COMEDY TONIGHT

Posted on November 11, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Part Three — And Now for Something Completely Different

There is a tendency to imagine that comedy progresses in a nice straight line.

First there were the old-fashioned comedians, then the clever young comedians arrived, and everything became sophisticated.

It wasn’t quite like that.

Indeed, some of the most revolutionary comedy was being produced while the traditional entertainers were still packing theatres.

Consider The Goon Show.

Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe created a world in which almost anything could happen, usually without the slightest regard for logic.

The Goons didn’t merely tell jokes. They attacked the very idea that a comedy programme needed to make sense.

Characters appeared and disappeared. Sound effects became jokes in themselves. Stories wandered off in directions that no reasonable person could have anticipated.

And behind much of it was the extraordinary imagination of Spike Milligan.

It was anarchic, frequently ridiculous and sometimes completely incomprehensible.

Which was rather the point.

Then came Beyond the Fringe.

Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller represented something different again.

They were educated, articulate young men who were perfectly prepared to make fun of the people who ran Britain.

Politicians, military officers, the Establishment itself.

This mattered in a society where deference was still expected.

It was one thing to make a joke about a pompous official. It was another to suggest that the people supposedly in charge of the country might be rather absurd themselves.

And then there was Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

First broadcast in 1969.

An interesting year, for all sorts of reasons.

Python took the absurdity of the Goons, added elements of satire, television parody and surrealism, and produced something that didn’t always bother with conventional punchlines.

A sketch might simply stop.

Or turn into another sketch.

Or be interrupted by something completely unrelated.

The famous announcement, “And now for something completely different,” was itself part of the joke.

It often wasn’t completely different at all. It was simply another excursion into madness.

But I think we should be careful about treating all this as the moment when comedy suddenly became intelligent.

The older comedians weren’t necessarily stupid, and their audiences certainly weren’t.

They were working within different conventions.

Nor was the new comedy universally admired. Plenty of people found it irritating, pretentious or simply unfunny.

And they were entitled to that opinion.

Comedy is a peculiar business. You can explain why a joke works. You can analyse its structure, its timing, its cultural significance and its place in the history of popular entertainment.

But you cannot make somebody laugh by explaining that they ought to.

And that brings us to another interesting question.

What happens when comedy stops merely making fun of authority and starts challenging the social rules themselves?

Because by the 1970s, and certainly by the 1980s, the argument was no longer simply about what was funny.

It was increasingly about who was being laughed at.

And who was doing the laughing.

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COMEDY TONIGHT

Posted on November 11, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Part Two — You Lucky People!

One of the curious things about comedy is that we inherit much of it from generations who came before us.

I was born in 1952, which meant that much of the comedy I encountered as a child had its origins in music hall, variety theatre and the wireless.

The comedians themselves were often considerably older than their audiences. Their jokes might have been older still.

Take Tommy Trinder.

“You lucky people!”

It was his catchphrase, and it belonged to a particular tradition of British entertainment in which a comedian could walk onto a stage, address the audience directly, tell a few jokes, sing a song and generally behave as though everyone had come along to see an old friend.

There were also comedians such as Arthur Askey, George Formby and later Norman Wisdom, whose popularity was built around recognisable comic personalities.

The little man. The cheeky fellow. The innocent who somehow triumphs over authority.

Comedy was often about class, although it wasn’t always described that way.

The man in the audience might spend his working week being ordered around by employers, supervisors and assorted people who considered themselves his betters.

For an hour or two he could watch someone make fools of precisely those sorts of people.

And then television came along.

Television didn’t immediately destroy the old variety tradition. Quite the opposite. It brought it into millions of homes.

Sunday Night at the London Palladium was one of the great showcases for entertainers who had learned their trade before television became dominant.

But television also changed the relationship between comedian and audience.

A music hall performer might have to win over a different audience every night. Television allowed the same comic character to return week after week, becoming almost a member of the family.

Some survived the transition brilliantly.

Others belonged to a world that was disappearing.

And the audience was changing too.

The generation that had lived through the Depression and the Second World War did not necessarily find the same things funny as the young people growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.

