Triceratops wrote:

Leader of the sabotage operation against the heavy water plane at Rjukan, Joachim Ronneberg, dies aged 99:
Joachim Ronneberg

Ronneberg's exploits are the basis on the film Heroes of Telemark
coincidentally, Osprey have a book out next month on this subject:
Heroes of Telemark

Triceratops,

I had already downloaded the BBC link, but you are before me...
I saw the Kirk Douglas film around 1965
but now skimming through it I find it is the usual American stuff of that time, not knowing if it is today better...
But in that time it was quite entertaining, as the "Guns of Navarone" (but I preferred the novel)
Better if I have time to read buy the Osprey book, I think...

And on the same BBC link there is that link that I wanted to publish here yesterday:
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45919900


And the Douglas film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axBiR8ZipPM


Kind regards from Paul.

Stan Lee, creator of Marvel Comics, dies aged 95;



I would imagine just about everyone has seen at least one of Lee's creations on film.

Bernardo Bertolucci director of the films 1900, The Conformist and Last Tango In Paris etc has died:



Bertolucci in Peking's Forbidden City in 1987 during the filming of The Last Emperor.

I've not seen much of this chap's work,Vizzer.  Last Tango in Paris never appealed to me.  The Last Emperor if it was historically based might have been more up my street, but again I never saw it.  I admit I was probably prejudiced because I heard that the young (at the time) actress who played opposite Brando was emotionally damaged after making the film.

Lady,

"I heard that the young (at the time) actress who played opposite Brando was emotionally damaged after making the film."

Me too. I don't mean "me too", but me too am prejudiced against the man by all this stuff...


PS. But we have a proverb: "Van de doden, niets dan goeds" (about the dead persons, nothing but good?)

Kind regards from Paul.

In English the proverb is "Don't speak ill of the dead", Paul.

I've seen both The Last Emperor and Last Tango in Paris. Many, many years ago for the latter, but I remember (that's the wrong word - I don't remember any details of it at all) it as being very good, if a little dark. But I take very little notice of directors, though I know the names of lots. The only one I really notice is Ken Loach. I loved His Name is Joe, and quite recently we watched Kes, which dismayed me rather since I was expecting a nice movie about a kestrel being trained and coming back.

Caro wrote:

I've seen both The Last Emperor and Last Tango in Paris. Many, many years ago for the latter, but I remember (that's the wrong word - I don't remember any details of it at all) it as being very good, if a little dark. But I take very little notice of directors, though I know the names of lots. The only one I really notice is Ken Loach. I loved His Name is Joe, and quite recently we watched Kes, which dismayed me rather since I was expecting a nice movie about a kestrel being trained and coming back.

Caro,

as you I am not concerned about directors, but more about the films they produce. By looking at him on internet I see now that I have seen on television:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_That_Shakes_the_Barley_(film)

And looking to his life, I say now: what a bloke...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Loach
I don't understand:
"After Oxford he spent two years in the Royal Air Force and then began a career in the dramatic arts, working first as an actor in regional theatre companies and then as a director for BBC Television.^[5] "

Was he director of the BBC or just director of a programme. After all those years I have still many times difficulties with English...we would say rather for a programme or film: producing director (productiedirecteur) or producer...or is it the "for" which make the  difference? Instead of the "of"?

And reading the wiki: I remember now the row in Belgium and I saw the man on Belgian TV, rather joking with our PM Charles Michel. He came rather negative over, but now that I read the context:

Honorary doctorate from Free University of Brussels[edit]

In April 2018, Loach was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Université libre de Bruxelles. Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel objected.^[93] Belgian Jewish organisations campaigned for Loach not to receive the honorary doctorate. The previous evening, during a speech at Brussels Grand Synagogue, to mark the 70th anniversary of Israel's foundation, Michel said: "No accommodation with antisemitism can be tolerated, whatever its form. And that also goes for my own alma mater".^[94] His office told the Belgian De Standaard news website the comments could apply to Loach's honorary doctorate.^[93] At a press conference before the award, Loach asked: "Is the law so badly taught here? Or did he not pass his exam?"^[94] In a press release, Loach said the claim about his alleged antisemitism was "malicious".^[95] The rector of the Free University of Brussels, Yvon Englert, supported Loach.^[94]

