So this week,

This time next week i shall hopefully be lying down after patting myself on the back after a good gig.

Im hosting an acoustic night and they've asked me to be funny, too. Of course im taking my guitar and im going to sing some of my daft/shit/fucking-hilarious songs. I've written and prepared material, too. It's all performance stuff which requires some sort of acting to pull off. Im not sure it'll work but i won't know until i try. Im very busy all week so i can't try the stuff out at an open mic that's relatively nearby, either.

Earlier the event organizer plugged the show on my facebook on my behalf. It made me laugh to be honest. I've been worrying a little too much to ask my friends to go. I don't need to now.
My main problem is nerves. I think i'll always get nervous. And when im nervous I can get robotic which needs mending. I need to flow like a stream ice-cold water on a buttered river bed.

So this week, i'll mostly be practicing my bits and my bobs. My talkie bits and my songs. Also i hope to prepare things to ad-lib which defeats the object i know but i want to be cool, like that water flowing over the buttered river bed.

What's becoming a pain in my arse is (not piles, yet) the fact that all my weird, cooky, useful, fun ideas come at roughly 2am. I can't not write them down straight away, either, or i will lose them. It seems that when i want to sleep, my mind flows like cold, cold water over a buttered river bed.

Now my insecurities have been addressed I want some toast. Buttered. In bed. A water bed.

School Play.

My niece is currently crying after watching a video of her school play. She says it’s because she’ll never get to sing the songs again.

When did five year olds get so passionate?

I’ve wanted to write about my nieces play since i saw it on wednesday. Only now i’ve had the oomph to attempt it. I’ve been very tired. boo hoo for me.

Primary school plays are not very popular with people my age. Unless they’re parents which is actually a higher number than i originally thought. (right now i feel old and awesome). I wasn’t expecting the play to be anything brilliant. I was expecting to feel proud of my awesome niece doing her bit and laughing at the little ones for mainly being cute. I also expected a nativity play being as it’s the christmas season.

It wasn’t a christmas play. It was a play that paid tribute the the school itself.

Backstory: My niece’s school, Llwyncelyn, is the first welsh speaking school based in the Rhondda Fach, where i live. My brother and sister went there. I, coming 10 years later, went to the second welsh speaking school which isn’t as good but i loved it there and this sentence isn’t important.

The school is 61 years old this year and the play showed the growth from start to present day. It commented on the community’s attitude towards welsh speakers and welsh speaking schools. At first it wasn’t good. It only had 13 pupils. 61 years later it has over 300.

It also commented on the friendliness of the parents who did accept the welsh speaking ways. The play was actually bilingual, though mostly welsh. It was very good.

The pupils were obviously the actors, depicting the typical scenes you’d get in a school in a brilliant form of observational comedy. The songs were actually quite clever and very catchy (which helps if kids have to sing them).

Even though the writing was very good and told a very good story effectively, the main credit goes to the directors and the kids. There were quite sophisticated jokes worked into the play. Jokes you wouldn’t expect kids to understand. But they did, and performed them very well.

One five year old boy fell over on purpose and actually didn’t hurt himself which a friend of mine could learn from.

All in all it was a success and though i didn’t expect it to be a play about the schools history, the things i did expect did come through.

The little ones were very funny but for more reasons than “mainly being cute”. They were clever and very well organised. And my niece is definitely the awesomest creature in the world and i am stupidly proud of her. 

She’s stopped crying about not being able to sing the songs now.

It terrifies and excites me.

I just had the news that i may have to perform a comedy gig on my own!

I always planned on doing one this year but never got round to it. But now, I may HAVE to do one on friday. I got the news forty five minutes ago at 2:10am and i know im not going to sleep tonight. Im currently (blogging aside) bullet pointing all my ideas and wanting to try them out, knowing i cant as most of them are musical.

I’ll be honest, im excited. November has hit me with a few pleasant surprises and im counting this as another one. Obviously i would rather do the gig along side at least one of my trusted comedy genius friends. It may even turn out that way. But in my head; Right now, Im performing alone and it terrifies and excites me.

Whatever happens i know i’ll enjoy the night. I get to see some old friends and dance along to a band fronted by an old school friend. I also know there’ll be some support for me so if im not funny they’ll do some extra hard laughing to make me feel better.

I know that i will do at least one funny thing. I hope.

More importantly, i get to show off on guitar. Im more comfortable standing behind one of them. That should make me look like less of a victim in front of the audience. On a strange note, im going to tune my guitar to D,A,D,G,A,D, for the heck of it.

