Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Colin Hughes

At this special time of year I think it's nice to pause and remember what - or who - it's really about.
Colin Hughes.


Thanks Cliff

Gastro-Cartography

Mrs Gorman and I were out for dinner this evening. Part way through the meal I looked across at her plate and noticed that she'd managed to cut her steak up to resemble a map of the United Kingdom.

She claims it wasn't done on purpose. I'm not sure that explains the small bit of potato so handily positioned to represent Northern Ireland, though.

I'm suspicious. Very suspicious.

Blimey, The Duke of Cambridge Really Is Looking Patchy On Top These Days

Spamazing

Not so long ago I had to abandon an email address because it was getting upwards of 30,000 spam emails a day. The idea of filtering through that inbox to find the odd legitimate email was obviously a bit ridiculous.

I don't get 30,000 spam emails a day any more... but it's regularly into the hundreds. And as much as I detest it, it is kind of fascinating.

When I first encountered spam it seemed to be that it was related to a limited number of things: "Rolex" watches were quite common. As were inkjet cartridges and home loans etc etc. (The old, "I need to smuggle some money out of Nigeria and you are the man I trust to help me" emails aren't spam as such, they're a different kettle of con entirely).

I understood the mathematics of spam in those days. If your email at least appears relevant to someone there's more chance of them falling for it. So sending designed to appeal to the needy and the greedy made sense.

If you send it to a million people you only need a tenth of a percent of them to fall for it to have 1000 mugs in the game. And it doesn't matter what it is you appear to be selling because you're not actually selling anything. I'm told that spam is - for the most part - just trying to get your details. It's your name, address and phone number they really want. Information is valuable in today's economy.

But recently the spam I've been getting has been incredibly niche. And this confuses me.

I've had spam telling me about "great deals on forklift trucks". Really? What percentage of people would even read beyond the first line? How many people actually buy forklift trucks anyway? It's not exactly an impulse buy. "I only came in for some paint but they'd put the forklift trucks by the counter and, well... yellow is so my colour, so I just had to get one."

Likewise premium grade aviation fuel. Surely the people charged with buying aviation fuel are a) limited in number and b) pretty wise to spam.

Aren't the spammers just cutting the number of potential dupes down before their evil words have even hit our inboxes?

This spam arrived today.

There's no guess work required here. I can speculate as to how many people buy forklift trucks or aviation fuel... but really I'd just be plucking numbers out of thin air. But I can find out how many people are in the AICPA.

According to the AICPA website, there are 370,000 members. So in the whole wide world, there are only 370,000 people who can genuinely fall for this spam. And how many of them are actually receiving it in the first place? If I'm getting it, it's not as though this email has been sent to a highly targeted list of addresses. It's the same scattergun tactic as all other spam.

But surely accountants are the kind of people who regularly deal in formal documents that contain legalese. Surely they're the kind of people who will read a sentence like, "we have received a denouncement about your recent involvement in income tax hustle" and spot that it's a bit, y'know, shit.  

"The rejection to provide the clarifications within this term will finish in end off of your..." what's that? Really? Will it. If I reject to provide clarification you'll do what now?

I'm really struggling to believe that anyone on earth has fallen for this. If you're not an American Certified Public Accountant the "threat" from the AICPA to end (off) (of) your career is a bit of an empty one so there's no reason for anyone else to respond to it.

And if you are an American Certified Public Accountant you're surely equipped to spot that this isn't legit. If you are and you do, I'd suggest you need a change of career.

But put yourself in the crook's shoes. Imagine creating this email. You've bothered to steal the logo and the colour scheme from the AICPA website. You've formatted the graphics and made it look nice. Would it really not occur to you to, just maybe, find someone who has English as a first language to proof read it first? Are the spammers so stupid they think Google Translate is good enough?

How many levels of stupidity does this reveal? Someone's stupid enough to send this spam. And someone, somewhere, might - just might - be stupid enough to have fallen for it.

Or is there something I don't understand about how this works?

PS: Just as I published this, another, almost identical email arrived.

This time, I think I might be in trouble. They're on to me and my tax return crook business. I hope I don't waiver to submit exposition within this term.

PPS: And then another...

... is it just me, or isn't it even less convincing when they send three in such quick succession? Isn't it just three times as unconvincing? Wouldn't one, well written, email have been more effective?

December 10 version: income tax refund shady transactions:

S.P.O.T.Why?

Every year it happens... and every year it leaves me feeling confused.

People - rational people, many of them people whose opinions I value - start talking about the Sports Personality Of The Year.

They ask who you think will win it, they tell you who they think will win it... and all the while, the assumption seems to be that this-is-important. That the competition matters. That it is the prize that people crave.

And I don't get it. I don't think it's important and more than that, I don't understand how any sportsman or sportswoman could think it was important either. It seems to me to be the antithesis of what sport is really about.

Sportsmen and women compete. In events that have tangible outcomes. They strive to be the best at what they do. And when all is said and done, the outcome speaks for itself.

If you set out to be a great cyclist, then world records, gold medals and yellow jerseys are surely your ultimate goal. What could possibly be more meaningful to Bradley Wiggins than winning the Tour de France? That's the proof that he was the best of the best in his chosen sport.

Sport isn't about being popular. It's about some combination of being the fastest, the strongest, the most accurate, having the best technique and/or the most tactically astute. It's about strength of will, determination and above all else, ability. It has nothing whatsoever to do with who we like.

Usain Bolt is a likeable character. But that would count for nothing on the global stage if he wasn't the world's fastest man. And if the world's fastest man just happened to be an out and out jerk that wouldn't matter either. We would admire his athleticism all the same.

I don't understand how anyone is supposed to compare the achievements of the twelve nominees - or indeed the achievements of those who could just have easily been nominated but weren't. It just seems ridiculous. And actually, just a tiny bit insulting. As if our opinion matters more than the sport itself.

Tennis players measure themselves against tennis players. Heptathletes measure themselves against heptathletes and swimmers competing in S6 events, measure themselves against other swimmers in S6 events. Anything else must surely be meaningless to them. Mustn't it?

