Goodbye Shaun Downey

To quote the man himself – though he didn’t have the chance to warn us this time – “hiatus”. “Termination”.

Terrible news – Shaun Downey died a young man of 50.  I didn’t know him well but he was clearly a very fine person. I thought I’d say so here because I couldn’t get a comment up on his blog and because I can’t attend the gathering of bloggers who will raise a toast to him later this month.

Spring is the wrong time for death. Buds and sun rays insult bereavement horribly – I wish his family well. Recently Sean was photographing spring flowers. Just look at these.  And the cats, ayayay – I only sometimes overcame my disapproval of his contributions to this internet epidemic. And it was Sean who first alerted me to the extreme sedentary nature of British sport, which I then went on about for most of the Olympics. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if we shared politics, other times I was. Ultimately so what – you can tell from his blog that he was a man of humour and love.

Here’s a proper obit, inside another.

Update

Also from Simply Jews, from Khanya – Shaun’s Poor Mouth can still speak, and Knatolee whose hen haiku contest Sean won. A lot of people Shaun hardly or never met felt a connection with him, a gift that until now I assumed was unique to celebrities. Roland Dodds found him somehow, and liked his style.