Graham Murkett & Other Oddities

I'll be back

2012-01-14T20:32:00.002+01:00

Hello internet, how have you been? Still loving kittens? Okay then.

I've had no access at home for the last few months, and a day job directing a TV series that has eaten up all my Grey Bloke time... But this year will be different! Today was spent re-writing scripts, and over the next few weeks I'll be putting a lot of videos into production.

Then, later this spring, there'll be a series of weekly Grey Bloke cartoons. Weekly! How about that? It's a promise*.

So, my apologies to anyone who has felt let down by the lack of audiovisual content over the last year. Hold on just a little bit longer and Graham will be back.

And let's hope you still find him funny.

*promise may be negated by illness, depression, acts of God etc. Standard disclaimers apply. Your statutory rights are not affected.

The Manosphere

2011-07-22T11:36:00.010+02:00

I'm getting a lot of criticism of my latest video from self-identified Men's Rights Activists, and I'm tired of dealing with it on YouTube so here's a blog post in response.

The main accusation seems to be that I've misrepresented, or "strawmanned", the Men's Rights Movement (MRM) by implying that it's made up of men who are angry because they're not getting laid.

That accusation is partly true. It's a comedy video and it's less than two minutes long; some oversimplification is inevitable.

However, my critics are (perhaps deliberately) ignoring the fact that "the manosphere" includes more than just the MRM. More seriously, they deny that "the manosphere" is chock full of hysterical misogynist bullshit (written largely by men who do seem to be angry because women aren't giving them the respect (and/or sex) they feel they deserve). And the denials don't hold up to scrutiny.

I've used way too many parentheses in that paragraph.

Anyway, I only know what I know about "the manosphere" because I've spent the last few months enjoying the Manboobz blog. And according to my critics that means I'm misinformed and don't really understand what's going on - because Manboobz is misandrist propaganda written by an evil feminist "mangina".

In reality, what Manboobz does is seek out examples of misogyny on the internet and then take the piss out of them. There are new posts nearly every day that quote directly from articles and forum discussions and provide links to the context - so charges of misrepresentation are false. Manboobz also links to the most prominent sites in "the manosphere", allowing people to explore them in more detail if they wish.

The site list points not only to MRM sites, but also to MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) and PUA (Pick Up Artist) sites - and most of those sites link to each other, creating a cosy little bubble of internet woman-hate and claims that men are, as a gender, oppressed. There's a lot of conflation of feminism and fascism, and talk of conspiracies and men needing to "take the red pill" (like in the documentary The Matrix) to wake up to the horrible reality of what's happening. The rhetoric is very similar to the stuff you see on White Nationalist sites, but with a secret gender war replacing the secret race war that most of us don't realise we're engaged in.

It's laughable.

This is not to deny that discrimination against men does exist, and that there are issues affecting men that should be dealt with - of course there are. The problem is, as one of the authors of this excellent blog pointed out recently:

"The Men’s Rights movement, as a whole, just offers up a bunch of noise that makes it harder for people to find the actually helpful advice. "

I can't put it any more succinctly than that.

EDIT 26/7

This just in:

Sometimes I get spam

2011-07-08T11:29:00.003+02:00

I got this "personal message" on YouTube yesterday:

somegreybloke First a quick Announcement

The days of relying on a newsletters, business cards, or voicemail to promote your business are over.

Thank Goodness, that was just too much work for too little results.

Horrible grammar aside - YES! Promoting my business with newsletters, business cards and voicemail WAS just too much work, and I'm glad those days are over.

Wait, I don't have a business...? Anyway:

Introducing the Improved way to promote your business, automated push button simple Video Messages to Mobile devices or Email!

It's easy and eye popping results are guaranteed.

Now you can magically automate your marketing message and deliver a series of engaging, interesting, informative and memorable video messages to virtually every prospect or potential referral partner you meet, automatically.

That sounds good. I would like to pop the eyes out of potential referral partners. And it uses magic! Tell me more.

Just imagine how far ahead of your competition you'll be when you follow-up with your clients, leads, or potential partners, within minutes of your meeting right to their mobile phone or email and all you did was push a button?

Okay, so I'm imagining that. I meet somebody - maybe at one of those businessy-type conventions I'm always attending, or in the airport Hilton bar when I have an unexpected layover, or on a snowboarding weekend - and within minutes of meeting this person I SPAM THEIR MOBILE PHONE WITH AN UNSOLICITED VIDEO MESSAGE. How could they not be thrilled?

And how much more powerful will your marketing be when you automatically send out engaging follow up video messages, to everyone you have contacted, on a regular schedule that you control. And all you did was set it up once? Thank Goodness, truly automated follow-ups are finally here.

You mean I can keep spamming them forever without doing anything? That will definitely definitely make them want to buy whatever it is I'm selling.

Thank you Internet Marketing People. Sorry I can't remember the name of your company or I'd promote it here.

Wahay!

2011-04-28T09:09:00.003+02:00

Recently the combined SGB videos hit ten million views on YouTube. That's over 9000!

And it's only taken 72 videos and four years. In your face, Rebecca Black.

FAQ to the SGB

2011-03-15T21:00:00.006+01:00

What happened to your videos Baby Photos and What You Can Find On The Internet?

YouTube took them down, I guess because somebody flagged them as inappropriate. You can find them here and here.

What software do you use to animate Some Grey Bloke?

The characters are drawn in Adobe Flash, and I use Magpie Pro and After Effects to do the lip sync, eye movements and blinks. I've used 3D programs like Blender to make some of the backgrounds. You can find blog posts relating to animation here.

I've also been trying out Anime Studio Pro, which is a less expensive alternative to Flash, though quite different in terms of use. Blog posts about that can be found here.

How long does it take to animate a minute of Grey Bloke talking?

I could probably do a minute in about three hours, but the process is so very tedious that I can only focus on it in short bursts so it usually takes several days.

Why don't you just use an automated lip sync program?

Because most of them don't work properly. If something like this were cheaper I'd give it a go.

Why don't you make more videos?

Because I'm lazy and I hate animating.

But I subscribed to your channel and I want more frequent uploads!

I saw Jessica Alba in a movie and I want to go to bed with her.

Eh?

I guess we all just have to learn to live with disappointment.

Why is the sound on some of your videos so bad?

Because I suck.

Why is Graham's voice different in some of the videos?

Because I suck.

I've written a script for a Grey Bloke video. Will you make it please?

Sorry, no.

I want some animation done and I don't have any money but lots of people will see it and it will be great exposure for you. Will you do it?

Sorry, no.

I notice that you are confused about God's plan for the salvation of his creation. Can we engage in correspondence so I can explain my view of Christianity (which is the correct view of Christianity, not like all those fake wrong views people keep sending you)?

Sorry, no.

But I really want to. I get Jesus Nectar points for every soul I save.

I'm happy for you but still not interested.

Why do you make fun of people's religious beliefs?

Because those beliefs are ridiculous.

Why do you make fun of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)?

Because all historical/mythological figures are fair game for comedy. And if one of those figures is idolised by people who will actually kill to defend his name, then making fun of him becomes "edgy".

But isn't it a bit easy and comedically hacky to keep mocking religion?

Yes it is, and I really would like to stop. But then some pope or imam says something stupid and oops, I'm off again.

What do you think of Ray William Johnson?

I cannot stand the fucking prick.

Is that really a frequently asked question or did you just want to say that you hate him?

Yeah, I probably shouldn't leave that in. It's not him I hate exactly, but the persona he affects and the fact that his success is built on replaying other people's uploads while he makes banal comments. But then his videos aren't aimed at me, and I'm just jealous really.

Are you Banksy?
No.

Can I ask a question that isn't on this list?

Yes, you can do it by leaving a comment below.

This year

2011-03-09T21:00:00.001+01:00

... is turning out not to be such a good year for putting more Grey Bloke on YouTube.

I'm working on a stop-motion series, which doesn't leave much time or enthusiasm for doing even more animation at the weekends. So to those people sending me messages saying "Make more videos dammit" I can only apologise and reply: "No."

However, there may be an audio-only podcast in the works featuring Graham Murkett and quite an exciting guest star...

Useful posts for writers

2011-02-09T19:11:00.001+01:00

http://sambaintv.blogspot.com/2011/02/notiquette-by-sam-bain.html

http://sitcomgeek.blogspot.com/2011/02/too-many-notes.html

Useful resources for animators

2011-02-06T22:45:00.000+01:00

http://floobynooby.blogspot.com/2011/02/animation-resources.html

Typing text in After Effects

2011-01-19T00:11:00.002+01:00

A very quick method:

http://www.simplycg.net/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2166

For years I've been using masks to animate type appearing letter by letter, because I always figure it will take longer to learn a new technique than stick with what I know. Wrong.

Too sexy for YouTube

2011-01-10T10:31:00.004+01:00

I was informed yesterday that the very first Grey Bloke video has been flagged and removed for Violating Community Guidelines -- so I guess they've got a bit more serious about policing those in the three and a half years since the video was uploaded. Or perhaps the guidelines have changed. Anyway, it's here now.

Also yesterday, the Graham Murkett as Pharaoh video went up. In the comments section a vicious and abuse-filled argument is now raging on who built the pyramids and how, with the odd anti-semite chipping in to toss epithets at other users. Ah, comedy.

In-Character Christmas Card

2010-12-24T14:43:00.000+01:00

Character designs for animated sitcom project

2010-11-17T11:37:00.002+01:00

I'm not good at character design, but I'll sometimes have a go if someone asks me. These were done for a production company a few months back, and I haven't heard anything since so I guess they're not using them.

