ILY

Hello there.

Remember me? I'm the one you've been weeping over since you first met acquaintance with my words. Mmmmmm hello, sweet lyrical labia, tickle my tongue with your whirly words.

Well where have I been? Apart from the usual - erm, I wish I had a usual - I have been getting my script done. And it's finished. I done a film. Tickle it, bitch. If you want to read it then you must have no life, but you're more than welcome to ask. It's pretty good and it definitely has the word nipple in it.

The thing is, the film is about polyamory (ya know, putting it about, loving more than one in more than a 'kinky threesome' way) so lending it out to people to read is a bit awkward. Because something perhaps weirdly kinky happens in it, someone might assume I'm into it. Which is only true 97% of the time. I currently have my ex and my Mum bothering me to read it, errrrr. My boyfriend has read it and now thinks I'm mad. Well done me.

"Here new boyfriend, read this weird dark sex film....! Big hugs MWAH!"

I'm such a dick.

Still, luckily he's not an idiot so everything is fine.

Enough of that. Something I wanted to share with you....

I've been using a replacement phone from T-Mobile while they fix (again) my nice one. The replacement one is from the prehistoric phone age where nokias won the interracial war with the pterodactyls and dodos. Shut up Sophie. The point is, it's shit.
And while perusing the phone I discovered a little folder called 'Quick notes'. These are basically template text messages so you don't have to think up words or maybe use your fingers pressing a button to arrange words in an individual and personal way to your friend, colleague, loved one or perhaps Jamster. And the first is a suitable one.

1. Call you later
This is the sort of text you might send when someone calls you but you are too busy either writing a thesis, live-sculpting a bust of Shakespeare or perhaps plating out some bird. Emergency quick text sending.

The next few follow in a similar vein "Urgent! Please call me!" (though here I would add something like "about your scabs" or "an ambulance". Others include information about being late and where to meet und so weiter.

The troubles are with 8,9 and 10.

8. Don't worry, be happy...
Great, that really helps. What a friend you are, my mum just died of cancer and is splashing it all over the TV screens with some embarrassing excuse about inheritence. Don't worry be happy? Fuck off! Stop using templates and think of something appropriate to say like "Shit mate, your life is fucked up, you should probably kill yourself".

9. Have a nice day!
Did you just text me a burger?

And the worst of all -

10. Love you forever.
Your soul is dead.

Sometimes it's convenient to use technology and abbreviations to make life quicker. Using a text template to tell someone you love them just isn't good enough.

It's like those three little words aren't little enough.

So, let's abbreviate it some more. I mean you wouldn't want to be interrupted from cunnilling out some chick for too long while you text your wife "Love you forever."

So let's make those three little words three little letters.

ILY,

Sophie xxx

G'day!

No, I'm not Australian, but in fact am just contracting the fuller sentence I might choose explaining the fact that I had a good day. I am now explaining this in a convoluted way. Well done to me. This is why you love me.

I went for a run this morning and really enjoyed it apart from the pain in my chest.

"Oh, I am in love with running"

I thought.
Then I thought perhaps it was the fact I smoke and haven't really done aerobic exercise in a while. A bit of yoga, but y'know...
So that got me to thinking. Maybe other feelings have been confused. When in the past I felt my heart squeeze with disappointment (the sort of thing that might promote shouting "You're breaking my heart!" across the street), maybe I just needed a cigarette. When I have felt nervous, it was in fact trapped wind/urinary tract infection. When I have felt my stomach turn over with a feeling of warmth when someone kisses me, that's just a cup of tea having a bit of a swim. When I get goosebumps at the sound of someone calling me beautiful, it's actually just a bit chilly - they left the window open... that they think I'm beautiful is irrelevant... what do I care? I'm way too hot for them...

Anyone know anything scientific about the connection between bodily functions and emotions we associate with them? I think I might write a book about it. After all science is well fashionable at the moment. Failing that, could someone recommend me one, because I really wouldn't know where to start. In fact I think I might have written all I know on the subject already, and I just made that up.

Anyway, I'm diverting fabulously. What I wanted to say was that when I got back I had a text from a guy from a production company asking to meet and an email from a publishing company offering me a placement. At last! All you need to do is go for a run and the world will take you seriously. Even if they've had your CV on file for months... honestly. They just sense it.

So I went for another run about 7.

No emails.

I've lost all faith in little superstitions I make up for myself, even if they are to motivate myself to get fit.

Though I did manage to finish an outline after struggling with how it would tie up. Hooray!

Do you know what?.... Oh my god, I think I love you.

Oh no, I just need a cigarette.

Laters,

Sophie x

We really wanna see those fingers!

