Seann Walsh: Ying and Young

Child one and I popped over to the next town to watch the fabulous Seann Walsh tonight. Now I don’t know about other parents, but I do feel it makes for a promising show when the first words spoken are a reference to performing a sexual act on your child…. I’ll come back to that one though!

Walsh was supported by Romesh Ranganathan. As a warm-up, Romesh did a brilliant job; I was vaguely familiar with him from the BBC New Comedy Award and it was great to hear a longer set from him. I have to say, an unexpected support act is always a great bonus – like a BOGOF offer – free laughs, and all that… much like if you were to call an escort agency and book yourself a man for the evening then two arrive… no, sorry, that’s something else entirely – a bonus comedian is nothing like having two men arrive to take you out for an evening… but something to think about for a moment or two nevertheless.

Back to point: yes, Romesh Ranganathan was very funny. I did enjoy his slow, methodical delivery and I felt his relaxed pace contrasted brilliantly with the speed and energy of Walsh making them a great pairing.
I remember writing something about him in the summer but can’t find where it was published now; I would love to refer to it directly but I have to find something different to write in case of breeching agreements and such – so I shall just leave it at that. Take a look at his website, see where he is to be and go watch him! That is what I would do if I were you – but I’m not!

So to Seann Walsh himself. What can I say but that he was every bit as brilliant as we expected him to be! Okay, so he opened with a deeply inappropriate suggestive remark, but as you can tell by now (I hope!) I am perfectly capable of knowing the difference between something being said as part of an act and a statement of intention – and I make the assumption his statement was the former… and besides, we all know I love when my kids are embarrassed – and she certainly was!
Anyway, what more to say? The audience were particularly lively and I loved his attitude towards the more active members. It says a lot for his level of professionalism even in the rambling, lazy persona he portrays that he was able to sidetrack to joke with the audience member, yet still return to the very point he left off.
His material was great. I have read criticisms that it is material that does not work for an audience of varying ages, but I disagree completely; I don’t think there was anyone who did not get the points he was making – even if you did not understand the references directly, the delivery was such that it was still immensely funny and it really was not difficult to work out what he meant. (don't start me on another rant about lazy reviewing, please!!)
Edgy, energetic, fluid and absolutely hilarious; exactly what you would expect if you have seen any of his television appearances. If you can’t get to see him live, he is on the first episode of the new series of Live at the Apollo this Friday at 9.30pm on BBC1. I expect it will be much of the same material, as that is mostly the way with these things.

For my local readers, the tour is back in these parts on Wednesday (not in this town, obviously! But nearby) Contact me and I’ll let you know where! Just don’t tell the child-people in case they expect me to take them again… not that I wouldn’t – but I can’t justify abandoning the hub-creature for another night out whilst he is still bed-ridden.

And, yes you have guessed it – Miss Middle has been drawing again! So here is an ickle pic…

Like Hot Buttered Toast…

Every wonder if you aren’t spreading yourself a little too thinly?

I do… but have never really let it worry me until now when I find myself wondering if I need to hone in my hoarder spirit a little.

Being an eclectic person, I have made conscious efforts to avoid pigeon-holing myself by genre or demographic; I have worked with equal pride and gusto on projects for children and adults alike; I have put together basic instruction guides aimed at complete morons incapable of sussing which is the “on” switch of a new kettle to full technical guides of which I understand little myself; I have written poetry, prose and short stories on many themes, from sci-fi through to trashy romance and beyond; I have published articles on a huge array of subjects, some relevant to my own skills and experiences, some completely research-based. I have started, though, to look at whether I need to actually start to fit my writing neatly into a little box so people can find me easily.

I think it’s great to have the freedom to write about what I want, when I want but is this just the slightest bit lazy?
It probably is. If I do not declare a genre, I do not have to follow rules of that theme. In fact, I mostly just write without really thinking about what it is I am trying to say. You may tell from the here-and-there nature of these posts!

I was asked the other day “Do you not worry that you won’t build up a reliable fan-base?”
Now I see the point in this question, especially given that the person who asked does have quite a cult following of their own, but honestly; no.

I do not write for others, I write for me. Even in the case of reviews as I write here and in other shady corners of the internet I do not write them to inform others, more as a way to make my opinion heard – and let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be heard?

But yes, maybe I do need to decide who/what I am; maybe I need to focus on one thing at a time; maybe I should be writing for a market rather than for myself.

Or maybe there is enough of me to go around and as such I can spread myself as thinly as I choose.




It isn’t only my work which is affected by my ‘bits and pieces’ nature.

