(no subject)

[lady_schrapnell]

Just heard on Radio 4 that Alan Coren died today, which is such sad news. I couldn't find it on a quick look at the BBC news website, so don't know if he was known to be ill or not.

I first encountered him via his books ages ago, when my nice BF* in uni. gave me Golfing for Cats.  It was lovely to re-encounter Coren on various Radio 4 comedy shows in the last few years. 

*Had to specify the nice bf as there was also the AB (awful boyfriend) of Diana Wynne Jones AB-level awfulness.  And she does very good ABs, as we agreed on a list-discussion some time ago!

Comments

[faerybad.livejournal.com]

He had cancer, only diagnosed recently.

I hadn't read any of his books but I did enjoy him on Call My Bluff and his Radio 4 shows. Was sad to hear about his death.

anecdotal Alan

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

If you'd heard any of his pipe disquisitions, lung cancer can't have been
that much of a surprise... he knew he had it, & said as little about it as
Linda Smith had said about her ovarian cancer: just not comedy material,
unlike Adam Hill's foot.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2696826.ece

This week's radio4 _News Quiz_ was prefaced with Giles & Vicky's request
that it be broadcast as usual, but the one scheduled for next Friday will be
replaced with a tribute to Alan.

I loved his piece in March on the ubiquity of homage to Jane Austen:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/alan_coren/article1480131.ece

and when I got to the bit about radiant Abbey Northanger & her nuke-sub, I
quaked so much with silent laughter that people in Periodicals gave me those
hard assessing is-that-a-stroke? stares.

I'm still going to miss Linda Smith more, because she had the exact same
accent as my Aunt Anne, and her words were wittily worthwhile too. Her
comment on the _News Quiz_ re Tony Blair's gung-ho intent of interfering
in Iraq ("We don't want your stupid war!") was prescient, & she teased Alan
Coren in a running nursing-home gag, as well as beating him in "Wittiest
Person on radio4" polls before her early death.

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article348378.ece

Her name came up quite a lot in the Comments section appended to the
Times article on "Top Ten Wits - all male & all dead" this week:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/comedy/article2658656.ece


& this week's archive broadcast of a NewsQuiz is of Alan Coren being the only
male panellist, complete with jokes about Sandi Toksvig, Kirsty Wark & Linda
Smith's piping voices being audible only to dogs if the sound engineer has
calibrated from Coren:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/wednesday/

Re: anecdotal Alan

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the wonderful links! I was a late-comer to Radio 4, and hadn't much time to hear Linda Smith before hearing that she'd died. I'd missed Alan Coren on pipes altogether.

Re: anecdotal Alan

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

I probably have quite a lot of incidental Alan on mp2 archive files,
& I know I have all of _A Brief History of Timewasting_ somewhere,
but that it is in half-hour blocs too big to email (I have to put
breaks in shows in order to email chunks of audio).

Re: anecdotal Alan

[fascicle.livejournal.com]

If you hurry, there's still a podcast of last week's Alan-tribute
News Quiz up on the r4 site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/fricomedy/
(a generic link: new show goes up Friday night)

I downloaded it: if you miss it, we can work out some transfer, but
it would be easier if you got it yourself.

Also, Linda Smith is a guest on schadenfreude-show _It's Been A Bad
Week_ currently passing through BBC7 (it'll be on "Listen Again"
tomorrow, being broadcast tonight in the Comedy Club slots at
22.00 & 03.00). I might make mp2 archive chunks of that: Mitchell
& Webb's latest series is repeated in the late r4 slot tonight, too,
having been broadcast at 18.30 earlier in the year. Yay, fun.

Re: anecdotal Alan

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you - I did catch the News Quiz tribute - it was wonderful. Thanks for the tip about the Linda Smith one too - Charlie's coming in today and we might catch it together!