Many many many years ago, I was out of work. And I was frequenting the Museum of Television and Television -this was pre internet where you had instant access.
I was obsessed with Dennis Potter.
To call him a genius is to not quite to grasp how far the man wnt who, about to die from cancer wrote how life is how every blossom is the most blossingmiest blossom. Or to appreciate how much 20s english pop (I knew the yank) he taught me in “Pennies From Heaven”. Or..
Or “The Singing Detective” where the most virulent, this side of leprosy, skin disease, eats up a fiction writer. The disease is called psoriasis. Potter imagined a chorus line of doctors and doctors assistants singing round Dumbledore (Michael Gambons) bed: dem bones, dem bones as he can’t move from skin sores.
Liam Gallagher has psoriasis.
Here is what he said to Q: ” I’ve got bad skin. I’ve got psoriasis all over my fuckking body. Everywhere except me face. And every now and again on me head. Everyone’s backstage and this geezer comes up to me off his tits going, ain’t seen Oasis for fucking years, fucking great.’ And I’m going, ‘Yeah, alright.’ And he goes to his mate: ‘Look Steve, he’s even got cocaine in his hair.’ And he pulls a bit of shitt out me hair and snorts it up both nostrils. On my fucking life, it’s true.”