Since the last From The North bloggerisationisms update, a significant event has taken place in this blogger's personal life, dearest blog fiends. On 26 October, yer actual Keith Telly Topping hit sixty. Hard. I mean, really hard. A few years ago this milestone would have got him, at the very least, a free bus pass. These days, he doesn't even get that. Thank you, government - what did this blogger ever do to piss you off? (Rhetorical question, just in case anyone was wondering.)
Anyway, dear blog readers, in a somewhat belated celebration of this blogger's own personal diamond jubilee, here's a From The North Though For The Day.
This blog covered the release - and wholly surprising brilliance - of Hackney Diamonds in a previous From The North bloggerisationism update however, since then we have also seen a new record by The Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them) hit the shops. This blogger's initial thoughts were that it sounded more like a John Lennon solo song from Imagine or Mind Games than a Be-Atles song, per se (unsurprisingly perhaps since, in essence, it is). And, also, that it was a bit slight, both lyrically and in terms of the basic tune (that it was a chorus in search of some verses). But they've worked it jolly nicely, Giles Martin's strings are lovely and it sounds ... rather decent. Following a couple of days of hearing it virtually non-stop, however, it has grown on this blogger considerably (Peter Jackson's nostalgic video for the song certainly helped in that regard). The one thing that was missing from 'Now & Then' for this blogger, was a recognisable George Harrison moment. We all know he's on there, that the acoustic guitars at the start are him and Paul playing together but there's nothing that stands up and shouts 'Hey! George Harrison contribution here, if you please!' This blogger quite likes Macca's slide solo homage in a George-style(e), it's one of those 'if you close you eyes it could, almost be' moments. But, then again, they couldn't really do anything about that since George wasn't available to play it himself in 2023. Nevertheless, all that said, it's enjoyable for what it is. It's not 'Hey Jude' or 'Strawberry Fields Forever' or 'Yesterday' or 'Tomorrow Never Knows', but it was never going to be. Like 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love', this blogger doubts he'll be playing it once a month in preference to, say, something from The White Album. But, ultimately, it's ... nice. And that is both the best and worst this blogger can say about it. To paraphrase yer actual Sir Paul, 'It's the bloody Be-Atles, shut up!' There is, incidentally, a really fascinating interview that Giles Martin gave to Variety about producing 'Now & Then', which you can read here.
In related Be-Atles news, the popular beat combo of the 1960's two career retrospective LPs, 1962-66 and 1967-70 (otherwise known by just about everyone as The Red Album and The Blue Album) are being expanded and reissued next week. With both of The Fab Four's hits compilations celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries in 2023, the records have been remastered in Dolby Atmos and will include bonus material not featured on the 1973 releases. Of course, inevitably, just about everyone has at least one of their own favourite songs left off and queried the inclusion of something else in its place (the absence of 'Rain' seems to be the most complained about omission) but, as this blogger told his many Facebook fiends when the announcement was made: 'Not at all sure about the inclusion of 'I Want You' and the exclusion of 'Free As A Bird' (especially considering how good some amateur demix versions sound) and 'Real Love' but, otherwise, this blogger is struggling to find any fault with the new song line-up.'' And when one of this blogger's beast fiends, Christian, had a bit of a whinge about this being 'a missed opportunity' and questioned some of the selections, Keith Telly Topping slapped him down, hard: 'I've no idea what "opportunity" this was other than as an expanded "Best Of" collection. One can argue about individual songs. 'Within You Without You' deserves its place simply as an example of George's Indian phase which was an important part of the band for a year-and-a-half. If you're doing a "career retrospective" you do it properly and don't skip bits; that was always the problem with the original vinyl, if it had a problem - an under representation of certain really important parts of The Be-Atles oeuvre (Revolver most notably, their early cover versions, George's development as a songwriter, a couple of fine b-sides). Most of which have been at least touched upon in the new version. So, I'm with you on 'Rain', possibly with you on 'Glass Onion' but, otherwise, nah, you're wrong. Bigly wrong in yer bigly wrongness. So, just sit there in yer bigly wrongness being bigly wrong.' That's Keith Telly Topping, dearest bloggerisationism fiends. Hard, but fair.
Of course, the second that those were announced, it was inevitable that these would follow not very far behind. Is it, one wonders, too late for this blogger to change his CD order? After all, Dick Jaws needs a new pair of trousers. Shocked and stunned.