Anyway, no more insecure nonsense. Continue to provide yourself with ideas, Daf. Make them good ones.

Tonight's final thought.

The rain outside is silent. It looks quite heavy; like typical drizzle. My favorite fall of rain. And yet, there's no noise from my window alerting me to it.
I've lived in this country all my life. It rains often and i enjoy it. Cleansing and familiar. I love listening to it, walking in it, the wooden smell it sometimes brings. It's never rained without me knowing about it straight away. There are many things to hear when it comes.

• Slapping against your window,
• Trickling down a drain
• You can't bump into a person who doesn't complain about it.

But under the hum of my laptop, i was oblivious to it until just now. So now im putting this machine away, opening my window and letting the tap, tap, tap of rain lull me to sleep.
Goodnight.

A two step guide to quick inspiration

If you ever need inspiration, here’s what to do:

1. Do nothing all day.
2. Try to sleep.

Side effects may include:

• Tiredness
• Mood swings
• Diminishing patience
• Caffeine addiction
• Cocaine addiction
• Insomnia

This guide may not work for you if you are a normal person.

Things to do while you're waiting for a casserole to cook...

1. Nap.
2. Read.
3. Play guitar.
4. Build a robot.
5. Do fifty million press-ups.
6. Get naked.
7. Stay Naked.
8. Ironing.
9. Improvised indoor golf.
10. Use every post it note you have to label each muscle on your body.
11. Sit in front of the oven to watch your casserole while your arse gets cold.
12. Dig out the novelty pair of clogs to walk in and sound like a horse. (Whilst naked)
13. Do a big art attack.
14. Ponder.
15. Sculpting.
16. Pose.
17. Do the safety dance.
18. Sing a little song. Many times.
19. NAKED STAR JUMPS! (Be careful. No slippery floors)
20. Tell the internet.

That coppery smell...

For the past couple of days i’ve picked up my old songbook and played/sang all the songs i’ve written in the past year and a half. There’s not as much as there should be in there but im proud of each composition.

I’d almost forgotten the fun i made out of struggling to find the right words. Singing strong melodies with stupid words in order to make it work. 

Singing them all again has given me a gentle smack in the face for forgetting to write songs out of genuine pleasure. The last 3 songs i’ve written were for a part of a project. Im going to do it more, now. Write songs for the sake of writing songs. To show off, to struggle, to cheer myself, to use my time in a way that’s beneficial to me (even if it’s just on a personal level).

Plus I love the coppery smell on my fingertips after playing my guitar flat-out for an hour. 

Contagious happiness.

Yesterday evening i was driving to a friends house. It’s a 40 minute drive so tidy music is helpful. I only have a tape deck at the moment. The two tapes i have are 33 classical hits and The soundtrack to 80’s hit american TV show; Kung fu: The legend continues.

As brill as these tapes are, i’ve played them to death.

So the only option now is for the radio to be on it’s game. I’ll usually go for radio 2 because i am one cultured son of a gun, however, it’s signal died on this journey.

So i started violently channel switching in order to find something suitable. I was in a queue that was looking at some red traffic lights. All of a sudden one of the stations started playing “Moves like Jagger” By Maroon 5. 

A lightning bolt of DANCE struck me. I had the moves like Jagger i think. Or someone young and good at dancing. 

In my satisfied trance i looked out my windows and the car to my left, filled with ladies (well, three of them) were watching me, laughing. As they should. 

I did the only thing i knew to do. SING. At them. They laughed even harder and joined in with the dancing.

And then the light’s turned green and i drove away feeling that the world was ultimately good.

Last night's show

The one i’d been stressing about for about two and a half weeks. ACRE comedy's live show about science! Oh yes.

We performed it last night. It went very well if i do say so myself. My friends are very funny and it came across on stage. I started lacking confidence which is usually the case but it grew through the night. By the end of the first half I had my confidence. Bering on stage with someone else is easier to handle. Also, i got to play my guitar which im better at compared to remembering lines.

Second half came and i started to ride my confidence well. It was an audience participation bit which my friend was managing while i played a little sting and guided the audience, telling them when to “ooh” and “aah”. The participant on stage was, honestly, amazing. Seeing him be such a good sport give me that little extra inspiration. 

We started flowing properly. Faster than we were used to and it felt good. In fact the flow gained so much momentum, my fellow performer, after being introduced by myself, came on as a baffled character. He followed his stage directions (which were to fall over and lose his papers) with such gusto that he landed on his face and lost half a tooth.

