# RIP Clive James



## Badgers (Jun 21, 2012)

Sad link regards Clive James who claims he is losing his cancer fight  

http://www.itv.com/news/2012-06-21/clive-james-has-lost-his-battle-with-cancer/

Really like his work, humour and manner.


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## spirals (Jun 21, 2012)

I really like him, that's so sad


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## wayward bob (Jun 21, 2012)

ah fuck


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## Badgers (Jun 21, 2012)

Very sad. We need some Clive James quotes and some links to his work. 

"John McCririck looks like a hedge dragged through a man backwards."


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

A proper intellectual. He befriended a friend of mine a few years ago because he liked something he'd written and wanted to talk about it. Was always interested in helping young people he saw promise in.


Please no links to his poetry, though.


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## wayward bob (Jun 21, 2012)

Badgers said:


> Really like his work, humour and manner.


 
his voice/manner always reminds me of my favourite uncle (who doesn't have the ozzie accent, but the delivery is identical)


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## Badgers (Jun 21, 2012)

"Murdoch's the man I may have been if I'd been born rich & felt obliged to spend my life proving I was a self-made man"


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## Thraex (Jun 21, 2012)

Very sad news


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## Mrs Magpie (Jun 21, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Please no links to his poetry, though.


Not even 
"The Book Of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered"?

One of my favourite ever poems about schadenfreude.


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## editor (Jun 21, 2012)

> I swore to myself if I can just get through this winter, I’d feel better.
> 
> And I got through the winter and here it is a lovely sunny day and guess what, I don’t feel better.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Not even
> "The Book Of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered"?
> 
> One of my favourite ever poems about schadenfreude.


Oh go on then. 

I really like him, but I find most of his poetry, shall we say, difficult.


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## lizzieloo (Jun 21, 2012)

“Stop worrying / nobody gets out of this world alive.”


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## Mrs Magpie (Jun 21, 2012)

*'The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered'*

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book --
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.


The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.


Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler's War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper 
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Pertwee's Promenades and Pierrots--
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor's Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
"My boobs will give everyone hours of fun".


Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error--
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets! 
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.


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## Badgers (Jun 21, 2012)

There is a Radio 4 interview on Saturday at 8pm. Will have to catch that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k1ls1


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## colacubes (Jun 21, 2012)

"Even in moments of tranquility, Murray Walker sounds like a man whose trousers are on fire."


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## QueenOfGoths (Jun 21, 2012)

Very sad, always comes across as a good guy


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## Schmetterling (Jun 21, 2012)

He will go to heaven for making The Bee Gees walk off set alone!


 ... that was him, wasn't it?


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## colacubes (Jun 21, 2012)

Schmetterling said:


> He will go to heaven for making The Bee Gees walk off set alone!
> 
> 
> ... that was him, wasn't it?


 
Clive Anderson


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

Schmetterling said:


> He will go to heaven for making The Bee Gees walk off set alone!
> 
> 
> ... that was him, wasn't it?


Wrong Clive.


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## Captain Hurrah (Jun 21, 2012)

Clive Anderson.


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## Schmetterling (Jun 21, 2012)

nipsla said:


> Clive Anderson


 


littlebabyjesus said:


> Wrong Clive.


 


Captain Hurrah said:


> Clive Anderson.


 
Oh!

Well, then he will go to heaven for being the kind of person 'people' think of as being capable of making The Bee Gees walk off set.....


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

Clunky, MrsM. All his poems seem clunky to me.


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## Cloo (Jun 21, 2012)

I used to love watching his TV prog in the 80s. Sad news.


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## Mrs Magpie (Jun 21, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Clunky, MrsM. All his poems seem clunky to me.


Still funny though. Funny trumps mellifluousness.


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## yardbird (Jun 21, 2012)

I bought the album by Pete Atkin with Clive's lyrics.


