Newsletter Number Three
Newsletter three. Here we go.
Setting the scene: I’m in a room at the BBC having just worked on this week’s News Quiz. We write in here next to a big bank of desks which is BBC News’s Russia department. I think their job is to monitor the news coming out of Russia. Or maybe they are receiving messages from the BBC’s secret paymasters in Moscow. Whatever it is, it involves Russia and it’s all very serious. They don’t like it when we laugh so we write our jokes in silent and solemn reverence of the importance of their work compared to ours. And then someone writes something really funny about a duck* or Stonehenge** and we all laugh and they scowl.
*you really can’t go wrong with a joke about a duck
** ditto Stonehenge
YOU: WHAT DO YOU WANT, PARTRIDGE?
First of all, we’re doing a Beef And Dairy Network LIVE SHOW in London at the Underbelly Festival on the South Bank at 7.45pm on the 1st of June.
YOU: ISN’T THAT THE SAME NIGHT AS THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL?
No…
YOU: YES IT IS.
No it isn’t!
YOU: YES IT IS!
Okay yes it is. But I guarantee this show will be BETTER THAN FOOTBALL. A big claim, and one I won’t stand by. It’s the same show we did at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival last weekend and that was a lot of fun. Featuring…. Mike Wozniak! Henry Paker! Nadia Kamil! Dave Cribb at the piano! Meee! Also it’s a big big big* room (too big? ONLY TIME WILL TELL) so please come and help fill it up. Tickets are £12.50.
Secondly, despite being a podcast person, I’m quite rarely asked to go on other peoples’ podcasts. However, this week, I’m in THREE.
I always have an odd feeling after being on other people’s podcasts, mainly because I’m used to making my own where I have complete control over content and editing, and also in the knowledge that the podcast will remain on the internet forever, long after I, and indeed all of us, have died. In 3500AD, hundreds of years after the human race has died out (global warming got so bad that the polar bears started getting organised and took us all out), an alien civilisation will arrive on Earth, maybe with the intention to use it to grow alien beans, or as a prison planet, and they’ll try to work out how our extinct society worked by listening to My Dad Wrote A Porno.
Here are the three:
Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown - I had a pint of lager before this recording to open my shoulders, and it proved to be a mistake because instead of making me relax as I hoped it might, it just meant I swore more than I do usually. Anyway, I’ve loved this comedy panel show podcast for years so it was a pleasure to be a guest. LISTEN HERE
The Leak - this was recorded at the Machynlleth comedy festival and is a BBC comedy panel show about the week’s news from a Welsh perspective also featuring Kiri Pritchard-McLean (Welsh) and Josie Long (honorary Welsh) who are both SO GOOD. It was a pleasure to be the weak link in that chain. LISTEN HERE
Reasons To Be Cheerful - with actual Ed Miliband. Was-almost-the-Prime-Minister-but-not-quite Ed Miliband. If you’re not familiar with Ed, he lost the 2015 general election to David Cameron, who is most famous for shagging a dead pig’s face (allegedly), calling the Brexit referendum, losing the Brexit referendum, resigning, and since then basically hiding.
Since 2015, many people have imagined the Miliverse: a parallel universe where Ed Miliband won and the Brexit referendum never happened. Where no one’s ever sad and everywhere smells like fresh bread. Back in the real universe, where everyone is always sad and everywhere smells like fresh farts, he now makes this podcast with Geoff Lloyd which is about ideas to change society, and it’s brilliant. At the end of the episode you can hear me telling Ed and Geoff my ideas to make the world a better place, which includes a cross-party government enquiry to work out how often you should wash your trousers. LISTEN HERE
YOU: WHAT ELSE? I’M A BUSY PERSON.
Are you though?
YOU: NO, NOT REALLY. HAVE YOU GOT ANYTHING ELSE TO TELL ME ABOUT?
Nope.
YOU: ALRIGHT. BYE THEN.
Bye now! Bye then! Bye!