THE POOH PERSPECTIVE

A post-script -- or Pooh Script, perhaps -- on the recent death of Charlton Heston: the actor Peter Dennis (right), an old mate of mine and a regular reader of this blog talked to the Los Angeles Times about his friendship with Heston, the actor's controversial defence of gun ownership and their mutual affection for ---- Winnie-the-Pooh.

The article is a reminder that most of the time, most of us know a lot less about people than we suppose...

Heston was undoubtedly capable of extreme reactionary attitudes that many found indefensible; so much so, that it became fashionable to make attacks on the man, even to the extent - as George Clooney shamefully did - of mocking his last illness: "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's..."

However, in a typical case of long-term media memory-loss, it was conveniently forgotten that the man who was denounced for his intention of hanging on to his gun until it was wrested from his "cold, dead hands" had once castigated Time Warner for the release of an album by Ice-T featuring a song called 'Cop Killer' and, years before that, had walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Martin Luther King in the Washington civil rights march of 1963.

So, like most of us, Charlton Heston was a complex, often contradictory, person... But few of us knew - or would have ever believed - that Moses' nickname was 'Tigger'.

You can find out more about Peter Dennis and his superb recordings of the Winnie the Pooh books by visiting him at 'Pooh Corner'.