one day soon » all hail the new simplicity

"Trains -- three hundred miles an hour. Email -- three thousand miles a second. Athletes are getting faster all the time." If they couldn't think of a third one, they just shouldn't have bothered, don't you think? Feeble. §

Went to see Beck at the Brixton Academy on Tuesday evening with Barunka and Gus. Excellent, excellent gig, especially the wonderfully lame choreographed dance moves performed by the man and his Midnite Vultures band during instrumental breaks. Fabulously entertaining and very amusing, despite the sweltering heat and the fact that we weren't allowed to stand up in the circle. Musical highlights of the evening have to be Nobody's Fault But My Own (from Mutations), Forcefield (from One Foot In The Grave), Where It's At and Jack-Ass (from Odelay) and the fifteen minute encore of Devil's Haircut which disintegrated into squalling, looping feedback, men dressed in cricket pads flopping about the stage and excessive use of police tape. Beck is a genius: the bastard child of David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Prince, Woody Guthrie and post-modern irony.

Great enjoyment was also to be had from swapping our tickets with a bunch of eighteen year-olds. The three of us all had tickets to stand in the stalls, but being old, grey and full of sleep, wanted dearly to escape the sweat-slicked crush of the moshpit for a bit of a sit-down in the circle, when what should we come across but three young men being turned back from the stalls door for having the wrong tickets. I pounced on them like some sort of arthritic jungle cat, hoping to persuade them to swap tickets with us but it turned out that only two of them were supposed to be sitting in the circle.

Hmm. We needed to find a third circle ticket holder with a youthful desire to be squashed into the armpit of a stranger in a Pavement T-shirt, and luckily these three kids were happy to do our work for us, scouring the approaching punters for an unwanted circle ticket while we just hung around sipping beer and being amused by their growing excitement. Moments later the three ran back to us having found someone and could barely control themselves as they took our stalls tickets, Barunka amusing Gus and myself by handing over hers with the patronising comment: 'you'll understand when you're our age'.

Once the deal was done, the genuine joy on the faces of these four young men had to be seen to be believed. It was extraordinary, and they skipped away towards the stalls punching the air, shouting to each other, 'I told you it was going to be a good night!'. I do remember being a bit like that when I was eighteen and going to gigs -- to be stuck in the circle was a waste of a gig -- and it felt a bit nostalgic to help them out. Good for the karma. §

My first entry to The Mirror Project. I feel honoured. Also been working on doctoring photos of Rob and David for their Edinburgh show, The Mitchell and Webb Clones, which I'm directing. As you'll probably gather the gimmick of the photos relates rather handily to the show's theme. Good for them. Mark and I sat around for ages thinking how to connect some sort of exciting and desirable image to our show and came up with nothing. Perhaps we should do a more concept based show next time round -- easier to market.

In the past I have waxed lyrical about my theory of cleaning, viz: if your flat needs cleaning and you can't be bothered, arrange a party; then you have to do it. Well I have a new, updated and much more stress-free version: if your flat needs cleaning, make sure your sister's having a barbecue and she needs to get through yours to get to the garden. How does this hold true? On Friday I came home to find my flat spotless -- the floors hoovered, my conservatory mopped, my bathroom scrubbed (the bath and sink are a revelation) -- and all done by my sister so as not to have her friends walk through a grubby mess this Friday night. Marvellous. She must arrange parties like this more often. Either that or I should get a cleaner.

Mark and I spent another afternoon in the Starbucks on New Oxford Street today, working on Popeman scripts courtesy of my new iBook. Pah to you anti-globalisation protestors, I say. Starbucks provide a working environment second to none -- good desks, power sockets that nobody seems to mind if you use -- and no requirement to buy another latte every couple of minutes. This really is a home away from home (or indeed an office away from office).

Sitting at the bar at the window, typing away, you get a great view of the to and fro of the West End: hoardes of people strolling back and forth during lunch and the rush hour, endless packs of three number 38 buses at once, and sharp young businessmen running to catch them and, just missing them, breaking into a relaxed trot as if to suggest they'd never been running for that one in the first place.

