Review of 2012 - Part Three

Hi, how are you doing?  Welcome back to my slight dalliance from the normality of my blog, while I continue with a look at what has happened over the year that was 2012.  I started looking at the year thinking that it would be an interesting, rather full, but singular tome.  I was mistaken.  This time next year will I be doing a review of 2013?  Yes probably, because I am bound to have forgotten what it took to do this one!  My memory is so bad that I will have forgotten doing this a couple of weeks at the most!!!  I just hope that you're not bored already (only follow that link if you don't mind slight violence).

Guitarist Big Jim Sullivan (RIP) with Tom Jones.

At the end of September I said farewell to my little Fiat Seicento.  I am still unfortunately without a car.

We're about to look at October then aren't we?  Yes I think so.  I wonder if I will find anything science fiction related in this third and final part of my review?  I think so.  Two words, a franchise, and a game changer in popular culture...  That will be Star Trek then!  Okay I will probably mentioned that other franchise as well that had Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher involved, but the Trek came first and was an influence to Mr Lucas in the formative stages of Star Wars (which he explains in the documentary film Trek Nation by Eugene "Rod" Rodenberry).  But I have already caught myself gabbing about something that I was meaning to chat about later, and probably will anyway.  Apologies to non-science fiction fans in advance.

John Clive (RIP) with Sir Michael
Caine in The Italian Job (1969)

Anyway...  October saw us saying farewell to session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan (who played on hits such as the wah-wah effected guitar on Dave Berry's The Crying Game, Gerry & The Pacemakers' Ferry Cross The Mersey, Itchycoo Park by The Small Faces, Chris Farlowe's Out Of Time, and New Seekers' I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, among so many others - a hidden legend of the music business).  We also said goodbye that month to the British actor John Clive (The Italian Job, A Clockwork Orange, Carry On Abroad), German composer Hans Werner Henze, animator Bill White (Ren & Stimpy, Inspector Gadget), and Brian Cobbey (British actor and voice for the speaking clock).

On October the 14th, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier without using any machinery to help him, which was as a result of diving from outer space and into the atmosphere.  Why?  What if he had burnt to death during re-entry for crying out loud?  I just question the reason behind these world record attempts sometimes.  I know, I'll see how long I can stay in a small body of water with five thousand crocodiles around me so I can go in the record books!  I might be daft sometimes, but I'm not that bloody stupid!

I'll just have two minutes of silence (I could only find five minutes of silence, so stop after two minutes or give longer) to think of those who died as a result of Hurricane Sandy that devastated so much of the United States between October 24th and 30th...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...

November saw us saying goodbye to British actor Clive Dunn (Dad's Army), Coronation Street actor Bill Tarmey, musician Martin Fay (fiddle and bones player in The Chieftains), American actor Larry Hagman (Dallas, I Dream of Jeannie, The Eagle Has Landed), and record producer and Manager of rock band The Who Chris Stamp, among others.  It also saw Typhoon Bopha kill at least 1,067 people, with 838 people still missing between November the 25th and December the 9th.

Me on my 42nd birthday
with moustache for Movember

November the 26th also saw my 42nd birthday - 42 years old, bloody hell.  Who would have thought it?  Definitely not me.  I certainly don't feel like it most days, or even act like it for that matter.  I remember when I was much younger I used to think that people in their forties were so old, but now I know the truth.  I celebrated my birthday by having booked tickets to go and see a ballet at the Palace Theatre in Newark (about a two minute walk from us).  It was a ballet version of A Christmas Carol, performed by the Ballet Theatre UK, which is a great troupe I can tell you.  We loved it!  Both me and Louise are very fond of most interpretations of this great story by Charles Dickens (isn't he a knight?), and this was no exception.  The only problem though was someone who went in that wasn't well.  Within a couple of days, Louise was suffering from really bad flu symptoms.  It's lucky that I didn't get the flu from her, because I didn't have the flu injection until a little while later because I just couldn't afford it to be honest with you.

I attended the ballet with a full on moustache, because I had grown a moustache for Movember, which is an annual event whereby men grow moustaches to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate and testicular cancer, and they raise money that goes into research on such things.  My team raised £395 in total, and I am very proud that I was a part of that.  Same again next year guys?