Saying to those people, "I know you set out to achieve something huge and you succeeded, which is lovely... but now we're going to have a vote and let you know whether you were the best at being the best" makes us seem a bit full of ourselves doesn't it? Why on earth would they care? "Yep, being the best in the world at your chosen event is all well and good... but is it really good enough... we'll have a vote and get back to you." It's a bit cocky isn't it?

Maybe it's all just a bit of fun. In which case, can people stop talking and writing about it as if it was important. And when I say that I don't care who wins, can people stop saying, "but it's the Sports Personality of the Year!" as if I hadn't understood the question in the first place. I know it is. That's why I don't care.

Absolutely Final

Well that was an exhausting weekend.

I had the second of the current run of Screen Guild shows at Hoxton Hall on Saturday followed by the final show of my time at Absolute Radio on Sunday morning.

I love the Hoxton shows but there's nothing I do that's quite as nerve-wracking and/or time-consuming. It's always all new material - which means that I have no idea how it's going to go - and I start building the powerpoint for it at about 7am and finish, some 600-800 slides later at around 6pm... at which point it's time to head out to the venue.

The acts - Jay Foreman, James Acaster, Lucy Beaumont and Pete Firman - were all great - the line-ups are always strong - but the show didn't quite take off for me in the way the last one did. But overall it was a good night. And incredibly useful. Every bit of new material had legs. So nothing will get thrown away as useless, but all of it will need honing if it's to survive in the big bad world of stand up.

Which, I guess, is the point of these shows. 

It was followed by an early start and our final show from Absolute Radio. Which was difficult for completely different reasons. I blogged about the reasons a wee while ago so I won't retread the same ground now suffice to say I've loved working there and know I will miss it hugely. We wanted to avoid getting mawkish and overly-sentimental about it all so I hope the final show wasn't wallowing in it's final-show-ness.

Michael wasn't there this week - he had a show in Moscow - so I took on the angry mantle and did a Dave Gorman Isn't Michael Legge But Is Angry feature in his stead, while all the other regular features were in place with a final Ward's Weekly Word and a not-really-final Found Poem.

I say not-really-final because Found Poetry found its way into the last tour show, exist in cheap-and-cheerful pamphlet form, I regularly put one in the Hoxton shows and I did one on stage when I guested at the Horne Section recently.

I won't continue to put one together every week - I'm looking forward to not spending quite so much time wading through the insanity that is the bottom-half-of-the-internet - but I will still compile new ones from time to time because they provide a really useful change of tone and pace to a live show - so I'll keep them in the mix for future projects.

 There were two very different songs from home this week. The first is folky, the other all electronic. But both of them are fantastic and if the final show's music hadn't involved a ukulele and a stylophone something would have been amiss. This is Stand Up Show by Jonny Kearney and Lucy Farrell from the album, Kite.  

And this is The Robot Heart by Alto45 who describe what they do as "homemade pop music from three men in labcoats". You can find this track on the album, The Spectrum Sings.

I've added these two tunes to my Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year. It's here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

If you've listened to the shows - whether live or in podcast form - then we're proud that you chose to join us and appreciative of your company. We wanted to make the show not be about us - and we were always really proud of how smart and funny the audience would be. Thanks.

Absolutely November 11th...

Two great songs-from-home this week - at least I hope you'll think so.

I can already hear some of the cynics amongst you dismissing my first choice. "When you've heard one French, pop-punk tune about greyhound racing," you're saying, "you might as well have heard them all." Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. In any case, here's another. At least I think it's about greyhound racing... I mean, it is called Greyhound Racing so it probably mentions it somewhere. It's by Concrete Knives:

Concrete Knives - Greyhound Racing by Sky Walker_


When I read the blurb on this CD I was put off a bit. I don't know why the words, “...has recorded 9 albums in his bedroom in the last 4 years” would do that... I only know that they did.

I also know that when I put the CD in, I really, really liked what I heard.

The band are called Sheepy - they're a three-piece from Liverpool and they're the outlet for the obviously-very-prolific songwriting talent of Luke Jones. This track's called Another Day and it's ace:

  Sheepy - Another Day by Blang

I've added these two tunes to my Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year. It's here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

Of course it would be odd not to acknowledge that this morning was Michael's last show with us. It's a real shame that he's not available for next week's last hurrah... but that's just the way it's panned out.

I've thought of Michael as the show's unofficial lodger. When he first turned up I think he was only meant to be doing a couple of weeks... but everyone liked him being there so much we all just carried on. Which is surely the way these things should be.

And now we only have one more week left to go. I hope you can join us for it. 10 til 12. Sunday morning. Yeah?

Yeah.

Ace.

Y'know... like... if you're interested and stuff...

This is one of those blog posts that's only really of interest to some and might appear a bit presumptuous to others. Apologies if you're one of the others.

One of the comments I've had a lot since we announced the impending end of the radio show - there are still two more weeks that we hope you'll join us for - is "please tell us about whatever it is you're up to next?"

Which of course, I always try to. After all - there's little point in performing live, publishing books, making TV or radio shows and not telling people about their existence.


But one of the things that twitter makes very apparent is that it's incredibly easy to miss things. When I was on tour earlier this year I would tweet my tour dates. No matter how many times I did so I would always get tweets from people saying, "I wish I'd known you were coming to [wherever] I'd have come if I'd known." Twitter is a fast moving thing... you're either online at the time or you're not.


Anyway... a far more reliable way is to sign up to my mailing list. You can do so here:

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I can't add addresses personally... you have to do that yourself. It sends an email to the address in question with a link you click to confirm that you want in. That way I can't be accused of spamming people with stuff they haven't asked for.

I don't use it often. I only use it when there's something to say and of course I don't share your email address with anyone else. But it does mean you definitely get to hear about tour dates and stuff and when it comes to tickets for recordings etc - which are normally free - I always try and give the mailing list a day or two's notice first.

Anyway. It's there. Y'know... like... if you're interested and stuff...

Absolutely November 4th

If you listened to this morning's show then you'll already know that we're going to end our run on Absolute in a couple of weeks.

I'll explain more - not that there's really much more to explain - further down, but our attitude to the show is that it'll be business as usual for the final two weeks and it's business as usual here as well, so first of all I'll run through the show and the songs-from-home as per usual.

