Cowboy Ronnie

Taken ill during last night's pay-per-view (now tell me, did anyone in all of Britain actually sign up and pay £7.99 to watch darts?) match with Phil Taylor. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/4033289.stm I think he deserves serious consideration for next year. If he was that size and a comedian he'd be a shoo-in.

quoting the article c/o football_fan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snake man to the end Boonreung Bauchan was killed after being bitten on his right elbow, reports Sky. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- seems he didn't know his asp from his elbow......

que sera sera whatever will be will be it's the end for poor Terry que sera sera

....proud to be an American.... I don't suppose Anna Nicole is really a viable candidate for the 2005 list, although she might be a fun wild card entry in the Robert-Downey-Junior-celebs-with-three-names-and-less-lives-left category.

As Crazy Horse has now passed, and we all know what happens to horses when they die, should he now be known as "Crazy Glue"?

Anyone else notice Paris seems to have an inordinantly high number of foreign people die there? Princess Di, Jim Morrison, Picasso, a Concorde-load of German tourists, and looks like Arafat's soon to join them. There must be others. Maybe it's to offset the zero French soldiers who died there during WWII.

I think "dick" may now be considered ok. On a recent episode of CNN's Crossfire, guest Jon Stewart called one of the panelists a dick, and CNN didn't bleep it out. But 4H makes a good point - you'd have thought "head" would be less likely to get censored than "dick". Perhaps we should ask the swearing chiefs on the website tech team. Interesting the number of people paying tribute to the great man and saying we're d*** h**** who can't spell Emlyn Hughes' name properly.

Calm down, calm down

actually 4H, Walter Cronkite was on the list last year, but for reasons too complicated to go into now, he didn't make the cut for 2004. So, there is definitely consensus with respect to both your throwing his name out but also having doubts whether he's top 50 material. Too bad, because I feel there's a joke about him wearing Conkrite boots when he goes to be made, I just haven't thought of it yet...

surely he's been brain dead since 2000, if not before......

and if that particular type of frozen water were to descend and make things cold and damp, a nice bed of hay'll ....oh, forget it

Alice doesn't live here anymore

the best anagram I can come up with for Yasser Arafat is: 'as a farty arse which is a bit of a cheat, but from the news reports I've read it is at least accurate. Can anyone do better?

and yet we still trail Otis who had the immortal, globally renowned Francoise Sagan. I'd be interested to know from Mr. Kid how she passed the DDP's fame test

Twenty twenty twenty four hours ago I wanna be cremated

now he's white and totally insane

riiiiiiight. Back to the topic of DL nominees, according to our current criteria (obit in a major UK publication) my guess is Paul Harvey would probably scrape in to at least the likes of the Torygraph. We could put him down for a 2005 nominee, discuss him at the committee meeting, and he'd get voted down unanimously. So let's not even bother.

well, the hosts would seem to have one nominable candidate in that judo woman who went off a balcony (to be followed days later by her boyfriend), although given that was 10 days or so ago she'll likely hang on. Then there's the two sprinters, drugged up to their eyeballs, victims of a "motorcycle crash" (riiiiiiight), who might succumb to the pressure of bringing shame to a nation. That Danish cyclist really was a stupid knut, huh?

it's a photo finish for HCB

whoa, are we supposed to be submitting names already? I didn't think we even decided how many selections per team - 3 or 10?

yeah that guy's a real Hollywood titan. Check out his only other credits: Memories of Oz (2001) (TV) .... Himself I Married a Munchkin (1994) (uncredited) .... Himself We're Off to See the Munchkins (1993) (V) ....Himself Hmmm, anyone sense a theme there? He is also described as the shortest pilot during WW2, which sounds a bit like being Britain's oldest motorcyclist. How's he doing, by the way Mr. Kid?

straying off topic a bit as this doesn't relate to his holiness' health, but anyway.... Pope Joke A shy gentleman was preparing to board a plane when he heard that the Pope was on the same flight. "This is exciting," thought the gentleman. "I've always been a big fan of the Pope. Perhaps I'll be able to see him in person." Imagine his surprise when the Pope sat down in the seat next to him. Still, the gentleman was too shy to speak to the Pontiff. Shortly after take-off, the Pope began a crossword puzzle. "This is fantastic," thought the gentleman. "I'm really good at crosswords. Perhaps, if the Pope gets stuck, he'll ask me for assistance." Almost immediately, the Pope turned to the gentleman and said, "Excuse me, but do you know a four letter word referring to a woman that ends in 'unt'?" Only one word leapt to mind. "My goodness," thought the gentleman, "I can't tell the Pope that. There must be another word." The gentleman thought for quite a while, then it hit him. Turning to the Pope, the gentleman said, "I think the word you're looking for is 'aunt'." "Of course," said the Pope. "Do you have an eraser?"

Given old jazz dudes seem to die with the regularity of Spinal Tap drummers it would seem good value to have at least one on any list. Not that I've heard of Oscar Peterson.

Thanks Rude Kid for the statistical evidence, but isn't just picking over 75's like rooting for Michael Schumacher or Man Utd? Where's the fun in just going for old people? No duh that 80% of the DDP names to go were over 75, but isn't it much more satisfying to get at least a few of the elusive 20%? By the way, your site's inclusion of someone's selection of "Britain's Oldest Motorcyclist" is so beautifully obscure I'd almost make an exception to my own not- famous-enough test. Who knew there was such a category?

I'm with DWB on this one. She could be the Yankee Paula Yates - the blonde hair, the rock star boyfriend/hubby who killed himself rather than putting up with her, the embarrassing public displays, the drugs, the kids with odd names. It's all there. Although there's probably some empirical data suggesting she's a long shot it would be a real shame to miss out on her, and picking people like Courts is what the DL should be about, not debating the merits of some 97 year old Bulgarian duke no one's ever heard of.