Botherer

2004-09-30T16:06:00.000+01:00

Test

http://pool.cream.org/pics/cartoons/optimism.jpg

2004-06-12T15:22:00.000+01:00

This is the new dawn.

Change is good. Apart from copper coins, which are bad.

I have a new home, far from this corporate city with its black smog and hideous advertising billboards.

I have a home in the clouds.

Posts that have been worth reading here or at cheesetoasties have been copied across, and filed under their proper date. All ten of them.

It's a beautiful new site, built by the lovely Richard Cobbett, just for me. And it's on Ice - the only server in the world that contains absolutely no advertising whatsoever.

So update bookmarks and the like. You wouldn't believe the amount of traffic coming to this site via the old address... Actually, you would. It's about five people a day. That's not hard to believe. I was showing off. Sorry.

botherer.cream.org

Be there.

2004-06-11T17:20:00.000+01:00

"Perhaps this narcissism, this restless urge to affirm some kind of identity, stems from the response to the untimely death of Diana Princess of Wales. In the mawkish aftermath of that event, one Susie Orbach opined that the English were beginning to learn about “emotional literacy ”, the sort of piffle that silly people come up with to block channels of clear thinking."

A big thank you to Cian for pointing this out to me - interesting to read a similar argument, but from the perspective of someone who seeks to see a true expression of patriotism. I would rather see none. It's a fun article, full of lots of entertaining points of contention.

2004-06-08T18:30:00.000+01:00

Stupid people are far better organised.

This fills me with great dread. As I drove back and forth the Bristol this week, I noticed more and more of these hideous UKIP posters and stickers all over the place. On the same journey, I've seen nothing for any other political parties, but for an open-topped New Labour bus shedding dangerous balloons all over Bristol's already-dangerous-enough behemothic roads. How is this the case? How is it that the xenophobic, nationalistic hate-mongers are able to blanket advertise themselves, while the FAR richer major parties haven't a sign to be seen? Advertising works, and this scares me very much.

However, this isn't the only Stupidity Sign that's been crammed into my face the last few days. The last thing anyone needs with this ludicrous miserable humidity (for goodness sakes, there was a major astronomical event this morning, and the Sun failed to be hidden behind the purple thunder clouds and inexplicable black acrid plumes of smoke expected for such occasions), is to see car after car sporting these pathetic plastic 'England' flags.

The Comic Relief meme of having plastic noses adorn the front bumpers of cars was fairly wretched. "I've given money to Comic Relief! Look! SEE!". However, this latest money-for-no-one virus reaches new levels of tedious pointlessness.

I don't care that you are supporting England. It doesn't matter to me, nor anyone else in the universe. It will make no difference to the result of the football matches, it will provide no encouragement to the players in the team. It is a ridiculous, meaningless exercise in vacuous flag waving emptiness. The notion of supporting a team serves to add a level of enjoyment to one's experience when watching a game. It has no other purpose. While people may use language and behave in a way that suggests otherwise, you share no part in the victory of the winning team. You merely celebrate a satisfactory conclusion to your emotional input. Attaching a semiotic stick to the door frame of your car can in no way enhance this. It is merely an exercise in shouting at other people.

People may wear the t-shirt of a favourite band to demonstrate their appreciation in a public form. I am not suggesting that an outward expression of support is necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. I am suggesting that decorating your car with a dozen cheap plastic St. George's crosses is an act of public grossness.

Hang on. But this is England's flag. Shouldn't English people be free to fly it as much as they wish? Sure, it's become associated with hooliganism and the BNP like to chuck it around, but can't we reclaim it for what it used to mean? This is the flag of St. George, a heroic figure...

Ah, St. George. That famous English hero... No, wait, he was from Nicomedia, in present-day Turkey. Oops. So presumably, were St. George to attempt to visit Glastonbury today, he'd not get past immigration control on account of looking a bit Middle Eastern.

He seems to have been a pretty good guy - martyred in the 4th century (a beheading for him) for protesting against persecution. In, er, the Middle East. However, his adoption by England has not a great deal to be proud of. His patronage occurred during those glorious days of the Crusades, under the vile leadership of Richard I. His emblem, the red cross on a white background intended to be a sign of his martyrdom, became a symbol worn by England's invading armies in 13th and 14th centuries. The martyr's red cross, earned by George for fighting against his oppressors, became the banner of the oppression England spread around the world.

