poliphilo

I drink my eleven o'clock coffee out of a "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" mug- purchased in the Tunbridge Wells Museum. TW has a historic reputation for being full of peppery retired colonels and Lady Bracknell types and- as the note on the back of my mug explains- "Ever since a morally outraged reader wrote to a London newspaper, signing himself 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells', the town has been associated with quintessential Englishness and correctness."

Or, in other words, with having a stick up its arse.

I read all the obituaries I could of the late Denis Norden- and one of them said "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" was something he gave to the world. It's not something I'd heard before, but why not? He gave us so much else.

Norden was one of a remarkable generation of funny men- writers and comedians- who learned their craft during the war- and then spread out to colonise radio, TV and the movies. His contemporaries included Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock, Jimmy Edwards, Eric Sykes and Norden's comedy-writing partner and game-show team-mate, Frank Muir. They were quite a bunch- and he- Norden- who made it to 96- was the last survivor.