Why This Is Hell

Another one of those, "I didn't realise he was still alive moments" - though, of course, now he isn't.

N.F. Simpson


http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/aug/31/nf-simpson-obituary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/aug/31/nf-simpson-english-dramatist?intcmp=239

Claude Chabrol - of the French New Wave of film, and still active making films until the end.


Chabrol was 80 - Jean Luc Godard is a whippersnapper at 78, but I note Jacques Rivette, Agnes Varda (and Nicolas Roeg) as still working at 82. I can't think of anyone older.

(Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira (b. 1908) - of whom I had never heard, is one answer.
Kaneto Shindo (b. 1912) has a film in postproduction


Kurt Maetzig (b. 1911) hasn't directed since 1976
Mario Monicelli (b. 1915) directed in 2008, 2010 film is "credit only"
Carlo Lizzani (b. 1917) directed in 2008
Ted Post (b. 1918) hasn't directed since 1999
Gabriel Axel (b. 1918) hasn't directed since 2001
Lester James Peries (b. 1918) hasn't directed since 2006
Paul Bogart (b. 1918) has directed for tv since 1988, and seems retired from that)

We signalled to the ship; go back;
our lives and days returned to us, but
haunted by deeper souvenirs than any rocks or seeds.
From time our souvenirs are deeds.

An obituary, a tad belated, of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Her Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985) and Epistemology of the Closet (1990) introduced me to the concepts of the homosocial, homosexual panic, although probably not, quite, to queer theory. Her work has been an incalculable influence on the queer studies area of my work.

Clement Freud, 24 April 1924 - 15 April 2009

Celebrity chef and foodie, former MP for Isle of Ely and then North East Cambridgeshire, racing fan, patriarch of a significant branch of the Freud dynasty and advertiser of dog food - oh, and deadpan comic genius.

To Whom It May Concern Remix

Come all ye -
wartbrain psychics
with astroid sidekicks
prostate agents
and plastic Cajuns

royal doggerellas
cluster bombsellers
alternative surgeons
torturesport virgins

heavy vivisectionists
columnists, Golumnists,
priests of the beast
who are secretly policed
by highranker bankers
playing pranks with tankers

ghost advisers
death advertisers
vampire preachers
sucked-dry teachers
beheaded dead bodies
of blank-hearted squaddies

billionaire beauticians
fishing for positions
from poison politicians
with obliteration missions –
I'm alone, I'm afraid
And I need your aid
can't you see – can't you see – can't you see?

I was run over by the truth one day
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain
Couldn't find myself, so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam

Every time I shut my eyes, all I see is flames
I made a marble phone-book, and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph, drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out
You take the human being, and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about –
Iraq
Burma
Afghanistan
BAE Systems
Israel
Iran

Tell me lies Mr Bush
Tell me lies Mr Blairbrowncameron

Tell me lies about Vietnam

Apparently David Foster Wallace hung himself on the 12 September. I still haven't got around to Infinite Jest, but he certainly struck me as being very ambitious as a writer.

I hear - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/30/bbc.television - that Geoffrey Perkins has been killed ina road accident.

He was the man who produced Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy from the second episode (Simon Brett produced episode one), who introduced Mornington Crescent to I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and - with Angus Deayton - was central to Radio Active, both writing and performing. He also had input into Spitting Image and was BBC Head of Comedy, and his Harry and Paul< will start this week.

That's thirty years or more of comic genius. The world is a little less bright for his death.