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d'oh

Tuesday 19th May 2009

Clean forgot to post my weight yesterday; weighed myself first thing then dashed out to do radio stuff (see news page) and it slipped my mind for the rest of the day.  But thank to those of you who pointed it out.

21 3, so half a pound gone.

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a metaphorical question

Monday 18th May 2009

Something else you might be able to help me with; this has just turned up on YouTube.  Now I quite like this song musically but I've never considered putting it on an album because I alwaye thought it was too dependent on context - if you didn't know the story behind my writing it, I wasn't sure it'd make any sense.

Anyway, its sudden and belated appearance (for which thanks to "ohfrankie196") presents me with the opportunity to test this.  So, those of you who haven't heard this song before...  does it stand on its own merits?  Is it still funny even if you don't know the background story?  Answers to mitchbenn@hotmail.com...

 

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just to recap...

Thursday 14th May 2009

The showbiz adventures of Mitch Benn

I've had quite a starry couple of weeks, by my standards...

First of all last Saturday-but-one I was at Hampton Court to see Rick Wakeman perform his "Six Wives of Henry VIII" suite.  The show was rather more moving and engaging on an emotional level than you'd expect two-plus hours of noodly prog could be...  To begin with, there was the knowledge that this was the fulfilment of a long-cherished ambition of Rick's; when he first created the piece back in 1973 he approached Hampton Court with a view to performing it in the grounds; their response at the time was something along the lines of "Piss off, hippy". 

Of course, a lot has changed since 1973, not least the rise to authority of the generation who included Rick's original fanbase, and with the 500th anniversary of the start of Big H's reign having led the powers-what-be at Hampton Court to decree that All Stops Shall Be Pulled Out Henry VIII-wise, it was actually Hampton Court who approached Rick with the idea of staging the concert.

The gig itself was enriched - and considerably lengthened - by the presence (and I mean PRESENCE) of Brian Blessed as narrator.  Ostensibly there to read out short explanatory links between the "movements", he embellished these with exclamations of horror and triumph as appropriate, and great rambly reminiscences of his own time working on the 1970 film Henry VIII And His Six Wives (he played the Earl of Suffolk, don't you know).  In fairness to Brian, I have it on good authority that he was asked to pad things out a bit to give Rick time to re-programme his customarily gargantuan keyboard rig between "numbers".  It occurred to me late in the performance that Brian wasn't holding a microphone.  I suppose he was wearing some sort of clip-on mic, but seeing as it was Brian it's entirely possible he wasn't being amplified at all...

The show's finale was a new piece Rick had composed for the occasion entitled Tudor Rock; this concluded with Rick (in ermine cape, naturellement) and the ensemble's other keyboardist, Rick's son Adam (currently with Black Sabbath and one of very few rock keyboard players who can hold a candle to his old man), front and centre, engaged in a blistering keytar duel.  I'm not ashamed to say a lump came the throat at this.

 

A couple of days later Clara and I were in a private viewing room in the Mayfair Hotel to see a preview of Coraline, the new film from stop-motion genius Henry Selick, based on the novel by my good friend Neil Gaiman. 

Neil and Henry gave short addresses before the screening. Henry Selick, you'll be pleased to hear, seems to have been designed and animated by Henry Selick.   He's tall and gangly with a long, bony but friendly face, his speech was given in a fruity baritone and illustrated with all manner of gesticulations.  I was half expecting him to launch into a Danny Elfman musical number.

The film itself is literally mind-blowing; in this age of CG it's almost unfathomable that what you're looking at is actually an array of solid objects, hand-manipulated one frame at a time.  Moreover it was the 3D print we saw; the film's use of the technique is artful rather than gimmicky; it folds the movie around you so that the highs and lows hit home even harder. 

Which brings me to my only note of caution; as Neil said in his intro, Coraline is A Horror Movie For Kids.  It has some fantastically startling images and some primally disturbing themes - don't let the little plasticine girl on the poster fool you, this AIN'T your Disney Channel Saturday morning territory.  I'll wait until Greta's eight or nine before I let her see it; I reckon at that age it'll be her favourite movie ever... were she to see it now, she'd never get a decent night's sleep again.

 

Most of the rest of that week was taken up with Astrid's first birthday party, preparations therefore and tidying up thereafter.  My parents stayed around for a few days afterwards, so on Friday I was able - to my immense delight - to take my Dad to the Kingston Odeon to see the new Star Trek movie.  He it was, after all, who first sat me down in front of the old steam-driven TV to watch Classic Trek back when it was on BBC1 on the early 70s, so it was nice to "return the favour".  We both loved the movie... it's exactly what someone needed to do to trek to re-invigorate what had become a very weary franchise, and how clever of JJ to engineer a scenario in which he's free to embrace those bits of "established' Trek history he likes, and blithely ignore those bits he can't be bothered with.

 

Finally, this Monday last I suited up and went to The Sony Awards at the Grosvenor Hotel.  The Now Show was nominated in the best comedy category for the first time since 2004, and as in 2004 we got the bronze.  One more and (I reckon) that adds up to a whole one.  It was a bit depressing as our award was about the fourth announced out of thirty or so, so having had our hopes dashed in the first few minutes we then had to sit there for hours.  

On the plus side, everybody was either genuinely pleased to see me or deemed it politic to pretend to be, and either suits me. Rick was there again, as was Phil Glenister (who I sort of know through rather odd channels) and I had many encouraging conversations along the why-don't-we-work-on-something-together lines.  Probably the vino talking, but I'm still going to chase them all up.  That'll teach 'em.

 

Blimey, look at that!  I was just going to post a quick entry to bring you up to speed on what I've been up to and I appear to have written a novel.  I think I might just have been so relieved not to be restricted to 140 characters for once that I've gone a bit mad...

