Amazon exiles discussion

R.I.P. Paul Darrow, best known for playing Avon in Blake's 7, and (unknown to me until today) the 'voice' of Jack radio.

Good riddance (once again) to George Galloway, sacked from his radio show for a blatant anti-Semitic tweet after the Champions' League final. Let's hope nobody is foolish enough to give this scumbag another public platform.

I had a big crush on Paul Darrow. I saw him in a musical called 'Scapa!' (about Scapa Flow) in about 1962. It had an all male cast including David Hughes and DJ Pete Murray. It was dire.
I didn't know he'd had both legs amputated after complications from an aortic aneurism. Poor bloke.

yeah, from that unfortunate amputation on he was known as Blake's 3 & a half!
planetary boom!

Lez wrote: "I had a big crush on Paul Darrow. I saw him in a musical called 'Scapa!' (about Scapa Flow) in about 1962. It had an all male cast including David Hughes and DJ Pete Murray. It was dire.
I didn't k..."

Re Scapa Flow - this is far from dire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfq9...

Lez wrote: "I had a big crush on Paul Darrow. I saw him in a musical called 'Scapa!' (about Scapa Flow) in about 1962. It had an all male cast including David Hughes and DJ Pete Murray. It was dire.
I didn't k..."

Nice to see you back posting Lez. :-)

Tech XXIII wrote: "yeah, from that unfortunate amputation on he was known as Blake's 3 & a half!
planetary boom!"

Way too soon Tech!

Dr John has checked out.

He once played in Blairgowrie (true!) Here is Michael marra's song about it, as a tribute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdYk8....

nocheese wrote: "Dr John has checked out.

He once played in Blairgowrie (true!) Here is Michael marra's song about it, as a tribute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdYk8...."

There are some folk you think will live forever. I thought he was preserved in something. I have a clear memory of the first time I heard him on the radio - would have been Radio One, 1972, standing (I was) in my bedroom in Leeds. I'm glad I got to see him (in 2014 with Aaron Neville). I was only thinking this morning, while booking tickets for Kris Kristofferson and The Flaming Lips (separate shows), that the list of people I've seen who are no longer around (Glen Campbell, Bobby Womack, Whitney Houston, Roky Erickson, etc) is growing by the day. It was bound to happen.

Thanks too for Michael Marra - always welcome. A bloke I never did get to see.

In the past couple of days I've lost 2 of my aquarium family....my Albino Cory "Flumpy" and my largest and oldest Shrimp "Big Boy" . RIP fellas. ☹️😢

Awww, Collette ... (*HUGE HUGS*) ... x x x

suzysunshine7 wrote: "Awww, Collette ... (*HUGE HUGS*) ... x x x"

Thankyou Suzy. x

D'd have a good old snigger, but I always get a tear in my eye when I lose one. Worse when you've had them for ages. I always wrap them in a bit of kitchen towel, give it a wee kiss, and bag them before I bin them and send them on their way to fish heaven.

Life is such an incredibly precious gift - and so it should be too ... x x x

Collette wrote: "In the past couple of days I've lost 2 of my aquarium family....my Albino Cory "Flumpy" and my largest and oldest Shrimp "Big Boy" . RIP fellas. ☹️😢"

I have a fish room and keep others in tubs which I move into the garden for the summer. I have become slightly hardened to losses, but sometimes it can be a bit emotional, particularly if I've had a fish for a long time. The real frustration is when you have a rare pair of fish and one of them dies for no apparent reason and you know it will be very difficult to replace them.
On the flip side, it's really rewarding to spot baby offspring in the tank or seeing two males displaying to each other.

Do you have to quickly net them and put them in a Nursery Pen inside the Tank to stop the poor little things from being eaten by the other Fish, Jim? - including by the proud Parents?!

We kept Tropical Fish for years - and the Guppies and Black Mollies in particular were absolute devils for suddenly deciding to start devouring their own tiny cute Babies! ;oO

Revered Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, famed for a film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and for staging extravagant Opera productions, has died at the age of 96.

After he passed away at his home in Rome, his son Luciano said, he "had suffered for a while, but he left in a peaceful way".