We found it, though. It was in his lip.

We wanted to rush it from there but the tooth-lost performer improvised some standup about the missing half-tooth which stalled us for about 10 minutes. We buzzed through our bits after getting him off stage, cleaned him up and, fair play, he came on for the last sketch and danced to the song. (The song was my favorite bit because i wrote it :)

The audience were very polite and i believe that they were definitely entertained.

So instead of drinking and relaxing after the gig, I drove my friend to A&E where i chatted to people in the waiting room. After the doctor told him what he already knew, we got some pain killers and drove home.

The thing i learned is this. You can stress and over prepare for anything and everything. But if a friend looses a tooth during a stage performance it will literally MAKE the night. All you have to be able to do is react well to any situation and things will go well.

From enemy to friend in two laps.

I've had a two day binge of old xbox games which has just come to an end. Im mighty glad i must say. 

Before i started I tidied my room all spick and span as to mildly justify the act of sloth that i was about to perform. (though there was no performance, except for on my TV screen) I will say, the room is still as spick and span. which is a good thing. My boundless inactivity has preserved the integrity of my room.

That one thing and the fact that I was gaming are the only pro’s of the last two days. Oh, and podcasts. Lots of podcasts.

The cons include a throbbing headache on the left side of my head, a sore neck as the Tv’s high in the corner of my room, and a numb mind.

Was it worth it? YES!

All i did in my spare time was look up in the corner of my room and playing a game, whilst laughing at podcasts every now and again. I told myself that not getting up was the “point” and i was sticking to my guns.

There was one time last night where I wanted to get up, though.

While I was cleaning my room I had made an enemy of a previously hidden tenant of my room. A 6-7cm spider (back toe to front toe) who’d set up shop in the corner behind the television. There were too many obstacles between us for me to grab it and maroon it in the unknown beyond my window. Lucky spider.

At about ten-o-clock every night it pops out of it’s little web-hut and creeps around the the room by the roof. It slowly does a lap around the room between 10pm and 2am. I was always completely aware of where this octo-legged monster was at all times when it crept about. However it never veered away from the corner where the wall hits the celling.

Until last night.

Wrex, which is what i decided to name it, did it’s usual lap in it’s anti-clockwise fashion around the room until it hit the curtain. I was always a little more tense when it was above my head as i had to move my neck to look at it when my game took a boring turn. Moving my neck defeated the purpose of my lazy two nights but i was constantly fascinated and an incy-wincy bit nervous.

So it reached the curtain and actually mounted the curtain pole, which wasn’t protocol. By the celling ALWAYS BY THE CELLING! It wasn't listening to my thoughts. No. It was creeping it’s way down the curtain until about half way, when it started getting closer to me. It had previously spun a web connecting the curtain to my guitar case, which it sat on for a while, watching me.

GET OFF MY GUITAR CASE, WREX, YOU MASSIVE, TINY DANCER! I thought. 

Wrex had broken the rules. It had entered my territory which is anything except the high parts of the walls and of course, the celling. This was my chance. I could maroon Wrex, finally.

But it just sat there. Casually watching and scratching it’s nose occasionally. Or at least something that looks like that. Scratching his legs with his fangs or something similar to what a tame animal would do in it’s corner. I couldn’t throw this sweet thing out into the cold unknown. It trusted me!

*Plus, I can’t be bothered to get up during my quickly diminishing hours of gaming. And i’ve got a headache.*

After my contemplation filled stare off with Wrex i decided to leave it be. It soon climbed back up the curtain and back to it’s silk bungalow. 

So now i have a room mate. Wrex the spider. My creepy crawly companion. Someone/something that keeps me company for 4 hours in the night. 

Only be a good thing!

Went out last night. Check me all socializing and stuff. 

It was a welsh music night. There were three bands on, all of which i enjoyed.

I think that if i attended this, say, five or six years ago i wouldn’t have said the same thing. I would’ve enjoyed the night because i am a super, mega, awesome party animal. Obviously. 

When i was younger, all the welsh language music sounded forced or show-ee off-ee. It sounded as if welsh was their second language but they sung in it anyway just to seem clever. It never sounded natural to me. I will say that i had never listened to the super furry animals at that time, or Cerys Matthews, Both of which would’ve opened my eyes a little.

Since listening to the band and artist in the paragraph above, along with my friends japanese language tunage, (also, Jackie Chan’s version of “Ill make a man out of you” from Mulan) i have become far more open minded to stuff like that. Im even enjoying Rammstein now!

