Smaller Than Life

Observational Humour

2009-10-26T12:08:00.002Z

I pride myself on my powers of observation. For instance, I am very good at noticing when people are left-handed, either in real life, or on-screen. Obviously this is fairly easy if you are consciously trying to spot if someone is a leftie as you can just wait for them to pick up a pen. What I mean is that I notice without consciously looking. As soon as I see someone writing something with their left hand, the thought immediately pops into my head: “That person is left-handed”, but if they are using their right hand then I don’t immediately think anything at all. I have never found a use for this beyond annoying my girlfriend during films, or pointing things out to new acquaintances that they would have been aware for the majority of their lives, but who knows what crime I might witness where the conviction hinges on which hand the accused was using to plunge a bloody knife into someone’s body? Beyond reasonable doubt I would notice if they were using their left hand, but if they were just like 90-93% of the population I would probably not register the scene at all and carry on walking. So beware, all you sinistral stabbers. Though I actually have no statistics as to how many southpaws I am missing – I only have my intuition that I am spotting them all. What I need to do is team up with someone who only consciously notices when people are right-handed, spend a lot of time together, filming everyone we see whether on-screen or in real life, then play the video back and see if there is anyone we have missed. Perhaps those people will turn out to be ambidextrous. Who knows? It’s a crazy life I lead.

Anyway, I was sitting in a cafe in Brighton on Saturday with my girlfriend when I noticed a strange thing. There were two photos of Brighton Pier on the wall behind her, taken from different angles. But something was odd about them. As I looked more closely I realised that the right-hand one was not a different photo taken from the other side of the pier as I first though, but was the first photo, reprinted in reverse. All the detail, down to the last pebble, was just flipped around. It felt like a cheap trick. How much time and money had the photographer tried to save by doing this instead of just walking to the other side of the pier and taking another photo?

After some intense study and internal conjecture whilst my fry-up got cold, I pointed all this fascinating detail out to my girlfriend, who stopped eating, sighed, took one look over her shoulder and said, “There’s a mirror between them”.

Sadly, she was right. The end wall had an alcove entirely filled with a mirror. There was only one photo, and I had been looking at its mirror image. This also explained why for 15 minutes a man had been sitting on a chair looking straight down the stairs to the basement, which I had thought a bit odd, even for Brighton. He was merely a reflection of a man who was sitting perfectly normally on a chair in the cafe eating his lunch, oblivious to the idiot at the next table. I consoled myself with the knowledge that one of these two men would be left-handed.

Smaller Than Life #6

2009-10-22T10:14:00.002+01:00

Smaller Than Life #5

2009-10-21T10:55:00.003+01:00

Smaller Than Life #4

2009-10-19T12:03:00.003+01:00

Smaller Than Life #3

2009-10-16T11:57:00.003+01:00

Keep Taking the Tablets

2009-10-15T09:41:00.000+01:00

As you can see, I have bought a graphics tablet. It was an impulse purchase so that I could try to be a bit more creative in different ways and just try out some new ideas. I thought that if it didn't work I could simply return it, or flog it on eBay.

I am not very good at drawing, so perhaps you think I am still using a mouse, with my left hand, which I have injured with a hammer, but I can assure you that I am using a graphics tablet with my uninjured right hand, which is my preferred hand for drawing. It is not my Lovely Son drawing these cartoons, and anyone who says it is is lying.

My Lovely Son does likes sitting on my lap and trying to use the graphics tablet though, doing some excellent scribbling and watching with glee how his actions are translated from the desk up on to the screen. Today he drew some circles and some steps. At this rate he will be complaining about the 50% tax rate before we know it. But soon he realised his artistic limitations and put the stylus in my hand and told me to draw a bus. "What colour is this?" I said, drawing a magnificent blue double-decker.

"Green", my Lovely Son replied.

I was a bit disappointed. We are not trying to get him into Mensa or anything, but I had thought we had got colours cracked several months ago.

"No, it's blue. What colour is it?"

"Green."

"No, it's blue."

"Green!"

I looked down, and sure enough he was drawing directly on the graphics tablet with a green felt tip.

Smaller Than Life #2

2009-10-14T09:15:00.005+01:00

Smaller Than Life #1

2009-10-12T14:15:00.002+01:00

test6

2009-08-19T12:57:00.001+01:00

test6

test5

2009-08-19T12:45:00.001+01:00

test5

Help Wanted Please

2009-07-13T18:09:00.003+01:00

Does anyone remember an 80s pop video where a still photo was taken of the artiste playing every note on a keyboard (in various poses) then these were sequenced together in jump cuts to match the melody?