So, time to warm up for this evening's writing with a nonsense blog for your eyes and brains to enjoy together. 

Saturday I spent taking part in the Monopoly Pub Crawl organised by some crazy mancs. The mistake is to make a note of everything you drank as you go along. Here's mine, and the last 3 pubs drink notes are empty, I'm sure I was in attendence, I don't know what I drank...otherwise...
4 apple sourz, 2 southern comfort and lemonade, 3 malibu and coke, 1 amaretto and coke, 1 vodka and coke, 1 archers and lemonade, 8 glasses of wine.
The site drinkaware.co.uk have a units calculator. The government recommended daily intake is 2-3 units for women. This added to 36.66. Ah. Proud of me Mother?

Surprisingly little hangover, just tiredness and a need for food. I did spend most of the next evening feeling incredibly sorry for myself and reflecting on what I'm doing, why I am an idiot, and why I'm so repulsive. But luckily I awoke this morning* with the clear remembrance that I am in fact fucking amazing, better than pretty much everyone and all the men are just fools for not realising this. 

So I'm sure most of you have seen the All New Shooting Stars by this point. They repeated it the other day. I made sure I watched it again in case they were repeating to check popularity to make a decision about commissioning a series. But then I remembered that it wouldn't make a difference. After all, I'm not one of the only 5000 or so that are used to measure ratings. Don't take rating seriously.... what sort of percentage is that? And ooh sure, they're a different person for each demographic, but I'm the same demographic as some of you reading this, and you didn't necessarily watch it. Now we're in a digital age, surely they must be some way of showing how many people exactly watched the show. Sure, there'd be the occasional mistake when people leave the TV on or maybe aren't really paying attention, but just have anything on in the background to fondle each other to. 

Does anyone know anyone who has one of these devices to measure TV ratings? If so ask them if it affects what they watch.

If I was one of these people, I would definitely alter my viewing habits. At least, I'd think again before flicking** over to laugh at babestation. Further, maybe they should measure what people watch on DVD to help view what to comission. Sales don't count because some things you buy, watch once, and then shelve. Some things you watch over and over and over. But then I suppose we're approaching a Big Brother state with such surveillance. But it might stop them making series after series of Big Brother. 

What DVDs do you watch over and over? Mine... The Day Today, Bang Bang it's Reeves and Mortimer and Marion and Geoff.

Happy private viewing...

Sophie x

*morning may be a fib
**nothing to do with beans.

Yes we McCann!

Are you a ginger posh boy? Whether Prince or Tory watch out, you may well dress as something inappropriate for a fancy dress party.

So, Matthew Lewis dressed as Maddie McCann. Two halloween's back I was told to dress as Maddie McCann or I'd have been fired. Sorry I didn't... think of the promotion the Fix might have got from it!

"Comedy magazine thinks it's okay to force their interns to dress as Maddie McCann... Mr Deansway has not commented, unless you count maniacal giggling"

Poor Matthew Lewis of Conservative Future has been kicked out of the party. I've just recently finished Milan Kundera's The Joke where something very similar, but much more novel-worthy happens. This bad-taste joke and kicking out of the Communist party leads to a whole life of missed dreams, missed loves and misdemeanours. I hope this doesn't happen to Matthew Lewis. He's apologised, although I bet he didn't really mean it. Unless it's just "sorry I got found out"

So if you are ginger and posh, please put away your Jamie Bulger and Damilola Taylor masks, get out of you makeshift ikea-shannon and just go as Ron Howard or Matthew Corbett or something. Or perhaps combine the two and go as Ronnie Corbett.

You're welcome for the advice,

Sophie x

Sony Erection C905

I got a new phone delivered today. It is my first contract phone since Orange cut me off for something as petty as not paying my bills for months. What sort of friendship is that?

So, anyway, as well as the joy of teaching my phone to swear*, it's also time to clear out saved messages and notes of drunken ideas. These range from horrendous things that will never work to a joke which I think is pretty good and I did on stage every day at the Edinburgh Festival... with some amusing private jokes along the way. And some things I don't understand at all.

"The ballad of bedding Gail. Opera of a man date raping a woman. My true story."

"Don't expose yourself to me, expose yourself to a push pop"**

"Stand-ups? Why not consolidate all your jokes into one manageable debt advert joke?"

"'When we played star wars at school I was always chewbacca'
'what? what's she got to do with it?'
'huh'
'i thought you said sue barker'
'no, that doesn't work...'
'fuck you'"

"proper gander/propaganda..."

"Why have men not evolved to not have hair on their face? Hey, Darwin, answer me that one! Is it because God has a beard? and men are made in his image? it's blasphemous to shave..."

