Last weekend was Claire’s hen weekend (the one, as bridesmaid, I’ve been co-organising for the last 6 months). Once we eventually got there after battling through the snow, we had a fantastic time. We had spent nearly £500 on booze and food and between the 17 of us there we managed to work our way through most of it. I did pretty well myself, especially as you may remember I’ve only had a drink twice since New Year in my ongoing efforts to lose weight. After staying up until 4am on both nights I was feeling fairly rotten when I got home on Sunday afternoon. I sensibly decided a two and a half hour nap would help, but all it really succeeded in doing was making sure I had to go to the supermarket at 8.30pm, as I realised I had no food for my lunch the next day. This was then followed by lesson planning until nearly midnight, a crap night’s sleep and feeling like death on Monday at school. Brilliant. It was worth it for the great weekend with great company though. And the house we stayed in was amazing – I knew it was going to be big but it was massive! Just look at the ‘drawing room’…

After the weekend I never really caught up on my sleep all week and school was a bit of a struggle. I did have some good lessons this week though and I was feeling quite good about the whole thing. My thoughts on teaching are still all over the place really. I think I’m enjoying it but I still can’t quite work out if I’ve done the right thing. I just keep thinking that although I know my probationary year next year will be hard and I’ll have a lot of work, at least I’ll be teaching my own classes and hopefully that will make discipline easier – at least I won’t have to deal with the ‘who are you miss?’, ‘where’s our normal teacher miss?’ ‘when are we getting Mrs/Mr Whoever back miss?’… Anyway, yesterday I had my second assessed lesson of my course. In order to pass the course we have to pass three lessons assessed by our university tutors, receive three satisfactory reports from our school placements and pass three assignments. So this was the second time I had a visit from one of the university tutors. The visit I’d had in my first placement had gone quite well and I’d looked back over the feedback I’d got on things I’d been told needed improvement. I had another first year class this time, which in theory should have made things easier. I thought I had a pretty decent plan, apart from that I’d included a game that the usual class teacher had suggested. I wasn’t really sure about doing it but it’s quite difficult to turn down advice with offending the established teacher. So I went with it. The lesson didn’t go too badly I thought. I rushed through some things in order to try and make sure I could fit everything in, but with the consequence that I had finished everything I planned to do with about 10 minutes to go until the bell. I managed to pull a few things out of my head to fill the time and I thought it had gone OK.

After the bell went my tutor came up to me to say I’d passed and so I could breath a sigh of relief but then we had to sit down to go over the feedback. There was quite a bit of positive stuff and I got a merit for my planning and preparation of resources…but when it came to discussing my ‘areas for development’ I was criticised for the balance of my lesson and, here’s the best bit, that there were too many ‘games’. I knew I shouldn’t have followed advice that didn’t feel like the right thing to do. But I couldn’t say ‘it wasn’t my idea!’ That would just have sounded like an excuse, and if I wasn’t my idea and I didn’t agree with it then why did I go ahead and do it? Then he started going on about my classroom management which is an area I know I have to work on anyway. By this point I could feel that quivering bottom lip and shaking in your chest that you get when you know you’re about to cry. I really struggled to hold back the tears but when my tutor repeated my failing for the the third time I crumbled. I felt ridiculous for crying and although I was a bit upset at what I was being told it was much just a release of stress and adrenaline, and being annoyed at myself for not following my own instincts in the first place. I’m sure I’m not the first person to cry, imagine what the people who fail are like?! Anyway, I passed, I have things to work on and I should be pleased with that. But then I had the horrible third years for the last period of the day. They are a quite low ability set and really have no interest in learning French at the best of times, let alone last thing on a Friday afternoon. And they just won’t stop talking! I wasn’t doing too badly with them but then the class teacher came in and just started judging me – it really wasn’t the day for it and fighting back the tears again I virtually ran out of school when the bell went without speaking to anyone. 