First up, was this track, Never Knew Your Name, from Madness's new album, Oui, Oui, Si, Si, Ja, Ja, Da which came out on Monday.

The fact that Madness have returned, not just to reunion gigs but as a creative force turning out great new material is a source of great joy to me - and I feel very much the same about the return of Dexy's Midnight Runners - or Dexys as they're now known - whose latest incarnation has been a triumph.

We were thrilled to have two of the band - Jim Paterson and the amazing Kevin Rowland in the studio for an interview. Facinating, charming, funny men the pair of them and the new album, One Day I'm Going To Soar is a thing of magnificence.

Incapable Of Love is the latest single from the album... here it is:

And finally... a second tune from the band, Grouplove who were also on the show a few weeks ago. This is Tongue Tied.

Of course the hardest link of this morning's show was the one where we broke the news that the run was going to come to an end in two weeks' time. It's difficult to pitch that kind of thing in the right way because we know that all sorts of different people are listening in all sorts of different ways. If we act as though it's a tragedy of some kind - which it isn't - we come across as self-regarding egotists of the highest order. The very thought makes me shudder. At the same time, it would be weird and kind of impolite to just not mention it.

I don't have a bad word to say about Absolute - it's been an amazing place to work. The last three years have been a blast and I know I'll miss it when it's gone. But it feels right to move on all the same. I don't know what will happen next... but then I've always enjoyed not-knowing what life has in store. I think a bit of uncertainty is good for a comic.

So the story is simply that there is no story... just a bunch of people deciding that it's time to bow out gracefully in order to see what new challenge will come along.

As it happens, Michael won't be available for our last show so next week - November 11th will be his last appearance... and the week after - November 18th - will be the last for me and Danielle. We don't want to get mawkish about things so it'll just be business as normal for our last couple of shows. It'll be more fun if more of you join us. After all, the show was never about us.

My Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year can be found here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

Some Men Like Looking At The Sea And Some Men Don't

Some Men Like Looking At The Sea And Some Men Don't, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Absolutely October 28th

Sydney was fantastic fun. I don't know if there will be more performances of that particular show - I certainly wouldn't rule it out - but there are none in the diary at the minute and if it does turn out to be the last of them, well then the Sydney Opera House is no bad place for a run to end!

Being there for only six days meant I'd barley adjusted to the ten hour time difference when it was time to come back and putting the clocks back an hour on Saturday night seemed like a cruel trick to play on an already confused brain.

Still it was good to get back to normal with the radio show... and so here, of course, are the two songs-from-home for this week.

First up, Kerry Leatham. You might recognise her from the video to Dogtanion's Islam that I played a few weeks ago, she also sings as one half of Peter & Kerry and as you can see she does solo stuff too. Solo stuff like this... it's called Crash & Burn. (Don't worry, it isn't a cover version of the Busted song of the same name.)

Secondly, Mode Moderne. Their Canadian although you could tell me this was made in Manchester in 1984 and I'd happily believe you. I've been enjoying their album, Strange Bruises, and this track in particular. Foul Weather Fare.

My Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year can be found here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

I'm Not Saying I Can Walk On Water...

... I'm just saying here are a couple of photos from my recent trip to Cyprus...

Sydney

On Sunday I'll be doing my Powerpoint Presentation show in Sydney.

If you look closely, you can see the venue I'll be performing in in the background of this photo. 

It's just poking up behind the boat.

You can get tickets here if you like.

Absolutely October 14th

There've been no posts on the blog for a wee while because... well, because I've had nothing to say and because I've spent a little while without the internet. I took a holiday. I've never done it before. Except for my honeymoon. It turns out it's great fun. You should have said!

But I'm back now. And that means that I'm back on the air on Sunday morning where I brought in another couple of songs from home.

I've played a few tracks by The Robbie Boyd Band since they first came up on my radar a couple of months ago... and they seem to be releasing new stuff at a rapid rate... this is released tomorrow... it's called Spring Generation.

My second choice this week comes from Grouplove. They're American. They're hipsters. I didn't realise it was them when I first heard it and the sound didn't make me think of American hipsters. Instead my ears were nudged in the direction of Mud's Tiger Feet so all I could picture were flared trousers and simple - but synchronised - dance steps. How wrong I was. I think I might prefer the images in my head though. Not that it matters - it's a good tune.

My Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year can be found here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

One of the reasons I've come late to the idea of holidays is that my working life gives me plenty of travel... and next week is a case in point. I've a gig at the Sydney Opera House next Sunday so we'll be having another week off. Sorry! (I'm not really sorry. I mean, I'll miss the show for sure... but come on... it's the Sydney Opera House!)

But we'll be back on the 28th.

Absolutely September 30th 2012

Here are the two new songs-I-brought-in-from-home for the radio show this week... and they're very different beasts.

I'm a big fan of Admiral Fallow and this track, Guest Of The Government, is a great example of what they do. It's from their recent album, Tree Bursts In Snow, which comes highly recommended by me:




I know a lot less about Pop Levi who's completely new to me. I stumbled across this track online somewhere. It's been out for a year and as I type this, the top comment on youtube says, "this guy is my teacher's brother." It's camp. Energised. Glam. And I like it:



We're off next week - I'm taking a few days off - but normal service will be resumed on October 14th... which will effectively mark my third year at Absolute Radio. Blimey!

It's Coming Home, It's Coming Home, It's Coming... Screen Guild's Coming Home.

I'm getting excited - and panicked - by my imminent return to this place:

Hoxton Hall.

The new mini-run of Dave Gorman's Screen Guild kicks off on Saturday and we've got a great line up.

I've written about Screen Guild before but if you're new to these parts,  I created the night as a way of giving me a playground in which to try out new ideas.

For regular stand up, London is full of clubs that will let you do five minutes of new stuff... but most of them don't really accommodate a 9ft by 12ft screen and projector... and even if they do, it's not exactly practical to set all of it up and then just try out a five minute new bit.

So instead of trying out three minutes here and five minutes there, I host my own evening and commit to doing only new stuff all night. Some will work. Some won't. There's only one way to find out. As a rule I'm not a particularly nervous performer - but when it's new I make an exception.

