Colin the Chameleon

Everyone’s aware – and we’ve just been over to Mongolia and quizzed four hundred nomadic tribespeople and yes, we do mean ‘everyone’ – that Colin Dexter pops up somewhere in every episode of Inspector Morse.

But can you always spot him?

Here’s Toasty’s Futon’s exclusive (i.e., nobody else wanted to publish it) guide to every single glimpse we get of Colin Dexter, Man of a Thousand Faces.

Episode 1, ‘The Botley Stiffs’: Old man with white beard eating butterscotch in Duke Humfrey’s Library.

Episode 2, ‘The Tell-Tale Empties’: Special constable with axe embedded in lung.

Episode 3, ‘Nor Ever Chaste, Except You Ravish Me’: Distinguished-looking man at High Table in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Episode 4, ‘Death Just Outside Kidlington’: Chaplain of Saint Diddumses (in Hamburg nightclub sequence).

Episode 5, ‘Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough, Sir?’: Afro-haired musician playing Sousaphone in Radcliffe Camera.

Episode 6, ‘Return, Alphéus, The Dread Voice Is Past’: Elderly nun who spits at Morse in street.

Episode 7, ‘The Marble Palaces of Blackbird Leys’: Obese man in jetpack, wearing Motorhead tee-shirt.

Episode 8, ‘Oh Christ, My Head’: Goth shooting up in multi-storey car park.

Episode 9, ‘If Snow Be White, Why Then Her Breasts Are Dun’: Dolly Parton Impersonator at Ashmolean Colloquium.

Episode 10, ‘The Berinsfield Astrolabe’: Small boy smashing Town Hall windows with baseball bat.

Episode 11, ‘That’s Not A Liver, It’s A Cry For Help’: Nude Rastafarian bodybuilder (look closely behind the Vice-Chancellor).

Episode 12, ‘Sphere-Borne Harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Verse’: Leader of Klingon raiding party (this one was rather badly edited).

Episode 13, ‘The Palimpsests of Cowley Marsh’: Heap of pineapples in Covered Market.

Episode 14, ‘My Name’s Endeavour M., And I’m An Alcoholic’: Third pink elephant.

Episode 15, ‘So Rudely Forc’d. Tereu’: Thirty-foot-tall evil robot, running amok in Norrington Room in Blackwell’s.

Episode 16, ‘A Corpse In Can-Anyone-Think-Of-Another-Suburb?’: All members of the Tactical Firearms Unit.

Episode 17, ‘Got Any Spare Change, Superintendent?’: Bela Lugosi lookalike blowing iridescent bubbles whilst riding unicycle, who gets served before Morse in the White Horse and then makes disagreeable noises.

Episode 18, ‘Kicking The Bucket To The Sound Of Trumpets’: Fat lady. (Singing. With evident relief.)

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You may be wondering what’s happened to the five previous postings.

Annoyingly, technical problems have forced us to delete the blog and reinstate it, in the process losing everything posted before today.

The good news is that The Toasty’s Futon Archive is now complete and contains not only all postings from late March to early November this year, but the newly deleted five as well:

Throw Away The Key (1 December)
Today’s Query (29 November)
Eight things I wish I’d known at sixteen (28 November)
Toasty Lundqvist’s Guide to Britain, Part One (27 November)
Streets of fear (26 November)
The Toasty’s Futon Archive shall eternally remain the topmost link on our sidebar.

In other news, it’s a warm welcome back to Jamie4U after six months’ imprisonment and silence…