2024-03-28 11:30
David Hughes in the 1980s…
This all started, three blogs ago, as a piece about David Hughes, who worked as a doorman/cashier/DJ at the Le Strip club in Toronto from 1982 to 1994.&nbs&hell…Read More
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John Fleming's Blog - So It Goes | John Fleming’s Blog: Human Interest, Humour, Humor, Comedy Blog Featuring Eccentricity, Performance, Movies And Occasionally A Few Tears Blog
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John Fleming’s blog: human interest, humour, humor, comedy blog featuring eccentricity, performance, movies and occasionally a few tears
2024-03-26 09:24
This all started three days ago with a blog about a Canadian striptease club called Le Strip.
Life seemed so simple then.
Yesterday’s follow-up blog was titled: THE NOT-SO SIMPLE… Read More
2024-03-25 12:53
Yesterday’s blog involved reaction to a Comment on an October 2014 blog I posted about a Toronto striptease club called Le Strip.
Le Strip during its heyday in the 1980s…… Read More
2024-03-24 11:16
GenCraft AI’s idea of what this specific blog might be about…
One of the fascinating things about this blog, which I started in May 2010, is that people sometimes pick up on po… Read More
2024-03-22 18:34
Late Night With The Devil poster
I don’t normally post reviews on here, but I saw a preview of Late Night With The Devil earlier this week. It opens in UK and US cinemas today and i… Read More
2024-03-15 09:31
I tried inputting “Summer is icumin in” (and “Sumer is icumin in”) on an AI picture generator and got the reply:
“This prompt doesn’t abide b… Read More
2024-03-14 20:57
Last week, I blogged here about the fact that the Reuters news agency was investigating – for a second time – whether ‘President Obonjo’ (aka comedian Benj… Read More
2024-03-12 14:47
As my blog yesterday mentioned performer/artist The Iceman, I thought I would ask Gencraft AI to create an image of “a man made of ice attempting to melt himself with a flame-thrower&r&hell…Read More
2024-03-11 09:15
Robert Wringham is what Americans would call a hyphenate. He does all sorts of things. Basically he is a writer of humorous books; plus he has written two histories of alternative comedy;… Read More
2024-03-08 07:48
Today, Ariane X – aka Ariane Sherine, writer of multiple books, newspaper & magazine columns and music – has released a pop album entitled Better.
Why for her daughter? Why… Read More
2024-03-06 22:28
With all the misinformation swirling around, it is good to know that the Reuters news agency takes its journalistic responsibilities seriously when supplying worldwide news and media sources… Read More
2024-03-04 12:20
Njambi’s latest book/first novel…
Well, that is it in a nutshell… Comedian Njambi McGrath wrote an autobiography in 2020. (There’s a blog about it HERE.)
N… Read More
2024-02-22 23:25
I was at a book launch in London tonight. A comedian’s first novel. A new beginning, perhaps.
So inevitably – because real life is badly plotted – about five minutes… Read More
2024-02-09 19:55
I meant to write a blog earlier.
I meant to write a blog now.
Well, to transcribe a recorded chat to become a blog.
But I got distracted by ice cream.
And desserts.
And chocol… Read More
2024-01-21 23:17
I know nothing about medicine. I know nothing about medical matters, but…
Back in the mists of 1991, I got hit by a large – a very large – articulated truck. I wa… Read More
2024-01-11 19:43
(Photograph by NASA via Unsplash)
I gave PERPLEXITY AI and CHAT GPT the same instruction:
“Write a blog about AI in the style of So It Goes, John Fleming’s Blog.”… Read More
2024-01-07 20:23
(Photograph by @felipepelaquim via Unsplash)
As regular readers of this blog will know, I have an interest in Artificial Intelligence and its ability to mine facts and opinions&hell&hell…Read More
2024-01-05 09:45
Anthony Irvine aka The Iceman recently had a book Melt It! published about him – crafted by multi-tasker Robert Wringham. I posted a blog about it.
