How to find the best experts and eccentrics for television shows…

(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 think the clearest explanation was when I asked the AI to pretend it/they were an 8-year-old child.

This links up to the famous acronym KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.

It also reminds me of a chat I had when I was a researcher on programmes at London Weekend Television.

Another researcher and I had a casual chat about the sort of people we might be looking for on various programmes. We agreed, I think, on a couple of vague principles which might seem counter-intuitive.

The first was how to get a person who could explain a complex idea in a way that could be understood by the general viewer. Not dumbing-down in any way. Just being clear and enthusing the viewer.

We agreed that the person you did NOT necessarily want was an expert. 

You did not want someone who had spent the last 30 or 40 years totally immersed in a subject to the exclusion of almost everything else. They knew too much. Their brains were clogged up with details.

What you ideally wanted was not an expert but an enthusiast – a fan. 

The expert would long ago have lost the single original kernel of the enthusiasm which had started them on their long road to expertise.

What you wanted was someone who was still gloriously enthusiastic, who retained that original intellectual vigour, who wanted to make others as enthusiastic in the subject as they were and still are. They knew the key points which simply – KISS KISS – would reveal the bases of the subject.

The other type of person we talked about finding was a true eccentric.

The sort of person you wanted to find was NOT the life-and- soul of the party who made all the lads and lasses laugh down the local pub. Counter-intuitively, you do not want people who seem extrovert. Jack the Lad ‘extroverts’ just want attention; they have no depth of eccentricity.

Rather than an ‘extrovert’, you want to find an ‘introvert’ with rare or unique angles of genuine thought. 

If you can find the right introvert and make them confident enough to follow their creative or mental tendencies, they will let rip and you will get real originality of thought which, really, is what is meant when you talk of someone being ‘eccentric’.

The perfect example of this was when I handled a regular item called ‘Talented Teachers’ on the anarchic children’s show Tiswas (an ATV, then a Central ITV, production).

I was told about Mr Wickers, a teacher who could roller-skate while simultaneously playing the harmonica AND the spoons. I talked to him and he was a lovely, quiet-spoken man who DID NOT have any great ambition to do this on national television. But I persuaded him.

Obviously, I had seen him perform the act to ensure he really could roller-skate while simultaneously playing the harmonica and spoons.

On the day of the live show, he turned up with his roller-skates, harmonica and two spoons.

But he also turned up wearing a bright yellow oilskin fisherman’s coat, a bright yellow oilskin sou’wester hat and a life-sized seagull which he had himself crafted out of papier-mâché. 

The papier-mâché seagull sat on his bright yellow oilskin shoulder by his bright yellow sou’wester hat while Mr Wickers roller-skated round the studio set playing his harmonica and clack-clacking his two spoons together.

Mr Wickers was – and I say this with vast admiration – a true eccentric but quiet and not in any way a so-called extrovert.

The epitome of a certain type of Englishman. (I say that as a born Scot.)

Two notable larger-than-life talents at the re-born Edinburgh Fringe this year

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 seemed a bit uninspired.

Mostly, the flyerers were just standing around, one arm outstretched, offering the paper leaflets with no real enthusiasm and often no sales pitch. 

The exception was energetic, larger-than-life Leo Kitay who, in Bristo Square, would leap out, eyes popping, mouth open, hand outstretched, leg often in mid-air to passers-by, plugging his show How To Become Ridiculously Well-Read (in About 50 Minutes).

There was no time for me to see his show on my flying visit but, if there had been, I would have gone out-of-my-way to see it. No greater praise can there be at the Fringe. Leo is one to watch. Even if only to avoid collisions. He claimed to be at University College, Oxford, and to run a student theatre company in Oxford called Cops & Robbers.

Only saying.

Walter at the entrance to his Venue 710 …

One other visually over-the-top performer I HAD pre-arranged to see for a chat was American performer Walter Michael DeForest better known, perhaps, as ‘that man who does the van Gogh shows’.

A Fringe regular since 2016, he has been performing a non-van-Gogh stage show in the New Town this year AND has been running an open-door Street Art Gallery at the temporary flat he has in the Old Town. He created it as an unofficial ‘Fringe Venue 710’.

“That works great for me,” he explained, “because 710 is big in my story that I’m telling about squatting and escaping – 7 out 10 suicides are men.”

We met at the flat/gallery he has for the duration of the Fringe.

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JOHN: Have you had interesting people wandering in here?

WALTER: Yes. One guy came in and he was just wandering round listening to people. I have a Visitors’ Book. He wrote in it: “Listening is a super-power. It is the only super-power we all possess. It is a super-power because it validates the person you are listening to.” So, yeah, interesting people come in here.

JOHN: And you are also doing a show at the PBH Free Fringe, called…

Walter wearing a promotional show cap

WALTER: The Best Worst Place You Can Be. It’s the first time I haven’t done my van Gogh show here, although I did do a private performance of it the other day here in The Street Art Gallery – £40 a ticket – one person. 

JOHN: You look like van Gogh but, really, to do a Van Gogh show properly, you should chop one of your ears off, shouldn’t you? You have to suffer for your art.

WALTER: I have suffered for my art. The show I’m doing – The Best Worst Place You Can Be – is what happened in the last year when I was escaping domestic violence here in Edinburgh.

Last Fringe I got locked out of my house and I had to sleep in the streets while I was performing and the violence got too much for me. I talk about this in my show but it’s not really about blame or vilifying anybody, just that this happens and, if you’re ever in a relationship where you thought you had to record the conversations just because you don’t understand and everything is confusing, you… Confusion is a big part of it and your brain shrinks from being with a toxic person and you’re always… Cortisone comes into your body at high rates and yes… it took me seven months to start creating again. I was living on the streets in London and I was squatting at the TAA (Temporary Autonomous Art).

