An ex-colleague died of a sore throat today.  It was an apparently innocuous infection that eventually affected his heart and lungs, and despite intravenous antibiotics he died.  I did not think that people died of infections any more in our medically sophisticated western world.  He was a talented and intelligent man, had just been promoted, he loved his wife and his dogs, and was younger than me.  The same day I hear that an 11 year old in my son’s year at school has died of a brain haemorrhage.  Life can be very cruel.  I start reflecting on my own mortality and end up feeling melancholy.