Be My God

My hero Stephen Fry is everywhere at the moment and it's heavenly, to steal a word that Nigella uses to descibe chocolate fondue . He's turning 50 the old gem and it seems he really is a national treasure these days. Our evenings have been taken up with various 'best of Stephen' moments.
I'm half way through his book'The Ode Less Travelled' (and have been since Christmas) but I feel compelled to complete his 'How to' guide to poetry forthwith as it really is a wonderful guide to writing ditties. This man has been a comedian, a writer, and actor, a director, a presenter- he is a genius of everything, except perhaps competing as an Olympic athlete. When I was 15 I had a homage to him on the back of issue 3 of Beaumont Fee, my self-obsessed fanzine. It had a picture of him photocopied from The Liar with the words 'Be My God' written underneath (words taken from a very early -circa Justine and Brett era- and very amateur Suede single)....and to this day, 15 years on, he still is an iconic figure in my life. There aren't many chaps like Mr Fry about, but then again if there were he wouldn't be such an enigma. What I love is that he's so unpatronising in his intelligence. I know a lot of people who are far cleverer than me (not a difficult trait to find) but use it to humiliate and toy with "lesser beings" (not my term, it's just something I feel patronising people must see others as), but Stephen Fry is generous with his knowledge and language and makes it accessible. There was a fantastic quote on tv the other night, I think it was from Phil Jupitus, that what Stephen Fry does is make you want to learn more, to read more and to be more like him.
I'll sign off now to do some reading of 'The Ode.....'
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Soundtrack: McAlmont and Butler - Yes
Other heroes include: Peter Cook, Kenneth Williams, Derek Jarman, David Bowie, Rick Stein, Eddie Izzard, Morrissey, John Hegley, Martin Parr, Mike Leigh, Simon Pegg
Heroines: Dusty Springfield, Nancy Sinatra, Jane Grigson, Francoise Hardy, Linda Smith, Polly Harvey, Jane Tomlinson, Audrey Hepburn,