Smiffblog.
Predictions 2013 – (Orig. Pub. The Stage)
I have been gazing into my crystal ball…. but I’m sure you don’t want to know about that so, instead, here are my predictions for the world and for comedy in the coming year – At first, beneath leaden skies, most of the country grinds along the bottom hoping for something – anything – […]
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The Christmas cracker
is pulled and I pretend to read the joke inside: ‘Why does Noddy wear a bell on his hat?’ A standard beat. “Because he’s a cunt.” My audience is shocked and silent except for the 12-year-old boy I had not seen who is doubled up and laughing harder, I reckon, than he has ever laughed […]
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Oh what a day that will be
Oh what a day that will be When the Tories are out and Margaret’s a goner And Wimbledon F.C. buy Diego Maradona When they arrest the Queen and drugs are found on her Oh what a day that will be When Murdoch’s riches are converted to rags When you don’t die young from smoking […]
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A Poem – November 2012
November 2012 Pulling up after the wedding reception they see her, their neighbor, standing in the street. She is looking, she says, for a lift to her home in London. ‘Hazel,’ they tell her, ‘you live here in this house.’ The door is open. They take her in and see she has packed a bag, […]
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My Dad’s End of the War
On Saturday April 14th the gunfire from the west slowly moved towards Colditz. Colonel Todd was told that the camp was to be evacuated but he flatly refused. The Germans conceded but held the colonel responsible for any casualties as the result of the shelling or bombing by the Americans. On Sunday 15th April everyone […]
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Blog by my late father Syd Smith from his memoir – he was captured at El Alamein 70 years ago on Saturday
The battle of El Alamein started on 23rd October 1942 at 9pm. It was dark and suddenly the sky was alight with the flashes of 1000 25 pounder artillery guns firing simultaneously. It was awe inspiring and at the same time terrifying. It continued far into the night and I couldn’t believe that anybody could […]
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Cockney Rambler
A beautiful afternoon; I am enjoying a walk in the countryside when I hear a voice ‘Excuse me, you.’ Oh dear, a man in a tweed jacket and cap is marching angrily towards me. Just now, I climbed a fence and walked along the edge of a large field, climbed another fence before finding the […]
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Blog
So me and a younger stand-up are sharing a bill and comparing heckling scenarios in the dressing room before the off; I describe a middle-aged comedian I saw recently whose volume of delivery was in inverse proportion to the strength of his material. In the middle of his set a woman’s serious voice cut through […]
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Blogberry
What is the best orange you ever ate? You don’t know? You’ve never thought about it? Well, do. And while you are – here is my story. On holiday in Andalucia in Southern Spain I had just woken from a brief but deeply satisfying siesta. The lady continued snoozing as I sauntered through the open […]
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Stage Ed 2012
When you have appeared in as many as Edinburgh fringes as I, you are allowed the occasional easy one; this year I have been in town but only doing radio stuff and a few one-off gigs, which means I have been joyfully immune from fretting over reviews, audiences and from having to source a prop […]
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