Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to a very old 'black and white tv' broadcaster called Cliff Michelmore

Cliff is 94 years old today and I remember watching him on our little tv in black and white when I was a boy living in South London in the 1960's, when he, already in his forties, fronted the BBC 'Tonight' programme. What I'd forgotten was that he also hosted the tv coverage of the Apollo Moon Landings and the tragic South Wales Aberfan Disaster, the 1966 and 1971 General Elections and the investiture of Charles, as Prince of Wales in 1969.

What I and possibly you didn't know about Cliff was that he :

* was born in Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1919 and attended the High School there and then left the island to study at Loughborough College and Leicester College of Technology and Art.

* joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War andpresente became a Squadron Leader and began broadcasting on British Forces Network.

* after the War worked on radio and tv as a freelance sports commentator, then as a news reporter and as a producer of children's programmes, including 'All Your Own'.


* in 1950, married the late Jean Metcalf, a BBC announcer whom he met when she presented 'Two-Way Family Favourites' in London while he was presenting the Hamburg link in the programme for the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieth9gTRaZI

* presented the BBC TV programme 'Highlight', a current affairs show with a reputation for uncompromising interviews and in 1957 became anchorman for BBC TVs new topical weekday magazine show, 'Tonight' which ran for eight years and attracted 8 million viewers at its peak and was named BAFTA Television Personality of the Year in 1958.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ezY-f383Ik

* interviewed the 17 year old David Bowie in 1964 about 'long hair' in young men : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5zxeLwUSdk

* when Tonight finished in 1965, hosted a BBC One series called '24 Hours' until 1968 and the 1966 General Election :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMgCn0EDf8

* In 1967 he presented 'Our World', a worldwide tv broadcast which was the first to use time satellite communication extensively in an attempt to 'connect the whole world by television' and in one pogramme featured a performance by The Beatles of their song ' All You Need Is Love'.

* after leaving full-time tv work, became head of EMI's new video division and was a regular presenter on BBC One's 'Holiday' programme from 1969 to 1986 and returned to the BBC at the age of 87 in 2007 to introduce a programme on the BBC Parliament channel, recalling the 1967 devaluation of the pound.

My "Goodbye" to Cy Grant who sang calypsos on the 'Tonight' programme :
Thursday, 18 February 2010
 http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/britain-says-goodbye-to-cy-gant.html

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Goodbye" to a fearless old Scots, documentary film maker called Brian Barr

Brian Barr, who has died aged 70, was physically fearless, whether scrabbling up rock faces in the Scottish Highlands or filming in war zones and fearless as a journalist in pursuit of the truth.

What you possibly didn't know about Brian, that he :

* was born in Paisley, Scotland and attended Paisley Grammar School where he took up playing the oboe with the encouragement of his father, James, who was  Musical Director of the Glasgow Corporation and saw the high point of his oboe career  when he gave a tv performance of 'Holst’s Oboe Concerto' with the BBC Scottish Orchestra.

* left school and gained degrees in law and philosophy at Glasgow University, but was pointed towards his later career when his philosophy professor marked one of his essays with the comment: 'Mr Barr, I'm inclined to give this work a Gamma for content but an Alpha for style. Have you ever considered journalism?'

* started work in the incubator of Scottish journalists, the 'Sunday Post' in Dundee, progressed to the role of leader writer at the 'Glasgow Herald' in his twenties in the early 1970s, before leaving to edit a community newspaper, the 'Glasgow News'.

* in 1975, joined 'BBC Scotland' as a reporter on the weekly documentary series, 'Current Account' and in film, explored  'asbestosis in Clyde shipyards' and 'lead in Glasgow's water supply.'

