#Sir Les Patterson | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thienvaldram · 4 months

Text

(Doctor Who) UK Prime Ministers and US Presidents

Full (Incomplete) UK PM List in the DWU from 1950 – 20XX (Some years are guessed)

Will be updated whenever I can be bothered we get new information. Just random speculation jamming together a list that was never meant to be jammed together.

Historical Before This Point

Winston Churchill (1951-1955)

Anthony Eden (1955-1957)

Harold Macmillan (1957-1963)

Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-1964)

Harold Wilson (1964-1970)

Edward Heath (1970-1972)

Jeremy Thorpe (1972-1974)

Harold Wilson (1974-1975)

Brenda Jones (1975) (According to a Jonathan Morris Tweet)

Shirley Williams (1975-1976)

James Callaghan (1976-1979)

Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990)

Margery Phipps (1990-1992)

John Major (1992-1997) (Assassinated)

Lord Greyhaven (1997) (De Facto PM for several weeks)

Tony Blair (1997-1999)

Terry Brooks (1999-2000)

Phillip Cotton (2000) (Deputy PM until election was called)

Kenneth Clarke (2000-2001)

Tony Blair (2001-2002) (Second term)

Unnamed Male Pro-Europe PM (Possibly Hugh Grant) (2002-2005)

Tony Blair (2005-2006) (Third term)

Joseph Green/Jocrassa Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen (2006) (Only served as acting PM for a day)

Harriet Jones (2006-2008)

Harold Saxon (2008)

Aubrey Fairchild (2008-2009)

Brian Green (2009-2010)

Unnamed Female Prime Minister (2010-2013)

Kenneth LeBlanc (2013)

Unnamed Female Prime Minister (2013-2014) (Resumed for a second term after Kenneth Le Blanc died)

David Cameron (2014-2015)

Daniel Claremont (2015)

Theresa May (2015-2018)

Felicity (2018-2019)

Fiona (2019-2020)

Boris Johnson (2020-2021) (Revealed to be an Auton)

Jo Patterson (2021)

Edward Lawn Bridges (2021-2023)

Unnamed Woman (2023-2025)

S J Wordley (2025-2026)

Glenda Jackson (2026-2028)

The Director (2028-2046)

Dai (2047-2049)

Lomax (2049 - 2050)

Mariah Learman (2050-2055)

Unnamed (?-2065-?)

Corollaries (PM List)

Jeremy Thorpe and Shirley Williams are said to be Prime Minister contemporaneously with the UNIT stories (Which are assumed here to take place on their airdates as per Mawdryn Undead and most Modern Who references)

In a tweet Jonathan Morris claimed the Prime Minister in Terror of the Zygons or Mawdryn Undead was Brenda Jones, Harriet Jones' auntie. I put this in 1975 (for less than a year) because why not. Ignore this if you think it's bad.

Actual dates of Kenneth Le Blanc and Unnamed Female PM are unknown, but are set in the UNIT audios between Power of Three (2012-2013) and DotD (2013).

Felicity and Fiona are given as PMs in Aliens Among Us and God Among Us (Torchwood S5 and S6) released and presumably set in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

Eight gives the PM list as Heath -> Thorpe -> Williams -> Thatcher -> Major -> Blair -> Clarke in Interference, this is not supported as a direct list by other sources, though I tried to fit it as best I could, resulting in Blair having two non-adjacent terms.

2010s are a mess due to BF, Titan Comics and the Lucy Wilson novels all giving conflicting accounts of who is PM only a couple years apart, apparently there were a lot of elections/resignations in that decade

Harriet Jones initially served Three terms prior to the Doctor altering history and deposing her, given UK Term Length is unclear, it's unknown how long this would have been, I would guess around 15 years, which would've put Harriet Jones at (2006-2021) where she'd be succeeded by Jo Patterson.

The UK becomes a military Dictatorship from 2028 until 2046 headed by ‘The Director’.

Dai is the first PM after the director, then in 2050 Lomax is the dictator of the UK. In the 'mid 21st Century', Mariah Learman is a ‘benevolent dictator’ of the UK.

An unknown Prime Minster led the UK during the weather crisis of December 2065.

Full (Incomplete) US President List in the DWU from 1960 – 20XX (Some years are guessed)

Historical Before This Point

John F Kennedy (1961-1963) (assassinated)

Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) (VP who succeeded their predecessor)

Richard Nixon (1969-1974)

Gerald Ford (1974-1977) (VP who succeeded their predecessor)

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)

Carrol (1993-1994)

Bill Clinton (1994-1997) (Presumably VP who succeeded their predecessor)

Tom Dering (1997-1999)

George W Bush (1999-2001) (Presumably VP who succeeded their predecessor)

Bruce Springsteen (2001-2003)

Chuck Norris (2003-2005) (VP who succeeded their predecessor)

George W Bush (2005-2007)

Arthur Coleman Winters (2007-2008) (VP who succeeded their predecessor)

Winter’s VP/Speaker of the House (2008-2009) (Succeeds Winters after he’s killed by Saxon)

2009-2017 Term

Felix Mather (2009-2017) (Presidency overwritten by Faction Paradox)

Sampson (2009-2017) (Presidency induced as an aberration by Lolita)

Barack Obama (2009-2017) (Replaced Felix Mather in history)

2017-2021 Term

Daniel Strunk (2017-2021) (Presidency overwritten by Faction Paradox – Mather’s Successor)

Matt Nelson (2017) (Presidency induced as an aberration by Lolita – Assassinated at Inauguration)

Lola Denison/Lolita (2017-unknown) (Assassinated her predecessor)

Donald Trump (2017-2021) (Replaced Daniel Strunk in history)

After 2021

Courtney Woods (unknown-2049-unknown)

Gavin A32X40 (unknown – 2086 – unknown)

Corollaries (President List)

The Eighth Doctor gives the list of Presidents as Carter -> Reagan -> (HW) Bush -> Clinton -> Dering -> Springsteen -> Norris

The President given in 2004 is referred to by the nickname ‘Chuck’ in Cat’s Cradle: Warhead which combined with the fact Springsteen was the President in 2003 and ‘Norris’ succeeded them suggests that the 2004 President was Chuck Norris.

