Toblog

My god: you think that this year is getting better and then something happens to prove you wrong. It has been announced that Humphrey Lyttelton has died. I got the announcement on the ISIHAC mailing list that he was in hospital but it didn’t seem like it was serious. He always seemed such a strong character that he would survive.

I don’t have much to say as many more people will be able to say far more than I. I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue has been one of the soundtracks to my life. When I was very young my mother used to cut my hair whilst listening to it and although I then didn’t get many of the jokes I understood the sheer wit and joy behind them.

RIP Humphrey and thank you for all the laughter; you will be very sadly missed indeed.

Links

• Humphrey’s wikipedia page
• His tribute group on facebook
• His website which includes this rather wonderful quote:

“As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication.”

• No Rock and Roll Fun’s Jazzobit

... that I feel an overwhelming sadness at the future of humanity.

There I was on a flight out to see my friend over the Easter break when the two seats in front of me were taken by two early twenties girls. There was, of course, the irritating linguistic tic of not being able to reduce the number of ‘likes’ per sentence to below three. There was, as well, an inability to realise that you can talk on an aeroplane without resorting to foghorn like volumes. Finally, there was the following conversation which sealed the deal and made me see red:

Air hostess: Can all passengers please turn off all electronic equipment, including mobile telephones, laptops and personal audio devices.

Plane starts to taxi and I watch one of the pair send a last text and then sit there waiting for a return text to arrive.

Air hostess: Madame, could you turn off your mobile phone please

Girl: Why, like, should I?

Air hostess: Because it may interfere with navigation equipment during take off.

Girl: But I’ve been on, like, ‘planes where they let you, like, use them during, like, flight

Air hostess: You may well have been madame, but I’m sure that they didn’t let you use it during take off and landing and also we do not have the equipment on this aeroplane that will let you use your telephone during the flight. Turn it off.

The girls sighs loudly and turns the phone off and the air hostess walks off, presumably quite glad that she didn’t have to ask the pilot to get involved (which may have escalated to him aborting the takeoff). As she walks away…

Girl: Fascist.

... you’re in the middle of a dream, something cool happens and you think “Hmm, I really ought to blog about this”.

The putrid, oozing sore that is Big Brother has started again; the TV is unplugged for the duration of the show to avoid any contamination.

This time, however, I am concerned. Very concerned. This is the second Big Brother in a row that I have had links with one of the contestants. The latter link is very minor but still it is there. I think I’m going to have to apply a wire brush to my life.

I haven’t been feeling particularly Christmassy so far this year: work has meant that I have been working stupid hours. This changed last night. After turning up only a day late to my cousin Tom’s birthday party we had a quick dinner in one of his local gastro pubs and sank a few pints.

On the way home I had to change at Blackfriars from national rail onto the tube and on the way there I passed a girl wearing a Santa hat. I grinned at her and she smiled back and as one we wished each other a Merry Christmas.

I smiled all the way home. Merry Christmas to you all!