A truly prolific output. John Hurt's distinct Midlands voice managed to be both gravely and warm at the same time. His audio performances alone were terrific such as Hazel in Watership Down and as The Owl in The Gruffalo. A genuine master of the dramatic craft.

You know, I hadn't realised it was a young John Hurt playing that role in A Man for All Seasons. I think the first show that I was aware of him by name was Caligula in I Claudius. I agree he was phenomenal even when just using his voice. I know it was a kiddywinks' show but I liked his voice as the voice of the dragon in Merlin.  The most recent performance(s) of his were as a recurring baddy character in Person of Interest.  Again, that was perhaps not his most highbrow enactment but he was very good.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this - it just feels right ...


Tara Palmer-Tomkinson 1971-2017

Not known outside the UK and immediate environs, I reckon, and for the life of me one whose "fame" I could never quite understand anyway. In interviews she came across as generally friendly, quite batty, a little dim, and ultimately there to be laughed at rather than with, which made any incidental exposure on TV or in magazines always make one feel a little "voyeurish" to be reading about her or watching her at all. It seems that Tara in latter years developed the same view and chose to "retire" from public life, something that actually seemed to confirm a latent intelligence in my eyes that she had hitherto failed or was simply unable to use.

So why her unexpected demise yesterday made an impression on me is something about which I'm not too sure at all. I immediately thought of Jade Goody (another UK phenomenon) and her own untimely death, one which, again for reasons I do not quite understand, also engendered some sadness - in me at least.

Both people who I'm sure would have had me chewing the wallpaper if left in a room with them for more than five minutes, and neither of them with one single commendable action to their name which might merit national exposure, let alone admiration. But there you go .... the sadness at her parting is genuine and feels merited all the same.

How very odd that you should post the above, nordmann, because I feel exactly the same about both Tara P-T and Jade Goody, two women who were worlds apart - in the social class/background sense - from each other and from me. So, like you, I cannot - or choose not to - explain the sadness or the weird sense of "recognition" and empathy I feel: the old cliché, I suppose, of there but for the grace of God go I.

You have reflected my feelings as well but I think I can understand why I feel sadness. These were two young women who were ruthlessly exploited, even if they were somewhat complicit in that exploitation, as being representatives of 'all that is wrong with young people today', 'broken Britain'  and cynically given celebrity that they were entirely unable to cope with. Both were lampooned by the very people who were using them without any shred of compassion or decency and also put deliberately into situations which could only expose them to further ridicule which just encouraged those who castigated them (and there were millions) to follow their stories even more avidly. They were the absolute apotheosis of the side bar of shame fodder.

Both were then struck down by conditions which were unconnected to their behaviour and it was hard to resist the thought that the reporting of this - in particular with Goody - barely concealed a sense of divine retribution.

Makes sense, ferval. I'm glad I acknowledged her now.

A fitting tribute to Tara so - the Roches Sisters' "Pretty and High". The singer Maggie preceded Ms Palmer-Tomkinson to the great beyond by only two weeks.



Maggie Roche 1951-2017

ferval wrote:

You have reflected my feelings as well but I think I can understand why I feel sadness. These were two young women who were ruthlessly exploited, even if they were somewhat complicit in that exploitation, as being representatives of 'all that is wrong with young people today', 'broken Britain'  and cynically given celebrity that they were entirely unable to cope with. Both were lampooned by the very people who were using them without any shred of compassion or decency and also put deliberately into situations which could only expose them to further ridicule which just encouraged those who castigated them (and there were millions) to follow their stories even more avidly.

I agree with that, but for me there is something more to my sadness: I think it is an awareness of something essentially flawed and tragic in the personalities of both women, a helplessness and a hopelessness that is very hard to overcome, although, with the right help, it can be done. I'm reminded of something I read years ago - was it in Prozac Nation? - where the royally messed-up writer (who battled multiple addictions) simply stated: "Very early on in my life it was too late." A privileged background, intelligence, apparent professional success, popularity, even great beauty (think Marilyn Monroe) - these things count for nothing if a personality is needy, vulnerable and too anxious to please; and both Goody and Palmer-Tomkinson were that: two frightened little girls who had never grown up, who went about desperately looking for love and validation and fulfilment in all the wrong places. Tragedy was inevitable - one way or another. It's true such self-obsessed people can be immensely annoying and frustrating to know, but there was nevertheless an honesty and an openness about the pair of them which I liked and respected, qualities (as you point out) glaringly lacking in the circus ringmasters and in most of the spectators at the show.

