Blog Archive: August 2014

The Peterborough Beer Festival
Last week we met The Hewitts in the pub to hear about their Edinburgh experience and, I must admit, it made me a bit JEALOUS. Well, it also made me, briefly, SPITTING WITH RAGE when Steve confessed to not only going to The Halfway House on his first day there, but also The Blue Blazer. Without ME! How DARE he!

Still, one of the good things about not going this year is that it has allowed me to do other August-based things, such as... well, not getting rained on all the time like happens in Scotland! It also meant that I could return to The Peterborough Beer Festival, which is what I did last Friday.

I had to get there quite early in the afternoon, to avoid paying A MILLION POUNDS for a peak-time train ticket, so thought I would have a bit of a wander around. I'm back in Peterborough fairly often but it's generally to do a specific thing or see people, rather than just MOOCH ABOUT. I thought it might be nice to do so, and LO! it WAS! I ambled through town looking at places I used to know and enjoying the fact that my BRANE knew where it was going, despite the fact that I'd not done this for about a quarter of a century. I was heading out towards Central Park, which we used to live nearby, and was astonished to realise there was a HUGE CEMETRY just round the corner from a house we lived in for four years but which I'd never ever even looked into. I had the same experience on a similar mooch round Leicester a while ago - these days if I see a cul de sac I want to know what's at the other end, but back then it appears I just went where I needed to.

Anyway, after a diversion to look at the aforementioned house we used to live in (they've still got the same door, with number and door knocker, that we left there in 1981!) I traipsed back to Central Park, which was GORGEOUS. I remember it as being the place we always went to to play when we lived nearby, the place we played the wide game with scouts, where my grandparents went bowling, and much later where people would nip in for a wee on the way home from the pub. It was all EXACTLY the same as I remembered - the bowling greens, the AVIARY, the paddling pool, and especially the Sunken Gardens, all still there. It felt weird to be there, as it's one of those places that still pop up in DREAMS every now and then, and also because it's so BEAUTIFUL. Growing up nearby I guess I'd taken it for granted, but after a huge gap I realised what a gorgeous place it is.

Delighted with my mooch I headed back into town, stopping off for a cuppa on the way to the Embankment, where the Beer Festival was being held. I've not been for AGES (or at least that's how it seemed) and as I strode towards the marquee I had the same feeling of returning home that I had at Indietracks a few weeks ago. Inside all was much as usual, and I gradually met up with Mr M Guest, The Parents, and eventually Mr P Myland, who had been having a NAP. Mileage came bearing RUMOURS which we'd already worked out for ourselves: there was a BIG problem with the toilets, in that most of them were out of action leading to HUGE queues. Luckily they got sorted out before it got dark, otherwise FENCE WEEING would probably have flooded the area!

Apart from that all was as LOVELY as ever, with lots of chat, bumping into people we used to know, and BEER. I tried a new tack this time, simply going to the bar and saying "Could I have a pint of something nice please?" The staff are all volunteers and thus BEER FANS and would invariably get A Little Bit Excited and find me the nicest thing they could think of - it is a GOOD PLAN which I shall endevour to use again!

All too soon it was time for me to head home for my train, though not before The Parents had spotted my Actual Godfather, who I traditionally see approx every 10 years, at The Beer Festival. With that tradition taken care of we hopped in a taxi and I was dropped off at the station. As ever, I was glad that the train STOPS when it gets to London, otherwise I could have woken up in PARIS!

posted 29/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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An Epochal Email
As mentioned previously, this past month or so I've been beavering away at the next Fringe show for me and Steve ( which is now pretty definitely going to be called "Hey Hey 16K") and I'd decided to try and get it DONE over the bank holiday weekend. There was a lot of other things happening, as previously mentioned and also including some BIKE RIDING (we hired them from The View Tube and they were BRILLIANT - proper actual comfortable bikes rather than the nightmarish hell vehicle racing monstrosities I had a go on at the Velodrome back in June) but on Sunday afternoon I had the flat to myself so settled in to record some DEMOS!

SIDEBAR: there really is no nice looking way to write the plural of "demo" is there? I usually prefer "demoes" but know it's technically wrong, whereas the correct spelling "demos" looks like a right wing think tank.

Anyway, I got the four track out and set it up to record live in the same way as I do for Totally Acoustic Podcasts. This has the advantage of sounding nice and being easy to set up, also to mix, but does mean I have to get the whole song right all the way through! A couple of songs gave me a bit of difficulty, but I managed to get them all done - here's the LIST of what i did:

History's Rewritten

I Think You Might Be Me

The Future Is Amazing

I Wish That I Was Normal

Dad Jokes

A.D.A. Lovelace

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

In The North Stand

Worse Things Happen At Sea

A Riff

The first six are all NEW songs for the show, and I did a version of "20 Things" because I wasn't sure if Steve had ever heard it. The remainder are some new (or new versions of) songs specifically for The Vlads - I thought I might as well, as I was sending them some of the new songs from the show too, in case any appealed.