Zeffirelli was the last of a generation of Italian film giants who came of age after World War Two, also including Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...

A belated farewell to Australia's unofficial Poet Laureate, Les Murray. He had 30 volumes of poetry published and was much-loved.

Quintets for Robert Morley

Is it possible that hyper-
ventilating up Parnassus
I have neglected to pay tribute
to the Stone Age aristocracy?
I refer to the fat.

We were probably the earliest
civilized, and civilizing, humans,
the first to win the leisure,
sweet boredom, life-enhancing sprawl
that require style.

Tribesfolk spared us and cared for us
for good reasons. Our reasons.
As age's counterfeits, forerunners of the city,
we survived, and multiplied. Out of self-defence
we invented the Self.

It's likely we also invented some of love,
much of fertility (see the Willensdorf Venus)
parts of theology (divine feasting, Unmoved Movers)
likewise complexity, stateliness, the ox-cart
and self-deprecation.

Not that the lists of pugnacity are bare
of stout fellows. Ask a Sumo.
Warriors taunt us still, and fear us:
in heroic war, we are apt to be the specialists
and the generals.

But we do better in peacetime. For ourselves
we would spare the earth. We were the first moderns
after all, being like the Common Man
disqualified from tragedy. Accessible to shame, though,
subtler than the tall,

we make reasonable rulers.
Never trust a lean meritocracy
nor the leader who has been lean;
only the lifelong big have the knack of wedding
greatness with balance.

Never wholly trust the fat man
who lurks in the lean achiever
and in the defeated, yearning to get out.
He has not been through our initiations,
he lacks the light feet.

Our having life abundantly
is equivocal, Robert, in hot climates
where the hungry watch us. I lack the light step then too.
How many of us, I wonder, walk those streets
in terrible disguise?

So much climbing, on a spherical world;
had Newton not been a mere beginner at gravity
he might have asked how the apple got up there
in the first place. And so might have discerned
an ampler physics.

That's wonderful, Val.

That's fabulous, Val. I'm ashamed not to have heard of him. Australia needs to publicise its cultural side more. I only know Banjo Paterson and a few popular authors. I'm better at composers but only through looking for them.
Did Robert Morley have a particular significance?

"That's wonderful, Val"

"That's fabulous, Val"

whit? that he's deid?

Good point, tech. I'd like to ask Val to notify us from now on of any eminent Aussie authors, poets, artists or musicians who are in danger of popping their clogs due to advancing years or ill health. In this way we can appreciate them befoe they are deid. A monthly update will do Val.

Tech XXIII wrote: ""That's wonderful, Val"

"That's fabulous, Val"

whit? that he's deid?"

Sigh

Britain's oldest woman, Mrs Grace Jones (no...not that one!), died on 14th June, aged 112. She was born 16th Sept 1906, only 5 years after Queen Victoria's death. Amazing!

She quoted as attributing her longevity to a daily dram of Famous Grouse whisky every night, since from the age of 50, after her doctor once told her it was good for health.

Now, that's one hellova an ad for that drink!

The current oldest person in Britain is now 111 year-old Hilda Clulow who was born on March 15, 1908.

that'd be great, val, a monthly list of australian cultural icons won't take up very much of your time! boom(erang)! 😜

duke, if the elixir of life is 'the famous grouse', i'd be deid already!

Lez wrote: "Did Robert Morley have a particular significance?..."

I think it's because he was the archetypal "large" gentleman.

There are 1687 of Les Murray's poems here:

https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poet...

Of course, Peter Porter was Australian born although he lived in Britain for over 50 years.

Tech XXIII wrote: "duke, if the elixir of life is 'the famous grouse', i'd be deid already!"

Yeh..well...you are Scottish, Tech! ;-P

The legendary João Gilberto died yesterday

https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...

Beautiful inside and out and talented too ... Rutger Hauer ... RIP ...

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die ..."

(Blade Runner)

Loved Blade Runner as both a book and a film, and he was so good. Seemed a decent bloke too.

RIP mr Hauer. Yep, that quote is timeless.

Died in 2019 twice too, (it was 2019 when he died in Blade Runner).

TheFoe wrote: "Died in 2019 twice too, (it was 2019 when he died in Blade Runner)."

