The Marquess of Bath 1932-2020

CV19 has deprived us of Alexander Thynn, the Marquess of Bath- a person it was always fun to read about. John Ward- who met him once- calls him "a jolly interesting chap driven largely by his dick"- which is a not such a terrible thing to have inscribed on one's tombstone. So far as I can tell (only knowing him through the public prints) he had no taste, few inhibitions, was solipsistic and good-natured- and lived his life as Nero might have done if he'd been a thoroughly nice bloke. Nero fiddled and Bath painted- and his paintings are so god-awful they verge on being wonderful. He also wrote memoirs which ran or were expected to run to six million words.

He was 87.