Dave Gorman

Me, Me, Melbourne

2012-01-26T09:21:00.002Z

Luna Park, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

It's Australia Day today... so what better day to announce that I'm taking the live show to Melbourne for the International Comedy Festival? There is no better day.

Actually, there are probably plenty of better days. I mean, it's Australians that are hopefully going to buy tickets and they're out celebrating because it's Australia Day. Oh well. It's too late now.

I'll be heading out after the 4 night run in London, for a 2 week run in Melbourne... before returning to the UK for my national tour.

Phew.

Tickets for Melbourne - and for London and the national tour for that matter - can be bought through the links on the Live Dates page of my site.

Perhaps, My Proudest Moment...

2012-01-25T11:13:00.001Z

"What a legend." (Stacey Solomon)

A Digest...

2012-01-23T10:45:00.003Z

Most weeks on the radio I bring a couple of songs in from home. We always put the details up on the Absolute Radio website but I still get a few emails and tweets asking me what they were so I thought I'd put some information up here as well:

On yesterday's show I played Run Out Of Morning by The Loose Salute:

And For My Record Machine by The Loud:

I really enjoyed the show yesterday. Inspired by a waiter who denied the existence of mint tea to me, despite serving it to people sitting at tables all around me, we started talking about weird dining experiences. There were cafes that serve All Day Breakfasts - but only before 11am - ants in the antipasti and a tweet from Alex Philip about a waiter in a Cornish restaurant who kept tucking the tablecloth into diner's collars for them, y'know... instead of a napkin.

Of course, as well as the main show, we do a load of extras for the podcast. This week we began our efforts to try and end a 10 year old grudge between a man in Bristol and his favourite pizzeria, discussed the things you can see behind a Dutch cafe toilet door and had a busy session in the Pun Street Planning Committee Council Chamber - where Brooklyn Tomato was put forward for Fail Lane (that makes sense when you know what kind of restaurant it is), two wool shops (Woollabulloo and Un-ewes-u-wool) went head to head for the right to take on the incumbent, World of Woolcraft and the coffee shops based in Glasgow's old Tardis style police boxes - Coppuchino - had a go at deposing Brewed Awakening.

Of course there's also the Someday Podcast out later in the week.

If you've got a suggestion for Pun Street send it to us here.

If you've got a suggestion for Listeners Lexicon - or a guess for any of this week's words (comfort, hairdresser, ARSFLY) you can send them here.

You can get the podcast here (itunes) or here (um... not itunes).

The Southbank Centre: April 2-5

2012-01-18T10:29:00.002Z

Optimus Prime, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

So... as well as the extra tour dates for Powerpoint Presentation, we've just added a 4 night run in London.

The shows will be in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre. April 2 - 5.

You can get tickets here.

The Pub Olympics

2012-01-13T16:22:00.002Z

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Pub Olympics recording last night.

I keep being asked what the show is. Um. It's a one off for Radio 2. It's not about beer mat flipping or anything like that because, well, because it's a one off for Radio 2. I can't imagine beer mat flipping makes for great radio. I might be wrong.

But it is silly. And it's a panel show of sorts. The sort that we imagined might be called The Pub Olympics in a world where the Pub Olympics is far more important than that other Olympics you might have heard about.

Anyway... in unrelated events, here's an animated gif of me eating a banana.

Radio Silence

2012-01-05T12:58:00.006Z

I hope you had a good Christmas and that you brought in 2012 in a way that made you happy.

Last year - by which I mean Christmas 2010 - I was very much behind schedule writing a book so I ended up not really doing Christmas at all. Mrs Gorman went off visiting family and I stayed at home and wrote. It was effective. I got the job done. But it wasn't really Christmas.

So this year I decided to do it in style. And with commitment. So I went offline on Christmas Eve and only revisited the world wide web a couple of days ago. And it wasn't just the internet that was forsaken. For New Year we went to a lovely place that didn't have a television. Bliss.

If you've read the book I was toiling away at 13 months ago (hint, it's this one) you'll have read about me visiting Tim Harford to play Agricola while he was staying in the Lake District.