Ever since, the mark has been synonymous with the invasion of other nations in the name of "Christian mission". It's hard to find a single good thing to say about it. The Counter Reformation repopularised the myth of his dragon killing ways (Killing dragons, for goodness sakes. Cheers, Pretend George, thanks for killing off our best mythological creature. Maybe he's responsible for the woeful lack of unicorns as well), as the church began invading areas of Africa, India and the Americas that had previously been dismissed as being populated by dragons. And so on and on, and on.

It would seem that the adoption of this literal semiotic flag by hooligans and extreme right-wing parties is only appropriate. How fitting that they should choose to present their blind hatred with this red cross, as that's all it's represented for the last 1700 years. England has no use for this flag. Perhaps if Turkey were to stop mass-slaughtering the Kurds living in their country, they could reappropriate the symbol for its long-forgotten meaning. However, as they are currently oppressing the world's largest ethnic group without a homeland, it would seem a little inappropriate there as well.

But ranting requires a suggestion for positive action if it's to be more than shouting at the wind. And this is my suggestion:

Get European flags, as tacky and plastic as you wish, and attach them to your cars. Subvert this senseless meme, in as peaceful a way as is possible. This forthcoming sporting event is the UEFA European Championship. So let's satirise it in the best way possible - let's support everyone taking part. And let's stand against the UKIP where the major political parties aren't. Let's get organised.

2004-06-06T18:27:00.000+01:00

Update: 2454 hits on the auction. 6 bids.

Nnnggnghhhhhh.

2004-06-05T23:19:00.000+01:00

I wasn't going to mention this on here. It seemed cheap somehow. But it's now gained the sort of novelty value worthy of a mention.

I've put some very rare freebie Baldur's Gate II paraphernalia onto eBay, to see if it can go to a home that will love it in the manner only appropriate for obscure specialist novelty items. That I may profit from this endevour is purely one of those strange acts of providence with which I cannot hope to argue.

A Baldur's Gate II Premium Golden Ale and Tankard

The reason I mention it: The lovely Jon Hicks (which reminds me, I should probably have mentioned, I'm soon to become Jonty's housemate - more soon) sent word of the auction to a website called Blue's News, which has linked to it as part of its "Auctions of the Day" section.

In the last four hours, the auction has received 968 hits. NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT. And four bids.

In conclusion, readers of Blue's News are cheapskates and should learn to recognise a good, if potentially poisonous, bargain when they see one. The fools.

2004-05-28T17:41:00.000+01:00

I have a plan.

This summer, I am going to discover the treasure of the Knights Templar.

Now, I'm aware that a lot of people have made this claim before, and others even go so far as to deny that the treasure exists (the wrongfaced fools), but they have all made one mistake: They've given it some thought beforehand.

I intend to go in blind and ignorant. For is it not those who don't deserve things that usually get them? I will deliberately attempt to engineer such circumstances for myself. And I believe that doing this on purpose only further increases my chances, as I throw arrogance into the mix.

Rather than actually doing any research for myself, I've managed to combine laziness with arrogance, and emailed the Godfather of adventure games, Charles Cecil. He's something of an authority on the subject, and has much better things to do than bother with my silly questions. So now I know where to go, most especially here.

.

I believe that all holiday destinations should be described as "unassailable".

I really am intending to do this. If I can find a cheap enough way to get to the South of France, and a cheap enough way to stay there, then it will all be go. I suppose I really shouldn't be worrying about the costs, what with how rich I'll be on return. But that has the faint hint of planning ahead about it, and I don't want to let that slip in.

If anyone has any very useful information about the Route des Cathars, Carcasonne and Colliours, especially good places to stay (anything from youth hostels and upwards), please let me know. I will share a small amount of gold with anyone who helps.

2004-05-21T17:42:00.000+01:00

Here is an important thing: When you go for a bike ride, go uphill first.

I am horribly unfit. Firstly I'm overweight - not grotesquely so, but enough that when I see my reflection in a shop window, I double-take and think, "that can't possibly be my belly," before the crushing realisation that it is. I have man-boobies.

