Alphonsin

DEAD EX-DICTATOR PINOCHET DIES AT AGE 91 - CHILE CHANNEL 7 NEWS REUTERS SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) _ Military hospital says former dictator Agugusto Pinochet has died. Edit: Yes, forgot to say "Well, done DL"!! Woo hoo And here's adding a few balls of fire to the General's personal hell that Lucifer has had waiting just for him

Sounds good. And yes, BBC won't count. Nor the Brinsworth House Gazette or similar

Happy Birthday, M Lawrenson!

A bunch of London cleaners are planning to start a hunger strike from Monday. The below from the Morning Star earlier this week, pasted because its website is subscription-based. Does it occur to anybody else, though, that if you're not going to be spending any money on food then, if anything, you should have your pay *cut*? A GROUP of cleaners campaigning for a living wage warned on Thursday that they are set to start a hunger strike in a bid to draw attention to their protest. Five cleaners based in the City of London said that they will refuse food from Monday to highlight their plight. The cleaners are members of general union T&G, which has been campaigning for over a year for a pay rise for workers employed by firms which have contracts with banks and other institutions. Cleaners in the City of London receive no sick pay, no pension, the legal minimum holiday allowance of 12 days a year plus bank holidays and often earn as little as £5.35 per hour. A T&G spokesman said: "The cleaners have said they're willing to take this step as a way of contrasting the massive profits made by City firms like the Royal Bank of Scotland with the poor pay and conditions of the City's cleaners."

No. He's an utter nobody. [Alcoholics Anonymous spellchecker applied... [bruno, you really ought to invest in one of these too. ]] OoO, do you fancy a bet? If Pearson doesn't get an obit, I'll post a video of myself singing his oh-so-fantastic Just One More Chance on youtube and provide a link here. If he does get an obit, you have that privilege. Deal?

Thingumabob

You're as ever right, MPFC. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if I got smashed sometime, ended up in your neck of the woods and chatted about this. Ms Hughes is not only an important academic (she will get an obit, as you say). She's also one of the sensible people who see the humour of the dark side of the human condition. I forget the precise details of the anecdote, but somebody close to me chatted to her recently about some work commitment or other and she casually laughed "Well, I'm supposed to be dead then so I'm not sure that I can make it." She'd like the idea of this site, I expect. God, I hate people who use verbs like "laughed" or "shrugged" when they can as usefully say "said". Anyway... on another note, I am reminded about the thread about people hooking up in the "real" world (although I'm still not convinced it actually exists). Is anything happening on this front? (Maybe I need to look more carefully at the hived-off area for less important matters on the forum). I've been very lazy on this forum after a brief, active start -- work has been hectic and a few other things -- but it'd be fun to put a few faces to avatars. And then, as people have pointed out, swiftly discover that other people here are as boring as me...

Clive Dunn. Favouritism.

His books are called the Easyway not Only way. they work. He has said that until he gave up, 23 years ago he was smoking 100 a day, and has since spent much time with other people smoking as they did his course. He is now 75 and accepts his fate gracefully, His credibility intact. I've been wondering why it is that unregistered users tend to be morons. Is it that the registration process is too trying for these monkeys? Either way, most of what they post is simply wrong. And don't even get me started on their poor grasp of English...

[self-satisfiedly patting myself on back]. More pleased to be first to post the news. Ah, how these simple things make my day... Sad, I know.

Not at all. Always a good thing.

There was nothing about at the time. But now ... [and Reuters has it, which is good enough for me]

Not drunk. Bored. But not bored enough to find the right thread to mention that Milton Friedman has died. Anyhow, he's died. ------- [later] "NOBEL PRIZE WINNING U.S. ECONOMIST MILTON FRIEDMAN DEAD AT AGE 9", according to AP

DEAD!!

Harvey Manning has taken a hike

Sorry if he's elsewhere spelt differently, but Russia's former defence secretary Igor Sergeyev has had his defences breached.

Gabriel Donoso, Chile's top polo player, leaves a hole in the lives of fans

Any of the below that might be half-decent have appeared before, I fear. Still, what the heck: Milton Friedman -- Demand exceeds supply Patrick Moore -- Moore is less Ernest Gallo -- Bottled it Alfredo di Stefano -- Whistle blown on Stefano Michael Foot -- One foot in the grave Albert Hofmann -- Settled Up The Tab Muhammad Ali --Thriller In The Chiller Charles Lane --It’s a wonderful death! General Pinochet Joins the death squad JD Salinger -- The scratcher in the sky Margaret Thatcher -- Snatched! Elizabeth Taylor -- Divorced from life George Melly -- Melly smelly Joseph Barbera -- Unanimated! Billy Graham Meets his maker Clive Dunn -- Doomed Suharto -- Asian flew Ronnie Biggs -- Robbed of life Claude Levi-Strauss -- Unstructured! Brooke Astor -- Astor ad astra Gerald Ford -- Ford stalls Harold Pinter Written out Ingmar Bergman -- Boring f****r dies Lady Bird Johnson Flies away home

