MJ Hibbett and The Validators

Belle And Sebastian And Emotions

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:43:00 +0000

It was HO! for West London on Wednesday evening, as I met with Mr M Sutton to travelling to London's Fashionable South Kensington and the ALBERT HALL, there to see Belle & Sebastian performing their debut album "Tigermilk" in full.

We went for BEERS in a pub nearby beforehand, and I found myself unable to tell who was on their way to the gig (NB with some notable exceptions e.g. Mr S Hewitt uncovered outside) and who was a middle-aged person who just LOOKED like they once owned a stripey t-shirt. One we reached the venue it was the same experience - as ever, there were quite a lot of people wearing appropriate band t-shirts, but otherwise it looked like Just A Bunch Of People. All right, trending towards SHALL WE SAY late youth hem hem, but it didn't LOOK like the obviously indiepop crowd that you'd expect at e.g. the Allo Darlin' gig last year.

I think this was evidence of how different Belle & Sebastian were all those long ago years - they didn't come to prominence through the music press (who HATED them at the time, mostly BECAUSE they had not given their permission for it to happen) but were one of the very first bands to get known through the INTERNET. They were the TOAST of the mailing groups - uk-indie what I was on was FULL of them, and indeed "meat-ups" were organised by the members specifically to go and see them, and OBVS the sinister mailing list was set up very early on too. Nowadays having internet marketing is DE RIGEUR, but back then it felt amazing that there were people all around the country getting to know each other through this band that was being largely ignored by the indie music press. It was like the fanzine networks that had existed for years, but not JUST for the cool people who knew each other in each town's designated GIG pub.

Also, way back in the mid-90s, you had to EITHER have a job at a place with internet access OR be a student at an institution that let you into the computer room whenever you wanted, so the pool of people rolling up 30 years later was very much what those sort of people would look like now. It was weirdly moving to see us all coming together again like this, and this feeling would continue throughout the evening!

Our tickets were in the GALLERY, which turned out to be up approx 17,000,000 stairs up, RIGHT at the top of the building. It was basically a massive corridor that went around the inside of the ROOF - there were no seats way up there so we leant against the RAILING, which was ACE as it also meant we not only had a view over everyone but could go for a) drinks b) the loo whenever we wanted!

The Loft were on first, and this ignited MORE FEELINGS - I've never really heard them before (we're playing with them in Leicester next month, so more revision will be needed!) but I know they are Important In The History Of Indie, in much the same way that The June Brides, who did the support in Dublin, were. It must be nice for Belle & Sebastian and similar bands to be big enough to play a massive venue like this and able to get YOUR heroes on to play with you, but I did wonder what it's like for the heroes themselves. It must be lovely to get such a big audience, and (to be VULGAR for a moment) get a big CA$H payout, but then you must be aware that the audience isn't there for YOU, and that this is probably the one and only time you'll get to play there. I mean, I am aware of certain bands who feature members of The Validators who've done something similar, and they seemed to have a LOVELY time, so maybe it's just me being daft, but I did wonder. If anyone wants to give me the chance to find out for myself, please let me know - Jonas Brothers, CALL ME!

Anyway, there was a very sophisticated (and highly punctual) interval, and then it was time for Belle & Sebastian who came on and did "Tigermilk" in full and it was WOW. As anyone who has been FORTUNATE enough to talk to me about this sort of thing will know, Belle & Sebastian loom LARGE in my Secret Origin Of ROCK and so it was a pretty big deal to see them play this album, not least when they did "Expectations" accompanied by (I think) some local ads from the time. One of these was ALSO used for the poster for the first gig of theirs I ever went to see, by accident, at QMU in Glasgow. That poster was stuck on my wall for MANY years, and seeing that image again took me RIGHT back!

(NB the image show above is NOT the one on my poster, I didn't quite get my camera out in time!)

The other Big Emotional Moment to do with actual songs was "We Rule The School", which was AMAZING, but elsewhere I got myself further wrought by looking at rest of the audience. It was incredible to think that we were all here for a band who released their first album as part of a training scheme at a local college, and then broke through via a) the brand new interweb and b) determinedly doing things their own way. These were BOTH huge inspirations for loads of us who saw them back then, and to be honest that's probably why I've ended up doing my stuff in the same way LO! unto this very day.

Thus the BIGGEST moment when I properly welled up was towards the end of the second half (when wonderfully they played other songs from those early days, and so I knew all the words for them too) and they did The Politest Stage Invasion Ever, including a one-off one-on policy of letting people onto the stage. From where we were you could see otherwise sensible grown-up people suddenly breaking out of their rows of seats and RUNNING to the front, called towards what was happening there very much as we had all been called to Belle & Sebastian AND EACH OTHER when we first heard those two early albums. I didn't want to run down there myself (not least because off all them steps!), but seeing my fellow fans celebrating the band felt HUGE.