I’m much calmer now and grateful for the support and sensible words from all my friends on Twitter. (After my tutor left I went for a walk in the park next to school to try and calm down and try and make my face look normal again – and vented my woes on Twitter, with immediate response. Seriously, I don’t know what we did before the instant responses from Twitter – whether they be congratulations, commiserations or advice). I also had a good chat with one of the other students on my course who lives near by. She had her assessed lesson yesterday too and despite getting the same grades as me, she was disappointed with how she’d done too. It’s good to know someone else is in the same boat as you.

Anyway, it’s over and done with now. I only have another nine teaching days to go (although that means I’ve only got just over two weeks until my next 3500 word assignment is due in and I haven’t started yet.) I’m seeing the lovely Tiernan Douieb at the Glasgow Comedy Festival next weekend, then Chris Addison and Dave Gorman in the two weeks after that. Then it’s the Easter holidays. I’m seeing Derren Brown, then going to An Event Of Some Kind (where one of my favourite bands, 6 Day Riot, are playing, and Tim Minchin is on the bill playing to a room of 40 people which will be pretty awesome). Then I’ve got Easter weekend in the caravan with my Mum and Dad, and the weekend after it’s actually Claire’s wedding and I get to do my bridesmaid bit! (Oh, and the weekend after that I’m back in London to see Michael Legge and Andrew Collins do their Edinburgh work in progress shows). Phew…that’s quite a lot to look forward to in the next month. And it’s definitely going to get me through the next two weeks of teaching.


In other news, I’ve pledged (is that the right word?) to join in Mark Watson’s Ten Year Self-Improvement Challenge, but I think that deserves an entry of its own; so more on that later.


And finally – here’s a couple of photos from the hen weekend. One of Claire, in all her finery with me and Tara; the other bridesmaid, and one of me partaking in the ‘Cheesy Ball Challenge’ which involved seeing how many cheesy balls (the Asda version of Wotsits) you could fit in your mouth! I think I managed 18 in the end but I wasn’t the eventual winner!

I played (and heard) this song for the first time at Monday Ukearist this week. It turns out it’s been covered by all sorts of people; The Flaming Lips, Billy Idol, Jack Johnson and The Levellers to name a few. Paul Newman famously plays Plastic Jesus on the banjo in the film Cool Hand Luke (which I have never seen – I think I should fix that). 

 It’s one of those folk songs that has hundreds of alternative verses (I added one of them at the end) but I think this is basically the original version. It’s the first song I’ve actually managed to play without having to look at the chords too, so that’s a bit of an achievement.

I hope you like – as usual, if you do then please do go and rate it on YouTube. Thanks dudes!

 They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

Firstly, just a quick thanks to all the people who commented on my last post, both here and on Twitter. It seems I’m not alone in my thoughts and it helped to get it all out of my head.

Just a quick update now – I’ve stuck a couple more ukulele videos up on YouTube, and here they are for your pleasure; I know my vocals aren’t getting any better but hopefully the uke playing is improving!

If you like them then please do rate and/or comment on them…and if you don’t, then…well, don’t. Like my Gran always said; if you’ve got nothing nice to say then don’t say anything at all. Simples.

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I’m not really sure why but I thought I’d try and formulate my thoughts into some sort of coherence.

First, a little background: I’ve only ever had three boyfriends. I’ve had the other odd casual relationships but not what I would call boyfriends. I went out with the first of these three for about three months when I was at Sixth Form. I was sixteen at the time and he was a year older than me (although in the same classes as me) and he was the boy I lost my virginity to – a rather embarrassing encounter which was never repeated with him. In fact the very same night I went out without him and met the man (for at 22, he was a man) who was to become my next boyfriend.

Yes, boyfriend number two was a whole six years older than me. Which if I’d have been 22 and he’d have been 28 wouldn’t really have been a problem but surely there’s something wrong with a 22 year old man going out with a 16 year old girl? Of course, at the time I didn’t think so and I couldn’t understand why my parents (and my brother) were so against us. As it turned out we went out for nearly two (mostly happy) years. Then when I went to university I think I grew up; I was at uni in Manchester, only a 45 minute drive from Blackpool and so my boyfriend came to stay with me the first three weekends I was there. He refused to come out of my room and socialise while I was trying my best to make new friends. So on the fourth weekend of university I went back to Blackpool and split up with him. Shortly after, he met another girl (also called Sarah-Jane, which is a bit odd), and proceeded to have to kids with her. Rather her than me in the end.