Speaking of things that kicked-off, big-style in 1963 and are celebrating an anniversary this year, that brings us with the strange inevitability of the inevitably strange to Doctor Who. The BBC's popular, long-running family SF drama (you might've heard of it). The BBC have now announced that the forthcoming trio of anniversary specials are set to premiere in the UK on BBC1 and iPlayer on Saturday 25 November, with episode two broadcast on 2 December and episode three on 9 December. The titles for all three episodes were revealed in a trailer released before the Eurovision Song Contest final on 13 May. The first special is entitled The Star Beast, the second is Wild Blue Yonder and the third The Giggle.
We will also see Ncuti Gatwa's first full episode as The Doctor 'over the festive period.' Filming on the Christmas special (directed by Mark Tonderai) started in February 2023, with locations in Bristol dressed in festive decorations. This marks the first Doctor Who Christmas special since 2017's Twice Upon A Time, with more recent specials going out on New Year's Day. No broadcast date has yet been confirmed although speculation continues that Doctor Who will be returning to the BBC1 Christmas Day slot that it held from 2005 to 2017.
Details have been released of the special features which will accompany the three Doctor Who specials when they are released on steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD on 11 December. As well as David Tennant and Catherine Tate, other guest stars include Neil Patrick Harris, Yasmin Finney, Miriam Margolyes, Jemma Redgrave and many more. The release will feature all three anniversary special episodes. A list of the extra features (some of which looks proper thrilling) can be found here.
Russell Davies' during an interview with SFX (Christ, is that still going), revealed that he is already planning his third series of Doctor Who in his second spell as showrunner and will later tackle a fourth batch of episodes. He also confirmed that the forthcoming first series featuring Ncuti Gatwa will, in fact, be officially known as 'season one'. Ncuti's debut is clearly meant as the start of a new era for Doctor Who, with the sixtieth-anniversary specials 'likely serving as a bridge between the franchise's past and future,' according to speculation on the Comicbook Movie website. 'I'm planning season three now, there's plans for season four,' Big Rusty told SFX. 'Absolutely. Who knows? Who knows. I'm not getting any younger. At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, but I really, really mean this - they were going to do this to the show anyway and I genuinely thought, "It needs looking after,"' Davies added. We also learned that a special behind-the-scenes making-of episode will be released on iPlayer as part of an exclusive Doctor Who: Unleashed episode. In other news, it has been announced that a new Doctor Who mini-episode will be broadcast on BBC1 later this month, on 17 November, as part of the annual Children In Need charity telethon.
The Celestial Toymaker is, reportedly, set to be the next Doctor Who story to get its lost episodes restored in an animated release. The reported restoration looks set to come just in time for the eponymous Toymaker to return for the sixtieth anniversary specials. The Daily Mirra, if not anyone slightly more reliable, reports that episodes will receive an animated release imminently. The fourth episode of the four-part story was the only one remaining in the BBC archives after a recording from Australia was returned to the BBC in 1984. It was later released on DVD as part of the Lost In Time DVD box-set of partially lost stories.
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number Ninety Six: The Torture Garden. Niall MacGinnis: 'You don't mind spending the night here alone?' Michael Bryant: 'No, of course not.' Niall MacGinnis: 'Well, look after yourself!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number Ninety Seven: Witchcraft. Marie Ney: 'Born in evil, death in burning!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number Ninety Eight: The Mummy's Shroud. André Morell: 'He says that death awaits all who disturb the resting place of Kah-To-Bey! Death!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s (or, in this case, 2021). Number Ninety Nine: Last Night In Soho. Thomasin McKenzie: 'I know what you did.' Terence Stamp: 'I've done a lot of things, Eloise. You're gonna have to be more specific, luv!'
Because, nothing (and this blogger does mean nothing) wakes you up better on a quiet Saturday morning than Diana Rigg playing a serial killer.
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Musical Comedy Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred: Help! Malcolm Evans: 'Excuse me, The White Cliffs Of Dover?'
Because, dear blog reader, if a joke is worth telling, it's worth telling twice.
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred & One: The Vulture. Robert Hutton: 'To get to the point, Professor, my reason for being here in that parchment found in the church. You were very interested, I believe?' Akim Tamiroff: 'Yes, I was ... and for a very singular reason.'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred & Two: The Sorcerers. Ian Ogilvy: 'I'm bored. Blue, black and bloody indigo!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred & Three: The Tell-Tale Heart. Laurence Payne: 'You know, don't you? You can hear it, can't you? The beating ... of his heart!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & SF Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred & Four: They Came from Beyond Space. Jennifer Jayne: 'Sentiment! I will not have sentiment interfering with our vital work!'
