Top 6 Sweary Characters

'I've sworn all my life. I swear all the time and I think it's rather good language. People say it's limited vocabulary that makes you swear, well I don't think so. Cause, my vocabulary I know at least, ohh, one hundred and twenty seven words. And I still prefer fuck.... It always works, you know? And you never read, '"Fuck off", he hinted.' - Billy Connolly

I'm with Billy. Coarse language is a wonderful thing. It sounds good, it fucking feels good and it always gets the job done. Fuck, shit, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, prick... These are strong words. Powerful words. And, under certain circumstances, they are necessary words. Sometimes no other word will suffice.

When it comes to movies and TV, there are few things I love more than a good, forceful, creative hit of profanity. I'm clearly not alone in this, because many screenwriters and playwrights have filled their works with foul-mouthed characters, and great actors have played these parts with gusto, spitting out every fuck as if their life depended on it. Obviously, there's far too many great sweary characters to list them all. This was originally intended to be a top 5, but then I remembered one that I couldn't leave out. But if I don't set myself a strict limit, then this list will be end up being longer than War and fucking Peace.

So, without further a-fucking-do, here's my list of 6 great sweary characters. Enjoy!


6. Harry - In Bruges

 In Bruges is a great movie. A fucking great movie. Colin Farrell is at his most charming, Brendan Gleeson at his most grizzled and soulful, and the two of them have fantastic chemistry together. It's hard to imagine anyone stealing the show from this pair... until Ralph Fiennes enters the picture as crime lord Harry.

Harry is one miserable motherfucker. I don't think he smiles once in the entire movie. He doesn't even seem like he's physically capable of smiling. About all he does is hurl abuse at anyone who even slightly annoys him. And he gets annoyed very easily. This is bad news for any other character in the movie, but it's great news for the audience, because his outbursts of rage are hilariously awesome, as is his apparent inability to speak 7 consecutive words without including at least 1 fuck.

 




Best Sweary Moment: Harry responds with disbelief when told that someone doesn't enjoy being in Bruges.

5. Francis Begbie - Trainspotting

It's difficult to tell because the Scottish accents are so thick, but if you switch on the subtitles for Trainspotting, you'll notice there's a motherfucking shitload of swearing going on. While every character drops their fair share of F and C-bombs, it's Begbie who who easily holds the heavyweight championship belt for coarse language.

Not just one of the sweariest, but also one of the scariest characters ever, Begbie can snap at any given time. In fact, he probably swears less when he's angry, because that's when his fists do the talking. Sometimes he'll call you a cunt in a friendly way; other times in an unfriendly way. The latter generally means you're about to lose some teeth.

Best Sweary Moment: Violent, unpredictable psychopath he may be, but anyone who can fit 2 cunts in a single sentence is A-OK in my book. I'd buy him a beer anytime.

4. Susie Greene - Curb Your Enthusiasm (TV)

I'm all for a bit of gender equality, which is why I love Susie so much. She can curse with the best of the boys. In a show that never shied away from crudity, she was the most consistently crude character. Even in the more light-hearted episodes, you could always count on Susie for some foul-mouthed filth. You go, sista!

Larry David once said that when he's verbally abused, his natural reaction is laughter. Hard to imagine how he even filmed his scenes with Susie, because they all involve her laying into him for some reason... or for no reason at all. So this is a well-earned #4 spot for the small screen's ultimate highly-strung hebe bitch.

 






  
Best Sweary Moment: This clip will mean nothing when taken out of the context of the show. Doesn't matter. It still works as its own self-contained, expertly delivered snippet of vulgarity.

3. Ricky Roma - Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross is much more than just a tale about real estate. It's an epic tragedy showing salesmen as modern day gladiators, doing battle and taking each other apart using words instead of swords. It's also a veritable catalogue of verbal abuse. Ricky Roma is the Spartacus in this arena - the biggest, baddest fighter of them all.

That's not to say Ricky ain't a nice guy. But, in the movie's climactic scene when a careless fuck-up costs him an important sale, he delivers one of the greatest ass-kickings in cinema history. That's right, he kicks a guy's ass... with words. Awesome.

 


Best Sweary Moment: I just fucking told you, didn't I?

2. Al Swearengen - Deadwood (TV)

One thing's for certain about Deadwood - once you're done watching it, you'll find yourself saying cocksucker a lot more. Easily the sweariest TV show ever (and will probably never be topped in that regard), it has received criticism, even from fans, that there was a little too much swearing. It's certainly excessive and from some of the actors, it sounds a little stilted and unnatural. Not so with Al Swearengen aka the man with the most appropriate surname ever.