The President in 2006 was implied to be George W Bush based on Harriet Jones’s dialogue. He was previously stated to be President in 2000 (Which he hadn’t been in real life)

Clinton is stated to be President in both 1997 (by metaphor in Placebo Effect) and in 1999 (in Rosa). However both of these are less conclusive than Tom Dering’s direct appearances in Option Lock and and Millennium Shock (also 1997 and 1999) implying that the mentions in Placebo Effect and Rosa were merely off by 1-3 years.

Obama is explicitly stated and shown to be President in 2009, 2012 and 2016, however Felix Mather is stated to be President in the 2010s, physically meeting the Eighth Doctor in Trading Futures. It is stated that Mather’s role in history was replaced due to Mather refusing to make a deal with Faction Paradox and so that has been taken into account.

Concerning the 2017-2021 Presidential Term

Donald Trump is stated to be a candidate in 2016 and is subsequently stated to be President in 2017, 2018 and 2020.

In contradiction, Daniel Strunk is stated to be President in 2017.

This is resolved by having Strunk be Mather’s successor who’s term was also replaced when Faction Paradox remove Mather’s term from history.

The Faction Paradox novel ‘Head of State’ depicts a 2 term Democratic President named Samson who is succeeded by Matt Nelson of a newly formed Radical Party. They are subsequently assassinated by their VP, the sentient humanoid TARDIS Lolita (Who has also been War Queen of Gallifrey and Queen of the UK before, as well as having devoured the Eleven Day Empire). It’s unknown how long she served nor when beyond ‘Early 21st Century’. She (along with Matt Nelson and Samson) have been as a temporal aberration replacing Mather and Strunk before themselves being replaced by Obama and Trump following Lolita’s defeat in True History of Faction Paradox and the ending of the War in Heaven.

A 2000 Bernice Summerfield short story claims Hillary Clinton was US President at some point. However, these records are portrayed as suspect with Bernice questioning them herself and have been ignored for lack of a position to place Clinton into the timeline.

#doctor who #dweu #doctor who eu #faction paradox #uk prime minister #us president #prime minister #president #in doctor who though #will update

23 notes · View notes

justforbooks · 1 year

Photo

In a spoof obituary written while he was still in his 40s, Barry Humphries, who has died aged 89, described himself as “an ancient comic” who had long since become “a self-indulgent and inaudible has-been” with no sense of progressive social relevance.

The Republic of Australia’s Art Squad had, he said, banned Humphries’ work in his native land. He had endured his last years of “exile and obloquy” in the tarnished splendour of “a Lusitanian spa”, where he occasionally gave clandestine performances to his dwindling, reactionary and hard-of-hearing followers. He was survived, the obituary concluded, “by innumerable wives, great-grandchildren and creditors”. It was a generally appropriate death notice of a satirist who delighted in guying both himself and his critics.

Never a genial humorist, there was always a whiff of sulphur in his comedy. “What is there to say about me?” he would gull his interviewers. “I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I am Church of England – I wash my car on Sundays. There must be some way you can jazz me up.” This was Humphries disguised as a candid interviewee. Being oneself, he would add, is a form of disguise.

There were many other disguises. One minute he would be a monocled Edwardian dandy or a mad scientist or a sad, sexless suburbanite. The next he would assume the mask of a beach bum or a shady art dealer or an embittered intellectual. But the most famous masks of all were his hellcat, the housewife megastar Dame Edna Everage, and his alcoholic political freeloader, professional adulterer and family man Sir Les Patterson.

Humphries grew up in suburban Melbourne, the son of Louisa (nee Brown) and Eric Humphries, a prosperous builder. He was an old boy of an exclusive school (or as he put it: “self-educated; attended Melbourne grammar”) and was briefly a student at Melbourne University. He began his extraordinary career on the back of an arts council bus touring the country towns of Victoria in 1954. It was his first professional role – the lovesick Duke Orsino to Zoe Caldwell’s Viola in Twelfth Night.

At each town, a patron of the arts, often the lady mayoress, would welcome the company over refreshments. Later, to help pass the time on the bus, Humphries invented a character to lampoon these municipal occasions. She was a drab, mousey and relentless hostess, simply named Edna.

The character was thought amusing enough to try out on stage in a Christmas revue in Melbourne. So it came about, on 13 December 1955, that Mrs (as she then was) Edna Everage made her stage debut – a volunteer hostess for the Melbourne Olympics, six feet tall, with brown basilisk eyes and a large chartreuse cabbage rose pinned on her charcoal suit. Her family – husband Norm, son Kenny, daughter Valmai, and mother (in a twilight home) – were given honourable mention, although their miserable fates in Edna’s triumphal backwash were not yet evident. Humphries, then as always, wrote the script.

The sketch was only a moderate success, but enough to point Humphries away from dramatic acting and towards the revue, music hall or cabaret. Also in 1955 he married Brenda Wright, and the following year they moved to Sydney to join a London-inspired theatre of “intimate revue”. He had found his metier, although Sydney satire was still too bland and self-congratulatory to satisfy his dandiacal rage. What Australia still needed, he said, was not mild satire, but a heroic act of espionage.