Memorably Daft Lines From British Horror & Shit-Weird SF Quasi-Psychedelic Movies Of The 1950s and 1960s. Number One Hundred & Five: Wonderwall. Jack MacGowran: 'I don't like songs. Music is just organised noise and noise is poison to the mind!'
And that, dear blog fiends, concludes another semi-regular From The North feature. There may be a new one along to replace it, shortly.
We now come to that part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's medical malarkey. Or, strictly speaking, malarkeys as there are several of them. For those dear blog readers who haven't been following this on-going fiasco which appears to have been on-going longer than the orbit of all the moons of Saturn, it goes like this: Keith Telly Topping spent some weeks around Christmas 2021 into the New Year feeling rotten; experienced five day in hospital; was discharged; received B12 injections; then more of them; somewhat recovered his missing appetite; got an initial diagnosis; had a consultant's meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a second endoscopy; had another consultation; got (unrelated) toothache; had an extraction; which took ages to heal; had another consultation; spent a week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; received further B-12 injections; had an echocardiogram; was subject to more blood extractions; made another hospital visit; saw the unwelcome insomnia and torpor continue; received yet more blood tests; had a rearranged appointment; suffered his worst period yet with the fatigue. Until the following week. And, then the week after that. Oh, the fatigue, dear blog reader. The depressing, ceaseless fatigue. He had a go on the Blood-Letting Machine; got another sick note; had an assessment; was given his fourth COVID jab; got some surprising but welcome news about his assessment; had the results of his annual diabetes check-up; had another really bad week with the fatigue; followed by one with the sciatica; then one with the chronic insomnia; and, one with a plethora of general cold-related grottiness. Which continued over the Christmas period and into 2023. There was that whole 'slipping in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath and putting his knee through the side' thing; the painful night-time leg cramps; getting some new spectacles; returning to the East End pool. Only to discover that he remains as weak of a kitten in the water. Or, indeed, out of it. Feeling genuinely wretched. Experiencing a nasty bout of gastroenteritis. Had a visit from an occupational therapist. Did the 'accidentally going out in my slippers' malarkey. The return of the dreaded insomnia and the dreaded return of the fatigue. The latest tri-monthly prickage; plus, yet more sleep disturbances, a further bout of day time retinology, exhaustion and a nasty cold in the very week that he got his latest Covid and influenza inoculations.
For those dear blog readers who recall the knee-through-the-bath incident in February, two cheerful lads from The Department Of Baths arrived at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House a couple of weeks ago to begin the process of replacing Basil, the badly damaged Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath with a new one, complete with attached shower unit (as yet, unnamed). It was, this blogger was told, going to take about eight working days in total. They started on the first day by shifting everything that wasn't nailed down from the bathroom into Kevin, the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House kitchen (which meant this blogger who can barely swing a cat in there at the best of times, was now in an even worse position in terms of not being able to use the washing machine or the cooker for anything other than very basic things). Then they stripped all of the tiles off the wall and the floor and did some drilling. To be fair, this blogger was expecting a fair bit of disruption over the following week-and-a-half but would, hopefully, have a nice new bathroom suite(-ette) at the end of it. Of course, in the end it didn't quite work out to be that simple or anything even remotely like it. You just sort of knew that was coming, dear blog reader, did you not?
Day Two of The Great Bath Thingy. The plumber (and his mate) arrive for the first - big - job, which was getting the old bath, wash basin and netty out (it's quite a tight squeeze due to the bookcase situated just outside the lavatory door on the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House landing). There was a lot of banging and crashing going on in there, so this blogger decided to put Super Black Market Clash on the stereo just distract himself - albeit, not at a huge volume since it was still early and the people next door may still have been a-bed. In the middle of 'Jail Guitar Doors', the plumber stuck his head around the front room door and said 'this is really good, who is it?' I replied that it was The Clash. 'Are they an old band?' he asked. Aw, bless. At that point, this blogger felt about a hundred years old himself!
The following morning, whilst the plasterer was busy doing his malarkey after an electrician has sorted out the room's lighting, this blogger attended his local medical centre to get his latest B-12 injection (see above) and, also, took the opportunity to buy some - increasing rare - Cheese & Onion Discos from just about the only place in Newcastle he knows that still sells them.