After that I made the most of enjoying my university years, and wasn’t really looking for another boyfriend. In between my second and third years at uni I went and worked on a campsite in France for two and half months, where I continued in the vein of having fun; whichever way that came. All in all I spent six summers working in France, and for the first three of those (and the ski season in between summers two and three) I never had any problems finding guys willing to sleep with me but none who wanted anything more than that. Maybe my willingness to oblige was part of the problem but I had pretty low self-esteem at the time and I think I used sex as a way of proving to myself that boys still found me attractive. 

Then in March 2001, I went back to France for my fourth summer season, this time as an Area Manager. On the first night of the training course I met a boy who was going to be working for me for the summer. We got on really well….and we ended up going out together (and living and working together) until August 2002, when he decided he didn’t love me any more. I was devastated and took a long time to get over it. In fact I spent the next few months trying to get him to change his mind. That never happened. We didn’t really talk at all for the next six months but the following summer we sort of got back to being friends again. In November 2003 we both moved to Dunfermline to work in the head office of the company we worked for in France. And at this point we embarked on a really rather ill-advised retro-sexual relationship. This mostly involved getting drunk and sleeping together every couple of weeks, but neither of us really wanted to get back together properly. For a year or so we worked together and got on really well (although the drunken sex stopped after the first few months)…and then it all took a turn for the weird when he got together with a friend of ours, who was also manager to both of us. They now live together back in England and have a baby…and I still find it a bit weird if I’m completely honest.

So anyway, that’s the back story; I’ve been single since 2002. And lately I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I’ve always assumed ever since I was tiny that one day I would get married and have two kids, just like my Mum. I come from a a very unexciting middle class family; my Mum and Dad have been married 35 years and live in the house they moved to in 1983. They got married, had their first child exactly two years later, and me exactly two years after that (my brother’s birthday is four days after our parents’ wedding anniversary and is the day after my birthday), and that’s the life I always saw for myself. And that’s most definitely the life my Mum wants for me too. As more and more of my parents’ friends’ kids have got married, the more my Mum seems to wonder if her daughter is ever going to oblige. At least my brother got married last year and that took some of the pressure off me. 

I’ve spent the last eight years thinking that all I wanted was a boyfriend and wondering why I couldn’t seem to find one. Now I reckon I’m pretty average – at 5’5” I’m not that tall, but I’m not that short either; I’m neither fat nor thin; I don’t think I’m very pretty, but I’m not ugly either…so pretty much average then. I’m quite intelligent, I’ve got a ‘good sense of humour’, I have lots of different interests – and yet there’s clearly something about me that makes me shag-able rather than date-able. I’ve tried various methods to meet new men over the years; new hobbies (although there is rather a dirth of straight men in the world of amateur dramatics) , a new job (all right – finding a man wasn’t the only reason I changed my job, but it was a consideration!), and about 18 months ago I bit the bullet and gave internet dating a go. I did get some interest and went on three dates; the first, although very entertaining and erudite online, struggled to string a sentence together in person (and he was too short!) The second was nice enough and we got on quite well, but even with the benefit of a second date I just didn’t fancy him. The third one, I did fancy, and I thought we’d got on well but it turns out he didn’t have the same opinion as me. And after that I started going to lots of comedy shows and gave up on my online search for love. So now I’m back to my previous ‘if I’m going to meet someone, it’ll just happen one day and I shouldn’t have to do anything to make it happen’.

And the point that all this has been leading to…lately I’ve been thinking; I’m really quite happy on my own! I’m very independent; I’ve been living on my own for over 5 years (apart from a couple of temporary flatmates) and I really like my own space and being able to do exactly what I like, when I like. Maybe it’s selfishness but I rarely have to consider anyone else when making plans, or in my day to day life. Being in a relationship seems to involve a lot of doing stuff you don’t really want to do. Take my brother for example – he has to watch Eastenders (I can’t think of anything worse!) and the other day he had to eat Chinese food even though he doesn’t like it. I can watch whatever I want on TV, and eat whatever I want, get out of bed whenever I want, go out when I want, and go on random trips around the UK to see comedy shows when ever I feel like it. And at the moment, my freedom and independence wins. Of course, I get a bit lonely sometimes but I have lots of friends to talk to, either in real life or online. And there are times when I’d like someone to give me a cuddle when I’m sat at home on the sofa but that’s OK. I just can’t imagine what my life would be like if I had to make room for someone else in it.

