Archive for the ‘obituary’ Category
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
1. Charles I – who was beheaded on 30 January 1649. The execution was at Whitehall in London. At the very least, the current British royal family need to be completely stripped of their titles and wealth – although there are those who think it would also be a good idea to behead, hang, or shoot them!
2. Cleopatra VII Philopator is by tradition said to have committed suicide on 12 August 30 BC by inducing a snake to give her a poisonous bite. She was following in the footsteps of her bigamous husband Mark Anthony, who topped himself after losing the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC. Regardless of quibbles over the exact details of Cleopatra’s death, it marked the ultimate demise of the Pharaoh royal parasites in ancient Egypt.
3. Louis XVI – beheaded by guillotine at Place de la Révolution in Paris on 21 January 1793. This was an event that dealt a body blow to royal parasites in France.
4. Diana, Princess of Wales – who was fatally injured in a car crash in the Ponte de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris on 31 August 1997. It is unfortunate that her ex Prince Charles – current heir to the British throne – didn’t die with her!
5. Frederick, Prince of Wales – who died from a burst abscess in the lung on 20 March 1751 at Leicester House in London – nearly a decade before his scumbag father George II. There are, of course, millions around the world hoping that the arch-reactionary slimeball Prince Charles will follow in Frederick’s footsteps and drop down dead right now!
6. Nicholas II of Russia was condemned to death and then shot by Yakov Yurovsky shortly after 2.00 am on the morning of 17 July 1918. There is little in Bolshevism to be praised but getting rid of the Russian royal parasites was definitely one of its better ideas – much of the Russian royal family was shot at the same time as Nicholas II.
7. King Dipendra of Nepal – who shot himself with an AK 47 after going postal and murdering nine of his family of parasites at a house in the grounds of the Narayanhity Royal Palace on 1 June 2001. Among those Dipendra shot to death were his mother and father – King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya. Dipendra, who after shooting himself outlived his parents for three days, only got to be ruler while in a coma – making for a delightfully short reign!
8. Princess Grace of Monaco – who died in hospital on 14 September 1982, the day after suffering a stroke that caused her to lose control of her car and suffer serious injuries after it plunged down the side of a mountain.
9. George I of Greece – shot in the back by the anarchist assassin Alexandros Schinas at the White Tower in the city of Thessaloniki on 18 March 1913. Like Bolshevism, anarchism doesn’t have much to offer the working class, but Schinas’s practical opposition to monarchy and aristocracy is something with which most people will have some sympathy.
10. Queen Elizabeth II. Okay so she ain’t dead yet but there are millions of us in the UK looking forward to seeing the back of this particular royal parasite! But don’t forget kids, we still need to strip the entire British royal family of their titles and wealth!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Alexandros Schinas, assassination, Battle of Actium, beheading, bizarre deaths, British royal family, Charles I, Cleopatra, funny deaths, George I, George II, going postal, House of Windsor, King Birendra, King Dipendra, Leicester House, London, Louis XVI, Mark Anthony, Narayanhity Royal Palace, Nicholas II, Paris, Pharaoh, Place de la Révolution, Ponte de l'Alma, Prince Charles, Prince Frederick, Princess Diana, Princess Grace, Queen Aishwarya, Queen Elizabeth II, royalty, suicide, Thessaloniki, White Tower of Thessaloniki, Whitehall, Yakov Yurovsky
Posted in humour, obituary, politics | 22 Comments »
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
This morning I received several emails about the death from cancer of Steven Wells. Swells was best known as a music hack and was the dominant figure at the New Musical Express for much of the eighties and nineties. While he was at the NME, Swells was always prepared to go out on a limb with an opinion to support off-beat bands and writers. It was Swells who penned the infamous quote about Will Self and me that both AK and Do-Not Press used as a blurb on my books:
“Stewart Home’s sperm’n'blood-sodden scribblings make Will Self’s writings read like the self-indulgent dribblings of a sad Oxford junkie trying to sound hard.”
This quote really rattled and angered Self. Swells knew exactly what he was doing; he wanted to help me find a larger audience and this soundbite created a big stir. And I wasn’t the only person Swells pushed in this way, he did it for a legion of people. He was very loyal and if he though what you did was worthwhile, extremely vocal in his attempts to create space for you in an overcrowded cultural arena. Swells wanted to make things happen, he wasn’t interested in passively reporting cultural and other news.
