A remarkable woman

I've been a devotee of the obituary pages for years, and sometimes you find quite remarkable people there whom you have never heard during their lives. Such is the case of Brede Arkless, a pioneering woman climber whose energetic life course (first woman to qualify for admission to the elite Union Internationale des Associations de Guides de Montagnes; eight children; guiding and mountaineering on apparently every continent of the world twelve months of the year) puts us all to shame. Such as the gems we sometimes find on those pages.

As a coda to other developments, it's my duty to report that after BondBloke's premature departure, we will do our best to maintain the quality (and most of the qualities) of this blog, although we may not manage to post so often (depending upon my capacities to cagole my colleagues...). We can't promise to be as adept as BondBloke was with the large typeface, or with the red pen, but we'll see if we can find some controversial topics to provoke debate, as well as some good stories to keep you going. I've mastered some of the arts of managing a blog, and I will see whether I can correct the clock to BST from GMT. Advice in the comments section would always be welcome. Anyway, you can always visit BB in his new "home", Numptie's Revenge, for which the link can be found on the right.