Often vain, frequently insecure, constantly lecherous, but an honest observer of his own weaknesses -and splendid company.
With the Observer wondering "just how big this splendid, purposely arcane and nostalgic band will get", the Coral unexpectedly pulled the plug.
It may not be inappropriate for one who witnessed the dreadful, but to an observer at a safe distance the splendid, effects of the late volcanic eruption and earthquakes in the Bay of Sunda to state his experiences.
Paul Trevillion for Observer Sport 5.27pm BST Daniel Taylor wrote this splendid thing about Lionel Messi having the world at his feet, but that the problems of pressure and expectation might just scupper him, so please do read it.
A similar statement was made by Euan Ferguson of The Observer, who also wrote that the episode was "splendid" with good villains, though he felt that the plot was "insanely complicated" and hard to understand.
"I understand that it was a splendid day for us but not for them," Francesco told the Observer.
The rather useless Lithuanian foreign ministry website gives only a bland statement but this report on EU Observer shows the outspoken Lithuanian foreign minster, Audrionis Ažubalis, in splendid form, comparing Mr Golovatov to the Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radko Mladić.
He is a superb teller of a tale, a reveller in dodgy deeds, a keen observer of the febrile, dissimulating characters of court and embassy, and a splendid limner of the great jousts and entertainments of the age.
The Observer's toughest puzzle has only had three regular setters: Torquemada, Ximenes and now the splendid Azed.
Henri Lefebvre, the French philosopher who succeeded Kracauer as the most astute observer of everyday life in the twentieth century, summed up this modern condition in a splendid essay from the early nineteen-sixties: Once, in an ahistorical society with virtually no conscious history, nothing began and nothing came to an end.
