Brief Tributes To An Unlikely Threesome...

To three men totally unrelated by nationality, background or general worldview, no doubt...whose 'passing' I've been thus far unable to acknowledge (c/o el typical internet 'black/blockout')... *To Val Doonican, Entertainer/Singer Extraordinaire, who graciously condescended to vouchsafe for me, then a pre-teenage whippersnapper basically from nowhere, his autograph upon an old photo of his he kindly forwarded in the mail/old-fashioned post. *To David Nobbs, creator/director (I believe) of the inimitable, inestimable, inomparable 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin', a comedy almost wholly in its own league - alongside Fawlty Towers - which I've never tired of watching and re-watching. *To Dr Khaled al-Assad, a rare 'specimen' of dedication and devotion to things and artifacts that transcend a mere mortal life... . To say that he 'died in action', 'engaged in service' seems somehow to trivialize his accomplishments, which were no doubt way overshadowed by the person he was - "a very nice, very good man" who "was nice to the big [people] and to the small."; apparently "All the people liked him." May I 'say', in the immortal words of the beloved Apostle John: "the light shineth in [the] darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which sh[o]w the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." Dr al-Assad was one of those rare gems whom many might dismiss as an obsessive crank, an obstinate old fool, but he knew what really mattered, and gave his life in sacrifice thereof. Not so his murderers - whom I will not dignify to identify or describe, but about whom 'the sweet psalmist of Israel' might well have 'remarked': "[But] the ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish."