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weight blah

Monday 21st July 2008

About 22st 5lb, I reckon, so another 3lb lost.  This is going better than I'd hoped so far; the weight loss is bound to slow down to one or two pounds a week soon, but thanks again for all your support.

Weight watch

Saturday 19th July 2008

See what I did there?

I've got a new watch. Out of necessity, mainly; the one I'd been wearing for the last year or so had disintegrated and was being held on with a bit of gafffer tape. Not a good look. In fairness it did cost a fiver from a stall on Tottenham Court Road so I think I got my money's worth out of it.

However, rather than simply pick up another cheapo one to tide me over, Clara suggested I get a good one as a sort of self-reward for losing two stone. Apparently a lot of people run these little incentive schemes for themselves to help them sustain a weight-loss programme. While I'm sure it helps, if "incentive" were all I needed to lose weight I'd have done it decades ago: "So, if I do this, I'll be able to wear what I like, I'll feel better than I've ever felt before, I'll be less self-conscious, more self-confident, I won't be permanently saddled with feelings of guilt and inadequacy, I'll smell better and I'll live for twenty years longer, but what's in it for ME?"

So I'm not treating this as "incentive", rather every time I look at my watch I'll see what I've achieved and why, and why I should keep it up. And that I'm late again, probably.

Oh, and needless to say if I put that two stone back on, I have to take the watch off.

This is the watch here; it's from the leisurewear company Fat Face (appropriately enough); I like it because it's big and chunky without being bling, and also because, amusingly, from a distance and to the untrained eye it looks a bit like this, which has been the most desired watch in the world for the last decade or so since it became James Bond's official watch (and don't we bloody know it? During Pierce Brosnan's tenure it was so prominent in every publicity still of him that I began to suspect they'd made an extra-large model for this purpose, and it was given enough special spy functions to ensure it got two or three loving close-ups per movie. Daniel Craig's Bond still has one but since the new gadget-lite approach the 007 films are taking has deprived the watch of screen time, in Casino Royale it actually got a name check, for crying out loud).

Not that I'm going to start trying to pass this watch off as anything it isn't, mind you. This blog entry's rather blown that prospect anyway. Besides, I liked the fact that when my watch arrived in the mail this morning it came not in a box, but in a tin builder's mug with a tupperware lid, which I'm fairly sure the Omega doesn't. Ha ha, a free tin mug. Where's YOUR free tin mug, Mr. Bond?

Very funny

Thursday 17th July 2008

(if you get it)

Clara, on her way to bed, has pointed out that I haven't done a blog entry since Monday, and she's right. I wouldn't want this place's sole purpose to become me showing off about how much weight I've lost, but on the other hand I'm rather under the gun at the moment; it's 1.30am and I HAVE to get my Now Show stuff finished WITHOUT doing my usual staying-up-till-9am thing, as tomorrow's recording - for reasons which rather escape me - is happening at the Latitude rock festival in Southwold, which will require me getting into the centre of town by 1pm in order to get on The Now Show Minibus. Gaah.

So I thought I'd just post this, which I stumbled across at cracked.com while trawling for lyrical ideas. It's pretty funny and nicely done, and it combines a great bit of old AOR (which pleases me) with Brendan Fraser (which pleases Clara).

wibbly wobbly scaley-waley

Monday 14th July 2008

Okay, as far as I can tell from my bouncy mechanical scales, today I weigh either 22st 8lb or 22st 9lb.  Think I'll go with 22 8 as a. I'm feeling sympathetic towards myself as for some reason I couldn't sleep last night, and b. because it sets a bigger challenge for next week.

In any event I've now lost over two stone. 

par-ty

Sunday 13th July 2008

Previously on Desperate Housewizards...

So on Friday night I was at the Union Club on Greek Street for Jon Culshaw's birthday party (yes, I was invited); much fun was had and MUCH drink flowed, all of it on Jon's tab, the silly, generous man that he is.

