Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 July 4

= July 4 =

What song?
I am trying to find a song and I just have some details about it: I have the impression the one singer is saying: All I wanted was the one last kiss, the one last. There is another guy singing in loud speaker and towards the end someone is whistling the song. 212.170.181.95 (talk) 12:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Is there a version of Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria that has the whistling? Britmax (talk) 11:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Trying to find a film
I want to find this film: at the beginning (in a kind of Latin American country) a fortress of rebel forces is attacked and women are raped and killed. The films goes on around a guy searching for revenge, he goes to the US builds a strike force and when he comes to power, he gets killed by a supposed friend of him (at the end). 212.170.181.95 (talk) 13:14, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no idea, not my kind of film. But others may find a hint as to both the year it is set in and the year it was made helpful.  Also, mention some odd moments (like a rattlesnake being shot, for example) to increase your chances of someone using a unique identifier to find the title for you. μηδείς (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

RS for Eric Sykes' 'hearing glasses'?
Can anyone help me to find a reliable source for Eric Sykes having used a bone-conducting hearing-aid built into a pair of glasses? I was listening to the sad news of his death on the radio, and the newsreader talked about his deafness and the fact that he wore what he called 'hearing glasses'. I remember seeing him on TV (possibly on Parky) about 15 years ago, where he talked of his deafness, and demonstrated his hearing glasses. However, the way he was talking about them, and the fact that he was a proficient lip reader made me think at the time that it was just a joke. I notice, though, that the statement is made in our article on him, and has been taken up by many media sources in his obituaries - albeit obviously copied from Wikipedia. The statement is unsourced, so I'd like to find a reference for it. Google searches have produced pretty much nothing (except text copied from Wikipedia), but I did come across an Indy article from 10th Feb 1997 (well before the age of Wikipedia). Unfortunately I can't get the page to load. Can anyone get in (or find the print version in a dusty pile somewhere)? Alternatively, does anyone have a copy of his autobiography, If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will, to see if it's in there? Thanks for the help. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:22, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Interviewed moments ago on Last Word, Ray Cooney said his hearing-aid was built into the glasses (but nothing about bone conduction). At one point, Cooney said (I think he was speaking from first-hand observation, but I'm not sure) that, on stage, a fellow actor had accidentally knocked Sykes' glasses off; Sykes turned to the audience and said "they've knocked my glasses off - I'll not be able to hear a word". -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:43, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I found this searching for a half remembered advert for the "Bone Fone". So there may be something in it. Britmax (talk) 18:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's mentioned in his BBC obituary here. I saw an interview with him about 15 years ago in which he explained about his hearing glasses, and demonstrated that they weren't to correct his vision by putting his finger through the bit where the lens should be! --TammyMoet (talk) 19:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC) Here's a hearing impaired people's forum about them which mentions him. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:33, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all. I may have found a good source: http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?language=eng&pageID=5104, written by a local history expert from close to Eric's birthplace, and containing the line "with considerable thanks to Eric Sykes & Norma Farmes for permission to use photos and text from Eric’s excellent autobiography" - so it's probably safe-ish to say that it's correct. I'll add this and the BBC obit as references. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The Indy cite you couldn't get to load works fine for me. The relevant bits of text are:
 * ''Never mind that he's totally deaf and largely blind, he can still do a pacy hat routine, ...
 * Sykes had his first ear operation in 1952, and another a decade later, since when he has worn a hearing-aid camouflaged as a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. He sometimes rubs his eyes through the place where the lenses would be: a sight gag if there was one. The arms of the glasses have micro- speakers that conduct sound through his skull. (Apparently he has "good bone conduction", which sounds like something all comics should have.) What it can't do is give the noise a co-ordinate. "I could sit in a restaurant looking at my plate and I'd be laughing - when there's a chuckle I always chuckle too, so they think I can hear what's going on - and I'd look up and there'd be stony faces round the table, and I'd realise it was a joke being told three tables away. They're all looking at me thinking, `Aah, he's thinking of something funny.' 
 * It was all the crueller, then, that his eyes packed up on him in his mid-sixties (he is 73 now). He has blurred peripheral vision, and can see shapes only out of the corner of his eye.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  21:48, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jack. It's still not cooperating with me, but it looks a good source so I've updated the article accordingly. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Totally unverifiable OR here, but my husband worked with Sykes several times during the 1990s/early 2000s and had a detailed conversation with him on at least one occasion about how clever and useful he found the hearing-aid specs. The guy was an incorrigible joker, and it did occur to me that the whole thing might be an elaborate gag, but it was something "everybody knew" about him inside the business, apparently.  I'm glad you found a reliable source and can legitimately include the fact in the article.  Ka renjc 20:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC)