Politics 101 with Jim

It was that genuine ‘Hello mate, how are you?’ said with a real feeling of warmth that will stay with me. The words were always offered with an outstretched arm leading to a welcoming handshake. Jim was always generous in his welcomes, making you feel that he was genuinely very pleased to see you. There are a number of things that I will miss but in particular I shall miss our in depth ‘political conversations’, usually accompanied by a nightcap seemingly determined to make it through to the morning. They would nearly always follow the same pattern. I would argue one thing, Jim the opposite. Jim would then lead me carefully around in a circle until I was vociferously arguing against myself without even realising. Jim also did me two great favours in letting my then girlfriend and now wife lodge with him in for a few months in late 2002. She had just finished her MA and was waiting for her graduation ceremony before returning to Taiwan. I say two favours for a reason. Firstly I knew that she would be well looked after and get to practice her English with a true master of the unnecessarily overcomplicated sentence construction. Secondly he managed to show that whilst I may have been untidy in the extreme, I was by no means unique! So thanks Jim, a truly loyal mate, wherever you are now let’s hope you are applying the strategy of one-upmanship to its fullest potential.