And like I said, I always assumed I’d have kids but I’m not at all broody. I know I’m only 31 and there’s plenty of time but at the moment I don’t really get the appeal of babies. Quite a lot of my friends have kids now but I’m just not that bothered by them. Maybe if I do meet a man one day then my opinion might change, and I can’t say the prospect of maternity leave isn’t appealing, but slowly my view of myself in the world is shifting and perhaps I will be one of those people who just never has kids.

I think what I’m trying to say in all this, is that I’m pretty happy with my lot. Maybe one day I’ll meet ‘Mr Right’ whoever he might be, and maybe I won’t. And that’s OK by me.

Two weeks into the New Year and so far my good intentions are holding out. I’ve not had any booze since New Year’s Eve and only one tiny piece of Dairy Milk in the last ten days – and I’ve lost 4lbs. Yay me! I even went back to my dance class tonight – which I haven’t been to since September. I’ve still got a way to go so I just need to keep it up now. My bridesmaid dress for Claire’s wedding arrived at the shop so I had to go and try it on on Saturday – I think it was very mean making me try it on just after Christmas but it still fit which is a bonus. It’ll look better when I’ve lost a bit more weight though…and it’s not getting fitted for another six weeks so there’s still time.


I’ve also been keeping up with my other blog http://everydayjustme.blogspot.com/ which does exactly what you’d expect – it’s a picture of my face everyday. Some of them were taken not long after waking up and you can definitely tell! Other than that and some slight hairstyle variations I reckon I look pretty much the same in every one. It’s a bit weird to be honest seeing all those pictures of my face – and that’s only two weeks in, I’m not sure what I’ll think if I keep it up for the whole year…only one way to find out though.

In other news I’m enjoying being back at university, despite the tedious drive to Glasgow, which was made even more difficult last week with the freezing conditions. I’m just making the most of not having a huge amount to do at the moment. I managed to get my assignment done and handed in on time, despite typically leaving it until the last minute, so I’m just waiting for the result now. We don’t even get a grade for it – it’s either pass or fail….and if you fail you get a chance to rewrite it anyway! Anyway, like I say, I’m making the most of not having too much work at the moment because in three weeks I’ll be back on school placement for another six weeks. And that will be six weeks of very hard work indeed! 


Before going back to school though I’ve got a(nother) trip to London planned to see Michael Legge and The Trap in their sketch show ‘Los Quattros Cvnts’. (It is pronounced ‘cunts’ but they didn’t have the balls to actually call it that because it wouldn’t get listed anywhere!). It should be really good fun – I meeting Nic (@nwoolhouseuk who stayed with me during Edinburgh last year) and Lorna (@lornalily who lives in Ireland and who we’ve been talking to on Twitter as she is a fellow Precious Little podophile, as we’ve been dubbed). It just seems perfectly normal now to meet people (and we’re all sharing a hotel room too) who I’ve only spoken to on the internet. And once we get over the initial ‘oh, so that’s your voice’ weirdness I’m sure we’ll have a whole heap of fun. Although I’m supposed to have given up the booze I’m not even going to pretend to myself that I won’t be drinking on that night!


Lastly, a couple of things you should really have a look at. First of all, Tim Minchin’s amazing nine minute beat poem; Storm, is being animated by some lovely people who are keeping everyone updated with their progress on a blog here. I love all the ‘kinetic typography’ as it’s know in technical terms and you can see some tests on the latest blog entry. You can also see the trailer that was previewed at TAM London last year.


