Tommy 2.0

    Who's been to the Coventry Conference? Ah yes, the fictional Coventry Conference, co-ordinated by the equally fictional Eric Hitchmough . A man whom I've never fictionally met, or even seen, yet know so much about. From his little withered hand, the wanking claw , to his signature catchphrase, ' I don't agree with that in the workplace !' Eric is... and that is what I want.    If I've lost you, I can only assume you're not quite the fan of The Office that I called for in the title of this post, or I'm not the writer that I think I am! Allow me to explain...    T he Office is the single greatest sitcom of all time, sure, so it makes sense for it's legion of fans to have a social outlet to congregate and quote the show to their heart's content. The Facebook group ' Do You Not Know Who ERIC HITCHMOUGH Is' ,  DYNKWEHI , provides such a platform.    With it's mix of quality quoting, imaginative imagery and creative commenting,...

   London has literally been around forever. With a multitude of sights, sounds, smells and tastes, there's something for everyone. In the past month, I myself have begun to scratch the surface on weekends. Come forth and let me share my experiences. Or, if you want to know what it's really like, watch Love Actually .    My first jaunt was to a cinema so secret, it's called Secret Cinema . The date was Sunday 5th March, the film Moulin Rouge . For those unfamiliar with the concept, you while away an evening in a purpose built set, combining live action performances with a screening of the film in question. Nothing's secret really, as the film and location are provided beforehand. Presumably, this is so people aren't left wandering the streets, wondering what they've signed up for.    Photos are strictly forbidden, but I'd describe my venture to late 19th century Montmartre as boozy, magical and slightly embarrassing, when one of the actors tried to make...

   Inspired by recent goings on in Camp Nou, Barcelona's majestic football stadium, I've tasked myself with listing and ranking the greatest comebacks of all time. Where does Barcelona's stunning comeback over Paris St Germain a fortnight ago stand? Let's find out.    Parameters are required, and I've decided to consider one comeback from each of the following fields: Football, Artists, Sayings, Clever Ideas and Shocking Movies, or FASCISM for short. Each entrant will be awarded a score out of 5, determining the greatest, and those I needn't have bothered mentioning.    I've found the time to do this, following my own recent comeback to working life coming to an abrupt end after only 10 days. Football 'Outrageous Celebrations' - Barcelona 6-1 Paris St Germain (Agg: 6-5) - 08/03/2017    Trailing 4-0 from the 1st leg, Barcelona had to do what no team had done before, except Dunfermline Athletic weirdly, and turn around a 4-goal de...

   Last week I was alerted to a Buzzfeed article, asking the reader to 'Meet The Man Who Stopped Thousands Of People Becoming HIV-Positive' . Imagine my surprise when, upon opening the article, I was left wondering if I had indeed already met the man, in the mirror!    As well as the familiar image catching my eye, a checklist accompanying the banner also got me questioning if it was indeed me. Homeless? Technically no, but I'm also not what you'd call a homeowner. Unemployed? At the time of reading the article, yes. Stopped Thousands Contracting HIV? Technically yes. By not having HIV, nor sleeping with thousands of people, I'd say I fit the criteria.    It soon became clear, once I'd navigated past the image, that the article wasn't about myself. It was actually about Greg Owen, predominantly referred to by his surname Owen; a homeless, unemployed, former sex worker, with a soft-Belfast accent. Had it been about me, I'd have loved the B...

   Back in early Spring 2015 I inadvertently stumbled across a Twitter account, the likes of which I'd never seen before and have seldom seen since. The account in question,  @Sportproducertv , was a concoction of my 3 favourite things in the world; football, puns and an combination of football and puns.    I felt an instant attraction to the inventive TV show titles and equally whacky premises being served up. The fact it focused on football players, past or present, just added to the arousal of the inner geek in me.    BABBSTATION, submitted by @tompugh90, was a personal favourite of mine, a show in which ' ex-Liverpool defender Phil Babb answers your calls and gyrates for your pleasure '.    With the bar set high and my juices flowing, I whiled away a lazy Sunday afternoon dreaming up a 6-a-side teams worth of submissions. The fruits of my labour were thus: MILLS ON WHEELS: Danny Mills traces the history of the Fer...

   In this post, I'll be discussing a unique and inspired sitcom idea that I had with my good friend, and South America travel companion, James.    The idea was conceived in the midst of a hellish 43 hour bus ride between Ecuador and Peru. Could we, two middle class fuddy-duddies, born and raised on separate sides of the Watford Gap, compose a piece about the second coming of Christ? Of course we could... The Plot Manchester, 1994* Following the demise of the Madchester scene, Chris Turley and Tony Digest, perennial party people, attempt to go cold turkey. Tony vigorously sticks to his abstinence, terrified of the repercussions of Mary, his girlfriend. Chris, however, struggles and it's not long until he's bouncing off the walls again in The Haçienda . With clarity restored (and coinciding with the much-anticipated release of The Stone Roses  Second Coming album), Tony begins to notice strange and mysterious similarities between Chris's lif...