But most interesting of all if the American-looking, goateed, twenty-something skate kid type who seems to use Starbucks in much the same way we do, sitting at a table every afternoon, scribbling in a pad and glancing across at Mark and me every now and then as if there's some sort of unspoken bond between us -- workers hacking away at the artistic coal face. Who on earth can he be, and what is he doing there? Both Mark and I have tried to glance over his shoulder at his notebook on the way downstairs to fetch another mocha-frappacino or giant peach Tazo iced tea, terrified we'll see Columbine-esque scrawlings, 'ALL WRITERS MUST DIE', and so on, scratched across the pages of his A4 refill pad, but we can't ever make anything out.

We're quite tempted to get the staff to deliver him a latte with the words 'courtesy of the two gentlemen at the window', the pair of us tipping our metaphorical hats at him as he glances over in thanks, but we can't quite work up the courage in case he's a psycho. Almost certainly we'll never make contact with him, however long we sit there, ten feet from each other hours on end, but perhaps that's better in a way. At least it won't spoil my belief that he's the singer of Limp Bizkit trying to scribble down new teenager-exciting radical rap couplets... §

Mark and I spent Saturday in London Studios on the South Bank doing our last day's work on Slap Bang. No more shall we be stuck in a glass box, noxious fumes pumping through the window from the photo-processing lab downstairs.

Slap Bang was supposed to return in September for a twelve show second series, but for some unknown reason (unknown to me that is) ITV have decided to put that back until January. In a television world obssessed with ratings, I worry that it's been delayed to allow the show to be reworked because it 'isn't working'. For 'isn't working' here read 'isn't getting big enough ratings against Dog Eat Dog and Friends Like These on BBC1'. This is a travesty.

Slap Bang is a great show. The audience love it, every comedian I know loves it, and, most importantly, the 16-34 year-old age range that Ant and Dec want to target in order to move out of the world of childrens television love it. Indeed the ratings within that age range indicate that people watch the entire show: they do not switch off even during ad breaks -- a rare thing for a television programme. Unfortunately for Ant and Dec ITV see Slap Bang as a Saturday evening family show, in other words one aimed at an 11-55 year-old audience: the Holy Grail of cross age range appeal and a prize that Ant and Dec can never really hope to obtain.

So what will happen now? Almost certainly the next six months will be spent tinkering with the format of the show -- does Beers work? should there be more music in the show? is Claire Goose too young to appeal to 55 year-olds? should Cher And Cher Alike feature other celebrities apart from Cher? and so on -- all questions that will have stewed away in the heads of the executive producer and commissioning editors until they're not sure of anything and change it just for the sake of it. Endless mutations, each no better than the last. A great mistake and one that could end up destroying the show completely before we even reach January.

Ant and Dec are thoroughly committed to Slap Bang; in fact they say it's the first show they've ever worked on where people come up to them in the streets and don't just say 'oh, I like that programme you're in' but 'hey, I loved that joke about the snake in Beers'. The response they've got from the public is amazing, and from their point of view it must seem like madness not to keep it going as soon as possible. It's a great shame that two so talented people (and such nice ones to work with, I might add) are being used as pawns in the constant ratings war between ITV and BBC.

Rant over. And now here, for your entertainment, are a number of photos I took of the studio rehearsal on Saturday:

Aren't little Anthony and Declan a cute couple? Ahhh. §

Rory has stopped walking. Or rather he's going to be walking into a long-term job in Edinburgh from the beginning of August that puts an end to his gadding about the globe like some kind of frivolous lunatic, and as a result his weblogging days have become indefinitely suspended.

I suppose it makes sense: he only ever blogged when he had a journey to go on that had a definite end (preparations for his trip to Madagascar, a search for work in San Francisco, and so on). But reading his extensive, and very well written, concluding posts on his life during the last six months and his decision to end Walking West and its brethren, I feel saddened.

