Blog

Esquire Magazine
A couple of months ago I reported on a lovely chat about Superman that I'd had with a journalist from A Well Known Magazine, and am now in a position to reveal that the magazine was ESQUIRE and that the resulting article has not only come out but also features quite a lot of ME in it!

I'd made a note of when this quarter's issue was due out (it comes out every three months I think) so popped down to WH Smiths to buy a copy and was DELIGHTED to find that not only did it have a whacking great PULL QUOTE from me in it, but that the article itself was Actually Really Good. As well as being a proper comics fan The journalist, Mr J Davis, had done COMICS RESEARCH for it, and quoted a whole heap of people like G Morrisson and D Wolk of whom I entirely approve. He'd also interviewed several other people like me and I was RELIEVED to discover that I am definitely not the only one who thought that KRYPTO was the key character in the early trailers.

It was, in fact, DEAD GOOD - the only thing missing was that they didn't get me in for a FASHION SHOOT as well, but I'm sure they're saving that for the next issue!

posted 16/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Let The Trailers COMMENCE!
Today I am RUDDY DELIGHTED to unleash upon an unsuspecting world the first of over SEVERAL trailers for Data and Doctor Doom, THUS:



It may surprise you to discover that this was not, as it may appear, recorded over many weeks in an expensive professional studio but in fact done in a corner of the flat in the space of about an hour yesterday. Hard to believe but true! It was actually dead good fun to do, as I had been THINKING about it for ages like a ZEN PAINTER (almost exactly like that) so I was poised and ready to DO it super speedily. Excitingly it used a lot of GEAR - two laptops, a four-track, a video camera and stand, a projector and a CAPE - all of which got put away VERY NEATLY once I had done.

This is the main TOUR video, but I've also done SPECIFIC ones for each of the dates, which I'll be rolling out on The Socials over the next few days. After that the promotional ONSLAUGHT will hopefully continue with videos for a couple of the actual songs, but I need to find time to get around to doing those once I've finished the current batch of REVISIONS. There's LOADS still to do to make it all happen, but getting this out into the world today does feel like a big step. Hope you like it!

posted 15/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Posters Launched
Preparations for Data And Doctor Doom continue APACE with lots of work RETOOLING the script following the excellent feedback from last week's work in progress show, and also the development of some POSTERS, what I am delighted to share with you here and now!



You can click each one to see it in its FULL GLORY, for verily they are pretty GLORIOUS. They are also fairly PACKED - it's been quite a while since I last had to do an actual GIG POSTER, as opposed to a Web Event Image, and I'd forgotten how much STUFF you have to cram into them. Also the main picture is quite busy, but to be honest I rather like that - the advice is always to do "a single striking image" but for Fringe Shows that always seems to end up being a close-up of a comedian looking self-consciously GOOFY, so hopefully that means my MULTITUDE OF SCREENS pic will stand out. Hopefully!

There's loads more to DO for all this, and all being well loads more GIGS to announce too, but getting these posters out there feels like a right proper first step!

posted 14/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


A First Class Film Experience
After all of the excitement of the week of ROCKING the Doctor Doom show I decided to take it a bit easier on Friday, and at the end of the working day took myself off to THE PICTURES to watch "Thunderbolts". Normally I would go and see the latest Marvel film with my old, and indeed oldEST, pal Mr S Carter, but between the two of us we couldn't find a suitable time to GO for this one due to WORK etc, so I ended up on my own.

In fact I ended up almost COMPLETELY on my own, as only two other people were in my SCREEN, which made my experience even MORE luxurious than it would otherwise have been i.e. VERY For LO! we have got a new Everyman Cinema near me and I have been KEEN to have a go because it looks DEAD POSH. Spoilers: it really was!

When I arrived I asked at the bar how it all WORKED, because as far as I could see it was more like a fancy BAR than an actual cinema. The very nice person behind the bar suggested I go into the screen and take a MENU with me, and then five minutes later they'd come in and take my order. FANCY! Once inside I discovered a load of SOFAS with masses of legroom - when I go to the pictures on my own I usually book the front row for a) stretching out space and b) easy access to the LOO without bothering anyone, but here I could have sat anywhere. INDEED when the member of staff came to take my order they suggested that I could move anywhere I wanted to, not least because the aircon was a bit breezy down the front row. "Or I could bring you a blanket if you like?" they said. FLIPPING HECK!

A little while later they came back with BEER and - get this - some FREE POPCORN "as it's your first time here". A bit after that my VEGAN PIZZA arrived too, and goodness me it was delicious. Also, though the ticket for the film itself was quite a bit more than for the local VUE, the food and drink was pretty much the same price, and significantly nicer too!

Then just before the film started another Young Person came out to do an announcement about turning off phones etc - apparently Fancy Cinemas do this with Actual Live Humans now. "I usually ask people not to chat," they said, "but that probably isn't going to be a problem as there's no-one to talk to," then added "By the way, there are two end credit sequences and they're worth staying for."

I tell you what, I felt like a PAMPERED OLIGARCH by now, and could quite happily have just stayed there for a couple of hours being brought food and drink by Nice Young People, but then the film started and it was FAB. There were lots of Properly Actually Moving bits, plenty of DEAD GOOD SUPERHERO STUFF, and it seemed to have a POINT too, which was all thoroughly enjoyable. Also, the second and final end credit sequence was definitely worth waiting for.

My only complaint was that the LOO was a bit far away, but that may not worry other people who do not REQUIRE it at least once in every film they ever go to see. It was a blooming lovely experience, and I can't wait to find an excuse to go again!

posted 13/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Doom In Progress
Thursday evening saw me stomping across London town laden with GEAR, heading to the King & Queen for the THIRD performace of Data and Doctor Doom this week. However, unlike on Monday or Tuesday this time I was going to do THE LOT!

For LO! this was the first WORK IN PROGRESS version of the whole show i.e. the main thing what I have been doing all of these REHEARSALS for. The actual proper TOUR that people can buy tickets for doesn't start until July, but I thought around now would be a good time to try the whole thing out in front of an audience so that I'd have plenty of time for any CHANGES required. Me and Steve have done similar tryouts in the past for previous shows and it WORKS, but it is always a bit TERRIFYING to have to stand in front of a bunch of people with an hour's worth of material that almost definitely isn't quite ready yet!

It is ESPECIALLY terrifying when it is a room of PALS from various aspects of your life, and that is exactly what this was, with chums from ROCK, COMICS and also WORK all gathered in the same room. It was lovely to see everyone, but annoyingly I didn't get as much chance as I'd hope to mingle around talking to people beforehand as the show has a lot of GEAR to be set up, including a whole projection screen which I had to wrangle into place behind the BAR upstairs, with the AMAZING help of The Ingledows. Getting it all set up, and then later put away, took AGES - as Steve said later, I will need to get a ROUTINE sorted out for when it goes on the road!

Once this was done people started to filter upstairs, and at not long after 7.30pm I stood up before the gathered THRONG to do a bit of admin, before promising to go off for 10 seconds and then come back to start the show. The plan was to nip out of the room, put my CAPE on, and then SWOOP back, but somehow a previously unnoticed strip of VELCRO got involved and it took a full minute for me to come back and get started, whereupon I done THIS:

Data and Doctor Doom (intro)

Batman But Done Better

Transmedia

My Unified Catalogue Of Transmedia Character Components

That's Not Empirical

The Marvel Age

Is That Empirical?

Random Stratified Sampling

Asking

That Is Empirical

The Where, What, How And Whom Of Doctor Doom

Fuzzy Trace Theory

Many Hearts

Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars

Data And Doctor Doom Closing Medley

Data and Doctor Doom (finale)

That is a WHOLE LOT of songs, and in between them is a WHOLE LOT of talking. I had planned to record it all on my four-track for a) scrutiny b) timing but forgot, but I THINK it took an hour from start to finish, which is just about right at this point. The finalised TOURING version needs to be a bit shorter but hopefully that will come through minimising FAFF and ERRORS. There was QUITE A LOT of that sort of thing, but again I don't think it mattered - it WOULD matter if I was doing it to an audience of comic fans who I don't know, as will hopefully be the case later in the year, but one of the many nice things about performing to a room full of PALS is that they are obliged to be Quite Forgiving!

