I got some disquieting news yesterday.

John Mallon died last Thursday.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name he was behind LetsExpess.Me which has been on my sidebar for some years.

John first contacted me years ago and we started mailing each other on a fairly regular basis. He was an outspoken critic of the smoking ban and had some choice words for those behind it. He also expressed an interest in writing but didn’t know how to go about it. Naturally I suggested he start up his own site, but he was hesitant as he rated himself as an amateur with computers. Nevertheless I persuaded him to have a go and I registered “LetsExpress.Me” in March 2013. The site was born.

John took to the scribbling lark like a duck to water. Over the years we kept up sporadic correspondence. He would occasionally phone me just for a chat when we would have a grand laugh at life. We shared a common jaundiced view on life in general.

Sadly, we never met, as he lived in Cork, and I didn’t. On several occasions we had some near misses as I traveled to west Cork or he traveled to Dublin but for various reasons that meet never happened.

I’ll miss his gentle Cork accent and his unrepeatable comments on our politicians.

Simon Clark – he of FOREST fame – has written a long tribute to John as the latter was co opted into representing the organisation in Ireland [I think I was the catalyst there]. It’s well worth reading.

Rest in peace, John.