themaninblack

She's currently doing fine. She's well enough to tweet (and occasionally watch/tweet along with the BBC4 TOTP repeats as she was quite the Buzzcocks fan in her time!). Not sure when she's having her surgery but we'll see how she is after that and on the GE campaign trail. She's a nice lady and I wish her all the best, though I won't be voting for her in May. She'll get a local obit for definite but I'm not sure about a qualifying one. This happens quite a lot at Westminster. Candidates clearly on their last legs and yet blithely continuing to get selected even though it means a certain byelection on the horizon. That there is this timid deference (still) towards politicians in one moment that...

I must say the response to the attacks in France has been remarkably swift, widespread and efficient in terms of banners, solidarity, editorial pieces and whatnot, seeing as it all happened less than 48 hours ago...

He's a pipe cleaner compared to Enrique when he came on. Who ate all the paellas?

Good list. Should do better this year I reckon...

I told you guys she was ill! http://www.deathlist...=1 That's 3 out of 5 of your predictions gone. Alice Babs and Sid Caeser are also dead . Congrats! Make that 4 out of 5. It turns out that Bess Myerson passed away on December 14, 2014. http://www.nytimes.c...WT.nav=top-news Bollocks. That was out of spite, just coz I had her in my team...

That's IMDB being a troll or extremely stupid as Jimmy Perry's death would make the news easily...

I will be opening a debate this year on changing the rules/points/eligibility etc for 2016's competition so we can all air our thoughts on this in due course...

Well done, Spade. It was like Liverpool's 1980 league championship win. Not as good as '79 but still the same medal at the end of the day. Overall a bit of a strange year (in more ways than one for me). Close on 250 hits is going to be very difficult to top IMHO...

Yes but almost certainly next year!

Rainer is the DL's latest hit since Arti Shaw exactly 10 years earlier...

It looks to me like footage being touted around by ITN, possibly for Reuters. Checked Reuters.uk and Reuters.com and there's no mention of the story, so a no no...

Last update before the year's end is uploaded... EDIT: Seems like Purdy refused food, making it an unnatural death. I'll update the bonus on Friday...

What is the record out of interest? 588 in 2013. Incidentally that figure so far is over 20 down from this time last year...

I'll have a closer look at that after Christmas and come to a decision before the end of play next week...

Who would that leave as the Father of the House in the new parliament, Ken Clarke?

150 teams registered so far...

"Oh prairie shit, everybody!"

After all those Beckett plays she'll be under no illusions as to what happens next...

It was one of my easy picks in 2006...

Am I okay to PM you my teams this year? Yeah, sure...

She would die like that, wouldn't she?

There's no hard and fast rule about this, although I'm leaning towards different themes being different "teams" even though the same player is involved. However, teams with the same name but that switch from theme to normal and vice-versa has happened before. So if you decide to turn Sovereign-Reaper into a theme team, then that's fine with me...

As Dr Z mentioned elsewhere, Ronnie Biggs died a year ago today age 84...

That should make the next couple of weeks interesting...

96 teams registered so far...