The British Comedy Awards 2014 Review

The British Comedy Awards 2014 Review

I felt somewhat justified this year after claiming British comedy was a dead parrot.
Even more so after giving the lifetime award to the Monty Python team and not rightly to the late and great Rik Mayall who only got a two second flash up on screen with other comedians that had sadly passed away this year on the end of show credits.
I can't even begin to let the venom flow from my keys as I sit here rocking in my chair.
As Rik would say "You utter bastards".
Rik Mayall, teamed with Ade Edmondson, brought us some of the greatest comedy over the past 30+ years that tickled and tortured our funny bones to the brink of heavenly delight.
Most of the show wasn't even a show due to a large number of winners not being there due to work obligations and rather fake ungrateful pointless pre-recorded footage was showed in its place.
Jonathan Ross tried his best to sail this rather limp and knackered old vessel through the night by showing us old VT of the Comedy Awards of past golden years when it really was a  funny and great viewing experience.  Even bringing on the village idiot,  Joey Essex, couldn't help this ship find harbour, but there again, if you're going to wheel out Joey Essex, the lights are never going to be on.
Naturally The Inbetweeners collected the giant paperweight award for best Comedy Film and rightly so.  Although it must be pointed out that  Joe Thomas has a touch of the Dorian Grey about his person and should be studied for his secret of youth.  The man just gets younger looking every time he appears on TV - what is his secret?
Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist was awarded to Nick Helm which I was happy to see.  The man brings a fresh and much needed style of the downtrodden clown with a dash of Norman Bates as he flares from fool to psycho as his character unfolds.
Best Sketch Show and Best TV Comedy Actor, went to Ducky Harry Enfield.  One of old boys that knows the ropes and played with his minions as he collected his awards.  It was nice to see Harry have fun and poke fun at his ducky friends.
And what of poor lonely Matt Berry... Up for six awards and only got handed one!  In the form of Best New Comedy Programme.  I felt slightly sorry for this beefy bear of a man who it seemed was up for one hell of a night of winning awards left right and centre, but it was not to be for this gently bearded giant.
So we move onto what was an incredible night for Irish comedians it would seem.  With two awards presented to Graham Norton, one handed over to the very funny Aisling Bea, and the much deceived award of the Writers' Guild Of Great Britain Award going to Brendan O'Carroll, who rightly pointed out that comedy is the hardest business in showbusiness on which I think we can all agree...  And with that said, perhaps British comedians need to work a little harder next year, or should we change the title of the show to the Irish Comedy Awards as stated on the show.
So let us round this off and finish with a few comedians that didn't make the grade in this list of winners that most of us didn't watch on the telly for 2014.
Simon Day, Adam Buxton, Micky Flanagan, Rik Mayall, Richard Ayoade, Lee Evans, Greg Davies, Robin Ince, Sean Lock, Dave Spikey, Michael Pennington (aka Johnny Vegas), Sean Lock, Stewart Lee, Roisin Conaty...
Naturally I can keep typing and typing these great names... But I think you get the point...!  We can only hope in 2015 that the show picks up the pace and keeps up with not only British comedy and comedians, but just comedy in general.  4/10 - you lost a point because you didn't put stairs in the middle and everyone just kept climbing up on stage.

lOki

YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014 BS

So yet another LOOK AT ME I'M SO PRETTY end of year video from YouTube.
Luckly this year I had a bucket to throw up in, still can't get the smell and stain out from last year!
Please note this video is full of young happy beautiful people with two token overweight people.
Not overly sure that dog was happy about being lowered down on a rope....!

Sadly it's easy to see that GoogleTube, Oh my bad YouTube is nothing more than a Xfactor machine
turning out as many young people as possible to lead the blind into a false wonderland of lies and promises.
To fill the greedy pocket of Google, you do know that...right...?
Its very similar to politics and those wonderful lies politician spin you for your vote or in this case a Sub.

Naturally your never going to see the millions of YouTubers that post week in week out showing real life.
Your only get push up in your grill the beautiful people all laughing and joking in their perfect life's.
"Oh what fun"

Either way this doesn't show the reality of YouTubers, just a marketing video to make more money
out of you.







lOki

Sci Fi Fest Yeovilton Fleet Air Arm Museum 2014

Click Here For YouTube Video Link
A totally amazing day out...
I saw a lot of happy little kids and a lot more happy big kids LOL...

Fire Seed

Fire Seed

A few years ago I was toying with the idea to write a piece of music that had that "Epic" and "Classic" eletronic dance feel to it, a track that had that catchy little thingy to it...!
I farted about as ones does pressing many buttons of vairous coloured shapes on my screen.
And after about three week I produced this tune "Fire Seed"
It does have a nice progressive feel to it and holds it own, even after a few years on the back burner.

The video is pretty straight forward and I wanted to re-vamp the the old one and use a more direct
appoarch with just a plain POV of a match strike slowed right down.
I will put my hands up and say that these two pieces of footage were sauced from the internet and are free to use. 
I am feeling a touch lazy... I know full well I could of filmed this myself... but "Meh" it was there...
And it saved me thrity minutes of farting about with lights and camera's and shit...!
But saying that I did up the contast and fiddled about somewhat bring the richness of the footage up a level or two, the orginal was a little dark to begin with I felt.
The overlayers are some still shots from a few years back, which I boosted with a few effects.
Just to really bring out the red and orange tones.

