I don't blame it.

Update - tickets for the next three Priory Engagements now available on the doodle list



Sorry for the silence - busy times. Thank you if you came to the try-out last week, it was lovely to see you. As it will be if you're coming to the try-out tomorrow. As before, do please take yourself off the doodle list if you find you can't come after all, so that someone else can in your place. Although I have also just added ten extra tickets, so if you wanted to come but thought you were too late... you're not. In other news, I was on the Now Show today, which'll be on iPlayer for a week; and will be on two episodes of the next series of The Unbelievable Truth.

Anyway. There are many, many things the Vatican and I disagree on, which I'm sure must be a source of great sadness to them. So, it was a pleasure this week to discover that there is at least one issue on which the Vatican and I are in total and cordial agreement.

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.