Conan & the band - August 2nd 1977

The band, called Rio temporarily over the summer hols, with Jasmine Gamble as lead singer while Nick was away, were rehearsing heavily for a talent contest. And for once in my heavily illustrated diary I find enough to write about with the band's activities to fill a whole page with writing. (The text continues on the next double page spread.)

UPDATE: I've found this long lost photo of the band, Rio, on stage at the talent contest at Kibworth Rugby Club. Left to right: Kev Sutherland, Steve Fletcher, Jasmine Gamble, Kev Moore.

I understand some peoples diaries are all writing, with no pictures to speak of. Me, I couldn't let the day pass without at least reviewing half a dozen comics, copying a picture of John Buscema's Conan, and decorating the pages with typefaces from Mum's Letraset book and elaborate borders coloured with Platignum pens. See this page on Peoples History Of Pop.

A bumper bundle of half a dozen Records For The Day, two of which went on to become punk classic (both by The Stranglers) and the rest moulder in pop's bargain bin of history.

Our name was Rio - August 24 1977

Nice picture of our temporary band Rio, though I see they're not mentioned at all in the diary entries themselves. Elsewhere I'm sure I tell the tale of our summer line-up, while Nick was away on holiday, and the talent show we entered. And our name was Rio. For the record, my chin was never that square, Fletch's face was never that chubby, and Mum helped me with the drawing of Jasmine cos I couldn't draw girls. What did we look like really? This...

(Left to right: Kev Sutherland, Steve Fletcher, Jasmine Gamble, Kev Moore. And this is what photos looked like in the 1970s, taken on a tiny Instamatic camera without through-lens framing, so you could never be sure anyone was central in the photo, and you only ever took one shot because of how much film cost. )

My comic reviews, aka The Wednesday Column, are mostly DC comics this week, my haul from my summer holiday trip to Scotland, where a different distributor clearly gave me a chance to see comics that were harder to get hold of back home. See this page on the Peoples History Of Pop.

Record For The Day was the Carpenters' obscure b-side to Top Of The World.

Comic reviews and rehearsals - Aug 10 1977

Look at that wristwatch. Why don't I wear one like that nowadays I wonder? And, yes, I genuinely wore my watch with the face pointing towards me, inside my wrist, on an oversized leather strap with studs on. I think I thought it was a bit superhero-ey.

My review of the week's comic strips are intriguing. I review the individual strips in the various Marvel UK black and white reprints I got every week, and I seem to hate most of them. But rereading those reviews nearly 40 years later I can remember every strip. Which is more than I can say for Barbara Beattie who, according to this entry, I later shared a car with all the way to Scotland.

My Records For The Day, which I imagine I recorded on their first hearings, all went on to be classics for a change. See this page on Peoples History of Pop.

Walter Tottle's 6th gig - May 11 1977

Walter Tottle And The Expanding Liberals With A Member Of The Royal Family, The Corgis And A Shaggy Dog With Special Guest Star Gertrude Gruntingthuttock was the name of our band. It is astounding we weren't more successful.

In this diary entry from May 11 1977 we play our sixth ever gig, doing (as far as I can tell) one number at a barn dance. We were certainly working slowly and surely towards our inevitable fame. See this page on the Peoples History Of Pop.

Top Of The Pops with Jimmy Savile and an edition of It's A Knockout place this night's telly firmly in the not-to-be-repeated column, unlike the Record For The Day slot, which featured Kenny Rogers' Lucille for the 3rd and 4th times.

Logan Murray & Alison Goldie - The Monkhouse Jan 18 1988

The Monkhouse Comedy Club in Leicester started 1988 with a double bill of Logan Murray and Alison Goldie, supported by the regular line-up of locals, myself and Alan Seaman, Cathi Rae and Norman The Skiver (who will be celebrating his 80th birthday in 2016, I have learned. Let's have a party).

Logan Murray is still going strong on the comedy circuit and is well respected as a teacher of comedy too, having taught everyone from Rhod Gilbert and Kayvan Novak to half the guests on Mock The Week and all of We Are Klang (see his website for details).

Alison Goldie is also big on the teaching front, describing herself as a coach for creativity, work and love.

The figures on the poster, however, are neither Logan nor Alison because, clearly, I didn't have photos of them at the time. Being the days before the internet, unless I was posted a black and white 10 x 8 print through the snail mail which, over the Christmas and New Year period was clearly harder to arrange than usual, then I had to improvise. The characters shown with their faces blanked out are John Dowie and a member of Cliffhanger Theatre (most likely Rebecca Stevens), from their play James Bond Licenced To Look Ill, at Brighton's Zap Club. I can't find the original photo online, but here's another one from that same show.

You can find Logan and Alison on Twitter (as @LoganComedyGuru and @ladyinbed). But don't look for The Monkhouse, it's not there any more.

Handle & Dropkirk - by me at an unknown age

Clearing out under a bed back at Mum's house over Christmas 2015 we found a whole load of artwork, including Hev's work from art college and some comic strips by me that I've not seen for years. This was by far the earliest piece.

Though most work was from my late teens and student days, this one picture has survived, drawn and painted by me at an age I can't quite pin down. Because it references Randall and Hopkirk (which was on ITV from September 1969 to March 1970) and Star Trek (on BBC between July 1969 and December 1971) I'd say this is from 1970, making me 8 or 9 years old. However there was a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea movie made by Disney in 1973, and I remember reading the comics version of it in Donald & Mickey comic, so if I'm referencing that, this would be from when I'm 11 years old. But I'd like to think I was better than this by then. We may never know.

The Sea Monster? - The Monkhouse Dec 2 1987

Who was The Sea Monster? It's almost as important a question as why was she in the support slot? Though I'm sure Mandy Knight was brilliant, that enigmatic Sea Monster was one of the funniest comedians any of us had ever seen and was to go on to greatness. If you don't know who she was, you may star guessing now. Answer below.

This was the Monkhouse Club's fourth monthly show, with Alan Seaman booking the acts and the two of us sharing the compering. Cathi Rae and Norman the Skiver were by now well established as regular local acts, and since none of us was yet above the level of open-mics, the two headline acts were really what people came to see. 

It wasn't our first Christmas show ever, as I've found records of us staging a Christmas special as long ago as 1985, when the show was still calling itself the Magazine Jokespace, but was the first under the Monkhouse brand. Here's that far-less prepossesing poster.

Black Annis in Pantomime and the Touch & Go Arts Co-Operative? Truly the 1980s were a foreign country, they did comedy clubs differently then. John Dull was the name of the character act Alan Seaman was doing, until he finally got round to just using his own name.

The Monkhouse name was my idea, spawned because we thought it sounded funny, and it paid ironic homage to Bob Monkhouse who, at that time, was deeply unfashionable but I think also strangely admired. The image of him comes from an ad in a 1950s Eagle comic. Since you ask.

And the Sea Monster was...?

Jo Brand. She worked under an alias for her early gigs because she was still holding down her job as a psychiatric nurse.