Cowboy Ronnie

Where does it say that we're not supposed to hope for people to go? I thought that was the whole point of all this. well, it's not written down or anything, it was more a statement of conscience. The point of the DL is to see if we can accurately predict who will die in the coming 12 months, so the goal is to pick the 50 celebs who we think are most likely to die. There is a certain level of satisfaction in seeing one of your picks come in, the same way there is if one of your fantasy football players scores a hat trick. However, but for having picked them on the list, I don't go around hoping that e.g. Byron Nelson dies. If someone who sounds a good candidate isn't on this year's list, then we should really be hoping for that person to survive until the end of the year so we can put them on for 2006. However, with Brian Harvey the above mindset goes out the window and if I read tomorrow that he finally got something right in life and offed himself I wouldn't be sad we didn't get the chance to nominate him for '06. At all.

if only he was as good at writing pop songs as he was at driving over himself he might have made more of a success in his original career. Actually, he wasn't even the "talented" one in E17, was he? With that ugly mug, stupid haircut (and browcut) and painful-looking facial piercings, he was obviously the sexy one. I know we're technically not supposed to be hoping for people to go, but would anyone really miss Brian Harvey?

hmmm, not sure what any of this has to do with the Death List, other than we may be in danger of boring each other to death with some of these threads. But hell, no one interesting's gone for ages, so I'll jump in the metric-imperial debate. One of the big problems I have with the metric system is that for some things (temperature and body weight being the first two that leap to mind), the extra precision the imperial system provides is of merit. I don't want to know if it's 25 degrees centigrade, I want to know if it's 76, 77 or 78 degrees farenheit. Same thing on weight - 120 pounds is more precise than 50 kilos. I would also argue that for temperature, most of us are just interested in how warm or cool we are (rather than trying to achieve Absolute Zero in our fridge-freezers), which is why the 0 - 100 range that the Earth's temperature typically falls into in the imperial system is more appropriate than the narrow 0-37 metric range. Same with human body temperature, where again 100 degrees seems a pretty good maximum. Distances are pretty much a wash, although kilometers do of course click by 60% faster than miles. But this only goes so far - the Brits' insistence in hanging in there using "stone" as a unit of measurement never ceases to amaze me (it's almost as perplexing as the continued use of "public school" to refer to a school which is, in fact, private.) For those who don't know, a stone is equal to 14 pounds, so everyone goes around saying so and so weighs "eleven stone" or "eleven stone ten". I'm then left to frantically try to multiply 14 by some almost equally large number, then add on the remainder. Wouldn't it just be a lot simpler to say 156 pounds? As for the EU, as a dumb American may I just say the amount of scrambling around and hand-wringing by the French (who I thought came up with the idea of a united Europe in the first place) the past three days has been highly entertaining. I'm surprised they don't just all go on strike. Not that anyone would notice. To solve the EU crisis I say just leave things as they are, right now, although I am hanging on to some of the old Deutschmarks, francs and lira in my desk drawer that I'd previously written off as worthless (I mean, since the introduction of the Euro, the franc and lira were worthless long before that)

Good question, Handy. The answer is no, we haven't thought of adding a TT rider, for the simple reason that nobody's heard of any of 'em.

well, although I've never heard of Shapelle Corby, I will give mad props to honez for using the word "gaol", which I thought had become extinct about 20 years ago. Or when Dickens died. How, exactly, does one pronounce this? Like "jail"? "gay-ol"? (actually, the latter would be most appropriate because in prison the inmates probably do have a gay-ol' time. Some of 'em, anyway)

the following is a list of reasons which would not make a person famous enough for the DL: 1. he/she shares the same name as someone famous; 2. he/she is well known in one country but virtually unknown outside of that country 3. his/her claim to fame is they are the world's oldest _______________ (Titanic survivor, WW1 survivor, motorcyclist, etc.) 4. he/she is currently on Celebrity Love Island

