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

... of Diane Rehm.



[I prematurely posted.

Ah, we've all experienced premature epostulation at one time or another. It's nothing to be embarrassed about

Lauren Bacall
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28767401

There can't be too many left from the golden age of Hollywood. There's one less now

This one hasn't made the news, as far as I can tell, and certainly won't make the same kind of impact as Robin Williams or Lauren Bacall.

Gabrielle Blunt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Blunt

She played Catriona Macroon in Whiskey Galore - the woman Gordon Jackson defied his, stern and not a little scary, mother to propose to. When I've got a little time later I'll post a screenshot.

And now I look at her IMDb entry I find that I've also seen her in Morse, Rumpole, Paul Merton: The Series, The Fast Show, Pie in the Sky and The Strangerers.

I almost forgot about this

Here she is in Whisky Galore http://i.imgur.com/K8PhNL6.jpg
And with Gordon Jackson http://i.imgur.com/QCBskrO.jpg

I might look for her in some of those other series too.

And since we're on Barra we might as well do a now-and-then sort of thing.
Then http://i.imgur.com/M4w4LAk.jpg
And now http://i.imgur.com/dxl7Ta9.jpg

While I'm thinking about it, I listened to the Fresh Air: Robin Williams episode today. Right when yesterday's broadcast cut off, he was talking about depression. He was saying that he did an interview once and mentioned depression but it was taken out of context and overblown as him having manic depression. He insists to Terry Gross that he has never had clinical depression, just that he sometimes gets "bummed". He goes on to talk about therapy and makes the following joke. "It's like the one guy at the suicide hotline said, 'life isn't for everybody.'"

If anyone wants to listen to it the link is below. The point in the discussion where the broadcast suddenly ended yesterday was at around 27:00. He's just finished talking about Jonathan Winters and his mental issues.

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/12/339823090/robin-williams-in-looking-for-laughter-you-have-to-be-deeply-honest

Luvvy-in Chief
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28923074

He probably won't be remembered so much for having been in The Magic Christian with Peter Sellers, Ringo Star, Spike, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Raquel Welch, Nosher Powell, Harry Carpenter, David Lodge, Roman Polanski, John Le Mesurier, Hattie Jacques, Yul Brynner, Christopher Lee, Fred Emney, John Snagge, King Kong... the list goes on and on and on.

Ah, the importance of punctuation *and* previewing

Luvvy-in-Chief

Bill Kerr
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28980254

Besides all the productions mentioned in the news story, he also played the leader of the IPO mob in Wrong Arm of the Law with Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins and Lionel Jeffries (as well almost every other actor who was on the roll for British comedies of the time). Here he is listening intently to Lionel, who has no clue he's talking to one of the criminals he's chasing http://i.imgur.com/chhqE7I.jpg

Joan Rivers
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29072417

I'll be honest, I didn't care for everything she did, but they sure broke the mould when they made her

I have a feeling she would have appreciated this moment on CNN.

http://i.imgur.com/MfHupD8.jpg

This, from Letters of Note made me too http://twitter.com/LettersOfNote/status/507617480970235904

Catching up...

Ian Paisley
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/rev-ian-paisley-firebrand-religious-leader-and-politician-who-spent-most-of-his-career-as-a-rabblerousing-unionist-but-came-to-play-a-crucial-role-in-a-peaceful-northern-ireland-9729927.html

Donald Sinden
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-donald-sinden-actor-famed-for-his-rich-plummy-voice-whose-sevendecade-career-encompassed-shakespearian-tragedy-romantic-melodrama-and-farce-9729948.html

Angus Lennie
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/angus-lennie-actor-best-known-as-ives-the-tunneller-in-the-great-escape-and-shughie-mcfee-the-chef-in-crossroads-9742130.html

Deborah Mitford
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/dowager-duchess-of-devonshire-the-youngest-mitford-sister-who-became-an-acclaimed-writer-and-the-successful-head-of-chatsworth-house-9756248.html

Shane Fenton
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29741028

That's Alvin Stardust to most of us. I was never much of a fan during his glam rock days, but I enjoyed his cameo as the pub landlord in The Grimleys. There was some inspired casting in that series - Noddy Holder as the music teacher, and William Woollard as the science teacher. Who blew himself up

Jack Bruce
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-29772926

I was watching a music documentary just last week that he featured him a good deal (as well as Ginger, but not God, and just about every British blues musician you can think of), but I can't recall what it was now Ginger was actually being quite pleasant and not the pillock he's often said to be when it comes to interviews. Maybe he saves that for off-camera interviews only. And he was puffing away at a pipe.

