"Sir John Mortimer is Dead"...or "How I always discover the coolest people through their obituaries"

Here's to Sir John Mortimer, a gentleman who I had never heard of before yesterday, when As It Happens played a recording of a very funny speech he made, in honor of his death. As It Happens is a Canadian public radio news show, and I wish I could find the theme song as my ringtone, because it would serve to weed out people I am unwilling to sleep with. Yes, it's true, I do require as one of my standards that you recognize the theme music of several NPR shows. I think there are worse ways to be picky.

"People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don't think anybody learns anything."

You know, the problem is, after someone dies, it's really hard to find substantive links on them that aren't stories about their death. I've been searching for this speech I heard last night, where he talked about why he preferred to defend murderers than divorcees. Because divorcees will call you up at all times of the night complaining about custody of the dog. But murderers have already killed the one person who really bugged them, so they're quite calm about the whole thing. It was really the funniest speech I've heard in a long time. Obama should copy it for Tuesday.

Instead I've learned that he was the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, wrote the script for Tea With Mussolini and defended the Sex Pistols in the Bollocks Obscenity Trial.

"Mortimer then said that he wished to call Professor James Kingsley to give evidence as to the meaning of the word bollocks. Mr. Richie objected to the witness being called. However, the chairman said ''let's get it over with'', and Kingsley was called. Kingsley told the court that he was the Reverend James Kingsley, professor of English studies at Nottingham University. He said he was a former Anglican priest and also a fellow of the Royal Academy. Under questioning from Mortimer he then went into discussing the derivation of the word bollocks. He said it was used in records from the year 1000 and in Anglo Saxon times it meant a small ball. The terms was also used to describe an orchid. He said that in the 1961 publication of Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang, he had not taken into account the use of the word bollocks in the Middle Ages. He said it appears in Medievel bibles and veterinary books. In the bible it was used to describe small things of an appropriate shape. He said that the word also appears in place names without stirring any sensual desires in the local communities. Mortimer said that this would be similar to a city being called Maidenhead which didn't seem to cause the locals in the vicinity any problems. Mr Kingsley said that Partridge in his books wrote that bollocks remained in colloquial use down through the centuries and was also used to denote a clergyman in the last century. ''The word has been used as a nickname for clergymen. Clergymen are known to talk a good deal of rubbish and so the word later developed the meaning of nonsense,'' he said. ''They became known for talking a great deal of bollocks, just as old balls or baloney also come to mean testicles, so it has twin uses in the dictionary."

It wasn't the only obscenity trial he defended, but it's certainly the most famous one, unless you want to count "The Love That Dare To Speak It's Name", and there seems to be some debate as to his role in the trial of "Lady Chatterly's Lover", but he was definitely there. He married 2 women named Penelope, which is either an utterly lovely or really repulsive name, wrote propaganda films for WW2, and ended his life consulting on Boston Legal. Yeah, that tv show. And he wrote some books that I'll be reading soon, since the titles are "Murderers and Other Friends" and "The Oxford Book of Villains". He wrote a ton of others, like 4 autobiographies. How much do you have to live in order to write 4 books solely about your life? And of course, the Rumpole books.

"We don't know much about the human conscience, except that it is soluble in alcohol."

I have read a few Rumpole of the Bailey books, cause you know, I go for that whole stiff upper lip, rowdy humour, British mystery sort of thing. I always thought She Who Must Be Obeyed was a wonderful thing, the title I mean. So I guess I knew that someone wrote those books, I just didn't know who. Think of all the brilliant people out there, dead and alive, that you know nothing about. It's daunting.

"I always say that if you find a streak of vulgarity in yourself you should nurture it and see what happens. I've been showing off all my life."