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## dweller (Jun 21, 2012)

Sad news to hear that he is so unwell.
I love Clive and Unreliable Memoirs made me laugh til I cried.
I also enjoyed his recent radio 4 essays.
I also like the fact that he unselfconsciously tried his hand at poetry and songwriting even though it wasn't that great.  Seems like he just does what he enjoys. Not a bad example to follow.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

dweller said:


> I also like the fact that he unselfconsciously tried his hand at poetry and songwriting even though it wasn't that great. Seems like he just does what he enjoys. Not a bad example to follow.


Yep. Deep down, I'm sure what he really wants more than anything else is to be a great poet, and as you say, he hasn't been afraid of giving it a go.


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## 8ball (Jun 21, 2012)

As right-wing climate change denialists go, he was one of the more worthwhile ones.


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## weltweit (Jun 21, 2012)

Badgers said:


> Sad link regards Clive James who claims he is losing his cancer fight
> http://www.itv.com/news/2012-06-21/clive-james-has-lost-his-battle-with-cancer/
> Really like his work, humour and manner.


I am a fan, sad he has got leukemia, hope there is still hope.

But claiming he has lost his fight is perhaps also humerous - I recall some comic or other who po pood people who claim to be battling cancer as tripe, you can't battle it, it either gets you or it does not.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

8ball said:


> As right-wing climate change denialists go, he was one of the more worthwhile ones.


His politics are awful - he supported the Iraq war, irrc. Shame he couldn't have kept that to himself.


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2012)

8ball said:


> As right-wing climate change denialists go, he was one of the more worthwhile ones.


Always interesting to see where people who came out of the Sydney Push end up. I'm not meaning to be having a groundless pop here or anything, but his performance on question time a while back horrible right-wing _common sense_ rubbish.


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## Idris2002 (Jun 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Always interesting to see where people who came out of the Sydney Push end up. I'm not meaning to be having a groundless pop here or anything, but his performance on question time a while back horrible right-wing _common sense_ rubbish.


 
Any info on where he stands regarding Australia's original inhabitants?


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> Any info on where he stands regarding Australia's original inhabitants?


No idea - never knowingly read a word of his and never watched his programs.


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## elbows (Jun 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Always interesting to see where people who came out of the Sydney Push end up. I'm not meaning to be having a groundless pop here or anything, but his performance on question time a while back horrible right-wing _common sense_ rubbish.


 
Yes. I enjoyed some of his tv programs when I was a pretty clueless 14 year old, so it was a bit of a shock hearing what he said on Question Time, really awful cliche'd right-wing bile, perhaps a fusion of the worst the little US/UK/AU-ers have to offer.

I've never read anything he wrote, and the tv stuff was a long time ago now and probably not especially political (gentle piss-taking of Reagan's mental faculties was probably as far as it went). Perhaps a bit too smug, trying too hard to be clever but at the same time being a little self-depricating so getting away with it is what my memory tells me. Did spend a while watching many of his interviews with Peter Cook on youtube recently, but that was for Peter and he was in such awe of Cook's talent that he was mostly quiet during those segments.


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## elbows (Jun 21, 2012)

Seeing as he is dying I thought I ought to be fair enough to at least check out his politics a little more.

Sounds like he identified with the left and the worker, and was not exactly in love with free markets and privatisation. But a combination of cultural conservatism, liberalism, and a special overriding hatred for totalitarian regimes that were though of as socialist in some way, lead him to the point that I found him very easy to hate on Question Time, especially in regards to the Iraq war. Subsequent to that I suspect old age magnified the cultural conservatism to unpleasant proportions.


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## Divisive Cotton (Jun 21, 2012)

His agent has denied he is close to death


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## elbows (Jun 21, 2012)

I suspect he was bemoaning the much reduced quality of his life, rather than claiming he is days from death or anything like that.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 21, 2012)

Mrs Magpie said:


> *'The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered'*
> 
> The book of my enemy has been remaindered
> And I am pleased.
> ...


I would like to know who his enemy is.


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## Mrs Magpie (Jun 21, 2012)

I've always wondered too.


