‘Woe is me’ was the phrase which most often passed his lips and it was for that reason that both his family and his friends had taken to calling him Alas instead of Alan.  Conversing with himself, his habitually woebegone side always wrestled the straight man he might otherwise have been to the ground, so it was inevitable that he too would begin to see himself as Alas.  The name stuck, inside and out.  It was only when on his deathbed that he truly saw the funny side.  There really had been nothing to moan or worry about, compared to this, the painful end of it all.  Alas died laughing.

Alas dies laughing