Obituaries

It’s a sad sad day in fashion. One of the most brilliant designers of our time, Alexander McQueen has committed suicide and left behind a style world in mourning. For those of you who aren’t in fashion, this probably doesn’t mean a lot. Big deal, another poncy designer bites the dust.

But this is a big deal. It reminds me of when Gianni Versace was killed, though I was probably too young to be sad then. This time round, when one of the greats is and it has left an empty hole on the catwalk.

See, there aren’t many greats in the fashion world. That’s why they’re revered. Sure, there are lots of people who call themselves designers, but as Kate Moss said recently, rebuffing the remark that she was a designer to UK Harper’s Bazaar journalist Glenn O’Brien: “Um . . . I’m not really a fashion designer, I just love clothes. I’ve never been to design school. I can’t sketch. I can’t cut patterns and things. I can shorten things. I can make a dress out of a scarf.”

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In a telling post today one of America’s foremost conservative commentators, Michelle Malkin, has a two-thought article leading her site. Essentially it says Ted Kennedy is dead, please wait until the body is cold before kicking the almighty crap out of him.

As someone who has always been more interested in watching the bile spilling from dogmatic ideologues than actually agreeing with anything they have to say, I find this fair enough. Kennedy haters are champing at the bit. The last of the Commie-loving, big-spending brothers is dead.

But watch out. I’m about to use an –ism. It must be a red letter day.

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He became a household name on Channel 9’s reality television program RPA but it was Professor Chris O’Brien’s 20 year commitment to pioneering head and neck surgery in Australia that saw him celebrated by so many.

O’Brien, who died overnight in Sydney, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in November 2006. His treatment included meditation and herbal medicine and Prof O’Brien is reported to have undergone brain surgery five times in a bid to remove the tumour.

Here are some of the stories around about him today:

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