My complex’s aside, the three bands i saw last night (rather; two bands and an artist) sounded completely natural singing in welsh language. Their attitude seems less: “look at me im singing in welsh isnt that the tits?” but more: “yeah, im singing in welsh. I enjoy this. Deal with it.“ 

Here’s a video of one of the band’s i enjoyed

I speak welsh and i’m mega proud of it. I bust into it every so often. My friends and i converse quietly in welsh when we want to say something that might upset someone nearby. (reading that back it equates to; My friends and i bitch through the welsh language. Bitching isn’t nice in any language, but it is more fun in a different one.) We also speak welsh to have fun and make each other laugh. Last night it was more difficult because everyone in the room spoke the same language. It was actually quite refreshing. 

I don’t judge welsh people who don’t speak welsh, but i do judge people who don’t see the point of it. To those people i say this: Having the ability to speak an extra language can ONLY BE A GOOD THING!

Iechyd Da, joiwch a diolch!

CARIAD MAWR.

And the heavens opened.

Since the first time i heard that saying as a little tyke it always confused me. 

It’s a saying to explain that it’s raining heavily. The heavens opened and lashed the earth with water. 

Have you ever looked up when it’s raining? And opened your eyes? If you did, all you’d see is clouds. That’s what confused me. It made more sense to think that the heavens were closed when it was raining, barricaded by clouds. Whatever. Im a grown up now and i get that it means that it’s raining because some wordsmith made it up before me. 

I couldn’t resist going out for a walk tonight. The rain was happily splashing against my window, whooshing past at a 45 degree angle. “Can Dafydd come out for a walk?” It beckoned. 

I love walking in the rain. Cleansing is the best word to describe it, i suppose. I like the little things it makes me do. Things like; looking up to catch it in my mouth, shaking off the goose-pimples on my back, squeezing out the water in my hair and eyebrows and making a tune in my head to the beat of my squishing trainers. (Reading back that list makes me feel like im a weirdo :)

I did all them things.

And then the heavens opened. In my childish, sensible sense of the phrase, that is. It had stopped raining for about ten minutes. My legs had worked up a nice rhythm so i didn’t stop walking. I did, however, look up with my eyes wide open.

There was one spot where the clouds opened up to show me a window to space. The only speck of space that i could see on the whole sky’s horizon. It was like a deep and wonderful lake with glistening stars on the surface, surrounded by a beach of clouds. The stars looked so much brighter than usual. I was hypnotised. I couldn’t avert my eyes from my sky-lake.

I just walked while my sense of sight, touch, respiration and hearing were deeply stimulated.

A beautiful view accompanied by the sound of a distant running river and the luxury of completely fresh air. Goose-pimples.

And then i stood in dog shit.

This should change things up a little.

Tomorrow i’ll be driving my first car for the first time. (hip hip hwre)

I passed my test in January. It was my second test. If you ask me i should have passed first time. I was far more confident and i drove with so much more grace but the guy failed me anyway. I wanted to start the engine and drive as fast as i could and collide the passenger side into a building and give him a reason to fail me.  Out of respect for my instructor whose car i would have used to commit manslaughter, i refrained, took it on the chin and plotted a more scathing revenge.

The reason i couldn’t get a car straight away is because i blew my savings gearing up for my second driving test. Paying off officials of the DVLA is expensive but i had to be certain that i’d have the same man to test me again. And i did.

Que. Revenge. During the second test i was completely nervous throughout. I sweated more, I was jittery…. I was nervous. I knew what i had to do and now it came to the crunch i was having difficulty comprehending it. Traveling the world is easy when you look at a map, not realising how big the world really is. I had geared up for this moment and now it seamed impossible. 

“If you can just pull in to the side of the road when it’s clear” He said. Perfect! I needed to calm down and gather myself. “Ok, just pull out when the road is clear.” 

He’s playing with me! Im not going to take this! It’s time to put my plan into action. I looked into the mirrors to ensure a safe departure. It was clear and i pulled out. Past the point of no return i quickly realised that i didn’t indicate. STUPID! Instant minor. That’s it. Pointless worrying now. He’s having the full brunt of the revenge i had lined up for him.

Me: You know, i wasn’t this nervous last time i had my test. 

Him: Oh? 

Me: (thinking: Don’t reassure me then, prick) No, I don’t know what it is. I was completely fine first time. I know i should’ve passed it…… Can’t win em all.

Him: Do you know who took you last time?

