Dearly departed

I was reading the Guardian article about Sean Hughes, the stand up comic/performer who died a week or so ago. While there may well have been some truth in it, and lets face it, none of us are perfect,  it was a pretty scathing and harsh piece, and indeed his fellow performers and friends who took the time to respond were in agreement that it was  below the belt. 

I’m not sure who it benefits, writing something like this about somebody who is unable to fight his corner because he is dead. Perhaps it made the author who seems to have been “dropped ” by Hughes,  feel better. But the very term” dropped” makes it sound like we are still at primary school with a petty ” she/he is my best friend, you are not” kind of mentality and he came across as being a bit of a whinger  with a distinct whiff of sour grapes. And does his comment that Hughes was ” mean with money”actually mean that he was pretty pissed off he didnt get left anything in his will? Who knows,  and I daresay we will never know. It just seems pretty shallow and downright mean, then again I must be pretty  shallow because I wondered if, as he said he was going to, he  did have the cheek indeed turn up at the funeral. 

Washing someone else’s dirty washing in public when they are not around to hang it out to dry seems pointless and mean spirited. 

On the other hand,  saying it how it is when people are still living can be much more revealing and can generate moments    of hideous yet rare genius ( like the car crash masterpiece that is Festen with probably what must rate as one of the worst family get togethers ever). 

My favourite story along these lines concerned one of T’s ex girlfriends. It was her fathers 65th birthday and they had arranged a get together  in a Rotary club in Battersea ( no doubt a block of luxury flats now).

 By all accounts her dad was a bit of a character ( think Minder/ Fools and horses), known for being generous of spirit and loved by many, though it was wise to stay on the right side of him, if you get my drift. A great big  bear of a man with hands the size bunches  of bananas,  builder by trade, with a cluster of construction sites and developments under his belt.He had invited guests  from every different  parts of his life,  from his bank manager to old business associates,  neighbours and school chums. As dinner came to and end his wife and children all stood up to make speeches and to toast him, followed by his oldest and dearest friends. Everyone clapped and cheered and then it was his turn. Looking around the room,  he thanked everyone for coming, thanked his family for their love and support through the years and congratulated his grandchildren for coming along early enough so that he had been given the chance to be a grandfather. As people dried their eyes and laughed,  he singled out some others for a special mention. 

To his bank manager sitting in the corner like the cat who got the cream he said,  “please put your hands together for Stan James, my bank manager from way back” and as people clapped,  he went on” , ” Stan, you must have thought you had been invited because I like you, well I don’t, you always were an unpleasant bastard , you  never helped me at all when I was starting out, you made my life a misery”, and then he introduced Harry Smart, his first business partner who was shifting in his seat looking rather nervous , “welcome, Harry, I know you took that deal behind  my back and then lied about it”,to  his old friend Frank,  ”  an old friend, quick to accept my money when you were in need, quick to accept this invitation,  but you couldnt  be bothered to come and visit me when I was in hospital for 6 months, or even ring to see if you could do anything to help my family ” and so it went on, as he continued to wipe the expectant smiles off the faces of those who had wronged him. And good foir him, better out than in I say. 



I guess the moral of this tale is to try and do our best while we are here, and to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Easy in theory,  but day to day struggles sometimes make this an impossible task. 

For example, this mornings trial, the woman in the Alitalia booking office. I had been trying to check six people in for a flight to Rome tomorrow but every time I got as far as the check in page it said there was a technical fault.  I then rang the same woman twice to ask if there was something wrong with the website. ” No” she said, it must be your computer” . So I spent an hour trying it again, went to T’s house to try his wifi, no luck, rang Virgin media, shouted at Lucas who was trying to help me. Finally I rang for a third  time and got a sensible man who confirmed that their website had been down all day

Finally managed to get throughout the right page  and went through the tedious  task of logging in everyone’s passport details etc, trying to be very careful not to make mistakes, and just as I was about to enter the last detail for the last person my session timed out and I had to start again. 

So  Mrs Alitalia booking office , if you should ever get an invite to my birthday party, I recommend you decline.