Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 28, 2015
Competition? Check. Prize? Check. Shirt? Check.
This last week saw the biggest entry to one of my mailing list competitions since I started running them. There were about twice as many entries as normal. The vast majority got the answer right - my Elk's name was Brooks - but quite a few people went with Brubs. Which is what, I'm told the subtitlers went with also. But Brooks was right... and the winner was a Chris Jones. The sign and wallet will be on their way soon.
As a prize for this week, I thought I'd offer up last week's shirt. That's the shirt I'm wearing in the picture above. It's been washed. I couldn't give it away unwashed for all sorts of reasons. I'm no expert, but for all I know the winner could extract my DNA from the sweat and then plant it at various crime scenes, fitting me up like a kipper. That would never do. So washed it is.
To be in with a chance of winning it, you'll need to be on my mailing list. I'll be sending out the email with the question some time on Tuesday.
To be in with a chance of winning it, you'll need to be on my mailing list. I'll be sending out the email with the question some time on Tuesday.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
The Next Prizes
Thanks to everyone on my mailing list that entered the first competition of the series. The winner was Joe Jenks from Crewe who's already had a CelebVM video message from Homes Under The Hammer's Martin Roberts and will soon be getting some Homes Under The Hammer carpet(!) and a copy of the Found Poetry booklet too.
The feedback on episode 2 has been great... and it's an episode that contained a couple of props... which means it also contained a couple of prizes. There's the framed picture - that has now been taken down by the pub whose wall it once graced - and the wallet you see below.
On Tuesday I'll email my mailing list with a question about episode 3... and then a lucky dip from the right answers will provide the winner.
The feedback on episode 2 has been great... and it's an episode that contained a couple of props... which means it also contained a couple of prizes. There's the framed picture - that has now been taken down by the pub whose wall it once graced - and the wallet you see below.
On Tuesday I'll email my mailing list with a question about episode 3... and then a lucky dip from the right answers will provide the winner.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
The Most Satisfying Kind Of Feedback...
I know this won't make much sense unless you've seen episode two of Modern Life Is Goodish... if you haven't and want to, it's on UKTV Play here.
But for those that have, this sort of feedback is very satisfying. Not the tweets themselves - although I'm grateful to Les & Lisa for letting me know - but the knowledge that a word or phrase coined for the show has been heard being used out in the wild.
But for those that have, this sort of feedback is very satisfying. Not the tweets themselves - although I'm grateful to Les & Lisa for letting me know - but the knowledge that a word or phrase coined for the show has been heard being used out in the wild.
Of course the primary aim is/was to make an audience laugh. But the knowledge that some of them did that, and then carried a part of the show off with them on a night out a day or two later is just, well, satisfying.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Homes Under The Hammer. Without Music. Take 3.
I appreciate that this won't make a great deal of sense if you haven't seen the first show in series 3 of Modern Life Is Goodish.
You can fix that by heading over to UKTV Play and watching it now if you have a handy hour or so.
If you have seen the show, you'll know there's a section where I show some clips from Homes Under The Hammer... only I've stripped out the music they're playing under the clips and put in what I think are authentic sound effects instead. (I promise this makes sense in the context of the show.)
Anyway... I make these clips in my shed at home and there's one that we couldn't fit into the show so I thought I might as well throw it online anyway. I used three clips in the original dry run, live performances and they all worked really well... but this one was just too long to justify keeping it in when the same point was being made by the shorter clips. (Mind you, I suppose that in itself says something about how long a clip HUTH are happy to include when it contains... well... not that much, really.)
You can fix that by heading over to UKTV Play and watching it now if you have a handy hour or so.
If you have seen the show, you'll know there's a section where I show some clips from Homes Under The Hammer... only I've stripped out the music they're playing under the clips and put in what I think are authentic sound effects instead. (I promise this makes sense in the context of the show.)