Now the book has inspired a forth… Read More
2023-12-29 12:12
Bernie Clifton rides Oswald the Ostrich
Yesterday’s blog was the first part of a chat with legendary English entertainer Bernie Clifton. It concludes here…
JOHN: You were sayi… Read More
2023-12-28 08:37
Legendary comedy entertainer and British national treasure Bernie Clifton has just published his showbiz autobiography Crackerjack to Vegas.
He has ridden his puppet costume creation Osw… Read More
2023-12-26 10:32
Yesterday’s blog was about traditional Christmas paraphernalia and I said I thought hanging wreaths to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ was a rather bizarre custom.
My eterna… Read More
2023-12-25 09:56
It is Christmas Day today. In the morning.
I was trying to figure out if there’s anything Christian about Christmas traditions – wreaths, trees, Santa Claus, cards &ndas&hellip…Read More
2023-12-19 12:42
(Image by Christian Dorn via Pixabay)
OfCom – the body which regulates broadcasting in the UK – has released an Ipsos Mori study it commissioned on Public Attitudes Towards Offe… Read More
2023-12-17 12:55
(Image by Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash)
I am knocking on a bit. I have managed to get old.
Not intentionally. I never wanted to live beyond the age of 18.
Genuinely.
And… Read More
2023-12-07 22:22
As regular readers of this blog will know, I am interested in the creative potential of AI. Yesterday, Google posted online a test of their ‘Gemini’ – an AI “capable… Read More
2023-12-04 16:05
Tony Allen with the cast of the film Plan B, including Becky Fury and Tony Green…
Following on from the last blog – a tribute to the late performer Tony Allen by his friend Bec… Read More
2023-12-02 13:29
Here, award-wining stand-up Becky Fury pays tribute to her long-time friend Tony Allen, who died yesterday morning, in London… (Photos from Becky’s collection)
Becky Fury with… Read More
2023-11-30 12:30
This not so much a real review; more a superficial and admittedly simplistic personal reaction. A bit of a chat.
A couple of days ago, I saw Ridley Scott’s new movie Napoleon with a… Read More
2023-11-29 17:33
I’ve just been sent a PR release plugging a touter of sports tickets and I know my readers are keen on swearing (even my devoted reader in Guatemala).
So, although I only rarely pass… Read More
2023-11-21 11:00
Earlier this month, my chum writer Ariane Sherine wrote a piece in the Metro newspaper which contained what she said was a “daft chat-up line”.
Her 12-year-old daughter to… Read More
2023-10-23 18:33
Irvine Welsh‘s Trainspotting was published exactly 30 years ago. It was longlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, but was apparently rejected for the shortlist after “offending the… Read More
2023-10-21 09:35
Julie was the female lead in Ferry Cross The Mersey in 1965…
Yesterday’s blog was a chat with actress/producer/manager Julie Samuel who has just published her autobiography W… Read More
2023-10-20 09:29
Julie starred in the movie Ferry Cross The Mersey with Gerry and The Pacemakers. (Photograph by George Elam/ANL/Shutterstock -1355671a)
Julie Samuel has been around a bit, done most everyth… Read More
2023-10-15 22:15
One day last week, I got what I think was a complaint.
Normally, when I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do is feed the birds in my back garden.
But, on that day, I was a b… Read More
2023-10-08 11:30
Following on from a blog I posted last week headed “Reports of My Death were Exaggerated” in which AI was saying untrue things about me, intermingled with true facts…
&he&hell…Read More
2023-10-04 08:19
(Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay)
I get quite a lot of PR mailouts of factual information sent to me and I almost never ever use them because they are basically just plugging some company… Read More
2023-10-01 20:12
Both ChatGPT and Claude AI recently reckoned that I was dead.
I thought I might check this again. So I asked Claude AI just now: “Is blogger John Fleming dead?”
I… Read More
2023-09-30 09:20
Do you watch the chin or the eyes? (Photo by Baylee Gramling via Unsplash)
Yesterday, I was attacked in the street by a 12-year-old.
