Humphrey Lyttelton, who died last Friday, nearly caused my death.

I was driving along listening to the radio when he announced “All right team, put on your blindfolds, it’s now time to play Hunt The Ostrich. You all have your feather dusters and crash helmets — Samantha, open the cage!”

My explosion of laughter not only came close to bursting my heart but caused me to veer wildly into the (thankfully empty) oncoming lane. I regained control and pulled over to the side of the road. I took about five minutes to recover my composure.

I suppose you had to be there.

As the host, he was easily the funniest man on the classic BBC Radio 4 show ‘I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue’. His weekly sallies at pianist Colin Sell and the showbiz charmer Lionel Blair were always classics. Blair was the star of the TV charades game ‘Give Us A Clue’, and Humph commented “Not many people knew that Lionel was subject to sudden mood swings. Doing ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, one moment Lionel could be feeling happy, the next he’d come all over grumpy.”

You can choose your own capitalisation.

I suspect the hand of Barry Cryer in a lot of what he said. But Humph’s delivery was impeccable. I can’t imagine ‘Clue’ without him. They will have to can the show. What a shame. The best 30 minutes on radio, ever.

I went to see his jazz band when I was about 17, in an effort to extend my musical horizons beyond Bobby Vee. He announced one number as something like ‘Vivada Svoboda’ and went on to say “This is a Yugoslav hora, a folk song in successive bars of 5/4, 7/4 and 9/4 tempos. Not, as some of you are thinking, a dirty old Yugoslav.”

Maybe Barry didn’t write them all.

If you’re lucky enough to have a fotoLibra calendar open on your desk as you read this, glance over at ‘April — come he will.’

Oh my goodness how prescient I was when I designed that calendar! Our lovely old golden retriever Padi was still alive, and I had no idea that in April 2008 a new golden retriever, codenamed GR3 (for our 3rd golden retriever) would come into our lives.

But as I write this there’s 6.25 kilos (nearly a stone) of warm, furry 8 week old puppy asleep on my feet.

Welcome to Milo. He arrived Saturday, only sick twice in the car on his journey from Southampton, and settled in pretty much straight away. The cats have made themselves scarce, but Bembo has come up to the office and eyeballed him severely this morning.

HE IS SO CUTE! And he’s been a really good boy. He sleeps right through the night and we’ve only had three accidents. So far.

I’m afraid you will be getting fairly constant updates.

Enjoy!

Today is April 23rd, St. George’s Day.

St. George is the patron saint of England (and Dalmatia, Catalonia, Georgia and so on).

It should clearly be a bank holiday in England (as should St. David’s Day in Wales and St. Andrew’s Day in Scotland) but it isn’t.

In fact 37% of Brits in a recent YouGov poll had no idea when St. George’s Day was.

But they did know what they associated with England. Here’s the list in order:
The Monarchy
Fish & Chips
Shakespeare
Roast Beef
Cricket
Pint of bitter
Red rose
Cream teas
Stately homes
Imperial past
Overcrowding
Morris dancing
Bluebells
Warrior race
Chicken tikka masala

So what do I, a London Welshman, think about this list? It’s pretty much spot on, old bean, except I’d probably put the English language at the top of the list.

Now here’s my take on Scotland:
Haggis
Kilts
Bagpipes
Whisky
Scottish Baronial architecture
Parsimony

And Ireland:
Shamrocks
Guinness
Green
Fighting
Drink
Rain

And my beloved Wales:
Chapels
Rugby
Daffodils
Fair play
Choirs
Welsh language

There’s a list of national stereotypes, eh? I’ll be done for racism if I don’t watch out. Notice there’s no mention of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger wirtschaftswunder, modern Scottish architecture or Wales’s position at the hub of the digital universe (I wish). Tourists don’t come to see our jolly politicians, the multi-cultural celebrations of Britain’s immigrants or our busy daily lives, they come to see our heritage.

And that’s what comes to mind first of all.