Paul Johnston

As Tony Blair announced the beginning of the end (kind of) of his era today I can't help remembering the Sequence from the Mass for the Dead I chanted often as a teenager. It talks about the end of the world and final judgement. The papers are rushing to make final judgements on Tony Blair. As the man is only 54 I can't help feeling that this may be premature. I can't help feeling that, like Fu Manchu, 'the world will hear from (him) again.'

Meanwhile will his ending be accompanied with 'tuba mirum spargens sonum' - or will it be more like T. S. Eliot's idea, 'this is the way the world ends/ not with a bang but a whimper'?