* produced films in the 'Secret Society' Series about :
- cabinet committees in 'The Secret Constitution'
- data banks in 'We're All Data Now'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2onUnMbe3jk&list=PLi77nHBEunGTUgJFPfU0CIgNJYvJ7Sh8C&index=15
- government emergency powers in  'In Time of Crisis'
- botched radar contracts.in 'A Gap in Our Defences' http://vimeo.com/48987753

* in the 1990s, filming for the Channel 4 series 'Secret Places' at RAF Chicksands in Bedfordshire, was by turn : apprehended by armed US soldiers and then detained by police for 12 hours; arrested by the Israel Defence Forces; incarcerated by police in Algeria and nearly shot for trying to attach a microphone to Yasser Arafat in Palestine.

* in 1986, helped reveal one of Britain's greatest post Second World War security scandals, when he and investigative journalist, Duncan Campbell (left), exposed the existence of a £500m spy satellite programme, 'Project Zircon', which the Government had omitted to mention to Parliament.

* triggered the Special Branch night raid on the Glasgow Headquarters of BBC Scotland and seizure all film related to the programme, which ignited one of the most explosive confrontations between the Thatcher Government and the BBC and played a major role in the resignation of the Director General, Alasdair Milne in 1987.


* saw the film about Zircon screened by the BBC in 1988 after a Government injunction preventing transmission of the film was circumvented by unauthorised screenings by anti-censorship campaigners and loved to quote the headline about him from the Paisley Daily Express : 'Ex-Paisley choirboy in spy scandal'.

* found it increasingly difficult to get commissions in his later years, but co-wrote a book about River Spey with his brother Donald and made community films in the Scotland's, Isle of Bute where he lived including one about North Bute Primary School in 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yY1yqwOPf0

* joined the Bute Writers' Group and said of himself :
'Unpublished work: Chapter 9 of an untitled novel. Sadly, chapters 1-8 and 10-16 remain unwritten because I’ve no idea who the characters are, what they are supposed to be doing, or what happened before and after the events of chapter 9. Which I think is a clue to my problem with fiction viz an underpowered narrative imagination. Joining the Writers’ Group will, of course, solve my problem.'

Britain is no country for old men with high expectations of survival from cancer

A study published in the Lancet Oncology and drawn from data of survival for more than 10 million cancer patients from 29 countries diagnosed between 2000 and 2007 and followed up to 2008, has shown that survival rates in Britain, for nine out of ten common cancers, are lower than the European average, despite improvements in diagnosis and treatment. In addition, it revealed that :

* the discrepancy is even worse among old men and women with nearly all forms of the disease, more likely to die in Britain compared with thoses in France, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia.

* for old men with prostate cancer, just under 81% of those in Britain live beyond five years compared with 90% in Finland and 89% in France.

* only 9% of lung cancer patients in Britain live beyond five years, compared with the 13%  average, 17% in Austria and 15% in Sweden.

* the figures suggest that age discrimination for cancer treatment is worse in Britain compared to elsewhere in Europe with increasing concern that old men and women sufferers in their 70s and 80s are being written off by doctors.

 

Drew Lindon, Head of Policy at 'Prostate Cancer UK', said:
"There is a shadow to this story. While prostate cancer survival rates have improved compared to other cancers, beneath the surface we see worrying indications that Britain is lagging behind the European average on survival rates."

Researchers are unclear as to why survival rates are so much lower in Britain, but suggestions are that :

* the disease is often diagnosed too late when it has spread to other organs.

* doctors might be missing certain symptoms.

* patients are reluctant to make appointments as they 'don’t want to be a nuisance'.

Either way, Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support said:
"This is truly depressing. One in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime so this is a big deal and has to be a wake-up call for the NHS. There is no reason why the UK should lag behind the rest of Europe when it comes to either certain cancers or survival rates for older cancer patients."

Public Health England has responded by starting a 'Be Clear On Cancer' campaign, to raise public awareness of the early signs and symptoms of the disease. Di Riley, the Head of its 'National Cancer Intelligence Network', said that old people, in particular, need to be encouraged to go to their GP if they notice suspicious symptoms. "The recently introduced bowel cancer screening programme should also improve survival from colon cancer, and reduce the number of emergency presentations of elderly people with bowel cancer, particularly as we are now screening people to their mid-70s."