Swells was a laugh to be around and you could always count on him for a good argument too! His essentially Trotskyist stance rubbed up against my left-communist positions with at times explosive results. Nonetheless, the biggest blow-up we ever had occurred when I said I didn’t like the film Apocalypse Now, and Swells insisted it was impossible for me not to like Apocalypse Now. What followed was a good humoured and thoroughly enjoyable ding-dong; we were sitting in a cafe on Beak Street and some of the other customers seemed worried our disagreement would end in fisticuffs, they didn’t understand we were friends with passionate but opposed opinions. Such differences never stopped us working together. Swells brought me in as an extra on some of his GobTV/Pig Productions pop videos, and also put out ‘my’ novel Whips & Furs: My life as a bon-vivant, gambler and love rat ‘by’ Jesus H. Christ on his short lived Attack Books (co-run with Tommy Udo).
Although Swells initially made his name as a poet, his real strength was as a stream-of-consciousness prose writer. His book Tits-Out Teenage Terror Totty is a sustained assault on the idea of what the novel should be, and it is stuffed with his crazy word play – brilliant turns of phrase like ‘a pol potpurri’. After his move from London to the USA, Swells was writing for the Philadelphia Weekly, and you can find his final piece of writing for them and links to other pieces by him HERE.
I’ll miss Swells, although recently my contact with him was mainly via the links he’d email me to his articles as they appeared. My thoughts are, of course, with his wife and family.
Steven Wells born Swindon (England) 1960, spent much of his childhood in Bradford (England) and moved to London (England) as an adult, died from cancer Philadelphia (USA) 23 June 2009.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: AK Press, Attack Books, Do-Not Press, Jesus H. Christ, New Musical Express, NME, Philadelphia Weekly, Steven Wells, Swells, Tits-Out Teenage Terror Totty, Tommy Udo, Whips & Furs: My life as a bon-vivant gambler and love rat, Will Self
Posted in counterculture, music, obituary | 31 Comments »
Monday, May 25th, 2009
In the past couple of days I’ve found some more online pieces about the death of Chris Gray. I’ve also come across blog talk of a Guardian obituary that was supposed to appear on 21 May; there is no sign of it yet but I guess this may still materialise. The most comprehensive obit so far is by Charlie Radcliffe who was very close to Chris in the 1960s, had little contact with him for more than 30 years after that, then rekindled this intimate friendship seven years ago. Among the many interesting observations Charlie makes at The Void are the following:
“The Acid, published under the pseudonym of Sam by Vision Press this year, is as much a contribution to the politics of the new millennium as it is to psychedelic exploration… For Chris there was precious little contradiction between the one and the other and he saw The Acid as a rational and entirely logical development of his 60s and 70s political agenda… Chris continued his political life through the late 60s, before moving to India in 1969 to join Osho. Chris’ interesting account of this period of his life is in Osho (also by Sam!) His ‘retreat’ to India earned him the opprobrium of the ‘politically committed’ but a close reading of the book is enough to indicate that Chris never turned his back on his political convictions…”
Like Chariie, I can confirm that Chris remained ‘politically committed’ and that the revolutionary transformation of society was the focus of many of his conversations with me and a couple of other people I introduced him to. One time when I was rapping with Chris, he told me the reason he went to India was to finance the revolution. He journeyed east with the explicit intention of mailing dope back to London, so that this could be sold to raise money for political activities. Some gear was intercepted before the post office delivered it to its intended recipient, when Chris got wind of this he delayed his return home. He hadn’t planned on staying away from London as long as he did, but once the British authorities had marked his card, he faced a simple choice between living in India until the heat cooled off or being busted. This enforced stay in the east led Chris to an involvement with Buddhism and ultimately Osho. To the best of my knowledge, Charlie is right to say Chris left for India in 1969, but I would stress it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that he came across Osho (AKA Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). To clarify further, my impression is that Chris had a period back in London after his first Indian trip before returning there and involving himself with Osho.
While I was aware that Chris had a long term involvement with Osho, this wasn’t something that came up in my conversations with him. Nonetheless, Osho was a major part of Chris’ life and an obit appeared on the Sannyas News site on 17 May 2009. This post opens with the following observation: “The main founder of the Sannyasnews website, Swami Paritosh (Chris Gray), usually known as Pari, and who for writing purposes used the pseudonym “Sam”, died in the London Hampstead Marie Curie Hospice (Eden Hall) last Thursday morning (May 14th). He had put up a brave struggle with cancer over the last 12 months. He was 67.”
