George Cole aka Arfur Daley has died aged 90.
Link to BBC:-
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33803144
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90! Well done, Sir. Better innings than the Aussies today, anyway.
Whilst we can eulogise about his famous characters, does anyone remember the dreadful 80s sitcom he was in called "Comrade Dad"? Set in a ficticious world were the USSR had invaded and taken over GB. There was an episode in which he'd been waiting 10 years or so for a new car from the state factory - one day it arrives, and they'd used a debadged black Mk1 FIAT Uno as the purported commie car. I'll never understand why they didn't just grab a Lada (or Moskvich).
Anyway, I loved Arfur Daley and Minder, sad to thinks he's gone but fair innings and all that.
ETA - croaked on my patch. Not that it's important.
Last edited by: Alanović on Thu 6 Aug 15 at 11:48
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>> 90! Well done, Sir. Better innings than the Aussies today, anyway.
Blimey, they didn't even make it to Lunch!
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He had a notable career before Minder. Friend and acolyte of Alastair Sim, appearing with him in many films.
I liked him.
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A Life of Bliss.
I used to rush home on Sunday evenings to listen on the steam radio. The BBC junked all but half a dozen episodes, shame on them.
RIP.
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I was at school with his son. A sad time for them, i think.
Only met the Father once. Seemed very pleasant. I was starstruck being a huge fan of the St Trinian's films.
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Funny, when Cilla died I was watching Minder, and I thought "I wonder if George Cole is still with us" and then "poof" there 'e was - gorn!
This is a sad loss, wonderful actor both serious and comic roles, who can forget his wonderful role as "Flash 'Arry" the spiv in the Original St Trinians roles, his part in Blott on the Landscape, root into europe, and of course Arthur Daley in Minder.
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>> and of course Arthur Daley in Minder.
But only with Dennis Waterman (Terry). I could never warm to his nephew - Gary Webster (Ray).
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>> Funny, when Cilla died I was watching Minder, and I thought "I wonder if George
>> Cole is still with us" and then "poof" there 'e was - gorn!
>>
>>
What else have you been watching recently?
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>> >> Funny, when Cilla died I was watching Minder, and I thought "I wonder if
>> George
>> >> Cole is still with us" and then "poof" there 'e was - gorn!
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>> What else have you been watching recently?
Well I wouldn't be offering Dennis Waterman any life insurance, obviously.
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>>This is a sad loss
A blessed release more like it. 90 years is more than enough for anyone on this mortal coil.
He lives on though, through the numerous films he appeared in, his TV work, and in our memories.
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>> George Cole aka Arfur Daley has died aged 90.
Apparantely he fell off the back of a lorry.
RIP
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>> Apparantely he fell off the back of a lorry.
>> RIP
Tee hee... but he was a considerable actor with a wide range.
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I loved his "The world is your lobster, my son".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCn7Kp2M8Cc
Last edited by: Duncan on Thu 6 Aug 15 at 13:57
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Always enjoyed Minder and recently re watched a few on ITV player.
RIP
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>> Always enjoyed Minder
Same here. Never missed an episode.
RIP
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A truly great series in it's day, but looking rather dated now.
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>> A truly great series in it's day, but looking rather dated now.
>>
Very dated but that's part of the fun - telling the kids how bad it was compared to the luxuries we have now!
;-)
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>> >> A truly great series in it's day, but looking rather dated now.
>> >>
>>
>> Very dated but that's part of the fun - telling the kids how bad it
>> was compared to the luxuries we have now!
>>
>> ;-)
Oh Gawd, rationing complaints next.
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>>A truly great series in it's day, but looking rather dated now.
Sadly there's loads of series that happens to. Series that I really enjoyed at the time but cringe if I watch now.
Seems to afflict comedies the worst.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 6 Aug 15 at 16:02
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I can still belly laugh at old Minder episodes.
Monty Python is pretty immune from the ageing comedy thing, as is Blackadder.
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Do you think so? Monty Python seems very dated to me now. Blackadder less so but its all been repeated so many times it has lost any appeal.
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The problem with Monty Python is that so much of it was crap at the time never mind now.
But I agree with CG, even the good stuff has faded. I honestly cannot imagine why I used to find the Dead Parrot sketch or the Cheese Shop sketch so eye-wateringly funny.
Blackadder doesn't seem to have faded, but as CG also said endless repeats have rather taken the fun out of it.
Fawlty Towers is a bit toe-curling now as well. I still quite enjoy Morecambe and Wise though.
