maryportfuncity

His track record of staying connected to any political party isn't great and when he takes positions of power in parties the end result - on the evidence of every other time it's happened - is that those who worked with him complain he's difficult to say the least and often cuts deals with individuals that freeze out others and reduce the efficiency of the party concerned. Crudely, he's too busy being out for himself to be a party man. I'd say he's learned from that and for all the current courting of him he's not keen to get involved on the front line for anything other than enthronement in some way, which won't happen because Reform's best hope is to do what UKIP did years ago and force such a big vote in return so no power that it got people muttering about the voting system. And - frankly - Farage hasn't got the chops or public spirited side to be a constituency MP. So, yeah, hanging round, gurning for the cameras, shaking hands it is, then And maybe the Big Brother house for a fuck-tonne of cash in future where he can grumble about what a shite prime-minister Kier Starmer is.

Lively pre-election Sunday front pages today, Express suggesting Nigel Farage will step up to lead Reform UK and that'll knacker the Tories even more whilst the Mail discusses private Tory polling which indicates they're headig for their worst ever defeat. Thankfully our armed forces are so hollowed out Sunak doesn't really have the option of starting a war to boost his poll ratings!

To be fair, even this morning's Torygraph suggests right wing Tory MPs want Mordaunt..i.e., it'd be nice if it happened but even the parliamentary die-hard distcontents aren't that fucking stupid when it comes to making it happen. The only way this kicks off is if the 1922 have so many letters they have to call a confidence vote, there's not much suggestion that the MPs meeting have all put in letters.

The latest Skeptoid episode is likely to be of interest to lovers of this thread - https://skeptoid.com/ If you're arriving too late to hear it (audio is only up for a week), here's the transcript: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4927

65 in June - and given the state we've seen him in, he's already confounding the expectations of some dead poolers. Some of the most prominent hard drinkers (Oliver Reed, George Best) died well before Alan's current age (Bestie was 59, Reed 61)

i newspaper's front page today reporting that a former advisor is Sunak not to go abroad, because that's when coups happen within parties!

Are you telling me he played rugby in his final days?

Not exactly a surprise, but the last year of his life was filmed and ITVX have the documentary scheduled. There have already been trolls piling in with the predictable criticism. Given the abundance of AI and other trickery available to most of us these days the trolls could likely do something better than whinge, like maybe make their own copy of the documentary and edit it to give the main protagonists chipmunk voices, and throw in disco songs in the most intimate emotional moments, or summat! https://www.itv.com/watch/news/new-documentary-to-reveal-final-year-of-derek-drapers-life/1qz5qww

Seriously, tell me when you've had enough but every time I look at the front page of this thing online it's the la la land gift that keeps on giving

Yeah, you beat me to it, his type aren't famed for dying in bed of old age.

Gentle into that goodnight, then!

Best political comedy gold since Lee Anderson's news conference IMHO

Meanwhile, the different photos out there are just getting silly now!

Good call re citing them as the outfit with the most former members, seriously - it's likely there are venerable brass bands with fewer surviving ex-members. You might get over the tad slighted feeling if you ever read the testimony of the "Fallen" musicians that makes up much of this book:

This seems appropriate:

There's a whole generation of folk singers out there straddling the mid sixties to seventies in age. Whilst not seriously old a lot of this crowd have played night after night in smoky venues, drunk heavily throughout their careers and been obliged to drive long distances in search of a few quid because many of them never really made it. One or two - like Gordon Lightfoot - did do well. Others, like Tom Paxton and many of the British crowd - Wizz Jones, Harvey Andrews etc - never made it out of the folk clubs and have no massive 'hits' covered by other artists to keep them in cash, obliging them to keep covering road miles and turning up in front of a few dozen people. It can't be doing them any good. I know Gordon Lightfoot was lucky to survive suffering an abdominal haemorrage on stage in 2002 and miraculously recovered to play Live8. There must be a few others in this category fixin' to strum their last. Anyone know more than me and want to share it?

Aye, including the one where that big guy with a black cloak and a scythe showed up!

Haven't looked in here in ages - see the Fort are currently third in the league (though the top two are so far away they're uncatchable) Healthy goal difference too - https://www.northcaleyfa.com/league.php Thurso on the other hand, are enough to give those who were there when this thread started some sense of deja vu

Seem to recall posting about the missing Muriel McKay ages back - anyway, clearly been dead since 1969 but her killer, it seems, might finally be willing to help the police find her: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68514150 Oh aye, and he claims she died of a heart attack after seeing a television appeal from her family. The above claim might be a useful form-studying fact for entrants in a rapid turnover pool like the Deathlist Cup!

They may have a point, mind. Something the hard-core believers in the alien crash at Roswell frequently ignore is that The Fund for UFO Research, exactly what you'd think it was, collecting money to investigate UFO cases with a view to gathering such good evidence the scientists and other sceptics (that spelling because we're talking Americans here) would be convinced, never spent more time, or money on one case than it did on Roswell. They despatched someone clearly prepared to believe the alien story and the case turned to shit in front of him, majorly. Alleged witnesses who'd made it all up, basic "facts" that were nothing of the sort and so many inconsistencies all over the place that the resulting book would likely make a decent stage musical. The Project Mogul mishap is blatantly the best candidate for what crashed on the Foster Ranch and if it wasn't that Project Mogul launch then - considering the tonnage of ufologists and television crews who've scoured the ground, brought in ground penetrating radar and the like - it's a wonder nobody's seen that fucking balloon train. So, almost certainly, it was that debris recovered in July 1947. Book cover below, oh aye and...there's a really good ASSAP webinar on the subject called Roswell, Ufology's Greatest Hit? (totally unbiased opinion there!!)

An over-simplification in my view and if I could be arsed I could likely dig up posts somewhere on this site that made it clear there were, and are, children's television presenters who are much wanked over too. From the era of Susan Stranks and Jenny Handley to Konnie Huq and Helen Skelton, I'm fairly sure a criteria for their selection in the first place was their potential as wank fodder.

Another day, another drug frenzy drives the Daily Express back into la-la land, or summat And, yeah - I take Crem's point above that Reach PLC (formlerly Trinity Mirror) are their owners for the last six years. But stand by my point. The Express is down to a die-hard audience of ageing Tories fond of Britain-first ideas and rhetoric. Their circulation is - crudely - about 12% of what it was 35 years ago and their case is more desperate than most other dailies since their readership are - on average - older and more present in God's waiting room. So long as they go on believing the front pages, some of them might die happy, mind

30 years age difference, still think Iron Mike might do this!

Just an idea - if we do this again we should have a kind of side-bet competition of picking the manager who'll have the most jobs whilst the competition is still live. I.e., managerial jobs, reserve team coach, chief scout, football agent etc. don't count. Main managerial jobs or nowt. I'm thinking there are a few - particularly non-league types - who can clock up three home dugouts in a season, but calling them would be hard.