‘The jacket’: a multicoloured dream coat…

That’s where ‘the jacket’ started. Wherever I go with this jacket, it’s like a super-power jacket because every time someone signs it they’re smiling. It’s a jacket of smiles. These are all legends of the graffiti world and the underground world. Punk Kaf: she signed it.

Even though I was in a bad place, I wasn’t with bad people. No-one was manipulating me or wanted anything from me. I was going from squat to squat – and then I got a house in January this year.

My friend – who gave me this jacket – went to Australia, so I had a place that was just quiet and I started making phone calls. That’s a labyrinth too. You make that phone call then that phone call then that phone call.

(right to left) 710… Goggles… and Form paintings…

Slowly I started to create and I started creating the 7:10 series of pictures – 7 out of 10 suicides are men. I also met the guys who do Just Stop Oil… and 710 is OIL upside-down.

After the 710 pictures, I did the Goggles, which is a percentage. 

And then the Goggles just turned into the Form.

JOHN: The Form?

WALTER: The form of a skeleton.

JOHN: And you ended up living in the van Gogh House at Colfontaine in Belgium. How did that happen?

WALTER: In 2015 I was doing a show on the New York Fringe called Van Gogh Fuck Yourself (van Gogh is pronounced Van Go in American English).

JOHN: (LAUGHS) Doesn’t translate into British English!

Walter/van Gogh in among the coal mines

WALTER: And I read an article in the Washington Post about walking van Gogh’s path in the Borinage where Vincent was a preacher in the coal mines. Then in 2019, we drove from London to the Borinage in a car painted with sunflowers and then we drove to Arles and so I had connections there and then in 2020 I come to the UK and I lived here 2020-2022. 

Covid happened and everything got locked down in the UK and I didn’t travel at all until this year – 2023.

JOHN: How did living in the van Gogh house in Belgium come about?

WALTER: In 1924, they put a plaque on the house, but it was dilapidated. It was falling apart until 2015, when Mons became the European Capital of Culture for UNESCO. I was the first one to be able to live in the house for 30 days as the ‘artist in residence’. 

Walter at the Maison Van Gogh

JOHN: Did you have to paint copies of van Gogh paintings or something?

WALTER: No. But I did my show in local schools for the kids. I don’t really copy van Gogh at all other than tap into his spirit when I do the stage show.

JOHN: His spirit?

WALTER: Van Gogh’s favourite colour was yellow. When Vincent talked about yellow, he said There is no yellow without the blue and without the orange. Your good friends bring out the best in you. This is what the colours do. It was a workshop in colours and friendship and being around positive people. That was a big lesson for me over the last year as well. Being with positive people really helps.

Someone let me borrow their electric bike and I was riding around the village with flowers and everyone was like “Monsieur van Gogh!” and waving to me and, if I was at the shop, the guy would give me some extra food.

JOHN: How’s the non-van-Gogh stage show going at the Fringe this year?

WALTER: In Edinburgh, if I walk down the street, everybody knows me as van Gogh but, in The Best Worst Place You Can Be, I decided to talk about what happened to me in the last year. With this show, it’s all the way down in the New Town so it’s a bit far off centre. I had six shows where nobody came, but it didn’t bother me. I also set up the gallery here in the Old Town, so I can sit and relax and have a safe space.

At the Fringe, the great thing is I’m surrounded by artists and I feel like I’m home again. You’re always meeting people from around the world and making friends for life. People who choose to live in this apartment, who choose to live with van Gogh are up for an adventure and a different way of seeing the Fringe.

Walter points to a Maison Van Gogh leaflet in his Edinburgh Fringe apartment

JOHN: What are you doing when the Fringe and your stay in this flat finishes at the end of August?

WALTER: I’ll be trying to find another place to live. I think I’m going back to Belgium for a festival in September. Ghent. The people are wonderful. They were really wonderful to me and kind.

But I want to stay here in the UK. I’ve got a Leave To Remain visa. I’m trying to set up a home in Edinburgh because I want to stay here for my daughter.

I’m definitely going to do something because I’ve been through hell and back.

The death of multi-talented British comedy eccentric Bob Flag in Japan

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 eccentric speciality acts. 

These included Anthony Irvine (later called The Iceman) who, at that point in his career, did an act where he crawled across the stage wearing a yellow souwester cape and Wellington boots, got up a ladder, put a chain with a hook on it between the two parts of the stepladder and picked up a bag. He then took a toothbrush out of the bag, cleaned his teeth, got down the steps and crawled off stage again. This took between 10 and 20 minutes depending on audience response. 

It was a golden era of bizarre genre-crossing speciality acts.

Also on the show was musician/ performer/ actor/ comic Bob Flag (aka Bob Evans) with an odd act involving a saxophone. He had played with musicians like David Bowie, Ken Campbell, Thunderclap Newman and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

In The Mad Show, he came on stage several times dressed in various Army regalia for mostly unfathomable reasons.

Three years later, in 1984, Bob Flag was the face of Big Brother in the movie version of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

His other film roles included the ever-so slightly odd 1986 TV movie The Madness Museum, which also included comic performers Ken Campbell & Marcel Steiner, musical people Den Hegarty & Edward Tudor-Pole and the admirable David Rappaport. All of whom, I think, appeared on children’s TV series Tiswas during my time there.

In 1989, Bob Flag appeared in the  movie Cold Light of Day. He played the central character based on notorious serial killer Dennis Nielsen. Comedian Eugene Cheese played Bob’s father in the film.

Uncategorisable performer Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein told me yesterday: “I think Bob got Eugene the part – I turned down ‘third rent boy’”.

In 1990, Bob and his wife artist Takae Horton took part in The Flip Show, the pilot for a Gong Show rip-off which Malcolm Hardee and I produced for Noel Gay Television/BSB. Their act was fairly indescribable and may eventually see the light of day on YouTube.

Yesterday, though, I heard from the above-mentioned uncategorisable Tony Green aka Sir Gideon Vein.