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>> The problem with Monty Python is that so much of it was crap at the
>> time never mind now.
>>
>> >>
Monty Python was 10% very funny, 10% mildly amusing and 80% self indulgent public school humour that bored the crap out of most people.
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>> Series that I really enjoyed at the time but cringe if I watch now.
You must have matured more than I have FMR. Anything that makes me cringe now would have seemed just as naff then.
Trouble with jokes is that once you've heard or seen them they are never as good again.
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Yes, I loved Minder too. Very well written and superbly acted.
It doesn't seem that long ago that they were on TV originally but watching the re-runs shows how the street-scape has aged so much. The outside broadcasts were often shot in and around Fulham, and the shots would show very few cars parked on the streets. Now, any Residents' Controlled Parking Space is snapped up in an instant!
And then of course there is the car interest. Arfur with his Jaaag, Terry with his Capri or maybe occasionally a Transit to shift some dodgy gear from Arfur's lock-up. Fantastic stuff!
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>> occasionally a Transit to shift some dodgy gear from Arfur's lock-up. Fantastic stuff!
There was another series, a gritty policier - was it called Flying Squad? - which had that very acerbic tough guy as the squad leader and the Terry McCann chap as his sidekick.
There's a scene when the squad are being taken to some incident in a plain Transit van driven by a police pursuit driver at incredible speed. The squad all sit on the floor in the back, ready to pour out and go into action on arrival.
Saw the fuzz raiding a pub in the Grove once out of a long-chassis twinwheel Transit van. It stopped outside the boozer and what looked like about 100 fuzz poured out of the side door and into the pub.
All that fuss just to bust a few grass, coke and smack dealers. Tsk.
(I didn't use that pub by the way in case anyone is wondering. Far too noisy and obvious).
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>>the Flying Squad
The Sweeny with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Ace cops and robbers show though very dated now.
The first Sweeny film was very watchable with a very dark ending. The second was poor.
John Thaw was another who is missed some 13 years now.
Last edited by: zippy on Thu 6 Aug 15 at 18:29
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>> The Sweeny with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Ace cops and robbers show though very dated now.
Thanks zippy. Memory a sieve for names.
It was good stuff, the Sweeney (Sweeney Todd, flying squad, geddit? tee hee!). Big V6 Fords drifting about on bombsites and cobbled areas just across the river from Chelsea... You could go there and do it yourself if you dared.
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>>
>> Trouble with jokes is that once you've heard or seen them they are never as
>> good again.
>>
No, I think good ones are chuckle-worthy indefinitely.
But there's a difference between "telling a joke" and something that is genuinely funny.
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Minder is being re-run now. Its dated only in the scenery, but in now way has it dated or faded in any other way. Fantastic writing, fantastic acting, fantastic characters means its still eminently watchable. Same applies to the Sweeney - all made by the same team who cut their teeth on another fantastic but largely now forgotten series "Special Branch"
Yes python appears to be crap, because mostly it was. As someone said only 10% brilliant and its simply not enough. Black Adder and Fawlty Towers was much more consistent so today there is much more to chuckle at.
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Humour is ephemeral like everything else. Now you get it, now you don't. It was always like that.
I liked satire in its day. But it doesn't last, it depends on the circumstances at the time.
Comedy, the real thing, is a lot better over time. Those two northern chaps, they were just naturally funny.
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>> Those two northern chaps, they were just naturally funny.
Cannon and Ball?
Last edited by: Focusless on Thu 6 Aug 15 at 22:25
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I stumbled across Spike tother day. Google the Pakistani Dalek.
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Lea & Perrins ?
Mappin & Webb?
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None of the above.
Morecambe and Wise, good-natured and genuinely funny.
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>> Morecambe and Wise, good-natured and genuinely funny.
They never brought me sunshine. Couldn't stand the pair of them.
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Re Arthur, I understand it
"He was a legend in the motor trade - the first man to stuff a Bri-nylon shirt into a dodgy gearbox"
Last edited by: henry k on Fri 7 Aug 15 at 09:13
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>> Re Arthur, I understand it
>> "He was a legend in the motor trade - the first man to stuff a
>> Bri-nylon shirt into a dodgy gearbox"
>>
Sawdust is (allegedly) better!
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>>
Sawdust is (allegedly) better!
Especially in the rear diff ;-)
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I never really liked Minder.