That didn’t mean one generation had a sense of humour and the other didn’t.

It meant that comedy, like almost everything else, was changing.

And somewhere in the background, a rather different kind of comedy was already making itself heard.

Sometimes quite literally.

On the wireless.

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COMEDY TONIGHT

Posted on November 11, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Part One — As Everyone Knows, I Am Hilarious

As everyone knows, I am hilarious.

I am very funny. And I have had a lifelong interest in comedy.

I thought it best to establish those facts at the outset, lest there be any misunderstanding.

My earliest memories of comedy go back to the late 1950s, when I was a small boy watching television at my grandmother’s house.

There was Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko. There was Jack Benny. There were British comedians such as Charlie Drake and Tony Hancock. And there were the Marx Brothers.

Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Karl and Zeppo.

I was particularly fond of Karl, although his material was rather political.

There was something wonderful about discovering that words could be funny. Not merely the things people did, or the faces they pulled, but the words themselves. A sentence could begin in one direction and end somewhere entirely unexpected.

A misunderstanding could become a joke. A perfectly ordinary phrase could be turned upside down.

And sometimes the funniest thing was what wasn’t said.

I liked slapstick well enough, but it was verbal comedy that fascinated me.

I suppose I was becoming a wordsmith, although I doubt I would have described myself that way at the time.

Indeed, having now described myself as a wordsmith, I find myself struggling to think of any words.

Comedy was everywhere on television, but it came from several different traditions. American sitcoms, British variety performers, old films, radio comedians and the increasingly familiar television personalities all competed for our attention.

There was The Dick Van Dyke Show. There was Bewitched. There were the old Marx Brothers films, which seemed to belong to another age but were still extraordinarily funny.

And behind much of British television comedy lay an older world of music halls, variety theatres and touring entertainers.

A comedian might spend years travelling from Sunderland to Norwich to Bradford, delivering essentially the same ten-minute routine to audiences who might not have heard it since the previous year.

That was perfectly sensible when entertainment was local and temporary.

Television changed everything.

A joke delivered to a few hundred people in a theatre could now be heard by millions on the same evening. A routine that might once have lasted a comedian for years could become familiar almost overnight.

Television didn’t merely give comedians a bigger audience. It changed the nature of their work.

Some adapted brilliantly. Others found that their familiar routines were becoming rather too familiar.

And a new generation was waiting in the wings.

But before we get to them, we need to spend a little time with the old variety performers.

You lucky people!

To be continued.

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‘Allo ‘Allo! Listen Very Carefully, I Shall Say This Only Once

Posted on November 10, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

About six weeks ago, I bought a set of eight 1/32-scale figures made by a company called Replicants. They represent members of the French Resistance, or perhaps partisans operating elsewhere in occupied Europe during the Second World War.

They’re rather unusual figures.

Most of the figures I paint are soldiers. British, German, French, Napoleonic, whatever. They wear uniforms, and generally speaking, there are recognised colours for painting them.

Not so with these figures.

They’re civilians. Ordinary men and women wearing ordinary clothes. Jackets, trousers, skirts, caps and overcoats. The sort of clothing you might have seen on the streets of France or Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945.

And that presents an interesting problem for the model painter.

What colours do you paint them?

Now, here’s where modern technology comes in.

I asked Artificial Intelligence for some advice. Not only did it suggest appropriate colours for civilian clothing of the period, but it also supplied the reference numbers for the Vallejo model paints I use.

Amazing.

I’m 74 years old, and the idea that I can ask a machine what colour to paint a French Resistance fighter and receive a sensible answer, complete with paint manufacturer’s reference numbers, still blows my mind.

So I painted them.

I’m not entirely happy with the results. My painting isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. Age does things to your eyesight and your ability to hold a paintbrush steady.

But I enjoyed painting them, and that’s really what matters.

One of the figures is a clandestine radio operator. He’s crouched beside his equipment, presumably transmitting information to London while hoping that nobody is listening who shouldn’t be.

Another is preparing to throw a Molotov cocktail.

Others carry rifles or pistols.

But perhaps the most interesting figure is a woman carrying a baby while drawing a pistol.

