> The intelligence and casually flamboyant virtuosity with which he framed his often humorous commentaries on human behaviour made his work invariably entertaining and interesting.
> The irreverent eroticism for which his poetry is noted resulted in W. H. Smith's banning of his The Pleasures of the Flesh (1966) from their shops.
"There are two things you need to know," she said. "The first is that Gavin came home yesterday happier than I have seen him in a long time. The second - and you are not to feel bad about this - is that he died this morning."
For some reason that strikes me as the most moving thing I have read in a long time.
Agreed. Dying in your sleep, having been fed a good meal with good company, at a seasoned old age with your wife by your side is as good as anyone can dream of.
Twitter throws up multiple dark patterns for me and tends strongly to unreadable/inaccessible at best.
Threadreader presents just the thread, formatted for easy reading, without all the additional Twitter crud. The experience with Threadreader is vastly superior in my experience.
It does and it doesn't: first, twitter often only lets you see the first few posts if you are not logged in; and second, it groups the posts together into something you can read without distracting interspersed comments, like the forum posts of yesteryear.
Why does the article open with speculating that it might be the most expensive lunch ever. It even ends the first paragraph making it clear that it means expensive as in "final bill to the restaurant" and not a broader "loss to humanity". And what does the fact that menus weren't printed until 2003 have to do with discerning if this was an expensive bill or not?
Contemporary "Lunch with the FT" columns show exactly what items were ordered and the total cost in a little summary box (including cost of the various items, like a restaurant bill). This format did not take hold until 2003, according to the linked Twitter posts, so there is no way to discern from the 1995 column how much was spent.
The linked posts indicate that the FT recently checked with the its accounting department but could not quickly find the record for a lunch more than 25 years ago.
It would have been clearer if the posts/FT said "menus and prices were not printed until 2003" instead of "menus were not printed until 2003", but perhaps this was seen as redundant as most menus include prices.
(Updated and corrected once I re-read the original thread. This is much simpler to answer than I first thought!)
I'm guessing that the FT has a long standing regular lunch interview column, which has included for the last two decades (but not previously) a record of what was consumed during said lunch.
Readit News
Office friends by Gavin Ewart
Eve is madly in love with Hugh
And Hugh is keen on Jim.
Charles is in love with very few
And few are in love with him.
Myra sits typing notes of love
With romantic pianist’s fingers.
Dick turns his eyes to the heavens above
Where Fran’s divine perfume lingers.
Nicky is rolling eyes and tits
And flaunting her wiggly walk.
Everybody is thrilled to bits
By Clive’s suggestive talk.
Sex suppressed will go berserk,
But it keeps us all alive.
It’s a wonderful change from wives and work
And it ends at half past five.
> The intelligence and casually flamboyant virtuosity with which he framed his often humorous commentaries on human behaviour made his work invariably entertaining and interesting.
> The irreverent eroticism for which his poetry is noted resulted in W. H. Smith's banning of his The Pleasures of the Flesh (1966) from their shops.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Ewart
For some reason that strikes me as the most moving thing I have read in a long time.
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/14-year-old-convalescent-cat-...
Viking warriors and co would probably disagree. Not the gloriest way to Valhalla..
(personally I rather care how good I live, than how I die)
Threadreader presents just the thread, formatted for easy reading, without all the additional Twitter crud. The experience with Threadreader is vastly superior in my experience.
Dead Comment
/s
The linked posts indicate that the FT recently checked with the its accounting department but could not quickly find the record for a lunch more than 25 years ago.
It would have been clearer if the posts/FT said "menus and prices were not printed until 2003" instead of "menus were not printed until 2003", but perhaps this was seen as redundant as most menus include prices.
(Updated and corrected once I re-read the original thread. This is much simpler to answer than I first thought!)