06 Jun 2011
Posted in Juggling, Life, People, Travel at 9:08 pm by alby
Ahh Camping.
We had 8 nights this May starting with the rest of the family’s first BBU.
The drive was a complete mare. Something like 5 hours with many stops involved. Once there though a few lovely people helped with baby-sitting and/or tent upping. We did only have one request along the lines of “How many days have you packed for?” as we dumped a house worth’s of stuff into the tent. Mildly surprised at that.
Bloomin’ cold it was at first. That first night was a bit of a nippy one. But we all survived that one well enough and the next 3 days were just relaxed and happy. Very nice people, lovely location and decent weather. Oh and the friendliest juggling convention took place around us too.
On the Monday we had to decamp, re-pack the car, drive north, unpack the car and re-camp. That was a long day.
The new site was just outside of Cromer. We’d packed up in 22 degree sunshine and were dressed for summer. As we got nearer Cromer the weather turned; we lost 8 degrees and gained rain and wind a plenty. It heaved it down with rain that night which gave us a rather rough view of Cromer as we went out for fish and chips. Not the best first impression.
After that though the weather was pretty darn nice and so was Cromer. At least it wasn’t bad for an English seaside town. Proper pier with theatre too.
We zoomed over to Hunstanton for a day with my folks and niece and nephews which was fun despite Hunstanton being a dump and losing 2 children at one point. The following day my folks came to Cromer for a rather lovely day of lazing and walking and beach sitting. And that was about it.
Things of note were that the businessmen of Norfolk seem to be untrustworthy dodgy types. There was a children’s fair thing on the seafront at Cromer where you had to buy tickets from a central place and signs up all around to insist that you don’t give cash to the staff! Nice way to treat your staff – “hi thanks for working for us, we don’t trust you.” In Hunstanton too the refrain “No refunds” was apparent on a goodly number of signs.
We went at one point to a crazy golf course only to find another “no refunds” sign, a price of a fiver each and another sign that said “No followers”. The group in front of us were debating this as they had a very young member of their family but the rather dodgy looking people in the hut were not shifting on their no follower rule. This kid was no way old enough to play the game so they were being total arses. We decided not to spend that much money when it involved giving it these shysters.
Oh the town should be renamed “Hunstanto’n” as no-one there seems able to use apostrophes correctly.
After Cromer we packed up and headed to Manchester as R had rather sweetly bought us tickets to see The Fall live in their home town that Friday. Hellish journey! Getting northwest from Cromer isn’t easy. In the end it took us 6 hours of slow and tedious roads. The show was fun whilst it lasted but it didn’t last very long at all so a long day’s drive for about 60 minutes of entertainment (including support poet “a low rent John Cooper Clarke” and band). Officious bouncer helped to annoy many, R couldn’t see anything and it was awfy hot. Luckily R’s sister is lovely and looked after the young folk for us (with the excellent help of her daughter) whilst we were out. And finally home on the Saturday.
All in all a lovely week. I think we need less stuff and a wilder trip next time. Maybe Glen Brittle?
Have fun.
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05 Apr 2011
Posted in Juggling at 3:27 pm by alby
I’ve just bought the family some tickets for the BJC show on the 17th. Any BJC attendees who want to join us for food and drinks pre-show let me know and we can meet you in the city centre sometime that afternoon/evening.
See some of you there.
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20 May 2010
Posted in Juggling at 7:36 am by alby
I was driving through the market town of Belper yesterday and what did I see but a man walking along wearing his Nottingham BJC 2007 hoody. Never seen a random man with a juggly top before.
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15 Apr 2010
Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 8:41 pm by alby
I were up in Yorkshire on Friday past. OK I’ll stop that now.
The BJC this year was in lovely Huddersfield. Not been there before and somehow I doubt I’d have picked it as a place to visit were it not for the BJC plonking itself down there and inviting us in. Surprised how nice the place was. Probably another of those “shush don’t tell the southerners how nice here is, we don’t want an influx” things.
Sadly I only managed to get there for about 12 hours from midday Friday. I’d picked the Friday as I wanted to see the BYJotY show. Word had it that the normal org Luke B had cried off, some pitiful excuse like “not being in Europe” no doubt. So it seemed young Tom D had valiantly stepped into his shoes instead. Not a bad play considering he only had 3 weeks to pull the thing into shape.
Not long before the BJC I’d heard more, that there weren’t many takers for the show. Could it really be so?
