Mark Watson's Blog, page 2

The World Cup You Don’t Know About, In London

If you’re not interested in football, then I should tell you now, this might not be for you. EXCEPT if you’re interested in global politics, or underdog stories, or people in really colourful shirts. Which is almost everyone. So, I retract that actually.

My brother – long-time followers will be aware – is a maniac who spends his time organising football stuff in parts of the world where there isn’t a proper sports infrastructure, where it’s too hot or wet to play, sometimes where they don’t r...

‘DAN AND SAM’ BOUGHT BY SPIELBERG COMPANY

My graphic novel ‘Dan and Sam’, written with Oliver Harud, was recently purchased by Amblin – Steven Spielberg’s studio – for a possible film adaptation. Fun! A screenplay is being written now and we’ll see what happens after that. What quite often happens in these situations is that the film remains ‘in production’ for twenty years or so, until most of the people originally working on it have moved jobs, or died. But at the very least it’s an adventure. You can purchase the book here if you’...

27 hours: initial debrief

People often express surprise that I’m able to stay on a stage for 27 hours, and ask how it’s possible. I generally explain that a large part of the show isn’t really what you’d call stand-up comedy, which seems like false modesty until they check the footage and discover around nine hours of me commentating on people bending for pieces of cardboard. But the main point I always try to make is that the show is not so much a performance at all as a giant collaboration of people who – for whatev...

27 hour show: (sort of) final call

I realise I’ve mentioned this once or twice before. I reckon this is the last time or failing that, certainly the penultimate or antepenultimate.

Very soon now – February 27th and 28th – I will be plunging into the unwise and self-inflicted mission of 27 hours live on stage for Comic Relief. You may have the dubious good fortune to possess tickets for the show. Even if you don’t, you will be able to watch it online at rednoseday.com/markwatson. Please do tune in, interact with us, become ove...

27-HOUR COMEDY MARATHON NEWS (title gives it away a bit)

This blog is rarely used any more and its once-heaving archive has been deleted, but it still gets woken up every now and again for news items. And this is very much a news item. There’s going to be another one of my marathon shows. As it’s for Comic Relief again, it will follow the pattern of ‘one hour for each year’ of that organisation. Which means I will be performing for 27 hours. Starting on February 27th 2015 at 9pm, and finishing midnight the next day.

If you go to www.rednoseday.com/...

Scrabble is like life: you

Not much doubt about the big news of the past couple of weeks: there are a dozen new words allowed in Scrabble. You can now get points for INBOX (only 15 years or so after it entered everyday vocabulary), WAGYU (upmarket steak, guaranteed to psych out your opponent, who will conclude that you can afford to eat in more expensive restaurants and are thus a more accomplished wordsmith), and - perhaps controversially - TWIGLET (as in, er, Twiglet, the wheaty snack). They've also opened the doors to VLOG (a video blog and a deeply uncomfortable word to say out loud) and QIN: a boon to anyone who's been frustratingly stuck with a Q, the queen of letters but among the most intractable. Yes, like I said, this is big news. I can't wait to play QIN, have someone challenge it and smoothly refer them to a recent news story. I might carry around a laminated copy of the Guardian story that broke the news, in anticipation of just such a challenge. There's nothing like ruining someone's day with a laminate.

Game changer

Some people, undoubtedly, are going to get annoyed when the new words come out. They'll be hot under the collar that INNIT (as in, yes, "isn't it") is suddenly a legitimate strategic play, rather than - as it should be - something you hear on the train and try to pretend didn't happen. They're the same people who complain bitterly when you win the game by playing AA or XI or JO. "Those aren't real words," they moan. "It's not a fair test of vocabulary. I put a lot of effort into saving up my letters until I could write CAMEL. You should be ashamed of yourself."

What these people fail to grasp is that Scrabble exists in its own autonomous universe. It's not obliged to be faithful to the genuine patterns of popular word usage, any more than Monopoly should be condemned for popularising the idea that you can buy Mayfair for a few hundred pounds (although its rail system, which becomes more and more profitable the more stations you annexe, eerily presages the modern age of privatisation). Scrabble is about tactics, not words. If you know the tricks, you'll get ahead; if you show too much sentimentality towards your favourite words and objects, you'll be bulldozed. In this respect it mirrors real life very well. It's not really fair that people get cheaper train tickets just because they book earlier than you; they're still taking up the same amount of space on the train. It's unjust that a reality TV show winner sells a thousand times as many records as a more gifted but obscure singer-songwriter. Nevertheless, this is the world we live in. On almost every level, it's a competition, just as evolution is a competition to see which species make it and which die out muttering about not being able to use their Zs. We can learn from Scrabble. Life is about winners and losers. Be a winner. Commit the word WAGYU to memory now. It's 24 points on a double-word. I don't need to say more than that.

