The gossip
Thanks for your explanations of the peculiar phenomenon of Youtube. I don’t think I made myself entirely clear – I wasn’t asking why people watch clips of comedy and stuff. I’m just curious as to why people compulsively record and post poor-quality footage of events they could be concentrating on – y’know – actually watching and experiencing. The answer turns out to be, to take the average of the most cogent opinions, ‘because they can/because they want to’. Which is fair enough, I suppose. Good chat, as they say in some circles.
The One Night Stand in Bristol went all right. As usual I can mostly remember the things that went badly. But you won’t see those bits on TV, suckers. Thanks to anyone who was there, on behalf of all the acts who benefited from a tremendous atmosphere. I also have to apologise to anyone reading who tried to get in and couldn’t. With these events they always give out too few tickets (embarrassing gaps on the telly), or too many (lots of people pissed off as they came a long way). On this occasion it was too many, and some people were pretty disappointed, and a few were downright angry. It was definitely not my fault, I can say that with some confidence, as I didn’t even know till afterwards. But it does seem I’m getting a surprising number of backs up at the moment. So, if you are one of the unlucky ones, please send me a tweet or some other thing that you can send people. And I will see if I can make amends for the galling situation.
All these words are being overshadowed by the knowledge that loads and loads of people can’t read the blog for some reason, and keep asking me why I’ve stopped doing it, and is it to do with the Frankie Boyle business. It’s puzzling because it’s not like EVERYONE can’t see it any more. Some can, and some can’t. It doesn’t seem to be to do with whether you’re using your phone to read it, or a computer. Without wishing to dramatise things too much, it’s the most puzzling thing that has ever happened, at least since the Marie Celeste. I’m hoping my computer man (Neil) will be able to get to the bottom of it. I reckon he will. He’s a computer man. It’s what he does. He’s pleasant company, too.
Let’s gossip about people while they’re not listening.
Posted by Briony on January 24, 2011
You are indeed back! Although I do have to wonder whether all is well since it’s now the 24th and the last blog was the 20th….are we back to the days of the not-so-available-blog?
Posted by Lydia on January 22, 2011
I think maybe Frankie Boyle is sabotaging it.
Posted by Est on January 21, 2011
I can read you again! Woo-hoo!
Posted by Suzy on January 21, 2011
By the way …
HURRAH FOR NEIL THE COMPUTER MAN!
Posted by Suzy on January 21, 2011
Woohoo! Took me several minutes to register that I was reading this in my blog reader … but hurrah, I was! I shall never miss a blog again
(Unless it happens again, of course!)
Posted by cymruangel on January 21, 2011
It all works again – hurrah!
Posted by Phill on January 21, 2011
I can now confirm that my feed has just updated itself too, looks like we’re back. Well done Neil, or whoever it was who sorted it out
Posted by Weaselspoon on January 21, 2011
My RSS reader just updated everything, so I think we’re back.
Posted by Tracey on January 21, 2011
Hi Mark. I’ll look forward to your show on Dave! When I attempt to read your blog the screen always has the Jan 7th Frankie related blog appearing. If I click on the blog link I then get the up to date blog. I’m not sure why I’m always taken back to Jan 7th but hopefully Neil can sort it out. Have a lovely weekend everyone. Tracey x
Posted by Craig on January 21, 2011
Agh. I meant: http://www.markwatsonthecomedian.com/web/blog/
Posted by Craig on January 21, 2011
Hi Mark,
I’ve noticed indeed that linking to your blog from your website presents me with the blog titled ‘Update- Boyle scandal’. Scandal!
However I noticed that it’s missing the ‘www.’ from the front of the web address, and this seems to make all the difference.
Might be worth updating that link with: http://www.http://markwatsonthecomedian.com/web/blog/
as opposed to: http://markwatsonthecomedian.com/web/blog/
Hope it works
Craig
Posted by cymruangel on January 21, 2011
Ah ha! After many joyless days clicking into “Archives” and attempting to finnangle a view, I CAN SEE YOU! (Well, the blog at any right)
Definitely still stuck on Jan 7th post when I arrive at the page (in IE and Firefox) but by clicking into a few of the archive posts I eventually see the up-to-date blog.
