How do you sum up someone who has played the role of an affectionate, wise, provocative and sometimes disconcerting guardian angel?...Much will be written about Geoffrey in the coming days and months, but let me try to capture a scintilla (as a Classics scholar, he would have liked that word—and known its derivation) of the essence of the man...Every conversation you had with him, you would learn something—or many things—new. There was often an unexpected twist, though...Finally, the affection—in which he so clearly held us and in which he was most certainly held by everyone I knew. In a way this is like losing a much-loved grandfather—though in Geoffrey’s case fate and fortune meant that I would come to know him better than ever I did either of my grandfathers.