Still there? Good. Only there was quite a lot of unexpected shuffling off this mortal coil in the last couple of days. Christopher Hitchens it seems died of a broken heart, unable to go on without the war he had so loved.
Then the great Václav Havel, fun-loving playwright-in-president of what was once Czechoslovakia. Few people better represent the triumph of hopeful creativity over banal power.
And then Kim Jong-Il, which is an anagram of Milo J. King. I suppose the fact that he died before he managed to spark a war is a good thing. It is also the first time in history that a nuclear-power has been passed on from father to ill-prepared son like some feudal kingdom or family heirloom. Unless you count the Bushes.
And I nearly died too. But more of that later.