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2012)

Just everyone. _It's not enough that i succeed, others must fail._


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## Idris2002 (Jun 21, 2012)

A google for "Clive James aborigines" brings up this:



> In the 2001 volume I thoroughly enjoyed Richard Hall's assault on Keith Windschuttle's view of Aboriginal history, but I was still at the stage of thinking that an essay by Windschuttle should have been in there too. Windschuttle, however, best advances his arguments in book form, rather than through the essay. His _The Killing of History_ is an important book about the disastrous effect of Cultural Studies on the proper study of history, and his _The Fabrication of Aboriginal History_ is at the very least considerable, or so many people would not have rushed to consider it. For my own comfort, I would like to believe that his argument against the use of the genocide concept when it comes to the crimes committed against the Aboriginals is a necessary correction to a vocal but slipshod consensus. On the other hand, Richard Hall the hard-nosed foot-slogger was undoubtedly right to point out the dangers of a scholar's trusting the reliability of official reports. As well as being right about that, he could write. "The revisionist historians have dug themselves into their trenches and want to stay there." Launched with the economical accuracy of an old-time brawler, Hall's sentences hit home. If you had only his essay to go on, you would think there was a good case for regarding the behaviour of modern Australia towards its Aboriginals as being in grim parallel to the behaviour of modern Turkey towards its Armenians. Make way for the Pilger vision of the irredeemably racist land in the South. But now, in this year's volume, we have Noel Pearson's essay "The Need for Intolerance". After duly praising Paul Keating's legacy on Aboriginal policy, Pearson enters his caveat.


 
http://www.clivejames.com/articles/clive/australian-essays


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Just everyone. _It's not enough that i succeed, others must fail._


Yeah, that's how I read it. The poem isn't about his enemy - real or imagined - it's about him and his sweet schadenfreude.

I like the subject matter and honesty of it. I just can't stand his style.


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> A google for "Clive James aborigines" brings up this:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.clivejames.com/articles/clive/australian-essays


Leaving aside the content - that is unreadable drivel - and i should know.


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## Idris2002 (Jun 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Leaving aside the content - that is unreadable drivel - and i should know.


 
You were, after all, a founding member of the Campaign for Real Drivel.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 21, 2012)

Twitter is saying he's not quite at death's door and he's gonna be around for another couple of years.


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> You were, after all, a founding member of the Campaign for Real Drivel.


Honorary president. Just look at that though. It's a thing of rare undue beauty. How many things describing things that he thinks encompasses thing does he think he can shovel in?


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## ericjarvis (Jun 21, 2012)

yardbird said:


> I bought the album by Pete Atkin with Clive's lyrics.



There are six of them. I only have 3 so far. A better lyricist than poet IMO.

Undoubtedly the world will be a little more dull for his passing.


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## mrs quoad (Jun 21, 2012)

Not sure if this's been posted yet (a search for 'coming b' suggests not, though - since having foundational wanks over his descriptions of his first sexual experiences in his autobiography, c.12yrs old - I haven't been a great fan, so haven't scoured the thread.)

But anyway.

He's the *star* of 'meeting myself coming backwards,' a R4 archive / autobiographical show erm... this weekend?

e2a: here y'are, 8pm Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k1ls1


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## weltweit (Jun 21, 2012)

mrs quoad said:


> e2a: here y'are, 8pm Saturday.
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k1ls1


I will listen if I can remember the time!


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## Badgers (Jun 21, 2012)

weltweit said:
			
		

> I will listen if I can remember the time!



8pm


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## vauxhallmum (Jun 22, 2012)

When my parents split up I used to hope that one day Clive James and my mum (also australian) would get married 
Beginning to think that may not happen now, what with my mum being 84 and Clive being at death's door and all


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## mrs quoad (Jun 23, 2012)

Badgers said:


> 8pm


Tonight at 8pm.