Percentage of old men surviving at least five years after diagnosis :

Bowel / Colon Cancer

German      : 62.2%
Austrian     : 61.2%
French        : 59.7%
Spanish      : 57.1%
Slovenian   : 54%
Czech         : 52.5%
British   : 51.8%

Britain is still a country and its skies a space for the world's oldest wing walker, Tom Lakey

Born in 1920 and 93 years old, Tom, is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as 'The Oldest Aeroplane Wing Walker in the World' and if he had looked up into the sky all those years ago, when he was perhaps a seven year old boy, he might have seen this brand new 1927 biplane. Seventy five years later, as an old man, he would fly on biplane wings.

What you possibly didn't know about Tom, that he : 

* served a sky apprenticeship as a young man when he worked as a builder, often high up on roofs and with no fear of heights and many years later took up flying in his 80s, after the death of his wife, Isabel, made him decide he needed a new focus in life.

* performed his first 'loop the loop', after the encouragement of his flying instructor and imagining his wife was watching him, wanted to prove to her that he could do it and before long, had worked his way through every aerobatic stunt.

*  when the chief flight instructor suggested 'wing walking', admitted that 'he had never heard of it .'

* said after his first walk : " I'll admit to some nerves on that first walk, but the fear was nothing compared with the excitement. On top of the plane, I was strapped against an upright frame with a little seat I could just about perch on, but in a standing position. As I heard the engine firing up, the adrenaline washed through me."

* also said : "I've heard the experience being described as like sticking your head out of the sunroof in a fast-moving car, but of course it's far more extreme. I was travelling at 80 miles an hour, the wind buffeting my whole body, my face fully exposed to the elements. Below me were patchwork fields. I couldn't have been happier, and over the next few years I chased that feeling again and again."

* first entered the record book at the age of 85, for being the 'Oldest Person to be on top of an Aircraft While it Looped the Loop 'and said : "I remember the sensation of my stomach dropping into my boots as the plane went into a dive, then looking up and thinking, "What are those cows doing up there?" The plane was travelling at more than 100 miles an hour during the descent and the G-force is tremendous; my son is in the RAF and says he has known pilots a third of my age black out at a force of 2G, and I've approached 6G. My doctors don't understand it. By rights, I suppose I should be dead."

* at the age of  89, landed safely near Dover, after wing walking for 45 minutes in a flight from Calais and set the world record for the 'Oldest Wing Walker' and said :“They usually take about ten or 12 minutes but this was nearly an hour. It was pretty uncomfortable and it was very cold. I was wearing a leather jacket over a lying suit over layers of clothes underneath but I was still cold.”
* also said : "When we landed  there were 94,000 people there. I met the French pilot who was recreating the Bleriot flight and I met the Prince of Wales Regiment freefall team who wanted me to take the salute. That was one of the greatest experiences in my life."

* in 2011, at the age of 91, won the 'Pride of Britain Award' after helping to raise more than £1million for charity by his wing walking and when asked :
"who out of his hundreds of new female admirers at the awards he had his eye on ?" replied: "All of them. At my age you don't mess
about."

* in August this year landed safely at City of Derry Airport after wing walking for 91 minutes over the Irish Sea from Castle Kennedy Airport, and said :  "It took an hour and a half, and was freezing – at one point there was sleet, which whipped into my face like arrows, but I thawed out once we'd touched down and the feeling of exhilaration was tremendous."

"When I'm up in the sky I mainly think of my wife. I always carry a photo of her, I think of her and try to think what she would think of me."

Tom in his own words :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXCaZpTX9TQ

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Farewell" to a gentle genius of a crossword composer known as 'Araucaria' or John Graham

John, one of the most admired and best-known crossword setters in the English language, known for his idiosyncratic style and extended anagrams compiled crosswords for the 'Guardian' for over 50 years, better known to readers by his pseudonym, 'Araucaria', has died at the age of  92.

