Centrefolds and Fuming in the Forum

One of the good things about the Daily Telegraph (apart from its format) is the strange mixture of serendipitous trivia and rather more straightforward information that you find on the Social News – Obituaries double page spread.

Yesterday’s paper was a case in point. Obituaries led with the untimely departure of Wasim Raja (there’s a great all-rounder for you – no protective headgear when batting against Messrs Roberts, Garner and Croft in the West Indies) who apparently suffered a heart attack while playing for Surrey Over-50s at High Wycombe. Others on the obituaries page were Bruce Gary – drummer with The Knack whose infectious hit (My Sharona) never infected the Ranting Nappa, but features on President Bush’s iPod; and the late Lord Deramore whose writing efforts culminated in the publication of an erotic novel when he was 85.

Moving to the section on Bridge News I enjoyed learning about the Annual Bridge Awards in Warsaw. Bridge Personalities of the Year were (jointly) Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who are reported to “know and trust each other through bridge”. Happily the award for enterprising reporting was given to someone who had written up a game of bridge played during the year at the South Pole. Correctly instead of calling the players North, South, East and West he described all four players as being North.

Birthdays and Anniversaries for 24th August unite Sam Torrance (53), Stephen Fry (49), Antinia Byatt (70) with Cardnal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (74) with the Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 and the destruction of Pompeii in AD79.

Racing over the Births, Anniversaries and Deaths classified column I found a little General section which promoted a website called www.fumingintheforum.org. Here every Victor Meldrew and Ranting Nappa that was ever born gather to expostulate about Ruth Kelly, Immigration, and every other issue of concern to the stalwarts of Middle England.

I could drone on about the chess section and the quote from the Bible that heralds the Personal advertisements (“Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof …” 1 Chronicles 16-32-33), but the reason I visited the Social News – Obituaries double page spread in the first place was to find the backup Sudoku puzzle. It was “Tough” but I solved it (just).