thejohnfleming

[thejohnfleming]

I thought is was only the Chinese who had wise sayings... until yesterday

I thought is was only the Chinese who had wise sayings. I was wrong. Yesterday I had tea in London with someone who told me of an old Italian saying: Fidarsi è bene ma non fidarsi è meglio This translates as: Trusting is good, but not trusting is better. Wise words indeed. I asked GenCraft AI to illustrate this and the resultant image was: The moral to this is clearly that we can not yet…

[thejohnfleming]

"The doctor was dressed as a cowboy and... fireworks were exploding..."

It’s been quite a while since I/we/you have heard from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent – Anna Smith in Vancouver. Now she has sent a slightly belated update on what happened to her over Halloween… Ironically Anna used to perform, several moons ago, as ‘Nurse Annie’… and you have to be aware that Anna lives by a forever interesting alleyway in Vancouver… Now read on… ‘Nurse Annie’…

[thejohnfleming]

Janey Godley. The most creative person I ever met. A lovely human being. RIP.

Janey Godley, who died this morning, was without any doubt at all the most all-round creative person I ever met in my life. Live performance, books, articles, blogs, online videos; there was nothing she could not turn her mind and talent to and succeed. And did I mention kind and warm-hearted? She was very kind and very warm-hearted. And very very very funny. A sharp, intelligent, sensitive and…

[thejohnfleming]

Becky Fury's show on British-ish-ness

WARNING! Asterisked swear words appear in this piece! Comic Becky Fury and I met for a chat in a coffee shop in a London church called Sacred Grounds. The coffee shop not the church…  JOHN: Your Edinburgh Fringe show this year sounded like it was a success. BECKY:  It was, but I’ll treat it as a Work in Progress.  JOHN: What was it called? Is the inclusion of C*nt good for effective…

[thejohnfleming]

RIP comic Gareth Ellis 1990-2024 (Part 2)

Yesterday’s blog was the first in a two-parter in which Rich Rose remembered his comedy double-act partner Gareth Ellis (above) who died, aged 34, in May this year. Now read on… In 2014, we were nominated for best alternative act at the London Cabaret Awards. The ceremony took place at Café de Paris in Leicester Square. Deciding we needed to look the part, we ditched the shabby Waiting for Godot…

[thejohnfleming]

John Dowie on Victoria Wood, the Mona Lisa, a banana and his new book

John Dowie (Photograph by Steve Ullathorne) This is the second and final part of a chat I had with the unique British performer John Dowie. (The first part is HERE.) We were supposed to be plugging his latest book Before I Go. But I just like chatting randomly with creative people. Mea culpa. ME: There’s a little-known 2003 anthology called Sit Down Comedy (put together by Malcolm Hardee and…

[thejohnfleming]

Before I Go: John Dowie has thoughts on both Kens Dodd and Campbell...

John Dowie has a new book out entitled Before I Go… We chatted via FaceTime… John Dowie (Photo by Steve Ullathorne) ME: Wikipedia calls you a “humourist” and says that, among other things, you are an “arthouse proto-alternative” comedian whose work mixes parody, fantasy, impersonations and taboo topics. What is an “arthouse proto-alternative” comedian? JOHN D: No idea.  ME: Am I allowed to…

[thejohnfleming]

Lebanon and Beirut back in 1993/1994: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

A Beirut street in December 1993 I’m writing this a few hours after Iran attacked Israel with a reported 180 missiles. so the recent ‘unpleasantness’ in Lebanon may have already turned into Yesterday’s News. But there may be a nostalgic interest of some diary entries I wrote about visiting Beirut and Lebanon around 30 years ago… The Syrian Army was still in Beirut. I posted these extracts as…

[thejohnfleming]

The final performance by The Iceman shows the impermanence of existence

Last night, I witnessed what was allegedly the last ever performance by legendary act The Iceman. It had not been billed in advance as his final performance, but there was a sense of anticipation before the show started. It was totally sold-out well in advance with, it seemed, loads of audience members who had never see The Iceman perform before but only knew of him as a misty legend, a…

[thejohnfleming]

Jeremy Murphy - The Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie years...