;-)

The ultimate method actor to the very end ;o>

Hobo With A Shotgun, was a great movie! :)

But i like Bladerunner too..and Hauer was fantastic in the original The Hitcher.

"Loved Blade Runner as both a book and a film"

happening to be sitting on a lonely stool, facing the wall, in pedant's corner, les, i have to confirm that there's no such book as 'blade runner' - the film was based on, but left out some major themes from, philip k. dick's brilliant 'do androids dream of electric sheep'

.....from a librarian as well! tut tut! 🐑

Such a great book title too. I used to wish the film makers had retained it, but possibly it would have sunk without trace under the weight of such weirdness.

Tech XXIII wrote: ""Loved Blade Runner as both a book and a film"

happening to be sitting on a lonely stool, facing the wall, in pedant's corner, les, i have to confirm that there's no such book as 'blade runner' - ..."

Of course I know that! It's one of my favourite book titles, ever! I just didn't bother painstakingly writing it all out and also couldn't be sure everyone else knew. Anyway later editions, after the film, were titled 'Blade Runner: Do Androids...'
So there.

Barrington Pheloung, prolific composer, best known for his 'Morse' theme, died yesterday at home aged only 65. Cause not yet given.

Lez wrote: "Barrington Pheloung, prolific composer, best known for his 'Morse' theme, died yesterday at home aged only 65. Cause not yet given."

I don't know a lot about him other than his work on the TV series and the albums that came out of it but I always thought he was a man of great taste.

Awww, no? ... I'm starting to regret this Thread! ;oO

Yes, I know Death is inevitable and comes to us all, but it makes for such sad reading ;o<

well, there's folk dying now that've never died before!

mr P. Rogrock (1000 b.c. - very recently)

actually died in 1976, but took an inordinate time to fall over, curl up and shuffle off this morbid (glittery) cape. god bless his satin loon pants and his very long flaccid organ recitals!

he will be sadly missed.............by no-one!

Tech XXIII wrote: "well, there's folk dying now that've never died before!

mr P. Rogrock (1000 b.c. - very recently)

actually died in 1976, but took an inordinate time to fall over, curl up and shuffle off this mor..."

To coin a phrase, rumours of his demise have been greatly exaggerated 😎

Also aged 65, Damien Lovelock, lead singer of The Celibate Rifles (a band that stuck together for 39 years)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yPDW...

and larrikin football (Association) commentator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVTZk...

I always liked his style - he never seemed to take anything too seriously, especially himself - and he really knew his football!

So sad ... The Kinks have only very recently been tentatively suggesting to various folk that they might possibly reunite as a one-off to see how it works out between them ... but they've gone and left it far too late for their Keyboardist, Ian Gibbons, who died of Cancer on the 1st August aged 67.

Tech XXIII wrote: "well, there's folk dying now that've never died before!

mr P. Rogrock (1000 b.c. - very recently)

actually died in 1976, but took an inordinate time to fall over, curl up and shuffle off this mor..."

Is he any relation to Mortimer Chalfont? ;o>

Val wrote: "Also aged 65, Damien Lovelock, lead singer of The Celibate Rifles (a band that stuck together for 39 years)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yPDW...

and larrikin football (Association) comment..."

I actually have a Celibate Rifles vinyl LP somewhere. Their name was a play on/tribute to the Sex Pistols.

Toni Morrison died yesterday, aged 88, from complications as a result of Pneumonia.

Beloved is one of 'those Books' that just hit me so incredibly hard in the Heart that I've been struggling with it for some time now. And I haven't managed to hear the Radio Play all the way through without completely breaking down and having to switch it off ... but I'm still determined to try to make it through to the end of it one day ;o>

RIP Toni ... x

She was fearless, prolific and showed no signs of mellowing or slowing down, so her death was a shock. This Guardian piece gives a good overview:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201....

Thanks for the Link, nocheese ;o>

I still feel sadness in knowing that Maya Angelou is no longer with us as well.

Shocked to wake up and find out indie icon David Berman has passed away at only 52. Well known from his work as Silver Jews and also Purple Mountains who only released their debut last month.

https://twitter.com/dragcityrecords/s...