Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Comedy at the Union Chapel

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Yesterday the best girlfriend ever and myself entered our minuscule all terrain vehicle and dared flooded roads, badger attacks and overprotective pheasants to drive to the English equivalent of Ankh-Morpork. There her eminence had secured us two tickets to see three comedians and my high priest of musical comedy, the ever so brilliant Bill Bailey in -of all places- a church. Not any church, though. A rather impressive example of victorian gothic architecture in Islington, the Union Chapel is as impressive as it gets. They even ask you whether you want your Hobgoblin at room temperature or cold. Bloody brilliant! Before we finally got to see Bailey, we sat through 2 hours of ‘stand up’ (which in my vocabulary unfortunately still stands for some bloke on a stage trying to get through as many four letter words as possible) and was pleasantly surprised.

It didn’t start well, though, as the MC of the evening was the rather  execrable Charlie Baker, who obviously believes that the word ‘knockers’ is still funny. Before the gig the best girlfriend ever mused that if this is going down in a consecrated church, they are probably unlikely to be allowed to swear. Boy was she wrong.  Rufus Hound who was obviously out on stage to deliberately shock a lefty liberal audience waiting for Bailey to appear. I do think he almost got there. Always in the verge of being misogynistic, he nevertheless managed to convey the tragic aspects of male masturbation, the idiocy of ritual circumcision and the importance of oral sex in the world in such disarmingly honest tones that even the best girlfriend ever was delighted.

I am though not sure why the mother of the two ca 10 year old girls thought it would be a good idea to bring her daughters to the gig. I am sure there will be trauma. And questions (‘Mummy? What is cocksucking? Does it involve poultry?’).

Pat Cahill was even better: his songs about tumour ridden Jack Russels (‘this dog is not in any visible pain. I’ve sang it eight times and I’ll sing it again’) and routine about booze combinations were outstanding. Have a look:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTO5XdMBpOw%5D

What Bridget Christie was doing on stage I have no idea. Lost and forlorn, she was neither funny nor witty and the poor women knew it.

Bill Bailey? Well, he is obviously getting more angry with politicians these days (deservedly so), doesn’t particularly like Nick Clegg and fails to see the point of Danish tv. And continues to invite the most sophisticated hecklers (“PLAY AN ALTERED SCALE!!”).

Brillant night. If somebody wound have warned me about Bridget Christie in advance I might have been able to get another Hobgoblin, but you can’t have anything in life.

Rations

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It is beyond scientific and rational reasoning why there is no medium-hot mustard to acquire in the whole of Albion, so visitors from the continent who want to enter our humble abode have to pay their way in condiments.

It’s only fair.

A Bad Taste Explosion on an Olympic Scale

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Every evening on my way home I stand in front of this monstrosity and ask myself what kind of architect designs spaces like this or what he or she was on when he came up with it. Sometimes I think the bloke (and it must have been a man. No woman designs stuff like this) who came up with this had a dry spell in his creative flow and looked at his desk drawer and thought: ‘Yes, the official Olympic Shopping Centre in Stratford should look like a large metal filing cupboard with open drawers from the seventies. With glass windows’. And then he went to the pub and told his mates. And by god, did they laugh. And soon gazillions of visitors to London will not only ask themselves why the Olympic Village needa a mall, but also why it has to be so utterly ugly. 

 

Ready for Olympia

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You really have to ask yourself after looking at architectural wrecks like this one whether the much touted beautification of the East End is really going to plan. Just 500 meters away from the olympic park and whap bang next to the main arterial traffic route to the site, this festering wound of a building is just one of many where the local councils have obviously unable to convince the owners of the benefits of dynamite. Similar wrecks, albeit with residents, still litter Mile End Road.

It looks like the East End will retain its some of its shabby looks and the pyongyangisation is unsuccessful.

Whether that’s a good thing is a different matter.

Ski Jumping in Hampstead Heath

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Hampstead Heath mixed pond, picture by Emily_*

There is a large, green space in the north of London covering 320 hectares, surrounded by posh people and the nouveau riche. Hampstead Heath, as it is called, is normally full of runners, roller bladers and gentlemen looking to frolick around with other gentlemen, but today I learned that in 1950 and 1951 it was a venue for nordic ski jumping.

This useless piece of knowledge came to me in that lovely half-dormant state I normally encounter during 9 – 10am on a Saturday morning, when I listen to the reassuring voice of the Reverend Richard Cole on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’, the closest thing an atheist can come to a religious experience. Apparently a bunch of, ahem, “eccentrics”, from the Central Council of Physical Recreation, alongside the Ski Club of Great Britain and the Oslo Ski Association organised the transport of 45 tons of snow in insulated containers and built a 18 meter ski ramp to showcase the joy of ski-jumping (and have an Oxford vs Cambridge competition of that particular sport).

I think this should be re-instated. With Hampstead Heath’s current transient population of men enjoying ‘alternative lifestyles’, there is a potential glamorous competition in the making that Channel 5 should be delighted to sponsor.