"Noone fancies you face down"

So.... there you go. That's not all of them obviously. I'm not cherry picking, just some may still be used in something, so they're for me. Although, Chewbacca/sue barker? Come on! Oh yeh baby.

I said Sony Ericsson...

Sophie x

*Mr Rob Heeney
** Mr Dan Sheehy

Blogs are like buses.

You wait for one for ages, and then one comes along and has a nice advert on it.
For those of you with bad sight or lack of knowledge of what's going on in the world, that's one of the "atheist bus campaign" buses. This is the first one I spotted. And, as an aside, you can tell a true friend - they're not annoyed when you hang up on them, then call them back saying "sorry I saw an atheist bus". Not only not be annoyed but be pleased you managed to get a picture.

So what have I been doing since that last post? Not much and a lot. Part of it was written a while ago on this computer but I never finished it. I feel like I've cheated a little bit pretending to have written it all today. So this is a whole new fresh blog. So fresh. So fucking clean. Or not.

I haven't decided what to talk about yet. Shit. I could tell you about my various writing projects, but that's dull I'm sure. Such projects would be - Short comedy film, sitcom and feature film. But I'm sure you'd rather I told you anecdotes of me embarrassing myself. Such anecdotes would be...

Nah, you're not getting any of those. You're getting this.

Stephen 'birdshit' Green has complained about the atheist bus campaign. Now, I don't know if you spotted in the photo above, but the slogan read “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”...

I can't even write about this anymore. I'd just be repeating myself. The main thing is that people need to stop giving Stephen Green such airtime. If anyone else sent in this complaint, it would just be shown around the office, laughed at and maybe entered into the Darwin awards book (hoping of course that Stephen Green gets run over by one of these buses. Oh fuck me, I'm not one to wish death but that would be so brilliant wouldn't it?! Especially if loads of seagulls swarmed around his corpse like vultures and proceeded to shit all over him jeering "YEH try and get away now, Green, go on, sing yer favourite fucking hymn*!")

I like seagulls.

Yes, back on topic, people should stop treating Stephen Green as if he's the voice of Christians. I know his group's name 'Christian Voice' may suggest this, but this is in fact false advertising... get on to the ASA everyone!

He needs to stop being invited on the radio, TV or anywhere. Watch out Stephen there's a bus...! STEPHEN!!!

Oh, which reminds me.... for Adam and Joe fans.... Okse made this... join in.


I'm going now because I've got brilliant things to do.

Love 'n' cuddles,

Sophie x



*This reminds me of a fabulous joke from Cowards.

I've ruined my Mum's life with one sentence

"Oh my SMOD Sophie, tell us about your crazy new year!!"

Well dear readers*, I spent the new year sitting the house with my Mum, pretending I was at a brilliant house party so that I wouldn't have to work at the grotty pub I recently started pretending to fit in at. We watched hootenanny and I drank a lot of wine. It was a 4 on the pleasure scale, where 11 be best.

Still I have pleasures in my life. Spending all day in comfy clothes writing is one. Using masturbation as a sleep aid is another. That reminds me of another pleasure - referring to a particular person as “a another” What other pleasures? Buying things. Drinking wine. Sleeping with men. Burying my face in a hairy chest. Using full stops rather than commas. Incidental Rhyming.

I know what you all want, a list of highlights of the year, both personal, national and worldwide. Well fuck you, you’re having one anyway. It’s an original idea, eh? I bet you wish you’d thought of it.

I’ll start large.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008
Obama Wins!
Well done America. Outside of tumblr, most people in the UK dislike you. Because of George Bush. Now you’ve done well, most people like you. Apart from some comedians who are furious.

erm…. what other news happened?…. positive, I mean…. yeh…. erm….

NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008
Dead Set
The Economic Crisis
I can’t be bothered with this I just want to be indulgent and do the personal bit. I mean, fuck you all know about these bits.

PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008
In The Mouth
My first Edinburgh show. Sketch comedy performed at noon everyday in August to totally the wrong crowd with me usually still drunk from the night before having got to bed around 6am. This month long highlight is tainted by the day I broke up with my boyfriend (and co-star of the sketch show (they were one and the same)). Having to perform with him the next day was a total barrel of laughs.

Getting a job at the BBC
Sure, it’s in retail, but that’s one lifetime ambition ticked off. The day I got my staff pass I was so excited!