He wrote…

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I received an e-mail from Takae Horton a little before 3.00am this morning informing me that her beloved husband Bob Flag had passed away on July 31st. She contacted me from Japan where it is eight hours ahead. Takae was the talented artist wife of the Bob in question.

I last heard from Bob in April this year and was about to send him an e-mail regarding Tony Allen’s recent pre-wake. 

Bob, was 92 in June, had been far from well and had been living in Japan for around the last 15 years. Takae is Japanese and together they set up The Marufuku Gallery in a small village high up in the mountains of Okayama Province – for them a dream come true.

I first met Bob back in 1980 or 1981 along with John Hegley – when he and I were doing a double act. At that time, Bob was running his ‘totally off the wall’ Krisis Kabaret. I recognised Bob as a ‘fellow traveller’ and we remained friends from that time onward. Bob always put 150% into everything he did.

If you wanted something different you were sure to find it in Krisis Kabaret. Comic lunacy/inspired madness on a high level. Refreshingly, it was far removed from the school of ‘look at me aren’t I clever and just possibly funny too?’ 

Bob was a veteran even then.

He had turned down an offer to get involved with Tony Allen‘s original Alternative Cabaret. Tony needed acts who had sets of a known duration then – but Bob always hated repeating himself. Spontaneity was virtually his middle name. An early manifestation was The Riot Squad back in the early 1960s showcasing Bob’s (he was Bob Evans then) talent as a saxophonist with David Bowie on vocals. Bowie’s onetime wife Angie was later to become involved with Bob’s ‘Krisis Kabaret’. (Do, if you can, get a copy of Bob’s lavishly illustrated autobiography Drumshtick published 2017 – although I fear this will not be easy)

Bob was also one of the comics who appeared on the opening night of Peter Rosengard’s infamous original (London) Comedy Store featuring Alexei Sayle and the (dreaded) gong in 1979. He garnered much praise for stealing the show. 

Regrettably, Bob was never going to pave a career as an alternative comic. The fact that he was a fair bit older than everyone else at the time didn’t really come into it. It just wasn’t what he wanted – he was always a maverick and would always go his own way. 

The ‘trouble’ with Bob as far as I was concerned was that he had just far too many arrows to his bow. He was a talented all-rounder and he wasn’t going to concentrate in any one area. 

He was a talented sax player – his preference was for alto, though I thought he was much better on tenor. Bob was proficient on many instruments.

Among other things, he was a hyper-polyglot – he learned his wife’s language pretty early – no easy feat. 

He was incredibly quick at everything he did. Sometimes I thought if he hadn’t been so quick he would have got the kudos he deserved – but I don’t think that worried him too much.

I fondly remember him inviting me to dinner many years ago in his immensely cluttered King’s Cross flat.

“But Bob,” I said, “there’s nowhere to sit!”

“Of course, there is!” he replied.

And …yes… as if by magic (Bob could often be magical) he pulls out a table from somewhere and in no time there’s a bottle of wine, plates of well- cooked food and seating for the three of us. 

He could be a harsh heckler, though.

On one occasion, he heckled Norby West (formerly The Brixton Bank Manager): “How come you have so much confidence and so little talent?” (Norby was being deliberately naff).

He then preceded to drag Norby off the stage. 

Even I thought it was part of the act. But it wasn’t.

Bob could also be humble, though, and was not above apologising. 

Many years later, Norby told me Bob had contacted him regretting his actions that night. Norby had forgiven him years before anyway. 

I would book Bob on a number of occasions over the years (and it was likewise). He was always totally dependable and an absolute pleasure to have on board. He will be sadly missed and my heart goes out to Takae.

Bob really was a rare one-off and I know this has been said about departed people countless times before but I have not the slightest hesitation in saying it about Bob Flag…

 THE WORLD SHALL NOT SEE HIS LIKE AGAIN.

(… MORE ON BOB FLAG (AND THE ICEMAN) HERE…)

 

The AIM of The Iceman and the success of his big Art exhibition in a UK farm…

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’ – in Dorset.

Yes, it’s a farm.

There are over a thousand paintings, all for sale. He is now halfway through the month-long exhibition and is living on-site at the farm/gallery.

His live performance act involved/involves melting blocks of ice in increasingly desperate ways.

So how, I hear you ask, is his new art exhibition going?

Well, funny you should ask. The Iceman – whose painting name is AIM – has just updated me. He says…

The Iceman points out that, as an artist, he is now called AIM…

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It took a few journeys to get all the art works here – over a thousand – and a lot of physical work hanging them.

There are still lots on the floor. 

I’ve been framing some from old frames, defining and professionalising the images. 

This is my own assessment of the show at half point. 

In all seriousnice, the show is going rather well and I am selling more than I expected. 

The Gugg is not a traditional gallery as such but quite a lot goes on there. People go to events there (eg open mike music/pizza evenings on Thursdays) and I beckon them into the milking parlour gallery. Quite a few people come back more than once because of the sheer volume of art works. The most common initial response is: “Cor! That’s a lot of pictures!” 

I sleep in the hayloft. It is very dark at night.

Skye, a woman who used to live near Crazy Larry’s in Chelsea (the venue of my first ever block of ice) has just moved into a house next door to The Gugg. On Thursday, she chose four paintings with which to decorate her bare walls.

In a video, The Iceman explains his performance art act AIM and its vital components…

Skye’s friend Charles just couldn’t get enough of AIM’s paintings that night and he waxed lyrical – eg “This is the most amazing fucking exhibition I have ever seen!” – to me without realising I was the artist. 

He said the same thing in the morning… sober… when I met him at Dikes, the local independent supermarket. 

Later on that evening he explained to me, during a sambuca session in the barn after a visit to meet Stalbridge locals in the local Swan pub, his technique of not vomiting when drinking to excess – incredible mind control – before rescuing Skye’s dog from behind a gate by pulling it up by the scruff of its neck and then relieving himself perilously near AIM’s art work. He recognised my painting of the post-iceterity block at Richmond Bridge because he rows on the Thames. 