He finally found it playing the anguished Estragon in a 1958 production of Waiting for Godot. Humphries tramped the streets of Sydney in a sandwich board advertising the play, stuck Godot stickers on posts and windows, and scoured the scrap yards for trash with which he designed the stage sets. The audiences received the play with overwhelming indifference, but Humphries said it changed his life.

When he returned to revue, it was a new Humphries and a new Edna. She became at last a fully ad-libbing monologuiste, teasing if not insulting her audience. This was Edna’s breakthrough. She never looked back.

Australian theatre, however, remained in the doldrums. One critic said there was better theatre in a march-past of lifesavers on Bondi beach. In London, meanwhile, Beckett, Brecht, Osborne and Pinter were leading “the great uprising” from Sloane Square to Stratford East. Humphries found it irresistible.

His first marriage having come to an end after a couple of years, in 1959 Humphries married the ballet dancer Rosalind Tong, took a steamer to London – and into a decade of obscurity (and deepening alcoholism). He found some small parts, notably the undertaker in the original production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! (1960). But his future fame lay with the one-man shows which at that point only his faithful Australian audiences would even contemplate. Three years after arriving in London, he returned to Melbourne and staged, in mid-1962, A Nice Night’s Entertainment, in which he again paraded Edna and her family, along with some of his other creations, from a tortured, expatriate-hating journalist to a nose-picking, guitar-toting beatnik.

The popular success of the show emboldened Humphries to try out his characters in London – at the Establishment Club in May 1963. It was a flop (or as he put it, “a highly successful five-minute season”). He returned to small roles, notably in Frank Norman’s A Kayf Up West, at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Royal, Stratford East (1964). He also created for Private Eye the randy hobbledehoy Barry (“Bazza”) McKenzie, whose boozing, vomiting, urinating adventures, narrated in comic-strip form in a largely invented vernacular, reflected and mocked Humphries’ life in the swinging 60s. A film based on the character, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, was released in 1972, and a sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, two years later, with Humphries taking several small roles in each; in the latter, the Australian prime minister of the time, Gough Whitlam, apparently invests Edna as a dame.

Humphries did two more Australian tours before testing the water in London again. The first – in 1965 – was the triumphant Excuse I, which filled huge Australian theatres for weeks on end. No one-man show had ever done such business in Australia. It was on this tour that Humphries introduced the gladioli-hurling finale. The next tour – the 1968 Just a Show – introduced further variations. Edna now abandoned her dowdy appearance and came on stage smiling like a shark in a red Thai silk coat over a green dress. (“Am I overdressed?” she asked, looking around. “No, I don’t think so.”) She also began entering from the stalls chatting to her “possums”.

The enormous success of Just a Show encouraged him to try again in London – at the Fortune theatre. Once again the show was a flop. Harold Hobson dismissed it in one devastating sentence: “Most of Barry Humphries’ Just a Show will give pleasure to most Australians in London.”

The great turning point in Humphries’ career came in 1970 when he collapsed, an alcoholic wreck. That June, he was arrested in the streets of Melbourne’s leafy, affluent Camberwell and charged with being drunk and disorderly. A sensible magistrate adjourned the case for six months, ordering that charges be withdrawn if there were no further “incidents”. Humphries booked into a private hospital specialising in alcoholism. The man who for more than 10 years had started the day with a “grappling hook” (brandy and port) became an abstainer – and one of the great comedians of his age.

Still he had not yet conquered London. His Australian shows of the early 1970s (A Load of Old Stuffe, in 1971, and At Least You Can Say You’ve Seen It, in 1974) further refined Edna. She was now a name-dropping predator of radical views and treacly-trendy sentimentality, wearing glittering scarlet hotpants split to the groin. Soon critics were ransacking the dictionary for adjectives to describe her: psychotic, hysteric, Dionysiac, Amazonian, crypto-fascist, anally obsessed, a piranha, a hectoring Medusa, a blue-rinsed beast of Belsen, the Australian daughter of Torquemada.

As her curtain raiser, and to incarnate his disgust with alcoholism, Humphries also created a new character, half Sir Toby Belch, half Apeneck Sweeney – exuberant clown and revolting drunk, the cultural attache Sir Les Patterson. Staggering down the aisle, whisky in hand, he would invite his audience to give Edna the clap she so richly deserved.

In 1976 had come yet another assault on the West End, this time succeeding sensationally when Housewife-Superstar opened at the Apollo. It ran to packed houses for four months and almost 500,000 people saw it.

This was the first of Humphries’ enormously popular one-man shows in London, which included A Night With Dame Edna (1978-79) and Back With a Vengeance (for a number of seasons 1987-89 and 2005-07). Critics now acclaimed him as the greatest one-man showman since Charles Dickens and perhaps in the history of theatre.

He reached an even wider audience on British television, including two series of The Dame Edna Experience (1987-89) for LWT, a highly successful comedy chatshow in which Dame Edna interviewed celebrities – or delivered monologues interrupted by total strangers, as she herself described it. On both stage and screen a silent, doleful background presence was provided by her “New Zealand bridesmaid” Madge Allsop, played from 1987 to 2003 by Emily Perry.

The US took longer to conquer. In 1977, Humphries presented Housewife-Superstar at West 55th Street, off Broadway, where the critics dismissed it as “abysmal”, “pointless” and “like the litter on 42nd Street, something worth missing”. It was to be 20 years before the New York critics submitted to the Humphriesian tornado. In 2000, he was awarded a special Tony for the “theatrical event” of the year – a category invented for the occasion since his show, Dame Edna: The Royal Tour, was neither play nor musical. His success led to subsequent US tours, and a role in the TV comedy drama Ally McBeal in 2002.

