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Garret FitzGerald 加勒特菲茨傑拉德 Garret FitzGerald, statesman, philosopher,journalist and lover of numbers, died on May 19th,aged 85; 政治家，哲学家，记者，大众情人，于5月19日逝世，享年85岁; If you had the good fortune to sit next to Garret FitzGerald at dinnerwrapped round by hisnatural warmth and curiosity, as well as numbed by the sheer volume of Dublin-tincturedwords that tumbled out of himyou might learn many dozens of mind-bogglingly arcanefacts. The quickest way to fly from Reykjavik to Vilnius in 1960, a skill he had honed in hisfirst proper job as an analyst for Aer Lingus; the route of the now-defunct railway fromFarranfore to Reenard via Cahersiveen, the fruit of his love of all train timetables; therelative popularity over time of his own Fine Gael party and the rival Fianna Fail in countycouncils the length and breadth of Ireland, derived from an obsession with opinion polls soimmense that journalists were cautioned not to mention them; and the precisegeographical pattern of the decline in the use of Irish between 1770 and 1870, compiledfrom old census volumes which he would prop on the car dashboard when being driven, onconstituency visits, from place to place. 如果你有幸在晚餐时坐在Garret FitzGerald旁边置身于他天生的热情与好奇中，谈定地听着他都柏林味十足的口音在那里滔滔不绝你也许能得知很多神秘的事实，开阔了眼界。 60年代从Reykjavik飞到Vilnius最快的途径;他首次在一份体面的工作中习得的技能;那条已经不存在的铁路通过Cahersiveen 从Farranfore到Reenard;他最喜欢的列车时刻表;共和党对那段出风头的时光和统一党称霸爱尔兰各乡镇委的时候，民意调查里那些说不清道不明的事，有些就是记者也小心地不去提及;以及根据他拜访各选区时，从各地收集到的旧的人口普查宗卷中所得出的1770到1870间爱尔兰语的使用率，下降趋势，在地图板块上的精确表现。 | 