Having a deep love for words and language, I could not resist recently snapping the hand off a friend who was selling a Rosetta Stone bundle with a heap of language packs. I think you normally buy just the one language, but this had some twenty or so. The obvious start-point for me was Welsh, so I have worked through that set of lessons and have now commenced both Polish and Vietnamese.

I did not see an issue with learning two languages concurrently; after all we were made to do it at school and that was not so long ago… But my friend challenged me on the decision: “Would it not be better to just do one at a time?”

Um… no! Because then it would take an age to complete ALL of them, which I fully intend to do.

“But when will you use all those languages?”

And she is possibly correct, maybe I won’t; but at the moment I fully intend to.

Yesterday, after discovering my ALISON account had some 17 active courses on it, I decided to have a clear up. I finished the accountancy diploma and claimed the certificate for that, then deleted some of the others which seemed irrelevant to where my life is now, still leaving me with four ongoing courses.

Added to that I have not yet finished the final stage of my PLT training, am trying to expand my Makaton beyond that required in schools and am still planning to complete my degree once things are settled here I certainly need to do something about my hotchpotch gathering attitude!

But I have made a start at least!

Sketchy with Diarmuid Corr

I often bemoan the fact that the I-player opens automatically on the TV page. As a listener rather than a viewer, I would like at least to be given the choice! But today I stumbled across this little gem.

I do not know if it was always there, but today there was a section of the player titled “Just For You” in which was a link to Sketchy. I must say, I think they need to expand the demographic slightly; or maybe show it somewhere other than in NI, unless of course they lie and it isn’t ‘just for me’ at all.


I very much enjoyed the show. It felt a lot like some of the comedy shows I grew up watching, with a great mix of sketches and stand-up.

In a time where the majority of the comedy characters to which we are exposed are reliant entirely on catchphrases and in-jokes, it is refreshing to see sketch-based comedy which is more heavily focussed on the writing and performance.

This show gave plenty of laughs, so you should definitely check it out!

Episode two is tomorrow (Weds) at 10:35pm on BBC One (NI) – or if that clashes with other shows you need to watch, catch it on the Iplayer any time thereafter!

Woe-is-me Weekend

I always hated routine. I swore down I’d never be one of those “coffee on Wednesday, movies on Friday” kind of people… in fact when I was younger those people irritated me no end because you had to think about what day it was before deciding whether to visit them – and I never remembered that until I was almost at their house… I used to spend my time wishing they would just get a damned life!

I don’t like to think of it as getting old, rather finding a new perspective, but in a phase of my life where so much is taken up by random occurrences and such, it is good to have just one day in the week you can rely on.

Saturday is my comfort blanket amidst the chaos of hospitals, school functions and taxiing people around hither and thither. So seriously, the man who messes with my Saturday…

FEEL MY WRATH!!


It is a simple one, but nevertheless enough of a routine to make Saturday a calming, relaxing day.

I wake naturally, sometime around 9.30 and am breakfasted in time to spend an hour in the company of James Martin before heading into the office to work whilst listening to Rhod Gilbert until lunchtime, at which point I will decide whether this is a work-in-pyjamas day, a couch-potato day or even the kind of day I might decide to do something constructive (although usually avoided on a Saturday!) Mostly it becomes the former since I am in the office already and in a work-minded mood.


Not so impressed this morning, then, to have slept in; especially since I had plans which were to commence the moment Rhod's radio show finished.

Getting finally settled in the office at around 11.30, breakfast in hand, I thought it would be reasonably easy to get back into the flow. Until a phone call at 12.15 from the doctor's surgery asking why the man-person had not arrived for his flu innoculation - oops!! I honestly thought it was next week. No worries, says she... just get here within the next half hour!

So I had to wake him, get him dressed, washed and medicated and out the door pronto.

Seemed pointless, then, to wait until later to do all I wanted, so my leisure day has pretty much passed by in a whirl of shopping, (which I hate!) kids fighting over unimportant nonsense and a moany hub-creature because he had only had about 3 hours sleep when I woke him.

Thankfully my mood has lifted slightly as all is peaceful now - I left two children in town (intentionally, honest... I didn't just forget to bring them home!) the hub is sleeping again and child three is making jewellery to sell at a charity event tomorrow.


Not only that; I have been downloading a lot of images for tomorrow's event (I'm facepainting so need to have a few ideas to work from!) and as Miss Middle has been gathering more pictures for her current drawing fad, every time I download something I get to see the sexy eyes of Chris Corcoran staring back at me. Can't ask for more, really, can you?

Well - obviously, I could ask for a whole lot more, but in terms of rebuilding a destroyed Saturday, it's enough for me!

And some more drawings to look forward to seeing too! She's fab, isn't she!!

