pmsumner

Having had the joy of an inspection from the letting agency and a teeth scraping at the dentist. Both were joyous events, neither of which do I want to repeat.

Work. I am enjoying my new role within the company. It's a challenge for me, as I'm now having to deal with time management properly, rather than having 1 overriding priority - answering the phone - I've got to sort out myself what's important and what's not. And in the process deal with other people's expectations and incorporate their deadlines into my work. All of which I've never really had to do.

I also have responsibility! I am responsible for validating new hardware for use in our kit. Now this process is not documented and I think I made a bit of a balls-up with one of them. I approved a CD writer for use in products that need software version xx.xx to work, and I didn't actually try xx.xx in one of our products. It turns out that xx.xx doesn't work on this one product... gah!

I'm hoping it's an easy fix. I am however furious at myself for making such an elementary mistake, and have taken steps to improve the process so that it's both documented and structured. So hopefully I'll have gone from making a balls-up, to improving the system.

Well not tonight, but recently.

Jane and I went to Theatre Cymru in Mold a week ago to see Andy Robinson and Mitch Benn. Theatre Clwyd was a nice space, a good setup and there was an audience of maybe 200-250 people, not bad at all.

Andy Robinson was a little weak, I think. I think he was trying lots of new material, and lots of it bombed. The stuff he had practiced lots worked - and it worked well.

Mitch Benn, now there's an odd one. Let's get it straight, his set was hilarious. His stand-up was good as well as his musical numbers. I was wondering when he came on how he was going to play it, because he came on looking and acting _incredibly_ arrogant. I did wonder if he was perhaps coked up or something, but he did relax into his act.

The MC, Silky, I have seen before at Llangollen, and I like him. He is a Scouser, but we can forgive him that.

There was also a short bit from Patrick Kavanagh, just a short 5-10 minute piece which was very funny.

Then the night after we went to the Rhyl Pavilion (whose website is broken at the moment) where Mike Bubbins and Henning Wehn were on the bill. The room at Rhyl was weird. It was basically a bar area with lots of round tables & chairs set up. Very long and narrow. Not really a good room for this kind of event, also quite small - I reckon there were maybe 75 people there at most. I felt for the poor MC at the beginning, there was no reaction whatsoever.

On a similar note: Rhyl Pavilion is a _weird_ place. Who's idea was it to combine a swimming pool/entertainment centre and theatre?! As it's right on the coast, it smells of chlorine and rotting seaweed. Lovely.

Mike Bubbins (http://www.comedycv.co.uk/mikebubbins/index.html), for never having heard of him before, was _very_ good. His storytelling was excellent and I'm sure given a more reactive audience we would have been on the floor with laughter. I'm keeping an eye out for him to appear places in the future.

Patrick Kavanagh came on unexpectedly, however also did the same set he did the night before! D'oh!

Henning Wehn was also excellent. In case you don't know him, he's German. That's essentially his act - Comedy Ambassador to the UK :) He almost had me rolling on the floor with laughter. We had a chat with him, Mike and a guest who did a short 10 minute slot called Patrick Kavanagh afterwards, awww they were both lovely.

Both of these events were organised through Kill For a Seat who organise events in Wales, Yorkshire and Leeds.

I'll be going back to Mold again, that event was ace. Rhyl's a bit far but it was worth it for Henning. And come September I have tickets for Russel Kane, and October for Andy Parsons both in Glyndwr University in Wrexham! This is a busy year for the laughs.