Unfortunately, because getting fat(ter) is a gradual process, it sneaks up on you. That's almost true. Whenever I visit my parents, my mum tends to greet me with a cry of, "Look at the SIZE of you." But in-between times, it sneaks up on me. But what's really made me feel like the Blubberwhale King has been climbing flights of stairs. If I'm in the position of having to go up a couple of floors, I'll trot my way quite happily, until I reach the floor I'm stopping at, and find that I'm having a heart attack. This proves inconvenient on a regular basis.

So something in my brain has snapped, and decided: it's time to do at least something. I found myself, quite involuntarily, pumping up the tyres on my bike. The bike that has remained on the same spot on my roof (well, the shop's roof, and my bit of it) for a year. I'd forgotten that it has two different types of tyres, and so needs two different pumps, and I could only find one. (The other one, it turned out, was clipped to frame of the bike, which seems a ridiculous place to put it). So I drove to the place I was planning to cycle to, borrowed a bike pump while I was there, and drove back. Pumped the tyre up. Stood back. Looked at the bike and realised I now didn't have a reason to ride it. Failure.

So yesterday I defiantly rode it to a meeting in the village, despite the rain. An incredible 500 metres or so.

Which brings us to this afternoon. Tonight I'm taking my younger youth group on a walk. I thought it would be a very good idea to take my bike to check the route, remember where we were going. Genius. The rough route would take us down the valley, along near the canal, and then back up again. And so down the hill I cycled. I was going incredible speeds, 50, 60 thousand miles an hour. And when I got to the bottom, I was thinking, "I live in the most incredible place! Why have I wasted living in such a beautiful area?" I wasn't going to stop there. The road doubles back on itself, leading to a weir and a nice riverside pub. I know this, because I have driven there.

So I hurtled along, faster and faster, flies and my eyes becoming as one, and then at the end of the road, where it sloped up quite steeply, I didn't get off - I just pumped my way up. I WAS VICTORIOUS. I had a celebratory glass of Coke in the pub, which the nice lady gave me for 10p cheaper as I was just short with the change in my pocket. I felt remarkably good, sat at wooden outdoor table, overlooking the river, surrounded by green in every direction. (Except for up).

There's no real need to go on, is there? I thought the sensiblest thing to do would be to go up the bridle path that cuts a straight line all the way up the hill, rather than the meandering, weaving path of the roads. For the fun of it, I thought I'd see how far I could cycle up it. About a metre. But that's not because I'm the rubbish King Blubberwhale, but because this path is just shy of vertical. I wasn't entirely sure why the myriad stones and rocks weren't all rolling their way to the bottom. About halfway up, my bike became a sort of two-wheeled zimmer-frame. Two thirds of the way I up I made a solemn life-oath that I would never, ever cycle to the bottom of that hill again.

At the top, I realised I had no idea where I was. Which was only bad because it meant I didn't know how much at the bottom of the world I still was. Correctly picking right bore me out onto a familiar road, at the bottom of a horrible hill, but at least close to home. I didn't cycle the hill - I didn't have the strength. But I did ride the last five minutes home from the top.

The thought that dominated, when "never do this again" gave it room, was "I cannot believe I thought this would be a good idea before going on a walk tonight." I have no idea if I'll survive, or if I will have to be dragged by twenty twelve year olds, all singing "KING BLUBBERWHALE IS DEAD!" before a celebratory dance.

However, getting back I realise that I am in fact just the slightly overweight King of All Things Good and Decent, and that it might be fun to see if the route gets easier through repeating.

I might be mad now.

2004-05-19T20:56:00.000+01:00

Today I finally made some use of this sunshine we appear to be having.

Fresh hair cut and purpled, I left my curtain encrusted hovel for exterior exposure, and lunch with Kieron and Jim in a pub 'garden'. This was followed by some wanton sitting on grass in the middle of the afternoon.

This feels right. Obviously, sitting around in the sunshine when everyone else is at work feels right - how can it be wrong? But I mean, this feels like the right way around for me at the moment. I allowed a brief glimmer of guilt to flash through me, knowing that others on my course were probably doing some sort of youth work paperwork rubbish, or writing journals, or somesuch worthy activity far more impressive than sitting in the park and talking about Thief. But then I remembered that I'd finished work at 4am this morning, and yet gotten up before 10. Work, see. Reviewing some rubbish RPG thing for Format. And then moreso - Wednesday is my day off! Because come Sunday, I'll be working from 9.30am until 9pm. Admittedly with a gap in the afternoon, but that shall be inevitably filled with writing journals. On a day that isn't my day off. This is the way my brain has always intended to work - late at night, with day time for goofing around.

