The John Robins Vibemail - Issue #17

Current Mood: Finding White Lotus Season Two A BIT OF A SLOG

I mean it’s FINE, isn’t it? I’m not being intentionally contrary, just give me someone to care about! Portia and Albie are OK so far, but if a meteor took out the whole hotel I would feel totally neutral about the whole event. I get it, rich people can be vacuous / cynical / immoral / creepy. But they can also be kind and hard working and empathetic, just look at Elis! That’s what it needs actually, it needs Elis at the poolside asking if they have Doom Bar before realising he’s forgotten the baby wipes and has misspelled Isy’s name on the flight booking. But you wouldn’t find Elis in The White Lotus hotel, no he’d be at Centre Parcs BECAUSE HE IS REAL.

Let’s give the people what they want and set season three of White Lotus at Centre Parcs Bedford where a successful Welsh sports podcaster turns up in a fourteen year old VW Golf and realises he’s left his daughters iPad at home.

I’m quite chilled about it actually, it is watchable, but the way people were talking you’d have thought it was that episode of Cracker with Robert Carlyle! (‘To Be A Somebody’).

Anyway, to business! I do hope you’re swell? My washing machine and tooth broke on the same day. It’s the same tooth that has broken countless times before. I don’t quite understand how a crowned tooth can break but there you go. It’s certainly provided a pretty strong counter argument to my ‘never insure anything you don’t have to’ rule. If I’d known how much it was going to end up costing then I’d have forked out for a cool one with Wi-Fi or something. Oh well.

Washing machine wise I’ve been uncharacteristically accepting of the whole affair. It made strange noises and there were lots of white bits inside. I was momentarily overcome with emotion worrying that the design on a sentimentally important ‘Snowhemian Rhapsody’ Christmas jumper had started to come off. So when it turned out to be plastic shavings from the drum tearing apart the door I was actually quite relieved. Funny the things we care about eh?

“COME ON JOHN FOR CRY EYE! STOP WAFFLING ON ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS AND TELL US WHERE WE CAN GET TICKETS FOR THE BRISTOL SHOW TO HEAR YOU WAFFLE ON ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS ON STAGE!”

Fair point.

Members Present

Joint Special Representative His Excellency Air Marshall Sir Johnny JR QC

Present!

Bristol / Salford / Brighton Tickets

Now then. Listen carefully for I shall say this only countless times. The Bristol date of Howl will be at brand-spanking new venue The Bristol Beacon on Friday 15th December. I’m absolutely pleased as punch to be part of their launch schedule, being, as it is, just a hundred yards from The Hatchet pub, where I did my first ever gig on (I think) 19th Feb 2005. Tickets go on sale almost exactly eighteen years later (holy eff), at 10am Friday 17th Feb (today) and are available here https://bristolbeacon.org/whats-on/john-robins-howl/

I have also added an ambitious second date in Salford for December 3rd which goes on sale today at 10am and will appear on the same webpage as the other date here https://thelowry.com/whats-on/john-robins-howl/

Alas, no more word from Brighton, they are still putting together the final touches at the venue. But it will be 10th December and you will find links here first. For all the other dates head to my website here https://www.johnrobins.com/shows/

Edinburgh - An Audacious Plan

Speaking of ambitious dates, I’m planning to do two shows in Edinburgh this year. One will be called Howl and will be a (hopefully) more polished version of last years work in progress. The second show doesn’t have a name yet but will be a mid-afternoon work in progress. If my house of cards doesn’t come tumbling down then the two of these together will form the bulk of the tour show, as there’s no support act this year - it’s a wall-to-wall Robins scenario.

The shows aren’t listed yet so giving further details would be pure folly, however I expect to have ticket links in the next month. Exciting times!

Made Up Games Live

Tickets are still available for the second run of Made Up Games Live with Elis and various guests from the comedy world. The dates are 17/18/19 April. These were great fun in December so grab yourselves a seat here https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/whats-on/made-games-live-0

The Elis and John Tax Calendar

The most anticipated calendar in the history of tax goes on sale TODAY! To find out more you’ll have to listen to your favourite piece of terrestrial content on BBC Radio 5Live this afternoon! I haven’t asked permission to share the following with you, but here’s a family friendly low-res peek to whet your appetite / trigger full-scale arousal.

Any Other Business (Some Vague)

For any of you able to hold it together after staring into those come-to-Clywd eyes, here are some other things on the horizon for #TeamRobins. A few work in progress shows will be popping up here and there. Mostly in London but also one in Wells, tickets for that are here https://www.wellscomfest.com/whats-on/john-robins-2023 and if it’s sold out you can see Lou Sanders’ show instead which is on at the same time in another room #SportageRoadTrip.

We’ve got a very special guest for the 100th Episode of The Moon Under Water. It will also be recorded LIVE with an audience. Tickets will be available very soon but Patreons get #FIRSTDIBS so if you want #FIRSTDIBS you can support the podcast on patreon here https://www.patreon.com/moonunderpod.

Interviews are now being booked in for the third series of How Do You Cope? which I’m really excited about. I MIGHT be doing celebrity Mastermind again but I’m not allowed to do Queen so have my thinking cap on for which of my many areas of knowledge to exploit (is Cracker too narrow?).

I MIGHT be on Sunday Brunch, so if they start another poll in the style of ‘Who is better Queen or Madness?’ please get voting!

I MIGHT be recording an episode of Great Lives on Radio 4, a programme I have long admired BUT MATT LUCAS HAS ALREADY DONE FREDDIE MERCURY AND RONNIE O’ SULLIVAN IS STILL ALIVE SO WHO ELSE IS THERE?!

I MIGHT have bought a new coat without researching it for a thousand hours and am IMMINENTLY about to answer a question that has plagued the culinary world for centuries: is spaghetti and jalapeños a meal?

Progress not perfection people!

[twenty five minutes later…]

So spaghetti and jalapeños is a meal, but it’s more of a meal if you add tuna, cheese sauce and capers. It was actually delicious but in a now-I-feel-sad way.

OK, godspeed to you all. If everything goes wrong we can still be friends right? Like if everything I’ve mentioned above turns into total shit and I forget my words or my bum falls off on Sunday Brunch we can still hang out digitally can’t we?

Good.

LOVE YOU BYE!