I need to ~~completely rip it off~~ use it as a reference.

Extra points for direct linking to YouTube.

Life On Mars

2009-07-09T21:39:00.004+01:00

My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Or did I just go on holiday to the Isle of Wight, where orange juice is still served as a starter?

(It was actually a lovely holiday, and I had a full-on three-and-a-half decade Proustian rush when for dessert I had some of that neon pink pre-Haagen-Dazs/Ben & Jerry's strawberry ice cream that has been nowhere near a strawberry and is probably full of chemicals that have been banned everywhere else in Europe since before Live Aid, but made me very happy indeed.)

You Know You're Getting Older When...

2009-06-10T14:01:00.003+01:00

You see the headline "Pop star Stevens robbed at home" and your first thought is "Oh, no! Not Shaky!"

Little Bit of Politics...

2009-05-11T10:55:00.003+01:00

(Also available on b3ta.)

Would You Adam and Eve It?

2009-04-29T09:59:00.001+01:00

Dear Early Learning Centre...

2009-04-27T11:51:00.008+01:00

Dear Early Learning Centre

My son loves playing with his Early Learning Centre Noah’s ark set. Well done on pursuing that religious angle in these increasingly secular days! He is only 19 months old, but I have already explained to him how this toy celebrates the death of everyone on earth bar one family. He loves it! I expect that in years to come there will be some awkward questions about how big the ark would have had to have been, how Noah could have stopped the carnivores eating the herbivores, and how he could have saved the humble woodworm at all without the Ark ending up looking like Swiss cheese. But for now we are just having fun playing!

I do have one question for you though: I am not David Attenborough or anything, but even I can see that in your ark Noah has quite clearly saved two male lions. Look – they both have manes:

The lion is perhaps the species in which it is easiest to differentiate between the male and the female. It’s not like it’s one of those penguins that even zookeepers can’t tell apart unless they’ve got one anaesthetised in an operating theatre. I thought perhaps that there had been a mistake at the factory and that somewhere else in the country another small child was playing with a Noah’s ark containing two lionesses. But no, the picture on the box clearly shows two male lions:

Are these lions gay? Because I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what the Bible thinks about that. (It’s actually a bit contradictory – vacillating between loving everyone and stoning them to death with little middle ground along the lines of “I quite like Graham Norton in small doses and what they all do behind closed doors is up to them”.) But more importantly, how was Noah planning on continuing the world's population of lions with a couple of bummers? Was he going to try cloning them? Because I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what the Bible thinks about that. (It actually doesn’t mention it, unless it’s buried amongst all those rules in Leviticus about not wearing clothes made from different materials or planting different crops next to each other. The closest I can find is “Do not mate different kinds of animals” (Leviticus 19:18), which is kind of the exact opposite of cloning, so maybe God is in favour of it? I don’t know, but it’s a moot point anyway, as it's doubtful the technology would have been available to Noah, whose main area of expertise was carpentry.)

One more question: what kind of animal are these? The box just lists the contents as a rather non-specific “12 x animal shapes”.

Like I said, I’m not David Attenborough or anything, but given that the other animals on what I am increasingly beginning to believe was just a floating fairy tale are lions, elephants, giraffes, camels and rhinoceroses, I was expecting something a 19-month old would be able to instantly recognise. We think they look like guinea pigs, but they’re the same size as the rhinos! Maybe if you made guinea pigs to scale they would represent a choking hazard, but at their current dimensions I think they will scare my son when it comes to choosing his first pet. If you’re looking for another animal with a distinctive silhouette, what about the kangaroo? (Though this might throw up a few awkward questions about Australia not having been discovered at the time of the Great Flood.)

Yours, for the time being, faithfully

Mr S Vincent

Signs That Work May Be Taking Over My Life #1

2009-04-15T13:38:00.003+01:00

Working from home in a job that I love in an industry in which most of my friends also work means that it can be difficult to switch off. Combine this with the mostly welcome freelancer’s dilemma of never wanting to turn work down and I have been busy. In particular I have been working weekends on one project which is about to start filming, bringing a flurry of phone calls about last-minute legal issues and cast and location changes, necessitating some very hurried rewrites.

In short, my work/life ratio has been as unbalanced as John Prescott on a see-saw, but I finally managed to take some time off at Easter and see my niece, who has learnt some jokes:

MY 4-YEAR-OLD NIECE: What do you get if you pour hot water down a rabbit hole?

ME: I don’t know. (Although I did, really.)