To ensure that the tickets are worth having I book four guests - acts that I know are great and I compère the night. I'm really chuffed with the acts we've got for the first night of this run. Steve Hall, Ed Gamble, Morgan & West and David O'Doherty. Brilliant and different to a man.

If you want to come along - this Saturday or to the shows in November and December - you can get tickets here.

Absolutely September 23, 2012

We Won't Ever Be Rich (But We Could Be Happy) by The Candle Thieves

and
Smile On Sunshine by Maz Totterdell

My Spotify playlist of (nearly) all the songs I've brought in from home this year can be found here... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - should be here.

Absolutely, September 16th

Here are the two songs I brought in from home for the show this week:

The Turn, The Pike & The Glow by Turnpike Glow

and

Honey, You're No Good For Me by Stickboy:

I've added them both to the Spotify playlist which features almost every song I've brought in from home so far this year - all bar one actually, as nothing from The Loud seems to be available on Spotify. Anyway... it's here.

Oh... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - will be here.

Absolutely, September 9th 2012...

We had a guest on the show this morning. Richard Whitehead. He's seriously impressive. He's a marathon runner - hence his twitter name, @MarathonChamp - but they don't have a marathon in the Paralympics for his category (T42) so he had to run a shorter distance.

And the longest distance available to him... was the 200metres.

That's a lot shorter. More than 26 miles shorter. That's quite a switch of discipline. And then he went and won a gold medal. Blimey!

One of the things I love about doing the radio show is the way it inspires me to seek out new music. It's easy to get complacent. But while the songs I bring in from home are sometimes old favourites, I make an effort to find new things that will excite me and, obviously, I hope some of them will excite some of you too.

Well, I can't remember the last time a new piece of music got under my skin in quite the same way as this one. I bloody love it. It's by a band called Dogtanion. Who's really a man called Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau. (The other two people you can see in this video are Kerry Leatham and Peter Lyons... I expect I'll play some of their stuff on the show soon too.)

Anyway... here it is, it's called Islam. But it's not about Islam. At all. Listen to the lyrics. Although there are some swears... we took those out on the radio.

This Many Boyfriends are a band from Leeds that I’ve played at least once before on the show. Back in May I brought in a song called You Don’t Need To Worry. This next song is, I think, a little older than that one. It was released about a year ago, it’s called Young Lovers Go Pop… but it – and You Don’t Need To Worry will both be on their debut album – which is self titled and is produced by Ryan Jarman of The Cribs. It’s due for release in October this year. Anyway here it is… This Many Boyfriends and Young Lovers Go Pop…

Oh... by the way, prompted by a listener - Darren Richards - I created a spotify playlist of all the songs I've brought in to the show so far this year. I think there was just one song I couldn't find there... so it's pretty complete at the minute. If you use Spotify and want a playlist that already has 61 songs and lasts over 3 hours... it's here. I'll try to keep it up to date as the year goes on.
Oh... and the podcasts for the show - which contain all the talky content from the Sunday morning as well as loads of extras - can be found here.

Caring & Sharing

I've written before about why I don't retweet requests for charitable retweets so I won't rehash the same thing all over again - you can see what I said about it a couple of years ago here if you're interested. (The numbers have increased since then, but my feelings remain the same).

I promise you it's not because I'm a misanthropic, charity-hater who's too lazy to click a button and do some good. Far from it. In fact, quite the reverse.

But I wanted to add a new post on the topic because something seems to have changed with twitter recently. Or at least with how I'm experiencing twitter.

I've left it a little while to blog this and I hope to pick my words carefully so that nobody is identified or identifiable. I don't want anyone to go looking for those that have stirred these thoughts, that's not really important.

The thing is, there are thousands of good causes; charities and campaigns that could do with more support. Of course there are. And not one of us supports them all. I don't. You don't. It's not possible. So how do we choose? Most of us sponsor our friends when they do a run/walk/swim/cycle/whatever and most of us support other things that we feel particularly connected to or moved by for one reason or another. But none of us proactively backs every single good cause.

But recently I seem to be encountering people who are increasingly strident in the way they campaign on twitter. I'm not sure what's motivating it. But I am sure I don't like it. One group of students who asked me to retweet their fundraising page came back a few days later to tell me that they were now "keeping a list" of all the people they'd asked who had not retweeted it and that they were going to "name and shame" those who were not helping.

Which is, of course, ridiculous. Because I could just as easily name and shame them for not supporting a whole host of other, equally-deserving causes. You can't play Top Trumps with this stuff: your caring isn't worth more than my caring and my caring isn't worth more than yours. It's not fair to decide that your cause is the one and that all others are irrelevant.

Someone else emailed a few weeks ago to ask why I had not retweeted any of the many requests they'd sent me. (They had asked me at least 3 times a day for a week and by the looks of it they had asked a couple of hundred other people with the same frequency too - I wonder if any of them got similar emails?)

I replied explaining why I hadn't done so - in the same terms as contained in that earlier blogpost - and said I hoped they understood.

They did not understand.

As far as they were concerned it was a simple, binary equation. I should support their cause and if I didn't do so - on twitter, via their particular fundraising endeavour - it was evidence that I didn't care for other people. All other people.

These are two examples in which people have specifically addressed me but I've seen four or five instances recently where people are taking a similar approach with others. I don't really understand where it's coming from.

I understand that when you're campaigning for a particular cause, tunnel vision can set in, but I think twitter is somehow intensifying it for some. There is a strange idea afoot that twitter is the be all and end all, that a thought only exists if it has been expressed on twitter. A few months ago, after the untimely passing of a celebrity I was taken to task by someone because I did not tweet a message of condolence.

Don't misunderstand me, they weren't having a go at me for tweeting something snide or unpleasant. My crime - such as it was - was to not mention them at all. Why would I? I didn't know the deceased. They weren't even in my DVD or CD collection. "Was I sorry to hear about their passing?" my interrogator wanted to know. Yes. Yes, I suppose I was. But not more sorry than when I hear about any other stranger's passing. How famous do they have to be for an RIP tweet to be obligatory? What are the rules?

When I meet someone new I don't assume they're a racist until they specifically mention that they're not. And I doubt that angry twitter correspondent does either. If we don't need every thought to be expressed when we're off twitter why would we need it to be so when we're on it?

