Thought For The Day: Simon Amstell

"I used to think that I really had to hang on to my pain otherwise I won't be able to be funny. But actually if I hang on to the same pain that I was feeling a year ago, I'll end up writing the same jokes. I'll become a parody of myself.
"It feels like a constant fight between this very peaceful place where everything's fine, and then you die. And this ego person who needs to do certain things, and be in a certain place. That guy is SO annoying. I understand now that that's not really me – it's just this irritant who is getting in the way of my brilliant life.
"There will always be suffering. Life is suffering, so there will always be new suffering! Thank goodness. Phew."

A cheering thought for the new year there from the future Mrs Fagburn, Simon Amstell.
It's more likely to happen than me and Tom Daley, to be honest, and we'd have more to talk about.
I think my mum would like him, too - a nice Jewish boy etc - though she'd prefer me to marry Alan Bennett, if truth be told.

• Simon's stand-up thing, Numb: Live At The BBC, is on BBC4 tonight; Simon Amstell: Work in Progress is at The Invisible Dot, London N1 from 14th January.

"You wake up. And it just gets darker..."

2013: The Year In Preview

Once more Fagburn follows the newspapers lead on how to make up for the lack of anything interesting happening right now by "looking forward to" some things a-happening next year.
Enjoy!

Anniversary: Britten 100.
Endless events throughout the year, including the annual Aldeburgh Festival.
The nation's favourite pederast is also being put on a 50p piece by the Royal Mint.
So swallow that, Turing! *

Book: Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls - David Sedaris. 
Published by Little, Brown in April.
David's first new collection of essays for five years.
Apart from the fact there are 288 pages, there are no other details available as yet - unbelievable.
Fagburn is also looking forward to Morrissey's "long-awaited" autobiography - 'We're Just Friends, Mother, Now Put Kettle On And We'll Hear No More About It' - not being published again next year. 

Exhibition: David Bowie Is. 
V&A from March.
Suitably pretentious and unwittingly hilarious name for this is.
Frocks and music and art and shit from the Dame.
Now officially your actual culture (is).

Film: Behind The Candelabra. 
Michael Douglas as "flamboyant pianist" Liberace, Matt Damon as his evil boyfriend, Scott.
Lee was so ace.
Made by HBO, so bum knows where and when you can watch this in the UK.
Yes, I know it's not a proper cinematic-theatre release film, so don't write in.

Museum: ABBA The Museum.
Stockholm, opens May.
Fagburn is currently accepting offers of all-expenses paid trips to Sweden to go and see this.

Music: Kraftwerk - The Catalogue. 
Tate Modern, February.
Only Ralf's left, you know.
And it'll just be some robots miming anyway.
But, you know, it's Kraftwerk, innit.
I'll probably just go and see The Fall again again.

Radio: PM.
Weekdays 5pm, BBC Radio 4.
The nightmare scenario at Fagburn Mansions is that Eddie Mair will be nabbed by Newsnight in a BBC shakedown next year.
As long as she stays at PM we will be happy.

TV Show: Splash!
The Tom Daley tellybox thing starts next Saturday evening on ITV1.
I'm feeling wet already...

Theatre: The Book Of Mormon.
Prince of Wales Theatre, that London from March.
South Park dudes, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, mock the stupidity of religion - via the magic of song.
Almost certainly as awesome as everyone says it is.

Trial: Bradley Manning.
It's the show trial of the century!
Currently set to commence mid-March, but they'll almost certainly delay it a few more times in the hope that Brad cracks up.
A cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

And finally... 
Disaster Of The Year: Vicious.
ITV1, "late Spring".
Call me Nostragaymus, but I confidently predict that the now renamed Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi sit-com about two old queens will be record-breakingly bad and butthurtingly awful.
Can't wait.

* It's also Camus' centenary, not sure how to celebrate that one, though.
Maybe frowning.

Simon Amstell: The Dating Game

“My technique with someone I like is basically just hope I run into him again.”
This segues into a story of a summer walk with an unnamed friend, a confident man who strides through life, demanding and winning girls’ phone numbers. When Amstell points to a young man that he fancies, his bold friend approaches, insisting that they join him and his companions for a picnic. Amstell is mortified. “Get his phone number,” the bold friend orders. Squirming, he does. “Call him now and see him tonight,” the friend insists. Amstell, gulping down his fear, “grabs the moment” and, in doing so, gets laid.
“That was Russell Brand,” he tells me and we both fall about giggling. Who else could it be? Russell Brand teaching Simon Amstell how to pull. Don Juan with Prufrock as his wingman. “He showed me how to feel that fear and do it anyway,” he says.

Simon Amstell in The Times.

Simon Amstell: How To Review 'Grandma's House'

Simon (Amstell) says: "I didn't want to hide behind another name. I've seen sitcoms where they've changed the name of the person and they don't ring as true as something like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld."
Yesterday's The Independent preview declared: "a British Curb Your Enthusiasm".
Today's review in The Independent; "In some ways, Grandma's House is The Royle Family with chopped liver."
But it was also "Seinfeld removed to Gants Hill" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm also has loud echoes in Grandma's House."
Co-writer Dan Swimer got to puff away in Saturday's Guardian Guide, but jokily warned; "this show's nothing like Seinfeld, starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld playing a comedian whose name is Jerry. Or Curb Your Enthusiasm, about the creator of Seinfeld, Larry David, who if I recall is played by a man called Larry. Nor is it anything like Hancock's Half Hour, Roseanne or It's Garry Shandling's Show. No way..."
Today's review in The Guardian mused; "Maybe think of it as a kind of British Curb Your Enthusiasm.
"No, that's clearly ridiculous, an insult to Larry David. But it does sort of work..."
Yesterday's Times' preview was more certain and more enthusiastic; "the funniest and most original new sitcom since Getting On... in the grand tradition of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David..."
The Times on Saturday put it in similarly illustrious company; "Fiction meets reality, high-life meets mundanity; it’s a path well-trodden on American shows such as Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. They are high benchmarks, although the feel here is much more downmarket, a kind of Royle Family atmosphere..."
Today's Times review namedropped two new references and two - by-now - old friends; "Ever since the American Danny Thomas Show in the Fifties, comedians have liked to play sitcoms about their lives off-set... No one much remembers the BBC’s Kelly Monteith show, although it ran for years in the Seventies, but no one will forget Seinfeld, nor its even more self-referential spin-off Curb Your Enthusiasm."
You can say that again.