I know Steve D will be groaning, slapping his forehead, and planning to slap mine in a couple of weeks (his 13 year old daughter Miriam has asked me to be her godfather at her baptism - very proud). But it's in moderation. 4am is exceptional. 2.30am is normal, and quite acceptable, thankyouverymuch.

That youth groups take place in the evenings seems ideal for this pattern, but that other people exist in the daytimes does not make for a helpful planning side to all this. Ever moreso, I find myself thinking in the direction of eschewing full time youth work once I'm qualified, and instead sticking to voluntary stuff, in order that I can continue my gratuitous lifestyle. And hopefully take on more work without fear of clashes with college, essays, journals, meetings, weekends away, having to stay overnight in Bristol half the week, and on and on and on and on and indeed on. Oh, you poor folks, you don't need to know this.

Lunch included the inevitable portion of Mocking John for Being a Christian. This is all done within the realms of friendly banter... I tell myself. I am an object of curiosity, for that at least. Anyway, this lead on to Jim's formation of an entirely new religion and deity, Horace the Endless Bear. In an act that may possibly conflict with my current faith, I have found myself pledging, in the event of surviving a nuclear holocaust, to promote this religion alone to the few that still live.

And finally, it became very important that I do this:

In the shop window of the Spar below my house.

2004-05-17T21:21:00.000+01:00

So this is what the previous post was meant to be about - the being inspired yet uninspired thing.

I have an idea for a radio comedy programme that I think is good, and might work. Problem is, I've no one to write it with, and I've always figured I'm one half of an effective writing team.

This matches up with my theory about marriage - I figure that I'm one half of a very effective team for surviving life. Trouble is, my teammate seems missing.

So all I'm after is a comedy writing wife. That's all.

However, I will settle for a comedy writing fake wife, if absolutely necessary. So what I'm looking for is someone who listens to Radio 4 all day long, every day, despite hating most of its output. If you don't listen to Radio 4 all day long despite hating most of its output, then that probably sounds quite a weird thing to do, and even more weird to expect someone else to do it too. However, if you're the person whose brain (and potential marital status) I'm looking for, then you'll entirely understand what I mean. Oh, and you need to want to write comedy too.

My hopes aren't exactly super-high that anything will come of this appeal. Comedy writing partners are only found by mistake or at an Oxbridge college. The latter is a little unlikely, and I'm bored of waiting for the former, so at least I gave this a go.

Email me if you're interested.

2004-05-17T20:19:00.001+01:00

This evening I am a complicated combination of inspired, and entirely uninspired.

I'm also feeling that strange awareness of having the strangest audience for this blog. People either read this because I am the bloke who writes the budget reviews in a PC games magazine, or because they know me in real life. I think the overlap of this particular Venn diagram is a little on the small side.

I mention this because it creates a confusing dichotomy in my brain about what I want to write here. Sometimes I want to moan about being single or something, but then I think: oh no, there are strangers reading, strangers who might think I am some sort of love god, and how can I disillusion them? No. No, I don't ever really think that. But I do feel troubled about discussing the finer minutia of my morbid life.

Sometimes I want to moan about my degree, and where I am with my youth work qualifications. I've got less than a month to have all my fieldwork stuff in, and I'm ages behind on it all, due to being very lazy indeed. But I have to get it all sorted because otherwise I'll have wasted an enormous amount of the last two years. Not the actual youth work itself - that is what it is, independent of this silly degree. It's just that the degree leeches off the youth work, trying to make it all official and important and qualified and journalled and rubberstamped. The wasted time will have been all the stupid journals I have written, and all the tedious 'small group' meetings I've attended, and the endless forms and meetings and dilemmas and confrontations. Blimey, that's a bit sad - my motivation to finish is so the crappy times at least went towards something. I expect I'm just moping. I'm sure I'll have more enthusiasm soon. Perhaps I'll find it again after Deadline Day, June 11th. (That reminds me - when Kieron Gillen used to do Gamer's game commissions, they included the line, "And by 'deadline', we mean exactly that. The line which, if you cross, you will be made dead.")