Anyway... I make these clips in my shed at home and there's one that we couldn't fit into the show so I thought I might as well throw it online anyway. I used three clips in the original dry run, live performances and they all worked really well... but this one was just too long to justify keeping it in when the same point was being made by the shorter clips. (Mind you, I suppose that in itself says something about how long a clip HUTH are happy to include when it contains... well... not that much, really.)
Friday, September 11, 2015
Well this is bloomin' lovely...
If you're the kind of person who needs persuading to move your TV out of the comfort zone of the first four or five channels, I hope this is the kind of review that might persuade you...
The first episode gets one* more repeat on Saturday night at 10pm or you can catch it on UKTV Play here.
*I say "one more repeat". I mean "one more repeat for this run". Obviously it'll be repeated again because... well, because Dave. But you know what I mean.
The first episode gets one* more repeat on Saturday night at 10pm or you can catch it on UKTV Play here.
*I say "one more repeat". I mean "one more repeat for this run". Obviously it'll be repeated again because... well, because Dave. But you know what I mean.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Martin Roberts, Gentleman...
I Storified this because it seemed like the best way of encapsulating something that seemed to me to be rather sweet...
That said, I ought to add that it's about the first show in series 3 of Modern Life Is Goodish... if you haven't seen it and are intending to; here be spoilers!
If you do want to watch the show, it's repeated tonight (Wednesday) on Dave at 10.40pm and again on Saturday at 10. Or, you can watch it on UKTV Play here... now!
And now... I present, Martin Roberts, gentleman...
That said, I ought to add that it's about the first show in series 3 of Modern Life Is Goodish... if you haven't seen it and are intending to; here be spoilers!
If you do want to watch the show, it's repeated tonight (Wednesday) on Dave at 10.40pm and again on Saturday at 10. Or, you can watch it on UKTV Play here... now!
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Goodish Day To You...
Tuesday is set to be a very busy day, all told.
An audience of journalists?
10am?
It sounds ghastly, I know, but I've performed at the last couple of these dos and they've always been a giggle.
It's a bit odd that it coincides with the first day of the series... it's obviously a bit late in the day for the print press... but even so, it's a fun event and with Dave commissioning series 4 & 5 even before series 3 has started going out, it's nice that we seem to be considered a part of the family over there.
After that, I'll be visiting a few radio shows here and there before heading over to the top secret bunker that the Dave channel broadcasts from.
****UPDATE**************************
It seems I spoke/typed too soon... there's a technical hitch and I won't be able to do the live continuity after all.
**************************************
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Now Seems Like A Good Time To Try And Persuade You To Join My Mailing List...
... no... don't go... I won't be long.
With the recent announcement that the lovely people at Dave have already commissioned series 4 and 5 of Modern Life Is Goodish, I had a lot of tweets and a few emails and so on asking me how to get tickets for the recordings.
Tickets for the recordings are free - and come with a cautionary sidenote - but the best way to get one is to be on my mailing list. That's because the company that handles the ticketing - TVRecordings.com - allow me to give my mailing list first dibs. I send an email to my list with the dates and details and they don't advertise it anywhere else for a day or two so that mailing-listees get a chance to put their requests in first. In series one to three, we've never had to advertise it anywhere else because the full allocation goes in that first couple of days.
Of course, I don't just use the mailing list to plug the free tickets to my series, I also use it to plug the not-free tickets to my tour and the not-free books and DVDs that I write and produce and so on. But I don't send out weekly emails (or monthly or whateverly, for that matter) and try not to bother you unless there's something I've done that I think you might be interested in. And if you read an email and don't want to buy a book... I'll never know so really it's not that big a deal.
Let me persuade you some more... then again, it might put you off. Oh well. Forewarned is forearmed.
During series 1, I decided that a good way of dispensing with the odd props and things I had lying around following the making of the shows was to give them away in little competitions. The only manageable way I could fathom for doing this was to make it available to members of my mailing list. It seemed healthier than one of those "everyone tweet the answers" things that is really used to generate publicity by crowding out other people's timelines.
So, I gave away the Gorscreen from episode 1...
... the 'Hello Magazine pullover' from episode 4, modelled by the winner, Mike Ericsson, here...
