Jeremy Hardy

[Gangster Octopus]

Has died. I'm deeply upset, and feel sad for Lucy Waterman, who knew him.

[Bored Of Education]

Absolutely horrendous news. A very funny, clever and, as far as I can tell, genuinely nice man. I have seen live a few times over the decades and he was always excellent. Last time was at a live recording of The News Quiz which, of course, he was supreme on.

You need to change the spelling on the thread title GO.

[hobbes]

He did one of my all time favourite routines around the time of the BSE crisis. I still sometimes think of it now. Who else could get bovine somatropine into a comedy skit?

[Snake Plissken]

Incredibly sad news. He was unbelievably funny on just about any subject. I loved him on The News Quiz and ISIHAC.

[Gangster Octopus]

You need to change the spelling on the thread title GO.

D'oh! I've asked Mr. Plissken to correct it for me...

[Kevin S]

Oh no, awful news. Incredibly funny guy, and such a distinctive passionate voice.

And the singing! For someone who couldn't sing, he really knew how to sing.

[nmrfox]

Terrible news - a genuinely funny and thoughtful person. Gutted.

[Sits]

Nothing to add, terrible news.

[MsD]

Very sad. Top man.

[Del Usory]

Awful news.

Very sad.

[Flynnie]

I quote his "You're not too socialist for SHOES!" joke all the time, whenever some right-winger gets mad a lefty owns an iPhone or whatever. Rest in peace, Jeremy.

[Duncan Gardner]

Absolutely horrendous news. A very funny, clever and, as far as I can tell, genuinely nice man. I have seen live a few times over the decades and he was always excellent. Last time was at a live recording of The News Quiz which, of course, he was supreme on

Seconded. RIP

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

He was brilliant. Very sad about this. In particular that I hardly ever listen to Radio 4.

[Bored Of Education]

Lots of stuff being posted, of course, but this is brilliant and all the more relevant to me now.

"Well, we know that middle class parents indulge their children, because they all think, Michael is so bright, very, very bright, that’s why they’re doing so badly in school, because they’re so bright. The [teachers] don’t understand their answers, you see. I think the reason they misbehave is because they’re bored in the [classrooms], because they’re so bright. They’re not being stretched. Properly. And Hermione is so bright, and that’s why she misbehaves, I think, she’s so much brighter than the other children, and that’s why she sets fire to them, I think.”
“They won’t concentrate on the children of the poor, ‘Oh, these terrible chav children, it’s awful, they’re all gypsies and they’re terrible, and they park their caravans in the class room, with their illegal, violent dogs, and they’re all footpads and highwaymen, and it’s all terrible, and these days your child daren’t go to a state school, because they will be immediately impregnated, by some awful, beastly costermonger’s child, and it’s terrible, and actually, it turns out that the worst and most badly behaved, lazy and indulged children are children of the middle class, in schools, and it’s the industrious, hard-working children, barefoot children from those parts of the country where the old fish mines have closed that are much maligned, they’re the salt of the earth, and it’s all the children with stupid, made-up names like Hosepipe and Otterworm, where…”
“The ones who can afford it put their children in private schools, where they make them wear these preposterous uniforms, and you think, don’t make them [wear], that’s a stone magnet is that blazer, you’ve just turned your child, by making them wear vermillion trouser suits, and, you know, a sort of Norman French falconer’s gauntlet, you’ve made them into a pebble target!”

[Lucy Waterman]

Awful awful day. Thanks for kind words about my own feelings, but it's been amazing to see how widespread the sense of loss and sadness is.

Some thoughts as they come to me. Just getting them off my chest really, my mind's full of him today.

He was a great one for hugs. Not in a laddy bearish or too touchy-feely kind of way, but in a "good to see you, I guess we've survived being on this hellish planet for however long it's been since last time we met" kind of way.

He was very political, but really interested in discussing politics even with people who didn't share his politics at all. He wasn't deferential but neither was he rude - he'd drink with Tory peers and people on disability benefit around the same table and treat both in the same way.

He really respected good jokes, no matter who made them. Which might seem obvious, but I kind of mean it in a distinct kind of way - he was a jokes person, and he liked jokes people.

I knew him for over a decade, worked with him often in that time, though not so much in recent times. I would always be secretly excited to be with the guy who was brilliant on If I Ruled The World when I was a kid.

I remember his face one Fringe when I pointed out to him it was exactly twenty five years since he won the Perrier.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Condolences LW. And what everyone else has said re JH. Awful news.

[Gangster Octopus]

Chain Reaction between Jeremy Hardy and Jack Dee.

[Lucy Waterman]

Btw GO, I think he'd have been ruefully amused by the thread being misspelled. It seems kind of fitting for his downbeatness.

[Janik]

Ah, nuts.

[E10 Rifle]

Condolences LW. I met him once at a party about 12 years ago. I think we were both pretty drunk, but he seemed as eloquent and witty irl as he was on stage (and in print, he had a bloody good Guardian column for a while)

[johnr]

Yes, many condolences Lucy. That's a nice post there.

[blameless]

A sad loss indeed, and 57 is cruelly young.

Thanks for sharing that with us LW.

[Bored Of Education]

Very decent tributes from Mark Steel and Jeremy Corbyn here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06zqmpr* LW will probably know more about this but I thought that Had was interesting on his friendship with Corbyn in recent years when I saw him live. He sounded customarily embarrassed about being connected with something so mainstream and popular and I got the impression that he knew that what has happened with Corbyn was going to happen.

*again how do we get links embedded in text?

[Lucy Waterman]

I don't want to put words in his mouth, so this is just what I understood - I believe Jeremy was closer to McDonnell than Corbyn, but very respectful and admiring of both. He was certainly hugely proud of Corbyn becoming leader, delighted by the popular response, and found it initially difficult to reconcile that with his obligations to satirise them.

[Lucy Waterman]

A sad loss indeed, and 57 is cruelly young.

Thanks for sharing that with us LW.

No, thank you for being interested enough to listen. I wasn't one of his closest friends, but I cared about him a great deal and believe he did me. I have lots of wonderful messages from him - he was a spectacular angry texter when the need arose (not about me!), but they're too sad to look at now.