Good to see that normal service has indeed continued, regardless of technological difficulties, answering the (age old philosophical*) question of whether the blog would continue if there was nobody reading…
*ok ok, so it’s really to do with trees and woods.
Posted by Katie G on January 21, 2011
Unless it’s that it’s been fixed, I find I can read the blog fine on my laptop, but have to manually enter the date in the address bar when at work. If it helps, i can tell you my laptop runs windows vista and ie8, whereas my work PC runs windows 7 (I don’t know what IE it uses).
Which is only really useful if the problem’s limited to PC only, and Mac users aren’t affected. ho hum.
Posted by Phill on January 21, 2011
Your blog still isn’t updating in Google Reader for me, bizarrely. I don’t know whether the problem lies with Google Reader, you could pass that on to your tech guy. It may be that Google need to sort themselves out, which would surprise me but is possible!
Posted by Beth (Doomed1) on January 21, 2011
I was lucky enough to get into the show at Bristol, and it was awesome!! Really good.
We were there 2 hours early and got stall seats, unfortunatly we were behind a camera, and then a few seats infront of us was covered in sick, so there was lots of unhappy people around us! But the Camera man showed us the camera, which made my bf very happy! And all the comedians were great! On top form as usual Mark! We loved the beat boxing too!! Be a shame if that doesnt get on telly!!
Sad for everyone who couldnt get in! It does say on the tickets your not garanteed entry, but I think they gave out far too many by the look of the que!
I have probelms with your blog depending no what computer im on, but it varies!
Looking forward to your Dave night!
Posted by EmT on January 21, 2011
It seems Neil fixed it. For me anyway. Do I get medal? Got over a weeks worth of blogs to catch up on. I figure this is good training for my two weeks in the deepest darkest Himalayas where they may not even know that you write a blog.
Posted by Joelle on January 21, 2011
I was reading about people doing the same thing with limos for balls and weddings. They’d quote each person a larger amount and a couple of days before, they’d ring everyone else and cancel so they can be sure they’ve got a job and at an overpriced wad of cash in their pocket at the end of the night.
I don’t think it really counts as gossiping (sp?) if you are saying nice things and not spreading nastiness. Wouldn’t you love to hear someone’s said something nice about you?
I hope people can read the blog again soon. It’s a rather large catastrophe!
Posted by Adam on January 21, 2011
Hi Mark,
Just to let you know, I’m one of these tiresome buggers who has been struggling to find the latest blog, occasionally for days on end. But I do find that if I click on to an old blog, say the one entitled ‘Burlesque’, the little menu on the right then has a more up to date entry available, and occasionally (such as right now) the latest one. This doesn’t always work, and doesn’t even always have the same result for each blog, but it might be worth mentioning on twitter or something for people struggling. It’s a bit of a ball ache though so lets hope Neil can sort it
Posted by Hannah Mae on January 21, 2011
But the One Night Stand was ace! What do you feel went badly? The audience was loving it. I was sat in front of a group of particularly noisy, enthusiastic women who didn’t seem to know anything about you at the start (‘No, he’s the one with the *glasses*, Doris!’) but were full of (very loud) praise for you at the end, claiming they would look out for tour dates and such. It was lovely to see Alex Horne, too, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on TV outside of We Need Answers. Again, I think he went down really well – I heard loads of whispered ‘he’s so funny!’ type comments amidst the laughter. And I was excited to see James Acaster, having first seen him as Josie Long’s support and been really impressed. Since I seem to be systematically going through every act, Andi Osho was also very good indeed! Thanks again for sorting me out. Things have been less than great recently so it was a lovely surprise.
You’re very kind to attempt to help out those who didn’t get in – having been to many a TV recording, I know all too well that it often takes hours of queueing to secure a seat. I once arrived 3 hours early for QI and still nearly missed out. Madness! Must be so frustrating for people who assume their seat is guaranteed – distributors should really make clear that it isn’t.