... and the, um, shitting hat (sorry) from episode 3, modelled here by the winner, Dee Traynor's toilet...
I did the same again in series 2 and I have a small stash of stuff from series 3 that I'll give away in a similar fashion over the next eight weeks or so. (Have I mentioned that series 3 starts on Tuesday night?)
Anyway... I do get that people have a reluctance sometimes because, hey, Twitter is cool and giving someone your email address feels like a big commitment. But Twitter is only useful if you're on it at the time a tweet is sent and I don't know about you but I'd rather get an email in my inbox than trust to lucky timing. In fact, I've just taken my own advice and signed up to the mailing list of the brilliant author Dan Rhodes. I follow him on Twitter. But I was still many months late on discovering news of his latest book. I just hadn't seen those tweets. (He's brilliant by the way... I especially recommend, Gold and Little Hands Clapping).
You can subscribe - and unsubscribe - from my mailing list here:
and here's a boring blogpost from a while back explaining the double-blind opt in blah blah blah behind it all...
With the recent announcement that the lovely people at Dave have already commissioned series 4 and 5 of Modern Life Is Goodish, I had a lot of tweets and a few emails and so on asking me how to get tickets for the recordings.
Tickets for the recordings are free - and come with a cautionary sidenote - but the best way to get one is to be on my mailing list. That's because the company that handles the ticketing - TVRecordings.com - allow me to give my mailing list first dibs. I send an email to my list with the dates and details and they don't advertise it anywhere else for a day or two so that mailing-listees get a chance to put their requests in first. In series one to three, we've never had to advertise it anywhere else because the full allocation goes in that first couple of days.
Of course, I don't just use the mailing list to plug the free tickets to my series, I also use it to plug the not-free tickets to my tour and the not-free books and DVDs that I write and produce and so on. But I don't send out weekly emails (or monthly or whateverly, for that matter) and try not to bother you unless there's something I've done that I think you might be interested in. And if you read an email and don't want to buy a book... I'll never know so really it's not that big a deal.
Let me persuade you some more... then again, it might put you off. Oh well. Forewarned is forearmed.
During series 1, I decided that a good way of dispensing with the odd props and things I had lying around following the making of the shows was to give them away in little competitions. The only manageable way I could fathom for doing this was to make it available to members of my mailing list. It seemed healthier than one of those "everyone tweet the answers" things that is really used to generate publicity by crowding out other people's timelines.
So, I gave away the Gorscreen from episode 1...
... the 'Hello Magazine pullover' from episode 4, modelled by the winner, Mike Ericsson, here...
... and the, um, shitting hat (sorry) from episode 3, modelled here by the winner, Dee Traynor's toilet...
Woop, post has arrived! Thanks to @DaveGorman for the new bathroom decoration! #couldntresist #shittinghat pic.twitter.com/APK5tUIntY
— Dee Traynor (@dee_traynor) October 15, 2013
I did the same again in series 2 and I have a small stash of stuff from series 3 that I'll give away in a similar fashion over the next eight weeks or so. (Have I mentioned that series 3 starts on Tuesday night?)
Anyway... I do get that people have a reluctance sometimes because, hey, Twitter is cool and giving someone your email address feels like a big commitment. But Twitter is only useful if you're on it at the time a tweet is sent and I don't know about you but I'd rather get an email in my inbox than trust to lucky timing. In fact, I've just taken my own advice and signed up to the mailing list of the brilliant author Dan Rhodes. I follow him on Twitter. But I was still many months late on discovering news of his latest book. I just hadn't seen those tweets. (He's brilliant by the way... I especially recommend, Gold and Little Hands Clapping).
You can subscribe - and unsubscribe - from my mailing list here:
and here's a boring blogpost from a while back explaining the double-blind opt in blah blah blah behind it all...
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Series Three Is Less Than A Week Away...
... which means that this...
... is now possible. Y'know... if you're a series-link kind of person.
... is now possible. Y'know... if you're a series-link kind of person.
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