King Clumsy

Baked Generosity: The #ARTour

2011-10-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

Quarter to seven and the surprisingly mild weather in Gloucester is already making me regret the thick but comfortable coat I'm wearing. My girlfriend is more suitably dressed as we wander to where we assume the entertainment for tonight will be held.

Just before I caught a bus to Cam and Dursley train station a tweet from comedian Josie Long stated that the Gloucester show of her "Alternative Reality Tour" or ARTour to save twitter space would be held. I knew where she meant (roughly) so we strolled to the location, a clear space tucked behind a ruined church between Greyfriars church and the Eastgate indoor market where an exterior light served as improvised stage lighting.

The set up was suitable simple, a sheet of tarpaulin with blankets and sheets on it between the banner marking the stage and a few benches conveniently placed (the choice of location was fantastic. I shared out cupcakes I'd brought with me. I'd heard about the gig and I had a day free. a few pound spent in sainsburys and an hour in the kitchen later I'd made a bunch of cupcakes to share out.

At seven Josie Long wandered from in amongst the thirty or forty strong crowd to introduce the evening's events and do a bit of relaxed stand up.

Next up (And several times throughout the ninety minutes or so) was the fantastic Grace Petrie who I really recommend. I think I'd heard one of her songs before but made the big mistake of not listening to more. To pigeon hole her I'd say she was like a short female slightly northern Billy Bragg but that doesn't do her justice. Singing a few songs on protest, cuts and seeing exes in Topshop (All heart fealt and uplifting)

The stand ups were Henry Widdecombe who won my heart with humour about marketing, graphs and quantum physics (hard to explain, go check him out). He was followed by someone... who I don't know who, playing the "Doctor Foster" of nursery rhyme telling us of his further travels and Wil Hodgson who won my heart on from Henry Widdecombe by standing up for decent cider and standing against the EDL (thats the way to my heart, nerdery, booze and protest).

They were all fantastic and I cannot recommend them enough but their performance was strengthened so much not only by the intimacy of the gig but the spirit of it. This was a bunch of talented people putting on a show for the public in a public space.

As Josie Long said at the end of it there is a slow trend towards insularity and selfishness and I certainly agree. This isn't some paranoid rant at some Liberal agenda (and I mean Liberal, classical free market liberal) but so much the movement seems to be towards keeping people separate, breaking up community spirit and staying in, consuming stuff. Just for an evening my girlfriend and I joined together in a city centre to be entertained and share good wishes (And cup cakes) with people, it was a fantastic feeling.

Of course the aim was to promote the damage the governments cutting agenda is causing and regardless of how much people were listening or who already agreed if this fantastic bringing together of people can inspire people into action (or further action) all the better. Its certainly inspired me. Josie Long has said she wants to do this every month, one of these months I'm going to bring my ukulele.

And Every month I'll bring cake.

So... I'm doing NaNoWriMo

2011-10-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

See above. Started on it last year sort of, I think there's a blogpost about describing my aims. Feeling more confident, more relaxed and a damn slight more grown up and focused. Going to try it again.

Im using an idea I've been assembling in different guises for a while, a broad Low-brow modern High fantasy Idea that's half comedy, half deconstruction and half genuine adventure.. Holding off from the usual half-arsed attack at it followed by constant rewrites and will attack it NaNo style instead. Heres hoping;

If you don't know what NaNo is...google it, it was even on BBC Breakfast news.

Phil Foglio's Good Omens

2011-09-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

What might have been!?!

Whilst proctastinating from writing (which is procrastination in itself) by reading tvtropes I came across these two pages of comic. They're the first two pages of a graphic novel of Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman's biblical comedy novel "Good Omens" which is easily one of my favourite books of all time. The pages are drawn by Phil Foglio, better known for drawing the Mad science and romance webcomic "Girl Genius" with his wife Kaja. This too is one of my favourite things.

So you can see why there only being two pages of this Good Omens comic ticks me off so much! I'd happily buy every single book for a lot of money to see Phil Foglio finish this comic! His style is pretty damn perfect for getting Good Omens' mix of comedy and epic fantasy across.

Anyway, not a lot else to say. I'm off to read Good Omens

And Girl Genius, at the same time, whilst crossing my eyes.

Returning to Blogger

2011-09-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

Right, Here I return to Blogger. Its a reliable blogging platform that is just that. Posterous' attempt to turn into the bastard child of Google+ and Tumblr is really getting on my nerves.

Sooner or later I will back up my posts from posterous. It seems you can import to Posterous but not the other way. Until then if you want to murder an hour or so here's forty-odd posts of badly planned political commentary and poersonal ramblings also availiable here