Departed this life – part IV

The last few months of the year do not seem to be rich pickings for notable or obscure deaths of interest to this warped mind still here goes.



Eileen Nearne, whose body was discovered on 2 September, had been an SOE operative during WWII. Codenamed Rose, she was flown in to France on 1944 to work as a wireless operator for the Wizard network, one of several SOE operations in the country.

In July 1944 her transmitter was detected and she was arrested. After torture by the Gestapo she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she refused to do prison work. She was then transferred to a forced labour camp in Silesia. On 13 April 1945 she escaped with two French girls from a work gang. After arrest and release by the SS they were reportedly reportedly hidden by a priest in Leipzig until the arrival of United States troops.

Nearne was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government but just a measly MBE by our own government.

She died alone from a heart attack in her seaside flat. Her body is thought to have remained undiscovered for some time until found on 2 September 2010. She was 89 years old. Her wartime activities were not generally known about. It was only when her flat was being searched by council workers to try to establish her next-of-kin that medals and other papers related to her war career were found.

Her funeral was paid for by the Royal British Legion



On 12 September French film director Claude Chabrol died at the age of 80



28 October saw the death of James MacArthur, the original Hawaii 5-0 Danno. The phrase “Book him Danno, Murder One” is a treasured childhood televisual memory. Accept no substitutes! Even if the remake features Grace Park!



29 October saw the death of Geoffrey Crawley, former editor in chief of the British Journal of Photography, at the age of 83. In the 1980s he finally laid to rest the Cottingley Fairies hoax.



Sycophant Adrian Paunescu died on 5 November. Paunescu was infamous for being Nicolae Ceausescu’s court poet. That job ended in 1989 when his master mysteriously died of lead poisoning… I featured one of his atrocious works at the time of his death.


On 21 November Prince Chunk died at the age of 10 of heart complications Chunk was at one time 44lbs, just two lb short of the absolute record for the fattest cat. Robyn at one time weighed nearly 17lbs and we thought he was a big fellow… then again he was never a fasto, just a large cat!



Captain Beefheart is the last person of note (for me anyway) to die this year. Like his foodstuff namesake his music was very much an acquired taste

Death of a sycophant

While I keep an eye on my stats I don't follow them slavishly (apart from keeping on the lookout when they are bout to hit a milestone like the 500,000th visitor) I was surprised to see a big spike in visitors over Friday and Saturday with the great majority of them coming from Romania.

The reason for this spike was the death on November 5th of Romanian poet Adrian Paunescu who, although he described himself as an "inner circle dissident", he was the court poet to Nicolae Ceausescu/ Here is a post I wrote last year which includes on of his abysmal poems glorifiying the Nazi bastard.

ROMANIA’S FUTURE - A POME BY ADRIAN PAUNESCU AGED 7 and 7/16ths

Adrian Paunescu now

While I love bad poetry, there is a huge difference between the passionate ineptitude of the likes of Tayside Tragedian or McIntyre of the giant cheese and the sycophantic ramblings of the political court poets as you will still see in places like North Korea.

Of all the former communist states in Europe Romania was in many ways one of the worst. Ceausescu may have garnered a little respect in the west by having the temerity not to participate fully in the Warsaw Pact structure and not contributing to the forces that toppled Dubcek in Czechoslovakia he was an evil mane in virtually every other respect of his worthless life.

Essentially Ceausescu was. Ultra nationalist and a unreconstructed Stalinist. It would be safe to say that he was a Nationalist Socialist. (Hmm that sounds a bit of a mouthful, let me remove a syllable.- Ceausescu was a National Socialist. Huum still too many syllables. This sounds right)

Ceausescu was basically a NAZI. Like other tyrants he had his coterie of sycophants. One of these was Adrian Paunescu who was Ceausescu's court poet. Here is an example of his work, some extracts of a poem translated by Constantin Roman:

VIITORUL ROMANIEI

"We now live a new life, which was dreamt of and fought for
By our forbears, our national revolutionaries Tudor, Balcescu
Horia and Iancu, who were once upon a time
The martyrs of our sufferings and of Romania’s fate

Today their heir is this wise old man, brought to us in Spring time
To be a hero amongst heroes. As Communist Party Leader,
It stands to reason that he is also the country’s President.
And that is why, through the very person of Ceausescu we found our own newborn ethos.

