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Richard O'Sullivan

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The wiki entry on his DITH co-star Barry Evans is interesting

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Evans

 

One wonders if DITH was cursed. After 'Mind Your Language' it seems reasonable to suggest that Barry Evans got his just desserts. Nedwell died young and Dickie, alas, is not the man he was.

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Slight update gleaned from elsewhere. Our blessed Dickie attended a Brinsworth House fundraiser in London recently. In fine fettle apparently, though has short-term memory problems (then again, don't we all... or maybe that's just me) and was walking with a stick. Looks a bit old for his age but otherwise fine.

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The wiki entry on his DITH co-star Barry Evans is interesting

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Evans

I used to quite fancy Barry Evans when I was a kid. I remember when he died my university were doing a community radio thing and I had to do the obit as everyone else was a bit young to remember 'Mind Your Language'. Very odd circumstances surrounding his death; I guess what with the coroner giving an open verdict we'll never truly know what happened or why.

 

If anyone has that Daily Mail article re Evans' bisexuality/crush on Lionel Blair I wouldn't mind a butchers at it as I don't think I saw it at the time.

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oh, and laura palmer ain't nowhere near as cool as mr king, pooka...

 

Well spotted pulphack. Alas you are right about Laura - I have sealed the body bag and will use The Tall Man while I await further inspiration.

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oh, and laura palmer ain't nowhere near as cool as mr king, pooka...

 

Well spotted pulphack. Alas you are right about Laura - I have sealed the body bag and will use The Tall Man while I await further inspiration.

 

Ahh yes the tall man! An ancient drawing of mine. He wears a suit and carries a breif case. He must be around 8 ft tall.

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There's a few of those weird, spectoral, non-speaking roles for the terminally pale skinned in horror and psychological horror movies. You never know, if Dickie ever 'works' again such a role might suit him.

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a good idea - actually, if you check out 'the haunted house of horror' (tigon 1968 and on the tigon box set from anchor bay) you'll see that he was quite pale and spectral back then, so it'd be a return to his roots.

 

and is MATH a psychological horror all of its own? discuss...

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Pulphack, first off, respect on yer 50 posts!

 

Secondly - and apologies if this has already been covered somewhere in the vast tonnage of Dickie O' meanderings - but if you're a genuine pulp hack, can't you, like, get into Brinsworth House and bring us an exlcusive on our hero. By the few accounts posted here he's remarkably chipper for a 60 odd year old surrounded by living fossils, I'll bet he's enough of a luvvie to be up for a bit of banter.

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don't think i haven't thought of it - but i'm not a journo, i'm a paperback pulp hack. so i'd have to offer to write his biography... i'm not sure he'd be keen by the sound of it, besides finding a publisher to back me up might be difficult. he's not famous enough or cult enough (steady, i DID spell it right), and doesn't have enough infamy or topicality. now if he shagged jade...

 

thanks for the congrats on reaching 50 - i hadn't noticed til you pointed it out!

 

also, i think league 2 is entirely yours. and if we beat grimsby next monday we're in the driving seat for automatic promotion ourselves!

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Pulphack; my work takes me in and out of London regularly and I'd welcome the chance to arrange a visit around the away fixture and the rapidly improving Brisbane Road. See you then, or maybe not, since that'd mean you joining the 'away' supporters.

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ok, have pm'd you on this. but i've been thinking about dickie - uh, let me rephrase that - i've been pondering mr o'sullivan. havin a quick look back at the thread, it seems like he is at least informed about our interest. maybe he would be interested in a biog, as he covers a period that is retro hot at the moment, and he may have a few stories to tell. a line to brinsworth house may be in order.

 

incidentally, on the subject of retro hot - the krankies have published an autobiography! can't wait for that to hit the remainder shops. it probably isn't, but it SHOULD be way weird...

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Re the Dickie book (arf arf) given the small number of books you need to break even on a print run these days it's got to be economical. Hell, we had a Carlilsle United book last Christmas and there's another one due in August. If they can make money Dickie O certainly can, the final chapter could be 'The Deathlist Years.'

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the problem here is not the number of units you need to break even per se: with laser printing, it's gotten ridiculously small, so anyone can produce a book (john mackie - my glory fruit'n'veg year at the o's). however, it's the amount you spend on publicity, the amount you pay to the biographer/ghost, and the amount you pay to the celeb involved if it's a ghosted title. oh, and the photos if they don't come from cheap archives or the celeb's own collection. there are dubious ways round this (i know of one small publisher who does film books, makes out they have a huge collection of transparencies, and justs scans them from other books hoping they won't get caught out), but it depends on the publisher.

 

having had one very iffy experience with ghosting years ago, i have to say that i wouldn't risk my sanity unless the publisher was willing to cough. i dare say dickie's a nice enough guy, but there are always things that are contentious. that's when you console yourself with the advance!

 

and again, where could you sell it? if it's a cult celeb, then can you get overseas and translation deals? ok, so with the net a lot of people would just google and amazon it, but the foreign rights advances are music to the publisher's ears.

 

with carlisle, everyone was up for it and you'd have a guaranteed sale (paul simpson's mum, karl hawley's granny, etc). dickie is a bit of a shot in the dark - unless they could flog serial rights in advance to a tabloid.

