Thursday, January 06, 2005
Obituary
I am saddened to see that Humphrey Carpenter has died. Many readers of this blog will not know who he is. Briefly, it is little known that he was the "Third Carpenter" but left the band before they became famous, citing musical differences with Richard and Karen. He achieved short lived fame as the star of a series of Milk Marketing Board commercials in the late 70's and then went on to a successful career as a Radio 4 broadcaster and writer.
One day about a year ago I was sitting on a train on the way from Reading to London. One of my favourite pastimes on trains is to liten in on the conversations of other passengers. For instance, I once overheard the conversation of the widow of Sir John Fieldhouse CinC of the Royal Navy at the time of the Falklands. Anyway, on this occasion the two passengers opposite me we talking about a biography one of them had evidently written.
Another of my favourite occupations is "can I guess who Sue Lawley is talking about in her intro to Desert Island Discs before she mentioned her name". I found I could apply this game to my fellow passengers' conversation. Could I guess who the biography was about before either of my fellow passengers mentioned his name.
It soon became apparent that they were talking about a dead comic: Peter Cooke? Then the biographer started discussing the difficulty of finding out about the biographee's early life because it had taken place in India. Spike Milligan.
The next, harder, game was to guess who the biographer was. It must be somebody I'd heard of to write a high profile biography like one of Spike Millgan, but sadly I failed. In the end I resorted to popping in to WH Smiths at Paddington and having a look at the biography section for Spike Milligan.
One day about a year ago I was sitting on a train on the way from Reading to London. One of my favourite pastimes on trains is to liten in on the conversations of other passengers. For instance, I once overheard the conversation of the widow of Sir John Fieldhouse CinC of the Royal Navy at the time of the Falklands. Anyway, on this occasion the two passengers opposite me we talking about a biography one of them had evidently written.
Another of my favourite occupations is "can I guess who Sue Lawley is talking about in her intro to Desert Island Discs before she mentioned her name". I found I could apply this game to my fellow passengers' conversation. Could I guess who the biography was about before either of my fellow passengers mentioned his name.
It soon became apparent that they were talking about a dead comic: Peter Cooke? Then the biographer started discussing the difficulty of finding out about the biographee's early life because it had taken place in India. Spike Milligan.
The next, harder, game was to guess who the biographer was. It must be somebody I'd heard of to write a high profile biography like one of Spike Millgan, but sadly I failed. In the end I resorted to popping in to WH Smiths at Paddington and having a look at the biography section for Spike Milligan.
# posted by JeremyP : 9:50 am
