Friday 21 September 2007

You don't have to pay the usual admission if you're a cook or a waiter or a good musician

Ladies and Gentlemen, not only have I just received a three CD set of Louis Jordan (not the Bond villain and BBC Dracula the other one) in the post today but Stephen Fry has a "'blog", see side link, please come back one day.

Pleasingly, in the inaugural entry he rightly praises the Psion 3 series (which had only one flaw- a hinge mechanism which wasn't up to the kind of rough use I gave it, you know occasionally opening and closing the device), and also rightly says the Psion Revo, which I now use, was a not quite as good successor (it has a robust hinge, but no back light- fools). I've had two Psion 3s (both broken-spined) and am now on my second Revo, and I love them both because they do pretty much all I really want, fairly reliably, without too many distractions and they use the fact that I can type fairly fast rather than waste electronic brain power trying to decipher my handwriting. I'd still be on my first Revo if gravity and floors weren't both quite such stubborn swines.

Anyhow, my favouritest thing about Psion as a brand is that it should have been Psi, short for Potter's Scientific Instruments but that name was taken. Consequently, Psion which stands for Potter's Scientific Instruments Or Nothing was plumped for. If that's not true it should be, as it's Quite Interesting, which leads me clumsily towards the fact that Fry's comfortingly enjoyable and not thick QI is back with a new series tonight on BBC2.

Like David Attenborough, Fry has a force of personality that helps keep not-dumb telly on mainstream channels. Reason enough to cherish him even if he wasn't such a great prose stylist, and comic writer.

I found a very sweet form letter from Mr Fry a few months back, which I along with, I hope thousands of others, was sent for wishing him well in the wake of the whole Cell Mates situation, it's brief, well-mannered, self-critical sincere, lovely and intelligent- like Moab Is My Washpot but short then really.

In almost related news, I suspect the Andrew Wong who's recently received a Silver prize in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards was someone I knew slightly at the time who was in close touch with Mr Fry.
I didn't really know Andrew well, and for various arcane reasons I was not allowed to help him with a project with attempted to couple Stephen Fry with the archive I then worked on, but I liked his sensibilities and enthusiasms, and I really hope it is him making steps forward in the writing world.

Also winning a prize in the same competition, Gold no less, is a chap I met once and had the pleasure of doing some sound design for, ages back, David Bishop. I'm really pleased that he and his remarkably '80s winkle pickers seem to be thriving in the 21st century.

Small world isn't it? I'm beginning to think it may actually be smaller than Facebook.

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