Alan Tomlinson on Richard & Judy last night - WTF???!!!??

I'm in no position to answer any of your queries in any reasonable way but ...Boy do I envy you seeing that stuff on TV!!

My two strangest TV encounters of recent years:

1) Music and "performance" from Hermann Nitsch's six-day festival on some late night ITV Chris Bloody Tarrant programme. "Hey, just check out THIS crazy Austrian bloke..."

2) Richard Youngs on Antiques Treasure Hunt one Sunday evening, BBC 1, buying quite a tatty looking Victorian tea-tray to sell at the end-of-show auction. He lost BTW.

The stranges thing I ever saw was some 'miss world' type beauty competition, where the hosts were Rolf Harris and Jason King actor Peter Wyngarde. The prize was a starring role in a film, the winner was Sylvia Krystel (my bad spelling), and the movie was "Emannuelle". Rolf and Peter looked identical. This was shown on Noel's House party once. Bizzarre. Very.

I saw it. I was wondering if he was an *actual* art-free-jazz-player or if he was some random mate-of-the-gallery-owner's that he got in to torture entertain the punters.

Mmmmmm... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.... Tomlinson's an admirably entertaining improvisor, actually.

(Okey, my saying this is prompted by the still vivid memory of seeing him play a couple times a dozen years or so)

He was playing improvisations based around frying chips. This made me think he was an entertainer of the comedy sort, rather than an actual "serious" musician.

Intrigued, and being a fan, if not the 'bone, at least then of the chip, I had to use Google to find this. Dunno how the hell it got on the telly though!

(oh my, my bad... "seeing him play a couple times a dozen years ago or so" ...ha-ha ;)

The shed is an utterly brilliant venue and Simon Thackray is some sort of genius in taking a village hall in rural North Yorkshire, in a village so small it doesn't have pub, into one of the premier venues for avant rock, folk and jazz.

And of course for being the home of the great Yorkshire pudding race.

That venue sounds absolutely wonderful. I liked Daid Thomas's comments on that website:

David Thomas' directions to Brawby

"Brawby is a bend in the road.
Drive north of York.
Follow any road narrower
than your vehicle's wheelbase.
Arrive at the Middle of Nowhere
and look around.
You can't miss it.

Think of all the desperate,
lost journeys thru the night,
fans trying to find the place: showtime approaching
and passing inexorably,
magnificently LOST.

How rare,
how privileged to find yourself
actually HERE.

The venue is the village hall.
The village hall is the size
of a garden shed with pretentions.
Outside is coal fire smoke in the pitch
black night, and,
at the center of Great Nowhereness,
unearthly quiet.

Inside is a Unique Event waiting to happen.

I'd like to make the following points:
1. Fish & chips can only be found north of the Humber.
2. The Shed is the best venue in England."