A man from Dagenham wants the opposing painting-post-iceterity Block at Gravesend.

AIM/The Iceman points to his painting of Gravesend

One of the best things that has happened has been visits from the local  Stalbridge primary school: three separate visits from years 4/5/6.

They loved the art and chose their favourites and I got The Iceblock out of the freezer for them to meet. This is an extra long-lasting block because it keeps going back in the freezer after making an appearance and The Iceman does not shorten its life by his traditional means. 

The Iceman did put the Block on his head and say “Ice-cap!” which bemused the children.

(IN AN ENDEARING, FASCINATING AND NOT UN-ECCENTRIC VIDEO ON YOUTUBE, THE ICEMAN aka AIM SHOWS YOU ROUND HIS ART EXHIBITION… HERE)

AIM: The Iceman’s “clearance sale” and exhibition of 1,000+ unique paintings…

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, single-mindedness, commitment, a love of life and its inherent absurdity”

As a performance artist, he’s The Iceman. As a painter/artist, he’s AIM – comic Simon Munnery says AIM creates “absurd beautiful art”.

As himself, he’s Anthony Irvine. And he occasionally turns up in this blog.

This week, on Friday, for the first time in ever, AIM will be exhibiting his paintings all based on The Iceman’s performance art.

Well, the exhibition runs from 7th July to 5th August.

The exhibition is called AIM: The ICEMAN PAINTING CLEARANCE SALE and it’s at Guggleton Farm Arts – ‘The Gugg’ -in Dorset.

That’s right. It’s a farm which is an art gallery.

We had a chat about it.

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AIM has a penchant for bunging AIM/ICE letters into words

JOHN: As well as the exhibition of your art, you are going to do a ‘big’ painting there – live…

ICEMAN: Yes, I’m going to do it on site. Maybe find a bit of an old stable or door or…

JOHN: …a horse?

ICEMAN: No. But people can come and watch the progress of it. My idea is to name it PEG IT!

As well as the gallery where I’m going to hang the bigger ones up with bamboo, I’m going to peg all the smaller paintings onto long lines of BT rope across the farm.

JOHN: BT rope as in British Telecom rope?

ICEMAN: I don’t know. I guess so. It was just abandoned next to a litter bin. I thought That could be useful. I’ve got 1,000 paintings. Then I had to buy bulk pegs. A thousand plus.

JOHN: Over a thousand paintings?

ICEMAN: Yes, it’ll take some time to hang them all up with the pegs. The show is billed as A CLEARANCE SALE… 

JOHN: I suppose all gallery exhibitions where you can buy pictures are clearance sales…

ICEMAN: PEG IT! Do you like it? It has a double meaning.

JOHN: Sounds like you’re going to die.

ICEMAN: Yes. 

JOHN: Well, that’s not untrue. Local Trading Standards can’t complain.

ICEMAN: Over one thousand paintings.

JOHN: They’re all for sale?

ICEMAN: Yes. And there will be a raffle ticket. People have to guess how many paintings I will actually manage to sell and, if they get it right, they get a free painting… though I’m just a bit worried they might decline the painting…

JOHN: Is there an entrance fee?

ICEMAN: No, you just come through the farm gate.

On Friday (7th July) I’m being interviewed by a poet called Roshan Doug – He was Birmingham City’s Poet Laureate.

JOHN: Really?

ICEMAN: Yes. Dr Doug – He’s a doctor of philosophy. (He wrote an appreciation  of The Iceman’s work HERE.)

JOHN: Where are you staying during the show?

IDEMAN: I asked if I could sleep in the barn. I was originally going to stay in Sherborne where I do educational work at the International College, but that fell through.

I’m not used to publicising art; I’m more used to comedy.

JOHN: That jacket, that hair, the neckerchief… You’re the biz… What biz I’m not so sure…

ICEMAN: I have a friend in Bournemouth who likes my act and has written a song and I’ve done the chorus: Melt it! Melt It! Melt it!

JOHN: Cool. 

ICEMAN: I see what you did there.

JOHN: What is the song called?

ICEMAN: Melt It!

JOHN: Seems reasonable.

JOHN: It’s called Melt It! after the title of your recent book?

ICEMAN: Yes.

JOHN: Very trendy.

ICEMAN: And I’m on Tik Tok.

JOHN: So the Chinese will know about you. Good sales potential…

ICEMAN: I’ll show you one of my Art films on Tik Tok? I’m not boring you, am I?

JOHN: How long’s the film?

ICEMAN: It’s a short. Look. I’ve built a boat out of cardboard. Do you think I could be a film maker? I’m quite amused by the sliding block of ice.

JOHN: You can’t beat a video of a sliding block of ice for entertainment value.

ICEMAN: I think I might get labelled as an outsider, a Jean Dubuffet type. In the text publicising the exhibition, I have put that AIM – that’s my painting name – “declines to be categorised. He just paints pictures of himself with a block of ice”.

JOHN: Again, undeniably true.

ICEMAN: But what if no-one comes?

The Iceman with his book on a train by a toilet

JOHN: If no-one comes, you just say it was a massive success, massively crowded and, if no-one came, no-one knows otherwise and all anyone knows is that it was a massive success. That’s the eternal default position for Edinburgh Fringe shows. If it gets round that you’re a massive success but unknown, you could end up at the Saatchi Gallery in the blink of an eye.

ICEMAN: I’m already on a little website  which acquired the name Saatchi Art. No connection.

JOHN: (LAUGHS)

ICEMAN: It looks impressive.

JOHN: I’m impressed.

“I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason…”

ICEMAN: When I first went on it, I put really ridiculous prices: £100,000 or something. But now I’ve reduced them. There are about 70 pictures of mine on it. The one I claim is extra-valuable is the one I’ve called Crazy Larry’s – a painting of the very first block of ice I ever did at a Chelsea club. Rory Bremner and people like that were there.