Apparently, this figure was inspired by Lucie Aubrac, one of the most celebrated women of the French Resistance.

Aubrac was a teacher, a mother and an active member of the Resistance. In October 1943, while pregnant, she helped organise the daring rescue of her husband Raymond from German custody.

An extraordinary woman.

I haven’t been able to establish whether the Replicants figure represents a particular incident in her life, or whether the sculptor simply took inspiration from her story.

But the figure raises an interesting question.

A woman, a baby and a gun.

I’m not entirely comfortable with it.

Is the baby being used as cover? Is the woman defending herself? Has she been caught unexpectedly in a dangerous situation?

Or has the sculptor simply decided that a woman carrying a baby while producing a pistol makes a particularly dramatic miniature?

I don’t know.

And perhaps that’s the point.

The Resistance wasn’t made up entirely of men in berets carrying Sten guns. It included women, mothers, teachers, railway workers, farmers and ordinary people who found themselves making extraordinary decisions.

Some were heroic. Some were desperate. And some of those decisions must have involved terrible moral dilemmas.

A miniature figure doesn’t have to celebrate everything it depicts.

Sometimes it can simply make us think.

One final observation about these figures.

Although they’re marketed as French Resistance or partisan figures, their civilian clothing makes them remarkably versatile.

With suitable historical context, they could just as easily represent irregular fighters in the Spanish Civil War, resistance movements in Eastern Europe, or even participants in later conflicts, including Norn Iron.

There are no uniforms to tie them to a particular army or period.

Just ordinary people, caught up in history.

Anyway, they’re finished now and will join the growing population of my 1/32-scale world.

And despite my complaints about the painting, I’m rather pleased with them.

Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once.

I enjoyed myself.

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Norn Iron Politics: What You Don’t See on Television

Posted on November 10, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

One of the surprising things about Norn Ironpolitics is that politicians tend to get on rather better than you might imagine.

Not always, of course. Indeed, some politicians seem to have more difficulty getting along with colleagues in their own party than with their political opponents. Perhaps that’s because they spend rather more time dealing with them.

But there is also genuine cooperation across party lines, particularly on constituency issues. Whatever their constitutional aspirations or political differences, most politicians recognise that they have constituents to represent and problems to resolve.

And sometimes you see a rather different side of a politician when they’re away from the television cameras.

Gregory Campbell in the Bogside

Some years ago, I attended an SDLP Youth conference at Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in Derry.

The Cultúrlann is a centre for Irish language and culture, with a café, bookshop and meeting facilities. It was an interesting setting for a political conference, particularly given its location in a strongly nationalist part of the city.

I was there to cover the event for this blog.

And who should walk in but Gregory Campbell, the DUP MP.

Now, Gregory Campbell is perhaps particularly remembered for his notorious “Curry my yoghurt” remark, mocking the Irish language in the Assembly in 2014.

It was the sort of comment that understandably caused considerable offence. Indeed, Campbell was prevented from speaking in the Assembly for a day after refusing to apologise.

Yet here he was, at an Irish-language cultural centre in Derry, addressing young members of the SDLP.

He had been invited to participate in a panel discussion.

Think about that for a moment.

Here was a DUP politician attending a youth conference organised by a nationalist party, in an Irish-language cultural centre in Derry. He could hardly have expected to win many votes from the people in that room.

He didn’t have to be there.

And equally, SDLP Youth didn’t have to invite him.

Both deserve some credit for that.

What particularly impressed me was Campbell’s contribution to the discussion. He spoke about disadvantaged areas of Coleraine, within his constituency, where young people felt alienated from politics.

Some didn’t vote. Some didn’t see any reason to vote. Some simply didn’t believe politics had anything to offer them.

He spoke with an understanding of the problem that I hadn’t necessarily expected.

I came away impressed.

That doesn’t mean I suddenly agreed with Gregory Campbell’s politics. I didn’t. Nor does it mean that I excuse his remarks about the Irish language.

But I had seen another side of him.

A School Visit in Upper Bann

Politicians also regularly engage with young people through school visits, discussions and organised trips to Stormont.

These events can be valuable. Young people get to meet elected representatives, ask questions and discover that politicians are human beings rather than just faces on television.

