Farewell – Sir Henry Cooper
Sir Henry Cooper was a gentleman in a sport that doesn’t have too many. Although one wonders if recent British boxers have taken their lead from the way Our Enry behaved.
I saw him once, as he had been asked to open a new shop opposite our offices in Ipswich. He was just strolling down the street confidently towards the shop, people were calling and talking to him in a friendly way and he was signing autographs and chatting to the crowd like only real celebrities do.
He’ll be sadly missed by all.
Farewell to Ted Lowe
Here was a commentator, who through his knowledge of the sport and the power of his words, gave a lot of pleasure to many.
Sadly, there are few if any of his ilk left.
Farewell Elizabeth Taylor
Her death is sad this morning, but I have a confession to make. I only saw one of her films. And that was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A Very Emotional Day
Looking back on Thursday, I can now see how it was a very emotional day for me. But not in a dark and unhappy way, but more in a celebration of the happy times I have had in the past, and what despite the loss of my wife, C, and our third son, and the stroke, I can do in the future. Was I loosing the unhappy shackles of the past?
I think that truth be told, I was very worried about the lecture. But I was given a warm welcome and I have been told it went well. It is not for me to say, but I hope that I’ll do some similar things in the future.
The walk around Liverpool in the sun, brought back many happy memories of the first few years of my life with C.
If there was a blot on my day, it was that I behaved in a rather silly and almost rude way with the celebrity. I apologise to them unreservedly. I’ve also paid a self-imposed fine to Comic Relief.
So would C be proud of what I accomplished on Thursday?
She told me to be strong and carry on many times, as she lay in bed dying.
So at least I have done that!
Death, Taxes and Spam
Benjamin Franklin said that there are only two certainties in life; death and taxes.
Today he would have added spam.
If I look at my unwanted e-mails and remove everything that is obviously crooked, comes from a foreign source or is related to companies I once signed up to, I end up with a surprisingly short list; Rodial and Heaton Wealth Investments. As I said before, Rodial is a company I have no need for and I find it mildly amusing that they are targetting me. The other company is trying to sell me useless property investments and my financial advisor has told me to steer well clear of them. As most of the properties they seem to be promoting are from places, I wouldn’t visit, if you paid me, I doubt I’d be pulled in by their charms.
What worries me, is that these companies wouldn’t do it, if it wasn’t profitable for them. So perhaps there really is one born every minute.
A Celebration of a Life
Yesterday was Brian‘s funeral in Amersham. Or more properly, it was a humanist celebration of a life lived well and to the full!
I’ll remember it for ever, just as I’ll remember Brian for all he did for me, both in business and personally in the last few years.
I think though he would have approved of some of the more light-hearted things that were done and said. Someone said, that it was a pity that the funeral cars were Mercedes and not Jaguars, as Brian was very much a fan and had owned several of the latter. I think, he would have hated it, if his funeral had been bland, well-meaning and lacking any humour and fun.
I normally don’t wear a black tie for funerals, but a flowery Ferragamo one, that I bought in Florence, soon after C’s death. However out of respect for Brian, I did wear black yesterday, but decided to change it just before I left to get the train back to London. I then asked his daughter, if I should have worn it. She said yes and showed me her nail varnish. She said Brian called it Tart’s Red. Sometimes when she tried another shade, she’d show it to her father and he’d say, he preferred the Tart’s Red. Yesterday, all his girls, as he called them; his wife, his daughter and two grand-daughters, had had their nails in Tart’s Red in respect for Brian.
But did Brian have the last laugh?
It was said in the service that he was a Spurs supporter. But coming from Edmonton, this should have been obvious, even if he didn’t tell everybody about it.
I said in an e-mail last night, that I would put a small bet on Spurs to beat Milan in memory of Brian. Spurs won, but I didn’t put the bet on.
A Lovely Memorial
I saw this seat on York Station.
A Lovely Memorial
The bottom line says “Still Travelling” I think, Brian would have found a seat like that funny! But, in a dry, ironic and very respectful manner!
Death of a Friend
The trip to York yesterday was to visit my old boss from ICI and his wife. He has not been too well lately after a stroke and some complications, but his mind is still all there and just as when I went to Liverpool, we discussed engineering and put the world to rights. He also filled in some of the gaps in some of my stories, like the invention of plastic string.
However, the trip was overshadowed by learning about the death of one of my colleagues in Metier in a phone call on the trip north. Brian was the Finance Director and we couldn’t have wanted for a better one. Or a funnier and witty one for that matter! He had also been a good friend and confidant since the death of my wife and until a few months before his death, he could be relied upon to call regularly.
He will be missed by all who knew him.
Going to the Supermarket Past One of Your Heros’ Grave
I said in an earlier post that I preferred to use the Waitrose in the Barbican, as it is less-crowded and an easy bus ride home.
Today I took the bus to the supermarket and found that I could walk through Bunhill Fields to cut the corner off from Old Street. It is an old and famous cemetery, where such as Isaac Watts, John Bunyan, Eleanor Coade, Thomas Newcomen, Daniel Defoe and William Blake were laid to rest.
Bunhill Fields
It also contains the grave of a man, whose legacy touches us thousands of times every year, the Reverend Thomas Bayes. His grave is in this picture somewhere.
The Grave of Thomas Bayes
So why does Bayes touch us every day? His legacy is also totally positive as it is his thinking that is behind Bayesian spam filtering, used in all those programs that attempt to stop all of those rediculous e-mails we don’t want, getting to our computer.
But this is only one of a myriad set of applications of the work of Thomas Bayes. There aren’t many people, who’ve had such a beneficial effect on such a broad front, centuries after their death.
So when it comes to Great Britons, Bayes is in the first rank.
never has going to the supermarket for basic daily needs, been so interesting.
He Counted Them All Out and He Counted Them All Back!
Brian Hanrahan is well-known for his memorable phrase from the Falklands War, but he was one of the last journalists of the old school, who wielded words with alacrity and finesse to describe scenes or make points.
This week has also seen the loss of Anthony Howard. The English language can’t afford too many weeks like this.