 

 

 

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weight (repeat till fade)

Monday 11th May 2009

21 3 and a half again, so no change from last week.  There have been a couple of off-the-wagon moments this week, what with Astrid's birthday and all (although not as bad as you'd imagine; one thing I discovered on Thursday is if you're in charge of a barbecue trying to cook food for about 20 people, you yourself don't get to eat that much of it) but I have been getting more exercise; rowing, walking to Kingston and the like.

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row row row

Wednesday 6th May 2009

Just a quick one to let you know I haven't forgotten all about you, and to tell you that I've been on my rowing machine a fair bit these last few days. For a horrible couple of days I thought my right knee was going the way of the left one (see blogs passim, particularly around December '07) - I'd spent a day shifting furniture and was rewarded with ominous twinges - but, so far at least, it's been okay and as such i've felt able to step up the exercises.

I like my rower, it's not one of your Argos jobbies, it's a big f__k-off gym standard model I got on eBay a couple of years ago.  Had to get a real one as the "home" models tend to have a maximum weight tolerance of about 15 stone (quite what the point of that is I can't imagine).  I've never gotten as much use out of it as I'd like, and not just for reasons of laziness...  It was only a few months after I got it that the knee gave out, and by the time the knee was better we'd put out flat on the market; we were desperate to sell it in what was already a falling market, and since there's nothing makes a flat look smaller than it is than a bloody great rowing machine taking up half the living room, into storage it went.

There it remained until a couple of weeks ago, when I made a space for it beinhd the sofa in our new place.  The fact that it still took a while to get round to using the thing probably IS down to laziness, if I'm honest.

Maybe also a hint of trepidation; when you haven't exercised for a while it's a daunting prospect, whereas once you're back in the groove it's much easier.  And I'm pleased to say that the knee(s) held out, and somewhere in the back of my mind some dormant happy Viking race memories were awoken.

Anyway, must go; I'm being interviewed on BBC TV news AND the World Service this evening on the matter of John Cleese's diss on modern comedy writers.  

 

 

 

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..and weighting

Monday 4th May 2009

Looks like 21 3 and a half, so half a pound down, which is good in as far as it goes, but I notice to my shame that I haven't blogged all week. I apologise profusely. 

 I think perhaps my blogging is suffering because of Twitter, which I can update using my phone whenever I like...  Maybe I'll ask Rob The Webgenius if he can set something up which would enable me to blog with the phone.  Twitter is occasionally frustrating when you've got something to say which can't be expressed in 140 characters; perhaps I could channel that frustration here.

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weighting

Monday 27th April 2009

STILL 21 4. Been careful food-wise this week but haven't managed to get  any proper exercise, with one thing or another (ill babies, gigging more or less every day). With The Now Show being over for a couple of months I may have a bit more time now (or maybe not; hassle's like a gas - it expands to fill the available space).

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don't try this at home

Thursday 23rd April 2009

... or indeed anywhere else

I forget whether it was during the 2006 or 2007 Edinburgh fringe, but one afternoon I was sitting in front of one of my favourite Edinburgh haunts from my uni days, Negociants Café, when I saw something remarkable.  The street Negs (as we used to call it) is on is a dual carriageway, and on the central reservation-bit there are a couple of those waist-high steel boxes which contain circuit breakers and the like for traffic lights.  As I drank my coffee (it will have been coffee; back when I was a student Negs was the first place I ever saw or used a cafétiere so I enjoy their coffee for nostalgic reasons, above and beyond the fact that it's good coffee) a young man on a mountain bike came hurtling directly toward these boxes.  Astonishingly, he neither smashed into nor jumped over the boxes, rather he and his bike, at the last second before impact, sprang into the air and landed deftly on TOP of the first box, balanced up there on one wheel for a few seconds, then hopped across onto the SECOND box, balanced, then hopped down to the ground and sped off on his way, to the sound of rapturous applause from the assembled gobsmacked onlookers.

Edinburgh's so replete with performers pulling off guerilla promotional stunts during the festival that I think most of those who saw this assumed that it was something along those lines, despite the fact that the man neither paused to hand out flyers nor did he appear to have any accomplices along to do so for him.  He just did his stunt and disappeared, and I've often wondered who he was.

Well thanks to bbc.co.uk I now know that he's called Danny Mackaskill, and that thanks to YouTube he's become a bit of a global phenomenon. This is him here:

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weight

Monday 20th April 2009

21 4, same as last week.  I'm off for a walk.

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it's been a bad week

Sunday 19th April 2009

... but it's getting better

Sorry you haven't heard much from me this week; it's been a trying few days here at Benn Towers...  Had some very sad news this week (nothing I feel like going into the specifics of, if you don't mind) which in turn gave rise to some slightly surreal scheduling complications, while all the time having to maintain my comedy mojo at a sufficient level to do a bunch of gigs and write a bunch of songs despite not being even remotely in the mood. 

Anyway, life goes on, and today at least provided a fun afternoon at the "Victorian" (rather more 1960s if you ask me) funfair on Ham Common.  This seems to have been designed with us - or more specifically, Greta - in mind.  All the rides were safe and size-appropriate for her, and there was a notable absence of the hordes of intimidating yoofs who generally populate funfairs (probably precisely because this one is all a bit kiddie-ish for them).  Greta seems to be genuinely utterly fearless; she relished every minute of every ride, even the slightly hair-raising rotary swing-thing, and flung herself down the big bouncy slide with such vigour she nearly bounced herself clean off of it and out into mid-air. 

Meanwhile, this has turned up on YouTube; it's nicely done and I'm quite proud of this song so it's gratifying that "upsetmama" has taken the time to do this:

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