"Death is overrated"

Bit of a maudlin post methinks but I'm going to do it anyway. A friend of mine died last week. Someone I hadn't actually seen very often in the last few years but who is still fondly remembered. He was a member of the Dr Who fan group I joined way way back in May 1988 and was always a lovely, laid back kind of bloke. He used to tape episodes of US cop show Hunter for me off satellite as it was back then. Don't ask me what channel, probably a proto Sky. I still have the video tapes somewhere with the episode titles written in his fair hand. Tomorrow is the funeral. I think when I get home later I'm going to watch an ep or two of Hunter from my DVD boxsets. I'd watch one of the tapes but we haven't got a working video recorder.

Fran, you'll be sadly missed.

I've also been trawling the archives of a web group I'm on with a bunch of friends. I accidentally clicked to bring up the very first messages on the group, long before I joined, and it inspired me to look for the very first message I posted. It was a few words about another friend who'd just died back in 2001. He was a lovely bloke too with an absolutely filthy sense of humour. I've just been reading all the lovely messages people wrote at the time, telling tales of his sillyness and depravity. I still think of him, especially when its Eurovision time. We all used to go to his house in Scunthorpe for Eurovision parties every year and we'd laugh like drains at the campest acts. He'd have loved Lordi winning it last year. I sometimes get this mental image of him laughing the unique way he did at such things. I like to think its actually him telling me he's still around. Then there's every time I hear Clouds Across the Moon by The Rah Band, every time I catch Showgirls on repeat, everytime I hear the name Joe Pasquale, everytime I see pistachio ice cream with chocolate sauce..... too many tales, some too gross to repeat.

Which brings me to his quote, the title of this post. "Death is overrated. Take it from one who knows."

Peter, you're still missed too.