Jeremy – the highly-esteemed New York PR man Yesterday’s blog was about outrageous US PR man Jeremy Murphy’s new book: Too Good to Fact Check: Flying the Skies with Stars, Scotch, and Scandal (Mostly Mine). Now read on… JOHN: Harrison Ford is mentioned in the book. Are you sure you really want to annoy Harrison Ford? JEREMY: Oh, he was the most boring movie star I’ve ever met! JOHN: Do you…

[thejohnfleming]

Jeremy Murphy - The New York PR man too outrageous to be fact-checked

Jeremy Murphy: the owner of “a respected US PR agency”. But does he want to be respected? In this blog two years ago, back in June 2022, I chatted to American PR man Jeremy Murphy about his book F*ck Off, Chloe: Surviving the OMGs! and FMLs! in Your Media Career. Now he has another book out (published tomorrow): Too Good to Fact Check: Flying the Skies with Stars, Scotch, and Scandal (Mostly…

[thejohnfleming]

Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (3rd of 3)

In the last two blogs, British singer Dave Dawson has been talking about his new autobiographical book Pop Idle. Now read on… JOHN: You mentioned you admired the Cardiacs, I’ve never heard of them. DAVE: Cardiacs are this English, punk rock, progressive rock hybrid band that formed in 1977. And they’ve influenced a wealth of musicians. They’re a musicians’ musicians band, but they never made it…

[thejohnfleming]

Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (2nd of 3)

Dave Dawson with his latest book Pop Idle In yesterday’s blog, Dave Dawson talked about how an English National Opera star trained him, he turned down potential TV fame and he sang in pubs, clubs, restaurants etc and had a jam-packed work diary… JOHN: You worked with strippers… DAVE: Yes. Male strippers. I was pretty good looking in those days. I was working, doing golf clubs, doing the crooning…

[thejohnfleming]

Dave Dawson: 30 years on the road as a full-time professional singer (1st of 3)

Dave has a book out titled: POP IDLE: 30 Years on the Road as a Professional Singer. He performs 200-250 shows every year. We had trouble arranging a chat because he was working every day… JOHN: You have more than one name. Who are you? Dave Philpott, Derek Philpott, Dave Dawson, Diggy Dawson, Dave D music… Who are you really? And why Diggy Dawson?  DAVE: Diggy Dawson? I don’t know. It’s just a…

[thejohnfleming]

The people perils of making the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards...

Increasingly prestigious Ward of the Awards The Edinburgh Fringe officially starts tomorrow, though shows often have a tendency to start yesterday. Bizarre and slightly surreal is normal. Talking of which, the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards are designed and handmade by eccentric inventor and designer  John Ward. Here he explains a little incident which happened to him this week… It’s that time of…

[thejohnfleming]

For a second year, The Iceman / AIM's to make an exhibition of himself...

Cult UK performance artist/comedy icon The Iceman aka ‘real’ artist AIM aka Anthony Irvine had an art exhibition for a whole month in Dorset last year. It turned out to be popular – a shock to everyone, as the basis of The Iceman’s act is failure… mainly failing to melt a block of ice using increasingly desperate methods. So unexpectedly popular was last year’s extravaganza in rural Dorset that…

[thejohnfleming]

Memories of hard toilet paper, gifts of Playboy magazine and metal cigar tubes

Gencraft AI’s 2024 idea of the 1960s … Yesterday, I was talking to a long-time acquaintance – female – about how times have changed in our lifetimes. It started when she asked me: “Do you remember hard toilet paper?” “Yes,” I replied. “That’s weird. I was thinking about hard toilet paper the other day. It was like greaseproof paper. Maybe it WAS greaseproof paper. It was in all the public…