In a crossword in January he announced to his loyal cruciverbalists or solvers that he was dying from cancer. 'Araucaria', he said, 'has 18 down of the 19, which is being treated with 13, 15' which translated into  'cancer',  'oesophagus' and  'palliative care' with the solutions to  other clues being : 'Macmillan', 'nurse', 'stent', 'endoscopy' and 'sunset' and when asked why he had decided to reveal details of his illness in a crossword ? said: "It seemed the natural thing to do, somehow."


What you possibly didn't know about John, that he :

* was one of a family of six children who in the 1920s found their entertainment in wordplay, charades and puzzles and would share the 'Times' crossword with his parents and brothers and sisters, who together would also engage in cryptic word play and in setting simple puzzles.

* was brought up in academic Oxford, where his father was the Dean of Oriel College and later Principal of Cuddesdon Theological College and then Bishop of Brechin and he himself, after leaving school, read classics at King's College, Cambridge, till the age of 19 when the Second World War intervened in 1939.

* took a pacifist position at the start of the War but changed his mind and later said : "I thought to myself then, if I'm going to fight, I must do the nastiest job I can think of, in terms of killing people, and the best way to do that is to be a bomber pilot. I finished up as the person who drops the bombs, not the pilot – an observer, they were called in those days."
* joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 at the age of 22, flew in 30 'night-intruding' operations in Baltimores and Bostons over Italy and forced to bale out, went into into hiding from the Germans, finding refuge with an Italian family, who hid him in a stable and took Italian lessons from a school teacher billeted with the family and in return taught her English and Latin.

* was rescued by the Americans and got 'mentioned in dispatches', an honour which he played down saying  : "you always got, if you baled out and the enemy did not catch you".

* went back to King's College after the War, to read theology, was ordained in the Church of England in 1948, then worked in a succession of curacies and chaplaincies including Reading University in the 1960s and later St Peter's in London's Eaton Square.

* in 1958, on the strength of  success in winning the Observer's crossword setting competition two years running, was taken on by the then Manchester Guardian as one of its small band of crossword setters with his first clue in his first puzzle setting the standard for what was to follow: 'Establishment cut to the bone? (8,5)' for 'skeleton staff'.

*  found that composing newspaper crosswords, which started as a sideline became a necessity at the end of the '70s, when loss of income resulted from his divorce which meant he had to give up his church living.

* chose Araucaria as his 'nom de plume' since it was the botanical name for the monkey puzzle tree and 'monkey' had been a term of endearment in the Graham family.

* evolved the artform of the cryptic crossword, produced themed puzzles on topics such as the 'British shipping forecast' and the '250th anniversary of the death of Bach' and invented the 'alphabetical jigsaw puzzle'.

* had his last puzzle for the Guardian, published with the clue : 'Warning not to outstay welcome I encountered in African country (4,2,2)' was: time to go and the solutions to other clues as :  'second wind', 'nil by mouth' and 'cottage hospital.'

*  held his final living was as rector of Houghton and Wyton in Cambridgeshire and donated his oesophagus for research to the MRC Cancer Unit at Cambridge University.

* was the master of the very long anagram and was proud of  'O hark the herald angels sing the boy's descent, which lifted up the world' which translated into 'while shepherds watched their flocks by night , all seated on the ground'.

Letters in the Guardian today expressed his followers sense of loss and celebration of the joy he had given them.

Paul and Vicky Faupel who lived in his village of Somersham in Cambridgeshire wrote :
'Learned, erudite, eloquent, witty and self-effacing about his sharp-minded crossword-setting skill – he was all of those and more. He will be long remembered and sadly missed by us all.'

Professor David Stephens :
'Warm summer days on the beach, Dad with the Guardian crossword firmly on his lap, Christmas specials and the call from the lounge, "just one clue left!". All was right with the world. Farewell, Araucaria, and thank you.'

John Purkiss :
'For my 80th birthday last year, my family commissioned a killer-grade personal crossword – my life in a crossword. Never has a gift brought such pleasure. It took me two days to complete except for one last clue which took 10 days! I feel I have lost a friend of some 30 years.'