I re-made a few acquaintances, specifically Sylvester McCoy, who'd been a guest on Out There, the paranormal talk show I used to host back in the early days of digital TV (and who either remembered me or did a creditable job of pretending to) and Nicola Bryant, who I'd met a few years ago at a Cult TV convention (and on whom I had the most insane crush back in the 80s, but then all male Who fans of my vintage did); she's about to open in a stage adaptation of Don't Look Now in the Julie Christie part.

I also met Jess Robinson, the female-impressionist-who-wasn't-Jan-Ravens on the TV version of Dead Ringers. I never saw that much of the TV Ringers, so I asked which impressions in particular she used to do. She responded with a list of female celebs before startling me by saying that perhaps her best impression was of Terry Pratchett. This threw me, as while I had no reason to doubt that Jess could pull off a decent Terry Pratchett, I couldn't quite see why anyone would want her to. Was Pratchett familiar enough a figure to BBC2 audiences to warrant an impression on Ringers? And if so, wouldn't they have got Jon or Mark Perry to do him? Why bury Jess's features under a bald wig and big false beard? I pondered all this aloud before Jess resolved the situation by saying, "Hang on, do I mean Terry Pratchett?"

She didn't.

She meant Teri Hatcher.

Rather good fan vid

Friday 11th July 2008

There are quite a few "fan-vids" people have made to accompany my songs on YouTube just now; some of them have obviously involved a bit of work, some of them just dub the song onto a single still or caption (but hey, if it gets my work heard by people who otherwise wouldn't it's ok by me); this one is the best to appear for a while. I've put it up on the Videos page but I thought it deserved a bit more attention so here it is:

Apples and lemons

Friday 11th July 2008

iDon'tPhone (yet)

I notice that they've been doing the whole queueing-up-all-night-thing outside the New York Apple Store in anticipation of the lauch of the new iPhone... I wonder if any of the current queuers were in the same queue a couple of years ago in the hope of being among the first to own an original iPhone, and subsequently complained bitterly a few months later when Apple halved the price. Bet you some of them were. Early Adopters never learn.

I'm impressed with the iPhone as a piece of design, as I always am with anything Apple do, although I'm not that enticed by it yet. I think Apple were a bit surprised that the rabid enthusiasm that greeted its US launch wasn't quite replicated over here, but that's more a reflection of the fact that American mobile telephony is a good few years behind European, technologically speaking. The Americans had literally never seen anything like the iPhone; we'd all seen phones that could do everything the iPhone does and indeed more, if perhaps not quite so stylishly. It didn't even shoot videos, which my little Sony Ericsson does, and I got that for free.

I'm still a complete Apple snob, mind you, and I think "snobbery" is what it is rather than anything more reasoned. I just like Apple products. When you're used to Macs, PCs seem tacky and clunky by comparison. I don't know if Macs really do anything PCs can't or whether they even do the same things better, they just do them in a more pleasing way.

And there's something almost sensual about just HOW good Apple product design is. The first time I saw an iPod Touch I found myself turning it over and over in my hands, like I was admiring a rare jewel or something. Last week when Jon Holmes turned up to the The Now Show with his new MacBook Air, we were all taking turns gasping and sighing over its impossible-seeming sleekness. And it occurred to me that, say what you like about Apple (and I've had a few problems with them recently), people just don't react that way to other computers. Nobody purrs with lust while fondling a Hewlett Packard. Nobody bills and coos over a Dell like it's a newborn infant. No-one runs their fingers sensuously over the contours of an Acer monitor.

Anyway, as regards the iPhone, I'm going to give it another couple of years I think, by which time it'll be half the size, cost £30, you'll be able to use it on whatever network you like and operate it with your mind.

I expect better than this

Tuesday 8th July 2008

... much better

In many ways I'm the archetypal Guardian reader. I grew up in a Guardian reading household, I've contributed to it myself a couple of times and I'm pretty much the model of the sort of smug liberal intellectual it's aimed at. Which is why this rather made my gorge rise.

