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The Santa Claus comedian, mad crowd funding and a crime wave in Greenwich
My car in Greenwich last night – without its number plate The London Borough of Greenwich which rather grandly markets itself as Royal Greenwich has a good image… unless you live in their council...
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The artist who draws on comedians’ ideas + a mouthful of British swearing
Stand-up comedy + an occasional bit of art “What shall I call you in my blog?” I asked. “People know me as Richie Smallsmore,” said the person who is not actually Richie Smallsmore. The real person is...
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Corrupt cops, sado masochist whippings & how gangster Ronnie Kray described...
Micky Fawcett in London’s Mayfair yesterday Yesterday, I had tea at the May Fair Hotel in London with Micky Fawcett whose memoir Krayzy Days has, quite rightly, been called the “definitive” book about...
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Lewis Schaffer and the clenched fist of comedian Tim Renkow’s cerebral palsy
Lewis Schaffer and failed moustache last night “I can see why you are not a success,” comedian Lewis Schaffer told me,”but why am I not a success?” “Why am I not a success?” I asked. “Because you...
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Comedy club owner Martin Besserman: from sexually-frustrated middle-aged...
Martin Besserman last night: “They were bewildered” I thought Martin Besserman must have been running comedy clubs in London for the last 25 years. He seems to have been around forever. I was wrong, as...
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Remembrance Sunday with a fox, a hen & maybe a German in Highgate, London
King’s Cross station, London, with Remembrance Day poppy I was driving home late last night. Well, it was the early hours of this morning. And a fox ran across the road in front of me. Nothing...
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A £60 government cheque and “for the second year running, no-one got shot”
Was a German allowed to live in one of these houses in 1987? I am staying with my eternally-un-named friend’s friend Rudiger in Nuremberg. In the 1980s, he lived in London and remembers one particular...
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Topless female Iggy Pop + comedian Malcolm Hardee goes body surfing
So I was standing against a wall in London’s ICA arts venue last night when this man approached me and started talking. He told me he was a poet/musician/singer and that he used to perform under the...
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Comedy duo Ellis & Rose: beefing-up Jimmy Savile, looking for other work
Worth a punt? Saturday’s Big Comedy Conference in London On Saturday, I am on one of the panels at the Big Comedy Conference in London. Yesterday night, I got a message from a starting-out stand-up...
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Is it still illegal to celebrate Christmas in England? + Eating sloths in...
Phoenix, Arizona: a perfect place to fry an egg on the sidewalk Yesterday I had lunch with someone who has just come back from Phoenix, Arizona. “I read a while ago that it was the fastest-growing city...
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Vaginal knitting and seven new morals which I learnt in the last seven days
The last seven days have been a week of oddity and surrealism… Blackfriars station proudly proclaims solar power, but is cold LAST THURSDAY I am at the new Blackfriars station, which spans the River...
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The night comedian Malcolm Hardee met gangster Charlie Richardson
A new book to be published next month In London in the 1960s, the Richardsons - Charlie & Eddie – were rivals of the Kray Twins – Ronnie & Reggie. The Richardsons always kept a lower profile...
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What links MI5, the Mafia, the Playboy Club, Lord Lucan and Charles Saatchi?
Did this man emigrate to Africa without his wife? You meet people at parties. They tell you things. They may or may not be true. I met a man at a party who works at a London gaming club – watching what...
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What they actually said when anarchic comedian Malcolm Hardee died in 2005
Malcolm Hardee, 1950-2005 (photograph by Vincent Lewis) Today is the late comedian Malcolm Hardee’s birthday. He would have been 64. He drowned in Greenland Dock, by the River Thames in London on 31st...
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What “a little reception party” meant in the 1960s if you knew The Kray Twins
Micky Fawcett’s Krayzy Days memories In a blog last June, I mentioned that, in the ‘Revised and Updated’ 3rd Edition of John Pearson’s highly-respected book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and...
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Faking publicity quotes and why you don’t want to sit in a chair in Perth, Oz
In June last year, John Robertson and Jo Marsh got married in a chicken shed in Australia. I blogged about it at the time and there is a video on YouTube: John Robertson is a comedian and originator of...
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An actress/singer, not really a busker, who enjoys the bitty madness of life
One of the good things about writing a daily blog is that I have an excuse to randomly drink tea and talk to interesting people. Last week, I saw – and heard – a girl singing in Leicester Square tube...
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Old Jewish Jokes and why comedian Ivor Demina gets hate mail from Jews
I was partly brought up in Ilford in East London and went to school near Gants Hill which was, at the time, extremely Jewish. When there was a Jewish holiday, class numbers were so depleted that...
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So I was talking to ex-gangster Mad Frank Fraser behind the Blind Beggar pub...
Mad Frank interviewed at The Clink in 2002 Thirteen years ago today, in 2001, former gangster Mad Frank Fraser was being filmed for a documentary about his life. Filming took place at the Clink prison...
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Who sees comic Lewis Schaffer’s shows repeatedly? Well, one is a green woman.
Blanche Cameron and Lewis Schaffer this week “I would definitely say I’m green,” Blanche Cameron told me. “Like the Incredible Hulk?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “and, on dark nights or under stress,...
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