I looked at him at a pause. My eyes burned through his ponsy unnecessary shades and i saw nothing but tinted fear. In a swift arm movement I released his seat belt and smiled. “Don’t you remember? You said my emergency stop was USELESS!” As the first syllable of the word “useless” exited my mouth my feet slammed on the brake and clutch. I could hear the noise of the tires screech followed by the sound of a skull shattering against the windscreen. My hearing had cut out and i saw his soulless body fly onto the road in slow motion. There were no cars about. I gathered myself and drove back to the Test Centre, popping his head under a car tyre on the way.

Me: No, can’t say i remember him.

Him: Oh.

Anyway, i passed the test. I didn’t actually arrange to have him again. The conversation in green italics, however, did take place between examiner and I, and it felt great to tell him that i should’ve passed first time.

Seven months later i have a car. It should change things up a little. (I don’t know why i told you that story, just came out as i typed.)

I went to church today...

I attended my friends daughters christening. He just text me to thank me. (It’s a bit late)

This will be the second time in roughly a month and a half that i’ve been to a church. The first was for a funeral of a not so distant relative. The funeral i am going to describe as mega catholic. The christening i am going to describe as mega protestant. 

It was my first christening and it was my first funeral where the service was in a church. 

Say what you want about religion but i’ve found that regularly used churches are beautiful. Im a sucker for traditional looking buildings. Cold, though.

As it was a sunday we had to go through a proper sermon before the actual christening. “Go through” makes it sound grueling, which it wasn’t really.

It felt like i was back in school, sitting next to my friends in a room full of people in an assembly. What i used to do during assemblies was misbehave. 

I really don’t know what came over me, today. I couldn’t help it. As i exited the church i really felt bad about singing “Johnny Christ”, making silly jokes, coaxing my friend to ask the organist for requests to see if she’ll do some Bon Jovi. I really felt bad that my belly was rumbling quite loudly. About incorporating the word “Bubba” into every verse (no one heard that, it was personal entertainment), deliberately saying “amen” after everyone to be the last one to say it. I didn’t feel so bad about singing like David Bowie and Scott Stap (Creed), well, until people laughed at me. Then i felt bad. As i left i shook the hand of the man who gave the sermon and i swear he knew it was all me. (which it wasn’t)

My best excuse is that i was very, very hungry. The truth is that church sermons are taken very seriously. When i’m in the middle of this seriousness i get slightly hysterical and it’s difficult to stop. 

My main problem with the two services i’ve recently attended is God. I have no problem with people believing in God. As long as your nice and sane and easy to live near then believe what you want. You can actually tell me, i wont get offended, i’ll more likely be interested as you could teach me something about things i don’t have.

What was i saying? Oh yes, God in the church.

Im not a regular church goer as you’ve guessed. I went to church because there were services there regarding people who are/were important to me or my family. During the funeral of one of the nicest men you’ll never meet, i listened to the main catholic talker guy (priest?) say next to nothing about the deceased’s life, but how he wanted him to go to heaven. He even said “though we are not worthy of your grace, let our prayers guide him to heaven”. Something along those lines. 

During the christening there was similar talk. A lovely little girl, who was chewing her foot in her mothers arms, was getting told in front of her family and friends that “she was not worthy of God but heres some special water anyway. Don’t sin.” Again, not exactly the words but that’s the message. (she looked hilariously cute when he wiped the water off her head. One little spike of hair in the middle of her head :)

I went to two events to celebrate people and the churches talker-guy said nothing about them.

It seems that no one is going to heaven. Especially if your christian. But they want you to which i suppose is a lovely sentiment.

I think people are just scared of dying so they go through this rigmarole of rituals to make it easier on their minds. I can accept that. Me, i think that death is like being knocked out, but forever. Im also very happy with that thought, mainly because it’s funny to me.

After the christening i watched Hawkings Universe. A smashing documentary. My only problem with it was that it left me wanting to read a heck load of books that i cant afford.

Seeing as im having trouble sleeping...

I think i'll tell you about my day.


I woke up easier than i'd expected following my exhausting night. I've been having trouble sleeping for a couple of days, now. I think about it too much which i suppose is glorifying it and making it worse. Im not upset about it right now, so no matter.


I snuck behind my niece down the stairs and waited until she was on the last step to scare her. That earned me a cwtch but hindered me a bacon butty. (Which one's better? That's a good debate.....cwtch) I spent much of my morning chatting with my niece, working in occasional math questions which she tires of. If she makes progress she teaches me how to dance which is her forte.