Writer Ariane Sherine’s highly-intelligent… Read More
2023-09-21 20:26
(Image by Steve Johnson via UnSplash)
Artificial Intelligence is on the up. Just today, Press Gazette reports that Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert.com – which they claim is the… Read More
2023-09-20 08:09
Last year, comic/photographer Steve Best published Comedians, an extraordinarily classy collection of his photos of, you guessed it, comedians.
Now he is about to publish a sequ… Read More
2023-09-13 09:15
(Photograph by Tony Rojas via Unsplash)
SO IT GOES is not a ‘knocking blog’.
If I write about and chat to stand-up comedians or any other creatives then, by-and-large, the vari… Read More
2023-09-11 09:24
(Photograph by Glenn Carstens-Peters via UnSplash)
In my last couple of blogs, I asked AI to explain Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics. In both cases, I thin… Read More
2023-09-08 06:19
(Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay)
After I posted yesterday’s blog, in which I asked Artificial Intelligence to explain Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, my reader &lsqu&hell…Read More
2023-09-07 08:18
(Image of Albert Einstein by Brent Dalling, via UnSplash)
Occasionally, of late, I have asked AI to write me stuff.
In this case, I asked ChatGPT to “explain in 200 words Einstein&rs&hell…Read More
2023-09-05 07:45
Sculpture in Chonqing art gallery, 1985
Extracts from my diary…
Wednesday 22 May – Chonqing/Wanxian
As we floated down the Yangste, a bloated body passed us quickly by… Read More
2023-08-30 09:16
Far be it from me to say my blog is widely read – it could, after all, be merely coincidence – but, a few brief hours after I posted yesterday’s blog on comedy charact… Read More
2023-08-29 13:14
Presidents Trump and Obonjo in happier times…
Benjamin/Obonjo as himself this morning
Malcolm Hardee Award winning British comedian Benjamin Bankole Bello has been performing as f… Read More
2023-08-24 17:10
Leo Kitay sure knows how to flyer…
When I went up to the Edinburgh Fringe for one night and two days last weekend, the crowds seemed to have returned post-Covid, though the flyering… Read More
2023-08-22 10:14
(Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay)
The ten ‘best’ jokes at the Edinburgh Fringe (according to the Dave TV channel) were announced today. So I asked Claude.AI – a rival… Read More
2023-08-21 21:16
Crowds are back, but what about the comedy?
Last Friday afternoon I flew up from London to the Edinburgh Fringe and last Saturday evening I flew back. It was the cheapest way except for a N… Read More
2023-08-21 13:47
Computer-generated image: an even older me
Today, a chum of mine asked ChatGPT about John Fleming…
John Fleming (1947-2019) was a British blogger, comedy promoter, and talent scout… Read More
2023-08-14 08:23
Last week, I blogged about the death of multi-talented British eccentric Bob Flag.
In the summer of 1981, he was performing on stage off-West End in London as part of The Mad Show… Read More
2023-08-13 11:28
Later today, the esteemed online publication Fringe Review (currently reporting on and reviewing shows at the Edinburgh Fringe) is hosting a Zoom meeting titled Using AI to Write a Convinc… Read More
2023-08-09 22:42
In the summer of 1981, Malcolm Hardee and The Greatest Show on Legs were appearing in London slightly off-West End (at the Bloomsbury Theatre) in The Mad Show – a collection of kinda… Read More
2023-08-06 10:49
Christopher Nolan
As of yesterday, I have given up on Christopher Nolan movies. Seriously.
Yesterday I sat through his movie Oppenheimer – exactly three messy hours of my life… Read More
2023-08-04 06:29
Becky Fury at Soho Theatre last week…
Last week, Becky Fury organised a celebratory ‘living wake’ – a ‘woke wake’ – for her ‘mentor&rsq&hell…Read More
2023-08-02 08:02
This year’s Edinburgh Fringe, in effect, starts today and so does Juliette Burton’s new show there.
I chatted with her before she went up to Scotland.
JOHN: What di… Read More
2023-07-25 10:58
Three weeks ago, I wrote a blog about famed performance act The Iceman (aka AIM aka Anthony Irvine) and his then-upcoming art show PEG IT! at Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg&rsqu&hell…Read More
2023-07-06 11:13
Britain’s NHS was 75 years old yesterday. That is even older than I am. And dementia has now arrived…
…for the NHS.