 

December was a difficult one, because a few people died who I had grown up with, in a manner of speaking.  We lost the great Ravi Shankar (how amazing is that piece he plays in that video above, I can't not watch the whole thing), who was much more than the Indian composer, sitar-player that he is recognised for.  There are very few times that I cry, but his death brought about a few tears.  He was a man who brought Indian and World music to the foreground.  His autobiography is a really fantastic and interesting read.  It speaks of how he started as a dancer, travelling the world from an incredibly young age with a troupe that included family members, and eventually learning instruments (including the sitar that he is most known for), and throughout the decades, speaking of his relationship with George Harrison and other ex-Beatles, and other pop stars, his dislike of drugs in the industry, and so much more.  Like I said, fascinating.  A wonderful man of wisdom, modesty and generosity from what I have heard.  The two most famous daughters of his live on, and continue to make great music in the form of Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones.  Norah's music is incredibly well known, and Anoushka makes music that is breathtaking and continues to break down the barriers between Contemporary and World Music as it were.  I don't see a distinction personally, because to me music is just music.  I either like something or I don't, it is that simple.  I do like what I have just read that both Norah and Anoushka are to collect a Grammy Award on behalf of their father next month.

Charles Durning (RIP) with Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie

We also lost jazz legend Dave Brubeck in December, as well as Sir Patrick Moore (British astronomer and broadcaster), American actor Charles Durning (The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, Tootsie, and I remember him in the fantastic and underrated thriller Sharky's Machine), American singer Fontella Bass, and Herbert "Stormin' Norman" Schwarkopf (American army general).

Jack Klugman passed away on Christmas Eve.  He was someone that I remember well from when I was a kid, because of the television series Quincy M.E., which was a medical drama where he some how or another was able to solve cases of homicide, even though he was a pathologist - can they actually investigate cases legally in the real world?  It didn't and still doesn't matter in a way, because it was a great television show, and Klugman was fantastic as the titular doctor.  It's a bit like Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder, only less Murder She Wrote-like and more Starsky And Hutch at the time.  He was also known for The Odd Couple and a lot of other stuff, but to me he was Quincy.

Gerry Anderson (RIP) with ex-wife Sylvia,
the voice of Lady Penelope.

Gerry Anderson (creator of such television shows as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons, Space 1999, and so many more) died on boxing day (December 26) at the age of 83.  He too was someone who I was very saddened to hear that we had lost.  His work was incredible to me, because I had watched repeats of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray, Joe 90, Space 1999, and the list is endless.  My younger brother +James Dean watched the Gerry Anderson show Terrahawks, which I watched with him whenever I wasn't away at school.  Yes, even as I grew up I never lost my love of classic children's television like that.  Rest in peace Gerry Anderson, you leave behind an incredible body of work that you should be proud of.

Do you know what...  I had skipped right past the fact that American physicist and astronaut Sally Ride had died in July, and that means that I missed putting in this link (Skid and Louise will love that link).

So there we have it then, a list of some things that made 2012 what is was.  I'm not really going to go into much detail of my own things during 2012, because I can't remember that much to be honest, and it wasn't a fantastic year for a lot of reasons.  I don't want to go into that because, frankly, I am looking forward to 2013, which will be much better in a lot of ways I am sure.

I haven't lost any friends, but I have made some in the real world and in the virtual world of social networks and the like.  That virtual world hasn't been too bad to me throughout that time, and it will continue to do so. I have faced some truths over that time, and come out knowing more than I did before.  That's what is known as learning, and I believe that I have learnt.  We carry on each year throughout our lives learning and, to be honest, life is an incredible thing, especially when you have people that you can share that life with - friends, lovers, family, and that sort of thing.

And that is my incredibly long three-part review of 2012 over with.  I finished what I started.

Thank you for reading, please take care.

January 2nd 2012 (42 years, 1 month, and 7 days old).

PS - I never did get back to talking about Star Trek and Star Wars did I?  It doesn't really matter because it's been said by so many already.  George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to the Disney, giving the latter the rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as Howard The Duck (go figure), Labyrinth, and Willow.  The reported $4.05 billion dollars that he made from it he has donated straight to charities, mainly the educational charity Edutopia.  It's nice that it's not all about the money in his bank account, so well done there Mr Lucas.  A shame that Lucasfilm didn't own the rights to the little known but cult followed film THX-1138, because an updated version of that film might be interesting.