Brian Wilde – how old was he?

Brian Wilde - how old?

Last Of The Summer Wine star Brian Wilde has died, meaning another great British comedy actor has flown the nest.

The Guardian reported the story, but seemed slightly unsure how old he was – if you look at the grab taken from the MediaGuardian TV homepage on Easter Sunday, you can see that there were obviously two warring factions in the subs department.

One report said that he was 80, when he died peacefully on Thursday.

But if you look at the picture story on the top left, he apparently aged 6 years overnight, leaving the earth at 86 years of age.

However, when you clicked on the updated story, complete with picture this time (why have they replicated the same article?) maintained that he was still 80.

Just in case you are in any doubt, Brian Wilde was born in June 1927 and was definitely 80. Sad to see him go.

An update: It seems that there was considerable confusion as to Brian Wilde’s date of birth. Imdb.com had it down as 1 June 1921 and is probably where the confusion arose.

However, this site’s information is provided by users and not any specific authority, so it proves you should believe what you read on the Internet!

TV Burp – TV joy!

Harry HillHarry Hill’s TV Burp is easily the funniest thing on TV at the moment.

It’s both clever and also accessible on many different levels. I can imagine kids laughing at much of it, while the self-referential gags (a trademark of Harry Hill, anyway) elevate it to a different plane.

The true measure of the show can be seen by the fact that he regularly gets other TV celebs to appear on the show, usually sending themselves up – no mean feat, let’s face it.

I know Saturday night is primetime scheduling, but I can’t help feel it doesn’t get the appreciative audience there that it truly deserves.

Forget your Mitchell & Webb’s or Mighty Boosh’s of the programming landcsape, TV Burp is an unconfined joy from start to finish. If you haven’t watched it yet, set your Sky+ or make a date for Saturday evenings.

Check out this YouTube clip for a taster

Initial thoughts

Sir Arthur C ClarkeSo Sir Arthur C Clarke, godfather of science fiction and prophet, died this week.

One thing that always struck me was how much more interesting Mr Clarke sounded because his name had that extra ubiquitous middle initial.

Initials are amazing things – they can give boring names an air of mystery and they can depersonalize so that no-one but their friends really know them.

For example, you can understand why restaurant critic AA Gill choose to use his initials, when you discover that his name is Adrian – just doesn’t have quite the same cachet.

JK Rowling famously avoided using Jo, simply because she didn’t think she’d be taken seriously as a woman.

On the other hand, maybe the world would have taken more notice of the American president if he wasn’t known by his middle initial, Dubya. No-one made quite as much fun of his dad, George, did they?

When I first discovered that PG Wodehouse’s names were Pelham Grenville, I always wondered why he didn’t use them. How grand to have such names, but his published name does sound so much better.