Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

I just got the photos back from the developers.  I've put them on my photo page but I'm not sure if they worked 'cos I still can't get my home PC to see photos on that page at the mo.

Anyway hope you like them.

Have fun.

Review for D

s'awright.

Review for everyone else (who can read)

Nice trip in with Philip and Camille.  Arrived and had Tempei charging towards us.  Ooh fame!  Well for Philip anyway.

In the day me and Bear managed some good passing stuff and pwned a few patterns notably 7 club 3 count.  Didn't try 8 clubs for some reason but we did have a natter with Sam who showed us a couple of new 5 and 6 club patterns which will need some work.

Played a few DS games with Barnesy but sadly didn't get round to having a multi-player go at Mario Kart.  He's got the swanky black DS Lite too. Snarl. 

Tried to buy some thuds but nobody at the Beard stall seemed to want to sell me any.

Ate in Philip (the other one) and after that and the BBQ the other night I really must give them some money for my keep.

Clur got to snuggle a fluffy dog dog called Marmalade. 

Games: Philip won the 5 club endurance, again.  The Derby lot won all the games involving unicycles.

Met Tom aka Lemon-key (as Clur would of it) and learned him some passing patterns and nattered for a bit.

Nattered with Sharon too.  She has now ordered 9 Plumsies (his second order of the day apparently)

Shows: Most of the Leicester lot buggered off before it as they are all grumpy narky types.

"Renegade" - Hmm?  Some poor stuff, some cool stuff and an oddly flat audience (and a flat LP dying on his arse).  The bit I liked best was the 2 young lads doing a diabolo/staff double act.  Imagine man with stick doing diabolo patterns.  And it was funny.

"Main Show" - Enjoyable.  Man juggling basketballs including a stack of 3.  Tommy Baker managing Brunn's impossible trick (again) and then wrecking any goodwill I had toward him by mercilessly plugging his own wares at the end of the show.  Crappy poi boy.  Sean with Diabolo.  Very nice contact act by someone (Matt Hennam?) and a couple of others that don't leap to mind at the mo.  I liked it a lot.

Fast drive back with Phil and C.

A good day.

Have fun.

BJC - Day 4

Up early again and off to be around the site to see wassarp.

Some juggling with Bear; nicely managed a few 7 club things between us and had a sound go at 8.  No prizes for neatness though.

More nattering with people and that was about it.  A couple of people asked me for further info re some pains they'd mentioned earlier in the weekend but nothing new was forthcoming.

While I'm on the subject there have been 1 or 2 mentions of aches and pains (on rec.juggling) during the event by the odd person but none of those complaining bothered to come and contact me. Fools!  I'm free if you're skint and yours for a pasty if you're not.  Ask me questions, that's half of why I'm there; and my details were in the book you got given when you arrived!  Honestly.

Anyway we packed up and headed off.  Met up with The PB's and John and Lizzah just past Bristol for a few mo's then we're back here in Leicester in nary a blink of a lamb's tail.

K's broken the computer again (every time I go away!).  I'm ill again (tonsillitis) to the extent that they sent me home on Monday morning.  Back at work tomorrow.

So overall then how did it go?  Swimmingly.  The organisers did an excellent job despite putting the event in as near an inaccessible part of Britain as they could (for the 2nd year in a row).  My biggest gripe was that the event wasn't long enough; so it can't have been bad.  Really looking forward to next year now.  Sadly there'll be no more camping con's for me this year as I'm now completely out of holiday from work.

People:  I met and "experienced" loads of people this weekend.  Some of them stood out for just being nice people, others were talented and a few had both sides to them.  Here's a few that stood out to me-