JOHN: Why Crazy Larry? That’s another name for Wild Man Fischer…

ICEMAN: Crazy Larry’s was a Chelsea club.

JOHN: Maybe it was named after Wild Man Fischer,

ICEMAN: Maybe. It’s no longer in existence.

JOHN: Nor is Wild Man Fischer.

ICEMAN: It was the craziest block I ever did. I had an old-fashioned kitchen sink and, for some reason, I brought that along and I remember being mainly horizontal. People thought I was actually insane.

JOHN: And the strangest thing of all is that you’re not.

ICEMAN: You can buy Crazy Larry’s – the painting – for £3,000.

JOHN: Well, if you like it and you have that sort of money, then £3,000 isn’t a lot. Have you seen The Laughing Cavalier?

ICEMAN: Yes.

JOHN: It’s a tiny little thing. I expected a big OTT canvas. Tiny. Must be worth a bit more than £3,000. Like Kylie Minogue.

ICEMAN: I think my art is definitely different. I’ve called my most recent series of paintings OneOne – I just do one brush stroke. Then I also have TwoOne, which is two brush strokes. But with multiple colours on my paint brush. Big brushes. Then the other series is EightOne… 

JOHN: Let me guess.

ICEMAN: Eight different brush strokes.

AIM – Guess the Brush Stroke title…

JOHN: I have to say that sounds totally mad and therefore the sort of thing that the real Saatchi Gallery or someone like that might be interested in.

ICEMAN: Normally I’m very fussy in my paintings. But I think I’m onto something here with OneOne. For me, it’s all a slight game, I want to do the most unlikely thing and sell my Art against all odds.

JOHN: I know nothing about the Art trade but it seems to me the thing to do is to create something you want to do for yourself, then think of some more or less random blurb words that make it sound intellectual. It has to sound intellectual. So you say something like: “It encapsulates a post-Covid re-awakening of post-modernism with the unique twist of icy Brexit cynicism”.

ICEMAN: Mmmmm… Guggleton Farm Arts in Dorset, 7th July to 5th August.

(…UPDATED HERE…)

Vancouver life – unlike Chilliwack – oh deer – is never dull eg The Cheese Man

(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 people and occasionally kicking their dogs.

One resident explained: “At least five women dog walkers other than me and two men have been stalked and chased relentlessly by the psycho doe. This doe is the child of the previous psycho doe who was killed by a car last fall, finally, after years of terrorizing us. This one exhibits the same learned behaviour of stalking. There are other does with fawns around who don’t act like this.

The local Council’s Conservation Service suggests carrying a “baseball bat or a ski pole” for self-protection. An online video Tweet attempts but fails to show the deer acting psycho.

“Is this normal in Vancouver?” I asked Anna Smith.

I got this reply:

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Luckily we don’t have many deer to terrorisé us in the Downtown East Side. Just bears, dogs and people mostly. Occasionally, a coyote in the dead of winter.

The Anna Smith

Yesterday I spied a man walking down Main Street with two dogs. One was a large grey patchy hound, strolling in step with his master. The other was tiny and bouncy, chattering and spitting in a most un-dog-like manner. Then I realised it was a baby racoon, so I quickly stepped out of the way of all three of them.

But, at work and on the street, every day is a surprise here.

And, through all this, The Cheese Man persists, nondescriptly, passing swiftly through the rowdy crowds, murmurring intermittently: “Cheese….”. 

When I hear him say it once, I look about and wonder where he’s gone, but he has melted into the crowd faster than a Gruyère. By the time he says “Cheese” for the third time, it’s almost imperceptible. 

He has figured out the correct rhythm of repeating the word, like an occulting maritime signal light. It gives him time to scan for the police. In the moments of silence between, you begin to doubt if you heard him at all.

He appears at random and nobody knows his name. He’s a shadowy figure. When you ask around, some people are in the know. Others have never encountered him and are surprised to hear of his existence. Naturally, he doesn’t do interviews or Instagram.

I have no photo of him. It can be dangerous taking photos around here. 

I was photographing trees on Alexander Street last week, pointing my phone up to the tree tops when, from across the street, a fat middle-aged man started yelling at me: “SO! You’re the MEDIA! Go on, take all photos you want! You CHILD PORNOGRAPHER! You CANT fool ME. I know what you’re up to!”

I saw Brandy at breakfast this morning. 

She’s the grouchy 86 year old lesbian Cockney lady who drives a new SUV and was accidentally placed in a newly-built city-owned housing project for the poor in a tiny apartment with no room for her grand piano. She can’t have a Besenji dog and she’s afraid to use the bathtub because it is HUGE and she is SMALL and thinks, if she gets into it, she won’t be able to get OUT. 

She is not poor but they haven’t found proper housing for her and she doesn’t want to live in Chilliwack with her postmaster son, because out there in Chilliwack it’s SO BORING because it’s rural and nobody out there TALKS to anyone and she can’t put up with THAT.

John Ward and the stupid TV people…

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 – on the TVS/ITV series Prove It! for which he supplied bizarre weekly inventions. That was back in 1988. We paid him a fee, put him up in a local hotel and covered his travel costs. He presented his inventions in a sort-of double act with the show’s presenter Chris Tarrant.

For one show in the series, he conceived and built a ‘TV Dining Machine’:

A couple of blogs ago, John Ward shared the quirkiness of one recent BBC approach to him about his frequently ‘unusual’ inventions.

The posting of that blog reminded John of another incident, back in 2007. He told me: “The crass silliness of clueless staff was/is not restricted to just the Beeb.”

Back in 2007, he received this email (which I have edited) from the member of an ITV production team:

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We are currently producing a new entertainment show hosted by (two famous UK personalities).

The show has been an instant success. It features celebrity chat, the hottest music acts and the presenters’ ‘take’ on the week’s events.

Each week we like to feature new inventions and gadgets and I have seen
online your various inventions and was hoping that I might be able to speak with you about the possibility of featuring some of them on our show. 

