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

Ah. I didn't see that one either. I'll look around for it.

Tam Dalyell
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-38764220

One of the few politicians for whom you could actually have some respect because they did a good job and did the right thing. I know there's that saying that those who want power shouldn't be allowed to have it, but people like him are the exception to that rule.

sorry, you're going to wake to the news about John Hurt

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38778145

As a matter of fact I went to bed with the news about John Hurt (which you'll know if you've checked your Twitter today), so

John Hurt
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38778145

Apart from being in what, for me, is still one of the scariest films I've ever seen (Alien - you're in a place you can't get out of with something you can't beat, and it's going to eat you alive. We're supposed to be top of the food chain!), he was also in what is and always will be my favourite film - A Man For All Seasons.

But he was also in a film which could have been one of my very favourite films - Contact - if it hadn't been for Jody Foster's portrayal of the central character. I don't know if that was the screenwriter's or the director's doing, but she didn't come across in the film in at all the same way she did in the book. Too timid.

But anyway, this is supposed to be about John Hurt. And I'm not going to list any more of the favourite films and television plays he was in, there are just too many.

I'll have to get alerts whenever you tweet... I must have missed it

Alan Simpson
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38906672

Despite only having two high profile successes, what successes they were. Hancock's Half Hour, and Steptoe and Son. I'll be honest - Hancock doesn't appeal to me, except maybe for The Rebel, but I've long been a fan of Steptoe and Son. I've been watching the first series of Steptoe recently. To be able to write so much quality comedy that, for most of the time, only portrays two people (Albert and Harold) with very few other characters, and plays, almost entirely, on the same theme (father/son relationship), and so much of it isn't funny-ha-ha comedy, takes some doing.

And while Harry H Corbett is usually lauded as the more brilliant actor of the pair, Wilfred Brambell was every bit as good, at least in the early series, at playing the sometimes hurt, always manipulative Albert.

And looking through their list of writing collaborations, Galton and Simpson have penned several less well known films and series that I've enjoyed down the years:

The Bargee (Harry H Corbett and Ronnie Barker)
The Wrong Arm of the Law (Peter Sellers and Bernard Cribbins)
The Rebel (of course)
Loot (film adaptation of Joe Orton play)
Clochemerle (BBC series from Gabriel Chevalier book)
The 'Pride' section in The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins

Radio 4 Extra is currently broadcasting the third series of the radio Steptoes, by the way http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009tw34/episodes

Fourth series, dammit

Meanwhile...

Tara Para Boom-De-Eh
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-38911818

I only really include her demise so I can make that joke one last time

Hmmm. That doesn't look quite right.

Tara Para Boom-Dee-Eh.

Not perfect, but it's a joke best heard than read.

Peter Skellern
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-39006899

I've got this strong memory of his song 'You're a Lady', but I can't remember the exact reason for it Apart from the fact that I liked it and it featured a brass band, that is. I didn't know until yesterday though that he wrote the lyrics for a song that was featured in Blade Runner

"The importance of being awkward" sounds like my kind of book, but getting a copy through my local library network seems unlikely.

Do you have a Half Price Books, or something like it, near you Paul? I found some very British biographies, such as Spike Milligan and the Mitford Sisters, in my local one, and cheap.

Fortunately it's still in print, and not too expensive as a paperback at Amazon.

I don't know for sure if I've actually logged this one or not - I went back in the conversation to the relevant date, and a bit afterwards, and I didn't see it.

Grace Lee Whitney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Lee_Whitney

Yeoman Rand from the first series of Star Trek, and a few of the films. She of the basketweave beehive hairdo. My goodness, I had to hots for her.

She had a busy life, that's for sure.

Ikutaro Kakehashi
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39471567

Not many people get to be so musically influential, almost to define an entire decade of music.

I guess it's not so bad to live a hum-drum life.

Brian Matthew
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39500773

It's not quite one of those I-didn't-know-he-was-still-alive instances, but it is almost an instance of I-didn't-know-he was-still-working. Probably less so if I still lived in the UK cos he was on the wireless every week until recently.

Brian Matthew was one of the earliest pop music presenters on British television, leastways that I can remember, along with people like David Jacobs (Juke Box Jury) and Keith Fordyce and Cathy McGowan (Ready Steady Go). There was another one but we don't talk about him any more. You know who I mean.

And of course, there was Fluff on the radio.

While I was still working at Cheapo we had a Beatles fan working behind the counter, and she'd often put one of the Beatles at the BBC compilations that had recently come out. Those CDs didn't have just the songs on them but also the intros and outros, the announcements from the presenters, and most often it seemed to be Brian Matthew (because he was on the radio as well as the TV).

But I reckon it'll mostly be for Thank Your Lucky Stars with Janice "Oi'll give it foive" Nicholls that most of us will remember him

He's critically alive but still ill.

Well that's rather embarrassing http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39500773