Come on guys, you're not the bloody Sun or the Express. You're just as appalled as the rest of us when one of the trashloids drags out all the wearisome and skin-crawling Nazi clichés ahead of any and every sporting clash between Enger-land and Germany, so why are you stooping to that level?

I mean seriously, what the f__k does creamed rice have to do with Nazism?

I know this is just a bit of filler for the weekend guide, but you know, people still read it, and some of them - myself included - will have been left feeling rather soiled by the experience. If you can't write about any remotely German topic without resorting to Nazi gags, then grow the hell up and write about something else. I expect better than this from you.

PS and I just KNOW someone's going to throw this at me, but that's different. I could explain why, but that would take ages.

weight update (again)

Monday 7th July 2008

It's Monday and I've bought ANOTHER set of scales.

So, back to Argos with a mutinous Greta in tow (the sheer tedium of shopping in Argos never quite hits you until you're forced to experience it vicariously from the point of view of a two-year old); swapped the crappy electronic scales for some ol' fashioned mechanical ones. Less to go wrong or that's the theory anyway.

Well they work; how accurate they are is hard to tell (that's the case with any scales, mind you). In particular when I'm on 'em the needle does wobble a lot (possibly because I'm right up near the end of their tolerance) and as such you do rather have to make a good guess based on where it's wobbling to and from. In any event I reckon they're showing my weight as somewhere around 22st 12lb, so that's what I've told the WW site and that's what I'm posting here. I'll be able to chart my general progress with these scales which if anything matters more to me than knowing exactly what I weigh at any given time.

Thanks again for your messages of support.

PS and I've now seen Doctor Who so it's okay to talk to me again.

arse!

Saturday 5th July 2008

Spoil this and I'll find you and kill you

So I'm in Leeds, sitting in the foyer of the Radisson Hotel, where they have an internet terminal which guests (like myself) can use for free. Finding this terminal gave me a glimmer of hope, one that has now been dashed as it turns out that this computer is way too old and shonky to handle BBC iPlayer (took two or three goes to log onto this blog, which should give you an idea how old and shonky).

You see the reason I'm in Leeds is that I'm playing Leeds Jongleurs this weekend; on a Saturday they have two shows, early and late. The early show starts at 7pm and I'll be on stage soon after 7.30 which means I'M GOING TO MISS THE SEASON FINALE OF DOCTOR WHO.

Of course when I say "miss" I don't mean miss completely, nobody ever misses anything completely in this day and age. I should have it recorded when I get home (Sky+ don't fail me now) and there's always iPlayer on the iMac to fall back on. It's just that the level of anticipation generated by last week's episode has built up such a head of steam, that I know the MINUTE it's resolved (specifically the is-he-isn't-he question, although in fairness I think I know the answer to that one) there's going to be such an explosion of reaction, discussion and chatter about it that I'm going to find it VERY hard to avoid having it spoiled for me. I've already texted all my most Who-happy friends ORDERING them not to send me excited did-you-see-that texts this evening, as no, I won't have.

The real problem's going to be tomorrow; I have two afternoon gigs, one in Banbury and one in Oxford, and I just KNOW someone's going to blurt at me before I can get safely back home. If there were time I'd seriously consider getting a t-shirt printed with SHUT UP, I HAVEN'T SEEN DOCTOR WHO YET. My life for the next day and a half is going to be that Likely Lads ep where they're trying not to find out the football results before seeing the match on telly, except in 60s Newcastle you didn't have the internet, mobile phones and text messaging to worry about.

In the unlikely event any of you read this in the couple of hours between now and DW, or if you read this between now and Sunday evening (when all being well I will finally get to see it) please DON'T try and convey what happens to me "for a joke". I won't laugh. I will be cross. I may well twist your head off.

Seriously.

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