In this even quieter than usual gap between Christmas and New Year let us dig out our favourite obscure celebrity singles, the ones which people don’t believe exist until you play them (unless the other person is @beaney of course, in which case he probably has several copies already).
I found myself contemplating Reginald Bosanquet, the be-wigged and permanently soused news reader, when I posted the video below on another thread. Here are two remarkable facts about him:
1) He was only 53 when he died. 53! You would happily stick a decade or two on top of any reasonable estimate.
2) He once recorded a remarkable proto-dance single, which I present below for your entertainment and edification.
Your go.
I dont know if it is my mind playing tricks or not but I recall a Monty Python quiz where one of the contestants answered a question:
‘Reginald Bosanquet?’
‘Er no’
‘Reginald Bosanquet with a snorkel and flippers,’
‘That is the correct answer. You have won tonight’s star prize. You can have a blow on the head or a dagger up the clitoris’
‘Ooh I’ve never had one up there before’.
‘
He actually appeared in a Monty Python episode.
His dad invented the ‘googly’.
Which is/was referred to in Australia as the Bosie, I believe.
I knew that, but didn’t realise they were father and son.
“He actually appeared in a Monty Python episode.”
IIRC he wrote the introduction for their Big Red Book.
(as in, he didn’t)
Too late to correct the article, but looking at his Wiki it now seems he was a mere 51 at the time his untimely death.
A regular customer at Malcolm McLarens shop, and according to legend/myth/not letting the truth get in the way of a good story often wore rubber gear under his suit whilst reading the news. Appears in Sid and Nancy hanging off the back of a door – “You dirty newsreader” says the badly impersonated John Lydon character.
That must be one of the few pieces of footage around for season 1 of Not The Nine o’Clock News.
Chris Langham was pretty much airbrushed out of the picture after he was sacked
Apparently he was besotted with the extraordinary looking punk Jordan who worked in Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX and used to visit most days. He would give some coded signal to her whilst reading the news to confirm that he was wearing gear from the shop!
People don’t seem to name their children Reginald anymore. Mind you, same goes for Gary. And Albert. And Bernard. And, to a lesser extent, Kenneth.
I see from Wiki that his middle names were Tindal Kennedy. Reginald Tindal Kennedy Bosanquet. A superb name by any standards.
I wonder if he was in Twin Peaks?
People just seemed older then, didn’t they? 2 good examples would be avuncular TV Magician David Nixon who was a few weeks sort of his 59th birthday when he died, and TV mainstay Eric Morecambe who was likewise 58.
Eric died the day after Reggie
Plus Bob Stokoe.
Sandra Bullock was only five at the time of the first moon landing.
Those were less enlightened times in terms of child welfare.
“if they’re old enough to go up chimneys, they’re old enough to go up tert’ moon, thy knows”
You know the old ‘I remember where I was when I heard so and so died’ line. Well, David Nixon is the first celebrity death I remember. I was on my own in the living room and it came on the news, so I ran through and told my mum, who wasn’t as concerned as I thought she’d be.
One of my Nan’s favourite stories was when my uncle, who was only little at the time, went belting through from the very same living room, some time before I did, to inform her that not only was Winston Churchill dead, but someone had shot him. My Nan showed a lot more concern about the balding, racist Tory than my mum did about the balding, affable magician and hurried through to see the news. She then has to explain to my uncle that a bulletin meant a special news story and not that a gunman had snuck in the hospital to finish him off.
Finish him off?
Frightfully charitable.
@Paul-Wad a few years back I went to see the Fleet Foxes in Wolverhampton with El Toro once of this site. When they came back for the encore they announced that it was being reported Michael Jackson had died. When I left the concert it was still reported but not confirmed.By the time I got home my wife was asleep but I awoke her to give her the news that by then had been confirmed. She was not impressed – at all
Not long before he died I read something about a trick he used to pull, arranging concerts, selling out the venue, cancelling the show and then personally signing all the refund cheques, knowing that only one in ten people, if that, will cash the cheques. I’d told the wife about it, so when I saw it pop up on the BBC website that he had apparently died I went through and told her that it sounded like he was at it again…
Michael Jackson?