I should mention some of the stuff I'm doing for PC Format. In the issue in the shops at the moment - the one with the stupid rubbish photo of a girl licking a graphics card, irony apparently - I have a four page feature all about file sharing and stuff. It's quite good. It's good enough that it annoyed Macrovision (people responsible for the copy protection on CDs and games) so much that they wanted to tell me off... by taking me out for lunch. How media-whore is that?! So this at once proved that there is indeed such a thing as a free lunch, and in fact one that gets you more paid work as a result of it. They sure showed me.

But there's other stuff too. As a result of that article, I'm supposed to be writing a monthly half page thing about file sharing and the RIAA and suchlike. Though I got myself in some trouble with that today. I made a comment about some senior editor bloke I don't know in my copy, and he - erk - read it. I wasn't rude or anything, I just said that I'd ignored something he'd said to do in the commission because it didn't work. He sent me a cross email. I imagine I'll be killed to death tomorrow for that.

But better, I have a monthly page now of writing about weird websites. It's not the most original idea, but I don't think it needs to be. It's a place to link to whatever websites have made me laugh or be impressed that month, and to look back on an old dead site that was once great. It's fun to write, so I'm really pleased to have that.

Plus, this month I got to realise an ambition that I've had for ages - I got to write about toilets in PC games.

For the last few years, it's been something of a running, er, joke, that I've pitched the idea of a feature about toilets in PC games. Obviously no one has ever said yes, because it's a rubbish idea that just amuses me to say out loud, but would probably be the worst thing ever if I had to do it. But, the perfect compromise was realised. Alec at Format commissioned a single page of it. I'm really pleased with the result - I've managed to get some really good genuine developer quotes, and put together a really deadpan (though completely ridiculous) page. I don't want to spoil any of the jokes or names of developers here, so if you're the only person who'll care about this, you've got just over a month to wait. I've also got a few pages about Sid Meier in the PCF out in a few days.

Interesting - the thing this entry was going to be about hasn't come up. I'll write that next, just above. However, instead, I think I've decided to be a bit more open and honest on this blog, whenever I get around to updating it. Who cares what strangers think? Well, I do, but let's ignore that.

2004-05-15T10:32:00.000+01:00

New They're Back up on the archive, as the final old-look PC Gamer arrives on the shelves.

Not a great column, that month - and it contained the review that finally annoyed Tony enough to put his foot down more firmly on the pages - the naval simulation "joke". We still don't see eye to eye on this one, my argument being that it's funny because the joke is so very unfunny. Tony argues that it's not funny because the joke is so very unfunny.

Either way, each of Tony's challenges had led to my attempting to write TB more carefully, and generally (and frustratingly), he turns out to be right.

2004-05-14T03:20:00.000+01:00

Saw Rinaldi Sings tonight. So you don't have to.

Don't.

Ever.

They (he) are the hideous result of someone having heard My Life Story and early Divine Comedy, and thinking that they might have a go at something like that. But then accidentily writing themes to BBC1 daytime quizshows.

As if commissioned by Radio 2, each song is a painstaking attempt to be 'catchy', but never so interesting that you might not fall into a lifelong coma. Little-brained big-band safety-mod, nasty in its cynical conception, hideous in its sincere delivery, if there's one band you douse in petrol and set fire to this year, make sure it's this one.

Proof

2004-05-10T20:35:00.000+01:00

All hail Mark Danks, and his file converting ways.

For those luddites incapable of a non-evil file format, here are the HILARIOUS clips of me, in mp3.

Star performance

Honour call

2004-05-09T17:24:00.000+01:00

Ah-ha!

Proof of my radio comedy prowess has surfaced.

I've recently found the Lee & Herring Radio 1 Show floating about on the magical internet, from way back in 1994/5.

And finally a nagging teenage memory of having phoned into some show or other has been solved. For ages I thought it was The Armando Iannucci Radio 1 show, but no such me-ness was to be found within. All cleared up now.

If you care, and you do, my decade old 17 year old voice can be heard below:

My very voice

and

My glory

I was 17, ok.

They are ogg files. This is not a mysterious audio format from the Hidden Realms. It's perfectly normal. The fact that Windows Media Player and Real Player seem unable to play them is not proof that oggs are obscure - it's proof that Windows Media Player and Real Player are utter rubbish. Winamp 5 can play with them with no problems at all, unless you are Kieron, and hence the enemy of all technology.