But now I understand his humanist point of view, when he says:
"He was asked about a conference fringe event at which Miko Peled suggested people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust had happened. Loach responded: "I think history is for all of us to discuss. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing, is there for us all to discuss, so don't try and subvert that by false stories of antisemitism," prompting an accusation of Holocaust denial to be made against him.^[79]
And is the laic state of Israël not turned into a "Jewish state" If I recall it well from recent news?
As we have in Belgium a strong Jewish lobby I can understand that they are not pleased with people as Ken Loach, who makes comparisons with a WWII state, which had also a kind of a singularity as the  Jewish state and its ethnic cleansing...

OOPS and now I remember that I wanted to speak about his dialect films as in Kes...Caro, do you understand Yorkshire or was the film with subtitles?

Kind regards from Paul.

Oh, I thought I had copied my reply before checking something but I must have forgotten to actually press Copy, because when I pasted it just had the previous thing.

So...I lived in Yorkshire for 10 months so I am familiar with Yorkshire speech. Though sometimes when we watch television set in the north of England or Scotland or Ireland I do struggle with hearing the words, not helped by the action often taking place in the dark and the actors speaking very much over each other and too softly. (The one thing that puzzled me for a while was the endearments they used when they were serving you. Luv and darling were common and at Worksop near Sheffield I got called Mother! which I found a bit insulting.)
None of these programmes have subtitles though I have been told recently that you can ask the television to put on subtitles if it doesn't have them. 
I have remembered I do notice some NZ directors like Sir Peter Jackson and Taitu Waititi (that was the name I went looking for, and may have spelt it wrongly, but I am not making the same mistake twice. 

I think Ken Loach would have been one of the directors at the BBC, but I am not particularly au fait with these matters. But I am relatively sure he was not the overall director of the BBC. Someone will correct me if that is wrong. I can't imagine the BBC having someone so left-wing and anti-establishment as their head.

Paul, Caro ... at the BBC a 'director' is, I'm fairly sure, just a job-title defining a job function and its associated responsibilities; in much the same manner as a producer, interviewer, camera-man, sound-technician, accountant, maintenance-technician, etc. ... and when stated on its own it certainly doesn't denote any 'rank'. For example, the director of a major David Attenborough natural history series obviously has a different type of responsibility than one for say, a one-off outside broadcast, or again one for just a low-budget children's TV series.

For a year or so I worked at the BBC as an 'assistant producer' ... which sounds rather grand but in reality I was just a journalist employed to produce, daily, two science news articles to be published online as a part of the overall BBC website, plus writing general stuff in support of scientific program-based BBC websites, such as for 'Horizon', 'Tomorrow's World', 'The Planets', and 'Walking with Dinosaurs' etc. I think I had the 'producer' title -  albeit only as an assistant one - solely because I produced copy that was published and immediately viewable online, all written directly by myself without having to be passed by any editor. Of course I did have an editor/producer managing me and my work, but they rarely if ever actually read anything I wrote before it appeared online (and thankfully they rarely commented even if they did read it later). But I think it was this distinction that alone made me an assistant 'producer' rather than a 'researcher' - which was then the general term for all the bods that did investigative, information-gathering, writing and reporting work. In practical terms being a 'producer' simply gave me the necessary authority to get my articles authorised for immediate publication on the BBC website. (The fact that even my spelling and punctuation were so rarely ever checked before publication - let alone whether, ostensibly on behalf of the BBC, I might be writing anything potentially controversial, inappropriate, salacious or even potentially libellous - rather illustrates how lowly was my actual position).

So, in answer to your query ... while there are many 'directors' involved in programs and projects at the BBC, there is usually only one actual 'Director General of the BBC' - that is to say the chief executive of the company. It is a political appointment. The current incumbent of the post is Tony Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead, who previously served (himself, mostly) as chief Executive of the Royal Opera House and then Director of News for the BBC. And no, before you even ask, I very much doubt he can act, sing or play any musical instrument ... and he has certainly never directed any play, opera, film, concert or orchestral work. As I say; it's a political appointment.

