Great Uncle Bulgaria

Thanks for the tip off, I had her in ABC, hadn't noticed yet....

Of all the Friends-inspired US sitcoms on our screens that seems the most obviously derivative, it has a lead who looks like Ross and another character who looks like Chandler (but acts like Joey). And (IMO) isn't funny. Nor are most of the other ones that clog up E4, with the exception of Big Bang Theory and maybe Goldbergs (apart from the mawkish happy endings that ruin the last few minutes of every episode), Hayley Orrantia being rather easy on the eye doesn't do any harm, although there is too much of her singing. Young Sheldon by contrast isn't funny at all, and as for the PC laugh-free zone that is Speechless - Minnie Driver proves 20 years after her brief period of fame that she is still attractive but still can't act, while the presence of the disabled and obviously token black characters may win the show awards but don't make it funny.

Sarah Brightman. According to wiki she has collected over 200 gold and platinum records in 38 different countries and has sold 6.5m albums in US alone. She began her career with 2-3 years in "sexy dance troupe" Hot Gossip, followed by a couple of years floating around the choruses of some west end shows before landing the role of Kate in the Pirates of `Penzance (who for the uninitiated has all of 4 solo lines to sing). At that point she met Andrew Lloyd Webber who, having experienced her playing the sweetest of melodies upon his blue veined flute, suddenly realised she was in fact an incredibly talented musician, singer and actress and cast her as the lead in the Phantom of the opera and then the principal soprano in his (alleged) Classical masterpiece, the Requiem. And the world fell for it. And has continued to do so. Similarly, Elaine Paige is revered as a legend of the west end stage and has her own show on radio 2 these days. However she got many of her lead roles in Tim Rice musicals (Cats, Chess etc) during a 10 year period in which she was shagging er...Tim Rice. this fact was less well -known than LW-Brightman coupling at the time, not least as Rice was married to someone else. Until his wife found out about Miss Paige.

It's a fair cop guv, guilty as charged. In my defence, neither viewing was my idea (the things we do for love, as 10cc would have it). The first one has its moments and I have had worse cinematic experiences at Great Aunt Bulgaria's instigation (Book Club being a relatively recent example) but in the second one her character crosses the line from tolerable to downright irritating and I have steadfastly refused to watch reruns of it since. There, do I get a reduced sentence for mitigating circumstances and subsequent good behaviour?

Reese Witherspoon. One Sunday afternoon she'll be watching herself in Legally Blonde 2 on the telly, realise what an embarrassingly dreadful cash-in it was and top herself in shame. To answer your question, sorry, no.

Moss

Oops, thanks for pointing that out, this is what comes of getting your Haiders and Hofers - who is too young anyway - mixed up and not doing some elementary checking. Subject to Sean being happy with it, I'll sub in another of my adolescent heart-throbs (to go with Sally Geeson, Liza Goddard, Sally James etc), namely Agnetha Faltskog. She is definitely alive and looking very good for 69 (the last bit being not too dissimilar to something I might have said about her in the 70s)

OK I sit corrected, although would still contend that 40+ of those 46 people would have got it because they knew the name of Eric Clapton's old band. As for naming members of the government, most cabinet posts have a quicker turnover than the role of Cheryl Cole's boyfriend so not surprised at that one.

Tchaikovsky - cholera or enforced suicide?

I don't mind, It's your game Sean, you choose the rules (Lesley Gore's 'it's my party' rule...) . Having entered with a team of people * mostly not much older than me all of whom probably have more money/access to better private healthcare than me should they ever need it, * over half of whom are women * only half a dozen of which have anything wrong with them I shall be amazed to outlive 25 of them, and there's absolutely no chance I'll survive all of them. Still, it's only a bit of fun, not as if it's life or death, is it...

drug-ridden, you mean

Yes and no (I feel free, as it happens).

Actually I don't think he is. If you're a rock fan, certainly, but Cream never had a top ten single and putting the question to a random gathering of older family members over the weekend - several of whom grew up in that era or were rock or pop fans in the late 60s and 70s - while most had heard of Cream, none could name any members apart from Clapton (or more than 2 of their songs). He's certainly more famous than Johnny Clegg, but if you asked 100 'ordinary' people to name members of Cream on Pointless (a UK Quiz Show) 90% + would say 'who are Cream?' and I'd be amazed if more than 1 or 2 could name him.

that's the one, Jackie Lee had a hit with uit in 1970. sorry for slight misdorection, I always think of Ruoert as a cartoon as it was a cartoon strip in the rupert bear annuals that were knoicking around at home when I waas growing up

no (right year though) and no respectively

TV cartoon theme song which was a UK top ten hit nearly 50 years ago. Not as big a hit as The Wombling Song, obviously.

For 102 he's looking OK. Reckon he'll be fine for another year at no 1 come 1st Jan.

Saw her live about 12 years ago in a double bill with Alvin Stardust. she cut a verse out of devilgate drive and can the can and there were a couple of breaks during which she sat down and talked and asked the audience to ask her questions (hardly anyone did , which killed the atmosphere). More disconcertingly she kept turning round and waggling her backside at the audience. Sadly - but understandably - it was considerably larger and less appealing sight in 2006 than it was in 1974, slightly embarrassing really. Alvin Stardust was better, he surprisingly died less than a year later, he looked in decent shape when I saw him.

I remember that one doing the rounds in the 80s

It was a shame for the Royal family that Diana died when she did. She went through quite a lot of men of varying degrees of 'suitability' in her last years and I remember her getting plenty of stick at the time in press comment pieces for doing so in the full glare of the media and potentially bringing embarrassment on her children. This increasingly maverick behaviour was conveniently forgotten post car crash of course, but she became a lot less popular in the mid 90s and might well have continued to become so had she lived longer. Death performed a similar immortalising/reputation-saving function for Queen, for example. History forgets that when Freddie died he had become the increasingly pantomime camp figurehead of an irrelevant band that hadn't produced anything worth listening to for 6-7 years and whose best days had finished another 4-5 years prior to that.

Given he is (a) male and (b) 5 years older, bit less than 10% assuming genetic parity. Factor in her mother lived to be 100+ despite some unhealthy habits, in practice probably some way less than that

Doesn't look too bad. Lured into choosing her for ABC by some fake news around at the time and her alliterative pointscoring potential (see what I did there?). Big sister Vera's going first...

Liverpool v Newcastle 5-0 Brighton v Burnley 1-2 Man U v Leicester 1-3 Sheff Utd v Southampton 1-0 Spurs v Palace 1-1 Wolves v Chelsea 2-1 Norwich v Man City 1-3 Bournemouth v Everton 0-0 Watford v Arsenal 1-2 Villa v West Ham 1-2 Derby v Cardiff 2-1 Fulham v WBA 2-0 Blackburn v Millwall 2-1 Charlton v Birmingham 1-2 Hull v Wigan 1-0 M'boro v Reading 2-0 Preston NE v Brentford 1-0 QPR v Luton 0-1 Stoke v Bristol City 1-0 Swansea v Forest 2-1 Huddersfield v Sheff Wed 1-1 Barnsley v Leeds 3-1 Buckie Thistle v Fort William 3-0

BBC says the Dad is the suspect...

Healthy (as far as we know), access to the best healthcare money can buy and a mother who lived to 101. If I had to bet on one sub-95 person in the world to see 100 it would be her.