TONY PARSEHOLE

Lionel’s Gone and my World has Lost its Pizazz (subs check spelling)

WHEN THE NEWS CAME THROUGH THAT LIONEL BLAIR HAD PASSED AWAY, THE COLOUR AND SPARKLE DRAINED OUT OF MY WORLD.

The colour and sparkle drained out of all our worlds.

For Lionel was truly the most colourful and sparkleful star in the showbusiness firmament. A dazzling technicolour comet who lit up the sky like a million fireworks with his ebullient personality.

He was a home grown Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers or Jean Kelly, combined with all the poise and sophistication of Margot Fontaine and Rudolph Valentino, topped off with a generous helping of the old-time Vaudeville pizazz (check spelling again) of Sammy Davis Junior and Billy Dainty.

Those of us who grew up during the past will always remember his grinning face, his sparkling eyes, his flashing teeth and his tapping feet. He was a light entertainment mainstay over the best part of ten decades. A personality with a capital ‘p’.

But at the age of 92, his trademark feet have stopped tapping for the very last time. He has hung up his top hat, white tie and tails, and taken his final bow on this great stage that we call life.

Lionel was larger than life, and now he is larger than death. He has been taken away and embalmed with the applause of the audience still ringing in his late ears.

But what a life he led.

A hundred years at the very top of the showbusiness tree, appearing on a vast number of programmes such as Give Us a Clue and many, many more too numerous to mention or look up.

And that smile!

Lionel’s mile-wide grin that looked like the radiator on a Mk3 Cortina lit up all our living rooms every time he appeared on Give Us a Clue or the countless other shows

on which he appeared on during his long and illustrious showbiz career.

But through our tears of grief, there is a glowing ray of hope and joy. For it is only a few short months since Una Stubbs - his erstwhile opposing team captain on over 300 episodes of Give Us a Clue - also passed on at the age of 84 years of age.

And now Lionel and Una will be finally reunited in the hereafter. Together again at last in the clouds, where they can guess each other’s phrase or saying or film or book title or whatever it was for all eternity, along with all their dead celebrity pals such as Gareth Hunt, Bernie Winters, Lynsey de Paul, Yootha Joyce, Alfie Bass (Lloyd, let me know if you want 750 wods, theres a list here on imbd most of thems dead I can just copy an past)

But more than that, they can dance!

For above everything, Lionel Blair and Una Stubbs loved to move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps. Foxtrot, quickstep, tango, Viennese waltz, boogaloo, bump, rumba, cha-cha or salsa… whatever type of dance it was, you can bet your boots they’ll (and that’s a contraction on they will, so I’m having that as two) be doing it in Heaven.

Square dance, circle dance, line dance or breakdance. Vogue, krump, body-pop, East Coast Swing, Flamenco or samba (ballroom or Brazillian), it was all gist to their dancing mills.

How many wods is that 486 fucking get in.

The black bottom, the conga, the frug. Lambada, that’s another one. 500 spot on. inv enc. Can you pay quick only puppys chewed stair carpet