And very finally, this is something that my brother posted the link to on Twitter. It’s a reproduction of a book published in 1972 called ‘2010: Living In The Future’ – with a bit of added commentary from the blog author. Some of the stuff is a bit mental; ‘There are no beds, no tables, no chairs. The floor is made for sitting, sleeping, and walking on.’ But some of it is remarkably accurate – the bloke who wrote this in 1972 basically predicted supermarket home delivery, the internet and ebooks. You really should take the time to read it all, it’s brilliant!

I may have mentioned before I got a ukulele about three months ago and surprisingly I haven’t given up like I did every time I’ve tried to learn the guitar. I still love it and I try and play every day. I’ve even made a few videos so you can see how I’m getting on. 

And here they are – for your viewing pleasure. I may add some more to my YouTube channel at some point so do subscribe if you like.

2010 eh? A lot has changed in my life since this time last year. At the start of 2009 I was working for the Bank of Scotland, in a boring job, with no real plans for the future. In my second ever post to this blog I wrote about my lack of any ambitions or any real plans for the future. But by the end of April I had applied to do the teacher training course which I’m now in the middle of. By this time next year I’ll have been working as a teacher for four months, and hopefully enjoying it!

The end of 2009 was a good one as far as they go. On the 30th December I got the train down to London in order to go to the London Comedy Improv Christmas party. This was one of those things that I wanted to go to, my sensible head told me it was a bit ridiculous to spend over five hours on a train each way just for one night of comedy, and then I got a bit tipsy one night and booked a train anyway. And luckily it was worth it. LCI regulars Tara Flynn and Brendan Dempsey were in charge of proceedings with guest performers Tiernan Douieb, Kirsty Newton and Briony (whose surname I’m trying to find out). Ewen Macintosh was supposed to be there too but couldn’t make it because of the weather – although I don’t know where he was trying to get there from seeing as I made it from Scotland! I’ve never been to any improv before but it was very funny and I really enjoyed it. Everything the performers do is based on suggestions from the audience, and they even used a couple of mine. Tara and Brendan were very funny, and evidently very experienced in this kind of improv comedy. (And incidentally, they were very welcoming and seemed genuinely delighted I had come all the way from Scotland to see the show). Tiernan was really good too – I’ve seen him do quite a bit of stand-up now but never anything like this and I thought he was great, and was glad to see in his blog that to do more improv is one of his aims for 2010. The highlight of the night had to be the film noir musical nativity that rounded of the show, I really have never seen anything like it, and probably never will again. After a low key Christmas it was great to have a night out with my friends and lots of laughter. It’s just a shame the regular LCI nights are mid-week and what with uni and school it’s going to be pretty impossible for me to get to another one any time soon.

I got the train back home yesterday and remarkably it was on time and uneventful. I went round to my friends’ house for our (now getting to be traditional) New Year’s Eve celebrations. Once again I was the only single person with three couples but since virtually all my friends up here are in long term relationships I’m pretty used to it by now! We had some food (and plenty of cider), played bowling and tennis on the Wii and then after some champagne at midnight we played our (also traditional) SingStar – I’d bought Claire SingStar Take That for her birthday the other week; mostly so we could play it on New Year’s Eve. We somehow managed to stay up until 4.30am and then I spent a somewhat uncomfortable night on their sofa, which some how manages to be very comfortable to sit on but incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on. It wasn’t helped by my very blocked up nose which forced me to breathe through my mouth which created a mouth drier than the surface of Mars.

The first day of this year has been spent doing nothing more strenuous than eating, sleeping and watching the second part of the Dr Who special which saw David Tennant leave the series and regenerate into Matt Smith. As I said in my post Christmas blog, for some reason I have resisted watching the new Dr Who but I’ve actually enjoyed this two part special (despite not really understanding what was happening) and I think I might be tempted to start watching properly when the new series starts.

And finally, in other news, I’ve started a new blog for the new year which you can find at http://everydayjustme.blogspot.com/ . It’s an entirely unoriginal idea but one which interests me; the plan being to take a photo of my face everyday for the whole year and see if I change at all. I’ve been writing this blog since February (admittedly a bit sporadically) and I’ll be continuing to do so. The idea is that the photo blog is just for the pictures and I wanted to keep it separate from this one.