Caro wrote:

So...I lived in Yorkshire for 10 months so I am familiar with Yorkshire speech. Though sometimes when we watch television set in the north of England or Scotland or Ireland I do struggle with hearing the words, not helped by the action often taking place in the dark and the actors speaking very much over each other and too softly. (The one thing that puzzled me for a while was the endearments they used when they were serving you. Luv and darling were common and at Worksop near Sheffield I got called Mother! which I found a bit insulting.)

Caro,

yes I suppose you can have a pretty grasp of a dialect in 10 months, although as I heard the Geordie of Newcastle, for my untrained ears, used to Dutch and its dialects, it was not English...
But yes in ten moths I learned to speak fluently West-Flemish coming from an East-Flemish town...
And for instance as you with your Luv and darling, I had also not that much difficulty with to speak about "zu wuf"  (the "u" of "wuf" as in the French "muet") (his wife), which was rather pejorative in East-Flemish, where we said "zu vroawe" (his lady) but meaning (his wife).
In middle Dutch it is the normal way to speak about "zijn wuf", but in later Dutch it became very pejorative. And nowadays "wuf" became also pejorative in West-Flemish and isn't used anymore in that sense...

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Paul, Caro ... at the BBC a 'director' is, I'm fairly sure, just a job-title defining a job function and its associated responsibilities; in much the same manner as a producer, interviewer, camera-man, sound-technician, accountant, maintenance-technician, etc. ... and when stated on its own it certainly doesn't denote any 'rank'. For example, the director of a major David Attenborough natural history series obviously has a different type of responsibility than one for say, a one-off outside broadcast, or again one for just a low-budget children's TV series.

For a year or so I worked at the BBC as an 'assistant producer' ... which sounds rather grand but in reality I was just a journalist employed to produce, daily, two science news articles to be published online as a part of the overall BBC website, plus writing general stuff in support of scientific program-based BBC websites, such as for 'Horizon', 'Tomorrow's World', 'The Planets', and 'Walking with Dinosaurs' etc. I think I had the 'producer' title -  albeit only as an assistant one - solely because I produced copy that was published and immediately viewable online, all written directly by myself without having to be passed by any editor. Of course I did have an editor/producer managing me and my work, but they rarely if ever actually read anything I wrote before it appeared online (and thankfully they rarely commented even if they did read it later). But I think it was this distinction that alone made me an assistant 'producer' rather than a 'researcher' - which was then the general term for all the bods that did investigative, information-gathering, writing and reporting work. In practical terms being a 'producer' simply gave me the necessary authority to get my articles authorised for immediate publication on the BBC website. (The fact that even my spelling and punctuation were so rarely ever checked before publication - let alone whether, ostensibly on behalf of the BBC, I might be writing anything potentially controversial, inappropriate, salacious or even potentially libellous - rather illustrates how lowly was my actual position).

So, in answer to your query ... while there are many 'directors' involved in programs and projects at the BBC, there is usually only one actual 'Director General of the BBC' - that is to say the chief executive of the company. It is a political appointment. The current incumbent of the post is Tony Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead, who previously served (himself, mostly) as chief Executive of the Royal Opera House and then Director of News for the BBC. And no, before you even ask, I very much doubt he can act, sing or play any musical instrument ... and he has certainly never directed any play, opera, film, concert or orchestral work. As I say; it's a political appointment.

Meles meles,

thank you very much for the explanation and I guessed it already as Caro that he couldn't have been a general director of the BBC...

"For a year or so I worked at the BBC as an 'assistant producer' ..."
MM, I don't know if you were that bad as "Green George" alias "Gilgamesh", who has only commented "some" of his jobs on this board, but you seem at least to have done also "some"...
 I for instance kept it to one "long term" job in the factory. My one month on the Ostend-Dover line as student I don't reackon as job. And my bricklayers-assistent was only some months too. But my years long refurbishing houses including building new ones (in my free hours for myself, no taxes to pay) is perhaps my real job   and still doing it (but to be honest not as before)...

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Paul, Caro ... at the BBC a 'director' is, I'm fairly sure, just a job-title defining a job function and its associated responsibilities; in much the same manner as a producer, interviewer, camera-man, sound-technician, accountant, maintenance-technician, etc. ... and when stated on its own it certainly doesn't denote any 'rank'. For example, the director of a major David Attenborough natural history series obviously has a different type of responsibility than one for say, a one-off outside broadcast, or again one for just a low-budget children's TV series.