You'll know that Tim told me about the Landmark Trust - an organisation that rescues historically significant buildings, saves them from ruin - or bad development - and helps to pay for it all by letting them out as holiday lets. You might remember that I got quite enthusiastic about the idea and that I promised Mrs Gorman we'd be using the Landmark Trust for some exciting holidays at some point in the future.

And that's what we did for New Year. It was spectacular.

I've now got a big backlog of emails. And more tweets than I can possibly scroll back through. I gather that Googlewhack was shown on the box somewhere. I had no idea. Thanks to everyone who sent a nice message. Sorry I haven't replied. Switching off just seemed like a better idea than staying on. I feel refreshed.

And the radio silence is over. Especially come Sunday. When I'll be being noisy. On the radio.

Happy New Year

2012-01-04T17:06:00.001Z

2012, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

No Stopping

2011-12-20T18:09:00.002Z

Saint Nick, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Santa's going to have trouble delivering presents round this way.

Listing. Sinking.

2011-12-07T14:08:00.002Z

For many years I've run a mailing list on my website. It's on the Contact page.

It's what they call a double opt-in list. That means that when you subscribe to it, you fill in your email address, it sends an email asking you to confirm and you only end up on the list if you do so.

Occasionally someone asks me if I can change their address for them as they've moved jobs etc. I decline because it seems to me to be bad practice to start adding addresses manually. While it's unlikely, they might be giving me their friend's address - or a stranger's address for that matter - and not their own. With the double opt-in mailing list, I know that everyone who's receiving the mail has chosen to do so. Every email comes with a working unsubscribe link - so it's dead easy for people to remove themselves, remove old addresses, add new ones, whatever.

Over the years the list has grown to over 10,000 addresses. I use a company called Bravenet for it - it isn't really possible for me to have that many addresses in my address book - and that way, I can visit a website, type an email out and hit send. Normally when I send an email, I get around 150 mails bouncing back to me. I delete those addresses from the list and try to keep things tidy.

But today when I sent an email to 10,119 subscribers... I had 4,493 bounce back to me as undelivered.

The problem seems to be that Bravenet's servers have been used to send spam... so now lots of other servers are blacklisting them. Including Hotmail and all their related domains. So about 45% of my mailing list won't have seen the latest email. Which is annoying. But I'm not sure what I can do about it.

I pay Bravenet for the service and over the last few years I've had more and more misgivings about the service they provide. Theirs is obviously a service that can be abused by spammers - and they can profit by allowing spammers to do so. Do they really care if a spammer pays them for a list or if I do?

But if their service ends up blacklisted they're no use to anyone. It's certainly no use to me.

If anyone has any expertise in this field and knows a reputable, affordable company, do let me know.

Meanwhile... here's the email I sent out today. It was announcing the 2012 tour extension - and letting people know about the presale link available from today:

*****************************************************************************

Hello you, seasons greetings and all that.

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone that came to see the show on tour. I had a fabbo time. I genuinely didn't want the tour to end... which is just as well because it hasn't ended. The tour is going to continue in 2012.

There's a one-off at the Doncaster Comedy Festival in February and then we'll be back on the road with the show in May, June & July. We're returning to some venues where the show sold out and also visiting a whole heap of new places.

Most of the venues go on sale officially on Friday. But we wanted to give you first dibs... which is why, from 10am today - Wednesday - you can buy tickets for most of the shows if you're in the know. And you are. Or at least you will be when you read the next line of this email.

http://www.seetickets.com/Tour/DAVE-GORMAN/Default/1/100/?pre=davegorman

There. Now you're in the know. That's the link. You can find all the shows that are on presale available behind that link as of 10am today. Then from Friday they should pretty much all be on general sale - and the links and details will be on the Live Dates page of my site.

The full list of dates is as follows:
February 12: Doncaster.

May:
Great Torrington (Devon), Wimborne (Dorset) Andover, Aldershot, Stafford, Durham, Colchester, Norwich.

June:
Hayes, Dartford, Treorci (Wales), Dudley, Salford/Manchester, Swindon, Harrogate, Ipswich, Belfast, Tunbridge Wells, Bristol, Truro, Reading, Cambridge, St Albans, Kings Lynn, Cheltenham, Coventry, Yeovil, Guildford.

July:
Dorking, The Isle of Wight.

I hope we're coming near you and that you'll want to pop along.

