2012 In Memoriam (Part 1)

This stemmed from a conversation with Toby Hadoke last May, over BAFTA/Oscar tributes and their ability to omit people. And then from many, many conversations with poor old Jon Arnold following.




Arnold's belief, and one I share, is that if someone makes a mark on your life, however oblique, it is right to tip a hat of respect towards them at their death. They could have written a book you love, or been a hero of your childhood (or adulthood), or even had a passing role in an episode of a TV show you liked. Whatever they did, it is right to acknowledge their role in an aspect of your life, much as we hope others will do for us in the future when we are gone.

Depression part 2

So its apparently Mental Health Day. The idea of this day puzzles me, much like Valentines Day does. Is this the day we all care about mental health issues, and the rest of the year they can get to fuck? It seems a strange message to be sending out. This is the day for caring about people suffering life altering illness, tomorrow can be National Coming Out Day for another set of folk we like to prejudice against, but will patronise for the time being.



Though the WHO are for it, and it seems to help people, so who am I to be Oscar the Grouch about it? Just feels like it should be more 24/7.



I'd like to claim in the ten years since I was diagnosed, and the twenty-one years I've been recognised as suffering from what we'll call depression for short hand reasons, that understanding and tolerance has become universal. I can't, but I'd like to. And even that seems a bit unfair, as it is much better now than it was in my child hood. Or so it seems.

Brilliant People IV: Sir Nicholas Winton/Lakshmi Sahgal

There is a saying, oft repeated, in British circles, that “the good die young”. It’s meant to comfort you when a loved dies prematurely. It’s not to say that longevity is a sign of evil, just compare Heydrich to Wiesenthal for example. Two fine examples of long lived greatness come to our attention today, and both made their mark in a way on that most tumultuous of events, World War Two.






Sir Nicholas Winton