Brian Booth :
'If, on opening the Guardian on a Saturday, I punched the air and yelled "Yesss!", my wife knew what that meant: an alphabetical.'

Wal Callby :
'Will never forget laughing out loud when I got 'Over-complicated way to say "were you our teacher?" Answer : 'Tortuous'.

Marion Bolton :
'My favourite clue was 'Excellent host, or absent-minded pet owner (4 7 3)'. 'Puts himself out'.

Journalist, Simon Hoggart in his tribute in the Guardian wrote :

'There could be few greater satisfactions than doing battle with that warm, nimble, generous yet invariably cunning mind. And he was loved. Yesterday a colleague in Parliament, a crossword fan himself, said bleakly to me, "He's dead!" and had no need to explain who he meant.'
.
'He gave great entertainment to a great many readers for more than half a century and inspired a younger generation of crossword setters.'

'John was also one of the gentlest, kindest and most diffident men I have ever met.'

What better epitaph might a man have ?

Britain is no country and London no city for old men trying to cross the road in safety

If one measure of how much a country is mindful of the frailties for its old men and women,  is how it cares for their safety as pedestrians in its towns and cities, then Britain fails miserably. This is evidenced in a study carried out by Dr Laura Asher at the 'Department of Epidemiology and Public Health', University College London, involving 3,000 pensioners and published in the journal 'Age and Ageing' which has shown that traffic speed has a greater priority than pensioner pedestrian safety.

The study :

* noted that pelican crossing times are regulated at an  average walking speed of 1.21 metres per second while the average crossing time for old men was 0.9metre per second and just 0.7metre per second for old women.

* showed that 76% of men and  85% of women aged over 65 walk slower than necessary to use a  crossing and need to almost double their speed to get across safely.

Dr Laura herself said that old people :

 

*  need walking "as it provides regular exercise and direct health benefits. Being unable to cross a road may deter them from walking, reducing their access to social contacts and interaction, local health services and shops, that are all important in day to day life.”

 

* "are more likely to be involved in a road traffic collision than younger people due to slower walking speed, slower decision making and perceptual difficulties."

 

*  when hit " are also more likely to die from their injuries than younger people. Having insufficient time at a road crossing may not increase the risk of pedestrian fatalities but it will certainly deter this group from even trying to cross the road."
 

 Dr Jennifer Mindell, senior author of the study, said of old people that :

" They have insufficient time to reach the far side, so may decide not to even try. The impact on the older population is therefore not just the immediate risk of injury. Feeling that you cannot negotiate the outside world causes psychological distress. It also deters people from even going out, feeling they are unable to cross roads safely."

 

The good doctors, however, are not without their critics : Enter Peter Box, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s 'Economy and Transport Board'. According to him, Dr Laura didn't get her 3000 timings right and the 'formula' local councils used actually gave people far longer to cross the road than her ‘flawed research’ suggested. ‘Timings have to strike a balance between traffic flow and pedestrian safety, but the emphasis is always on safety,’ he said.

 

Despite Peter's assurance things have taken a turn for the worse for old men trying to cross the road safely in London with crossing times being cut as part of the 'Smoothing Traffic Flow Strategy',  one component of the 2010 Mayor of London, Boris Johnson 's 'Transport Strategy' leading to a reduced ‘invitation to cross’, green man time. The reduction has galvanised a group of old men and women called 'Loud Minority' (left) into action with their video 'Hey Mr Boris" video with "Four out of five older people can't cross the roads at the lights":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpwboQxVJtg

 

The ‘Smarter Crossings Campaign' has also sided with Dr Laura and is calling for the ‘green man’ sign to last an extra three seconds so young and old can all cross in time and the 'Living Streets' charity behind the campaign said the ‘green man’ time was out of date and did not reflect present day. I'm not sure what they mean by this. Are they saying that when the pelican crossings were first installed in 1969, old men and women were walking at a faster pace than they are today ?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/video/first-ever-pelican-pedestrian-crossing-141226084.html

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy birthday and good luck" to an old bass guitarist called John McVie, who gave his name and life to a band called Fleetwood Mac

John, whose surname, combined with that of Mick Fleetwood led to the creation of 'Fleetwood Mac' and who is being treated for cancer is 68 years old today.  