On getting to the site I slowly made my way to the main juggly hall, being constantly waylaid by lovely folk going “Ooh Alby, Hellooo!” and offering hugs and chats, from Dr H at the reg desk to the P-Bs once I finally fought my way into the hall.
Some juggling was done in the afternoon with some measure of success. Later I parked myself in the tent where Tom was stressing about the BYJotY show.
He’d managed to get himself a load of entrants the day before so the show was on. Mind you it seemed that many people who should have been around weren’t. And a workshop was due to take place in the tent at the same time the tech run was due to be held, and on and on…
Then, at the right time, a bunch of folk wandered in and dutifully played their own role in the show’s prep and things looked good.
In come the audience and then we begin.
Nina compered again and immediately apologised for her shocking use of the word “Lie-sester” last year but then ruined it by blaming Luke’s handwriting. But in the main she got on with it and things ran pretty smoothly.
The usual things happened, the drop count, the best trick comp (still using the old rules tho – still think 1 min per participant would be better, where the whole minute is the person trying to get their trick sorted rather than 10 secs per go). Perhaps she could have pushed the drop count game more during the interludes, maybe would have got more money if it’d been pushed more, perhaps even someone could have walked the queues before the show to garner money and participants, ah well maybe next time. (NB this is hindsight of course, I wish I’d thought of it at the time)
Notable in the show was our pal ^Tom doing his first go (and what would be his last due to being too old next year) at BYJotY. Droppy but funny and a worthy first go at jungling on stage.
There was a girl too! Emma-Jane I think she was called and she was pretty good. Not much joining in and connecting with her audience but the technical skills were clearly there.
Other notables were Jonny who won with a lovely routine of skillful juggling and having a lot of fun which he communicated well to the crowd; Josh and Lewis larking about and showing off some different skills such as head bouncing and sharing patterns – also the first ever double act (I think it was previously against the rules); and David Haslam with some excellent club juggling.
After all this was successfully concluded with Jonny winning just about everything and a couple of other silver awards (still no golds) Tom looked mightily relieved so I suggested food out with him and a few others. We ended up in an excellent steak place in town, good choice.
After about 2 hours of further wandering and goodbyes I headed home via a 2 hour night time drive. Lovely quiet roads at that time.
I’m left with a strange feeling of having missed an excellent convention but I did enjoy what I managed to see.
I do hope there’s a strong offer for next year, I’ve heard nothing beyond “someone has a plan”. Fingers crossed.
Cheers to the orgs, well done.
Pics from the day here.
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18 Mar 2010
Posted in Fillums, Juggling, Life, Reviews at 6:31 pm by alby
Hi all. I am around and about but v busy.
Stuff wot’s happened:
- Bunch of fillums seen, rented via Lovefilm.com which seems to be pretty good but there have been a couple of issues of discs not quite working properly. Nothing that stopped the things working completely but sticking on occasion and being a pain.
- Best was probably “Eastern Promises” by David Cronenberg. It’s about Russian mafia in London and is quite gruesome and unpleasant. Same director and star of “A History of Violence” (which is better, it did at least seem to have a complete story arc). If I didn’t expect there’ll never be an “Eastern Promises 2″ I’d say that the scene was set for that to happen.
- Currently have “In Bruges” to see.
- Spending a lot of time in Derby (for obvious reasons).
- Chocfest been to. Lovely to see so many friends again. Sorry no full review as I missed the show again. Hopefully I’ll get to stay for Lestival’s show.
- Worrying stories about Chocfest maybe not being carried on as most if the orgs won’t be around. Fingers crossed that younger Yorkies will take over. Hopefully things aren’t so negative and I just caught people tattling.
- Bad news re a friendly chap in York having had a heart attack. Good luck and best wishes to him. Get well soon Yo-Yo Monster.
- Work being a pain.
- Getting better after Labyrinthitis.
There’s prolly more to mention but that’ll do for now.
Have fun.
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21 Feb 2010
Posted in Juggling, People at 11:27 pm by alby
Yesterday was the nth Ballring wot I’ve been to. And the first UK convention (for me) since last year’s BJC way back in August 09. A major shame that Leeds didn’t happen to break up the long stretch between.
Got there to find the PBs there and with friendly folk cooing near them.
Juggling was done. Me and Clurb actually managed some pretty good old patterns we’ve not done together for 8 months or so.
Fun was had with weird Korean rice crackers and Annabod had some crisps which tasted like candyfloss. Well only me and Kate reckoned there was a strong candyfloss taste; the others clearly don’t have the “candyfloss taste gene”.