I danced my way to making my bacon butty and i was ready for todays task.


Get over my friends house and get our podcast recorded. 


I got there with my guitar and laptop, all ready to do some sketches and chatting. So we started with chatting, which went on for a little longer than it should have but it was nice, as usual. Meanwhile one of us (not me) were writing up some scripts of ideas we developed today. We also found an extra script that was nearly forgotten and found a way to adapt it for an audio only format instead of video, which was handy.


We jumped into the recording process which always flies by. I enjoy pretending and we all did lots of it today. I got to be a news reporter, a singer for a weird rock band, a sixth form music student, a clueless rioter and also myself in hugely exaggerated situations.


Voice acting was over and the four of us rushed to the chinese takeaway for some nosh. We all eat at the kitchen table which was a lovely experience. Four friends behaving like family, in that we all eat and poked fun at each-other.
Then the podcast was to be edited together which proved to be the biggest slog of the day. Making the podcast's conceit of flicking through an analogue radio proved to be quite difficult. I've never seen garageband look so busy and intimidating. Filled with scattered bits of audio comedy that had to be moved ever so carefully so as not to lose anything.


The audio is basically arranged now and it'll be released tomorrow for whoever want's to listen to it. I'll probably plug it again but for good measure;


Download the ACRE podcasts for free on itunes and have yourself a giggle.


Im going to try and sleep now. Wish me luck.

Conversation with Dad

I said i’d post conversations that i had with my family, here was the most interesting to me.

I often talk to my dad, mostly about books, tv shows or films. I get my appreciation for art from him and we enjoy sharing opinions. During mylovely week in Porthcawl with the family, we’d pretty much finished talking about what we’d seen or read so it got quiet when we had time alone.

I don’t know why I did it but im glad i did but i asked him about his family. My dad doesn’t often talk about his family. Rough childhood, i think. That, and it never comes up. So when i asked i was surprised when he happily answered.

Your own life gets extraordinary when you know where you came from.

I asked him about his aunties first because i know he loved them. They never married, they worked around britain and ended up back home in Pontypridd where my father grew up. When i asked why they never married he explained that when they worked in a hospital in London it put them off marriage. He didn’t explain further than that and apparently, neither did they.

The reason his mother didn’t join her sisters is because when she was young she was the typical sickie kid. Sickie kid back then, apparently, meant you had TB. She nearly died as a child because of it but voodoo majick healed her. 

You’ll understand why i say voodoo. 

Apparently her doctors last resort for her was to tie a freshly killed sheep’s pair of lungs to her feet. She did that and she lived. VOODOO! 

So she stayed home and failed to get put off the idea of getting married.

I swayed the conversation to his father, then. My pre-existing knowledge of him was only that he was not a nice man. He stopped my father from learning and forced him to work which resulted in my father doing his studying in pubs. He is the reason my father is the functioning alcoholic he is today.

It turned out that my grandfather (who i never met) was quite well liked when he was a young man working in the pits. He had everything going for him. He was even offered a position in the welsh football squad which he took up. However, the week before he left he was working with his minor buddies when a large rock crumbled off a wall and landed on his leg. He was hospitalised and bed-ridden for a long time. This made him bitter, as it would, and he stayed around Pontypridd.

It shocked me that my father is a creation of consequences (as are we all, really). If my nan wasn’t a sickie kid, she would have worked with her sisters and quite probably wouldn’t have married. If my grandfather didn’t suffer a terrible injury he would’ve played football for Wales and may well not have met his wife. He might’ve though, Wales has never had a successful football team.

Family history from my Nan’s time fascinates me. They are such interesting consequences.

Who are these people?

Rioting? Really?


Three or so days ago i read an article in a newspaper about a man who got shot by an armed police officer. This article was particularly unusual because i didn't quite understand the angle of the piece. It seemed very grey and i was unable to see quite who was right or wrong.

Apparently, a man who had suggestive connections to a Jamaican gang in London was getting in a taxi. He got followed by the police because it was known to them that he was highly regarded in the gang. Then nothing was reported. Then i read that there was a bullet in the radio of an armed police officer (the radio saved his life too, apparently). The armed police officer then retaliated and returned fire which resulted in the death of this man. A man whose wife and five children denied knowledge of him being any part of a Jamaican gang.

I don't know the full details of the whole shooting because I read the article in the Sun and the paragraph above is the major details of what the tabloid reported. This is a problem in itself, really because i still don't know how to respond.

