Must'ave Mustard

The following post is a bit of a ramble, but I hope it comes across in the right way. If so, you will see my enthusiasm for a fantastic piece of independent publishing. If not I hope you'll forgive my slightly incoherent rambles

In a past career life, I worked as a legal secretary at a firm in Coventry. I didnt much enjoy my time there. In fact, with a few exceptions, my colleagues there conspired to make my life as much of a living hell as possible. One of those exceptions was a guy called Ron. Ron was a guy in his late 50s/early 60s who was very kind to me and had a wicked sense of humor. I think he was surprised when he found out I was a massive fan of some of the older comedy greats (Python, Goon Show etc) as well as things from the 80's and 90s. Being only 19 at the time, I suppose I could see his point. How many 19 year olds do you know that record radio 4?

After a few months swapping cassettes, CD's, VHS tapes and DVDs, he told me about a relative of his partner (her son I believe, although the intervening years of vodka may have skewed this memory), who had started up an independant comedy magazine called Mustard. He brought a few copies in with him one day and I sat at my desk at lunch howling. It was quite easily the funniest thing I had ever read. 

At the time, Mustard was a black and white publication, and still is collected, edited and mostly written by a guy called Alex Musson. I can remember reading that magazine for hours, over and over again from cover to cover and laughing.

When I left the law firm it was gutting to say goodbye to Ron and the 2 other people there who I didn't wish death on. I had kind of got it into my head that I would be saying goodbye to Mustard too.

Fast Forward a few months to my job in sales. I heard on the grapevine that Mustard was looking for Ad Sales and I contacted Alex to give him the details of the company that I worked for. I found out that he was looking to relaunch Mustard and wanted some Ad Sales to cover the publication costs. 

In my 2 1/2 years in sales, Mustard was the account I enjoyed working on the most, and it is what I am most proud of. Instead of being full of PR and reviews like some others out there, there were funny words, pictures and amazing interviews with comedy legends (Michael Palin, Grahem Linehan, Sam Bain & Jesse Armstrong, Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Matt Berry & Rich Fulcher). Think of a British version of The Onion. 

Selling advertising space in an independant magazine in a recession is not the easiest job in the world, but I loved it because I was selling something I was passionate about, which in salescan be the main thing.

I urge you to check out this brilliant little mag. You can buy it online here, and keep up to date on Facebook here. It also appears regularly in the Alan Moore publication Dodgem Logic.

I hope what I have written doesn't sound at all sycophantic because that is not the object of the exercise. I would just love for this fantastic publication to be as popular as it deserves to be.

In the mean time;

Ax 

Wilde Stab 2.0

This post comes to you via an exasperating 2 day hunt for the log in to the original "Wilde Stab" blog. I set up an email account especially for it and Im buggered if I can remember what it is. I cannot find a trace of that account anywhere so i have decided to start afresh. If you are interested in what i wrote under my own name before, click here.

The other day I was going through some old documents, trying to get rid of the crap that seems to accumulate there, when I came across a half written blog post. It was dated the middle of June last year and detailed the varying changes that had happened in my life in a relatively short space of time.

I wrote my last post in December the previous year. Id enjoyed the few blogs Id done (under my own name and pseudonyms) but decided in the new year that I was going to write something different. Something that might end up being something. I didn’t post about my decision, but told the few people that asked me why the posts had dried up.

By the middle of June last year, I decided to give up on the alternative writing and, due to it being unutterably shit, consigned it to the recycle bin and decided to take up blogging again. 

Then, life got in the way a bit.

Towards the end of May, Hell got a little chilly when I got engaged to Mr Alex. Hell is planning to permanently freeze over on May 1^st when we actually get married. There isn’t too much to do that far in advance for a wedding except look at venues, look for a dress and have a coronary over the cost of it all. This was all going well and I had started to write my blog again when I was offered a new job.

In my last job (in sales and marketing) I had a great laugh and worked with some great people, but I had lost my taste for it. I wanted something new, exciting, varied and busy. And boy did I get it. I started my new job with an events company in the height of the summer season, so not only was I learning the ropes, but was having to learn when no one had time to teach me. I was very, very much in at the deep end. Those first few months I was working every hour that god sent, and then emailing him asking for a few more. It was mental. I worked, ate and slept but it was worth it. I’ve found my feet now and I love it.

Once the silly season in work was over, the Wedding preparations started in earnest and then another busy peak in work and then Christmas and the rest is history which, as Alan Bennett so rightly put it, is just one fucking thing after another.

So that kind of explains where this blog has been for the past 13 months. Ive still been writing, just nothing that you will ever see. Unless, that is, you really, really upset me.

Think of me as the modern day Vogon