All in all I think it went OK - there were bits that seemed to go on too long, and I'm not sure the balance of songs and talking is right all the way through, but handily I DID remember to hand out FEEDBACK sheets to everyone so I could see what the AUDIENCE thought. This was a GRATE idea, although it did lead to the rather weird sensation of finishing the show and then seeing pretty much the whole room immediately put their heads down to start WRITING UP!

After that there was the aforementioned Putting Away, which I must admit I got a bit fed up with as it meant I had less time to waft around and CHAT to people, so after a bit I decided to PAUSE the packing and go and do CHAT instead for a bit. Also I had been on the alcohol-free beer up until that point so wanted to give myself time to NECK a couple of Actual Pints!

It was a LOVELY, if somewhat NERVE-WRACKING evening, topping of a lovely but VERY nerve-wracking week. The next stage will be to go through everyone's feedback, have a bit of an old think about it all, and then work out what needs to change and start rehearsing THAT. I think I'll have a couple of days off before leaping back in though, this week has been a LOT of Doctor Doom!

posted 12/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Doctor Doom In The Doctoral School
Day TWO of the Bits Of Data And Doctor Doom TOUR started EXTREMELY early, with me arriving at UAL's Doctoral School at approximately 9.45am in the morning. As I always say, I did NOT come to work at an ART SCHOOL to get up early in the morning, and though technically this is within my normal start-time it felt a LOT earlier because of the mighty task I was about to perform.

For LO! I was first on for the second day of UAL Comicon, so found myself in the weird and unnatural position of setting up my GEAR before I would usually have had my first cup of coffee, ready to perfrom at - YIKES - 10.20am in the morning. The timeslot was terrifying but the venue itself was much easier to deal with than yesterday, as it was in a standard ROOM used for lectures. It was still quite big though so we needed to gather up the attendees before beginning, which involved me basically BELLOWING at everyone to come over to the other side of the room!

Once everybody was sat down I returned to the LECTERN and delivered THIS:

Data and Doctor Doom (intro)

Transmedia

The Marvel Age

Asking

Fuzzy Trace Theory

Many Hearts

Data and Doctor Doom (finale)

As with yesterday it went FINE, with quite a lot of mistakes and MILD PANICS but otherwise OK. As I'd come into the building I'd noted a sign saying that there was going to be a fire alarm test at 10.30am i.e. at EXACLTY halfway through my bit so I pre-empted it by telling people that if it all got TOO exciting an alarm would go off... at exactly half past ten. I thought this was a GRATE JOKE but then when the alarm went some people thought it might be real. Still, it did give me an opportunity to put my CLOAK on, as I had forgot so to do at the start. PHEW. Here is evidence of my encloakment, kindly taken by Dr P Mendonca:



There were also a few bits where I suddenly realised that some slides made NO SENSE because I hadn't done previous songs linked to them, but I POWERED ON and hoped that everybody would be so STUNNED by the multimedia assault on their senses they wouldn't have time to notice. I'm not sure whether that's a sustainable policy moving forward, but hopefully I can work on that once I've done the whole show all together. It's all been a bit KRAZY doing two days of two different sets of songs, both taken from a much larger set of songs that are meant to go together, but hopefully it's been good practice for doing the main SHOW. We shall see!

posted 7/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


The Cape Is Out There
On Tuesday morning I returned to the office carrying not just my laptop but also my guitar, a projector, projector screen, foot pedal and CAPE. For LO! This week I am doing a whole lot of Data and Doctor Doom!

The first instance of this was taking place just after lunchtime as part of "CSM Comicon", an event organised by Tessa Amorosi, PhD student and COLLEAGUE at UAL, which is basically two whole days of talks and workshops to do with COMICS. I was due to do my BIT in "the street", which is a massive hallway/corridor down the middle of Central St Martins, where apparently a "pop up area" had been created. Luckily Dr Ian Horton was doing a talk in the morning so I popped down to see him and CASE THE JOINT. It was a mildly cordoned off area with a huge MIRROR and TV screen for laptops to be plugged in, which was all fine except that there was no roof, so it was sometimes a bit difficult to hear. I NOTED this for later and then returned to my Actual Job for an hour.

It all felt a bit strange - I used to take my guitar into work all the time ten years or so ago when I worked at Birkbeck and was doing MILLIONS of gigs, but I think I've only ever done it two or three times since working at UAL. Also, I was basically going to be doing a GIG in the middle of the working day, with various pals from Comics and also Work watching!

Come the hour I went back downstairs, got everything sorted out, and did THIS:

Data and Doctor Doom (intro)

Batman But Done Better

My Unified Catalogue Of Transmedia Character Components

The Where, What, How And Whom Of Doctor Doom

Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars

Data and Doctor Doom (finale)

(NB please note that I have NOT put the lyrics up for any of these songs yet, because SPOILERS!)

It went, I think, pretty good. Here is a picture of me waving to Professor R Sabin to demonstrate this fact:



Beforehand I had been naturally TERRIFED of the whole thing - not only was I doing a bunch of entirely new songs that had never been heard by anyone before, I was also doing talking between then that was almost but not quite entirely different from the talking that I'd been practicing for the past month, with similar but also different slides in a totally different order to usual, all while singing, operating a foot pedal, keeping an eye on the audience, and trying to sing loud enough to be heard in what is basically a CATHEDRAL-sized open area.

Once I got going though it went really well - there were a LOT of mistakes, but the wonderful thing was that this didn't seem to matter at ALL, and I also got to muck around and say extra stuff as I went along. The singing loud enough was tricky, and it was hard to concentrate while in a massive hall full of CSM students coming and going while Talking COnfidently, but to my ENORMOUS relief it turned out that the songs WORKED and, indeed, had LARFS in them in most of the places I thought LARFS should go. Phew!

Once I was done I packed up and chatted to a few people, then headed back to my desk. This was the WEIRDEST thing of all. I've occasionally PLAYED gigs entirely soberly, but I have almost never then REMAINED in that state afterwards, and I've certainly never finished a gig and then gone pretty much straight into a meeting about Strategic Data Requirements. Now I understand WHY this is not usually done, because it felt VERY STRANGE INDEED. I had several GALLONS of ADRENALINE coursing through my body with nowhere to go, and so I had to keep NOT getting up and running round/shouting/making stupid remarks and instead concentrate very hard indeed on being a proper grown-up. To be honest, I do not intend to make a habit of this!

Having said that I WAS booked to do something very similar the following day, with another performance at a different part of UAL with a whole OTHER batch of songs, but this time at 10.20am in the morning. How did THAT go? Stayed tuned to find out!

posted 6/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Practice Makes Peeved
Yesterday I had the day off work so that I could do another proper DRESS REHEARSAL for Data and Doctor Doom. I'm doing a try-out of the show next week in front of some PEOPLE - it's not on the gigs page because it's not the sort of thing I'd want people to come to hoping for a GOOD TIME, but that doesn't mean I don't need to actually PRACTICE it in advance!

Like last time I'd booked myself into create + destroy studios in London's Fashionable East London district of London, which was once again WEIRD because it's meant to be a practice room but isn't like one in any way. For starters, there's nobody there - it's all done by keypad entry, so there's no man in a heavy metal t-shirt to show you in, let alone a selection of strings, rizlas or chocolate bars on a shelf in the office. Also, the room itself is empty apart from a few fold-up chairs and a big MIRROR. I assumed this means it is usually used by DANCERS - there were a couple of young people in before me who were WHOOPING it up in that direction anyway.

On my first visit I had found a lot of the experience DISMAYING, as I'd got myself in a right old TIZZ about setting up the gear, but this time I was well prepared and got THE LOT all working in just 16 minutes. Yes, I did time myself, because I'm going to be doing this at Fringe Festivals where you tend to only have 15-20 minutes "get in" time, so I was v pleased to find that I could do that pretty easily from scratch, in a Calm and also Relaxed way.

Going through the show was a LOT better this time too, as I'd done loads of work on refining the slides and learning what went where and how. It still took about an hour and five minutes to do, what with there being quite a lot of me getting things wrong and having to try again, but I kept telling myself this is FINE. I've got a few days to practice for the try-out, and the actual People-Paying-To-Get-In gigs are MONTHS away yet, so a few mistakes is FINE.

