Simian Substitute Site for January 2008: Code Monkey

You know, when The Belated Birthday Girl offered me Danish painkillers at 7am this morning, I found myself really really hoping that they'd taste of bacon. No such luck, though.

Why painkillers? Because once again we spent New Year's Eve in the company of the lovely people at the Red Rose Comedy Club in North That London. Comedy from Hal Cruttenden, Hattie Hayridge and Glenn Wool, live music and dancing from Ronnie And The Rex, and beer at normal pub prices once you'd paid your £25 entry fee (hence the need for the painkillers next day). If you're in the Finsbury Park area in 365 days time, you could do a lot worse.

And why Danish? Well, it's probably safe to reveal now that The Belated Birthday Girl and I spent Christmas 2007 in Copenhagen. If I hadn't been spending New Year's Eve getting pissed, you could have had a writeup of our trip by now: as it is, you'll probably get to see it in a week or so.

In fact, all of the articles I was promising you this time last month should finally be appearing here over the next few weeks. The VidBinge 2007 party was held on December 8th, and you'll soon read about which DVDs from the last 12 months Spank's Pals chose to watch on that day. The Pick Of The Year 2007 CD - Some People Are Just Nice - has been burned and sent out to all the usual suspects bar two: Lou, who isn't answering his emails hint hint, and the winner of the competition I'll be holding on the site when I announce the CD's track listing. And once I've relistened to all their albums, I'll be providing you with a retrospective analysis of one of my favourite bands: one whose lead singer recently spent his fiftieth birthday duetting with a Beluga Whale on primetime television, if that gives you a clue. All that's coming soon. Promise.

In the meantime, the Simian Substitute Site Of The Month for January 2008 is Code Monkey. This is inspired by the one bit of new material that actually did appear here in December 2007: the video for Chiron Beta Prime that was posted on Christmas Day morning. Both songs are the work of Jonathan Coulton, a songwriter who churns out tunes at an alarming rate - one a week during 2005-2006, subsequently collected on the Thing A Week albums. The Jonathan Coulton Project is an ongoing bit of silliness whereby he's made his songs available for anyone to make their own video of them. Hence Tom Ellsworth's animation that you saw over Christmas, and Mike Spiff Booth's effort that you see here, constructed entirely from old bits of World Of Warcraft. The song itself certainly brings back memories of my own time as a code monkey, although any similarity between Boring Manager Rob and persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Anyhoo,  Happy New Year. Comments welcomed below on anything that comes to mind.

Comments

[Suzanne Vega Fanclub]

Hmmm, I spent New Years Eve driving my bus through Twickenham. Although from about 1215 onwards, some pissed up 16/17 year olds made me part of their celebration.

[Suzanne Vega Fanclub]

Too much time on my hands today, but you did say we could put anything that we like.

So three Vids (first may require a adult sign in). If you can spot the link between the three, you can a years free membership to the Suzanne Vega Fanclub.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HH8snUjAAUE

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HaHPHVjZfHY

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hBKvOu5TTdo

[SpankTM]

I should be writing some sort of amusing reply to Suze here, but instead I need to say this: for FUCK'S sake. I've just received this email from the Red Rose Comedy Club:

"Happy New Year!! Thanks to everyone who came out for our brilliant New Year's Eve party on Monday night, we were turning people away in the end because there was no more space! Hopefully you all had a good time and danced until your feet were sore ...

"Sadly, after the party had finished on Monday night, the owners of the venue told me that they intend to sublet the building to a man who intends to build a snooker hall. This is such a shame - 20 years of comedy history wiped out, just like that. I am currently looking for another venue in North London, if you know of anywhere that might be suitable please do email back and let me know about it! Hopefully I will be able to find a new venue soon, so that minimal disruption to the programme occurs.

"The upshot of all this is that there will be only two more nights of stand-up comedy at the Red Rose, on the 5th and the 12th January. And, without putting too fine a point on it, I'd really like to show the owners of the building what a stupid decision they're making, by packing out the room for those two shows and making them two of the best nights the club has ever seen! If you've been to the Red Rose Comedy Club any time in the last 20 years, and will be sorry to see a genuine institution disappear, please do come along to one or both of our last two shows."

Bookings etc via http://www.redrosecomedy.co.uk if you want to support them. Which you should.

[Suzanne Vega Fanclub]

Hey but that was an amusing reply !