I think it would be fantastic for our show.

I would be really keen to discuss this opportunity further.

Kind regards,

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John Ward explains what happened next…

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The ITV guy duly rang me up and, after a lot of patronising twaddle, he explained, once we finally got round to it, what my ‘involvement’ would be:

1. I was not to be appearing on the actual programme – quite why he didn’t say.

2. What he/they wanted was for me to send to them – at my cost! – assorted inventions I had made so that one could be displayed and talked about (i.e. taken the piss out of) each week during a filler moment on said show.

3. I was also to source the boxes/containers etc. to pack them up in and then pay to send them – quote: ‘by courier would be nice’ (!)

I did pose the question as to how I would get them back afterwards, but this query seemed to fall on rather stony ground. I got the overall impression that I would be ‘donating’ them to the programme.

Finally, he asked… Could I supply a list of suitable small inventions that would not take up too much space in the studio?

He then explained there was no fee, but I would be ‘rewarded’ by having my name in the end credits along the lines of: ‘Inventions supplied by John Ward’.

I pointed out that this supposed ‘reward’ would be meaningless at the end of the programme because, within seconds of the end credits rolling, they were then either squeezed to one side or reduced in size – or both – to promote the next programme.

He then went into autopilot mode and waffled on about ‘the prestige’ of being ‘connected’ with this series featuring such ‘iconic personalities’ and that I should be ‘grateful for being considered’ for a part in the production.

I think my response was fairly straightforward.

I posed the question:

“Are there still two ‘L’s in bollocks?”

He put the phone down rather swiftly after that intellectual exchange.

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That poor 2007 ITV man missed-out on showcasing John’s originality – as we did on ITV’s 1988 series Prove It!

For the episode below, he had invented some very adaptable shoes:

BBC investigative reporting at its best…

Yesterday, mad inventor John Ward, who designed and makes the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards for the annual Edinburgh Fringe, sent me this email:

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The other week in my Ward’s World column in the local Spalding Guardian newspaper, I made reference to ‘Our Annie’ a shopkeeper whom my mum knew. Annie would not sell ‘straight’ bananas as they had to be curved – Nothing else would do for her loyal customers.

I mentioned in the column that I once made a ‘Banana Gauge’ – basically a piece of wood with one side curved and the other straight. There was no photo in the column but here is one of my original ‘invention’.

I had forgotten about this particular newspaper column when the phone rang this morning and a young lady spoke.

“Is that Mr Ward? – the inventor John Ward?”

She worked for the BBC and, while researching assorted sources for possible news or items of interest, she had come across the said Ward’s World column.

Our conversation went roughly thus:

Q: Was the gauge digital? 

A: Nope, it was made mainly from wood. The hole was made with a drill

Q: Did it come from sustainable forest supplies?

A: Not a clue as it was a wood off-cut

Q: Where does the Off Cut tree grow? In what country?

A: Not really sure but, as far as I know, Sir David Attenborough has not mentioned it as being in danger, otherwise a film crew would have been dispatched by now.

Q: On the environmental issue, do you think it could be in danger of becoming extinct soon, though?

A: Not sure, to be honest.

Q: So what made you, as a highly regarded (she said it, not me) inventor, decide to build this gauge?

A: I had the wood from the Off Cut tree to hand… Plus a curved banana to use as a model to get the curve right.  

Q: I see… So did the straight side prove to be a challenge or what did you use to get that right?

A: I used the edge of a door which, to be honest, I had to open first. Then I held the gauge up to the edge and drew a pencil line downwards to get the angle right.

Q: I see…umm.. I assume this did not happen the first time, so how many prototypes did you construct before standing back to say: “This is the one. This is THE gauge” – Did you have your very own personal eureka moment?

A: I only had the one stab at it to be honest.

Q: So you knew straight away that this was THE one?! – That’s really remarkable, if I may say.

A: You may, you may. But it was really due to the fact it was the only bit from the Off Cut tree I had at the time… plus the local DIY store had shut by then so I could not do another as I had no material to use.

Q: I find your ‘low key’ approach to inventing quite incredible. You see the need, then you use your skills, you devise it in your mind. You don’t do any drawings or blueprint things?

A: You have hit the nail on the head, as we say in the business.

Q: Has there been any interest from any commercial concerns about marketing this device so far?

A: It depends largely on if the bananas are home-grown or imported.

Q: Really.

A: Oh yes…

She said she would get back to me “in due course”, as she feels “there is something here” that shows the British bulldog spirit thing is very much alive in these current traumatic times.

John Ward: designer, inventor, manufacturer and bendy banana enthusiast

 

It is not as easy nor as quick as you might think to build a squirrel feeder

Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award designer John Ward has occasionally been described in this blog as “mad inventor John Ward”.

There is a reason for this.

I have recently had some emails for him, cobbled-together by me below:

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I have just finished construction of ‘Top Nut’, my latest squirrel feeder – as seen in Moulton-Seas-End (which is nowhere near the sea). It is based on Star Wars type stuff and cobbled together from all bits and bobs.

A few years ago now when I saw the squirrels we had running about in the garden I realised that a trail of nuts would lead their inquisitive minds to the pile of nuts or whatever I have built for them.

It has taken a week or so to get them to investigate Top Nut, but they are now getting used to it. 

I have taken some ‘grabbed’ photographs through the kitchen window so they’re not that clear. Now I know how Attenborough’s lot must feel sitting it out, waiting…

How did all this come to pass? I hear you ask.

The wheelbarrow we used in the garden had collapsed – it’s always the metalwork that rots or rusts through it seems. So what was left was the heavy duty plastic barrow part plus the wheel.

The more I looked at the shape, the more I wondered what it would look like upside down.

Inspired by what it DID look like upside down, the plan was to build another squirrel feeder – You can’t have enough squirrel feeders I always say, moreso as we live rural.

