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The real Rick

I had the privilege of working under Rick, as Asian editor, when I was posted to Jakarta and travelling widely in South-East Asia as Indochina came apart. During this period I was often in direct contact with Rick, not by phones, which were unreliable, but by telex (remember them?). We all know that Rick was funny. We also know he had a serious stammer which kicked in just when he was delivering his punch lines. You might not have known that Rick was a wizard on the telex, and in a direct telex conversation with him you got Rick as he would have loved to be, witty, razor-sharp, great one-liners. I should have kept our conversations for posterity. ■