Catching up

Sorry for my extended leave of absence. I have some great excuses if you want to hear them. No? Well, fair enough. Basically I've been pretty busy. Not to mention a bit distracted by all of the politics that, er, hasn't been going on. Anyway, I've just realised that last time I was round these parts it was Thursday, and now it's Tuesday. I've really got no idea how that happened. (I mean, it's not as if I was locked down at Westminster in high stakes negotations all weekend or anything).  I will try to do better.

Brief highlights of the last few days:

1. I spent Friday afternoon at the BBC, taking part in a workshop to test out ideas for the new series of Dave Gorman's Genius.  (As a slight aside, and by way of explanation of what's coming in the next paragraph, there are some people who get quite pernickety about  words like 'genius' being used as adjectives.  Properly, properly pernickety. They have facebook groups and everything.   Personally I think they're idiots (language is constantly evolving, and that's what makes it fun, and who cares if you want to adjectivise the odd noun, or nounify the odd adjective?  (I'm also quite a fan of verbifying, as you may have noticed.))  But I figure it's not going to cost me anything to keep the pernickets (who will no doubt be irritated by that name, too) happy.  So I will try.)

Back to Genius [noun: proper].  If you don't know the show, which started on radio and then moved to telly last year, the basic concept is that members of the public pitch an idea which they think is genius [adj] to a guest judge, who is, in the eyes of the programme's producers at least, a genius [noun].  The judge-who-is-a-genius [noun] then gets to decide whether each idea is, in fact, genius [adj] or not.   The guest judges I remember from the last series are Catherine Tate, Johnny Vegas and Germaine Greer, so the definition of genius [noun] which the producers are working from seems to be "someone who is funny.  Or, is Germaine Greer."

They are tweaking the format for the next series and wanted to try some ideas out with a group of people, so I went along.  It was a great afternoon.  Dave Gorman was very funny, and he gave us all a copy of his book, which was an added bonus.  (Haven't started reading it yet, but loved some of his other ones, so my hopes are high.) We were asked not to say too much about the possible changes,  but what I can do is tell you some of the genius [adj] ideas some people brought to the table. There were some crackers:

   A bird feeder which electrocutes seagulls.  Only seagulls.  Which raised the obvious 
   question: what exactly did the inventor have against seagulls? I suspect a traumatic
   fish-and-chips-related incident during her childhood, but I'm no psychologist.

   To solve gun crime, make it legal to own any gun, but only if it is pink (removes their
   machismo image and makes them less desirable.  Except, presumably to Paris 
   Hilton.  And only, as Dave Gorman pointed out, to people who are unfamilar with the
   concept of paint.)

   Magnetic socks, which won't get seperated in the wash.  This one went down quite
   well until someone pointed out that washing machines are made out of, er, quite a lot
   of metal.  Which the socks will probably get stuck to, instead of to each other.

   A few people brought along prototypes of their ideas: the girl who brought along a 
   dream recorder (strap it to your head, attach probes and play back your dreams the
   following morning so you remember them) pointed out that it was just a
   representation of what her invention might look like, not an actual working model. 
   I'm glad she warned us, if not a little disappointed.  There was also a guy who  used a
   toilet roll holder to make a dispensing system for artificial cheese (as an alternative to
   those individually wrapped cheese slices you can get) which he thought would a) help
   the environment and b) reduce waste by letting you choose exactly how much cheese
   you needed to fit your sandwich, or roll, or whatever.  He gave us a demonstration
   and this is a direct quote:  "Yes, that is real cheese.  I spent most of last night
   sellotaping it together".

   It should be a good series.  This is the bit of the last series which everyone
   remembers the most, but no one can remember whether the idea was genius[adj] or
   not.





2. I saw Abandoman on Saturday night.  What do you mean you've never heard of Abandoman? They're Ireland's seventh biggest hip hop act for goodness sake!  Apparently Ireland only has nine hip hop acts, so not enough for a top 10, and of the two acts they beat to the coveted 7th spot, one was Jedward. But don't hold that against then. Also, I should probably say that this is all stuff which Rapping Rob, head Abando-man, told us on stage, so he could have been making it up.  I say that not because I'm calling Rapping Rob a liar, but because Rapping Rob made up lots of great stuff on stage, including an impressive improvised musical about two of the audience members.  It's not everyone who can spin a romantic tale in three acts about a turtle-loving environementalist and a carpenter who meet in McDonalds completely off the top of their head. Let alone make it rhyme. For that reason alone, if you ever have a chance to see Abandoman live (Edinburgh festival would be a good bet, I'm guessing, and they are definitely on the bill at Lattitude) I would grab it with both hands. Abandoman ROCK.

3.  Watching the Sopranos - it took me a couple of episodes to get into, but I get what all the fuss was about now. I'm half way through the first series and the thought that there are so many more still to come fills me with great excitement.  Tony Soprano's therapist is my new hero.

4. I'm STILL waiting for Jules Renard. You can follow labels for previous posts on this if you don't know who he is and if you want to know more.  (This one not so much a higlight, more a moan.  Why am I moaning to you , and not to Amazon, who were meant to bring me Jules over a week ago?  No reason, except that I've already tried moaning to Amazon and they've told me to wait a few more days).

5. Working.  Actual, being paid for it, having to turn up somewhere on time, working. I spent yesterday back in my old office, and am there again for a couple of days later this week.  I expect the novelty will wear off eventually, but so far I'm loving it.  Was great to be back, and to be doing something useful, and to see everyone again.

6. Sunday lunch.  One of my favourite places in the world is Artisan and Vine wine bar in Clapham, which is nowhere near where I live, but which I will happily trek half way across London, even on a Sunday when the tubes are all up the creek, to get to. I got home from lunch at 9pm - it's that kind of place.  They have some amazing wines; my current favourite is this Carmenere: one sip and in my head I'm curled up in a leather armchair in front of a roaring fire, with a blanket and a good book.  It's magic stuff. 

7. My creative writing class: it was poetry this week, and we ended up writing two poems during the lesson, which was quite hard but good fun. The first one had to be about an emotion; choices were depression, anger, frustration, resentment, grief or sadness so everyone was thoroughly down in the dumps by the time we'd all read them out.  I toyed with posting mine here but it feels a bit naff, at this stage, to be posting 'a pome what I wrote' on my blog. Maybe one day.