Anyway, by the afternoon the new bath, basin and netty had been thoroughly installed. The tiling and flooring were, this blogger was assured, likely to be done on Monday and/or Tuesday with a paint job to follow. The putting up of the shower curtain and the shower wall fixtures would be the last thing done, 'probably on Thursday, maybe Friday' according to the plumber. The room still looked a complete bloody mess, frankly, but at least the new hardware was now in and all that needed to be done was, essentially, aesthetics.
And the chief plumber, Chris (very nice chap) was having a look at the music on one of this blogger's USB sticks during his tea break and said 'aw, stick some New Order on!' This blogger was delighted to comply (he went for Substance ... over style).
Nevertheless, by Sunday, this blogger's mood had considerably darkened. In fact, this blogger was - not to put too fine a point on it - effing Goddamn pissed off with life in general. That was supposed to be a nice quiet day in the middle of all of the clart with the bathroom but that was never realistically going to happen. Firstly this blogger forgot to put the clocks back the night before so he was up at what he thought was half-past-seven but was actually half-six. Then, the lass in the flat downstairs from The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House knocked on the door to inform this blogger that water was leaking through the floorboards and the ceiling into their bedroom. So, Keith Telly Topping have to call out an emergency plumber to check the work of the plumber who put the bath and basin in on Friday. The - scarily young - chap eventually arrived but was worse than useless, spent half-an-hour sussing out where the leak was coming from (the basin as it turned out), isolated that but left telling this blogger he couldn't guarantee that was the only leak and that this blogger should 'keep an eye on it for the next couple of hours.' No shit, Sherlock? Do you ever have one of those days, dear blog reader, where you just wish you'd never gotten out of bed?
Some paper towels were laid down just to make sure that no further leaking was occurring and, thankfully, by Monday morning they were all still as dry as a bone. On Monday morning, this blogger needed to get to the bank and the shops for some necessary supplies so he waited for the workmen to arrive at their usual time of between eight and nine. None were forthcoming. This blogger waited and waited, till he could wait no more and left the gaff for a couple of hours, frankly rushing around in a way that he shouldn't in his present medical condition (see above). Upon returning to the gaff, there was still no sign of any of the expected workers so this blogger just wrote the day off, assuming they'd had an emergency call-out elsewhere and had a long lie down to recover from all of his rushing-about-like-a-madman malarkey.
Tuesday followed a similar pattern of no one arriving when expected (or, even, when not expected). Eventually, in the early afternoon, this blogger rang the number he had been given for the company whom the Department Of Baths had subcontracted to do the work and spoke to a very nice young lady called Mia. He said that his gaff was currently being worked upon but that he'd seen neither hide not hair of anyone since the previous Friday, he'd had a (smallish) leak, seemingly fixed but that, nevertheless, he was unhappy about this and could he have some idea when the rest of the work would be completed. The long and the short of it appeared to be that there'd been 'some delay' in getting the shower components but that they would be out 'as soon as possible.' Maybe that afternoon, more likely the next day (Wednesday). Perhaps the day after that (Thursday). This blogger explained that he had an - unavoidable - medical appointment early the next day but that he should be back in the drum around 10am and that he would be thoroughly available for all of the rest of that day. And, indeed, all of Thursday and Friday too, if needed. He also mentioned that with the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House kitchen still full of all the bathroom fixtures and fittings, he was finding it very difficult (or, indeed, impossible) to actually get on with doing normal, everyday things like washing, cooking and the like. With that done, this blogger then indulged in the latest Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House addiction. 'It's like heaven in a mug' dear blog readers. And, it costs a mere 8.3 pence per shot so it's much cheap than crack.
Wednesday came and went with this blogger attending his annual diabetes check-up and then returning, hot-foot, to The Stately Telly Topping Manor to wait around all day for a bunch of workmen that never came. Well, sod that for a game of soldiers. Albeit, the evening was somewhat enlivened by this blogger's beloved (and now, thankfully, sold) Magpies going to Old Trafford and giving The Scum a damned good shellacking in the Carabao Cup. G'yddip Th Toon, dear blog reader
This blogger's thanks go to his excellent fiend Nick for alerting Keith Telly Topping to the existence of this here gem.
