Monday 20 December 2010

OLD MASTER

Nothing to do with the entry below, but a nice, artitstick bit of 'filth' is always acceptable, I find. Symbolic, too, innit?

The painting above is not the work of my best friend, Mike Molloy. If I had a picture of one of his pictures I'd put that up instead.
It would be better than Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who committed this one, but Mike steadfastly refuses to go in for soft porn. Dedicated, these artist chaps.
This blog entry is in praise of Mike, who will be 70 years old on Wednesday.

Interesting, that. People say, "Little Timmy is six years old," and so on, but when you are 70, 'old' is not a figure of speech. In a bit more than a month, I will, assuming I survive the holiday season, also reach that milestone.

Not that Mike allows himself time to be 'old.' Apart from being a successful painter, with exhibitions in gallerys in Bond Street and all, he has also written dozens of books and screenplays, and is regularly called on by newspapers and magazines to tell folks what's wrong with the world, and what's to be done about it. A respected and sought-after commentator in fact.

All this, after a glittering career in journalism, where he rose, like some hero of H.G.Wells or Arnold Bennett, from office boy to head of a mighty press empire, dragging me some way along in the process.
On the way, he was, for some years, the Editor of The Daily Mirror, when it was a paper one was proud to work for.
And he did all this on brains and ability. Apart from the Driving Test, he has never passed an exam in his life.

This is all very remarkable, but what, for me, is even more remarkable - is that, as far as I know, Mike does not have, and never has had, an enemy in the world. Being so good at everything you put your hand to usually has a way of pissing people off. Not so with Mike. Everybody likes him,including dogs. And dogs know.

True, Jeff Bernard used to get a bit snarky when in his cups, which was just about always, but in his rare sober moments spoke nothing but good of his boss and benefactor.
Mike will, doubtless not care much for this piece, being a modest, self-effacing kind of chap apaert from everything else, but it can't be helped, the world must be told.

And I will write no more on him until his 100th birthday.

1 comment:

FrereRabit said...

Glad to see you are bloguing again after a long gap with little on your blogue. Also pleased to see you have decided to jolly up your blogue with pictures of women with no clothes on. This, in my humble opinion, will warm our hearts more readily in this wintry season than pictures of greyhounds with no clothes on, standing in the snow on the camino.

See you soon. Straight off the Camino in winter. With clothes on.