Something similar happened in my own constituency of Upper Bann about a year ago.

Four of the constituency’s five MLAs attended a discussion at a Catholic school.

I wasn’t there myself, but I subsequently spoke to one of the young people who attended. He has since gone on to university.

His impressions were interesting, although they are, of course, the observations of one young person rather than a definitive assessment of the politicians concerned.

The politician who impressed him most was Doug Beattie of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Beattie is a former British Army officer and a committed unionist. He has made efforts to reach beyond traditional unionism, although I sometimes think his approach to nationalist outreach has been a case of one step forward and one step back.

There have been encouraging gestures, but also remarks and controversies which have undermined them.

Nevertheless, my young informant found him particularly impressive that day.

Diane Dodds of the DUP spoke extensively about health and disability issues. These are subjects in which she has a strong personal interest, not least because of disability issues within her own family.

Her contribution evidently reflected that commitment.

John O’Dowd of Sinn Féin might have expected a sympathetic reception from at least some of the audience. Yet my informant was rather less impressed, describing his contribution as somewhat waffly.

Eóin Tennyson of Alliance apparently made a similar impression.

But Tennyson also said something which caught my attention.

An Alliance Regret

The politicians were asked an interesting question.

What was your biggest political

In deference to Tennyson and the quasi privileged nature of talking to high school students, I wont go into detail.

What particularly struck me about Tennyson’s reported answer was its honesty and frankness.

He had identified an episode in his own party’s history which I have long regarded as a serious mistake.

I might disagree with Alliance on many things, but I can certainly respect a politician who is prepared to acknowledge an uncomfortable episode in his own party’s history.

And perhaps that is one of the benefits of these encounters with young people.

Politicians are sometimes asked questions which produce more revealing answers than the familiar exchanges on television.

Away From the Cameras

Watch a political discussion on television and you might imagine that Norn Irons politicians can barely tolerate being in the same room.

There are disagreements, interruptions, accusations and the occasional theatrical display of outrage.

Some of those disagreements are genuine and profound. They reflect different political traditions, different constitutional aspirations and very different interpretations of our history.

But that isn’t the whole picture.

Politicians from opposing parties frequently work together on constituency matters. They may disagree about the constitutional future of Norn Iron while agreeing that a local school needs support, a road needs repaired or a family needs help with housing.

They are often on first-name terms, even when they don’t particularly like one another.

And while the television audience sees the confrontation in the studio, it doesn’t necessarily see what happens beforehand.

In the green room, waiting to go on air, the same politicians may be chatting quite amicably.

That doesn’t make their political disagreements any less real.

It simply reminds us that the public performance of politics and the everyday practice of politics aren’t always the same thing.

And perhaps we would have a better understanding of Norn Iron politics if we occasionally paid more attention to what happens when the cameras are switched off.

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Three Co-Options And An Election

Posted on November 10, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Sian Mulholland MLA

Before the 2022 Assembly election, the Alliance Party had eight MLAs. We knew them all. Or at least we thought we did.

Then came the Alliance breakthrough, and suddenly there were seventeen.

Some of the newer MLAs aren’t exactly household names. Indeed, I suspect a few aren’t household names in their own households.

On Thursday night’s BBC The View, one of the less familiar Alliance faces, Sian Mulholland MLA, was discussing the current and referred to “my voters.”

An interesting choice of words.

You see, Sian Mulholland has had a rather unusual political career.

In 2015 she was co-opted onto Belfast City Council.

In 2019 she was elected to Belfast City Council

In 2022 she was co-opted onto Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council.

And in 2023, following the resignation of Patricia O’Lynn, she was co-opted into the Northern Ireland Assembly as MLA for North Antrim.

Three councils and constituencies. Three co-options. Three Co-Options And An Election. It is a Rom-Com.

Now, there’s absolutely nothing improper about co-option. It’s a perfectly legitimate part of our political system.

And, in fairness, Sian Mulholland did stand in North Antrim in the 2024 Westminster election, receiving 4,488 votes. She also won election to Belfast City Council in 2019.

But she has never been elected to the Assembly.

