Frank Sidebottom

In yet another eerie coincidence, I was in an online chat room on Saturday night when someone had asked a friend of mine whether they had Frank Sidebottom's medley of The Smiths so she could play it to him.

She didn't even know who he was.

I thought to myself that it had been a long time since I had seen Frank Sidebottom around.

Growing up in the 1980's, Frank was on TV quite a lot.

He made regular appearances on the Saturday morning television shows and featured in a comic I used to get - Oink - which was, if I can compare it to anything, was a kiddy version of Viz.

I even recall an art lesson in junior school where we had to make masks from papier mache after covering a balloon with the gluey newspaper. While my classmates did monsters and other zany looking creations, I did one of Frank Sidebottom.

Come on, shouldn't this have been the obvious choice when a kid was asked to make a papier mache head?

When we reached the 1990's, Frank Sidebottom was on a Channel 4 game show titled Remote Control. I recall spending each weekday morning of the 1992 summer holidays watching it.

Just two nights after Frank Sidebottom returned to my conscious thoughts, I received an email from an old school friend telling me that the comedian had died.

The best way I can end this post is to urge you to search for him on YouTube, especially if you don't know who he is.