Too young

I was quite shocked to see the comedian Linda Smith's obituary by her friend and fellow performer Jeremy Hardy appearing in the Guardian the other day. I've enjoyed Linda's wit enormously on a variety of TV and radio comedies, not leas of which is the evergreen radio show Just A Minute. Only 48 and gone already...

This came hard on the heels of the news of the accident which robbed the literary world of the wonderfully gifted Octavia Butler who died unexpectedly last week after hitting her head in a fall, aged only in her 50s; who knows what books lay unfinished within her? Fortunately we have those she did complete, a small part of her which endures eternally.