It was a LOT of songs but I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed going through them again, so much so that after making one tiny adjustment to the script I decided to call that IT and send it off to Steve for his perusal. Tonight we're meeting in a pub to discuss PLANS and THORTS - it has begun!

posted 28/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Secret Cinema
I spent Monday to Wednesday last week at WORK - three GRUELLING days of ... er... looking at ideas for telly shows, which came to an end with well deserved BEERS in The Parcel Yard with The Days In My Week and The Hewitts. I was KNACKERED and ready to LOLL AROUND, but this was not to be for Thursday brought ACTION!

It started with a trip into town for a protest outside The Royal Courts Of Justice, supporting The Badger Trust's case that further "controlled shooting" should be done under Independent Monitoring. It was a GOOD CAUSE which will hopefully win, and we spent a solid hour there listening to speeches, but we'll have to wait to see if it's successful.

After that worthy work we nipped into Soho for some shopping, a BEER, and then came home to sort through our wardrobes for anything vaguely 50's looking, because that evening we were off to see Secret Cinema's showing of "Back To The Future". This has been a CAUSE CELEBRE in London Town lately as the entire first WEEK got cancelled at short notice, but it had been getting good reviews so we thought we'd go. ALSO, and perhaps more pertinently, it's 10 minutes from our front door. All the previews, news stories and reviews of it kept saying "It's in Hackney Wick", which confused me as it seemed that somebody ELSE had built a GIGANTIC replica of Hill Valley slap bang in the middle of the Olympic Park (and, as mentioned a few weeks ago, was driving a DeLorean around), so when it turned that it was one and the same thing, right on our doorstep, it felt like it would have been rude not to go.

We were glad we did, as it was BLOODY GRATE! Right from the start there was STUFF going on. As we queued up there were ACTORS dressed as policemen guiding us in, George McFly went by on his bike pursued by Biff and the Gang, and once inside all the staff were talking in Non-Specific Area American Accents. Sometimes that kind of thing can be a bit uncomfortable/annoying but it was so nicely and CONSISTENTLY done that it was FUN. Once in we strolled past a PETTING FARM (representing the farm Marty crashes the DeLorean into), then LOADS of people wandering around, buildings fully staffed and a whole TOWN's worth of things to look at.

The general effect of LOTS happening was added to by the fact that nearly EVERYBODY had made the effort to get dressed up, including us - me and The Nephew were fully bow-tied and more, while The Niece and The Clothes Of My Fashion were similarly chiffoned. It was often hard to tell who was a spectator and who was a performer, such was the completeness of dressing up. We wandered around looking at stuff, and this was where my only mild complaint came in - there was so much STUFF that it felt like we were MISSING things all the time. I know that's more my problem than anything else tho - I felt the same when I went to Secret Garden Party and End Of The Road and people kept talking about "secret gigs". I don't want secret gigs, I want to see EVERYTHING!

At around 9pm the film itself started and was, of course, ACE. We'd done homework the week before by watching it again, which meant we were free to enjoy a) how brilliant it really is and b) all the other things happening. Key scenes were acted out on stage in front of the big screen, and other events happened around us - we were all sat in the "town square" watching the film projected on the town hall, with a road surrounding us which various VEHICLES drove around, including Marty skateboarding behind a jeep, Biff's gang chasing him later on and, my favourite, the Libyan terrorists racing after the DeLorean shooting a BAZOOKA.

Again, it could all have been a bit tatty and annoying but it was done so well and consistently that it was a DELIGHT. As the film went on, and because people KNEW it so well, there were certain points where everyone thought "ooh! there'll be a THING in a minute!" and started looking around. The BIG BIT was when Doc has to abseil down from the clock near the end - it totally happened, much to everyone's JOY!

It was pretty darn brilliant and has apparently sold out now for the rest of the run. I think this is a lesson for us all - cancel the first week and the publicity will get everyone to notice you. I think I might do that for Edinburgh next year!

posted 27/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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A Working Joe
You may have noticed that things were a bit quiet on the blog this week - this was because I was at WORK!

"But Mark," you may exclaim, "surely you were at work for over two decades before this, and THAT didn't stop you blogging? INDEED it seems to have encouraged you, almost as if you didn't have much to do." This would be TRUE, but the job I started last week was more like a PROPER job, insomuchas there was stuff to DO.

For LO! I was starting my internship at a TV Production Company, what I applied for AGES ago. The company run a scheme over the summer where they get people in for a fortnight, but I'm doing my ten weeks spread out over four weeks as the person I'm working with has holidays, and also because I had some dates I couldn't do. It's worked out really nicely, as I don't think I could cope with a whole WEEK of doing a Proper Job!