Tara's death made our news here, though probably only in the celebrity columns, which are hard to avoid on websites.  I hadn't heard of her, and the paper said she was known in Britain by her initials which I have already forgotten, and could easily find if I just scroll up this board a little.  I did hear about Jade Goody but I have forgotten the details - something about her death and dying (of anorexia?) being avidly followed by millions.

I did wonder if Tara's brain tumour had something to do with her body abuse earlier in her life, but I suppose medical people would say it is unconnected.  (Obviously I read this avidly myself, despite never having heard about her before her death. I am quite interested in the details of illnesses, especially of those who die young.)

Caro, I hesitate to post stuff from the Daily Gossip, but this piece by Lady Victoria Harvey is pretty sympathetic to Tara P-T.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4215662/LADY-VICTORIA-HERVEY-Girls-rivals.html


"She pretended not to care what people thought about her but all she ever wanted was to be loved. She had an emotional fragility that would ultimately be her undoing. There was a sweetness to her, a vulnerability. I used to say she was like a labrador puppy wanting everyone to love her. She didn’t have the toughness you needed to survive."

Today NZ rugby is mourning the death of former All Black Sione Lauaki aged 35, who died of renal failure and cardiovascular disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2012.  It seems to have come as a shock and the captain of the team playing in Australia was offered time off to go back to NZ as he was a great friend, but he said No, he would play in his honour.  I think his team won the tournament. 

It's very young to die of natural causes.  There is a young (not so young now) man in our district who has to spend hours every day on a dialysis machine, and it's very hard on all his family.  I don't know how he can run a farm with that handicap.

Caro wrote:

...

It's very young to die of natural causes.  There is a young (not so young now) man in our district who has to spend hours every day on a dialysis machine, and it's very hard on all his family.  I don't know how he can run a farm with that handicap.

Caro,
I'd suggest that it's the hope of being donated a kidney, but primarily hope, which keep such people alive.

Miffy creator, Dick Bruna, dies aged 89;

from 2 years ago;
Modernist Masterpiece

Tommy Gemmell, who played in the Celtic team which was the first North European side to win the European Cup, dies aged 73;

And from motorsport ...

Sport, at its best, is not just an observable pastime performed for our amusement about who wins over whom or by how much, but is also essentially a barometer through which - if we're lucky - we can gauge our species' values, our goals, our understanding of achievement and its worth, and our aspiration to sometimes transcend our mortal limitations and advertise our own worthiness to sit, albeit metaphorically and ephemerally, amongst our gods. Despite its debasement through commercialism, ancillary gambling, pharmaceutical cheating and hyperbolic media over-exposure, we still endure and tolerate its ubiquitous and never-ending mediocrity in the hope that every now and then sport will throw up that one glorious moment in which, despite their mortal origin and all the flaws that this entails, an individual or group of individuals - if only fleetingly - can stake their place in Olympus and in doing so allow us all to vicariously taste the rarified air of its Elysian hinterlands.

Sport teaches us also about the true nature of fortune's goddess, the pernicious Tyche who - as is her whimsical and cruelly fickle wont - will often mete out abject, unexpected and sometimes devastating failure to the most assiduous and dedicated of her subjects while bestowing success in spectacularly huge quantities to the completely undeserving. Only very rarely indeed does a mere mortal look Tyche squarely in the eye and, defying her to do her worst, pursue their goals so tenaciously, so skilfully, and with such superhuman courage and endeavour that even this most capricious of Olympus's residents backs off in grudging defeat and admires, like the rest of us, that individual's determination to breach those Elysian defences and claim their spot amongst her exalted company.

Sport, as with life, inevitably throws up no shortage of accidental, undeserving, ephemeral, pretend, and even bogus heroes, many of whom despoil the concept of heroism itself through their arrogance and hubris in believing they are worthy occupants of an Olympian pedestal. But every now and then it produces one of that other sort - those true claimants to immortality whose emergence and example, for the rest of us, suddenly makes that whole fruitless and often meaningless endeavour which is life worthwhile, in fact beautifully worthwhile. They are of course distinguished by their single-minded dedication to the achievement of goals, but to be true claimants to immortality they are also best distinguished by their humility in their success, their obvious comprehension of the fact that in their own achievement they have simply shown us all how any one of us mere humans can one day also raise ourselves on our own feet of clay, summon strengths and skills to their utmost degree, ignore Tyche's scornful glare, reach out, and dare to touch that heavenly barrier. The true sporting immortal, we know therefore, has never forgotten those feet on which he once raised himself.

