Miles Kington RIP

Long obit in The Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/miles-kington-polymath-wit-and-jazz-aficionado-dies-at-66-776222.html

Wow, kind of a surprise. RIP, tho I can honestly say i never took any notice of anything he ever did in this entire career.

Well I did (maybe it's my age?). The stuff for Private Eye, Lets Parler Franglais, frequent radio appearances and documentaries on jazz. For me he was a less cycnical version of Coren. The Franglais stuff especially was more gentle digs at french/english relations than "Oh foreigners lol".

Is this the designated day for British light entertainment figures to drop dead or something?

RIP and all that, but that lets parler franglais stuff wasn't terribly funny was it?

Instant Sunshine were kind of immovable from British TV screens in the mid-seventies: "OneUPmanship! Based on LINEsmanship OneUPmanship and GAMESmanship!" etc. plus lots of wry topical songs on That's Life, Nationwide and so forth.

MK was the Indy's Peel equivalent, really; the constant factor who had the free pass to go wherever he wanted with his columns. Living in Bath with a day job to scribble a thousand words or so (my God! he was the original salaried blogger!) - not a bad way to earn a living.

Let's Parler Franglais used to crack me up as a kid though I've no idea how funny I'd find it now. Nonetheless he did part-wrote the sleevenote for the Surman/Osborne/Skidmore SOS album.

The world is minutely less for his absence, but it's a fairly crucial minute.

He was amazingly prolific - presumably he was completely free from writers' block.

I liked the way he had carte blanche to cover almost anything in his columns in an eccentric fashion. I remember one where he used his column to explore the phrase "curate's egg" - and to speculate why it had caught on with the general public.

Another column explored the word 'Pyrrhic' and how it has come to be used solely in conjunction with 'victory'.

oh boo. RIP.

Aw. I don't know anything about the books except that I leafed though a Franglais book and found it not too amusing (presumably franglais jokes had been around for decades before it, rather than them all going back to him?), but as a sixthformer idly reading the common room's papers every day instead of doing any damn work his Indy column was always my favourite. Will go home and look for the ones I clipped out and saved this evening. RIP.

he was the original salaried blogger!

ha! he is one of those guys like Smallweed that makes me wonder if columnists will ever be allowed to be as eccentric as that again.

For me he was a less cycnical version of Coren

Which is why he never made me laugh. "Franglais" was shit, but I suppose somebody had to do it.

His last column with more than a touch of EJ Thribb about it...

Oh I'm lying, I just remembered "Pain et Marg Pudding" made me laugh once.l

i have to say i never particularly went for his brand of whimsy but i am very glad he was allowed to do it.

Yeah, never forget the interment camps for middlebrow humourists in Communist China.

if they really existed you'd be headed there right now

OK I'm laffing thru the tears.

Thankful somebody finally explained what that "Hand Of God" thing was about.

bad week for celebs totally unknown to Americans

Yeah, goddam Aussie actors.

He will be missed.

No relation to Maxine "Hong" Kingston, was he?

Franglais, not hugely funny.

Not as good as Four Candles, really.

^^^What is?

Del Boy falling through the bar: lulz/no lulz?

They sold Ronnie barker's notes for the 'four candles' sketch and the auctioneer said "To say this is the TV equivalent of Lennon's lyrics to Imagine would not be an unreasonable comparison." But that seems like a slur on Barker to me.

Wow, sold for £48,500.

The Franglais sketches give me a very specific feeling of what a certain part of the late 1970s was like, for some. But they're not as good as The Henry Root Letters, which do the same several times over.

Ah, Willie Donaldson ...

Currently reading Terence Blacker's biography of Willie Donaldson. An excellent read thus far; I thoroughly recommend it.