Tim Worstall

It is all obvious or trivial except…

 

 

Entries Tagged as 'Obituaries'

That’s an interesting trio

March 19th, 2012 · 8 Comments

Obituaries » John Demjanjuk John Demjanjuk Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk dies aged 91 Soviet peasant turned US auto-worker accused of war crimes as Treblinka’s ‘Ivan the Terrible’ His Holiness Shenouda III His Majesty King George Tupou V of Tonga The three obituaries linked on the Telegraph front page. A maybe, maybe not, concentration camp [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Somewhat euphemistic

March 6th, 2012 · 6 Comments

Lord St John was also accused of spending an excessive amount of time with a small clique of mainly public school-educated young men who, it was alleged, were favoured with introductions to royalty and captains of industry, to dinners at White’s, private theatrical performances at the Master’s Lodge and long, affectionate letters. Such special privileges [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Matt Yglesias and a shocking breach of protocol

March 2nd, 2012 · 30 Comments

Conventions around dead people are ridiculous. The world outlook is slightly improved with @AndrewBrietbart dead That’s just scumbag horrible. A despicable breach of good manners. It’s just fine to think that the world’s a better place without a certain person or people in it. It’s even just fine to say so. But there is this [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

He didn’t want to be remembered for St Custard’s

January 4th, 2012 · 1 Comment

Or so the obit says for Ronald Searle. So an entirely different point: In October 1935 the Cambridge Daily News accepted his offer to provide a weekly cartoon, for which he was paid a guinea a week. If we upgrade that by inflation we get to £80 to £150 a week as his fee. Depends [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Vaclav Havel II

December 19th, 2011 · 8 Comments

Aye: The world is a better place for him having been in it. Would that they will say that after the rest of us fuckwits pass on. Vale, eh?

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Vaclav Havel

December 18th, 2011 · 9 Comments

Vaclav Havel, died 18 Dec 2011.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Discipline!

December 7th, 2011 · 9 Comments

He went on to serve as head of station in Bonn, and during the 1960s in Beirut, where he enjoyed skiing at The Cedars, a resort where, as he recalled, discipline in the lift queues improved dramatically after an attendant shot dead the two worst queue jumpers.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Odd obituary

November 5th, 2011 · No Comments

Swedish beauty whose affair with JFK began weeks before his marriage – and carried on just after If we’re going to have newspaper obituaries for everyone JFK shagged we’re going to need several new newspapers, aren’t we?

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

War does strange things

November 2nd, 2011 · 5 Comments

Assistant manager at Marks and Sepncers. Enlists at 26 in 1940. Wins three MCs with the Paras. End of the war, back to M&S as a store manager. An extraordinary 5 years piece of Major John Timothy’s life.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Not bad, not bad

October 7th, 2011 · No Comments

“For the first half of my life I was always known as my father’s son, and now I am known as my daughter’s father.” There are worse things to achieve in life.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Blimey

October 6th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Steve Jobs: co-founder of Apple dies aged 56 He really did work right up to the end, didn’t he? But this price allegedly should have been $21.10, thereby incurring a taxable charge of $20 million that Jobs did not report as income. Lordy, no, that’s not what the problem with backdated options was: although it’s [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

David Croft

September 28th, 2011 · 1 Comment

Not a bad thing to have left behind. More than 30 years on, the appeal of Dad’s Army endures. Repeats attract more than 10 million viewers, and the famous “Don’t tell him, Pike!” scene has repeatedly been voted the funniest television moment of all time.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Somewhat otherworldly

April 30th, 2011 · 2 Comments

These scions of the Guinness family: More recently, in 2004, Kindersley went into his local branch of Waitrose . Asked by the checkout girl if he would like some cash back, Kindersley (who was unfamiliar with this transaction) replied: “That’s really awfully sweet of you, how kind.” He suggested £50, which he took across the [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Well done The Guardian’s picture editor

March 19th, 2011 · 7 Comments

That’s the photo to go with Jet Harris’ obituary. I’m not entirely convinced that it actually is Jet Harris. But even if it were, bit odd to illustrate the obit of an iconic bass player with him holding a regular guitar, eh?

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

The things you find out from obituaries

March 1st, 2011 · 1 Comment

She swore that after Tony Crosland, she could never again experience a close relationship. But in the mid-1980s she struck up a friendship with Auberon Waugh that deepened until his death in 2001. She dedicated her novel The Prime Minister’s Wife (2001) to him. Waugh had no intention of leaving his wife, but the couple [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

The art of bookmaking

February 24th, 2011 · No Comments

Legend had it that he was once been consulted by a Ladbrokes manager who had been asked to make a book on the name of the next Archbishop of Canterbury, but did not know where to start. “You want a start, I’ll give you a start,” Stein replied. “The Chief Rabbi’s 1,000 to one.”

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

No, I don’t want to be him

December 26th, 2010 · No Comments

Nor would I ever try and insist that anyone else should do what he did. But damme, I do admire Allan Tibbels.

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

A valediction for Eugene Terre Blanche

April 4th, 2010 · 3 Comments

*

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Dick Francis RIP

February 15th, 2010 · 1 Comment

“My brother, Merrick, and I are, of course devastated by the loss of our father, but we rejoice in having been the sons of such an extraordinary man.” Felix Francis Not a bad way to be remembered after 89 years on the planet, is it?

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries

Norman Borlaug

September 13th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Norman Borlaug has died. It’s said variously that 250 million people have been saved from death by his life’s work or that 1 billion people have been saved from starvation. By Mr. Toenniessen’s calculation, about half the world’s population goes to bed every night after consuming grain descended from one of the high-yield varieties developed [...]

Share

[Read more →]

Tags: Obituaries