How about we all assume that we're all broadly in support of one another's good causes and accept that if we all proactively pushed all of them... it wouldn't actually do more good, it would just make things more confusing. More noise. Less clarity.

Now... if a friend of yours is doing something for a good cause and you haven't already donated, why not go and do so. You'll feel better for it. If none of your friends are doing such a thing but you have the money to spare, pick a charity and donate to that. Pick the one you think will do the most good if you think that's possible. If not, just pick the one that appeals most. Google it. Find their page. Think about sending them a few quid.

Songs!

Here are this Sunday's Songs-from-home.

First up: You Don't Look At Me That Way No More by Stickboy. I love Stickboy. This is from a soon to be released EP - called AM PM - and I doubt it'll be the last track from the EP that I sneak into the show:

Ace City Racers are new to me... but I don't think Blur are new to them. I think it's fair to say they're wearing the influence on their (Fred Perry) sleeves... but then again, they have got Stephen Street producing them so that's a seal of approval from a higher power than me. This is called Waiting:

The show returned to what passes for normal this week as Danielle and Michael returned from Edinburgh. You can hear the whole show - sans music but plus extras - on the podcast.

These Parking Restrictions Will Be Obeyed

These Parking Restrictions Will Be Obeyed, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Saw this, just off Bethnal Green Road...

Songs from Home, Sunday, August 26th

Two very different sounds this week.

First up, is Sticks and Stones by Pint Shot Riot. It's the B side to their new single, Hazy Days... which might explain why I can't find a video of it to embed... but if I've got things right, you should be able to hear it below:
Sticks And Stones

Next up: When I Believe by The Robbie Boyd Band:


I first played The Robbie Boyd Band back in June and they were very well received. This is brand new and was released on Monday.

August seems to have whizzed by. It's been the first time in a while where I haven't had a load of other work commitments to concern me... it's just been the radio show and I've had a ball. Of course it hasn't been business as normal because Michael and Danielle have both been away - at the Fringe in Edinburgh - but Annabel and Andy - and for this week, Bob - have all been brilliant and made it really easy for me to enjoy myself.

Normal service resumes next week. Not that Michael and Danielle are normal.

Songs From Home - Sunday August 19

First up... something new from the brilliant Jens Lekman who's always a delight. 

This is called I Know What Love Isn't:

And then this from an Aussie band called The Triangles... this song - Let's Replace The Cityscapes put me in mind of the wonderful The Boy Least Likely To, which is no bad thing.

I've really enjoyed having Andy Zaltzman on the show these last few weeks - and of course, I heartily recommend his regular podcast, The Bugle - but we could only get him for three weeks as he had a holiday booked and for reasons I don't fully understand, he simply wasn't prepared to explain to his children that our radio show is more important than them. Some people!

However... next week Annabel and I'll be joined by Bob Golding who's done the show a fair few times in the past and is always a joyous presence.

Oh... did I mention that we had Bonnie Langford on the show this week? We did. She was bloomin' lovely. You can get the podcast here.

Last Sunday's Songs...

The songs I brought in this last week were:

A Not Quite Perfect Film by Lousy Robot:

 if you want to know more about them, their website is lousyrobot.com

and 

Walking With Giants by The Prostitutes

 It had been bugging me that I couldn't remember what this reminded me of. I knew there was a specific 80s song that it put me in mind of, but I couldn't for the life of me nail it down. Of course, if you mention that kind of thing on air, the answer is always going to come. It's Pretty In Pink by The Psychedelic Furs. It's not a soundalike or a rip off... but it's definitely that song that I was thinking of.

You probably don't want to be leaving a google search for "the prostitutes" behind on your computer... so let me save you the trouble and tell you that if you want to know more about them they have a Myspace page, and it's here: http://www.myspace.com/theprostitutes

... and this is another reason why the whole weekend was amazing

Mo Farah, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

The Tea Lady

Damon Albarn, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

So Blur were amazing last night. The whole day - indeed the whole weekend - has been amazing. It's impossible to contextualise it all in one blog, so instead I'll focus on one small, oddity and maybe other parts of the weekend will seep out over the week ahead.

If you were at the gig, you might have been confused as to why Harry Enfield turned up on stage dressed as a tea lady.

I wasn't confused. Or rather, my confusion was of a slightly different hue. I wasn't thinking, "why is Harry Enfield on stage dressed as a tea lady?"

I was thinking, "Am I - even in some tiny way - just a little bit responsible for Harry Enfield being on stage dressed as a tea lady? Did I make this happen?"

Here's the thing. I mentioned in my last blog post that my interview with Damon Albarn would feature in this Sunday's show

We played it in, in three chunks.

In the first, we talked - amongst other things - about Worzel Gummidge. In the second, we talked about the way the internet gives people creative opportunities (as well as opportunities to embarrass themselves) and in the third we talked about the Great British institution of the tea lady.

Now, it was Damon who introduced the subject. And it's possible that he did so knowing that they had already arranged for this odd onstage moment to occur. (The interview was done about 10 days ago)

But listening back... I don't think that's what's going on. But then I might be imagining things.

He talks about how the tea lady connected the office junior with the top brass of an organisation and that, when he first signed for EMI - the tealady was the first person they felt comfortable around.

We discuss the humanising effect of the tea lady, the ritual and the way in which modern tea making has been compromised by the polystyrene cup and the teabag.

And when Damon says that he misses the lost institution of the tea lady and proper tea, I agree and say...

DG: "we all miss that. But luckily there is something that connects us to it. And as you say, it's Blur. You can listen to Blur and in your heart, tea ladies still exist."

DA: "I think we do have our own tea set as well."

DG: "I think you need to introduce it on stage."

DA: "... the tea lady"

DG: "just have a little pause. At Hyde Park."

DA: "Yes. Well. That's a very good idea and now that we've talked about it I do feel like maybe I should bring a tea lady on."

DG: "You know there's..."

DA: "It'd be nice to make everyone a cup of tea."

DG: "This is a real Jesus-complex moment isn't it?"

DA: "But unfortunately Westminster Council would prohibit me making everyone a cup of tea."

