Blog 64
Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 10:14PM Hello everybody, sorry I've been away for a while but things have been a bit hectic lately. Me, Linda and Wilf just moved house, we've gone next door to a flat identical to the one we moved out of except that this one is much more pristine since its not had us living in it for 23 years. That seemed a much easier solution than a spring clean, just moving.
Also I guess I've been quite busy working. I'm really enjoying being back on a paper writing for The Saturday Telegraph and they seem like a really nice bunch. I was also up in Manchester working on an interesting film for a charity called Dying Matters all about how terminally ill people can use humour and laughter as a way of coping with their conditions. I think it will be on their website from the 14th of May.
This Tuesday at 4.30 on Radio 4 they are broadcasting an Edition of Great Lives that I recorded recently, my choice was the Palestinian Intellectual Edward Said, it will be fascinating to find out how that is received.
Now Jay about a Young Ones re-union, I don't think there's any plans at the moment as far as I can remember. Actually now I think about it there may be somebody who's trying to put together an edition of the Radio 4 programme "The Re-union" which would be about the Young Ones. Though sometimes because I was sort of on the edge of the group I don't always get included. However because having been the biggest pain in the arse at the time I am now very sentimental about the early days I'd definitely be happy to do it.
The wedding of the first of the children of our gang to get married is happening in June so I imagine everybody will be there and I'll ask around then and if I've been left out I'll sulk and ruin the bride and groom's special day.
Blog 64a.
Well the response to the couple of things I've done over the last few weeks was interesting. The R4 Edward Said piece got some nice previews though I didn't see any reviews. I realise afterwards that I was half hoping to have the website bombarded with Zionist nutters, that's how hungry for attention you get when you start this blogging lark.
The Dying Matters film illustrated another point, there was a piece on Monday BBC Breakfast which I didn't see and I did an interview down the line with R5 but there was a lot less interest than I expected. In fact there were a couple of other press and TV things that were pulled and I think given that the film was about how uncomfortable people in the modern world are with the whole idea of death this relative lack of interest sort of illustrated that.
Also on another topic does anybody know what your chart position on Amazonactually means? Like if your book goes from number 65,397 to number 11,642 does that mean you've sold one book or what? The only two sites I check regularly are this one and Amazon to see how "Stalin..." is doing so I'd like to know.
Reader Comments (23)
Alexei, you've got to come up with something hugely impressive as a reason why you couldn't possibly be part of the reunion thing, in case they did leave you out. You could say you have a consultancy job in Amsterdam sorting out our public transport system. I can make a phoney article and put it online. It'd be in Dutch with the Amsterdam city logo and your name in it, something you could casually refer to. The bride and groom will be really impressed, and so will the rest of the gang. Or, you can not go to the wedding and text them that you're too busy organising soup kitchens in Athens or sabotaging an Israeli attack on Iran.
You wouldn't care less if Alexei couldn't swim, would you Evelyn!
Re;the Young Ones reunion; If this did manage to get off the ground you could pick-up from the last episode where they went over a cliff, but in reality they actually faked their own deaths for an insurance claim and settled in Spain. Unfortunately the economic crash (Caused by the evil capaitalistic laissez-faire bankers) means they lose everything, only to return to a squat in Newham, where they are then deported to Stoke...
Is that Steven?
Shut up Steven, you dirty bugger.
Do you know what he's saying?
He pulls his tail and white stuff comes out!
G'day Alexei, your column on Dying Matters is a great idea. I am the editor of a mag called Hospital and Aged Care in Australia. I regularly cover death, dying and the rigours, mortis and otherwise, of the patient's journey. My audeince is the clinicians and managers as they, against suprising odds, generally make this conveyor belt run smoothly. I reckon a column from you on injecting hilarity into the med mix would be a highlight. I can see the resulting show Terminal Hilarity on a world tour. Good luck with it
David
Hi Alexei,
Hungry for attention?!?! Your fine self?!!? :)
The FB page was quiet too, the only thing about any of your upcoming appearances to be posted was this at SouthBank on June 10th,
http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/literature-spoken-word/tickets/stella-duffy-alexei-sayle-iain-sinclair-and-oscar-zarate-66775
There was no feedback about anything recent. Took a while for the Question Time furore to die down, and your new column in the Telegraph is getting some angry, expletive ridden comments whenever I link to a new one.