Yesterday I read about rioting in London so I naturally looked up the cause of it. I checked it out on the BBC news website which gives a timeline of the cause and the riot. It turns out that the rioting is retaliating against police brutality as a man had been shot by an armed police officer.
On the timeline it's reported that the police (or the IPCC) had personally offered support to the family of Mark Duggan. At the same time 300 people had gathered around Tottenham police station to demand justice for the family. I wonder if the 300 people had asked for the families permission to do this? 


Three hours later, the shit hit's the fan and things get burned, shops get looted and people get hurt. 


I support most strikes. I mean, i support people who want to strike. Im too apathetic to offer any power to the people. I try to consider issues before outwardly fighting them. Call me what you want, I do sit on the fence most of the time and that always buggs people. (Don't quite know where im going with that)

If people want to strike and voice an opinion, go ahead. Im all for it. If i wasn't too self indulgent, i'd probably join you. I just hope that whatever Im joining only VOICES (or writes) the opinion. Gather and speak. That way you'll only, at most, hinder people who are busy and want to get from A to B with a big crowd in the way.

Obviously not everyone is the same as me. The world would be boring if it was, my mother says. The cheek, eh? 


No, there are some who resort to unnecessary violence and thuggish behavior. London has it's very own riot now and people are either terrified or concerned. Or looting, apparently. I wonder if these looters actually think their contributing to the fight against police brutality. I'd say that those actions are asking for it, really, although i wouldn't like to see it. At all.

What it seems to me is that there are many people who act without thinking. There are a few people, im sure, who are doing these mindless acts to fight against police brutality. These people who don't understand that they're making it far, far worse are doing it for an arguably good cause. Their just doing it wrong.

The biggest problem is the majority of the rioters who ARE thinking. Thinking about themselves, anyway. They're just bored and causing trouble is the only cure they can think of. "I know, let's do some looting in the name of that guy". I've watched a lot of footage and i wonder if it'd be as bad on a school night and it wasn't the summer holidays. The rioters and looters seem young.

I ask these rioters what's going to happen to the busy people going from A to B? Before they were just a little obstructed. Now their lives are in danger!

I also ask; do you think the family of Mark Duggan want all this violence attributed to them?

A new instrument for me to play.

Thanks to one of my best friends Mam, i’ve started playing the harmonica. 

I’ve always had a harmonica. It sat on my musical shelf along with two small bongo’s, an egg shaped maraca, a tin whistle, a swanee whistle, a ukulele and other smaller novelty instruments that i’ve collected and used here and there in recordings of my silly songs. 

I never put much thought to them, really. Mainly because they live in my mams house and i don’t. 

My one instrumental love is my guitar and I try to take it everywhere with me. Every weekend i took it to my friends house so i could practice and offer a backing track to our conversations. It was always a backing track for his phone conversations with his mam, too which she seemed to quickly get used to. Maybe even enjoy.

Two weekends in a row I chose not to take my guitar and she asked to speak to me on the phone and proceeded to tell me off. I explained that it was cumbersome and annoying to walk roughly a mile with before playing so i decided against it. I joked that I should bring a harmonica instead and she was happy with me again. Until next weekend. I hadn’t brought it with me so she didn’t have her weekend-harmonica-backing-tracked phone call. I had another telling off :(

Last weekend i went to my Mams for a family chat and whatnot. I was about to leave before remembering my opportunity to pick my C-harp.

Since having it on hand i’ve been playing it every now and again and i dare say im getting better. It cant hurt to have another musical instrument to play. And it’s easy to take with me. Also, if you talk through it you sound like an alien. 

So thank you Eirian (i hope i’ve spelt it right) for encouraging me to pick up another instrument to practice. 

The importance of Physical Acting in entertainment.

Physical Acting has been an important tool in all forms of entertainment. In this essay i shall draw mostly from my feelings and experience but from a little history that i found on wikipedia (referencing here instead of at the end) about Charlie Chaplin. I believe that Physical Acting is a very important tool in entertainment and i hope to convince you to jump on my band wagon. Physical Acting made its mark in entertainment when motion picture was invented. it made it's break in the late 1890's with the birth of the silent movie.

The silent movie is a motion picture thats accompanied by the plink and plonk of a piano based soundtrack. It  was a major breakthrough in entertainment as it told a full story, complete with moving characters without the use of a dialogue. It was particularly popular because you had to read less and people people who are rich enough to be lazy usually are. As the primitive technology was deaf until the late 1920's, the responsibility was given to the actor to exaggerate heavily with his body to put across their characters feelings, or simply amplify the severity of the situation.

