Tim Vine - Tim Timinee Tim Timinee Tim Tim To You

Last night, Wolfie and I met up with Taneli to see Tim Vine at the intimate City Varieties. After some confusion about where to meet, we eventually found ourselves in McDonald's with their natty new self-order machines equipped with contactless payment. These seem like quite a nice novelty but would be murder during busy spells plus it does seem to take jobs away from the servers. Still, it is convenient and soon Wolfie was tucking into their special Arizona burger which still had a patty that tasted like a discarded gym mat. He also got some smokey fries, a new thing where you put their usual French fries in a bag, add some smokey powder and shake. It was certainly novel but I prefer the fries au naturelle. Not that any of this was a problem for me as I wasn't eating, my boss having brought me back a pie from Wigan after he had visited his mother, who still lives in the area. Wigan pies are famed across the North for being the best in the country and this certainly was excellent. I had a full meat and potato to myself while my boss shared some miniature meat pies not dissimilar to pork pies around the office. These were nice too, despite their burnt bottoms, although the meat was perhaps a little chewy. Despite a 90 minute journey from Wigan to Leeds, the pies were still surprisingly warm so the taste didn't need to be impaired with microwave heating, which made for an excellent lunch.

Anyway, I digress. The show was very good although being sat at the back - which is quite rare for us - did make it feel less immediate and intimate than other shows. As I got these tickets late, we were split up, with me sat on my own and Taneli and Wolfie sat together. They had restricted view tickets on account of a post being in the way, but it didn't restrict the view much and I imagine that's why the ticket wasn't discounted. The support act was a Northern magician called John Archer, whose magic was good but his stage presence slightly less so. His brusque Northern tone got a little wearing but his tricks were extraordinary and generally he was a good warm-up act, although a little note humour would probably have boosted his act. Humour was not something lacking with Vine, who assaulted us with over one hour of puns in quick fire basis, so much so that it was difficult to recover from laughing at one joke before another one came along. There were a couple of jokes that didn't quite work and some which needed considering, reducing the flow at times and allowing us to recover, but his manic on-stage presence combined with his relentless punning jokes made for an exceptional evening of mirth. He also did some of his famous acts, including the joke that won the best joke at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival (which was greeted by cheers) and Pen Behind The Ear, which took him 37 attempts to complete successfully. This morning, I have another silly skit in my head - What Does He Mean By That? - while his incorporation of music and dance also added variety to proceedings. It was certainly a show that flew by and difficult to be bored, while Taneli in particular enjoyed the puns. And despite the title, that was the only Mary Poppins pun sadly, although chimney jokes were quite prevalent.

We usually go for a drink after these shows but Wolfie had driven from Doncaster as he's been working there this week while Taneli, who had also driven, had to get packed for Confuzzled so he needed to get home. I'm also trying to cut drinking down significantly in my latest attempt to lose weight - I'm 0.9kg lighter than I was this time last month but I really need to shift another 5kg or so. In this respect (and indeed many others) not going to Confuzzled has been a blessing, although it was highly unlikely I was ever going to go anyway. I do feel like I'm missing out on a big party but I remember how poor last year's event was and how little I like the hotel and this makes me feel happier that this is money best saved, particularly with the forthcoming loft extension. Granted we will only be having a modest Eurovision party on Saturday due to the convention clashing but that should be a good night and of course I'm stoked about Monday's Wembley final too. It seems to surprise many people when I tell them I'm not at Confuzzled, with what Shiro says is an incredulity given out "to flat earth supporters or people who haven't seen Star Wars", but I think there are better cons out there and I'm already slated to do three this year. Not going, I think, is therefore the right decision although I will have to avoid Twitter for the next few days due to it being overloaded with Confuzzled talk (I'll be honest and say that I've also found the hype tremendously off-putting). That's already proving difficult as I'm somewhat addicted to Twitter but I'm sure it'll be fine. Still if you are going I hope you have a good time and I hope to see you some other time.