September, a month with not much to say

I've really not been inspired to write much blog-wise throughout the entire month of September. It's not like it didn't have as many days in as every other month (okay technically it has one fewer than average, but still) and I didn't do something every day. It's just that, when you've finished a month at Edinburgh and when your month includes the highpoint of Venice, there doesn't seem a lot left to say.

Gigwise - the Socks played just once in September, for Hazel's Mum's birthday party, in Allerwash. You can see the set-up above. We did an hour of request material, lots of which hasn't seen the light of day for years - like I Change The Key and the Saint Patrick routine, which may both find themselves revived soon. A fun gig, and so weird to go from 30 shows in one month to just one the next. I'm not the only act to experience that.

Schoolswise - another slow start to the term. I had a class in Weston, working with locals, which didn't happen cos no-one turned up, then two classes as part of Chagford Film Festival, and an over-priced under-attended class for adults at Prema in Gloucestershire. Hardly a punishing schedule.

However fishing for schools for the next year has been much more fruitful. I've sat for days on end, first emailing every school in my list (something which runs the risk of having your email stopped for 24 hours because you've sent too many in a day, oops. The lesson you learn is you must send to no more than 500 addresses in any 24 hour period), then scouring the interwebs for more emails. I have, in the past couple of weeks, found the emails, for the first time, for such areas as Cornwall (who responded in the biggest numbers, as if nobody ever emails schools in Cornwall), Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Dudley, Plymouth, North Somerset (but, ironically given they're my nearest schools, they all bounce even when mailed individually, so I can't play any of them), and a few more. About 15 schools have replied having been emailed for the first time, which is making my 2020 diary look nice and full.

I did a driving training speed awareness course, which you don't want to hear about, and we had a fair bit of sorting out to do for the building work that's being done on our house. It's the most extensive work we've had done for ages, bigger even than the porch that was done two years ago, and the negotiations that have been needed between the four collaborating flats has been harder work than before. But you don't need to know about any of that either.

And I got back on the eBay. Having been obessively shovelling my comic collection onto the auction site for the first 6 months of the year, I took a break over August, then resumed this month. So far I've taken about 700 quid and shifted about a quarter of the comics I've put up there. Most, like for example Batman Legends Of The Dark Knight, turn out not to be wanted by anyone, as is usually the case.

Meanwhile the selling of Windmill Gardens goes as slowly as ever. We reduced the asking price to £375,000, which has seen four viewings since, the most in any month since it went on sale, so hope springs eternal. And we bought a new lawnmower for Kibworth (which we'll hang onto obviously, in the hope of eventually getting a garden of our own) having bust the last one on the jungle-lengthed grass that had sprung up over the summer.

And I really wish I had more to say about September. A month taken up, largely, with admin, and four days in Venice (and days out in the likes of Exeter and Cardiff, as per usual). Here's some of the nonsense I've put on Facebook in that time...

A photo I've never seen before, featuring me aged 10 or 11. Can you spot me?

Got an Only Connect for you. What's the connection between these four records?

James Bond - Iggy Pop
Dizzy - Vic Reeves
If I Was - Midge Ure
Jet - Paul McCartney

(Answer: James)

Paradoxically, on the very day The Testaments by Margaret Attwood gets released, we just gave up on the last season of The Handmaids Tale.

Every week nothing happens, reeeeeaaaaallly slowly. And in such low out-of-focus lighting that, I swear, if it got any darker it might as well be radio.

Sorry Handmaids Tale. Your first 2 series were great honest.

My contribution to the Rees Mogg meme, you're welcome.

Sept 11: While people are remembering the Twin Towers bombing, 18 years ago today, who still remembers what happened 17 years before that (on Oct 12th 1984)? The Brighton Bombing.

Slightly closer to home for most of us, it seems to get way less coverage that the American event. And what did we do to prevent it happening again? That's right, we talked, we co-operated and we came to an agreement, the Good Friday Agreement.

Thanks heavens no-one would dream of doing anything politically that would put that at jeopardy, and lead to this sort of thing happening again. Would they?

While we're all busy doing amateur-hour Who Do You Think You Are? I'm a Tinker.

Looks like, going down our family tree, we've been travellers. And in particular, on the east coast of Scotland, Tinkers. So stick that up your pipe and smoke it.

NB: Don't ask me to do any day-to-day metallurgy, cos it seems to have faded with the passing generations.

I'm nostalgic for all the years Annie Lennox and Kate Bush kept winning cos there weren't any other women (and Bananarama didn't count). Won't be a problem any more, now women have been abolished.

This week's victory for feminism. Next stop: no need for token women on comedy panel shows.

I'd like you to call me they. For I am Sam Smith and also Tom Petty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-5XG-DbAA

What is this travesty? I come home to find BBC has wiped the Radio iPlayer and replaced it with this hideous app. Where’s the home screen? Where are the schedules? And what happened to all the shows I downloaded last week?

Not happy with #bbcsounds at all!

Just watched the Batman Lego Movie, and I've got to say it's the most enjoyable Batman movie I think I've ever seen!

The relationships - Bats & Joker, Bats & Robin, Bats & Alfred, Bats & Barbara, Bats & his parents - are better written than in any of the other movies. Plus it has Daleks, what's not to love?

https://www.netflix.com/title/80131731

And you wonder why sometimes Venetians might get a bit tired of tourists? This happened on the day we arrived in town.

(To the tune of Spitting Image's 'Never Met A Nice South African').

Re: The undoing of the Prorogation:

Suddenly Boris Johnson wakes up, goes to the bathroom, and finds all of Parliament in the shower.

(Dallas. We were doing Dallas.)

_________________________

Got an Only Connect for you. What time of day* connects these four records?

It's Only Love - Lenny Gamble
Highrise - The Trainspotters
I Wanna Be A Winner - Brown Sauce
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - Bombalurina

(The answer was breakfast, cos I thougt they'd all done the Radio 1 Breakfast show (as Tony Blackburn, Mike Read, Noel Edmonds, and Steve Wright. Then I was reminded that Bombalurina was Timmy Mallett and felt a fool)

Happiness is reading a comic strip you wrote 26 years ago, and finding out it's not at all bad. Ace Rimmer in Ace Of Black Hearts from Red Dwarf Smegazine. Niiiice.
https://archive.org/detai…/red_dwarf_smegazine-1993-03/…/n21

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here.