Fwiw.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 23, 2012)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9349291/Clive-James-Im-not-dead-yet.html


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## elbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I rather wish he'd spent more time focussing on the BBCs attempts to turn their programs into news stories, which they do a lot these days, than the dodgy Mirror journalist. He mentioned it, but he didn't go anywhere with it.


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## Gingerman (Jun 23, 2012)

His TV reviews for the Observer in the '70s were brilliant,got them somewhere in book form.


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## mrs quoad (Jun 23, 2012)

weltweit said:


> I will listen if I can remember the time!


Now twenty minutes' time.


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## weltweit (Jun 24, 2012)

mrs quoad said:


> Now twenty minutes' time.


Thanks for that, it clashed with Spain v France but I heard most of it.


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## petee (Jun 25, 2012)

i read his pieces when i subscribed to Poetry mag, enjoyed them a good deal
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/clive-james


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## tim (Jun 25, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A proper intellectual. He befriended a friend of mine a few years ago because he liked something he'd written and wanted to talk about it. Was always interested in helping young people he saw promise in.
> 
> 
> Please no links to his poetry, though.


 
Are you  a friend of the great Johann Hari?


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jun 25, 2012)

It doesn't surprise me that the intellectual polymathic powerhouse lbj likes him.

Clever clever purple prose, and twinkly eyed patricianism.

A X1million transplanted to Australia photocopy of little Jimmy Joyce using the low res version everytime.

Having said that I liked his tv programme years ago when I was a teenager who thought I was clever.


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## 8ball (Jun 25, 2012)

I used to like his TV show when I was a teenager.

I didn't realise it was meant to be clever, though.
The South Bank Show was on right after - so I thought it was just something for the dumb people to look at before the 'clever people's show'.


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## weltweit (Jun 25, 2012)

I know that Clive is still alive and kicking but I can't help thinking that his demise will be a loss to us rather like the loss of Peter Ustinov was. They don't make too many like these.


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## butchersapron (Jun 25, 2012)

_Twilight of the idols._


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## 8ball (Jun 25, 2012)

weltweit said:


> I know that Clive is still alive and kicking but I can't help thinking that his demise will be a loss to us rather like the loss of Peter Ustinov was. They don't make too many like these.


 
I liked the Charlie Brooker piece in the Grauniad where he said it was nice in a way that his imminent demise seemed to be exaggerated as if he'd actually died he would never have known how well thought of he is.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jun 26, 2012)

8ball said:


> I didn't realise it was meant to be clever, though.
> .


 
Don't think it was.


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## tim (Sep 30, 2015)

wayward bob said:


> ah fuck



Well poor old Clive seems rather embarassed at times about the fact that he's still not dead.

Anyway, here's an interview from about a month ago


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## TheHoodedClaw (Nov 27, 2019)

Ten years after his terminal diagnosis!


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## editor (Nov 27, 2019)

He's died, aged 80

Australian broadcaster Clive James dies at 80


https://www.clivejames.com/author.html


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## existentialist (Nov 27, 2019)

Clive James, writer, broadcaster and TV critic, dies aged 80

Didn't do too badly, considering he wasn't supposed to survive past 70. Even so...


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## editor (Nov 27, 2019)

*threads merged


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## tim (Nov 27, 2019)

The Reaper has finally caught up with him , so bumping a thread about imminent death 7 years on. The Reaper has been very busy today. James, Miller, Rhodes, surely he could call in at least one Johnson.


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## imposs1904 (Nov 27, 2019)

Gary Rhodes, Jonathan Miller and Clive James?

Fucking hell, the old Celebrity Dead Pool is a bit busy today.


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## moomoo (Nov 27, 2019)

Oh ffs.


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## TheHoodedClaw (Nov 27, 2019)

James and Jonathan Miller (and Gary Rhodes) in the same day is slightly reminiscent of the same-day deaths of CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley (and John F. Kennedy)


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## Idris2002 (Nov 27, 2019)

It's 2016 all over again.


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## Badgers (Nov 27, 2019)

Over seven years since the OP 

Well fought sir


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## tim (Nov 27, 2019)

Idris2002 said:


> It's 2016 all over again.