The barrow bit was cleaned and large holes cut into it based on when we get winds – it blows straight through – a lesson learnt years ago with the bird table that was blown over and basically destroyed… So that was sorted.

Next the ‘deck’ or floor was a discarded off-cut from a sheet of MDF, the miracle TV ‘makeover’ show product that seems to be used for just about everything in building anything in this day and age.

It was shaped to fit the upside down barrow bit leaving a narrow, half inch margin all round so that rain water can escape so as not to flood it – and it works very well I am happy to say. Tick the box marked ‘Forward Planning’ here.

I also applied five coats of waterproof vanish to seal it against the elements, which took over a fortnight, on and off, to allow each coat to cure or dry properly hence being waterproof (I hoped…).

Next was a stable but firm base. This was achieved by cutting an industrial type slotted racking support in half to make a ‘V’ shaped support, then welded to a metal plate to partly form the base.

This was bolted to an old office chair base that was being thrown out by a local company that I ‘rescued’ from their skip (with their knowledge – although they didn’t quite seem to believe what I was building).

To gain squirrel access to the craft, I made a ladder from a plastic PVC off-cut from somebody who was having new soffits (the bits that hold the guttering up) and double glazing put in. The treads are plastic packers as used in the building trade to even brick/woodwork up… cut down to scale and stuck on with superglue.

Next up was making the superstructure. The rear ‘motors’ are four old 35mm film slide projector reels, reversed then glued/screwed end to end.

They were then attached to two loudspeaker ‘horns’ to form the ‘motive power’ with the actual top being an old industrial size fluorescent plastic based light unit, cut in half and glued together to form the ‘upper hull’ section.

The various ‘wings’ on top are parts from a discarded electric buggy/wheelchair.

The ‘flight deck’ is made from an old desk ‘odds and ends’ tray cut in half and miniature ‘seats’ handmade using an old black imitation leather shopping bag for covering and inserted into small square type flower pots to form ‘bucket seats’ that are about to scale considering the size of our semi-resident squirrels – Sid and Shazz.

The controls are assorted colour beads and anything lying about. The ‘gear stick’ is based on a 1987 model British Leyland Maestro car. The ‘handbrake’ based on a Ford Sierra of the same era.

Between the seats at the rear is a scale model fire extinguisher. Should there be anything untoward happening on the flight deck, then this won’t make the slightest bit of difference, but it looks good!

The outside solar power and heat transfer modals are waffle plates – one per side – from a sandwich/waffle maker that somebody donated to the construction as they never used them as they only use the sandwich, toasty plates so they are brand new, unused.

The ‘front screen’ is an empty space with thin elastic threaded through drilled holes to form the ‘screen surrounds’ similar in appearance to WW2 planes.

The ‘Sid and Shazz’ sun visor – going back to the 1970s – where it was the thing to have the driver and passenger’s name in the sun visor over the windscreen – is a separate piece of Perspex with their names stuck on with letters from Poundland.

PS: in the first video, and possibly in a photo or two, there is a sign with ‘Painting by Carl’ on it.

He is the paint sprayer for a local engineering firm who was silly enough to ask if he ‘could do anything towards your project’ and so he sprayed the exterior of Top Nut in the machine grey you see.

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John Ward is available to customise any totally insane projects you may have.

Consignia: The Flatterers – The end of their anarchy at the Edinburgh Fringe?

Admirably anarchic comedy group Consignia are performing their show The Flatterers at the Edinburgh Fringe starting this Saturday (6th-14th August).

It is a free show – you can pay what you like at the end – and it is not listed in the Edinburgh Fringe brochure.

Last year, they got two reviews at the Fringe, both 4-stars:

“They actively want you to walk out” ★★★★ (Chortle)

“They eschew likeability” ★★★★ (The Scotsman)

I chatted to Consignia’s Phil Jarvis and (late-on) Nathan Willcox via Skype…

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Phil Jarvis (left) at home with a non-Vietnamese doll with a beard (right)…

JOHN: What is that doll?

PHIL: I bought it in Poland the other day. It looks like Ho Chi Minh a bit.

JOHN: ho ho Ho Chi Minh… No it doesn’t. In my bedroom, I have a painting of Uncle Ho writing in a forest. That doll doesn’t look like him.

An inexplicable painting of Ho Chi Minh in a forest in my bedroom…

PHIL: It has his beard.

JOHN: Is the doll relevant to your show?

PHIL: No.

JOHN: Why is your show called The Flatterers?

PHIL: There was a 16th century painting called The Flatterers, so we just borrowed the title. It was about brown-nosing, so we thought we’d use that. By Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

Potentially relevant – The Flatterers by Pieter Brueghel the Younger…

JOHN: That doesn’t really answer the question Why is your show called The Flatterers?

PHIL: OK. The reason it’s called The Flatterers is because it’s about the billionaires leaving Earth in the near future and me and Nathan play people who are on a sort-of a waste ship that takes away the rubbish from the billionaires’ spaceship. Basically, our spaceship is full of shit and detritus from the billionaires and Nathan thinks that, by eating the billionaires’ ship, he will himself become a billionaire.

JOHN: That still doesn’t really answer the question Why is your show called The Flatterers?

PHIL: It’s an A-Level style metaphor about the billionaires just shitting on everyone else. So it’s just really hammering home a (LAUGHS) quite obvious idea. Originally it was going to be a show called The Urn – a person who is having the launch for his art show dies and… But we’re not going to do that because I saw the error of my ways.

JOHN: The Flatterers is only on at the Fringe from the 6th to the 14th August because…

PHIL: Money. I’m paying to go to one of those student dorms and it’s £700 for a week.

An unrelated Consignia show was Lemonade…

JOHN: The Flatterers starts at 11.00pm and is billed as being one hour long. I find this difficult to believe. I saw that hour-long show you did which lasted about 3 hours. You are the Ken Dodd of anarchic comedy. You got to the end of the show, then just did the whole thing again. How performing a 1-hour show twice even lasted 3 hours I don’t know. Has any poor sod got a midnight show supposedly following your 11.00pm show in the Banshee Labyrinth?