Oh this is annoying me now. What on earth was it?

Rock Family Trees - The British R&B Boom

With John Peel narrating. Rather spooky that I should be trying to remember that, and Jack Bruce dies ten years to the day after Peely.

Acker Bilk
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29874053

A strange name - both of them - it has to be said. Not many of the old jazzers left now. Kenny Ball went last year, George Melly some years ago, Johnny Dankworth too, and Humph of course, but Chris Barber's still around, as is John Chilton, and so is Cleo Laine.

Manitas de Plata
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29937355

Wow, there's a name from the past. Like Acker Bilk, he often showed up on the variety shows that were the mainstay of the BBC's Saturday evening programming in the 1960s - Black and White Minstrels, Rolf Harris, Val Doonican (is he still alive btw?), Morecambe and Wise... no, wait, they were on ITV in the 60s. They were a 1970s BBC thing.

Yep, Val hasn't dropped off the twig yet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Doonican Damn, now I have Paddy McGinty's Goat for an earworm

Warren Clarke
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/nov/12/warren-clarke-dies-dalziel-pascoe-clockwork-orange

I saw him in several productions before I saw him in A Clockwork Orange because of the film's banned status in the UK until Stanley Kubrick died, and even then I never saw it in the UK because Kubrick died in May 99 (I think it was May), and by September I was in Austin. Long before I worked there, the former Mrs Gosho and I went to see it at the Drafthouse during their Kubrick retrospective season. In fact, I've only ever seen A Clockwork Orange at the Drafthouse because a few years after I began working there they showed it every night for a week, at 11pm, and I did a little introduction for it. What's more, it was a British print of the film, with the 'British Board of Film Censors' (not 'Classification') screen at the beginning and, according to the projectionist, "a very funky aspect ratio".

Any road up. Two of the productions I remember him from are conspicuous by their absence in all the news stories about his brown-breadness.

One was a series called Sleepers. He and Nigel Havers played two Russian KGB agents who had been trained at a true-to-life mock up of life in 1960s London, which had subsequently been forgotten about, as had they, by the post-Glasnost Russians, until it was rediscovered. By this time the two agents had become so much a part of British life (both had families, one was something in the City, the other was a trades unionist - guess which was which) that they had almost forgotten why they were there, until one day when strange noises start coming from Warren Clarke's attic, where his old KGB radio is hidden. Naturally, neither of them want to go back to Russia and are chased by the KGB, MI5 and the CIA.

I'd love to see that series again.

The other one, which I can see any time I like because I have a copy of it (and will do now), is Moving Story. I have several reasons for liking this one. Firstly, I had my own little removals business at the time it was broadcast, so there was a professional interest. Secondly, it was developed from Jack Rosenthal's TV play The Chain, which is a very fine piece of writing and acting (Warren Mitchell as Bamber: "Movin' 'ouse is very upsettin'. It's a big upsetment. People get upset."), and Jack Rosenthal wrote some of the Moving Story episodes. Thirdly, Jack Rosenthal is one of my favourite writers - The Chain; The Knowledge; London's Burning; The Dustbinmen; P'Tang Yang Kipperbang; the first (and best) episode - Mr Ellis vs The People - of a forgotten series from the 70s called Village Hall; Bar Mitzvah Boy; Spend, Spend Spend). And lastly, through my removals business, I had, a few years earlier, got to know one of the actors quite well. I'd lost touch with him by that point but it was fun to watch him doing what I'd done for him on a handful of occasions

It wasn't Warren Clarke, but it's interesting to see that in both cases the character of Bamber was played by someone called Warren.

PS Jack Rosenthal also created and wrote about half of The Lovers - the sitcom that gave Richard Beckinsale his break.

It doesn't stand up too well today.