Still alive, I’ve spent the last 6 weeks at University, attempting to learn.
It’s strange, having been in education from the age of four until twenty-one, that’s 18 years of my life learning (if you count the first year we all spent playing in the sandpit as education…I learnt that sand was actually tiny bits of glass, so in an attempt to make some at home, dropped wine bottles into the bath and turned on the hot tap to melt them – after that didn’t work, I just filled the tub with Mum’s bath salts and played in that, until I turned a tap on and ended up choking in thick, gloopy, aromatherapeutic Radoxian gas). 18 years out of 22 years seems like a long time – that’s a scary percentage of almost 82% of my life spent learning; and as a fraction, 18/22 that, even more scarily, cancels to 9/11. Hopefully my education fraction doesn’t ironically correlate to a tremendous waste of life.
I take my exams at the start of June, and as soon as I finish, I’m hot-footing it straight out of Oxford back to Manchester for gigs and a nutrients and vitamins based diet that always seems to be sorely lacking from my college life. It seems strange to have spent almost 3 years studying a degree that doesn’t lead to any particular job that appeals to me – I may be an archaeologist but I really hate digging – but I suppose it teaches you more important things like how to work independently, to think critically, and how to bullshit 1500 word essays twice a week. Term has died down – no more essays, 4 more classes, just a dissertation to write over 4 weeks. That makes it sound almost easy.
I have my 3rd full-length sketch show with Little Dark coming up from the 22nd February – it’s not really getting in the way of anything as it’s my main focus at the moment, I enjoy writing and performing with the guys and each show seems to be better received by the audience. For this one, we’re trying to once again, walk the narrow, frayed tightrope of funny above the pit of dire and offence, and hopefully we won’t fall off along the way.
In other news, I bought myself a lovely little netbook which I’m typing on now – I’m tired of lugging my big, heavy, 30-min battery laptop around, so this tiny, light, 10-hour battery thing seems sensible. It makes me want to write more in any case, so that can only be a good thing. I like writing longer bits, and I don’t do enough of it, having only to focus on short jokes for my stand-up, so I’ll see what happens.
In stand-up news, I’ve got a show lined up for the Edinburgh Fringe with the lovely boys Matt Richardson and Alex Clissold Jones – we’re on the Laughing Horse Free Festival at The Newsroom, every day at 7.45pm – a lovely time in a nice venue, so I’m looking forward to it.
I’ll be doing 20 mins for that show, and have a spate of 20 spots coming up in Oxford which I’m using to figure out what I’m doing for Edinburgh – there’s some lovely new jokes in a routine about poetry which I’m very happy with, and i’ve got a fair few jokes that I’m testing to see if any can make it in – it’s all very exciting for me. March and April (my holidays) are shaping up to be reasonably busy months gig-wise (well, as busy as I’ve ever experienced) so that’s something to look forward to, and I’m very excited to be able to get more experience and hopefully become funnier.
That’s all the self-indulgent rubbish I can write for now, other than to mention www.stereomood.com as a brilliant site if you want music to suit your emotion/mood – right now I’ve got ‘Relaxing’ music on, and it’s very pleasant.
Feudal Wythenshawe
While walking down a dusky street
I found it rather pleasant;
Until I had my HTC
Stolen by a peasant.
How dare this rascal ambush me
When I am knight and sire;
And now he’s gone, O I can see
He’s stolen my Desire.
