RIP Uncle Jimmy

(PLEASE NOTE THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE TRUTH EMERGED ABOUT SAVILE)

Yes, let’s all make a noise like Tarzan and talk in strangled Lancashire accents; for Jimmy Savile is dead.  I always disliked him intensely as a DJ; part of the BBC’s plan to make pop music look like a daft sub-culture by appointing complete idiots to host TOTP (John Peel excepted, of course) – but I did rather enjoy ‘Jim’ll Fix It’.  You never knew what was going to come up on the prog (sorry, that’s Jimmy Young – another bete noire who must surely have passed on by now to the great studio in the sky) – it could have been predictable, sticking with safe ambitions but you never know what kids will come up with and, to the programme’s credit, they tried to fulfil some truly wacky ambitions.  I remember one moment, though, when Jim came unstuck when he asked a kid if he wanted his special chair to make him invisible.  He had trouble getting out of that one…  Can’t find that moment but here’s a vintage clip (sadly not with the theme tune I remember):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e27c-hxoyVc

It includes Patrick Moore and a dalek (about 4 minutes in).  Great stuff – who would have thought of those questions to ask Daleks?

Greenwich Calling

What time is it where you are?  Have you remembered to put your clocks back?  If it’s coming up to 10 am then you’re still in BST and you need to move to Greenwich.  Please adjust the parameters of your existence.

I have been to Greenwich and stood, as every visitor does, with a foot on either side of time.  I have to say it felt disappointingly normal.

Had a good day at home yesterday – what I call a proper Saturday: a late breakfast reading the Guardian and doing the crossword; getting your son to do the washing-up; (thanks Daniel) reading Jane Austen and drinking tea, and then making a slow pasta bake in the evening before watching, at Daniel’s recommendation, ‘Paranormal Activity’.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Paranormal Activity purports to be actual amateur footage and for about half of it I believed that’s what I was seeing; however, things seemed to build towards a dramatic climax in a rather suspicious way which doesn’t usually happen in real life.  Still it was quite scary; amazing what moving bedcovers and shadows can do to create fear in the mind.  Once again there was no catharsis; we seem to have done away with it in modern horror, and I’m not sure why.  I suspect it’s part of a whole ‘baby-and-bathwater’ scenario.  I shall give it some thought.

‘It will be Zanzibar on Monday,’ announces Mark.

‘We’d better renew our passports then,’ I say.

He’s reading a book called ‘Stand on Zanzibar.’  Can you guess what the title means?  Think about it and I’ll tell you in a sec…

I have not a syllable to say in defence of the Catholic Church as the latest ‘covering up abuse’ scandal breaks: I have nothing against the Catholic faith but the church must go.  They are corrupt, fascist, hypocritical and indefensible in almost every way and it has to stop.  End of, as they say.

Today I shall be mostly… drinking wine at Peter’s.  Once we’ve done our yoga, of course.

Kirk out.

PS It used to be said that the whole population of the world could stand on the Isle of Wight; apparently on Monday the population will have grown to such an extent that we would need to move to Zanzibar.