What I'm saying is that it was dead good, and I was very pleased that Mark had suggested going, as I would not have wanted to miss it. The only niggling doubt I had afterwards was this business of it being 30 years ago, which means I would have been about four years old, surely, when we went to see them in Glasgow the first time. That can't be right, can it?

A Whole New Q

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:04:00 +0000

You join me today at the start of a whole new QUARTER, as Old Father Q1 totters off into eternity and a young and vibrant Q2 toddles into his place. It's like SPRING, but for spreadsheets!

I am particularly excited about The Turning Of The Qs this time because the first quarter of 2026 has been BUSY for me, but also NON-EVIDENT. In other words I have been DOING loads of stuff but not much of it has made it out into the public domain and garnered the PRAISE and ADULATION which I, of course, abide only reluctantly. For instance, I've been toiling away on the data gathering for "Data and Judge Dredd" which is NEARLY finished but then will need to be cleaned, analysed and written up before it rides out on the LAWMASTER OF THORT in February next year, which feels like a LONG way away.

Staring at page after page of Judge Dredd and thinking "Do I agree or disagree that Judge Dredd regularly finds fault with others in this story?" (SPOILERS: I agree) is not the MOST fun I've ever had, but some of the other ongoing STUFF is a LOT more exciting. In particular the PODCAST version of Data and Doctor Doom is getting into a DELIGHTFUL groove at the moment, with the writing of the SCRIPT turning out to be loads of fun, and the recording of the SONGS even more so.

I've already released a couple of ACOUSTICAL versions of songs from the show, but for the podcast I'm recording them "properly", in a similar way to the how we did the Jane And John songs i.e. with loads of SYNTHS everywhere and without too much PRE-PLANNING. This turns out to be a JOYOUS mode of action, and it's reminding me what I LOVE about making music. On Monday, for example, I had a spare hour and so sat down to record a song called Why Don't We Talk About Comics? This never got into the main SHOW because a) there wasn't time and b) I was never happy with the tune, but it IS going into the podcast so I decided to have a go at re-writing it. I have a BANK of possible tunes recorded on my phone so went through those, found a good one, and was delighted to discover that it FIT, so used that. I then worked out the tempo, made a drum pattern, recorded a guitar and then vocal over it, and followed that with a very happy half hour or so plunking about with MIDI bass and keyboards.

It was LOVELY, and reminded me very much of the long ago days when I used to record TAPES up in my loft in Leicester. Many was the time that I'd wander up there of an evening and lose myself in bass playing and guitar soloes. It didn't always come out BRILLIANT but it almost always came out INTERESTING, to me at least, and the freedom of being able to do - or at least try to do - whatever I wanted on the spur of the moment was LIBERATING.

Obviously there are huge and mighty benefits to recording with a) intent b) other people, but it's been wonderful going back to this way of doing things. Coincidentally there was much discussion of this on the latest episode of This Are Johnny Domino which only increased the NOSTALGIA for the Olde Ways and the DELIGHT in realising it was still available. In these days of SOCIALS and ENGAGEMENT and so on it's great to remind oneself that the core of all this is titting around with noises until they sound fun. More of this sort of thing please!

To Rock... DENIED!

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 11:54:00 +0000

An event UNUSUAL for me has occurred today - a gig has been CANCELLED!

This happens very rarely in my world because most gigs what I do have been put on by ME and I am LOATHE to cancel anything that's been advertised, as I am plagued by visions of people travelling from all corners of the globe just to see ME and being desolated when they arrive at a venue to find no ME there. This fear has involved the aforesaid ME travelling to all corners of the globe and arriving at venues to find no AUDIENCE there, but that is a small price to pay and also something which I am very much used to by now!

However, the Science Showoff gig what was due to be happening tomorrow (Tuesday 24 March) at The Harrison was NOT run by me, but rather the excellent Dr Steve X Cross, who took the eminently sensible decision to cancel it due to, apparently, nobody coming. As I say, this has never stopped me from doing a gig but I can see that in the world of COMEDY, where people DO tend to book ahead, the fact that nobody had as yet done so means that it's not really worth getting a whole bunch of performers into a room to do the show to each other.

Typing the above was very difficult for me because my HEART is shouting "But the show must go on!" and my BRANE is saying "I AGREE!" but I accept that wiser people than me are in charge. However, if you WERE planning to travel from e.g. Australia, New Zealand or equivalent long distances just to see me do nine minutes about Doctor Doom, do please let me know. I have a whole set practiced up, including slides and a re-write of Fuzzy Trace Theory all ready to go!

Gareth's Birthday Gig

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 02:58:00 +0000

Saturday saw me heading SOUTH on a secret mission, to play a SECRET GIG that wasn't technically very secret but also definitely qualifies as such, for LO! I was off to BRISTOL to play at Mr G Jones's Birthday Party!

