I mourn the passing of a great ad agency, 142-year old J. Walter Thompson. It is being merged out of existence by the WPP Group.

The wound is still fresh, so permit me to emote.

Turner’s painting of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ being towed to the ship breaker’s yard, sold for scrap after a century of service, is a perfect fit for the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes:

Aye, tear her tattered ensign down

Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

That banner in the sky;

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,

Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,

And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,

Or know the conquered knee;—

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk

Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

And there should be her grave;

(Written about another ship, ‘Old Ironsides’, but the thought is the same)