If further proof were needed that modern life is even more of a cut-throat competition than it always has been, you should see the current series of Masterchef in Australia, where I've spent the past three months. Masterchef is popular enough at home, but down here it brings the populace to a standstill. Never has food been spoken about with such seriousness; never has a silver cloche been lifted, to reveal a dish of steak and kidney pie, with quite such portentous musical accompaniment.

Half baked

On the episode I watched yesterday, three contestants faced a sudden-death Baked Alaska contest. The tension at the unveiling of the dishes would not have been out of place in an operating theatre (which might be an idea for a future TV series: Britain's Got Surgeons, perhaps). The judges nibbled at the desserts as if the creator of the least impressive one would be put to death. The contestant with the worst Baked Alaska, teetering at the doors of elimination, wept and said cooking was his dream. He was reprieved and someone who hadn't cried was eliminated instead.

Fair? No - but once more, a useful lesson in the way to get ahead. Presentation is more important than product. People can complain that reality TV has made us all shallow and vacuously results-driven, but it only reflects a trend that has been in progress since cavemen first began to compete for wives, cave-space and the survival of their genes. Life is a game with winners and losers. It's no more than a glorified, feature-length version of Scrabble or Masterchef. If you don't like the rules, find a way to beat them. Innit. l

Next week: Nicholas Lezard
newstatesman.com/blogs/mark-watson

www.newstatesman.com - Scrabble is like life: you

Farewell, Whispering Ted, the man who taught me that less is more

Unless you're Osama Bin Laden, it hasn't been a great time to die of late, if you wanted the press to report it to the nation. The royal wedding and the leader of al-Qaeda muscled everything else not just out of the headlines but out of the news altogether. Riots in Uganda, killer storms across the US - none of it stood a chance of a mention. Nothing else mattered: a 100-foot monster could have knocked over the Eiffel Tower and it would have been lucky to get into the "And finally . . ." section.

In the middle of all this, not many people will have noticed the quiet death at 90 of a very quiet hero of mine: the former BBC snooker commentator Ted Lowe. Before I was unfortunately sidetracked by a career as a comedian and author, my boyhood dream was to be a sports commentator and Lowe was one of my role models. These days, sports coverage is as glossy and overproduced as all other forms of entertainment, and commentary can be a rather self-conscious art form.

Quips on cue

Commentators are armed with dozens of facts about each player and team, which they throw in with apparent nonchalance, often on the most spurious pretext ("The free-kick is going to be taken by Gomez . . . Gomez, of course, is the great-grandson of the man who invented the typewriter and he'll be trying to type the word 'goal' here"). There is a tendency to waffle, to sentimentalise and to deliver obviously prepared spiels. A stadium becomes "this great Viking fortress of the north-east"; players are "gladiators"; a last-minute goal is a "knife in the heart" of the losing team. Even in sports more sedate than football, there is a pressure on commentators to augment the drama.

Lowe, who became a household name on the TV programme Pot Black, came from an earlier age. Pot Black was a humble show that only came to prominence because television bosses realised that snooker, with all its different balls, was ideal for the new era of colour broadcasting. Even as it briefly became a national phenomenon in the 1980s, when the world championship final could draw as many as 15 million viewers, he continued to call the games as if he were speaking to more like 15.

Lowe had two main characteristics as a commentator that set him apart from most of today's. First, he had a husky voice that at times was only just audible, which earned him the nickname "Whispering Ted". On top of this, for long periods of the game, he was quite content not to say anything at all. Even at moments of high intensity, his patter was so minimal that anyone joining the game midway through might have imagined that he had forgotten to turn up.

While commentating on the Steve Davis-Dennis Taylor final in 1985, snook

I didn

We all try to resist the clich

How I'm doing on my new year's resolutions

A spring report.

I rashly made 31 new year's resolutions. Here, just in case you're interested, is a little spring report on my results so far. It's as much for me -- because doing this publicly ensures conscientious effort -- as it is for you. But it might make you think about your ten-year self-improvement challenge and stuff. Or it might just be sort of interesting. Anyway, here we go.

1 Stop losing things, for God's sake
Getting there. Haven't lost my glasses this year. Small improvements in the field of thinking-hard-about-what-I-don't-want-to-leave-behind. Did lose a favourite cardigan in Perth, however.

2 Learn to be more passive about things I can't change and bolder about things I can/should. Like in that prayer you sometimes see on tea towels
I think I'm managing to do this. The tricky thing is that passivity tips over easily into apathy, which is not a good thing. For example, with Libya, it's best if I don't get too emotionally involved because there's bugger all I can do about it. But I wouldn't want to be uninterested in the whole situation. So, yes, not easy but I'm doing alright.

3 Do shows in at least a dozen places I've not been before
This is happening. Some of these shows have already been announced. Some will be advertised imminently. I've done pretty well in this area.

