Wednesday 11th June

I am as you may know an avid newswatcher, but yesterday (Monday) I was too busy with various computer problems at work to even glance at the news, and then at ten it was the fall-out of Trojan horse and Muslim schools.  Then suddenly the announcement that Rik Mayall had died suddenly at the age of 56 was a real shock.

I remember “The Young Ones” and that brilliant anarchic humour, but was more impressed by his many appearances in “The Comic Strip” for channel four, where hour-long strange comic plays were written, some partly by Rik himself.  These were more parodies than laugh-out-loud comedies and I loved them. Along with Ade Edmundson, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, this was the new generation of young comedians.   And Rik though not quite as famous or successful as French and Saunders went on to star in Bottom and The New Statesman.  Always funny, always to the point.

And now a sudden death.  No lingering illness, no surrounded by his family, just a sudden death.  And I am always shocked by these early deaths.  Especially of people a few years younger than me, it suddenly slaps your own mortality in your face.  Everyone says so sad, but maybe, just maybe that it actually the way to go.