MY 4-YEAR-OLD NIECE: A hot cross bunny.

ME: (Laughs) Very good. (Pause) Though maybe you shouldn’t use the word ‘hot’ in the feedline as you repeat it in the punchline. I don’t know what you could use instead though. ‘Boiling’ would be too cruel to the rabbit, ‘warm’ isn’t hot enough and ‘heated’ is just too laborious. It’s a shame there isn’t an exact synonym for hot. Maybe it shouldn’t be water at all ...

MY 4-YEAR-OLD NIECE: I’m going to go and eat some chocolate now.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

2009-04-08T17:27:00.005+01:00

I am on my way to a meeting. For once I am driving as the studio I am visiting is some way from public transport. They know that I am driving and should have booked me a space.

It's for a show I've worked on before, but for this series there have been budget cuts which means a slight reduction in my pay. Not great, but it's fun work and at least they're going to pay me and not go into administration owing me money. I hope.

When I get there I go straight to the main car park. Unfortunately the man at the barrier knows nothing about my visit and suggests I try the main reception. At the front of the studio are a few spaces, but they are all reserved for bigwigs and head honchos so I just park at an awkward angle in a place that is obviously not meant to be parked in and nip into reception.

There I tell them that I should have a car parking space booked and the lovely lady confirms that that's correct and it should be right out the front with my name on it, ie one of the spaces I had driven past, assuming they were for the important people whilst us plebs had to go round the back and take our chances in a numbered spot.

I drive back round and there it is - a car parking space with my name on it. I am a head honcho! I am a bigwig! I have arrived! (albeit in a second-hand Ford Focus that smells a bit of sick). I park and go into my meeting where the first thing I am asked is whether I got my car parking space OK. I say yes, and relate the whole "driving past it thinking I wasn't important enough to get a car parking space with my name on it" story and we all have a laugh.

As the meeting progresses I realise what they are up to though: they think that they can get away with paying me less by giving me something that doesn't actually cost them anything - a car parking space with my name on it. And if they think they can get away with paying me less by giving me a car parking space with my name on it they are dead right. It is brilliant! A car parking space with my name on it!

I imagine it is like the first time you fly first class - once you have seen how the other half park you can never go back. I won't be able to drive to Tesco ever again unless next to the disabled and parent and baby spaces there is a special space just for me. With my name on it. I will settle for nothing less now.

And I will be telling my agent that the requirement of a car parking space with my name on it must be written into all my contracts from now on. Even the ones where I arrive by tube. In fact, especially the ones where I arrive by tube.

Every Little Helps

2009-04-06T17:31:00.008+01:00

INT. CHOCOLATE LOG FACTORY – DAY.

Two Employees glumly inspect their sales figures.

EMPLOYEE 1
Have you noticed that sales of chocolate logs are a bit, well, seasonal?

EMPLOYEE 2
Yes. Yes, I had noticed that. We seem to sell a lot in December, but then the rest of the year is empty and we end up having to throw quite a lot of chocolate logs away.

EMPLOYEE 1
Perhaps we could diversify and make some other kind of cake or confectionary item?

EMPLOYEE 2
But I only know how to make chocolate logs.

EMPLOYEE 1
Really? They’re just chocolate Swiss rolls, covered in chocolate. Are you sure you can’t adapt the recipe and make something else?

EMPLOYEE 2
No. It’s chocolate logs or nothing.

EMPLOYEE 1
But we’re going to go out of business.

EMPLOYEE 2
Maybe we can persuade people to buy chocolate logs at other times of the year?

EMPLOYEE 1
How? They are a completely Christmassy item. They are as Christmassy as crackers, baubles and tinsel.

They sit in silence for a moment.

EMPLOYEE 2
What about an Easter Chocolate Log?

EMPLOYEE 1
Brilliant!

Like most people I don’t have a clue where the chocolate rabbits fit into the crucifixion/resurrection scenario, but this is just a bit silly, isn’t it? However, I’m look forward to Father’s Day mince pies.

Venn That Tune Artwork Sale

2009-03-30T15:15:00.000+01:00

Do you like music? Do you like Venn diagrams? Do you like bidding for big colour pictures in online auctions?

Then you’ll love the fact that some of the Venn That Tune artwork displayed at Foyles is still for sale on eBay. Two of the very limited edition (one of each!) colour images are still available and can be signed by the author if you wish. They are A3-size and mounted in plastic clip frames.

See here for more information.

