I'm greatly saddened to hear of the death of Deb Barham. We weren't close friends, but we knew eachother and swapped email every now and then.
I met her at one of the very early get-togethers of London bloggers. I didn't really get round to speaking to her during the evening, and it was only when we both walked the same way to the Tube station that we started chatting, and found we had things in common.
It was an all-too-brief face-to-face encounter, so when Deb gave me a card with her email address on it, I realised with delight that she'd been a subscriber to my gorjuss mailing list for quite a while.
Every now and then she'd send dry quips about things I'd mentioned in gorjuss, and at other times we'd exchange commiserations on the less glamourous aspects of writing for a living (and not earning enough from it).
Deb was, as others have noted extremely talented and very, very funny. She didn't just do comedy, either. She was quite a geek and knew her computers and her internet. Her choice of personal domain name - fuckwitted.com - summed up much of her character.
She'll be missed.
Filed under: life
(29th April 2003)