Fritz Spiegl (27 January 1926 - 23 March 2003) was was born at Zurndorf, Austria, the son of an agricultural merchant and his Jewish wife. He became a musician, journalist, broadcaster, humorist and collector who lived and worked in England from 1939. January 27 is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar). ... March 23 is the 82nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (83rd in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Queen Queen Elizabeth II  -  Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification  -  by Athelstan 967  Area... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full year calendar). ...

He was a distant relative of the composer Gustav Mahler. In 1939 Fritz and his sister, neither of whom spoke English or knew anything of music, were sent separately to England. He was one of three children taken in by the Secretary of State for War Captain David Margesson and his American wife; a married couple came along to look after the children. This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. ... The secretary of war in cabinet position was Henry Knox. ... Henry David Reginald Margesson, 1st Viscount Margesson, of Rugby (July 26, 1890-December 24, 1965) was a British Conservative politician most popularly remembered for his tenure as Government Chief Whip in the 1930s. ...

The Margessons taught Fritz English and sent him to Magdalen College School, near Banbury. At 15 Spiegl invented a model aeroplane which had another riding piggy-back upon it. The two were rigged together with a series of pulleys and elastic bands and, to his delight, the contraption could fly a short distance. The results were published in Model Aeroplane magazine. Thereafter Spiegl was hooked on the printed media. Magdalen College School or MCS is a boys independent day school currently located on the edge of central Oxford, England. ... The modern Castle Quay Shopping Centre in Banbury alongside the Oxford Canal, with Banbury Museum in the background Banbury is a market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England. ...

Early life

Spiegl was born near the Hungarian border in the village of Zurndorf, Burgenland, Austria, where his father was a businessman manufacturing, among other things, carbonated water. Spiegl attended the Gymnasium in Eisenstadt but, as the family were Jewish, they soon found themselves being persecuted by the Nazis in the wake of the Anschluss of 1938. All their property having been confiscated, Fritz's parents succeeded in leaving the country in 1939, eventually escaping to Bolivia while sending Fritz and his older sister Hanny (born 1923) to England, where, in Northamptonshire, they received a warm welcome. Burgenland (Hungarian Várvidék, Őrvidék or Felsőőrvidék, Croatian Gradišće, Slovenian Gradiščansko) is the easternmost state or Land of Austria. ... Effervescence from soda. ... A gymnasium (pronounced with or, in Swedish, as opposed to ) is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English Grammar Schools and U.S. High Schools. ... Eisenstadt (Hungarian Kismarton, Croatian Željezno) is a city in Austria, the state capital of Burgenland. ... For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... National Socialism redirects here. ... German troops march into Austria on 12 March 1938. ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full year calendar). ... 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Northamptonshire (abbreviated Northants or Nhants) is a landlocked county in central England with a population of 629,676 (2001 census). ...

Every Saturday, for eight years, Spiegl would discuss such matters as the use of the word "lie", the flagrant misuses of parliamentary language, the prevalence of tautology in popular speech and the verb "jubilize" as it was employed during Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. He would even meditate on the habit of young doctors wrapping their stethoscopes in a U round their necks rather than in a Y configuration, as depicted by the Telegraph cartoonist Matt.

Reading every national newspaper every day, he continued to accumulate knowledge and anecdotes throughout his life. His sure-footed negotiation through the linguistic jungle in an accented English made him immediately recognisable on the television or wireless; this was all the more remarkable since he had arrived in Britain shortly before the Second World War speaking no English, and was later stricken by impaired hearing.

A native speaker of German, Fritz Spiegl did not speak a word of English when he moved to England as a 13 year-old -- a fact which has often been regarded as the trigger for his preoccupation with language phenomena such as, say, malapropisms and for the biting yet humorous linguistic purism of his later years. As one commentator remarked, Spiegl First language (native language, mother tongue) is the language a person learns first. ... This article or section seems to contain too many examples (or examples of poor quality) for an encyclopedia entry. ...

...soon knew a great deal more about the language than most English people do. And cared more too. One can understand this. It's galling, when you've taken the trouble to learn that "an alibi" is not the same as "an excuse", to find that the natives themselves seem to have forgotten the difference.

