I’ve just found out the terrible news that Bill Bug has died unexpectedly; this has come as a shock to the community. Bill was a phenomenon and the sort of person that you need in science; he was interested in everything, had ideas and opinions about it all, topped with an almost childlike pleasure in it all. He was a good scientist, a motivation and a reminder why most of us got into science in the first place.

His emails and their length were legendary. He was hard-work — you had to fight through the morass of ideas — but well worth it. I only had the pleasure of meeting him once; I was looking forward to meeting him again, something that now will never be.

Originally published on my old blog site.