Gareth had arranged the gig nearly a year ago, and I have spent the time since then imagining it being a sort of mini-Indietracks, with lots of other bands playing who are ACE and also loads of PALS likely to be there, so I was delighted to be finally on the train and on the way. This feeling lasted just over an hour, at which point the train ground to a halt due to an Incident On The Line, and we were held in the middle of nowhere for over TWO HOURS. It wasn't a hugely fun experience but the train staff were AMAZING and most people on board also were STOICAL. There was one announcement asking people NOT to try and get off the train, but otherwise everyone was surprisingly calm, helped v much by the regular updates. It was all quite moving!

We originally got to Bristol a LOT later than expected. My original plan had been to wander over to my hotel, check-in, loaf around for a bit and then amble over to the venue, but with the new situation I instead LEAPT into a taxi and ZOOMED straight to the venue where, as is the RULE for all-day music events, things were running late so it was all fine. I thus had time to bump into MULTIPLE pals from all over the place, some of whom I hadn't seen for YEARS, before it was time for me to go on and do THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Bad Back

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

Sound Of The Underground

It Only Works Because You're here

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Boom Shake The Room

Man alive, I had a WHALE of a time! It's been a while since I played with a PA system so that took a bit of getting used to, but otherwise I relaxed fully into it and LOVED the fact that I was doing a gig where the bits in between songs were not the result of many years of research but rather WHATEVER CAME INTO MY HEAD. I thus apologise if I went on a bit, but it seemed to all be OK and I was especially RELIEVED that Sound Of The Underground went down well, as it had been especially requested by the birthday boy.

That all done I sped round to check in at the Premier Inn and then came back to thoroughly enjoy The School (who I had not seen for AGES and were ACE) and similarly Milky Wimpshake. I then relaxed into the best bit of any of this type of gig, which was wandering around going "Oh HELLO how are YOU?!?" to loads of old pals. It was flipping lovely - I now hope Gareth does something like this for ALL his birthdays!

It was thus a tired but happy Hibbett who returned to his room later that night, and a slightly less tired but equally happy one who got his train back next morning WITHOUT massive delays. PHEW!

An Album Launch

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:04:00 +0000

I was off to distant Croydon on Wednesday night, there to carry out a duty I had not had the opportunity to do for many years - BEING THE RECORD COMPANY!

For LO! I was at Riff Raffs Bar, there to REPRESENT Artists Against Success at the launch of the new album Life Is Not A Competition by Tim Eveleigh. A couple of years ago, back in the late 90s/early 2000s, rolling up to an album launch by one of our ACTS was a not uncommon occurence, but then our A&R activities slowed somewhat when Mr Whitaker retired, and we spent more of our time concentrating on SHALL WE SAY our LEGACY ACTS i.e. me and Frankie and our own OUVRE.

THUS I was a bit out of practice with what I was meant to actually DO in such a situation. Back in the day I have vague memories of swanking about with a CIGAR, which probably tells you quite what A Different Time it was, but this time I thought probably Turning Up would just about cover it. I was v glad I did though, as it's AGES since I've seen Tim play - I used to do his Freedom Of Expression nights at various places in London and, mostly, Croydon and have played with him MANY times but I don't think I've actually SEEN him to do so for several years, and I've DEFINITELY not seen him with his full band, THUS:

Ooh but it sounded lovely, even in a situation where the band were playing sideways, directly at a blank wall with the audience split at either side in the front of the back of the bar. Both they and the support act coped with the situation, though at times it did feel like The Green Cross Code Man had been round beforehand and sternly told everyone to keep looking both ways. It was one of those occasions where there weren't all that many people on stage but once they all got going it sounded like a whole ORCHESTRA/CHOIR of sound going on.

You can hear it for yourself on The Bandcamp, and I would highly recommend you do, both as a listener AND as a high-powered record company executive!

Farewell To The Funny Comics Fan Club

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 02:43:00 +0000

On Sunday we UNLEASHED the grand finale of The Funny Comics Fan Club, in which John and I discussed wot we had LEARNED over the past 30+ episodes, and also chose what our FAVOURITE bits were. As you'll hear there was quite a bit of CONCURRENCE, not least in our choices of best characters, but also quite a bit of the disagreement that we have delighted in over the course of the three series.

I must admit it felt a bit ODD on Sunday to be going through my fortnightly routine of uploading the episode and then doggedly uploading all of the images to our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky accounts. It's always a bit of a JOB to do all that, especially when you add in the time it takes scan the images and EDIT the show (we take out about 10 minutes of us saying "ER" every episode!), but I had got quite ADEPT at it over recent months so, in a weird way, I'm going to miss it.