I didn’t get to stay for the show though.
Hi to all I chatted to. Was lovely to meet you all again. Looking forward to a few more conventions this year.
Photos here.
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02 Nov 2009
Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 9:16 pm by alby
So then after a further 8 hour flight (complete with 160mph tail wind at one point – whee!) I made it to Melbourne and after a long trek through their quarantine section was spat out onto the streets.
Got me a bus into the city and then went to find my first hostel.
First impressions of Melbourne? “Meh, it’s a city”.
My immediate task on getting into my room was to check my ankles out. When I had my shower at Singapore airport I’d discovered that my ankles had swollen quite dramatically. This had me buying a pair of those sexy flight socks for the second leg (geddit eh eh?) of the journey.
It turned out that very little had changed. Still swollen and pitting horribly. Is this normal? Or am I just an undiscovered cardiac patient? Fingers (but not legs) crossed.
I wasn’t actually too worried but then I went to the loo and had horrible chest pain. Crumbs. I slept that night with my feet on a pillow. Wee’ed loads the next morning – I’m pretty sure not weeing on the flight much was the problem. No worries after that anyway.
I’d got to Aus at about 7pm their time and was tired so I actually managed to drop into their time easily just by staying awake until 10ish and then going to bed for a good while. I thought that would have been more difficult. Nice.
Oh yes, crappy iPod news! The bloody home button didn’t work on flight 2. Then did the next day, then didn’t the day after etc… I took it into an Apple shop only to be told they’d need to send it off and this would take 2-3 weeks. Nice. Still not working properly. Internetting it seems to suggest that it’s a dodgy piece of design and/or manufacture. So as well as not playing stuff with my file format of choice it also has the XBox360 habit of breaking if someone looks at it wrong. If it wasn’t for the opinions of people whose opinions I trust then I’d have to assume that they sell over-priced, sub-quality tat.
Anyway. The MJC then.
After waking up with synchronised me and Aus time (yay) it was a swift gather up of stuff and then back to the central station to get a train to Collingwood.
After arriving to the college I realised that I didn’t have enough cash to pay to get in.
They let me leave my stuff behind the desk and pointed me at ATMs. Annoyingly Australia is way behind us with regard to placing cash points all over the place; they’re rare beasts over there. Got to the first one to find it wasn’t dishing out any cash. Arse. 10 mins walk later I found another one – not dishing out cash either. Another 15 min walk further there was a 3rd ATM – no dice. Bloody hell! I’d been walking for ages, it started raining – I had about £20 worth of Aus cash on me so nowhere near enough to get a room, or buy much food or drink over the weekend. There were no banks around for me to drop into (and no exchange places neither). The best I could find was a Western Union place that wouldn’t let me use my credit card to buy money. They did let me know that someone could send me cash from abroad. In other words, phone your folks and get them to send you some. Err no.
Eventually I found yet another cash point. This one didn’t give me any cash but did at least let me know why. My bank had blocked the card thinking someone had nicked it. Great. So it’s Saturday afternoon here, early Sunday morning at home, nothing open and no-one to phone for hours. Magic.
So I soggily wandered back to the MJC and luckily the rather lovely Christian let me in by leaving my credit card details. He also lent me his phone to call a hostel. They would accept payment by card too. Sigh. Still didn’t look good for food tho.
So after all that I then had to take all my kit to the hostel which was a further 20min walk through streets I didn’t know dragging all my stuff.
A few zeds later I was heading back yet again to actually meet some jugglers.
Wandering around the place some bloke wanders up and says “I recognise you” and turns out to be some Londoner called Dave. He was at a few UK cons that I was at too. So we had some chatting and then he introduced me to Mr Cheetham (nee Popstar Dave). Another thoroughly lovely chap.
I went to one passing workshop which sounded interesting but turned out to be lots of wandering and figuring out how to do the wandering. Meh, not interested. In one of the halls I met a couple of guys passing and joined in with them for a bit (hello Ash and ?Christophe).
But my lack of juggling for some months soon told and my patterns just went to pot, mainly I think because I just didn’t have the stamina.
At this point I wandered into the canteen to have nice and cheap food from some folk by the name of “Lentil as Anything”. After lots of chatting with new pals and “ah”ing at Hannah’s ?broken wrist I ended up being taught some very bizarre twisted passing pattern.