Say what you mean, Seanyo

2010-11-14T12:03:00.003+01:00

Here's a screengrab from my YouTube channel that neatly illustrates that saying about not being able to please all of the people all of the time:

Title goes here

2010-11-08T16:43:00.003+01:00

The anti-PC-brigade have been getting vocal on one of my videos lately, with a couple of people claiming that while they themselves wouldn't ever use derogatory terms for minorities they should be allowed to if they want to, or something. To be honest I haven't been able to follow their arguments because they don't seem to make any sense.

Anyway, this is a good article:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/11/glaad-responds-to-ron-howards-gay-joke-defense-when-is-a-word-more-than-a-word-.html

Offline-ish, I just started a job as writer and script co-ordinator on a show that will be made in stop-motion, proper old school like. There are two other writers and we have to get thirty storylines written by January. Expect to see me procrastinating on Twitter more and more over the next two months...

Where I'm at

2010-10-18T10:58:00.003+02:00

Grey Bloke Podcast: two scripts done, third begun

Previous Lives "Pharaoh": animation finished, waiting for background renders and music

Latest video (3 weeks ago already, blimey) was this one with David Schneider.

And interesting things are happening thanks to a Facebook friend who has been sculpting Graham in 3D.

Is that all? That's all. I did do some character designs a few weeks ago for a UK production company who are trying to get a sitcom off the ground, but I haven't heard from them for a while. Suppose I should ask if they're going to pay me.

Photoshop painting: lighthouse & clouds

2010-10-10T17:31:00.003+02:00

I'm on one of my periodic "I wish I was better at painting" trips, and spent the last day or so doing this.

Those who can't...

2010-09-27T15:26:00.006+02:00

Just did a week's teaching at the fantastic Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. Had no idea I could speak fluent Danish but the students seemed to understand me so I guess I can.

The school had invited me to teach a "Beginner's Course" in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects, which I could have done had the students been beginners -- but THIS is a Photoshop painting by one of them.

He's 21 years old.

So I learned a lot from them, and a bit about myself, and caught up with some old friends and colleagues and drank too much and marvelled at the price of food in Denmark and all in all it was a very rewarding trip, at least for me.

Anime Studio Pro - Commercial job for Psonar

2010-08-17T13:15:00.004+02:00

The last week of July was spent making this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LDRXH7xehI

for the people who have created Psonar, an online music storage & search facility for hip young things. It was all done in Anime Studio Pro (except for a couple of After Effects bits that could be done in Anime Studio but I haven't had time to learn how yet).

Reading Too Much into Toy Story 3

2010-07-25T16:15:00.001+02:00

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read this until you've seen the film.

The third film in Pixar's Toy Story series is the most dogmatic to date. It's the story of mankind's relationship with God, and its position on how humans should relate to the almighty couldn't be clearer. The script may as well have been written by John Calvin himself.

God

The God in this film goes by the name of Andy, and at the beginning of the movie it's established that he is about to move on to universes new, leaving behind the realm he has ruled over up until now. AndyGod's problem is that his current universe is populated with toys that he has loved and cherished throughout his existence, and before he can leave he has to decide what to do with them. He has four choices: he can take them with him to his new domain; he can hand them over to a different god (so okay, maybe the script isn't as Calvinist as I said above); he can consign them to a worldly attic purgatory; or he can send them to Hell. He chooses the third option for all the toys except his favourite, Woody, with whom he is well-pleased.

Woody

Woody is a sanctimonious prick who spends his entire life reminding all his colleagues of AndyGod's greatness and infallibility and generally bossing people around. When AndyGod decides to send the rest of the toys to purgatory, Woody supports Him totally -- and we must assume that had AndyGod decided instead to send them to Hell, Woody would be quoting Romans 3:10 as justification and telling them to suck it up because the potter can do whatever he wants with his clay.

When, by mistake, the mother of AndyGod sets the toys on a path towards Hell, Woody rushes to save them. But why? Is it because he's concerned for his colleagues, or because the Law of his Lord has been interfered with? I think it's probably the latter, because Woody is a dick.

The Other Toys

When the toys realise that they're destined for Hell they (understandably) become angry and decide to reject AndyGod and go off to find other gods to serve. Woody remonstrates with them, telling them they should remain faithful and that it was all a mistake; but under the leadership of the Female Temptress Jesse, the others won't listen to him. As far as they're concerned whether their deity has abandoned them to Hell or Purgatory makes little difference; the issue is that they've been abandoned, while Woody has not.

When they all arrive in a kind of Paradise for toys, a place where they will be played with all day long (which after all, is what they were designed for), Woody is still griping and insisting that they return to AndyGod's house and get themselves up into Attic Purgatory where they belong, while he swans off to whatever exciting new place AndyGod is going to. The other Toys again ignore him, looking forward to a new life of hedonism...

And this, of course, proves to be their downfall.

Lotso Bear

The paradise they think they have discovered is in fact ruled by an atheist; an evil, strawberry-smelling bear who has rejected all gods and has set himself up as a mortal god on earth. He's a pink furry Stalin (I think they even refer to him as "Uncle" at one point). The message is clear: if you reject the god that owns you, you have only yourself to blame if you end up being tortured in a totalitarian gulag.

The film could have ended here, but audiences may have been left with a view of God as cold and unconcerned with his universe, so the story carries on. Woody continues his righteous quest to be reunited with his Master, but then he gets distracted by feelings of compassion for his colleagues. Foolishly, he tries to help them, not realising that by attempting to interfere with destiny he's only going to make things worse.

His efforts lead the toys to the very edge of Hell, which they only escape by means of a Ludicrum Ex Machina. The atheist Lotso, of course, who has by now proved his evil atheist character beyond a doubt, is not so fortunate and is consigned to an eternal punishment direct from the mind of Dante.

Once the atheist villain has been disposed of the film can end nicely with the redemption of not only foolish Woody and the ungrateful toys but also AndyGod, who is finally shown indulging his merciful side.

And we can all walk out of the cinema saying "Ah, see? God is great after all. And blimey those 3D specs are uncomfortable, hope that fad burns itself out ASAFP."

Work update

2010-07-20T17:59:00.003+02:00

I'm working on a video for someone this week so no time for Grey Bloke -- and I'm not sure when I'm going to get back to it because next week I move house.

It's also way too hot.

Proper drawn animation

2010-07-08T15:58:00.003+02:00

Enjoying these cartoons on the BBC's Comedy Site. Maybe not LOL funny but the design and animation is proper beautiful, like independent cartoons used to be when the internet was all fields and you could tour the festivals for a year with just one piece of work.

Not like these days, when the audience response to a new cartoon is "lol good, ANOTHER ONE NOW!"

Getting on with it

2010-07-03T14:35:00.003+02:00

The first Podcast script is finished (barring revisions) and I'm into the second. Pretty happy with how it's coming together so far.

And the casting process is going nicely too, with Genuine Celebrities enthusiastically pledging their voice talent (at least in principle) and a few stalwart collaborators in mind for other roles (Jeremiah and Max, I'll likely be in touch).

The Previous Lives:Pharoah episode is progressing as well, and only about a year later than intended. The latest backgrounds look luvverly..

BBC cartoon update

2010-06-24T21:38:00.005+02:00

The Mitchell & Webb cartoon I animated back in March is now online.

I don't think the BBC will mind me posting a couple of earlier character designs here:

This last one was the first version I drew of God. They decided to go for something more traditional.

Anime Studio Pro - Shape Effects

2010-06-23T15:12:00.004+02:00

I was going to write about how those clever shadow effects can be applied, but Okse beat me to it by making this excellent tutorial video.

Instead I messed about with the robot a bit, applying various shading and transparency settings to quickly make it a bit more interesting. It turns out that every almost all these settings can be animated, so all kinds of pretty psychedelic effects are possible if you're prepared to put in the time.

Makes me wish I had the time.

Anime Studio Pro - Animation

2010-06-17T12:50:00.010+02:00

Okay, I'm officially impressed.

The animation tools could hardly be easier to use. Once you've learned how to set up a puppet by connecting the invisible bones to its various parts (a process explained in easy to follow tutorials included in the package), animating it just means moving to a new point on the timeline and repositioning. You can then copy and paste keyframes (though not cut and paste for some reason), and slide them along the timeline to alter the speed of your animation, and (while I'm sure there are more frustrations in store when I start trying more complex tasks) producing basic actions is simple and quick.

There are a few glitches that are slightly irritating but easily fixed: you can lock any bone into place, which is very useful (I've done it here with the feet of the robot when they hit the ground) -- but when you unlock the bone it will often spring into a strange position and you then have to correct it by hand.

Animators who are used to setting keyframes and then adjusting curves may have to get used to working on a more frame-by-frame basis with this program. That doesn't bother me because I started in animation with stop motion, when all of this was just fields and we had to walk a hundred miles to school in the snow in our bare feet and if we were lucky our parents would let us eat coal before we snatched half an hour's sleep and then got up to take the next frame.

Kids today, you don't know you're born. Morph could only walk when held up by fishing line, for frick's sake.

But I digress. So yes, very easy to use animation tools, and damn near perfect for cut-out style stuff, or mechanical/puppet subjects. I'm not sure yet how effectively the bone system combines with frame-by-frame drawn cartooning, so that'll be the next experiment.

Watch this space.

Anime Studio Pro - Drawing

2010-06-15T16:30:00.004+02:00

It takes me a few frustrating minutes to figure out that drawing in Anime Studio is very different from drawing in Flash. I'm used to using my tablet to draw, and in Flash you can draw much as you would on paper. Anime Studio does provide a freehand drawing tool but it's not as easy to handle and feels more constricting. There's also no eraser, so adjusting a hand-drawn line involves selecting points on that line and moving them or deleting them individually.