If anyone has the ability to turn ogg into mp3, then email them to me - I'll smile down upon you from Comedy Heaven forever more. And just because it will make Stuart Campbell quiet his whiny mouth.

If there's anyone who reads this blog who doesn't like Boothby Graffoe and his cavalcade of misery, and hence have the good sense to want to hear Lee & Herring's non-Fist of Fun Radio 1 stuff, then it would seem that you are interested in the illegal pirating of the BBC's intellectual property, despite their never attempting to release the series commercially, nor ever repeating it after 1996. You dirty, evil, thieving pirate scum. Email me for details. Even Mitch Benn.

2004-04-28T20:35:00.000+01:00

At Nick's behest:

[during an episode of Boothby Graffoe]

[02:10] nickm: "Tony Blair claimed to have no reverse gear. But how does he park?!!"
[02:10] nickm: John - do you see how unbelievably rubbish that is, on so many levels?
[02:11] nickm: "How does he park?"
[02:12] nickm: Blair uses an obvious bit of figurative analogy. And Graffoe then reverts to the referent. It's so clunky it beggars belief - it must be some sort of meta joke, to give it some credit, surely.
[02:12] Johnw - Evil: Finally, finally I've found the right word for what he thinks his songs are - 'Thought Provoking'.
[02:13] nickm: Indeed.
[02:14] nickm: "Blair said he didn't put all his eggs in one basket. But that can't be true, because I doubt he would put them in different baskets when he went shopping - it would be too ungainly to carry!!!"
[02:14] nickm: See, I can do it too.

[02:29] nickm: The joke was "I took my camera into the chemist to have the film processed. The lady at the counter was very rude. She said 'there's only one photograph', and I said 'I know how to use a single use camera.'"
[02:30] nickm: Boom tish.
[02:30] nickm: Read that one liner and marvel.
[02:30] Johnw - Evil: Really? THAT was the joke? I'm very proud of my inability to hear it
[02:31] nickm: But think on it: this man is being given 30 minutes of precious airtime on a national radio station every week, and is being paid for his efforts. It is astonishing.
[02:31] nickm: That was the joke.
[02:31] Johnw - Evil: maybe we should have him killed
[02:31] nickm: In fact, hold on. I want to literally transcribe it.. I don't want to be defaming him.
[02:32] nickm: Ok. Ready?
[02:33] nickm: "I went to the chemist the other day"
[02:34] nickm: "And umm. and uh.. the women in the chemist was very rude"
[02:35] nickm: "I went to get me photographs and she said 'there's only one photograph' and I said 'I know how to use a single use [pronounced the same] camera' "
[02:35] nickm: Audience laughs.
[02:35] Johnw - Evil: kill audience
[02:36] nickm: I went into the chemist to get me photographS.
[02:36] nickm: Plural.
[02:36] nickm: So he lies about the joke at its beginning.
[02:36] nickm: Sloppy, lazy writing.
[02:36] nickm: 'writing'

2004-04-28T19:05:00.000+01:00

Because I have the luxury of being able to post here, rather than in broken fragments on the comments, I'm replying to the Boothby question here.

My disbelief at the Boothby Graffoe programme is hard to voice - not because of some limit of English hyperbole or anything silly like that, but because of the vaccuum-like substance the programme appeared to be made of.

I found listening to it to be like having the air sucked out of me, slowly and surreptiously. Defying Nature's usual abhoration of vaccuums, it seemed to have the ability to spread them.

It wasn't that I thought the jokes were rubbish - it was that it seemed to be devoid of anything that you would mistake for a joke. His songs possessed no punchlines, but instead meandered their way into extended, horribly self-indulgent guitar interludes, that you could only hope against hope would culminate in some sort of fantastic 'ta-da' moment that justified their existence. But no, they inevitably tumbled into a repeat of the chorus, over and over to fade. I'm sure such things would probably be pleasantly placed in an afternoon background at Cropredy Folk Festival, but they have no place in a so-called comedy programme. Wallpaper is not an aural medium.

But they are only a small part of the effort, and perhaps one could argue that they are allowed to not be gag-fests, and instead an interlude betwixt the stand up and sketches. But that would require some sort of humour found in the stand up or sketches.