I'm also going to very much miss sitting in a small room and ARGUING with John every couple of weeks, as it has been a HUGE amount of fun to do so. Similarly it's been lovely to bump into people at various times and places who LISTEN to the show, especially when it's people I don't actually KNOW. If you've been one of those people, or indeed if you have listened to the show and NOT bumped into me, I hope it's been as much fun for you as it very much has for us - and if you HAVEN'T listened to the show yet, there are a whole THIRTY THREE episodes waiting for you to get started on!

Great News For All Listeners

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 02:49:00 +0000

Yesterday I met with Mr J Dredge for a very solemn occasion, for LO! we were gathering together to record the FINAL edition of The Funny Comics Fan Club!

The news that we are drawing the series to a close was announced in our most recent episode, although the fact that the nation appears to have NOT descended into mourning leads me to think that some people have not as yet been appraised of it yet. The basic thinking is that we have pretty much DONE all the comics we want to look at and SAID what we want to say about them, so it makes sense to cease now and leave our run of MIGHTY THORTS to be available for future generations to pore over, and indeed pour over, as they wish.

In order to ensure that we HAD said all we wanted/needed to, however, this final session was set up as an OVERVIEW of everything what we have learned so far, which involved some HOMEWORK as we both went through the aforesaid everything to pick out a few themes. You'll have to listen to the episode itself - available from Sunday 1 March - to find out what the themes were, but suffice it to say there was some disagreement as well as - you'll never guess - some AGREEMENT, occasionaly in a Quite Spooky way!

It was an exceedingly JOLLY recording, as most of them are, with us both highlighting some of our favourite and also LEAST favourite aspects of these comics, but then it did feel a bit WEIRD afterwards to think that that was IT. Sitting with John and having a good old YACK and also LARF about this sort of thing has been a huge source of FUN, ever since we met up in Barbican for a lengthy, and chilly, outside chat about Whizzer And Chips. We've also had a TONNE of ADVENTURES as a result, including appearing in The Actual Radio Times and going to the Apple building, as well as getting to talk to all SORTS of delightful people who have enjoyed what we've been doing. Maybe that's another reason to stop it now though - it has been a JOY to do, so it's probably best to draw to a close with that flawless record intact.

Having said all that, part of me thinks we should merge into ANOTHER podcast, in the same way that all comics of the past would eventually merge into Buster. Perhaps there's still time to announce a great new podcast with all your favourites, "The Rest Is Football And Funny Comics"? Gary Linekar! Call us!

More MJ/CJ ACTION

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:47:00 +0000

Today Found Festival have UNLEASHED their full line-up for this year, which excitingly includes me and Chris doing our first MJ Hibbett & CJ Thorpe-Tracey FESTIBAL show! HOORAH!

Obviously I wouldn't stoop to anything so foolish as to check WHERE in the listing we are but if anyone DID feel the need to do something so BANAL they would find that we are bang in the middle of the listing i.e. not at the bottom or in tiny type, which of course means nothing to me and definitely didn't please me inordinately when I double checked. HOORAH!

This announcement comes hot on the heels of a whole DAY of CJ/MJ ACTION, as yesterday I went down to BRIGHTON for some PRACTICING. To be brutally honest most of what we practiced was chatting and drinking tea, but we did manage to squeeze in a few songs too. We kicked off with a go at a proposed cover version (the name of which I shall not mention here in order to maintain the already high levels of excitement and interest) before launching into runthroughs of a whole batch of NEW songs. We started with I'll Fetch Me Book which had been the first song attempted at our first ever practice. That time it had been COMPLICATED, but went MUCH more smoothly this time, partly due to our increased AWARENESS of each other and the OUVRE, and also partly because we took out some of the fiddly bits.

We then did two songs UNHEARD by any human being except each other, starting with one only wrote a few weeks ago called Timewasters. This was originally called "Timewasters Need Not Apply" and then changed to "The Greatest Music" but then Chris suggested that just "Timewasters" was much better, and he was CORRECT. I had been very eager to get this one into our list, despite its very recent creation, as a) I think it is dead good and b) it's the only song I've written specifically FOR this project, so I was relieved to discover that it sounds ACE!

I was similarly delighted with our version of A Christmas Cry, which is about a year old and which I have been DESPERATE to let out into the open. This probably wouldn't go on the actual ALBUM we're making but I really wanted to give it the piano treatment as I thought it would suit it, and I was right, as it sounded BLOODY WONDERFUL. I often get a bit over-excited when we're doing these songs, but in this case I had to stop myself from SCREAMING with excitement at one point, and then realised that I was wafting round Chris's living room PRETENDING TO BLESS ORPHAN CHILDREN as if in a C Richards video, such was my Christmassy Joy. Chris did some AMAZING work on it and put not only FANCY CHORDS in but also - brilliantly - a GEAR CHANGE!

