Alistair Cooke, RIP

Here's the notice of his death in the Torygraph; not the official obituary, mind. And here's the Letter from America page on the BBC website, which is filled with stuff. My favorite is the program from 1977 where he remembers Groucho Marx and Bing Crosby. It turns out that Groucho really did talk as he did in the movies.

Here Cooke describes lunch with Groucho:

When the meal was almost over and the waiter came to take the dessert order he stumbled several times over who was having what.

Finally he said: "Four eclairs and four - no, no - four eclairs and two coffees, I think."

And Groucho whipped in with: "Four eclairs and two coffees ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a nation dedica... Skip the rhetoric and bring the dessert."