Tribute from James Bennett - Colin Climo: In Great Company

By James Bennett - November 29, 2004

Col was an inspirational colleague and a warm and caring friend. He possessed a wonderful mind and keen intellect and was a font of many and marvellous facts and figures, embracing wine, sport, gastronomy, geography, business, music, history, literature and the arts. Especially sport. Apart from multifarious other ball games, he and I shared a masochistic passion for the English soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, perennial hopeless jokes of the Premier League but always, we knew, on the verge of heroic championship success. It was a favourite topic - but there was no subject Col could not espouse on; it was part of his greatness as a journalist and bon vivant. As a different sort of tribute, I thought I’d find out who were the other great people who shared his birthday and day of passing. They are an interesting group and, I think you’d agree, he’s in the best of company.

James Bennett, The Bulletin

26/11/2004

Colin Climo, born October 23, along with …

Pele, Brazilian soccer supremo.

Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park among many brilliant novels and film plays.

Ang Lee, formidable film-maker of The Wedding Banquet and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Dwight Yoakam, country rock star.

Turner Ashby, Civil War Confederate brigadier-general and cavalry commander under Stonewall Jackson.

Johnny Carson, US talk show superstar.

Diana Dors, actress and blonde bombshell, Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.

Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel (in 1926).

Milton “Gummo” Marx, the fifth of the brothers Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo; he often played the straight man in their early movies.

Adlai Stevenson, the very influential vice-president of the US in the late 19th century.

Wilson “Boozoo” Chavis, a pioneer of zydeco music and one of its most beloved characters.

Greg Ridley, bass player for the English rock group Humble Pie which also featured Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton.

Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, 17th-century Queen of Sweden, wife of King Karl X Gustav.

Weird Al Yankovic, wickedly clever writer of spoof rock songs.

Colin Climo, died November 25, along with …

Yukio Mishima, brilliant Japanese playwright and novelist, martial artist and darkly fanatical militarist.

Diego Rivero, Mexican artist and revolutionary husband of the great Frida Kahlo.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, superlative black American dancer.

Charles Kettering, great American inventor of, among many things, the electronic cash register and spark plug.

Upton Sinclair, Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer.

Anthony Burgess, English writer, author of A Clockwork Orange.

Laurence Harvey, prominent British actor.

Kenisaw Mountain Landis, turn-of-the-century American jurist who cleaned up baseball after the "eight men out" scandal.

Nick Drake, brilliant but tragic English folk singer/songwriter.

Malcolm II, king of the Scots from 1005-1039.

Harold Washington, inspirational civil rights leader and Chicago's first black mayor.

U Thant, Burmese UN secretary-general of the turbulent 1960s.