- published: 13 May 2010
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John Suchet ( /ˈsuːʃeɪ/ SOO-shay; born 29 March 1944) is a British news reader and television presenter.
Suchet has two brothers, one of whom is David Suchet, a British actor. His father was Jack Suchet, who emigrated to England from South Africa in 1932, and trained to be a doctor at St Mary's Hospital, London. He is the uncle of broadcaster Richard Suchet.
Suchet's paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian Jew who shortened his name from Suchedowitz to Suchet, and Suchet's Jewish father emigrated from South Africa to England in 1932; he became a medical student at St Mary's Hospital, London in 1933, and, later, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, working with Alexander Fleming on the role of penicillin in treating venereal disease. His mother, Joan, was Anglican. His maternal grandfather, James Jarché, was a famous Fleet Street photographer notable for the first pictures of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson and also for his pictures of Louis Blériot (1909) and the Siege of Sidney Street.
"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.
The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.
The earliest recorded use[citation needed] of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." [dubious – discuss] In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.