There are no sporting gods, despite the inflated rhetoric employed in its commentary. There aren't even any immortals. But the nearest we will ever see to such immortality is to be found in that very select few who have given Tyche a run for her money and won, earned her grudging respect while earning also our own more generous appreciation, and who graciously and humbly admitted their mortality in doing so.

One such mortal passed away yesterday.



John Surtees, 1934 - 2017

nordmann wrote:

And from motorsport ...

Sport, at its best, is not just an observable pastime performed for our amusement about who wins over whom or by how much, but is also essentially a barometer through which - if we're lucky - we can gauge our species' values, our goals, our understanding of achievement and its worth, and our aspiration to sometimes transcend our mortal limitations and advertise our own worthiness to sit, albeit metaphorically and ephemerally, amongst our gods ....... etc ....

Blimey Nordmann, what a load of pretentious guff! While your valedictory prose is worthy of 'Pseud's Corner' I do rather think it's just a bit too early in the day to be getting mashed and maudlin, even on a Saturday. 

John Surtees ... apparently a decent chap who drove a car for a living ... though I'd never heard of him.

World 500cc Motorcycle Champion four times between 1956 and 1960, and then uniquely switched to Formula 1 in which he then became world champion in 1964, an unrepeated (and in all likelihood unrepeatable) feat, all the more impressive when you see the calibre of those he was up against that year. A really "decent chap" too, one of my boyhood heroes who actually lived up to expectations when I met him later. One of the first (and still one of the best) sporting autobiographies I read as a youngster, and one of the very few people whose autograph I was proud to obtain in those far-off days. I wanted to give him a fitting send-off.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson

Actually, I thought the references to the scornful Tyche were rather good, but perhaps not entirely suitable for a chap (however decent and nice) who spent his life tearing round and round race tracks in cars and on motor-bikes. I personally loathe motor-bikes - they can summon up Nemesis rather too often.

Here is dear Tyche shown with her stern pal Nemesis: I very much like this image.




But it won't appear - shame.

1926-2017

I remember when Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place to Go" was in the pop charts circa 1964 my teenaged self thought him a tad senior for a pop star at 38. How one's idea of what is old or young relatively changes with time. Chuck Berry was always very lively though I remember.

Martin McGuinness, 1950-2017

Obviously everybody is accountable for their own actions, and everybody has to make judgments based on their own conscience as to whether or not they believe what they were doing is right or wrong.

Martin McGuinness was involved in the brutal deaths of many people whose families may never forgive him, but he was also intrumental in the peace process, the terms of which have been mostly respected, and so deserves the gratitude of a great many others. He may have stoked the war while it was ongoing but he certainly did not begin it. After decades of violence, by which time it was clear nobody was going to win and the community that he aimed to represent were thoroughly sick of the pointlessness of it all, it could be argued that he simply saw the way the wind was blowing and so reinvented himself as a man of peace in order to stay in power. Nevertheless his authority was essential in getting the IRA to renounce their side of the violence and his actions were not without personal risk. His contribution to soothing the bitter hatred and achieving a large degree of reconcilliation between the communities of Northern Ireland cannot be overestimated. For that reason I think he deserves as much praise as condemnation.

And while we naive young ones in England were all smoking dope and wandering around in a dippy-hippy-daze of "Love and Peace, man!"...





Those eyes, those eyes...

Colin Dexter, 1930-2017

Thanks to a particularly dreary, wet and cold holiday in Wales back in the 70s (well, what did he expect?), Mr Dexter - a text book author up to that point - out of sheer boredom decided to try his hand at writing a little "murder mystery" for his own and his family's amusement. The Welsh weather therefore had probably more than a little role to play in the ultimate design of the detective's character that he invented on that miserable, bleak and washed out day in the Valleys ... and for that we should all wish it (and him of course) a hearty and well-deserved "diolch"!

My TV is still down but when it was still working the "Morse" TV adaptations were shown on the Drama channel quite regularly.  I saw some of the writer, Michael Jecks' [Jecks's??] YouTube videos recently.  He mentioned that in the days when the Morse novels were written it was not as necessary for a writer to be immersed in the world of police procedure when writing a detective novel as it is nowadays.  I did like the series though.  The combination of the late Mr Dexter's source material and John Thaw's bringing of the character to life as an actor worked well (or it did so in my opinion at least).  I recall that in one episode the Morse character said that the proper way to spell words like 'realise' and emphasise' was with a z (I always spell them with an 's' - what, shock, horror have the Americans had the right of it all this time?)  Perhaps Temps can cast some light on the subject (of whether to spell such words with an 's' or a 'z').  I'll say one thing for Mr Dexter - at least he is smiling in the photo Nordmann posted - a lot of authors (though I know it's dangerous to make blanket statements) seem to have smug "up themselves" photographs taken of themselves.  Cold wet days on holiday in Wales - oh yes, been there, done that, haven't got the T-shirt though.  To be fair when the weather is clement many parts of Wales are beautiful.