Incidentally some moron told Hannah that he’d healed her by holding on to her wrist for a while. She said “no it still hurts” so he pressed it harder. Idiot. Anyway on enquiring more she’d had numbness and some pretty decent swelling of the hand – I suggested she get it x-rayed.
Regardless the passing didn’t last too long as the show was kicking off soon. Just before this point my bank phoned me up to tell me that they thought someone had stolen my card. After being grumpy with them for a bit they agreed to let me access my money again and that episode was thankfully brought to a happy end.
To the show: Most of this was really bloody good. The comperes were excellent and the majority of acts had something decent to offer. And it was probably the longest show I’ve seen for a good while.
Highlights for me:
Olivia: a girl doing a wind-up doll routine – smooth moves and ace choreography.
The diabolo kid who came 3rd in Australia Has Talent (corrected for grammar).
2 Antipodean acts – first did parasols very delicately and the second was a very zippy, if brief, 2 person thing where one was the object – very speedy and, if they didn’t need to be brought so far, I’d say bring ‘em for a BJC. Make ‘em do some workshops to bump up their value and that’d maybe do. They were called something like “Feet 2 Feet”.
Another acro thing with 2 blokes and a woman – they did the slightly cliched fighting over the woman thing but their twist was that the 2 blokes ended up together.
Matt Hall justified his entry by impressing with his tennis can routine as well as a 3-7 ball sequence.
There were a couple of acts that didn’t move me much.
Some woman did a hat act that lived up to pretty much every hat act I’ve ever seen. There was a hugely over-angsty meteor act that started on the floor and never really took off. And some bloke did an air guitar act. Yup an air guitar act. Admittedly he did rip off one Umbilical Brothers act as well (complete with wooden screen – yes that Umbilical Brothers act) but that didn’t rescue it for me.
And that was it. A generally very high quality show. I have to admit to being surprised but then I realised that the Aussies only have 2 events each year so they get the good stuff at each of them. The performers want to perform and there’s not much opportunity to do so at JugCons. So fewer, better quality shows maybe. Not such a bad deal.
But then the show was over and so was Saturday. At the moment that everyone should have been all up and excited and trying stuff they’d seen the site was closed and we all had to go our respective ways. If there was one criticism of the event it’s this lack of a 24 hour space. I was told that previous international guests had mentioned the same before. It was really a shock to not have it available. Weird. Definitely the only really noticable big thing to sort for future years.
The next morning I was back for more of the chatting thing. It turned out that Hannah had indeed broken her wrist yesterday and was now all plastered. That’s unicycling for you. Xray showed a full thickness, undisplaced fracture through her radius. Ow.
We were sat watching them set up for volleyclub at one point. This was apparently reasonably new to Australia. I mentioned it was quite popular in Germany and this elicited a “Oh the girl who started it here is from Germany” from someone. Sure enough a german voice echoed through the hall announcing a volleyclub workshop. Oh and she got the rules wrong.
In the evening was the second Renegade (I’d missed the first as it was on the night I’d arrived in Melbourne).
Matt Hall progressed his Scissor – Paper – Stone – Look Over There thing further by introducing the 3 person variant which entertained the room thoroughly when he got everyone playing.
Some guy impressed with unicycling on a slack rope whilst doing a 3 ball cascade, whilst significantly drunk – nice.
They were the stand-outs for me. Until the intermission.
Things got fun here. We were in a school gym. So lots of toys! Someone set up a vaulting horse and springboard which led at first to people vaulting over higher and higher squashy foam obstacles. Then someone had the idea of joggle 3 then do 1 up, do a somersault and then land back into a 3 ball cascade. One kid did it twice to rapturous, well deserved, applause.
And then the problem with not having 24 hours space came in again. They had to finish the Renegade before midnight so they had to stop the vaulting fun (fun for spectators as well as the participants) to get through the remaining acts. Such a shame. If we could have stayed later we could have had both without having to prematurely halt one of them.
Anyway that was Sunday.
Monday was the last day and there were fewer people aroundand I caught up on a bit of sleep as well so just went there to say hi and bye and thanks and nice to meet yous etc.
So then an MJC. Very good indeed. Ace acts, lovely folk. Shame about the enforced home times. Ah well. Doubt I’ll get there again for some considerable time but I do hope a few of the folk I met manage to get across to Europe for a few cons. Would be nice to meet them again.
Major thanks to Christian for letting me in with no money and lending me his phone. Cheers too to Iain, Hannah and plenty more of their pals whose names I forget. I am so crap with names, sorry. And ta as well to Dave and Dave for company and conversation.
