Wednesday 28 February 2018

The Art of Coarse Life...

I'm so saddened to read from Duff and Nonsense, that Michael Green has died.

http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2018/02/michael-green-1927-2018-rip.html

Michael Green first came onto Scrobs' screen back in the '60s, when I was at school, and subsequently revered all his books, which are the funniest I have ever read.





I also have 'The Art of Coarse Sailing' and 'The Art of Coarse Golf', which are just superb! The dust covers went years ago. We actually tokk the former on a Broads boating holiday once, and recognised so many passages! As for golf, I was no better than the coarse version, and gave it up when I was in my twenties.

By coincidence, Her Fragrancy, the Senora O'Blene and I gave each other as many Michael Green books as we could find for Christmas last year, and sadly - or perhaps hilariously, I'm right in the middle of 'The Art of Coarse Acting', which Duff and Nonsense describes!

I must have read all these books many times, as I can remember several passages by heart. Whenever I hurt my leg doing anything, it's always 'the zongular tendon', mentioned as an imaginary rugby injury, and I'll always recall the immortal line of Lady Macbeth coming down the stairs, and putting her foot right in a brazier...

There was also a novel 'Don't print my name upside down', again with a memorable passage describing a note scrawled on the wall next to the jounalist's telephone 'I have now been here for three-quarters of an hour, trying to speak with the Council's Water Engineer'!

'The Art of Coarse Acting' is just superb, and there were several sequels which I have yet to read, but my favourites have to be the rugby books, as it was probably his writing which convinced me that if I coudn't stay in the First XV, being a good tenor in the Thirds wasn't such a bad alternative!

I shouldn't be surprised if The Art of Coarse Heaven' doesn't come out soon, because he could write humour into everything...! What a great chap!

R.I.P.



9 comments:

David Duff said...

"The Art of Coarse Heaven"! What a corker, Mike would have loved that one!

Scrobs. said...

Thank you David, I can now imagine some angel sitting on a cloud with a harp and busted strings, wondering what that round thing over his head really does...

A K Haart said...

What we need now is for someone to write "The Art Of Coarse Blogging" as a tribute.

rvi said...

Sorry, nothing to contribute here as, living in the back of beyond for much of my life, I have no knowledge of the fellow.

However, I would support AK's idea, adding only that if you care to go back over the past (however many) years it is now, you would have the ammunition to write "The Art of [Extremely] Coarse Commenting" - with the aid of an illustrious editing/contributing team at your behest!!

goosegirl said...

I've never heard of him either but he sounds a good sport! I'm sure that if we all have a go at contributing to Reever's marvellous idea we all may be well in the money by sometime in the distant future. BTW, Reevers, it's bloody cold here in my little office due to the cat flap issue i.e. non-prevention of a bitter gale blasting through it so am going to go back to the fire and defrost!

rvi said...

You have my bucketful of sympathy Ms Goose, but in this part of the globe our garden thermometer yesterday at noon was indicating 40*C - not unusual at this time of the year. We ensure we keep our a/cs in good order!

Hpwever, thanks to the clowns that run our so-called council, we had not a drop of water in the system from 07.30 to about 22.00 yesterday while they faffed about doing whatever.. Naturally we never get any advance notice of this disruption. This a not uncommon situation so we keep a few 5 gallon (am I allowed to use that word here?) bottles of fresh water to hand for use in such circumstances until normality returns.

The best part is our now regular 4pm humongous tropical thunderstorm which regularly cause road-blocking floods and extensive traffic jams. That also explain why we now get all our shopping etc in before 2pm and get home out of it all.

Scrobs. said...

Michael Green was an inspiraion to me where sport was concerned.

The first game of rugby I played in, in 1965, was against Ashford, and we lost by about forty-five points!

I was such a new ex-schoolboy boy then, and the loss of a game rapidly diminished with the several pints of beer afterwards, and I'm afraid I was hooked! I never looked back, I was demoted, promoted, bcame the match secretary (imagine standing in a big bar with other secretaries from Quins etc., who always sat around a table like justices of the peace)!

Bollocks, we just went on and made a huge life of fun and ganes - even winning some of the time, but so many friendships were formed in those days.

Beer back then was eleven pence a pint...

Most of this was down to Michael Green - what a man!

Scrobs. said...

Duff and Nonsense has some more on Michael Green here, including an interview!

http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2018/03/the-sunday-rumble-4318.html

Anonymous said...

Damn it! He also wrote 'Squire Haggard's Journal', which is my pick for funniest book ever.