Under Ian McShane's transcendent performance, every single fuck, every single cunt and every single cocksucker exits Swearengen's mouth as a perfectly formed, majestic work of art in itself. Whether he's abusing his employees, defending his interests or philosophising about life itself, Swearengen shows that every statement becomes a little more compelling when you sprinkle it with a handful of expletives.

Best Sweary Moment: There's so many of them that it's hard to decide. But I think I'll go with a little bit of Al's pillow-talk with a lucky young woman. Romance ain't dead, ladies!

1. Malcolm Tucker - The Thick of It (TV), In the Loop (movie)

Before he became the new Doctor Who, actor Peter Capaldi was best known for playing Malcolm Tucker in one of the finest political satires ever made. In real-life, Capaldi is a pleasant, charming, soft-spoken fellow, which makes it all the more impressive to see him as Tucker - a human dervish of pure fury; his interactions with others ranging from utter contempt to berserk explosive hostility; his only words a constant stream of vituperative bile.

Tucker is a truly diabolical creation, not least because of his charisma. Ostensibly a villainous character, you still can't help rooting for him. Not cause his actions will serve any greater good. Hell no, careers and lives will casually destroyed by him without a trace of sympathy or conscience. It's simply that Tucker winning means that we, the audience, get the thrill of seeing him go on more blistering rampages of vitriolic rage.

Best Sweary Moment: Impossible to pick. Tucker's Law is a classic. And so many examples of outright abuse that are awesome, a personal fave being this one - "This is a government department, not some fuckin' Jane fuckin' Austen novel. Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock."

But I'm gonna with a moment that sums up this whole article nicely. You see, there are folk out there who feel that swearing is unnecessary and crude. They don't like it on TV, in movies or in person, and some of these people would like to restrict language in order to protect their feelings. On behalf of every character on this list, on behalf of myself and on behalf of anyone who loves to say fuck, Malcolm Tucker responds to these people...

So, that's my fucking list! Like I said in the intro, it's far from complete. I'm already kicking myself for leaving out Don Logan from Sexy Beast, Ray from Nil By Mouth, Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski and many others.

That's where you come in! Add your favourite sweary characters and sweary moments that I may have. But please, for the sake of the fucking children, try to keep your comments tasteful.

Thanks for fucking reading, cunts!

The Anal Birth of Bert (1980something)

Check out this picture -

Hard to tell what's going on, right? That's from a gay porn loop that's come to be known as The Anal Birth of Bert. Porn loops were short movies, usually recorded on 8mm cameras without sound, that would be played in adult theatres and jerkoff booths. When home video came around, and porno quantitatively exploded like a volcano of babysnot from Peter North's dickhole, the old-school porn loops only survived the transition by a few crafty entrepeneurs taping them by pointing their cameras at the screen. Let's face it, noone was gonna put forth the cash to give these dirty stag shorts a nice crisp remaster. In a sense, VHS copies of 8mm porn loops are like the birth of cam rips. Although this process allowed such pornographic goodies to remain existent, it left them somewhat incomprehensible, as seen in the above pic.

This bit of historical trivia might be massively educational and informative, but it won't help at all if you're attempting to derive a little undercarriage enjoyment from these vintage artifacts. As I see it, there's 2 available options if you want to knock one out to The Anal Birth of Bert. You could use your imagination. Or you could rely on the imagination of a depraved pervert. That's where I come in. Just call me Plan B. Lock your doors, switch off your phone and keep the Kleenex on standby, because things are about to get sexy as fuck...

 The movie opens on a portly moustachioed bloke, chained up and being anally serviced by a rather slight fellow in a biker jacket. Straight into the action. No character development. We're not shown who's cleaning whose pool and dammit we don't need to know. Because pool-cleaning ain't nowhere near sexy enough for us right now. What we need is blurry, orangey closeups of what I think is a dildo going into an anus. Hotdamn, that's fuckin' sexy.