The job itself is really good fun though, almost TOO MUCH fun. I've mostly been doing RESEARCH on two topics, which has meant spending most of the day searching for things and reading articles... which is pretty much what I spent most of my time doing in my old job, but this time I'm MEANT to. It felt a bit strange - at one point someone said "What are you looking at?" I PANICKED - I'd been reading a comics news website, but then realised that, actually, that was totally relevant to what I was SUPPOSED to be doing, so said so!

The biggest difficulty I've had has been setting off in the morning. When I had a proper job non-stop for over 22 years going to work was FINE (mostly), but for some reason starting a new job means that my BRANE immediately reverts to the late 1980's. "OH NO", it says as I, a GROWN MAN, set off at 10am to London's Fashionable London to work at a TV Development Company, "It's 6 in the morning and I've got to get a BUS to an INDUSTRIAL ESTATE in Peterborough to work in a FACTORY." Stupid BRANE!

Apart from that it's been great fun, especially the bits where we sit around doing IDEAS, and hopefully will continue to be so. I'm back tomorrow for three days, then a week off, then finally back again for another four. By the end of all that I may not be waking up an hour early and panicking!

posted 26/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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The Great British Beer Festival
I had a DELIGHTFUL time of it on Friday last, as I went to the Great British Beer Festival. It was, as advertised, GRATE!

I met Mr P Myland at Kings Cross Station, where I had just got off the javelin from Stratford and he'd just got off the fast train from Peterborough. We took the traditional route to Olympia i.e. got to Earl's Court, followed the signs for the Kensington (Olympia) branch, stood around, eventually realised that it only ran on weekends, found the sign saying a different route, and took that instead. MANY of us did exactly the same!

The Beer Festival itself was ACE, especially the way that you knew you were there because suddenly EVERYBODY had a beard and/or ill-advised shorts and/or a utility waistcoat and/or a t-shirt that only seems clever when drunk. And also a BEER BELLY.

There seemed to be a slight air of The Rugby Crowd inside, as people kept CHEERING in an brayingly posh way at random intervals, but I found that BEER quickly dulled this annoyance. The only other upsetting thing was that they DIDN'T have all the beers in alphabetical order like they do at Peterborough, they were grouped in nonsensical geographical groups e.g. Glasgow, Manchester and The Isle Of Wight all on one stand. What was the point in that?

Apart from those things everything was LOVELY. We met chums, compared some DELICIOUS beers, and had a Right Old Natter. At one point I saw two large gentlemen in their 50s go SKIPPING past, giggling and holding hands - this point MAY WELL have been several hours into the drinking period!

The most exciting part of the evening was when we went for a bit of a wander and ended up at the AUCTION! I've always watched this from afar, puzzled, as it has the distinct air of two particularly CAMRA-y old blokes who've fallen into a pub SKIP, taken out all the crap they can find, and decided to see if anyone is drunk enough to give them beer money for it. Up close, however, it is DEAD EXCITING. All right, the TAT they're generally selling doesn't get any better, but you become instilled with a DESPERATE URGE to BUY. Again, this was several hours into the drinking period, so that may be part of the explanation, but getting involved was BRILLIANT. I bought a hip flask and a shot glass, while Mileage got a beer towel (the fool! why didn't he buy QUALITY ITEMS like me?) and a bottle of Thomas Hoskins beer from 1983, which we both looked upon in JOY and WONDER, as that was the brewery in one of the first Leicester pubs we ever drank in. The BEST bit though was when two blokes got in a bidding war for a HIDEOUS pewter mug with a Naked Lady Handle. The whole crowd was geeing them on as bidding reached an extraordinary SIXTEEN POUNDS!

Around half past nine, however, I started to experience a strange feeling - UTTER DRUNKENNESS. This doesn't happen to me very often these days (SHUT UP it DOESN'T). Generally I get home well before BEING PLASTERED hits me, but this time I had a long way journey across London ahead of me, so I made my excuses ("I am drunk") and started off on the hour long trip home. When I got back I had somehow become MORE DRUNK (no beer had occurred on the way!) and woke up at 1.30am still on the sofa!

It's the sort of thing that used to happen all the time in my twenties - it was nice to revisit the situation, but CRIKEY I don't think I'd like to be as FEEBLE as I was the next day EVERY weekend!

posted 20/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Podcast Is Go!
I spent a whole lot of Thursday and Friday working on the latest edition of the Totally Acoustic Podcast, the result of which is that it is now ready to download!

It felt like AGES since I'd last done one of these, and in a real sense it sort of IS. All right, we've had a couple of specials in the meantime, but it's over TWO YEARS since the last proper series finished. Two years! That definitely IS ages!

When I realised this it made me wonder exactly how many Totally Acoustic shows we'd done and, when I looked, I was amazed to find out that this was (almost definitely) the FIFTIETH! Curses! If only I'd known about it I'd have made a right old fuss!!

