We cannot allow censorship and silencing of individuals- working men's clubs have a particular responsibility to resist this kind of bullying

There is a worrying pattern of failure to respect some of the older and greater comedians on the working men's club circuit. When Bluey Drongo ("an eff, a blind, a merry quip") appeared at the Cambridge Bittern Stuffers' club recently, a rival event took place for those folk who object to Bluey's often-stated belief that people who've retrained during their careers can never be true working men; you're born a working man, he says, and that is that; these newcomers don't know what it smells like when you've lined the pockets of the rich with the sweat of your brow, and it ain't roses, he says, let me tell ya. Strewth. Obviously, the fate of this minority isn't important or relevant to the rest of us true working men, so it is ungrateful of them to make a fuss when they could be enjoying Bluey's off-colour anecdotes instead.

It's also troubling that Bernard Waning has not been getting any bookings lately. Bernard's been touring with his one joke ("hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the transsexual Scot?") for over ten years now, but what the heck, it's an important joke, and it is shameful that he should be denied the platform to tell it. Yet again. Some jokes just improve with the retelling, after all. If things carry on like this he won't even get a chance to publish his joke in the Guardian one more time, and then where will we be?

a piece on censorship in the Guardian

...and a response from Sarah Brown

the Guardian Weekend feature

main photo, by Neil Drabble

"You worry too much, sometimes, you know," I tell myself.

"All the time, more like. And your point is, exactly....?" I reply. And go back to worrying.

So I was in a right lather on Friday night, wondering how the piece would look, and how the photo would look.

Finally thought "I give up" at about 3:30 AM, and had a cup of tea and drove off in search of an early newspaper.

The seagulls take over the town at night; they sulkily waddled aside to let me pass. Drunk people held each other up outside nightclubs, while taxi drivers assessed the probability of their potential fares throwing up in the back.

Dawn started happening.

I heard on the radio that Humphrey Lyttelton has died. Gosh. I've been listening to him on the radio since I was about 12; his Monday evening music show was my early education in jazz. The first gig I ever went to was Humph, in Cardiff, and I had to walk home afterwards. Twenty miles or so.

But this is not the time to write an appreciation of Humph. Except that I already have.

Moving on...

Anyway, finally I got a paper and anxiously dived into the magazine.

It's OK. Edited excerpts from the book. When I switched off my internal hyper-critical filter, it seemed just fine. And the photo looked good. This was a relief after all that time wandering around Hay Bluff in a gale, getting progressively colder and more bedraggled. And they used one of my pics, too.


So. I took a couple of Nurofen Plus, washed down with Rescue Remedy, and got back to life as it is lived. Like, doing the washing up.