4 Eat slightly less red meat for environmental reasons and to avoid gout
Not easy but, yes, I've succeeded in choosing non-beef dishes more often than not. I know it would be better still to avoid meat altogether. I know, I know. But still. This is something.

5 Drink slightly less red wine to avoid gout, liver failure, death, etc
I've just about pulled this off. Lucky I stipulated a "slight" reduction. Still some work to do but steps in the right direction.

6 Find at least three new foods I like
No, still mostly eating curry. Must try harder.

7 Give blood at last
Nope. Not yet.

8 Stay abreast of the news at all times, rather than just in the 48 hours leading up to appearances on topical panel shows
Yes, I'd say I have managed this.

9 Do fewer topical panel shows
Yep, just the one recently and that was in Australia. Approaching a time when I don't have to say, "I know what news story this refers to but first I'll riff entertainingly for some minutes!"

10 Never read anything about comedy or about myself, where possible
Mixed success. I rashly read a review of myself in Brisbane because someone posted a link. It was nice, though, but I shouldn't have done it. I'm managing to avoid the comedy press in general. Not bad.

11 Fulfil my musical ambitions
Some progress. You'll have to see my next live show to see how it's panning out . . .

12 Have regular massages
Had one, in Brisbane. I suppose that's sort of regular. Could do better.

13 Stay in touch more with essential people; stop breaking my back for inessential people
Without wanting to go into details, I've made a good job of this. The friend pyramid is now a bit better ordered. NB If you've not heard from me for a while, this doesn't mean I hate you.

14 Do at least six big things for the first time
Nowhere near. Not sure I've done ANYTHING big for the first time. I've got a couple planned, though.

15 Avoid distractions -- ie the internet, thinking about football, thinking about self -- which squander time that could be spent working or being a good family man
I've been on Twitter less. Thinking about football around the same amount but, hey -- the season will end in a couple of months.

16 Continue what charity work I'm doing and try to extend it
I gave money to Comic Relief for rabbit facts. Not bad.

17 Make the most of having a baby, before he becomes a 12-year-old or something
Think I'm doing this, although I was away for a couple of weeks. I've taken a lot more photos and made a big effort to enjoy everything he does.

18 Keep working towards conquering some of my many fears
Little real progres. Thunderstorms is the key one. Have to do something about this before I get caught in another one.

19 Run once a week
Just about on course. I let it lapse but I ran twice in Melbourne last week. I found I was badly out of shape. Will not let it lapse again.

20 Resist becoming too much of a "dad" by continuing to pursue unusual and challenging hobbies
Haven't really delivered on this. Not enough time for hobbies.

21 Help one person a week
I've just about done this, though not always at the exact rate of one a week. But if you add it all up.

22 Swear just a bit less just to prevent it from losing its impact
No. I said the C-word on Aussie TV last week. Without even meaning to. Must do fucking better.

23 Continue trying not to be quite such a blight on planet earth with carbon footprint etc
Hopeless. Flying back to Australia this weekend. I don't fly for recreational purposes much at all these days -- it's all business -- but still. Hmm.

24 Make no public negative statements
Oh. That last one was a negative statement. Er. Well, I've done much better at being upbeat on Twitter and stuff. Yes, not too bad.

25 (related to 24) See a confidence coach
Haven't done this yet but I have found one. More news as we get it.

26 Be bolder with my artistic aims
I'm sort of doing this, yes. I have a lot of ambitious projects on the go which I might have hesitated to even try, not too long ago.

27 . . . but, seriously, stop being so competitive. Really
No. Still failing at this. It's so fundamental to my personality. This is something I really do want to change. Will keep trying.

28 Always have my flies done up, where possible
Better. But work to be done. Still unacceptably often I find a gaping hole.

29 Get my head round the Israel/Palestine thing once and for all
Some progress. Read a book about it. Starting to have some opinions. Plan to offer both parties a watertight solution by October.

30 Save one resolution for the middle of the year, then announce a 30th resolution based on what has happened so far
Yes -- to ring my mum once a week. It was suggested by my mum.

and

31 Above all, try to remember that things normally work out all right
They do, don't they. I'm remembering this most of the time.

www.newstatesman.com - How I'm doing on my new year's resolutions

How I'm doing on my New Year's resolutions

A spring report on my 31 resolutions.

I rashly made 31 New Year's Resolutions. Here, just in case you're interested, is a little spring report on my results so far. It's as much for me - because doing this publicly ensures conscientious effort - as it is for you. But it might make you think about your TYSICs and stuff. Hello. Or it might just be sort of interesting. Anyway, here we go.

1-Stop losing things, for God's sake
Yes. Getting there. Haven't lost my glasses this year. Small improvements in the field of thinking-hard-about-what-I-don't-want-to-leave-behind. Did lose a favourite cardigan in Perth, however.

