My friend and colleague Gregor McLennan, who has died aged 73 in a climbing accident, was a sociologist and cultural theorist. From 1997 he was professor (later emeritus) of sociology at Bristol University.
He and I met in 1975, as postgraduate students at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), under the leadership of Stuart Hall. Officially Gregor was researching the philosophies of the social sciences, yet he was also tempted to explore the significance of the comedian Billy Connolly – a fellow Glaswegian.