Happy Bidding!

http://www.vennthattune.com/

Supermarket Sleep

2009-03-20T18:19:00.002Z

I am at the supermarket, doing shopping. Good shopping. Great shopping. Classic shopping. Got my clubcard, got my vouchers, 2-for-1s, 3-for-2s. Checking the list, checking costs per unit weight, checking use-by dates, checking own-brand alternatives. It’s one of the biggest Tescos in the country, but I know it like either side of my hand.

I get to the checkout and am putting my stuff on the conveyor belt when I realise there’s been a catastrophic system breakdown and I’ve forgotten to get a butternut squash. Five years ago, butternut squash was just something weird they ate on Friends, now we have one a week. And they say that globalisation is a bad thing.

I know exactly where they’ll be, and the customer in front of me is still having her items scanned so I should be able to make it there and back without causing a delay. The customer in front of me is also a woman, so will doubtlessly, on being told the total she has to pay, stare in total befuddlement about this unexpected development and spend a billion years looking through her handbag for some means of paying. (NB This is not sexist, it is based on empirical evidence of at least one previous supermarket visit.)

“I’ve just forgotten something”, I tell the checkout woman. “I’ve just forgotten something”, I tell everyone in the queue behind me, and run off to the fruit and veg section. The butternut squash is exactly where I knew it would be. I pick one of optimum size and quality, checking the use-by date for maximum freshness, and turn to go back.

Then I stop in horror as I realise I have no idea which checkout is mine. I look along the dozens of lines, but nothing seems familiar. I scout up and down looking for landmarks, but I may as well be on Mars. Is this my checkout woman? Is this her? Was it a woman? Are these the angry people waiting for me? Is this my shopping? Suddenly I’m four years old and I’ve lost my mum.

I’m about to ask customer services to make a tannoy announcement when on one particular conveyor belt I recognise a pairing of a pile of nappies and a pile of ready meals. This certainly looks like my shopping. And the line isn’t moving. And everyone is looking at me angrily. But it can’t be my shopping because there, sitting between the alcohol and some more alcohol, is a butternut squash.

“Do you have a clubcard?” asks the checkout woman as I stare at the fruit as though a talking serpent has just asked me to eat it. Either someone else with not very much time on his hands (ready meals), and a child the same age as mine (size 5 nappies, large quantities of alcohol), who also looks exactly like me because all these people are expecting me to start putting his stuff into bags, has temporarily left the queue to go and get an item he's forgotten and I've come back a couple of minutes later, or I have sleep-bought a butternut squash.

I thought it wouldn’t be a popular move to go and put the second butternut squash back, so I’m now looking for recipes involving two butternut squashes.

Venn That Tune Artwork Sale

2009-03-19T14:33:00.002Z

Do you like music? Do you like Venn diagrams? Do you like bidding for big colour pictures in online auctions?

Then you’ll love the fact that some of the Venn That Tune artwork displayed at Foyles is now for sale on eBay. Seven very limited edition (one of each!) colour images are available and can be signed by the author if you wish. They are A3-size and mounted in plastic clip frames.

See here for more information.

Happy Bidding!

http://www.vennthattune.com/

Every Time I Open the Kitchen Cupboard I Think "Must Do That Joke"

2009-03-11T11:58:00.002Z

(Also available on b3ta.)

Cradle of Filth's Rejected Band Names

2009-02-23T14:57:00.008Z

As research for a script I found myself on YouTube listening to Heaven 17's Temptation. It's a fantastic song, and the experience was only slightly marred by the comments proclaiming that Cradle of Filth's version is better. Aside from the fact that it isn't, there is also the fact that Cradle of Filth have the worst, most pathetically obvious trying-to-shock name in the whole history of music. All they have done is taken something nice (cradle) and immediately juxtaposed it with something nasty (filth).

Here are some of the names they rejected:

Mug of Sewage

Kitten Basket of Snot

Cushion of Fishguts

Chocolate Box of Grime

Pram of Excrement

Fruitbowl of Dirtiness

Paddling Pool of Rubbish

Biscuit Barrel of Slime

Christmas Stocking of Industrial Effluence

Vase of Diarrhoea

EDIT:

Müller Fruit Corner of Vomit

any more?

Funny Things That I Have Said That Really Deserved a Wider Audience #4

2009-02-17T09:22:00.002Z

Last night I was watching Newsnight. Gavin Esler was telling us about the risk of catching diseases from infected blood products.

GAVIN: "We speak to a man who has HIV, hepatitis C and fears he may also have vCJD."

ME: "That's a tough Scrabble rack."

Sadly, my only audience was two teddy bears and a puppet dog.