What you possibly didn't know about John, that he :

* was born in Ealing, West London and at the age of 11, passed the 11+ exam and went to Walpole Grammar School where his music teacher gave pupils space and time to use school facilities to practise and listen to their 'new wave' music.

* at 14, began playing guitar in local bands, covering songs by 'The Shadows' and acquired a pink Fender bass guitar,  bought for him by his father, the same model as that used by his early musical influence, the late Jet Harris.
http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/britain-says-goodbye-to-old-rock.html

* left school at 17, trained for nine months to be a tax inspector before accepting the offer of a place in John Mayall's
new band, the 'Bluesbreakers' and under his tutelage, learned to play the blues by listening to B.B.King and Willie Dixon records.

* in 1966, Peter Green (right) was asked to join Mayall's Bluesbreakers as the band's new lead guitar player, after Eric Clapton had left and when Mick Fleetwood joined as drummer the key players in what was to become, 'Fleetwood Mac' were in place.

* at the age of 22, was asked by Peter to join him and Mick for a recording session in which they made 'Curly', 'Rubber Duck' and an instrumental called 'Fleetwood Mac' and when Peter formed his own band, 'Fleetwood Mac', joined them in  1967.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRu7Pt42x6Y&feature=youtu.be

* was in demand after the group's first album, released in 1968, became an immediate hit and established it as a major part in the English Blues movement, started playing live gigs in blues clubs and pubs and scored a string of hits in Britain and enjoyed success in Continental Europe and produced 'Albatross' : http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/britain-is-country-where-old-men-say.html

* following the departure of Peter Green from the group in 1970, persuaded his wife, Christine, seen next to him on the right, who before their marriage had been the lead singer and piano player of 'Chicken Shack', to join it and in 1975, achieved worldwide success after recruiting American singer-songwriter duo Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

* in 1976, at the age of 31, during the recording of 'Rumours', after years of his heavy drinking, experienced his marriage unravel and divorced Christine the same year and at the same time saw the album sell 40 million and top the U.S. chart for seven months and until Michael Jackson released 'Thriller', was the best-selling album of all time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GN2kpBoFs4

* in 1981, at the age of 36, went on the road with the 'Bluesbreakers' for a 'Reunion Tour' with John Mayall and the following year toured America, Asia and Australia.

* since an alcohol-induced seizure in 1987 finally prompted him to kick the habit, has been sober ever since and avoided the tragedies in the band's history when  :

- Peter Green, dependent on LSD, left in 1970 and later diagnosed with schizophrenia, suffered financial problems which led to him working as a hospital porter and even a grave digger.

- guitarist Danny Kirvan became an alcholic by the age of 22, developed mental health problems after he was sacked from the band for his increasingly erratic behaviour and eventually became homeless on the streets of London.

Everywhere : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nneCnUpgCuM

Little lies : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0iOEKeUwEY

Dream : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RgT8Vm9_Eg

Britain in 2013 is no longer a country for old men performing in Monty Python's Flying Circus

When this group of young men made the last and 45th episode of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' in 1974, they had a collective age of 162. Now as a group of old men planning to make a comeback in the 'Circus' they have a collective age of 357 years, which end to end would take us back to the year 1656 with Oliver Cromwell governing Britain as Lord Protector.


