Bourdain

Last week, I was as surprised as everyone else to hear that the chef Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide.

Bourdain was a huge influence on the catering world – you only have to read the many obituaries (including this one) to see the influence he had, and the respect in which he was held.

Depression and suicide are bastards. They make you think you’re not worth anything, make you think the world won’t miss you, make you insignificant. They’re lying bastards.

Twitter and Facebook have been full of people expressing shock, and making depression and mental health a subject to speak about, to help remove the stigma around it all, and make more people aware of how prevalent these things really are.

If nothing else good comes out of the deaths of celebrities, then at least it’s making people talk, making mental health normalised and spoken about.  And that can’t be a bad legacy really, can it?