Momofuko Ando, the inventor of 'Ramen Noodles' has died at the age of 96. His funeral took place last week. It is not known whether he owed his long life to a regular diet of his own noodles but the number of young men walking around in their underwear in garret flats, subsisting on a regular diet of cigarettes, beer and Ramen Noodles, before going on to steer the ship of state, build bridges, die for causes and write poetry must be significant. His passing should not go unnoticed.

I went to Sainsbury's some time ago and decided to stock up on a few dozen packages. I asked if they had 'Ramen noodles' and was looked at yet again with that bored expression from the boy in the apron as if I'd asked for something from Mars. They're called Ramen Noodles worldwide but not in Britain where 'instant noodles' seems to be the local name for them.

What you get when you Google your grandmother.....

Before she was married my Nana was a member of the Ingenues - an all girl band which was one of the models for the band featured in 'Some Like it Hot'. There have been a few still photos here and there - little snapshots of Nana arm in arm with a man in a fedora and a pencil moustache who wasn't Gramps. In the photo above, the girls are playing to dairy cows in the University of Wisconsin's cattle barn in an experiment designed to see if cows would give more milk when exposed to calming music.

I tried my hand at stand-up comedy once. I recognize the expression on the cows' faces.

For a girl from small town Iowa with a forbidding father, Nana's years touring the world with the Ingenues would have felt like freedom.

In the video at the bottom of the page, my grandmother is the young woman playing the cello (and the banjo and the bassoon) in the front row on the right. Hat tip to my sister Anne for finding this on the net.

This is just nice. I thought you'd enjoy it.