I woke up at 3 this morning giggling inanely. It’s not often this happens. I’d been having a dream and it seems to have been set on the Top Gear set.
Clarkson was doing his thing and then started talking about a new product – as if to make fun of it. Rather like they do every Christmas with the poor collection of merchandise stuff the car companies put out for consumption.
Anyway he was holding what looked like an old steel flask. Like a Thermos but older and more battered. This was the new product. This flask’s decor was simply some letters that looked like they’d been done with sticky back plastic.
And the product’s name was “WASPUS”.
And I woke up uncontrollably giggling.
How very bizarre.
[edit] Omguh! It’s a place in Papua New Guinea. I have to go there. NOW! (I feel like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters)
Amongst the list of podcasts I get through regularly is a comedy one called “The Bugle”. John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman host it and it’s usually very funny.
This week, however, they’ve gone and done a whole episode on the Bin Laden death.
Really not comedy gold.
I’m happy to forgive an occasional dud episode of something that’s usually so good. Unfortunately this time I heard it in the car on the way to Leicester. R was with me and I’d just bigged up the show as well worth listening to. So we’re zooming down the M1 and this tedious ramble through barely comedic thoughts wasn’t the introduction to the show I was after.
I was also surprised that the tone was celebratory. Wasn’t really the tone I was expecting.
Me and teh gangz went to see Tim Minchin last night.
Nicely timed (totally coincidentally) to be on Darwin Day I was looking forward to him going on about that somewhat, seeing as that’s his schtick sort of thing.
But he didn’t really. He mentioned it but didn’t really go off on one.
The place wasn’t full though and it felt more like a private party for him and his mates. More than half the crowd were teen girls who all fancy him and go to as many of his shows as they can afford. Even to the extent that he mentioned one or two of them on the front row by name.
But how embarrassing for him.
He did spend quite a lot of his time talking about his wife and daughter. It seemed like a desperate attempt at times to deflect the horny masses from embarrassing him further.
But the majority of the horny masses were of the “I go to sci-fi conventions” type. You know the “find gangs of similarly obsessed people and then it’s not an obsession no more, strength in numbers etc” kind of people.
Like me and my pals who go to juggling festivals (of all things!)
Not impressed by the vibe I’m afraid.
And it’s a shame because he’s pretty darned good. I have to say that as he rather effectively hit back at a nasty critic by the medium of song at one point.
As far as the show went it started and ended poorly for me though.
He did acknowledge the bad start by saying that he’s always bad at starting. Then he tried to intimate that he’d never heard of “Cradle of Filth”, as if.
But it proper picked up after that with some excellent gags and just the wrong side of “wrong” comments. Very good indeed.
And then he finished a great evening with a pretty meh song. But the crowd loved it, I suppose some people need a bit of wry-smile-at-best pathos after a good night’s proper hilarity.
Oh and I agree, the dancing bear was really not needed. Even if embarrassing a physics nerd is quite a giggle under normal circumstances.
A very good night out, but you can’t have every note as a high one.
And they say us godless folks are the ones killing the magic of Christmas.
[Note to my folks: This isn't a happy children friendly Christmas song, really not.]
I may have mentioned that I quite like Charlie Brooker’s work.
I’ve just been watching his latest episode of Screenwipe and it’ll remain with me for ages. Most notably for hearing Konnie Huq describe how she does a wee before then leading a bunch of men to wee on a hill to the strains of inspiring music.