2-Learn to be more passive about things I can't change, and bolder about things I can/should. Like in that prayer you sometimes see on tea towels
I think I'm managing to do this. The tricky thing is that passivity tips over easily into apathy, which is not a good thing. E.g. with Libya it's best if I don't get too emotionally involved because there's bugger all I can do about it. But I wouldn't want to be uninterested in the whole situation. So, yes, not easy but I'm doing all right.

3-Do shows in at least a dozen places I've not been before
This is happening. Some of these shows are already announced. Some will be advertised imminently. I've done pretty well in this area.

4-Eat slightly less red meat, for environmental reasons and to avoid gout
Not easy, but yes, I've succeeded in choosing non-beef dishes more often than not. I know it would be better still to avoid meat altogether. I know, I know. But still. This is something.

5-Drink slightly less red wine, to avoid gout, liver failure, death etc
I've just about pulled this off. Lucky I stipulated a 'slight' reduction. Still some work to do, but steps in the right direction.

6-Also, find at least three new foods I like
No, still mostly eating curry. Must try harder.

7-Give blood at last
Nope. Not yet.

8-Stay abreast of the news at all time, rather than just in the 48 hours leading up to appearances on topical panel shows
Yes, I'd say I have managed this.

9-Do fewer topical panel shows
Yep, just the one recently, and that was in Australia. Approaching a time when I don't have to say 'I know what news story this refers to, but first I'll riff entertainingly for some minutes!'

10-Never read anything about comedy or about myself, where possible
Mixed success. I rashly read a review of myself in Brisbane because someone posted a link. It was nice, though, but I shouldn't have done it. I'm managing to avoid the comedy press in general. Not bad.

11-Fulfil my musical ambitions
Some progress. You'll have to see my next live show to see how it's panning out...

12-Have regular massages
Had one, in Brisbane. I suppose that's sort of regular. Could do better.

13-Stay in touch more with essential people; stop breaking my back for inessential people
Without wanting to go into details, I've made a good job of this. The friend pyramid is now a bit better ordered. NB If you've not heard from me for a while, this doesn't mean I hate you.

14-Do at least six big things for the first time
Nowhere near. Not sure I've done ANYTHING big for the first time. I've got a couple planned, though.

15-Avoid distractions - i.e. the internet, thinking about football, thinking about self - which squander time that could be spent working or being a good family man
I've been on Twitter less. Thinking about football around the same amount, but hey - the season will end in a couple of months.

16-Continue what charity work I'm doing, and try to extend it
I gave money to Comic Relief for rabbit facts. Not bad.

17-Make the most of having a baby, before he becomes a 12-year-old or something
Think I'm doing this, although I was away for a couple of weeks. I've taken a lot more photos and made a big effort to enjoy everything he does.

18-Keep working towards conquering some of my many fears
Little real progres. Thunderstorms is the key one. Have to do something about this before I get caught in another one.

19-Run once a week
Just about on course. I let it lapse, but ran twice in Melbourne last week. I found I was badly out of shape (still thing, but panting). Will not let it lapse again.

20-Resist becoming too much of a 'dad' by continuing to pursue unusual and challenging hobbies
Haven't really delivered on this. Not enough time for hobbies.

21-Help one person a week
I've just about done this, though not always at the exact rate of one a week. But if you add it all up.

22-Swear just a bit less, just to prevent it from losing its impact
No. I said the c-word on Aussie TV last week alone. Without even really meaning to. Must do fucking better.

23-Continue trying not to be quite such a blight on Planet Earth with carbon footprint etc.
Hopeless. Flying back to Australia this weekend. I don't fly for recreational purposes much at all these days - it's all business- but still. Hmm.

24-Make no public negative statements
Oh. That last one was a negative statement. Er. Well, I've done much better at being upbeat on Twitter and stuff. Yes, not too bad.

25-(related to 24) See a confidence coach
Haven't done this yet, but I have found one. More news as we get it.

26-Be bolder with my artistic aims
I'm sort of doing this, yes. I have a lot of ambitious projects on the go which I might have hesitated to even try, not too long ago.

27-...but, seriously, stop being so competitive. Really
No. Still failing at this. It's so fundamental to my personality. This is something I really do want to change. Will keep trying.

28-Always have my flies done up, where possible
Better. But work to be done. Still unacceptably often I find a gaping hole.

29-Get my head round the Israel/Palestine thing once and for all
Some progress. Read a book about it. Starting to have some opinions. Plan to offer both parties a watertight solution by October.

30-Save one resolution for the middle of the year, then announce a 30th Resolution based on what has happened so far
Yes - to ring my mum once a week. It was suggested by my mum.

and

31-Above all, try and remember that things normally work out all right.
They do, don't they. I'm remembering this most of the time.

www.newstatesman.com - How I'm doing on my New Year's resolutions