I am only slightly behind, I fear…
In… Read More
2023-07-04 13:19
AIM, the artist formerly known as The Iceman
What is The Iceman? Who is he?
Comedian Stewart Lee describes him as “a blank canvas. You project your own ideas onto him: fun, sin… Read More
2023-06-20 09:09
(Photograph by optimusreign via Twitter)
Yesterday, Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Vancouver correspondent, sent me a newspaper article about a psychopathic deer stalking local pe… Read More
2023-06-19 16:30
(Image by Maximalfocus via UnSplash)
Artificial Intelligence has no morals, no thoughts of its own, no beliefs of its own.
So I asked ChatGPT to write a 200-word political manifesto for ea… Read More
2023-06-04 11:45
(Image by Geralt, via Pixabay)
Looking at the answers, I would say Russia currently has a severe problem – but that, of course, is obvious without asking ChatGPT… AI has… Read More
2023-06-03 09:56
(image by Yogendra Singh via UnSplash)
Cricket is basically a non-contact sport in which a school-gang-sized number of men stand around well-distanced from each other dressed in white doing… Read More
2023-05-27 21:55
(Image by Andre de Santis, via UnSplash)
I asked ChatGPT to write a Shakespearean sonnet about a stand-up comedian.
This was the result:
In laughter’s realm, where jesters weave their… Read More
2023-05-26 16:17
The BBC ignored the slight visual differences between John Ward (left) and Tina Turner… (Photograph of Tina Turner by Philip Spittle via Wikipedia)
Singer Tina Turner died this week… Read More
2023-04-20 21:44
I bought some salmon fillets today…
On the pack was a single, but important, warning:
“Allergy Advice: Contains Fish”… Read More
2023-03-31 14:22
In my last blog, a man with no settled name talked about his life in music, comedy and surrealism. One of his names was/is Wavis O’Shave and he became/remains a cult figure from his… Read More
2023-03-30 15:41
So I have been talking to a man whose real name I do not know. He performed as Wavis O’Shave on the 1980s Channel 4 TV music series The Tube, often in bizarre comedy sketch… Read More
2023-03-25 15:18
(Photos by Rock Staar and Harrison Fitts via UnSplash)
Today I was asked by two single girls whether they should go on holiday next week to Spain or to Jamaica. The price is about the sam… Read More
2023-03-18 13:47
(Image by Element5 Digital via Pexels)
So, initially, I asked ChatGPT AI to write me a 250 word political manifesto on the benefits of cannibalism. Why not?
It came up with this answer:
I… Read More
2023-03-17 20:27
(Image by Sandro Gonzalez via UnSplash)
A chum of mine is an Old Age Pensioner.
Or a Senior Citizen, if you are American or Woke.
Every year in April, UK pensions rise and you… Read More
2023-03-11 10:58
A friend of mine lives in the South of England.
I got this message from her earlier in the week…
Three-hour power cut here yesterday – no internet, no mobile phone, no t… Read More
2023-03-04 12:01
My opinion of the Britain’s National Health Service, from experience, is that, like all large bureaucracies, it is an utter, incompetent mess.
But my opinion of doctors and nurses… Read More
2023-02-28 22:09
(Picture by Possessed Photography via UnSplash)
Following up my previous blog, in which ChatGPT decided that I had died twice – in 2019 and then again in 2020 – I decided to see… Read More
2023-02-27 19:26
(Drawing of John Fleming (1995-2022) by Janet Bettesworth)
As my eternally un-named friend today took an interest in the much-publicised AI chatbot ChatGPT, I asked it a question:
It was… Read More
2023-02-26 14:44
(Photo by Freddy Kearney via UnSplash)
I was once peripherally involved in someone else’s non-fiction book – to repeat… This was a factual, non-fiction book.
