The Writer's Life - Hygiene Fail
The Writer's Life – ‘Hygiene Fail’
With my shoe removal routine recently broken, I succumb to a rare hygiene fail.
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Latest from the YouTube channel
A small selection of the 225+ videos now up on my YouTube channel.
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The Writer's Life – ‘The Solo Curse’
The loss of my original Solo doll in ‘83 led to an epic search all over London for a replacement.
The Writer’s Life – ‘Ensemble Step Up’
My lifelong fascination with TV shows trying to overcome the loss of their main star.
The Writer’s Life – ‘The Street Greeting’
A look back at the one and only time I ever went in for the loud street greeting.
The Writer's Life – ‘Curious, for a First Conversation’
Wednesday morning.
The Writer's Life – ‘True Crime’
Dog owners discovering bodies and why Jeremy Beadle’s beard held him back from being a great prankster.
Please support this work
If you enjoy my work, please consider making a donation by clicking on the Paypal link below:
All donations, large or small, goes into supporting my work and helping to keep 500+ shows and videos, spanning a decade, online.
Thank you.
YouTube
A small selection of the 190+ videos now up on my YouTube channel.
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The role beds have played in my life
Calzone Love
The troubling spectacle of bare feet in the streets
Gesture Appropriation
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There are now over 180 videos up on my YouTube channel.
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Nine Years Ago this week...
Nine years ago this week, I launched the Please Don't Hug Me podcast with Micky Boyd. It was hard going in terms of having to learn how to edit and most of those early shows were recorded from the hotel I was living in for almost half a year. 500 podcast and radio shows later, I can look back and say that apart from the live Resonance FM era of Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available, the early Please Don't Hug Me episodes were probably the most fun I've had making a podcast.
So many people are making podcasts now which is great, but so many underestimate just how much work it takes to put them together which is why after a few weeks, even shows by big names can be intermittent. It's a lot of work which is why I stopped making them so that I could focus on more important projects, but I'll always look back with affection at the early Please Don't Hug Me episodes, even with all its Micky-heavy features, The Boydie Beautiful, Ask Boydie, etc and let's not forget, the hugely competitive Toilet Bingo.
We were fortunate to have some good co-presenters on board too. Stuart Armstrong, Roisin Rae, Clay Lowe, Brooks Livermore, Fiona Hardingham, John Rain, Alan Mitchell, The Chin (who wrecked episodes 51 and 52 which never aired). We had Grant Static behind the artwork and a memorable theme tune from the brilliant and lamented by me Keyboard Choir.
I hope I haven't forgotten anyone.
It was all new and exciting and a big learning curve. And of course, though it was a tiny audience, we had some brilliant and very funny listeners who bought into whatever it was we were trying to do and became a big part of the show. As much as they might’ve looked forward to Thursdays for the next PDHM episode, we looked forward to hearing from them.
All 55 episodes are available here on this website.
Page to Stage, 26 June
My new comedy play is one of four pieces getting a rehearsed reading this Wednesday 26 June at Page to Stage, an event showcasing exciting new writing in front of an industry panel and audience.
Tickets: £4.
An excerpt from my new comedy play is being performed on 26 June
An excerpt from my new comedy play is being performed on 26 June at the Page to Stage night.
Pictures from 'The Meal' at Stitchin' Fiction, 29 April 2019
Pictures from April’s reading of my short comedy play The Meal, which was performed at ‘Stitchin’ Fiction’ (Theatre Deli).
Director: Natalie Winter
Actors: Luisa Guerreiro, Bob D’Erlanger
Photography: Kiah Shabka
Café regular passes away
A moment of sadness today in the café as a poster announcing the death of a longtime regular went up behind the bar. The (Portuguese) man looked terribly ill when I last him in the café last month. He was with either two of his daughters or grand daughters and he caught me briefly glancing at him as I noted his alarming decline.
Some years ago, he'd got a new job that saw him working with some English guys. I think it was as a road sweeper and every morning he'd turn up in the café with this guy, Alan, who was almost an entire picnic short of a picnic. Alan was a dead ringer for Bruce Forsythe, even sounded the same, and it quickly became evident to us regulars he wasn't the full ticket. The now deceased Portuguese man, like many in that older Iberian community, and despite decades here in London, had terrible English, but the two formed a close bond that was nice to see and you could tell the deceased had warmed to his eccentric colleague.
It's a long-established tradition in the café that if a regular dies, the poster along with details of the funeral goes up behind the bar. If I wasn't so reserved in there, and assuming the café survives the onslaught of gentrification in SW8, when my time is up, I think I'd be a certainty to have my picture go up behind the bar. I don't know about the funeral details. I have no plans to pay for mine. As long as I get admission into the AFTERLIFE, I'm not too fussed what happens. Given attendance to my funeral is likely to be poor, it's not something I lose much sleep over.