For a year or so I worked at the BBC as an 'assistant producer' ... which sounds rather grand but in reality I was just a journalist employed to produce, daily, two science news articles to be published online as a part of the overall BBC website, plus writing general stuff in support of scientific program-based BBC websites, such as for 'Horizon', 'Tomorrow's World', 'The Planets', and 'Walking with Dinosaurs' etc. I think I had the 'producer' title -  albeit only as an assistant one - solely because I produced copy that was published and immediately viewable online, all written directly by myself without having to be passed by any editor. Of course I did have an editor/producer managing me and my work, but they rarely if ever actually read anything I wrote before it appeared online (and thankfully they rarely commented even if they did read it later). But I think it was this distinction that alone made me an assistant 'producer' rather than a 'researcher' - which was then the general term for all the bods that did investigative, information-gathering, writing and reporting work. In practical terms being a 'producer' simply gave me the necessary authority to get my articles authorised for immediate publication on the BBC website. (The fact that even my spelling and punctuation were so rarely ever checked before publication - let alone whether, ostensibly on behalf of the BBC, I might be writing anything potentially controversial, inappropriate, salacious or even potentially libellous - rather illustrates how lowly was my actual position).

So, in answer to your query ... while there are many 'directors' involved in programs and projects at the BBC, there is usually only one actual 'Director General of the BBC' - that is to say the chief executive of the company. It is a political appointment. The current incumbent of the post is Tony Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead, who previously served (himself, mostly) as chief Executive of the Royal Opera House and then Director of News for the BBC. And no, before you even ask, I very much doubt he can act, sing or play any musical instrument ... and he has certainly never directed any play, opera, film, concert or orchestral work. As I say; it's a political appointment.

Meles meles,

thank you very much for the explanation and I guessed it already as Caro that he couldn't have been a general director of the BBC...

"For a year or so I worked at the BBC as an 'assistant producer' ..."
MM, I don't know if you were that bad as "Green George" alias "Gilgamesh", who has only commented "some" of his jobs on this board, but you seem at least to have done also "some"...
 I for instance kept it to one "long term" job in the factory. My one month on the Ostend-Dover line as student I don't reackon as job. And my bricklayers-assistent was only some months too. But my years long refurbishing houses including building new ones (in my free hours for myself, no taxes to pay) is perhaps my real job   and still doing it (but to be honest not as before)...

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

and again a double...if you work too long on a post (as I always do) you receive a message there is another message entered while you were composing and if you then tap on save you have a double...
Something with the board I guess, I hadn't it before...

Kind regards from Paul.

Never really watched any of her programmes. Sister Wendy Becket died on Boxing Day 2018 aged 88:

I saw a couple of her programmes - they don't remain in my mind much but I did like her enthusiasm.

Triceratops wrote:

Never really watched any of her programmes. Sister Wendy Becket died on Boxing Day 2018 aged 88:

Triceratops,

this continental hadn't heard about her, but no problem, there is always wiki...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Beckett
And I think that Temperance will appreciate Sister Wendy...
From the wiki:
In 2007 Beckett was asked, "You've spoken out about gay marriage. How do you balance what you believe with what you have sworn to uphold?" She replied:

Quote :

I believe in loyalty. We should respect our church, but never believe that the church has the last word. The church is saying 'this', but I believe that sooner or later 'this' will change. 'This' is not the mind of our Lord. God is all love. It's a delicate balancing thing. The Church has changed its position over the years, and because the spirit is with the Church, in the end the Church will always get it right. But in the end. The spirit of the Church is the meaning of love, which hasn't yet, perhaps, been fully understood."^[13]

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul wrote:

And I think that Temperance will appreciate Sister Wendy...

I am sure Sister Wendy was a good and sincere woman, Paul: she certainly was a very clever one. But I feel very uneasy reading her comment about "loyalty" to the "Church". She was a committed Catholic woman who understood obedience, but sometimes such obedience - "loyalty" - is unwise? Is dishonest?