Good luck with your computer problems. And hello to Neil the computer man.
Posted by Catherine aka Cathy on January 21, 2011
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a&e? I’m either too old to know or too far away. Thanks.
Gossip is fun but it has gotten me in trouble more than once in my life. You’d think I’d know better not to do it. Oh, well…….
I cannot help with IT questions. I just switched from PC to MAC and it’s making me nuts.
Good night.
Posted by Tibbs on January 21, 2011
To add to the mystery, I had the “no new blogs” problem on my mom’s laptop, but only for about a day, and now it’s fine.
But if people are still having trouble, a tip for them might be to go to the address bar on the last entry they can see and change the date manually; I’m pretty sure that works and you don’t need to put in the title of the actual post.
There is a Franciscan monk at my mother’s church who is quite handy with computers; I like to refer to him as the TechnoMonk. Have yet to call him this to his face, but I think he’d find it amusing.
Posted by Clembear on January 20, 2011
Ooooh, if I google “mark watson blog” the link goes to the frankie boyle post and I have to click around to get to the latest one. This is via Firefox.
I bet you always wanted the comments to dissect IT problems.
Posted by Rachael on January 20, 2011
That must have been some bust-up to end up in a+e! If it is anything like my experience of halls though then the sleep deprivation could lead to murder.
Posted by Aislinn on January 20, 2011
This is why you are brilliant. You are making amends for something that wasn’t/isn’t even your fault. Good stuff. I hope the poor people that didn’t get in are very appreciative of you and your lovely ways.
In other news… have you tried turning it off and on again?
Posted by tothesky on January 20, 2011
I don’t know if this will help you sort out the blog not showing up problem, but when I load your page on Google Chrome I only get the Boyle Scandal blog and can’t access anything after it. But on Internet Explorer everything is up to date. Slightly strange.
Posted by Carl on January 20, 2011
That was supposed to say ‘can help’**
Posted by Carl on January 20, 2011
Glad Bristol went well, Mark!
I’m sorry to use this blog as a platform to ask for advice but please WATSONIANS, HELP ME!
Do any of you lovely people have experience with Google AdWords and PPC? I’m struggling at work and need a hand. If any of you help can you please, please either reply here, email carl_burkitt@hotmail.com or tweet me on @baby_bucket (I used to be @CarlBurktwit but had to change!).
I’m so sorry again but you guys usually help each other out and I could really do with your guidance.
Speak soon.
x
Posted by Someone on January 20, 2011
Hello. I can see the blog. It’s right there, look. So that’s good.
Just click everywhere and you’ll never go far wrong.
*Or* maybe the blog has developed AI and is now selectively choosing its very own readership.
Sorry, I’ve gone a bit odd. Hello.
Posted by Anji on January 20, 2011
I wasn’t in Bristol last night, so I’m good. I love the fact that although it’s not your fault you take it upon yourself to try and make it better. I say ‘love’ but it’s a pain for you. I understand this because I too take far too much responsibility for things I shouldn’t! We should try to do this less Mark, we might then be able to relax and enjoy things without worrying about what we have to sort out after!
Reading Misha’s comment still makes me glad I didn’t have flatmates to worry about when at uni!
Posted by Alex on January 20, 2011
I could read the blog for a while after this started, then I couldn’t for a while, then I found a few different tricks to get it, then they stopped working, and now I can read it normally again. Odd.
Posted by Misha on January 20, 2011
Dear oh dear, I was in Bristol last night, but at Popcorn comedy instead, so no dissapointment there.
And then Me and Goose accidentally stalked Pappys by driving to the motorway at the same time as them, all good fun.
Gossip wise, we could gossip about my flatmates/friends who’ve had a massive bust up whilst I was away that required 2 of them to go to a&e and means that they’re not talking anymore. Stupid fools. (all are ok by the way, that means it’s safe to gossip about them)