 

you can tell i'm trying to work out a strategy even as i type...

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Aye Pulphack, I'm aware of many of the above issues. Obviously since those gits sued me claiming I nicked the plot for my best selling Da Vinci Code.....well anyway. It'd live or die by whether he was willing to talk, if he had stories and inside information on decades of making films with Elizabeth Taylor and sit coms with Tessa Wyatt you might have something. There are a few television stars of the past still alive who never had books dedicated to them because at the time they were too busy and/or publishing was ridiculously expensive. Couldn't hurt to run it past yer agent....could it?

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i'm 'between' agents at the moment... though hopefully that'll be sorted after easter. i do know someone who might be interested, but first step is brinsworth itself, and the great man, which i shall get on to this week. although i've almost convinced myself that a book on john 'the elbow' mackie would be a better bet...

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Pulphack

 

Dunno about that John Mackie book. What if you agreed the deal and he broke both legs or moved away? The two recent Carlisle books are Mick Mitchell's second in his 'legends' series, i.e. he talks to great players from a range of teams and therefore sells his work to an audience including those who don't go anymore, and Neil Nixon's 'Singin' the Blues' a kind of Fever Pitch for lower league fans. Both have the advantage of being books about more than the current teams and teaching everyone from the hardened fans to the newcomers something they didn't know, therefore; they sell.

 

Just sayin' like. If the market Leyton Orient books hasn't yet seen your equivalent of the above there may well be cash waiting for a pulphack with the dedication to get the words down.

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if john smackie broke any legs, they wouldn't be his own; the dirtiest player i've seen for a long time, and an ace diver (got two players sent off in separate games last season by faking being elbowed in the face) yet a cult hero. go figure... as it happens, there are some orient books, and they sell badly as all us east londoners want to do is moan about how crap we are, even though we're going up. the old north terrace was the worst, although it had its advantages. i once missed a goal because i was discussing nurse with wound and current 93 with some bloke standing behind me, and i also heard the priceless 'i'll go a long way, but i won't buy a Vibrators live single...'

 

but you're right about angling the books for current and past fans - there's a geezer from the 80's punk band Picture Frame Seduction who does the same thing for Swansea (do old punx talk about music? no, they talk about football!).

 

the problem with non-fiction is that you have to do research - i'm too bloody lazy, write fiction and make it up as i go along. which, come to think of it, might suit dear dickie (and i'm back on topic. aw thangyew...)

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i once missed a goal because i was discussing nurse with wound and current 93 with some bloke standing behind me,

 

 

 

Now I'm worried. I'm seeing legions of Orient fans singing along to Whitehouse, Coil being played as the teams run on the pitch and Throbbing Gristle as half-time entertainment . Tell me it's not like that!

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Now I'm worried. I'm seeing legions of Orient fans singing along to Whitehouse, Coil being played as the teams run on the pitch and Throbbing Gristle as half-time entertainment . Tell me it's not like that!

It's not like that. I presume (hope) you can still enjoy Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass.

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It's not like that, Orient is a club in transition. The crumbling old facade is being replaced by a modern stand and flats. At the moment half the ground looks like it belongs in the 21st century and half looks like it belongs in the 1950s. Fitting music would be something futuristic with a throwback element.

 

Man or Astro-Man maybe?

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Leyton Orient and Carlisle? Hmph, everyone knows that Exeter City are the sleeping giants of

British football!

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One a quick straw poll round at mine - me, two kids and the cat - the votes for sleeping giant of British football were one each for:

 

- Wolves

- Sheffield Wednesday

and

- Nottingham Forest

 

The cat has yet to comment although she's not been known to show much interest in Exeter City.

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sleeping is the word, although the mighty alex inglethorpe may yet reawaken the slumbering beast. he was one of ours, too, y'know. anyway, the only kind of transition orient is in involves the transfer of vast amounts of cash from LOFC to Matchroom - allegedly, i hasten to add. there are dark rumours about where the money from the flats might end up. certainly, my fave O's rumour involves Hearn buying the club to build a new south stand that incorporated a boxing hall so that he could nick the matches from york hall and frank warren, thus grabbing the sky contract. except he didn't grease the right palms and so we ended up with a teeny stand and a very big car park. all conjecture, of course.

 

and despite the transitional phase, we still get the theme from the A-team and quo's rocking all over the world when we win. don't know about tijuana taxi anymore - only been a couple of times this season due to family stuff and work, and have been in the east stand bar when they run out!

 

the old north terrace was very alt/indie/punky - lots of people bonding over nww, etc, and also trying to blag freebies from ian who owns damaged goods records and was a season ticket holder. well, it was bettre than the football under tommy taylor and paul brush... actually, just to get a little bit back on topic, the most surreal; insult i ever heard was when we played southend after brush was sacked and joined those essex scum as coach. it was during a period when we could win games against them without scoring (o.g. a speciality). when they went one-down, some geezer yelled 'that'll teach you to go out with my sister, brush you c**t'.

 

the cone of silence as those around tried to work out the complex family dynamics was awesome to behold.

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In my youth I was a teacher for a while and Alex Inglethorpe was a student at the school I taught at....

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