Floyd on Ice

The Stranglers - Waltzinblack

Keith Floyd has done one and joined the great cooking circle in the sky.

It is unavoidable that people you grew up with will begin to give into the demands of the flesh and shuffle off the mortal coil. For those of the TV generations, the deaths of those familiar faces from a TV childhood can take on a lot of meaning. I remember when Percy Thrower died. Wow. Did his passing really strike me.

There was a wonderful documentary on the BBC, two or so years ago, about how death has been handled in the UK historically and how we deal with mortality now.
The undertaker, so feared for so many years as the harbinger of death has now gone. That profession has morphed into the funeral director. This user friendly, 2.o version of the undertaker now insulates us away from the death itself. They now "take care of the arrangements for us". In turn we get to concentrate and deal with the grieving.
I think that it does makes us less well equipped to deal with the reality of death itself. And perhaps that is why we go a little bit more ga-ga when someone from the telly, who we 'grew up with' passes.

Floyd is such a person for me.

We would be forced to gather around the TV for one of his wine soaked adventures in Oz, Italy or on an emu farm in the 80's/early 90's. Mum would go ballistic if you talked through one of her programmes. And we would attempt to drive her round the twist by doing so. The impact of Floyd is personally still felt by me. I CANNOT feel comfortable cooking if I don't have a glass of something in hand to aid the cooking experience.

So march on Keith. Clive and I salute you.