In fact, Anime Studio behaves more like a 3D modelling program - it makes more sense to construct your lines and shapes rather than draw them, and once I've adjusted my expectations it gets easier. It seems the idea is to import a picture you've created on paper or in another program, and then reconstruct it in vector form using the drawing tools. So I imported an image of my Graham character and set about tracing over it, trying to produce exact copies of the original hand-drawn lines because hey, I'm obsessive like that. It's painstaking work and far from quick, but the tools give you a satisfying amount of control once you learn what they all do. I abandoned the tablet for the mouse, and after half an hour I'd constructed a passable copy of Graham in the workspace and could turn off the tracing image.

NOTE: The first attempt was problematic. I drew an outline of the head shape using the Freehand tool and then used the paint bucket to fill in the grey tone. For some reason this resulted in slightly jagged edges on the vertical strokes (even with antialiasing switches on and even when the image was exported), and there seemed to be no way to fix the problem. On the second attempt I used a basic circle shape and then added extra points to it, shaping it into the bent lozenge that is Graham's head. No jagged edges this time, so I assume that the way to work in Anime Studio is to build as much as you can from basic squares, circles and triangles.

After tracing Graham I made a version of another character I've been messing with for a while, and then I built a robot from scratch using only the basic shape tools.

Once you get used to the keyboard shortcuts to switch between tools you can manipulate shapes quite easily. It's mildly annoying that you can't select multiple points using any tool other than the actual Select tool, because I frequently wanted to adjust several points at once and had to keep flipping between tools to do it; but maybe I'm just a whiny prick for whom nothing is ever quite good enough. On the whole, the drawing tools are very slick, and for people who've grown up with computers rather than paper probably more or less perfect.

Next: Animation

Anime Studio Pro 7

2010-06-14T11:41:00.008+02:00

I've been given a copy of Anime Studio Pro 7 to try out and review, courtesy of the developers at Smith Micro (and thanks to the recommendation of Okse). In our email exchange their Marketing Rep Rebecca said this: "If you don’t like it, you don’t have any obligation to say you do. Just be honest. The idea is real artists using the program with real opinions, you know?"

So over a series of blog posts I'll be giving my real opinions, probably in way too much depth to be of interest to anyone but other animators. Any non-animators reading, you have been warned.

First Impressions

Watching a few videos that have been animated using the software gets me nerdily excited about its potential, and the product website mentions all kinds of features like physics simulation and 3D and motion tracking and automated lip sync. Mostly, though, I'm interested in how useful it is for producing traditional-ish 2D animation.

At this point I should say that I've been getting to grips with Adobe Flash for the last four or five years, and while I can now get it to do basically what I want I still consider myself a novice. I'll likely be making a lot of comparisons between it and Anime Studio, because once the language of one program is installed in your head it inevitably interferes with your attempt to learn a new one; but if you haven't confused yourself with Flash your experience of Anime Studio will be very different to mine, so bear that in mind. That said, this review assumes that you're familiar with the principles of animation and the basic layout of graphicy type media programs.

This is what you see when you open the Anime Studio for the first time:

Everything you'd expect (tools, a timeline, a layers panel) and the unexpected bonus of a fully rigged animatible character standing in the workspace.

I want to zoom in on the character using the mouse wheel, so I roll it upwards. The picture zooms out. Okay, so the mouse wheel is set up to work the opposite way from how it does in most other applications. Presumably I'll be able to change it to make it compatible with how my brain thinks it should work -- but the Preferences and Settings windows turn out to be much sparser than one would expect.

The Help section contains nothing on how to customise controls. A search of the Anime Pro community forums reveals that there is some way to change keyboard shortcuts but itsounds like it involves downloading and editing obscure files somewhere and you know what? I really can't be bothered with that.

(Developers or experienced users: If I've missed something, and if there is an easy way to customise the keyboard and mouse set up, please let me know in the comments.)

Anyway, this is something that is only a problem because I have the language of lots of different bits of software rattling around in my ageing brain. For many people it probably won't be an issue (though I can't help thinking that customisable controls should be standard in any piece of software these days).

Moving on; having figured out how to zoom and move around the workspace, I click on one of the bone things on the drawing of the girl (I know they're bones because they look like the bones in Maya, another piece of software whose rules will interfere in the learning process) and in just a few clicks I've moved her into a new position. It's almost like moving a stop-motion puppet - you grab the wrist and lift and the elbow bends and everything just moves the way it should. Neat.

And what's even neater: As she moves, the shadows change position, almost as though they're being cast by a light source. I have no idea how that works but it thrills me.

Did I mention that I'm a nerd?

Next: Drawing

Podcasts

2010-06-09T11:22:00.004+02:00

I'm 17 pages into a script for a podcast (internet radio show) featuring Graham and Dane Geld and interviews with various other real and fictional people. So far it looks quite funny, but I worry that Graham's monotone will force people to switch off after the first few minutes. It's one thing to watch him burbling on on YouTube accompanied by pictures, but in an audio-only context he may turn out to be just too annoying.

Still, quite an enjoyable writing process. Hooray.

My BAFTA hell

2010-06-07T13:59:00.019+02:00

I went to the British Academy Awards ceremony once, in 1997, when it was held in the Royal Albert Hall. My first short film (The Saint Inspector) was nominated in the category of "Best Animated Short", so I and the producers and director of photography got dressed up in smart clothes and went to London.

Lenny Henry was hosting the awards. That's how long ago it was - Lenny Henry was still Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton. The ground floor of the hall was packed with Very Famous People, and the galleries filled with people who presumably weren't as famous but who had come along to watch. All the women were wearing sheer, backless dresses and looking stunning. Juliet Binoche was there (it was the year of "The English Patient").

In the corridor I passed Gary Oldman, accompanied by his bodyguards. At the table next to ours were David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst (we were sitting in the "Not That Glamourous" section, I guess).

There was a meal, which from what I remember wasn't very good, and there was free wine. In those days I was a drunkard, and free wine meant that you had to drink as much of it as possible. I realised that it would be best to hold off until our award had come and gone, but was more excited about all that lovely free booze than the prospect of winning. Which of course, we didn't.

Our production team all shrugged and went "Oh well, nice to be nominated" and then I started in on the wine in earnest as the awards dragged on and on (you think those shows are tedious when you watch them on the telly, but that's nothing compared to being there). Eventually all the awards ran out and the winners and losers were allowed to get up and mingle as the plebs in the upper galleries were ushered outside.

Now, this should have been an excellent opportunity to do some "networking". I was a twenty-six year old animation director in a room filled with the some of the Most Important People in the Movie And Television "Industry". Even as an official loser, I was in a position to "make contacts", to" schmooze"; to "work the room".

I raised a full glass of wine to Juliet Binoche and said "You're fucking gorgeous". She frowned and moved away. I noticed Harvey Weinstein next to me, inviting Lenny Henry to a Miramax party in the Dorchester later that night.

"Can I come, Harvey?" I said. "I'm nobody!"

"No," said Harvey Weinstein, and turned his back.

My production team had sensibly gone home, but the other people who had been sharing our table were still there. I'd been sitting next to a very attractive French actress who'd kept going off to the toilets with her companion all evening and coming back all energetic, but in those naive days I didn't really understand why. For some reason she decided to "work the room" with me.

"There's Ursula Andress!" I slurred. "D'you remember that bit in Doctor No when she comes out of the sea in the bikini? I was in love with her for ages. And Clash Of The Titans!"

Ursula Andress was seventy in 1997. The actress went over to her table and bent down to talk to her. She pointed at me. Ursula Andress looked over and scowled, presumably in disgust. I think it was the first time I'd been properly scowled at. It didn't feel good.

But I didn't care and I don't remember anything of the rest of the evening. I have a very fractured memory flash of being in the lobby of a posh hotel, riding lifts alone in search of some celebrity party or possibly an orgy that the French actress had told me about, but I don't remember finding it.

I don't even know where I slept that night. Maybe it was with her. Maybe I did end up at a fancy party and was brilliant and charming and fabulous. It's possible.

I do know that I didn't make any useful contacts.

Anyway, congratulations to all the BAFTA winners and losers from last night. I hope at least one of you was a fucked up young man who didn't understand what an opportunity he was wasting.

Hopeless

2010-06-05T01:52:00.002+02:00

This is why Grey Bloke is never going to be on the telly:

Demographic info from YouTube relating to my last video.

New video on YouTube

2010-06-03T10:11:00.010+02:00

I put up a video about Twitter last night. This is the accompanying blog post in which I explain the joke for people who think Graham is serious.

SPOILERS

1) The premise of the video is that you can use Twitter to send messages to celebrities, who will then ignore you. The implication is that celebrities are rude and that people who message them are pathetic.

But this is not always true. Celebrities will sometimes (even often) reply to their fans, and if they don't it's probably not due to rudeness, but due to THIS

being what the Twitter feed of a celebrity looks like.

2) In the video, I showed some supposed Tweets tweeted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. These weren't taken from his Twitter account but were (I thought) genuine Arnie quotes from interviews and speeches over the years.

At least one of them turns out not to be genuine, according to a YouTube commenter. My fault for not checking thoroughly enough.

3) The Dalai Lama genuinely does have a Twitter feed. Sample tweet: "Damn Blackberry is playing up and have lost a load of messages. Can't believe I reincarnated for this!"

4) The letter to Olivia Newton-John is based on something I dimly remember writing when I was nine or ten; I really did write to her fan club expressing my undying love. She did not write back.

EDIT June 18

Phil Jupitus sent the video to Stephen Fry, who shared it with his fans. A single tweet from Stephen Fry apparently translates into twenty thousand YouTube views at current exchange rates.

EDIT June 24

The video is being tweeted by American celebs now, most prominently Alyssa Milano.
(I had to Google her. She's an actress.)