Every show of the recent series began with the laboured request for someone to holler if they were from Australia. Or America. Which would then be followed by some painfully lame, always cliched, fake-improvised banter. At astonishing length. And I've noticed on at least one occasion (although I can only say definitely that this was the case for a previous series) that the voice crying out in response is Steve Frost's. A man of that little vocal dexterity is perhaps not ideally chosen as an audience plant.

I think the sketches think that they are surreal. They aren't. They're about as surreal as someone shouting "FISH!" and then telling their friend stood next to them that they had said "FISH!", explaining that this was surreal of them. But I still hope that they are intended to be surreal, as the other options are too terrible to consider. "Lonely Buildings" was perhaps the very best example of this dross. It was a laboured joke that didn't work in the first episode - a small ad placed by a building, in some way punning on the nature of the building. That it appeared in the second episode demonstrated a lack of quality assessment in the writing. That it was in every episode of the series beggered all understanding.

The one redeeming feature the programme used to have was the spoof of Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz. It was an excellent observation of the seemingly mad tagents the questions required the contestants take, and even moreso, the apparently psychic ability of the contestants to make those tangents, with utter nonchalance. But this series saw even that broken. Steve Frost clearly only ever fluked success at these sketches previously, as it was quite clear that he didn't understand what it was that was being spoofed this year. His inability to not leap for the "rude" gag meant that Graffoe had to constantly undo the damage by a retracting comment, or the painful device of the pretend 'intellectual' laugh. The tension of this mangled improvisation is audible, and very uncomfortable.

Then everything else each episode: the abysmal post office joke - one so poor that the electrocuted studio audience couldn't even bring themselves to do more than a discomforted half-laugh. But not once! The same joke, the *exact same* joke, every week. No variation, no building. The same joke. Or the broken, open-ended stand up sections, each as if building up to the point of the routine, the part that would deliver based on all these feedlnes, and then just stopping. The air fallling out of your mouth, as you sat, aghast that it could really be that poor. And very irritating - the repeating of material previously broadcast in The Big Booth - lazy.

Again, a lot of my frustration is borne out of disappointment. Graffoe used to be a very good stand up. His routines based on a meandering tale that would carefully and deceptively spin on itself, until its tale met its mouth in delightful punchline. I remember being excited by his stuff. I think the collapse matched the cutting of his hair, in some sort of unfortunate Sampsonite parody. Associating himself with the bottomless pit of comedic uselessness that is Steve Frost seals the deal for me.

Following the current trend, I now half expect Graffoe to post an angry reply.

2004-04-27T20:00:00.000+01:00

Well, hasn't it all become terribly exciting?

I obviously owe Mr BENN an apology, as he in no way deliberately ripped off a TMBG song.

This blog does not have a large number of readers, as someone generously believed. It's round about 20, so not a huge audience to ruin the career of Radio 4's premier song spoof person.

My tone was, as is often the case, far too strong. I am but a fool. And of course, as we now know, too stupid to know better.

What happens, you see, is my London based friend Nick and I often listen to Radio 4 comedy programmes late at night (on Listen Again) before going to sleep, conversing via IM. Obviously I can see that such an action is replete with internet geekery, and labels us, possibly quite fairly, the same.

But it's a fun way to unwind at 1am, before falling asleep. We pick a show from the Radio 4 'comedy' line up, press play at the same time, and then commentate on why it's so bad. Or good. Mostly bad. For us, The Now Show is an absolute must. The dreadful state of that programme warrants a great deal of analysis as to why it's quite so poor.

(Ok, perhaps to most, it doesn't warrant any such thing. But for Nick and myself, we are fascinated by radio comedy and how it works, or doesn't work, and this process is an entertaining way of practising this. I have long followed the medium. Examples of exceptional programmes would be On The Hour, Saturday Night Fry, On The Town With The League of Gentlemen, and more recently, The Sunday Format. Then of course there was the majestic and hideous Blue Jam, or the brilliantly silly Fist of Fun and Armando Iannucci Show (all three on Radio 1). Then there is radio comedy from long before our listening lives, Round the Horne, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (which Nick *hates*), and the long running (and perhaps too long) I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Just A Minute. The greatest of these being On The Hour. Radio comedy is very capable, and something that matters a great deal to me).

