the whistlestop-tour of the music in an up-beat polka stylee. It stays funny.

The pop song 2 minute format would, therefore, make an excellent opportunity for the comedy song, since it's hard to keep something funny for too long - it soon wears thin. However, in those 2 to 3 minutes, you need to keep changing the joke. Have a progression. Swap repetition for something which surprises the audience, or make the repeated thing well and truly unbelievable to the ear.

It's bloody difficult.

Mokya are not playing their music to a live audience, so in some ways it's not a big problem. The music itself sounds nice and you can switch off and still enjoy it. However, for me, a comedy song cannot be switched off to. It has to grab you, make you laugh and then take its curtain call before you've gotten bored of it.

Labels: comedy, songwriting

All this talk of thing in the near past is well enough, but things happened to me long before I started blogging and I seldom review them. For reasons I can't quite fathom, a memory popped into my head, so I thought I'd write it up, rather than enjoy it alone. Given that I never witness anyone reading this blog, I'm still remembering these events on my own, but I have the illusion of an audience, and that's good enough for me.

Let's cast our minds back to 1991. I was 17. Now I'm nearly 33 and worrying about hiring the right plumber, then I was young, overweight (though about 4 stone less than I am now), and excited about having just learned to drive. I'd never played a guitar before. It was a mystery to me. Now it's still a mystery, but I somehow manage to get away with standing on stage doing it. Then I had decided to give my summer over to working in a summer camp for Jewish children, now I give my Christmases up to work at a shelter for non-Jewish homeless people (though it's not a requirement that they're not Jewish... it's just that they probably aren't).

In fact, the story which jumped to mind, probably happened in 1992. It was the same summer camp, but my second year at it. I did three years of it in total. My title was "house manager", which was a nice way to say that I was the person who ensured that the rooms were correctly set-up for the kids and that we had all the necessary equipment stored somewhere. I did that for some of the time and also spent time looking after the kids, especially when it was time to do the bi-weekly shows we ran (usually when one set of kids were preparing to leave, to be replaced by the second set).

Between 1991 and 1992, I'd lost a shed-load of weight, and people were amazed at how good I looked. I'm still amazed, but more about the amount of hair that I had. What was more amazing at the time, though, was how much energy I had. The loss of weight somehow freed me from the agonising grips of gravity (it didn't, it was an illusion). As a result, when a coach load of kids arrived, I literally jumped into the boot and started throwing luggage out. Then, when all the luggage was out, I'd grab a couple of cases, their respective owners and run across the campus to drop them all off. We didn't do all the cases this way, but on the occasion that someone had been parted with their luggage, I seemed to be motivated to use my new-found SUPERPOWERS to sort it all out.

I had a lot of fun at the camp, which was called (and this is a sign of the times back then) Excel. You couldn't call anything Excel these days for fear of legal action, but back then Microsoft Excel was not the brand name it is today (read the link for the history of Excel if you're bothered).

Often I would be called upon to sit at some sort of piano and play whatever the kids wanted to sing. Being able to muddle through a song by ear really helped. At this stage, though I'd used the money I earned in 1991 to buy a guitar, I still couldn't play more than a couple of chords. So I didn't.

There were things that were fun and things that were tiresome. Generally, I had a good time. I remember very few of the kids we looked after. The reason I started this trip down memory lane is because of a French child called Olivier. Olivier was a scrawny waif of a lad. He suffered Petit Mal, which is a mild form of epilepsy, resulting in small pauses. These rarely happened. He spoke some English, his mother being English, and had been sent to us partly as a way of seeing whether his English could be improved. He looked a bit like Woody Allen might do if he were French and a child. Coupled with his awkward looks, he was physically very poorly coordinated. He could barely walk his little bony body in a straight line, and the sight of him playing Badminton reduced us to tears of amusement. It was arms, legs, rackets and everything flying everywhere - except the shuttlecock, which was oblivious of this particular player's efforts.

Younger than many of the children, and less mature aswell, Olivier was more needy of support. He would often come to find one of us to get help with something. It wasn't too surprising. He didn't speak very good English, he didn't form friendships with the other kids and he was far from home. Undoubtedly he was a lonely young boy, missing his parents. As I remember it, he came back for a second year, so he can't have been too miserable. I reckon we must have enjoyed our support somehow. The thing is, I was a teenager, as were the other staff (or at most they were twenty-somethings). We found this child hilarious and irritating in equal measure. It sounds picky now, but his means of phrasing a question - "Hello. You can help me find Rob?", for instance, was quite ridiculous. Use of tone of voice alone to ask a question seemed wrong. Especially when, taken at face value, that line is almost either the sort of thing a royal might say to an underling, or a statement which may or may not be disproved.