But then the fuzzy blob on the left of the screen removes the dildo and replaces it with his fist. And why wouldn't he? Nothing increases the delicate sensuality of an anus quite like stretching it out to 17 times its intended width. This is actually a scientific fact and I can prove it with a quick association experiment -

Someone is about to take a dump on your chest. Which would you prefer: A. a thick solid pooploaf; or B. a muddy liquid spray of diarrhoea? Without a doubt, you chose A. The reason for this is that, while diarrhoea tends to squirt through a puckered hole, a healthy, sizeable mud muffin will enlarge the sphincter and give the turd tunnel muscles a vigorous workout. Subconsciously, you are sexually attracted to widened anuses. Unless you chose option B, in which case you're just a gross weirdo.

Anywayz, the fag's faeces factory gets fisted and everyone has a good time. That's as you would expect. I mean, nothing can really go wrong with a hand being rammed up an anus, right? Well, except for this -

 Fortunately that doesn't happen here. Quite the opposite actually, a hand ain't enough. When is it ever, amirite? The skinny dude decides to shove his foot up the other guy's shitter, whilst smearing his foot with a thick white paste that looks like cream cheese. Myself, I tend to put cream cheese on smoked salmon sandwiches, rather than use it as lube for a vigorous footfuck session, but hey, that's just a personal preference of mine. Each to their own. Needless to say, the rectal stretching is adequate this time, as observed by all the urgent moaning and pained screams. Rest assured though, our footfucker stops short of putting the heel in. That would just be weird and kinky, and if there's one thing that a tied-up size queen with a lubricated foot in his arsehole won't put up with, it's weird, kinky stuff. Yeah.

Cut to a new scene and the inhumanly elastic anus is being attended to by a dude in a lab coat, while a surrounding group of leather boys yell, "PUSH! PUSH!". Then we get the rather unique sight of a screaming man pushing a plush toy of Bert out of his manpussy.  That's right, Bert.

 The closing shot is of our protagonist hugging his newborn to his chest and crying; the 10th-gen VHS quality picture rendering everything as abstract blobs of pink undulating and bleeding into each other as the muffled overdriven soundtrack roars like Satan getting a prostate exam. This is no longer a movie and more like a nightmare ripped straight from a madman's cranium. A sexy, sexy nightmare.

I would go into more detail about the finale and sexify it up a bit, but the sexual appeal of shitting out muppets is, shall we say, rather limited. I imagine anyone who's really into anally excreting childrens TV characters has a social life far too active to waste time reading some silly blog. That's not to imply that making it this far through a jokey gay porn review on the internet means you don't have any friends. I'm sure you have a booming social life. Just not quite Bert-shitting levels of booming. Hey, I calls 'em as I see 'em.

Some may consider this to be a simple depraved gay porn loop. In fact, almost everyone will see it as such. But I like to think that what we're seeing is the birth of the real Bert, which thus makes this a prequel to Sesame Street. In many ways, this makes sense. Hear me out on this.

 It's been admitted that Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, but more specifically and what's gone unacknowledged by the Henson company, is that they have a sub-dom relationship. The Anal Birth of Bert gives us some background information and enriches their characters. The homosexual "mother" of Bert is a submissive. I don't know this for certain, but I'm making an educated guess, because anyone who takes a fist in their ass and it's still not enough is usually a sub. Common sense, really. Hence, Bert grows up calling the shots in the household and develops into a natural dom. He'd give the orders, stamp his feet and always end up getting his own way, which is why he's so bossy to Ernie. And Ernie always putting up with grumpy-bum Bert suggests that he's clearly a sub, just like Bert's dad. See, there's even Freudian shit in there.

 The 2 of them bicker onscreen constantly, to the point where it's hard to not see it as a form of foreplay. All that tension between them could never dissipate on its own; it'd need to explode in a sexual frenzy. This is just speculation on my part, but I always figured that as soon as the camera's were off, Bert would yell at everyone to get out of his house, then yank down Ernie's blue-and-white pyjama bottoms, jam the rubber ducky in his mouth and horsewhip his bum until the welts had turned the orange cheeks red, while Ernie resisted in that totally-wanting-it way.

Then Bert would drag Ernie to his knees and unleash a stream of hot piss in his face saying "Take it! Gargle that piss, you fuckin' orange-faced degenerate or I'll let Cookie Monster munch on your balls again!". Ernie would gulp down a mouthful and say "Oh no, please not Cookie Monster on my balls again!", but you know his protests would be fake cause last time Cookie Monster was om-nom-nomming on them sperm-filled globes, Ernie was all like "Yeah! Bite my fuckin' nuts, you savage! Crush them between your powerful jaws! Make it so I'll never cum again! No more creaming for this fag!" and then he jetted a massive load of puppet spunk all over Cookie's googly eyes and blue facial fur.

