Sad night

I've just heard the very sad news that Richard Nixon has passed away this morning. I can't say I knew Richard very well, but I thought he really was a lovely guy and I am very saddened.

I knew of him (among other things) through his work on covariate adjustment in health economic evaluations, which I think was part of his PhD at the MRC Cambridge. I then got in contact with him more closely when I was thinking of organising the short course based on BMHE, since he and Chris were already doing something like that. I suggested we did the course together and he was very enthusiastic about it. In fact, when he was asked to teach a short course at the University of Alberta, he said the three of us should have a go, which we did. Then we taught the course at Bayes 2014, UCL and at a one-day workshop organised by the RSS. He fell ill just before the last edition of the course.

Tonight I have a very vivid memory of the time we were in Edmonton having dinner after the first night of the course when I told that for some reason Italians usually get really crossed about chicken in pizza and that he used to tease me with that every time we've met since, saying that he would love a pizza with chicken. And how we used to introduce ourselves to the audience $-$ and how sometimes people were to young to get the references. I'll miss you, Richard.