http://www.mitchbenn.com en admin@notbbc.co.uk Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:32:17 +0000 http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/1252/help_me_out_here.html Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:13:45 +0100 Hi folks,Realise this blog isn't anything as like as busy as it used to be; I'm guessing the reason no-one's complaining much is that you're all following me on Twitter anyway.  Thing is, occasionally I have something to say to you all (and indeed to y'all) which needs more than 140 characters or even one of those annoying sequences of 140 character bursts, and this is such an occasion so Your Attention Please... http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/1106/podcast_and_club_ive_been_busy_and_im_getting_busier.html Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:45:37 +0000 Two new projects!Firstly, I've started a new podcast! http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/1084/proud_of_the_bbc_video_shoot_directions_etc.html Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:55:32 +0100 Rallying the twoops THE VIDEOOk, here's the plan. http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/1000/i_bet_that_shocked_you.html Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:41:41 +0100 The kind of apology I ought to make for the extraordinary length of time that's elapsed since my last entry (no, don't scroll down and check the date, I'm so ashamed... oh too late) will frankly a. take all night and b. completely ruin the mood, so can we just take it as read that I'm sorry?Ok? http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/968/sent_from_my_iphone.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:48:26 +0000 Rob the WebGenius to the rescue I have, let's be honest, been neglecting this place of late. Well not even of particularly late; rather since I discovered the delights of Twitter, and especially the ease with which one could update it on the move, using even a fairly basic mobile phone. http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/949/hoooooooooooo_boy.html Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:14:23 +0000 Rrright, first of all, it turns out that as it stands I CAN'T blog with the new iPhone. Not yet anyway. Some sort of cookies-related issue; Rob the webgenius is investigating as we speak.  What this means in the immediate term is that far from it suddenly becoming possible to update this blog on the move, I'm still stuck with updating it from my home iMac, which is a bummer since the very fact of my BEING at home usually means there's a dozen other things need doing. http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/930/past_present_present_present.html Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:45:04 +0000 It's that time again and so I thought I'd re-post the reading I made last year of the whole of Dickens's A Christmas Carol; it's in five "staves" (as in the book) - you can download 'em all at once or serialise it for yourself.  It's on the podcasts page.(While I'm here, many of you have been asking if I'm going to do any more podcasts; the answer is probably not in the same format as the ones I used to post, but I'm working on a whole new podcast format which I hope to kick off in the New Year - stay tuned etc.) http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/928/and_relax.html Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:23:00 +0000 A bit. So the tour's over; we ended in fine style at the Gulbenkian in Canterbury in front of an audience whose enthusiasm rivalled even that of the London show's crowd (and considering how many ringers - erm, I mean, Close Friends And Relations - we had in at the Bloomsbury, I think we might even say that the Canterbury crowd "won").  http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/913/hello_all_and_sorry_and_all_that_and_everything.html Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:46:35 +0000 I know it's been weeks and I'm getting as sick as everyone else of the fact that every entry on this blog now begins with a lengthy grovelling apology for the length of the gap since the last one, so shall we just say sod it, until at least the end of November (when the tour finishes and my life will return to what passes for "normality" in my case) this is how it's going to have to be with regard to blog entries and the frequency thereof.  Having said that, apparently Orange will finally stop teasing me and release their first iPhones in about three weeks after which I'll be able to update the blog while on the move (at the moment I can tweet using my phone but that's all).Speaking of Twitter, a day or so ago I made a promise to a Tweep acquaintance of mine to follow up more fully on a conversation we were having; basically (as far as I can tell) she's getting hassle from her family to study something at university which doesn't interest her but which they feel will give her the best job opportunities. A mutual friend of ours weighed in to the effect that she should do the degree which would help her get the job SHE wanted, rather than the job her parents thought she should get.  On reading this I felt compelled to join the discussion; I said I'd go further than that - I thought she should do whatever degree she'd enjoy doing the most, and sod the job prospects.  Realising that this might sound glib or reckless (not to mention a bit smug and complacent coming from a bloke who's managed to end up singing rude songs for a living) I promised to explain at length why this comment was not reckless hedonistic or irresponsible, but was in fact sage career advice.  This would take many many tweets to do properly, so it is to you, my poor neglected blog, that I turn. http://www.mitchbenn.com/blog/910/wondrous_stories.html Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:23:45 +0100 Here's the press blurb for the documentary I've been working on for the past few months.  I haven't heard the finished one but I've got a fair idea how it'll sound, and I hope everyone likes it.  I'm happy anyway as it gave the me the chance to meet a couple of heroes of mine for the first time; Jeff Wayne, of "...'s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds" immortality, and Brian Blessed. Jeff Wayne agreed to be interviewed on Horsell Common near Woking, the site of the first Martian landing in TWOTW (book and album; one thing we discussed is that for all that his record is a weird disco-prog hybrid concept album it's actually the only one of the myriad adaptations of TWOTW which even attempts to be faithful to the book) which was damned sporting of him considering the interview was for the radio, and dragging him all the way to darkest Surrey didn't really achieve anything sonically save for a bit of atmos we could have gotten off an FX CD.   He's a remarkably unassuming guy and quite humble about the record itself - I learned a few things I hadn't realised, such as the fact that he financed the whole recording himself, gambling every penny he and his whole extended family had on the project before he'd even attained a firm commitment from any record label to release the damn thing...