The weird thing though is that once I'd finished I felt completely worn out and FED UP. As I packed up I thought "Crumbs, how am I going to manage to do this every day in Edinburgh?" and then "OH THANK GOODNESS I won't be doing that!" but it was still ODD to be so washed out and GLUM after doing a show that is Actually Working.

Eventually I realised that this must be what it's like to do a full show with NO ADRENELINE. When me and Steve did the shows before they were obviously in front of people and EXCITING, but when we did rehearsals it was also quite exciting because there were two of us there and we was BOUNCING off each other, and also the THRILL-RIDE of having to DO something if the other person went awry. Here there was just ME, struggling through it, and only me to blame for the cock-ups!

Even when I practice SINGING it's not quite like that as I can relax and just enjoy the songs, whereas with the show I'm constantly thinking about what talking bit comes next, or where the slides have to change. It was really quite peculiar, until I realised that ACTUALLY it's not like doing any kind of a gig or a show at ALL, but more like when I do an academic presentation. THAT has slides and talking and having to say the right bit at the right time, and practicing for THOSE sort of things is also really boring and en-glumming. The delightful thing though is that DOING the eventual presentation is almost always GRATE FUN and EXCITING as you have to deal with the audience and their questions and sudden THORTS what you have in the middle of it all.

Hopefully the actual shows will be like THAT, but with extra SINGING too. It's not long to go until I find out I guess!

posted 2/5/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Meanwhile, Behind The Scenes
This morning I sent out the latest edition of the newsletter, which is PACKED with news about the forthcoming Data and Doctor Doom TOUR as well as some BARGAINS* (*may not techincally be bargains) and various DOWNLOADS.

It all looks very busy, and it reminded me that despite much ACTION I haven't done a BLOG for a couple of weeks - the reason for this lack of bloggage is that a lot of the things I've been doing, ROCK-wise, have been either THE SAME from day to day or Not Quite Ready For Unveiling Just Yet.

The thing that has been THE SAME has been preparation for the aforesaid TOUR. It doesn't properly start until July but I've got a couple of things on next week that I need to have some sort of VERSION of it ready for. One of these is a Work In Progress show what I'm doing with a few people - this is NOT listed on the gigs page because it's more of a TRY OUT than an actual gig, but I'm going to do my best to make it as ALL RIGHT as possible. I've even taken the day off tomorrow to do another DRESS REHEARSAL, such is my commitment to QUALITY.

I'm also doing a couple of BITS on Tuesday and Wednesday next week for a comics festival taking place at my WORK. Yes, I am employed by an institution that has COMICS FESTIVALS - I can only imagine how DELIGHTED the me of 22 years ago would have been to realise that was possible! These ARE on the gigs page, but technically speaking they're only really accessible to staff and students at UAL. If you're one of those please come!

These BITS are going to be 20 minutes sort-of-presentations about PARTS of my RESEARCH, but I'm thinking of them as mini-GIGs that just happen to use some of the Doctor Doom shows i.e. me making REMARKS, occasionally pausing to do a song. It's going to be quite useful to try this sort of thing out as I'm hoping to be able to do something similar for Science Explaining-type shows later in the year.

Meanwhile the Not Quite Ready For Unveiling Just Yet stuff mostly consists of loads more SHOWS what I'm in the process of booking with various FESTIVALS. I'm quite pleased with how this is going, as I've got various Comics, Data, AND Fringe festivals in various stages of acceptance, and I should be doing a lot more shows over the next year or so. If nothing else this is REASSURING to me as I've put SO much work into MAKING the show it would be a shame to only do it two or three times! I'm also thinking of then PIVOTING it (classy business language there, thanks!) into a PODCAST around this time next year, ready for when the 'Avengers: Doomsday' movie comes out, but I need to keep telling myself to worry about the LIVE gigs for now and do that later!

posted 30/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


The First Dress Rehearsal... of DOOM
It's that very special time of the year when the thoughts of people who were in Professional Services in academic institutions turn to ANNUAL LEAVE. For LO! and it's about now that we realise that we have LOADS of days we still need to take off before our annual leave year ends at the close of July. We can, of course, carry days over from one year to the next but once you've done that the first year you are MAXED OUT and so have to use THE LOT. It is a TRIAL.

So it was that this year I thought "Hang on, I have VARIOUS Creative Projects on the go at the moment - including that SECRET one that I have managed not to blab about yet - so why don't I book some time off for THEM, rather than trying to cram things in during whatever NOOK in time I can find?" THUS I booked myself a couple of days extra off this week to work on the Data and Doctor Doom show, starting with an afternoon REHEARSAL yesterday.

I'd booked myself into an Actual Rehearsal room because there are LOADS of things I want to try out, and doing it at home isn't hugely convenient. The show has SLIDES in it, so I needed to be able to try out the PROJECTOR what I've bought, also the SCREEN, also the FOOT PEDAL what moves them along. Also, vitally, I wanted to have a go at playing guitar whilst wearing a CAPE (yes there is a cape) and my dears there is simply not room to SWISH in our flat, so a room was required.

I thus poddled over to create + destroy studios in nearby Hackney Wick, which apart from having a VERY This Part Of East London name was actually dead good. There was NOBODY about to let me in - they emailed me DOOR CODES instead so I could do so myself - but it all worked very nicely and I had a LARGE room with a whole long wall of mirrors all to myself.

The first hour or so of the booking was weirdly EMOTIONAL, as I frankly STRUGGLED with getting the kit all set up. I kept telling myself that it was FINE, and that obviously trying to get a projector and screen and laptop and foot pedal set up was going to take a while, and also that obviously my Not Very Expensive projector would not have PIN PRICK focus, but it was all a bit upsetting to be honest. It reminded me of when I've done SOUNDCHECKS in the past and got myself all in a tizzy during the first 2 minutes because it doesn't sound exactly right yet. I KNOW these things take time, intellectually, but emotionally I do tend to get a bit of a wobble on.

Eventually I got to launch into the show and it was... all right? Some bits were DEAD GOOD, notably the parts that I'd already done a couple of months ago at An Evening Of Unnecessary Detail, but other bits were much less so. AGANE i KNOW that this is part of the process, but it did feel a bit demoralising. Unlike previous times when I've been at this point in the process there was no STEVE around to discuss it with (or BLAME for problems!) so I must admit that it got to me a bit.

Having said that, there was one aspect of the show which is already undeniably a TRIUMPH and that is the CAPE! This looked GRATE when worn (those big mirrors came in handy!) and felt like I should always be wearing one. I'd worried that the - shall we say INEXPENSIVE - material it was made from would make me sweaty, and that it would get in the way constantly with the guitar, but it was totally fine and utterly BRILLO throughout. See for yourself!



PRETTY COOL I think you will agree!

Also, the GEAR all worked and fitted into bags that I was able to carry, and it seems that I have pretty much learned most of the songs at least, so there are many POSITIVES. Also also I am aware that this is just how it GOES at this point, and that in a few weeks it will be ZINGING along as if I've always know exactly when to stomp on the foot pedal while singing about random stratified sampling. It's just that I'd quite like to be at that point NOW, rather than having to do all the work to get there!

posted 16/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Peterborough United Officially Better Than Barcelona
After Saturday night's guestlist adventures I was up and about on Sunday for MORE Exclusive Excitement that had its own, somewhat different, perils.

For LO! I was off to WEMBERLEY there to see Peterborough United compete in the finals of The Vertu Trophy aka The EFL Trophy aka That Competition That Has U21 Premiership Teams In And Is Inherently Ridiculous Until We Get To The Final. Regular readers of this here blog may recall that I went to the very same final LAST year where Posh had been TRIUMPHANT, but this time I was going with significantly more trepidation. Last time our visit had been part of a Surprisingly Good Season where we had done lots of WINNING, whereas this time it has been a Disappointingly Poor Season where we have done lots of BEING RUBBISH. Also, this time we were playing Birmingham City who had been promoted to the Championship as winners of League One on Tuesday by beating...um... US.

I mean, OBVIOUSLY I personally was full of BELIEF - it was other people who said "we might as well sing the If You've Never Lost At Wembley Clap Your Hands song NOW while we still have the chance", and definitely not me - but it was looking distinctly unlikely that we'd be carrying on our proud record of always - ALWAYS - winning at The National Stadium.

