Archive for June, 2008

Links, Plugs and Elderly Men

Just a quick one tonight..

Found this from Peggster.net (go to ‘Simon’s Blog’ and read the June 25th entry) - if the US remake of Spaced was going to go ahead (which, thankfully, it seems won’t happen), it appears there were plans afoot for Pegg, Hynes et al. to shoot a small clip in response. Thus, we would have had the nearest thing to a new episode, the (draft of) script can be read via the link.

Yet another link for you - On the way home from work each day, I pick up a copy of thelondonpaper (not the London Lite, which is mostly rubbish). The reason I plump for thelondonpaper though, is based mainly on the inclusion of the superb Em cartoon, which always gives me a good laugh at the end of the day. There is a website with the archive of the cartoons, but it’s at least a week behind the strips published in the paper. Still, well worth a look - now why can’t we have an RSS feed to get daily updates? Please?

Quick plug, there’s about a month to go until my final comedy gig (i.e. the last one that I’ve still got booked) - So it’s almost time to start stressing over material again, but at least this time I should be able to prepare more. It does seem to depend a lot on the audience, though - so, if you’re reading this, come on down to the Monkey Business club in Kentish Town on July 31st and laugh at me. Otherwise I may never appear in public again.

{EDITOR} Unfortunately there then followed a hilarious piece of tube-related satire in which a sign calling for seats to be given to the less-able-to-stand was given a twist, hence the ‘eldery men’ of the title. At the moment, however, I can’t seem to upload the picture properly, so until then, you’ll just have to imagine how funny it was.

Start from the beginning, skip to the end…

…and so begins the start of my (hopefully semi-) regular posting. Few things to mention today:

1. iPlayer 2.0 finally launched. It’s looking pretty good - having worked on the 1.0 version, I know that some of these features have been talked about for a while, so it’s great to see them finally out there. Of particular interest to me, and a feature which others might have missed, is the ability to watch/listen to something, leave the page and then come back to the same point automatically when you return.

I’ve not tried it out yet, but given that I like to watch stuff from iPlayer on the Wii whilst I’m having my breakfast, but I rarely have time to finish a whole programme, this will be a godsend, for instance when watching programmes like Doctor Who Confidential or…

2. MeeBox - The latest offering from Adam Buxton (of Adam & Joe fame) - reminds me of a cross between ‘The Fast Show‘, ‘The Adam and Joe Show‘ (of course) and Armando Iannucci’s ‘Time Trumpet‘. It’s apparently been a year in the making (or at least in the scheduling - and it’s pretty good. Some bits are funnier than others, but it’s great to see older characters making a reappearance (BaadDad, the alien from Takeover TV etc.), but I can’t help think there’s something missing…Joe?

Now that’s probably unfair, since I’m sure they’d rather not be seen as being joined at the hip, but I get the feeling that, given the short nature of the sketches, it loses something when Mr. Buxton appears in *every* one of them, almost straight away…

Worth checking out, though…(available until Monday morning)

3. Although it looks like I’ve got my arse into gear just as she’s leaving on a summer holiday, I just wanted to give a mention to Caroline Clifford’s superb “Local Girl’s Day in Pictures” - a very funny, appealing blog made up (mostly) of cartoons describing the life of a typical North-East Londoner (I hope that’s an fair description…)