I don’t believe I’ve ever laughed, nor will ever laugh as much at an impersonation of a dinosaur as I did when seeing Hugh Dennis’ impersonation of a Velociraptor from Jurassic Park this week.
Radio is good, TV is also good, but there are some things that need to be experienced live. The atmosphere at the football a sporting event is one example, comedy is another. Perhaps it’s because laughing with a group of others is better than laughing on your own. Perhaps it’s because you can see/hear/sense more of the performance when it’s happening in front of you. I don’t know and how no intention of doing any work to find out.
It started back at uni, with Tuesday comedy night’s at the student union bar. Free sweets and the weekly task of avoiding sitting near the front and being picked on, and then if you were picked on, lying through your teeth to avoid telling the comedian that you studied computers and providing a 50lb slab of comedy gold right at their feet.
Sadly it’s not always the case (although this may be down to personal preference). A couple of months ago, we went to see Ricky Gervais in Bournemouth. We sat almost right at the back where we couldn’t see anything, he was on for less than an hour and (personally speaking) he wasn’t that funny. Then on a whim I went to see Lenny Henry. Imagine the contrast (and I’m not just speaking visually). On for two halves of an hour each and with nothing more than a table, a glass of water and a pretty perfect first couple of rows of the audience, he had us howling all night.
Fast forward to this week, Punt and Dennis at the marvellously old Tivoli theatre in Wimborne. Not as improvisational but still topical, Steve Punt stood on the right providing commentary on Britishness, Hugh Dennis stood on the left miming dinosaurs, dying swans and various Olympic events. Brilliant.
I’ll never be able to watch ‘walking with dinosaurs’ with a straight face ever again, sorry, but you just had to be there.
I promise it’s not really taken 10 days to sort my snowboarding photos out.
Actually it took 6 and the further 4 were taken trying to remember to put them online.
Either way, here they are.
Every year I like to pretend I’m a major national radio DJ (but without the influence) and champion a band or album to whoever will put up with my ramblings. Last year this honour went to the Guillemots (who this year will be mostly performing the festival circuit while trying to write the tricky second album). This year’s victims are Fields who released their debut album ‘Everything Last Winter’ about 3 weeks ago, but what with going snowboarding for a week and the after effects of such a jaunt (like having to sort a couple of hundred photos), I’ve only just gotten around to writing about it.
Wikipedia has the following to say about Fields:
Fields are an Anglo-Icelandic electronic/indie band formed in London.
Although it’s generally accepted that my music tastes are quite varied, I do have a core set of loves and this fits into that set perfectly. While the boy-girl folk styled vocals aren’t something that currently features in any of my most favourite bands, there is a whole lot of this sound that reminds me of Doves debut ‘Lost Souls’ or Guillemots ‘Through the Windowpane’. Present in abundance are long sweeping instrumental sections and songs with strange structures but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t the big singles in the mix. For me, the stand out tracks are the oddly titled ‘Skulls and Flesh and More’ with it’s central instrumental section reminding me of the old dance tracks I used to listen to. ‘If You Fail We All Fail’ and ‘Charming the Flames’ are also brilliant. What’s more, the cd also comes (and I know I’m quite sad for saying this) with a really nice sleeve which has had considerably more effort put into it than many other cds I see nowadays.
So there we are, Fields, my band for 2007. At least until I move onto something else.
A week later 5 of us were bruised, one had a sprained ankle (silly Becky) and most of us had learnt something, even if it was only how to fall to minimise the pain. I’ll spell it out, snowboarding on real snow is proper fun (yet painful at times) and despite the fact that my ability to make turns correctly was occasionally a bit hit and miss, I did manage to ride all the way from the rather strange underground funicular railway at the top of the mountain to the slightly slushy but far flatter village below (but not without falling over, don’t be silly).
A couple of points:
- Always ask for help when getting on a new type of lift, this can help you avoid falling over and looking like a prize chump.
- Waterproof gloves are all very well for keeping water out, but should water get in they do take an awful long time to dry.
- Before deciding to ride down the whole mountain, do check that there are no races taking place which stop you taking the easy route down and force you onto mogul filled black sections, especially if you’re the instructor.
Sadly I can’t see me being able to remember everything I was taught by the time we go next (even with practice sessions on the dry slope) but hopefully it’ll all get stuck upstairs somewhere.
Further stories and photos will follow just as soon as I commit the stories to keyboard and organise the photos, be patient, I do have to go to work you know.
From Rev’d Ruth Scott on Radio 2’s Pause for Thought last Monday:
Some people say that money is the root of all evil. It isn’t. It’s just paper and metal and figures. What matters, as with any other human invention, is how we choose to use it, and the values our choices reflect.