• Matt Hall - Talented performer and seemed a genuinely lovely bloke.  Didn't introduce myself to him as I'm not a glory chaser (unlike a few people I could mention) but I'd guess that he'd be the sort of guy who's extraordinarily generous (possibly to a fault).
• Aaron Gregg - Similarly an extremely likeable guy.  Funny on stage and (apparently) off in equal measure.
• Luke Burrage - Ego on legs?  Or selfless organiser?  You can decide but he impressed me spectacularly with his organising and handling of BYJOTY - cheers for that.
• Hayley - Organiser of the event and winner of many sleepless nights.  Obviously knackered but still cheery enough to get stuff sorted as it came up.
• Jevan - Mr "20p" - loads of comments have been made by people getting grumpy with him for his dogged persistence in getting that next "20p".  I don't see it like that at all.  He was demonstrating the spirit of sheer determination and youthful hope.  Sadly this doesn't seem to have vanquished the spirit of curmudgeonliness and experienced cynicysm.  A shame and I liked him so there.
• Claudia and her partner - a couple of very nice Italians experiencing their first BJC.  Lovely to meet and to natter with.
• Carla - for being such a sport despite your problems.
• Anwen, Lucy and Ewan - for feeding me well; you lovely people.

As you can probably tell I had a great time and am sad to be here rather than still having fun there.

Cheers to all.

Have fun.

BJC Day 3

How to follow yesterday?

Well with better sleep certainly.  I actually got some at last.  Throat still painful.

Started the day with another 3 hours of physio work.  More interesting folk and strange and common problems.  After yesterday's pasty my rewards today included cake and ice-cream.

After 1 I saw the Circomedia show.  Some was good but suffers from too much over-acting.  The juggling bloke was very very good as were one or two of the aerial performers and the acro person.  D put it best when he commented that it was too early to sit through the full-on circus atmos.  Some of the kiddy heckles were good.  "It takes a lot of practice" and "Are you scared?" stand out as good examples.

Then to bed for a touch more sleep.

I was woken up by D nattering to someone.  I expected it to be a unicyclist he'd met on his ride out that afternoon.  Not quite.  Turns out P, C and L had come down to congratulate John.  So more people to play with.  Yay!

The main show was on later so after some very nice fish 'n' chips we got on an extremely old bus for the long trip to Redruth for the public show.  The bus struggled really quite badly and we got to Redruth just as the bus broke.  Then we found that the show was delayed by various rumoured times ranging from 60 to 90 minutes.  So for food.  Nasty place with poor service.  Clare ordered potato skins with bacon and cheese.  "Ok that's one skins with cheese and bacon."  Oh you should have seen her grumble at this "It says bacon and cheese in the menu!".  Cue autistic behaviour.

The show started pretty much as we arrived despite plenty of folks being still in various pubs and caffs in the town as they'd been told the delay was longer than it really was.

The show:

• Matt Hall - Compere.  Lots of Japanese anecdotes, the most memorable being the "Scissor, paper, stone" variant which added "Look over there".  Ewan came up to compete and won. 
• Freehand Jugglers - Aerotech display.  Nice juggling and I liked the screen thing they had going.
• Jon Udry - Much better act than the last time I saw him.  Liked this one a lot.
• Apex Acro - as seen at Chocfest.  Good to see a skillful act doing well.  I like that this is so different from the other stuff on.
• Moon Balloon - Odd thing involving juggling in a balloon.  Not impressed by the act but impressed by the inventiveness of it.
• Luke and Pola - as NAJC2.  Very droppy though.  A shame 'cos I like this routine.
• Aaron Gregg - funny but very droppy. Beautifully parodied later in Renegade.
• Marco Pauletti - 5 ball stuff with globalls.  Good stuff but I wasn't as impressed as others clearly were.
• German bloke doing devilstick - not fussed with devilstick but the mime stuff at the beginning was excellent.
• Beyond the Bounce - very nice and inventive ball bouncing routine - loved it.
• Niels Dunker - Technical juggly stuff - nice.
• Ryo Yabe - star turn.  Extremely proficient diabolo stuff.  Amazing!

An excellent show with variety, humour and skill.  Just a shame it was 40 miles from the convention and that the theatre (cinema) wasn't big enough to hold all the convention goers in one sitting.

