Cowboy Ronnie

I saw Monkey Dust. Had potential, but too harsh.

Melanie Sykes (Boddington's girl), like Kelly Brook, is best watched with the sound turned down. Des O'Connor is best watched with the TV switched off.

DWB - that's very bold of you to admit you watched Come Dancing. Or was this just for a split second in between changing channels? It would be nice to see him on the list on year. To see him nice.

actually weatherman, you might want to consider that perhaps the original posting itself wasn't that good. General advice on this site - it's quality, not quantity that will generate responses.

Good thread WP, but be careful of wishing for George W's passing, which would mean the truly frightening prospect of President Dick Cheney, with the rest of the team (i.e. the likes of Ashcroft and Rumsfeld) all elevated one spot on the chain of command. Some other nominees: Lee Bowyer Jamiroquai Jeremy Beadle the lead singer of E17 any or all of the people on the current UK Big Brother

yeah, they should bench him, play Phil Neville, and have him take all the free kicks, corners, etc. David Beckham is personally and solely responsible for every poor result the England team has had in the past six years. Actually, probably all the ones since the '66 cup final. I think it was his idea to invade Iraq, too.

Actually, I've read in a few places (not just on the interweb, in proper things like magazines too) that Pryor's catching himself on fire incident was really a suicide attempt rather than a simple drug related accident. If true, it's an interesting take from the p.r. perspective, which makes you wonder about the conversation with his agent before they went public. "No, Richard, we can't possibly say it was suicide, everyone will think you're a loser. Let's glam it up some and say you screwed up while freebasing cocaine."

any disease which rendered one incapable of speech would make Montel a better talk show host. Not that MS is immediate enough to elevate anyone straight onto the list, but out of interest would he pass the famous enough in Britain test?

never saw that one coming....

I'm no expert on the subject, but my general understanding is that being HIV positive is not the same as having AIDS. Magic Johnson is HIV positive, but despite lame hoaxes to the contrary as far as I'm aware Magic remains in good health. Presumably Greg Louganis is the same, along with the likes of Holly Johnson and other notables who are HIV+. And no, none of the other divers who followed Louganis into the pool after he hit his head on the board in the '88 Olympics contracted AIDS, HIV, chicken pox or anything else as a result, so nominations for any of them will likely fall of deaf (rather than death) ears too.

Thanks for that Teddy. At this rate deathlist.net may soon surpass Google as the number 1 global information gathering resource, especially as ours often includes a smart ass comment or two. Guilty as charged on the lax research into the history of Metallica. What is it about rock stars being killed by their own tour buses? I seem to recall Randy Rhoads of Black Sabbath had a run in with his whilst buzzing it in a small plane, and came out the worse for it. Maybe Mr. Stats could conduct some research into which band will be spending the most time on the road next year, and we'll plump for the drummer or something for the '05 list.

Yup, Lars registers of my fameometer. From the band's perspective, having someone die is about the only item missing from their rock 'n roll Hall of Legends resumé. Oh, and a decent song or two. But that doesn't seem to have stopped the album sales to date.

interesting test this one. I've not heard of Prince Bernie, but then I'm just an ignorant Yank, so am curious to see who has, prior to seeing this thread of course. Thanks for the tip Menno - always nice to hear from a new voice.

So the guy who's currently 2nd in the Derby Dead Pool has, for his 4 correct predictions: 1. Reagan 2. the (until recently) world's oldest man, on whom he used his joker, thereby earning extra points 3. the (until recently) world's oldest woman 4. the (until recently) oldest motorcyclist in Britain He has also gone further out on a limb and predicted that Christmas will fall on the 25th this year, and that it will rain in Britain this summer. And that Henman won't win Wimbledon. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Excellent post from "Ordinary", who scores high for use of not just all caps but bold text, wishing us all ill, and rampant paranoia. I'd have thought that the enemies from without would go after the patriots first when they take over, and leave rabble rousers like the Death List crew around to sow seeds of insurrection. Rest assured that although the Great Communicator may have gone, the spirit of Cowboy Ronnie lives on. Did we move up in the Derby Dead Pool rankings?

