WINKLE-PICKERS

Sorting through the effects of our late friend, Ali Bongo, we came across a curious find: a winkle shell filled with wax and a membership card of the Hastings Winkle Club.

Click on the image below to enlarge and read the hilarious club rules...


After we'd finished laughing, we consulted Professor Google and discovered that, 109 years on, the Hastings Winkle Club is still going strong.

In fact, it turns out to be an internationally famous charitable organisation originally formed by Hastings fishermen to help the under-privileged families of Hastings Old Town.

The club's headquarters, opened in 1882, is located at the Fishermen's Club: a building given in trust for the use of Hastings Fishermen and initially used for the making and repairing of nets.

Winkle Club members have included some illustrious personalities such as HMs the Queen and the Queen Mother, Lord Montgomery, Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of Windsor and a number of showbiz personalities of which Ali was obviously one.

Each Winkle Club Member (or 'Winkler') carries a winkle shell which they must produce when challenged to 'Winkle Up'. Failure to do so results in a fine which goes towards local charities.

You can read more about the history and work of The Hastings Winkle Club here.

Time, now, to lower the tone (if that is possible!) and remind you of that saucy old music hall number -- all together now -- I Can't Get My Winkle Out!

Take it away, Paul Carr! And, please, everyone, feel free to join in and sing along...

A LAST SHRIEK

Today we'll be attending the funeral of the President of The Magic Circle, Ali Bongo.

Here, for my international readers, is Ali performing ('trilingually') his signature trick featuring the mysterious pom-pom stick or, as Ali's English patter used to call it, 'The Chinese Whatsit' - a cue to ask "Whatsit do?" Well, I'll let Ali show you...

And so, as Ali used to say, "That  answers the question 'Whatsit do?', but that still leaves the question 'Whatsit FOR?'"

Our friend's passing is very much the closing of a chapter in the history of magic, and there's no better way of remembering this zany, lovable, colourful personality than as he was seen on The Paul Daniels Magic Show with all the energy, vigour and eccentric inventiveness of his prime, performing his madcap act -- 'The Shriek of Araby'...

Best Salaams, Ali!

You can read more about Ali Bongo in my obituary to him in The Independent

NEWS FROM PONGOLAND

The Independent have published my obituary to Ali Bongo. And at 4:00 pm on Friday 13 March, I'll be talking about Ali on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Last Word. The programme will be repeated on Sunday 15 at 8:30 pm and can be heard via the BBC iPlayer for the following seven days.

And here's the front page cartoon by Matt from the Daily Telegraph. How Ali would have laughed......

Cartoon by MATT, © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009

ALI BONGO (1929-2009)

A fond and sad farewell to our good friend Ali Bongo.

The President of The Magic Circle, Ali was one of the most quirkily inventive magicians of our time.

Born William Wallace in India, Ali became known throughout the magic world as the 'magician's magician'.

The author of many books of magic, often illustrated in his own distinctive cartoony style, he also worked as an adviser on countless films, plays, operas, ballets and TV programmes, teaching non-magician actors how to convincingly perform illusions on stage or screen.

Ali would later serve as the inspiration for Alan Davies' popular television character, Jonathan Creek, and acted as the series' magical consultant.

A great comedy performer in his own right - his crazy, Arabian Nights-inspired wizard act, the Shriek of Araby was a tour de force of anarchic zaniness - he spent much of his career as a back-room-boy for two of the greatest television magicians of the twentieth century, David Nixon and Paul Daniels: advising them on their magic and devising new tricks and illusions for their shows.

Ali appeared on many of Nixon's shows: sometimes in the guise of a bewigged footman named Alistair, sometimes as himself, but always to ensure that the front-man magician got the magic right!

Here he is assisting David Nixon with an illusion of his own devising, featuring the American performer, Barbara Hanna.

Funny, generous-hearted and hugely knowledgeable, Ali was universally respected and loved by the magical community. He was presented with The Magic Circle's Carlton Award for Comedy in 1983 and was elected as the society's President last year although he had already long been an unofficial, international ambassador for magic.

His passing means that there's suddenly a little less magic in our world...

There are a number of interview clips with Ali on the BBC's web-site page for Jonathan Creek in which Ali talks about the series, magic, Harry Potter and The Magic Circle.

Video by John Helvin © 2009