DG: "I would love it. When you get to the encore moment. You've left the stage. The crowd are cheering for more. You know you're going to come on. We all know there's going to be the encore. Just come on. Have a cup of tea. And then do the encore."

DA: "Okay"

DG: "I think that would elate Hyde Park."

DA: "I can see it."

DG: "I can see it. And I'd like to see it for real."

Seriously. Listen to it. (The relevant conversation starts about an hour in... although, obviously I recommend the whole podcast). Do you think he knew it was going to happen... or am I, in some small way, responsible for the appearance of Harry Enfield, on stage with Blur... dressed as a tea lady?

What do you think?

Blur Sunday!

photo by Inner Circle Photography

 

This Sunday's show will be a bit different. It's going to be three hours long instead of the usual two and we'll be broadcasting live from Hyde Park - which later that day will be hosting the BT London Live Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert featuring The Specials, New Order and Blur.

The gigs sold out... but we do have two tickets to give away to some lucky soul.

I'll be joined by Andy and Annabel again - who were both great last week - and as well as the usual blather, there'll be an interview with me and Damon Albarn in the mix. We'll be on air from 10.

While I'm here... I forgot to blog the two tracks I brought in from home for the radio show last Sunday... here you go. First up, the fantastic, Battleships by I'm From Barcelona who are from Sweden:

And a brand new track from a band who are new to me. Yippie Yeah by The Diamond Noise:

More Spiking

Spiking

Somewhat ridiculously I had a third consecutive day of watching live Olympic action yesterday. A friend called with an offer of a spare ticket for the Women's Beach Volleyball finals. You know. The way they do. How could I refuse.

It didn't seem as well organised as the other two venues I've visited (I asked 15 different volunteers if they knew where the secure bicycle parking was and none of them even knew there was such a thing, for example) but once we were in it was great fun and the two matches were ace with Brazil taking a bronze medal from their game with China and the USA taking the gold from their game with, um, the USA who had to console themselves with silver. Poor old The USA.

Anyway... here's another photo... it's not really 6 aside... but I think this explains the anatomy of a single point:

Cycling

I bought my tickets for the jumping on a whim the day before. But the venue I most wanted to attend was the velodrome. I live in east London. I cycle past the Olympic site all the time. I've seen these buildings as they go up... and I'd have been really annoyed if I hadn't had a chance to see them in action.

I didn't get any cycling tickets in the ballot - or any other tickets for that matter - but I did manage to get one when more were released. And my, what tickets they were. Row three. In a section of the stand that had no row one. So, um, row two then.

Hoy celebrates gold

Pendleton says goodbye after winning silver

Trott does a lap of honour after winning gold

As you can see, I picked a good day. In two days I've seen four gold medals decided. Great Britain and Northern Ireland have won three of them and picked up a silver in the other.

If anyone involved in Team GB(&NI) would like to invite me along to other events as some kind of good luck charm I'd be more than happy to oblige.

EDIT TO ADD:

I got dozens of tweets yesterday from people telling me they'd seen me in the crowd. Lots of people sent pictures they'd taken of their telly as proof. My thanks to @el_saundero for this picture of me looking at a Belgian bum.

Jumping

I went to Greenwich Park yesterday to watch my first, live, Olympic action. Horses. Jumping. Over fences and stuff.

This what a complete round entails:

I've never seen it before. I've never wanted to. I bought the ticket on a whim on Sunday and went along for the hell of it. I was hugely impressed by the organisation of the whole thing. The volunteers are amazing and really do set the tone for a great day out.

Of course the fact that Team Great Britain & Northern Ireland won a gold medal added to the excitement.

Absolutely July 29th

Montreal felt like a bit of a bubble... and music - especially new music - wasn't much of a focus, which is why my two songs-from-home on my first show back, weren't exactly new releases.

First there was Action & Drama by Bis:

Bis seem to be one of those bands that fall through the cracks when people look back over the 90s but they were really influential and it's always a pleasure to go back for more.

And my second choice was Are You Trying To Be Lonely by Andy Lewis & Paul Weller:

Which just doesn't get played much on the wireless because, presumably, there are so many better known Paul Weller tracks that get ahead of it in the queue for airplay... but still, a great tune.

I think the show went well on Sunday morning... which seems like some kind of minor miracle given how tired I was. On Friday night I'd done my final show in Montreal... and then done my packing... but I hadn't gone to bed because I was being picked up from the hotel at 3.15am.

I had an early morning flight to Toronto first. There are direct flights from Montreal... but if I'd taken one of those I wouldn't have been able to make the radio show on Sunday morning... so a no-sleep-Friday it was...

My flight then landed at Heathrow around 10pm, UK time. I was expecting to find the airport - and London - in a state of Olympichaos but in actual fact I was through the airport in remarkably swift time and home in East London before midnight.

But even so... it made for a confused and discombobulated host on Sunday morning. Fun though.

If you'd like to double check, you could always get the podcast... it's here... y'know... under July 29th.

Incidentally... as both Danielle and Michael are off to the Edinburgh Fringe for August we will be without their company for the next few weeks. (But hey, if you're heading for the Fringe, why not take in their shows... Danielle's doing stand-up on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and a comic play on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays while Michael's taken the lazy route and is just doing a stand up show.)


But we've got top notch people coming in to replace them... we have Annabel Port who many of you will know from Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show and Andy Zaltzman - a comic who you might well know from the sublime, The Bugle.

Met a famous Brit in Montreal this morning...

I guess not everyone's heard of him... but for those who 

have it's pretty impressive stuff

Run!

I don't think I've ever stepped off stage and been told to run before. But I did last night.

It was a strange day all round. My schedule had three shows in it. And because two of them were being filmed for TV (one Canadian, one American) they also involved rehearsals.

A rehearsal of that sort of thing isn't really a rehearsal. You don't go on stage and run the words - there's nothing more uncomfortable than delivering material to nobody. I can't say the words to an empty room - stand up, like a tree falling in a forest, only really makes a sound when there's an audience to hear it.

No, what a rehearsal really means is someone showing you where you'll enter and exit the stage from, maybe asking what kind of microphone/stand combination you want to work with and various of your shirts being held up on camera so that a decision can be made as to which one you should wear.