See... very easily pleased!!


And since I have mentioned both Miss-Middle's drawings and the fabulous Rhod Gilbert in this one post, I shall give not one, but two pics she drew! I know you are probably tiring of my constant references to her artistic nature, but I'll be honest, I am milking it for all it is worth whilst she isn't making me pay royalties and they are really good! Just don't anyone explain the principle of commissions to her.....

Theatres; Geography; Argh!

Ok, I am going to sound a proper Ranty McRantpants now, but life is a bit that way at the moment!

I’ve found another reason my town is so utterly crap and why moving away is so badly needed… looking around the web for something else, I discovered that the incredibly sexy Ed Byrne is here in town next week… now I am on the mailing list for our theatre precisely so I DON’T miss things like this – yet all they send me is emails begging for frigging money! I’d give them a lot more cash if I didn’t keep hearing about stuff I want to see after I’ve blown out my leisure spend on paying to see shows further away from home! There isn’t even a poster up at the theatre for it… what gives with that?

A few months ago, both Alan Carr and Tim Vine were here yet there was no mention in any of the spammy nonsense they email out; I found out once the tickets were already sold out.

I have already mentioned (many times; I am aware I repeat myself often, it’s the most effective way of having people take notice!) that there is so rarely anything worth seeing here, so why are they not marketing the backside off everything that is? You would expect a comedian like Byrne to have sold-out long before now, even at £20 a ticket (not much for some of you, I know, but that is the most expensive ticket I have seen for our piss-assed little theatre!) but there are still ‘loads’ of seats left according to the dour-faced trout I spoke to yesterday. I have not even seen any advertising for Mark Watson’s show; in fact I would not have even known it was happening were it not for his blog! (Not linking; seriously you should already know your way there by now, I’ve told you often enough and can’t be bothered with typing the code stuff!!) In fact, I was sent a notification through the post couple of weeks ago telling me the time had changed and giving new tickets, surely good marketing would have been to throw a flyer of some sort into the envelopes telling people about upcoming shows of interest. Chances are someone coming to watch MW would be just as interested in Ed Byrne, wouldn’t they?

I’d love to be able to see more here in town. Travelling to see shows is honestly a nightmare – public transport is suckish and expensive and if you choose to drive, you are travelling for an hour before you even feel you are starting the journey. I realised just how cut-off we are geographically when I was researching for the upcoming move. I will need at times to travel to London; in fact I have turned down some amazing opportunities for that very reason over the last few months. From here, it is a drive of almost five hours; impossible to do alone without becoming one of those horror ad poster-faces for motorway services. The places I have looked at moving to in Wales are almost on the same line as we are, yet the journey is only two and a half google-hours. I regularly take trips of up to three hours, so I know that is perfectly within my capabilities.

I do think our theatre is fighting very hard to bring the residents of our town to a higher level, but they really need to learn when to just give people what they want rather than trying to drip-feed culture to a population who are really not interested. They put on some nice ballets, plays, have orchestras and choirs perform; those things are hammered in the press, poster campaigns all over the town but few tickets are sold. This is a mostly working-class town with the ideals and expectations that come of the status. Wages are incredibly low, unemployment high and few have any discernable disposable income so they will not waste any money on going to the theatre for something which does not interest them. People want to laugh, they want to forget their plight for a while and just be entertained, yet our theatre has little hold on that. I remember being at the theatre a couple of years ago (Al Murray – brilliant show!) and overhearing a woman during the interval asking at the ticket desk about a medium they had heard was coming to town. They were told quite categorically they had heard wrong and that there would never be a medium in the theatre. I found this a strange response, so called the next day for more information to be told “mediumship is not considered entertainment”. I find this a funny statement indeed considering the disclaimer legally required for such shows states the complete opposite, but nevertheless whilst I know of many who have tried to put on a show here, all have been turned away; some eventually putting on very successful events in local hotels or the town leisure centre. I don’t know that I would go to such a show myself, but regardless, the people of this town are interested in this type of performance, so why are the theatre not listening and giving what they want?

