Grrr. Vrroom.

If Friday is dragging, here's a little game.  Pretend you're an eight year old boy who's just been told he can change his name to anything he likes. Think of the coolest, manliest, most ludicrously macho name you can possibly imagine. Got it? Well, whatever you've come up with, I believe I know of an Italian conductor from 1911 who can outdo you.

Mostly Admin

Just to say, the tickets for the first three John Finnemore's Priory Engagement have now sold out. I have downloaded the names and emails on the Doodle list as it stands at the moment - if your name is on the list, your ticket will be reserved at the door until 7:45 on the day or days you ticked; and can be paid for on the door.  

If between now and then you find you can't come, that's fine; but could you take your name off the Doodle list, so that someone else can come in your place. However, to guard against someone simply removing a name to free up a space (though I know perfectly well that no-one reading this would dream of doing a mean thing like that) could you also please drop a line - no explanation needed, it can just be as simple as 'not coming on the 18th' - to the following email address: the last two words of the show, the ones with the initials P.E., all one word, @hotmail.co.uk; using the email address you gave when you put your name down. Thanks.

There will be more shows in the run - if this experiment works, I'll put them up on Doodle in the same way in a week or two. If it doesn't, we'll just have to go back to rotten old booking fees. But I bet it will. 

And now, as a poor reward for wading through that dull wodge of information that statistically is very unlikely to be relevant to you, an advert on the tube which made me laugh.

Not even this one! And this one's in a pond! 

Anyway, here's a drawing of Andrew Marr

Click to enbiggerate

John Finnemore's Priory Engagement

Well, spring is in the air, the snowdrops are gambolling in the meadows, the lambs are thrusting their little noses up through the earth, and the rabbits... I don't know what the rabbits are doing. Something springish. Cleaning, maybe. Anyway, what all this means for me is that it's about time I organised another run of my sort-of-secret-unless-you-read-this-blog sketch nights, to try out material for the next series of my Radio 4 show, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme.

So... I have done. Unfortunately, the pub we used last year has turned its performance space into a restaurant, the food-crazed fools; but I've found another I think will be even better: the excellent Priory Tavern in Kilburn. So, do please come along, if you fancy it, to John Finnemore's Priory Engagement;  8pm every other Sunday starting in two weeks time, on the 18th March. Each show will be completely different material, mostly written in the fortnight before. It'll be about an hour and a half long, including interval, costs £7, and is suitable for ages 12 and up. Last year's run featured Jekyll and Hyde's domestic arrangements; what The Archers sounds like to people who don't listen to The Archers, and the chilling tale of the man who went for a walk... and saw a goat. What this year's will feature, I literally do not yet know.

As an experiment to try to avoid people having to pay the ridiculous booking fees which were such a feature last year,  I've put a list up here you can go to to book seats for the first three performances. There are only 80 seats per show, so do please take your name off again if it turns out you can't come.

Right! I suppose I'd better go and write the first one, then...

Transport of delight.

I was on a bus the other day, and I can't explain it, but some sixth sense gave me an overwhelming feeling that two of my fellow passengers had just fallen in love.

Oh, and I just thought I'd mention that voting for the Chortle Awards closes in 24 hours, at noon on Friday. Just in case you wanted to vote for anyone. Anyone at all.

Three people I sat near this week.

Click to embiggen.

(Personal note for people who know my friend Greg: the third guy is not my friend Greg. He's an Australian barman who must absolutely play my friend Greg if (when) Hollywood make a movie of the My Friend Greg Story. I have no idea if he can act. Nor do I care.)

Also, I'm on the Now Show again today - 12.30 on Radio 4,  and iPlayer for a week thereafter - trying to work out whether sanctimonious atheists or mock-persecuted Christians are more irritating. It's basically a draw.

Too much of a mediocre thing.

I came across an excellent book the other day. It was called 'What Will I Do With All Those Courgettes?' That's what I call a title. Straight away, the author has asked a question that demands to be answered. The potential reader may try to move on to read the spines of other books on the shelf, but a part of him or her will be unable to stop thinking. 'Yes... but what will she do with all those courgettes?

That's what happened to me, so I took the book down from the shelf. The front cover was... everything I could have hoped for.

So, I had a look in the book, so that I'll be fore-warned and fore-armed if - when -  the courgettes come for me.

Now, perhaps you, like me, have at this point assumed that this is an eye-catching title for a book of recipes  about dealing with all sorts of seasonal gluts. Courgettes, certainly, but also blackberries, tomatoes, apples...  After all, this was a proper book-sized book - about 200 pages - it could hardly ALL be courgette recipes, could it?

Oh yes. It could.

Though that's not to say the author didn't have to, er, stretch a little at times. Here are some of my favourites:

I like the note about it being possible to use other vegetables in place of 'the ones mentioned' (SPOILER: courgettes.) So, basically, this courgette omelette recipe boils down to 'Make an omelette. Put courgettes in it. (You don't have to put courgettes in it.)' And from there it's only a short step to...

So, that's 'Pizza-with-anything', featuring as the primary ingredient 'basic pizza shell'. 

1) Buy a pizza. 2) Put stuff on it. 3) Yeah, including courgettes. If you must. 

But the piece de resistance is surely...

...you know, I think they will. I think by the time you are rendered so desperate by the unstoppable influx of courgettes that you're reduced to sticking them in a chocolate cake, your friends will be pretty damn familiar with your 'secret ingredient'. Also, you won't have any friends. You'll be the weird courgette lady. Kids will throw stones at your house. And you will throw courgettes at the kids. 