A few more posts about Chris’ death can be found on the History Is Made At Night, Boredom Is Always Counter-Revolutionary and Artosphere blogs. If you want to read Life of Osho by Chris Gray there is a free download available online. New and used paperback copies of Life of Osho by Sam (Sannyas, London 1997) are still readily available and carry the following International Standard Book Numbering: ISBN-10: 0953153401 and ISBN-13: 978-0953153404; since you can get a new copy for £10, avoid the used book dealers who are charging £25 and more for it. Although I’m not convinced Osho or any other guru is worth following, I still found this book really interesting for the overtly political reading Chris gives of Bhagwan’s teachings, and for the brief account he provides of his own ‘kamikaze’ drug smuggling of the early eighties. The other book Chris wrote as Sam, The Acid: On Sustained Experiment with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD, was officially published by Vision Press about six weeks ago but no copies appear to have been commercially distributed yet. The Acid carries the following International Standard Book Numbers: ISBN-10: 0956204902 and ISBN-13: 978-0956204905. I assume copies will become available in due course.
Christopher Nelson Gray, born 22 May 1942 in London; grew up in Crosby, Liverpool, and raised by his grandmother. Educated at Repton. Died in London on 14 May 2009.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Boredom Is Always Counter-Revolutionary, Buddhism, Charles Radcliffe, Charlie Radcliffe, Chris Gray, Christopher Gray, Christopher Nelson Gray, Crosby, drug smuggling, Eden Hall, Guardian, Hampstead, History Is Made At Night, India, King Mob, Life of Osho, Liverpool, London, Marie Curie Hospice, north London, Osho, Repton, Sam, Sannyas News, Situationist International, Situationists, Swami Paritosh, The Acid: On Sustained Experiment with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD, The Void, Vision Press
Posted in counterculture, obituary, politics | 76 Comments »
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
I just got an email from Charlie Radcliffe telling me that Chris Gray died last Thursday morning (14 May 2009). Chris is probably best known for his brief membership of the Situationist International and being one of the key figures in the Notting Hill (west London) based King Mob. Chris was the editor and translator of the first English language anthology of French Situationist texts Leaving The 20th Century: The incomplete works of the Situationist International (1974), a book that over a long period was to have an enormous impact.
I got to know Chris around 2002 when I was researching the life of my mother Julia Callan-Thompson. At that time Chris had been ill with hepatitis c for some years, but it didn’t stop him from getting out on the streets to join anti-war and other demonstrations. He was extremely upbeat about the ongoing possibilities for the revolutionary transformation of society, and never complained about his illness. Chris told me several times he felt really sorry for those who got hep c from blood transfusions etc.; his attitude was that despite becoming ill from needle sharing, at least he’d had and enjoyed the smack that went with it.
When I saw Chris it was usually at his spartan flat in New Court, Hampstead. For health reasons, he was dividing his time between London and Cornwall. Despite the minimal decor in his London pad, Chris was really hospitable and always cooked for visitors. He viewed both me and his own daughter Mob as numbering among what he humorously referred to as ‘the lost children of Ladbroke Grove’. The first time I visited Chris, he told me he’d been aware of what I’d been doing for a long time, and said it was a shame we hadn’t met before because we had so much in common; viz, shared political and cultural interests alongside his acquaintance with my mother. Nonetheless, Chris hadn’t known my mother nearly as well as two of his former partners did in the late-sixties and early-seventies; both Brenda Grevelle and Hazel Gray saw her more much more regularly than he did back then.
During the years I knew Chris he was working on a book about LSD, and he seemed particularly curious about his own mother’s medical treatment with this drug in the 1950s. There is no need to repeat here the many anecdotes about Chris that have led some to view him as legendary, you can find them elsewhere but obviously not everything that has been written about him can be described as strictly factually accurate. Suffice to say I found Chris great company and appreciated him for his sharp mind. Rapping with him really brought home for me the fact that his translations of Situationist texts were intended to have an effect on the political climate of Britain and America; he was not aiming for the dry pseudo-objectivity of an academic.
Some of the lines that most impressed me when I first read the translations Chris made from French were his interpolations; added because he wanted to ensure these incendiary Situationist tracts worked for an Anglo-American audience. My absolute favourite among them is in his translation of On The Poverty Of Student Life. Here he threw in something along the lines of: “If the anarchists will tolerate each other they will tolerate anyone…” Chris assured me this addition was based on a throwaway line of conversation the pamphlet’s author Mustapha Khayati had tossed at him, he’d merely substituted ‘anarchists’ for ‘English’.