yeah, could have been worse. I like the way she blithely takes it as read that all her readers will be as horrified at the concept as she was. Presumptious old bat. don't think she's famous enough for the 2005 list, although at least we've heard of her.

wow, looks like we're up against a real pro in "Otis, You want a Treat?" So far he's claimed successes with Tom Hurndall (never heard of him, had been in a coma since April '03 after being unluckily shot in the head in Gaza), Bareny Kessel (never heard of him, some jazz guitarist. One of these days all the old jazz dudes will have died off, but until then we should be sure to pick one every year) and Jack Rosenthal (never heard of him, but probably should have - he created London's Burning and was married to Maureen Lipman). Otis is clearly the Porto of the Derby Dead Pool. Not a very attractive style of play, a squad of relative unknowns, and keeps killing off the game as the successes mount up. We're more like Real Madrid, with our star-studded team of ghoulacticos, struggling after some early season success. Still, we get way better press coverage... http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04151/323618.stm

Hmm, I'm not exactly sure where this year's event takes place, but you could always just keep watching Eurosport. No doubt they'll devote a good couple of months of uninterrupted programming to it. Are we expecting any burly Norwegians to burst their aortas tearing pine trees from the earth? Entertaining as that might be, they still wouldn't be famous enough to qualify for the DL. Now, if it were the darts world championships.....

A couple of names that have been bandied about before, but seem to be showing signs of death. I somehow stayed awake through three hours of "Troy" the other night and Peter O'Toole was looking frail to say the least. Figuring that must have been filmed a year ago, he's got to be a strong contender for next year. Also read an interview with Richard Pryor, except he's apparently so unwell the guy had to interview him by e-mail. Good old Richard, still managed to get a couple of "motherf*(&ers" into his typed responses. Also seems resigned to his imminent demise. Maybe we should see what the Pittsburgh Gazette thinks...

there's a Reagan thread? The serial ranters are great, so if any of them happen to read this please keep the nonsense coming in. Maybe we could devise a scoring system - one point for each spelling mistake, another for wishing ill upon us all, and perhaps a sliding scale with a maximum of ten depending on how far off topic they stray. The Beckham v. Ronaldo one only gets a 9 as it didn't go into who has the worst haircut. Speaking of wandering off topic....

While I agree an obituary in an English or other newspaper is a fair standard from an objective point of view, the fact is the majority of the old codgers who get a write-up in, for example, the Torygraph, are people none of us have ever heard of. Think about it - there's usually two or three obits every day, whereas I'd reckon a person with a name everyone recognizes only dies once a week on average. Take today's list for example - who out there can honestly say they'd heard of Major-General David Tabor (who apparently secured a bridge on D-Day. Whoop-de-do, who didn't? Besides the French.), Anthony Babington (some lawyer who became a stipendary magistrate, whatever that is) and Peter Moody (an investment manager from the 1970's.....zzzzzzz.......) The Derby Dead Pool's a good site, and we should be proud of our own beloved DeathList for its strong showing, even more so given we stick to the honorable Elysian traditions of nominating people whose death is actually of interest, not just some statistical inevitability. Welcome on board RK - nice logo. Harkens back to when Viz was still funny, circa 1987....

there's also a recently discovered strain of the disease called "Hep-burn", which knocked off Audrey in 1993, and Kate in 2003, both correctly predicted by your friendly neighborhood DL committee. Hep Hep Hooray!

Favorite topic time - yes, we all know there's a Devonshire, or at least a Devon, and I guess I was dimly aware that there are a few Dukes still out there, but really, who's heard of this dude? Without reading the obit can anyone name one thing about him? So, I'm with DWB - no regrets that he wasn't on the list. Now if one of the Dukes of Hazzard was to die that would be newsworthy.....

Did you know? Leslie Ash played Steph in the movie Quadrophenia. In her most memorable scene she gets shagged up against a gate in some alley in Brighton. Art imitating life. Or something.

I bet I know what it is. But it will be surpassed when a former first lady (not mine) joins the list, then goes.....