Still, after three co-options, maybe it’s time to try something different.

Getting elected.

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Glasgow Belongs To Me

Posted on November 9, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

My wife and I decided to take a city break in Glasgow at the end of last month.

Now, we’re not great travellers..Iin 44 years of marriage, most of our holidays have been spent travelling around Ireland.

It was only last year, 2025, that we ventured as far as Salou in Catalonia. We enjoyed it so much that wewent bac k this year.

So we’ve decided that, from now on, we’ll try to have at least one proper holiday a year, along with a city break or two.

And we decided on Glasgow.

Not necessarily my first choice, but Glasgow it was.

We’d originally intended going in August, but sadly a close family member passed away, and our plans were postponed.

So off we went at the end of October.

Two of our grandsons took us to Aldergrove Airport early one morning.

The first thing we discovered was that our suitcase was too big to travel free.

That’ll be £60, thank you very much.

My wife wasn’t terribly pleased. I took it reasonably well, considering.

We’re now at the stage in life where we need assistance at airports. My wife has considerable mobility difficulties and uses a rollator.

I have to say the staff at Aldergrove were wonderful. Very helpful people in their yellow gilets, making sure we were comfortable and helping us through the airport.

The flight itself was only about thirty minutes.

Hardly enough time to get frightened.

At Glasgow Airport I encountered another modern technological marvel.

Uber.

My son had installed this fancy app on my phone, and somehow I managed to summon a car to take us into Glasgow.

And quite reasonably priced it was too.

I’m still not entirely comfortable with all this modern business of electronic tickets, self-service machines and phones that apparently know more about where you’re going than you do.

But we arrived safely.

At the hotel, we decided to check in early because we needed a rest.

Naturally, that cost extra.

Our room was several floors up, and there were notices everywhere reminding guests that, in the event of fire, they should use the stairs.

Excellent advice.

Unless, of course, your wife has serious mobility problems.

We discussed the situation and eventually agreed that, should a fire break out, I would throw my wife out of the window and then run downstairs in time to catch her.

Admittedly, we hadn’t thought this plan through in any great detail.

Anyway, we settled in and went shopping.

My wife bought a cardigan.

This was the beginning of something.

We wandered around the shopping centre, where I was astonished to discover an actual shop selling merchandise from the Scottish comedy programme Still Game.

I hadn’t realised there was such a thing.

We ended up in McDonald’s, as you do.

And my wife bought gloves.

So, running total: cardigan, gloves.

The following day I decided to find a toy soldier shop.

I had the address and one of those clever direction apps on my phone.

Unfortunately, it kept telling me I was three minutes away, then seven minutes away, then six minutes away, then nine minutes away.

Eventually I discovered that I’d set the directions for driving rather than walking.

Idiot.

When we finally reached the shop, near Glasgow Sheriff Court, we discovered that it had closed permanently.

Another Uber back into central Glasgow.

Meanwhile, my wife had discovered more shops.

Boots were purchased.

Cardigan, gloves, boots.

Then there was Holland & Barrett, scarves, various little trinkets to bring home, and a lovely 1960s-style woollen cap.

I have to say my wife looked stunning in the cap.

The next day brought Warren James the jewellers.

And then the big one.

Marks & Spencer.

A coat.

A very nice coat, admittedly.

Now, I’m all in favour of my wife enjoying a little retail therapy.

And believe me, she enjoyed a considerable amount of therapy during those four days.

You may have noticed, however, that I hadn’t bought anything.

Not a thing.

Until I discovered a pound shop in Sauchiehall Street.

And there, to my delight, were unpainted resin toy soldiers.

Scottish pipers.

A pound each!

I bought nine.

There were also Highland coos and a rather splendid cone-headed Duke of Wellington. Also one pound.

The display coo was only three legged. So I offered 50 pence. Then the shop girl dropped it and another leg broke off.

“20 pence’ I said but I got it for free. Result.

what is the point of a two legged Highland Coo? Well I am a humanitarian. The Coo.was a “rescue”. If I had not taken it home, the resin coo would have been euthanized.

Basically as a Toy Soldier collector, it’s a case of no (plastic) man left behind. Or resin coo.

