45 Minutes in the Life of John Peter Connor
I have two regular carers at the moment. The first to arrive greets me with her usual efficacious, “Good morning, John!” She’s loud enough to wake the whole street. Luckily, my neighbors should be…
Fall Down, Get Up Again
— John Connor
In the ‘80s, John Connor created the first regular column about the burgeoning London stand-up scene. In 1990 he wrote a book about its effect on the Edinburgh Festival: “Comics: A Decade of Comedy at the Assembly Rooms.” That year he also devised and ran a live topical stand-up team show at The London Comedy Store, The Edge (It was destroyed in 2020!). In 2009 John was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS, which cut short his main job as a TV casting director for “Black Books,” “My Family,” et al. Now, John writes “Fall Down Get Up Again,” an irreverent journey with MS.
Featured Post
This is what happens when I actually take the weekend off
A few columns back, I wrote about my lack of time to get anything done. Sure, the way around it would be to get up infernally early — well, early for me. But…
Read more
The Long and Winding Road to My Urologist’s Door
Last week’s column, “The Loneliness of the Long-distance UTI Patient,” dealt with my dive into the Eastern (bloc) world of bacteriophages. It would be a fun exercise (and boy, do I need…
The Loneliness of the Long-distance UTI Patient
When did I first become aware of the word “phage”? “Star Trek,” of course! It was an episode about a disease that was destroying a race somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. (OK, possibly…
Resistance May Be Futile, but the Borg Taught Me Something
OK, you’re not all science fiction nuts, so I’ll explain: The Borg are a cybernetic race and the lead baddies in the “Star Trek” universe — or, the way the latest Netflix iteration is…
Fighting the Beast
It was 3 p.m. last Thursday. Things should have been good. I had filed the copy for my previous column the day before. Ultimately, some of my outrageous musings had gone, and some…
Everything You Wanted to Know About Poo, but I Was Afraid to Write
Eurgh! Poo is what I fear most at the moment. I thought turning this column into a diary was cool. Following the greats, such as John Diamond, who chronicled his cancer to the end,…
The Terrible 62s, or the Rage of the Non-toddler Adult
It’s usually best to write with time for reflection. I often feel like a foreign correspondent reporting from the front line of my own bedroom! The shells of multiple sclerosis (MS) explode within me,…
Like Iggy Says, ‘All Aboard for Funtime’
I’ve been a moderator at MS News Today Forums for a while. One of my jobs, besides rejecting the interminable bots that try to become members, is to promote interaction. This is the…
Turn It Off, Then On Again
There’s always something! As a columnist, that comes in handy, as then I don’t have to think too much. Stop snickering at the back for thinking that I never think. How very dare you?…
Einstein Said Time Is Relative, but Not For This Relative
Albert Einstein proved that the faster you go, the less you’ll age compared with those you left at home. This effect, however, is imperceptible unless you have the ability to approach light speed or…
There’s No Business Like Show Business — Till There’s No Business
In June, I wrote a column about accepting I’d have to physically retire from directing and producing my own stand-up stage show, “The Edge.” Now, because of that which cannot be named,…
‘Apocalypse Now’: I Love the Smell of Hashish in the Morning
Helicopters were whirling in my brain. Turns out, it was a solitary police one. Though it was another hot night, my wife closed my windows in case of a prowler. I’m on the ground…
Relapse, Relapse, Relapse, Profanity, Relapse
Maybe I should have called this one “Short and Sharp 2.” Yes, I’ve had another relapse, following my last one in May. I can no longer clean my own tail, and the present…
It Was a Lazy Sunday Afternoon — Not!
It all started on the hottest day of the year here in the U.K. My phone said it was 99 F. An old friend was coming over, and my youngest son, Jack, had kindly…
The Mouth That Roared and Roared
Strap in: This is not going to be a fun one. Even less so for me — though I’m writing this under the sort of drug load that Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson…
The Joy of Joining the ‘Downton Abbey’ Set
For an espoused leftie, you might be surprised that I’ve always had the brush of the rugged individualist about me. Not quite Bear Grylls, but grabbing a rucksack and hitching across Canada…
It’s a Matter of Timing and Mic Technique
In the U.K., stand-up comedy is currently dead. Like Python’s parrot, it “wouldn’t move if you put 4,000 volts through it!” That’s not strictly true. Our government has just stumped up 1.57 billion…
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Woman
In this case, the woman in question was yet again my wife, Jane. The hour in question was 4 p.m. on my usual day of writing. But on this day, writing had to be…
Here Comes the Sun, and It’s All Too Much
Yup, it’s the annual whinge about what heat does to most of us, this time livened up by a headline that includes two Beatles’ song titles. (Yes, I did have to scroll through…
A Morning With No Opera but Enough for a Small Choir!
Last Wednesday my days of rest suddenly smashed to a halt. At one point it seemed like the majority of those who work for my local council’s social services (whom I should have…