Anyway, do have a listen if you've got the time, it's an ACE one to come back with, featuring as it does Matt Abbott, Alexander Hale and Robberie. I'm already looking forward to the rest of the series, which is currently looking like THIS:

Thursday 11 September 2014	David Leach and Daniel and Norbert Dentrassangle
Thursday 9 October 2014	The Mini-Skips and Winston Echo
Thursday 6 November 2014	Pete Green and Rob Manuel
Thursday 11 December 2014	Frankie Machine and Chris T-T

I think that is what might be called A Strong Line-Up! At the moment I'm planning to have a couple of months off in January and February (hopefully there'll be a clips episode around then) then do the next series March to July... which takes us up to Edinburgh next year! I think that'll work out - hopefully I'll be able to get some more Old Favourites back again for the next series too!

posted 18/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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The (almost) End Of An Era
On Thursday I arrived at the main City University building as I have so many times before and, as I have done every time i've been in ANY of their buildings, had to have four goes to get my swipe card the right way round to get through the gates. I think the reason for this is the Incredibly Useless Diagram on all of these gates which shows a picture OF a swipecard which could be interpreted in... well, pretty much four different ways. Or maybe you just have to swipe it through four times?

Anyway, I was there for potentially the FINAL time to hand in my final piece of course work, the "Own Play Or Script" that I've spent much of the past year working on. I pretty much finished the final draft back in March and have since been gently tinkering with it, but as I'm starting an INTERNSHIP next week I thought it was about time I finally finalised it and handed it over. Thus I'd been to a print shop and got a batch of copies done (with Plastic Sheet on the cover - CLASSY) and made the trip to Angel to hand it over.

I had to hand over two copies, and so filled in two brief forms, passed them over and... that was it! No fireworks, no fanfare, no marching band or WEEPING LECTURERS begging me to stay, just a lady putting my scripts in a cardboard box and saying "thanks". As I left I thought about how quickly it's gone by - it only seems a couple of weeks since I was sat in The Parcel Yard in Kings Cross, PANICKING about whether it'd be all right, and here I was two years later with it all DONE.

It'll be at least October, I think, before I find out my grades, and hopefully there'll be at least one meeting/piss-up with old school chums between now and then, but walking back up to Angel it felt like a Major Milestone had been passed. I know that there's exciting things to come with The Writing, but I've had such a GRATE time doing this course, learning stuff, meeting lovely people, and doing The Writing, that i felt a bit BEREFT to be leaving it behind.

Still, I've got a whole batch of SCRIPTS and I've also got this VIDEO below - it's an EXCERPT from my script, what was performed at our showcase event a few weeks ago, and filmed by Mr Donald Eke. It's all bit frenetic, but then I guess that's how I wrote it!



posted 15/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Totally Acoustic Returns
Yesterday morning I woke up from WEIRD dreams and felt all nervous. It took me ages to work out that this was due to a GIG - I do gigs all the time, why on earth would one be bothering me so much?

The reason was that this was a gig *I* was organising, something I very rarely do these days, and even more terrifyingly, it was the grand return of Totally Acoustic! For those new to these proceedings, Totally Acoustic is a regular night which I used to put on in the top room of pubs, where marvellous people who didn't usually do this sort of thing would stand completely unamplified in front of lovely people, do a bunch of songs, then get drunk. I stopped doing it for a couple of years due to doing my MA, but now that that's all nearly done and dusted I thought I might as well get it going again and thus it was that I rolled up at The King And Queen on Tuesday night, ready to ROCK.

When I arrived is was amazed to find that most of the acts had also arrived, and by 6.45pm everyone was there - this NEVER used to happen before, PANICKING about where people had go to used to be par for the course. Surely such an easy beginning meant that things couldn't possibly continue so well?

Weirdly they DID! We got a very healthy crowd in, everyone was GRATE, the recording equipment (for the forthcoming podcast) worked fine, and a marvellous time was had by one and all. After a rousing rendition of the theme tune Mr Matt Abbott was on first, doing a FANTASTIC set of poems... which is not a statement I think I have ever made before about anybody! He was exciting to watch and all his stories were ENTHRALLING, touching, funny, and full of thrilling lines. He filled the room up with WORDS, it was ACE!



After Matt we had Mr Alexandar Hale, who is on proper TOUR at the moment, including Hibbettfest the other day. Excitingly he had two GUEST ARTISTES - Ms Emma Cooper and Ms Laura Graham - on with him this time, which he cunningly employed first individually and then TOGETHER for an earth shattering climax, shown below:



After all that excitement we had a much needed break, and then I came on to do a short set which consisted of the following:

Get Over It

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

That Guy

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

This may look like a whole bunch of NEW songs, but it wasn't as new as I'd thought it would be - earlier on in the day I'd decided to do one or two SUPER NEW songs, the ones I'd just been finishing off for the new show, and had printed out the lyrics, but when it came to it i was too afeared so stuck to the less new, but still NEW new, songs. It seemed to go pretty well, and it was lovely to be back in one of my favourite pubs doing my favourite sort of gig again!

