RIP Ken

I posted this on Facebook yesterday:-


Bugger.
 
Rest In Peace, Ken Brown.

A generous, kind, clever man taken from us far too soon. Christian, socialist, scientist, SF fan, father, beer consumer, wargamer and friend.

At university he was one of those individuals that you were continually being introduced to by people, '...and you must meet Ken...'. As though they wanted to share the good news that there was this wonderful person in the world that they knew you would like.

I remember sitting in the audience watching him win University Challenge with Durham. Sticking up a fanzine with him. Watching him play the penny whistle. And, of course, innumerable cups of tea (and pints) in Durham, Brighton, Glasgow, London and elsewhere, while he explained stuff to me, and many others,in his inimitable Kennish manner.

Our thoughts are with his family, of course. Abigail, Sarah Woolford, Chris Brown and Muriel.

Ken would always find the right words for an occasion like this. Something fitting and open, about celestial horns cheering him to heaven and reaching a place of peace in Heaven. But for me, only one word comes to mind.

Bugger.

Oh my

After Seamus Heaney and David Frost, we lose David Jacobs and Frederick Pohl. 
Oh my.

That was...

So, farewell David Frost.

I still (just) remember TW3 on the family's old black and white TV.  And the Frost Report was in hindsight a brilliant incubator (and gave us the 'I look down on him...' British class sketch).

Lots in the press of course about Frost as a TV man, presenter, producer, entrepreneur, etc, who lead the way in terms of how the business of telly is done.  'Own the format'.  And the Nixon interviews.

But I remember TW3 most.

Mouse Over

Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse amongst many things, has died. 

A terrible device for controlling computer screens (I'm using one now), but the best we've found so far.  Certainly a lot better than those (swearword) touchpads and touchscreens...

Farewell AltaVista

So, one of the first great search engines, an early pre-Google star, has finally been turned off.  I remember when it was startling, amazing, to see how much it could find.  But everything's Google now.  Want to know how good it was?   Well, you'll have to AltaVista it.
Except you can't.

Farewell, Stripy Jumpers...

Once upon a time we watched Time Team a lot, and an undoubted star of the show - along with the Lord High Robinson and Phil Harding - was Mick Aston, Professor of the parish, with his tatty, colourful stripy jumpers. 

So farewell, we'll miss you.

Farewell IB

He will be much missed. As we said when his cancer was announced. 

See the beautiful piece on Iain Banks' SF in today's Guardian. 

And also remember (as Ken says) his politics.

No Interest...

So.  Over the last two days I visited Leeds, Durham, Newcastle and Sunderland.  I met no-one who showed the slightest (positive) interest in Thatcher's funeral.

On Roobarb and Custard

A few days ago we were saddened to hear of the death of the actor Richard Briers.  But we were pleased at least that amongst the endless discussions of The Good Life, and fewer mentions of his impressive later stage career, it was also recalled that he was the voice of the marvellous, magisterial Roobarb (and Custard).

And then yesterday the death of Bob Godfrey at the age of 91, the creator of R&C, was announced.  I also recall Great (his Oscar-winning film of the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel) and Karma Sutra Rides Again, as well as numerous shorts.  His style was unmistakeable..

But Roobarb and Custard was his masterwork

Thunder

So God has recalled Gerry Anderson to his side.  And soon, now, the Seraphim and Cherubim will have their lives made much easier by great, brightly-coloured machines that can gird the Cosmos much faster than mere Angel's wings.  The pearly gates will be re-engineered to lay flat at need, to allow the Hosts to issue forth much more speedily.  And the music of the spheres will become a rumbunctious march...

Ready with the countdown?

It will all be very exciting.

Sir Patrick Moore dies

Sad. Patrick Moore died today, aged 89.

I remember seeing the 700th edition of The Sky at Night last year.  And I remember many from the early 70s too, when I first got interested in astronomy.  I read his science fiction as well as his books about space and astronomy.  Locally (for me at the time), he helped to found the Astronomical Society of Haringey  -which is still going.

He will be much missed.

Dave Brubeck Farewell

Michael Foot

In the news just now. Michael Foot has died.

Wretched.

No-one left that I can see with the same combination of vision, sense of social justice, joy in the world and overt, explicit desire to do good wherever possible. Combined with shining rhetoric.

Irreplaceable.

And now I need to go and read Hazlitt.

Taupi

I've just found out that Albie Fiore died late in July (see the Guardian obituary for details). I didn't realise that he'd touched me in two (minor) ways. I really knew his name as the editor of The Fiend Factory in White Dwarf (and author of one or two other articles). To me, his was a name from the late '70s and early '80s. RPGs and other games. I suspect he was also technically the first person to accept and publish something I'd written.

The surprise is that he was also Taupi, the crossword compiler for the Guardian. (And Satori for the Times). Today there is a fine commemorative crossword by Enigmatist and Paul in the Graun. Well worth while, and not easy, even tho' one solution is given at the start.

Be seeing you

An unavoidable post

End of Year Review 2008

Well 2008 has been pretty rich for me, in many ways:-

• I attended a school reunion (thanks, Jacqueline, for organising it).
• I had a big birthday (and a big birthday party to go along with it, when we saw lots and lots of old friends and some new ones).
• I spent my first year in a new job.
• We had a smashing holiday in the Summer (see the entries for the Trees Around Nunhead on Tour for some of the details).

At the same time, of course, a few people died in 2008 and I’d like to record and remember one or two of them.