In March 2012, Humphries announced a farewell stage show, Eat Pray Laugh!, which toured Australia, the UK and the US. It featured his best-known characters – Dame Edna, the stoic old convalescent Sandy Stone, and Sir Les Patterson (with a bit part for his brother, Gerard, a paedophile priest). But in an eerie finale, there were glimpses of other unforgettable creations: among them Lance Boyle, the trade union racketeer; Brian Graham, the 1960s Sydney executive and closet homosexual in navy blue shorts and long white socks; and Phil Philby, the lefty experimental film-maker.

Before the final curtain, Humphries himself took the stage, thanked the packed house, and ambiguously urged them to come to his final “farewell”. In a wave of emotion while the band belted out “Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye”, his tearful fans delivered a standing ovation.

In 2015, Humphries was artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret festival, where, with characteristic panache, he announced that he had banned the use of the word “fuck”, which too many comedians, including some good ones, use in a desperate attempt to get a laugh. (Humphries himself had often done so.) The patrons, he said, would be relieved and delighted by his new espousal of censorship.

As intended, the resulting controversy generated enormous publicity for the festival, but nonetheless he continued “to defend to the ultimate my right to give deep and profound offence”. Remarks of his on transgenderism – including dismissing it as a fashion – led in 2019 to the Melbourne international comedy festival dropping his name from its major prize, the Barry award.

Perceptions of what was considered either cutting edge or decadent in the jazz-infused music of Germany of the 1920s and 30s had fascinated him since finding a bundle of sheet music in Melbourne. In Australia in 2013 and in London seasons in 2016 and 2018, he explored it in the show Weimar Cabaret, with the chanteuse Meow Meow.

Humphries was based permanently in London from the late 1960s, although he visited Australia frequently, maintaining good relations with fans, friends and family. “To live permanently in Australia,” he would say, “is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one’s mother.” He collected art and books, describing himself as a “compulsive bibliomaniac”, and owned 25,000 volumes.

Over the years, he made recordings, wrote books, a novel and a volume of verse, and in 2007 he held an exhibition of his paintings in Melbourne. He had roles in several films, including Finding Nemo (2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). He dismissed most his books as trifles and promotions, but not his autobiography More Please (1992), which is less a comic story of an actor’s life than a de profundis or an alcoholic’s almanac; it is also noteworthy for its piety towards his family. It won the JR Ackerley prize for autobiography in 1993. Humphries was the subject of several biographies, including John Lahr’s Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation (1991), One Man Show (2010), by Anne Pender, and my own book, published in 1991, The Real Barry Humphries.

He was appointed OA in 1982 and CBE in 2007.

From his marriage to Rosalind, Humphries had two daughters, Tessa and Emily. In 1979, he married the artist Diane Millstead, and they had two sons, Rupert and Oscar. Following his third divorce, in 1990 he married Lizzie Spender, daughter of the poet Stephen Spender. She survives him, along with his four children.

🔔 John Barry Humphries, comic actor and scriptwriter, born 17 February 1934; died 22 April 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Barry Humphries #in memoriam

61 notes · View notes

0rph3u5 · 1 year

Text

#Dame Edna

16 notes · View notes

privatedarius · 1 year

Photo

Farewell Possums, comic actor Barry Humphries dies age 89 He was best known for his comic alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, but also appeared in theatre productions, more than 20 films and authored numerous books and stage plays.

#barry humphries #vale #dame edna everage

14 notes · View notes

transparentgentlemenmarker · 1 year

Text

Barry Humphries

Is Dame Edna Everage

Barry Humphries

Australian comedy great Barry Humphries dies in hospital aged 89, RIP Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson 🖤🖤🖤 1934 - 22 avril 2023

#dame edna everage #dame edna #uk #barry humphries #australia #actor

6 notes · View notes

reddancer1 · 1 year

Photo

R.I.P. Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphies), 89John Barry Humphries AO CBE (17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He was best known for writing and playing his stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, his biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin".

Humphries' characters brought him international renown. He appeared in numerous stage productions, films, and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Dame Edna Everage evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom – a gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally fêted "Housewife Gigastar".

Humphries' other satirical characters included the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it"; gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone; iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa; Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton; sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle; high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor; failed tycoon Owen Steele; and archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie.

Humphries' character Dame Edna Everage became an enduring Australian comic creation. Originally conceived in 1956, Edna evolved from a satire of Australian suburbia to become, in the words of journalist Caroline Overington: a perfect parody of a modern, vainglorious celebrity with a rampant ego and a strong aversion to the audience (whom celebrities pretend to love but actually, as Edna so boldly makes transparent, they actually loathe for their cheap shoes and suburban values) – The Sydney Morning Herald.

Like her ever-present bunches of gladioli, one of the most popular and distinctive features of Edna's stage and TV appearances was her extravagant wardrobe, with gaudy, custom-made gowns. Her costumes, most of which were created for her by Australian designer Bill Goodwin, routinely incorporated Aussie kitsch icons such as the flag, Australian native animals and flowers, the Sydney Opera House and the boxing kangaroo. Her outlandish spectacles were inspired by the glasses worn by the Melbourne eccentric, actor and dancer Stephanie Deste, as were many other aspects of Dame Edna's personality.

As the character evolved, Edna's unseen family became an integral part of the satire, particularly the travails of her disabled husband Norm, who had an almost lifelong onslaught of an unspecified prostate ailment. Her daughter Valmai and her gay-hairdresser son Kenny became intrinsic elements of the act, as did her long-suffering best friend and New Zealand bridesmaid, Madge Allsop.Throughout Edna's career, Madge was played by English actress Emily Perry, until Perry's death in 2008. Perry was the only other actor ever to appear on stage with Humphries in his stage shows, as well as making regular appearances in Dame Edna's TV programmes.