I went through the list, and using the following factors, decided at least 6 names really add very little to this year's DL, in the sense that if the poeple die, will anyone care? They scored 3 on my fameometer. 1's should be unarguable, 2's up for debate. The factors were: 1. has the person done something for which he/she is globally famous? e.g. a president/Prime Minister of a major country, but not 50+ years ago, won a major Oscar, been a global sports star. 2. if a person is famous in his/her home country, how well is the person known elsewhere? We could say that if people from 10, or 5, foreign countries say they've heard of the person, they're famous enough. 3. what does it say on Wikipedia? I looked in terms of both how much was written (helpful, but not determinative), plus if I'd heard of the names, events, or things mentioned in the article. 2005 Ranking Name Fame Level 1 Pope John Paul II 1 2 Ronnie Biggs 2 3 Max Schmeling 1 4 Simon Wiesenthal 1 5 Patrick Moore 2 6 Brooke Astor 3 7 William Rehnquist 2 8 Albert Hofmann 3 9 Oscar Niemeyer 2 10 Sister Lucia 1 11 Edward Heath 1 12 Claude Levi-Strauss 3 13 John Kenneth Galbraith 2 14 John Mills 1 15 Ernest Gallo 1 16 Norman Wisdom 2 17 Al Lewis 1 18 Gretchen Franklin 3 19 Elizabeth Taylor 1 20 Joseph Barbera 1 21 Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1 22 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 1 23 Claire Rayner 2 24 Byron Nelson 1 25 Lord James Callaghan 1 26 Richard Pryor 1 27 Milton Friedman 2 28 Rosa Parks 1 29 Hamed Karzai 1 30 Bill Deedes 2 31 Diego Maradona 1 32 Frankie Laine 2 33 Gerald Ford 1 34 Jake Lamotta 1 35 Michael Foot 2 36 Tony Martin 3 37 Jane Wyman 1 38 James Doohan 1 39 Eli Wallach 1 40 General Pinochet 1 41 Les Paul 2 42 Olivia De Havilland 1 43 PW Botha 1 44 Walter Cronkite 1 45 Herbert Lom 1 46 Betty Ford 1 47 Kurt Waldheim 1 48 Peter O'Sullevan 3 49 Fidel Castro 1 50 Jerry Lewis 1 In case anyone cares

Yes, they affect the Crane-ium

oy, I never put a smiley in that last post, it was supposed to be a "b" with a ")" next to it. Censorship - I demand a full refund!

What's sad? I'd have thought anyone who finds the DL site via a Google match would be thrilled to share in all the lively discourse and witticisms, accompanied by some sort of musings about the subject of their search. Plus it seems like most of the people only found out Pete McCarthy was dead (several months ago now) as a result of having visited the site, which shows a) they couldn't have been such big fans in the first place and that the DL is a useful purveyor of information.

So what's with the people who write in to falsely announce someone famous has died? Why would you bother? It only takes about 4 seconds to verify if what they've said is true, so it's not as though they're fooling anyone. Will someone please alert me when Al from Happy Days (and the Weezer vid) really does die. Oh, and Tony Blair died. And the queen. And each of Girls Aloud.

good news for those unhappy with the UK election result - the addition of 10 new countries to the EC last year has given you an additional 40% in terms of new destinations to choose to move to without having to worry about visas, work permits, etc. I've been to Warsaw a few times and parts of it, especially the old town, are wonderful. The women have some of the best cheek bone structures anywhere, and I'm sure the Polish government would welcome some replacements for all their countrymen who've been moving to Britain. On a related note, the US is still waiting for Alec Baldwin to live up to his promise to leave if Bush got elected 4 1/2 years ago.

uh, I'd be more than willing to wager when she dies it will be reported extensively (although not necessarily in long articles) in the British media. She was married to Lyndon Johnson, who rightly or wrongly is a very well known figure in world history. Plus she has that funny name, which makes her more memorable than if she was, e.g. Doris Johnson. I'll be sure to post the link to an applicable newspaper site as and when, unless omeone beats me to it.

equally pathetic is the headline in the mini-Standard, a paper so bad I usually decline it when the bloke tries to thrust it into my hands, for free: "Britain under Poll Day Terror Attack". Silly me, I actually for a moment thought this might have meant some sort of incident taking place within the British Isles, but no, it was a mere 3,00 miles away, in New York, at the British Consulate. No injuries. I suppose by this same logic if a British soldier were to be fired upon by an Iraqi insurgent with a water pistol the Standard could have used the same headline.

