I clicked onto the internet by accident yesterday and exclaimed Ronnie Barker died!"
Then I thought, well, he was 76, which, whilst hardly old by modern standards is nevertheless 'a good innings'.
Then I remembered I was never really a fan. I didn't find him or the even less funny one particularly funny; on occasion I found their sexism to be lazy, old-fashioned and insulting.
Walking round the building yesterday, where many of the TVs are tuned to NNC BBC News 24, I saw various highlights of his career. Slowly, dimly, I remembered one vaguely funny sketch from The Two Ronnies - it involved an orchestra, and they did their laundry in the timpani.
They then showed an excerpt from Open All Hours. I recalled I never much liked it when it was shown on Sunday nights on BBC1. I have seen it again recently, and will admit that it contains a pathos that would have been lost on a younger me. Still, wasn't a classic of comedy.
And I never got Porridge at all.
So, sad, but, really, those Golden Ages were not all they're cracked up to be.
Morecambe and Wise - now, they were funny. Often hilariously so.
