Tuber Mirum

Hi Entropy.

Happy anniversary the Joscos! Here's your medal:

Heesters has just been awarded the Regenbogen Award for lifetime achievement sort of thingy. There was a picture of him in yesterday's Bild Zeitung sitting cheerfully with his Mrs. and clearly enjoying a glass of beer. No sign of any decline in old Jopie apart from the onset of blindness. I wonder if Clive Dunn will be that sprightly at 102? Daresay.

Apparently a German bodybuilding chap called Hans Ossner who became famous for being on the German version of "You Bet!" in the early 80's when he won his bet by blowing up hot water bottles with his bare lungs until they burst has died. Sadly neither from a rupture, nor from injuries sustained from an exploding toggyboggle. He died of cancer aged 60-ish.

Or we could just have one thread for reporting deaths and not be too fussy about whether they would have been famous enough to get on the list. Then we would have one definitive list of celebrity deaths for the year which could probably be considered the most complete and authoritative such list on the web and wouldn't contain too much irrelevant material. That's what the near misses thread used to be like anyway. Then perhaps a second for those who aren't famous at all but died in interesting ways. Which is near enough what VSBfromH intended when he started the Not Exactly Famous thread.

I suppose I might as well admit to being the one who unpinned the "near misses" thread. No particularly good reason; I was just a bit fed up of the discussions about which deaths belong in which thread getting in the way of seeing who had actually died. Whatever.

Renowned Scottish Sculptor Ian Hamilton Finlay has died aged 80.

And sure enough, he landed in a big pile of Shiites.

The difference is that Heath, Callaghan and Wilson were a bunch of push over wimps. Maggie on the other hand, was a strong PM who occupied office for 11 years - much more than those three. Besides, millwall, be fair. The other three combined didn't cripple this country nearly as effectively as good old Thatcher! She probably won't get a state funeral.As far as I know war leadership is the crtieria, maybe it is at the Queen's discretion. Well she definitely was a War Prime Minister, and according to her biography she got on with HMTQ better than is generally believed. Could have been bulshitting though. Stronger than Heath, Callaghan or Wilson for sure, and way more competent, but definitely not better. Probably not worse either. They were all crap in their way. Eh Mr. Josco? Eh? Eh? And it's "criterion". "Criteria" is the plural. Or you could probably say "criterions (sic)" if you are from The Royal Forums (sic).

A man meets his mate in the pub and asks: "Have you heard about the brilliant new brothel in town?" "No, what's so good about it then?" "Well, you go in there and you can drink as much as you want for free, then there's a sumptuous buffet where you can help yourself for free, and then whenever you feel like it, you can go upstairs and have as much wild sex as you like, then when you go home they give you 200 quid to take with you." "Hey" replies his mate, "that sounds bloody brilliant! Have you been there yourself yet?" "No no, not yet, but my wife was there yesterday."

Who else thinks I should give Vinegar Tits a warning for malingering?

Oh dear! Godot, Mr. Josco's birthday was in August. I can see I'm going to have to do something about this.

In a moment of folly, I merged all the "happy birthday" threads to date and pinned the results here. This is now the place to wish people a happy birthday. As of now, anyone starting a new "happy birthday so-and-so" thread gets skinned alive by Windsor. Oh, and happy Birthday Brinsworth House Baiter!

Just read The Gruffalo on your recommendation and found it quite splendid. May I suggest "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" by Harry Harrison. Or anything by Robert Rankin. (Mr Phantom gains some rare plus points) My favourite is "Snuff Fiction" probably.

I like to look into this thread most days to see if anyone of note has died. I'm getting a bit fed up of having to wade through arguments for and against deaths being posted in this thread as opposed to the "Not Exactly Famous" one or not. The following is out of VSBfromH's justification for creating the "Not Exactly Famous" thread. Seems to have hit a bit wide of the mark then, doesn't it? In the olden days we got by just nicely with only one near misses thread, and nobody grumbled much unless someone started a new thread where it wasn't necessary. What I'm trying to say is it's not that important if someone's death gets posted in here who isn't really that famous. And it's too complicated for iain anyway having two threads. I say we lock the other one and put them all in here.

I think that members who have been around for very short periods of time, regardless of the amount of sh*t they have elected to post, should not take it upon themselves to instruct the Mods how to run the forum. Or indeed regardless of how long they have been around. Thread locked.

Be seeing you, Number Six!

Well it used to be better you know. Perhaps your departure will help. Not that you won't be back. BTW: BHB is all right in my book. I don't care how clever he is or not, he usually knows how to post and more importantly how not to. Well said that man! That's an interesting theory I'm not sure I agree with. That's true. Easier said than done though. Typical attention-seeking behaviour in fact. A sensible chap, faced with criticism might want to go off and think about it for a bit, then see if there was a lesson to be learned. Wouldn't hurt any of us to do that. Probably.

Quite. We can best define quality by looking at its opposite. Probably, but we are doing ourselves a grave (geddit?) disservice if we don't try. Aye, but we can all do our best to moderate them wisely. No they haven't. We are rid of some of the worst posters ever, and a lot of others are taking a long hard look at themselves. It's not nice in the short term, but it's for the common good. Omlettes and eggs, you know. (there's a little bit of Maggie Thatcher in every moderator ) No, not at all. Anyone who has ever sauntered down Argyle Street of a Saturday evening will be aware that Fredom of Speech can be a bit of a two-edged sword.

Isn't it interesting how this has become an issue? Smoke and fire and all that. In spite of Canadian paul's vehement Denial, it is an inimicable fact and for many a genuine problem that the quality on this forum has dropped since a few individuals have taken to diluting it with quantity and/or extreme low quality. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of the better posters don't feel there's anything worth responding to, and post less themselves, thus completing the vicious circle. So the advice to "leave" or ignore them" is in fact very, very poor advice indeed. Go back a year or so and take a look at the posts made when ATJ, Typhoid Harry, T4H, Yeti, Gloomy, Hein, Our Soul, (the list of lost boys is endless) were still posting regularly. Not always relevant, but genuine quality, witty, interesting contributions. I expect the offenders will react to this with indignance and start bleating about free speech. That's why it's sometimes necessary to adopt brutal tactics. So come on chaps, show a bit of respect for the good old Deathlist!

Well done Windsor! An entirely appropriate warning and a good bit of moderating. If only more of us were as conscientious as you; a couple of the more ignorant and disrespectful posters would be nobbut a faint memory by now. Bring back W90 I say, he was quite a nice chap really when you got to know him.

All the best on your birthday The Grim Reaper!

Another soul singer with 'colliery connections', Isaac Hayes, ('The Theme from Shaft'), was rushed to hospital recently suffering from 'exhaustion'. Hayes appears to be suffering from Religious Bloody Stupidity which is so serious it coud well be terminal.

Sorry that's 18 points to Obiskobilob. And I corrected Hein's score too which I had calculated wrongly. Oh, and there's now a forum.

Another thing which all of your picks have in common Mr Josco my old chum, is that they are still alive. I see Milosevic has died. 12 points to Obiskobilob who thus rockets from equal third place into third place. Sorry that some people got duplicate mails today. Technical hitch. Won't happen again. And bandwidth at ninepence ha'penny a foot! Such a senseless waste Dr. McNulty.