Thursday 17 January 2008

The Extraordinary Life Of Sir Norman Wisdom OBE


Having been up for a sixty-length swim last night, I'd been looking forward to watching the first episode in the new series of Grand Designs.

In the event, my enthusiasm waned when the topic turned out to be one of those contemporary, ultra-modern, futuristic subterranean monstrosities places, which had no less than ninety complaints.

Naturally the town-planners rejected them all, swept them aside: neighbours apparently do not exist matter nowadays, local residents have little influence and The Planners prevail. You'd think the applicants would have received the message loud and clear, that people in their street do not want all that mess and upheaval. Are the applicants arrogant and simply don't care about their "neighbours"? It happens all the time now anyway; houses being doubled in size etc whether we like it or not. Let's have a great, big building site beside us, with their skips, lorries, white vans etc blocking the road. That's their attitude.

So instead I watched quite an enjoyable little programme about the former entertainer, Sir Norman Wisdom OBE. As a child, I never missed his films. It was a bit sad to see him in a nursing home at the end of the programme; he seemed happy though.

I did some more research about Sir Norman and his extraordinary life. He's an extraordinary character too, which doesn't surprise me having read about his life.

2 comments :

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

It was an affectionate insight into the onset of dementia and a family trying to cope with the changes.

I love the Guardian reviewer's comment "There should be more old people on TV; old people are cool" ... it's not just twenty-somethings that deserve their mugs to be on the box in the corner!

Anonymous said...

Yes, Norman Wisdom's life story is quite remarkable, not least his explanation for having one leg shorter than the other!