It was with real sadness that I heard the news of Keith Floyd's death at just 65, although judging by the recent pictures he had obviously lived a lot of life in those seven decades.
I was pursued, not quite relentlessly it should be admitted, by Keith Floyd during my second year of university, and his first attempted pick-up was so surreal and humorous (at the time, guys, at the time) that it led to myself and my best friend being ejected from a Modern Tutorial for laughing. I am obviously going to bore you with the story here.
I was in the newly opened French Brasserie in Park Street, Bristol, dressed to the nines at 11 o'clock in the morning (don't ask, the look involved tailored shorts) because that afternoon's tutorial was with the sex-god-Tom-Mason. Timeline 1983, I reckon. Whilst drinking my cappuccino (it was the days before lattes) the waiter walked over with a Creme de Menthe Frappe in your classic American cocktail glass. My first student thought was "I didn't order that and I can't pay for it", but my protestations were met by a French-accented "It was sent by the gentleman over there, and he asks if you would join him?"
I scanned, and my gaze locked onto .... well, the ageing roue in the corner, who beckoned me. With his finger. Reader, I did not join him, or drink his bloody minty cocktail either. On recreating the event in the aforementioned tutorial, it was the choice of drink he sent over that so flummoxed me. Did I look like a Creme de Menthe Frappe sort of girl? Was he attempting to appear sophisticated? Was he attempting to appear unsophisticated? I never did figure it out, and I wonder still.
Another couple of encounters were met with my blank refusals, due to age, marital status and general roue-ness, and then, having burnt my Keith Floyd bridges, doesn't the bugger appear on national television with Floyd on Fish and become a minor sensation. I saw him a couple of years later in the regulation light-coloured Roller/Bentley/Mercedes with the new wife, of the tall, long-blonde-hair-big-boned variety, and thought ........ well, you can guess.
But this meeting people just before the cusp of their fame is a leitmotif of my life.
My absolute favourite occurred in an Indian Restaurant in Bristol. Someone tried to leave without paying, and a minor altercation involving staff and knives ensued, all witnessed by customers. None of whom wanted to admit they saw anything, or make a statement (as usual). I arrived back, having deposited knives and suspected offenders at the station, and picked on the table of four who had been closest to the action, two of which were fairly nerd-ish looking twin red-headed Scottish boys. I homed in on the one wearing glasses (my memory is definitely that only one of them was wearing glasses). Even though I couldn't actually understand a word he said and, I suspect, vice versa, he cracked and I spent the next hour or so taking a statement from him. Although initially grumpy, he and the other three soon loosened up and whilst chatting between the evidence gathering told me they were in a band. I undoubtedly replied "Oh, that's nice" or some such, and never even asked the name. I swear less than three months later "Letter from America" was in the charts and they were on Top of the Pops.
Here's to the good citizens that are The Proclaimers. Who are very much alive and appearing in Dumfries soon.
Finally, goodbye Patick Swayze too. I am one of the very few that has never seen Ghost, did not like Dirty Dancing (too big an age-gap between him and Baby for my liking) but thought him brill in Donnie Darko. His was a mullet to remember.
I did not, to the best of my knowledge, ever meet Patrick before he was famous.
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