...

It is Ceausescu himself that introduced honour within the Communist Party and the Country
He rediscovered our history unadulterated
To make us reach for the future in our dreams, as well as
In our daily deeds, full of new meanings.

...

We can’t accept that our life should be broken
As we make history day in, day out, the way it was prescribed
By the 9th Congress of the Communist Party
Whose philosophy is to believe in the People as the ultimate solution


...
Notwithstanding all that the centre of our struggle remains
The Communist Party who knows the problem and has the solution
The Party is the architect of all our future
The perfect judge of our past and present

That is the stuff of which Romania’s hero is made
A true heroes through every fibre
The first recipient of the Truth
Who knows how to confront all Evil

...

As we follow our Hero, we overcome disasters
As we follow our Hero we shall be able to
Make everything to the measure of our enthusiasm
You People with a noble spirit, People with a pure soul. "

Paunescu showing dissent

Even if this is well written in Romanian it has the stink of a man who had his lips to the sphincter of a tyrant. I gather that Paunescu had the temerity to call himself a dissident.

If you wish to read about a real Romanian dissident who did suffer terribly for her actions try Doina Cornea and not this worthless scumbag

ROMANIA’S FUTURE - A POME BY ADRIAN PAUNESCU AGED 7 and 7/16ths

Adrian Paunescu now

While I love bad poetry, there is a huge difference between the passionate ineptitude of the likes of Tayside Tragedian or McIntyre of the giant cheese and the sycophantic ramblings of the political court poets as you will still see in places like North Korea.

Of all the former communist states in Europe Romania was in many ways one of the worst. Ceausescu may have garnered a little respect in the west by having the temerity not to participate fully in the Warsaw Pact structure and not contributing to the forces that toppled Dubcek in Czechoslovakia he was an evil mane in virtually every other respect of his worthless life.

Essentially Ceausescu was. Ultra nationalist and a unreconstructed Stalinist. It would be safe to say that he was a Nationalist Socialist. )Hmm that sounds a bit of a mouthful, let me remove a syllable.- Ceausescu was a National Socialist. Huum still too many syllables. This sounds right)

Ceausescu was basically a NAZI. Like other tyrants he had his coterie of sycophants. One of these was Adrian Paunescu who was Ceausescu's court poet. Here is an example of his work, some extracts of a poem translated by Constantin Roman:

VIITORUL ROMANIEI

"We now live a new life, which was dreamt of and fought for
By our forbears, our national revolutionaries Tudor, Balcescu
Horia and Iancu, who were once upon a time
The martyrs of our sufferings and of Romania’s fate

Today their heir is this wise old man, brought to us in Spring time
To be a hero amongst heroes. As Communist Party Leader,
It stands to reason that he is also the country’s President.
And that is why, through the very person of Ceausescu we found our own newborn ethos.

...

It is Ceausescu himself that introduced honour within the Communist Party and the Country
He rediscovered our history unadulterated
To make us reach for the future in our dreams, as well as
In our daily deeds, full of new meanings.

...

We can’t accept that our life should be broken
As we make history day in, day out, the way it was prescribed
By the 9th Congress of the Communist Party
Whose philosophy is to believe in the People as the ultimate solution


...
Notwithstanding all that the centre of our struggle remains
The Communist Party who knows the problem and has the solution
The Party is the architect of all our future
The perfect judge of our past and present

That is the stuff of which Romania’s hero is made
A true heroes through every fibre
The first recipient of the Truth
Who knows how to confront all Evil

...

As we follow our Hero, we overcome disasters
As we follow our Hero we shall be able to
Make everything to the measure of our enthusiasm
You People with a noble spirit, People with a pure soul. "

Paunescu showing dissent

Even if this is well written in Romanian it has the stink of a man who had his lips to the sphincter of a tyrant. I gather that Paunescu had the temerity to call himself a dissident.

If you wish to read about a real Romanian dissident who did suffer terribly for her actions try Doina Cornea and not this worthless scumbag