In absentia

As nothing on the Iris front would be happening for a few days, I decided to skim through a few diaries and find out what we were doing in later Januaries…

Jan. 1974… After a year together, I was spending more and more time with her and we were regarded by our friends as a couple. I would spend Sundays and Thursdays with my family and the rest of the time with Iris.
Jan. ’74 saw me doing quite a lot of local bookings in Social and Working Men’s Clubs.
In those days, there were over 90 clubs in this city alone so there was always a ready market for singers, comics and groups as they were open every night of the week. The pay wasn’t marvellous; it worked out at about £20 - £25 per booking but it was pleasant work and I usually worked three shows a week. Iris invariably accompanied me as she loved the atmosphere and it was a night out for her. I worked with several artistes who went on to gain fame (and fortune!) on the TV. Most of them were working the clubs full-time whereas I was only doing it on a spare-time basis.
Jan. 1975, 76 & 77 were very much the same. I used to get as many bookings as I could in the winter months when there was nothing much else to do and then ease off later in the year when the weather picked up. Later, from ’78, I got a bit cheesed off with dashing about all over the place and I usually cut it down to just one booking per week.
Funnily enough, I knew the first comedian who earned £100 for three 20 minute spots. He was Bobby Nutt and thereafter, we all called him the “Pound-a-minute comic”! They were good days but like all things, came to an end in the mid-eighties when tastes changed and comics and singers were replaced by pop groups.
Iris and I must have gone all over the place to various clubs at one time or another, yet after she died, I never went in a club again for over ten years!

Before I started writing a blog, I’d never heard of the term. Being of an inquisitive mind, I decided to find out a little more on the origins of the word.
In actual fact, it’s so very simple. ‘Blog’ is a condensed corruption of the term, ‘Web log.’ It was first used in advertising in about 1990 with the modern personal blogs coming in a few years later.
Some blogs are extremely complex and require a lot of updating. This type of blog, however, suits me fine!