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While waiting for my last entry to appear on Technorati (I really have far too much time on my hands), I discovered that some cabinets run amok with their beardiness.

William: cancel the beard growing.

If there is no more clear indication that we need a new government, it is that they’ve run out of beards in the cabinet. Not, it has to be said, that there are many options on the other side of the house either – the Tory shadow cabinet has no beards to speak of (my money is on William Hague getting there first), and the Lib Dems have just one.

What has happened to our great bearded politicians of yesteryear? Why have we lost the fundamental family value of facial hair? How can we make a difference?

Today’s attempt to be a productive and worthwhile member of society was to vote. Since I’m at home at the moment, I got to do this quite early, and was slightly disappointed by the speed with which I went through. No surprise, however, that the only party member there to check what was going on was Liberal Democrat: there are Labour supporters in my area, as evidenced by the nasty red/yellow signs their houses sport, but nothing like the density of Lib Dems – and I’m not even sure that Conservatives are allowed out unaccompanied in West Chesterton.

Later, I wandered down to Jesus Green, since I’d been assured that it was the place to be in the sun; unfortunately by the time I got there the sun had all but vanished, but it was still pleasant to lie on the grass reading and enjoying the warmth. It’s been quite some time since I did this – I think I managed to get away a couple of times during the run of Out Of Your Mind in Edinburgh, but the last time I remember having such blissful lack of concern for anything at all was in Central Park over four years ago. (I was reading Dragon’s Egg by Robert L Forward; now, Romanitas by Sophia McDougall.)

When it started to get chilly I picked myself up, waved goodbye to the people foolishly trying to balance on elastic stretched between trees, and wandered back home. I feel more productive already.

It turns out that the best thing about Darien blogging from his bicycle tour round Tuscany isn’t his own witty phrasing of the situation, it’s actually the Italians’ (right at the end).

I’m Scared isn’t so easy either.

Nothing In This World by Hoku.

I don’t usually listen to the lyrics of songs while I’m doing other things, and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t started with this one…

Instead of addressing any of the million things waiting for me to do this weekend, I became increasingly obsessed by an idea I’d had for a duet between my alter-ego Deon Vonniget and the bastard offspring of children’s entertainer Keith Harris, Orville the duck.

This was mainly because I thought it would be funny to pair “Orville and Deon” on account of it sounding a tiny bit like a famous ice-skating duo. But during my research for the song, which involved listening to I Wish I Could Fly twice in a row, I developed a (probably fairly rational) hatred of the duck. It dawned on me that this sickly-sweet, horrifically ugly yet wannabe cutesy, totally uncharming, unironic and unfunny puppet has no redeeming features whatsoever. And yet Orville was definitely present throughout my childhood and I can’t help wondering if I’ve been damaged in some way.

So what started off as a project based on a single misguided pun became a mission of pure hatred and I would not sleep easy until I had done something to express my pure loathing for the duck thing.

You can hear the fruits of my labour – if you could really call them fruits – here.

I just had a conversation with somebody on MSN which went thus:

Adam says: d’you know, i saw a comedy act yesterday. they said it was the first improvised comedy show ever to exist in cambridge.

James says: I hope you corrected them

Adam says: they split the audience down the middle and asked them to name random words.

James says: ah

Adam says: the similarities were startling

James says: maybe WE copied them…?

Adam says: it was rather more amusing in its entirety than any of the stuff they actually did. it was like ‘uncertainty division rejects’. there were two women with extremely small breasts, a very fat person, a dwarf and a sad-looking geek with long hair.

Adam wasn’t able to recall the name of the group in question, but it’s a pretty detailed description, so does anybody have any information as to who these people may be?

We have been copied once before by Cambridge’s Comedy Iceberg, who reproduced our poster and flyers for No Second Thoughts but with stick men instead of lego men. So, the same, but a bit crap.

Surely this can’t be them, though? Knowing as they do of our existence (and our posters) they wouldn’t claim to be “the first improvised comedy show ever to exist in cambridge”??? Even we haven’t been bold enough to make that claim, since it makes sense that anything anybody does in Cambridge comedy is bound to have been done four years previously.

Anybody with information about these upstarts, do let us know.

Was I the only person watching Doctor Who today who desperately hoped Sarah Jane Smith would say, “yeah, alright Doctor, I’ll stick around for a few more adventures”?

Never mind, it was great fun. So many things to fit in – Sarah Jane, K9 and his demise (sort of), the return of boring Mickey and, at last, an actual storyline involving the possible restructuring of the universe (or something) no less – meant that none of them quite got the time we wanted them to have, and Anthony Stewart Head was rather wasted. But frankly after last week’s offering it’s a relief to see so many things packed into a single episode (including a storyline! gosh) and wasn’t it fantastic to see the Doctor already in the middle of the situation at the start of the story so we didn’t have to go through all that “where are we going now, Doctor?” “to the most mind-blowing place you’ve seen yet!” “oh, wow Doctor, can I just say it’s AMAZING travelling with you!” crap.

I do hope the Executive Producer was watching, he might have picked up some useful tips.

“Hello. You probably need reminding that my mother was Prime Minister once, for
ages and ages, and nobody liked her very much. How different things are now! I’d like to start by agreeing with David, because he’s a Conservative and I probably should agree with Conservatives or they’ll take away my badge; then I’d like to agree with Ed because I think the Lib Dems might be getting important and if I’m nice to them maybe I won’t have to go to a jungle to get on TV in future.

“I remember something about Coventry which no one else does, and I find it funny. It’s okay, you don’t have to laugh; I’ve learned to be tolerant of people who aren’t me and my mother.

“I’m going to ignore anything that Steve has said completely, because I don’t read the Independent, and anyway he’s a journalist and uses far too long words for me. Lord Falconer scares me slightly – no, don’t look at me, you’re frightening. Why couldn’t you have sat at the other end of the table?

“In conclusion, I’d like everyone to remember who I am and perhaps to laugh when I speak, and if anyone knows a good stylist, I’m running out of weirdly-coloured jackets.”