PHIL: (LAUGHS) Last year’s show was 50 minutes and we ran to time.

JOHN: Is The Flatterers really going to be the last ever Consignia show?

PHIL: I would genuinely like it to be the last one. It feels like… Why not? Why not just end it? Once you get good reviews, why not just end it and do something different. I think that’s a better tactic than…

JOHN: A better tactic than being successful?

PHIL: (LAUGHS)

JOHN: Define “do something different”. Doing mother-in-law gags?

PHIL: (LAUGHS) Maybe not THAT different! Nathan and I already do a podcast: Modernist Cat Wee Wee.

JOHN: Nathan got married. Has that affected the dynamics of the group?

PHIL: Maybe. Well, it was quite a struggle to get Nathan to come up to the Fringe this year.

JOHN: You get an audience, though…

PHIL: You came to the early shows before we were even called Consignia – when the shows were billed as Malcolm Julian Swan Presents – and they had a funny energy to them. And then it kind of found its audience without any flyering, which I feel a bit smug about while being bemused about it too. It doesn’t make any sense.

JOHN: Sounds like a good show review.

(There is a recording of the 2015 pre-Consignia show Malcolm Julian Swan Presents: Hokum on Soundcloud),

Galaxy, scrambled egg or vomit? You decide.

JOHN: When I look at the poster image for The Flatterers, am I wrong in thinking that’s a picture of a bit of vomit on some tarmac?

PHIL: It is, yes. That is our anti-poster. You’re meant to have your picture on a Fringe poster, probably taken by that photographer Steve Best…

JOHN: …or Steve Ullathorne. The Fringe is over-endowed with people called Steve.

PHIL: You’re supposed to look like you’re in a Top Shop kind of thing, but we’re all past 30 now, so we can’t even look smart. We put on a nice 4-star review from Kate Copstick (in The Scotsman) and a good 4-star review from Steve Bennett (on chortle.co.uk).

JOHN: Like I said – over-endowed …

PHIL: We put the review stars on there and our two nominations from the Leicester Comedy Festival, but then we thought Fuck Off! We’re not going to put our faces on it!

JOHN: You reckon, once you are over 30, you are past performing anarchy at the Fringe?

PHIL: Definitely! Once you get into your 30s, you are… well, the advertisers don’t aim at that group. If you go to Berlin, as we did recently – all these hip and happening places – they’re all aimed at people in their 20s, really. 

JOHN: Consignia played Berlin?

PHIL: Yes, we did a show called Maastricht Reloaded, which was actually made in 2019. We built a ClingFilm wall, which we stood behind.

Maastricht Reloaded by Consignia in Berlin…

It was just an improvised show about three hours long about the Maastricht Treaty. We weaved-in a story about Guy Fawkes travelling through time, trying to torpedo John Major’s government.

JOHN: Social realism, then?

PHIL: (LAUGHS) Pretty much, yeah.

JOHN: Pseudo-realism?

PHIL: That’s a great name.

JOHN: You can have it… You played the Fringe last year.

2021: “50 minutes of Migraine…” at the Fringe

PHIL: Yes, It was called Migraine. That was the one we got the 4-star reviews for.

The show’s blurb said it was “50 minutes of migraine”.

We were being quite honest.

JOHN: This year’s show is not listed in the Fringe brochure.

PHIL: Why give money to the Fringe Society when you’ve seen what kind of shit-weasels they are with that duplicity about the app?

(The Fringe Society charged performers in advance but never told them there was no Fringe app for finding shows this year, as there had been last year,)

JOHN: Shit-weasels?…

PHIL: It’s disgusting. What kind of people do that? The Fringe Society is just a toff club.

JOHN: If this really is the last Consignia show, how are you going to unleash your inner anarchy in future?

PHIL: I dunno. Who knows? I think maybe that’s why Consignia was there in the first place: to fulfil that inner need and to get a release. Though I think it became a bit more than that.

JOHN: So that’s enough for the blog…

PHIL: … and here’s the fucking prick!

(NATHAN WILLCOX ARRIVES ON THE SKYPE SCREEN)

PHIL: Where have you been? We’ve been talking for 24 minutes.

NATHAN: You didn’t invite me.

PHIL: That’s no excuse…

On Skype, Phil Jarvis (left) and Nathan Willcox focus on explaining their show title…

JOHN: Why is your show called The Flatterers?

NATHAN: It’s a gross-out, state-of-the-nation piece. It’s set in the not-too distant future when Earth has become uninhabitable due to…

JOHN: …the French?

NATHAN: Probably. Your words. Or climate change. Could be something else. Never specified.

We are in space on Waste Ship 6668…

JOHN: I get 666. Why 8?

PHIL: It’s a Dante reference.

JOHN: Joe Dante, the director of Gremlins?

NATHAN: No. Dante. The Divine Comedy. The 8th level was where The Flatterers were – in the 8th circle of Hell.

JOHN: I thought it was something to do with Pieter Brueghel the Younger…

NATHAN: The show was originally conceived by Phil because of Navara Media’s Left Wing reporter Ash Sarkar. There was a Tweet I sent Phil where there was an article about the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses… Their ships, when they go up in space… their waste gets thrown out and burns up in the atmosphere and is often mistaken for shooting stars. The Tweet said something like: Oh what a perfect metaphor for capitalism or something.

I sent that to Phil and he said: “Oh, we should do a show about that!”

JOHN: Close encounters of the turd kind?

PHIL: That’s gotta be the pull-quote from your blog.

JOHN: I can die happy.

(THERE IS AN 18-MINUTE, 46 SECOND CONSIGNIA “WELCOME TO DUNGENESS” VIDEO ON VIMEO WHICH HAS NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THEIR NEW SHOW “THE FLATTERERS”… AS FAR AS I KNOW…)