All in all a nice tidy little tune and video :)
Good day to you...


Music by: NLiN lOki "Fire Seed" 2011
From his imaginary album
MUSIC FOOD FOR ALIENSYouTube Video Link

Art Installation Hourglass Hard Boiled Ambient

From time to time there are a few people that have the balls to contact me and ask if I might make them one of my more abstract or avant-garde art looking videos.
A couple of months ago one such person did contact me and sent me a piece of their music in the style of ambience.
Ambient tracks can be somewhat of a nightmare when producing a music video, due to the fact that an ambient track can last anywhere from ten mintues to hours in length!
You think I'm joking...Trust me ambient is very easy when composing to simply get lost into.
Your music and your mind become the living dream of soft atmospheric melodies.
Here's a little copy and paste of the email I received from the creator of the music "Hourglass"

"Ok this is 9.30 long...really sorry, however you have great filling skills
i'm sure...
This is called Hourglass btw feat poet Matt Lovegrove, Matt is very dark."

Huh...! 9:30...! Dam girl... Dark...Good...
I've produced videos before now of this length, but the editing and time factors are huge.
When dealing with such mountains I always look for the quickest way to climb and use what I'm given to construct my video.
Hourglass + Eggs + Boiling water = Video.
Althougth I did admittedly have to chop a minute off the end of the track and gentle fade, due to the time frame of the eggs boiling.
There was no loss to the music itself, because of the repetitive nature of the style of music.

Natraully I can't resist adding my little strange black and white character that pops up now and then in such videos as this one. 
He is this rather bizzare blend of a Japanese horror character with a twist of Marcel Marceau.
He has appeared before in a few other videos such as Holding Cell and the Kraken videos.
I used some interesting looking effects this time round and played about with green screen by simply spraying a small canvas green and overlayering footage onto that green canvas and finally turned it to black and white. 
Totally cost to make this video was £36 or roughly $58 and six eggs...!

On a final note it was said not that long ago in a comment that some of my work had the feel of an "Art Installation"  Which I thought was rather lovely and so I have selected a few video's that I have made over the years and made a new playlist on YouTube called "Art Installation"
I hope at some point you get to go through them and have a watch...
Please vist the Soundcloud link on the YouTube video itself and support the artist and his music.
And please share on any media site... Every little helps new artists ideas and concepts get noticed.

YouTube Video link

The art of Toking

A set of three video based around smoke & smoking.
Naturally this isn't going to get much in the way of taffic on YouTube.
It's a little bit too arty-farty and I sometimes feel myself being somewhat
disappointed over this.
Although it was nice to read a comment about the music I wrote for the piece.
Most tend to forget I actually write the music as well produce these odd videos.
I guess at the end of the day it really doesn't matter that much, its just another
video that goes into a folder and filed away.
And I just move forwards onto the next idea & project...
It is strange how Kathleen Dawson or Kitty D has come out tops, out of everything
I made here on YouTube over the four years.
She is funny though...
YouTube Video Link

FAKE BEANS ON TOAST - added Robin Williams sauce

Uhm... I held back for a while before writing anything about the sad passing of Robin Williams.
I understand the outpouring of heartfelt tributes over Robin's death, but personally I thought it might be better to wait and actually find out if there was a little more to it all.
And sure enough, a few days after his death, we found out that Robin was in the early stages of
Parkinson's Disease.
Naturally, and as we all know, Robin was indeed a very funny man and like most great comedians, here was truly the humbling sad clown, suffering from a range of disorders from drug addiction to alcoholism & depression.
I dare say that these years of highs and lows, the good times and the bad, more than likely paid
some contribution to Robin's diagnosis of early Parkinson's Disease.
It's difficult to say what triggered Robin's final decision that day to take his own life. Was it the depression, or the simple fact that the world in which we live has simply gone to the dogs and what's the point anymore!
All I do know is that Robin wasn't alone in his struggle.
Millions upon millions of men, women, and children suffer from depression all over this tiny little
planet.  And the mere fact that even if you have it all, that really doesn't matter.
Depression doesn't take that into account.
I wrote this very short piece many years ago while suffering my ongoing battle with depression,
drugs, and drink:

"Illness is nothing more than an infected misprint
A twisted tainted pattern
That knows not time nor person."

Tony Hancock
Peter Sellers
Spike Milligan
Ruby Wax
Stephen Fry
Lenny Bruce
Richard Pryor

The fact of the matter is that Robin isn't the first well known celebrity to take their
own life over or through depression, and he won't be the last.
The story will generate and snowball communication about the illness, but sadly another news story will take its place in a few days' or weeks' time, ie, boyband found smoking drugs or US sends in the troops, etc... which in itself is very, very depressing.

Please keep talking and keep being honest, not only to yourself but to your friends and loved ones. Depression is a lonely empty road... so lonely that not even tumbleweeds dare roll by.

Robin Williams RIP. You were never alone :(

Dr Who THE MASTER

Don't get me wrong I think Dr Who is an out standing Sci-Fi fantasy T.V. show.
As a kid from the 1970s Sci-Fi and T.V. was a dream come true.
But I never rated the character of Dr Who...!
Now the The Master... Now thats a character... A character I work jump through hoops to play.
I love the wicked madness, its almost like there are three personalities.
The GOOD the BAD and the LOST CHILD OF TIME...

The art of good conversation with Stella

Today I will mainly be talking with my good friend Stella!
The art of good conversation...is very much alive...