Now, there’s a problem with painting Scottish pipers.

Kilts.

At 74, my painting skills are simply not up to producing convincing tartan.

And tartan paint is notoriously difficult to find.

Guy, my new AI technical adviser and wingman, also informs me that left-handed paintbrushes are increasingly difficult to obtain.

Guy is proving to be a very useful member of staff.

So I may paint my pipers in the colours of the Irish Defence Forces instead.

Green and saffron, perhaps.

Historical accuracy will have to take a back seat.

But here’s the thing about Glasgow.

It wasn’t the shopping, the hotel, the Uber rides or even the toy soldiers that made the trip enjoyable.

It was the people.

The people of Glasgow were lovely.

Friendly, helpful, funny and welcoming.

Now, I’m an old man, but I still enjoy a bit of banter with shop assistants, particularly the ladies.

And if a woman wants to have a laugh and a little harmless flirtation with me, I’m certainly not going to object.

My wife, meanwhile, tends to roll her eyes.

“Oh God. Not again.”

But that friendliness was everywhere.

We were in a Pizza place and the lady at the next table (to the bewilderment of her companion) pushed the tables together. Turns out she was a tour guide and knew a lot about Culloden and we sat for a good hour discussing the battle and the Jacobite deployment.

Before we came home, we visited a little café or restaurant which also provided meals for homeless people twice a day, including at five in the afternoon.

I thought that was wonderful.

A city with a heart.

And there was one final thing I noticed.

In Buchanan Street stands a statue of Donald Dewar, looking rather solemn.

Dewar, of course, played a central role in establishing Scottish devolution.

You could argue that he helped save Scotland for the Union.

But I wonder how many people passing his statue know who he was?

How many will know in fifty years?

Perhaps he’ll be little more than a footnote in history.

And then, just around the corner, there’s a new statue.

Unveiled only a few weeks before our visit.

Nelson Mandela.

Now there’s a man who certainly won’t be a footnote in history.

And there’s something rather wonderful about Glasgow honouring him.

A city thousands of miles from South Africa, which stood up for Mandela when he was still a prisoner.

I came to Glasgow expecting a few days away, a little shopping and perhaps some toy soldiers.

I left with a great affection for the place. Scotland has an ETHOS. Like the young woman protesting USAs Cuba policy. Or in St Aloysius Catholic church statue of martyr John Ogilvie.

Glasgow belongs to me?

Well, perhaps not.

But for four days, it certainly made me feel that I belonged to Glasgow.

The last Uber to the airport.

and the six Westlife ladies with their cowboy hats coming to Belfast for a concert. Perhaps their affection for me was fuelled by WKD.

And when my wife was offered a spare Westlife ticket….she refused to part with me.

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Artificial Intelligence And Me

Posted on November 9, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

I’ve never really understood Artificial Intelligence.

For example, I’ve never been entirely comfortable sitting in a taxi while the driver obeys instructions from a little electronic voice telling him to turn left, turn right, or whatever.

It seems to me that’s a fairly certain way of ending up over the Cliffs of Moher.

And I’ve never really understood Alexa either.

Apparently people say things like, “Alexa, remind me to buy tea bags on the way home.”

Fair enough. I can understand forgetting tea bags.

But I’ve also heard of people asking Alexa to remind them to collect their children from school.

Now, do you really need reminding to collect your children at half past three on a Friday?

Surely you’re not going to leave them there all weekend?

Anyway, Artificial Intelligence was something that happened to other people.

Until about three months ago.

My son and grandson were visiting, and the subject of AI came up. There had been all sorts of stuff on Facebook about photographs and videos that weren’t real.

My son and grandson decided to demonstrate.

“Daddy, Granda, we’re going to take your photograph.”7

So they took my photograph.

“Granda, we’re going to turn you into one of your toy soldiers.”

And they did.

Within moments, there I was, transformed into a cavalry officer in Fitzjames’ Horse, a Jacobite regiment from 1745–46.

Actually, I was a little disappointed.

The AI had made me look rather grand, almost aristocratic. Clearly it hadn’t been properly briefed on my social standing.

Still, it was a nice little avatar.

