Please Release Me CD

I'm a big fan of radio drama, and yet I rarely manage to listen to it live. As with this post about unreleased DVDs, there are several audio stories that are as yet unavailable and I would love to see them released on CD:


Nebulous, series 2 & 3
The first series is currently available and it's criminal that the latter series haven't followed it.

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Discworld
The BBC has broadcast full cast adaptations of Discworld novels Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, Night Watch, as well as readings of The Colour of Magic, Equal Rites and Wee Free Men, and the first Johnny Maxwell novel Only You Can Save Mankind, but none have been made commercially available, despite the huge potential audience.

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The League Of Gentlemen's Ghost Chase
It's a joy to listen to the reunited League members during their visit to a haunted house and I'd love to hear an At The BBC style release which collects their radio interviews and appearances with this documentary.

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Any suggestions for radio and audio that really should be out on CD (or download) by now?

The Noughties Blogfest

I wrote a Review-Of-The-Year type post of my favourite Films/TV/Music/Books/Comics etc at the end of last year, and I enjoyed the process enough that I decided to continue writing them working backwards, one per month.

It was largely an excuse to watch lots of DVDs, re-read old comics and reacquaint myself with music that I like, but now that I have almost finished writing for a whole decade I would like to do something with these posts.

So I am announcing today that on the 14th of November I will be holding The Noughties Blogfest.


The blog post for 2000 will go up on the last day of October and then on the 14th of November I invite you to tell me about your favourite things from the Noughties.

Choose one thing from each year from 2000 to 2009, be it a film, a TV show, a radio show, a particular episode of a TV or radio show, a piece of theatre, a book, a comic, a song, an album, a gig, a piece of artwork, something online or something else entirely, and then tell us what you love about it.

If it helps, my posts on 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000, may jog your memory...

Here are the details on how to take part:

• Leave your name and link on the linky below.

• Feel free to publicise the blogfest on your blog, facebook, twitter, etc and post the above image on your blog if you wish.

• On the 14th of November post a favourite something for each year 2000-2009, and tell us what you love about each of them.

• Visit as many other participating bloggers as you can. Compare, contrast and comment on their choices.




Join Us...

Native Spirit Festival

Written Out Of History is being shown tomorrow as part of the 5th Annual Native Spirit Festival at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.


The screening is taking place at the School of Oriental and African Studies' Khalili Lecture Theatre at 9.10 pm followed by a Q & A with direcors Max Carocci and Simona Piantieri.

School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London,
Thornhaugh Street,
London,
WC1H

Nearest Tube: Russell Square

The festival is organised by volunteers and all proceeds from ticket sales go towards Native Spirit Foundation projects.

Monitor

Tonight I will be taking part in a performance at Soho House called Monitor orchestrated by Olivia Plender.

Monitor was the first arts and culture documentary series broadcast on the BBC. The piece takes the form of a reconstruction of an instalment from 1960 called Private View about young artists living in London and the dialogue comes directly from a transcript of the episode.

I'm playing the artist James Howie who died earlier this year.

The piece has been performed before and here's what Olivia said about it last time around.

The Big Three Oh

I'm thirty years old today.

Carruthers Cartoons #2

At times I have adapted other people's art for use in the Carruthers blog, here are a few examples:

Gi Lewis drew the original picture of Mr Carruthers' face, which became a silhouette and so Exhibit D features a combination of the aforementioned silhouette coloured a not particularly mustardy-sort-of-a-yellow and something from a game.

A tiny version of the same silhouette is somewhere in a Where's Wally picture The Gobbling Gluttons by Martin Handford, try and find him in Wally Folly. If you want to cheat, the answers are here.

For the first of our sitcom porn posts I amended the DVD covers of I'm Alan Partridge & Extras to sound filthier.

To accompany a set of mixed reviews I inserted a photograph of Andy and Mike from the sitcom porn video onto the screen in an empty cinema for Video Ga Ga

Five Days 'Til Thirty

After the first twenty-five (1-5, 6-15, 16-25) daysworth of the Evening Standard list of thirty things to do before you're thirty.

Here are the last five daysworth of the Evening Standard list of thirty things to do before you're thirty.

Day 26
Find yourself

I'm over here.

Evening Standard: "The gap yah gag is largely funny because 18 is too young to think about anything meaningfully. However, 25 is not, and working out what you believe in should be wrapped up before family life takes over."

The Gap Yah gag isn't funny.

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Day 27
Have a summer of love

That implies that the chances of summers of love are over as soon as you hit thirty.

ES: "What is a proper summer without a new fling and a hedonistic trip to Glasto? Go before you start caring about hygiene."

I've never been to Glastonbury, but I have been to Reading, V, Lovebox and the like. If you go to a festival and you're more bothered about some fling or hygiene, then you are in the wrong place. Or maybe go back on a different weekend when it's just a field.

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Day 28
Get a second life

One's difficult enough.

ES: "Don't let work become life. Extracurricular activities could also help you unearth your real passion. Start a supper club, join a band or free-run through London."

I want my work to become life, I just need a bit more work.

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Day 29
Sleep when you're dead

OK...

ES: "Everyone knows the best fun starts after midnight. A hangover at work? So what, Alka-Seltzer is your friend …"

"The best fun starts after midnight", well it did in Gremlins.
This is great advice. Why not just cut out the middleman and keep drinking? Be drunk at work? The streets of London are full of people who replace the kind of "extracurricular activities" mentioned above with drinking.

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Day 30
Start a business

Done.

ES: "Four in 10 London undergraduates run their own businesses. Take the plunge while you still have nothing to lose."

I'm registered as self employed, so in that sense I am a business.

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Marks out of thirty? I suppose about eleven.