June 27, 2003

Remembrances Dennis Thatcher dead at

Remembrances

Dennis Thatcher dead at 88:

"...as he once put it to his wife when she queried his request for a stiff drink on a morning flight to Scotland: "My dear, it is never too early for a gin and tonic."
"He had," said an appreciative lunch guest at Chequers, "a very sharp eye for a refill."

Note: This Guardian obit is not a particularly graceful or friendly one. But Hoggart is right when he writes: "Denis would have been there to the end; Nancy to her Ronald Reagan. It is almost impossible for us to realise how distraught and bereft she now will be."

Strom Thurmond dead at 100. Patrick Belton over at Oxblog has a short, but good, appreciation of Strom.