Oh... Belfast is already on sale as it's the re-scheduled gig for the show we had to move due to the industrial action.

Oh... and Norwich, Wimborne and Andover won't be on pre-sale but should be on general sale from Friday.

Oh... and Truro won't be on sale til December 30.

Oh... and... nope... that's all the 'Oh... ands' there are. I hope this email finds you well. If I don't email again between now and Christmas, I wish you the best of the season and of course, a very happy new year.

I look forward to our paths crossing...

Pip pip!

Dave
*****************************************************************************

Andrea Bocelli's Got Nice Legs Hasn't He!

2011-12-04T19:11:00.001Z

Ctrl C, Ctrl V

2011-12-02T18:26:00.005Z

I was surprised this morning to find a couple of messages saying, "I liked what you wrote in The Mirror, well done."

I was surprised because I hadn't written anything for the Mirror. It seems you don't have to these days. I did a bit of googling... and found this. If the words are familiar to you, that'll be because you read my last blog.

As did someone at The Mirror. Who then cut and pasted it into the paper. Odd.

Apparently someone on the Radio 2 breakfast show was talking about how I'd written a piece for The Mirror on the whole Clarkson thing too. I don't imagine many of those who read it thought that it wasn't written specifically for the paper.

Which is a bit cheeky of them to say the least. Oh well. As if we needed a lesson in not believing what we read in the papers at the minute.

Or maybe this is how things work these days and this blog is automatically being fed into the Mirror. I hope so. I can't wait to see this one!

Jeremy Clarkson Should Be Lined Up And Shot*

2011-12-01T01:49:00.006Z

[EDIT TO ADD: PEOPLE ARE COMMENTING BASED ON READING THE TITLE BUT NOT THE CONTENT... I'D HAVE THOUGHT THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY A STUPID THING TO DO]

So November 30th was a day of industrial action. And it was also a day when the professional contrarian, Jeremy Clarkson, was a guest on The One Show.

They, perhaps unwisely, asked him what he thought of the strikes. He, unsurprisingly, said something contrary. He suggested that the strikers should be lined up and shot. In front of their families. (By the way, his Mum was a teacher).

It was an oafish, insensitive, unfunny remark... from a man whose trademark is his oafish insensitivity. It was offensive. I don't think he should have said it. I think the BBC was right to apologise. [EDIT - according to one commenter, the BBC didn't apologise for this. I thought they had. Pfft]

But I was still surprised to see hundreds of people suddenly baying for his blood on twitter. The mob was reaching for their pitchforks. A campaign to get him sacked was suddenly started. It all seemed a bit out of order to me. Yes, I thought it was offensive and no, I didn't find it funny... but I don't remember arriving at a place where we decided we had a right to not be offended. I don't like the sound of that place. I don't like it at all.

I said something about it on twitter. It was obvious from my tweets that I didn't like the man and didn't approve of what he'd said. I just suggested that starting a campaign to get someone sacked because of a joke you didn't like was what they do. You know, them. Not us. That's their territory, not ours. That's that thing they do and we don't like.

From the way many people reacted, you'd think I'd tweeted "Ha ha ha... Jezza Clarkson's ace isn't he. LOL #LineThemUpAndShootThem"

"But he's an odious pr*ck" someone frothed. Yes. I agreed.
"Why are you apologising for Clarkson?"asked another. Um. I'm not.
"He's suggesting people be lined up and shot, we're suggesting he should be sacked. Who most deserves your criticism?" He does. And he's received it.

A few years ago Charlie Brooker wrote a glib line about wishing George Bush dead in his Guardian column. Some Americans thought his joke was offensive (see the comments here). How dare he call for Bush to be assassinated! That is an outrage!

You might have heard of a man called Paul Chambers and how he tweeted "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" it was understood by all who follow him on twitter to be exactly what it was: a hyperbolic venting of frustration upon discovering that he couldn't visit the woman he loves. Nobody took it seriously. But he was prosecuted for menace or somesuch. The case - the twitter joke trial - was a cause celebre, with many of the liberal twitterati rallying to his support.

I'm pretty sure that many who spartacussed their support for Paul a year ago, were calling for Clarkson to be sacked earlier today. Which seems to me to miss the point completely.