We then went for a well-earned pub lunch before coming back to have a go at ANOTHER otherwise unheard song, Give It Up. I really like the THORT behind this song, but once we had a go it didn't feel to me like it was RIGHT. We had several goes at it, with Chris trying all sorts of ways to improve it, but in the end we had to follow the songs own advice and, well, give it up!

We then had a runthrough of what we'd achieved, recording VERSIONS of everything, before a celebratory spot of BUBBLES, some more tea and chat (and BISCUITS), and then the day was done and I headed off back to That London, full of EXCITEMENT about what we'd done and what we might indeed YET do. It really does feel like this is turning into something Rather Special, and I can't wait for people to get to hear it, whether that be in August or possibly sooner!

Doctor Doom at The Leicester Comedy Festival

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 12:24:00 +0000

I was up in lovely LEICESTER at the weekend, there to bring Data and Doctor Doom to the Leicester Comedy Festival for, I think, my TENTH time at the festival, and the SEVENTEENTH anniversary of (the second night of) my first time there!

It's an amazing thing that the festival is still going strong 30ish years after it all began. I remember it getting going as a very local affair in the distant days when I still LIVED in Leicester and it's come a LONG way from there to its current status as a COMEDY BEHEMOTH. In some ways it feels a bit sad that it's lost some of the Fringe-y localNESS of those early days, and does feel a bit more focussed on Big Telly Comedians than an INDIE TYPE like me would necessarily prefer, but it's an incredible thing to see how much it's embedded in the city and generally accepted as PART of Leicester.

As ever when returning to that fair city I was delighted to see that the grand tradition of knocking down buildings has continued, this time with a great chunk of the street near the town square being demolished. Later research showed that this had been done YEARS ago but it was new to me and WEIRDLY there had never been a PUB on the site so I cannot even take personal responsibility its removal, unlike the many many other demolitions linked to my musical past in Leicester.

I arrived at the King Richard III Visitor Centre - another NEW THING to me - and met the lovely staff there, who were all VERY friendly and helpful, especially when I got into my room and needed some help getting the projector working. It was a GRATE room I must say, and after some mild PANIC about getting set up (largely caused by me not having done it in a while) I was just about ready to receive AUDIENCE.

And LO! Audience did appear, and was PACKED with PALS and familiar faces, as well as some NON-familiar faces also. I must admit I got A Little Bit Excited by it all, and had to use ALL my willpower to wait until it was actually time to start before getting going properly. Rather fantastically during this time Mrs E Pattison was able to grab a candid snap of THE COUNCIL, fully reunited for the first time in many years!

The show itself seemed to go OK - I was a little bit thrown by a) having some of my oldest PALS in the room GRINNING back at me and b) the projector set-up meaning I wasn't able to use Presenter View, and so couldn't see what was coming next, but I think together we all rose to the challenge and had a rather jolly time. I then got to lurk around and CHAT to a few people, including the marvellous Mr B Ennis who had PROMOTED the whole thing so ably (he was GRATE!), before we headed round the corner to yet ANOTHER place I had not been before, The Blue Boar.

COR, this was a really nice pub which, I think, had been an office when I last walked past it, and was now PACKED with so many beers that there were FOUR pages of screen listing them all! CHAT was had with the lovely friends who had rolled up, and stories were told of adventures that happened more DECADES ago than I would really like to admit. It was BRILLO!

Hugs were had, farewells were said, and myself, Mr T 'The Tiger' McClure and The Pattisons made our way along New Walk to The Marquis Of Wellington to find Mr and Mrs F Machine, who had arrived for our BAND CURRY, which took place over the road. This was ANOTHER delightful affair, during which we discussed plans for our next GIG (for about 3 minutes) and also TELLY (for significantly longer).

We popped back over the road for a final PINT and then it was time for us all to wend our weary - and, in my case, slightly WOBBLY - way home. I collapsed into my Premier Inn very happy, but also EXHAUSTED - that was a LOT of fun to pack into one day!

I Take Full Responsibility For My Error

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 03:04:00 +0000

I come to you today as a much humbled, but hopefully wiser, Hibbett - for LO! my GRATE PREDICTION wot I made in a Major Entertainment Outlet about there being an "Avengers: Doomsday" trailer during the Superbowl turns out to be have been entirely INCORRECT!

I was sure that my divination of the Weird Numbers in the teaser trailers were all pointing towards a big reveal during yesterdays American Football Extravaganza, and this prediction was repeated in multiple OTHER Entertainment Outlets (as discussed recently) but alas this was not the case. However, despite all this, there appear to have been no implications whatsoever. The article what I wrote is still there, the other articles mentioning it don't seem to have been changed, and nobody has, as yet, been on The Socials to reprimand me for my inaccuracy.