Photos here (no show pics tho).
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02 Sep 2009
Posted in Juggling, People at 7:35 pm by alby
Was just watching “Would I Lie To You?” on the telly and Owen from off of the Gandinis was on it.
Coo.
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27 Aug 2009
Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 7:12 pm by alby
Saturday afternoon and evening was the public show at the BJC. This year was the 22nd BJC show, hence Catch 22.
I was in an unusual position as I got to see both shows; in my self-appointed “I’m taking photos” role. My plan was to try 2 angles of shots, 1 at each show.
In the end it worked out that I ran out of battery during the second show so I got more from the first. This was a shame as the lighting seemed to be less helpful to getting good pics in the first show. Mind you that probably serves me right for having a camera with rubbish low light capabilities and a cheapish lens.
There were a few notable differences between shows but the main two were that show 1 was quieter but show 2 was generally more droppy but the better atmos gave me a better time.
Act 1 – The Juggling on Tap Orchestra
I’d seen one of their number (Stuart Pemberton aka Heston Blumenthal) at the previous BJC on one of the open stages (what became known by me as “The Italian Show”) and commented that he was bloody good. I’d heard before this BJC that he was in the show but what I was surprised by was that he had a pair of friends on stage with him.
He did bounce juggling and tap dance whilst one pal was a bongo player and the other a flautist. I’d say this was my fave act. Wasn’t the most technical juggling but the packaging was excellent. Bounce juggling, drums and tap dance served us well for a few mins before the addition of flute added a little extra. Very very good indeed.
Act 2 – Ronan
Poi from someone who realises that movement and choreography is key to a poi routine. Some nice contact stuff included and I’m told some of the stuff he did was very hard (not a poimonger so I don’t know). If you “don’t like poi” then I’m sure there was something in this act that appealed to you. It did me.
Act 3 – Audrey Decaillon
From France. Despite having been around the juggling world for some time I have to admit I’ve never heard of her before. Technical stuff was very good. Loads of club manips and some nice foot rolls and catches. An act with more personality than most too. I rather liked it. Strange combination in her character of vulnerability (particularly highlighted by her choice of costume), anger and assertiveness.
Act 4 – Komei Aoke
Be afraid! Contact and body popping at first and then into balls and dance and then rings and that. All very “street” it was. Very nice indeed. I’d be surprised if Komei isn’t a lot of people’s fave act of the night. He was the only act that had the majority standing at the end of it anyway (that I remember). Well worth seeing him if you haven’t. Whisper it quietly though, he could have maybe cut down the rings section.
Act 5 – Witty Look
I’ve seen bad clowning in my time and the first 2 mins of this act had me worried. Luckily I was as wrong as I’ve been in some time. This pair of clowns and unicyclists had me in fits of laughter. The skills they showed off weren’t half bad either. Doubles unicycling as I’ve never seen before (see pics). Whoever came up with booking these 2 deserves a pat on the back.
Act 6 – Tempei Arakawa
Very snazzy diabolo routine. More droppy (as most of the show was) in the second show which does leave me able to legitimately use the line “He’s good but he’s no Tempei” again.
Act 7 – (Belgian) Martin Heasman
His very snazzy 3 ball routine. I’ve seen this routine 4 times now (now I think of it, quite possibly every public showing of it) and I still love it. Also the only act I remember being less droppy in the second show.
Act 8 – Strictly Dumb Prancing
An act I’ve heard about but never seen. And the word of mouth wasn’t wrong. Funny and skillful acro with 2 well developed stage personae which worked very well. It’s this act that showed me that it’s possible to wear someone like a belt.
Act 9 – Koba
Clearly skillful juggling but it didn’t seem up to the standard of the rest of the show. Probably pleased a lot of ring jugglers (although we did also have Komei and Toby doing rings too)
Act 10 – Toby Walker
Ludicrous hard technical juggling. 7 balls with head bounce and more. I’ve never seen Toby do a whole act on stage before so this was a real treat to finish off the show.
I thoroughly enjoyed this show. Void kept things going (again better with the later audience) and managed to confound the odd expectation.
Even the bits in the show that didn’t quite live up to what else was there wasn’t bad stuff; just not as good as the rest. When the worst you can say about a show is “the worst bits were good” then it’s been an awfy good show. A fantastic evening.
Pics: here.