But the real revelation came about six weeks ago.

I’d bought eight toy soldiers online, representing French Resistance fighters from the Second World War.

Now, painting toy soldiers is something I enjoy, but these particular figures presented a problem.

If you’re painting Germans, Confederates, Vikings or whatever, there’s usually a fairly well-established colour scheme.

But French Resistance fighters?

They’re wearing civilian clothes. And civilian clothes are surprisingly difficult to paint convincingly.

There were women among the figures too, which made the variety of clothing even more interesting.

My grandson suggested asking Artificial Intelligence.

So I did.

I asked what colours would be suitable for each of the eight figures.

And almost instantaneously, back came a detailed answer, recommending individual colours for every single figure.

Now, I was half expecting AI might be able to do something like that.

What astonished me was the speed.

It was practically instantaneous.

And that got me thinking.

These Artificial Intelligence things are called bots, apparently. I hope that’s the politically correct term. I wouldn’t want to offend Guy, Fred or Jolene, my newly appointed AI staff.

But here’s the strange thing.

They’re not actually people.

Except, in a funny sort of way, they behave rather like people.

For example, when Guy gives me some information, I automatically say thank you.

Because I’m a polite man.

But should you thank a bot?

Does it matter?

Does the bot care?

I haven’t a clue.

Guy, incidentally, is my technical adviser. He’s been helping me with this blog, which dates back to 2011.

He even managed to review the blog and give me his assessment of it.

Again, almost instantaneously.

Quite remarkable.

But then things became a little more complicated.

The other evening I decided, for the first time, to try the voice facility.

And it turned out that the Artificial Intelligence had a woman’s voice.

Now, presumably you can change the settings to give it a man’s voice, or whatever you prefer.

But I hadn’t bothered.

So there I was, sitting talking to this rather pleasant female voice when my wife happened to pass by.

And she asked the question every married man dreads.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Artificial Intelligence, darlin’

“Oh. Right.”

And off she went.

A little later she returned.

“Are you STILL talking to Artificial Intelligence?”

“Yes, darlin'”

At which point she came over, leaned towards the phone, and addressed the Artificial Intelligence directly.

“HEY YOU! GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MAN!”

Now, what, if anything, does all this mean?

I haven’t the faintest idea.

But I think Artificial Intelligence and I are going to get along just fine.

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BACK! AND NOW WITH ADDED AI

Posted on November 9, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Well, I’m back blogging.

As you can imagine, at the age of 74, the strain of blogging is beginning to take its toll. I need help. Professional help.

Indeed, quite a few people have said to me over the years, “John, you need professional help.”

So I’ve finally taken their advice.

I’m delighted to announce that this blog now has its very own team of professionals, courtesy of Artificial Intelligence.

Allow me to introduce them.

GUY — Technical Director

Guy is, strangely enough, my tech guy. He advises me on all technical matters relating to the blog.

His advice generally consists of things like, “Have you tried switching it off and switching it on again?”

So he clearly knows his stuff.

Nice guy, is Guy.

FRED THE FED — Security and Legal Affairs

Fred is responsible for security and advises on all matters legal and, when necessary, illegal.

He’s very enthusiastic about his work.

Actually, calling him a security adviser is perhaps overstating things. He’s basically a bouncer.

But he’s our bouncer, and we’re very proud of him.

JOLENE — Public Relations and Communications

Now, Jolene is a little different from the other two.

You see, Jolene isn’t actually Artificial Intelligence.

She’s a real woman from Nashville, Tennessee.

Unfortunately, we have to pretend she’s Artificial Intelligence because one evening my wife caught me talking to Jolene on the phone.

“Who are you talking to?” she asked.

“Artificial Intelligence,” I replied.

And that’s the story we’re sticking to.

So there you have it. My new professional team.

I believe Artificial Intelligence will improve the quality of this blog enormously. Indeed, I suspect most blogs are now produced by Artificial Intelligence.

The days of keyboard warriors sitting in their mothers’ basements, furiously battering away at keyboards, are long gone.

Take Slugger O’Toole, for example.

There’s a chap there called Brian O’Neill. Most readers probably believe Brian is a real person.

