I don’t watch hardly any new American TV shows these days.

For one thing, my life and its relentless work schedule don’t lend itself well to a religiously kept appointment with the tube on a weekday night just before the witching hour. Furthermore, there appears to be a serious lack of quality drama being served up these days from across the pond.

The few excellent shows that have caught my attention in recent years; e.g. Deadwood and  Arrested Development have been cancelled it seems in favour of more vapid, nonsensical shows like Medium or Ghost Whisperer. I heard great things about ‘House’ but after watching it once, I just couldn’t ignore Hugh Laurie’s dreadful American accent.

So earlier this year when a new cop show named ‘The Beast’ hit one of the channel 5 digital offshoots, offering up nothing new conceptually with an almost flea bitten, hackneyed story centred around the old war horse veteran partnered with the hot headed rookie, ordinarily it would have been summarily dismissed were it not for the shows star, one Patrick Swayze.

Having been absent from the screen both silver and small in recent years, save for a wee supporting role in the cult classic phenom that was ‘Donnie Darko’, I decided to give it a go and was duly impressed. His robust features had diminished somewhat due to the terrible physical demands of his illness but he had certainly lost none of his stature on screen, his commanding presence had endured and his talent was still in good measure

And so I was deeply saddened to learn of Patrick’s untimely passing the other day.

What an absolute screen gem the man was.

 How many of us girls out there know every line from Dirty Dancing, studied the risqué’ dance moves and sang all the songs from the film.

I drove my family mad as a wee lass belting out the Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes hit song from the film – ‘I’ve had the time of my life’. Another great and under rated tune from the films soundtrack is ‘she’s like the wind’, which Patrick co-wrote and released as a single. Easily two of the best cheesy love songs from the 80’s.

 Few films in our lifetime make such an impact, few people affect us profoundly from all walks of life and few songs stand the test of time and remain as fresh and powerful decades later. I sincerely hope that at least a few people will be singing along to my tunes in a fit of nostalgia in the years to come.

 On the very same day, I learned of the sad death of hell raising wunderchef Keith Floyd.

The timing of which was rather spooky I thought, as I, like millions of others no doubt had just watched a programme celebrating the life of the cantankerous gastronome the night before.
 Poor old Keith, I have a real soft spot for hard drinking, chain smoking, straight talking men and women with tremendous talent who live their lives as they want to the extremes of infamous excess and to hell with the consequences. None of this PC, lets pat each other on the back for being so great rubbish.

He was shuffling round his Avignon pad half cut being interviewed by vindaloo Allen’s dad also known as Keith, who apparently is an actor, although only thing I remember seeing of him on the big screen was his shriveled tadger in Shallow Grave.

We’re all flawed and simple creatures at the end of the day, we all have our demons and crosses to bear and some of us shoulder the load more easily than others.
Rip Patrick and Keith!

What im listening to – my ears are dedicated to Patrick Swayze this week, it will be an aural feast of all the great songs appearing on his movie soundtracks, The Righteous Brothers, Bill and Jennifer and the fabulous Jeff Healey Band who appeared in Roadhouse.