Britain in the 17th century was a very different country to Britain in 2013, so too was Britain in 1974, a very different country to the one we have today. What people laughed at then, people do not necessarily laugh at now. However, after years of feuding between themselves, these old men have decided to put their differences aside. As the 'Daily Mail' reported : 'History has proved that when it comes to even the most bitter of showbiz feuds, nothing dampens the flames of mutual hostility better than a liberal injection of cold hard cash.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49c-_YOkmMU
Nowhere was the bitterness as intense as that between their two unofficial leaders : John Cleese and Eric Idle. Seventy-four year old John, whose post-Python career saw him slip from one-time Hollywood A-lister, to being forced to sell off some of his art collection and movie memorabilia, fell out with seventy year old Eric over the spoils of the hugely successful stage show, 'Spamalot', which was billed as being ‘lovingly ripped off’ from the 1975 movie 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail.'


Back in 1969, on the surface, they appeared to be a happy-go-lucky bunch of intelligent young men, Terry Jones and Michael Palin were both Oxford University graduates, while Eric Idle, the late Graham Chapman and John Cleese went to Cambridge. Together, they delighted in creating deliberately juvenile, comic sketches and songs such as 'The Dead Parrot', http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218 'Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink', http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ona-RhLfRfc 'The Lumberjack Song' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZa26_esLBE and 'The Ministry of Silly Walks'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8

After the Python Series ended in 1974, they went on to score film hits with 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKNDml12Big and 'The Life Of Brian'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVHhg67RVd4. However, behind the scenes they were riven by ego clashes and bitter jealousies. For his part, Michael Palin, who went on to carve a niche as a presenter of tv travelogues with his own BBC series, has long maintained that John Cleese was an irritating perfectionist, whose high-handedness became the source of endless in-fighting.

The old men today, from left to right :

70 : Michael Palin :
71 : Terry Jones :
70 : Eric Idle :
72 : Terry Gilliam :
74 : John Cleese :

Meanwhile, 'Monty Python' fans from Buenos Aires to Bacup have reacted with joy after hearing that the five are set to re-form for a stage show, confirmed when John tweeted : 'Monty Python is set to be a flying circus all over again'.

These old men, may be as funny and feel the same as they were 40 years ago, but the country in which their brand of humour was so well received certainly is not. To say Python humour is timeless is simply not the case. They made us laugh because of who they were and what they said and did then : one contemporary face of the 1970s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49c-_YOkmMU

I've picked up this tweet from John Cleese :
John Cleese ‏@JohnCleese 22 Nov

A Python fan told me today "Watching very old men being silly is funnier than watching young ones being silly".

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Farewell" to a brilliant, self-effacing scientist and twice-over Nobel prize winner, called Fred Sanger

Fred, who has died at the age of 95, was one of only four people to have won the highest honours in science, the Nobel Prize twice, placing him in the company of Marie Curie and the only person to have won twice in chemistry.

Professor Colin Blakemore, former Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, said of him : 

"The death of a great person usually provokes hyperbole, but it is impossible to exaggerate the impact of Fred Sanger's work on modern biomedical science. His invention of the two critical technical advances – for sequencing proteins and nucleic acids – opened up the fields of molecular biology, genetics and genomics."

What you possibly didn't know about Fred, that he :

* was born in Rendcomb, Gloucestershire, just before the end of the First World War in 1918 and at five, moved with his family to a small village in Warwickshire, was taught by a governess and brought up in the Quaker religion by his father who had been an Anglican medical missionary in China who converted to Quakerism and who, as a medical doctor encouraged his interest in biology. 

*  at nine was packed off to the Downs School, a boarding school run by Quakers near Malvern and at 14 to the new liberal Bryanston School in Dorset, where he liked his teachers and particularly enjoyed scientific subjects.

* at the age of 18 in 1936, won a scholarship to study science at St John's College, Cambridge and was attracted to biochemistry by the excitement for the subject shared by the young members of the department working under Frederick Gowland Hopkins, the Nobel prizewinner who had discovered vitamins. 

* experienced  the loss of both parents dieing from cancer during his first two years at Cambridge, where he was a pacifist and member of the 'Peace Pledge Union' and the 'Cambridge Scientists' Anti-War Group' where he met his future wife, Joan, who was studying economics at Newnham College.

