I.R.Baboon

Louis Andriessen has Alzheimer's and vascular dementia: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nu.nl/muziek/6094441/componist-louis-andriessen-81-lijdt-aan-dementie.amp (in Dutch) . He finished his last piece last year, but entered a care facility in march this year. In interviews from 2 years ago he sounded extremely lucid and erudite, so I guess his decline is pretty fast paced.

Science philosopher Bruno Latour has pancreatic cancer (cannot find an English source yet, but he says so in my Dutch newspaper today). Guaranteed obit, I guess.

Most likely dead (but I guess he expects us to remain sceptic) .. I really enjoyed the documentary An Honest liar, seemed like a nice (and eccentric) guy.

Yeah I know not every political leader is a statesman and well, the bar has been lowered but WTF dude, this is just bizarre nonsense.

Ria van Dijk AKA Luchtbuks Ria (Airgun Ria) turned 100 yesterday. She won't get an UK Obit but well, it's a more-or-less interesting story and - to my surprise - the Daily Mail has covered it in 2012 (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095400/Ria-van-Dijk-takes-photograph-fairground-rifle-range-year-1936.html) Long story short: since 1936, she goes to the fairground in Tilburg to shoot at a shooting gallery. You would get a picture if you shoot the target. She just collected the pictures until around 2007 someone made an art book out of it and 2 years later she sold her collection to the Stedelijk Museum (spending the few thousand euros she received on a bus trip with friends to an organ museum and eating at a trout restaurant). She keeps on shooting every year. This year, the fairground was cancelled this year due to COVID, but as a surprise it came over to her care home.

My (Dutch) newspaper already has a very decent obituary (https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/04/12/wiskundige-conway-was-een-speels-genie-en-kenner-van-symmetrie-a3996590) , so I think at least SOME British paper should follow. But we'll see.. edit: added link

Well he's not an average mathematician. I hardly know of any mathimatician at all but Conway's game of life is one of my favorite 'i love the internet because of all the weird niches and subcultures' subjects. I absolutely love blogs like (from http://pentadecathlon.com/lifeNews/index.php ). No idea what it means, but it fascinates me, all those people spending hundreds of hours to develop a more efficient oscillator.

Still hanging with his homies

The past 6-7 years i've seen him in concert 3 times (twice with sparks, once with FFS), he looks almost unchanged compared to the eighties. Back in the days he was an old man, but by now he looks young for his age. (And gotta say.. their last album Hippopotamus is on par with their best albums, Missionary Position is for example as good as a sparks track can get)

Looking at that picture, the members of the Order of Merit would be a great DDP-team.

According to https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/803470/Queen-Prince-Philip-Royal-Windsor-Horse-Show-Barbers-Shop-victory, he did so last year.

A good reason to quote XKCD (unfortunately, we're ahead of schedule)

He attended the dinner with Trump and Macron yesterday: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/384719-henry-kissinger-tim-cook-among-guests-for-white-house-state-dinner. Must have been a great party, being able to chit-chat with Rupert Murdoch. (Apart from that, I think the 'frail health' mentioned in the opening post in 2005 might have been slightly exaggerated)

Shite, i wished he would be on #50 for the next 10 years..

Some moving image: Pretty surprised he's still able to sing... Deathlist-wise: it might be a close contest between him and Mark E. Smith..