Dame Edna made a successful transition from stage to TV. The talk show format provided an outlet for Humphries' ability to ad-lib in character, and it enabled Edna to reach a wider range audience. As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression internationally, Edna did not hesitate to reveal that it was her mentorship which helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success.

Humphries was married four times. His first marriage, to Brenda Wright, took place when he was 21 and lasted less than two years. He had two daughters, Tessa and Emily, and two sons, Oscar and Rupert, from his second and third marriages, to Rosalind Tong and Diane Millstead respectively. His elder son[51] Oscar was editor of the art magazine Apollo and a contributing editor at The Spectator.[54] He is now an art curator. His fourth wife (from 1990 until his death in 2023), Elizabeth "Lizzie" Spender, previously an actor, is the daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender and the concert pianist Natasha Spender. They lived in a terraced town house in West Hampstead, his home for forty years.

In the 1960s, throughout his sojourn in London, Humphries became increasingly dependent on alcohol and by the last years of the decade his friends and family began to fear that his addiction might cost him his career or even his life. His status as 'a dissolute, guilt-ridden, self-pitying boozer' was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the failure of his first marriage and was a contributing factor to the collapse of the second.

Humphries' alcoholism reached a crisis point during a visit home to Australia in the early 1970s. His parents finally had him admitted to a private hospital to 'dry out' when, after a particularly heavy binge, he was found bashed and unconscious in a gutter. After that incident he abstained from alcohol completely and occasionally attended Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. He was one of the many friends who tried in vain to help Peter Cook, who himself eventually died from alcohol-related illnesses.

Humphries was a friend of the English poet John Betjeman until Betjeman's death in 1984. Their friendship began in 1960 after Betjeman, while visiting Australia, heard some of Humphries' early recordings and wrote very favourably of them in an Australian newspaper. Their friendship was, in part, based around numerous shared interests, including Victorian architecture, Cornwall and the music hall.Humphries appeared in the 2013 documentary Chalky about his longtime friend and colleague Michael White, who produced many of Humphries' first Dame Edna shows in the UK.

Other notable friends of Humphries included the painter Arthur Boyd,[59] the author and former politician Jeffrey Archer, whom Humphries visited during Archer's stay in prison,[60] and the comedian Spike Milligan.Humphries spent much of his life immersed in music, literature and the arts. A self-proclaimed 'bibliomaniac', his house in West Hampstead, London, supposedly contains some 25,000 books, many of them first editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[62][63] Some of the more arcane and rare items in this collection include the telephone book of Oscar Wilde, Memoirs of a Public Baby by Philip O'Connor, an autographed copy of Humdrum by Harold Acton, the complete works of Wilfred Childe and several volumes of the pre-war surrealist poetry of Herbert Read.

Humphries was a prominent art collector who, as a result of his three divorces, bought many of his favourite paintings four times. He at one time had the largest private collection of the paintings of Charles Conder in the world[64] and he was a great admirer of the Flemish symbolist painter Jan Frans De Boever, relishing his role as 'President for Life' of the De Boever Society.[65] He himself was a landscape painter and his pictures are in private and public collections both in his homeland and abroad. Humphries was also the subject of numerous portraits by artist friends, including Clifton Pugh (1958, National Portrait Gallery) and John Brack (in the character of Edna Everage, 1969, Art Gallery of New South Wales).

Humphries enjoyed avant-garde music and was a patron of, among others, the French composer Jean-Michel Damase and the Melba Foundation in Australia. Humphries was a patron and active supporter of the Tait Memorial Trust in London, a charity to support young Australian performing artists in the UK. When Humphries was a guest on the BBC's Desert Island Discs radio programme in 2009, he made the following choices: "Mir ist die Ehre widerfahren" from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier; Gershwin's "Things are Looking Up" sung by Fred Astaire; "Love Song" composed by Josef Suk; "On Mother Kelly's Doorstep" sung by Randolph Sutton; "Der Leiermann" from Schubert's Winterreise song cycle; the 2nd movement of Poulenc's Flute Sonata; Mischa Spoliansky's "Auf Wiedersehen"; and "They are not long the weeping and the laughter" from Delius' Songs of Sunset.

Cultural historian Tony Moore, author of The Barry McKenzie Movies, writes of Humphries' personal politics thus: "A conservative contrarian while many in his generation were moving left, Humphries nevertheless retained a bohemian delight in transgression that makes him a radical."

In 2018, Humphries was criticised on social media for making comments considered by some to be transphobic. The comments included referring to gender affirmation surgery as "self-mutilation" and transgender identity as a whole as a "fashion—how many different kinds of lavatory can you have?" The comments prompted the Barry Award, a comedy festival award in Melbourne named after the comedian, to be renamed the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award the next year.Humphries had two brothers and a sister in Melbourne. His brother Christopher worked as an architect, his brother Michael (1946–2020) was a teacher and historian, and his sister Barbara also a former schoolteacher.Humphries died following complications from hip surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 22 April 2023. He was 89. He had previously suffered a fall in February. ~ wikipedia.com

4 notes · View notes

richo1915 · 1 year

Text

The last of the cross dressing comedians that nobody had a problem with before the LBGTQ culture wars started.

An Australian Legend like Vegemite. The Grandfather of Political Incorrectness.

Vale John Barry Humphries AO CBE aka- Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.

#RIP #barry humphries #dame edna #sir les #australian comedian #australian legend #political incorrectness #take the piss

2 notes · View notes

fuckyeahpetercook · 1 year

Text

Comedy legend Barry Humphries has sadly passed away at age 89.