The bus trip back was storming.  My friends had all sodded off so I spent the trip with 2 lovely Italians I'd met in workshops and with the bloke that was always asking for "20p" if he showed you a trick.  Well anyway the bus was another double decker and there were balloon fights between the decks.  Someone would blow up a balloon and then "set it off" after climbing up or down the stairs.  After a while of this someone came up with the wheeze of putting a trip-wire across the stairs.  So a balloon was tied across the bottom and then more and more were added.  What was left resembled a mad spider's web.  Eventually those upstairs noticed this thing blocking their egress.  It all went quiet for a bit and then someone came down the stairs with a perfect balloon model spider to add the cherry on top.  All this was helped by the driver not really complaining despite being hit by a stray flying balloon.

Spent the next part of the evening watching the renegade show.  Some was appalling, some was good. Stands out were Matt Hall sings Tenacious D, The Reduced Public Show Co., Mini dribbling chilli vodka into Matt Hall's mouth from his own, shouting loudly at the person who complained that we were too loud.

After this I stayed up very late finally chatting with some old pals.  And so to bed.

Have fun.

Day 2 - BJC

Knackered to start with as no sleep.  GRR! 

My first job was to run a clinic session for 3 hours.  The room I got was the store-cupboard off the main hall.  Not too bad but very cold.  At first it looked like all I would be wasting my time so I sat and played Scrabble for a bit.  Then the floodgates opened.  I wasn't quiet until gone 1 o'clock so that's when I packed up to give myself a break. 

After grabbing food me and D wandered into town to watch some performers and the games.  I missed Tempei but caught Dan the Hat who was doing a spot-on street act.  I particularly liked the tea-spoon trick.  Games were cool, notably for Peachi's choices of backing music.  One stood out was a series of different drum rolls (if I remember correctly this was during the club balance).  Philip was doing damn well in just about every event and managed a couple of second places.

I had another workshop to run so left early to get ready. 

This workshop was much better than day 1's.  The turn-out was bigger and more varied.  I hope I made some sort of sense but I assume I did because I went overtime somewhat.  In York I did 90 minutes instead of 60.  This time the session took 2.5 hours!  And most people lasted to the 2 hour mark.  This is when my throat started to hurt.  Ewan came to ask me some advice as well and he rewarded me with a pasty! Cool!  Bizarrely, despite being in Cornwall, he didn't give me a cornish pasty rather a "mediterranean veg" pasty.  No worries though, it hit the spots of assuaging my hunger and of sheer surprise.  Made me smile a lot.

Met up with more folk later and me and D headed out to watch the BYJOTY competition.  For the first time at a convention on of my mates was going on stage (actually the second time, since we saw Phil at York).  Lizzah's brother John entered, after ages saying he wasn't going to the convention anyway.

I had very high hopes for a good show when the first act came on and actually had a personality and character to play rather than just coming on and doing some tricks.  Shame he was so droppy. Other good acts included:

• Zack - excellent diabolo routine and won the Crawley Convention award (ie he gets to perform at the next Crawley Con).  Well deserved.
• Norbi - he did his ring thang again.  I've said before that I like this routine. It fits the music perfectly and isn't just about pure technical skill.  He was a tad droppy though.  (The curse of droppyness seemed to infect the regulars as Luke struggled during the con as well).  He won the prize to perform in next year's BJC show.
• Arron - Of "Vote Arron" fame.  Nice attitude and played up well to that character.  Some excellent skills and a deserving winner of the judges prize for best act.
• "Lucy" - Aka Lukas in drag.  Nice ball holster!  Surprising and confident performance.  Nice to see a teenage bloke being comfortable with performing to the extent of allowing dragging up.

The winner was our John.  This is mad!  Our John!  He came on to an odd introduction from Luke.  I paraphrase here but it went something along the lines of "Here's John Peat from Leicester.  He'll show you something a little different.  The only other thing I've written is 'prehensile toes'. So here's John!"

John used some very odd music that reminded me of the Crazy Frog and as he juggled he was pulling the most extraordinary facial gurns.  I can't wait to see the video of this routine.  The crowd loved the whole ensemble; the character, the energy, the strangeness of his moves, his kick-ups and his weird feet.  He stormed it.  Peachi has stated that John got about 1/2 the votes cast.  Now that's impressive.  Well deserved.  He now has lots of glory-hunting new friends and the added pressure of fame when he's out and about.

I was very impressed with the post-award interview.