An open letter to playwright Matt Randle

2010-05-29T11:19:00.009+02:00

Dear Matt,

I assume you Google yourself from time to time, so perhaps you'll find this one day. I'm moved to write because last night I sat through your play "A Little Learning" which is, as you know, over two hours long.

Two hours, Matt. Two hours with no interval. I think that might be illegal.

But let me start with some positive thoughts: I'm impressed that you staged the play. I appreciate how much work must have gone into recruiting the cast, rehearsing, organising the venue etc etc etc. I know it's not easy to mount any kind of stage production, especially one involving thirteen actors, and especially when you're a foreigner in a strange land. So well done for doing all that; I am, sincerely, impressed.

However, your writing sucks.

Sorry to be so blunt, but for fuck's fucking sake, Matt. Fifteen minutes in I started wondering "Has this guy ever SEEN a play? Or read a single script? Did he even read his own script after it was finished, and maybe think about editing the fucking thing?" And the answers I came up with were No, No and Hell No.

What was it about, Matt? You have a protagonist, Harry, whose aim seems to be to get laid. He's incompetent with women, like Woody Allen, but sometimes he's too shy to talk to them and at other times he's bursting with inappropriate confidence. And then suddenly, after repeatedly proving himself to be hopeless, he's in an intimate scene with some very sexy girl who's letting him paw her.

Top marks on getting a very hot actress to play that part, by the way, but here's a thing: was she supposed to be the journalist character we met earlier? Or was she just some girl whom we previously hadn't seen? And how did Harry end up with a hotty like her?

And why did he then jump out of the window?

Wait, let's back up. So thirty minutes in, it's a comedy about a guy who can't get laid and his highly strung actress flatmate who can't get an acting job. It's Play It Again Sam, or Annie Hall, or Ricky Gervais's Extras, but without any of the witty dialogue or structural competence that make those works great.

And then suddenly you have a sub plot about a fascist politican and Harry's attempt to humiliate him on television. Which for some reason ends up with Harry getting arrested.

Sorry, what?

How did this script get to the stage of actually being performed on stage? I find it hard to believe that not one person - not one of your thirteen actors - didn't read it and say "Um, Matt... I'm a bit lost here. What's it actually ABOUT? Why is this character saying this? Why is this other character even necessary? What's the point of this scene? Why is there no sense of drama, that things are moving forward towards an inevitable conclusion? Why does it just look like a bunch of random stuff thrown together that goes on for fucking pages and pages and then ends?"

And how could you not have planned an interval? Christ.

Every time the lights went down I (and my companion) thought "Can we make a run for it?", but the aisle was crowded and we didn't want to step on people's feet and cause a scene. Out of respect for the actors we waited, confident that during the interval we'd be able to slip out and salvage an hour of our evening.

You denied us that chance.

Anyway, I can see that I'm going on too long. In summary, then:

Well done for putting on a play. It's an achievement. The actors weren't bad. But please don't ever write anything else. Though if you simply must: INTERVAL. Preferably not more than twenty minutes in.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Booth.

Interview with Stewart Lee

2010-05-28T12:28:00.002+02:00

Excellent YouTube interview in which Lee talks about the art and craft of comedy.

Part 1

Parts 2 & 3 are in the related videos.

SGB Video - Interview with Charlie McDonnell

2010-05-24T12:31:00.003+02:00

Here's my latest video:

Charlieissocoollike interviewed by Graham Murkett

I wrote to Charlie back in January asking if he'd collaborate on this, and he kindly said yes. The idea was to produce something awkward and uncomfortable - a needy and self-obsessed middle aged man begging for tips from a slightly arrogant "cewebrity".

The interview was scripted; I wrote most of it, and Charlie filled in the details about Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus because I genuinely know nothing about them/her and couldn't be bothered to Google. Charlie provided the music and lyrics for Graham to sing and play to.

Things I'm currently doing, since you didn't ask

2010-05-23T13:56:00.006+02:00

1) Being ill. Twelve days of congested sinuses, clamminess and fever. Also wisdom tooth pain. Yay.

2) Reworking the radio sitcom that the Beeb refused to read and turning it into a cartoon. Currently in character design stage with a bit of scriptwriting (in collaboration with Comedy Sketch Writing partner).

3) Finishing a Grey Bloke episode that was written back in January. Hoping to have it finished today.

4) Chipping away at the Previous Lives Pharaoh episode. (James, I haven't forgotten I'm supposed to be sending you that file.)

5) Making notes for a live action sitcom idea, in collaboration with a friend. First serious writing date this Friday.

6) Writing material for long form Grey Bloke podcasts.

7) Contemplating moving house and sorting out accounts and tax and vicious, suicide-inducing stuff like that.

8) Playing Empire Total War & Battlefield Bad Company 2 in lieu of acting on (7).

9) Waiting for various celebrities to get round to reading/recording bits for Grey Bloke that they said they'd be happy to do but have since forgotten about, and wondering how long I should leave it until I poke them again.

10) Missing my girlfriend.

I get everywhere, apparently

2010-04-26T10:52:00.004+02:00

I just found out that there's an "Official" Some Grey Bloke Facebook page that I have nothing to do with.

Seems harmless enough, just somebody posting links to my videos; though it's a bit disconcerting to see myself answering questions from viewers. Especially as my memory isn't very good and for a moment just now I did wonder if I was in a more nerdy version of Fight Club.

I am Jack's mild bemusement.

Vatican Tycoon

2010-04-25T12:36:00.006+02:00

Sometimes I write scripts and record them and do a load of artwork and then decide that the result isn't funny, so the video never gets finished. The image above was made for a strategy game Graham was playing called "Vatican Tycoon".

Trouble is, nothing I could write could match the sheer incredible-ness of what Vatican spokesmen were actually coming out with in real life, day after day, so the video was abandoned.

Here's the script:

GRAHAM

Hi. Yeah, the reason I haven't made many videos in a while is that I've been busy playing this very addictive game called Vatican Tycoon...

It's a sort of simulation, strategy game.. Bit like the Sims, but with more exorcism and pederasty. You take on the role of a character called The Pope, and you have to manage your global empire, keeping it financially solvent and dealing with various crises as they arise.

The game is actually much easier in the early stages... during the medieval period, for instance, if anybody questions any of your decisions you can just set them on fire, but it gets more complex as you move into the modern era...

A SOUND FROM THE COMPUTER
Uh oh!

IN GAME ADVISOR

I have grave news, your Eminence.

GRAHAM

Oop, here's an urgent warning coming up. Let's check what it says...

GRAHAM

Yeah, you see, this is the problem with this game. Your enemies are far too powerful, and they're always doing things that have a negative effect on your Moral Credibility rating, which in the long run affects your income, and it's very hard to know how to deal with the constant attacks. Um.. Let's look at the possible responses to this...

Video delivery tedium

2010-04-23T13:15:00.003+02:00

I finished the animation of the Mitchell & Webb sketch at the end of March and spent the next two weeks trying to get the file to them. You'd think that would have been the easiest part. You'd think that the BBC, being a huge corporation dedicated solely to the creation and distribution of audiovisual material, would have some system in place whereby they could receive digital files from off-site agencies without much fuss. A special BBC server, or something.

They asked me to send the file via YouSendIt.

Turns out YouSendIt is not entirely reliable. After a couple of days watching the video failing to upload, we gave up on that. I sent the file on DVD instead. Via the mail.

When it arrived, something was wrong with it. Corrupted. Unplayable. I'm not sure how the postal service managed to mess up a DVD*, but anyway. The BBC still had nothing from me that they could use.

So I went back to the computer, and - (and this is the whole point of this entry) - discovered an application called "Dropbox", that allows you to drag and drop files from your PC into some virtual server space somewhere, that you can then access from another PC.

You get 2 gigabytes of space for free. And if you follow this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTYwNTc2OTM5

and install the software yourself, they give you and me 250 extra megabytes each.

I would like those extra megabytes. They would be useful.

As far as I can tell, the software is reliable and virus-free and good if you ever need to send big stuff to people (or access files from another computer when you're in, I don't know, northern France or somewhere). So give a thought to trying it out.

Via that link above.

I assume the BBC eventually received the video (thanks to Dropbox!!) and are happy with it. But I don't know for sure because I've heard nothing from them.

*Okay, that was my fault. My DVD burner doesn't work so I did the burning at an internet cafe and didn't check that the file worked before sending it.

Came up with a joke today

2010-03-31T22:43:00.001+02:00

that goes like this:

"I'm going to write a book called "The License Agreement". Nobody will read it but everyone will say they have."

I'm quite pleased with that so I'm recording it here for posterity.

One million views

2010-03-27T09:44:00.002+01:00

The video I made about Facebook has passed the million views mark. This makes me glad. That is all.

I'm probably going to want to watch this again

2010-03-15T15:09:00.003+01:00

so I'll just leave it here:

Adventures of a lady's butt.

Three weeks into a three minute sketch

2010-03-10T10:52:00.004+01:00

I gotta get organisized.

See, when you work for a professional animation studio there are different people in charge of different things. Someone designs the characters. Someone else designs the backgrounds. Maybe someone else else creates the props. There's an editor assembling the sequence of shots as you work. And all these people are excellent at what they do, because they have time to specialisize, and the animator can focus entirely on the animation (and may even have an assistant to do the heavy lifting).

I'm trying to do all of the above; and frankly, I rather suck at some of it. Backgrounds have never been my strong point. I don't have a good sense of colour. I'm very bad at making up my mind. As a consequence I keep changing things, and having to go back to retweak stuff that in theory is already finished.

What I'm trying to say is that progress is slow. Which it always is, but with this one there's a deadline.

Hopefully when it's all done I'll be able to post a few snapshots of the changes on here, to remind myself of what not to do if there's ever a next time.

