Gosh, call me Mr Incurious, but I never delve into the private lives of people who post here or anywhere else. What I know about Michael is that he was pretty old and pretty right-wing, a man who frequently indulged in exceptionally abusive and childish behaviour here. He and I rarely saw eye-to-eye about anything below the line, hardly surprising considering his very reactionary and, to me at least, very unreasonable stance on most things.

Yeah.

However...

What a colourful bloke. Him and his daft little emoticons (which were very inventive - if only I'd had the time meself...), incredibly articulate to the point of taking flowery English to the point of self-parody, which I'm certain was deliberate. And his way of taking you to pieces with baby-talk was easily the most irritating ploy I ever experienced, including the largely vain and unimaginative efforts from far lesser people here. Begod, the man could get under my skin, and that takes some doing. Kudos to him for that!

He was right wing all right but he wasn't fascist and he definitely had a soft centre, hard to find most of the time. We need people of spirit like him in this grey, anonymous world of ours. When I think about him now I feel instinctively sweary, but, with all the affection I can muster (which is plenty), I'll settle for saying that he was a right bloody old rogue!