Yes. You wouldn’t think he’d need the money, but it seems he was very good at spending it.
I was one of the many, many people that saw Tommy Cooper literally die on television (LWT’s “Live From Her Majesty’s”) on April 15th 1984 aged 63.
I didn’t at the time but I saw it on YouTube recently. As he collapsed backwards into the curtain – you see only his feet and the sound of his final breaths. It’s like he’s suddenly asleep and snoring, which had all the hallmarks of a great gag until he didn’t get up again.
I was at my Nan’s (the same one from the Churchill story) in Robin Hood’s Bay. We were watching the show and me and my dad were looking forward to Tommy Cooper, but my Nan turned it over just before he came on, so I found out about that one the next morning.
A few years later I was watching the boxing, Eubank v Watson. A great first round, setting up for a great fight, when my girlfriend turned up, declared boxing barbaric and made me turn it off. Fate always intervened to save me from watching distressing scenes on the telly. As a postscript to that one, 12 years later the neurosurgeon who saved Michael Watson’s life also saved mine.
Whilst we’re on the subject of interesting facts about newsreaders, I found out last night that CNN (I’m still hooked to the channel!) anchor, Anderson Cooper, is a heir to the Vanderbilt fortune, being the son of (the rather beautiful) Gloria Vanderbilt. I then read Gloria’s Wikipedia page and she had such a colourful life that I started following links to read about more members of the Vanderbilt family. As often happens when you start doing this, the next time I looked up it was over an hour later. Fascinating bunch, even if I find the idea of a load of people being extremely wealthy and privileged just because their great-great-great grandfather built up a shipping empire somewhat vulgar.
Ho – hey ho.
Ho… hey ho.
That was about all I knew about them previously!
I appear to be the first respondent to have read the rubric and actually followed the brief… so here is Jodie Foster’s bizarrely brilliant 1977 single:
Few people at the time realised that Klark Kent’s number 1 hit “Don’t Care” was by Sky News sports and weather presenter Jacquie Beltrao.
1977?
Having been asked to join a Buy British for Br**it page it brought this to mind.
The I’m Backing Britain song. Well done Brucie 👏
As I recall it didn’t end well.
“From Surbiton to Scunthorpe”….fair sets your pulses racing.
Good luck asking Bruce Forsyth to work an extra half an hour for nothing – then or especially now.
I bought an iPod Classic off eBay a few months ago and the chap I bought it off hadn’t wiped it. There wasn’t much on it and seemed to be an even split between the kind of rock Tommy Vance would have liked, and nonsense chart pop, so presumably that belonged to his missus. But there was one album that stood out like a sore thumb. I actually messaged him to ask him about it, but he must have thought I was taking the Mick and didn’t respond. The album was Peter Wyngarde Sings! Actually, it was just called Peter Wyngarde, but Peter Wyngarde sings is funnier, even if he’s not really singing.
Brave man. Something indecent about snooping around on another man’s ipod, it’s like looking in a lady’s handbag. “Lockets…. sanitary products… handgun… what’s this rubbery thing? oh bloody hell, it’s alive!” etc.
It’s an extraordinary record – a mixture of chanson type crooning and bizarre narratives with musical backing. I’ll spare more delicate sensibilities by not posting the one called ‘Rape’, but this is almost as strange.
He’s been both in his time, to be fair.
I collect autographs and Peter Wyngarde’s was the first one I ever got. I still have it, on a lovely press photo of him as Jason King. I was only 4 or 5, but I knew him off the telly and he was opening either WH Smith’s or Woolworths in Barnsley. I can only imagine his career was well on the downward trajectory by then. My mum remembers him as being absolutely caked in make up. But I’m an avid fan of horror films, so I wish I knew then that I was meeting the man who had provided one of the 4 or 5 creepiest moments in any horror film.
I vaguely recall either seeing or hearing about a time when Reginald Bosenquet was a bit under the influence whilst reading the late evening news, there was a story about a robbery and at the of the story Reg said something along the lines of ‘and that’s a hell of a lot of money!’