Hardly surprising given his age, but Tom Lehrer has died. Wonderful satirist.
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The number of stories I saw over the weekend that were “Tom Leher was the first interview I had when working for my college paper/radio station and…” was remarkable.
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RTE news : Broadcaster and actor Seán Rocks dies aged 63
Am shocked and saddened to hear this. Iconic voice of Irish radio and supporter of the arts and creativity.
I met him once after a gig, real gentleman with an interest in everyone who spoke to him.
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Rest in eternal peace. Ziad Rahbani
He was Lebanon’s most brilliant minds, celebrated composer and musician. Ziad Rahbani wasn’t just a musical genius, he was a poet/playwright, he reshaped the culture through art and brutal honesty on the civil war in Lebanon. He gave the words to what so many felt but couldn’t say, and created something real in a country that often ran on fantasy.
Ziad reintroduced his mother, living musical legend Fairouz to a new generation, using Jazz, Classical Arabic and Tarab, a sound never before heard in the Arab world. He is a huge loss in the Arab world and beyond the borders.
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He wrote wonderful books which I read to my daughter and now reading to my grandchildren.
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RIP Sam Backo. Stalwart QLD and Canberra Raiders Rugby League player and longstanding Indigenous Rights campaigner.
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Stella Rimington, the former MI5 director has died. She was quite notable as one of the first women in a senior role of a security agency, and also a model for Judy Dench’s portrayal of “M” in the James Bond films.
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RIP Suleiman al-Obeid - the ‘Palestinian Pele’.
Yet another who was killed by Israeli forces as they attack civilians waiting for humanitarian aid
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Apollo 13’s commander, Jim Lovell, has died:
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And just to add to this Mo has come out:
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The long time Blue Peter producer Biddy Baxter has died:
Back when I watched Blue Peter as a kid, she was one of the few backroom staff from BBC programmes that I was aware of. Apparently, she had something of a reputation for being rather authoritarian. I spoke to Peter Purves a few years ago and said that there was one occasion that he had to change his shirt at the last minute and forgot to put his Blue Peter badge on. She gave him a severe ticking off in front of the rest of the production crew.
The only thing that you could say, is that kind of attention to detail always came over on the screen. It was very professional looking for what was always a live TV broadcast.
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Was on an 8 hr road trip today to take my lad to college. Move in day is tomorrow for him. Just got dinner and now chilling at the air b&b Mrs ROTW booked for us on Route 66. As is often the case, I stick Radio 2 on in the car on a road trip as I love the connection with home, even as we were driving across three Midwest states.
One of the programs I listened to had Janet Ellis as a guest and she was sharing a lot of Blue Peter stories, and the attention to detail, especially in replying to letters from children, was deeply impressive. It was all indexed and logged, so if the child wrote again - and many did - they would know what was covered before and could meaningfully continue the conversation. Form letters were not the done thing.
It was lovely hearing about it all, and it made me proud of my roots.
Biddy Baxter was behind all that, setting the standards. RIP. A great lady behind a great British institution from my childhood.
I remember Shep the dog and later John Noakes and those presenters with him, and then Simon and Goldie, but not too much after that as I was off to uni and growing up, so you lose touch with it.
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Sounds like a right old biddy…
Sorry the joke was too good to pass RIP.
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That definitely was the case. I had a brief secondment at the BBC in 2011 when they were moving to Salford, and one task I had was transferring their database of badge winners. It was all very meticulous.
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