To the best of my knowledge, Hazel Gray died many many years ago. But Chris was still in close contact with Brenda Grevelle when I knew him. So my thoughts are with her and their daughter Mob.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Brenda Grevelle, Charles Radcliffe, Charlie Radcliffe, Chris Gray, Christopher Gray, Hampstead, Hazel Gray, hepatitis c, heroin, Julia Callan-Thompson, King Mob, Ladbroke Grove, Leaving The 20th Century: The incomplete works of the Situationist International, London, LSD, Marie Grevelle, Mustapha Khayati, New Court, north London, Notting Hill, On The Poverty Of Student Life, Situationist International, Situationists, smack, west London
Posted in counterculture, obituary, politics | 40 Comments »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Is David Seabrook dead? This is a question I’ve heard again and again in the past two days. What started as a trickle of email and phone call rumour yesterday, had by today turned into a flood of conversation. The first message was from true crime author Neil Milkins: “Are you able to tell me if David Seabrook has died. I have had an email saying he died January 2009.” When Cathi Unsworth contacted me about Seabrook today, I was able to trace the rumour mill carrying this story back through a network of my friends via novelist David Peace to film director Paul Tickell. So I called Paul to get the story.
Paul Tickell told me David Seabrook, age 48, had died around 18 January 2009. On that day, Seabrook had told his closest friend Nigel Pittam that he’d been suffering from pains in his arms and chest. Pittam rang Seabrook the next day to see how he was feeling but couldn’t get a reply. He knew Seabrook had an appointment with an optician so he called on the eye specialist to see if his friend had kept it. He hadn’t. Pittam then went to Seabrook’s flat at 2 Westside Apartments, Station Road West, Canterbury, CT2 8AN. When he knocked at the door he got no reply, so he went to the police. Either the cops or Pittam phoned Seabrook’s parents who gave them permission for a break-in. Having got into the flat, Pittam and the old bill found Seabrook dead in bed, he’d apparently suffered a heart attack. It appears there were no suspicious circumstances.
Tickell got to know Seabrook when he was pitching a TV documentary on the unsolved Jack The Stripper murders (not made), and they subsequently stayed in touch, mainly by telephone, with the crime writer making long calls to the film director at odd hours. After a while the timing of the calls became more predictable; settling into a routine of usually being after 9pm on a Sunday night. Tickell was away in the US filming a TV documentary about work place murder sprees when Seabrook died. A week or two later he received a phone call from his friend John Fitzpatrick who lives in Canterbury and teaches in the Law Department at the University of Kent. During the conversation, Fitzpatrick mentioned a report in a local paper about the death of a ‘controversial’ writer called David Seabrook. Tickell drew a blank from web searches but phoning around got the story I’ve repeated above.
I can’t say I got on with Seabrook. When I was doing research into my mother’s life there proved to be some cross-over between the people I was contacting about her, and those Seabrook was talking to about the Jack The Stripper murders. Various people told me that Seabrook had asked them not to talk to me because I was ‘encroaching’ on his patch. Obviously virtually everyone but Seabrook found this ridiculous. I was interested in my own family history, and had no intention of attempting to solve the Jack The Stripper murders. While Seabrook devoted some space in his subsequent book Jack Of Jumps to my mother’s friend and love rival Trina Simmonds – as background material on 1960s London prostitutes – he appeared to know very little about Simmonds, her subsequent evolution or the beatnik scene to which both she and my mother, Julia Callan-Thompson, belonged. When I met Seabrook I didn’t like him, and when I read his book Jack Of Jumps I thought it sucked. You can read my review of that here.
Seabrook published his first two crime books with Granta, and then jumped ship to Faber and Faber where his new editor was Neil Belton. Seabrook’s editor at Granta was George Miller. At the time of his death, Seabrook was researching a book on the life and mysterious suicide of showbiz lawyer David Jacobs. If Seabrook had completed this book it would have been the third to bear his name, and his first work for Faber. Rumour has it that Seabrook had obtained copies of various Jack The Stripper scene of crime photos that should have been destroyed, but apparently someone had hung onto them thinking they’d be worth money one day. What will become of the photos (if they exist) and unfinished book is currently unclear. Seabrook appeared to me to be a lonely figure who seemingly lived much of his life vicariously via the telephone. He was unable to forge close friendships with anyone active in the culture industry. That is why news of his death has spread so slowly. Many of those who’ve asked me about his death in the past few days didn’t like him, and some seem to feel a little guilty about that, although I don’t see why they should. He is survived by both his parents. I guess everyone’s thoughts are with them, losing a child is a very tough form of bereavement. Seabrook’s funeral was at at Barham Crematorium on 4 February.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Barham Crematorium, Canterbury, Cathi Unsworth, David Jacobs, David Peace, David Seabrook, Faber and Faber, George Miller, Granta, Jack Of Jumps, Jack The Stripper, John Fitzpatrick, Julia Callan-Thompson, Neil Belton, Neil Milkins, Nigel Pittam, Paul Tickell, Trina Simmonds
Posted in books, obituary, True crime | 19 Comments »