I have a proper animation job

2010-02-27T13:53:00.005+01:00

Somebody at the Big Broadcasting Corporation saw some Grey Bloke and asked me to animate a sketch for them. And not for free! It stars David Mitchell & Robert Webb from off of the telly and radio, and I have until the beginning of April to get it done.

My computer started playing up as soon as the job talk began, and Flash now crashes often when before it worked just fine. But I'm backing up A LOT, oh yes.

What this means is that there probably won't be any new Grey Blokes for a month or so. Sorry about that.

Charcoal drawing

2010-02-24T15:29:00.001+01:00

My first exercise from the art school I've been attending since January. About twenty hours' work.

Utter cock

2010-02-22T16:45:00.010+01:00

I can't stop watching this video! It makes me want to throw up:

Graham Fink of Saatchi

Edit, 6th March -- The video has now been set to "Private", though all the other videos on the channel are still viewable.

It's of some creative media type guy - a "true Renaissance man" according to the (auto?)biography posted in the info box - drivelling on about how great YouTube is because it provides so many ideas one can steal. And stealing is what makes one a great artist, yeah?

Picasso said that (allegedly), so it must be true.

The interview is part of an "initiative" by Creative Heads, which seems to be a group of people who work in advertising. What they want you to do, right, is make videos - great ones, not just good ones - and then enter them into the competition they're holding. And if they like your work, then...

Well... Um... They're going to include it in a reel they show to their clients, or something. It's not really clear. Look, just send them your stuff, yeah? Peace and fucking!

Edit -- Best comment under the Creative Heads video:

"Why old people are so stupid?"

Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine

2010-02-13T13:31:00.002+01:00

Still trying to teach myself to paint in Photoshop. This one didn't come out too badly.

Today's demented rage...

2010-02-11T08:17:00.006+01:00

...comes courtesy of YouTube user Mujah2009. I like to think the last thing s/he tried to write (before trying to find out how to report me to YouTube) was "I will sue you".

This is all because I suggested that Muhammad started the religion of Islam, of course.

An email that might lead to a meeting

2010-02-05T17:18:00.003+01:00

Someone with the power to make stuff happen (ie sign cheques) has decided that he likes some of my work* enough to discuss doing something with it.

How exciting is that?

Yeah, it's not very exciting at all. But in the interests of recording every false raising of hope that one encounters when trying to actually get paid for writing funny things, I'm obliged to mention it.

*It's actually "our work", because the project in question involves Comedy Sketch Writing Partner as well. But that was difficult to get across in the first sentence without changing the structure, and I'd already decided I liked the structure, so there.

Someone called me a "grammar wanker" yesterday. Can you believe it?

Comment removed by poster

2010-02-04T13:37:00.003+01:00

I like that even when a commenter removes a comment, as the channel owner you can sometimes see what they put. Viz:

SERIOUSLY SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! your not funny your imature you seem like a 5 year who put a 500 pound weight on his balls so they droped seriously shut the fuck up your voice is so fuckn annoying !!! how does anybody talk to you in person or even worse let you into there house even if its through speakers your so fuckn agrovating you should be shot in the head with a ak47 999999999999999999999999999999999999 you should of been swallowed with ur mum that ur dad had to pay to make you..

Thanks to YouTube user y2taner for that one.

"Age: 38"?

Tsk.

I'm being watched! Now!

2010-01-30T03:59:00.002+01:00

Nice when that happens.

An angry man responds

2010-01-23T14:48:00.004+01:00

I've been fairly lucky with how my videos have been received on YouTube. Most viewers seem to enjoy them, and while the comments sections are full of badly-spelled insults they're generally aimed at other commenters rather than me. The odd outraged religious fanatic aside, nobody has ever really committed themselves to tearing me apart for what I do.

Except this guy.

He properly gets going about two and a half minutes in. It's a response to the video I made called "The Problem With YouTube", which he describes thusly:

"He's telling you you shouldn't watch real people but you should watch him tell you not to watch real people."

And then he talks at great length about cock sucking.

I feel sullied

2010-01-21T23:35:00.008+01:00

Someone using the YouTube channel name "Buzzinator99" and signing herself "Jenny" just sent me the following email:

Hows it going? We were scoping out your YouTube channel and wanted to hit you up and let you know that Ford is recruiting a new crop of Fiesta Agents for Chapter 2 of the Fiesta Movement. We think you would be a great addition to the program so we wanted to provide you with some additional information. Take a gander and let me know if this is something you may be interested in participating in.

Check out all the groovy hipster-speak, daddio! They didn't look at my channel, they "scoped it out"! And now they're "hitting me up" with some kind of sweet information! What can they possibly want?

As you may know for Chapter 1 of the Fiesta Movement, Ford gave (100) socially vibrant individuals a Ford Fiesta for 7 months to complete missions and create cool content online to share with their online following.

I did not know that! In fact, I had never heard the term "Fiesta Movement" until just now. Which suggests that either a) I'm totally out of touch with what's going down on the internets, or b) that the "Fiesta Movement" advertising campaign hasn't achieved the kind of saturation Ford were hoping for.

But I am flattered by the implication that I'm a "socially vibrant individual". They must have really scoped out my videos good to come to that conclusion.

From March-June, this next group of Agent teams will be implementing Fords marketing/advertising campaign. Ford will provide the media channels (think billboards, pop-up retail space, graffiti wall, etc) and connect the Agents with local creative talent to bring their ideas to life but the creative direction/freedom for how Ford should be marketing the product features of the Fiesta is entirely up to the Agents.

So Ford are putting their new marketing/advertising campaign in the hands of amateurs they find on YouTube? That's awfully daring of them, especially if they're giving complete creative freedom to their "Agents".

And hey, wow! Don't advertising agencies usually charge simply zillions of moneys for their services? Does this mean that Ford are going to hand over the entire budget they would have given to Bartle Saatchi Gogarty to people like me? Awesome!

In return for their efforts, teams will be provided with a Fiesta (gas and insurance) as well as technology/design equipment to assist with the design process for each challenge pretty sweet deal!

Oh.

Oh, I see. No money, but a new car. Well, I guess a new car isn't too bad. Even if it is a Ford Fiesta. I could always sell it.

Wait, what's this bit on their website?

Your team will have access to an all-new 2011 Ford Fiesta for the duration of the program (with gas and insurance) and a shot at winning a brand new Fiesta for yourself and your teammate.

Ah. So I get to borrow a car. Which I can use while I create their advertising campaign for them. And then I have to give it back.

Pretty sweet deal indeed. Guess I'd better write them a reply.

Dear Jenny at Buzzinator99,

Which bit of my YouTube channel was it that gave you the impression I was a whore? I'd like to know so that I can rectify the situation.

Thanks,

Mike

Radio sitcom disappointment

2010-01-19T11:33:00.009+01:00

"We do very little of this sort of stuff (comedy sci fi)", writes the lady at BBC radio.

And with those twelve words, my major writing project from last year is dead.

We don't even know if they read the script, or just saw that it was science fiction and rejected it on that basis.

Suicide is no laughing matter. O RLY?

2010-01-16T14:45:00.006+01:00

YouTube user DefinitionIsGone sums up the internet in four letters in the comments thread of my latest video.

Sketch show disappointment

2010-01-14T17:02:00.007+01:00

Comedy Sketch-Writing Partner informs me that only one (ONE) of the many sketches we submitted to High Profile BBC Comedy Show has made the shooting list; which is better than nothing (ZERO), but there's no guarantee it will make the edit of the show or even the DVD extras so I'm counting it a disaster.

I blame it on the snow, rather than any fault in the writing.

Because some of them would have had to be filmed outside?

Yes. That's definitely why they were rejected.

But whatever sketches they do include in the new series had better be BLOODY GOOD, is all I can say, or I may have to stamp my foot and shake my fist in the direction of the telly. Sort of like this guy is doing:

Pointless Internet Arguments

2009-12-23T13:17:00.005+01:00

Nice to see that the Pointless Internet Argument Forums (set up by someone after a mention in my Facebook video) are still going strong.

What have I been doing?

2009-12-16T14:28:00.002+01:00

I bin writting stuf to send to da BeeBeeCee, innit. And animating something that isn't Grey Bloke. And playing Modern Warfare 2, at which I suck.

Graham Murkett Christmas Address soon, I promise. It will be SGB video Number 50.

...

2009-12-08T09:35:00.002+01:00

Malcolm Tucker

2009-11-23T09:26:00.001+01:00

from "The Thick Of It".

Writing for the BBC

2009-11-22T13:14:00.005+01:00

Three weeks ago my Comedy Sketch-Writing Partner submitted several of our collaborative efforts to a well-known BBC sketch show -- and the producer liked some of them enough to ask us to rewrite them. So we have a deadline, suddenly, and it's tomorrow.

I think what happens next is that if the producer likes the rewrites, our sketches get performed by the cast in front of an audience; then I guess they're either discarded completely (if nobody laughs), or we rewrite them again to make the less funny bits funnier, or they just go forward as they are to be included in the shooting script.

It's all very exciting, and at some point in the far distant future some money might even change hands.

I picked up a pencil

2009-11-19T22:33:00.004+01:00

and drew Dexter's sister.

Plus: fairly good feedback from a producer I can't name regarding some writing for a show I don't want to mention in case nothing comes of it.

Inspiring reminder from John August

2009-11-11T10:11:00.005+01:00

"You wouldn’t splash gasoline on the walls of your home, then toss a few matches while strolling out the door. In real life, this kind of willful destruction is criminal.

In fiction, it’s crucial."

The whole piece is on his blog.

White men are like angels or something?