I have more time and "appreciation" for another former Catholic nun, a clever woman who, like Sister Wendy, studied English at Oxford: Karen Armstrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong

Armstrong had the courage to disagree, and she left the Catholic church. She reminds me of another spiritual person whom I admire very much, a man likewise of enormous honesty and courage: Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh. Holloway too left the church - was "disloyal" if you like - but he is someone whom, like Armstrong, I respect with all my heart. I have read just about everything these two have written. They have kept me (reasonably) sane this last year or so. The former bishop, a hugely erudite man, now describes himself as "an unbelieving Christian". He believes in the teaching of Christ, but cannot accept the unreasonable dogmata of the Church - even our Protestant watered-down versions. Waiting for the Church to "get it right" can cause one heck of a lot of misery to an awful lot of people.

I suppose for many of us it's a matter of: "Here I stand; I can do no other", as Martin Luther probably didn't say.

But all that said,  I hope the good Sister is indeed now resting in peace - or rather is walking around happily in a great art gallery up in the sky somewhere.

Temperance wrote:

Paul wrote:

And I think that Temperance will appreciate Sister Wendy...

I am sure Sister Wendy was a good and sincere woman, Paul: she certainly was a very clever one. But I feel very uneasy reading her comment about "loyalty" to the "Church". She was a committed Catholic woman who understood obedience, but sometimes such obedience - "loyalty" - is unwise? Is dishonest?

I have more time and "appreciation" for another former Catholic nun, a clever woman who, like Sister Wendy, studied English at Oxford: Karen Armstrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong

Armstrong had the courage to disagree, and she left the Catholic church. She reminds me of another spiritual person whom I admire very much, a man likewise of enormous honesty and courage: Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh. Holloway too left the church - was "disloyal" if you like - but he is someone whom, like Armstrong, I respect with all my heart. I have read just about everything these two have written. They have kept me (reasonably) sane this last year or so. The former bishop, a hugely erudite man, now describes himself as "an unbelieving Christian". He believes in the teaching of Christ, but cannot accept the unreasonable dogmata of the Church - even our Protestant watered-down versions. Waiting for the Church to "get it right" can cause one heck of a lot of misery to an awful lot of people.

I suppose for many of us it's a matter of: "Here I stand; I can do no other", as Martin Luther probably didn't say.

But all that said,  I hope the good Sister is indeed now resting in peace - or rather is walking around happily in a great art gallery up in the sky somewhere.

Dear Temperance thank you very much for your wise comments.

Kind regards from Paul.

I was sorry to see that Windsor Davies of It Ain't Half Hot Mum died a couple of days ago.  That series is somewhat dated now, though someone from the Indian subcontinent did tell me that he found Michael Bates (who had a "blacked up" face which probably wouldn't be approved now) interpreted well an example of what the indigenous Indian people called the "toadies" (people who sucked up to the then ruling British).

Film, television and opera director Franco Zeffirelli has died. Famous in the English-speaking world for his 1960s film adaptations of the Shakespeare plays Romeo & Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew, he later directed Mel Gibson in Hamlet in 1990 and Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright in Tea with Mussolini in 1999.



Zeffirelli with Laurence Olivier during the filming of Romeo & Juliet in 1968.

African American writer Toni Morrison died on 5th August 2019.  I haven't read much of her work but Beloved made an impression on me concerning the horrors of slavery.  Okay, I already knew slavery was horrible but this really brought it home to me.  An escaped slave mother kills her baby daughter (because she thinks she is going to be returned to slavery and wants to save the child from a life of being a chattel).  I should try and read more of Ms Morrison's work.

Terry Jones, stalwart of the Monty Python crew, has died. As well as being a comedian, he was also an enthusiast for Medieval history.



Jones presenting the 1995 television series Crusades.

Of course Kirk Douglas as everyone knows...one of "my" actors of the Fifties...

I learned today a lot of details about his life that I didn't know...
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/06/kirk-douglas-obituary

as that he divorced only once after 8 years and with the second wife the rest of his life till 103...wife and sons surviving him...

Kind regards, Paul.