 Once Bert's bladder has been fully emptied, he'd viciously apply clamps to Ernie's nipples, then handcuff him face-first to a massive crucifix, warm piss still dripping from Ernie's chin. Parting Ernie's orange buttcheeks, Bert would spit a loogie into his hand and wipe it on in the awaiting anus, before ramming his rigid muppet cock in up to the hilt.

"Oh boy, Bert! Please don't mercilessly ream my mangina! I can't take it!", Ernie would plead, but Bert would ignore his cries and pound away viciously, growling in Ernie's ear "SHUT UP! You shut the fuck up and take my prick, you snivelling bitch. I'm your God and you worship my cock, you understand?" and Ernie would press his face against the crucifix and moan "Fuck me, God! Fill my unworthy rectum with your holy seed, Lord Bert!", causing Bert's thrusts to build in intensity, reaching feverish levels of fervour as he'd yell "Take it, slut! Take it, slut!" repeatedly in conjunction with every violent smack of his pelvis into Ernie's red raw backside, finally emptying his nuts into the brutalised shitpussy with a shudder throughout his entire body.

But as Bert took his dick out, Ernie's swollen, tenderised, semen-lubricated manhole would involuntarily drop out a sizeable nugget of puppet shit, whereupon Bert would erupt into hysterical anger.

"You filthy motherfucker", he'd exclaim, "I just cleaned that floor! You're in for it now!". Then he'd uncuff Ernie, pick up the turd and smear it all over his face and mouth, yelling "Eat your fuckin' shit, you fuckin' homo dirtball. Eat it! Eat your shit!". And Ernie would be all like "Oh gee, Bert. I sure have been naughty. I'm a naughty boy! I'm a naughty boy!" and he'd lap up that shit all over his lips and tongue, the stench becoming so bad that he'd puke all over his own face. Bert would be all like "It's time for punishment, you piece of shit. Give me your fuckin' cum!", and then he'd start sucking Ernie's cock like his face was attached to the business end of a jackhammer, occasionally stopping to yell abuse like "Spurt your cum fuckin' NOW or I'll bite off this tiny excuse for a prick", until Ernie started to shake and shout "Oh, Bert! Oh, Bert! I'ma cummin', Bert! I'ma cummin'!" and Bert would drain that cock dry, then take the mouthful of jizz and kiss Ernie full-force on his lips, the two of them thrusting their tongues madly into each others mouths, the shit and vomit and cum forming a cocktail of pure passion that they drink deeply from each other, finally collapsing in an exhausted pile of sweat, semen and satisfaction.

Then they'd go to sleep, wake up the next morning and teach your kids how to count to 12.

Maybe that's all a little outrageous, but the principle behind it rings true. This is not so much a review, more a reflection of true human nature. Physically, we see dirt and grime as something that accumulates externally, easily wiped away to expose a clean, fresh surface beneath. Metaphysically, when it comes to the human race, it's cleanliness and purity and innocence that is the external veneer, housing our less societally acceptable urges. Lust camouflages itself behind love. Kindness hides deceit. A plastered-on fake smile is suicide's favourite disguise.

Bert and Ernie may not indulge in sadomasochistic scatplay, but behind the voice of Elmo, you have the alleged rape of a minor. Behind the family classic The Wizard of Oz, there's an abused Judy Garland and drunken midget orgies. Behind Jimmy Saville's Jim'll Fix It, you'll find decades of molested children and a revolting conspiracy of cover-up. Behind Rolf Harris' smile is a debauched lust for pubescent pussy. And don't even get me started on the Catholic Church...

No matter how far civilisation develops, you'll never be able to stop mankind from being foot-fucked and squeezing childhood icons out of its ass. Scratch beneath the surface of anything that purports to be pure and what do you find? Filth, and plenty of it. A lot of it's bad, but a lot of it's pretty damn cool if you ask me. The Anal Birth of Bert belongs to the latter kind. Sure, it may leave your psyche temporarily in tatters, like a freshly fisted anus. But ultimately, it's just harmless fun.

See? I told you this was gonna be sexy!

