ForumGarden

Just what is it about this month. Everyone's dropping like flie.

Terry ***an gone, aged 77, after fight with cancer.

Sir Terry ***an: Veteran broadcaster dies, aged 77 - BBC News

(add. I can't believe the swearbot censored his name in the link - I think he would have found that funny)

The swearbot is sensitive to racial issues. Media ty****s are similarly slapped.

The veteran broadcaster of whom you speak was gifted with an extraordinary ability often associated with the Irish - hah, I sneaked that one past - to the extent that the word Blarney came into the English language. And he was much liked. As he matured he tended to discuss the actual broadcast quite as much as the ostensible topic of conversation, never less so than when observing Eurovision on our behalf.

Some Irishmen could charm the nuts off a squirrel. Dave Allen was another. I wonder whether they ever met and, if so, who did the talking.

I've never met him myself, but I know quite a few who have, and they've all said that he was just as sincere & good natured as with his public persona.

Simply a nice guy and it showed.

Nice is a condition I never practiced, I'm far too set in my ways to try now.

Frank Findlay died at the weekend too and I've been wondering how I'm so convinced he was a powerful actor. He was, I have no doubt about it, but I can't think what I've seen that makes me know it. Richard Lester's claptrap Musketeer films were unwatchably awful, I refused to go anywhere near the Barbed Wire or Casanova and I never managed to see Mr Findlay on stage. When the family first acquired a television I saw him in the most breathtaking children's serial of all time, Target Luna, maybe that's it.