Excellent point on James Hunt, MPFC, although I'd suggest the premature death of any racing car driver isn't all that surprising. Plus didn't James enjoy quite an active social life, sniff, sniff? Are you suggesting that Diana was killed other than as a result of the drunkenness of her chauffeur plus a bunch of froggie gnats chasing her car on mopeds? Evidence please.....

not famous enough.

the answer is Princess Diana. Can we start a new topic now

well, of course he didn't write Stairway (Page/Plant, duh), but check out this interesting nugget on a track he did: Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport Rolf wrote this in 1957, inspired by Harry Belafonte's calypsos. The song was number 1 for about four weeks in Australia in 1960; this version was re-recorded in England in 1962. Apparently, the verse marked * caused offence (leading to the song being banned in Singapore), and was removed in later years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Harris) Ardmore & Beechwood Ltd / EMI (P) 1963 Arr. Johnnie Spence - Produced by George Martin [spoken:] There's an old Australian stockman, lying, dying, and he gets himself up on one elbow, and he turns to his mates, who are gathered 'round him and he says: Watch me wallabys feed mate. Watch me wallabys feed. They're a dangerous breed mate. So watch me wallabys feed. Altogether now! Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me kangaroo down. Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me kangaroo down. Keep me cockatoo cool, Curl, keep me cockatoo cool. Don't go acting the fool, Curl, just keep me cockatoo cool. Altogether now! Take me koala back, Jack, take me koala back. He lives somewhere out on the track, Mac, so take me koala back. Altogether now! Let me Abos go loose, Lou, * let me Abos go loose. They're of no further use, Lou, so let me Abos go loose. Altogether now! Mind me platypus duck, Bill, mind me platypus duck. Don't let him go running amok, Bill, mind me platypus duck. Altogether now! Play your digeridoo, Blue, play your digeridoo. Keep playing 'til I shoot thro' Blue, play your digerydoo. Altogether now! Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred, tan me hide when I'm dead. So we tanned his hide when he died Clyde, (Spoken) And that's it hanging on the shed. Altogether now! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a true Australian hero. Maybe when PW Botha goes his DL title of "racist" can pass to the Rolfster.

hell, with that level of detailed information and the various connections, plus I've actually heard of all of those dudes, I for one would vote them all on for next year. Good post BB - award yourself a point

And yet in some sense wouldn't the last of each of these groupings be famous if for no other reason than that they became the last one to die? Does that not mean that even in a rather perverse way they have gained fame just by staying alive in much a way similar to those folks who live past 105 surviving on food regimens of tofu and bean sprouts? I am a firm believer that fame can be defined and even achieved in many ways. But the point of the DL is not to select people who only become famous upon, and because of, their death. Quick, name a survivor of the Titanic or WWI. I'd like to see a return of a list of 50 people everyone had actually heard of, instead of half the selections being people who are only chosen because they're 90+ and are marginally well-known

Why would anyone assassinate David Beckham? It's not as if he's ever likely to say anything controversial or profound. Surely if some nutter were to have taken him out it would have happened right after the '98 World Cup, when Beckham was single-handedly responsible for England not winning the championship which was rightfully theirs for the taking. Oh wait, I just read the list of other people in the previous e-mail, and unless I'm very much mistaken only one of them (Lennon) was killed other than through accidental causes. Didn't realize this was a loony thread......

MH - do your calculations also factor in the fact that all 5 who have gone so far were in the top 25, and that there is some weighting towards the most likely to go being toward the top of the list? Equally bored at work

plus, one shouldn't assume that just because 5 on the DL have gone in a bit less than 4 months that the rate will continue. There are now just 45 candidates left, not 50, and the odds get longer every time another name drops off the list. There was discussion last year about picking new people to replace each nominee who pops their clogs, but it was decided this was against the spirit of the list. I'll plump for 13 on the year

I would imagine very few DL members outside Holland have ever heard of him, so sorry, he's no chance of making the 2006 list. And I'm not being Dutch-o-phobic.

Anyone else out there think this new Pope is, like, totally evil and stuff? I'm no Catholic, not religious in the slightest, although I do think religion can do some good in some instances. But this guy scares me. I could maybe overlook the Hitler youth experience as he was only 14 and claims to have quit the army in 1945 (probably only 'cos they were losing), but his fastidious opposition to homosexuality, birth control and abortion isn't exactly what the world needs at the minute. I suppose it was way too much to have hoped for someone from S. America or, gasp, Africa. In a couple of places I've seen he's being referred to as "God's Rottweiller". Charming. And those maniacal, staring eyes...... He'll be getting my vote for DL 2006, and every year thereafter