Monday, December the 13th, 2004

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Two Important Birthdays

In spite of that little grumble in today's first item, never let Hooting Yard be accused of being out of touch with popular culture. It's just that we're discriminating in what we pay attention to. Today, for example, we celebrate the double birthday of not just one of the finest male voice icons in twentieth century cinema, but two.

Christopher Plummer is 77 today, and decades have passed since his bizarre, strangulated, bird-like squawkings as Atahualpa in The Royal Hunt Of The Sun. I have spent hours upon hours trawling the internet to find out if a Plummermaniac has posted sound samples from the film, but to no avail. Happy birthday, Atahualpa.

Born on the same day two years before Plummer was Dick Van Dyke, the man who invented cockney, or possibly mockney, or whatever that accent was that he used to such powerful effect in Mary Poppins. Chim chim cheroo indeed. One little-known fact about Dick, possibly because it is entirely spurious, is that he signed a multibillion dollar deal to allow his initials to be used by the manufacturers of DVD technology. At one point, the now-ubiquitous discs were going to be called EVDs, because Chariots Of The Gods? author and wag Erich Von Daniken was asking for less money for his initials. The full story is told in Chimney Sweep Versus Spaceman : A Gripping Thriller Of The Business World, available from all good airports.