The greatest living Irishman signs off. (Has anyone else noticed that the volume on the bbc iplayer goes to 11?)
His was the first music show I was aware of on the radio, because once in a while our neighbour, Charles Lossock, would drive me to school listening to Radio 2. (Lossock was a “carpet salesman” who seemed to make regular trips behind the Iron Curtain, and was, I think, the first passionate anti-anti-semite I was aware of. A spy, I always figured when I was older). Later, I would pass Wogan’s house on the way to and from school, and every couple of weeks we’d meet, me on my bike, he in his Rolls that didn’t really fit the one-lane road, and I would be pushed into the hedge. It never bothered me. I never thought he suited TV, myself – Blankety Blank was, of course, great, but I always thought Wogan was not very good (though reading the wiki entry makes me wonder if I watched it enough) — talented as he is, it was impossible to find the dull-witted celebrities he interviewed half as interesting or amusing as he was (one of the most uncomfortable bits of TV I’ve ever seen was watching Wogan try to interview a monosyllabic James Bolam, who just had nothing at all to say, and nothing Wogan could do would get him to open up). During our stay in the UK early this decade I wrote most of a whole book (this one
I presume that Clifford T Ward was a Tory, too. But then, I’d have guessed the same about Clive Dunn, and nothing could be further from the truth.
{ 49 comments }
Kieran Healy 12.18.09 at 4:08 pm
The greatest living Irishman
Now let’s not get carried away.
kid bitzer 12.18.09 at 4:23 pm
so the greatest living irishman is dead?
why, that’s absolutely perverse.
typical of the race.
mollymooly 12.18.09 at 5:06 pm
Which word are you objecting to?
Harry 12.18.09 at 5:54 pm
No, he’s not that perverse. He’s just retired from morning radio.
Name a greater one. (note, Irishman)
alex 12.18.09 at 6:28 pm
So who’s the greatest living Irishwoman, then?
TheSophist 12.18.09 at 8:24 pm
Greatest living Irishman – George Ivan Morrison. (Although I’m not sure if an Ulsterman counts.)
jamie 12.18.09 at 10:17 pm
“I suspect him of voting Tory his whole life; and surely the TOGs who correspond with him must be almost entirely Tories and UKIPers. ”
My late mum, a lifelong socialist and a shop steward for twenty years, never corresponded with him but she enjoyed him very much. He never came across as one of those smooth to sputtering reactionaries of the Jimmy Young/Pete Murray type. My guess would be that he didn’t vote at all.
novakant 12.18.09 at 11:35 pm
Two answer both questions authoritatively: Neil Jordan and Sinead O’Connor – have at it.
EWI 12.19.09 at 12:14 am
Which word are you objecting to?
I suspect “Irishman” (has he been to the feet of the English queen yet to get honours?).
Our Terry is one of that Dublin lot (many of them in RTÉ) who look perpetually to acclaim in London as being the sum of their life’s ambitions.
EWI 12.19.09 at 12:16 am
Name a greater one. (note, Irishman)
Bertie. All things to all men. Or Bono, who grew up in poverty on the Northside.
dave heasman 12.19.09 at 12:28 am
Name a greater one. (note, Irishman)
Robbie Keane. Ronan O’Gara. Seamus Heaney. William Trevor. Paul Brady. Andy White.
nick s 12.19.09 at 1:00 am
(Has anyone else noticed that the volume on the bbc iplayer goes to 11?)
Lots of people. It’s been there for at least two years. Not sure if it was Richard Titus or Anthony Rose who made the decision, though.
I always associate Wogan with early appointments at the doctor’s, where R2 was the standard musical accompaniment. But your daughter is clearly bound for transatlantic greatness, Harry.
kid bitzer 12.19.09 at 1:47 am
“has he been to the feet of the English queen yet to get honours?”
not the road to wogan peer, i hope.
