Wednesday, October 13, 2004

The Power Of The Bugbear

Guess what, chaps! A couple of days after my unkind words about him, Norman Wisdom has announced that he's retiring from showbiz. Okay, he's ninety years old, so he might have been considering it anyway, but you have to admit it looks like I managed to push him over the edge.

Apparently Norman was a big star in Albania, where he was known as "Pitkin". Films like "Pitkin Goes To The Workers' Collective Summer Picnic" were immensely popular under the regime of King Zog, where the only other permitted form of recreation was the fiercely competitive "Growing Root Vegetables Into Slightly Amusing Shapes" League.

According to the news reports Norman was famous for his catchphrase "Mr. Grimsdale.", which, let's be honest, is not that clever a catchphrase. I'm not a comedy writer, but I'd put money on being able to come up with something a little more witty and urbane than that.

Anyway, now that I've seen what the power of the Bugbear can accomplish I'm going off to concentrate on visiting a plague of pubic hornets on Giles Brandreth. I realise you Americans don't know who Giles Brandreth is, but trust me on this one, if you knew him you'd thank me.

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