On arrival in Britain, Spiegl was sent to a minor public school, where he learned little beyond "rugger, plane-spotting and a bit of Latin". Eventually he went to London to work for an advertising agency. But he soon switched to music, taught himself to play the flute, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music and, within a short time, became Principal Flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he kept for more than a decade. Ear damage appears to have played a part in his exit from professional playing, as in later years he would occasionally refer to having been "invalided out by the brass section". A public school, in current English, Welsh and Northern Ireland usage, is a (usually) prestigious independent school, for children usually between the ages of 11 or 13 and 18, which charges fees and is not financed by the state. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. ... The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) is a constituent college of the University of London, and is one of the leading music institutions in the world. ... The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the UKs longest established orchestras, and is based in Liverpool. ...

However, during that time he also pursued other interests and began his association with the BBC, aiming to be a popularizer of classical music. A resident of Liverpool, he organised annual Nuts in May concerts, featuring a Liszt Twist and other parody items. This approach helped draw new young audiences into concert halls. Less attracted to pop music, Spiegl once called the Beatles phenomenon "the greatest confidence trick since the Virgin Birth". However, he used to be tolerant towards journalists who, up to his death often misspellt his name Spiegel, Spiegle, Speigl, Speigel, or Speigle. The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion... Liverpool skyline. ... Parody of Back to the Future In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ... For popular music (music produced commercially rather than art or folk music), see Popular music. ... The Beatles were an English rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. ... A confidence trick or confidence game, also known as a con, scam, grift, boo-boo, bunko or flim flam, is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

Fritz Spiegl died suddenly during a Sunday lunch with some friends and his wife, Ingrid Frances Spiegl.

Works

Spiegl's 2001 book, promising "Music about Lotions, Potions, Motions, Urges and Purges"

This image is a book cover. ... This image is a book cover. ...

Compositions

As a composer, Spiegl scored a popular success with the original theme from the TV series Z-Cars, based on Johnny Todd, a Liverpool sea shanty. He also composed the original theme for the Z Cars spin-off series Softly, Softly, which was released as a single on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate record label in 1966. His Radio 4 UK Theme, in which national songs from each of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom are ingeniously combined, sometimes in counterpoint with each other, and was heard on BBC Radio 4 at the beginning of each morning's broadcasting until April 2006. Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced zed, never zee) was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... Sea shanties (singular shanty, also spelled chantey; derived from the French word chanter, to sing) were shipboard working songs. ... Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced zed, never zee) was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... Softly, Softly was a British television drama series centred around the work of plain-clothes CID officers in the fictional town of Newtown, near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... Andrew Loog Oldham (born 1944) is a British rock and roll producer, impresario and author. ... Immediate Records was a British record label, started in 1965 by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, concentrating on the London based British blues and R&B scene. ... The BBC Radio 4 UK Theme is a piece of music composed by Fritz Spiegl, played every morning on BBC Radio 4. ... In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ...

Selected books

• How to Talk Proper in Liverpool (Lern Yerself Scouse S.) (1966)
• Keep Taking the Tabloids. What the Papers Say and How They Say It (1983)
• The Joy of Words. A Bedside Book for English Lovers (1986)
• Fritz Spiegl's Book of Musical Blunders and other Musical Curiosities (1996) Robson Books Ltd. ISBN 1-86105-075-5
• The Lives, Wives and Loves of the Great Composers (1997) Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-7145-2917-6
• An Illustrated Everyday History of Liverpool and Merseyside (1998)
• MuSick Notes: A Medical Songbook (2001)
• Contradictionary: Of Confusibles, Lookalikes and Soundalikes (published posthumously in 2003)

1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean [1]. // Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Quotation from The Joy of Words

"And do you know," said the Archbishop of Canterbury complaining to Winston Churchill about the upkeep of Lambeth Palace, "we have 42 bedrooms!" Churchill replied, "How very inconvenient." Then he added, "...especially when one reflects that you have only 39 Articles." Doubtless part of the Winston Book of Apocrypha; and in any case now so dated that the story has to be explained to most people under the age of 40.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual leader and senior clergyman of the Church of England, recognized by convention as the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. ... Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was an English statesman, soldier,and author. ... Lambeth Palaces gatehouse. ... The Thirty-Nine Articles are the defining statements of Anglican doctrine. ... Apocrypha (from the Greek word απόκρυφα meaning those having been hidden away[1]) are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned. ...

External links

• Obituary in the Daily Telegraph