At the moment the following things are making me tick:

Skins

E4’s fantastic teen drama/comedy that is like a younger, edgier version of Hollyoaks and with (on the whole) a pretty good cast. There are a couple of interesting names involved in the project, namely Josie Long (if.comeddies award winner for best newcomer 2006) and Simon Amstell . If you’ve not already found the free online mini episodes, check out E4’s Unseen Skins .

Never Mind The Buzzcocks

A fairly recent convert to Buzzcocks, I’ve loved this programme since Mark Lamar left the chair. Amstell’s witty performance and inexorable guest-degradation is on tap making it the best panel game on TV at the moment.

Little Yellow Spider, Devendra Banhart

Soundtrack to that Orange advert where a people in a park move around to reveal and hide other people. A fantastic acoustic song with no deep meaning just amusing lyrics and a great tune.

Standing In The Way of Control, The Gossip

Another great track at the opposite end of the spectrum. Punchy, punkish, political and outspoken, I really want to hear some more of their album.

Jeff Buckley

I knew the name, but it wasn’t until I heard his name mentioned in Badly Drawn Boy track that I decided to wiki it. I found some of his stuff on some old compilation albums and ever since been really impressed with the music/annoyed that I’d overlooked it before.

Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs

I couldn’t stand this song when I first heard it but it’s since grown on me and ended up on my playlist.

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You may or may not know I am a big comedy fan spanning all mediums, and my most regular dose comes from the radio. On average I listen to six or seven shows a week ranging from stand up to panel stuff. There are rich pickings on the BBC Listen Again feature and it gives a good chance to catch up with shows that I’d normally miss.

Favourites include Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation (a series of ‘lectures’ recorded in 1993), People Like Us (Chris Langham’s brilliant hapless Roy Mallard as interviewer in this ‘mockumentary’), The Smith Lectures (Arthur Smith’s clippings of radio and stand up routines), Mark Watson Makes The World Substantially better (stand up, if.commedies winner and more recently panellist on Mock The Week), The News Quiz (weekly topical panel game which was the original radio format for Have I Got News For You), The Masterson Inheritance (improv featuring Josie Lawrence and Paul Merton), Yes Minister and Just A Minute.

I think some people miscomprehend radio humour as being dull, but I would hotly contest that the quality is considerably higher than most of what you get on TV. Admittedly, Have I Got News For You is more entertaining than The News Quiz, but I think a lot of our best comedians fare better on radio than they do on the screen.

I would list Jeremy Hardy, Paul Merton, Tony Hawkes, Sue Perkins, the late Linda Smith and Marcus Brigstocke amongst my favourite comedians, but most of them unknown to mainstream audiences. Mark Watson and Russell Howard are breaking into popular culture but I feel their live stand up far out performs their contributions on TV.

The reason I got sidetracked onto all of that was that I’ve managed to get hold of four very elusive tickets to see a recording of my favourite of all the shows, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Tickets usually sell out within minutes, but so determined I was this time that I sat on the website from 10am until 11am repeatedly trying to place an order until finally the overloaded server picked itself up and took my money.

I’ve ended up with some very decent seats. Guests on the programme before have included most of the well known names above, Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon, Jack Dee, Ross Noble and Phil Jupitus. With only six recordings a year and an already 86-year-old chairman there really is slimmer and slimmer chance of getting to one in future, so I thought I’d seize the opportunity while it was still there.

Should be a really good night.

In other news, I got frustrated with Halifax this week when I tried to order a new debit card to renew the expiry date. It’s likely my old card will expire while I’m travelling, so I order to pre empty it I explained the situation to the bank who replaced the card. It was only at the point I noticed the expiry date hadn’t changed, just the issue number. I phoned them up again (actually I got them to call me back) only to find the first person I had spoken to had been misinformed. It seems you can’t change the expiry date which is really frustrating. More graft required to get my finances in a workable order before I go away.

On Thursday night I met up with Gareth and Ross for a few beverages and curry in Lye. I love hype and discussion.

Aside from all this, the sun is shining and the weekend is not even half way through. It’s a great day.

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