Kenneth Robinson

Kenneth John Robinson (26 April 1925 – 26 March 1994) was an English pianist, architect, journalist, and broadcaster. Born in Ealing, he toured as a pianist with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) and then took up posts at numerous newspapers. He then joined the BBC, where he was the presenter of BBC One's Points of View between 1965 and 1969 and BBC Radio 4's If It's Wednesday It Must Be... between 1972 and 1973 and a regular panellist on the latter's Start the Week between 1971 and 1986. He was notorious for acerbity, especially towards women, and spent six weeks suspended from Start the Week in 1986 for a joke about disabled people having sex.

Life and career Kenneth Robinson was born on 26 April 1925 in Ealing and was educated at Ealing Grammar School. where he wrote caustic, Tynan-like reviews. The Independent 's obituary for Robinson attributed his firing to a refusal to learn shorthand and typing; however, Robinson claimed in 1976 that he was fired for saying of Ten Little Niggers that it was "a pity" that more plays where "members of the cast are strangled and poisoned one by one [were] not available to the amateur". He then wrote for Architect and Building News, He joined The Design Centre in the mid-1950s, where he found that lecture-goers preferred the humorous content of his lectures to the architectural content. He had begun contributing humorous items to journals and radio by the time he left The Design Centre in 1962; He was fired from that show after its producer objected to the frivolous way in which he referred to bananas; it later transpired that the producer was married to a banana heiress. He became notorious for acerbity, especially towards women; and disgusted Pamela Stephenson enough for her to empty a jug of water down his neck. stand-in host Melvyn Bragg, who had a copy of Barbara Woodhouse's Talking to Animals thrown at him, and the writers Frederic Raphael Cooper, who had also been told by Clive James that she had "rotten skin" and "square boobs", attempted to get her own back on both by naming two sketches of pigs she had contributed to "The Mencap Famous Faces Collection" after them, though the caption was changed to "Two critics" on legal advice.

In January 1984, in response to a lecturer from the University of East Anglia talking about a dating agency for disabled people, Robinson joked that the service would mean that "you could hear the wheelchairs banging all night in some parts of the country", for which he was chastised by stand-in host Jimmy Hill and suspended for six weeks by an apologetic BBC. Everett's biography Hello, Darlings describes Robinson as "probably the only man in radio who had been sacked more times than Kenny". Around this time, Robinson also narrated Les Shadoks. In addition, he had a stage show during the 1970s, The Worst of Kenneth Robinson, In 1983, he threw a bucket of water over Stephenson to raise money to protest the creation of Sizewell. He spent his final years contributing freelance articles to journals such as Punch and The Listener in Kingston Hospital. 1971-1986) If It's Wednesday, It Must Be... (1972-3) Les Shadoks (1973) The Best of the Worst of Kenneth Robinson (1975) Just a Minute (1979) The Innes Book of Records (1980)