Here’s another thing:

When I recently visited the theatre of the next town, I was quite surprised by the fact that people were buying drinks at the bar and casually strolling into the auditorium with them. Ours does not allow that, preferring to cram the entire audience into the small foyer where you have to try to drink without elbowing the next person. I thought “wow, what a relaxed theatre this is!” yet on speaking with the staff afterwards they expressed that in actual fact ours was one of very few to have such a rule. And I have to say, I think their rule is losing them some valuable income. I never consider buying a drink at our theatre for a variety of reasons; whilst I can cope with being in a crowd out of doors (like concerts and festivals etc) I really do not deal well with indoor ones, feeling cramped and claustrophobic; I do not relish the idea of trying to drink whilst in such a small space you can barely lift your arm without knocking someone else, theatre drinks are expensive enough and I certainly don’t want to be trying to suck a glass of wine out of my dress; I don’t like to rush a drink, nor leave one unfinished and with such a short space of time, generally only one person working the bar and hundreds of drinks to be poured there is precious little time to drink at leisure before abandoning your efforts to return to your seat. I am sure I can’t be the only person to feel this way, so why do they not realise their sales are not what they should be?


Share with me your own theatre woes; or boast about how great yours is. I don’t really care either way – I have said what I need to say!

Didn’t mean this to be such a whiney post – I’d apologise, but no-one forces you to read, so thank you if you have. If you’ve just skipped to this part, then I feel I should at least reward your scrolling efforts with something worthwhile!

Not related to the post at all, but I watched it, it made me chuckle, so I marked it to include here at some point! The brilliantly funny Isy Suttie....

A Whole World of Strange

I have always been aware of being somewhat quirky, but lately I am wondering if it truly is quirkiness or if I’m not just descending into strangeness!


The hub-creature had a hospital appointment last week, at which I was being taught to give some of his treatment (I guess it’s part of easing the financial burden of the NHS, as the equipment needed we have to buy – and because it’s an invasive treatment, we also have to arrange for clinical waste collections – sidetracking, I know, but it does piss me off somewhat that they can’t even prescribe the stuff we need or do any of the bureaucratic bullshit for us!!) Anyway – the anaesthetist mentioned the treatment could be administered at his knee… I shuddered and felt my toes instinctively curl whilst the hub-person laughed saying “don’t tell her that for God’s sake!”

I don’t know quite when my knee-phobia first started, but I have never thought it that strange. I really cannot go into details, because thinking about it makes me incredibly nauseous but the basic gist is that I can’t bear the thought of touching a knee or having mine touched… or even seeing another person touching their own or someone else’s.
See, writing about it really does make it sound quite strange, but I really don’t think it is.

I mean, there are so many with bizarre phobias that there must be others with the same affliction, surely. Like the time I was chatting with our old dentist and he mentioned his fear of eyeballs; or the ophthalmologist who told me of her great admiration for podiatrists as she couldn’t bear to look at toes… in fact, many of the medical professionals I have encountered in my life have had one part of the body that makes them shudder.

So in explaining the hub’s remark to the doctor, I really expected some sympathy; maybe he’d point out that many people had the same affliction and I could throw an ‘I told you so’ into the mix on learning it wasn’t that obscure… but no!

“I’ve got to admit” he said, “You are a strange one. I’ve never heard of that before.”

He then proceeded to rest his hand on his knee for the rest of the appointment as though it were the most natural thing to do.


Although the catalyst for the current phase of self-analysis, this is not the only thing.

Whilst researching something completely unrelated recently, I landed rather randomly on an old Heat magazine “weird crush” list. This was from years ago, so being as prone to side-tracking as I am I had to look out the most recent; but I found myself looking at most of the guys on the list thinking “Well, why wouldn’t you?”… I honestly cannot think where the weirdness comes in where some of them are concerned – I thought that said more about the people making the list than it did me, but I now start to wonder if I am wrong.

The reason I find myself thinking more about this today is a throwaway remark from the oldest this morning. I booked tickets for her and I to go see Seann Walsh in the next town at the end of the month and went to her room to tell her. She asked where we were sitting and I told her “they have apparently added an extra row especially, so we are right at the very front” [as an aside, this puts us practically in the middle of the stage, which is pretty cool!!]
Her response was “wow – we would be like that far [indicating about four inches] away from him”
Now I have to say, leading from the weird crush list into my next comment I know how this is going to sound, so I do have to make it clear there is no sexual context, it was simply a response to her proximity statement: “We could reach out and stroke his hair”

“Um, ok – a bit weird, mum!”

The evidence really is stacking up quite horrendously against me. I wonder how much credibility I have remaining.

I used to be able to pass for normal.

What the hell happened??

