Friday, October 19, 2007

Alan Coren

Really sad news this time - the death of Alan Coren, England's finest humorist by many a mile. After Peter Cook gave up and died, Coren was surely the funniest man in Britain - a superb comic writer, whose style was forged by prodigiously wide reading and an equally prodigious intellect, but was always entirely natural, and often killingly funny. And he kept on being funny - always the hardest part - over four decades and more. I remember reading him in Punch before I was even into my teens and being dazzled and astonished that anyone was writing like this (no one else was, especially in Punch). Later I crossed his path a few times, but knew him mostly at second hand. Anyway, it would make no difference if I'd never known him at all - he was one of those vanishingly rare people of whom you can truly say that his death leaves the world a sadder and a slightly darker place.

7 comments:

  1. What a loss.

    The Times web page that provides links to his columns is a regular stop of mine.

    The Times obit. can be found here:

    'The broadcaster and columnist Libby Purves said: ". . . He was a master of words and parody and style.

    '"He loved people and the absolute absurdity of life and he was one of the good, good guys.'

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  2. There’s little that can be added, except to say that I did know Alan, and I can verify that he was indeed a gem of a man, of the sort whose number is dwindling frighteningly rapidly. He was also able to induce the sort of laughter that causes whiplash injury. Just knowing he was out there was a comfort. The world will be a harsher, spikier, and above all less funny place without him.
    Yours sadly, J Cheever Loophole

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  3. I didn't know him -- I know nobody -- but I will miss him greatly.

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  4. I used to confuse him with Ned Sherrin (I confuse everybody with somebody else). So strange they should die in the same month.

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  5. A gifted man. We are the poorer for his going.

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