Early on in his career, Humphries was championed by Peter Cook. Cook saw beyond "a flop" performance at The Establishment and "stuck by Humphries, casting him in Bedazzled... and hiring him to write The Adventures of Barry McKenzie for Private Eye," writes William Cook (no relation) in The Oldie.

These photos picture Humphries and Cook-ish company through the years - photographed by Lewis Morley in 1962; as Envy in 1967's Bedazzled; with Cook and Dudley Moore after a Dudley Moore Trio concert in 1971; as Sir Les Patterson with Cook, launching the inaugural Melbourne Comedy Festival in 1987.

#peter cook #barry humphries #dudley moore #the establishment #the establishment club #bedazzled #film #1960s #1970s #1980s #rip

4 notes · View notes

averagedeadinsomniac · 2 years

Text

🄰 🅂🅃🅄🄳🅈 🄸🄽 🄿🄸🄽🄺 | Sherlock x reader- CH-1

Flashes of memories plagued Johns mind. Memories of his time of war terrorized him every night forbidding to go to sleep until he fell into the temptation of darkness. Memories of the soldiers he called his friend being killed by those behind the enemy line in front of his own eyes. Sounds of rapid gun shots and bombs going off nearby always seemed to be the reason he woke up every morning in a cold sweat and yelling.

Though he was off the battlefield, his mind was not. Everyday he would wake up from these tramatic memories, remembering everything that happened and start crying. Sobbing from these memories of not being to help his friends, the rough conditions he was put through everyday and the shot to his leg making him deemed useless and forced off the battlefield.

Everyday was the same old thing. Wake up, cry, stare at the wall, eat, attempt to write in his blog, go see his therapist, go to the park and then his day would reset. He needed something. Something different. Something exciting.

Because nothing ever happened to him

-Que theme-

Cases was popping up all over the city. These new 'murder suicides' the cops were calling them.

" The body of Beth Davenport, Junior Minister for Transport, was found late last night on a building site in Greater London. Preliminary investigations suggest that this was suicide. We can confirm that this apparent suicide closely resembles those of Sir Jeffrey Patterson and James Phillimore. In the light of this, these incidents are now being treated as linked. The investigation is ongoing but Detective Inspector Lestrade will take questions now." Agent Donovan announced to the conference that gathered reporters and gossipers.

Detective Inspector Lestrade sat at the table looking uncomfortable while his colleague sitting beside him, Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan, addresses the gathered press reporters. "Detective Inspector, how can suicides be linked?" A reporter asked raising his hand. "Well, they all took the same poison; um, they were all found in places they had no reason to be; none of them had shown any prior indication of- " Detective Lestrade tried to explain. "But you can't have serial suicides." The same reporter interrupted. "Well, apparently you can."

"These three people: there's nothing that links them?" Asked another. "There's no link been found yet, but we're looking for it. There has to be one." Detective Lestrade confided. A sudden ringing interrupted the conference from everyone phones

Wrong!

Donovan looked at the same message on her own phone. "If you've all got texts, please ignore them." Donovan pleaded, immediately knowing who was behind this. "Just says, 'Wrong'."

"Yeah, well, just ignore that. Okay, if there are no more questions for Detective Inspector Lestrade, I'm going to bring this session to an end." Donovan closed up ending the conference.

"But if they're suicides, what are you investigating?"

"As I say, these ... these suicides are clearly linked. Um, it's an ... it's an unusual situation. We've got our best people investigating ..." Lestrade tried answering again when everybody's mobile trills again with another text alert and again each message reads

Wrong!

"It says, 'Wrong' again." Lestrade looks despairingly at Agent Donovan and back to the crowd. He again shrugs it off. He really had to find out how those two kept doing this bullshit. "One more question."

" Is there any chance that these are murders, and if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?' A reporter asked intrigued if it was a work of a serial killer. " I ... I know that you like writing about these, but these do appear to be suicides. We know the difference. The, um, the poison was clearly self-administered."Lestrade explained once more. "Yes, but if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe?" A reporter asked "Well, don't commit suicide." The reporter looks at him in shock and fellow reporters murmer. Donovan covers her mouth and muttered a warning to him "Daily Mail." Lestrade grimaced and looked at the reporters again. "Obviously this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be." Again, for the last time that afternoon the mobiles trill their text alerts, and once more each message reads

Wrong! But Lestrade's phone takes a moment longer to alert him to a text and when he looks at it, the message reads: You know where to find me. SH & EC Looking exasperated and sighing Lestrade puts the phone into his pocket and looks to the reporters as he stands up. "Thank you." Lestrade and Donovan stand up from their desk and walk through the halls the offices. Phones ringing and people surfing throughout the building all looking for something. " You've got to stop him and that freak 'assistant' of his from doing that. He's making us look like idiots.'beside they're not fooling anyone about their little relationship going on' " Donovan exasperated angrily. "Well, if you can tell me how they do it, I'll stop them. And again. they're not in a relationship. Sherlock is a bit to much of an asshole for anyones last and gods know what Echo is thinking half the time, she barely speaks to anyone other than business."