It all feels a bit weird, almost as if... almost as if there's no penalty for being wrong in this sort of thing? As I pondered this thought this morning I was reminded of all those political pundits who show up in The Media to pontificate about what current party political leaders are doing wrong, despite the fact that most of these people are best known for cocking everything up entirely. I will mention no names - not least because there is probably a SECRET SOCIETY of such people and I might get invited to a DO or something - but I regularly see newspaper columns by people who have steered opposition parties to disastrous defeats, or the papers being reviewed by people who were sacked for being entirely untrustworthy, or indeed former chancellors of the exchequer responsible for one of the worst budgets ever popping up on telly to discuss what the current government should be doing instead. NO NAMES.

Thus I am providing this MEA CULPA to say that it's a fair cop, I got that one wrong, and will take some time to reflect upon my errors. I expect this to take at LEAST half an hour, at which point I shall once again be available to confidently predict Doctor Doom's future movements. When IS the next big Comic Con anyway?

A Day Trip To Leeds

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:54:00 +0000

On Wednesday I headed up to distant LEEDS to do a talk about MY RESEARCH JOURNEY (i.e. Doctor Doom and how I ended up doing a PhD/Book/Musical/etc about him) at Leeds Arts University.

I'd been booked AGES ago so had been able to get an entirely reasonable ticket price for going first class, which was LOVELY all the way to Wakefield, at which point the train ground to a halt as, apparently, another train had broken down just ahead of us and now Leeds station was CLOSED. After twenty minutes or so someone burst into my carriage and annouced that a few BRAVE SURVIVORS were getting a taxi to Leeds if anyone wanted to join them and I LEAPT at the chance. I'd given myself a good TWO HOURS leeway for getting there but even so I was started to panic. THUS I ended up getting an EXCEEDINGLY reasonably priced taxi with a group of Professional People, during which I think I managed to just about hold my end up with the PROFESSIONAL CHAT.

Once arrived I strode across Leeds to FINALLY visit OK Comics (after not getting to do so at multiple Comics Forums), which was ace, and then walk the rest of the way to Leeds Arts University to be met by Mr H Gronnet, who had booked me. As I say, I was there to talk about my RESEARCH and how that had progressed from a PhD to a book to a musical and so on, but as soon as we discovered that Henry and I do pretty much the same job at our respective institutions there was also quite a lot of REF CHAT. That was GRATE!

I didn't really know what size or shape of audience I would have so, as ever, I simply assumed it would be STADIUM-SIZED and wrote my presentation to suit. I did a similar thing last year when I did The Lakes Festival - in fact I pretty much always do and I don't really why, as so far it never actually HAS been stadium-sized. This time around I was talking to a small group of academics in a normal-sized lecturer theatre, with a similar number of people attending online, so to start with I felt like some kind of LOONIE shouting and - especially - SINGING at them, but I adapted as I went along and, I think, so did they.

Another thing I always seem to do is entirely forget what I had actually SAID I was going to talk about, so when my original ABSTRACT was read out at the start I realised that I hadn't included HALF of the stuff I said I would, and so I spent a lot of time trying to SHOEHORN that in at appropriate moments. To be honest though, having to make great chunks of it up as I go along is what I enjoy MOST about doing gigs, so I had a lovely time, especially when we got into the second half of the session and QUESTIONS. Yet another thing I do in these situations is to become INTENSELY CONSCIOUS of the fact that I am talking A LOT, which is objectively fine because that is what they have asked me there to do, but still years of being AWARE of this in social situations is hard to shake off!

I did manage to shut up at some points and leave space for multiple INTERESTING THORTS and IDEAS from everyone else, which was lovely. However, all too soon it was over and after saying my farewells I headed back into town to pay a visit to North Bar, where I had had plenty of fun times after Comics Forum last year, and then to look sorrowfully upon a temporarily closed ZAM ZAMS, where The Validators have eaten so heartily in the past. Denied the chance to dine there I instead I paid tribute to other Validator Adventures by going to Doner Summer (yes, it was mostly the name that made me go there) for a DELICIOUS, also ENORMOUS plate of BERLINER (vegan) DONER and FRIED.

It was thus a very FULL but also very HAPPY Hibbett who staggered through the streets of Leeds to get my train home, this time without the need for taxis. More of this sort of thing please!

Working The Algorithm

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:07:00 +0000

Later this week I am off to LEEDS to do a talk at Leeds Arts University about MY WORK. This came about because I advertised myself on a DATA mailing list a couple of months ago as someone who could talk about That Sort Of Thing and then got asked by the lovely people at Leeds Arts to go and do so, discussing the research process that took me from doing a PhD to the BOOK to the SHOW and indeed BEYOND. I was, obviously, utterly flipping DELIGHTED to say "YES PLEASE!"

