MONDAY DOG (BLOG): IT BE MY BIRTHDAY

Happy Monday, everyone.

It’s my birthday today. That’s apropos nothing really. At my age, another year older is neither here nor there. Weird isn’t it? My birthday was so exciting as a kid. Now it’s just another day. At least I’m taking the day off work to make it feel a bit different to normal.

And Sanja defied my instructions to not get me any presents – surprising me with a couple of very lovely gifts – so I’m a very lucky boy.

The weekend was nice. We were babysitting our daughter’s dog, as she was on holiday. Much as I love my cats, I’ve always been more of a dog person. I suppose I love how needy they are, but I just can’t handle the thought of having to pick up shit. Plus, they do kind of tie you down. But I love her dog so much; she’s this little wobbly French bulldog, constantly needs to be on someone’s lap, though I could’ve done without her licking my face to wake me up yesterday morning.

Anyway, not sure how we’d have a dog now given we’re often out of the house to make videos. 

Talking of which…

I spent part of the weekend doing some research for the next Digi vid, which we’ll aim to get you next week. It requires a bit of local filming and a trip down to Kent. Like most of you, I’ve been horrified at what is happening in our country, and for a while I’ve had a vague idea for a video which looked at some of the topics underpinning the weekend’s violence. I think now is a very good time to wheel it out.

My son-in-law is a policeman, and he’s been told he may have to stay away from home for a while, because they need the extra manpower on standby to deal with the protests and violence. Suffice to say, what’s been happening on our streets strikes close to home.

BALANCE OF THE (POLICE) FORCE

It’s going to be a challenge to balance the factual side of things with the funny – which is sort of our USP, admittedly – but since the Sellafield video we’ve given ourselves permission to follow the energy of any given topic, and not ever force the humour. If it happens, good… but we won’t necessarily go looking for it (cue: our funniest video everrrrrr!!!!). As always, it probably won’t be quite what you expect it to be, and we’ll be coming at it from a slightly different angle, as per Eyam.

Talking of… Eyam turned out to be a bit more serious than some of our vids – “dry” one commenter called it! – but also funnier than we thought it was going to be after we’d finished filming. I suppose we can’t help ourselves! We’d been to see my son for his birthday earlier that day, so we were filming after a day of socialising and felt the pressure to get it all done while we still had daylight. 

The list of future videos we’ve drawn up are generally lighter – there’s one I desperately want to do about Greggs, which requires trips to both Newcastle and Cornwall – but this next one definitely isn’t so light. I’m nevertheless always a bit scared of putting out a video where we’re more serious, given that on YouTube at least we’ve spent years being primarily dumb and silly.

Thing is, if you go way, way back to the original Digi, through my Biffovision blog back in the 00s, my Edge column, my Retro Gamer column, Digitiser2000, my Patreon posts, BYAMPOD… I’ve clearly always balanced the funny with also looking at things in a more serious way.

I guess we’d just never really done it on YouTube, so it feels like more of a left-turn than it is. Bringing that into the YT channel is far more authentically me, and not the tonal shift that I think many feel it is. I just want to cover stuff that interests me, and I feel energised to explore, and it’s hard to resist that instinct. I was never a comedian, never had a desire to be a comedian, and saw myself more as a journalist who accidentally wrote funny. I don’t know how actual comedians do it, because some days I just don’t want to be funny.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’ve discovered I love performing (yes, the characters WILL be coming back). But I’ve always leaned towards the comedy being more of a delivery method for writing about actual stuff, so it’s weird in all honesty that Digi became primarily a comedy channel.

I’m sure I’m mostly alone in feeling like this. Years ago, Tony Mott – editor of Edge – asked me to make my columns less commentary and more out-and-out comedy, because in his words that was what I was “mainly known for”. 

I was bit rattled at the time, because that wasn’t how I saw myself. That’s probably weird from your POV, and more about my own perception of myself, but nevertheless…

Actually, the one person who got it was Gameplay Jenny, when we were filming Digi The Show. After the fairly disastrous first day, she voiced her disappointment and opinion that Digi wasn’t just comedy. She was right, but I think that aspect got lost amid some loud voices.

HAIRY WILLIAMS

Stepping outside that for a moment, the original Digi was always bizarre and silly, but I don’t think it would’ve worked as well without it also being about something. For me, comedy works better when it’s juxtaposed with something that isn’t funny. It’s always my personal comedy mantra; put two things together that don’t belong together. 

Fish hairbrush. Bicycle eggs. Purple Henry. See? Writing Digi stuff is easy! There’s two new spoof ads and a character right there. And that also applies to talking about serious topics alongside moments of the bizarre.  

Moist hats! There’s another good one.

Anyway, I think I realised a long time ago that perhaps people see me differently than I see myself, and I think I did about two Edge columns in that style before reverting back to what I’d been doing before, and then quitting shortly afterwards…!

So! Changing the subject, ish, the Eyam video went up for the hoi-polloi yesterday, and has done alright so far. Slightly better than we expected, given it’s not an especially juicy topic. Lots of nice comments too, and I think the slightly lighter comedic tone, sprinkled in amid the facts, worked in its favour, as the haunted museum vid proved weirdly divisive for some reason. That’s not to say we won’t make a video like that again, though. Because we will, and we just can’t help ourselves.

 The channel’s still growing, but there has definitely been a bit of course correction after the insane growth when the Milton Keynes video blew up. I think a lot of conspiracy types subscribed assuming everything we do is like that and have since realised otherwise – taking their subscription with them. 

I guess we’re also seeing a bit of adjustment due to not featuring the characters for a while, and some people just want funnies without the facts. Which is fine and understandable. We’re staying the course though, because it’s still working for us.

 We’ve had people asking about the characters, and it’s not that we’ve dropped them, because we always talk about which ones we could feature in every vid that we make, but when it comes to filming it just hasn’t felt quite right. Or we’ve forgotten. Rest assured, they’ll be back sooner or later. They’re all in the boot of the car, waiting…

Anyhow. Off for a birthday lunch in a bit, courtesy of the kind generosity of the in-laws, then popping in to see my mum. She won’t know it’s my birthday, but I wanted to see her today.

Idris Elba's shower worms! See? Piece of piss.

Paul

PS. Pencil Thursday in for a joint Writers Club/Biffo’s Brain Zoom. Will update on Weds, depending on how the week's going.