So it’s all over bar the jubilation and the canny octopus forecast correctly once more with Spain the winners of the World Cup. What is the octopus going to do with himself with no more games to forecast? It was a bit of a dour battle with too many fouls, mainly by the Dutch and the ref was handing out yellow cards, and one red, like they were invitations to a birthday party. The final result must be devastating for the losing side having come so far, evidently for the Dutch for the third time, and the emotion of the winners was too much as the Spanish goalkeeper virtually collapsed in floods of tears. A four year gap now before the world goes through it all once more. A big question in my mind is what is South Africa going to do now with all these gigantic stadiums they have built and which are obviously going to take some upkeep? I think Athens is still trying to recover from the Olympic Games and London is soon to feel that pinch. Ouch! They would have been wiser to let Paris take the strain.
Have just finished reading a biography of Dan Leno, billed as the king’s jester and the funniest man on earth, though why is another question. Reading his patter and the lyrics of his songs it seems to be pure drivel but then one has to remember the Victorians had a very different sense of humour to us as cartoons like the curate’s egg in Punch bear witness, and looking at the photographs of Leno in costume for the various characters he portrayed I guess the drollery was purely visual. He made a great deal of money and gave a great deal of it away. His was the classic case of the clown wanting to play Shakespeare. He dreamt of being the greatest Richard lll ever, became an alcoholic, lost his mind, was in and out of mental institutions, and died at the age of 41 and the whole country went into mourning.
Another music all artiste who gave away most of money, in fact he died penniless, and died young was George Leybourne, Champagne Charlie, and Chris’s biography of him is finally to be published in October with a launch at Wilton’s Music Hall. When I say the biography I should say part one because Chris has been so thorough in his research over the years and has come up with so many unknown or little known facts, volume one is a complete work in itself but still only half the full story. Let’s hope the launch is a great success.
Greek banks are no longer accepting cheques which, considering all our income is generated overseas leaves as with a problem to solve. Greek banks have never been keen on cheques. To deposit money by cheque has always been a hellava palaver but now even the palaver is past tense.