Finally we had Robberie, performing their DEBUT SHOW in That London, and they were ACE. I've played with them in Sheffield a number of times and loved them, so was desperate to get them down my way so that other chums could see them and love them too, which I think occurred. Great tunes, lovely lyrics, and a brilliant way of performing them - look, here they are now!



When all was done there was a whole lot of lurking about, chatting, hugging, and dispersing the frankly SIZEABLE whip round between the acts. I finally stalked out into the night extremely pleased to have it back, looking forward to being able to show it all off to even MORE people when I get the podcast out. It should be ready either just before or just after the weekend - more details are HERE, look out for it, it's going to be GRATE!

posted 13/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Meanwhile In The Brill Building
Work has continued on the new show this week, and it seems to be going pretty well. My BRANE is totally in New Song mode and is coming with new ideas all the time, which has turned out to be handy this morning as I rather NEEDED them.

After putting some new jokes in last night (and LARFING about them until The Lines In My Script was FORCED to say "what are you laughing about" so i could TELL her) I thought it would be fun to go through the current draft of the script, just to see how it was looking. Once again i LARFED at my own jokes (i always think it's weird when people are criticised for doing this - if YOU don't think they're funny, why on earth would you want to inflict them on someone else?) and was having a fine old time, until I got to the SECOND of the new songs. "Hang on", I thought, "Isn't this exactly the same as the FIRST new song?" On further examination it turned out that yes, it was. Oops.

Luckily, as I say, my BRANE is in New Song mode so it didn't take long to come up with a new, DIFFERENT tune, that turned out to be a whole lot better. PHEW. I then moved on to the next new song which was in a different KEY, but otherwise the SAME as the first again. I did think coming up with the tunes had all been a bit easy! There was one bit that was slightly different because, I realised, I'd nicked it from another of my songs, Cyborg Blues. However, as that song is unreleased and likely to remain so I thought I might as well go the whole hog and nick the WHOLE tune for it, which worked rather nicely.

It was with some trepidation that I progressed to the FOURTH new song... which DID turn out to be different. HOORAH! Mind you, I had already re-written the tune for that because the original was a bit boring, so who knows, it may also have been the same? Don't get me wrong, the tune I used is quite a good one (I've still got it for the first song after all) but I don't think it could carry half the tunes on its own!

Happily the final, fifth, new song so far was also a bit different, so I was able to spend the rest of the morning adding in, and LARFING at, a couple of jokes, which is a lot more fun. I think there's just ONE more song to do before the first draft is complete, but hopefully that won't present the same problems as these have, for LO! it is a) acapella b) involves BEATBOXING!

posted 12/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Hibbettfest 2014
I spent a LOT of Saturday travelling, and it was all worth it, for LO! it was Hibbettfest!

Most of the travelling was spent on Chiltern Trains, who have this KRAZY IDEA that they can run a rail service charging REASONABLE PRICES for tickets. Madness! After an extremely pleasant trip to Birmingham I met Mr Chris T-T at Moor Street station, having both got off the same train, and we then got the train to Cradley Heath, where Mr K Kirkham picked us up.

We arrived at the Hibbettfest Site (i.e. Ray's Mum and Dad's house) to find everything ready to ROCK - Ray had done a HUGE table full of GRUB, there was BEER, lots of lovely people, and the sun was out. The sun didn't stay out all day, but everything else continued as above - more and more lovely people arrived, more and more beer and grub was consumed (the highlight of which was Chris being astonished/delighted when he was told that ALL the food was vegan) and a HIGH OLD TIME was had by one and all.

We had THREE acts on this time around, the first being Mr A Hale, who played my old guitar, dealt with WASPS, and interacted with the hordes of children to delightful effect. My favourite part of his set was his MEDLEY of his former hits, which he started off with a Beatles song, "because all medleys should start with a Beatles song".



Chris T-T was next, and it was marvellous to watch him work the patio as if it was a big sweaty rock venue, kicking off with an acapella AA Milne song and then thoroughly charming the assemblage with his wonderful songs. I felt rather privileged to see it!



Ray was on EMCEE duties throughout, and gave me a BIG intro before I took to the paving, along with Mr T "The Tiger" McClure, and done THIS:

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

Get Over It

I Want To Find Out How It Ends

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

That Guy

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

Easily Impressed

Payday Is The Best Day

I had an ENORMOUS amount of fun, inside for the first couple of songs (it rained a bit) and then back outside for the res. I especially enjoyed doing REMARKS with Tom and, even more especially, getting Mr L Pearson (i.e. Ray's nephew) to do a GUITAR SOLO on his toy guitar during (You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock - it's what the song was missing! Here is a picture of events as they occurred, courtesy of Ms H Hall's facebook:



All that was left to do was for Ray to demonstrate almost Kitson-esque levels of compering by managing to HECKLE HIMSELF for several moments... and then to wrap up with a big thanks to everyone - it should, of course, be BIG THANKS to Ray himself for organising such a lovely day out. This was something like the NINTH of these events, and they seem to get more DELIGHTFUL each time, also BUSIER, partly because more people come and partly because those who do keep making NEW people!

