Death of Nick Clarke

The death of Nick Clarke is such a sad event. I worked as a reporter on the World at One and PM when Nick was presenting and the tributes that are pouring in are fully justified. His great ability was to remain fearsomely polite - terrifyingly so - when interviewing and sheer lucidity of writing, which when you listened to the programme meant you frequently thought 'Damn, why can't I encapsulate things like that'. He wrote simply but never simplistically, with no unnecessary flourishes.

I particularly liked Eddie Mair's tribute on PM. Devoid of sentimentality, it reminded us that along with his supreme journalistic ability, Nick had his idiosyncrasies - I remember several occasions in G601 when he was incandescent because his vegetarian sausage sandwich was not just as he liked it. Don't even get started on the coffee. I also liked Eddie's anecdote that Nick saw it as a badge of honour never to have interviewed Tony Blair.
His audio diary is well worth listening to again http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/fightingtobenormal.shtml

Update: Andrew Marr's report on Nick's funeral http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/06/do0605.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/12/06/ixopinion.html. I wish I could learn to do links properly.