By Thursday, this blogger was ready, bright and early, to ring Mia back and give her a piece of his mind but, fortunately for all concerned (particularly this blogger), we had the first sighting of a couple of chaps in Hi-Viz jackets from The Department Of Baths since the previous Friday to do some tiling and cladding. They appeared to be Polish (and, therefore, one imagined if the crass national cliches are accurate, really good at their jobs). They were, it turned out, very nice (and also pure dead happy to be out of the driving rain of Storm Ciaran which was lashing Tyneside big-style that morning). This blogger offered them both a coffee but they had brought their flasks with them (so few people even have thermos flasks these days). There was, soon, a lot of drilling and banging going on. It sounded like side three of Metal Machine Music in there. A third colleague soon turned up to do the prep work outside the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House, in the street, in the middle of Storm Ciaran, under a hastily assembled (and, rather fragile-looking) awning. He looked, frankly, a bit miserable to be stuck out there whilst his mates were inside in the warm. This was getting quite entertaining.
By the afternoon, we were a bit further on after three days of complete inactivity. All the cladding had been done, the shower was now fixed, as had the curtain rail although the curtain itself still wasn't. The floor tiling was, this blogger was told, next (possibly 'tomorrow, possibly Monday'). Which would leave only the painters. Nevertheless, this blogger felt a lot happier that day than he had previously. Despite the weather.
Friday began, exactly as this blogger had expected, with an early morning phone call from the company (not Mia, this time, but a chap called Dan) informing this blogger that, unfortunately, they could not do the flooring today but they would, definitely, be back on Monday and was that all right? This blogger - through gritted teeth - lied that yes, he supposed it was. However, the day wasn't a complete write-off, there was an unexpected highlight - the arrival of incoming winter fur-lined boots; this time the correct size (eleven). A fraction under thirty quid, as well. Of course, it was going to be a couple of days before this blogger would actually be able to go out into the teeth of the hurricane and test them out.
Saturday was great. This blogger accepted an invitation to The (Other) Stately Telly Topping Manor, belonging to Our Maureen Topping, Our Graeme Topping and Our Colin Topping, for an evening of watching Th' Toon taking on - and defeating - The Arse. And, lo, it was glorious in wor sight! What made it even better, of course, was the ludicrous throwing-his-toys-out-of-his-pram meltdown in front of the media by The Arse's manager about what a damned disgrace all of this was after the event. Despite the fact that it, in actual fact, wasn't a damned disgrace or anything even remotely like it (expect the fact that the Arse, a team with title aspirations, managed to go through the entire ninety eight minutes and only have but one shot on target). Grow up, Mister Arteta, you're supposed to be an adult not a petulant bratty five year old.
And then, there was this. Which, yes, this blogger really deserved! It was geet lush of course. Basmati rice, tiger prawns in garlic and chicken with water chestnuts in oyster sauce, all made by this blogger's very talented brother and scoffed with much relish whilst we watched The Beatles & The Beeb on BBC2. All of which followed Th' Toon giving The Arse a jolly good beasting and this blogger consuming the first alcohol to pass his lips in at least a year or more. Two (largeish) glasses of wine and a Baileys with ice. This blogger will say this for his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, they know how to throw a surprise sixtieth Birthday soiree with some considerable elan. Talented family, that! And Th' Toon won. A perfect night, really.
Mind you, dear blog reader, this blogger was feeling more than a smidgen dazed and confused on Sunday morning. That was, after all, more alcohol that this blogger drank the previous evening than he had done in a long time.
Sunday, of course, was also Guy Fawkes' Night. By early evening there were so many bangs and crashes going off in the vicinity of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House that this blogger assumed for a moment that Hamas had invaded North Tyneside.
