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I was very sad to learn tonight that Jeremy Beadle MBE had passed away after suffering from pneumonia - that after a number of years of battling against cancer and leukaemia. As a child of the eighties I believe Beadle WAS Saturday night entertainment (well… there were only four TV channels back then so that may have helped!). Whether it was in ‘Game for a Laugh’ with Sarah Kennedy, Matthew & Henry Kelly, or later his own show ‘Beadle’s About’ in which he would play practical jokes on people by setting up fake scenarios, Saturday just wasn’t Saturday without him (or the A-Team).

There was one particular stunt he pulled which has always stuck in my mind for years because of the way the victim fell for it hook line and sinker and absolutely lost the plot. This was the ‘Dave Hughes and His White Van‘ prank which I was glad to find on YouTube - still as funny now as it was then and a recommended watch if you have 5 minutes. An example of Beadle at his best and a great way to remember him.

I should give a further mention to Jeremy Beadle as one of the world’s first bloggers, he didn’t know it but that’s what he used to be. My first ever HTML book (1997) gave his website (with diary) as an example of what not to do - ‘Nobody wants to read about your life in particular’ it said, citing Beadle’s site as an example of something nobody would be interested in other than himself. Today, with millions of bloggers writing about their personal lives, how wrong the author of that book was!

Technorati Tags: jeremy beadle, beadles about, game for a laugh, you’ve been framed

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