Legacy MattersNobody writes obituaries like the English.
William Donaldson, who died on June 22 aged 70, was described by Kenneth Tynan as "an old Wykehamist who ended up as a moderately successful Chelsea pimp", which was true, though he was also a failed theatrical impresario, a crack-smoking serial adulterer and a writer of autobiographical novels; but it was under the nom de plume Henry Root that he became best known.
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It was claimed that one of his more redeeming features was that while he hated pomposity and hypocrisy in others, he disliked himself even more.
This might have been so, had he not enjoyed hating himself so much: "The salient features about me are laziness, self-indulgence and sex addiction," he confessed, in his characteristic melancholy drawl. "I'm genuinely shocked by my own behaviour."
via Andrew Stuffaford, who, English himself, says it's "cracking" and "marvelous."