Douglas' greatest role was probably that of Vincent van Gogh in the 1956 film Lust for Life. At the time the film is said to have come under criticism from some European art historians who dismissed the scene depicting the artist cutting off his right ear as ‘histrionic’ Hollywood. The experts insisted that van Gogh had only cut the lobe off – not the whole ear. This view was based chiefly on comments made by artist Paul Signac who had visited van Gogh in Arles in March 1889 - i.e. 3 months after van Gogh had done the deed in December 1888.

The film’s screenplay, however, was written by Norman Corwin and was adapted from Irving Stone’s 1934 eponymous novel. While researching the book Stone had visited Arles in 1930 and spoken with Dr Felix Rey, the physician who had treated van Gogh following the act of self-mutilation. Rey had provided Stone with a medical diagram of the damage which van Gogh had done to himself and the sketch showed that van Gogh had indeed cut off his whole ear except for half of the lobe. In other words it was the opposite of what Signac had claimed. It’s possible that visiting van Gogh so soon after the event, Signac had not actually seen the wound for himself (which was probably still bandaged up) and had misinterpreted a description of it given to him.



Irving Stone died in 1989 and Rey’s medical diagram was archived away with his effects in California. It was not until 2015 that Bernadette Murphy, a British expat living in Provence and researching the life of van Gogh, rediscovered Rey’s diagram in the Bancroft Library, Berkeley and then published her findings the following year in her book Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story. It’s a rare example of Hollywood actually getting it right and superior European historians getting it wrong.

Someone else who was fond of smoking a pipe was the late Seamus Mallon, one of the prime architects of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Mallon died a fortnite ago and his passing deserves a mention. His shock of white hair, chiseled features, gaunt frame and pipe-smoking habit always made him seem older than he actually was. And he was indeed wise before his time. He once famously described the Good Friday Agreement as being "Sunningdale for slow learners". The Sunningdale Agreement had been a virtually identical agreement to Good Friday but was struck nearly a quarter of a century earlier in 1973.
     


Seamus Mallon (peacemaker) 1936 - 2020

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52016721

For years I used the originals as a way of preserving my tenuous grasp on the French tongue.

One of my schoolmates has died of covid-19.


https://kapital929.fm/covid-19-nigerian-born-medical-doctor-alfa-saadu-dies-in-uk/

I put him in the house chess team when he was several years junior to most who played at that level.

RIP Alfa. Never forget your singing "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" in a Dixon Cup competition.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Gilgamesh.  Was your friend the retired doctor who had gone back to work in the crisis that died?  I read about that gentleman but didn't commit the name to memory.  Your friend seems to have lived a fulfilled and useful life, not that that helps when one is experiencing sadness.  This disease truly is no respecter of persons - a few days ago I read something about a nurse aged 36 in the Potteries area who was in a bad way, though I didn't know her.  These last few days we've heard about young people succumbing to the virus.  Hoping you and the girl Siduri and your family keep well.  Hoping all fellow Res Historians keep well.

Gilgamesh, I join LiR with her comments.

Up to now we haven't yet a contaminated one (I hope, because one  can seemingly be contaminated without having the apparent symptoms? as I read from my following story) in the circle of us acquintances (which is not that big..)

But in all the sad histories of nowadays, one has some good news too...

In the town that I lived in during the childhood, there was a case of a rescue of a 95 years old man...
https://www.hln.be/in-de-buurt/deinze
PS: and before he had been a butcher in the Iranian army (I mean a "normal" butcher, for not having misunderstandments "beenhouwer")

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Actress Honor Blackman dies aged 94.

HB as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger:

James Drury, star of The Virginian dies aged 85:

There are a lot of deaths of older actors and singers, but Vera Lynn keeps on keeping on, aged 103. I am expecting to hear of her death any time soon. My son didn't seem to know the song We'll Meet Again, to my amazement and horror.

Caro wrote:

There are a lot of deaths of older actors and singers, but Vera Lynn keeps on keeping on, aged 103. I am expecting to hear of her death any time soon. My son didn't seem to know the song We'll Meet Again, to my amazement and horror.

 
Caro,

yes she is keeping on. I posted about her, when she was 101. My all time favourite...

