Yesterday we were all stunned by the untimely death of Prince, without doubt one of the most gifted individuals to emerge from the rock scene in the last 40 years. Dancer, singer, musician, writer- he was a genuine tornado of talent. A friend of mine saw him live in Birmingham nearly 30 years ago. Between numbers he produced a basketball and tossed a two-pointer into a basket at the side of the stage placed at the regulation height. Then he picked up his guitar again and went on with the music. Wow!
Victoria Wood was not always to my taste. I didn't really like her songs, and Dinnerladies never really came on my radar. But some of her creations will remain immortal, like Acorn Antiques, which was not only a scathing critique on Crossroads and other low quality soaps, but was also, with the assistance of Celia Imrie and Julie Walters, hysterically funny.
Zaha Hadid's death is a tremendous blow to the world of architecture. Perhaps the most talented woman architect in history, she was what I might call "Frank Lloyd Wright squared", taking his ideas to the next level and beyond.
Frank Gehry once said: If a building with no curves costs $1, a building with one curve costs $2. A building with two curves costs $10".
Her buildings often featured multiple curves, like her design of the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff. They did the Frank Gehry math, and decided Wales couldn't afford it, to our lasting shame. The building we do have isn't bad (though for a talking shop the acoustics are terrible), but it ain't a Hadid, and we are so much the poorer for that.
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