Talk:Clive James

message: this article is full of subjective value judgments about his art. Some criticism referenced would be welcome. - Trick 21:13, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Value judgements

message: I think the claim that James "eschews the free market" is barely supported by the quotes given. His statements show a rejection of the view that markets are necessarily benign or that privatisation is good for the artistic quality of broadcasting, but that still places him a long way from a complete rejection of the market and/or state ownership of all industry (for example).130.225.25.169 (talk) 14:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Politics

message: A couple of statements have recently been added to this page which, frankly, don't make a lot of sense or add anything to the essay.  
The new section "In Popular Culture" has no references and, while it may be true, is hardly useful.  Just about every major public figure has been satirised by someone at some time. 
The sentence in the first paragraph regarding James's late-night porn research may also be true but as it comes from just one essay in a continuing series appears here competely out of context.  It's presence in the first paragraph is aimed at convincing readers that this is all he does.  If it needs to be stated then it should be as a part of a section on this new essay series.
I'm deleting both. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 05:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange statements 

message: I notice there is nothing in here on Clive James's recent statements in support of climate change "scepticism" (a.k.a. denialism)
HairyDan (talk) 13:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate Change 

message: According to Unreliable memoirs James studied "Arts" at Sydney Uni, and that this consisted of Modern History, Anthropology, Psychology and English. Of these he says that he gave up Psychology and Anthropology at the end of the second year. Therefore to only say that he studied psychology seems misleading.
Anyone have any thoughts? Arthur Holland (talk) 13:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got, or at least I had six house moves ago, a copy of Unreliable Memoirs.  I'm going through a Pete Atkin jag at the moment so Clive's beautiful lyrics are haunting me day and night. He may have studied psychology, but English was and is his love. The Parramatta Kid. --TS 00:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Studies at Sydney University 

message: Currently it says he 'generally' has a 'strict' policy of not talking about his family. It can't be both. Does anyone know which?  Spicemix (talk) 10:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal life 

message: There's another Clive James. He's Welsh and he founded ISAAA. Can we add a "disambiguation" to this page?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.199.241.138 (talk) 02:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No problems. Could you please supply the Wikipedia article name of the other Clive James so I can add the disambiguation information? GFHandel ♬  07:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clive James disambiguation 

message: How can this article fail to mention that Clive is in very poor health, i.e. terminally ill? It's no secret he has openly talked about it on mutliple occasions, inlcuding publishing a farewell poem.--Hontogaichiban (talk) 16:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't fail to mention it, it's in the "Personal life" section. --McGeddon (talk) 16:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Illness

message: I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates and tables for short stories, poems and/or book reviews. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. This is a work in progress; feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 01:43, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography 

message: I'm seeing conflicting details around where and when the aircraft in which Clive James' father Albert, returning home from the war, was killed.
Currently, our article says the plane crashed in Manila Bay, (The Philippines) and cites the Guardian's obituary as the source. However that source actually gives Taiwan as the location of the crash:
His father, Albert, who had survived a PoW camp and then forced labour in Japan, died when the plane bringing him home crashed in Taiwan, and James later described this as the “defining event” in his life.
The BBC obituary also gives the airplane crash location as Taiwan.
An Irish Times article from 2016 about the death of his father says this:
The Americans decided to fly Albert James and other prisoners-of-war home rather than send them by ship. However, the plane carrying them crashed in a typhoon and killed Mr James. The crash occurred on September 10th, 1945, 10 days after the war ended.
Ok, so now we have a date. However, if we look at this comprenhensive list of airplane crashes, there was no incident on that date. There aren't any real possibilities from the month before either (August) but there are three possibilities later in September. They are:
# 11 Sep 1945 - RAAF aircraft crashed in Milne Bay, New Guinea (11 fatalities)
# 18 Sep 1945 - RAAF aircraft crashed into Puncak Jaya, New Guinea (29 fatalities)
# 28 Sep 1945 - US Army aircraft crashed near Chinkiang in China (20 fatalities)
None of these are Taiwan or the Philippines.
Now my looking up aircraft crash info above is WP:ORIGINAL Research and I am not suggesting we put this information in the article. What I am saying, however, is that it brings doubt on what we have included in the text and doubt about the veracity of the sources we used for this bit of information. Oska (talk) 01:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed "Manila Bay" as the location of the crash, as we have no source for that location and it contradicts the location of Taiwan given in the Guardian and BBC obituaries. However I didn't replace it with Taiwan, due to the doubts raised above. I have left the location of the crash unspecified in the text for now. Oska (talk) 05:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

text: After checking WikiBlame, I've found where the crash location of "Manila Bay" was inserted into the text. It is this diff here, back in February 2012. Insertion was made from an IP address with no edit note. Prior to that, the location of the crash was given as Taiwan (as the obituaries also give). However, still not finding any mention of a fatal plane crash in Taiwan in September 1945. Oska (talk) 07:53, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

text: Discovery Made! Found an article about the crash of an American B-24 in the mountains of southern Taiwan, on September 10, 1945. And what is more, Albert Arthur James is explicitly listed as one of the Australian POW fatalities. I have now added this information to the article, citing this source. The obituaries were right in saying Taiwan; the insertion of Manila Bay back in 2012 (and which was still in the text today) was wrong. Oska (talk) 08:17, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

text: It did have a huge effect on him. As he says in his interview with Mary Beard, "it wasn't one of those things, it was ten of those things". Of course, the exact location of the crash made no difference. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:42, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location and date of the airplane crash in which Clive's father Albert was killed 

message: "During his first three years in London studying in Cambridge"...... Can this be right? Was he a studying by correspondence? Hanoi Road (talk) 22:41, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Well the source just says this: "Clive James had arrived in London in 1962. He shared a flat with Bruce Beresford for three years and studied at Cambridge. By 1972 he was the television critic for The Observer." So I think we can trim that. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  ????