I know which of the jokes I liked and which I didn't. I know which one offended me. But it's not about which jokes you find funny and it's got nothing to do with whether the joke targets the strong or the weak. You have to defend the jokes you don't like as well as those that do. Be offended. Register your upset. Change the channel. But don't go assuming you have a right not to be offended.

Because if you really think that you and I are entitled to live in a world without offence, then you have to concede that everyone else is equally entitled to the same. And that means that all the jokes you like but they don't will have to go too.

A world that stops Jeremy Clarkson doing that is also a world that would have stopped Bill Hicks doing this:

Be offended by Clarkson - and by Hicks too, if you like. But you should defend your right to be offended, because it's also your right to offend.

*Not really. D'you see?

Dermot Draws The Egghead's Curtains...

2011-11-29T19:08:00.001Z

Does Dermot do this every day or was this a coincidence?

And finally...

2011-11-29T04:06:00.003Z

Hello Coventry!

Hello Carlisle!

Hello Preston!

Hello Perth!

Goodbye tour. For now.

We're going to extend the tour into next year. I'll have the dates all sorted soon!

Thanks to everyone who's been to see the show. I've bloomin' loved it.

Hello Again. Again.

2011-11-25T02:08:00.002Z

Hello Cheltenham!

Hello Wolverhampton!

Hello Leicester!

Hello Hammersmith!

Just Coventry, Carlisle, Preston and Perth to go... I'm going to miss this show.

Or maybe I'll just find a way to do it some more.

The Mind Wanders When You're On Tour...

2011-11-23T14:24:00.003Z

Take a full page ad for Specsavers from a national newspaper. Cut the face in half, removing the nose:

Then see what you'd like with grey hair:

Or a stubbly, silver beard:

Like I say. The mind wanders when you're on tour.

I'm Sorry Belfast!

2011-11-21T17:46:00.002Z

Well this tour was just going a bit too smoothly so something had to come along and upset the apple cart. Bah.

Unfortunately there's a day of industrial action planned for November 30th. Which means that the Waterfront Hall in Belfast is unlikely to have any staff. Including stage crew. Which makes putting the show on... well, kind of impossible.

So unfortunately we're left with little choice but to postpone the show to another date. It's a bit far off. June 15th. 2012.

That's literally as much as I know at the moment. If you have a ticket for the show next Wednesday - I can only advise you to contact the agency you bought it from. Of course, I'll try to find out more and update this page as and when I find anything out.

I'm gutted. But there really isn't anything I can do about it. Sorry.

The Wolves Civic

2011-11-21T06:11:00.004Z

I'd love to have been at the Wolverhampton Civic yesterday because it was home to the final of the Grand Slam of Darts. I like darts.

The tournament was won by Phil Taylor - the finest darts player there's ever been. I like Phil Taylor. I'm a fan of darts.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the final. I was on stage at the time. Having a lovely time in Cheltenham Town Hall as it goes. But I will be at the Wolverhampton Civic later on today as it just happens to be the venue for the next gig on the tour.

I've been hoping that a little bit of darting memorabilia might have been left behind for me.

But I wasn't expecting this:

Here's a close up of the sign:

How bloomin' lovely is that?

Very lovely.

More Photo Hellos

2011-11-20T00:02:00.002Z

Hello Bristol!

Hi Wycombe!

Hello Tunbridge Wells!

And Hello Watford!

Just Cheltenham, Wolerhampton, Leicester, London, Coventry, Carlisle, Preston, Perth and Belfast still to come...

We've been doing a lot of late night drives of late...

2011-11-15T20:31:00.001Z

Night Driving, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Ecky Thump 2

2011-11-14T12:03:00.004Z

I can't quite believe it, but I've now had a second report of someone pulling a muscle laughing at the tour show. (See here for the first!)

Last night, on my way back from High Wycombe I saw this tweet:
So I asked...

and the reply came...

Criminy.

He's maximum something, that's for sure.

2011-11-12T13:17:00.020Z

I'll start this post by saying that I like Ricky Gervais. I'll also say that the point of this post isn't to debate whether or not I'm right to. That's tedious. Because comedy is a matter of taste. Besides, this post really isn't about him. It's about another comic creation. One called @MaximumGervais.

