Yesterday, I read Jon Kudlick’s article on the Chortle comedy website explaining why he was quitting his life as a stand-up comic after four years.
“Basically,” he says, “stand-up is not compatible with being married and having a family to support. And the vast majority of the comics I’ve met on the professional circuit are divorced or single.”
My experience of comedians also brings me to he conclusion that stand-up is not ideally compatible with a relationship because most comedians are barking mad and could provide a good psychiatric researcher with original material for a period at least as long as Ken Dodd’s career.
An hour after reading Jon Kudlick’s piece, an unsolicited e-mail plopped into my InBox from DoingSomething.co.uk
How this new dating site got my address or why is a mystery to me. But they offered “a three month trial period” if I used the code “haha” when I joined. Their selling line was: “Lots of comedy happenings in the next few months in London. You could do a lot worse than taking someone new to some comedy…” and they plugged five upcoming comedy events including Dave Gorman’s Screen Guild at Hoxton Hall, one of the current Heroes of Alternative Comedy gigs organised by Bob Slayer and – just generally – the Soho Theatre.
If these are paid-for ads, they could be on to a winner – half dating site/half Time Out. And, given Jon Kudlick’s assertion that most comedians are not in a steady relationship, targeting anyone connected with the comedy world seems a shrewd marketing idea.
Yes, I did sign up for the site, partly because I am a Scot brought up among Jews and it was free, partly because I wanted to see what was on the site and partly because I can also see three months blogging potential in it.
If you look like Katharine Ross in The Graduate or Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid – and you win the lottery – do get in touch.
It must be bizarrely difficult to start a dating site from scratch and they seem to be offering free three-month trials to all and sundry. There seem to be plenty of twentysomethings on it, but people in that age range barely need a dating site. In my age range (well, the one I put in to test it out) there was just one single woman in the whole of the UK suitable for me. And I put in anyone anywhere. She is interested in baking. That’s a start. Maybe not.
I may stay on the site for three months and see what happens. If you scour the site for me, THIS what my profile picture looks like.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 
Haaaa! – I do so like your style! – the photo will do wonders for hair gel.. a friend of mine gets all his ‘companionship’ via such sites and he swears by it – and at it, at times – but I advised him that I will willingly buy a set of spanners off the Internet, but people?…nar!. Oddly, I too had a similar ‘offer’ the other week and on looking through the ‘stock available’ realised that some emblamers are plying their trade in other directions other than on their daily work customers before going into wooden overcoats, but the discriptions are nothing short of Mills ‘n Swoon stuff – “I have been told I have a great sense of humour” is a popular line used by many and judging from their attached photo/s, they may well be right there – another belter is “I like to sit down by a blazing wine glass with a cold log fire in my hand..” or thereabouts – once again, Mills ‘n Swoon stuff – oh but enough of this! – I must away to a dark room to lay down methinks..