So there we are; 2009 has been an exciting and fun filled year for me. I’ve made and met lots of new friends through a shared love of comedy (and Twitter!), I feel like I’ve laughed more than I’ve ever laughed in a year before, I’ve been on loads of comedy-watching adventures, and I’ve actually done something about getting a career and a plan for the rest of my life. I’m just hoping that it all continues into 2010. 

Thank you all for reading, I hope you stick with me in the year to come.

Well that’s it. Christmas is done. I went home to my parent’s house in Blackpool for 5 days and now I’m home again. It’s been a bit of a funny festive season for me this year; I just haven’t felt very, well, Christmassy. And even Christmas Day didn’t feel very much like Christmas. I think it’s partly because I’m at university and not working so I didn’t have any of the usual decorations in the office, secret Santa and getting far to drunk on a Christmas night out that I usually have. Added to that, because I was in London for 9 days and then only home for 3 before I went to Blackpool I didn’t bother putting up decorations in my flat – I’ve just got some Christmas cards up and that doesn’t provide much of an atmosphere.

When I got to my parents’ on Wednesday the tree was up and the lights in the porch just like every year but still that Christmas excitement didn’t hit me…maybe this is what being a grown up is all about? My brother and his wife turned up on Christmas Eve and we all went round to some friends of my parents (my godmother and her husband), their kids were home for Christmas too with associated spouses, aunties, uncles and cousins. It was actually really good fun. My Auntie Lesley (godmother; not real auntie) clearly knows us well, because after a lovely buffet of salmon, baked potatoes and various other stuff, she got out the Duplo for us to play with! It was much fun – we made a train track, and then did what you should do with any kind of Lego; see how tall a tower you can build!


After the Duplo fun, me and my brother instigated a game of No More Women, a game created by Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne for the BBC Comedy blog. I had been trying to get Mark to play it with me for ages and he never would but it went down really well. I recommend you play it with all your friends – at your New Year party perhaps. 


I have a bit of a tradition of being so hungover on Christmas Day that I can’t drink, and my Christmas dinner is usually a bit of a struggle. I didn’t want to let myself down this year, so despite being pleasantly tipsy when we got home from the festivities I decided I should drink another whole bottle of wine. I think I have a bit of a problem with booze…I can go weeks without drinking with no problem at all but when I do drink I just don’t seem to know where the off switch is. I’m not one of these people who can say ‘well, that’s it, I’ve had enough now’. I just carry on until I fall asleep. I did manage to make it to my bed though so that’s always a bonus.


We got up fairly late on Christmas morning and did the present thing (accompanied by fresh baked croissants which were lovely). I didn’t get much, because I hadn’t asked for (or given) much this year, what with not having a job and being a poor student. I did get a slow cooker, which I’d asked for and which surely is something only a middle aged person would want (there goes that being a grown up again). I also got Tim Key’s book, signed no less, which you can get from The Invisible Dot and which I would thoroughly recommend for plenty of giggles. I’d love to get inside Tim Key’s mind, Being John Malcovich style, just to see if he really thinks in such an abstract fashion all the time.


The theme of this Christmas being a bit odd continued on Christmas Day. My brother’s wife, Becca, was with us (they have spent alternate year’s with us and Becca’s parents for the last few years) and as much as Becca is like one of the family now it’s always a bit odd having someone new there when until fairly recently Christmas Day has always been exactly the same in our family. My parents have lived in the same house since I was five so even that has never changed. This year was then doubly odd because for the first time since I can remember we didn’t have at least one grandma present. My Mum’s Mum always used to come for Christmas until she died at the grand old age of 94 about five years ago. For a few years before my Grandma died, and in the years since, my Dad’s Mum has come for Christmas dinner along with my Iranian step-Grandad who is like an Iranian version of Frank Butcher…he’s a Catholic who hasn’t been to Iran for 48 years but still has a really strong accent, and wears enormous sovereign rings. Oh and he has about three stories which he tells every year, one of which involves meeting one of The Supremes (not Diana Ross) at a wedding. Anyway, this year my Grandma and step-Grandad decided they were going to Spain for Christmas. As it turned out they never made it there because of the snow but they went to their neighbours house for Christmas dinner instead. Which made for a very relaxed Christmas day in the Williamson house – with no-one on Grandma entertainment duty we could all just do our own thing. Lovely, but somehow it still didn’t feel like Christmas. 