Just been reading this thread (backwards) and was going to mention cricketers, too. There's a second book about their disposition to depression (I think it's mentioned in the books thread, but can't be bothered to look). The thing about farmers and GPs is, I believe, that they're much more likely to be successful in any suicide bid -- GPs know that a Haliborange overdose isn't going to do much and can get hold of more exciting pills etc, and farmers often have access to firearms. I've just been reminded of a joke (it doesn't really matter why...) Teacher: You weren't at school yesterday, Johnny, why was that? Johnny: Well, I couldn't make it because my father, a fireman, got burnt in the morning. Teacher: Oh dear, Johnny. Was it serious? Johnny: They don't F**k about at the crematorium, miss! Hey ho! Things have been fairly busy, hence my low profile, of late. (Yes, yes, I'm sure you missed me ). Likely not to be around a great deal over the next few weeks. Still, with posts like this I'm sure you won't begrudge my absence a while.

He's just been moved to a hospital nearer to his family. He was transferred by helicopter. Helicopter? Remind me, where did his family ask concerned fans to send money to before he came round...? He's going to save a lot of money on minicabs in coming years.

So pleased to hear that you have "a great job, wife kids, house car everything". One day you may acquire basic punctuation skills to add to that impressive list. Why, the ability to spell may even come as well. Say hi to Jill. I'm just off to do a few lines of charlie and then pass round my father's house while he's still at work.

Geoffrey Fellowes, SOE officer who married Odette, is dead. Can't find a decent biog link this second.

I think he's probably dead. But what I've often wondered is whether, if he isn't dead, he has considered killing himself. This could be a strategically smart move for his cause, ensuring he isn't caught by the US and allowing him a kind of Lord Lucan-style immortality. If we assume that he's sincere in his beliefs (and, unlike Messrs Bush and Blair, I think he is) he'd presumably have done this if he thought it was for the good of his cause. Which of course he might not believe it is, but still.

Sad reading. I'm against the death penalty [for a whole number of reasons, ranging from the fact that it's an extraordinary expensive process (except for by kangaroo court (BTW, you know in China the executed person's family get invoiced the $5 or however much for the bullet...)) to the fact that it's just such a damn cop-out by society] but anyhow, regardless... for societies where they insist on executing people, they should consider having a second "jury" at the death chamber who listen to the person's last words and (perhaps aided by some kind of polygraph) decide whether to spare the person. Not on the basis of innocence, necessarily [in fact, I expect that few of the people who protested their innocence would have much luck with the jurors], but just a kind of "aw, okay, the guy's sorry. really sorry -- let's just keep him banged up." It would make pretty good TV, as well. I came across a similar site [perhaps it was the same one, I didn't explore] where you had listed the last meal requests of the condemned. (Chicken wings were very popular, I remember.) Sort of sad that even to the end [and okay, the health implications of a greasy burger hardly matter at this point] these people still ate the same disgusting crap." C'mon, you've never tried avocado wrapped in Parma ham? Give it a go." But really, there's something screwy about the whole thing of keeping as a matter of record that the guy ordered a litre of raspberry ripple ice cream and making that available for the public to know. So sort of that , no, society isn't failing in how it deals with its problems. "Remember, citizens, we gave the man his ice-cream and it's all nicely logged". Hmm, I think I'm headed for a bit of stream of consciousness rambling, so will pull up in a moment. But some of those quotes where the text just goes "[spanish]" and isn't translated. That would piss you off, wouldn't it? (Except that you'd be dead). You've got the opportunity to say a couple of hundred words for posterity and they wipe a bit out. Heck, the Spanish bit is probably the important stuff. Particularly if you're *not actually Spanish* and you've decided to quote some weighty maxim from the language. "Si, se puede!" you say as the culmination to some great mini-oration. And the man with the clipboard justs puts "[spanish]" in the words' place. Bummer... And now, like students who've mistimed their exam essays, I'll put one or two note pointers, because I can't be bothered to ramble much further. (Or because I don't really know how I'd flesh them out anyway and they're utterly stupid). -- Death row speeches and advertising. Surely some marketeers have considered this. "We'll give your kids a million bucks if your last words are "Gee, I wish I'd stayed at home that night and ordered a Domino's!" etc. -- Last meals and advertising. Same as above really. "The condemned ordered medium rare steak, chips, peas and I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Really-Fattening-Relish." -- How long is allowed? I'd certainly be pushing for a lengthy Q and A session at the end of my speech. Or try something along the lines of "To quote Pushkin... heck, I've forgotten the quote... can I just go back to my cell for a bit and look for the relevant passage". -- Why do they always say "stay strong"? There's clearly at least an undergrad dissertation up for grabs on death-row linguistics... how certain phrases become obligatory -- like on internet forum profiles where everybody has to "be described by friends as easygoing" and "enjoy going out but equally enjoy flopping in front of a film at home with a bottle of red". Enough, enough...

Not the one playing innocently with Zach Goldsmith by any chance? I don't know. I've moved on Actually, I probably shouldn't have posted anything.