2009-11-04T08:22:00.014+01:00

This video I did about the BNP continues to attract comments from angry racists. In the latest, a young lady calling herself onewhitefemale copy-pasted this:

"In the United States in 2005, 37,460 white females were sexually assaulted or raped by a black man, while between zero and ten black females were sexually assaulted or raped by a white man. What this means is that every day in the United States, over one hundred white women are raped or sexually assaulted by a black man."

Something about the figures made me think that, just maybe, this analysis of the state of interracial rape in the US in 2005 was flawed. Maybe it was the disparity between the numbers. Was it really possible that white men raped fewer than ten black women in a whole year - the same year in which black men were on some kind of rape rampage?

Onewhitefemale, this blog post is for you, and its message is this: Google.

The quote you pasted comes from a 2007 article from FrontPage magazine written by a guy called Lawrence Auster; and the article was really just a repeat of something Auster had written on his blog a week or so earlier. To arrive at the figures mentioned, Auster analyses (in the broadest sense of the word*) a table from a Department Of Justice document called Criminal Victimization in the US 2005.

Trouble is, the figures don't mean what Auster thinks they mean. And four days after FrontPage published his article, he admitted as much on his own blog.

He doesn't come out and say he was wrong, exactly. He titles the second piece "New Perspectives On The DOJ Figures", and includes several emails he received from people who actually read the Department Of Justice reports in detail. You ought to go and read the whole thing -- but in case for some reason you can't be bothered, here are some highlights (in bold text because that's how you like them):

The DOJ figures are not reported rapes. The page you link to is a random survey, not a record of police reports. That's why it is called the "National Crime Victimization Survey.

and

The footnote "Estimate is based on about 10 or fewer sample cases" does NOT mean that there were 10 or fewer victims nationwide. It means there were 10 or fewer in the survey sample.

and

According to the glossary on page 143 "Sexual assaults may or may not involve force and include such things as grabbing or fondling. Sexual assault also includes verbal threats." Therefore the number of actual rapes is less then the numbers in Table 42.

As far as I can tell, FrontPage magazine never published a retraction of the original article, and the quote at the top of this page can now be found all over the web on various white supremacist and far right blogs and message boards. Just sitting there, all bold, waiting to be copied and pasted by people like you, onewhitefemale.

Perhaps you could tell your racist mates it's time to stop using that quote now.

Hey, did you read this far?

Hello?

*If we agree that "analyse" can sometimes mean "glance at with a total lack of comprehension".

How the BNP is dealing with their new membership policy

2009-10-16T09:42:00.008+02:00

The British National Party has agreed to accept non-white members rather than be deemed illegal under a revised Race Relations Act.

This is part of a speech made to the party faithful by Arthur Kemp, BNP Foreign Affairs spokesman (and author of March of the Titans: a history of the White Race):

“There are those who will say that the party will now be ‘flooded with ethnics’ and taken over. This will not happen for two reasons. Firstly, if the enemy was going to do something like that, they would have done it ages ago with white members. That never happened and there is no reason to think it will happen with ethnics. Secondly, even if this unlikely scenario ever happens, we will just all leave and start a new party. People vote for the principles of the party, and not the name. We will do that again and again and even if we end up with something called the Ying Tong Tiddle I Po party, we will still be here."

Not that they're a bunch of paranoid racist dickheads or anything.

Actually, I shouldn't call them "racist" - they don't like that term because they think it was invented by the Jews. Perhaps "racially obsessed" would be an acceptable alternative.

But damn, I would really like to see them become the "Ying Tong Tiddle I Po Party".

Jeffrey Archer's prison nightmare

2009-10-14T10:49:00.008+02:00

While on holiday, I picked up a second-hand copy of Jeffrey Archer's prison diary. The first volume, in which he describes the twenty two days he spent in Belmarsh.

He called the book "Hell", so I was expecting it to be a bit like the horrific American TV prison drama "Oz" -- but hell for Lord Archer turns out to be bad food and having to shave in lukewarm water. There's one moment when he implies that some young men swear at him in the exercise yard, but that's it for the violence and aggression you'd imagine would be a staple of prison life. Most of the other inmates go out of their way to politely provide him with interesting anecdotes, which he duly types up for profit.

But I was interested in his writing regime. When writing a novel, he says, Archer gets up at five thirty AM and writes for six hours a day, in two hour chunks with two hour breaks in between. He does this for fifty days, at the end of which he has a first draft. He then works for another year until he's written sixteen drafts, at which point he turns it over to his publisher.

Blogger Stan Cattimore at Bete du Jour actually read a whole Archer novel - one that had, presumably, gone through the sixteen draft process and then been edited before finally hitting the shelves - and very helpfully uploaded a few paragraphs to his blog.

This is the kind of prose the best-selling perjurer produces:

There are more excerpts in Stan's post at the link above, which is well worth your time (as is his whole blog). And the interesting thing is that AT NO POINT during his long writing process did Archer read any of those paragraphs back and think "God, that's diabolical. Maybe I should reword it..."

Literary ability aside, I have to admire Archer's self discipline in putting in the hours. And I bet he doesn't waste time writing blog posts sneering at people more successful than he is.

While in Thailand...

2009-10-12T16:46:00.004+02:00

... we met this guy, working on a t-shirt stall. He said he didn't really know much about who the Nazis were, he just liked the design.

Rewrites

2009-09-30T05:27:00.004+02:00

I've been in Thailand for most of September, but that's not important. The Important Thing is that my radio sitcom script was liked and taken on by an Exerienced Producer, and with his guidance I've written a fourth draft and revisions to same. Mainly in internet cafes to a soundtrack of first-person-shooter machine gun chatter.

It's a much better script now; more rounded main characters, a tighter plot, and a totally new antagonist who didn't appear in previous drafts. All that's left to do now is wait for the broadcaster to reject it...

The Importance Of Going Outside

2009-08-31T21:19:00.005+02:00

Spent some of last week working with my new Comedy Sketch-Writing Partner, which is something I've never tried before but it's been fun and productive and extremely motivating.

So motivating that his bank holiday silence (he is a grown-up with a family, as far as I know. Obviously I've never met him in the flesh - this is the Twenty First Century) left me a bit bereft, and the creative Bang! of last week faded to a rather dismal drone. Even washing up a huge mound of dishes didn't spark any ideas.

But then I went out to the supermarket, and while standing in the longest queue ever came up with two bits of stand-up. Stand-up that will probably never be performed, but it made me chuckle as I wrote it down just now. And the audience in my head laughed.

I love the audience in my head.

A tiny shuffling step forward

2009-08-20T00:08:00.002+02:00

My radio sitcom pilot script finally got read by a producer with some very impressive credits to his name, who apparently said Really Nice Things about my abilities as a writer. Though to be fair, he didn't say them to me but to the Famous Comedian who passed the script on to him.

When I told my Dad, his immediate reaction was to ask "Are you sure the Famous Comedian isn't just pretending that the producer said Really Nice Things? You know, so you don't feel bad?"

Ah, nothing like a bit of paternal support.

Lessons learned at the Edinburgh Fringe

2009-08-18T12:46:00.005+02:00

Jokes about rape, fisting and paedophilia are a bit clichéd these days. Several young, quite competent stand-ups plunged into the filth for their laughs, and it quickly became tiresome. Because while it may be fun to construct a line about, say, a girl being double-teamed by a goat and panther, it's not really "edgy" any more. As I watched these comics I realised how naively hacky a lot of my Grey Bloke scripts have been, and that I need to work much harder on my writing in future...

I also came up with a game to play during stand-up sets by male comics: Count the seconds until he alludes to his penis. It doesn't usually take long.

On the other hand, Mr Stewart Lee, Mr Jamie Kilstein, Mr Simon Munnery and Ms Bridget Christie (who is also Mrs Stewart Lee) managed to perform sixty minute shows without a single genital reference - and were hilariously funny throughout. I didn't get to see Mr Richard Herring because I cunningly lost my ticket to his show.

My Grey Bloke cartoon about Carol Thatcher was included in Ava Vidal's "Minority Report" show, so I got to see that with an audience for the first time. Turns out it's excruciatingly slow, with nary a titter until two minutes in - though the one laugh it got then was gratifying.

Best non-stand-up thing I saw: Mercy Madonna Of Malawi. That's Madonna in the picture above.

Don't give up the day job

2009-07-23T00:20:00.005+02:00

Things that are going on, or not:

War Babies - short scene in animation stage. Haven't touched it in over a fortnight, but it remains on each day's To Do List.

Graham Murkett's Previous Lives "Pharaoh" - finally have all the dialogue recorded; work continues on background props etc. Sound edit and animatic to be done this week.

State Of The Art - a guy was supposed to be doing an animatic for this. Haven't heard from him in months.

Radio sitcom - outline last seen sitting in a BBC producer's inbox.

Next YouTube SGB episodes - in various stages of scripting/casting.

Some Grey Bloke sitcom - kaput for now.

New sitcom idea - rolling round in head, to be paper-set in August.

When I put it down like this, I look quite busy...

Not finishing a script never felt so good

2009-07-08T15:00:00.004+02:00

At the beginning of this year, I started drafting a radio sitcom. It was about a pedantic local historian giving guided tours of a small town with nothing interesting about it.

I gave up after six pages and wrote something completely different, because it just didn't feel funny.

Yesterday, a friend sent me this:

New BBC Radio Comedy: Too Much Information!

A new comedy series about a Tourist Information Centre in a town with no tourist attractions whatsoever!

The ancient northern town of Waft appears in the Doomsday Book: "1 cow, diseased. Don't bother" and more recently in the Lonely Planet Guide: "Don't bother". It's twinned with a town near Chernobyl and is the perfect place to stop off on the way to Alton Towers to ask the way to Alton Towers - or to just use the toilet.