It only really needs to take 10 minutes... but they generally find a way of stretching it out and making it last an hour or two. I have no idea why. Nor do they.

Doing two tapings in one night is a bit weird and meant everything had to run exactly to time. At 11am, I had to drop two shirts off in the hotel reception so that one of the shows could take them away and check them. Then I'd head off to a rehearsal at the other taping. I'd leave a shirt at the first "rehearsal" and then head to the venue of the second taping for a "rehearsal" there... and by the time that was done, even though it could all have been dispatched in 30 or 40 minutes, it was time to make my way to my solo show.

The day's schedule had been finely tuned... it's just that it didn't really include a meal time. It felt as though every minute had been occupied. Largely by the kicking-of-heels in various backstage areas.

So at 6pm, I grabbed a sandwich on the way to my venue and started to set the show up so that we could start on time at 7pm.

And then I strapped myself in for the what I knew was going to be a frantic night.

The audience numbers had dipped low on Monday night - the fact that it was a Monday was no doubt a factor, the fact that the show was now one of thirty or more english language shows instead of one of three was probably a factor... and I'm pretty sure that the monsoon that threatened to wash the streets away for the hour before the show was a pretty big factor too.
Less energy in the room means you have to work harder to make the audience coalesce. We got there on the Monday but I was really hoping there'd be a more sizeable audience for it on the Tuesday night so that it would energise me and give me some momentum for the upcoming two-tapings-dash.

I was lucky. They weren't the biggest crowd I've had here but they were big enough and while they held the show at arms' length for about ten minutes it didn't take long for the audience to trust me with it and relax and it raced away from there. Probably the best of the run so far. Great fun.

I was out of the door by 8.15 and running the short distance back to the hotel in order to dump the kit from the show in my room and make it downstairs for an 8.30 car. I made it by 8.32... engine running... and we were off... the first part of the mission had been accomplished.

But the rest of it wasn't going to go so smoothly. Both the TV tapings were starting at 10pm. I was meant to be on first at the first one - so I'd be onstage at about ten past the hour - and then I was second from last at the other... meaning I ought to be on stage some time between 10.40 and 10.50.

But 10 o'clock came and there was no sign of the show starting... and people started getting agitated. And when I say people, I mean my Bjorn. And when I sat Bjorn, I mean my agent. The next thing I know is they're saying the show won't start until 10.30 at the latest... and that means it's now impossible for me to do both shows.

So the decision was made to pull out of the first recording and head over to the other one - it was one of the festival's big galas and was being hosted by the brilliant Bill Hader in a 3000 seat theatre.

So I get there and try to watch the show and let the pre-show adrenaline subside a little as I now have a bit of a wait before I'm on. I change into the shirt that they've agreed and go into a different make-up room so that they can redo the make-up done at the first taping.

As I'm waiting in the wings, I realise there's a slightly off grammar to this gig. Just a little something I haven't seen before. When someone finishes their set and leaves the stage, a voice over then back-announces them and they step back on to the stage and acknowledge the crowd one final time. I've never seen that done before and it didn't come up at "rehearsal" so I asked the stage manager if that was what was expected of us all and she confirmed that it was.

So I go on and do my set and as I'm leaving, I think to myself, "don't forget to do that bit where you step back on stage and acknowledge the crowd!" Except that the first thing I see when I step into the wings is Bjorn who's holding my bag and my shirt and yelling, "Run!"

"Just a minute," I say, feeling ever so slightly confused. I step back on stage, I salute the crowd, I step back into the wings.
"Quick," he yells again, "Run!"

And so I do. I run. And he runs. And as other performers scatter in the backstage corridor to let two sprinting loons through, he breathlessly explains that the first taping is running so late that it might still be possible to get me on stage to close the show.

"There's a car waiting for us outside," gasps, Bjorn.
"No there isn't," says a female voice, just as we reach the stage door. "I'm sorry. There was an emergency, it had to go somewhere else."

There was some light swearing.

But we didn't have time for the heavy stuff because it was more important to make progress. So we sprinted into the street and ran for a good 300 yards before we finally hailed a cab.

I was in the process of changing shirts in the back of the car when we pulled up outside the studio. Phew. Just in time. More running. People holding doors open. Showing us short cuts through the building that we hadn't seen on the first visit.

Adam Hills was on stage (and storming it, naturally) and everyone could breathe a sigh of relief. I was there. The host - Danny Bhoy - just had to go on when Adam had finished and introduce me and we'd be on the home strait.

Only then they told us that because it had run so late, there was some problem with the sound, which meant they might not be able to record the audio for the whole of my set unless they stopped first and reset something.

Danny did a fantastic job of keeping the energy in the room on a high while they did whatever they had to do. In less capable hands the evening could have fallen apart a bit here and turned into a truly uphill struggle.

My body had been in about-to-go-on-stage mode four times and had four strange come-downs... and now I was about to go on stage. As Danny was finally given the go ahead to introduce me, I glanced  at my watch and saw that it was midnight.

In Montreal

The exciting thing about bringing a show to a new country is that you wipe the slate clean. You start with no real reputation to back you up. Just some strangers taking a punt on you by buying a ticket.

The truth is that in the UK, audiences will give me a bit of a headstart. It's a headstart I don't get - that I haven't earned - here. It puts you on your mettle and ensures that you put the work in. I'm glad to say I've been rewarded so far. The show is going great guns.

There's no way of posting a positive review without seeming boastful... so here, um, boastfully, is some proof that things are going well: a review from the Montreal Gazette. That's nice - and compared to many, it's refreshingly light on spoilers too.

"Far from a gimmick, using the slides proves to be a particularly effective comedic tool, especially in the facility it gives Gorman to quickly pile up visual evidence to buttress whatever point he’s arguing for or against.

You can take it all at face value, simply as comedy, and Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation is an unmitigated success on that level. But there is also a subversive, culture-jamming spirit at play in Gorman’s presentation, particularly when he trains his sights on the worlds of media (social and mainstream) and marketing. Leaving the show, I couldn’t help shake the feeling that those segments should become mandatory viewing in media literacy classes everywhere.