Youtube-ness

Even in the face of current sadness, life has given a few small chuckles today; another classic event from baby; a prime piece of ownage (or is that pwnage?) at my expense from the oldest; a most random text from Miss-middle and some youtube links I have been emailed for possible review which – well, thankfully it’s not the comedians themselves who have requested the reviews, so at least I can happily just not include them without concern that they might be offended by my silence. In fact, there were a couple of links I was sent that did have me wondering if there wasn’t some huge practical joke afoot at my expense… seriously, people, you know how hard I find it to say bad things – and you also know I’m too OCD to start watching a video and not complete it; so to send me off to 45 minutes of utter drime is at best inconsiderate. WTH?? So now the Microsoft Corporation is trying to tell me the word drime doesn’t exist… well I use it – a lot lately! – so clearly it does. In fact, having used it twice now in this very article I think I have illustrated quite clearly its existence, definition and context so screw you Oxford English! But anyway, all videos sent have been viewed and the fact that I am linking to none of them now must tell you something I am sure.

I do feel I need to point out that I am not a sharer of viral videos and as such would rather not be sent footage of cats being – well being cats really – no matter how hard you try with a soundtrack and fancy production techniques; neither am I interested in children being bratty and obnoxious; nor do I care to pass my time watching video game footage with ‘hilarious’ banter attached. But if you have something that truly is funny then please share either here or through email or facebook (or Twitter, I guess… although I still have not gotten around to figuring twitter out yet!)

I would ordinarily feel the need to link to the last thing I viewed, but I ended up following a train of “others like this” that took me to a very strange place indeed so instead something I like to watch from time to time and a song which will now be stuck in your head for the rest of the day:




And if anyone should find the un-bleeped version anywhere, please share! Hate the bleepy bleepness!!

Pushing Through....

I asked recently for some of my friends to share their methods for coping with the funk… and since I now find myself in deeper mire than before I guess it is time I formulate people’s thoughts into a cohesive coping mechanism.


Firstly, I should acknowledge the helpful souls who (rather predictably) offered up such wisdom as: “Man up!” “Stop moaning!” or my favourite “Shut the F*** up!!” These deserve first mention because this is the leaning of those nearest and dearest to me, so whilst not particularly constructive this is the tone of the advice I will mostly end up following.

So thank you friends, family and my closest co-workers; you are a fabulous bunch of people indeed, least of all for actually caring enough to respond to my call.


One friend (one of those irritating people who always completes projects weeks before deadline – you have at least one of those friends yourself I am sure!) told me simply “keep writing”. Reflecting on our youth, she reminded me of the fact that I felt compelled to write back then because I had so much negativity within my soul I needed to get out. I really cannot remember when I last just wrote in that way; possibly during my second pregnancy, but even then not to the extent I had as a teen but it has to make a difference. If nothing else, at least this allows me to process my emotions and make some sort of sense of them; and who knows, maybe there could be some useful gems standing out amidst the inevitable twaddle.


Knowing of my great love for photography a few people suggested heading out with my camera looking for those moments of minute beauty I so love. Unfortunately at the moment getting away from home is not possible… and yes, this is possibly contributing in no small way to the low mood swings but I did get out into the garden for a while last week and have some cracking macro images to show for my efforts. I was also able to get some images to accompany future blog posts which are part written so I am for once ahead of myself… don’t get too used to it though.


It wasn’t really until being sent an email describing one person’s method of dealing with their own clinical depression that I realised I see it in practice on an almost daily basis and have often applauded it without it actually occurring to me that it could help me in any small way. It is a simple task of personification; creating a character of the thing which hits you hardest and dealing with it as a living creature. A very dear friend has an illness which can be severely debilitating at times; this illness is given a human name, a personality and most importantly weaknesses. Through this mechanism my friend is able to keep her poor health from controlling her, as is the person who suggested it.

As stated by my friend in his lengthy email: “I just made up the character of Clint [surname Frown] as a means of coping, but as a creative person I am sure you could make a whole world in which your woes could all live happily together”

Makes me think of the Mr Men stories in a slightly different way!


By far the sagest advice I had came as one would expect from my mother: “avoidance is certainly not the answer”.
She is right, of course, because in order to avoid dealing with the things which are making me feel down I am firstly keeping them in the forefront of my mind throughout. Secondly, whilst I am trying to shut out certain factors, I am closing myself off to a lot of other aspects which could ultimately help with processing my issues such as friends, family members, work and just living my life.

So there; do not ever tell me I don’t listen to you all! I do – well I try to anyway!

And whilst these methods might not be able to help with my current phase of sadness, the next unexplained funk will be far simpler to deal with.








And having talked of sadness, I shall just close with a silent tribute.

A dear friend lost a very close family member recently and whilst it would be glib for me to suggest that I could know the pain she feels, I can certainly imagine a fraction of it; so I close by sending thoughts of love and healing to a family who have already had enough to deal with this year so really did not deserve to be hit with a tragedy right now and by wishing a safe journey to the next world to a wonderfully strong, organised, hard-working, independent young woman whose work in this life was far from finished.

Be at peace.

xx