Thus entrepidated I headed off to distant West London to meet everyone at the same West Hampstead bar that we accidentally went to last time. On the way there I finished reading "My Cousin Rachel" by D du Maurier, which was AMAZING, and then settled into 90 minutes of BEER and CHAT before heading off to Actual Wembley.

The train was Oddly Quiet on the way but I assume all of the Birmingham fans had already got there as it is probably all very exciting for them as have NOT been to Wembley only a year ago and also may or may not have somehow LOST there at some point in the past. When we arrived we were CHARMED to see Brummies having their photographs taken with the stadium in the background as it reminded us of the simple wonder of playing there when you are not JADED and consider it your home stadium pretty much hem hem.

Last year one of our number, Mr P Bloodworth, had gone viral online with a photograph taken by his son Mr J Bloodworth showing him stuck in the turnstiles, so there was MUCH HILARITY over whether he'd get in or not (he did), followed by EXCITEMENT once through the gates as we looked around to see if there was anybody we knew. Last time Peterborough's then-MP Mr Paul F Bristow had been seen in a nearby bar, THIS time he was spotted lurking around in our area, which seemed like a GOOD OMEN (probably the first time anybody's ever said that about him).

Beer and DODS were purchased then we went into the stadium for what we thought was going to be a bit of a hammering. This was the biggest crowd Posh had EVER played to, and about two thirds of them were Brummies who were in FULL VOICE. However, something strange happened once the game got going and Posh became Quite Good. Not only that, but we scored - TWICE! First of all Harley Mills scored a FABULOUS free kick and then Hector Kyprianou done a WALLOPING great goal from open play, and we found ourselves WINNING before it was half-time.

I tell you what, there were a lot of DAZED looking Posh fans staggering off to the loo, but the excitement was even MORE so for me because, on the way up the stairs, I saw our pal Mr C Dowsett chatting to none other than Craig Mackail-Smith. CMS is a bona fide POSH LEGEND and one of my favourite players EVER so I GRINNED at him, caught his eye, and then... er... sort of WAVED and then ran off up the steps. I am aware that such behaviour may seem odd to most, who surely view me as an ICE COOL ROCK STAR, but my dears I was quite overcome and had to have a RELAXING BEER to try and calm myself down a bit. Craig Mackail-Smith!!

The second half contained no more goals but was VERY exciting and then nerve-wracking as it went on to the ONE HUNDRED AND SECONDTH MINUTE, but in the end we came out as not only WINNERS but with a massive bag of EXCITING STATS. Not only are we the ONLY team to have ever retained the highly prestigious EFL trophy, but we are the ONLY team to have ever played at Wembley five times and won every time. Previously we were equal with BARCELONA, who had also played there four times and won every one, but now we are technically - and surely ACTUALLY - better than them!

We then hung around for a while to jump around a bit, wave at people above us in the royal box, watch players manhandling the trophy and generally soak up the atmosphere. As you can probably tell I had a BLOODY BRILLIANT day out, and very much hope and EXPECT the same this time again next year. Nothing can go wrong!

posted 14/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Jim Bob at Shepherd's Bush Empire
On Saturday evening I met with Mr M Sutton for an evening of ROCK, for LO! we were off to the Shepherd's Bush Empire to see Jim Bob do his epic 40 Years And 40 Songs show. Executive Summary: it was GRATE, also LONG!

We had GUESTLIST tickets thanks to my International Rock Star Chum Mr Chris T-T, who plays KEYBOARDS for Jim Bob. This was a) wonderful but b) slightly terrifying too as I had no idea how being On The Guestlist WORKS at proper big gigs. I know how it works at MY sort of gigs - you go to the door and say "Er.. I think I'm on the guestlist?" and whoever's there looks annoyed, checks a clipboard, and stamps your hand and that's it. However, I've never BEEN on a guestlist at anything above PUB level, so didn't know what would happen. Should I wear formal dinnerwear? Would I have to eat a vol au vent? WHO KNEW?

Nerves were calmed slightly by some BEERS before going, including one of the most - if not THE most - expensive pints I have ever drunk anywhere in the world - EIGHT POUND FIFTY FIVE for just a pint of BEER! This was in The Green in Shepherd's Bush, where apparently it was "match day" (they had Sky Sports on?) which somehow justified it. I take delight in SCOFFING at the YOKEL ANTICS of my fellow Posh fans when they come to London and say "HOW MUCH?!?" in pubs, but gentle reader I must confess I did much the same here.

After that we headed to the gig and asked someone on the door where we went for the guestlist. "The guestlist window" she said, pointing to a window with a sign on it saying "GUESTLIST". We were given tickets and WRISTBANDS and the nice young person behind the glass looked slightly surprised when I asked what the wristbands were for. "They're for the aftershow", they said. "Ooh!" I thought. Or possibly said out loud.

Once inside we found ourselves on a BALCONY which had access to a really really nice bar, which was quieter and also CHEAPER than the one we'd just been in. It really was very nice indeed, I would have gone there for fun!

Suitably provided for we went and found some seats - SEATS!! - and settled in for the show. "I could get used to this", I said to Mr Sutton, and we agreed that it was v pleasant to have nice comfy chairs and a good view. At this point the view was of none other than Mr Spoons, who played at Totally Acoustic last year. Back then I had been surprised to see how NERVOUS he was about playing a gig in the upstairs room of The King & Queen, but I was now ASTONISHED by how CONFIDENT he was jumping, gyrating and dancing around onstage in front of several thousand people while occasionally dashing to the microphone to introduce the next record. It was pretty spectacular!

The spectacularity continued at precisely 8pm when Jim Bob himself came on and launched into a FORTY (40) song set. I mean, I knew that was the plan, but I'd assumed large chunks of it would have been MEDLEYS but oh no, not a bit of it, he played literally forty songs in a SPRINGSTEENESQUE marathon of ROCK that lasted almost THREE HOURS!!

The first couple of songs were just him on his own, but then his PIANIST came on and LO! it was the aforemention Chris T-T. This reminded me of the time we say Prolapse supporting Mogwai at The Roundhouse and I kept thinking "Oh look, there's Tim... onstage in front of thousands of people." This time it was Chris, what I was in the pub with a few weeks ago, just over there beneath a proscenium arch, ROCKING OUT. It was a bit strange, and made more so later on when Steve Pretty (who me and Steve shared a venue with in Edinburgh back in 2010) came on later as part of the horn section.

The full band came on after about half an hour and sounded AMAZING. It reminded me of what I imagine it must have been like in the mid-1970s going to see WINGS in their full Venus & Mars era POMP as a stadium band, with everyone ROCKING OUT through a range of HITS past and present. I must admit I do not know a huge amount of the Jim Bob back catalogue, but it sounded GRATE and was ESPECIALLY so when they did The Hits. When he sang "the grebos the crusties and the goths" in "The Only Living Boy In New Cross" I must admit I WELLED UP. When that song came out it was talking about The Modern Kids, but now it felt like a callback to history. "That was US!" I thought.

Occasionally we would peer over the edge of the balcony, looking down from our lofty vantage point to see the downstairs audience going FLIPPING CRAZY. The MOSHPIT was massive and MOBILE, with everybody bouncing around in great waves of dancing, and LOADS of crowd-surfing. The security staff were kept extremely busy and I must admit I did feel for them, as your modern Jim Bob audience is very much NOT all made up of the Skinny Indie Kid of yore. There will have been some sore knees and backs to go with the sore heads on Sunday!

INDEED the only thing I would even vaguely have changed is the fact that there was no break, which posed some difficulties for the CORE AUDIENCE i.e. everybody needed to go to the loo at least SEVERAL times each, but as we were all very much in the same bladder-boat as each other nobody seemed to mind, and a general air of COMRADERY pervaded the venue.

Mr Sutton headed off for his train just before the end - we knew it was nearly the end due to a) counting the songs (more people should specify exactly how many songs they're doing) and b) the fact that Fruitbat had come on, to the EXTREME delight of the whole room. I stayed in my comfy seat and then after the encores when everyone was heading out I went to another member of security staff and asked where I was meant to go for the aftershow. "Just here," she said, stepping aside to give me access to exactly the same lovely bar I'd been in before.