As my first good friend at university and the man who got me into blogging -- indeed set up my first Blogger template for me when he was over visiting England -- it'll be a shame not to see his presence on the web. Yes, Speedysnail will still keep us appraised of his writing and cartooning, but his weblog was something more: a personal insight into the man. And having been such good friends for a year, only to see him return to Australia after the opportunity to do a PhD fell through, Walking West and its ilk have been a way for me to keep seamlessly in contact.

That said, I doubt he'll be able to resist the urge to return. The fact he's put a mysterious link to Walking West 4 on his site seems to suggest it's inevitable.

So good luck in Edinburgh, Rory. And no doubt I'll see you at the Fringe.

Speaking of which, Richard has discovered the page for my show on edfringe.com. [Here's the layout of the actual venue we're performing in if you're interested.] Nine quid to see me and Mark prat about onstage for an hour? It's outrageous. And I am not to blame.

The Assembly Rooms set the ticket prices, and as you can see they have been very generous in halving the price for the first weekend.

So do come then if you're poor and in Edinburgh in August. Of course, if like most people who work in new media, you're well paid and wouldn't bat an eyelid at throwing down a tenner for a film in the West End, come on one of the other nights and give us all your money. Tips gratefully received.

And if you can't make it up to the Fringe, we're doing three more previews, 16th, 23rd and 30th of July, at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden. Booing strictly prohibited. §

Tweaks to the 'Hmm...' poster on the basis of helpful suggestions from all and sundry. It just turns out that the title is an absolute bastard of a phrase to typeset.

Also been setting up my iBook today and getting my hands on OS 9.1 and OS X. OS 9.1 I like. Good, reliable, familiar. OS X on the other hand is criminally awful.

Apple seemed to have abandoned their previously set in stone Human Interface Guidelines and come up with something that looks nice but is incredible counter-intuitive for those graduating from the previous version of the operating system. Every bit of muscle memory I've built up from using my Mac over the years is almost useless. The way the Finder windows work is confusing and the browser like toolbars on each one annoying; things that used to be simple for a Mac power user are now impossible to find or even work out; the Dock is frankly objectionable, filled with bouncing icons desperate for your attention with little arrows underneath that don't seem to mean anything and, along with giant icons, large text and the afore-mentioned toolbars, eats up screen estate that is very valuable on an iBook; menus with the same names as those in OS 9.1 seem to contain totally different options and commands; the transparent menus and dialog boxes are just harder to read; and the way the whole system is still visible as annoying folders littered around the root when I'm using OS 9.1 is frankly unbearable. The myriad settings for internet access and the like don't even migrate across to OS X so you have to enter them all again. Grrr!

OS 9.1 on the other hand seems to work like a dream, and I'm particularly taken with iTunes: a simple, easy to use product with overtones of the OS X interface but still intuitive. I've spent the last three hours ripping almost every CD I own. In the end, I'm sure once more Carbonised applications become available for OS X (Microsoft have kindly provided me with a Carbonised version of Internet Explorer but it refuses to conform to the OS X interface as, apparently, they were 'very happy' with the one they'd designed themselves, thank you very much...) and I spend a little more time playing with it and discovering how to set it up so that it conforms to my needs it may grow on me. But at the moment it's just Windows with shiny jewelled buttons. §

Exciting surprise as my new iBook turned up unexpectedly just as I was leaving for work this morning, especially as I had been told not to expect a delivery until next week by Jigsaw. So well done them. I turned it on, eager to have a quick play, but it just presented me with a system setup screen asking me to insert the first of four install CDs so I've had to leave it until later, and here I am now, almost done. Soon I shall be able to download pictures from my digital camera at reasonable speeds! Soon I shall be able to click on unnecessarily cute glowing bejewelled buttons! Soon I shall be able to copy across all those 'borrowed' applications from my desktop to see how much faster they run at 500MHz!