______________________

'Why in gods name would Mike bring me to a morgue? Who would want to meet up in a ghastly place like this?' John Watson thought to himself as he and Mike walked through the corridor peering through a few windows until the right one. __________________

Before~

Sherlock had just sent Molly out on a coffee run for the three of them leaving her to be disappointed on the refusal of her obvious date offer. Again. "You do know she has quite a fancy for you Sherlock." He had just conducted an experiment on a body at the morgue. He was deducing the formation of bruises that would form in 20 minuets because some alibi of his needed it or another and the were walking through the halls now headed to a lab. "Hmm. I need to test the victims blood to see and abstract any substances that may be found from the doctors blood. Echo sighed knowing it was to be expected from Sherlock refusing to show any kind of feelings or attachments because of the good that would do

Sherlock sat at the far end of the lab using a pipette to squeeze a few drops of liquid onto a Petri dish and Echo stood off to him reading over a couple of files containing detains of the dead morgue doctor, who ironically worked and died at the same morgue they were at. There was a knock at the door and Echo turned her head slightly gaining a glance of who just entered the lad. Sherlock glances across at them briefly before looking at his work again. A man limps into the room, looking around at all the equipment along with a man named Mike they both knew. "Well, bit different from my day." John announced and Mike chuckled. "You've no idea!". Sherlock, sitting down still focused on his work asked, "Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."Mike looked confused And what's wrong with the landline?" Echo replied "He prefers to text. And I left my phone in the morgue." " Sorry. It's in my coat." John fishes in his back pocket and takes out his own phone. "Um, here. Use mine." John offers. Sherlock gives him a quick look up and down viewing every feature of him there was something about him. Echo's eyes hover over the files she had been checking out getting a good look at him.

He holds himself up tightly holding in stance like an army man which would clearly explain the cain meaning he had just departed. He walks with a limp but its partly psychosomatic because he docent reach for a chair and when engrossed in conversation forgets about it. He was in a place of intense sun because of the suntan just above his wrists, no way he could've gotten it in London it's to damn rainy here.

"Oh. Thank you."

Knowing Mike he's her for the offer for flat mates. On an army note he couldn't afford to live here but he feels safe nowhere else or else Mike wouldn't have brought him here.

"It's an old friend of mine, John Watson." Mike introduces his old friend. Sherlock reaches John and takes his phone from him. Turning partially away from him, he flips open the keypad and starts to type on it.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John frowns confused at the sudden question. Nearby, Mike smiles knowingly. John looks at Sherlock as he continues to type. "Sorry?" "Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?" He briefly raises his eyes to John's before looking back to the phone. John hesitates, then looks across to Mike, confused. Mike just smiles smugly. "Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know...?"

Sherlock looks up as Molly comes into the room holding two mugs of coffee. " Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you." He turns off John's phone and hands it back while Molly brings the mug over to him. He takes it and looks closely at her. Her mouth is paler again. She had removed the lipstick. "What happened to the lipstick?" Molly smiling awkwardly at him, "It wasn't working for me." "Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth's too small now." He turns and walks back to his station, taking a sip from the mug and grimacing at the taste. She obviously filled with too much sugar and with cream. " ... Okay." She squeaked and she turned and headed back towards the door. 'Poor girl'

"How do you feel about the violin?" John looks round at Molly but she's on her way out the door. He glances at Mike who is still smiling smugly, and finally realises that Sherlock is talking to him. "I'm sorry, what?" John asked confused. Sherlock typed on a laptop keyboard as he talked "I play the violin when I'm thinking and Echo plays with her little cube. Sometimes We both don't talk for days on end. He looks round at John. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."Echo confirmed and nods at John, who looked at her blankly for a moment then looks across to Mike. "Oh, you ... you told him about me?" "Not a word."

John turned to Sherlock again. "Then who said anything about flatmates?" Sherlock picked up his Milford coat and put it on signaling it was time to go and Echo started started putting on hers. "I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't that difficult a leap." Echo stated looking back at her work. "How did you know about Afghanistan?" John asked.Sherlock ignores the question, wraps his scarf around his neck, then picks up his mobile and checks it. "Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it." He walks towards John and Cypher gets up. "We'll meet there tomorrow evening; seven o'clock. Sorry – gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." Putting his phone into the inside pocket of his coat, he walks past John and heads for the door. John turned to look at them. "Is that it?" Sherlock turns back from the door and strolls closer to John again. "Is that what?"

"We've only just met and we're gonna go and look at a flat?"

"Problem?"

John smiles in disbelief, looking across to Mike for help, but his friend just continues to smile as he looks at Sherlock. John turns back to the younger man. " We don't know a thing about each other; I don't know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name."

Sherlock looks closely at him for a moment before speaking. "I know you're an Army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him – possibly because he's an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic – quite correctly, I'm afraid." John looks down at his leg and cane and shuffles his feet awkwardly. Sherlock smiled smugly. "That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" He turns and walks to the door again, opening it and going through, but then leans back into the room again. "The name's Sherlock Holmes and Echo Ophelia and the address is two two one B Baker Street. Come along Echo." He click-winked at John, then looks round at Mike.

" Afternoon."

"Ciao"

Mike raises a finger in farewell as Sherlock disappears from the room. As the door slams shut behind him, John turns and looks at Mike in disbelief. Mike smiles and nods to him.

" Yeah. He's always like that."

#bbc sherlock #sherlock x oc #sherlock x reader #sherlock bbc #john watson #oc #sherlock holmes #sherlockbbc

9 notes · View notes

miyamorana · 1 year

Text

My 2023 Fanfics

I didn’t end up writing all that much this year if you don’t count my current unpublished WIP, but I did write some!

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: An Abundance of Fathers Pairings: Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto, Midoriya Inko/Yagi Toshinori, Midoriya Inko/All For One, past Aizawa Shouta/Midoriya Inko, background Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi Rating: General Word Count: 4,468 Summary: “So, which of the three is your dad?” Uraraka asks, clasping her hands excitedly in front of her. “I don’t actually know,” Izuku tells her sheepishly. He bites his lower lip and looks down at his feet, the toes of one of his red sneakers digging in the sand. “But you said you invited him to the wedding?” She sounds confused. “Oh no,” Shinsou says, sounding delighted. “You’ve been scheming again.” * OR: The Mamma Mia AU nobody asked for.

