Well then. If I'd bothered to make any posters for this show they would have had to do this:

Some friends came round for dinner tonight and it was a great success. My chicken basque (or Chicken in a basque-ish as I like to call it) was the best I've ever done it and my chocolate fondue experiment was very well received. But you know its a great night when you realise you are dancing in your living room with two gorgeous girls, to Status Quo...

Not much posting for a while. I seem to have been rushing around with barely time to ponder the ever-growing pile of mugs requiring washing up in my kitchen, or re-stock my biscuit supply. That's busy.

Main activity has been season 3 of NSN24. Opening night was last sunday and it was a cracking show. Amazing energy from the crew and although not a big audience those that were there seemed to really enjoy it. And I was able to answer that eternal question "Where do London's Brazillian men go on a Sunday night?" They go to watch Brazillian footy at the Oxford Arms in Camden, so that's another mystery solved. Anyhow - 2 more NSNs this season, plus another corporate gig for eBay (a repeat booking!) so don't be afraid to come along.

On Tuesday I went to an amazing talk by Alan Hinkes, the first Brit to climb all 14 8000m mountains. He's an ebullient Yorkshireman and I warm to anyone whose most common phrases are "Brilliant!" and "I nearly died!", though seldom in the same sentance. He showed the most extraordinary photo taken from the summit of K2 as the sun set behind him. The shadow of K2 stretched out as a perfect triangle before him, 1000s of kilometers all the way to the horizon and he was on the top of it. Incroyable.

Am also excited about a lot of stuff:

• This cold winter we've been promised. Come friendly snow and fall on me!
• Christmas in Chamonix. Woo hoo!
• Going on a date. The perpetual triumph of hope over experience but what the hell
• More NSN
• "Far Away" the new Martha Wainwright single. Yum

I wouldn't mind if work got a bit more exciting but it should pick up soon. So things are OK

I'm delighted to find out (post facto) that it's not just the right-wing press that have given dad an obituary. Last week the Guardian weighed in with this obituary and subsequently this post-script from a friend.

Some ThoughtWorkers (as we like to be known...) love to blog about technology and all related subjects. I am not one of them. Not that I'm not interested and I have to say this new job (and those blogs) have totally re-ignited my interest in technology. There are always interesting angles on those sites even if you're not the alpha-geek (check "the real definition of Web 2.0"..... What do you mean your not down with the two point oh? Get with it daddio).

Anyhow - this is all by way of excusing a brief foray into the suburbs of technological conversation. You have been warned. I'm a big fan of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Firefox does many things including letting you add your own look and feel themes. I think I've just found the daddy: PimpZilla.

Install it and say hello to a world of fur-lined browsing, bling-based clicking, ostentatious gold, and leopard skin accessories. A welcome addition to anyone's modern lifestyle, I'm sure you'll agree.

this week I have been mostly listening to Arcade Fire, Imogen Heap and Martha Wainwright. Happy now, Stickers?

This week I am mostly listening to the Sugababes

Dad requested that his decorations be laid out at his funeral. Most of them we kept at home but his GCMG collar was on lifetime loan and resided at the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood. I gave them a call and, unsurprisingly, they couldn't have been more charming.

So here are some snaps of all dad's decorations:

GCMG Collar and the Michael and George badge.

Dad's army medals, a Malay honour whose name escapes me(!), the GCMG star and the KCVO star and badge


Full House

With this post, I think that's the end of my musings on dad's passing. I'm sure every now and then I will want to write about him but from now on I'll back to the trivial banalities of everyday blogging. Enjoy...

A knight there was, and he a worthy man,
Who, from the moment that he first began
To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy.

That piece from The Canterbury Tales was how my uncle Angus began his memorable address at my father's funeral on Monday. It was the highlight of a wonderful service and a fitting end to my father's time on this earth. Angus's speech was a masterpiece of humble erudition, formal tribute and fraternal pride. Many people have asked for a transcript of what he said and here it is (MS Word Format).

My uncles Angus and Andy and my best friend Alice and her husband Jonny had come to stay before the funeral and were a great help. We arrived at the Church in good time to find many people there already. Sitting at the front it was hard to know how many people were there but the noise when the first hymn began was fantastic! The undertaker told me later he could scarcely remember singing like it. Dad would have been chuffed.

The Queen's representative, Sir Brian Fall, duly arrived and as protocol dictated was shown to his seat at the front. The service then began and I was soon called on to make my reading, from the Union of Friends by William Penn.

They that love beyond the world, cannot be separated by it
Death cannot kill, what never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship.
If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; They live in one another still.
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is Omnipresent.
In this Divine Glass, they see Face to Face; and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure.
This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.

I found this jotted down in dad's immaculate handwritting in a notebook he kept on his bookshelf. I read it and I knew at once it was true: based on the experience I've had since mum died. It clearly meant something to him so I thought it was perfect. It was a great honour to read it.

The other reading came from my aunt Anne. She was given the first letter to the Corinthians. I have to say I've always thought this piece sufferd from over-exposure. I must have heard it at every wedding I've ever been to. But I've never heard it so well read as by my aunt on Monday. She took it very slowly with pause for thought and contemplation after every line which helped it really sank in. Maybe it was also the version she was reading, from the New English Bible, but it was simply marvellous. And having heard it at every wedding I've ever been to I came to realise that it's actually not about the love that applies at a wedding: it's more suited to a funeral, especially for a man with an immense capacity for love of every sort.

Then came my uncle's marvellous oration. It was a profoundly moving and uplifting speech and it ended with this speech from Hamlet, as the young prince ponders his father's memory:

He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.

That was my dad.