Keith Floyd official Leg-End

[Olls]

Okay so it's a couple of days old now but I just wanted to say how sad it was to hear that Keith Floyd died on Monday. What a leg-end. I don't know if any of you saw the documentary about him on Monday night, which was also quite painful to watch in parts, but it made the news even more surreal as I was discussing the programme with one of my friends at the time I heard the news.

I know there are quite a few "foodies" (should that be gastronauts?) on here so I expect many will feel the same.

Olls.

[deltawhisky]

Hi Olls.

Yes, it came as quite a surprise to me when BBC News announced it. I remember him from the 90s when he was flamboyantly throwing a few herbs here, and a drop (or three) of wine there.

And what was odd, was that last week, I read a serialisation of his memoirs in one of the tabloids. It made depressing reading, in some parts. The next thing I knew was that the poor chap had passed on.

[Kdot]

I can remember watching his shows as a kid in the days before sky TV...
He was a wine drinking, chain smoking, son of a gun that lived by his own rules, better than any of these TV chefs nowadays

[Robusto]

I loved Floyd On France on telly in the 80s. Fabulous face-offs between French country cooking crones and Floyd.

Gallic garlic trauma that I used in class to teach from and cooked up at the weekend occasionally.

In the flesh I reckon I'd have liked him in limited portions.

[Simon-JG-hr]

It is a terrible shame that such a flamboyant and wonderful personality has passed on. I remember only a few weeks ago watching a re-run of one of his programmes filmed in Italy, I commented that if he hadn't already left this mortal coil then it was a miracle.

He was almost always entertaining, demonstrated a great passion for his two loves (wine and wine). There was one great moment, which I shall possibly never forget, when he slurped a load of wine, slurred something about olive oil, then commented, "I never drink too much when I'm filming..." All you could hear was the cameraman in the back-ground pissing himself.

[cj121]

A great loss indeed. They don't make many like him nowadays

[Boss Hog]

I loved watching the guy, he did a show touring round india which was great and given that he was a classical french cook at heart, he had a incredibley interesting life away from the cameras as well. He also discovered Rick Stein although I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing?

[nicwing]

I am sure I have said this before but I believe you measure a civilisation by it's eccentrics and there is no doubt Floyd was a one off.

His later shows were like car crash TV, watching him diving into bemused foreigners kitchens to cook and seeing him pished throwing stuff in and some times just tipping the results in the bin.

I saw his about 4 years ago at Nice airport with a slightly grubby looking bird in tow, he was wearing a holey old cricket sweater, a stained and weather beaten old cream jacket a very lived in panama and despite there being no smoking signs everywhere he had a fag on.

Good old boy!

[monkey66]

A great loss. A true bastion of English spirit. Fearless and determined, drunk, aggressive and thoroughly fantastic. A passion for history, culture, wine, food and architecture. 5 failed restaurants, 4 divorces, 2 children. Pretty much invented the TV chief as we know it today. Gave first TV appearances to Rick Stein and Garry Rhodes. Made classic cooking accessible for the first time. Coming from working class background he was never a snob.

As you can guess a bit of a hero for me. He will be sadly missed - RIP.