When I was in my early teens, in the early seventies, I went to a small local exhibition on science fiction, astronomy and astronautics. (This was the 'Space Age Exhibition' held at the Arts Centre in Wood Green). I remember David Hardy paintings and a diorama showing (I think) the Selene from A Fall of Moondust. The exhibition lead, fairly directly I think, to the founding of the Astronomical Society of Haringey. I don’t think I made the first couple or so meetings, but went fairly regularly after that and for around five years. I remember watching the Apollo 17 moonwalk during a meeting in Christmas, 1972. “I was walking on the moon one day/In the merry, merry month of May December” (Cernan and Schmitt).

What surprised me at first was that the chairman, Fred and secretary Mat managed to get so many good (well, famous) speakers to come along. However, Mat was Mat Irvine (designer and maker of models for Dr Who, Blake’s Seven and many other shows) - and Fred was Fred Clarke, Arthur C. Clarke’s brother. When the latter was in the UK, and times matched, he would attend meetings, chat and answer questions. He gave me my first inklings of understanding about special relativity, when he answered, patiently and with some humour, my schoolboy questions. I remember him explaining how acceleration would remove the symmetry of most of the classical SR thought experiments (clocks, rulers, etc) - which is why they specify uniform motion. When Isaac Asimov came briefly to the UK, the Society got tickets to his Mensa lecture in London (introduced by ACC). I went – and he autographed a battered copy of The End of Eternity. I still have the tape of the talk somewhere.

Hearing about Arthur C Clarke’s death this year brought a lot of those memories back. My first reaction was amazement I think, that I had had the good luck to be around in Wood Green and Tottenham, and hence had a chance to meet him. I almost doubted my own memories, but found the ASH Web site on line, which confirmed all the cronologies; it also, amazingly, named Fred Clarke still as President and Mat Irvine as magazine editor, vice-chair and PR. They clearly build things to last up there in Wood Green and Southgate. Thinking about those days, I was also reminded of the strange hope that the Apollo missions created (in me, and for a while, at least).

When I first left University, I worked for a couple of years in Liverpool. I remember seeing Talent (Victoria Wood and Julie Walters) at the Playhouse, I think, as well as Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers. But most of all I recall Ken Campbell’s The Warp at the Everyman. For those unfamiliar with the piece, it is a 24 hour play by Neil Oram that previewed at the Edinburgh Fringe. Campbell, as artistic director, produced this as ten two-and-a-half hour plays, running over ten weeks (a different play each week). I went every Wednesday with friends. As the plays moved us through the different stages of the protagonist, Phil’s life the music changed (there was a very versatile house band, that partied in the interval and at the end of each play) and so did some of the scenes. The Everyman was set up as theatre “in the round”, with the audience mostly in the middle, and various stages scattered around them.

These plays were no-holds-barred: I recall the first play quickly presented full nudity and simulated sex. Notoriously, the Echo reported that the mayor of Liverpool walked out in disgust after five or so minutes but his daughter (the lady mayoress?) stayed and said something like “Daddy was just being silly”.

Another highlight from the Campbell incumbency at the Everyman was a production of War With The Newts which included not only actors in newt costumes but a deeply flooded stage around which the audience sat. Hearing about Ken Campbell’s death reminded me of those times in the early eighties when the Everyman was doing wonderful things, testing what could be done with space and setting.

Another sad loss this year was Humphrey Lyttelton. In some ways, as Clue was still being broadcast regularly up until his death, this somehow felt more immediate, although I must have known his voice for over thirty-five years – given that I listened, on-and-off, to the show from near the beginning. At first, I know, I missed I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again and felt that the quiz was something of a poor relation. But that soon passed. Alongside Humph, we should also I guess remember Geoffrey Perkins, who also worked for a while on Clue – as well HHGTTG and Radio-Active, amongst much else.

After Humph’s death, I’ve bought his books on Jazz and also his autobiography. Good enough, and I’ve learnt a lot, but I will still miss his voice.

Another unique voice belonged to Oliver Postgate. When he died, the Guardian ran remembrances on an astonishing dozen or more pages. Or perhaps not so astonishing really – from Ivor the Engine onwards, Postgate and Firmin’s quirky children’s programmes must have been seen by so many, and remembered with love.

When I worked at the British Museum the excellent British Museum film society invited them to give a lecture (4/10/2003), on the almost but not quite wholly spurious basis that the artwork for Noggin the Nog was partly based on the Lewis chess pieces. I went along, with our eldest, and had a fascinating evening. There were clips from Noggin, Ivor and the Clangers, etc and lots of stories. One of my favourites was told by Oliver Postgate (that voice!) – and it has also appeared elsewhere, I know.

Apparently, their practise was to write out the scripts for the Clangers, before they then whistled the words on swanee whistles. Apparently someone at the BBC objected to a script which had father Clanger swearing at a stuck door, and demanded changes to the words.

“But we are going to whistle it,” said Postgate.

“Yes, but people will know,” came back the reply from on high, so changes had to be made.

Postgate, a conscientious objector during the War, felt bad about being censored like this, and about compromising his principles, so when, that Christmas, Woollies put out knitted Clanger dolls which whistled when their tummies were pushed, father Clanger tootled something like “Bugger. The bloody door’s stuck again.” Or so Oliver Postgate said.

We had a brief chat with them at the end, and they signed a very old Noggin the Nog book of my wife’s, from her childhood (and seemed politely amazed and gratified to see it). I think that was also where I bought Seeing Things – Postgate’s autobiography, highly recommended, and quietly innovative in its own way. It bundles onto an enclosed CD ROM clips from the shows, along with photos and chapters that he hadn’t been able to get into the main book, and a complete e-copy of the main book itself.

However, I have to admit, Bagpuss came along a little too late for me; it is the earlier shows that I remember best.