Henry 12.19.09 at 1:54 am
ouch!
engels 12.19.09 at 2:08 am
Like KB, when I read this I thought he was dead. Surely Wogan’s not the greatest living Irishman. What about Chris de Burgh? Bono?
engels 12.19.09 at 2:17 am
Michael O’Leary…
P O'Neill 12.19.09 at 2:55 am
Jedward was the sign that the Irish cycle of upward mobility had done full circle from Tel’s days.
eamonn 12.19.09 at 4:18 am
Jesus Harry. This is the MOST English thing I have heard in a long time. Who is the greatest living Englishman? In a Brighousean spirit, might an Irishman volunteer one of the more durable cast members from Coronation Street?
bad Jim 12.19.09 at 9:33 am
Barack O’Bama.
alex 12.19.09 at 10:02 am
18 FTW! Can’t quite believe some people mentioned a footballer, or [ack! spit!] Chris de Burgh? Some would take that as a national insult.
mollymooly 12.19.09 at 10:25 am
Chris de Burgh is the greatest living Argentinian.
Gabe 12.19.09 at 1:53 pm
Bunny Carr is still alive, and I note there is no Wikipedia entry on Quicksilver, which is a travesty.
Sperry 12.19.09 at 3:01 pm
Seamus & Sinead.
bob mcmanus 12.19.09 at 4:58 pm
Declan McManus?
What do I know about the Irish.
novakant 12.19.09 at 8:45 pm
So is Henay guy actually really good? I can’t shake the suspicion that most people (and I don’t mean the poster who mentioned him of course) like to parade him around as a national icon, but nobody really reads him – like Joyce, and I’m the first to admit to having given up on Ulysses and Portrait several times, but I love “Dubliners” and can always shut people up by mentioning that I actually did finish “Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften” (in so far as that is possible, since it’s unfinished).
novakant 12.19.09 at 8:47 pm
Christ, I knew God would punish me instantly for my heresy: Heaney !
( I actually do know how to spell the name, lol)
Mrs Tilton 12.19.09 at 11:49 pm
The Sophist @6,
I’m not sure if an Ulsterman counts
And I’m not sure there’s any need to look beyond Ulster’s borders.
Or (that is) I wouldn’t be, if only Clontarf were farther north.
Mrs Tilton 12.19.09 at 11:55 pm
Nov @25,
re: Heaney, putative reallygoodness of: people who like that sort of thing will find it the sort of thing they like. And curse you for your final parenthetical, which deprived me of the joke I’d otherwise have made.
Dave @11, namechecking Andy White:
well played, though I’m not certain White counts following his auto-antipodeanization.
dave heasman 12.20.09 at 12:13 am
Who is the greatest living Englishman?
Post vacant since Humph croaked.
harry b 12.20.09 at 12:34 am
Stephen Fry.
mollymooly 12.20.09 at 2:16 am
Stephen Fry is a National Treasure, which is like winning an honorary Oscar.
kid bitzer 12.20.09 at 2:44 am
fry’s okay, but i would have said ashvin kumar.
Shmoe 12.20.09 at 3:28 am
Has anyone else noticed that the volume on the bbc iplayer goes to 11?
I had noticed, actually. After all, what’s the point of watching The Vicar of Dibley if you can’t watch it LOUD!? Though I’ve no right to speak, I’m in the States; but proxies are a wonderful things. You really must petition the English parliament to allow the cousins to simply pay the license (plus a reasonable surcharge) and watch it as they please; and where they please.
As to Mr. Wogan I obviously don’t have the same attachments (or national baggage) with relation to him. However, I am aware of him, and he seemed to be very good at what he did. I recall, a few years back, him being on Top Gear. The interview, with Jeremy Clarkson, was thick with the irony of it all and was quite entertaining; much more so than it usually is. It’s funny, he actually managed to make Clarkson seem endearing, as though by osmosis.
But is he actually, totally retiring? I was under the impression that he would still be doing specials and such.