Fandom: Julie and the Phantoms Title: dreams will make you cry, cry, cry (love will never die, die, die) Pairing: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson/Reggie Peters Rating: General Word Count: 1,381 Summary: “I dreamed that you didn’t… that you weren’t… you were gone and I was alone.” Her voice cracks on the last words and Luke’s arms tightens around her. “We’re here,” he tells her. “We’re right here with you.” “We would never leave you,” Reggie adds. “We’ll always be here for you sweetheart.”

Fandom: Merlin Title: La Visite Pairing: Gwaine/Merlin/Arthur Pendragon Rating: General Word Count: 827 Summary: « Dites-moi, » demanda le prince à sir Elyan le lendemain, après son entretien avec le roi Arthur, « arrive-t-il à votre souverain de ne pas être accompagné de son conseiller? - Parfois. C’est plutôt rare, et si Merlin n’est pas là Gwaine n’est généralement pas loin. » Sir Elyan semblait amusé par sa déclaration, pour une raison qui échappait à Eyden.

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Title: Reading Material Pairing: Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir (sort of) Rating: Teen Word Count: 607 Summary: No, she can’t. She mustn't. She shouldn’t have read as much as she did, should have refrained from even starting once she’d seen the relationship tag. (Marinette reads a fic.)

Fandom: The Witcher Title: Strong Arms and a Strong Heart Pairing: Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier Rating: Teen Word Count: 664 Summary: “Enjoyed the show?” Geralt asks, stopping in front of him and raising an eyebrow. “I always love watching you,” Jaskier replies with a grin.

#fanfiction #my fics #bnha #tododeku #jatp #merlin #miraculous ladybug #the witcher

3 notes · View notes

to-be-frank-i-dont-care · 1 year

Text

Blorbo List

I got bored so I decided to make a list of all my blorbos. feel free to ignore :P

Note: "blorbo," in my book, is any character I would die for, not necessarily my top favorite character in the fandom. I would die for all of these, but my favorites are marked with the sparkle emoji. my all time favorite character is noted with a mushroom

(fandoms are not in order)

Fantasy

The Lord of the Rings– Merry Brandybuck, Pippin Took, Frodo Baggins, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Eowyn, Faramir

The Chronicles of Narnia– Edmund✨, Lucy, Reepicheep, Eustace, Caspian, Peter, Susan

The Silmarillion– Turin Turambar✨, Finduilas, Beleg Cuthalion, Finrod Felagund, Beren, Luthien

Pirates of the Caribbean– Jack Sparrow✨, Will Turner, Hector Barbossa, Calypso, Syrena, Philip Swift

Peter Pan 2003 – Peter Pan✨, Wendy Darling, John Darling, Slightly

Crime/Detective

Endeavour– Endeavour Morse✨, Joan Thursday, Shirley Trewlove, George Fancy, Reginald Bright, Fred Thursday

Death in Paradise– Humphrey Goodman✨, Camille Bordey, Florence Cassell, Catherine Bordey, JP Hooper, Ruby Patterson

Shakespeare and Hathaway– Luella Shakespeare, Frank Hathaway, Sebastian Brudenell✨

The X Files– Fox Mulder✨, Dana Scully

Period/Historical Dramas

Pride and Prejudice– Elizabeth Bennet✨, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet, Mr Bingley, Georgiana Darcy, Maria Lucas

1917– William Schofield✨, Thomas Blake, Lauri, the convoy gang

Newsies– Jack Kelly✨, Crutchy, Spot, Sarah, pretty much all the Newsies

Our Mutual Friend– Lizzie Hexam✨, Eugene Wrayburn, John Harmon, Bella Wilfer

The Scarlet Pimpernel– Sir Percy Blakeney✨

A Tale of Two Cities– Sydney Carton✨

Wives and Daughters– Molly Gibson✨, Roger Hamley

The Book Thief– Liesel Meminger, Rudy Steiner✨, Hans Hubermann

Les Miserables– Enjolras, Courfeyrac✨, Combeferre, Jehan, Joly, Grantaire, Feuilly, Bahorel, Bossuet, Eponine, Gavroche

Anne of Green Gables– Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe✨, Diana Barry

The Man From Snowy River– Jim Craig✨, Jessica Harrison

Action

Tintin– Tintin✨, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, Snowy

Marvel Cinematic Universe– Peter Parker✨, Loki Laufeyson, Steve Rogers, MJ Watson, Ned Leeds, Wanda Maximoff, Peggy Carter, Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova, Sylvie

The A Team– HM Murdock✨, Faceman Peck, Amy Amanda Adams

Macgyver– Macgyver✨, Pete Thornton

Six of Crows– Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa✨, Matthias Helvar, Nina Zenik

Animated

Miraculous Ladybug– Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug, Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir✨, Alya Cesaire, Nino Lahiffe, Jessica Keynes

Centaurworld– Horse, Wammawink, Rider, Durpleton✨, Glendale, Stabby, Nowhere King/Elktaur, Mysterious Woman, Waterbaby

How to Train Your Dragon– Hiccup Haddock✨, Astrid Hofferson, Snotlout Jorgenson, Fishlegs Ingerman, Ruff and Tuff Thorston, Toothless, Stormfly

Tangled– Rapunzel✨, Eugene Fitzherbert

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron– Spirit✨, Rain, Little Creek

Skyward Sword– Link✨, Zelda, Skipper, Gorko, Pipit, Karane, Ghirahim, Fi

Twilight Princess– Link✨, Zelda, Midna, Shad, Ashei

anyway there you go :P

#blorbo #blorbo from our shows #lizzy rambles

6 notes · View notes