I was only young at the time but there was an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show which I remember vividly. It was about the death of a clown who worked for the TV station in the series. He dressed as a peanut for a circus parade and was killed by an elephant.
Basically the episode revolved around everyone making jokes about the death except Mary until the funeral where everyone was sombre but she burst into giggles.
It was a very funny episode of a very funny show. Take my word for it.
Not as good as The Mork and Mindy episode featuring a character called Arnold Wanker, but good nonetheless.
I was reminded of this episode by a story in the papers today of an 80-year-old man who went up a rickety set of steps, fell off and landed head first in a water butt where, tragically he drowned.
They found him with his feet sticking out of the butt.
Are you smiling? No, really, are you? Perhaps MTM isn't the only one.
Let's just hope that at the poor man's funeral they don't reveal all the details of his death, that's all I'm saying.
--------------------------------------------------------
Easter this weekend and the royal wedding the one after that. Neither hold anything of interest for me apart from the fact it gives me a few days off and there may be a football match to go to. Though if it's anything like the North London derby I attended then I'm not sure my heart can take it.
My mother-in-law is a devout Catholic and, rather sweetly, still sends us an Easter card every year despite my obvious lack of Catholicism and my wife's avowed atheism. She tells me, with all sincerity, that she prays for the Jews at Church. Deep down I know she still blames us for all that unpleasantness back in the day 2,000 years ago, but she hides it well, bless.
--------------------------------------------------------
We have a new postman. He's a rastafarian and I'm not sure if he's just really, really slow or just really, really laid back. The romantic in me hopes it's the latter. We don't have many laid back people round here. Everyone's manic and obsessed by money or their looks or work or whatever.
With the last postman we got our post at around 11am. He was keen, turned up in his own car, whizzed round and generally looked busy. He probably got fired for reaching too many targets.
Tonight I got home from work at around 6pm and came across a bloke looking like Peter Tosh strolling up one driveway, back to another and then doing a u-turn and going to another in the complete opposite direction. All of which he did in an incredibly languid fashion.
Then later as I drove to pick up a child from somewhere (my child, not a random one) I saw Rasta Pat and his Colourfully Knitted Hat cycling, I guess, home. He was in civvies and cycling really, really, slowly.
On the tube, at work, in the pub, at the school gates, I'm surrounded by people who seems to rush all the time and never have enough hours in the day. Even the housewives with no jobs yet still hire cleaning ladies and gardeners are in a hurry to get to the David Lloyd or have their nails done.
Finding someone who seems to be the antipathy of this is strangely reassuring in these 100 mph times.
Of course being a rasta he stands out. We do have a variety of people with different coloured skin in this part of the world though most of them are orange or rich second generation Asians. Let's me honest, there are some black people but most of them play for Spurs. Tom Huddlestone lives down the road - I know this because he has personalised plates on his white Range Rover and drives past.
Apparently he has converted the downstairs toilet into a special storage room for all his trainers (you learn a lot from local cab drivers). Hasn't helped him learn how to run, tackle or head a ball though. Anyway, I digress.
I'm guessing that the net curtains are twitching at the sight of a 6 foot plus stick thin Rasta in a tea cosy hat casually wandering around delivering the odd letter in their neighbourhood.
Personally, it's nice to see someone so happy in their work without it having anything to do with money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so another celebrity gets a super injunction and this one covers the whole world. So we have to go to a Martian website to find out who he is.
Before that there was a married TV star shagging a co-star who got a court order preventing identification on the grounds his kids would be bullied if it got out.
As if any self respecting schoolboy or girl wouldn't know about it already if it was the famous dad of one of their classmates. I bet they've already gone to foreign websites to find it and it's the talk of the playground gates.
And yet still they think it worth paying several thousand pounds to lawyers to stop it going into the paper.
Shameless, absolutely shameless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My son and his friend went to the cinema today and decided the best film they could see was Fast and Furious 5.
There's a couple of good reasons for this (even putting aside the unlikely option that there was nothing else on.) The first is that he is 12, the second is that he didn't see numbers 1-4.
I believe that, just like all the Police Academy movies, the same thing happens in all of them. There are few good sequels - someone at this point shouts out 'Godfather', though I don't think anyone should overlook Weekend at Bernies II. And don't even dare mention Star Wars. I saw the first, it was rubbish, and I refuse to accept any of the others are any good either. But yet again I digress (am I turning into Ronnie Corbett but without the laughs?)
I remember as a younger man, that I persevered with at least five Friday the 13ths and I think I saw four Jaws, including one in 3D and one with Michael Caine. All at the pictures (sitting on the left hand side of the auditorium where I could smoke.)
I don't know why we do it. Watch sequels that is. But we do. And we never learn. Arthur II - and I didn't really like the first one that much, Oceans 12 and 13 - and don't forget the first one was a shoddy remake of a really cool film in the first place, Indiana Jones getting slowly worse and worsely slower, Jurassic Park follow ups, the list goes on. Though nothing, and I mean nothing, could touch Richard Burton in Exorcist II (The Heretic I think).
To be continued.....Solly
No comments:
Post a Comment