Matthew Perry, who was found dead at his home last week aged fifty four, brought a wry and sharp sense of humour to the role of Chandler Bing in Friends, the American sitcom featuring six twentysomethings in Manhattan facing the ups and down of everyday life. Which for the majority of its ten series was very much a From The North favourite. 'Chandler's a guy who's just not comfortable in his own skin - he's got a great excuse to be funny,' said Perry of the sarcastic, neurotic character in the programme that ran from 1994 to 2004. 'He's an exaggerated form of me.' The neurosis partly came from Chandler experiencing the divorce of his parents when he was nine and using humour as a defence mechanism. It echoed Perry's own life, with his mother and father splitting up before his first birthday. Through his work in 'statistical analysis and data reconfiguration' the character pulled in more money than the other friends - Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Ross (David Schwimmer) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) - although he hated his job. Chandler had already met Monica Geller at college before they became neighbours in Greenwich Village, where he shared an apartment with aspiring actor Joey. By the end of the fourth series, the relationship had gone from being close friends to lovers and, three years later, they were husband and wife. Unable to have children of their own, they adopted twins, with their birth as a central storyline, alongside Ross and Rachel reuniting, in Friends' final episode, which attracted more than fifty million viewers in the US. By then, the programme's impact on popular culture had spread well beyond its homeland. Joey's 'How you doin'?' and Chandler's 'Could I be any more ...' lines broke into the language of its young audience whilst the entire, ludicrous, internal logic and much of the dialogue of this blogger's favourite episode, The One Where Everybody Finds Out ('But, they don't know we know, they know, we know!') can be recited, ver batum, by millions of viewers. The part earned Perry worldwide fame that continues to this day with Netflix bringing the sitcom to a new generation. Nevertheless, stardom did nothing to help the actor to overcome his own insecurities and vulnerabilities. In 1997, Aniston said: 'His feelings get hurt. He cares what people think. He even bruises easily.' Perry's battles with his personal demons first hit the headlines halfway through the sitcom's run. In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers & The Big Terrible Thing, Perry recalled a journey to alcoholism that went from beer and wine at fourteen to drinking vodka by the quart, as well as getting addicted to prescription drugs. In 1997, he checked into a Minnesota rehab clinic for twenty eight days when he became hooked on a painkiller and appetite suppressant after a jet-ski accident and a thirty five pounds weight loss. Three years later, he was hospitalised with pancreatitis. In 2001, he abruptly left the set of the film Serving Sara to go into rehab again. Perry reflected that by 2018, at the age of forty nine, he had spent more than half his life in treatment centres. That year he suffered pneumonia and an exploded colon caused by opioid overuse, resulting in time on life support and two weeks in a coma. He converted his Malibu home into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, Perry House, in 2013, but closed it two years later, citing expensive running costs. He had been drug and alcohol-free for eighteen months before the screening in 2021 of Friends: The Reunion, a one-off special bringing back together the programme’s six stars.
Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Matthew was the son of Suzanne, a Canadian journalist and John Bennett Perry, an American actor. He grew up mainly in Ottawa when his mother returned to her home country and eventually became press secretary to the then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. In 2017, Perry revealed that he and another pupil at Rockcliffe Park elementary school had beaten up Justin Trudeau, Pierre's son and the current Canadian Prime Minister. Trudeau responded on Twitter: 'I've been giving it some thought and you know what, who hasn't wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch?' While studying at Ashbury college, Perry became a top-ranking junior tennis player. He practised up to ten hours a day, but switched that determination to acting after travelling to Los Angeles when he was fifteen and being reunited with his father. 'I wanted to be famous so badly,' he told the New York Times in 2002. 'You want the attention, you want the bucks and you want the best seat in the restaurant.' He made an impression with leading roles in sitcoms: Chazz Russell in Second Chance (1987), retitled Boys Will Be Boys for its second series the following year, Billy Kells in Sydney (1990) and Matt Bailey in Home Free (1993) before Friends came along. Perry's big-screen debut came as River Phoenix's best friend in A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon (1988), but he never became the film star he hoped to be despite appearances in Fools Rush In (1997), Three To Tango (1999), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards (2003), both alongside Bruce Willis. He stuck with television. Switching to drama, he had a short run as Joe Quincy, a Republican lawyer, in three excellent episodes of The West Wing in 2003 and starred in another Aaron Sorkin series, Studio Sixty On the Sunset Strip (2006-07).
His own sitcom idea, Mister Sunshine, with him playing Ben Donovan, a San Diego arena operations manager, was dropped after a short run in 2011. The following year he starred as Ryan King, a sportscaster, in Go On and later played Oscar Madison in a revival of The Odd Couple (2015 to 2017). He also wrote and starred in the play The End Of Longing, which debuted in London's West End in 2016. He guest-starred in several episodes of the CBS drama The Good Wife (2012-13) as attorney and political candidate Mike Kresteva. He reprised his role in the sequel The Good Fight (2017). He had relationships with many high-profile actresses including Julia Roberts, Minnie Driver and Lizzy Caplan. From 2020 to 2021, he was engaged to Molly Hurwitz, a talent manager. His parents survive him.
Next, the From The North Headline of The Week award which goes to this gem from the Birmingham Mail: 'We Hunt Ghosts In Our Spare Time - But They've Followed Us Home & Haunt Us'. Probably a good idea in that case to stop and take up another hobby.
And finally, dear blog reader, XTC? This blogger always suspected that Andy Partridge was in league with The Dark One.
