When you're dead, you'll regret not having fun with your genital organs...

In a flat at 25 Noel Road, Islington, London on the 9th August 1967, Joe Orton was murdered by Kenneth Halliwell, his partner of 16 years. He was 34 years old. Halliwell smashed Orton's skull in with a hammer and then took an overdose of twenty-two Nembutal washed down with the juice from a tin of grapefruit. Halliwell died first.

As I ran tonight, for some reason, I was thinking of Joe Orton. I think my mind was free-wheeling and somewhere I'd picked up Joe Orton as a passenger. He's a welcome and entertaining passenger is Mr Orton; he ensnares your mind by getting you to laugh and then getting you to question the things you've just laughed at. I thought about this dramatic technique as I ran; you don't see it employed that much nowadays.

I first became interested in Orton and his writing when I was in my late teens. He influenced my world view and I read anything associated with his name. His philosophy and outlook fascinated me. It was so irreverent, anti-establishment and deliciously wicked. His plays sprang directly from his experiences. He was an outsider; his class, his criminal record, his intelligence and his sexuality placed him (and kept him) outside - something he was boastfully proud of.

Looking in at society he was able to see the farce and sham that it actually was. His cruelly comic satires on the hypocrisy of this conservative British post war society and its values are a delight; savage and full of innuendo and contradiction. In all of his work Orton undermines society and the family and ridicules their values. In his plays there lies a seething sexuality and brooding violence but, above all, a wicked sense of fun. The same might be said about his life


The grade II listed Victorian toilets where Orton went cottaging in South End Green, Hampstead, North London were renovated with £50,000 of national lottery money at the turn of the millennium. The Sunday Times reported, "The prime purpose of the renovation grant is to preserve one of the last remaining Victorian lavatories left intact and still in service in London. However, both the council and the lottery fund agree that the Orton connection is an influential factor in securing the money." The British public were outraged. A fitting memorial for one of Britain's greatest wits and most provocative social commentators. Here's a wonderful clip from the film of Orton's stage play, Entertaining Mr Sloane starring the wonderful Beryl Reid on top form.

My run tonight was another zippy one for me: I ran with a pace of 5'25" over 4.02 km in 21'48" - despite nearly choking when I remembered this warning from Orton to live life to the full, "When you're dead, you'll regret not having fun with your genital organs."