I have thus been beavering away on my SLIDES for the past couple of weeks, working out what I need to say, and this has been a v v interesting experience. Obviously I think ANYTHING to do with me and my ouvre is objectively fascinating, but diving into it like this has been GRATE, as it's reminded me of all sorts of fun things that have happened along the way. My first go at the slides was basically an edited version of the SHOW, but then I realised that what they wanted was the STORY of how I got there, not necessarily an in-depth description of the methodologies, and my BRANE has been gradually catching up with this - yesterday, for instance, it reminded me that I did a whole work-in-progress show and then went to see Mr D Munro for DRAMATURGY, and that those might be something to mentione along the way!

A big part of the talk is going to be about the underlying purpose to get my name out there and into the ALGORITHM, so that when the films come out anyone searching for "Doctor Doom Expert" will find ME, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do a progress report on how all that's going. To my ENORMOUS DELIGHT I discovered that it's going REALLY WELL, and that if you do do a google for "Doctor Doom Expert" then my Radio Times article is (currently) the SIXTH thing that comes up! HOORAH!

Even more excitingly I discovered that this article - particularly my prediction that the "glitchy numbers" in the current trailers are counting down to a FULL trailer to be shown during the Super Bowl - has been quoted in a number of OTHER news outlets, notably Yahoo! News and - best of all - THE WEEK. This is EXACTLY what I was after, so I was RUDDY DELIGHTED to see that it had actually worked.

But there was even MORE excitement to come - as I was putting the slides together I thought "hang on, a high Google ranking is very 2010s isn't it? Surely these days THE KIDS are just asking AI?" I knew that if you just put "Doctor Doom Expert" into Google the AI starts telling you things that Doom is an expert IN, but if you do it properly like wot THE KIDZ do and ASK it an actual question like "Who is an expert on doctor doom?" then what do you think happens?

I'll tell you what happens - it says IT IS ME! HOORAH! And also ZANG! Getting THAT to happen has been a huge part of the POINT of doing all this, especially in these days of People Using AI, so I did a little WHOOP of JOY to see that it had actually WORKED! It turns out that getting the phrase "Doctor Doom Expert" onto lots of webpages again and again works just the same as putting "International Rock Star" into my press releases does, and the MACHINES believe it.

Now all we need is for Robert Downey Jr to ask the SAME question and it will be HO! for HOLLYWOOD and some Doom Chat around the pool. Bobby! CALL ME!

Crystal Palace Session #2

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 09:22:00 +0000

Yesterday I headed off to distant CRYSTAL PALACE where I was due to attend the second recording session for the MJ Hibbett/CJ Thorpe-Tracey ALBUM PROJECT. The day got off to an excellent start when I got a BUS up the FLIPPING MOUNTAIN that Onecat Studio sits upon, thus avoiding both gradient and RAIN, and things continued in much the same way.

I met the aforesaid Mr CJ Thorpe-Tracey along with Mr J Blusher and, after some chat and also piano tuning, we got into ACTION recording a whole HEAP of songs. This time around we did piano tracks for When You Hear A Bird, Was This What You Wanted?, Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine (a re-do from last time), Wrong About Everything, 7 Hearts and Say It With Words, pretty much in that order I think.

One of the many wonderful aspects of the day was the PROCESS what some of these songs went through. Chris and I have PRACTICED them and indeed GIGGED most of them as well, but when we started recording Jon offered NOTES and SUGGESTIONS about how they could be done differently, which Chris then took up and DID. Some of this was entirely amazing to me, like when Chris took a piano part and played bits of in different octaves, or with different bass-lines, or even did the whole thing completely differently. It takes me literally WEEKS to re-learn something like that, but here they were doing it as if it was PEASY. When we started all this last year one of the things I was most keen on was to NOT stick to the original arrangements of all the songs, and here we were re-doing them on the fly, it was GRATE!

Another delightful aspect for me was that it was ALL Piano tracks. At the previous session I had got myself a bit worked up emotionally because I had to do lots of Proper Singing, but this time I was just doing guide vocals so didn't have to worry about it at all. Also this was now a studio and a set-up I was familiar with so could relax into it a lot more.

Along with all the ROCK ACTION there was also some ADMIN talk about doing another gig, what other songs to do, and indeed the need to get together some ASSETS like pictures and blurbs etc. It's all starting to feel a bit more REAL now - when I got home I realised we now have TEN (10) songs underway (not including our version of Mull Of Kintyre for Joyzine) which is bordering on ENOUGH!

It was a pretty brilliant day, all in all. Hopefully we'll be back there in a month or two to do one more batch of songs and also to do some SINGING, and then we move onto ARRANGEMENTS and so forth. I can't wait to be able to play these songs to people, they really are sounding Quite Good!