LiR wrote:

Perhaps Temps can cast some light on the subject (of whether to spell such words with an 's' or a 'z').  

Oh, LiR, please do not expect me to cast light on any subject these days. I stopped being a source of illumination for anyone a long time ago. Ask nordmann.  

Temperance wrote:

LiR wrote:

Perhaps Temps can cast some light on the subject (of whether to spell such words with an 's' or a 'z').  

Oh, LiR, please do not expect me to cast light on any subject these days. I stopped being a source of illumination for anyone a long time ago. Ask nordmann.  

Regarding 's' or 'z', I - a puir benighted furriner - use whichever is nearest at the momemnt.

Temperance, there are times when your comments light up my days.

Nielsen wrote:

Temperance, there are times when your comments light up my days.

Alas, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

But no, I shall suppress all suspicious and cynical thoughts and simply say, "Ah, thank you, Nielsen - what a lovely comment!"  

Mine too.  Obligatory smiley thing.

nordmann wrote:

Mine too.  Obligatory smiley thing.

Crikey. Obligatory shocked thingy.

But to return to the serious nature of this thread: RIP the police officer who died in London yesterday, and the other (unnamed) victims of the cowardly attack:

The unarmed police officer who was killed inside the gates of Parliament was named as PC Keith Palmer, a 48-year-old husband and father.

PC Palmer had worked for the Metropolitan Police for 15 years, having previously served in the armed forces.

I read that in a Morse book too, LIR. The use of 'z' was the former form in England (this book whose title I have forgotten involved a body being found that dated back to the 19th century), at least in Oxford English, so that is now what I use!  I think people now think of it as the American form as opposed to the English one.  But it's a bit like 'gotten' which people in NZ generally don't like, but I don't mind. Sometimes it just sounds better. 

The news about the attack was headline here, and very sad to read, but I am always a bit uncertain about referring to them as "cowardly" - knowing you are putting yourself in the line of death is hardly cowardly, and even if he knew those police were unarmed he must have known others would be brought in smartly.  I was surprised to find the perpetrator was in his 50s.  It seems very old to be radicalized.

Disc Jockey Brian Matthew dies at the age of 88:

Brian Matthew

They're now saying he's not dead but critically ill:

Brian Matthews II

He left this life in much the same way he left the BBC, Trike:

Brian Matthew III

I'm three days late with this but I felt rather saddened to learn that Leo Baxendale, the cartoonist behind "The Bash Street Kids" and "Minnie the Minx" and a plethora of other cartoon characters had died http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39730388. The Beano helped a lot of wet playtimes pass more quickly when I was a child.

The eyebrow finally rests ...



Sir Roger George Moore, 1927-2017

ITV are showing the Bond films on Sunday afternoons. The Man with the Golden Gun was on last Sunday;




Everyone has to start somewhere:

Oh bugger Bond, what about



Or

I read that he used to be called "The Big Knit" in his posing for jumpers days - though as you rightly say everyone has to start somewhere - wasn't Maggie Smith the girl sidekick on a quiz show back in the day? I never watched RM as Bond, though I did see him in "The Saint" when I was a teenager. My Dad was for some reason very opposed to commercial TV - we only got ITV circa 1960 when the small screen one conked out and the bloke in the TV shop said "Sorry but there aren't any TVs without ITV", so I had to go to friends' houses to watch "William Tell", "Robin Hood" and "Bonanza" (and of course "Ivanhoe" though I don't think I watched so many episodes of that) etc prior to 1960-ish.

Former Blue Peter presenter John Noakes dies aged 83;

Oh dear, another good 'un gone ... although at 96 Peter Sallis had had a good innings. I remember seeing him in 'Much Ado About Nothing' (he was Dogberry) at the Chichester Festival Theatre in about 1974 ... and even though I was a rather gauche teenager his performance obviously made its mark as I can't remember any other of the "star-studded" cast. In more recent years I remember him with great fondness as the gentle voice of Ratty, in the radio production of 'Wind in the Willows', and of course as the hapless yet redoubtable Wallace .... "Cheese Gromit, we've forgotten the cheese!".

I read where he was the only one of the cast of Last of the Summer Wine (which I have never intentionally watched - it's not my sort of humour - though it has been unavoidable to ignore fully over the many years it was on) to have been in every episode. Nor did I watch Wallis and Grommet, probably to my loss.  I did read where he was very pleased to have that opportunity late in his life.

