Library is in something of a state of shock today.

A colleague who was a bit unwell last week with the cold everyone was reported on Monday to have had an unplanned operation on his bowel over the weekend. Bit worrying.

But we were all unprepared for the news this morning that he died yesterday of renal failure.

I've not had many close to me die - my grandmother when I was young and could just about appreciate it, my grandfather (on the other side) more recently after two 30 year marriages and still preaching in his 90s. And it's difficult to say I was 'close' to Q. But we had spent the last year, 18 months learning to do cryptic crosswords together in coffee breaks and lunchtimes. We had, after some time, dragged a third person into our cryptic corner. We had spent endless time puzzling over the deranged minds of the setters and treasure the more brilliant of their creations.

There's going to be a definite hole in the breaks R and I take together, and almost certainly going to be blanks in the crosswords that would be Qs clues. (Particularly the literary ones).

R & I did today's crossword 'in memoriam' and managed to finish it which we weren't expecting. Bizarrely Q's surname formed the answer to 14 down.

:-(