Jack Shafer of Slate.com has me convinced: this 2002 obituary is one of the greatest ever written. Or maybe just the wittiest. Graham Mason, former UPI journalist, may have never done anything memorable, but the anonymous Telegraph eulogist has given him a Shakespearean send-off. I sense the same hand at work in the final farewell for one of Mason's drinking partners.

For a fascinating history of these and other denizens of 1960s-era Soho -- which seems to very much echo the decadence of the late 19th Century, Threepenny Opera one -- check out this article in Bloomsbury.com.