I very sensibly got myself a pint of Alcohol Free Guiness and then hung around for a bit, bumping into Steve Who Used To Put Gigs On In Cambridge, which was lovely, said hello to Mr Spoons, and then went and gave Chris a BIG HUG to say thanks for letting me come before disappearing into the night for my TOOB. It really was a lovely evening - I think I could get used to being on the guestlist, it was ace!

posted 13/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


The Book Is Now Half Price!
A couple of days ago I received the rather WONDERFUL news that the price of MY BOOK has been SLASHED in HALF! This brings it down from the slightly crazy price of £89.99 to the slightly less crazy but yes all right still quite expensive £44.99!

I'm very pleased INDEED about this because the previous price was SO MUCH there was no way on earth I could expect anybody to actually BUY it - I think the idea is that LIBRARIES buy it, but to be honest I can't imagine there being loads of libraries that woudl DO so. I'm sure there are lots of people around the world who would a) WANT to b) BENEFIT from knowing more about Doctor Doom, especially with the movie and all that on the way, but I don't think there'd ever be sufficient geographical concentration of such people to warrant a library buying one.

Obviously £44.99 is still A LOT for a book so I'm still not expecting to hit the Times Bestsellers Chart, but with VOUCHERS and DISCOUNT CODES regularly available that might still bring it down enough for Actual Humans to get copies. Having said that I'm going to see if I can get a VOUCHER CODE for the next NEWSLETTER, which will bring it into the Vaguely Do-Able price bracket, so who knows, we could be TOP OF THE (booK) POPS yet!

posted 8/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


My Clem Burke Story Story
With the recent sad news about the death of the amazing Clem Burke, lots of people have come out with STORIES about the great man. I don't have a story about him, but I do have a story ABOUT a story that was vaguely related to him, which I should like to recount for you now.

Like so many of the gentle folk we know as "drummers" he LOVED drumming, to the extent that he had ended up playing GIGS with a Blondie tribute band called Bootleg Blondie. Here he is talking about it, and also another project he was working on with them.



As stated above, such was his enthusiasm for ROCK that he had also got involved with Bootleg Blondie writing some NEW songs of their own and they ended up writing LOADS of songs about London In General for a proposed ROCK OPERA. However, what the video above doesn't tell you is that they did this BEFORE thinking of an actual STORY to go with it, and that is where I very very slightly entered the scene.

For LO! Clem Burke was pals with someone who works at UAL, and they were pals with somebody else that I know there, and this person knew that I'd done some WRITING in the past so suggested that they get in touch with me to see if I had any suggestions about a STORY. To be clear, I sadly never met Clem Burke or Bootleg Blondie (which is a SPOILER for how this all turned out!) but I DID have a couple of chats with the lovely UAL person, and came up with some THORTS about how the story might work.

The main issues, as far as I could see, were that a) the songs were all generally about London itself, without anything to link them and b) neither Clem Burke nor Actual Blondie were involved in their writing, so there wasn't a particular HOOK for Producers. However, I thought there MIGHT be something in the whole idea of COVER VERSIONS and revisiting the past to learn about the future and so I came up with the following PITCH which I am DELIGHTED to finally share with people!

HISTORICAL RECORDS*

This is a story about how exciting it can be to discover the sounds of what's gone before, but also about the dangers of trying to cling slavishly to a vision of how things used to be. The "hook" here is that this is also the story of a Clem and The Booties - coming together through something wonderful from the past, but then creating something new for themselves out of the experience.

Earth in the far future. After centuries of flooding the oceans have finally receded and a team of alien archaeologists have arrived to excavate the ruins of the strange civilisation that was buried by the rising sea.

They discover a series of ancient relics from "London", which they don't understand. A tube roundel is clearly "for religious purposes", declares Professor ZPENG, their leader.

Young researcher FNONG scans it with a Retrovibatron, an alien device which restores the item by reviving its core essence - in practical terms, it generates a song related to it which makes object like new. So here, the roundel is returned to its old glory, and a song about London emerges.

Excited by this discovery they keep digging. They find a street sign for Denmark Street and then a Mary Quant dress and do the same process. For every item ZPENG comes up with a theory about its religious significance, and then FNONG uses the Retrovibatron to tell the real story whilst making the object like new.

As they interact with these songs and stories the aliens are gradually changed. ZPENG becomes obsessed with accuracy, trying to exactly recreate the past and always getting it wrong - wearing clothes upside down, using a guitar for the religious ceremony "Cricket" and so on. FNONG falls in love with the joy of the songs and the humans who made them.

ZPENG insists his version is correct, and so FNONG decides to prove him wrong. She finds an urn marked "Dave" - could this be the original "humans" who lived here? She uses the Retrovibatron and, to her surprise, the urn smashes and an actual human emerges. DAVE.

Unfortunately DAVE is a bit of a twit, who knows almost as much about the real world as ZPENG. He's also a climate sceptic, who insists the whole world being flooded was just a bit of bad weather.

FNONG keeps coming up with items and songs that reveal the truth, and ZPENG and DAVE fight back, each finding their own items to use the Retrovibatron on. DAVE is particularly keen on getting a working toilet going.

Finally they come to blows and, in the heat of battle, turn the Retrovibatron on each other. Suddenly whole new songs emerge about them - the adventures they've had together, the discoveries they've made, and who they are themselves.

Reunited by the power of this realisation - that they have their own stories to tell which have as much value as anything from the past - the aliens leave the earth in search of new adventures. The spaceship takes off full of anticipation and happiness.

There's the sound of a toilet flushing, and DAVE wanders in. "Where is everybody?"



*better title needed!

What's that you say? "Space aliens? WHO WOULD HAVE THORT?!?" Yes, I know, it is a radical departure from my usual OUVRE but I thought it might work!

It will come as NO surprise to anyone to discover that this was NOT what anyone was after, which is more than fair enough, but I was still disappointed that I never got to go to the pub with Clem Burke to talk about it. Still, it was lovely to have very slightly brushed up against a genuine ROCK LEGEND, especially as an adjunct to a project born out of that MOST wonderful and DRUMMERLY instinct to Just Make Some Music. We should all do more things like that!

posted 8/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Progress Report
As those sensible people who follow my SOCIALS will know, this year I've been looking back at some of my OLD BLOGS from the distant days of 2003. Ideally I would have thought to do this two years when it would have been a nice round twentieth anniversary, but unfortunately Bob Fischer (from whom I nicked the idea) didn't start doing HIS look back at old diaries until last year, so I guess that means it's his fault!

There have been multiple benefits from doing this, not least forcing me to listen again to various old songs which are QUITE GOOD and be reminded of all sorts of JAPES which I hadn't thought about for many years. However, the most beneficial benefit might be the fact that I am getting some idea of what it is like to READ my blogs, rather than just write them. OBVIOUSLY the key result of THIS is usually me thinking "Wot important and incisive insights" but I must admit that sometimes I think "Why are you bothering to tell people this, me of the past? Why don't you wait until someting actually HAPPENS, instead of endlessly wittering on about every random idea you've had for something that probably WON'T?"

That experience explains why there haven't been a lot of MODERN blogs just lately, as lots of stuff has been going on for ME, but it isn't necessarily of interest to anyone else. No no, I insist, it really isn't, don't write in!

Much of this has been to do with the SHOW, both in terms of ADMIN and indeed PERFORMANCE. Last week, for example, I did a complete REJIG of the Data And Doctor Doom website (which is much nicer now), bought various pieces of GEAR, and processed the process of booking a whole bunch of GIGS which aren't quite ready to announce yet. It's all good ADMIN but it's pretty much the same sort of thing every day, so not hugely newsworthy.

Similarly I've been preparing myself to DO the show through a combination of my TWO usual practices. Firstly I've been learning the SONGS as usual by a) singing them a lot and b) muttering the words to myself all day long like a loon to force them into my BRANE. Secondly I've been learning the SLIDES by going through them again and again and changing them every time. I am horribly aware that this whole thing is going to be really HARD to learn as it's Saying Things AND Playing Guitar AND Singing AND Changing Slides all at the same time. What idiot thought that was a good idea?

Anyway, hopefully that has demonstrated the levels of excitement that have been missed over the past few weeks, but all being well there'll be a bit more to come soon as things actually HAPPEN!

posted 8/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


We Have A First Draft
As I speak I hold in my hands a completed first draft of Data And Doctor Doom, fully finished (for now) with songs and talking and everything! HOORAH!

According to the title page it's the second draft, but that's just because when I started it a couple of months ago I very quickly decided that two of the songs needed removing, but I didn't want to just DELETE them because they'd taken me flipping AGES to write. However, it's very much the first COMPLETED draft all the way through, and it sits beside a fully completed SLIDE DECK too, so I think it counts.

There are currently TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY slides in the aforementioned slide deck, which may seem like a lot (and has certainly FELT like a lot putting them together for the past month or so) but the show's meant to be about an hour long so that's only 4.5 slides a minute, or one slide every 12-ish seconds... which actually does seem quite a lot doesn't it?

The plan is to have a complete run through at some point in the next week for TIMING, just to check that it's the right length, and then after that it will be HO! for several weeks of LINES LEARNING. I really hate lines learning and these days I tend not to do it for presentations, preferring to just go through the general idea in my BRANE and then explain it as if I was... well, as if I was explaining it to people, which is what I AM doing. However, this time around I'm going to be singing songs and playing guitar at the same time as moving slides along with my FEET so I'm going to have to have a pretty clear and confident GRASP of how it all works.

It's all very exciting though, and does seem to WORK. I've got a PROJECTOR on order too, so when that arrives I can hook it all together and have a proper GO. It's all SCARY but also a RELIEF to think that there now IS a show to do at the various gigs what I've booked (and am still in the process of booking). It's happening!

posted 31/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Back In The Radio Times
Last week I spent several happy hours with the incredibly long Avengers Doomsday cast announcement video running in the background. This was a LIVE video feed, thrillingly showing pictures of CHAIRS. Every 15 minutes there would be a short blast of some sort of theme music and then the camera would pan along to the next chair. The chairs all had actor's names on them, and I was amazed to see people in the live comments feed guessing who it would be next just by the tiny bit of pre-panning music. All in all it was a lovely thing to have pootling away, kind of like the live feed of the queue to see the Queen's coffin, except with slightly more famous people and less worried curtseying.

The next day I had a surprising and wonderful email from The Radio Time asking if I had any THORTS about the video and what it might PORTEND for the actual movie. At that point I had had one main thought which was "Cor that's a lot of chairs", but I was fairly sure that that wasn't what they were after so had a good old THINK and came up with some slightly more INTERESTING ideas which, over a couple of email back and forths, we got into shape for an ARTICLE.

This was VERY exciting but also NERVE-WRACKING. When I had my FIRST article in The Radio Times last year it came about because I'd emailed to ask them if they'd like one, and then the whole thing was like a weird DREAM. This time around they'd got in touch with ME, so I felt hugely responsible for getting it RIGHT, and so spent AGES on Thursday evening and the Friday morning writing and re-writing it to make sure it was PACKED with a) GAGS b) informative information c) further jokes about Zack Snyder movies.

To my ENORMOUS relief the final article was accepted and is now live on their site. At the moment it's right there on the (bottom of the) front page, but I guess it won't stay there for very long. Either way it fits in rather nicely with the sensible and grown-up plan to promote myself as Someone Who Knows About This Sort Of Thing ready for when RDJ starts appearing in movies, but more than that it's just dead exciting. It's the Radio Times!!

posted 28/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


They Are The Resurrection
I'm on annual leave this week so have been enjoying multiple mighty lie-ins, but this morning I made a special effort to get up so that I could go online and buy tickets to see Chris T-T at the 100 Club in November.

Yes, true believers, you read that correctly - the extremely great and excellent Chris T-T is coming out of retirement for one night only to promote the re-release of his amazing "9 Red Songs" album on vinyl for its twentieth anniversary. I flipping LOVE that album, but then I love pretty much everything that Chris has ever done, and his gigs have been some of my favourite EVER, so I am very very excited about this. I'm also quite relieved it's out in the open - he told me about it over a pint a few weeks ago and SWORE me to secrecy, and I have been DESPERATE to talk about it!

Chris's grand return is the culmination of a TRIO of grand returns of some of my favourite bands EVER all at the same time. The return of PROLAPSE has been rumbling on for about eight years now, but it is only during the past week that they have FINALLY released any music. I heard a brief snippet of their new single On The Quarter Days a couple of weeks ago when The Validators got together for a curry. I must admit that when Tim played us the intro I laughed out loud, in DELIGHT at how utterly LIKE PROLAPSE it sounded. Later listens have proven this to be the case as it is a right bloody racket and also BRILLIANT, as you can hear for youself here:



Prolapse are off to Germany to play The Cologne Popfest in a couple of weeks, which was ALREADY making me jealous - we had such a brilliant time when The Validators played in 2017 that I was MINDED to just buy a ticket and go and see them. I can't, due to Other Commitments, and this was only made MORE painful when I saw firstly that Stuart Murdoch out of Belle & Sebastian was playing but then also that ALLO DARLIN were on the bill too!

These are the THIRD of my favourite ever bands to be getting back together again - technically they reunited back in 2023 when me and Steve followed them round on tour but this time they've actually recorded a new ALBUM and there's a new single out soon too. Hopefully that means there'll be GIGS so I can go and see them without needing my passport, but the idea of seeing them AND Prolapse AND loads of lovely Kolsch all at the same time is a painful one to miss out on!

As ever, when this sort of thing happens, it does make me wonder if The Validators should have split up at some point. Obviously we've never been as BIG as any of the three mentioned above, and also we've never really had a NEED to officially stop being The Validators, as we've simply transformed into a DINING CLUB instead, but part of me still thinks it might have been a good idea, just so we could come BACK again. The only problem is that just THINKING about not being The Validators, even if it was pretend and just for a few months, makes me feel SAD, so I guess we'll never be able to!

posted 28/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Non-Duplication Of ROCK - The STATS!
There has been a distinct lack of NEW BLOGS just lately, and this has been because there hasn't been a huge amount of NEW STUFF to impart. I mean, I have been BUSY, but it's mostly been working hard on the new Data And Doctor Doom show and trying to get bookings for it, which has all been jolly exciting for ME, but may not be all that interesting for you, gentle reader, to keep reading.

However, a THORT did occur to me which might (eventually) be of (some) interest. Doing a new show means I'm going to need a new Special Button for The Database Of ROCK. The Special Button is a bit of JavaScript wizardry what I made for myself many years ago when I got fed up of typing in the same setlist for every performance of My Exciting Life In Rock and realised that this was a mundane activity that I could automate. Hmm. Sounds like the sort of thing you could make billions of quids out of without knowing what it means.

ANYWAY. Thinking about setting that up for Data And Doctor Doom led to me PONDERING setlists further. Doing the shows means/meant doing the same setlist again and again, but I wondered how often I had done the same setlist APART from those? Whenever I'm busy doing lots of gigs I do TRY and make the shows unique, but surely there's only so many times you can start with The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B) and end with The Lesson Of The Smiths without repeating the songs in the middle?

THUS this very morning I set out to find out, and had a DELIGHTFUL half hour or so of writing some SQL code (NB I am currently on Annual Leave so am free to ROCK OUT in this way as much as I like) to work it out. The results were Quite Interesting, in that obviously the SHOWS all repeated themselves multiple times, and there were several instances where I did the same individual song on its own as an entire set (e.g. going to computing events and just doing Hey Hey 16K) but once you'd taken those out it appears that I have only repeated a setlist THREE times!

Just three times! That sounds KRAZY, but SQL don't lie! To be clear, this is looking at repetition of EXACTLY the same songs in the same order and the same number, so if I repeated a setlist one time but did an ENCORE - sorry, I mean, was FORCED to do an encore after a ten minute ovation and against my artistic principles - then that would not count. But then that's fair really, as it IS a different User Experience and it's not like that scenario happens a lot!

