20th Feb 2010 – OK sorry for deviating from the main theme of this blog but I had to mark the anniversary of the death of Hunter Thompson who committed suicide 5 years ago today. One of my favourite writers, ever since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at college, he operated in the shadows, on the fringes of society, reporting back to us on what was really happening ‘out there’. I for one am grateful for people like him who follow an alternative path letting the rest of us get on with our normal lives. Originally a sports journalist it is his political writing that really hits home exposing the truths about Nixon, Bush, Clinton et al. He had his own style, coined as “Gonzo Journalism” where the reporter is part of the story, blurring fact and fiction. RIP Hunter.

Some of my favourite Hunter quotes:
“If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”

“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.”

“No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”

“The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

“The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.”