I hope the newly deceased finds the coffee in the AFTERLIFE is every bit as good as it is in the café.
R.I.P.
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available highlights
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available S2 E14 live on Resonance - The Winter Massage fails to allow enough time for long johns removal.
From Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available Bumper Christmas Annual 2014 on Resonance FM
A festive visit to see my aunt Spanish Kanu and my uncle.
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available, S2 Resonance FM
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available S2 Resonance FM 'The Hat'.
Prospective hat excessively manhandled by shop staff.
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available - S3 Resonance FM
South London has lost its belly.
Bibi Does Soho
Discussing great women's hairstyles I'd like to have had by myself and finding my flow cut down as madcap host Bibi Lynch says a certain naughty word live on air...
Bibi Does Soho, November 2018
Bibi Lynch learns about the toilet table.
Bibi Does Soho
The Café greetings.
A Nectar Points update from S1 of Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available on Resonance FM.
Why summer makes us all equal.
Recalling the dull summer of 2013.
No recognition for Merton on 'Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available'.
From S2 E13 of Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available live on @resonancefm
Plastic surgery on show on the streets of SW8. Cosmetically Enhanced mum's ever changing face.
Pic: YouTube
Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available, Resonance FM S1 E19
My dad was disappointed his distinctive signature was never acknowledged by my form tutor whenever he signed my school journal.
Part 2 of 'The Signature' from Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available, S1 E19.
My dad was disappointed his distinctive signature was never acknowledged by my form tutor whenever he signed my school journal.
Stitchin' Fiction - A rehearsed reading for 'The Meal', Monday 29th April
‘The Meal’ gets a rehearsed reading on Monday 29th April at Stitchin’ Fiction at the Theatre Deli in Broadgate, London.
Event and ticket details here: The Meal
Pic: Stichin’ Fiction
BalDcASt - for the bald and the beautiful
Bald since 1995, Micky Boyd, baldcaster, looks at the hairstyles he would’ve loved to have had that genetics cruelly denied him.
All 13 episodes of the podcast, produced by me, can be found on Twitter and the Facebook page.
Here’s a taster from Micky’s BalDcASt series.
Ep 12 sees Micky eulogise Roger Daltrey’s hair over the last half century. You’ll note they’re very short shows. Micky, as his fans will recall, is a busy man.
Website renewal - please support this week
With my website renewing for another year later this month, if you enjoy my radio and podcast work, please consider making a donation via the Paypal link on the homepage here or by clicking on the Paypal link below.
All donations, large or small, will go into paying for the annual renewal and keeping 500+ shows and videos, spanning a decade, online.
'The Meal' - debuts Tuesday 16th April 2019 at the OSO Arts Centre, London
Ticket details: OSO Arts Centre
My new comedy play debuts 16 April - Details here
My new short comedy play, a two-hander entitled ‘The Meal’, debuts at the OSO Theatre on 16 April as part of its latest DISPATCHES: Scratch Writing Night. There are seven plays in all and the night kicks off at 8pm.
Tickets can be purchased here: OSO
Comedy with Resonance - 12 hidden gems from the archives of the UK's most eclectic radio station
Here’s a link to an article that appeared today on the UK’s biggest comedy website, Chortle, about 12 hidden comedy gems from the Resonance FM archive. I’m pleased to write my most recent work for Resonance, The Café Chronicles, is listed in the 12. You can of course find the complete 10-part first series of the show on this website as well as the hour-long Christmas Eve special.
Merry Christmas
Just a quick post to wish all listeners and readers a Merry Christmas. Those of you who have kindly donated to the site during 2018, a special thank you. I have taken the time to thank every donor individually responding to email addresses I have for them. On occasion, the email addresses I have haven’t tallied with the email addresses the donations came from and I apologise if any donor hasn’t had a response.
Merry Christmas.
The Café Chronicles Bumper Christmas Annual 2018 - 8pm Christmas Eve on Resonance
Airing on Christmas Eve, 8pm on Resonance 104.4fm.
(Repeated Boxing Day, 12pm)
Daniel Ruiz Tizon returns with a Christmas Eve special of The Café Chronicles from the South Lambeth Portuguese café he has holed himself up in since the summer of 2001. As the gentrification sweeping through Nine Elms and Vauxhall accelerates, The Café Chronicles documents the characters and community threatened by these changes. This packed festive edition features chin fissures, cartoon flattened pastries, leviathan eclairs, hairy chested waiters in open necked shirts shedding chest hair in customers coffees, and Old Twitter, the octogenarian couple with their newspapers breaking yesterday’s news today. And Daniel looks back at an old Christmas exchange with a café regular that kick-started the erosion of his long-prized anonymity in the café.