Synchronicity?

Wednesday mornings (for another week at least) find me up at crack of dawn (literally!) getting ready to wend my way in to the College for an early lecture.

Even at the height of summer my thought processes do not run very rapidly such an antisocial time of day. In the winter – when it is still dark as I stumble into the shower and fumble with the controls to turn the hot water on full – I barely register as a life form.

It follows – ergo – that nothing much of any import passes through my mind at this point. Thus is was this morning that my usual befuddled musings on the state of the world were unexpectedly leavened somewhat by the sudden thought that – unlike other recent years – at least in this one we have not suffered a relentless tide of deaths amongst the great and the good (or celebrities at the very least).

On arrival at the college and having a few minutes before my lecture I checked the BBC news headlines. Amongst the top stories were announcements of the following deaths:

• Gary Rhodes – one of the first of the TV celebrity chefs, who influenced many that followed. Gary was the cousin (I think) of a friend of a friend and I met him once at a party. He seemed pleasant enough and he was very tall…
• Clive James – Australian who made the UK his home – writer, program maker and TV critic for The Observer newspaper in the UK. We loved Clive’s dry wit and brilliant way with words and he was a fixture in our younger days.
• Jonathan Miller – satirist, writer, opera director, medical consultant and polymath. He was one of the four great names that came out of the Footlights review – ‘Beyond the Fringe’ – back in the 60s, along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett (who is now the only survivor). Jonathan was alumnus of the final school at which I worked and the new theatre there is named for him. Back in the 80s at some point he came to the college of the University of London at which I then worked to give a talk on a book that he had recently published on re-interpreting Shakespeare. It was called ‘Subsequent Performances’ and I still have my copy. He spoke brilliantly without notes for forty five minutes and then did as long again answering questions – also without notes and also quite brilliantly!

These souls will all be sadly missed and yet more figures from our younger and formative days are now no more.

So – that thought of mine in the shower… Synchronicity or what? – (probably ‘or what’!).