pmsumner

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.

I'm really enjoying myself at work now. I've been there a month and I took an afternoon's worth of calls on Friday. I feel that I am getting there with the knowledge, and the hardest thing now is figuring out quickly enough what machines are what, and what machines have what capabilities. Not made easy by calling at least 3 differing machines the same name........... Great idea by marketing and/or product development.

The people I work with. They're nice people, and I enjoy spending time with them. I do feel a bit odd at the moment because a lot of them are really struggling with the move to Warrington, and don't see a future with the company. They feel quite let down, I think. They seem to be in the same mindset that I was in 6 weeks ago, and I don't want to be there. I'll just have to be relentlessly optimistic at them :)

Personal life - good and improving all the time. Having weekends is such a bonus! I love being able to get places and do things with Jane. Friday night we went to see Sue Perkins, and as we got to the theatre really early and were in the 1st tier, indulged in a spot of audience watching. It was so funny - we're looking at the people coming in going... "stereotypical lesbian", "oh my... look at those sensible shoes", "is that a man?" and so on. We didn't know that Sue Perkins was a lesbian. We really had no idea! That certainly explained the audience, which I estimate to be roughly 50% lesbian couples/groups and 50% middle-age, male, Radio 4 listeners :)

She was very funny, however. Perhaps not the funniest thing I've ever seen, but I really enjoyed the show, and we had a good night out at the quays, going for a meal and a show should always be fun.

I've pretty much decided I'm giving up the mystery shopping lark. I can't do it, these days. Working Monday-Friday 9-5 isn't good, because most shops that I want to do are only open those hours. I'll keep an eye open and stay registered with the various companies, pick up the occasional job here and there that I can do in the evenings or weekends, but not much.

My flat is there, I think. There's a few things which I am still struggling to find space for, and I still haven't got any bloomin' doorstops, so am using random things to prop open doors. Must resolve this tomorrow evening with a trip to B&Q. Everything that I want and need seems to have found itself a place, though I'm still at a loss as to what to do with my old PC. I want to rebuild it, but know that the only possible reason for that is pure geekery. Until my conflict between geek and space resolves itself, I'm left with a full tower case, monitor and loads of assorted PC junk lying around taking up space which I really could do with.

Loving my new phone. Seriously never thought I'd actually use the walkman side of it, but I am! A 512 Mb memory card included gives such a lot of room for music that it's actually useful.

It's time to start arranging for anyone who wants to come see to come... name your dates if you do.

http://video.gprime.net/media/video/presidentialspeechalist.wmv

"The President's Speechwriter"
It's very funny :)
Probably quite large, but hey we're all on broadband these days, right?

[Filched from miracle7077's journal]