This is a great shame

I've just read that a writer from the UK named Harry Thompson has died. He was known over there as a TV writer and producer for shows such as Da Ali G Show. I admit, I've never seen the joke about Ali G.

But I know Thompson as the writer of one of my prized books, his biography of Peter Cook, who coincidentally I mentioned just a few posts ago somewhere around here. I think Eric Idle encapsulated it best in the review that made me buy it, as something like:

"Either the funniest book ever written about a sad man or the saddest book ever written about a funny man."

He'd also written a biography of Tintin's creator, Hergé, that I've never found although I've looked once or twice. According to the death announcement:

[Thompson's]first novel, This Thing Of Darkness, was on the Booker prize's long list, [he] was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in April. He did not smoke.

He died on Monday night having married Lisa Whadcock, his girlfriend, that day.

Frankly, I can do without that kind of cheap irony in life.