• "So this was your first time on the stage." - "No I came on seventh".
• "But you've never performed on a stage before." - "Once during the Tech-run".

It confused Luke somewhat but gave us all a great laugh.  Poor John couldn't stop shaking that evening.  Oh and he won the best trick comp as well with a multiplex to 6 ball mills.

I'd also have to say that I was damn impressed by Luke during this show.  For a bloke I've said (and I'm sure others have too) has an unrestrained ego he looked so genuinely happy to see this show and these jugglers shine that I can't believe it was anything other than a real joy that these guys were getting on stage and just doing their thing.  Cheers to Luke for this show.  I missed the first BYJOTY but I'm so glad you kept at it as this was a stunner.  Thanks.

Things in the tent quietened down after BYJOTY but I wandered in at the start of that night's Renegade show and it was being hosted by Aaron Gregg. He was as funny here as he was in the Open stage the day before.  It started very slowly as the usual reluctance to perform was there.  Some notable (not able?) performances included

• Mario the Magician - "3 cups, 3 balls; 3 balls, 3 cups!"
• Man being lifted by his hair.
• Tempei and Luke - diabolo vertax passing.
• Tempei - Cowboy rope tricks!  Oh and he was made to "perform monkey boy!" by people insisting he did his trademark vertax genocide.  Oh and remember that triple genocide he did at York?  Old hat old boy - the bar is now at a quin!

A storming day marred only by tiredness all day and a sore throat.

Have fun.

The BJC has come and gone again.

This was my first BJC since '99 so I was looking forward to it.

Day 1

A long drive with D was actually not as long as expected and tent-upping was painless.  Immediately on entering the reception of the Dragon Centre for the first time I was accosted by a stranger wanting assistance with his aches and pains. Bear in mind I hadn't even picked up my convention pass at this point.  Rod appeared and mentioned that they'd already had some requests for me so that bade well for those clinic sessions I had planned.

After setting up camp I wandered a bit and just met a few folk and nattered.  I had a workshop to run as well and this was reasonably well attended but I think I'll not bother with that particular workshop again.  It's just too talky and not enough for people to do.

The first show of the weekend was the Open Stage hosted by TimFoolery.  It was a very entertaining set of acts held together well by the compere.

The acts:

• Tim from Hull – A lovely old style fire eating and breathing act.
• Matt Hall – Our first meeting of Matt and he managed some storming diabolo stuff whilst entertaining us very well.
• Aaron Gregg – Once in every BJC there comes a time when the “catchphrases” that endure the con are made.  Aaron’s routine was that time and place.  Potential and actual catchphrases included “It’s ok it’s the jam one”, “It’s behind you”, “Ask Tom” and the title of this entry.  Very funny and set the entertainment bar high.  The only man I’ve ever seen sellotape jam to a juggling club.
• Bendy Dan – I’ve not seen him for years but he showed up and did his thang.  Nice to see that he’s maintained the tradition of a different hair colouring scheme every convention.
• Marco Pauletti – Argentinian bloke doing a weird contact routine with balls and torches.  Nice idea but it didn’t do anything for me.
• Luke B – He really struggled with this one.  And you don’t have to take my word on it.  There were 2 heckles that stood out. The first one was “Luke Burrage – British Juggling Legend” and another was from a small kid and was said in a matter-of-fact way at normal volume; “He can’t even do 3”.

After a long day’s travel and all this entertainment it was time to sleep.  Sadly the weather was awful and the rain kept me awake for the first 2 hours.  Then some middle-class rebel teens were having a natter about life and sex in the tent 3 down from mine and it was all really cringe-worthy stuff.  You know the sort of thing when teen boys with too much confidence try things on with teen girls who are too impressed with forced bravado.  Anyway that was bad enough but then after 2 hours of this crap was the pay-off.  This bloke’s girlfriend had been waiting for him in the tent 2 down from mine and had heard everything that I had.  Cue big fight and acrimonous break-up.  Sadly for me it took them 2 more hours to work through it all and kept more than a few people awake.  I don’t care if her life was over, I didn’t get any sleep!

Ah there that’s better.  Day 2 to follow!

Have fun.