With all that in mind then, let's look at the gigs where this mighty PAIRING occurred:

Repetition ONE: the RER Tour
The first time this EVER happened was while The Validators were doing our ACTUAL TOUR to promote Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez. This was the time when we were at our most ACTUAL BAND, with a new album being played as ALBUM OF THE DAY on BBC 6 Music and a VAN to travel around in, and so it is probably understandable that we would fall prey to that most ROCKIST of activities and do the same setlist on almost consecutive evenings. For LO! The set we played on May 22 2009 at Mother's Ruin in Bristol was then exactly repeated the day after next on May 24 2009 at The Wilmington Arms in London! It's not like we HAD to do this for the sake of the lighting and special effects guys or anything, and I do have a vague memory of our Setlist Czar Mr T Pattison being quite AGAINST the idea, but I also quite like the fact that we DID do it here at the one time in our long careers when we COULD make legitimate claim to do so!

Repetition TWO: Security
The next time this happened was later that same year, when the gig I did on 18 June 2009 at Chinnery's in Southend was a direct copy of one I'd done a few months earlier on 13 March 2009 at The Boathouse in Cambridge. That year was my second most BUSY for gigs, with 69 across the course of the twelve months, and I did do quite a few gigs then where I really had to WORK to get people onside, and so would often revert to setlists like this one which were THE HITS. I think we can forgive the babylike almost 39 year-old me for falling back on security in this instance.

Repetition THREE: Pure Coincidence
The last time this happened was on 22 January 2018 at The Green Man in Sheffield when I inadvertently repeated a setlist I'd done a few months earlier on 17 September 2017 at The Bill Murray in London. The first gig had been a show with Mr G Osborn and Ms J Lockyer, while the second had been the birthday party of Ms P Blackham, so clearly this was a TOP PALS setlist designed to DELIGHT one and all - to be honest it's not that dissimilar to the HITS HEAVY set of Repetition TWO, but for rather different reasons!

So what can we GLEAN from all of this? I think the main thing is that my EFFORTS to at least try and do a different set each show have paid off! This is Quite Surprising to me as I always BERATE myself for having grand plans to do weird and wonderful unheard songs and then end up doing the SAME ones, although this shows that I do at least do them in different orders. The other thing is that there does at least appear to be a REASON for doing it on the very rare occassions when I have.

ALSO I personally take two things away from this. Firstly, that it was a whole lot of FUN doing loads of gigs one after the other, especially when The Vlads went on tour in a VAN like a Proper Actual Band, but that goodness me it fills me with FATIGUE just THINKING about it now. Secondly, it reminds me how much fun STATS can be. Put those two things together and what do we get? Why, the possibility of doing some gigs where the same songs are repeated in the same order and it all involves a lot of STATISTICAL ANALYSIS! What are the chances of THAT happening eh?

posted 26/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Talking About Superman
Yesterday I had a lovely chat with someone about SUPERMAN.

This may not seem like news in particular - I have lovely chats about all SORTS of things all the time - but it was slightly different here in that I was speaking to a JOURNALIST for an article what he was writing for A Well Known Magazine. I guess he had got my details via a press release that UAL's lovely comms team did about my THORTS. The idea of doing that was to get my name out as Someone Who Can Say Mildly Interesting Things About Superheroes and, almost exactly a year later, it seems to have worked!

I'd done a bit of REVISION beforehand about new things like Absolute Superman and OLD things like the fact that Superman stayed in continuous publication even when most other superhero titles shut down (I was pretty sure that that was the case, but wanted to make sure), and amazingly all of that came in handy.

I chuntered on for about twenty minutes altogether, giving my THORTS on various aspects of Superman across different media. It was a bit weird because I'm usually HYPER-AWARE these days of chuntering on, and after a couple of minutes ALARMS go off in my BRANE shouting "You are Going On A Bit now Hibbett, draw these remarks to a close!" However, in this case I had to keep reminding myself that he'd rung me specifically to harvest some of these THORTS and so I was actually behaving correctly. I kept saying "Well, if you want my opinion..." and then remembering that that was the whole point of the conversation!

I also tried to say AMUSING and/or INSIGHTFUL things, my favourite of which was coming up with a possible modern revision to Superman's motto as "Truth, Justice OR The American Way". It struck me, and continues to strike similarly, that the "All-Star Superman" version of the character that James Gunn seems to be going for is EXACTLY the sort of Superman we could all do with at the moment i.e. a REALLY NICE PERSON who is incredibly powerful but, unusually, has not turned massively evil. In a way the idea of someone HAVING so much power and managing to use it wisely feels almost as fantastical as him being able to fly!

The chat was for a piece that'll be coming out nearer to the film's release so I'll keep an eye out for it and will see how much of my mighty insights get into the final thing. Whatever happens, it was a lovely excuse to have a chat with someone about it - especially someone of a similar age and comics-history as me who really did sound like he wanted to do it all justice!

posted 12/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Riding The Slides
Since last we spoke I have been toiling away on Data On Doctor Doom and am extremely happy, also a bit surprised, to report that the first draft is nearing completion! I've written LOADS of new songs which have been flooding out of my BRANE like nobody's business, which is all very exciting except for the rather alarming fact that these new songs have about 10,000,000 words EACH in them. On the one hand this makes it easier to EXPLAIN a lot of the stuff I need to explain, but on the other it's going to make it a a bit tricky to actually LEARN!

I'm now homing in on the ending, which I think is going to be a MEDLEY. This is lovely in TWO (2) ways. Firstly, it works as a fab way of summarising everything that has gone before - most of the songs are about an aspect of THEORY of DOOM HISTORY, and so they work quite nicely as BITS that draw it all together. Secondly, as it's just ME doing these songs I have felt even less impulse than usual to write them in different keys, which makes it MUCH easier to blend them all together! HA!

Rather than rush to the end, however, I'm now focussing on the SLIDES as a way to understand how it's all going to WORK. I've got myself an exciting FOOT PEDAL so that I can move slides along at the same time as singing, but the key bits are the slides BETWEEN songs, where I'm trying to explain what's going on from one section to the next. The show is going to basically be a long PRESENTATION, just with more songs and GAGS than usual, and what I always do for presentations is to get a general idea and then work it out with the slides. I'm hoping that doing it this way will give me time for THORT and consideration as the the grand IDEAS I'm going to express at the end, and also what order I shall be doing them in.

It's all very exciting, not least because I have now got a SECOND official booking for the show, at the Watford Fringe, where I shall be playing in July. Full ticket details and timings are still to be finally finalised, but it's definitely happening! There's another five or six gigs in various stages of submission at the moment, so hopefully you'll be able to see more of them appearing over the next few weeks on the Doom Dates list, but in the meantime the prospect of DOING these shows does rather INFER that I'll need a show to DO. I'd better fire up the Powerpoint again!

posted 11/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


A Trip To The Dentist
I went to the DENTIST on Wednesday and it felt as if I had somehow drifted into a NEAR FUTURE SATIRE.

For LO! I had to go private and there was MONEY involved. My local practice originally advertised itself as accepting NHS patients when it opened a few years ago but now the button to choose "NHS" on the booking form always flicks to "no appointments available" - I'm sure they DO have NHS appointments, but I guess it's like when a national retail outlet advertises a sale price of 50% off based on the fact that the item was doubled in price for 15 seconds at 3am in the branch on the Shetland Islands.

I hadn't been for a few years because my teeth, though they be peggy little Fenland affairs betraying a genetic history of Not Enough Great-Grandparents, are FINE. However over the past few days they have HURT and I thought "AHA! I shall be grown up and go to the dentist!" When I got there it seemed unnervingly similar to having an NHS appointment, with delays and receptionists SCOWLING at you, just with more contactless payments.

When I eventually DID get in it was all fine and delightful, except that everything the dentist said to me was followed by a PRICE. "We're going to need to do a couple of X-Rays," he said, "Which will cost £20 each". I mean, it was nice of him to forewarn me, but then he did it EVERY time, sometimes spending more time on the cost options than the diagnosis. "This will need a filling - these can cost between £150 and £300 depending on size and type" etc etc. It kept on happening and felt WEIRD, like (AS STATED) a SATIRE on the radio from the 1980s.

