Comic Cuts - 27 October 2017

I noticed this morning that we are exactly six months behind in our listening to No Such Thing as a Fish. We've 26 episodes to catch up on... which led me to quickly tot up the number of other podcasts that I have to get around to and the total was a staggering 162.

The delay listening to No Such Thing as a Fish is simply down to lack of time. We tend to listen to something after Mel has arrived home and we can sit down with our tea and coffee. We can only do this on three weekdays and, at the moment we've been using that time to listen to The Unbelievable Truth (Monday) and The News Quiz (Friday) while Wednesday is usually spent watching the latest episode of Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (RHLSTP, as the cool kids call it), which has just celebrated episode 150, and which has been available on video since episode 17. You can watch them all on YouTube or listen to audio versions at the British Comedy Guide website.

The other podcasts that I desperately need to catch up on are the 2000AD Thrill-Cast  and The Comedian's Comedian. The problem, I'm finding, is that while I'm writing I don't listen to podcasts that require my full attention. I can listen to, say, News Quiz Extra or a music podcast like The European Perspective without too many problems. But if I need to concentrate, I'll put on music (there's a new Big Big Train album out, which is handy) and, occasionally, put on nothing at all.

I've added a few new ones since I last discussed my podcast listening habits. I listen to very few podcasts that you could describe as political; in fact, I can only think of one that I've followed for some while, Andy Parson's Slacktivist Action Group which started back in 2015 and appears about once a month. More recent releases have included Strong & Stable, which has had 10 episodes since May, the best of which is episode eight with some genuine disagreement amongst the guests; and if you're a Guardian reader, you might enjoy Agitpod with Owen Jones and Ellie Mae O'Hagan. News Roast is a mix of comedy and political with Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse chatting over lunch with various people.

Not new – this is just a plug – The Secret History of Hollywood podcast is running new episodes: Shadows: The Val Lewton Story is the compelling story of one of the founders of horror cinema with films like Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. There have been four episodes so far, each around 1 1/2 hours, and the behind-the-films detail is fascinating.

I promised that I would be able to announce the contents for the first Famous Authors ebook. At the moment it looks like it will contain eleven essays totaling about 53,000: W. Stephens Hayward, Anonyma, Stella M. During, Edric Vredenburg, Morley Adams, Gerald Biss, Alphonse Courlander, Ella M. Scrymsour, Alexander Wilson, E. T. Portwin and Dail Ambler. I have one or two minor tweaks to do and it should be ready shortly. I'm also working at top speed on volume two, which will have another dozen or so essays.

The essay total is currently 22 essays running to 99,596 words. I'm still hitting my 1,000 words a day target, although sometimes that's at the expense of my afternoon walk. I haven't weighed myself for a couple of weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I've put on a couple of pounds. Not the best situation to be in, but I should exercise a bit off next week when my sister makes her second move in a matter of months and the two of us will be humping furniture around again and braving the M25 once more as we head down to Surrey.

Here are some random scans...

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