* graduated at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, was excused national sertvice and as a conscientious objector and given permission to study at Cambridge dividing his time between studying for a doctorate and carrying out research into nitrogen uptake in potatoes.

* over the next decade, worked on the chemical structure of proteins and developed methods to determine the building blocks of the hormone, insulin, something thought impossible and which led to the first of his Nobel prizes in 1958.

* provided an essential step for the laboratory synthesis of insulin and a major advance in the treatment of diabetes and opened a floodgate of research into the way hundreds of proteins, which he referred to as 'the machinery of living matter', conspired to create and sustain a living organism.

* in 1962, at the age of 44, moved to the new Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology along with Nobel laureates Max Perutz and Francis Crick and began working on the problem of sequencing DNA, developed the 'Sanger sequencing' method to read DNA code and awarded a share of the Nobel prize for chemistry by the King of Sweden in 1980.

*  didn't court fame, describing himself as "a chap who messed about in his lab" and rejected a knighthood because, as he told a journalist in 2000, he did not care to be called "Sir" and  "a knighthood makes you different, doesn’t it, and I don’t want to be different." 

* retired at the age of 65, in 1983, to devote time to his garden, exchanged his laboratory bench for one of a cabinetmaker and messed about on the river.

* was honoured when the Wellcome Trust named the 'Sanger Centre' after him but only agreed after warning the founding director "It had better be good.", opened it in person in 1993 and saw it become Britain's home for the 'International Human Genome Project' and saw his work pave the way for the identification of the first complete human genome sequence published in 2003.

* in 2007 the British Biochemical Society was given a grant by the Wellcome Trust to catalogue and preserve the 35 laboratory notebooks in he recorded his research from 1944 to 1983 and in reporting this. 'Science' noted that he was "the most self-effacing person you could hope to meet", was now spending his time gardening at his Cambridgeshire home.

* said he found no evidence for a God and so he became an agnostic and told the 'Times' in 2000 : "My father was a committed Quaker and I was brought up as a Quaker, and for them truth is very important. I drifted away from those beliefs – one is obviously looking for truth, but one needs some evidence for it. Even if I wanted to believe in God I would find it very difficult. I would need to see proof."

* at the age of 87 was interviewed about his life in 2007 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JsrvWYS7zY

Britain, already no country today, will be even less of one for its 'explosion' of old men tomorrow

Lord Filkin, who is a 69 year old member of the House of Lords, which is dominated by other old men, has chaired a Special Committee on 'Public Service and Demographic Change' which has produced a report, 'Ready for Ageing?', about future old men. It concluded that Britain, as a country, is "woefully under-prepared" to cope with an expected explosion in the number of old men and women. It blamed successive governments for their failure to tackle policy issues generated by the ageing population and warned that the biggest threats are to already stretched health and social services.

The Committee, however, was no friend to future old men because it :

* cited recommendations made by 58 year old, Lord Turner, 'Chairman of the Pensions Commission', who had said the threshold for the state pension could rise to 70 by 2030, thereby committing millions of future old men to a longer and longer working life. Translated into committee speak this became :
"People should therefore be enabled to extend their working lives if they wish to do so, as a vital part of the response to increased longevity."

* suggested a review of pensioner benefits, which currently include free public transport and a winter fuel allowance for over-65s and TV licences for the over-75s -universal schemes which critics claim waste money as many pensioners are relatively wealthy.

The Committee heard evidence about the scale of the demographic change coming between 2010 and 2030 and that there :

* is expected to be a 50% increase in the number old men and women aged 65 and older and also a  doubling of those aged 85 and older.

* is a prediction of a 50% increase in old people with either arthritis, coronary disease or strokes and an 80% rise in those with dementia to nearly two million.

* in two decades, would be a doubling in the number of households where disabled elderly people needed informal care from their relatives or friends.

Lord Filkin himself said : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMpYilXfII4

The changes recommended by Lord Filkin and his Committee, raising the prospect of Britain becoming even less of a country for old men than it is now, may still be some way off, but methinks, it's just a matter of time before their eventual implementation.