After more chat and polishing off food (especially the AMAZING homemade Jaffa cake) everyone piled into vehicles and headed into town. Me, Chris and Tom were in the TIGERMOBILE and we dropped Chris off for his train before heading to the traditional Hibbettfest after party venue, The Wellington, where we were greeted by this rather marvellous site:



It's a dead nice pub which, on this occasion, was full of dead nice people, and it was quite a WRENCH to have to TEAR myself away to get the train home. I was KNACKERED all day the next day, but as previously stated, it was worth it!

posted 11/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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New Show Progress Report
Ever since I went to the Stratford East Musical Theatre Initiative Taster Weekend a while ago I've done my best to keep this week and last week FREE in case they asked me to go back to take part in the full FORTNIGHT of the initiative. "If they don't ask me back", I thought, "I shall use that free time to start writing next year's Edinburgh show."

And so I've spent the past week and a half writing next year's Edinburgh show! It's going to be called "Hey Hey 16K" and though the writing got off to a pretty slow start, this week it's started to pick up speed. I'm now in that ZONE where every morning my BRANE goes "How about THIS for an idea?" and suddenly it's two hours later and i've got a new SONG written. It's brilliant!

It all feels weirdly EASY this time too - I've had the idea for the STORY for a while now, so doing that bit of it has felt a bit like cheating, as I already KNOW what's meant to happen and even have a couple of JOKES ready. It feels even MORE like cheating because I'm using a whole batch of OLD songs - I usually have one or two old songs in a show, but this has FIVE in it, including the title song. I did worry a bit about it becoming one of those Juke Box musicals like The Spice Girls one or something, but they do (honest!) seem to fit in without a HUGE amount of going "A lesson you say? What kind of lesson is THAT, Mr Smith and Mrs Smith?"

There's new songs too, which has been VERY exciting. So far there's three - "The Real '80s" , "I Wish That I Was Normal" and "Dad Jokes", the latter featuring a LOT of Dad Jokes which make me LARF every time I tell them. Which is OFTEN. There's at least two more that need doing, plus a bunch of reprises.

It's all going really well so far, which is a bit WORRYING. With all the other shows I remember it taking AGES, with LOADS of re-writes, struggles and rejected songs. I know that I've not even finished the first draft yet so that may be all to come, but it's been a BREEZE so far this time, possibly because I worked out the whole story FIRST, and possibly also because it's a LOT simpler. There's basically just TWO characters in the whole thing, with a pretty straightforward LINEAR story throughout, which seems to work but, once again, feels a bit like cheating. Surely I should have at least TEN characters all with a different, complicated, storyline that nobody except for me will ever really notice? Also, HATS?

I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks and, indeed, the next YEAR, as it goes through the usual process of reading, previews, pub gigs and Edinburgh. It's already got JOKES in though, so it can't go TOO far wrong, right?

posted 8/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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The Missing Gig
SPOILERS: if all this sounds familiar, see the UPDATE at the end!
I was doing a bit of SITE ADMIN the other day and noticed on the Gigs Page that our gig at the Cookie the other week didn't have a blog attached to it. This was WEIRD as I'm SURE that I'd written one, but it seems to have disappeared now. How odd.

I hate to have a gap like that, so here's a precis of what happened:

• We had a practice beforehand, and it was GOOD.
• We had to drive through the pedestrianised bit of Leicester to get to The Cookie. It was a bit scary.
• After dropping the gear off, and then setting up the drums, we DIDN'T go for a curry, much to the dismay of many of us, but had a meal in The Orange Tree instead. It was Quite Nice.
• It was very very very hot, especially in the basement.
• The soundman did a long soundcheck, which I stupidly thought was a bit pernickety at the time, but later realised was a Good Thing as the sound was ACE.
• The gig itself was dead good, we had a decent crowd of several chums, and we did THIS:
  • Theme From Dinosaur Planet
    
  • (You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock
    
  • I Want To Find Out How It Ends
    
  • It Only Works Because You're here
    
  • We Did It Anyway
    
  • 20 Things To Do Before You're 30
    
  • The Lesson Of The Smiths
    
• Sweet Baboo were ACE and we bought CDs.
• Afterwards we bumped into Leicester Legend Stevie Marmite, who I'd not seen for YEARS. There was much rejoicing!
• Loading up afterwards took ages - I had to carry most of the stuff upstairs while everybody else fetched cars, I bet that doesn't happen to Bruce Springsteen.
• The deal with the venue was that they'd give us 2 quid for every person who came to see us. However, when I went to ask about CA$H the promoter said that, as they hadn't asked who people had come to see, they "couldn't" pay us. This was, to say the least, annoying, especially as I'd just watched him paying out WADS of CA$H to other people.
• And surely that's their fault, not mine? It was VERY VERY ANNOYING, and a bit of a sour note to end a lovely night on. It was only twenty quid after all!
• It rained all the way home which, thankfully, cooled me down a bit!

