Poor MJ

Very sad news about Michael Jackson this morning. We were watching the news last night when they had a "late-breaking" story that he had been taken to hospital, and Olga read later still on the internet that doctors had performed CPR on him, but it was still a surprise and shock to hear this morning that he'd died.

I'm not a cynic and never believed the things he was accused of in his private life, although some of his behaviour was an example of what not to do, such as the baby-dangling. I just think he was a very naive man with emotional issues stemming from his childhood, and this put him in situations that most people would have seen as improper. That's just my opinion, and without knowing the facts, no-one should say he was right or wrong.
What is not in any doubt is that he was the greatest entertainer of my generation. Olga and I were so looking forward to seeing him at the O2 in February, but now I'm just grateful I was able to see him live in Leeds in 1992.

I read this morning that the internet slowed down last night when news of his death was breaking, and that there were so many hits on his name on Google that the company thought it was under cyber-attack. For 30 minutes Google News crashed, and the Twitter servers went down too. I don't remember a one-off event breaking the internet before.

Finally, even if you couldn't stand him or his music (go and live in a cave without TV or Radio for the next fortnight, I think), remember that three young children are without a father today.