Cowboy Ronnie

At least he's appropriately named.

In the second piece of karmic repayment in the past two weeks, Enron chief Ken Lay joins child murder cover upstress Patsy Ramsey by dropping dead unexpectedly. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13715925/from/ET/ So many strong candidates out there to complete an unholy trio. OJ? Gary Glitter? Any other suggestions welcome.

He'll get a UK obit, on the strength of the Pell Grant alone. Including interweb there must be 100 mainstream media outlets in the UK, all desperate for any nugget of news to print. Regardless, he won't be getting picked.

Christmas songs in general, but specifically The Twelve Days of Christmas. A candidate for the most annoying song ever. It was mildly entertaining the first time you ever hear/sing it, now making it through all the gay leaping lords and lezzer milk maids is just a war of attrition. And how exactly does your true love give you other humans as a present, unelss he/she is a slaveowner?

"....regrets that he was not awarded the Cross because, as a British citizen of non-European descent, he should not have been commissioned at all." I'm surprised the British army didn't send his family a bill for the uniform he got all dirty when he was killed.

What does the Emperor of Japan have to be stressed about? It's not August 1945 anymore.

Harry Birthday HappyMcNally

Well, I think her health situation fits the DL criteria. She might only have a 50\50 shot of dying but that's the expectations most candidates have. If they all had the prognosis of Patrick Swayze it would all be perceived as very boring. Oh for heaven's sakes, Banshees. Cory Aquino has a much better than 50% chance of surviving 2009. If the DL had a whole list of 50/50 candidates the odds are 25 of them would die, which would be a new record by miles. And if her doctor posted here this weekend that she had a 50% chance of dying next year, she'd be on the 2009 list in a heartbeat. For next year, I can only think Swayze might fall into that category.

Where does it say she's not considered worthy of being on the DL? I'd have thought the fact that she has been on the list before would suggest the opposite. She isn't that old, and after things settled down in The Philippines and she dropped out of the limelight following her tenure as President, there didn't seem much point in keeping her on. Now she has cancer she's back in the frame for consideration, and will be discussed by the Committee next week. Here's what wiki says on her health: "On March 24, 2008, the Aquino family announced that the former President had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Aquino underwent chemotherapy, and in public remarks made on May 13, 2008, she announced that blood tests indicate she is responding positively to the medical treatment."

Hmmm, this is the second bit of mild lusting after an Emily on TV who is also the daughter of someone famous in recent weeks on the site. The Phantom Knows I understand Emily Watson is consulting with solicitors on a restraining order against the DL.

And I was going to run a 9.69 hundred metres at the Olympics, but I figured I'd let Usain Bolt do it instead. He's pretty fast.

Seve now in for chemo, which can't be good so soon after major surgery. on the 18th fairway?

He was under deep cover.

True, very true. But how is Peter Falk?

The VAT "cut" to 15%. At lunch today I picked out some high quality earphones which had "£2" marked right on them, went to the till, handed over £2 and was presented with four deathly dull, brown coins, and a receipt for £1.96. I had just managed to spend up my last coppers on a sandwich, and had only shiny, silver change in my pocket. Does anyone want four pence?

In 2003 we got 14, which looks like it will remain the record.

Is he the Large Hardon Collider I heard so much about this autumn?

See the front page. Here. Thanks a lot! That was really interesting. So this is one of the best years ever... I can't believe there was a year with a score of 0!! Can't wait for next years list. So who puts it together? The mods? Is there somebody with the last word if there is a disagreement? Sorry if these are really obvious questions... This was a decent year, but we have tailed off quite a bit at the end. For a while it looked like we might break the record, which I think is something like 14. The 0 year was back when the selection process was far less scientific, people just picked candidates because they seemed like a good fun choice, not necessarily because they were likely to die. "Frank Bruno - killed by punch" is an example of the early qualifying criteria used. It should also be remembered that the internet has completely changed the accuracy of picking people. Nowadays, some elderly and obscure Guatemalan architect stubs his toe and five minutes later the world knows about it. Six minutes later someone has posted a link on the ideas and possibilities page. Pre internet there was more than one occasion when people already dead were selected for the list, including memorably Bette Davis one year. The list is set by a selection committee which includes a person (or maybe it's persons) present when the original list was put together at Warwick University back in the mid 1980's. I wasn't there at the onset, but have since managed to weasel my way on to the committee. In recent years we have been encouraging members to offer suggestions and explanations for the following year's DL. Some of these make it on to the list, others are discussed at the annual selection meeting but discarded, most are ignored as the person is not famous enough and/or there's no satisfactory evidence they are likely to die in the upcoming year. GR has the final say on who makes the list as he puts it up on the interweb, although he's a fairly benign dictator and only rarely deviates from the committee's more or less democratic selections. Like when he notices a candidate is already dead. The other variable in the quality of the list is the amount of beer drunk at the committee meeting.

Tassos Papadopoulos is now said to be suffering from lung cancer. It's breaking news. You called it Devon. More breaking news - Papadopoulos has died.. Indeed, excellent call DDT. Now can we please have 50 more just like that for DL 2009. You have 19 days . Thanks, CR

His wiki page is a little confusing, as on the one hand it lists his proud Formula 1 career of competing in exactly one race, the 1969 German GP, for which he won no points, but then it also states: "Although Perrot raced in a World Championship Formula One event, he only raced as part of the Formula Two class, and never raced in a full Formula One World Championship race." If the DL entered a team on Mastermind, we could do a lot worse than have F1 as a specialist subject.

If you're going to dream about an Isla, AtJ, might I suggest you watch Wedding Crashers ten straight times and then spend 40 winks (that's winks) in the company of Isla Fisher. La Isla Bonita

Very interesting suggestion, AtJ. Christopher Lee is a perfect example of what the DL's all about. Everyone's heard of him, he's old (and looks just a heartbeat from death in the pic near the bottom of his wiki page), he loves cigars, yet he continues to make movies. There's lots of trivia tidbits about him (including that he is pictured on the cover of Wings' Band on the Run, surely the greatest album in rock history), and he's been in some of the biggest movies ever, including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series, and of course a Bond film. The DL should honour him with a lifetime achievement award and put him on for 2009. Heavy lobbying on his behalf will be undertaken at the Committee meeting.

As someone who's never seen Bagpuss it seems amazing how much impact a show with only 13 episodes had on so many Brits. Someone gave their kid the middle name of 'Emily' because of the girl on the show. Who is apparently not married, Phantom, if you fancy throwing your hat into that particular ring. I hear she's Firmin all the right places.

I'm sure we can arrange to have another page added as soon as we can Yes. We. Can!!! Do I owe royalties to President elect Obama, or Bob the Builder? [Edit - bah, it looks like it doesn't matter how much space a post takes up, it's 15 always posts a page. I could have put this in a new message, but posting right after yourself in an internet forum is ever so gauche.]