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Humanity is blessed with the gift of play. OK, maybe dolphins, monkeys and baby snow leopards play sometimes too, but only humans have rules. And the more complex the rules are, the better the game. I was reminded of the joy of complex play when I found that the Les Inconnus had invented a wonderful game show called Simple Comme Bonjour:

Simple Comme Bonjour is in many respects the French version of that favourite British pastime, Mornington Crescent. While I always prefer playing under the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Rules, (in which shunting is only allowed in two-syllable stations, and double parallels are punishable by a penalty lap via Cape Town), here’s Humphrey Lyttleton and friends playing computerised Mornington Crescent in 2007:

While the grand tradition of complex play is a strong vein within British culture, it’s an activity that Americans largely discarded in the late 18th century. Thomas Jefferson famously described Mornington Crescent as a symbol of all that was most corrupt about monarchy – but that was only after Ben Franklin had beaten him in three minutes flat with a cheeky switchback through Seven Sisters on a bank holiday timetable.

However, one of the most advanced examples of complex play ever attempted on television is Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s Shooting Stars. Unfortunately, the game show has been in hiatus recently, apparently after an acrimonious breakup between George Dawes and his singing partner, the baked potato.

Humphrey Lyttleton – One Man Went to Blow
From Platinum Series : [emusic]

Louis Armstrong referred to him as “that cat in England who swings his ass off“.

Humphrey Lyttleton led the sort of polymath life that most of us can only dream of: cartoonist, soldier, broadcaster, author, chairman of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on BBC Radio Four, and one of the greatest jazz musicians to emerge from postwar Britain.

Humph died on Friday, and it’s unlikely the world will see anyone like him again. A member of the minor English nobility, he was schooled at Eton in the 1930s, but avoided a life of privilege by buying a trumpet and developing a deep love of jazz.

In 1943 he landed on the Salerno beaches with a gun in one hand and a trumpet in the other. On V-E day in 1945 he was paraded around in front of Buckingham Palace in a wheelbarrow, playing “Roll Out the Barrel”. After the war, he drew cartoons for the Daily Mail, played and toured with Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong.

In 1956 Humph’s band scored the first “jazz” hit in the UK Billboard charts – Bad Penny Blues reached number 19 and stayed there for 6 weeks: a real achievement when British ears were already picking up the intimations of a new kind of pop, courtesy of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley.

And from 1971 until his death Humph was the chairman of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, one of the longest running panel games on the BBC. A platform for the absurdist and surreal streaks in British humour, nobody had less idea about what was going on during the show than the ringmaster himself, Humphrey Lyttleton.

I hope that Humph is now jamming somewhere with his old friend Louis Armstrong. But I’d like to think that he’s also introducing the angels to the complex and ancient rules of the greatest game of them all, Mornington Crescent:

Mornington Crescent (Napoleon III Variation)
From the 2007 series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue (BBC Radio 4)

The Independent has a good obituary, and Melvyn Bragg’s excellent 2007 TV documentary on Humph is on YouTube (in 6 parts).