Tourist Information Centre Manager Warren, a passionate local history nut, is so sick of people just stopping off to spend a penny that he's taking a Zero Tolerance approach to visitors with his new leaflet "Enjoy the fascinating local area, or get lost". So tourists are somewhat rare. But local aristocrat on his uppers, Douglas Waft (Malcolm Tierney of TV's 'Lovejoy' and 'Brookside') is desperate to swell numbers by any means - opening the Sylvia Plath Guesthouse and Beatrix Potter Tearooms even though neither ever set foot in Waft.

Warren is horrified at Douglas's distortions of Waft history and hopes that his new highly qualified Tourism Assistant Lucy will draw the crowds honestly. But city-girl Lucy has only taken the job for a quiet life after a breakdown, and is now caught in the crossfire of Warren's stultifying facts and Douglas's outrageous fictions!

My script had a city-girl in it as well, but her role was more that of the aristocrat in this one. I didn't, however, steal the "Mostly harmless" joke from HitchHiker's Guide as this writer has.

Just think: if I'd finished my script and sent it to the Beeb, I could have got my hands on one of those letters they send out saying "Thanks for your proposal, but we already have something very similar in development".

Hell yeah.

2009-07-04T01:10:00.002+02:00

There should be an age of consent to join a religion.

Two years on YouTube

2009-06-25T12:02:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was Somegreybloke's second birthday. 56 videos uploaded to the account; 5.6 million odd views, and an overwhelmingly positive response from the people who bother to comment or award stars.

Best thing, though, is the number of excellent creative types I've met and had a chance to work with - even if they all live selfishly far away in other countries. This was a truly unexpected consequence of putting videos on YouTube, and it's no overstatement to say that it has changed my life. Just knowing that there are a bunch of people out there who are prepared to lend their talent - for free! - is very motivating.

All in all these last two years have been the most productive I've ever had, and I'm very happy to have internet-met you.

Cheers!

Word for Word 2

2009-06-19T11:53:00.003+02:00

I can haz job with Nashunal Geografik?

2009-06-16T19:00:00.000+02:00

In a totally selfless bid to reboot the economy I handed over some cash for a brand new Canon EOS 1000D digital SLR, and then took this picture with it.

Silly stop motion animations now added to production list.

And, ho yus! Somegreybloke has moved up to 5th place in the "YouTube UK> Most Subscribed Channels > Comedians" list, with close to 25,500 subscribers.

Fundie Sunday

2009-06-14T11:48:00.003+02:00

Not sure if this is satire or not.

Word for Word

2009-06-10T11:49:00.004+02:00

I thought it might be fun to collect some of the comments that the Some Grey Bloke videos inspire. This one's from one of the BNP videos, ripped out of context from a discussion of why racism is perfectly acceptable.

Some Grey Bloke mentioned in national newspaper shock!

2009-06-03T10:48:00.005+02:00

In November last year, in fact. Somehow I managed to miss this:

Daily Telegraph's "Top 10 You Tube celebrities".

Graham is number 9:

""Graham" might be one of the finds of the year on YouTube. Dreamt up by a British animator operating from Spain, SomeGreyBloke is YouTube's only animated vlogger: he comments on other people's videos, relates stories sparked off by online discussions and vents his spleen in the same way as "live" vloggers. With more than 12,000 subscribers and videos topping 1,000,000 views, Graham is a cult hit."

I'm trying to work out where the author got the idea that I'm in Spain. Apart from that, all good.

More please, journos.

100 minutes

2009-05-05T16:26:00.005+02:00

Just added up all the Some Grey Bloke episodes I've made so far, and the total duration is over an hour and a half. Which is the length of a feature film.

Admittedly it'd be a pretty dull feature film, considering it's just a talking head and the occasional cutaway.Though still more entertaining than The International.

I've been thinking about cleaning up all the earlier episodes - changing the backgrounds and adding shadows, fixing the sound, generally improving the artwork and editing, and maybe putting together a DVD for sale. But the question is, would enough people buy a DVD to make it worth the time and expense it would take to put together?

Most likely answer: not now that they've seen all the material for free online.

I suck at business.

Feel the love

2009-05-04T11:22:00.003+02:00

A couple of nice mentions of GreyBloke on YouTube.

Richard Coughlan's impersonation:

And a fantastic caricature by Panman38:

Edit: Thanks, James.

Script meeting to review the final draft of "The International"

2009-04-29T13:01:00.005+02:00

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

So there's this bank, right? Evil bank. Because they finance arms deals or something. Their headquarters is a HUGE glass building in Luxembourg with a massive, totally empty lobby and when you go there they know who you are before you introduce yourself.

Maybe they don't get many visitors.

Anyway, whenever this bank needs to have someone killed - which they do quite a lot; it is, after all, an evil bank - whenever they need someone killed, they use just one assassin to do it. Always the same guy.

And the assassin they use - presumably the best assassin they could find - has a gammy leg and an orthopedic brace and a tendency to leave footprints at the scene of the hits he carries out. And the orthopedic brace he wears is manufactured by only one company and prescribed by only one doctor.

So that's quite handy for Clive Owen. Who's Clive Owen? He's an Interpol agent. Kind of a maverick. If you read his dossier, he had a breakdown a few years back when he was on the verge of bringing a case against Evil Bank but then his superiors threw it out, and ever since then he's been DRIVEN by a burning desire to see Evil Bank taken down. Because he's the last decent moral person in a world full of people who have just given up, see?

So Clive Owen and some cops have tracked the bad-legged assassin to the corner of a street in New York. No, they haven't seen him yet. They know what he looks like, because Clive Owen saw him briefly right at the beginning of the movie, but didn't realise it until he dunked his head into a sink full of ice cubes. What? Because dunking your head into a sink full of ice cubes gives you PHOTOGRAPHIC RECALL. No, it does. Have you ever tried it? Well then.

So Clive Owen and the cops have found out from the orthopedic doctor that Mr Bad-Leg always gets a taxi to this street corner in New York after his appointments. So they wait on the corner for ninety seconds, and then Mr Bad-Leg walks past, and they follow him...

What?

What do you mean, it's "a bit convenient"? It's fine!

Well then, how DO they find the assassin?

Fuck it, I'm not doing another draft. It works; they see him walk past, they follow him, it's fine.

So the assassin has been called to a meeting by one of Evil Bank's top brass, and they arrange to meet at the Guggenheim museum. Yeah, because it looks good. It's all white and spirally. There's probably some subtext there as well if you want to look for it, but the main thing is the white and the spirals. And Clive Owen and his NYPD friends follow the assassin to the Guggenheim, and they go up to the fifth floor, and watch the assassin meet with the old guy who works for Evil Bank.

And the Old Guy tells the assassin to KILL CLIVE OWEN! Because they've had enough of him investigating them now.

What?

Yes, they could have had him killed any time. Yes, years ago, when he first started annoying them. But they didn't.

Well, maybe they were hoping he'd just get bored and give up. Maybe they only kill people when those people really start to bug them too much.

Yes, they did kill a guy at the beginning who'd only just been brought in on the case, that's true. Okay, yes, that does sort of negate what I just said. Do you want to write this? No? Right, then shut up. Where were we?

Oh yeah, so we're in the Guggenheim. The Old Guy tells Mr Bad-Leg to kill Clive Owen, and then the Old Guy leaves. One of Clive Owen's buddies follows him, and Clive Owen and the other cop stay to see what Mr Bad-Leg does next. And what Mr Bad-Leg does next is, he sees them!

So they move in to arrest him, saying police stuff like "We're the police, put your hands behind your head", and Mr Bad-Leg does, and it looks like Clive Owen has caught him and will now have the proof he needs that Evil Bank is evil, when suddenly...

The Guggenheim is full of guys with UZIs who try to kill Mr Bad-Leg and Clive Owen and his cop friend! And there's a HUMUNGOUS UZI SHOOT OUT that goes on for simply AGES! And Mr Bad-Leg now teams up with Clive Owen, and they kill most of the bad guys, but then Mr Bad-Leg gets shot and Clive Owen, who's all covered in blood, carries him to the reservoir in Central Park, and then the cops show up at the museum.

No, it would take the cops that long. And no, nobody would see a bloody Clive Owen dragging a dying man into Central Park. There would not be witnesses. A crowd would not gather outside the Guggenheim if a humungous Uzi shoot out were to take place inside. Just go with it, it's fine.

What the what now?

The guys with the Uzis work for Evil Bank, obviously. Yes, Evil Bank that always uses the one same gammy-legged assassin for all its wet work. And these Uzi guys were sent to kill the assassin if it looked like he was going to get arrested and might testify.

What? WHY is it hard to believe that Evil Bank would have a private army of Uzi-armed killers waiting on standby in an art gallery in case Interpol somehow showed up at a clandestine meeting between one of the bank's officials and its contract killer?

Do any of the Uzi guys survive the shootout? Yeah, two of them. They probably get arrested when the cops show up. Who cares? No, they can't say anything about who hired them, because... Look, at this point we've changed tack, okay? What seemed to be a vaguely realistic thriller about international credit and arms deals is now an action movie, so NOTHING MATTERS ANY MORE, okay?

You know what, if you're going to be so critical then I can't even be bothered to tell you the rest of the story. No. Write it yourself if you're such a hot shot.

I told you, I am NOT doing another draft. It's fine as it is. Let's just fucking shoot it.

Nothing much happening. Apart from the bioterrorism.

2009-04-28T17:21:00.004+02:00

The Famous Comedian for whom I'm writing my radio sitcom finally got round to reading the last draft. He gave me some useful notes and so another rewrite is under way; just minor changes, as he seems to think the script works.

Also, I have swine flu - like everyone else who's a bit sniffly this week. Was going to do a Grey Bloke about it but the topic is already so overblown I can't be bothered - and this morning the scientists were quite positive that even if it spreads, it probably won't be the extinction event I was hoping for.

