Heef

I'll be putting on my best tracksuit with initials sewn on to the breast and give my lads a fair old training workout in advance of our first round fixture. I figure that the harder they work in pre-match training, the less likely they are to make it through the fixture intact. Mind you, with the age of some of them, perhaps the best way to ensure they don't make it to the end is to not allow them a warm-up in the first place.

Whatever happened to Jossy from Jossy's Giants? Had (as I vaguely recall through the mists of time) one of the greatest first lines in TV history, "I've been watching you lads from behind them bushes..." Wouldn't get dialogue like that these days. Gotta love Sid Waddell.

When the baby is born. Mainly for pragmatic reasons such as that being much more easy to measure for any of us than trying to find out or work out when conception was, or the more erratic pregnancy announcement.

Another good question. I'd say yes, it should count. I'm open to the idea that using a surrogate should score fewer points, but the idea of scoring for surrogacy makes up-front research more valuable, as there may have been news/articles etc. about a particular celebrity looking to use surrogacy.

Good question. I think there should be a bonus for additional children being pumped out. Perhaps a 5 point per additional child bonus. I'm thinking restricting this to 5 points regardless of age as I understand multiple births become more likely with age and fertility treatments (which are quite likely to be the source of pregnancy post 40) The still birth question... Well, that's a bit darker... But a still birth still has to have gone through the birth process, so yes... my view would be that still birth would count whilst abortion or miscarriage wouldn't.

Rookie error. I put one person in my BBC Heaven line-up twice, and no subs. Mind you, given I put it together in about half an hour before the deadline, perhaps only one mistake isn't an absolute disaster. Shame though.

Has anyone ever run a birth-list competition? Name by the end of March 20 celebrities who will have a child in the subsequent year? Perhaps a bit far off topic.

Website's missing my hit on Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Amazed he was unique, but I'll take it. Btw. This website is incredible. How many man-hours do you put into it for all of this data. Good stuff!

Yeah but you did have Shortland Street......................... QED. But then on the other hand, I did hear that a new series of Birds of a Feather had been made. I'm not sure the original was necessary. I assume the Beeb were responsible?

How can people seriously complain about the BBC? Living in other countries where journalism is of a diabolical quality makes you appreciate the quality of the BBC that much more. In NZ, our mainstream newspaper media is risible, the quality of journalism on the television barely scrapes through as 'Bird found nesting in classroom in Northamptonshire' Roger Finn Newsround standard and the only thing that really passes muster is Radio NZ's cheap rip-off of the BBC Radio 4 programme Today. And then look at the quality of locally produced TV programmes in comparison. The quality in NZ doesn't bare thinking about.

Yeah, I'll have a go.

A score to my Politics line-up with Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. Unlikely to be unique, but chalk another one up. Two scores early doors is better than I expected.

Hello. Long time reader, only recently posting. Used to run a similar type thing on another forum. Sadly, this other forum bit the dust sometime around the 20th December just when people were getting their XIs (it's a sports forum, hence 11 'players' in each team), so I thought I'd get a team in for 2017 on here instead. And, for the record, I have a vague recollection that someone even predicted the demise of the forum in an attempted pick, but I've no way to check now!

John Berger, Booker Prize winning author: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38492516 I read 'G' as part of my (as yet incomplete) attempt to read all the Booker Prize winners (just 12 left to go). I always imagined the character 'G' to be somewhat Gerard Depardieu-esque. Not the worst or most inaccessible Booker Prize winner, but certainly the earlier winners are, in general, heavier going than the more recent ones. Surely a sign that the Booker Prize has been dumbed down as much as A Levels have etc. etc.

First points of the year for me: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38492516 John Berger, Booker Prize winning author. Unlikely to be unique, but still good to be on the board early on dayboo.

*Snip* wrong thread

There was a long article about him in the local newspaper here in NZ about 10 days ago which suggested he didn't have long left. I can't find the same article online, so perhaps this is more up-to-date news than you've been able to find. I'll see if I can find the paper, but it may have been recycled. EDIT: Still haven't had team confirmation, but hopefully the fact I posted my teams here provides a reasonable backup.

I submitted 3 teams in the belief that if I went with greater numbers, at least one of them might bag some points. BBC Heaven 1. Bruce Forsyth 2. John Craven 3. Michael Checkland 4. Andrew Marr 5. John Noakes 6. Bill Oddie 7. Kate Adie 8. Peter Sallis 9. Professor Heinz Wolff 10. Noel Edmonds 11. Harold Snoad 12. Kenneth Cope 13. Dame Jenni Murray 14. Tom Baker 15. Nicholas Parsons 16. David Attenborough 17. Michael Parkinson 18. David Jason 19. Tom Baker 20. Barry Cryer The Heeflich Manoeuvre 1. Steve Sumner (former NZ footballer) 2. Colin Meads 3. Marieke Vervoot 4. Stefan karl Stefanson 5. Leah Bracknell 6. Kenneth Cope 7. Ian Martin (writer) 8. Ken Watanabe 9. Sir Ngatata Love 10. Joost van der Westhuizen 11. Steve Gleason (former American footballer) 12. Clive James 13. Arun Lal (Indian cricketer born 1955) 14. Mike Moore ONZ (former NZ prime minister) 15. John Berger (author) 16. Holly Johnson 17. Mark Nicholas 18. Meat Loaf 19. Richard Wilson (actor) 20. Shirley Williams Heef's Politics XX 1. Morgan Tsvangirai 2. Vojislav Šešelj 3. Benjamin Netanyahu 4. Nikolai Ryzhkov 5. Nuon Chea 6. Egon Krenz 7. Borislav Jovic 8. Lech Walesa 9. Francisco Morales Bermudez Cerruti 10. Michael Somare 11. Graham Richardson (Australian politician) 12. John Stossel 13. Jacques Chirac 14. Helmut Kohl 15. Atal Bihari Vajpayee 16. Ali Akbar Rafsanjani 17. Reynaldo Bignone 18. Manuel Noriega 19. Hosni Mubarak 20. Kenneth Kaunda

As a novice at this, I've sent in two teams but am yet to receive a confirmation (one on the 30th December) NZT. Just checking it's all legit and also making sure I haven't fucked up somewhere along the path. Might send in a third team for larks.