And that's what happened - maybe I should do all gig reports like this in future!

UPDATE: following the very helpful comments by Mr Dave B (below) I eventually worked out that my service provider must have re-installed an old version of HIBBFACT 2000 - the mighty database that powers this site - without telling me, so that I lost a couple of blog entries. Half an hour's googling and use of SQL Magic and it all seems to be back now, but I thought I'd leave this description here in case anyone wishes to compare and contrast it to the original version.

posted 7/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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An Indietracks Mystery Solved
Late on Saturday night I saw myself mentioned in a conversation on twitter between Mr S Tyers (of Sweeping The Nation) and Mr S Patrick (of A Brief History Of Time Travel), whereby Simon (the former) was asking Seb (the latter) if he was aware of the fact that we'd played I Want To Find Out How It Ends (the theme tune to A Brief History Of Time Travel) at Indietracks the other week, pointing him in the direction of this video as proof:



Seb replied "Why didn't MJ HIbbett tell me?!?" which was odd, because I was pretty sure I HAD done, at the festival, TWICE. On Friday I'd said hello to Seb, and said "We're playing your song tomorrow!!" and he hadn't looked interested at all. If anything he'd seemed rather confused. The same thing happened the next day, and I thought "How odd - I thought he'd be more pleased, and not be looking at my like a friendly LOONIE."

I mentioned this on twitter and within MINUTES Simon had worked out that I had ACTUALLY bumped into Mr D Fawcett, - "From later chat, and attempting to judge your late Saturday drink level, I believe that may have been @danielguntrip" were his exact words, tho GOODNESS KNOWS what he means by drink level hem hem. In my defence I have also met Daniel before (who was also relieved to have the confusion solved) and also Seb reported that it was probably not the first time it had happened, so really I cannot be blamed for causing such BEWILDERMENT. Still, it was nice to have it all finally sorted out - I'd been wondering what had gone on all week!

posted 6/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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A Mini-Edinburgh
Myself and The Deuchars In My Pubs aren't going to the Edinburgh Festival this year - with the course and everything there was never going to be time to write a new show, let alone learn it up, and I was FINE with not going... until this week, when the Hewitts arrived there. And TOLD me about it.

On Friday afternoon I was back at my old work, doing one of the final days that I owed them, when I got a text from Steve telling me he was in the Pleasance Courtyard, swanning about drinking beer and watching flyering. I was suddenly struck with PANGS - that sounded like a LOT more fun than sitting in an office!

This may be why we embarked on a MINI-EDINBURGH over the weekend, starting on Friday night with a curry, loads of beer, and late-night WHISKY, moving on to a LIE-IN on Saturday morning, some ART (the new pavilion at The Serpentine Gallery. REVIEW: it was quite nice, though the Artist's Description made me want to set fire to the noticeboard) and then a SHOW.

The show was Mr Gavin Osborn in the basement at The Phoenix, a pub which is doing its own London-based answer to the Edinburgh Fringe called The Phoenix Fringe. It is IN NO WAY copying The Camden Fringe, which is currently doing exactly the same thing over LOADS of venues. Comedians are like MARXISTS, they can't help SPLITTING all the time - something which, I feel, explains the ever growing number of Free Fringes at Edinburgh, for instance.

ANYWAY, it was wonderful to see Gav in a pub basement during a beery afternoon, as that was EXACTLY where I first saw him, at The Tron in Edinburgh several years ago. I enjoyed it so much that time that I went TWICE, dragging along The Songs In My Set for the second occasion and thus starting several YEARS of GOOD TIMES and GRATE GIGS with Mr Osborn.

There were LOADS of people there and it was a BRILLIANT show - I've seen him so many times that it's a bit like seeing Otway (NO HIGHER PRAISE) in that I know the words AND some of the introductions, and enjoy them all the more for it, PLUS there was new stuff. Two ACE new tunes, espeially "In Another Life" which he'd been talking about the writing of last time I saw him. As per usual with a Gav tune i LARFED, also shed a MANLY TEAR.

Afterwards we grabbed Gav to say hello before he had to ZOOM off to HEATHROW, to fly to Edinburgh where he was due to start a show on SUNDAY. After he'd gone we stood around having a chat with his friends, a DELIGHTFUL couple, before staggering off home for Edinburgh Pasta (i.e. pasta + a jar of sauce, all done in the same pan). It had been a wonderful day of Edinburgh-ish fun, which made me not miss being there AT ALL.