The w… Read More
2023-02-25 11:52
(Photo from The Prisoner episode 4: Free For All)
About a month ago, Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward got in touch with me about cult TV series The Prisoner. He thought h… Read More
2023-02-24 16:23
The truth is flexible.
For example, if you perform one show of the same name every month for a couple of years in London’s West End (which can be said to cover quite a lar… Read More
2023-02-23 09:22
The Iceman with ice in a cup and rubber duck in hand at London’s South Bank Arts Centre…
Occasionally, The Iceman turns up in my blog.
As my avid reader in Guatemala will kno… Read More
2023-02-13 10:16
James Harris at Soho Theatre with his novel
Comedian James Harris has written a novel titled Midlands.
So I talked to him...
JOHN: How long have you been doing stand-up?
JAME… Read More
2023-02-07 12:55
Apparently this blog has been chosen or voted – who knows? – on 31st January this year, as the 6th best UK Satire Blog on the planet “ranked by traffic, social media… Read More
2023-02-06 15:11
This report appeared in the Daily Telegraph, London, on 1st February 2023:
So I asked Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent, based in Vancouver, about the effect… Read More
2023-01-27 08:51
Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward has got in touch with me about the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan…
John Ward wrote:
Patric… Read More
2023-01-04 19:41
From Channel 46 News today: Read More
2023-01-03 22:26
News reaches me in London from far-off Europe that, if you are ever hungry in Brussels, there are multiple options…
The official Brussels travel website has one suggestion… an… Read More
2022-12-25 19:37
My eternally-un-named friend has a secret addiction
In the run-up to Christmas, my eternally un-named friend has been endlessly watching ‘Christmas movies’.
Not the big-budget… Read More
2022-12-15 13:32
A week ago, I posted a blog was about mad inventor and Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards designer John Ward’s interest in guns.
(John Ward would like it pointed out he is not actuall… Read More
2022-12-14 11:56
I get sent PR releases.
What can I say?
Yesterday, I received this one, which I print without comment. I have no words and I am not entirely sure if the final word is a typo or not… Read More
2022-12-08 16:57
John Ward interviewed by a Russian TV reporter (don’t ask)
Mad inventor and Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward used to be a member of a local shooting club. It was local … Read More
2022-11-28 10:43
I received this recent anecdote from John Ward, designer of the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards.
It was a much normal day as such – weather atrocious outside – so I made myself b… Read More
2022-11-21 15:35
As a teenager, one of the reasons I was interested in writing was George Orwell.
I think I read Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was around 12 years old and later I read his essays and b… Read More
2022-11-18 08:31
I first met Katsura Sunshine back in 2017. He lives in Japan, the US and Canada and currently performs an ongoing monthly rakugo (Japanese storytelling) show at the Leicest… Read More
2022-11-03 20:05
John Ward in a photograph where it is probably best if you supply your own caption…
I first worked with mad inventor John Ward – designer of the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards &n&hell…Read More
2022-10-30 09:21
Last month, I was interviewed by Dr Maria Kempinska, founder of the Jongleurs comedy club circuit, who was awarded an MBE for her contribution to British comedy. She is now a psychotherapist… Read More
2022-10-26 08:22
Yesterday, mad inventor John Ward, who designed and makes the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards for the annual Edinburgh Fringe, sent me this email:
The other week in my Ward’s World colum… Read More
2022-10-25 10:00
John Ryan (left) and Darren Hasler-Stott
Yesterday’s blog was a chat about the new children’s book Tag Tinsel – A Mission Most Fowl by a non-existent author, Ryan Has… Read More
2022-10-24 07:59
“Mankind has gone. There is now a fierce Duck Army that is determined to take over the world…”
That’s the pitch for a new children’s book Tag Tinsel &nd&hell…Read More
2022-10-14 07:03
In the last couple of blogs, I’ve chatted to Colin Copperfield about what happened backstage on Jesus Christ Superstar and about his East End upbringing – His sizzlin… Read More
2022-10-13 08:21
In yesterday’s blog, actor, dancer, singer and songwriter Colin Copperfield talked about his time performing in London’s West End in Jesus Christ Superstar.
He start… Read More
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