1 thing I drew this week - Thing One

Occasional drawing posts are for life, not just for advent. So here, have a Dame Maggie Smith.

Why don't you get yourself a little trophy?

More good news - there is to be a second series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme! We don't know precisely when yet; but we do know that there will be six episodes this time round. Which means that, along with series four of Cabin Pressure, I now have twelve half hours of radio comedy to write. Gulp.

Also, the lovely people at the British Comedy Guide Awards have voted C.P. best radio sitcom of 2011, and J.F's S.P. best radio sketch-show. Thank you, them!

Filthy lucre.

No, it's fine, really. If anything, I'm glad it's out of service...

Shameless self-publicity. (Warning- may contain traces of shame.)

Two quick bits of news: firstly, I was on The Unbelievable Truth earlier this week, mostly lying about crocodiles. I am very proud of my triumphant final score of No Points. What a magnificent achievement! Mind you, it wasn't easy to concentrate with all the wounded, terrified quail flapping about the theatre.

Anyway, that should still be on the iPlayer for a bit; and then I did another one which will go out in three weeks' time. And in between, I'm on the News Quiz next week. So, good news for people who enjoy my half-baked opinions, or my fully baked lies about pasta. Mmmmm. Pasta bake.

The other piece of news is that Cabin Pressure has been nominated for an audio drama award for best comedy. So, that's nice.

The best thing before sliced bread...

...was, it turns out, wrapped bread. Here's the proof:

Just thought you'd like to know.

That's what it says on his business cards.

A new entry in my occasional, and very niche, series: Favourite Guess In The Game 'Articulate' Played Over Christmas. (If you don't know it, 'Articulate' is a board game where you try to get your team-mates to say as many of the words on the card as possible without using those words yourself.)

Describer: [Trying to get the guesser to say the word 'Adder'] 'Black (pause) Rowan Atkinson...'
Guesser: 'Lenny Henry!'

24 Things I drew this month - Thing Twenty Four. Plus...Cabin Pressure news.

Click for paramount version

Happy New Year! From me, and from all the crew at MJN Air. Which, I am happy to be able to tell you, WILL be returning for a fourth series. We don't know when yet, but my best guess is sometime in the second half of this year. 

Thank you for reading, and for all your nice comments about my drawings this month. Normal service will now be resumed. 

Oh yes it is.

Hello, hope you had the merriest of Christmasses. If you are wondering where the twenty-forth thing I drew this month is, it will be here tomorrow. In the meantime, you might enjoy listening to the Radio Four Panto I wrote with my friend and ex double act partner Kevin Baker. It's on at 6.15 tonight, stars Sandi Toksvig and Andy Hamilton, and features loads and loads of other Radio Four names, from Kirsty Young to Nicholas Parsons. If you like Radio Four, I think you'll enjoy it. If you don't listen to Radio Four much, it will be largely incomprehensible.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Twenty Three

Something a little jollier today...

24 Things I drew this month - Thing Twenty Two

Bah, Humbug.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Twenty One

Also woof. 

24 Things I drew this month - Thing Twenty

Woof.

24 Things I drew this month - Thing Nineteen

Here, have a scribbly opera house.

Buildings are really dull to draw, it turns out. Glad I'm not an architect.

24 Things I drew this month - Thing Eighteen

Whoops, late again. So, first today, here's something to make you glad it's not summer.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Seventeen

There is actually a perfectly good explanation for why I have spent some of this evening making a paper model of a tube train driven by Queen Victoria, and carrying, among others, Isaac Newton, Morecambe and Wise, Henry VIII and Winnie the Pooh.

Hard though I accept that may be to believe.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Sixteen

24 things I drew this month - Thing Fifteen

I've only drawn one line today; but in fairness it is quite a complicated line. 

Click for bigger (actually, that goes for any of these drawings) 

Team A

Team B

24 things I drew this month - Thing Fourteen

24 things I drew this month - Thing Thirteen

Another scribbly one, but I thought it was time I tried drawing something that wasn't a face or an animal. Or the face of an animal. So, here's this. 

24 things I drew this month - Things Twelve a, Twelve b, Twelve c and Twelve d.

I was away at the weekend, so I took a sketchbook, and tried doing some quick, rough sketches of people unlucky enough to sit near me, before they either moved or noticed. Also, to encourage me to be fast and loose, I tried not rubbing anything out; with mixed results, as you'll see.

On the train up:

In a cafe: (That's a tumbler of orange juice in front of him; he's not a giant with a pint.)

At the barber's:

In the pub:

24 things I drew this month - Thing Eleven

Yes, that last one was meant to be Stephen Fry, but it didn't quite come off. The mouth is all wrong. Similarly, this one is meant to be William Hague, and has also not quite come off. Caricature is hard. You see, this is why I normally make faces up - then you can't get them wrong.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Ten

Oh dear - missed a day again. I'll put two up today to compensate. Here's the first. 

24 things I drew this month - Thing Nine

Funny how one thing leads to another. The monsters came from the buffalo, but then I had such fun drawing the big guy at the back that I spent an hour today doodling thugs and villains. This one's my favourite. 

...but he's ever so good to his dear old Mum.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Eight

Monsters! (Part 2)

My scanner's not quite big enough for it, but you get the gist. Monsters. That's the gist.