Except I have to go out and meet people at 7.30pm. Curse you, Rob and David... §

Popped round to my local polling station and voted this afternoon in the General Election, and like many people I know I shall be sitting down transfixed by the television coverage as the results come in this evening. I shan't be telling you how I voted - that's between me and the ballot box - but both my mother and my sister can't understand why I won't share it with them. My father agrees with me though.

Spent the rest of the afternoon having a first go at designing a poster for Mark and my Edinburgh show 'Hmm...'. I rather like it although it could probably do with a bit of tweaking. As always your comments are welcome. §

Ahhhh, look at the little pussycat. Isn't he sweet? And look at the cute little out of focus doggy. [This link was of course wrong and just pointed to the first cat picture. But no longer.] Yes, I've been going through my digital camera and finally downloading some of the photos. Soon this site will have it's very own photo album. But not just yet.

Must go and vote now. §

I went to a friend's birthday party last night (Happy birthday, Jon) and discovered that a large number of people I know read my weblog, mainly because they all separately came up to me and demanded to know why I hadn't written anything since May 16th and to bloody well get on with it so they could have something else to do at their computers rather than actually work.

It did notice a couple of days ago that I hadn't written anything here in a while, and I wondered why. Perhaps I am suffering from the same sort of malaise as Simon at minor 9th: we're starting to find the internet rather boring. The initial excitement of having billions of pages at one's fingertips starts to fade somewhat when you realise that almost none of them are in any way interesting. Yes, I've had blogging down time before, like everyone whose blogs I read has, but this time it's combined with a lack of interest in the medium itself.

I've begun to notice that I sit down at my computer, fire up my browser, click on the link to the GBlogs list in my toolbar, and skim half-heartedly through a few regular reads, all in a slightly brainless robotic fashion that ultimately leaves me disappointed. In fact recently I've stopped even doing that. All I do these days is check my email, and if I'm at work on a fast connection download a few trailers.

In the end, it's likely this is just a phase brought on by excessive amounts of work on Slap Bang, Ed Stone is Dead and Popeman. These days I barely have the time to relax let alone write to an audience I can't even be sure is reading. But here I am once again, after being lambasted by a large group of regular readers I didn't even know existed (hello Benet, Matt, Ellis, Robert, Richard et al), bringing you morsels of frivolity to lighten your lunch hours.

Today's entry is also brought to you by the newly designed Bachman and Evans section of this site, spurred into redesigning action as I was by the availability of a load of good publicity photos for our Edinburgh show that my sister took on Thursday (described as the bloke from Toploader and his accountant), and biogs and show information that we had to supply to our PR company anyway. All the email links are @bachmanandevans.com because I intend to persuade Mark that we should by the domain and move the site there to keep our 'work' site separate from my personal one. After all, given our intention to become highly successful and famous comedians, I'd prefer my contact email address not to be the one my friends use. Comments are welcome.

In other news, I have bought one of these. I've been thinking about getting a new portable to replace my defunct Powerbook 520 for years and now Mark has moved to Stoke Newington the hour commute door to door from one of our flats to the other makes the idea of being able to meet in town and work there much more attractive. Add to that the fact that Apple have finally brought out a good portable that's also affordable, and it seems the ideal time to purchase one. With a 500MHz G3 processor, Mac OS X pre-installed, a 1024x768 pixel screen that's still only 12.1" across, and Firewire and AV ports, it could last me a good five years at least, and will definitely come in handy when I'm in Edinburgh this August, allowing me to keep this weblog updated with the progress of our show, and perhaps even to post a few reviews of other shows to the currently stalled Funny Ha Ha.

Unfortunately, as is now proving to be standard when Apple release a new product, the shipping date to the dealer (Jigsaw, who were both the cheapest and the most helpful and come highly recommended) has been put back and back and back. Initially about three weeks ago, then June 1st, they now expect to receive the iBooks on Monday, which means delivery to me on Tuesday when working at Slap Bang. I suppose I could get it delivered to the office and then lug it home. After all, it is a portable. §