Last night Elyssa and I went to see Paul Merton's Impro Chums at the Brighton Dome. Alongside Paul was Lee Simpson, Jim Sweeney, Richard Vranch and Suki Webster (who I'd also seen a few years ago in Eddie Izzard's One Word Improv at Tunbridge Wells). It was mostly hilarious stuff - with Lee, Jim and Richard being in particularly good form. Crying laughter of the night was provided by the three gentlemen acting as one person, each saying the next word in a sentence while Paul Merton interviewed them on the Olympic sport of badger throwing. All improvisations came from places, names and ideas suggested by the audience. Great fun, and recommended if you get the chance. You can read another blog review here.

Just a quick entry to summarise what I've been up to recently... I've had a busy couple of work weeks (still happening), the biggest job being a comic strip-style football illustration for The Observer Sport Monthly, which will be out this Sunday (4 June). It was going to be the cover, but is now an internal illo for an article on England's World Cup chances. It had me doing one all night-stint to 4am and another to 6am last week. Also on the football front I've coloured a lovely piece of work by Tony O' Donnell which will be the cover to a book about Alan Shearer from Tonto Press. The other main job I've been working on is the cover and CD inlay design for an audio play, starring Nicholas Courtney and Terry Molloy (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Davros from Dr. Who). It's called The Scarifyers and it sounds really good stuff. I will post images when things are more finalised.

And onto slightly older work... on more than one ocassion I've had some of my theatre poster artwork splashed on a banner and strung across the London Road in East Grinstead. Ellie took this photo at the weekend of Stage-Struck's 'Spend Spend Spend' banner outside the Chequer Mead Theatre, which features the logo and silhouette figures I designed. You can see the actual poster here.

The title to this entry is from a fabulous song by the Blue Oyster Cult, by the way.

In early 1992 Steerpike were still building up a set of original material, so we played a number of covers. In an attempt to be a bit different from the many local blues-rock bands, these covers included four songs by The Cure - In Between Days, Love Cats, Boys Don't Cry and A Forest. Besides that, quite a few of our friends and fans liked The Cure, and they had been a local band too (we were from East Grinstead, they had originated in Crawley).

I have put up a page that features tape recordings from a gig we played at The Ravenswood Inn, Sharpethorne, in May 1992 - those days were really enjoyable and happy times. Hope you enjoy the recordings.

I bought the Wolfmother album off iTunes as someone told me they were reminiscent of Overtoad - the first band I was in. More than one review mentions Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and while I think they do have that vibe about them, they more strongly resemble bands like Grand Funk (c.1969) and Blue Cheer, and are not too dissimilar to the White Stripes, or even Supergrass. Though I agree with Pete about it wearing off quite quickly, I do like it, and it's perfect to hide amongst the iTunes playlist to pop up randomly every now and then. It's good stuff (with variable lyrics).

They come complete with a Frank Frazetta cover (what could be more apt?) and it's nice to hear that the E-minor pentatonic scale is in pretty good hands and still doing what it does best.

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, the Colbert speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, with Bush just feet away, is one of the best political snippets I've seen in a long time. Pretty brave, and very amusing. Watch the variety of facial expressions and uncertain laughter from the audience (and Bush himself).

Local musician 'Mr Bonx' has written a short piece on East Grinstead's 101 Club in his usual unique style over at his website. The photo of the stage shows the typical Steerpike set up (they're the band I played bass in), and the story of the ceiling bowing from the dancing and jumping was at one of our gigs. When I was involved with the local entertainments guide '5D', we worked closely with the two chaps who were setting up the 101... it was all rather exciting. You can see from the gig list below (and here) how often we played there.

Embarrassing moment no.327: while working as a porter at a Gatwick hotel, I asked one of the chambermaids if she wanted a pass to this new venue called the 101 Club (I was in promotion mode, not flirting - at least I don't think I was). It was quite noisy in the canteen and she was horrified to (mis)hear I was asking her to go to something called the One-on-one club! I don't think she ever looked me in the eye again.

And a little story about Bonx and his old band, Pump. When 5D organised a birthday bash at Clair Hall in Haywards Heath in 1992, we had 5 or 6 bands play. Someone had to go on first, and the band we felt were the least well-known of the bunch (and they were all top local bands) was chosen. Upon hearing this, the band refused to participate, as they felt it was too early in the evening and the crowd would not be large enough yet. So we had to get a new band in quickly, and asked Pump. They were professional to the hilt - it is true the crowd was small that early, and mostly round the corner in the bar, but Bonx didn't even mention it and played one of the best and tightest sets of the night.

You know when sometimes you have two friends from competely different circles, and they just don't get on? Two people I greatly admire are H. Rider Haggard, the author of 'lost world romances' such as Allan Quatermain, and Charles Chaplin, the silent film comedian (etc.). While looking up something else in Haggard's diaries, I re-discovered this entry from 12 September 1921:

"The Press of England seems literally to have gone mad over the cinema star, Charlie Chaplin, and so have other people. Thus the Mayor of Southampton received him publicly on his arrival from America. Hideous pictures are published too of this very undistinguished-looking person, surrounded by crowds with folly stamped on every face. It really is extraordinary and as the Morning Post points out a great testimony of the power of the Publicity Agent who is working up all this excitement underneath."

