Bill Hicks: the rip vip

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Feb 22, 2004 | by Alan Taylor

THE passage of time has not blunted the stiletto wit of Bill Hicks, who died 10 years ago this month from pancreatic cancer at the tender age of 32. Mr Hicks, who hailed from Houston, Texas, was for many years an adornment of the Edinburgh Fringe, endearing himself to audiences with his dedication to smoking and his first night greeting, "Good evening, Glasgow!"

Reflecting on the first Gulf war, when Dubya pere rode gallantly to the rescue of Kuwait's oil reserves before leaving hapless Iraqis to the mercy of Saddam, he observed: "People said, 'Iraq had the fourth-largest army in the world.' Yeah, maybe, but you know what? After the first three largest armies, there's a real big f***in' drop- off. The Hare Krishnas are the fifth-largest army in the world, and they've already got our airports."

Anniversary parties are planned in London and Belfast but not, surprisingly, here. A poor show for such a great showman.

Changed days for poetic injustice

THIS month also marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Scottish Poetry Library. It ought to be an occasion of great joy and intemperate celebration, but there is no indication of that on the library's website, with only a few meagre events listed and no feeling that this is an event worthy of haiku, hyperbole and hullabaloo. This is sad, not least because we are led to believe that we are living in a golden age of Scottish poetry, with Edwin Morgan named last week as the Scottish poet laureate and Don Paterson winning the Whitbread poetry prize a month ago.

How very different from when the library began, with a huge crowd gathered at St Cecilia's Hall in Edinburgh, a spate of whisky and cairns of vegetarian haggis, the first time such a dish had been sampled in public. If memory serves me right, the guests of honour were Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig and Naomi Mitchison, who had a combined age of a million. Mr MacCaig, who was too tall for his own good, took one look at me and said: "Who're you?" It is a question I have often asked myself since, never finding a satisfactory answer. We repaired to the North British, now the Balmoral, carrying a bottle of malt and some leftover sausage rolls. I requested glasses from a flunkey which were delivered by the manager, who asked if we were guests. On learning we were not, we were ejected, even the great MacCaig. So don't talk to me about prophets - or poets - without honour in their own land.

The Shadows come out of the darkness

FANTASTIC news: The Shadows have reformed. Younger readers may not be familiar with the group who had a string of hits in the 1960s and who, as Cliff Richard's backing group, deserve every sympathy we can afford them. For a long time The Shadows have remained in the, well, shadows, not least because Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch, the two key players, weren't on speaking terms. Instrumental - hah! - in bringing them back together is my old friend Roger Field who, among other things, invented The Foldaxe, a unique folding guitar. Persistent readers may recall thatMr Field's main claim to fame is his friendship with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he met in a Munich gym some 40 years ago and whom he taught to speak English, an awesome feat. Arnie repaid him by saying: "You will always be a zero." Which, however you look at it, is not very complimentary. In order to prove him wrong, Mr Field began soliciting mentions in the press. At the last count he had more than 2000 from all around the world. Every time he gets one he sends a copy to Herr Schwarzenegger. Why? "Because it irritates the hell out of him." I am delighted to contribute to such a worthwhile cause. PS: The Shadows are due in Scotland in May. Down boy!

Cook makes a meal of trimming down

HAUD the front page! Margaret Cook, formerly wife of Robin, is going through her "annual post-festive seasonal angst about trimming down". Ms Cook, who has abandoned the NHS for hackettedom, is clearly a wee bit slow on the uptake, given that the festive season ended a couple of months ago. "No longer does my lifestyle take care of shape and size without cerebral intervention," she writes, c/o Pseuds Corner. Having cerebrally intervened, she is determined to eat less and masticate more. Nobody should underestimate the effort this takes. "Chewing nuts," says Ms Cook, a rocket scientist, "needs some muscular effort." Ditto, apparently, dissecting bony fish, though goodness knows why you would want to. One feels jiggered just reading about it. "It makes you realise that we evolved to work quite hard at our eating," she explains, "so that the whole process becomes adipose neutral." I could not agree more. Simply change gear into adipose neutral and you, too, could be a Hootsmon columnist.

The chequesin the Mail

AND so to the Daily Mail, the rag which asks more questions than Anne Robinson and comes up with about as many correct answers. Such as, how did Private Eye get hold of a sackful of internal correspondence, mostly memos to and from Paul Dacre, the editor?