2011: The Last Year of the Hitchslap
Christopher Hitchens, 1949 - 2011
I awoke from my slumber at Hoar Cross Hall to hear the news of Christopher Hitchens’ death, late last evening. You often hear people say they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they got wind of a huge public news event. It’s usually a death of some sort, 11/9 and Princess Diana being two prime examples. I don’t hugely recall the latter, though I remember being in the living room as the pictures from Paris flashed across the screen. The former, although I may have misremembered, broke while I was in school. At dinnertime, we hijacked a teacher’s office and read the story online with shock; the idea that some colossal building in America could be obliterated by anyone certainly never occurred to me before. Maybe I’d watched too many Disney films.
I doubt I’ll forget where I was when I heard the news of Christopher’s death, but rather than say, ‘I’ll remember where I was when I heard the news’, it would be better put if I instead said, ‘I’ll always remember what I was doing when the news was happening’.
I was suspending disbelief in others while Hitch’s disbelief was soon to be talked about in the morning news. The melodic beats of Lady Gaga reverberated around the Stately Home while the melodic beeps in the hospital ward became one, and singular. I slow danced while his dance slowed, and stopped.
I will miss hearing his acerbic wit, hearing thoughts from that Rolls-Royce mind and his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of, well, everything. Richard Dawkins put it very nicely when he wrote, “Farewell, great voice. Great voice of reason, of humanity, of humour. Great voice against cant, against hypocrisy, against obscurantism and pretension, against all tyrants…” and Vanity Fair wonderfully described him as “the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant.”
It is a great shame we will no longer be treated to his cutting, witty turns of phrase. I quite subscribe to an oft quoted saying of his mother: “the one unforgivable sin is to be boring”, and on Cameron, he said, “People ask: ‘What do you think of him?’ and my answer is: ‘He doesn’t make me think.’”
Please forgive me when I write ‘LOL’. Luckily, I can’t remember all his witticisms, so I’ll certainly look forward to reminding myself of others, and chuckling, happily.
When heroes fall, others fill their place. I don’t mind having a hold of the torch, I think; a daunting level of courage required, but a stunning view after ascension. Wondrous and beautiful atop Mount Enlightenment.
So I’ll remember what I was doing when I heard the news; I’ll remember what I was doing when the news was happening.
I was drinking Martini and Christopher Hitchens was dying. What an unfortunate combination, Hitch would’ve preferred me on Johnnie Walker Black.
