grumpyf1

Like many others, I was saddened to hear of the death of Jimmy Perry last weekend. Comedy writers of his calibre are rare indeed. There wasn’t a great deal that me and my Dad had in common. I had a minor, grudging, appreciation for classical music that I tried not to show, but beyond a shared enjoyment of custard, we mostly couldn’t have been more different in our views on the world. Clearly, anything I decided was cool was pretty much an aberration from his point of view: Clothes, my taste in ‘music’ (“You can’t even understand the words!”) and even haircuts. The slightest hint of bad language on the TV meant it was immediately turned off, and Top of the Pops was endured, but only if the volume was down sufficiently low that I had to guess what the songs were. If that makes it sound like I didn’t like him, then I’m doing him a massive injustice. I loved my Dad, and the last couple of paragraphs (bar the TOTP reference, perhaps) probably apply to many young people as they reach...

On this most spooky of nights, I feel it my duty to warn you that the ghosts of entertainment past are back to haunt us... and they’re after our cash! BOO! Now that I’ve got your attention, there’s something you need to know about long-departed musicians and TV stars... they’re coming back from beyond the grave! WoOOooo! Thirty odd years ago, a typical teenage day for me would have involved quite a lot of rocking out to Queen and Pink Floyd albums, getting on down to a spot of Michael Jackson (if I was feeling funky, obviously) and, after tea, chuckling along to an episode of Dad’s Army. Right now, I can stick the radio on and hear new tunes from Freddie & Co (including one with MJ) and get all melancholy at Pink Floyd being poignant on a track from their new album. Impressive stuff, especially when you take into account how long it is since Freddie Mercury passed away (23 years!), that’s it’s been over five years since Jacko departed, and even the Floyd’s ace keyboardist,...