Just heard of the death of Ian Carmichael - who played the archetypal English "Silly Ass" in so many films. In the 60's and 70's he played Peter Wimsey, and Bertie Wooster on TV - but his career began on stage, and in films in the 50's with roles in "The Colditz Story" [shown on TV only yesterday] and "I'm all right, Jack"
The Telegraph obituary says "To his wide-eyed boyish grin, bemused courtesy and trusting manner, Carmichael brought an invaluably comic air of innocence to bear on his thousand and one misfortunes...If he eventually resented his having been type-cast as "the same old bumbling accident-prone clot," the type did his career and the public vivid service and he polished it with care"
Here he is with Dennis Price - the Jeeves to his Wooster...
Apparently monocles are back in fashion again - the optician Vision Express has recently announced it is to re-introduce the single eye-glass following a sudden surge of interest among customers. But nobody seems sure where this craze has come from. Furthermore, nobody ever wore a monocle because of poor eyesight. It's a common misconception that the glass circle is held in the poor eye to help give 20/20 vision. In fact the monocle is nothing more than a well-bred magnifying glass.You put it in your strong eye in the same way you use your strong eye to look through a microscope or fire a rifle.You put it in the eye when there is a need to magnify something. It's only in fiction that anybody wears a monocle all the time.
To which there seems only one response "I. C. - R.I.P."
I missed this piece of news so it was niceto hear it from " next door" cottonreel
ReplyDeleteWe particularly liked him as Lord Peter Wimsey. We too caught up with the news reading your blog. Ironically we were in his part of the world on Sunday afternoon.
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