Richard Whiteley has died, and I am sad.
As a child, I would quite often be ill - or at least pretend to be ill - and it always happened that the moment I could convince my mother that, crazy with boredom, I was well enough to lie on the sofa would mysteriously coincide with the beginning of Countdown on Channel 4.
My mum would busy herself elsewhere, satisfied that I was being educated in some small way, and I would be left in the safe hands of Richard Whiteley and Carol Vorderman, trying desperately to find a word longer than 4 letters. Or hoping against hope that the best word possible would be something incredibly rude.
Richard himself quite often looked shocked and surprised when he managed to think of a word longer than his socially-awkward contestants, or solved the number puzzle all on his own, and would smile a smile of the genuinely proud, while Carol looked on patiently, as if she'd come up with the same answer several minutes before, and had now mentally moved on to creating a new type of clean fuel in the few seconds before she'd be called upon to perform another stunning act of braininess.
He was, apparently, a lot cleverer than he let on.
Watching him present the show - as he did for 23 years - sometimes felt like watching your dad dance at a wedding. Supremely confident yet squirmingly awkward, sensible suit and striped blazer topped off with a terrible tie, painful puns would tumble from his mouth, jokes and wordplay that you knew had never felt the touch of a professional script-writer, but had been thought up in the dressing room, and seemed like a terribly good idea at the time.
But it was hard not to feel affection for him. As proved by the tender tributes currently filling the talkboards. His gentle, bumbling manner contrasted sharply with the dull-as-dishwater ubergeek contestants of Countdown, his gentle flirting with Carol Vorderman more and more comedic in the later years as she went from mousey brainiac to the UK's premier "sex-bomb with a brain".
But behind the flirting, it was clear that these were simply two people who actually liked each other, friends as well as colleagues - unusual on TV, and pleasant, because of it. Old people like Countdown - perhaps because of this strange TV "people being nice to each other" anomaly, students too. I used to wonder what life would be like if Carol and Richard were my mum and dad.
It's difficult to imagine how the show will carry on without his safe hand and shambolic style. The first face on Channel 4, the man who never missed an episode of countdown till he fell ill in May, it seems impossible to imagine the giant clock without a Richard in charge of it.
The news stories and obituaries are talking about him as an established and supremely competant journalist, presenting Yorkshire TV's evening news magazine Calendar for 27 years, but I didn't know him from that.
To me he was the King of Countdown, and while my getting a proper job has put distance between us, to the point where I didn't even know that he was ill, I will remember him as the man with the bad ties and the worse jokes. As someone who overwhelmingly seemed like a Very Nice Man.
According to one story, a fan of Countdown was cremated last year, his coffin disappearing to the strains of the theme of the Countdown clock.
I have to admit that this was one of the first thoughts when I heard last night that Richard Whiteley had died. It is the theme tune I associate with him most, and to me, it will always be Richard's song.
Doo doo-do, doo-do! Doo doo-do, doo-do! Doo doo-do, doo-do! Doo doodle-oodle-oo! Doo doo-do, doo-do! Doo doo-do, doo-do! Diddle, doodle, diddly-doo! Pow!
Good bye Richard, King of Countdown.
