jamesofwalsh

Next Level Sketch spooky Halloween Show with Jen Ives, Thick ‘n’ Fast and Bab Comedy

I’m still on a post-show high following last night’s spooky Halloween special of Next Level Sketch, which boasted the frankly ludicrous guest lineup of Jen Ives, Bab and Thick ‘n’ Fast. I hosted again, and was welcomed to the stage by Dian on tech, who checked if the audience were ready to get spooky and… Read more

October 19, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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comedy, Diary, London, Next Level Sketch, Sketch Comedy

Bab, comedy, Hoopla Impro, Jen Ives, London, Next Level Sketch, Sketch Comedy, Thick ‘n’ Fast
Brighton Folk Choir at Apple Harvest Day in Stanmer Park 2023

Our second Apple Day Sunday in a row! I don’t usually use exclamation marks but it seems justified here. If you can’t use exclamation marks about apples then when can you use them? We performed in the orchard, a beautifully idyllic place on a terrifyingly warm October Day. I’d never been to Stanmer Park before,… Read more

October 9, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Brighton, Brighton Folk Choir, Diary, folk

Apple Day, Brighton, Brighton Folk Choir, folk, singing, Stanmer, Stanmer Park Apple Day, Sussex
Brighton Folk Choir at Ditchling Apple Day 2023

On a worryingly hot October morning, I cycled over Ditchling Beacon for Apple Day 2023, a fun event on the village green for which my folk choir was providing the traditional element. The kind of gigs the Brighton Folk Choir get invited too are always brilliant, local and mildly eccentric, and Ditchling Apple Day was… Read more

October 2, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Brighton, Diary, folk, music, The Highchurches

Brighton, Brighton Folk Choir, Ditchling, Ditchling Apple Day, Folk Choir
Next Level Sketch 27th September 2023, with special guests Blank Peng, Mikey Bligh-Smith and Lil Wenker

What crazy fool would do a show on their own birthday? You can’t see BA doing that, especially if it was hosted by Howlin’ Mad Murdoch on a 747. [1] But Next Level generally takes place on the last Wednesday of the month, which is when my birthday landed. And so it was I spent… Read more

September 29, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Diary, London, Next Level Sketch, Reviews

Blank Peng, Lil Wenker, Mikey Bligh-Smith, Next Level Sketch, Next Level Sketch Comedy, The Lovely Boys
Is it a duel or a duet?

I’ve a bit of a changing-seasons cold today, but I wished to make a blog post to mark the first official public material of the band I’ve formed with fellow Brighton resident, Martha Casey. She has described posting a 30 second clip of a demo to instagram as a “soft launch”, which is apparently the… Read more

September 19, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Diary, music, The Highchurches
REVIEW: A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir, by Ian Buruma

Note – this first appeared in my substack newsletter, which you can subscribe to here You know how it is. It’s the mid-seventies, you’re an upper-middle-class Anglo-Dutch student, and you’re macho-posing in a red jockstrap to Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” in a seedy theatre behind Kyoto station while a topless dancer writhes around you.… Read more

September 13, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Books, Diary, Places, Reviews

A Tokyo Romance, Ian Buruma, Japan, Tokyo
REVIEW: The Greatest Generation Share Your Embarrassment Tour, King’s Place, London

Note: the below review was written for the Morning Star newspaper. I’m not sure they’re using it, so it can live here instead. Before the internet turned into the dystopia of corporations mining human rage for money, it was 98% Star Trek fans talking about Star Trek. Or so it felt, in the far-off days… Read more

September 12, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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Diary, Films, podcast

London, podcasts, Reviews, Star Trek, Star Trek: TOS, The Embarrassment Tour, The Greatest Generation
Around the Isle of Wight on the Paddle Steamer Waverley

For my Dad’s 70th birthday we went on a jaunt on the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world. The PS Waverley was launched by Glasgow shipbuilders in 1946, replacing her identically named predecessor which was destroyed during the evacuation of Dunkirk. She sailed the Firth of Clyde and Loch Long until 1973, when she… Read more

September 3, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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cities, Diary, Places, travel

Heritage Travel, Paddle Steamer, Paddle Steamer Waverley, PS Waverley, steam ships
Brighton to Southsea by bike

This was an emergency cycle. I had got my ASLEF and RMT strikes mixed up, and thought Friday was the “reduced service” rather than “no trains whatsoever” day [1]. I set off slightly after 4pm, down the hill and around the ruins of the Royal Albion hotel and then out along the seafront through Hove… Read more

September 2, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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cities, cycling, Diary, Places

Brighton, Brighton Cycling, Cycling Brighton to Southsea, cycling infrastructure, south coast, Southsea
Chapter 3: The Long Line

Podge was from a long line of private detectives. His mother was a private detective, and her mother before that, stretching back across the centuries, before the telegram, before newspapers, before monks and their chronicles. They didn’t do it for the glory, or the hope of some scrawled oblique reference in the annal of the… Read more

August 25, 2023

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jamesofwalsh

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cities, Diary, Podge, stories

Creative Writing, Detective Fiction, fiction, Podge, science fiction