Physical Acting was particularly popular when utilized by the likes of Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was the master of the two main components of physical acting; mime and slapstick. Charlie Chaplin was the talk of World War 1 because of his zealous physical acting (not read on wikipedia). 

In the late 1920s when technology developed its hearing, Physical Acting was less used as the camera often went into the faces of classically good looking people while they talked. For a short while Physical Acting was frowned upon by pompous artists who thought it was "primitive", "simple" or "too easy".

While it may seem like an easy way to get a laugh in a scene of a film, play or book, Physical Acting will never be "too easy". It takes a hefty amount of practice to become just a decent Physical Actor. There are many things to consider such as "How can i make this seem more exaggerated?" or  "is it necessary?". To become the best physical actor you must challenge yourself every day. Think of how to do a unique walk, the faces you make brushing your teeth, the movements your eyebrows make when your exasperated. It helps to have a friend who challenges you by spontaneously improvising scenes for you to act physically right there, right then.You know you have the makings of a Physical Actor when you can convincingly do something accidentally on purpose. 

In the faces of these pompous artists who died, physical acting lived on in all sorts of forms of entertainment. It excels in the theatre in the form of pantomime. It excels on the big screen making fill your lungs as you cringe during the most gruesome horror scene, or make you empty your lungs as you laugh at the most comic kick in the testicles. When someone actually has been kicked in the testicles, we call it Physical Method Acting. 

In conclusion, Physical Acting is a very important and useful tool in all terms of entertainment from a practical joke to blogging *waving my arms to exaggerate. My eyes are wide open and looking right into yours and im naked.*. It can bring people extreme happiness or at the very least flip your inner switch of empathy, making you feel like you are right here naked with me. Physical Acting is not something to be under-estimated or frowned upon. It's something to be frown-upside-down upon and frolicked in.

Thank you.

Poems (The best of)

During my time and Mind Optimising Ointment I often ended a blog with a cheeky poem. Here are some of my best ones:

Staff party

In the pub. Pissed!
Girls, tits out! 
Not my tits. 

Them! Tits out! 
Strip pontoon! 
Bril-o-pads!

Flowers

Flowers
They are lovely
Oh how lovely them flowers are
Complementing day light
Sugar coating nature's might
Oh them lovely flowers
They smile and smile for hours
But don't eat them
thats Gross

Coffee cup

Coffee table Coffee
No Coaster, No ring
The coffee table coffee cup is empty
A rather redundant thing
Chuck it in the sink, the coffee table cup
Scrub, scrub, scrub it up
The sink coffee cup 
Wipe it down and put it in the cupboard
The cupboard coffee cup
Until you want a drink - of coffee
The cycle is endless
Until the cup is smashed
A coffee cup in pieces

Titles

Titles are labels
For patterns and form
This is a poem 
That has both for no reason
All of my poems 
Follow patterns and form
But never a reason
Thats where ill reform

Dynamic Baseline

Your dynamic Baseline
Your epic melody
you really hook me into this linear gameplay
Yes the gameplay will improve
It'll even bust to a new groove
But ill never forget you
Yes you
Chemical plant zone
From Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Chicken delight

There's nothing you cant do
When your cooked just right
You really are the chicken
Delight
Hangover, mended
Thanks to your taste
So splendid 
Your dance, being funky
make all men look hunky
Your unfertilized eggs
Are the bomb too
So thank you chicken.
You are a Delight

Pain Heels

As i settle
In comfort's feel
Pain develops
In my heel
What to do?
I need to know
Just Change my foot
Im good to go

It was worth it though.

I looked like an idiot
when i fell on purpose in public
It was worth it though

I scared you to death
When i pretended to get lost
It was worth it though

I nearly died 
when i swam through a rip tide
it was worth it though

I felt lower than low
when i lied to your face
that was definitely worth it

I hurt my side
when i fell two foot
it was worth it though

I was vastly disheartened 
when i gave you my cookies
now that, wasn't worth it
oh, go on, yes it was

ensemble 

A guitar that twangs
A drum that bangs
A bell that dings 
A voice that sings
A horn that honks
A keyboard plonks
A bass that slaps
With many hand claps

All these lovely things and more
Can draw a crowd to scream and roar
Or even weep until there's tears
Ensembles power through your ears

Coordination's important though
Don't unleash these noises raw
Do not forget these concepts, three
Befitting rhythm and melody.