After some moaning and bitching about this child's behaviour, I pointed out, quite reasonably, that perhaps it was unfair of us to criticise his English too much, given that it was his second language. Sure he had an English mother, but perhaps he didn't speak as much proper English with her as she had told us when she first booked him into the place. Rob, whom Olivier was always after, was a French teacher - a teacher of the language, more than a teacher of that nationality. As a result, Rob had spent the most time with Olivier, and Olivier obvious sought him out whenever possible, since he was the only person he could really talk to. Rob had the final say in whether we could treat Olivier as the idiot he appeared, or whether we should stand-down and accept that it must be hard to be coherent outside of your own language and context.

I'll never forget what Rob said when we were complaining about how bad Olivier's English was. "His French isn't all that good either."

No, not another Beatles song title for a post title!? Yes, I fear so. Still, it is a pertinent title, so I'm keeping it. If I write a post called "Glass Onion" then I give you, my reader, whoever you are, the permission to exclaim something of your own choice very loudly.

Following work last night, I drove back to the house. I had time to get changed and then the heating engineer was due. We've already booked a date for the heating works, but it was pencilled in pending an on-site inspection and review of exactly what would be done and where it would be done. The guy was due at 6.30. So, at about that time, I was dressed in working clothes and ready for him. Rather than start a DIY job, I migrated my data to my new computer and installed some software on it. This proved relatively painless. A call from the engineer told me he was running late, so I did some more of the computer preparation.

Eventually, the guy arrived and we spent a good hour working out how the installation would be done. It requires me to contract my roofer to seal around the flue, and it also requires me to rip out the bathroom. I was going to do that anyway, but I now need it to be done a lot sooner. This is not the end of the world. It is, however, a non-trivial task. Specifically, I need to rip out the bath and make the area behind it, which we're keeping as a void, accessible. The bath is cast iron. The void is currently covered with the remains of a wood and plaster wall. Fun is to be had.

After the engineer had left, I drove around the corner to where a meal was waiting for me. I had the possibility of some help, but this help had decided that the best way to help me was not to join me back at the house in the tile-ripping-off, but, instead, stay at home ironing MY shirts. That's a pretty good deal.


I returned to the house, put on a breathing mask and started hacking tiles and plaster off. I'd removed my glasses to avoid them getting dusty and steamed up from the beathing mask. Ideally, I should have worn a pair of goggles, but I was generally working at arm's length, so it probably didn't matter. It didn't.

I hacked and scraped and the bath, a cast iron affair, a bath that I will curse when I have to take it out of the room and down the stairs, made an excellent job of catching most of the rubble falling from the wall. This has been its own job in the house since I bought it. This bath will never see hot water, heated and paid for by me. That's quite sad, really. Then, so is living in a house with increasingly fewer home-comforts. It's amazing how normal that now seems.

It got to a point where I could see dust blowing off my mask when I exhaled. I was tackling a larger area of wall than I had the previous night, and even the small bit of wall on the previous night had been enough to make me wheeze with the acrid dust that came out of the plaster. The face mask was clearly doing a cracking job, because I didn't lose the power to breathe, avoid choking, or live.

At some point, my frenzy of wrecking the walls came to an end as the bath was largely full of rubble and I reckoned it was too late to be making hacky-hacky-tap-tap noises in my bathroom. The bathroom is fairly isolated, being located between two internal walls and an external wall (rather than any party walls), but enough was enough. I set to bagging the spoils of my efforts. I filled five rubble sacks and the bath was still fairly full of rubble. I need some sort of shovel. My 67p dustpan, usually coopted into such situations as a shovel, was sadly broken by a falling tile. I'll buy another, then.

Dusty in a way I seldom get, I returned to the house around the corner for a shower and a viewing of Desperate Housewives, which is, basically, smashing. I know. I shouldn't watch it, but it's very good. Plus, when I get my Freeview box working, I'll be able to watch it at home. I still haven't gotten the Freeview hooked up. I need to erect a plinth for the TV to stand on, so the Freeview box won't be crushed by it. Low priority!

I returned home for some sleep.

Tonight and tomorrow night I have gigs. Tonight's is in Grantham, so I will be back late. Tomorrow's is local, so there may be a chance to do some bath clearage before I get some slumber. The weekend is going to be crucial, though. The bathroom needs clearing and I need to consider how much other stuff I want to be done before radiators come back into rooms and obscure sections of wall.

Labels: DIY