Having the gift of the gab is rarer than you might suppose:
lifes journey, sometimes refered to as the bumpy road, can be made a lot easier and smoothed-out if you have it and a lot rougher if you don’t!
Although Sir Terry was much liked, the Editor struggled at first to find common ground here: the Eurovision Song Contest and its organizers as headquartered in Vienna which he visited briefly last year – and bumped into on the central station there, managing to crack a joke with the Station Master about golf whilst not personally considering retirement just yet. He thought it was more funny than the Editor did at the time – but we do share a slight sense of dark humour with our Saxon friends, also having a bit more of the Blarney in common. Terry didn’t take things (work, retirement or life) at all too seriously it appeared, including humour itself that is, unlike our foreign German-speaking friends 🙂
The Editor thinks both Terry Wogan and David Bowie read and listened to music and the arts widely (as enthusiastic autodidactic learners rather than structured academically-trained thinkers) and that therefore they were able to experiment more freely with ideas.
Bawler or Boomer?
Terry was certainly a boomer, never a bawler!
Life compared to a Waltz rather than a bumpy road
As he might have said: And now for some some steam music? Why for steam radio of course – to be enjoyed by older boilers like me – and you, and you!
To be followed hastily by; and of course younger boilers like your dear self, Madam!
(In typically self-deprocating manner)
And something for Radio 2 Listeners?
This one’s definitely more for Radio 3 listeners however: –
In some ways, life for Terry could be regarded as a waltz rather than a bumpy road, rather like Johann Strauss’ steam engine where dancers glide and reciprocate in gentle circular motion with each other – rather than clash up against immovable obstacles! Perhaps this is why people liked the elegance of steam engines compared with the rough argy-bargy of engine and carriage-shunting, Diesels, buffers and all the ‘stop-go’ motion involved in marshalling yards!
Round House Turntable – seeing things in the round – good things like music come in round packages
And for a Radio 4 type discussion perhaps..
Waltz piano sheet (and pianola) music from Vienna: the popular music of the time
The Editor claims also to be 1/16th. Irish though, from those Kellys from Cork rather than neighbouring Limerick.
Let us know of your encounters – witticisms, be they informal, remote or otherwise, with Sir Terry!
Terry shared with the Editor a common reluctance for having scripts for what he said live and online, and much of what Terry said was indeed straight from the heart and un-rehearsed, which gave it a spontaneity – and also made him inadvertently a master of understatement.
Nick
(contact: nick4182@hotmail.com)