One of the pleasures of my boyhood was going round to my grandmother's flat to watch TV (we didn't have a set at home at the time). On Saturday afternoons my brother and I would join her to watch the wrestling (Kent Walton ringside), and on weekend evenings there would be such delights as Danger Man, starring the very cool Patrick McGoohan, and The Saint, based on Leslie Charteris's stories, and starring Roger Moore. As it happens, today is Roger Moore's 99th birthday, though he isn't around to celebrate it (he died just short of 90).
Back in the early days of this long-lived blog, I included Roger Moore in a series called Cravat Heroes, part of my doomed campaign to encourage the wearing of the deeply unfashionable cravat. Here's some of what I wrote then...
'Roger Moore began by modelling knitwear, and continued to model a variety of formal and leisure wear for many decades, under the guise of an acting career (a career that connoisseurs agree peaked with his Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders, opposite Tony Curtis). In matters of the dramatic art, Moore was a rigorous minimalist and restricted his efforts to the raising and lowering of one eyebrow, clearly believing that 'less is more'. Alas, in his case, less was indeed less – or rather, less was (hem hem) Moore. Strangely, Moore – a natural cravat man if ever there was one – has not pulled his weight in this crucial field of neckwear, usually preferring the naked neck look with an open shirt (long past the point at which this ceased to be advisable on aesthetic grounds). However, it has always seemed as if a kind of Platonic cravat was somehow there, even in its physical absence, rather as an ectoplasmic moustache has always hovered over John Major's upper lip. I think, despite everything (including the questionable pairing of a cravat with a frilly shirt), Roger Moore is worthy of inclusion in the Cravat Heroes pantheon...'
Moore is sometimes credited with the invention of the Magnum – not the gun but the choc ice on a stick, a confection which has brought much pleasure to many, myself included. Alas, the facts don't quite support the legend...
'After Sir Roger's death, a journalist friend recalled that he had told her how, in an interview in the Sixties, he once said that, if he could have one wish and meet one person, he would like to meet 'Mr Wall's' and ask him why they didn't make a choc ice on a stick. 'I didn't know at the time,' recalled Moore ruefully, 'but other people like Claire Bloom were being asked the same question and they wanted to meet Gandhi or Jesus.' But apparently 'Mr Wall's' was delighted with Moore's answer and sent him some kind of prototype Magnum, but as it was in the form of a cake it was clearly a very long way from the finished product, which indeed didn't appear until the Nineties.
Happily Sir Roger lived long enough to enjoy many a Magnum (despite being diabetic). His favourite was the Black Espresso, of which he permitted himself two a week. He claimed to be able to make one last a full half hour, which is impressive. The Black Espresso is my favourite too, but I rarely come across it these days, amid all the fancy new flavours.
If I had one request to make of 'Mr Wall's', it would be to find a way to stop the chocolate falling off the ice cream as you bite into your Magnum.'
Things have not improved: the Magnum still sheds chocolate – and the Black Espresso seems to have disappeared altogether. Perhaps 'Mr Wall's' could bring out a limited edition to celebrate the Roger Moore centenary next year.
Over here in La La Land, the helados de palo ( ice-cream on a stick ) was well established long before Sir Roger put in his five penn'orth. Companies like Frigo cottoned-on to the fact that, down here in the cultural desert of the 'Costas', with 300+ days of sunshine a year, Magnum-types and look-a-likes would be big business; and so it turned out. No stranger to this drug posing as a confection myself, I can offer a useful solution to the ever present blight of the chocolate prophylactic separating from the palm-oil ladened inner core. It requires a certain self-control. Simply coat your tongue with decent load of saliva, and 'lick it' onto the surface of the lolly. This human slime instantly forms a 'bonding agent' of iced saliva, holding the whole structure together. It works for me...
ReplyDeleteWow! I'll certainly be trying that, and I'll pass on the tip to my Magnum-loving grandsons. Thanks Michael.
DeleteI used to wear a cravat sometimes, largely because I can't abide ties.
ReplyDeleteThen a girlfriend threw them out on the grounds that "You are not one of The Few."
I remember seeing some chat show where Yoko Ono and Laurence Olivier were asked what they most wanted to change in the world. I thought they'd say they wanted to end child poverty or cruelty or something along the grand lines of the meeting Gandhi answer. Instead, Olivier said the one thing he most wanted to change was people.not warming plates before putting food on them and Yoko Ono said she hated it when people didn't pick up the telephone when she rang them - she hated.the sound of a telephone ringing and no one answering.
ReplyDeleteI'd.forgotten about Choc Ices. I loved them, partly because they didn't have a stick, so there was no danger of them falling off.
There is Magnum in a tub which has finger holds printed on it where you grasp and crush the thick chocolate carapace within before opening. Satisfyingly interactive.
ReplyDeleteAh, so that's how the tubs work! I must try one...
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