I didn't realise it was a comedy character at first. But it's always worth looking at the details... and I'm genuinely convinced that it is now. I'm not being obtuse or playful when I say that. I'm convinced.

So... I'll tell you how I first encountered @MaximumGervais. It starts with this tweet from Ricky.

For those unfamiliar with the grammar of Twitter, the abusive 'who-told-him-he-was-funny' post came from someone else (I've filtered their username because I don't want to encourage any pitchfork wielding mobs) and Ricky has retweeted it - ie sent it out to all his followers - with the added retort, Bafta.

So that's what Ricky tweeted... and I saw it because someone I know, retweeted that. Now, I don't have a lot of time for the person who sent the original, abusive tweet... because actually, no matter what you think of any comedian, the answer to who-told-them-they're-funny? is always the same: audiences. There's no empirical evidence of funny/unfunny. Every comedian that you think is unfunny makes other people laugh. (And every comedian that you think is hilarious leaves other people cold). And whatever you think of Ricky, there is plenty of evidence that lots of people think he's funny. Including some evidence from Bafta. Fine.

Now one of the things about social media is that it is what you make of it. You can lurk and read. You can participate. You can troll. You can use it in myriad ways. And some people think that their way is right and that other people's way is wrong. Personally, I have a policy of not retweeting praise. Or criticism. It wasn't ever thus for me... but it's where I've ended up. It's what makes me feel comfortable. But I don't think everyone should do the same. There are people I admire a great deal who do both. If it offended me so much I'd unfollow them. (I don't see unfollowing someone as an aggressive act - it's like changing seat on a bus to sit away from the passenger with the loud headphones... it's just making your own journey a little nicer, that's all.)

But the thing that struck me as odd about Ricky's tweet was that the abuse he was rebutting wasn't actually sent to him. It didn't contain his twitter name. It didn't refer to him as @RickyGervais... but as Ricky Gervais. So the only way he could have seen it was by searching for his name. Which seemed to me to be a surprising thing for him to do. Because it's not possible to appear on TV without being hated by someone somewhere. Every time anyone appears on TV someone somewhere is watching and saying, "Oh no... not that twat... I hate them...". (Okay, maybe it doesn't happen with David Attenborough. But it happens with everyone else.) And that's fine. Someone thinking that - someone saying it to their friends - is fine. You don't like to think about it obviously, but it's fine. It's the people who say it to you that are being anti-social. And on twitter that means it's the people who include your username - ensuring that you'll see the comment - that are the problem.

Now I'll reiterate that I like Ricky. And I was surprised to see that he was searching for criticism and taking the time to rebut it... but I'll also reiterate that social networking sites are what you make of them - and for each individual that can - and will - be different. Nobody's right, nobody's wrong.

But I registered my surprise by sending a tweet to the person who'd retweeted Ricky's post:

(again, I've filtered out their username)

And this is where MaximumGervais tipped up. They too must have been searching for comments relating to Ricky - and they must have been following all sorts of threads because my tweet doesn't even mention any obviously searchable terms - but they tweeted me the following:
Which made me laugh as an approach, so I replied...

To which they then replied:

Which again made me laugh. I didn't know that the person who'd been on Letterman most was the best (but it must be nice for David Letterman to know that he's several thousand times better than everyone else on earth, except Paul Shaffer) and comforting in a small way to confirm that both I and David not-the-magician Copperfield are significantly better than MaximumGervais.

Now at this stage I just thought they were a genuine Ricky Gervais superfan. I thought they really were patrolling the internet and defending their hero against any slight, however small. But I was also genuinely curious as to why they thought my initial tweet was deemed critical. I wouldn't expect the word 'Criminy' to inspire such vitriol. Surely, you'd only see that tweet as being critical if you thought that searching for your own name and wading in was wrong. If you think it's okay then... well... it's just 'criminy'.

So I asked. And they didn't answer. They told me I'd slagged off Ricky and that I was motivated by jealousy... but when I asked them in what way it was a slagging off they sent more abuse but no context. So in my head I dismissed them as a troll and decided not to feed them.

