Bah, I didn't post an entry yesterday, in spite of its being a workday. My usual regime requires that I post something on a workday; I'm excused high days and holidays. I'm flesh and blood, not a machine.
I did, reader, have the best of intentions. I couldn't update the diary before leaving work (my preferred method). I ran out of time last evening as the forecast suggested it was going to shat down in the early evening, so I didn't want to hang about and get caught. "No matter", I thought. "I'll do it when I get home." Home, where my toys are. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Apologies.
I'm reading a book about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore at the mo. It's not particularly well written, but the story is interesting enough for one to forgive the prose. What's particularly interesting is Peter Cook's diffidence about himself and his talent. He always get portrayed as having a very patrician hauteur about him, PC, but people who knew him, particularly those who knew him before be became famous, recall a much warmer person than that. I love finding out that my heroes are nice as well as talented. It gives one hope for the future of the species.
Cook, like a lot of that golden Oxbridge generation, fell into the business of show by accident. Both he and Jonathan Miller had no intention of becoming performers on leaving Cambridge. Funnily enough, John Cleese was the same a couple of years later. Despite a successful Footlights career as an undergraduate, Cleese applied successfully for a job with a London law firm on completing his studies. He only postponed this for what he thought was a short theatrical jolly with friends. It's still on deferral.
I wish shit like this would happen to me. That's the difference between Oxbridge and redbrick I suppose - serendipity.
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