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Just when I puked my ring and thought there was nothing left. Michael Caine 'wanted for Captain Tom role' in biopic as country mourns national treasure | Films | Entertainment | Express.co.uk

Happy birthday to @Great Uncle Bulgaria and the rest of The Wombles, who debuted on TV 48 years ago today. I can't say I remember the exact debut, but I do remember it from first time around (I even have a Wombles badge). God I'm old.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Zeitgeist. And promoted populism, grab the proles with a story they can relate to. /offtopic rant best ignored. As to a 'lot' of money.... I read today that we are behind with our new Trident subs all 31 billion quids worth. A whole other can of worms you may say but hang on bear with me it's not really that part, it's the fact that apparently it's going to cost 200 million to refuel an existing one (Vanguard) because it'll have to go 30-35 years instead of the planned 20-25. Let that sink in. Two Hundred Million Pounds to 'fill 'er up please'. Yeah I know Uranium is a bit trickier than petrol, but blimey. Never mind the multi-billion quid aircraft carriers the Chinese have reportedly called 'floating target practice' either, because it'll bore everyone who missed the warning. Money for NHS is down to Tom, school meals down to Rashford and nobody at all is taking responsibility for the cladding disaster. But we got to have our subs and aircraft carriers. (Why? most of the rest of Europe doesn't bother 'cept the French to a degree) We obsess about the wrong things, partly because we are led to obsess about the wrong things. /end boring rant. Ooh look, a butterfly!

One of the great "how the fuck are they still alive?" names of the last decade. Would have assumed picked by someone tbh! And I can see why - dropped by One Century is Enough Madam after 3 consecutive years!

Perhaps they don't understand why NASA gets them to pose with a wee toy version of the spacecraft.

Millie Hughes-Fulford, the first non-professional US woman astronaut in space (ii.e. she was a working scientist) is reported dead aged 75; she flew on shuttle mission STS-40 as a payload specialist in 1991. Not picked for Scavenger Hunt III

Comrade Blueandwhitearmy has a simple yet cunning plan to further the Capn's good work: Confiscate the entire £750m that this 'handsome 37-year-old polo-playing friend of Prince William' has just inherited from his dead dad Lord Vestey and pop it into the NHS's bank account. That's almost 20 times what stingy Joe Public feebly managed to stump up with Tom's perambulatory encouragement. Then let his servants loose with his collection of shotguns, and... roll camera. The Mail can have the exclusive on the picture shoot. For that, I'd get off my arse and give a round of applause.

I rarely keep fiction these days, it gets passed on or donated to charity. But I do have a vast bookcase full of mostly reference books, most of which rarely get consulted these days because internet. Sometimes a book is better though, such as when you want to identify something like a moth or a mushroom. Flicking through a book often gets a quicker result. It always tells me a lot about a person when they clock the bookshelves and their reaction is to ask "Have you read all those books?" The truthful answer would be "Hardly any of those, but I've read thousands of others."

Typo?

Still haven't dusted and gutted the bookshelves. I did find a stash of jigsaw puzzles in a wardrobe though. Mostly old Falcons from the 80s/90s of Old Master type paintings. So I've done some of them. Lovely. You really appreciate the details of a painting this way. And it's all very good for the brain, apparently.

Good point. 9,200 Toms and counting. I’m hoping this is enough to make Ball cough up his lungs and never sing again.

You’re absolutely right. £31bn for Trident. £106bn for HS2. £12bn on Test & Trace (Germany’s one, by comparison, was a 1/60th of the cost). An estimated £130+bn on Brexit so far. All cans of worms and too tiresome to discuss but I’ve done the sums and we need approximately 8,800 more Cpt Toms to hobble round their back gardens so we can pay the aforementioned horse shit off. My pitch to replace Sunak there.

I think he will. For some reason i think Leonard Fournette is gonna score the first TD of the game.

Polly Lou Livingston, who voiced the secondary character Tree Trunks on Adventure Time, died on January 24th. She was 91.

When I was much younger and getting used to the internet, one early life lesson was that, unlike Glasgow, the rest of the world doesn't tend to take "Aright you fucking tosser, how's it going?" as a cheerful greeting.

Answered my own question, courtesy of the i newspaper it seems: "Raising the issue in Parliament yesterday, Conservative former minister Caroline Nokes told the Commons: "Captain Sir Tom Moore taught us that tomorrow is a good day. Can I ask [Mr Rees-Mogg] as Lord President of the Privy Council to use his influence to bring about a commemorative coin for this remarkable national treasure and debate this in the House?" Mr Rees-Mogg responded: "I hope that as Lord President I do see a proposal from the Royal Mint in due course." He added: "Captain Sir Tom Moore dedicated his life to serving his country and others, and he showed the value of all life, that he in his hundredth and hundredth and first year showed that somebody of great age can make as important a contribution as anybody else in the country." So he taught us tomorrow is a good day, and is consequently a remarkable national treasure - good to know! Jacob says he dedicated his life to serving his country - he was a soldier (conscripted) from 1940-1946. Even if we include his "year" of fundraising, that's still only 8% of his life spent 'serving his country'. But don't let statistics get in the way of sentiment (or political expediency), eh?

Trisha Noble (wiki) has died shortly before her 77th birthday after a battle with mesothelioma. Aussie actress who played Padmé's mother, Jobal, in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

Jim Weatherly, writer of Midnight Train to Georgia, has just departed on the late sleeper.

Obviously some of us can be ruled out because of the grammar.

Eddie will never get a knighthood now he's a she. Too many pitfalls for attention seeking. I'm not a knight, I'm a dame etc.

Yvon Douis, member of the France squad at the 1958 World Cup that finished third, has died aged 85 of COVID-19. He was capped 20 times for Les Bleus, scoring four times between 1957 and 1965. In his club career, a prolific goalscorer scored 62 goals in 172 appearances for Lille between 1953 and 1959. He moved to Le Havre where he registered 28 goals in 71 games in two seasons before moving on once more to Monaco. In the principality, he would score 62 times once again in 167 games between 1961 and 1967. His final club was AS Cannes, where played between 1967 and 1969 and scored 26 goals in 81 appearances. https://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Disparition-d-yvon-douis-membre-de-l-equipe-de-france-1958/1217527 Douis' death means that only six of the France squad from that World Cup are still alive. Goalkeepers Dominique Colonna and Francois Remetter, defender Robert Mouynet, midfielder Bernard Chiarelli and strikers Maryan Wisniewski and the legendary Just Fontaine.

Oh people could just shut up their whinging arses. I don't see the issue with threads being started for anybody. Simon Cowell has one for cripes sake. if the thread isn't genuinely needed it won't be used and will die, if it's interesting people will use it.

He shouldn't be on here, just shouldn't. Too well loved and to well respected. The bastards!

I still say Zhou Youguang is the most notable supercentenarian in terms of accomplishments pre-old age. He still wasn't someone you'd see on the red carpet, but simplifying the most frequently-used language in the world (and vastly increasing your homeland's literacy rate in the process) is quite a feat.