h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As usual, David Attenborough.

FFS, is there any thread that the creature doesn't stain?

I admire Peter Gabriel.

I second Attenborough, but I was going to nominate Neil Gaiman. Everything he has written as himself (and everything other people say about him) exudes quiet awesomeness. He's just an ordinary middle-class British bloke with a wife and kids, except he also has an astonishing imagination and a great writing talent which have allowed him to go where others can't.
If you're looking for an admirable impact he has had, you can start with Sandman being a great influence in the normalization of homosexuality over the last quarter of a century.

*chucks Arthur Scargill into the mix*

Yeah, cement mix - put the lad out of his misery!

Why, Keith Miller of course: the Australian, 'In Excelsis' according to the delightful Neville Cardus( you don't know who I'm talking about do you? )

Here are a few to consider...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/characters_cast/characters/character_keith_m.shtml
http://www.keithmiller.com/scripts/openExtra.asp?extra=14
http://www-personal.k-state.edu/~kbmill/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Miller
http://www.km-guitarslinger.com/ I know, I know... it's a tennis raquet.
http://www.keith-miller.com/


t.

John Simpson, the veteran BBC correspondent. I admire his physical courage and dedication to his job. I also like the fact that he takes the original BBC ethos of presenting the facts and not turning news reports into soapbox journalism seriously in an age when a lot of other BBC journos try and slip editorialising into news reports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Miller....<<<<<that's the one


and this is the quote...

Neville Cardus referred to Miller as "the Australian in excelsis"; Daily Mail sportswriter Ian Wooldridge's response was "By God he was right".

Princess Margaret, err, thought so too.

i am not old enough to have seen miller play, but i do remember him as a commentator. he was cantankerous and hyper critical in a way that would have put geoff boycott in the shade. i suspect this is a backhanded 'compliment' to australians by the poms.

none of which should be construed as a criticism of miller by my good self.

'Nugget' Miller a nickname he earned in England as everyone called him the golden boy was given the title('in excelsis') by Cardus for epitomising everything an Englishman thought of as your standard six foot two bronzed Aussie cricketer sportsman come larrikin.
Nothing backhanded about it at all these men like Michael Parkinson long after them were captivated by his actions and his persona, there will not be another like him.
Instead we have the boorish Warne or the Gimlet eyed humourless Ponting.

Miller flew Fighter planes during the war(mosquitoes if my memory is right) and after one particular hazardous mission he detoured off the return flight plan to fly over the birthplace of Beethoven such was his interest[in] and liking [of] this master.

I do though think his talents as a commentator were not always obvious to everyone. When he joined John Arlott behind the microphone both of them lit the airwaves up, such was their impact and he suffered in comparison as a TV commentator.

Boycott and Miller in the same sentence....nope...never

as an expat englishman in australia i am aware that there is element of the 'noble savage' thesis in these sorts of compliments. again, none of which should be construed as me thinking less of miller. nor am i suggesting the english admiration is anything but genuine.

but since we both know, and every educated englishman ought to know, australian excellence runs to greater depths than sporting prowess and physically heroic acts, suggesting such things embody the 'best' of what is australian cannot help but be a backhander.

to put this in perspective, imagine the reaction if someone suggested a particular boxer or dancer embodied the best of what it meant to be african american.

Sorry, mere social semantics to my eyes. I beg to differ with your interpretation, perspectives or no.
As an educated Australian, I do know the excellence I refer too is of the numinous type; only a few have it on and off the sporting field or the academic field or public service if you prefer, Fred Hollows, Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, John Curtin, H.C.'Nugget'Combs, Errol Flynn, Judith Wright, Billy Hughes, Thomas Blamey, Vivian Bulwinkel, Albert Jacka, Isaac Isaacs, Les Murray and quite a few more.
They all embody, encapsulate along with Miller an essential 'Australianness' that is a thing of real substance that all of us here can not only attain too but acknowledge with no more than a nod an a wink and an ironic raised eyebrow or two..

Arlott knew this, Peter Roebuck knows it, Botham doesn't know it, Brian Johnson knew it and occasionally Johnathon Agnew remembers it. Cricketing allusions I know and more might be said of other fields of endeavour but my nick name is the case in point at the moment.

the point about miller is that he was exceptional. he does not summarise or encapsulate 'australian-ness' at all but differs from it in so many important ways it draws the very notoriety this thread is concerned with. he is not 'like us only more so' at all.

i think we can admire miller without tagging onto him stereotypical and inaccurate labels that really serve no purpose whatever other than to support what, to me, are boneheaded cliches about australians. why miller needed to be described in these terms rather than his great individual character, talent and achievements, is a puzzle unless one accepts that the speakers are really wanting to say something about australians as well. firstly, this isn't necessary any more than references to einstein would need to refer to his jewish-ness or german-ness. secondly, consciously or not, in suggesting that miller is the best of what is australian, a reaffirmation is made of the old world prejudices about colonials.

i appreciate you don't see it the same way. but that's my take.

Yep, agree totally with your last sentence.
And scratch my head about the rest. Perhaps you enact the 'cultural cringe' of the popular press.
You either 'get' ie: understand the terms of Miller's 'Australianness' (and others) or you don't.
There's no "boneheaded cliches" there, just appreciable acknowledgements of place and being.
We'd better not argue this all night(or day) as other's may wish to post to the topics heading. Your English you say an ex-pat in OZ and I'm Australian and I don't think we'll ever agree on this subject at any rate and that's no bad place to leave it. Cheers.

you're welcome.

wouldn't it be fab if bono's sperm had been used to create embryos from eggs by princess di and mother teresa.

useless fact alert.

Female humans have all their eggs by the time they leave the womb and as neither Mother Theresa nor Princess Di had daughters they technically never grew any eggs as all thiers grew inside their mothers.

So maybe that opens up the door for grandmothers to claim more legal rights over their grandchildren, I dont know.




Don Goodman, Cyrille Regis and Bob Taylor former strikers for West Brom, i was lucky enoughto meet them all and they are nice blokes. Plus my passing resemblance to Don Goodman does me favours sometimes.

Simpson sounds like the kind of guy I could admire, but I doubt he shows up on US TV.

And BTW, the Time Magazine survey for "Most Influential" is in:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725112_1726934_1726935,00.html

I think I need to get out more, I never heard of the #2 person (who WON last year!). Or about half the whole list of 200+.

But the No. 1 I can admire, finally a living, still productive person that appeals to me. I mean, he accepts only a reasonable salary, rides a bike to work, and plays banjo. Oh, and creates stuff that I buy, and pay *retail*

Are the readership of Time really thick then? That seems to be a list of "people I like the best!"

Lest we forget, one person who seems* to be missing from that list is "influencing" people to die by the hundred daily in Iraq. Now that's influence!

RF

* I only scrolled down part way to see how non-influential GWB is...for all I know, he's languishing at number 174.

reads like a hatful of proverbials more like. if we all lived like most of the people on that list the world would be a helluva mess.