Postcards from…

This post has existed in my drafts folder since November 2019, and for four years has consisted of a title and a single line ‘Clive James died’. If this isn’t evidence of how distractable my mind is I don’t know what is. Tying it down is a continuous battle, like holding down a sheet in a force 9 gale.

Anyway, now that I’ve explained why I’m writing this now and not actually when he died (as you can tell I’m also compelled to fill in the full back story before proceeding with events), we can get on with it.

Clive James, who died just over four years ago as I write this, was the inspiration for the name of this blog. He had a dry wit and a way of expressing himself using just his eyebrows that I found hilariously funny. His description of Murray Walker (without whom Formula1 just hasn’t been the same) as “talking as if his trousers are on fire” is pure gold. I loved watching the Clive James Show, and his reviews of the year on New Year’s eve (complete with ‘Margarita Pracatan!’ and ‘Yasmin Arafat!’).

But it was his travelogues that inspired the name of this blog – the Clive James’s Postcard From… series. They were great, vignettes of places delivered with wit and self deprecating humour and several eyebrow raisings. What’s not to like about watching Clive navigate the newly re-unified Berlin in a shabby Trabi while forgetting he’s meant to drive on the right?

I liked the name – it suggested something short and concise, longer than a note, less demanding than an essay. So I used it too. Thanks Clive!