yerse.co.uk

By the way…

A quickie to say the new version of Wordpress looks laaahvley.

Further hilarity is to come.

Comedy Uncovered - Sam Stoddard

This is the first in what may or may not be a long line of articles about underrated and unknown standup comedians.  And for my first venture into the world of writing aimlessly about a comedian, who better to focus upon than the much-maligned East Lancs-based joke merchant, Sam Stoddard?

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I’d like that….

…if we could cycle down some lane.  Yes.

I really truly have found my old obsession with them.  I wouldn’t be so bothered except that there’s so much other stuff I’d rather like to listen to but I find myself unable to pull away from the glorious hold Messrs. Partridge and Moulding have on my ears of late.

If you say you like interesting music, and poppy music, and music that gives you a permanent grin because it’s so damn twisty and beguiling, and you haven’t yet given XTC more than a cursory glance with your ears… get to it.  Really.  You’ll be glad you did.

This was an unprovoked plug for the band XTC, who were amazing and all that crap.  I am not affiliated with the band.  Just saying.  I mean, you’d think I was trying to get in with them, the amount I go on about how great their music is.  Shut up, Ben.

Rook, Rook, read from your book…

What to write about?  I’m depressingly bored at work and should probably be making up jobs for me to do (”Yeah, uh, I’ll just sweep the floor.  Yes, I know we have a cleaner.  I’m fussy.”) but it’s very nearly Friday, and so my enthusiasm for work and its many joys has waned just a tiny bit.  I’m about this far away from deciding what I’d like to record next; something in the hilarious fake radio broadcast/instructional cassette vein, I think.  I’m going to start putting older stuff on here when I a) find the time and b) find the files, because hell, I’ve done at least one or two bits of stuff that I find amusing, at least.

The title?  Why it’s an XTC lyric.  It popped into my head as I was beavering away on an email to a conference telling them they should’ve really sent their extremely time-limiting letter earlier than one day before what they wanted from us was due in.  Fuck knows why.  I’m fairly sure I’ll be deep down and comfortable back in my past obsession with the group soon enough.  I sort-of got sick of them, a little bit, after obsessively listening to everything I could find by them over the summer.  But, as with many things, now I’ve taken a step back and had a little breather, I feel I can go back in and make another go of things, if you catch my meaning.  I’m fully aware I’ve used the word “things” at least twice, though now of course thrice, though obviously that last time ’round didn’t count for shit.  But yes, the fact that I’ve got to explain my love for their album “Skylarking” to Clare Grogan on Saturday on 6music (in the “All Killer, No Filler” feature, fact fans) has meant I’ve had to listen to the whole thing a few times in one go, and has reawakened my love for their music.

So.  I know that nobody reads this, and perhaps that’s with good reason.  But I rather do enjoy writing this bumph.  That is all.

Ach, mein Augen.

Today was my umpteenth visit to the Ophthalmology department at Liverpool Royal University Hospital.  And of course, as per usual, I waited a stupid length of time (due to their new, ‘more efficient’ appointment system, apparently) only to be told “well your eye looks no better but if it’s not sore then, uh, try these drops”.  I’m used to this.

Scleritis, episcleritis, the mange; whatever it is that is afflicting me so is a bit of a bugger to shift.  Hopefully this latest course of steroid eye drops will fix it and won’t land me with an acute angle-closure glaucoma (apparently a rare side-effect of such drops).  I think my right eye just hates me, to be honest.

(by the way, to whoever actually reads this - probably nobody - I’ve almost finished my pointless diatribe about XTC’s “Oranges and Lemons”, which should be fun to pick apart if nothing else)

Oh! Did you wake me??

I do believe I should be putting more effort into the upkeep of this place. Not that any fucker ever visits, you understand, but it’ll make me feel better, I suppose.

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