Xenophon
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:36 pm
Hi all,
Just a note to say that regular contributor and poster Paul McDonnell-Staff - "Xenophon" as members would know him - died on March 12th. Paul suffered from an illness, which I won't go into here, for the last five years of his life. Though it did not always look like it here, Paul and I were strong friends over a couple of decades. There's nothing better than pointing out the foibles of your mate! The "Old Man" (as I called him) and I ("Bertie Old thing" as he'd address me) had an ongoing relationship for some two decades. I recall us downing three bottles of red (after a beer or two over dinner) in "Brisvegas" going over the Second Diadoch War, the nature of the hypaspists and the foibles of "certainty" in a hotel in Brisbane some thirteen years ago. What others in the bar made of the hard copies of Diodoros, the Tacticians and Plutarch is anyone's guess. As ever, we parted in disagreement on whatever sticking point(s) we'd arrived at by bottle three.
One of the effects of the Old Man's serious and restrictive illness was that it attacked his phalanges. Given this, I was constantly surprised at the amount he could type - the email trees, on many subjects, were no bonsai - more like giant redwoods. Though one had to be patient. That back and forth will be missed.
Paul had been writing on ancient military history for decades going back to John Warry's Warfare in The Classical World. From it's inception, we both wrote for Ancient Warfare. The articles we prepared were the source of much private and occasional Pothosian debate. I recall calling him, at the editor's suggestion, to see if he was still corporeal as he'd he'd missed a deadline by a couple of days (something he never did). He suggested that were he not "the whole world would...". I suggested Demades' acid quip was a little beyond the pale. He continued writing for Ancient Warfare under the nom de plume "Tacticus". The journal will miss him and so will I.
Vale "Old Man"
Michael Park.
Just a note to say that regular contributor and poster Paul McDonnell-Staff - "Xenophon" as members would know him - died on March 12th. Paul suffered from an illness, which I won't go into here, for the last five years of his life. Though it did not always look like it here, Paul and I were strong friends over a couple of decades. There's nothing better than pointing out the foibles of your mate! The "Old Man" (as I called him) and I ("Bertie Old thing" as he'd address me) had an ongoing relationship for some two decades. I recall us downing three bottles of red (after a beer or two over dinner) in "Brisvegas" going over the Second Diadoch War, the nature of the hypaspists and the foibles of "certainty" in a hotel in Brisbane some thirteen years ago. What others in the bar made of the hard copies of Diodoros, the Tacticians and Plutarch is anyone's guess. As ever, we parted in disagreement on whatever sticking point(s) we'd arrived at by bottle three.
One of the effects of the Old Man's serious and restrictive illness was that it attacked his phalanges. Given this, I was constantly surprised at the amount he could type - the email trees, on many subjects, were no bonsai - more like giant redwoods. Though one had to be patient. That back and forth will be missed.
Paul had been writing on ancient military history for decades going back to John Warry's Warfare in The Classical World. From it's inception, we both wrote for Ancient Warfare. The articles we prepared were the source of much private and occasional Pothosian debate. I recall calling him, at the editor's suggestion, to see if he was still corporeal as he'd he'd missed a deadline by a couple of days (something he never did). He suggested that were he not "the whole world would...". I suggested Demades' acid quip was a little beyond the pale. He continued writing for Ancient Warfare under the nom de plume "Tacticus". The journal will miss him and so will I.
Vale "Old Man"
Michael Park.