What a tough way to go and a reminder of how bad that stuff can be. My father died from lung problems that were triggered by chemotherapy, so I know how rough lung sickness can be. Here in Paris, there's still a lot of it around in buildings from almost everything built in the 1970s including the Montparnasse Tower.
The former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren may have been exposed to the asbestos which killed him while smashing up Sex, his infamous King's Road punk design shop, his partner, Young Kim, has told The Independent on Sunday.
McLaren, who died last week, aged 64, of the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma, is believed to have been exposed to the deadly material when he shattered the ceiling of Sex, the shop he shared with his then partner, designer Vivienne Westwood.
"When Malcolm created Sex he broke open the ceiling to make it look like a bomb had hit it", said Kim. "I always suspected that shop because it was the only place Malcolm ever really spent any serious length of time in, and there was a lot of construction and changing things. Then Ben Westwood said his mother had mentioned that she'd seen asbestos there. It was board asbestos and it was in the early Seventies so there was a lot of it left, and I don't think anyone really did anything about it."