The worst of it was that I was in the GRIP of the dentist, and so not really in a position of NEGOTIATING STRENGTH, so when he said things like "You'll need to see the hygenist, which will cost £55 for a 30 minute consultation" I meekly agreed, rather than fulfilling my intent to REFUSE such appointments as I HATE the hygenist with their pointy metal PAIN PRODDERS. I would not for one moment suggest that they do it this way on purpose... but I bet they flipping do.

At the end of it all he gave me a PRESCRIPTION which had three of the same item on it (SPECIAL TOOTHPASTE). "Oh good", I thought, "that means I'll get three for the price of one prescription, at least THAT will save some cash" but OH NO. The very nice chemist round the corner very pleasantly explained that that's not the case for private prescriptions and you have to pay for each one seperately. I mean, FAIR ENOUGH I guess, but it is slightly suspicious that that's the only financial transaction the dentist did NOT explain in full. A cynic might suggest that that's because it was the only one that would be occuring away from their workplace, but I could not possibly comment.

In summary I now have new a) UNDERSTANDING of Americans starting funding schemes to pay for basic healthcare b) DISLIKE of dentistry beyond previous dislikes and c) GRATITUDE that the NHS exists still so that this isn't the NORM for other healthcare - for now, anyway.

Also: my teeth still hurt a bit, how is THAT even fair?!?

posted 6/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Validators Re-United
I had the afternoon off work on Thursday last week because I had an Important Meeting to attend i.e. a Validators Curry in deepest Leicestershire. Executive Summary: it was GRATE!

I arrived at Leicester Station with some time to spare so went for a bit of a wander and was ASTONISHED to discover that The Market (i.e. one of the main features of Actual Leicester) had been demolished! This is like demolishing the WALL in York or something, I couldn't believe it! It's apparently been moved round the corner but it's completely changed the way that bit of town looked, with The Corn Exchange suddenly highlighted and looking Imposing - at least until you got close and discovered it is now a Weatherspoons - and the streets nearby suddenly exposed as Olde Worlde and Quaint. I lived in Leicester for over decade and that bit of town NEVER felt quaint, it was All Quite Unnerving!

I popped into Forbidden Planet to calm down, spent too much money, and then Mr T 'The Tiger' McClure picked me up in the Tigermobile for a trip to Woodhouse Eaves where we met The Pattisons. We then zoomed off to QUORN where we were joined by Frankie in the PUB for what turned out to be a ruddy DELIGHTFUL evening of generalised catching up and also LARFS.

In recent decades it has sometimes felt like the actual GIG bit of Validators gigs has got in the way of just hanging around in the pub together, and so recently we have been trialling replacing said gigs with CURRIES instead, and I must say it's working very well. We don't have to do soundchecks or arrange transport of gear, and we don't have to worry about whether we'll have time to get something to eat either. All right, we don't see so many PALS who've turned up to see us, but apart from that it is mostly ALL BENEFITS. Tom and I even got to visit a Fancy Supermarket to get some local BEERS to go with our curry, which was also DELICIOUS.

It was a lovely night full of LARKS and TOMFOOLERY. If any other bands of decades-long service are reading this I can highly recommend this policy, it really works!

posted 1/3/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Data And Doctor Doom Progress Report
Work progresses on the writing of Data and Doctor Doom: THE MUSICAL, the new show which I have belatedly realised I can promote to people as "A musical adaptation of my PhD Thesis". I have tried this out on numerous people and the risk of facial hair inflation from the amount of RAISED EYEBROWS it has generated is EXTREME.

Despite the fact that it's only going to be ME doing the show I'm writing it all out as a SCRIPT, mostly as a way to work out where the SONGS are going to go. This turned out to be dead useful a couple of days ago when I did a TIMED RUNTHROUGH of everything so far and found that I'd written 29 minutes of material (hoorah!) but had not yet actually started sharing any RESULTS. I'm hopeful that people who like both Data AND Doctor Doom will want to come and see it so I'm highly aware that not EVERYBODY will want an entire half hour mostly about statistical methodologies and data cleaning.

THUS I need to do some rejigging of various sections, and will probably have to cut an ACE song called "Eyeball The Data" and replace it with me just saying "I cleaned the data" instead. This is a shame, as it's a LOVELY song I reckon, but I can always save it for the West End run and/or Original Cast Soundtrack album, right?

I've also cut a lengthy JOKE about the mini-series Spider-Man: Reign which I REALLY liked, REAMS of opinions and another song called "Why Don't We Talk About Comics?" which will probably go into the same buckets of STUFF as "Eyeball The Data". On the positive side though there are LOADS of other songs pretty much falling out of my BRANE on a daily basis. This process is made a bit easier by the FACT that in many cases I've already written a whole PAGE of text - itself boiled down from whole CHAPTERS of PhD - which I can then use as the basis for SONGS.

I've given myself a sort-of-rule that I can't have more than one page of TEXT without a song coming along, in order to avoid what me and Steve used to call "A LULL" in the show where the audience is sitting around waiting for you to do a Good Bit again. So far this has lead to me writing NINE new songs, including the two what will be excised, which I think is pretty good going. I think I'm now about halfway through, so I'm hoping to get the full script done by the end of MARCH, which will give me APRIL to work out the slides and somehow LEARN it ready for some Work In Progress shows in MAY and then off and out into the world in JULY.

That's the plan anyway, and so far the practical side of finding gigs is working pretty nicely. I've currently got FOUR shows sort-of-pretty-much booked (only one to the extent that I can talk about it on the show page as yet though) and another four or five being applied for, but then I'll be on the lookout for further places to do it - I'm going to try and stick mostly to fringe shows, comics festivals and data events if I can, as part of my Krazy Plan to NOT LOSE MONEY on this (it's never happened with anything else, but there's surely got to be a first time, right?), but if anyone knows of any of those types of things, ESPECIALLY data events, do let me know. In the meantime I must get back to the ROCK WORKSHOP, I still have half a show to write!

posted 27/2/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)


Return To Middlewich
On Saturday I took a train, a train, a train and a bus to get to Middlewich, there to ROCK it. Amazingly, ALL of these public transport items functioned almost perfectly - there was a slight delay at Euston when it turned out that giving approx 17,000,000 people 30 seconds to get onto a train wasn't going to be enough, and then at Winsford Station when a bus driver was terrified by a car being Quite Close to the bus stop, but otherwise it all worked GRATE!

I was there to play at The Kings Lock with Mr G Williams aka Jasmine Allen Estate once again. I arrived at the pub to find Gareth already entangled in setting up the PA system, and once that was done we were soon joined by Mr J Williams and Ms E Pemberton as well as various local connoisseurs of fine music and lovely beer, both of which would be in full supply.

As is traditional I popped over the road to the chippy for my tea, where I had a SCALLOP aka battered potato for the first time in DECADES and OH MY WORD it was delicious. Long long ago, when I was a student in Leicester, myself and Dr Kneel would always go to The Dolphin Fish Bar for chips because the lovely lady who worked there would pity us and give us free scallops, and they were ACE.

PROUSTIAN INTERLUDE completed I returned to the pub where Gareth got up and done a GRATE set containing various of his HITS, a cover of "Duchess" by The Stranglers, some Middlewich songs, and a load of his other songs that were new to me. It was excellent, and I found myself sitting there thinking "I could just relax here and watch and listen to him all night, this is fab."

ALAS that was not to be as I had to get up and do some songs myself, and these are the songs what I got up and did:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

AI Guy

Batman But Done Better

The Perfect Love Song

Only A Robot

It's Hard To Be Hopeful

Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine

In The North Stand

Bad Back

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Batman But Done Better got its first airing in a Normal Gig-Style-Gig, and I'm not entirely sure it worked, but everything else seemed to go OK, even including the quite lengthy Slightly Maudlin section in the middle. I had a GRATE time doing it all though and was somewhat of a quiver afterwards at it had been my FIRST Normal Gig-Style-Gig since before Christmas. It was fun!

Also fun was the FACT that the whole gig was DONE before 9.30pm which gave us plenty of time for BEER and CHAT which we did quite a lot of. The Kings Lock is a really really nice pub, especially when one is joined by similarly delightful people, and it was only THE LAW that made me and Gareth eventually leave... and head down the road for a cheeky night cap in my hotel. A fantastic evening, HOORAH!

posted 24/2/2025 by MJ Hibbett
(click here for permanent link)