Your son will be perhaps reminded again, while the British Queen used the words in her last speech about the "virus"...
Queen Vera Lynn
And here:
https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/2020040787594/vera-lynn-103-reacts-the-queen-song-well-meet-again-address/




And my absolute topper: "Land of hope and glory" sung in The Netherlands....what a voice...and that strong...



Kind regards from Paul.

Racing legend Sir Stirling Moss dies at the age of 90:

Stirling Moss lived a fulfilled life didn't he. Was Pat Moss the rally (sp?) Driver his sister?
 
I was also sad to learn that Tim Brooke-Taylor of 'I'm Sorry I'll read that again' and 'The Goodies' had succumbed to Covid-19.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Stirling Moss lived a fulfilled life didn't he. Was Pat Moss the rally (sp?) Driver his sister?
 

Indeed she was, LiR.

Often appeared, thinly disguised as Girling Foss, in motoring stories in my youth (often competing with the Argentine trio Wacco, Chirrio & Bangon) as well as numerous Brockbank cartoons.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

 
I was also sad to learn that Tim Brooke-Taylor of 'I'm Sorry I'll read that again' and 'The Goodies' had succumbed to Covid-19.

Tim Brooke-Taylor in the original Four Yorkshiremen Sketch:

Chelsea goalkeeper Peter "The Cat" Bonetti, has died aged 78:

Former Leeds United defender Norman Hunter dies of Coronavirus:

Some of us owe this lad quite a few fond memories, even if we didn't know his name at the time - though of course we young Dublin urchins back in 1966 being indoctrinated into a very Catholic inspired celebration of the blood-letting orgy that passed as the 1916 Rising's 50th anniversary knew only too well that "The O'Rahilly", that mountain of a man who took a Sassanach bullet in the brain outside the GPO so that his mates could pursue their carnage-laden route to full martyrdom, had produced from his loins an offspring whose own loins produced young Ronan.


Ronan O'Rahilly (21 May 1940 – 20 April 2020)

Ronan's legacy includes many fond memories of listening to crackly renditions of each latest Beatles, Troggs, Kinks and The Who ditty, along with sundry other 60s hits broadcast from a converted Danish ferry somewhere in the North Sea. It also includes Tony Blackburn and Dave (the Hairy Cornflake) Lee Travis. But hey, no one's perfect.

Thanks for that, Nordmann. Not being very familiar with the off-shore radio in Britain (though here in NZ/Aotearoa we had our own) I had to look up more about Ronan O'Rahilly and that lead to George Lazenby and others. I am making up a quiz for our family to Zoom, and I wondered it George was the only man to only play the part of James Bond once. Can't ask questions I don't know the answer to, though I suppose that would add to the fun.

There's a sizeable list of people who played Bond once, even on film (thanks to a film rights row that led to an early spoof version of Casino Royale in which five actors, including David Niven and Peter Sellers, played a character called "James Bond"). Lazenby however could be the answer to "Which actor who has played James Bond on the silver screen had never previously played even so much as a bit part in a movie, TV show, or play of any kind?".

Radio Caroline is often seen as the great-grandmother of pirate radio in this hemisphere, though in truth this is a specifically UK perspective. It was no accident in fact that O'Rahilly had sourced a Danish vessel in particular when he set up his outfit. He did this through the help of Danish contacts who had been involved in the earlier Radio Mercur, which I'm sure Nielssen may recall (or at least have heard of), and which had already spawned a plethora of Danish and Swedish pirate stations operating in the Baltic. One of these, DCR (Danmarks Commercielle Radio), pioneered regular programmes with DJs actually broadcasting live from the ship - as opposed to Mercur's pre-recorded shows made in Copenhagen using the ship only as a transmitter. This was the model O'Rahilly went for too - it was harder for the authorities to confiscate equipment and make arrests if everything bar actual procurement of kit happened offshore.

All the Scandinavian stations were quite ruthlessly put out of action practically overnight in the early 60s after Denmark, Norway and Sweden coordinated legislation change which re-defined the offence overnight to near treason levels in each country and upped the penalties for offenders considerably. It emerged many years later that one huge motivation to clamp down on them with such venom came in the form of a behind the scenes threat from the US military who, during a period in the Cold War which included the Cuban Missile Crisis, claimed that they couldn't properly detect Soviet submarine movement through the Skagerak, what with all the extra radio noise that the pirate station transmitters were sporadically generating in the area and from various random nautical locations. Distinguishing between a Soviet Foxtrot-class B series vessel and Brian Hyland's "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" was apparently not as easy as it may sound.