   The time has come to put ink to quill, and subsequently quill to paper, metaphorically speaking. Now that Christmas, New Year's and Valentine's Day are out of the way, I can get back to where I left off in 2014. The last 745 days haven't passed without incident. Far from it... 2015 - I turned 28 - Took a trip to the land down under - Finally won employee of the month outright - Rode shotgun along The Autobahn - Lost my wallet on a train - Celebrated turning 28 1/2 - Bore witness to the magic of the FA Cup - Burnt a chocolate bar in a microwave - Hit up NYC 2016 - Turned 29 - Wrote a new poem (see below) - Failed to master Spanish - Voted 'Remain' - Explored South America - Spent a harrowing 43 hours on a single bus journey - Made it to 29 1/2 - Trekked Machu Picchu - Climbed Colca Canyon - Walked a Puma - Retrieved my stolen wallet in a nightclub (the replacement wallet to that mentioned above) - Expe...

...Mistletoe and Wine, Who's watching Michael Heseltine? With his dog on the fire, cos it shat on the tree,  Time to get Anne to make him some tea. No idea what Cliff meant by any of that, but it does make me feel festive. Truth be told, I actually love this time of year. Without breaking into song again, it's time to both reflect and look to the future. If 2014 has taught me one thing, it has to be the hours you can save opening a pizza correctly: For me, pre-2014 pizza delivery always involved scissors, which in turn always involved finding scissors and not running whilst holding them. Little did I know about the other technique, akin to opening a packet of pre-washed baby leaf spinach, until my parents sat me down and pointed out my shortcomings. Whilst this alone provides me with the essentials to make it in the big wide world, there's no point getting ahead of myself. Priorities for 2015 include overcoming my fear of the bell not sounding when I pr...

...isn't something to be sniffed at. Just because I wasn't good enough to win it outright doesn't make me sad in the slightest. So when the honour was bestowed upon Internet Enquiries earlier this year, in one of the summer months' beginning with 'J', I was pleasantly surprised. Fast forward to November, a month beginning with 'N' that falls somewhere in the middle of autumn, and we'd finally settled on a location for our victory meal. It was a triple celebration for myself, having of course also won Morsel of the Month in September and having had a haircut in October. The meal itself went off without a hitch. We even found someone with a disposable camera to take a picture of us... The team: circa 1996/97 - 2014 ...I only managed a starter and main myself, but had a lovely selection of cheese and crackers waiting for me on my return home. It's at this juncture I feel it appropriate to plot my 2014 achievements on a line gra...

...can often be a harshly overlooked specimen. Walk down any high street in the western world, minus Canada , and chances are you'll pass by a 3 course meal/6 course tasting menu, albeit one made of scraps and other unwanted or misplaced treats. Sadly, the story of these pieces of waste are seldom told. That is until now! Thanks to Russ and Tom, two frontrunners in the world of discarded food poetry, we're starting see a host of young Byron's from all walks of life chart the rise, and often tragic falls, of a whole manner of food stuff. I present to you Leftovers . With a 7 step rule plan to adhere to, you simply find yourself a tragic case of grub in the street, capture the evidence and write the back story, with the aim of satisfying a 120-strong audience. My first attempt, included below for your satisfaction, symbolises the immediate aftermath of a long overdrawn breakup (in tortilla chip form.) Despite being overlooked for August's 'Morsel of the Month...

...charts a young thespians journey, half a decade in the making. But whom? Well, to answer that question I refer you back to the first word in the title...'My'. From humble advertisement beginnings to voice-over work, through charity and live action gigs, what you're about to witness shows the diversity, dare I say genius, that I've sprinkled on an array of roles. Legally, I must say that I don't own the rights, nor will I ever, to any of these pieces of art. Oh, except for the last one, which I conceived, relentlessly planned, shot and acted in myself on the tightest of budgets. Enjoy... 1. Background Filmed during one night in a museum , unlike the lying Ben Stiller franchise, I got my big break in a 'supporting artiste' role. You won't have to keep your eyes peeled for long, as I nonchalantly dominate the picture from 00.04, even if I do say so myself. Fleeting glimpses follow, but don't let that distract you from the real scene stealer at 0...

...can only mean one thing, at an average of one every 22 days, 5 hours and 20 minutes, I've smashed the 10 blog post milestone. What a return!* There's a trio of world issues to quickly cover before we get down to the nitty gritty: 1) Conflict in the Middle East - that needs sorting out 2) The Gremlin in the Kremlin - who does he think he is? 3) Depression - it was incredibly sad to hear about Robin Williams last week. My favourite turn of his was as bearded psychologist Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting I often ponder what my contribution to the world will be; Will it be interpretive t-shirt dancing ? It almost certainly won't be Shredteas . Could it perhaps be the below? A Tommy tickling of both science and business... A while ago now I purchased a Guinea Pig called Jimmyboy Sheridan, a name he'd given himself. I'd heard this particular strand of the pig family were useful to have around when it came to conducting experiments, of which I...

...and all you got was this lousy blog post! Count yourselves lucky. Where to start? Well firstly, this has been the best World Cup in living memory. To put that into context, I started remembering World Cup's around 1998. On the horizon are some massive  semis , the hardest of which is probably Brazil's. Given how far each team has 'cum' though, they'll all be looking at their respective ' drawers ' with a big grin etched across their faces. That's enough rubbish cock innuendos for one day! I spent two weeks in  Ceará , the self-proclaimed ' County Durham of Brazil '. It's nickname concerns the geographical location rather than any regional dialect. To be fair, I understood more of what was being said here than the last time I visited the birthplace of modern English mustard in the North East of England. I even learnt a new phrase,  escovar os dentes . No idea why people kept shouting it at me though. Upon my voyage I was accompanied...