Richard Griffin's Flicks and Sarah Nicklin's Tits

Part 1

Way back in 2007, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's plan to create a double feature emulating trashy '70s B-movies was quite a novelty. Since then, the idea has become as far from a novelty as you can get. In the wake of Grindhouse, a fucking motherfuckton of exploitation homages have been jizzed on to the eyeballs of horror-loving audiences. Throwbacks are now about as original as found-footage flicks. Most of them are pre-packaged cult films, frustratingly filled with faux-seriousness and knowing winks-at-the-audience. Still, I quite like them because, unlike found-footage, they're actually entertaining. I'm the kinda guy who thinks tits, gore and rape are a lot more fun than night-vision handicam shots of doors moving slightly. Crazy, I know.

So next up on the chopping block is Richard Griffin's The Disco Exorcist, a movie I'd been absolutely dying to check out for ages, ever since I first laid eyes on the cool DVD cover earlier that afternoon. We're talking 3, maybe even 4 hours of anticipation. Did it live up to all the incredible things I hadn't heard about it? Let's find out!

 Imagine if Saturday Night Fever was a splatter flick. Sounds cool, right? That's pretty much what you've got with The Disco Exorcist. Our hero is a fella named Rex Romanski. This is him -

Damn, those are some suave motherfuckin' threads. Naturally, looking that cool, Rex is a total pussy magnet who spends his nights loving and leaving all the ladies down at the local disco. The mayhem starts when he poons a voodoo priestess, only to then promptly ditch her for his favourite porn star Amoreena Jones. The spurned witch bitch unleashes demonic forces en masse onto the couple and everyone around them.

As throwbacks go, this one is pretty freakin' great. It avoids any faux-serious pratfalls by being a straight-up horror-comedy; not especially funny, but still a shitload of fun. The look of the film is a balance between authentic and exagerrated, filled with gaudy colours and general '70s stylings. Best of all, Richard Griffin does the one thing that Grindhouse totally failed at - he fills his movie with lots and lots of tits.

Right from the off, there's tits before the opening credits - 

There's tits during the opening credits -

The evil chick is kind enough to give us a gander at her tits -

There's even some male tits for all the women and pillow-biters out there -

Basically the only chick who doesn't show tits is the headliner, Sarah Nicklin. Instead we get shots like this -

Or this -

Most annoying, I'm sure you'll agree, and doubly so because she plays a fucking porn star. Admittedly, my short-term memory ain't the best nowadays and it's been around 17 minutes since I watched any porn, but I seem to recall that the actresses involved in such productions usually get their tits out.

I couldn't help but wonder: Who's to blame for this tit-covering travesty? Does Sarah Nicklin simply not want to bare her tits for the world to see? Or was it a deliberate directorial decision, echoing low-budget productions of the past where tits would appear in abundance, but the main starlet would remain clothed?

There's only one surefire way to fucking solve this cunt of a conundrum. I need to watch another Richard Griffin flick...

**********************************************

Part 2: The Retitsening

This is a sequel review to the review you just finished reading. Kinda like what Aliens is to Alien - faster-paced and more action-packed. It blows the first review out of the goddamn airlock. State of the badass art. And you, you little shithead, you're staying here. You always were an asshole, Gorman.

But mostly it's just pictures of tits. Mostly.

So there's Sarah Nicklin on the poster, looking all hot in a nun's getup. Surely she exposes her tits in this one, right? I'm not expecting her to be topless for the whole movie or anything. I'd be happy with just a 10-20 second shot of her with tits thrust straight at the camera, maybe with her sensually caressing them and uttering a line or two of dialogue about how she loves it when drunken, 30-something Aussie guys shower them with warm semen. I don't think that's asking for too much.

So, Nun of That is about a supertroupe of highly trained, vigilante nuns who kick ass for the Lord and gun down drug dealers and murderers. Blah blah, blah, plot stuff, etc. Let's cut to the tits.

Whilst it has nowhere near the level of tits as The Disco Exorcist, there's still a few nice pairs on display. Sarah Nicklin's is not among them. I don't understand it. Does she hate me? Here she is in a shower scene, not showing her tits -

Debbie Rochon has a small role in the film, but she also doesn't show her tits. She just wears a nun's habit, which is fairly hot, but not as hot as her tits. Here's her tits as seen in a different movie -

What the hell, I love the Rochons, so let's have another look at them -

Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens aren't in this movie at all. You think that's gonna stop me from showing a piccie of those 2 sultry vixens and their awesome tits? Not a chance. Here you go -

You know who else has really great tits? This chick from the 2007 movie Brain Dead -

I haven't seen that one, but shit on my chest and call me Stinktits if that isn't one of the greatest racks you've ever seen.

