Denis norden autobiography of missouri
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My success? I owe it all to an incontinent baby elephant! The memoirs of the late DENIS NORDEN reveal his own life was as riotously funny as his famous TV bloopers
Denis Norden believes his career with Alright on the Night came from a cup of tea in the ITV canteen discussing a mishap on the BBC
For a television series whose success depended on things going wrong, It’ll Be Alright On The Night had a remarkably trouble-free birth.
Over a cup of tea in the London Weekend Television canteen, producer Paul Smith and I were chatting about the famous Blue Peter episode featuring Valerie Singleton and the incontinent baby elephant, when one of us — and, for the life of me, I can’t recall which — mused: ‘Wonder if it would be possible to string together a whole programme of out-takes?’
(Strictly speaking, that one wasn’t an ‘out-take’ because it had been transmitted, which made it what we later called a ‘blooper’.)
After mulling it over for all of five minutes, we phoned upstairs to
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Listen
Adage
by Billy Collins
When its late at night and branches
are banging against the windows,
you might think that love is just a matter
of leaping out of the frying pan of yourself
into the fire of someone else,
but its a little more complicated than that.
Its more like trading the two birds
who might be hiding in that bush
for the one you are not holding in your hand.
A wise man once said that love
was like forcing a horse to drink
but then everyone stopped thinking of him as wise.
Let us be clear about something.
Love is not as simple as getting up
on the wrong side of the bed wearing the emperors clothes.
No, its more like the way the pen
feels after it has defeated the sword.
Its a little like the penny saved or the nine dropped stitches.
You look at me through the halo of the last candle
and tell me love is an ill wind
that has no turning, a road that blows no good,
but I am here to remind you
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Bud ABBOTT and Lou COSTELLO
BUD AND LOU THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO STORY
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THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO BOOK
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THE OFFICIAL ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SCRAPBOOK
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Dave ALLEN
DAVE ALLEN GODS OWN COMEDIAN
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DAVE ALLEN THE BIOGRAPHY
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Fred ALLEN
TREADMILL TO OBLIVION
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MUCH ADO ABOUT ME
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FRED ALLENS LETTERS
edited bygd Joe McCarthy (Doubleday, New York. )
FRED ALLEN HIS LIFE AND WIT
by Robert Taylor (Little, Brown and Company, Boston. )
Woody ALLEN
WOODY ALLEN JOKING ASIDE
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WOODY ALLEN ON LOCATION
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WOODY ALLEN
by Eric Lax (Alfr