You let this guy's departure go unmentioned?!?!?! Holy Obituaries Batman!


Adam West, 1928-2017

And for those of us of a certain age and with hormonal memories ...



Anita Pallenberg, 1944-2017

My recollections and nostalgic tribute would be unseemly as an obituary, so I'll leave it to Marianne Faithful (who else?) to fete her fellow "Rolling Stones muse" (as the papers are rather facetiously describing Pallenberg today):

"She almost single-handedly engineered a cultural revolution in London by bringing together the Stones and the jeunesse dorée…The Stones came away with a patina of aristocratic decadence that served as a perfect counterfoil to the raw roots blues of their music. This…transformed the Stones from pop stars into cultural icons."

Paddington Bear creator, Michael Bond, dies aged 91:

Michael Bond

Paddington Bear statue in errrr Paddington Station;

I'm not letting Barry go too long without an honourable mention. For quite some time he was my litmus paper when it came to possibly forking out funds which then were in extremely short supply on a trip to the pictures.



Barry Leslie Norman, CBE (21 August 1933 – 30 June 2017)

nordmann wrote:

I'm not letting Barry go too long without an honourable mention. For quite some time he was my litmus paper when it came to possibly forking out funds which then were in extremely short supply on a trip to the pictures.



Barry Leslie Norman, CBE (21 August 1933 – 30 June 2017)

 
Nordmann, just entered the net...

Now I know him too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Norman


"he was my litmus paper when it came to possibly forking out funds which then were in extremely short supply on a trip to the pictures."

Those were the times.... and even to fork out some funds for a "frisco" (it was rectangular and wrapped in silver colour printed silver foil, when I taste "that" ice again I shall recongnize it after nearly sixty years) for the film in one of the 13 "cinemas" of Ostend
Didn't find a picture on the net as seemingly on the nowedays internet it is "passé".
But I found an exact recalling of one of Ostend about the "cinemas" of that time...really an insider as he tells it really as it was in my memory. But we were lucky that we, my sister and I, could go with our parents and then no question of payement...
History of the Ostend "cinema's"
https://www.oostende.be/product.aspx?id=10072
"Het snoepgebeuren bereikte zijn hoogtepunt tijdens de pauze, toen een aantrekkelijke juffrouw met mandje rondging in de zaal. Dit ambulant aanbod was heel wat beperkter dan we nu gewoon zijn. Het bestond voornamelijk uit frisco's, chocolade, zips en apenootjes."
(the peak of the sweeties event was during the break, when a good looking girl (I remember also some older ladies not looking anymore as a young girl) walked through the side-passage with her basket. The supply consisted mainly of "frisco's" (the accent in Dutch is for the plurial of words ending on a vowel. In Dutch it is thus "cinema's"), chocolats...yes "zip" that's another sweety too late to explain this evening...

Kind regards, Paul.

Martin Landau, star of Mission Impossible and Space 1999, has died aged 89:

I see that actor Robert Hardy has died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13783739 Long before "All Creatures Great and Small" graced the small screen RH as Henry V in the BBC's "An Age of Kings" production of Shakespeare's history plays (okay I know the "history" is not necessarily accurate history). That production did more than the teachers at school to enlighten me to the fact that there was so much more to the works of Shakespeare than to bore school pupils silly with plays written in antiquated language.

Also, actor Hywel Bennett has died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40814843
He may not have been a "heavy hitter" the way RH was but he was certainly eclectic. I remember first seeing him as a deranged teenager who went on a shooting spree in (I think - going from memory and it's about half a century now) in either a Play for Today or Wednesday Play and being rather impressed. He will, however, probably be best remembered for "Shelley".

I heard that Robert Hardy had died (hadn't realised how old he was), but not Hywel Bennett.  (How do you pronounce Hywel? - I am not good at Welsh names, despite having a Welsh daughter-in-law.)

I remember watching him in something but I couldn't remember what, though he was a major part in it.  It must have been Shelley, though I don't remember watching a show called Shelley.  Pennies from Heaven?  He was someone I have always had fond recollections of, without (obviously) very specific ones.

I always heard it pronounced 'Howell' with the 'ow' as in owl. I don't speak Welsh but I know that the Welsh word for Wales is Cymru - which my mother who came from North Wales always pronounced as 'cumree'. There are different dialects in Welsh but I don't know them. Hywel Bennett was in "Eastenders" for a time as a baddy and was also in "Last of the Summer Wine" towards the end of its long run.