George Melly once said he was a man who was "unfairly endowed with charm and wit". I'll second that. When I was a little kid, back in the 70s, one of my favourite unexpected treats was when George Melly would appear on the telly. Like Peter Ustinov, Gorgeous George was a coveted and regular guest on chat shows - wit, raconteur, blah blah blah - who could always be relied upon to tell some side-splitting stories.
Melly was also a glorious nelly - a lapsed practising homosexual, who never stopped being a big ole queen - and he was always wonderfully indiscrete, usually about his early gay days in the navy, or his on the road stories of sex and drugs and trad jazz.
We're lucky enough that he put most of the best ones down in the second volume of his memoirs; Rum, Bum and Concertina (the title came from a line attributed to Winston Churchill about what life on the ocean wave was really like). It was published in 1977, when it was still rare to hear a man write with such relish about a penchant for bum.
In his admissions interview, an admiral asked George why he wanted to join the Royal Navy. "Well, the uniform's so amusing, don't you think?" He almost got kicked out for sedition when he was caught handing out anarchist literature to his crewmates. My kind of guy.
He was also one of our greatest critics of popular culture - sagacious, sympathetic and never snobbish. His masterpiece is Revolt Into Style (1970) - one of the first books that took a serious look at this new-fangled pop music - and a simply dazzling history of the irresistible rise of British youth culture.
I also adore the film that he scripted, Smashing Time (1967) - an hilarious satire on the "Swinging 60s", starring Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave as two provincial girls who run away to London and - as the poster put it - "Go stark raving mod!"
I was lucky enough to interview George two years ago at his ramshackle house in Shepherd's Bush. The old rogue's study was plastered in posters of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, incidentally. It was such an honour to get a private audience to hear some of his fantastic stories once again.
George! Darling - you were wonderful!
