I had a long discussion with some JW’s some time ago, eventually I got so annoyed that, I started asking them about their shoes, clothes, watch they were wearing…even the paper, bindings and glues that made their precious little black book…….all invented by humans using science and applied methods!!

I eventually told them not to go to a hospital when they got ill, a place of science and medicine, but to go their church and pray and see which one helped cure their flock!!!

Tossers!!!

As you said…..SCIENCE WORKS………and we use it everyday in so many ways!!:)

If would be a sad world if we had to start invoking such preamble clauses and contracts before each time we voiced an opinion or thought?

Thanks to both of you for doing this interview.

Gives the background and insight into the issues.

It’s amazing really that just having an opinion on a book review site can lead to this whole exhaustive episode. There needs to be a fast-track type of arbitration process to avoid such incidents.

Nobody likes to be criticised about themselves or their work, but it seems that the laws are out of balance and disproportionate?

Well done Vaughan for having the resolve and hats off to all those that helped you, particularly your partner and close friends.

Thanks for sharing

A good man won his case VJ has been very dignified throughout xx

Fortunately it turned out to be a needless worry – having members of Nic’s family, none of whom I had ever met before, thank me for the post was the both a great relief and a massive compliment, just as it is that this is the most “liked” thing I’ve written. It’s nice to know that someone with whom I shared the same few square feet of carpet for nearly a decade will be remembered fondly, and that my attempt at remembering him was deemed appropriate and suitably fitting. Cheers for the comments, they’re very much appreciated.

Andy sounds, from the way you describe him, like he was a top bloke … different in many ways, I’m sure, to Nic, but I can see why you thought of mentioning him (and thank you for having done so). I don’t want to over-romanticise the jobs any of us do, but we so often forget that the people we share a workplace with usually spend more time with us than do our friends and families. Any one of our colleagues has the capacity for making our job something we enjoy coming to, instead of just being something we do to pay the bills … I’ve been lucky working with people like Nic (and many others I could name) because they all contribute to making work not feel like work.

It’s often said that the secret to happiness is to find something you enjoy and get someone to pay you for it, but I think that’s only half the story … the other half is finding people to enjoy doing it with …

If we’re talking sartorial crimes of the music world, Madonna, Marilyn Manson, and Lady GaGa surely have to be contenders (especially since one of those is the bastard spawn of the other two)?

I think Dom Howard of Muse wins the “worst dressed” category hands down though. Even my teenage Alice Cooper makeup pales in comparison to the sartorial horrors he perpetrates on the world. My hero.

Out of respect really, not wanting to invade what was a personal loss for you, his colleagues, friends & family.

I always intended to leave a comment after what I believed a respectful period of time had elapsed……………trust that now is OK?

Just wanted to say what a well written and appropriately heart felt epitaph.

It triggered a memory really, so I would like to share………I worked with a chap called Andy, nicest bloke you could meet, we shared the same office. He was early sixties at the time and I in my early twenties and he was looking forward to his retirement. Anyway he was out at a meeting one afternoon with a colleague, when I received a phone call saying he had collapsed and gone into a coma. Could I ring his wife and go and collect her. To cut a long story short I knew the prognosis wasn’t good and effectively he wasn’t going to make it, but I couldn’t say anything to his wife…………it was the longest drive of my life, from Bradford to Preston.

I remember that I had one of the best belly laughs ever with Andy…………one lunch we were discussing cars and he mentioned he had owned one of the first 3 wheel Robin Reliant cars and proceeded to tell me all about it……well as a twenty something I just thought he was winding me up and spinning a yarn to a gullible young work colleague………………next day, sure enough he brings in a photo showing his younger self stood in front of this vehicle all proud with his pencil tie and quiff, it was the top of the range model with fake leather roof covering and he looked so differnet, well I couldn’t help myself and without thinking, I stated he looked a bit of a T##T……………after a few seconds he looks up at me and I was thinking that maybe I had overstepped the mark with that comment………,he replied in typical fashion with rather a contemplative look on his face…”Yeahh I suppose I did!”………to which we both burst out laughing, we both had tears running down his face from laughing so much and our bellies ached, especially when I just kept on taking the piss about how he ever managed to pull his missus with a car like like!!! Great memories…..great bloke!! I think he liked sharing an office with me…….a ‘young turk’ always gobbing off about something, and him the’ Great Sage’, constantly pointing out the errors in my thinking……………

I hope that you catch yourself thinking about Nic in the same manner and remembering the time you shared.:)

We spend so much time at work……….good to have happy times to remember!!

Once again lovely post!!