You can no longer call him Al.

You would always find him in the kitchen at parties

In what publicists are describing as a "shrewd career move" writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died, aged 89.

I've wrestled with Solzhenitsyn on and off, lo these many years. The main thing I took away from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was "gee, these gulag things don't seem to be much fun" while August 1914 was very, very, very long - and I've survived Tolstoy.

As usual when a writer dies, the focus will be on their works rather than the less pleasant aspects of their personalities. Thus I would expect Solzhenitsyn's contempt for the modern, secular west, strong authoritarianism and anti-Semitism won't get much of a jersey.

I suppose winning the Nobel Prize often hides the fact that the winner can be a bit of a prick.

And talking of pricks, for fuck's sake Costello shit or get off the pot.

This brooding Hamlet act is getting really tiring.