Strings and Wrongs

NIT NIHCNIM

Tim Minchin's show last night was nothing less than superb. I love the Minch anyway, but there is something about being backed by an orchestra that makes everything a bit more epic than it already is. Well I say orchestra, but actually, just a string section makes anything seem better. When I saw the Gorillaz a few weeks back, they had a string section. I remember seeing Kanye West with a string section and that worked too. I daresay there is little that can't be improved with a horde of violins and cellos. Even a string section can be made even better with the addition of another string section. Actually a forest fire wouldn't be better with a string section. It'd just burn more easily. Unless they were outside the forest fire playing dramatic music and then I would happily witness small mammals burn. String sections work everywhere. I want one so they can play melodic sweeping pieces as I drive long distances or play creepy music if something creepy is about to happen to me so I know and can avoid it. To be fair Minchin used a string section much better than I ever could and I'm fairly sure I'd run for a bus and get on it completely forgetting to take them and get told off for being careless with my string section.

It was a truly excellent show. If you get a chance to see it, you really should. It also made it better going with my friend Laura who seemed like she might actually explode every time Minch came onstage. Its much like spending Christmas with children makes it a more rewarding experience. I'd have loved Tim's show anyway, but having to almost physically restrain someone from leaping on stage and pouncing on him made it even more exciting. The whole thing made me realise comedy can happen in arenas, but only if, like Tim, you make a proper show out of it. I've never been a fan of just plain stand-up to fill massive venues, feeling like some of the atmosphere has been lost replaced by ticket sales. One person talking while you spend the whole time watching the big screens to catch their facial expressions is only ever as pleasurable as watching a DVD as far as I'm concerned. Minch however, with his full scale orchestral songs and ability to rock the shit out a gig, very much is the exception to the rule. Hope he enjoys tonight's gig at the O2 as much as he seemed to enjoy last night's.


JODY MCINTYRE

I can't fathom how anyone, especially Ben Brown from News 24, Bill Turnbull, Richard Littlejohn and the Met police can possibly think that any argument they have can justify throwing a man with cerebral palsy out of his wheelchair. Jody is a man who is constantly fighting for disabled, but more importantly and on a larger scale, human rights. Watching Bill Brown ridiculously accuse him of 'wheeling towards the police' as though those in wheelchairs are now not allowed to be directed towards members of the law enforcement without threat of injury is just upsetting. What Richard Littlejohn wrote in today's mail is even worse, but in some way I expect that from a man who essentially a Nazi with a laptop. I also expect it from the Mail which is a lot of Nazi's with laptops print outs. What I don't expect it from is BBC News and BBC Breakfast who are normally so afraid to do anything un-PC in anyway and yet here they are suddenly trying to justify how a man who was unable to pose any threat to the police deserved the violence he received from men in riot gear. If no one is willing to just own up and say that along with the brutal battering of Alfie Meadows, that what the police are doing is just ethically and morally wrong then I really worry about where it will end.


THE ONE SHOW

Nat wasn't on it last night. Neither was I. Sorry to all who watched thinking we were. Instead The Luurtsema's are almost definitely definitely on it tonight. Which means they might have included a snippet of my face too. Either way, it'll be ace and well worth watching. Promise. And if it's not on this time then I apologise for any inconvenience caused and will pay for any damages the sight of Chris Evans' face has done. (I fully think this is the reason I don't mind the man on radio but on telly he makes me cry).