Okay, where was I? No idea. Guess I should wrap this up.

In summary, The Disco Exorcist is the bomb; a near-perfect mixture of cheese and sleaze that's guaranteed to satisfy unless you're one of those fuckwits who cares about fancy production values. Check it out. I hate to be too forceful with my recommendations, but if you don't watch this then I'll skullfuck your mother, film it and put the tape on youtube, understand? No pressure. Nun of That is not as essential, but it's a fun enough time if you've got a spare 90 minutes to kill.

As for Sarah Nicklin? She's my latest mission. The world needs to know that it is not acceptable for a woman to star in an exploitation movie without flashing her tits. I'll scour every inch of this globe, leaving no stone unturned, until I find a picture of her tits. She makes the slightest nip-slip, then I'll be there to capture it on camera. I don't care if she's standing topless next to the prophet Mohammed, I'll take that photo and publish it here. I'll gladly risk jihad in the name of filth. If anyone reading this knows Sarah Nicklin's tits, then you tell 'em I'm coming... and hell's coming with me, you hear? HELL'S COMING WITH ME!!!
 
Until next time... You stay filthy, folks.

The Many Faces of Rik Mayall

If I went through and counted up every single laugh I've ever had in my life, then tallied up the individuals who'd given me those laughs, Rik Mayall would easily be in my top 3 laugh providers. Considering how obsessively I used to rewatch Bottom - a show where even the opening credits sequence makes me laugh every single time - he may be numero uno on my official laughter list. I have a lot to thank him for.

They say that laughter is the best medicine. If that's true, then Rik has probably cured me of a few dozen terminal cancers.

As a comedian, he had every big gun there is - a fine character actor, a tremendously witty wordsmith and a sensational physical performer. He could take a fake punch better than anyone on the planet. One of the most naturally gifted funnymen there's ever been. Just look at Lord Flashheart: In 12-odd hours of Blackadder, Flash appears for a total of about 15 minutes. That's all the time Rik needed to steal the show and create a character that's still remembered. It takes a truly special talent to pull that off.

He didn't write the part of Flashheart, but he owned it. When Rik stepped out on the stage or in front of the camera, it was like a fucking hurricane of comedic energy. Few could stand up to that force, let alone compete with it.

Of course, one man not only competed with that energy, but complemented it and drove it to greater heights: Adrian Edmondson.  Although they'll both be most well known for the Young Ones, it's the Rik and Ade partnership that stands out for me, in whatever form it took - Bottom, Dangerous Brothers, Mr Jolly, etc.

With most comedy duos - Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Jerry and Deano - there's the Straight Man and the Funny Man. With Rik and Ade, it was more like the Mad Man and the Even Madder Man; the two of them swapping roles on a minute-by-minute basis. Separate, they're both still great, but put them together and a magical concoction of pure chaos is formed. Utterly demented and utterly hilarious carnage. Like nitro meeting glycerin. Like the Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole of comedy.

Never before or since have two men so extensively and exhaustively beaten the living shit out of each other in the name of comedy. Fists, boots, cricket bats, frying pans - any object on hand, these guys would smash into each others faces. We've seen broken noses, broken limbs, chopped off fingers, countless mortal injuries, oceans of guzzled booze and an entire Kleenex factory worth of spunk rags. They made an artform out of punching each other in the bollocks. If that wasn't enough, they also invented the now-classic party game, Put A Bit Of Sellotape On The Fridge.

There's been plenty of other characters throughout the years too, including Alan B'Stard...

Adonis Cnut...

Colin Grigson...

Micky Love...

Generally, I don't much care when a celebrity dies. This time, it hurt. I popped in a Bottom DVD, tentative about rewatching his classic material, because I thought the humour would now be tinged with melancholy. But it wasn't. It was just as funny as the first time I saw it. That's how good he is. Not even his own death can prevent him from being funny. A genius is dead and I can't stop laughing my fuckin' arse off.

So yep, The Lamb and Flag is closed for good. Richard Richard has left the building. The crazy, mad, wild-eyed, big-bottomed anarchist has gone up in flames. The Falklands veteran will never again shut Tucker's finger in the tank door and is off to meet his mates Ginger, Tommy, Tiddles, Spot, Joey, Snowy and, uhm, Corky...

The People's Poet is dead. But he's still making me laugh and he'll keep on making me laugh, until my own freedom bus to Goodtime City plummets over a cliff.

RIP, farewell and, most of all, thanks.