Stop doing this like a CV Sophie…

Latitude Festival
Seeing Sigur Ros live was fantastic. Another highlight was Robin Ince and Ross Noble having a John Peel impression competition. I spent most of the festival walking around with a box of wine meeting up with friends, abandoning them and just wandering around, discovering things, falling asleep in the literary tent and asking “a very good question indeed” at a debate about religion. I forget what the question was, but I remember being drunkenly and warmly proud that this posh cartoonist guy didn’t laugh at me for being drunk and half asleep on a cushion. What’s best of all is that my ticket was paid for by the magazine I was working for and I did no work whatsoever. Oh and a friend of mine got his cock out while doing their Edinburgh preview. How we laughed. The journey there was also amusing, but you’ll have to ask me personally. Clues: Poppers, Rabbits, Dave.

Robin Ince’s Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People
Robin Ince, Richard Dawkins, Robin Ince, Chris Addison, Josie Long, Stewart Lee, Simon Singh, Martin White, Ben Goldacre, Ricky Gervais, Phill Jupitus, Isy Suttie and Gavin Osbourne, Joanna Neary, Phillip Jeays, and probably a couple I’ve forgotten. Need I say more? Oh, comps courtesy of Mr Ince and I took darkhorsedan. Joy to the world! Oh and fuck the guy who screwed up having a choir there. I know him personally and if it wasn't for him I'd have been on stage each night. Grr!

And this year is sponsored by my Welsh Grandma Gwenyth Winifred Owens who sadly died this year. She often thought sex on TV was ‘not necessary’. Her dogs won crufts once and best of breed many times. She had an Old English sheepdog who was a Dulux dog and ‘Tramp’, he may be the same one, who was the dog who drove the mini in the April Fool’s thing in Esther Rantzen’s That’s Life! She knitted a lot and smoked 60 fags a day. *Lights up* This one’s for you Gwen.

But what of next year 2009? Well, I have books to read, a job to find, a film to write, a man to find, a house to leave, a flat to find. But before all that I have a fuckload of wine to drink.

Oh and the sentence that ruined my Mum's life?

"Did you know that Hootenanny isn't live, but recorded a couple of weeks before?"

I intend to be back a little more often. Apologies.

Sophie x

*Hi Chris!

Sneak peek & best bits

Click here to see what digital spy say David Tennant's best bits where in Who.

Now, what do you think is missing? Post a photo, quote, video, soundbite or whatever and label it David's Best Bits.

The best suggestion will win a prize of me saying "well done".

It's about time I got these out...

So, it's been a while now since Edinburgh... 

Here are our reviews from punters, and one from Three Weeks, as on www.edfringe.com. (I've typed them out underneath, because they are quite hard to read)

"This show was awful from start to almost the finish (I must admit that we left before the end. They started off on the wrong foot when at the beginning of the fist* sketch they managed to smash a glass of Coke and then later on had to lie down in it as this was where they were performing?! It was all things that are bad about stand up - not funny, no idea what or who the sketches were about or where they were going. Sorry guys I know it was free but we all deserve better than this"

"Some promising sketches but all lacking a decent punchline"

"There's a sense of potential about 'In The Mouth'. When they hit the spot, they almost convey the impression that they are a polished and lively sketch troupe, but some of their sketches are a little muddled and lack direction, spoiling the overall effect. A satirical spoof stand-up set and a genlemanly take in a "your Mum" exchange are good value, and there are nice ideas in a sketch about a teetotaler and a wheat intolerant couple dining at the Last Supper, but depressed puppet and best man's speech skits seem a little lost. There's a need for a bit more flexibility, but on the whole 'In The Mouth' do just about enough to keep their audience entertained, but they could really do with a bit more bite**."

"As the previous reviewer has mentioned, there were moments here where you could see the potential in this group. Too often, though, the inventive situations were let down by rushed delivery or poor scripting. The purposefully bad stand up was strong, as was the Last Supper, the 'best man' and 'Geordie' sketches much less so. Overall, it was a below par effort, but a free and easy way to start the day."

"This show gave me the impression of 3, 6th formers given a couple of hours to produce a sketch show. The first problem that the air conditioning was louder than the performers. The first couple of sketches dragged by without any substance. There were a couple of crackers mixed in. If this had been a 15 minute slot it could have been a great show"

So! In conclusion - a waste of a month? Certainly not! It was quite an experience. I was always aware the show was patchy, but there was not much to be done, I mean I had no better ideas. And it improved greatly throughout the run.

Thankfully my stand-up seemed to go well with the couple of people who mention it here. I'm so glad some people got it. Many didn't. I suppose that's a good thing? I don't know. You can watch my bad stand up here if you like. 

What to do next year? Well who knows! Stand up? Work with new people? Or just stay behind the scenes as I did before? Or just stay at home... Or! Theatre! I could write a play. So many options...

Sophie x

*Just so you know, Susan made a typo. We do not have a sketch about fisting.

**Do you see? Bite! Because we have 'Mouth' in our name. Brilliant!