Dicks Diary

Tony Morrell 28/03/45 - 06/07/97

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the passing of my father. He was a huge influence in my life and there are times when I miss him terribly and there are times when I feel he’s actually still around. I hope those memories and his voice in the back of my head don’t fade with time. He died when I was in my early twenties so he missed out on my “adult life”, my stepson, his granddaughter Jessica who was born in December etc. He’d have been a brilliant grandfather - just as he was a brilliant father and friend.

Surreal or co-incidence ?

When dad died he’d just bought tickets for the Kent-Surrey cricket final at Lords which I ended up attending with my brother in law a week after dads funeral. Eleven years on Kent have got back to Lords for the first time since. As we walked into the ground having parked in my old stamping ground of St Johns Wood we met the comedian Arthur Smith in shorts and tshirt enroute into Lords for the final. He was one of my comic heroes growing up. So picture this eleven years on when I’m stood in my kitchen cooking, BBC radio sport on and it’s announced last week that Kent have got to their first Lords final since 1997 I smile to myself thats cool “I remember when …” etc etc. I change radio channel to BBC Radio 7 and Arthur Smith is on the radio - someone who hardly ever gets airtime and TV play, hairs go up on back of neck…..

Busy fortnight

I’ve been too busy to blog. I had limited email and internet access for four or five days and then snowed under with project things at work. Blogging wasn’t on the radar and what little spare time I have had has been filled with photography shoots or catching up with sleep.

I am starting a new website that has some of my photography work on it sometime in July or August and will link to it from here. Since I developed my own photographs in my late teens on a 3rd hand Meopta enlarger and a bedroom full of Ilford Chemicals and paper I’ve been transfixed. Since the first digital cameras arrived I’ve always had a clutch of them. It’s only since I got more into the professional side of things that it’s started to cost serious money but the amount of enjoyment I get out of it dwarfs the price stuff costs.

Dan Cuthbert got out of IT following hsi trial in 2006 and became a photographer, I have the cameras and setup but do I have that drive ? - probably not.

God I feel so old

When you get into your mid thirties you’re really supposed to have your sh*t together. Things are supposed to make sense more and you’re destined to be the oracle of your own lunchtime with the answers to all those questions proferred in hushed respected tones. Only you don’t do you. You don’t feel any different to when you were spoddy, eighteen and living it large. Look at me, I have a stepson who is 18 and a clutch of grey hair. Apart from paying a couple of pensions and listening to Radio 4 I don’t think I’m any different to when I was their age and thats not good.

I logged onto Facebook earlier and saw some photos that a friend had uploaded, shes the daughter of a friend I’ve known since I was eight or nine and shes just finished her A-Levels and is graduating from the sister school of the school I attended, where my then girlfriend as well as both my sisters attended. I felt so old looking at these kids happy and shining faces beaming out full of the expectations of where their next combined steps would take them in academia or into the world of work.

I worked out that I left after A-Levels in 1991. Seventeen years ago. So in theory if those kids were born June/July/August that year some of them weren’t actually born when I left - and they’re driving

Thats just terrifying. Where did all the years go ?

George Carlin dies at 71

George Carlin who I’ve talked about on this blog before died aged 71 last night of a heart attack. Genius comic who made me laugh since I was a teenager so bad sometimes it would physically hurt. That continued with his HBO specials and recordings and more recently stuff on YouTube.

Of course his later work on Dogma, Jersey Girl gave him a different aspect and showed more of his comedic talents.

Sadly missed