I did have a traditional afternoon snooze while watching a film, and we watched Dr Who. My brother and Dad were rather excited about this event. I, on the other hand, haven’t watched any of the new Dr Who (apart from the Christmas special that Kylie was in a few years ago). I know I should, I hear it’s very good and I was named after one of Dr Who’s companions after all but it’s just one of those things I’ve never got round to watching and the more I didn’t watch the less motivation I had to watch. Michael Legge, if you are reading this, I’m sorry – I hope this won’t affect my podphile status? Anyway, I quite liked Dr Who, even though I had no idea what was going on. I may well even watch the second part on New Year’s Day.

Christmas Day concluded with a game of Trivial Pursuit. It didn’t even last that long. I nearly won too – me and Mark both had all our pie pieces (or cheeses, or wedges, or whatever you call them in your family) but he made it to the centre and got a question right before me. Bastard.

On Boxing Day we went for a traditional walk along the sea front in Lytham (the posh bit South of Blackpool). Lots of people had the same idea, it was nice but cold and did it’s job of blowing away some cobwebs. As you can see, it was a really clear day and we could see all the way to Southport which was pretty cool.


Boxing Day evening saw us in the pub with some of Mark’s friends (who I have know as long as he has, which almost makes them my friends too). I was delighted to discover the pubs we went to sold my new favourite drink; Kopperberg Mixed Fruits. It tastes just like apple & blackcurrant cordial made with lemonade instead of water. Booze that tastes like juice always wins in my book.


And today I drove home. It was cold and slow, and there’s still quite a lot of snow up here. But I made it. So that’s it. Without it ever really feeling like Christmas, it’s over. Tomorrow I really have to do lots of work on my assignment for university which I have pretty much failed to do any of up to now. And seeing as I’m going to London again on Wednesday (for one night only of London Comedy Improv) I really should get a move on. If only essay writing was as easy as blog writing. But then my blogs are full of crap – and I don’t think that will get me a pass somehow.

On Saturday 19th December I went to the fifth and last of Robin Ince’s Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People shows at the Bloomsbury theatre. (Although there was another show on the 20th at the Hammersmith Apollo). I had met up with Linzy, Shell, Kate, Simone and another Sarah for some dinner and with an exchange of cards and gifts, and tiny crackers with pictures of puppies wearing Santa hats on them,  it was the most Christmassy I’d felt so far this festive season. We made our way in the freezing cold over to the Bloomsbury and took up our front row seats. I was really looking forward to the show despite having seen it 4 days earlier. There were some different acts on the bill (no Johnny Ball this time!) and still plenty to get excited about.

After another introduction from curator and compere Robin Ince (and another musical intro from Martin White’s wonderful Mystery Fax Machine Brass Band) the first act took to the stage. None other than the closest thing many atheists have to a messiah, Richard Dawkins himself! Dawkins gave us a continuation of the Jeeves & Wooster pastiche which is his contribution to The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, the recently published book edited by Ariane Sherine (the woman behind this year’s Atheist Bus Campaign). It was slightly odd if I’m honest but mildly amusing and Dawkins has one of those voices that you could listen to forever, and I’m glad I got to see the man himself in flesh.

