The John Robins Vibemail - Issue #4
Hello there, it is early in the morning, and I mean EARLY. A time of day only really known to shift workers, new parents and people who attended raves in the early 90's.
The truth is I woke at four to what I can only describe as an overwhelming feeling of Bitcoin remorse. Do you ever get this? A kind of 'Aubade' for the cryptocurrency generation. After overhearing a chat between some friends about all their goddamn Bitcoins and seeing their apps flash around with lots of charts and numbers my mind was cast back to a day many years ago when I signed up to a godforsaken Bitcoin bloody site and after hours of agonising decided it was too risky to spend £400 on something that didn't exist, and, well, we can all do the maths FOR THE REST OF TIME. I hate this feeling so much.
I could just buy some f-ing bitcoin and be done with it, but HOW CAN SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T EXIST BE WORTH £40,000?! Also I don't have £40,000 and find the idea of owning 0.0023 Bitcoins or whatever too depressing. And the worst thing is I LIKE COINS! I'm the coin guy! At least I can look at my coins, with their mis-strikes and patinas, their obverses and reverses, good old Queen Victoria changing from 'young head', to 'bun head' to 'old head'. What's on the obverse of a bitcoin eh?! Probably some guy on his phone in a solid gold car flicking the V's at a NatWest.
Do you remember that period in the late 80's / early 90's when a lot of building societies merged and lots of people's mums got £500 for free, just for having a savings account? I liked that, that felt very democratic and wholesome. Anyway, Sainsbury's have just launched a 5 year savings account at 0.49%, so there's something to get the juices flowing.
So, what did I do with my crypto-remorse? I'll tell you what I did. I made a big cup of tea.
"How big John?"
"Sports Direct mug"
"HOLY EFF!"
That's right! The Sports Direct mug only comes out on very special occasions, because, despite promising to answer every tea-drinker's prayer, it's actually *too big*. But determined to not be sat here with no Bitcoins AND half a gallon of cold tea, I absolutely decked the cunt.
Members Present
Lance Corporal Sir Flight Lieutenant Captain Sir Lord Johnny JR?
Present!
Apologies
Some people have got in contact to say things along the lines of "Hey Johnny JR! Why no vibemail for so long?" or "That bit in the last one where you ended with a superb Gatsby analogy really hit the mark, will there be more?" or "I didn't get the f*ing Vibemail a**hole, what gives?!". So apologies to those who have waited longer than they'd like to hear a man moaning about not having any Bitcoins at five a.m. There are two key reasons for this.
Firstly, sometimes life chugs along without any key goss or exciting insight. And secondly, my hard drive failed causing a three week anxiety spiral laid bare in dozens of emails to a data recovery company which resulted in me having a panic attack during a zoom call. I also had a birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN HERE'S YOUR PANIC ATTACK HOPE YOU LIKE IT!
You've got to laugh.
Secondly, some people didn't receive the last vibemail and contacted me in much more polite and helpful terms than I have, for comic effect, suggested above. The reason for this is that for some reason apple or whoever decided to mark Revue as spam, and blocked emails from Revue going to @apple email addresses. Yet another reason to just scream at all the wires and clouds in our lives. I'm told this is now sorted, so if you did miss Issue #3 and it's top-drawer Gatsby analogy you can read all past issues here.
The Island
Some years ago I, James Acaster, Ed Gamble and Lloyd Langford got stuck in New York during a snowmageddon weather attack. You may remember it appearing on a small number of momentarily goss-less news outlets. This culminated in Lloyd appearing on BBC World News wearing a medallion from our Brooklyn AirBNB. Great times.
It also culminated in us making up a game where we basically played Desert Island Discs but for everything. Each of us had an island and took it in turns to populate our islands with everything from condiments to Tom Hanks Films. When it came to picking a TV show I thought I'd be super clever and pick The News At Ten, so that I could sit on my island reliving the history of the last 100 years though the BBC's peerless coverage. Alas I was undone after Ed googled it and fund that The News AT Ten was first broadcast in the year 2000. How they laughed at poor Johnny JR sat on his island watching the rise and fall of the Blair administration and the 2012 Olympics again and again and again.
Well, four years later and UKTV are making it into a TV show! The superb Tom Allen is going to host it and we're really excited to watch four comedians tussle with similar News At Ten selection gaffes. Ed, Lloyd, James and I are helping write and develop it which is already proving great fun. We're not on screen as, let's face it, one thing the world really doesn't need right now is another comedy panel show with five white guys on. But our finger prints and Lloyd's grubby paws will be all over it. Here's a rather dry press release you can read!
The Moon Under Water
Someone very rightly pointed out that I hadn't actually made clear what The Moon Under Water is about on a previous vibemail. As Dave would say "Think of the listeners John! #Citeh". Well it's a podcast where I and The Lovely Robin talk to people about pubs and stock their dream bar from a list of criteria. If this sounds like just another podcast where people chat then do give it a go. It sounds really different thanks to the production team at Audio Always and The Lovely Robin himself (check out his bandcamp page). So far we've had Nish Kumar, Jodie Kidd, Suzi Ruffell, Dave Berry and our next guest is Sarah Millican. We also have a bonus podcast called Behind The Cellar Door where Robin and I go "full pub" whilst tasting beers and talking about the past, desire, past desire and desiring the past. Do download it on all your podcast zones of choice, and to get the bonus podcast head to www.patreon.com/moonunderpod. Cheers!
Live gigs
So. Here's the thing. As listeners to The Isolation Tapes will know, I'm quite anxious about returning to live comedy. This is mainly because whenever I'm away from it for more than a few days I get quite afraid that I'll be rubbish at it, and the longer I'm away from it, the worse that feeling gets. By now that feeling has had *a lot* of weeks to really bed in and make itself at home.
Also, all of my energy has been directed at non-live work over the past year, so, to put it bluntly I've got absolutely sweet eff all material. However, I am compering (appearing between the acts) at a small number of gigs because they are run by my dear friend Will and populated by comedians I really love. This means that if I'm completely awful Will will still bring me a pizza backstage and laugh at me berating myself and I get to see Lou Sanders or Nish or Tim Key absolutely hoof the gig into outer space. So what I'm trying to say is please don't mistake this as a rare opportunity to see a master of his craft at work, and more a likelihood that you'll see me floundering as I speak into a microphone for the first time in eight months in between some really fantastic comedians. Deal?
They're all part of Will's Comedy Garden empire and all info can be found here
I'm not on all of the shows but you really cannot go wrong with these gigs. The line ups are superb and the settings are very chilled and outdoors / semi-outdoors depending on factors.
Any Other Business
In order to make sure this is in your inboxes for your own personal Sports Direct Mug moments I will keep this brief! Bad Golf will be back soon! We filmed our first round back this week! You can still book a message from me via Cameo! Something about The Great Gatsby! Sorry for the big swear earlier but it really made me laugh! If in fifty years time everyone's a Bitcoin billionaire you can all come and look at my farthings and leave them to their solid gold cars! I love you! Bye!