Since Luke B bigged this site up on rec.juggling (possibly before reading some of it) my traffic has increased a little.  Cheers for that Luke.

Anyways there's been another mention; this time on The Jog.  There's a post re juggling blogs on there and I've got 2 of 'em mentioned.  Yay!  Cheers for the mention guys.

There's some interesting preamble too.  I particlarly like:

These juggling blogs highlight both ends of the spectrum - from the elite performers to your average hobbyist - and a few weird people in between.

Since I'm mentioned at number 3 (and 3.5) I'm going to assume I'm one of the "weird people".  He's also got 2 number 4's, and some of the links are not what they say they are (sorry Andrew).

I hope the author has a read of this post because I can't post a reply there without subscribing to Blogger.  Anyways you forgot Bear-Blog!  How could you?  She writes well!

The other point that sprang to mind is that this isn't really a juggling blog.  I just happen to juggle a bit so it gets mentioned.  I have opinions so they get aired.  But there's not even a juggling "category" to easily search for the bits that you're interested in.  This wasn't deliberate but is now.  I want people to actually read the thing rather than just pick the bits that may seem relevant.  Do I sound too self-important here?  Hope not.

Anyways thanks again Andrew.

Have fun.

PS Oh and the title of this blog does make sense if you know me well enough.  "Not a juggler of monkeys" indeed!

Vova Galchenko's stalker is back.  She originally wrote him a wonderful love poem (archived here) and she's at it again.

Here's a quote:

iwant to see u in my house wearing only ur little tigger print man thong.

Marvellous!

Have fun.

I was half watching the telly at dinner time last week one day.  There was an advert for some painkillers featuring a woman juggling.  I thought to myself "That's Kati from the Gandinis."  And do you know?  I was right it is.

Check out the ad here.

Have fun.

NAJC 2 yesterday.  The first one was pretty good (apart from no stage for the show) and they'd learned quite a bit from it.  In other words the workshops were all there and there was a stage, yay!

Site:  good site with loads of space and high ceilings.

Workshops: they had 35 workshops from trickswaps to acrobatics to hoola.  Something for everybody.

Show: More later but generally very good, and on a stage!

Annoying kid: PS2 is more powerful than GC.  My arse! Idiot.  Oh and "get a PSP they're better than a DS". Right!  That's like comparing Scalextric with Lego.  One's far more expensive and allows you to race cars; the other allows you to play.  Hmmm? Which one do you really think I'll go for?

The day:  arrived at around 11 as D had to get shorn prior to driving, and we'd dropped into Sainsbury first for munchies.  Expected Philip to be there but he didn't show until late afternoon.  On entering the main room I saw someone who reminded me of an old friend but I wasn't sure as she wasn't as good as I'd expect this friend to be considering she'd had 5 years of practice since I'd seen her last.  But it turns out it was her after all and she'd stopped juggling for those years through injury (broken thumb).  So having a chat and catching up with her was one of those genuinely really nice moments that pop up occasionally.  Made my day it did. Quite impressed to see that despite 5 years of little or no juggling she was working on 5 clubs and 7 balls.

Had a go at passing wth C but too busy and no space.  Oh and her hand still hurts.  Is she doing something wrong when she's catching?  I don't know but I reckon something like a golf glove would help.  This meant that we missed the advanced club passing workshop.  I wandered up while her and her men did some unicycling.  Nobody to pass with so went to watch the acro workshops.  I missed the "warm-ups" but was able to help out with some poor girl who inverted her ankle on landing.  She basically knew what to do for first aid but I hope I managed to offer some longer term advice for her.

Had a catch-up with Dr Helen there and chatted with the acro-tutors.  I also managed to get some photos of Anwen's shoulders and Danny's back which should be on PhysioMonkey soon.  Cheers to them.

Exciting news: Rod spent the day with 2 quite sexy ladies (1 at a time tho') but provided us with D-style "I should be so lucky" comments.  And Lizzah! Well quite the hussy isn't she?  Not only passing with those she fancies (who look disturbingly like her brother) but flirting and playing with her hair whilst chatting.  I believe Clurb had the most appropriate line - "Dirty bitch!"