All in one day this time round. I'm already looking forward to the deadly hour of 2022, and doubt that I'll survive the fatal minute of 2025.


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## Sprocket. (Nov 27, 2019)

So sad to hear of his death. I was only reading a piece by him last week, saying his biggest regret at the moment was being unable to get to Marks and Spencer food hall for an individual pudding.
A great wit and a writer of the highest order. I remember reading Falling Towards England years ago and it becoming one of my favourite reads.
Worth a revisit now.
RIP Clive, thanks for all the great writing, TV and Margarita Pracatan.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 27, 2019)

Used to love his travel shows as a kid. They weren't really for kids, so we felt very grown up being allowed to watch them. He did all of that wry commentary way better than Michael Palin who came along and did the same thing afterwards.


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## dessiato (Nov 27, 2019)

He was a good presenter. RIP Clive.


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## Ax^ (Nov 27, 2019)

rip Clive he had a brave battle with it


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## 8ball (Nov 27, 2019)

I thought he had died when there was the misreporting some years back.
Was good to have him around a bit longer.


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## Idris2002 (Nov 27, 2019)

dessiato said:


> He was a good presenter. RIP Clive.


He was a model of . . . _endurance._


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## Sprocket. (Nov 27, 2019)

And of course, Charles Charming’s Challenges on the Pathway to the Throne!


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## weltweit (Nov 27, 2019)

RIP, another experienced and skilled raconteur is gone.


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## blairsh (Nov 27, 2019)

Sad to hear this today. 

RIP.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 27, 2019)

RIP


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## xenon (Nov 27, 2019)

I didn't follow his career and output much in later years but another one who enjoyed his show as a teenager in the 90s.

RIP.


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## peterkro (Nov 27, 2019)

I've always have had a soft spot for him (like fellow OZ Greer) I didn't always agree with their views but they were  entertaining and forthright with them. Both him and Greer where involved in the Anarchist movement in Sydney in the early sixties known as the Push James saying :

"The Royal George was the headquarters of the Downtown Push, usually known as just the Push.... As well as the Libertarians and the aesthetes there were the small-time gamblers, traditional jazz fans and the homosexual radio repair men who had science fiction as a religion. The back room had tables and chairs. If you stuck your head through the door of the back room you came face to face with the Push. The noise, the smoke and the heterogeneity of physiognomy were too much to take in. It looked like a cartoon on which Hogarth, Daumier and George Grosz had all worked simultaneously, fighting for supremacy".
This was a number of years before my own dalliance in Sydney at Darlinghurst,Potts Point,Redfern and Forest Gate but they were still influential even then.

Sydney Push - Wikipedia

Godspeed.


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## a_chap (Nov 27, 2019)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> James and Jonathan Miller (and Gary Rhodes) in the same day is slightly reminiscent of the same-day deaths of CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley (and John F. Kennedy)



Except Clive James died on Sunday, Gary Rhodes died yesterday and Jonathan Miller died today.


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## Casaubon (Nov 27, 2019)

Apart from being an all-round top bloke, and all his better-known accomplishments, he was a great lyric writer.

This is probably my favourite.


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## a_chap (Nov 27, 2019)




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## scifisam (Nov 27, 2019)

I loved Clive James on TV as a kid. Margarita Prakatan!

Trashpony you should post that beautiful poem here.


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## D'wards (Nov 27, 2019)

His volumes of memoirs are great - he was a terrific writer


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## scifisam (Nov 27, 2019)

This is another beautiful poem, about his own impending death: The Floral Clock

I especially like the last twelve lines:

When I was small the death-defying climb
Of honeysuckle up into clear air
Tempted my mouth. I taste it now. I share
Those aspirations. Give me the sweet sky
To hunger for as I prepare to die,

And I, too, might be led to make a show
Of striving heavenward. A pigeon’s beak
That punches tiny holes in the fresh snow
Has no more strength, but though I grow so weak
I can no longer see, the flowers will speak
Their language, which is time made visible.
It thrilled me from the start. It thrills me still.