Doesn't stop the NWO conspiracy theorists blaming it on "them", though.

A new look

2009-04-20T16:26:00.004+02:00

Thanks to James Raymond, who I met via this very blog, the most ambitious episode to date has been completed and it looks like this. I'm not 100% happy with everything about it but it's several steps in the right direction.

The house, yard and bin were built in Maya and rendered in Blender. Colour correction and compositing were done in After Effects.

Graham Murkett's Previous Lives

2009-04-02T18:34:00.003+02:00

Building and texturing this occupied a large part of last week, despite the fact that I got the statue from the fantastic Turbosquid 3D models site.

It will appear as the establishing shot in an Ancient Egyptian Grey Bloke episode that's been inching its way forward in the production queue since last autumn.

Becoming Batman

2009-03-18T20:43:00.004+01:00

One of YouTube's most impressive series is ending this week. Fourteen episodes of fantastic deadpan humour and excellent acting from Stuart Laws and Alastair Clayton; you probably miss a lot of the jokes if (like me) you're not a great fan of the Batman/Dark Knight mythos, but it's still very funny and well worth the time.

I mean, if you consider YouTube a good use of your time in the first place.

Direct link to first episode here, and a series recap here in case you want to see the kind of thing you'll be getting.

More faffing with background design

2009-03-07T15:28:00.004+01:00

Here's a reverse angle of Dane Geld in Graham's front yard.

Big in Zambia

2009-03-04T14:12:00.004+01:00

One of the most self-indulgently pointless yet interesting ways I've found to procrastinate is by clicking through the statistics in YouTube's "Insight" pages. Unsurprisingly, Grey Bloke is usually most popular in the UK, US, Canada and Australia - except for today, when Zambia makes a strange guest appearance at Number 3. Frustratingly, it doesn't seem possible to find out why.

Almost makes up for the fact that both Channel 4 and BBC television have now passed on the SGB sitcom...

Facebook

2009-03-03T12:04:00.004+01:00

The video I made about Facebook is doing pleasing business: 50,000 views in a week. And it's suddenly appeared here on Buzzfeed, with a nice badge saying "Most Shared" and a charming "LOL" sticker.

Still not "Viral" yet, though. Boo.

Faffing with background design

2009-03-01T20:35:00.006+01:00

About a year ago I was messing about with ideas for how Graham's world would look if we ever got to see him away from his computer. This weekend I tried building a 3D house for him, and I quite like the combination of cartoon and "volume" in this picture.

Still a lot of details need clearing up (windows, textures, props etc) but for the moment this seems more interesting than the cartoon look I was originally thinking of.

Topical comedy

2009-02-28T14:27:00.004+01:00

I submitted some sketches to BBC radio this week, as a kind of writer's audition for a new topical/satirical comedy show they're about to launch. Turns out it's quite difficult making funny out of the news.

Here's one of the sketches that guarantees I won't be invited to submit any more. Relevant news commentary is here.

SOUND: CLATTER AND CHUFF OF A STEAM TRAIN; WE ARE INSIDE ONE OF THE CARRIAGES. A WOODEN DOOR SLIDES OPEN.

GUARD
The body is in here, Monsieur Poirot...

POIROT
Ouf! What a mess! Do we know who it is?

GUARD
Yes, Detective. It is the body of a Mr Fred Goodwin.

POIROT
The former chief executive of the Royal Bank Of
Scotland...

GUARD
The very same. I’m no forensics expert, Monsieur
Poirot, but he would appear to have been stabbed.

POIROT
Yes. Yes, and if I’m not mistaken... It looks as though
he’s been stabbed around about sixty million times.

GUARD
Ah. That’s interesting.

POIROT
Do you know something, Monsieur le ticket inspecteur?

GUARD
It may be a coincidence, but... A group of about sixty
million people boarded the train in Istanbul. As I
recall, they said they were the entire population of
Great Britain.

POIROT
Then there’s our motive. Which carriage are they in?

GUARD
I’m afraid they all disembarked at Belgrade.

POIROT
Ah well. Just blame it on a teenager then.

I didn't like Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-25T16:23:00.005+01:00

An opinion piece.

---SPOILERS THROUGHOUT---

It's not a bad movie. It looks great, the actors are good, the story's fairly compelling and told in an interesting way. But I got the sense that at the end - after the beautiful girl says "Kiss me" to the poor boy who's been through so much, and the cast does a dance number over the credits - that I was supposed to be feeling good. Wiping away emotional tears and feeling all warm inside because the beautiful couple overcame the odds and now they can live happily ever after.

Instead I was miserable as hell. Because when you take away the love story and all the talk of "destiny" - which, let's face it, is Hollywood bullshit - what you're left with is a movie about a hideous reality that millions of people have to endure every single day. And they don't get a happy ending.

Take away the impossibly beautiful girl and the impossibly lucky guy, and it's a story about kids scavenging for food on immense rubbish heaps, vicious gangsters burning out childrens' eyes with chemicals, religious-crazy mobs beating and burning the poor to death while the police stand by and watch, and men becoming millionaires by exploiting anyone less fortunate or more ethical than themselves. And these bits of the film aren't Hollywood bullshit. These are the bits that are based on reality.

Nevertheless, as lucky guy kisses beautiful girl and the dancing begins, I'm supposed to forget all the horror we've just witnessed and sing along.

Unless, maybe, I'm not. Maybe Danny Boyle has done something very clever, and disguised a depressing bit of social commentary as a feelgood love story. Maybe he's like a Ninja Ken Loach. Maybe everybody who sees it walks out of the theatre as suicidal as I did, guilty and hopeless and wishing as-soon-as-possible extinction on the human species.

Still; beautiful girl.

Making shadows in After Effects

2009-02-24T17:21:00.005+01:00

Literally nones of people have expressed an interest in how Grey Bloke's new look was achieved, but here are some images grabbed from After Effects anyway in case any geeks are reading this.

As far as I know, this is the easiest way to apply shadows to a flat image if you want to retain some flexibility and have the option to change the light source.

Graham needs a new source of income

2009-02-20T12:43:00.006+01:00

I don't want Graham Murkett to have to go out to work -- it's important that he spends all his time half-dressed sitting in front of his computer. So a while back I decided that he'd done a deal online with a guy from Nigeria and was now set up for life -- though his millions haven't changed him one bit.

Flight Of The Conchords have just used exactly the same idea (season 2, episode 2). The sums of money are different and they end the episode broke again, but the "Nigerian scam turning out not to be a scam" idea has now officially been done.

And maybe it already had been done in countless other shows; maybe the idea just wasn't that clever in the first place.

But Graham now needs a different reason for not needing to work. I wonder if he might have inadvertently started a pyramid scheme way back before everyone realised they were rubbish...?

State Of The Art

2009-02-16T10:42:00.006+01:00

While the SomeGreyBloke sitcom and the radio thing hang in "Will Anybody Ever Get Back To Me?" limbo, one thing that is progressing is a (very) short film called State of The Art.

I don't want to give too much away at this stage, but it's being animated in Maya (a young chap who lives in London has come on board as animator) and the main character voice was provided by Max Koch-pronounced-Cook (who you can see here being Tony Soprano, Phil Leotardo, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro).

It started as an idea I suggested to the BBC back in September when somebody there was briefly interested in me. I can only assume that interest has waned -- but we're going ahead with the film anyway, because... Well, just because.

More old work

2009-02-11T13:48:00.004+01:00

Found another few Morph episodes I made in 1995.

That's FOURTEEN years ago. FOURTEEN YEARS.

Chas builds an enormous Leninesque sculpture

I have no idea what I was thinking with this one

And how contrived is this?

That Carol Thatcher apology in full

2009-02-07T12:50:00.003+01:00

"Carol Thatcher does not condone any racist comments. It was a private remark, said in jest, and she regrets any inconvenience caused."

So that's alright then.

Here's Stewart Lee on "Has political correctness gone mad?", saying it better than I ever could (obviously):

Heresy

41st Best Standup

BBC wishlist

2009-02-05T10:43:00.001+01:00

Informative review of a BBC Writer's Room talk held last night, courtesy of Kevin Murphy.

Madridiocy

2009-01-29T12:41:00.004+01:00

I was taken to lunch by a producer a couple of weeks ago; he wanted me to animate something for a promotional film.

"There's very little money," he said. "Hi, how are you?"

This is how all conversations with producers begin. No producer has ever said to someone they were hoping to employ: "We've got all the cash we need for this job. It's ridiculous! We literally don't know how we're going to spend it. How much of it do you want?"

Or, if a producer ever has said that, they're probably not a producer any more.

"I'm not worried about the money," I said. "I've already got a job. But I'm only doing this one for you if it doesn't turn into a chaotic, disorganised nightmare." Because I've done animation jobs in Spain before, and they always turn into chaotic, disorganised nightmares.

"This one won't," he said. "Trust me."

On Tuesday we arranged a meeting for this morning (Thursday) at 10.30 am, in his office on a very distant edge of the city. I arrived twenty minutes' late. Apologised to the people who were there. Asked where the producer was.

"He hasn't come in yet."

A quick phone call, and the admission that he'd totally forgotten about our meeting, was in another part of town having a meeting with somebody far more important, and could I hang around for an hour?

I couldn't.

You can't win

2009-01-28T13:51:00.003+01:00

I refused a plastic bag in the corner shop today. The shopkeeper said:

"Good on you! You know that in China, it's illegal to give carrier bags away? The customers have to pay for them. In China if I give you a bag for free, I get a three thousand Euro fine."

And I said, "That's an excellent idea, reducing bag pollution and that."

And he said, "Yeah. When they brought that law in, twenty thousand people lost their jobs in the plastic bag factories."