Peter Worthington has had an amazing life. And his obituary, which he wrote himself, certainly has an arresting opening line.
After commissioning polemical columnist Julie Burchill to write an article this Sunday, The Observer has taken the rather extraordinary step of trying to depublish it.
The column in question was a stout defence of her friend, the writer Suzanne Moore, against claims that she had made bigoted comments about the transgender community, and then refused to apologise for them.
Of course, The Observer's attempt to withdraw the article failed - it was quickly republished by Toby Young of the Daily Telegraph.
The initial complaints about the article are now running second behind criticism of John Mulholland, the Observer editor, for dropping the piece and issuing a complete apology for it.
Having commissioned the article from Burchill in the first place - and knowing exactly what they would get in return - should the Observer have stuck by its column? And was there another way to deal with the inevitable backlash? Read it and decide.
Leaving aside the trans issue, it is striking how thin skinned Julie and Suzanne have been. They are apparently OK to dish it out. But get abusive when "ordinary people" -- as they are called in newspaper and TV offices -- answer back.
Dr Brooke Magnanti, the former call girl Belle du Jour, has a pertinent take on this. I particularly like her definition of internet "troll" as someone with fewer Twitter followers than you.
If anyone hasn't read Laurie Penny's brilliant piece on this, they really should, and NUS women's officer Kelley Temple gives some good perspective too.
Let's be honest, the column had one purpose: to piss people off, and therefore get lots of pageviews. It has no merit as a piece of journalism, but rather as a vile, bigoted piece which openly attacks a section of society that really doesn't need to be attacked any more than it already is.
If this were an openly hostile and aggressive racist, homophobic or sexist piece, there would be no discussion that pulling it might not be the right thing to do. It would get pulled unquestioningly, if it were ever somehow run in the first place. There should be absolutely no difference.
Instead, it attacks trans people, who are so ostricised that trans people aged 18-44 have a 45 percent suicide rate as well as bumper murder rates. That is not a typo - almost HALF of all young trans people have attempted suicide. Not only this, but the overwhelming majority report recieving almost daily physical or verbal abuse.
There can be no free speech argument for publishing openly hostile hate speech to such a vulnerable group. We should apply exactly the same standards to this that we do to other form of bigotry: outright and unwavering condemnation.