thisbluespirit (
thisbluespirit) wrote2017-02-15 08:49 pm
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Things
1. I had an idea for my Doctor Who Minor Characters Ficathon fic! (I was hoping a prompt would give me inspiration, but there have been less, and then I had inspiration of my own. I am now, some hours later, thinking it maybe wasn't a good idea, but I seem to be committed.) I do also need to edit and beta my
hetswap fic. I keep telling myself it is all done, which is not actually true.
2. I get so used to all the people in old things I watch being dead (or immediately dropping dead on the spot) that sometimes I forget to look them up, assuming that they are dead, and then they surprise me by dying anyway because apparently they were in fact still alive (until they weren't).
Which is to say that the very excellent Alec McCowen died a week or so ago.

He was a brilliant and famous enough actor that I don't imagine I need to tell many of you who he was, but I've also liked him since way before my recent old TV watchings - when I did A-Level English Lit, our teacher chose to do Twelfth Night and Henry V as our Shakespeare plays, and then forced us to watch the BBC Shakespeare versions, which means that Alec McCowen is my default (slightly scary) Chorus and Malvolio, and has been for a very long time - and I've revisited them both recently, particularly Twelfth Night for Yuletide last year.
And then in my old telly voyages, I picked up Mr Palfrey of Westminster, which starred Alec McCowen as a quiet and compassionate civil servant who's actually a brilliant and ruthless spycatcher. It was an odd little show that took a while to get started and didn't last very long, but when it was good, it was very good and so was Alec McCowen (and the awesome and happily still alive at least at the last Google, Caroline Blakiston, as his boss). You could do worse than watch A Present From Leipzig or Return to Sender, or Music of a Dead Prophet in passing salute.
3. There should probably be a third thing, but there isn't. This post was mainly 2.
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2. I get so used to all the people in old things I watch being dead (or immediately dropping dead on the spot) that sometimes I forget to look them up, assuming that they are dead, and then they surprise me by dying anyway because apparently they were in fact still alive (until they weren't).
Which is to say that the very excellent Alec McCowen died a week or so ago.

He was a brilliant and famous enough actor that I don't imagine I need to tell many of you who he was, but I've also liked him since way before my recent old TV watchings - when I did A-Level English Lit, our teacher chose to do Twelfth Night and Henry V as our Shakespeare plays, and then forced us to watch the BBC Shakespeare versions, which means that Alec McCowen is my default (slightly scary) Chorus and Malvolio, and has been for a very long time - and I've revisited them both recently, particularly Twelfth Night for Yuletide last year.
And then in my old telly voyages, I picked up Mr Palfrey of Westminster, which starred Alec McCowen as a quiet and compassionate civil servant who's actually a brilliant and ruthless spycatcher. It was an odd little show that took a while to get started and didn't last very long, but when it was good, it was very good and so was Alec McCowen (and the awesome and happily still alive at least at the last Google, Caroline Blakiston, as his boss). You could do worse than watch A Present From Leipzig or Return to Sender, or Music of a Dead Prophet in passing salute.
3. There should probably be a third thing, but there isn't. This post was mainly 2.
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Sad about Alec McGowan... it seems that these days there's a lot of either "They were too young to die!" and "oh they've been around so long I thought they were gone..." I try to also keep remembering that at the same time, someone is being born that we will love and admire and enjoy one day... we just don't know it yet.
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And, yes! People are endlessly wonderful and awful and talented and interesting, including the new ones. But some people definitely deserve a moment of sadness in farewell at least, too. *removes hat*
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Well, it was nice to know taht he was alive up until he wasn't, if you know what I mean.