Our next meeting is Tuesday 23rd July
We're back at the Old King's Head near London Bridge at 7pm to read an episode of the sitcom ‘C.O.C.K.’ by Kayser Foyz, plus sketches. Details on our website. (note: at the time of newsletter issue, the site appears to be temporarily down).
We are currently booking slots for sitcoms, sketches, comic plays, webisodes, shorts and comedy dramas. Remember, your space on the list is dependent on you turning up to support other writers.
The Idea Behind The Vlog
Today I’m handing over to our longest-serving committee member, Tristán White, to tell us about his incredibly thorough YouTube project.
Hi! I'm Tristán, one of the original founders of LCW, twenty-three years ago. In 2020, my partner Sharon and I started a YouTube vlog in which we visit every corner of London, alphabetically, over a twelve-year period. We wanted to talk about local history, meet the capital’s characters and, most importantly, make it fun. In LYL we explore the dusty corners of London, elements of the city that aren’t necessarily on the tourist trail, and we always try to make the episodes amusing (which sometimes happens by accident). As we work our way through the alphabet, we’re currently compiling four episodes on Battersea before finishing the series in Wimbledon, around November 2032. That’s unless there’s another pandemic to deal with. Talking of unforeseen events, our very first episode didn't exactly go to plan either, so why not check it out here, as an introduction.
Unique Take On The Capital
We expect Love Your London to reach its hundredth video later this year, and we'd love you to have a browse through the videos on offer. Our unique take on the capital city is a lot of fun, and a huge amount of research goes into every area covered. For example, those Battersea episodes necessitated around seventeen thousand words of notes (or fifty eight pages) all told.
Far From The Tourist Traps
This is part of what gives our vlog its unique atmosphere and perspective. We show that, if you do enough scratching beneath the surface, every street holds a story; even the most nondescript of back alleys. We operate far from tourist traps like the London Eye or the Tower of London. Rather, in those forthcoming Battersea episodes (first one here - ed) we'll be showing our audience the spot where Bob Marley had a kickabout with DJ Danny Baker; the ground-floor flat where Prince Andrew first consummated his liaison with Fergie; the location where Ringo boarded the Magical Mystery Tour bus (which we re-enact), as well as the club where King Kurt had their first food fight - a venue that went on to host swingers' parties. But LYL isn’t all about famous people. We also explore the house where, in 1849, a timber dealer tried to stop others from buying the land nearby by planting giant effigies of murderers in his garden, then hanging pots and bells from the walls to increase the noise levels.
Covering London’s Esoterica
As mentioned earlier, there are close to a hundred instalments covering this kind of London esoterica, and we're just getting started. We hope to have released somewhere in the region of two thousand episodes over the next decade, some of them up to an hour long. This will be catnip for those regular viewers who, oddly enough, like to binge-watch the show. Not sure why - perhaps they enjoy the way that, as your guides to the highways and byways of the city, we always like to challenge ourselves. Whether that's by attempting a tree-walk on a zip-line through the pouring rain, trying out a new sport (‘footgolf’) or filming ourselves in a naturist sauna, we’re always game for getting involved. By the way, that latter episode was the only one YouTube forced us to set for over-18s only, even though we pixelated all the NSFW bits. We're also planning on doing something interesting (and funny) later this year in collaboration with the urban artist STIK, so watch this space!
Try And Subscribe!
A huge amount of work goes into each episode, but it’s incredibly rewarding to entertain while reaching out to a community that finds our great city as fascinating and infinitely rewarding as we do. So if our mixture of obscure psycho-geography, fascinating facts and (often unplanned) antics sounds like the kind of thing you would enjoy, please try us on YouTube then subscribe if you like what you see!
Here are links to the YouTube Channel and Love Your London website.
Tristán (and Al)
'When exploring London, you will come across lots of excitement by chance, so try to take everything in rather than just rushing around to all of the major tourist haunts.'
Richard Branson
Competitions and Opportunities
Mslexia, the initiative for female writers, currently has three open competitions. You can enter the first 3,000 words of your Children’s or Young Adult book, a Short Story up to 3,000 words or Flash Fiction of up to 300 words. Find out more, including entry fees here. Deadline: 23rd September
The Studio 21 prize is a bit different this year, as they’re looking for dramatic scripts that can be released ‘scene by scene’. This can be in any fictional genre (so comedy drama would be acceptable) but must comprise 30-60 pages, with each scene clearly identified and having a run time of 1-3 minutes. The collection of scenes in your pilot must also work as a satisfying ‘longform’ whole, of course. Entry fee: £40. Deadline: 18th September
Words of the Wild, in association with the Scottish Woodland Trust, invite submissions up to 1,000 words of creative writing with a connection to Scotland’s native wildlife. Your work could take the form of poetry, journalism, letters, lyrics or short fiction, and may be either fiction or non-fiction. There are prizes for both adult and under-18s. Deadline: 31st August
SaveAs writers are looking for poetry and prose on the theme of ‘Risking All’. There are cash prizes for short stories up to 3,500 words and poems up to 60 lines. Entry is £4 for a poem or £5 for a story. Deadline: 31st August.
Member News
Mine and Drew’s podcast exploring recent Daily Mail stories, bringing to them a level of analysis they really weren’t built to withstand, reaches Episode 3 with special guest LCW’s Nina Crane. She joins us to discuss feral chickens, 'Conception Leave' and influencer toe amputations, among other vital matters. Check out Mail Bonding wherever you get your podcasts (unless it’s somewhere really obscure) or here.
LCW’s Tash Alexander is behind the Head Held High charity, working with young people at risk of exclusion from society. On Monday 16th September they will be hosting a fundraiser at the Comedy Store with an impressive line-up, including Adam Bloom, Kerry Godliman and Marcus Brigstocke. More information and tickets.
LCW's sometime caterer Jillian Ellis continues with her Slightly Off Plan podcast on all podcast platforms and YouTube; seeking out kindred spirits to explore ideas of what you ‘should have’ accomplished by a certain age. Check it out on Spotify here.