The Promotions Of Doom

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:02:00 +0000

Next month I'm going to be doing Data and Doctor Doom in Leicester (Saturday 7 February, tickets HIGHLY AVAILABLE), which means it's time to start cranking up the old Promotional Machine again.

So far that means I have done a new version of the POSTER, shown below. As you can see, this is pretty much exactly the same as all the other posters what I've done for this show, just with different details in. I was INSPIRED to do this by the posters for PUB BANDS that I used to see around Leicester back in the early 90s, where the acts had run off LOADS of posters and just written the dates in in PEN. Back then it cost approx a million quid to get posters done, so that was Quite Sensible, and despite the fact that these days it is significantly less costly, even for glossy colour ones, it is a state on mind that I have not been able to shift!

This has been printed in both poster and leaflet form and sent to the marvellous Mr B Ennis, who is PROMOTING the show, which means that I must now turn my attention to other items, which as per is going to include various VIDEOS and also Banging On About It On Social Media. I've also got an idea that there's something in the fact that I'm doing a show about a Misunderstood Tyrant (V von Doom) in the vistor centre for another Misunderstood Tyrant (King Richard III) that I could do something with, but I'm as yet not sure what!

The main point of all this, to be honest, is to apologise in advance for the amount of SHOW SPAMMING that will be coming to my SOCIALS over the next few weeks. I will do my best to make it interesting in some way, honest!

Telly What I Have Watched

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:52:00 +0000

Last week I discussed books what I read in 2025, so today I thought I might as well do the OTHER big list of Cultural Phenomena What I Have Enjoyed and look at TELLY.

I have a LIST of what telly series I watch because here in the space future of 2026 there is so MUCH of it that it's hard to keep track, so in recent times i have done myself LISTS of what's available and then noted what I thought of them. This is particularly handy in these times of multiple media vendors because it means I can look at the shows I PLAN to watch and say "right, those are ALL on e.g. Paramount Plus so I will get that and watch THE LOT in the space of a month". This is immensely satisfying and also probably a strike at the very heart of capitalism, so you can thank me for it come the revolution.

Anyway, using this list we can divvy up my 2025 viewing into specific categories, starting with Stuff Everybody Was Watching. As I have said many times before, I LOVE the fact that these days I can usually watch whatever it is that Everybody Is Watching if I want to by simply getting a monthly subscription to a channel, as opposed to the distant past when you needed a satellite or, earlier still, when you needed NOT to live in the Anglia Television region. I watched all sorts of things like this, including "Anthology" (LOVELY), "Black Doves" (FUN) , "Mitchell & Webb" (also FUN) and "Only Murders In The Building" (increasingly silly but FUN too). The BEST of these shows that everybody was going on about though were "Andor", which was just flipping BRILLIANT and recently "Stranger Things", ESPECIALLY the Very Long Ending which was GRATE and everyone who says not can frankly keep it to themselves.

Next we have Sci-Fi Franchise TV Shows which can be divided up into DOCTOR WHO and STAR TREK. My Doctor Who list includes "The Rig", which wasn't particularly good but I kept watching because it felt like Peter Capaldi's Doctor was going to turn up soon, and "The Devil's Hour" which DID have him in it and was also SCARY. Actual Doctor Who was largely All Right I thought, although both the new series and also "The War Between the Land And The Sea" felt like they would have benefited from having endings that made ANY kind of sense.

Star Trek shows were overall BETTER I think - "Strange New Worlds" is just bloody lovely, and "Lower Decks" is the MOST STAR TREK EVER. "Section 31" was a load of old rubbish and so I only watched the first ten minutes of it, which I believe was for the best. Similarly I watched "Alien: Earth" which would have added a whole other Sci-Fi Franchise, except that I got through two episodes and realisd I was BORED so stopped.

Closely related to this categorty is SUPERHERO shows. COR, it is still amazing to me that such shows EVEN EXIST, and especially that most of them are DEAD GOOD. I must admit that I skipped to the end of "Ironheart" to see what happened because it was a bit boring, but this was more than made up for by "Marvel Zombies", which was FANTASTIC but seems to have passed most people by, "Daredevil" (FAB), "Peacemaker" (EMOTIONAL) and "Gen V", which was also ace, especially because I guessed the big twist about two episodes early. WELL DONE ME!

Other than that my viewing featured a couple of SUBTITLED SCI-FI shows because I am dead sophisticated. "The Eternaut" is basically "What if some Old Boys were in the apocalypse?" and was dead good and "THe Dark" is basically... er... actually, there is nothing basic about it and I needed an ACTUAL SHEET of all the characters to understand what was going on, but was still worth it.

There were plenty of other shows and films watched OBVS but I think that is more than enough to be going on with. It was a GRATE year of telly all round though, and I look forward to more SQUARE EYED activity to come. Telly is BRILLO!