Next up was Richard Herring, who did the same set as Tuesday night but was still very funny. His childhood stories are even funnier with repetition and reminded me of the stories I wrote as a child (I still have my ‘Work Sample’ book from primary school in which I had to do a piece writing and some sums at the end of every school year… it contains gems such as ‘The U.F.O’ (1987), ‘The Ghostly People’ (1988) and ‘Lost in the desert’ (1989)). After Herring I’ve lost track of the order the acts came in but there was more from Chris Addison (again the same set as Tuesday but his T-Rex impression never fails to be hilarious), Jo Neary (as Pan’s Person) once again gave us her interpretive dance to Cat Stevens’ ‘Moonshadow’ which was just as funny even when I knew what what was coming. We also had Robyn Hitchcock again. He played one of the same songs as on Tuesday with some great accompaniment from the MFMO. He then got some of the other performers up on the stage (including Barry Cryer, Ronnie Golden, Jo Neary, Gavin Osborn and Jimbob from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine!) to join him in a rendition of his song Olé Tarantula, made even more hilarious by Robyn giving instructions to his impromptu backing singers (and the band) between each section. I really enjoyed Robyn’s set this time round, it seemed a lot more fun and in keeping with the rest of the evening than it had on Tuesday. We also had the BHA Choir again, with what looked like a few additional members this time, and another delightful version of Tom Lehrer’s Christmas Carol.



In addition to these we were also treated to some acts that I hadn’t seen on Tuesday – a high tempo and very enjoyable song from Philip Jeays (although I can’t remember what it was about!), science writer Marcus Chown gave us his own, very entertaining, science awards for those who have never been recognised to the extent he believes they should have been by mainstream science, and finally, truly awe-inspiring stuff on particle physics and the creation of the universe from physicist (and former keyboard player with pop band D-Ream) Professor Brian Cox. Brian is currently working at CERN with the Large Hadron Collider and although I didn’t entirely understand everything he was saying he has a great way of grabbing the attention of the audience and making what he is saying accessible to everyone.


The first half was rounded off by Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden with another outstanding performance of their song Peace and Quiet and they were once again joined by a variety of backing singers and the Mystery Fax Machine Brass Band.


Mr Ince continued his excellent wrangling skills into the second half which began with a brilliant song called Angel Strike from Jim Bob (of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine fame) all about (unsurprisingly) what would happen if the angels went on strike. I have to give special mention to Martin White at this point because the accompaniment once again was outstanding and just shows Martin’s talent in arranging orchestration to other people’s songs. There was more from the MFMO later in the second half with the ace song Thank You For Not Discussing The Outside World. Also returning from Tuesday’s show were Simon Singh with his Bible Code stuff,  Josie Long and her What do ghosts eat? cracker-joke based set, John Otway with his Bunsen Burner song, and Baba Brinkman with the excellent Rap Guide to Evolution. We also saw the return of Ben Goldacre, once again speaking faster than I have ever heard a man speak, but this time with fascinating stuff on the power of the ‘nocebo effect’ whereby people in trials experienced side effects even when taking a placebo and that people who were given a muscle relaxant but told it was a stimulant showed the same effects you would expect to see had they actually been given a stimulant! You can read more about the study here. 

One of the new acts for the second half was Howard Read (Big Howard) and his cartoon sidekick Little Howard. The Howards, both Big and Little are the stars of a show on CBBC but the act they gave us certainly wasn’t suitable for the kids. I’d never seen or heard of the Howards before but I found their act (involving an invisible duck called Lenny and a made up invisible bear) to be very funny and one of the many highlights of the evening. 


Another comedian who I hadn’t seen before was, star of Peep Show; Isy Suttie who joined the ranks of guitar players on the bill with her very funny (and remarkably well sung) song about how there are plenty of cunts in the countryside. It was just a shame that there was only time for her to do one song. Lastly (although he didn’t appear last) we had Gavin Osborn, the man I had been very disappointed not to see on Tuesday. Despite talking about a new song he had written about William Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley for the occasion, in his backstage interview with New Humanist magazine, Gavin actually performed his song Glow in the Park (about sex and the stars) which I had seen before in Edinburgh. Although I would have liked to have seen the new song, I was still very happy because the song we heard is played on ukulele and when I saw it in Edinburgh it was before my own uke playing adventures began, so this time it had a whole new dimension as I tried to work out the chords Gavin was playing.


So there you have it – another wonderfully entertaining evening courtesy of the tireless work of Robin Ince. I was disappointed to miss the Hammersmith show but apparently it’s going to be on BBC4 in the new year so keep your eyes peeled for that. You can also see all the backstage interviews on the New Humanist YouTube channel.