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I'm a great fan of Minder. My OH, who spent most of her life in Scotland, had never seen it, so we've been working our way through them as they're re-broadcast. The essence of it to me is that Arthur shamelessly exploits Terry, so much so that you're longing for Terry to stand up for himself or get his own back. Occasionally, he does and you get a great emotional lift from it. That must be a classic device in comedy, but I can't think of another example at the moment.
Standout episodes for me are:
"The Beer Hunter" where Brian Glover, Arthur's mate from Yorkshire, disappears after a drinking session. When found, he's lost his trousers after visiting a prostitute. Georgina Hale plays the prostitute with a preposterous "posh" accent.
"The Roof of All Evil" which has Pete Postlethwaite as an installer of satellite dishes
"Goodbye Sailor" which ends with Arthur up to his knees in mud.
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>> Sawdust is (allegedly) better!
In the US they even used to put fine sawdust in the engine oil to quieten the big-end and main bearings for long enough to persuade the punter to part with the bread.
ALWAYS look at the engine oil, and feel it with thumb and forefinger, before even bothering to drive the car. If it's just black you should be all right, but if it feels at all gritty forget it.
Oh, and as for the things people put in gearboxes and differentials, anything will do - polystyrene beads, minced steak (I kid you not), anything that would last 20 minutes on the road before breaking the component.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 7 Aug 15 at 14:41
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>> minced steak (I kid you not), anything that would last 20 minutes on the road before breaking the component.
Dear HJ:
I have purchased a mint-looking V6 Mercedes feeling I would soon get used to the stiff gearchange. I haven't driven it much yet, but it seems strangely reluctant compared with other examples I have driven. Moreover it has developed a constant squealing noise punctuated by the occasional graunch, and the car has started to smell of cooking (beef stew, short on the onions, my nose tells me).
The salesman tells me these symptoms are normal for the model, but I feel he may be wrong. One doesn't expect this sort of thing from a prestige make.
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In the US they even used to put fine sawdust in the engine oil to quieten the big-end and main bearings for long enough to persuade the punter to part with the bread.
I've heard of sawdust and even cut up tights being used to quieten noisy axles and gearboxes...
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I used to enjoy watching the series with Dennis Waterman.He tried his hands to be a singer,good actor but singer no.George lived to a good age you can't complain can you.
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>>In the US they even used to put fine sawdust in the engine
I found a pair of adult sized denim jeans stuffed behind one of the sills / David's Isopon on my Chrysler 180 in the late 70s.
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>> I found a pair of adult sized denim jeans stuffed behind one of the sills
>> / David's Isopon on my Chrysler 180 in the late 70s.
It's a shame when people don't do things properly.
They obviously couldn't be bothered to collect some old newspapers.
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>> >>In the US they even used to put fine sawdust in the engine
>>
>> I found a pair of adult sized denim jeans stuffed behind one of the sills
>> / David's Isopon on my Chrysler 180 in the late 70s.
God those things used to rot. At a pace I didn't know was possible.
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>>Chrysler 180 ... God those things used to rot
S'funny, I've heard that a lot but mine didn't - I had the 2 litre version, never can remember what it was called. Loved it.
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>> I had the 2 litre version, never can remember what it was called. Loved it.
The correct model name was Chrysler 2 Litre. A nice comfortable motor. I drove many of them in the mid 70s.
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Very comfortable. Generally a nice car to drive on a Motorway commute, not that great on country roads though.
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>> God those things used to rot. At a pace I didn't know was possible.
Spot on. Mine was a 72 model which I scrapped in 1980, having spent a small fortune on bodywork repairs a couple of years earlier. It should really have been dumped after the first 6 years. They also suffered camshaft problems. Something to do with the hardening process, I believe.
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>> >>In the US they even used to put fine sawdust in the engine
>>
>> I found a pair of adult sized denim jeans stuffed behind one of the sills
>> / David's Isopon on my Chrysler 180 in the late 70s.
The famous "grass" scene
www.youtube.com/watch?v=01dXHywMMyE
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I bumped into Mike Povey who was the DC/DS in the show a few years ago. He's from around here and a decent bloke.
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"The famous "grass" scene"
Reminds me of when my mate got married. We worked in an industry allied to agriculture so, when it came to a wedding, we always hurled wheat/barley seed at the happy couple rather than the oft frowned-upon confetti. Unfortunately, it rained heavily all day, and when matey drove off in his Cavalier, the cereal seed was washed into every crack and crevice on the vehicle.
For the rain-soaked duration of the honeymoon the car sat on the on the airport carpark and, by the time the couple returned, it was covered in a lovely verdant mat.
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George Cole has Died - Alanovich
