I first recall seeing her as Budgie’s wife, Jean. But whenever she appeared on TV, you knew that - whatever she was in, whatever part she was playing - here was an interesting character to keep your eye on.
Picture added because one-box always deletes them.
After John Peel, one of the most influential UK DJs.
Much of Pope.L’s work is disarming, even silly. The flowers, the fruit, the costumes. But it is also deadly serious, informed by the pressure of a man trying to communicate something his life depended on. With startling self-awareness, he once described himself as a “fisherman of social absurdity.” Indeed, Pope.L’s performances embody the contradictions of our time in the country he called home. Through his practice, Pope.L gave form to the tensions that thrum uneasily at the heart of the “American dream”—those huddled masses yearning to breathe free and the social structures that sort us into separate silos like so much loose grain. It is difficult to watch Pope.L crawl through the gutters of New York City because it literalizes a feeling that far too many of us in this country have, of pulling ourselves through the muck amid the greatest concentration of wealth that human history has ever seen.
As you can by now no doubt guess, dear reader, I’m a bit in my feelings about this one. Just like when David Bowie died and my eyes got hot and itchy as I walked past a chapel playing “Ziggy Stardust” on its carillon. I write these words and want them to do justice to Pope.L and his work, but I don’t know how to neatly fold them up. On the contrary, they seem to wriggle through my fingers, as if Pope.L himself were taunting me from the Great Beyond. But if Pope.L taught us anything, it is how to sit with discomfort, how to inhabit it and make it meaningful, even productive. It is with this goal in mind that I wish to tell you a bit about a man who—in yet another moment of clarity—gave himself the title of “the friendliest Black artist in America…
While I was composing a report about platypuses in third grade, Pope.L was attaching himself to a Chase 24-Hour Banking Center in Midtown Manhattan with an eight-foot-long Italian sausage link while wearing Timberlands and a hula skirt made of dollar bills. The piece was his response to a recently passed law that prohibited panhandling within 10 feet of an ATM. This act of “reverse panhandling” reveals the pretensions of then-mayor Rudy Giuliani’s so-called “quality of life” improvements, exposing them for what truly were: a direct attack on the poor.
Covid takes another.
Fruit stripe had the best flavor of any gum but sadly the flavor only lasted for minutes.
I saw someone online that asked for a moment of silence for the moment the flavor lasted.
Remindds me of this one,
I stopped chewing gum ages ago, but thought I’d try that recently. Tasted good, for two or three minutes. But worse yet, the texture was terrible! Gum needs the right texture too.
BBC TVs drama series last year, SAS: Rogue Heroes, told the SAS origin story in some detail (undoubtedly with some dramatic licence taken) including some of the episodes of Mike Sadler’s involvement described in the article above.
If you can get to iPlayer and have an interest in this topic, it is recommended viewing.
(First usable search results.)
Ben Macintyre certainly does do good war (hi)stories.
See also Operation Mincemeat and others.
He also has a good line in true tales from the cold war and assorted spy stories.
He lived a long life, but I’m still a bit sad.
