Be Excellent To Each Other

Mark Speight of smART and Scratchy & Co. has been found dead at Paddington Railway Station (link)

Didn't he kill his girlfriend recently?

I think it's quite sad really. I thought smART was quite good really. One of the less hyperactive kids shows.

RIP. I wasted many a fine morning watching Scratchy & Co - it had that slightly unhinged edgey quality (in retrospect, quite possibly coke-fuelled) that made for good children's comedy. He was cracking on SmART too, as he obviously was actually artistically talented, rather than just following the producers' directions.

His fianceé died rather horribly - so whacked out on cocaine, Vodka and sleeping pills that she climbed into a scalding bath and died of shock, with 60% burns. He was passed out in the bedroom after a similar cocktail, and found her body. He was cleared by the police over her death, but nicked for the cocaine possession, which also lost him his smART job.

Presumably it's suicide, but part of me wonders if he fingered his coke dealer to the police - dealers back home had a habit of "sorting people out" in train stations, as if you then lobbed the body on the tracks the subsequent mess would hide most of the details of what had happened.

The black humour part of me imagines the death scene being a vast work of art, an anguished face drawn out in blood on a four metre scale. That would either make it suicide, or a hit-job by Neil Buchanan.

I don't think so, Whomper - he left his house with a little bag, caught a tube train from Queen's Park station (seen on the station's CCTV) and went to Paddington. Seems to have found a secluded spot and taken his own life.

he was apparently staying with his late fiancee's parents, and by all account extremely depressed.

It is sad - I always liked him in smART.

Definitely sad this one, particularly as it's quite possible his body has been there almost a week before being found.

I knew there was something odd about Reg. Other than him having the voice of a man and the body of a child.

Definite mob enforcer, looking back on it.

This.

I saw Micheal Barrymore perform live in Summer 1993, just a few months before he had his first "breakdown". Had to be one of the best performences I've ever seen in my life. I wondered how he kept it up for the entire show let alone an entire summer season in Bournemouth. It was just manic, almost superhuman. And what's more he had to do a second performence that evening being a Saturday. It was edge of your seat stuff, this guy appears to be super human and at the top of his game.

Turns out he was drugged up to the eyeballs and was drinking heavily as well. It was only a few months later that his first load of trouble hit the papers when it turned out he was taking all sorts of drugs and drinking heavily to do the performences.

Woah... just, woah. I always assumed Mark was immortal and faultless (as I do with all telly people). (I haven't been paying attention to him though, because he annoyed me.)



Cause of death: art attack?

Actually, he had quit his gig at smART due to being "too distraught to continue". From what I read, anyway.

The BBC never seemed to say anything regarding the cocaine.


Still, nice to know some people actually watched Scratchy & Co., which is all I mostly know him for, having never been that committed to SMart. I also remember seeing him in a CITV afternoon game show called "Name That Toon", not sure if anybody remembers that one.

I feared something like him topping himself would happen the moment I read about him going missing. I feel very sadfaced right now over it all.


It still kinda astonishes me though that not a single video of him in his Scratchy days exists on YouTube. Was it not that popular?

No, it wasn't.

Was that the B side of that Alexei Sayle single?

I used to watch Scratchy + Co too.

I actually couldn't stand Scratchy & Co, but I liked him in other things.

Has there been any more information on this yet? Was his body there for the six days until it's discovery, I wonder?

I was wondering this too. Just how many secluded places does Paddington station have where a dead body could lie for a week without being discovered?

Well, the Customer Information desk's always empty.

Based on the highly scientific source of the cover of one of the Polemics (probably the Express, they like to lead with dead blond(e)s on Mondays) that was briefly waved on BBC Breakfast this morning, he had hung himself and not been found for six days.

Mind you, it probably went on to implicate the McCanns, MI6 and Prince Phillip, so I'll wait for a more authoritative source.

It said it was an area not accessible to the public, so I'd guess off the end of a platform or in a tunnel or something.

Really sad though isn't it, actually could be an Alexi Sayle story.

Not accessible to the public... apart from Mark Speight?

An area not normally accessible to the public unless they really fancy going there.

So an area that is totally accessible to the public, but a place where the public shun?

Was it one of those little Tie Rack booths?

The roof apparently, no idea how he got up there.

By rope?

I heard something about him having no hands, or something weird. Maybe I misheard.

He made a ladder out of drinking straws and blobs of plasticine.

Man, that's the third near-tea-in-keyboard incident this morning.

Because the police originally fingered him for his Fiances murder? He's armless now anyway.

This. Mimi almost owes me a new monitor.

I heard she was going to give him the elbow anyway - he couldn't shoulder the responsibility of being in a long-term relationship.

Sounds like they were both becoming a bit wristless.

The police will have to really knuckle down to solve this one...

I heard he was hanging from a palm tree. It's all I got, baby.

Okay just heard the first funny joke regarding this, spoilered for sensitivity during this ill time.

Ouch. Good joke, mind.

I heard about this guys' girlfriend dying in January, and back then all of the tabloids were saying how incredibly vulnerable he was and how it was very likely he would try and take his own life. Wasn't anyone looking out for him since this looked so incredibly likely to happen!? Now the tabloids are acting all "We told you so" about it. I fucking hate the tabloids.

So sad.

3 Bananas.

The plods have taken a hands-off approach so far, they should have acted a bit more quick..

out of three.

Yes, he was staying with his Fiancee's parents, I believe - they were caring for him and said that he was very depressed and grieving - he disappeared on the second day of the inquest, I believe. Obviously the girl's parents couldn't have prevented him, a grown man, from leaving and most probably had absolutely no idea that he was about to go and do something so drastic, but you would have hoped that some professional help was being given to people in such a delicate state of mind.

I haven't seen any newsprint so haven't read the stories that you speak of, but I can just imagine - they are hateful pieces of journalism and I never understand the people that read them.

[Grim...edit - fixed quotes]

This is sad stuff indeed - the whole scenario.

I would be more disturbed, but I got maxed out by yesterdays Observer Magazine cover story.

Sounds like he was in an incredibly bad way, but not raving nuts enough (or dangerous to other people) for the NHS to provide any treatment. Poor guy.

DON'T DISTORT THE BANANA RATING!!!!

Ahem, it can only be out of 1000.

What's that, you're hideously depressed, and would rather like to kill yourself. Ok, we'll put you on this handy 9 month waiting list. *joy*

An article by a friend of M. Speight here kind of clears up a few things.

Aww.

Heartless Speight joke

That article was quite touching in a very simplistic way