Gorman is also about as polished a performer as you’ll see at Just for Laughs, betraying none of the side-effects of the shabby, alt-comedy ethos that can occasionally hamper some of the too-cool-for-you performances at the festival’s edgier Zoofest cousin. I don’t think I heard him hem or haw a single time during the hour-plus running time of the show. (And I could have easily sat through another hour.) There’s something to be said for consistently applying that level of professionalism to one’s craft, comedy or otherwise. Trust me, we in the audience notice – and appreciate it."

But I'm not just doing the one man show while I'm here, I also have some short stand-up sets to deal with. I can't take a bit of my show and do that in a one-man-and-a-mic comedy club set-up so instead I've been playing with different bits of material.

It hasn't been as easy a transition. Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that the first short set I did here was the worst gig I'd had for about ten years. A routine that has never failed just flatlined. Nothing.

Awkward.

I'd left my one-man-show feeling like the funniest man on earth and then an hour later I was feeling like the least.

Yet again, that's a surefire way of putting you on your mettle. I added in some extra sets and made a few adjustments - tiny things in the performance - and since then each set has gone better than the last. Well, the second one had to be better than the first... but it wasn't just better it was... well, it was okay... but the third was good and the fourth one was really good with the routine that had died in the first suddenly going down a storm.

The same words. The same routine. In the same club. Just two nights later. Going down a storm. It's in the details. This is why comedy is just such a fascinating thing to practice.

Now that I've worked that bit out it's far easier to relax. It's all fun from here on in.

The festival is changing shape. Just For Laughs has been very much Juste Pour Rire so far with only a smattering of English-language shows around. (If you're in Montreal I highly recommend Sam Simmons... although he is on at the same time as me so, y'know... I don't want to recommend him too highly!)

But yesterday and today more acts from America, Britain, Ireland and Australia have been arriving in numbers. A lot of English language shows start tonight. Familiar faces are everywhere. The buzz around the hotel is completely different. It's been nice being a bit of English-language exotica at Juste Pour Rire. But we're not the side-salad anymore... we're a part of the main course.

Picture Postcard

Coming here was nice.

Being here is nice too.

Absolutely July 15

I've been trying to blog the radio show in recent weeks - basically to showcase the two songs I brought from home - but this last Sunday whizzed by in a blur as I had to dash across town and jump in a hire car immediately after the podcasting was done in order to get to Latitude in time for my reading.

I made it and the event at Latitude was a lot of fun but being at a festival for just a few hours of the final day did feel like turning up late for a party. I was conspicuous by my cleanness... I obviously hadn't spent the last few nights under canvas...

With Latitude done and dusted, I then had a day of preparing stuff for my trip to Montreal and then I was on my way... and so the usual, here-are-the-songs-I-chose blog sort of fell through the gaps. Which probably didn't trouble anyone... I'm not sure anyone else is that bothered... but I still feel like I ought to be completist about it... especially as there were two fantastic songs this week.

First up: Liz Lawrence and Oo Song.



The first time I heard it I thought she was singing about Frankie Boyle (39 seconds in) but the lyric is actually, 'The seasons change, but that quite frankly bores you' and not 'the seasons change, but that's like Frankie Boyle who...' as I first thought.

Next up: Mississipi Isabel by King Charles who's new album is full of gems.

I want that bike... 

As I'm in Montreal, there won't be a radio show this coming Sunday. But we did find time to record a mini podcast so that should still show up and help to tide folks over.

The podcasts from this week - the Sunday and the Someday - are both available here.

Meanwhile, I'm in Montreal and I did my first show last night. It's always such a relief to get the first show done. You never know for sure that things will work as well when you take them to foreign lands and as much as you can try to make changes and second-guess how people will respond it's only when you do the show for the first time that you find out with any certainty.

I'm delighted to have discovered that the show works just fine here. The next few days are going to be fun!

Montreal...

... here I come.

Absolutely July 8th (& Stuff)

It's been a strange few days of abrupt gear changes.

The last gig of the poster (but not the last UK gig) was on Friday night in the Isle of Wight - that was followed by a TV show taping on Saturday night and then the radio show on Sunday morning.

It made time feel kind of elastic. By the end of Sunday night my trip to the Isle of Wight was already feeling like it was something that had happened a week or so ago... rather than the night before yesterday.

Because of my commitments on Saturday, Friday's gig was planned like a military operation. After the show and the meet and greet we were away from the venue at just after eleven and racing across the island to make the midnight ferry.

Not that we needed to race. The drive that had taken us 40 minutes on the way there took us only 25 on the way back so we were at the ferry terminal in plenty of time. In the end I was home and on my way to bed before 3am - which seems to be pretty good going for a night when the show took place on a different land mass.

The TV show I was doing on Saturday night is a new show for Sky Atlantic called Don't Sit In The Front Row which is hosted by Jack Dee. It's an improvised show - which is what I mean by a change of gear. My live show is as tight as a drum - I don't need to do any preparation on it on the night but only because I know it inside out and backwards... but with Don't Sit In The Front Row I can't do any preparation because there's nothing to prepare. It's just whatever happens on the night.

It's like working a completely different set of muscles. With one the laughs come because of how well I know my way around it... in the other, it's to do with how well we find our way around it. Very different beasts. And exhilarating in a completely different way. It was great fun... but I've no idea how their editor is going to squeeze it into 30 minutes.

And then a few hours later the gears change again and my head goes into another space for the Absolute Radio Show where we're freewheeling and live but structured and planned in different ways.

We talked about those moments when you find yourself playing at being a spy - which led to some great stories from listeners.

The songs I brought in from home were Easier Said Than Done by Rachel Goodrich:

And Too Insistent by French/Finnish duo The Dø



Of course you can get the podcast here if you want to catch up with all that was said as well as all the extras that we do just for the podcast.

I have another change of gear tonight and a completely different style of performance - I'm doing a book reading in town as a sort of pre-Latitude event.

And having said that the Isle of Wight show was the last of the poster but not the last... I'd be a fool if I didn't mention the show we're doing next Saturday - July 14 - for Shelter at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London.

A few people have assumed that because it's for charity it has to be a mixed bill with lots of people doing short sets. It's not - it's the full show, exactly as you'd see it on the rest of the tour - it's just, y'know, for Shelter. I hope you can come.