While I was sad about George Melly’s death in the week, I thoroughly enjoyed reading some of the anecdotes about his extraordinary life this weekend. I was back at my parents’ house where a lot of my books still reside and spent a happy half hour re-reading some parts of his autobiography ‘Owning Up’ which covers his life in the jazz world in the 50’s and 60’s. It really is hilariously funny. One anecdote I particularly love/loved is that worried about his weight and having read somewhere that gin was the least-fattening spirit, George switched to drinking - or rather downing - neat double shots when out and about - which he fears didn’t do much for his burgeoning reputation as a bit of a reprobate… I need to get the other volumes, though my copy which I got second-hand years ago is signed by Melly himself. Lovely.

The whole trad-jazz period lovingly evoked by Melly in ‘Owning Up’ came to a pretty abrupt end when the Beatles and what we can call the ‘beat-boom’ started in the early sixties. Before then, a uniquely British take on New Orleans jazz really was the soundtrack to teenage dances across the UK, mainly due to the law at the time stopping many US performers from playing over here. When this lapsed, Melly met his hero Louis Armstrong several times which is very sweetly described. There’s a plethora of Armstrong’s early albums available but I’ve stuck to these - wonderful stuff. I owe my father for my interest in Melly - over lunch on Sunday he repeated his great anecdote about once spotting Goodtime George in a pub smoking a long cheroot - so I think this might be an early birthday present for him.

Talking of reprobates, my cultural runnings were somewhat disrupted by a very lively Friday night I spent in one of these strange new smoke-less pubs in Camden. Nonetheless, I applied my hangover to Don Quixote (which I can see becoming a regular remark on this blog). In fact, to paraphrase the narrator’s remark in Money about smoking, unless I specifically tell you otherwise, I am either starting to read Don Quixote, reading Don Quixote or putting Don Quixote down.