I think he underestimated just how much people genuinely loved Chaplin, especially as he was coming back home after years in America. Sir Haggard was fairly elderly at this time, but there might have been a period earlier in his life when he wouldn't have minded a similar public reaction, but certainly not as a 'cinema star'. He evidently saw his prolific output of literature as a few steps above the art of the screen, though later his own adventure novels would go through a stage of being considered 'pulpy' - just about the same time that Chaplin's films were being branded intellectual (by some). Haggard's books would eventually re-emerge as classics too.

I hoped to see some mention of Rider Haggard in Chaplin's autobiography, but the only thread-thin connection I'm aware of is a photo of Charlie seated next to actress Alice Delysia, who played Ayesha in a 1916 version of Haggard's 'She'. Haggard was not beyond enjoying filmed versions of his own work, but was plagued by those who sought to adapt them illegally. Of the 1916 version Haggard wrote (5 Jun 1916) "The She film is going very well, nearly two million people having paid to see it already."

Here's a link to a related entry.

If you're a regular visitor you'll have noticed more site troubles. I was so disappointed with Easily's customer service last week that I haven't even complained this time, I've just signed up to a new webspace supplier and am moving everything over. There may be some slight disruption (still trying to sort out what to do with my email), but it has gone pretty smoothly so far. Eventually I will be moving all Rainbow Orchid stuff over as well, even though that already exists on a different account - which is fine, just a bit... well, cheap.

Episode two of The Rainbow Orchid now has its French translation available. Click on the little French flag in the control panel to read it (or click here to go directly to the new translation). Once again, my sincere thanks to the Forum Ligne Claire for their wonderful work.

From PaulHD...

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was working weekends as a porter at a mushroom farm, and trying to move out of a rented house I shared with an old friend, but we'd gone in different directions and had become, well, incompatible, I suppose. I was rehearsing to be in my first Shakespeare play, as Florizel in The Winter's Tale. I was drawing a short comic strip for Stephen Prestwood's Dark Zone. I was in a band called Jupiter Liar, playing bass, and I was just about to go off for a week to see Elyssa who was working in France.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

My brother and I had written an interactive Food Safety training course and it had just been bought up by a health and safety company. We were made directors of its new software department and were developing new products. We had a salary and our own office. I had a go at a 24-hour comic (which you can see here) and raised over £700 for charity in the process. I'd just started yoga, and also registered rainboworchid.co.uk as a domain name. Just coming up was the next London Chaplin Festival where I met some familiar faces (Dominique) and some new faces (Linda).

What were you doing 1 year ago?

Elyssa and I had sold our house but our own new purchase had fallen through, so we were living with Ellie's mother and her husband in Lingfield. I was very busy with quite a few jobs, all with deadlines at the end of April. I'd just decided to take up playing the theremin, and I was teaching myself php and MySQL by coding my own blogging system and members' area for the Rainbow Orchid site.

5 Snacks you enjoy.

I like crunchy savoury (perhaps even cheesy) things. I'm not sure I could be specific about five. Chocolate is good (is that a snack?).

5 Songs (you think) you know by heart

'Trail of the Lonesome Pine' (Laurel & Hardy version), 'Sunshine of Your Love' (Cream), 'War Pigs' (Black Sabbath), 'Fly Me to the Moon' (Sarah Vaughan version), 'Dido's Lament' (Henry Purcell).

5 Things you would do with a lot of money

Make sure family and friends were sorted. Publish Rainbow Orchid as a full colour album. Do something good (either to help the environment or international poverty - hopefully both). Buy a Rickenbacker bass guitar. Collect some very nice Second Afghan War items and open a small museum.

5 Things you would never wear

Anything trendy or deemed cool by magazines and columnists. Anything with ostentatious labelling. High heels. Baseball cap (or most hats, except a bobble). Sunglasses for any other reason than the sun is blinding me.

5 Things you should never have worn

A grass skirt and coconuts. Those tight white shorts while trampolining, on a full bladder, when I was 5. A succession of flowery/brightly coloured shirts to fit our band's image. My shoes, yesterday, when a spider was living in them. That Action Man head on the end of my tongue, when I was 9.

5 Things you enjoy doing

Creating comics. Karate. Yoga. Researching the Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878-1880. Playing musical instruments.

5 Bad habits you have

Procrastinating. Not liking the phone. Staying up too late. Never learning to use my little finger on stringed instruments. Taking notice of negative comments and not fully believing the positive ones.

5 people you would like to do this

How about charlesgirledna, Diana Kennedy, Subtle Superhero and Kelvin Green. But I'd be intrigued by anyone's answers from my blog links, so go for it.