Back in the saddle

I could say that I was waiting to get all available opinions on the Syrian crisis before commenting but that would be a lie.  I’ve just been burdened by other everyday constraints that life imposes upon us, not least distractions.  And, like speaking another language, it takes even more effort to return if it has been neglected and languishing in one’s life.

However, a few deaths of the prominent have shocked me recently, not just Sir David Frost who expired at the age only 74 last night but Elmore Leonard.  Of Leonard’s pantheon, I cannot claim to be a master but I remember reading his words as they alternated between the velvety and the crackling and one just felt the plotting and characterisation envelop you like a warm, honeyed shower.  He mastered the knack of finishing a book in a way that made you want to read another of his.

Sir David is a big figure on both sides of the Atlantic, mastering the political interview, beginning with breakout success in making Richard Nixon apologise to the American people.  Of course, he started out with That Was The Week That Was, but this has dated badly.  It is what would now be called sixth-form humour – in many ways quite gauche.  It happens to much contemporary comedy, even when one is a student of the era.  But not to all.  The original The Manchurian Candidate had a big reveal at the end that stuck a metaphorical dagger into Richard Nixon and was an audacious piece of satire.  Nixon though had the last laugh before the 1960s were out in assuming the presidency.  Appointing worthless vice-presidents in a bid against being deposed (believing people would prefer the frying pan to the fire), he was eventually forced out, but he still had a formidable power base.  His interview series with the plain Mr David Frost was meant to be his comeback.  Watchingn, it seemed he almost achieved it, but Frost pulled it out of the bag in the last of the four interviews.  The film Frost/Nixon (based on the play) plays a little loose with the words Nixon said but captured the drama well.  Frost was thereafter feted as the arch TV cross-examiner.  Of course, some of my abiding memories of him are as anchor on Through the Keyhole as the whole phenomenon of nosing around other houses took off - one particular house belonging to nature presenter Chris Packham (recently on I Love My Country) being fumigated by the nasal tones of Loyd Grossman.  I can't specifically remember any hard-hitting interviews he did in later life but he had a presence that was inescapable. Eventually, he left the BBC to go to Auntie’s former offshoot al-Jazeera and that was the last I had heard of him.  So while he seemed to have left the public scene, it still is sad to hear that he is no more and such a comparatively young age.