Hello Richard Jay !

watched the film The Menu – what a disappointing piece of garbage! How much money is spent om these modern films,,.,and all for nothing. It’s touted as satire, or dark comedy…yeah well satire is meant to be funny, and so is dark comedy – hence the word ‘comedy’ – it’s meant to garner laughs. Why do i sense a lot of people like this film because they see some metaphors in it ? because i read that opinion online. But seeing metaphors is meant to be a fairly straight forward thing if the script is well crafted. But in this film i couldn’t tell what the chef had against people, or what people exactly…rich people ? people with money ? food critics ? People who’d slagged him off in the past ? Theatre of Blood took the idea of revenge on critics and nailed it, whereas as this floppy effort drawing pinned it.

Last week was tough but next week will in some sense be tougher. Next week i have more gigs, and will be glad when it’s all over. Looks like the Craigynos gig might be cancelled, so i will have wrangle a cancellation fee out of them. Great venue, but perhaps a little remote.

The highlight of last week was performing as Jacob Marley in the dining experience version of Christmas Carol – Scrooge. I suffered from inertia and nausea shortly before going on stage, perhaps it was anxiety sublimated. It was a narrow but high ceilinged room in Crewe Hall, a hotel which has a gothic feel to it. But i chose to go back home in the van rather than stay over, which i kind of regretted later. There was a weird interlude on the way home in a services, and i ordered a hot chocolate. The hot chocolate became some centre piece of conversation, which confused me as i see absolutely nothing funny or interesting in talking about it. Playing Jacob Marley was a great experience, but the audience were feisty, and i threw in comebacks, it was a much looser show than Titanic.

A week before i’d done the final Titanic of the year up near Hexham. that was a good trip. Slaley Spa and Hotel. There was a pool. The performance went smoothly. I had a starter on a table where the kid had a brain tumour. On the way up one cast member ‘s automatic insulin drip stopped working, and so she had to inject herself. Where we stopped was beautiful views of mountains. On the morning after the weather was appalling, the worst snow blizzard, and it was sticking to the roads. emily did a stirlng job of getting us out of there in the van. Coming back from Slaley i was dropped off in stockport where i did a gig for Tony Vino. I also got to see my old Couchsurfing chu, Jon Abrams. he was very welcoming, and warmed up some korean dumplings. (presumably because my Korea is going south). He’s got a lovely new cat who he calls Olivia. He let me have a nap upstairs, which helped me a lot. The rain outside was miserable so i was thankful that i had somewhere to go for a few hours. Tony let me stay over in his house. and when leaving i grabbed some bread for the church across the road. Then set out to a gig in Bristol.

Unfortunately the weather was all over the place- the rain caused chaos on the railways. I had to take a train all the way to reading as direct services from Manc to Cardiff were all out. But then, by the time i got to Reading – in short i had to go to Gloucester and then go to Bristol Temple Meads, DID the gig for Paul Hileyard, recent BBC comedian of the year award winner, which went well. (the pizza tasted good ). But i had no choice but to stay in Paul’s overnight, as all trains back to Wales were buggered. We walked up to the top of White Ladies road. and then the next morning i walked back down and caught a train to Swansea. The weather was better this day.