Well, maybe a little bit.

posted 5/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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A Slight Reduction In Audience
After all the excitement of the preceding week I was right looking forward to carrying on THE PARTY by heading out to distant Croydon where I was due to play one of my regular spots at Freedom Of Expression at The Oval Tavern, a lovely gig at a LOVELY pub.

When I arrived I got a pint and sat in the beer garden with Mr T Eveleigh where we discussed tactics. It was SUCH a pleasant evening that we considered doing the whole gig out there, but I did wonder whether that might be unfair on the people who'd slipped out for a quiet fag and a pint, also it might be a bit annoying for neighbours, and so it was back inside the building, an hour or so later, that i did THIS:

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

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

I Want To Find Out How It Ends

That Guy

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

It was a CONSIDERABLY smaller audience than the last gig I'd played, consisting of Tim, the soundguy, two family members of the chap on next, two people listening and some people at the back playing darts, so I decided I might as well just do a load of NEW stuff. Which I did, including a slight tweak to the lyrics of That Guy, suggested by Mrs J Fleay, to concur with the DEMANDS of Mr & Mrs Pattison i.e. they didn't like the line "all alone, wanking in a bush" so on Joanne's suggestion i changed it to "masturbating in a skip". It seemed to work!

The aforesaid next chap came on next (as next chaps are wont to do) and played for the ongoing delight of his VERY PROUD mother. It was lovely - every time he did one of his own songs she turned to everybody (i.e. me) and said "He wrote this you know! I'm so proud!" It was all rather moving!

At the end it turned out that 50% of the people who were listening but were neither related to a performer nor running the night was somebody I knew from OTHER gigs, and we had a lengthy chat about Indietracks and how ACE it had been. As I strolled home I mused on the fact that I was back to doing my normal gigs again now, which are good fun, but it wouldn't half be nice to do a few more where the audience was in TRIPLE rather than SINGLE figures!

posted 4/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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Nickleodeon And Eye Drops
It was a funny old day yesterday. I spent the morning dashing around the flat doing admin, practicing songs, and FINALLY getting started on the Actual Script of the New Show (featuring JOKES!). I'd planned to go for lunch in the John Lewis cafe as I have a My John Lewis card (CLASSY) and had not yet used my Free Tea And Cake Voucher for July, so what with all the dashing about it was only as I was heading off that I noticed I had a VOICEMAIL on my phone.

I checked it and CRIKEY OH RILEY it was someone from the Nickleodeon Writing Program, asking me to ring back. It's a Super Exciting Thing which seeks to recruit someone to work for Nickleodeon for six months, WRITING stuff, including six weeks in CALIFORNIA with the American operation. They came to talk to us at SKOOL a while ago and I ended up sending in a spec script for "The Big Bang Theory" .

I was all of a WHIRL - I'd known it was coming up for time for them to be ringing people, but I never thought I'd be lucky enough to get through. Maybe they were ringing people who'd been rejected? I went to John Lewis, got a coffee and SCONE, and sat myself down. I took a deep breath, rang them back, and GOOD GRIEF but it turned out I'd got through to the SEMI-FINALS! I had a lovely chat with the nice chap there, arranging a time for a phone interview with The Boss, and he told me that I'd be asked to send in ANOTHER script, so had three weeks to do it. "Oh, I've already written it" I said - I thought you would get NO notice, so had written a spec script for "New Girl" just in case. I quite like it I must say, so was now VERY happy that someone was actually going to read it.

All things considered "very happy" pretty much described my mood. Doing this Trying To Be A Writer thing is good fun but doesn't half involve a lot of rejection, so it was lovely to have GOT somewhere. Now all I have to do is be DELIGHTFUL when we do the interview: what could possibly go wrong eh?

Directly after that I had to go to Homerton Hospital to get my eyes checked. Homerton appears to be the world centre of SWEARING - EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE was Effing and also Jeffing like nobody's business, it was alarming! Inside, in a funny kind of way, it was nice to be back in a hospital - my first proper job was in a hospital, so the horrible smell is strangely comforting - though I was a bit worried that I'd upset the receptionist. "Ethnic Group!" she BARKED at me. "White British?" I said - ALL the studies I've ever worked on have this as a category. She looked at me as if I'd just burnt down the Reichstag. "I'll put ENGLISH" she said. Yikes!

I then ended up waiting for TWO HOURS, but it was made OK by the fact that the head nurse came round every 10-15 minutes and explained what was happening and exactly how late they were running. If train companies did the same sort of thing life would be MUCH easier. The actual examination didn't take long - most of it was me and the doctor competing to see who was most short-sighted. I won! HA! - and in the end it turned out everything was FINE. Hoorah!

I staggered out into the daylight blinking like MAD though - they'd put drops in my eyes to make the irises MASSIVE, so I must have looked like a drug crazed LOONIE to everyone I met. I did feel a bit CRAZED by the events of the day so far, a day which had still excitement to come. For lo! that evening I was due to rock Croydon!

posted 1/8/2014 by MJ Hibbett
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