I have now signed up for BJC and they're going to try and get me a room to use as a consultation room - cool.

So to the show:

1. Breakdancers - not my bag (it's the stupid prancing around before getting on with it and the oh so "street" attitude I don't like) but the crowd liked it so who am I to complain?
2. Tempei and Norbi - diablo duet.  Very swanky skills and obviously having fun.  Very technical stuff.
3. Peter Bone - "Stupid things with stupid numbers".  Sums it up really well.  We did get to see an 11 ball flash as well as a few 5, 6 and 7 ball patterns. Impressive.
4. Norbi - solo ring act.  I like Norbi's ring routine a lot.  It fits the music and shows off some pretty good juggling skills.  Not the most technical nor the highest level of difficulty but probably the most well developed routine out of any of the "new breed" of young jugglers. (actually, having said that he did do 8 rings)
5. Tempei - "mixed Tempei" - Tempei showing off with everything (and swearing in English, would you credit it?).  He's very good you know.  He's only got 1 more convention left before he leaves us to return to Japan.  I wonder if there'll be a "Farewell to Tempei" party at BJC.
6. Jon Udry - mis-spelled and apparently suddenly from Devon.  Clubs routine.  Nice attitude and nice skills but I just don't get a feeling of an act with Jon.  Peter gets away with it as we all know he's a siteswap and numbers junkie rather than a performer (and Jon didn't do 11 balls).  Difficult to argue that Jon shouldn't be the BYJOTY tho.

I'll break here for a bit (at the intermission) as I'd like to say that, even though I come across as grumpy about this "turn vs act" business I don't want to sound desperately critical.  To judge by the banter online I prefer IJA to WJF when it comes to presentation.  I don't want to say that one is better than the other.  It's just a preference.  In addition the skill level shown by some of these young jugglers is astonishing and gives me great anticipation for what we'll be seeing in a few years time.  Juggling's never been so exciting to me as an onlooker, never hoping to reach even what these guys are doing now.

Second half

1. Some apparently Spanish guy.  "Multi-talented" to be sure.  Funny at times but a return to the bane of the show last year with more bloody hats.  I hate hat routines. Having said that he didn't drop quite so incessantly as some of the others I've seen.  Again, not my bag but funny to start with.
2. Nat - Jazz Poi.  Hmm.  Thankfully she dropped the poi from the act.
3. Trevor (aka Greg) and Danny - acrobatics and balance.  Enjoyable if short.  They did look knackered afterwards though so I doubt they could he gone on for much longer.  As a fan of gymnastics I enjoyed it despite the random posturing going on.  Oh there I go again.  I'm now damning these guys for putting together an act rather than putting on just a string of tricks.  Can't I ever make up my mind?
4. Andy and Andy - some club passing - unusual in a show these days.  I like passing and I liked these guys.  Fun and energetic if not passing of the most fluent or technical variety.
5. Angie Trash - disco hula.  I hate disco music with a passion so that's not a good start.  Never mind she managed some good moves.  Maybe over-long for me but then she'd turned me off anyway with her choice of music. 
6. Luke B and Pola - The Art of Juggling.  A really nice little routine.  Luke's doing the juggling and Pola's painting.  Sounds bizarre but it fits really well.  She does something on the "canvas" and he does it on stage.  Some good interaction and skills.  Probably the best routine Luke's done since we saw the genesis of his choreographed "back cross, front cross, back cross----" routine and Pola looked pretty happy with being in front of a crowd too (I've no idea if she's done stage work before tho).  I do have one minor criticism:  when Luke's juggling and Pola's painting at the same time I never knew where to look as I could only focus on one of them.  This might sound odd as the show's about juggling "so watch the damned juggler" but that would mean missing out on watching Pola actually physically creating something.  I can watch people "create" all day.  As I said a minor issue.

One thing more about the show.  The halves seemed the wrong way round to me.  I thought the second half should have been the first (with the exception of putting Luke and Pola last).  Another minor issue that doesn't mar what was an excellent show full of variety.  Enjoyed it a lot.  Cheers to the organisers.  If they can do this for a one-dayer then next year's BJC should be unforgettable.

Have fun. (and see some of you at BJC)