Sadly I have no clue how the Amazon sales system works. It does shift a few on Ebay too, I think
xx
I've been watching my Young Ones DVDs. Did you realise everything you did in it was awful? Not just unfunny, but unfunny to the point that I can feel my life slipping away. Mike's lines are often not funny but at least they are few and are less than 5 minutes of boredom a piece. If you could go back in time, please don't do it again. Since you can't obviously don't do a reunion. As if they'd want you
A'right Colin, how are you then? All right?
Yeah, eh, yeah, nice to see you. What, er, how's, how's Robin? All right then?
Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, well, take care.
Yeah, give my love to the family.
OK! See you!
Cunt!
It's impossible to figure out what actual sales are represented by the sales rank. The Amazon ranking is a bit like the Google algorithm; to some extent you can figure out how to manipulate it, but you never know the exact parameters.
Well maybe Amazon would be better on Twitter then Evelyn, yeah!
Happy to see that you feel so much respect for Edward Said, a man who lied about both his birthplace and the location of the house in which he grew up in order to 'prove' his somewhat spurious sense of the wrongs done to him by 'Zionist nutters' like me. You have a lot on common with Said in that you both prefer slogans to thought. By the way just wondering what have you done recently to protest the very real mass murder taking place in Syria. Or is your indignation highly selective?
Alexei, get yourself on twitter ... I used to be very cynical about it till I realised you dont have to actually post anything. You could just put up links to your blog - you dont have to put up material / be on there 24-7. According to my analytics plugs on twitter do push up websuite traffic. I recon you could get up to a 10-14% in Zionists?
Awright all. Nice to have a bit of balance, isn't it.
I'm here because I saw that Ben Elton had done his bit for the spastics...
I was listening to a podcast of Richard Herring's, with guest Francesca Martinez, that discussed the upcoming gig for Scope and Ben's accidental faux pas on breakfast telly. In the podcast, (Richard) Herring mentioned that he had met Ben Elton in Montreal. According to Herring, (Richard), he and Ben Elton got on okay. Only for Ben Elton to then write a book about a rubbish double act that were called "something like Fish and Lee"...
It just reminded me of Nic and Tob.
And then I thought - I don't know which Ben Elton book is about a double act. Does anyone know?
I don't know why I explained all that... I should just write something peculiar and leave.
I'm in the next cubicle... Cum in my mouth...
Bye!
LOL @ anthony! True, although "Anyone who uses the word workshop outside the context of light engineering is a twat" is well within 140 characters #lotsofopportunitiesthere
I absolutely love tweeting, you know, I follow loads of peoples tweets, you know, people of the moment, like, Gok Wan, Stavros Flatley, Stephen Hawkins, but I have actually just tweeted myself, I've just tweeted "I've had my tea" which is a lie because I haven't actually had anything yet, but you have got to make your tweets sound exciting. Ooh, Phillip Schofield's just tweeted, "I have just finished off Gino D'Acampo's left over meatballs" ooh, you see, twitter keeps you right up to date, you know, with current affairs, like, before twitter, who would have known about that? except, you know, Phillip and Gino, and now it's worldwide!
Yes, well, it's just a big advertising board really - I'm not sure what you get out of it if you dont have anything to plug but there are are some interesting political bloggers who use it just as a sort of RSS feed type thing ...like the Green Benches man who I wouldn't have discovered without it. There is some useful information on there you just have to dig for it. Like all these things it is just a tool. And like all tools - the problem with all tools is that one cannot stop the tool being used by tools.
I just went onto Twitter to see if Alexei had buckled under all this pressure and signed on, and now it's 30 minutes later and I still haven't checked. It's got some good stuff on there. And some rubbish stuff. As for the marketing potential, I believe Steve Martin has published a book of his funniest Tweets, and Peter Serafinowicz made noises that he wanted to. All in all, probably a shit thing to do... But still!
Well at least you are not sitting on the fence Russell.
Idiots guide to social networks
http://www.pearshapedcomedy.com/Twitter_and_The_Moving_Finger.html
What a riveting read Anthony! I enjoyed it so much that I am going to read it all over again straight away. My eyes are not bleeding at all.