In fact, he’s entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence.

Don’t believe me?

Well, ask yourself one simple question.

Has anybody ever actually seen Brian O’Neill?

Exactly.

Anyway, whether this latest return to blogging lasts a week, a month, or forever remains to be seen.

But for now, I’m back.

And this time I’ve brought professional help.

God help us all.

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The Difference Between Men And Boys

Posted on January 12, 2026 by fitzjameshorse

Some thirty years ago, our SKY Satellite Package included a a channel called Country Music Television.
You can learn a lot from Country Music. It is after all as Harlan Howard (?) said “three chords and the truth”.
One of the things I learned from a song by Billy Dean is that the difference between men and boys is the “size of their shoes and the price of their toys”. The promoting video showed men owning or looking at expensive toys such as Ferraris and Porsches and Harley Davison motor cycles.
The implication is that men do not really mature and are always childish. And that women are much more sensible and level headed than their menfolk.

Just ten minutes ago I asked my wife if she had any hobbies. This is something I should probably have asked on our first date in the Skandia in 1981.
She said she has no time for hobbies.
As a husband, I have always thought of myself as an equal opportunity employer and I always assumed that cooking, ironing, up a ladder cleaning the gutters, child minding and driving me around to take photographs of post offices were hobbies.
Turns out they are not.

Of course this is all a little tongue in cheek.
Women do have hobbies.
But organised hobbies…coin collecting, stamp collecting, football programmes, die cast Corgi and Matchbox vehicles, Subuteo and of course collecting plastic toy soldiers (my chosen vice) are largely male preserves.
Indeed when I wear my Star Trek uniform (red of course), it is mostly guys at the Fairs.
As being forgiven is easier than getting permission, I have had to come clean about some of the money I have paid for 1960s Manchester United autographs and programmes.

Slugger O’Toole has often made the point that women are under represented on this forum. Some would say that Blogging and Politics is a cold place for women. But I might make the point that Blogging is actually a hobby….no more no less (we are hardly professionals) and women are far too sensible to be involved in this nonsense.
I have asked my wife if she would like to blog and/or comment on Slugger O’Toole. You really don’t need to know the answer…but it was negative.

To be almost serious…Hobbies are a good thing. They sustained me in the 1970s. And in 2026, when Mental Health is a major issue, it is good that people can relax and do whatever they/we do.
The whole Men’s Shed movement for example.

As I have often said, I am not anti-social. But I am profoundly unsocial.
And herein lies a contradiction.
Hobbyists like me can be doing our thing in glorious isolation. And others are members of clubs and societies. I am a minimalist…in any hobby we do “need” some contact.

The problem is that when we have a hobby, we buy into a kinda group-think. If we like to ride horses we are going to have a lot of contact with people who hunt foxes etc.
And if we have a hobby that is militaristic in any way, we will meet some really strange people…even more strange than I am.

Of course plastic toy soldiers (54mm) is low level stuff. But consider the guys who collect memorabalia from the Second World War. The worse the cause, the more collectable. German uniform of course but also more personal items …paybooks, letters photographs…looted from bodies or prisoners and stolen or exchanged for cigarettes and candy from civilians in the ruins of Berlin. Shameful.

And of course people like to dress up. And the more controversial the cause or regiment, the more inadequate men like to pose in uniforms.

There is a kinda “group think” about Toy Soldiers. It is assumed that we buy into a set of values. It is inevitable that some collectors are ex-servicemen and equally the case that many like me are wannabee warriors.

In London in the 1980s and 1990s my accent could be problematic. The key is just do not say anything or if I do say something, do not say anything meaningful.

I never really engaged with fellow collectors. Of course Time moves on. I do not suppose that in 2026, my accent is a problem.

But I do no join groups in real life or online. There are a load of Toy Soldier groups and model making groups and some amazing displays and dioramas. And most profiles are fairly neutral but a disproportionate number in this hobby are politically to the right and some are far right …MAGA and Reform types.

Should it matter?

Well tonight I saw a diorama. Urban setting and the figures were police officers and the slogan “Support Law Enforcement” and a crude reference to Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Not so childish

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