Cannoneo 12.20.09 at 3:37 am
When I was a kid in an Irish family in England in the late 70s, for a couple of years Wogan was indeed the most important Irishman in the world who did not play for Arsenal.
Unfortunately, Blankety-Blank was so saturated with leering innuendo that to this day just hearing Wogan’s voice makes me feel as if there’s some special realm of sexual knowledge that I have not yet been made privy to.
bob 12.20.09 at 4:15 am
I assume that “… the volume on the bbc iplayer goes to 11” refers to the recent xkcd http://xkcd.com/670/?
Shmoe 12.20.09 at 4:35 am
I assume that “… the volume on the bbc iplayer goes to 11†refers to the recent xkcd
LOL! I believe that counts as trolling, or at least deliberately misleading the children who haven’t the faintest idea what Spinal Tap, or who Rob Reiner is. I’ll just be off preparing the hemlock. Then again bob has also just introduced me to rather hilarious web-comic, so maybe just exile for now.
novakant 12.20.09 at 5:30 am
he actually managed to make Clarkson seem endearing, as though by osmosis.
Impossible – though Ali G managed to make Posh & Becks seem endearing (but then I don’t really mind posh girls and metrosexuals, as opposed to chauvinistic neanderthals)
harry b 12.20.09 at 2:17 pm
Oh, and Louis Theroux managed to make Paul Daniels and his wife (but especially Paul Daniels) seem endearing, partly though his consdierable efforts to do the reverse.
Tomboktu 12.20.09 at 7:10 pm
Nah, not Heaney after he called for a Yes vote on Lisbon because “we had lost our way in Europe”. (As somebody said on one of the bligs I read, that happened to them too, but thay stopped a policeman to ask for direction.)
Ed 12.21.09 at 6:51 am
Sean Hannity
toby 12.21.09 at 4:55 pm
Greatest Living Irishman: Garret Fitzgerald, Seamus Heaney, Bono, Brian O’Driscoll,
Colm Toibin, Gay Byrne, Ray McSharry, Roy Keane …
ejh 12.21.09 at 6:26 pm
Bono? In anybody’s opinion other than his own?
Given that Wogan hasn’t actually retired, isn’t this a lot of fuss about not very much? Bloke Changes Job, Hours isn’t really the same as National Indeed International Treasure Lost To Us Forever.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan 12.21.09 at 6:38 pm
Heaney it is, if Ulstermen get counted in. If not, Van the Man.
Incidentally, it’s interesting St. Columb’s in Derry City (where Heaney went to school) has two Nobel laureates in its alumni. Beats the shite out of its other Northern Irish diocesan boy’s school counterparts (St. Malachy’s, St. Patrick’s, St. Colman’s) in terms of the influence of its alumni.
Substance McGravitas 12.21.09 at 7:54 pm
Maybe. He appears to have done a whole lot of useful stuff, much as I want to dislike him.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan 12.21.09 at 9:29 pm
“Maybe. He appears to have done a whole lot of useful stuff, much as I want to dislike him.”
I can’t forgive how annoying he was at the Self Aid concert in Dublin in the 1980’s.
Still, his ability to get the Bush admin to listen to him on aid to Africa, adn to work on AIDS in Africa, was seriously impressive.
ejh 12.21.09 at 9:33 pm
And after they had listened, what did they then do?
Mrs Tilton 12.21.09 at 11:02 pm
SPotGS @43,
Heaney it is, if Ulstermen get counted in. If not, Van the Man
Ehhh, with what value of “Ulsterman” are you working there, if I may ask?
paul 12.21.09 at 11:05 pm
You took the X90 in preference to the train or even the Oxford Tube? Madness. Although managing to write a book on a long distance commuter coach is a monumental achievement.
engels 12.21.09 at 11:49 pm
If you google ‘Bono’ and ‘twat’ you can find a surprising variety of T-shirts and mugs expressing this sentiment.
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