RIP Bob Ellis my frenemy

- I'll miss you. I am sorry you aren't going to be around for the upcoming election. You loved elections - although you hated being on the losing side. 
It took you longer to leave us than you expected. It was July last year that I wrote another blog post about you. Someone we both know showed it to you and reported back your words,
      "That bloody Cat...."
I was surprised you even remembered me after all that time, especially as we always argued. It didn't stop you once ordering me to entertain Jenny, still in nappies, so that you could take Anne to talk to someone. 
      "Make up a story," you told me. It was, I think, intended as a compliment. There was no way you were going to directly admit I might be able to write something.
Your politics were so far left you found it difficult -  if not impossible - to see the middle ground. "Goodbye Jerusalem" deserve to be pulped. You had gone too far. Did you know that? Did you regret having written it?
After I had written the other blog post last year our mutual friend showed you. Your reaction was perhaps typical Bob,
      "Bloody Cat can write - but don't tell her that until I go. I don't want to have another bloody argument with her."
So last night there was an email from our mutual friend with those words and "he respected you".
That surprises me. Perhaps we were "frenemies". I'll miss his acerbity.