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26 Aug 2009
Posted in Juggling, Reviews at 9:57 pm by alby
I’m firmly of the opinion that the BYJOTY show is one of the highlights of a BJC. I’ve seen 4 of them now and all 4 were notable shows. This one was helped out by being in a theatre; indeed it was the first show of any kind in the new venue. Nice.
The show’s compere was Nina (ex of last year’s BYJOTY). If you’d only known her as “that girl who did a cigar box routine whilst wearing high heels” then you’d not have recognised her. Clearly still new to the compering game and apparently nervous. Use of a prompt card all night was a negative (as was her inability to correctly name English cities!) but she got on with it and introduced acts well enough.
On to the acts then. NB The show was all very ball and diabolo biased. There wasn’t one clubs act there, shocking. Oh and back to only one girl again too. (NB My spling may be well off on some of these – don’t worry yourself)
1 – Ken Carlile – Diabolo.
A man with an act. A great start as he did what looked to me as pretty hard diabolo stuff with a character and humour. This guy ended up as my choice for BYJOTY but at the time I was thinking – wow this is going to be a good show if they all live up to this standard. Top stuff.
2 – Brook Roberts – balls.
When he came on my first thought was “ooh another Reuben”. Good skills but not so sure of himself as he could be with practice. One to watch, certainly.
3 – Joe Marks – diabolo
One of the younger competitors. Some attempt at a character and costume but I think nervousness made him sort of get his head down and get through everything without too much interaction with or recognition of the audience.
4 – Boosh – Balls and telephone
Another “act” with some thought behind it. It didn’t move me much though and the skills weren’t as “look at this!” as some of the other acts. But then understatement can be a virtue sometimes.
5 – Rob Wooley – Contact
Odd schoolboy thing going on here. A different act this one with crystal contact stuff and some balancing on sticks going on. Nicely thought out and some decent skills.
6 – Danny Cooper – Diabolo.
Another young one. He didn’t so much as perform as run through his repertoire. Basically he got his head down and ignored the large audience in front of him.
7 – Sarah – Balls and rings.
This looked like Sarah but she seemed to be wearing a dress. A spangly black number. It can’t be Sarah surely? But that’s what the woman said. Coo. maybe it is then.
She did her thing with style and looked like she was proper happy to be up on stage. I do like watching her perform. It’s so nice to see a girl up there doing technical hard throwing and catching rather than poi or hooping.
8 – James Laurence – Balls
White balls and black tee shirt. It’s a cliche for a reason. Nice 3 ball work and some character. Still needs some work but he’s got the seeds of something good there.
9 – Folkert Erkelens – Diabolo.
More diabolo madness from a young Turk (sorry Nederlander). I didn’t quite get how he qualifies for BYJOTY entry but he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t. Confident stuff but again more a string of tricks thrown together than an act. Another one to watch I reckon.
10 – Mats – Footballs
Clown from Wales! Points for picking a slightly diffent prop from the rest. An odd style of doing some stuff and then “ta-daa!” with arms outstretched with a “there look at that, applaud scum” look on his face.
11 – Ben Morgan (aka The Notorious B E N) – Diabolo
I thought this was the second cross-dressing act at a BYJOTY but it turned out he was just acting a hip-hop style rapster type gangster thing (am I out of my cultural reference comfort zone? you bet I am). Floppy hat and a big smile endeared him to the crowd and he then managed some tricky stuff with no major worries. Very nice. Not sure about the costume though.
12 – Reuben – Balls
We’ve seen Reuben before. BYJOTY before, Crawley and a variety of vids online (where he uses actually interesting music rather than whatever’s on his iPod at the time). The act was the same “standing still whilst managing ludicrously zippy ball tricks” as he has done before. But he looked more confident and happy up there this time. The assembled jugglers loved it. Rousing noise by the crowd at the end and you knew where the smart money was for the overall BYJOTY title.
So to the awards:
Silvers, golds and Judges choice awards are by a panel of judges.
BYJOTY is by audience vote.
Gold awards
None – 5 years of zilch in gold then.
Silver Awards – (none of which I would disagree with, nor would I add anyone else)
Ken Carlile
Sarah Biskup
Ben Morgan
Reuben
Judges Choice
Reuben
BYJOTY
Reuben
As I said earlier I didn’t vote for Reuben for BYJOTY. He’s certainly a worthy winner but for an overall act with character and style I put Ken above him on the night. I know at least one of the judging panel agrees with me on that. But hey ho. That’s the fun of this game, we all find different things to like more.
Many thanks again to Luke for running with this.
Pics here.
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