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## JuanTwoThree (Nov 28, 2019)

Probably the first part of a serious newspaper that I ever read regularly was his TV reviews in The Observer.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2019)

D'wards said:


> His volumes of memoirs are great - he was a terrific writer



That sprung a memory - was about 8 years old and had picked it (Unreliable Memoirs) while visiting an Aunt - it was on the shelf in the box room I was staying in.

There was nothing rude in any bits I had read so far, but when they saw I was reading it (think they heard me laughing in the room) my Aunt decided it wasn’t suitable for kids and it was taken away.


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## Sprocket. (Nov 28, 2019)

My first memory of Clive James was when he replaced Michael Parkinson as the presenter of Cinema on itv.
By coincidence my first memory of Michael Parkinson was when he replaced the brilliant Mike Scott on Cinema.


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## D'wards (Nov 28, 2019)

I once saw him in the clink lane near London bridge walking along nestling a kebab, so gained an extra level of respect from that point.


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## butchersapron (Nov 29, 2019)

He wrote this scorching bitter poem at assad's wife. I always thought that he was sort of oxbridge jeremy beadle - master of the voice-over and making money for little work but this is superb:

*Asma Unpacks Her Pretty Clothes*

Wherever her main residence is now,
Asma unpacks her pretty clothes.
It takes forever: so much silk and cashmere
To be unpeeled from clinging leaves of tissue
By her ladies. With her perfect hands, she helps.

Out there in Syria, the torturers
Arrive by bus at every change of shift
While victims dangle from their cracking wrists.
Beaten with iron bars, young people pray
To die soon. This is the middle ages
Brought back to living death. Her husband’s doing.
The screams will never reach her where she is.

Asma’s uncovered hair had promised progress
For all her nation’s women. They believed her.
We who looked on believed the promise too.
But now, as she unpacks her pretty clothes,
The dream at home dissolves in agony.

Bashar, her husband, does as he sees fit
To cripple every enemy with pain.
We sort of knew, but he had seemed so modern
With Asma alongside him. His big talk
About destroying Israel: standard stuff.
A culture-changing wife offset all that.

She did, she did. I doted as _Vogue_ did
On her sheer style. Dear God, it fooled me too,
So now my blood is curdled by the shrieks
Of people mad with grief. My own wrists hurt
As Asma, with her lustrous fingertips –
She must have thought such things could never happen –
Unpacks her pretty clothes.


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## scifisam (Nov 29, 2019)

Isn't it weird, though, that someone most of us had forgotten about due to only seeing him as a big bald bloke on TV (where he was very funny, tbf, but it was a long time ago), was actually a poet.

This is the love poem I mentioned earlier that Trashpony alerted me to. It's one of those poems where the beauty of it creeps up on you.


Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
On the palm of my hand, on the walls of the hall
The roof of the house, right across the land
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll look to this side of the hard-bitten planet
Like a big yellow button with your name written on it

Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write some lines
In praise of your knee, and the back of your neck
And the double-decker bus that brings you to me
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnet
And a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid

Oh give me a pen and some paper
Give me a chisel or a camera
A piano and a box of rubber bands
I need room for choreography
And a darkroom for photography
Tie the brush into my hands

Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
From the belt of Orion to the share of the Plough
The snout of the Bear to the belly of the Lion
So when the sun goes down tomorrow
There’ll never be a minute
Not a moment of the night that hasn’t got you in it


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## tim (Nov 30, 2019)

Clive James and Jonathan Miller discuss death and farting at 35,000 feet



Here some years later and more seriously talking about the brain


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## UrbaneFox (Dec 1, 2019)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Probably the first part of a serious newspaper that I ever read regularly was his TV reviews in The Observer.


Me too. I converted loads of people to the Crystal Bucket, and remember loads of it. Probably more than my A level texts, come to think


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