Anyhow, back to our listening. Because of the current terrible state of radio comedy, our only choice is the dross. The mediocre does not offer much of a conversation point for our chitchats, and there's nothing above that currently broadcast. Earlier I mentioned The Now Show. Written by a team led by Punt & Dennis (former Jaspar Carrott sidekicks, and the other pairing in The Mary Whitehouse Experience. It's only fair to mention that Mitch Benn is a member of this team), it purports to be satire. So much so that the Radio 4 continuity announcers appear obliged to embarrassingly say the word in the show's introduction... "And now on Radio 4, SATIRE, with The Now Show...", followed by the extraordinary nasal belching of the title by Hugh Dennis.

Unfortunately, this 'satire' follows the BBC's current misconception that topical comedy automatically equals satire. This isn't the case. Satire is crucially angry. It is vitriolic, passionate and dangerous. And it's been going for a long, long time. In the 16th century Jonathan Swift wrote satire that caused social outrage, angry letters, public disgust. In the 20th/21st century, Chris Morris wrote satire that created more complaints to the ITC than any other programme, had newspapers blaring our headlines, caused MPs to make public fools of themselves in response, and he has been fired from just about every job he's had. Whether this is a good thing, or a terrible thing, is not the matter in hand. What is the matter is the importance that this is what satire does. Merely mentioning something that happened in the news, and then (in the case of the Now Show) saying, "but what if George Bush was on the Weakest Link!", or whichever "what if X were Y" formula they may choose, isn't doing this. Governments are not feeling threatened. And most importantly, people are not being challenged by their thoughts. (I don't think Marcus Brigstock's few phonecalls to Feedback about his relatively well delivered MMR routine quite counts).

And Nick and I aren't gloating. We aren't smugly dancing with glee at how bad it is. We're upset. Really upset at how poor radio comedy is these last few years. We know what it's capable of, and we are recognising by how much it's failing. We lament these programmes, we find what is wrong in order to better understand how to make it right. And yes, with that last thought in mind, we are of course intending to put our money where our mouth is (although to not do so is not hypocrisy, as if often illogically argued - I can recognise that a wall is badly built when it falls down, without having to build walls myself. Recognition requires observation, not response. Although response is ideal).

So I didn't want to listen to Mitch Benn's programme that night. Nick moaned at me until I agreed. I have already heard a couple of episodes from the series on its recent late night broadcast, and didn't enjoy them at all. But anyway, we listened, and I was again annoyed by its poverty. Not nearly as annoyed as I am by Boothby Graffoe's recent series, which was astonishingly bad - achingly so, but just frustrated by the wasted opportunities. And then I heard the song, that I mistakenly thought to be a deliberate lift of a TMBG track, and in the moment emailed. I shouldn't have, but did.

So apologies to Mitch Benn for my incorrect accusations.

2004-04-24T02:20:00.000+01:00

I have written to Radio 4's The Now Show star, MITCH BENN, alerting him to an issue that I imagine must come as quite a shock. MITCH BENN currently stars in his repeated radio series, MITCH BENN's Crimes Against Music, 6.30pm Thursdays on Radio 4. His crazy combination of stand up banter and music spoofery is a magical mix that leads to almost as many as one jokes an episode. You can hear this by visiting Radio 4's Listen Again pages, or alternatively, why not visit his website as linked to above. The website helpfully puts the punchlines to jokes in CAPITAL LETTERS, thus making them even easier to get.

Email:

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Hello "MITCH BENN".

I am concerned that the band They Might Be Giants may have been stealing some of your tunes, almost note for note. Thought you might want to know that they are sinking so low as to rip you off rather than write their own music.

See you on BBC Three soon.

John

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I will keep you posted as to his reply, and the shock he will feel when he realises that the song "I Palindrome I" by They Might Be Giants uses the very same tune as he does for one of his comedy singsongs.

Perhaps They Might Be Giants were hoping that the sort of people who listen to They Might Be Giants would not also listen to MITCH BENN's Crimes Against Music, and therefore never notice that they are pathetic, talentless cretins who use other people's work without offering credit. I just hope that my small effort can put at least a small part of this right.

2004-04-15T00:58:00.000+01:00

The They're Back Archive has been updated to contain Ish 129's.

Now I'm accurately six months behind publication, and will be adding one a month unless I forget.

2004-04-12T18:38:00.000+01:00

See, it's true.