This of course led to lot of cheap second hand Danish equipment (and expertise) suddenly appearing on the black market, which O'Rahilly and others could avail of later.

nordmann wrote:

All the Scandinavian stations were quite ruthlessly put out of action practically overnight in the early 60s after Denmark, Norway and Sweden coordinated legislation change which re-defined the offence overnight to near treason levels in each country and upped the penalties for offenders considerably. It emerged many years later that one huge motivation to clamp down on them with such venom came in the form of a behind the scenes threat from the US military who, during a period in the Cold War which included the Cuban Missile Crisis, claimed that they couldn't properly detect Soviet submarine movement through the Skagerak, what with all the extra radio noise that the pirate station transmitters were sporadically generating in the area and from various random nautical locations. Distinguishing between a Soviet Foxtrot-class B series vessel and Brian Hyland's "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" was apparently not as easy as it may sound.

What one learns here everyday on this RH station, nordmann.
Kind regards, Paul.

Actor Irrfan Khan has died aged 53. The Bollywood star was known to international audiences for his roles in films such as Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Life of Pi (2012) and Jurassic World (2015).



Khan along with director Ang Lee and actress Tabu during the promotion of Life of Pi.

nordmann wrote:

...

Radio Caroline is often seen as the great-grandmother of pirate radio in this hemisphere, though in truth this is a specifically UK perspective. It was no accident in fact that O'Rahilly had sourced a Danish vessel in particular when he set up his outfit. He did this through the help of Danish contacts who had been involved in the earlier Radio Mercur, which I'm sure Nielssen may recall (or at least have heard of), and which had already spawned a plethora of Danish and Swedish pirate stations operating in the Baltic. One of these, DCR (Danmarks Commercielle Radio), pioneered regular programmes with DJs actually broadcasting live from the ship - as opposed to Mercur's pre-recorded shows made in Copenhagen using the ship only as a transmitter. This was the model O'Rahilly went for too - it was harder for the authorities to confiscate equipment and make arrests if everything bar actual procurement of kit happened offshore.
...

This of course led to lot of cheap second hand Danish equipment (and expertise) suddenly appearing on the black market, which O'Rahilly and others could avail of later.

Thank you for the reference, Nordmann, but a) Radio Mercur was on air sometime around 1958 and 1962 - when I was less than 10 years old, and b) it sent from international waters in the Øresund in order to reach the largest possible audience in Copenhagen and the South-Eastern parts of Sweden - my habitat then - and again now - was the northern part of Jutland, where the FM waves of that time didn't reach.

A result of the legislation was, though, that the monopoly radio set up one and eventually two more radio channels, so we had a staggering three channels to choose from.

The more daring among us - as well as those who somehow had the wealth to acquire a transistor radio - listened to Radio Luxembourg ...

Fela Kuti's drummer at one time. Loved his collaboration with Dollar on "Lagos no shaking". Brian Eno described him as "perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived."
RIP Tony Allen.

Oh yes, Nielsen, I remember listening to programmes like "Guys, Gals and Groups" with Jimmy Savile* via Radio Luxemburg until my Dad caught me and banned it.  He didn't ban me from listening to the transistor radio altogether but he didn't want me listening to it in the wee small hours of the morning and not getting a proper night's sleep.

* In those days it wasn't known - at least to a teenager living in a provincial town like myself - that Jimmy Savile had a very unsavoury side to his character.

I'm here to mention that Jill Gascoine the actress who featured in The Gentle Touch and C.A.T.S. Eyes died recently aged 83.  I'm not sure what the cause was but read that she'd had a long illness.

Florian Schneider (founder of Kraftwerk) has died, Kraftwerk changed the sound of pop music forever. He has died aged 73 of cancer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkOZNJYAZ7c

Little Richard has joined the great Rock lineup in the next world.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVIttmFAzek

Roy Horn death due to complications of Covid 19
https://www.biography.com/performer/roy-horn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbonHKEt-I

Kind regards, Paul.