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I have read it. If we don't take unproperly sourced and non peer-reviewed evidence in other matters, we shouldn't just because it produces an exciting story. The evidence for the switch is circumstantial at best, and relies on the fact that a French socialite swapped places with her 30 years younger daughter, and everyone who knew her kept quiet. All those hundreds of peoples. For 80 years. I don't want to revert to stereotypes but mind yer Chamberlain: "the French can't keep a government for six months, nor a secret for six hours..." Never mind all the recorded and secondary evidence (the most any super centenarian ever had, because as the Usain Bolt of supercentenarians folk kept looking for that smoking gun in her life that even this research can't find) that supports Calment's age. The idea that dozens of people could keep a secret based around financial reward that long breaks suspension of disbelief given every year case like that ever.

Apparently things are shrinking and going away: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inquisitr.com/5720887/olivia-newton-john-cancer-the-talk/amp/

Also needs to be a QO, so here you go: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50254785

I also see a statistical unlikelyness simply by looking at the list of the top 10 oldest people/women. There you have everyone in the top 10 dying at 117 and then you have Sarah Knauss with 119 as an outlier, 1.5 years older than number 3 at number 2 and then an even further outlier with Calment who was more than 3 years older than Knauss. It seems very improbable to me that there would be such a huge gap in the top ranks.

I propose a rule allowing the BBC program Last Word to be a q/o source.

or rename it Sodomization Street

But his friends call him Jim.

Someone for the future, former Senator and Attorney General Slade Gorton, now 91 years old - he famously supported Nixon's impeachment as a republican: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/house-justified-in-impeaching-trump-says-former-u-s-sen-slade-gorton-who-famously-supported-nixons-resignation/

Derby County website obit. https://www.dcfc.co.uk/news/2019/10/rip-bert-mozley

Oh I saw it at the time! Mrs msc called it "parliament's weekly sacrifice to Neil"...

Blackford has been the most effective at holding the Government to account. Would be a shame if he goes....but then Angus Robertson did last time.

ISIS has a new successor. His name is Abu Ibrahim Hashimi al-Quraishi.

I'll have a look on my laptop at your sig when I get in from work later (unless another admin looks into it first) I don't quite know why your sig is so small. Was it a copy and paste job? You should be able to use and to strike through. Similar thing with colours.

My official conniption has been undergone and I'm OK now.

America. Your global humiliation is complete. Do something. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/30/trump-latest-news-tweet-dog-isis

Calment was the most documented centenarian there ever was. She was also a considerable outlier.

Nice pic of the Manta! I remember watching him fly past in it during the 1985 Curcit of Ireland, it was a hell of race that year with Jimmy McRae Michele Mouton and Henri Toivonen!

Happy 92nd Birthday, Dame Cleo Laine! I couldn't find any specific news about her...

The backlash against Coronation Street's male rape storyline has led ITV bosses to consider whether it ought to drop the soap.

UK q/o chances anyone - bc I haven't a clue where this one is concerned

My wife laughed when I said I still had the body of a teenager until she checked the freezer.

Boris Johnson gets up in parliament on Wednesday and says the NHS is not for sale and the US is not going to be getting it's grubby hands on it. Trump rings Nigel Farage on LBC the day after to advocate privatising healthcare in the UK and criticise Boris trade deal while telling people Corbyn is a danger to the country and they should vote Johnson....

I hear people saying this all the time but the whole fraud claim around Calment is that she assumed somebody else's identity. If you do that then it isn't relevant how many documents exist because there's every chance they corresponded to someone else! The argument that she assumed her mother's identity is compelling. Go have a thorough read. The gerontology community are in denial at the moment as I think they're still in a state of shock, but a conclusion will be drawn under this at some point next year, and I imagine it will be that Jeanne Calment died years before and her daughter assumed her identity for tax purposes.