Today, many people will still be mourning the tragic passing of Bernard Mt St Helens, but I prefer to celebrate his life and remember his achievements as one of life's most-celebrated overachieving underachievers.

Born in 1908 into a wealthy family who were always broke, he never really knew the true meaning of money.

His father was a coconut oil tycoon, his mother a prostitute by day and a surveyor by night, but together they raised him to be himself, question authority and to always speak his mind. You can see why he was never able to hold down a steady job, let alone get invited to dinner parties.

He became a reclusive inventor. He met Jacques Cousteau in the early 30s and together they worked on a number of different designs for aqualungs and diving bells. Cousteau's early ideas evolved into the successful aqualung we know so well today.

Bernard's larger, all-encompassing model with one single, airtight door also evolved, eventually becoming the Gentle Annie washing machine.

He is also credited with devising the concept of urinating in your dive mask to prevent it from fogging up.

Bernard had four failed marriages and three successful ones, and he is survived by eight of the seven children he had to four different women and two different men.

Just before his death he had been actively inventing a machine that can turn grated cheese overnight into a large, single block.

Bernard suffocated on a pillow while he slept and he will be sadly missed. He will be buried temporarily over the weekend and then cremated at Piha beach on Tuesday, weather and iwi permitting.

Mail

As usual there has been a lot of mail through the box this week, most of it seems to have come from the Bigfoot community. They have been sending me hate mail by the sackload and abusing me in blogs so actively that I have had to install some more RAM in my computer to read it all.

This, of course, is a direct result of my recent article about the Bigfoot conference. The feedback has come from all over the world, which is not surprising as Bigfoot is clearly a global phenomenon, but most of it seems to come from an outspoken woman by the name of Loren Coleman.

I don't think I met her at the conference, but if I had I am sure I would remember her. She seems to run a Bigfoot-related site that keeps all the other Bigfoot sites supplied with enough information about me and my article to ensure it doesn't die a natural death.