TEMPLATE COMMENTARY

Today, it is so fashionable to use the word ‘great’, that you often forget what it means and what makes someone truly deserve such an accolade.

Great people don’t think like everyone else, indeed they are often called radicals, eccentrics and troublemakers, for they are true contrarians.

So, it is with great sadness that the Template receives the news of Eric Hobsbawm’s death.

He like that other hell raiser – yes, you don’t have to wear a leather jacket to earn that reputation –  namely Gore Vidal were originals, one-off’s, people who dared to say things that challenged established patterns of thought.

For that they will always be missed and the world is just never going to be the same without them.

Somewhere up there, there’s a world where all these great people are debating and arguing with each other about why human beings find so hard to accept the simplest truths.

The trouble is, we all really need them to here.