But then I saw another of their exchanges... and this is when I started to suspect that maybe they weren't just a slightly unhinged, OTT Gervais fan at all and that this was actually someone creating a comedy of their own. It was this:

So... a fan posts a link to a clip featuring Liam Neeson and Ricky Gervais. (It's from Ricky's new sitcom and it is indeed brilliant.) And the comment seems to be par for the course for that kind of thing. It seems to me to be written from the point of view of a fan who expects Ricky to be funny - it's in his show after all - but is surprised by how good the serious-actor-stepping-out-of-his-comfort-zone is.

In fact it's exactly the sort of thing a Ricky Gervais superfan would tweet. Except that MaximumGervais replied saying:

Because in their headspace it's disrespectful to point out that Neeson is brilliant and not mention that Ricky is too. The idiot! Duh! etc. etc.

All of a sudden that doesn't ring true. That seems like someone playing a character. So I started looking through their other posts too. Here's another where a fan of the show is told they're not a real fan because they only mentioned the one scene that had them crying with laughter:

I know there are all sorts of unhinged people out there - and that the internet is particularly good at incubating them - but after that I can't see how MaximumGervais is anything other than a situationist prank.

Especially when they also tweet:which came at the end of several tweets to their hero explaining why he should cut loose from his long term collaborator, Stephen Merchant. Compare and contrast it with the tweet from before about how every scene should make you cry with laughter. Unconditionally. Because that's what being a fan is. And anything else is not good enough.

By this stage I was starting to suspect that this was so much more than a spoof. This was high comic writing in its own right. Because it involves idolising someone/something while at the same time completely failing to get what it is that makes it work.

In fact, I suspect that they're really rather anti-Ricky. A lot of what Ricky does is about ego. And when people don't like him it's often because they're unsure where the line is between the performance and the reality. Some people think he's really just an overblown ego. Others think he's doing it for comic effect. Some like it either way. Some hate it either way.

But I think MaximumGervais is someone who hates it - and has created a character that is meant to be Ricky's ego broken free and wandering loose as an uncontrollable monster. I think it's a satire on Ricky's comic persona from the point of view of someone who doesn't buy it as a comic persona.

Do an image search for Ricky and tell me you think this is really the picture a genuine superfan would use to illustrate their account:

See that Ricky has apologised for his use of the word mong having accepted that - while it wasn't his intention to use it that way - he understood that the word is still used to denigrate disabled people and then see that MaximumGervais has a twitter biography that still says, "no mongs allowed."

Then see the various posts in which he tells Ricky he's wrong to apologise for it:
There were lots of others. And then finally, the tweet where he inexplicably decides that Ricky's apology wasn't sincere and was just an in-joke:
Can you imagine anything more calculated to annoy Ricky? A superfan who completely misses the point of him? A representation of an ego gone mad designed to tell someone he doesn't like that their ego's gone mad.

I like Ricky. And now I'm convinced that MaximumGervais is a character-act, I kind of like them too. And I think Ricky probably would do too. It's a parody of a parody that he doesn't think is a parody. It's the most meta- of meta-jokes. What could be more Gervaisian than that?

Tour Snaps Continue...

2011-11-12T13:09:00.003Z

Hello Dublin!

Hello Birmingham!

Hello Oxford!

Hello York!

Hello Middlesbrough!

Only thirteen gigs left now... Bristol tonight. High Wycombe on Sunday, then Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, Wolverhampton, Leicester, London, Coventry, Carlisle, Preston, Perth and Belfast. Details here.

Well this is getting silly now...

2011-11-08T11:25:00.005Z

Having only just got my head around the idea of someone pulling a muscle at the Guildford show (see my previous post) I was surprised this morning to see the following tweet about the Birmingham show.

I was curious. How do you accidentally headbutt someone in a theatre? I assumed he meant it was some kind of reaching-across-the-bar-during-the-interval accident rather than a during-the-show-and-sitting-in-your-seat kind of thing... so I asked. And this was the answer:

Another person hurting themselves in one of the shows. I was getting worried. But luckily, someone else has been in touch to tell me of the show's healing powers:

So y'know... it's not all bad.

Ecky Thump!

2011-11-04T16:41:00.003Z

A man once died laughing at The Goodies.

I'll settle for causing a pulled muscle. At least that's what two folks on twitter are telling me happened in Guildford.

Is it true? Does anyone know the woman in question?