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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.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Seven

Monsters!  (Part One)

24 things I drew this month - Thing Six

Work in progress.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Five

...and, hopefully just sneaking in under the wire of midnight, please accept this complimentary dodo.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Four

Hello, sorry, I was at the Winter Festival in Hay on Wye yesterday; without my scanner or indeed my computer. So, here's yesterday's Thing, a quick caricature of someone I saw at the festival:

...And I'll put today's up later tonight, and we'll be on track again.

24 things I drew this month - Thing Three

Given that the word 'buffalo' is the name of an animal, a city in America where that animal could theoretically be found and a verb meaning to bully; the following sentence, invented by linguist William J. Rapaport,  is grammatically correct: 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.' The meaning is that buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by other buffalo from Buffalo, themselves go on to buffalo a third group of buffalo from Buffalo. A tragic glimpse there into the vicious cycle of abuse rife in the bison community of upstate New York. William J. Rapaport, by the way, is an associate professor at the University of Buffalo. So, presumably, this is all based on an eye-witness account. Anyway, the point is... here is a drawing of a buffalo. 

24 things I drew this month - Thing Two

Pip pip.

By the way, if you happen to be going to the Hay on Wye Winter Festival this weekend, I will be there, doing this. Do come along.

24 things I drew this month - Thing One

Ok, this blog needs a bit of a kick to get it moving again, so just for a month I'm going to turn it into a sketchbook-blog. Every day from today until Christmas Eve, I'm going to post something I've drawn that day. Like a sort of horrible advent calendar, only instead of charming pictures of robins and snowmen; dodgily shaded pictures of grumpy old men. Speaking of which...

It's of a man I sat opposite on the tube. I call it 'Man I Sat Opposite On The Tube'.

Interlude

Sometimes in life, I feel it's important, as we are borne along by a constant tide of events; as we are bombarded with information and opinion on all sides, and try hopelessly to synthesise from it some sort of reasonably coherent personal philosophy; as we wrestle with our worries, our hopes and our fears for ourselves, our families, for mankind itself... that we find a moment to pause amidst the hurley-burley, and say, simply:

'Wow. That's a really big leaf.'

I mean, just look at it. It's huge!

And what's more, I got to meet Bernard Cribbins.

Sorry for the pause - I will be back doing this more regularly soon. In the meantime, some quick Cabin Pressure / Own Trumpet Blowing news: I'm delighted to say that last night Cabin Pressure won the Writers' Guild award for Best Radio Comedy. Hooray!

Hooray also for the terrific Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong and Simon Blackwell, who won the TV comedy award for Peep Show; and Howard Read, who won Best Children's Programme with this piece of brilliance.

I celebrated by eating far too many tiny spicy fishcakes, and taking home ten of the golden envelopes the nominations came in, for reasons that are now obscure to me. Good times.

I've told Douglas. He's over the moon.

I had a coffee in the end. 100% coffee.

This was at the top of a dessert menu the other day:

I did, just about, manage to resist the temptation to ask the waiter if they had anything chocolatey.

Yet when I said the exact same thing in Tottenham three months ago, apparently THAT'S a criminal offence...

Today, I heard a mother say this to her son:

'Look, a policeman! Go on, run up to him and give him a scare!'

Now, there's an example of a sentence which is only good parenting under certain very specific circumstances. About seven pm on Halloween; in a leafy middle-class bit of London, and when the son is four years old, and dressed as an adorable lion - OK. Pretty much any other time or place... not so great.

The other memorable sentence I overheard on my walk was: 'Ethan! Never mind about your sweets - just put your willy away!' 

Conversations with robots.

I have only just discovered that Blogger has a Spam folder, in which it filters out, but stores, the more obvious spam that is posted in the comments of these posts. However, reading through it, some of the comments there are so personal and human that they can't possibly be spam, and so I can only apologise for the error, and make amends by answering them here now.

Your site is great, and your story gives many other people strength. I marched on up to Post 1 just expecting the usual, but this hit the nail on the head 

You're too kind! I hope you have now been given the strength to march right on up to post 2.

Drop in on us at times to grasp more information and facts in the matter.

I certainly will. Interestingly, this was very nearly the official slogan of the BBC News website.

We Really Should Get In Toch. Have you been an energetic person on leading social networking sites like Digg, Facebook, or Stumble Upon?

No, I haven't. You may be thinking of someone else. But I hope this doesn't make you reconsider Getting In Toch. (Also noteworthy: this person was selling ‘New Era Hats’ and ‘Canada Goose Coats’)

I definitely like the road you are posting! You receive an engaging sharp end of estimate!

I do, yes. Thank you for noticing. And you have a very nice road, too.

Do you think anyone will be champion of Euro 2012?

Yes, I think someone will. 

Collection of some of your personal information is essential for completion of some of the functions and activities of this Website.

Oh, really? I mean... you do realise this is my website? You’re the one visiting me? But still, I expect you know best. Will my bank details, PIN, and mother’s maiden name be enough?

Someone told me to go onto the website www.dodgywebsite.con  What exactly is this website and will it give me viruses?

Well, you certainly did the right thing by coming here to ask me. Safety first. Tell you what, I’ll just go to that website myself, and then let you know if I get any viruses. How does that sound?

You pretty much said what i could not effectively communicate.

Thank you, I’m touched. Though given what I said in this case was to announce the date and venue of a show I was doing, I’m not surprised you had trouble communicating it. 

You most definitely have made this blog into something thats eye opening and important. You clearly know so much about the subject, you’ve covered so many bases. Great stuff from this part of the internet.

Aw, I'm blushing. Thank you very much, from this part of the internet. 

Great article, but it would be better if in future you can share more about this subject. Keep rocking.

Excellent - good to get some constructive advice. Both about how to make my article better - share more about the subject! Of course! It seems so obvious now you say it! - and of course about whether or not I should continue to rock. 

This is my first message. Please don't delete it.

Do not throw stones at this notice. 

Others say it was laid out by the dinosaurs.

This is from a leaflet about the small Portugese town I am in today:

'The year in which Loule was founded is unsure. There are historians who attribute its foundation to the Carthaginians (404 BC), while others defend a more contemporary origin, accrediting responsibility to the Romans.'

Wow. Like most unbearably smug Englishmen, I have in my time scoffed at American or Australian 'historic buildings' from the 1920s. But the boot's on the other foot now. Round here, if your town only dates back to Roman times, it is disappointingly contemporary...

(The leaflet also tells me, to my inexpressible disappointment, that the town's Museum of Dried Fruit is not open on Sundays.)

How to tell Scouts apart

Before I go any further, I think the Scouts are basically a good thing. But I'm not so sure about this recruitment poster for them:

Is that actually a thing people say about the Scouts? That they all look the same? 'Oh, I was thinking of joining the Scouts, but I don't like the way they all look the same. Because if I don't look the way they all look, I might not fit in; but on the other hand if the way it works is that as soon as you're invested your face morphs to take on the standard Scout look, my parents might get confused, and pick up the wrong Scout from the milling hordes of identical Scouts outside the Scout hut.' No, I don't think it is, and I don't think the Scout Association should just make up things they pretend people think to debunk: 'Brownies are all allergic to feathers? Think again!' 'Cubs are all two foot tall with square heads and feet made of glass? Think again!'

Except, obviously, I know what this poster is really getting at. And to be honest, I think they should have the courage to come out and say it explicitly:

'All Scouts look the same? Think again! This one's black!'

Who would have thought a biscuit could be punchable?

Hello, sorry it's been so long.

Now, I am a staunch biscuit supporter. Biscuits and me go way back. Biscuits can rely upon me as one of their staunchest supporters / devourers. Which makes it all the more painful when a biscuit betrays this trust by having something this nauseating written on it: 

Oh, god. That's so hateful I very nearly didn't eat the biscuit.

Very nearly.