themaninblack

Incidentally, the process of the coming year's DDP maybe a little less straightforward than it has been in the last couple of years as my start date for a new work assignment has been brought forward to tomorrow...

Might do a theme team based purely on one of the nomination's rather peaky look which I witnessed on TV today...

Where did you get that notion from? Queenie & Co are as popular among the great unwashed as they ever were...

More like the end of August(!) down here these days. Don't you celebrate Halloween?

OK, but I don't know the names of every member of every band who recorded a few decent songs. TBH the first thing that sprang to mind was a radio presenter, but I was probably thinking of Alan Partridge. To be fair this inclusion probably says more about me than anything else. XTC are hardly massive even in the UK and SWO was their only top 10 hit, and that only reached number 10, but I was trying to think of a musician who was very British who was part of a band along the lines of Wilko Johnson. I suppose I could have picked one of the members of Bananarama but I could be bothered to look them up. Took (some of) the words out of my mouth, Biblio, I was going to mention Bananarama. Siobhan Fahey was a member wasn't she?

One of those ten could have been a member of The Smiths...

I think it would be fair to say that Gerry Adams' demise will not interrupt TV programmes, unless he decided to stick a knife in the Prime Minister's head or something!

Been missing your pithy contributions LFN, but sticking "Mandela" and "cunt" in the same argumentative point is fearless no nonsense of the highest order, or summat. Certainly would have been if he said a year ago... Aye, I did and always have. Mandela was not the lovely old uncle he was portrayed as, not much went on without his say so and plenty of people were murdered on his watch. You could well imagine, in an era now gone, him being told ( in the same way a young starlet is told to drop her long term boyfriend by the film studio) to drop Winnie like a sack of shit off of a quayside because it would damage his carefully cultivated image as South Africas Ghandi. Im not saying that the cause wasn't just or worth fighting for but I admit to being a cynical old twat, with good reason. Mandela wasn't the genius, the people that puppeteered him were. I even reckon the man had been dead for far longer than the official announcement but, then again, I do love a conspiracy. Loads of people were murdered on his watch (1994-99) it's South Africa for fuck's sake! Murder is a national sport! Unless of course you mean his "terroristic activities in the 1960s. His opponents were hardly paragons of virtue, were they? I mean, let's face it, you wouldn't invite them round for tea and cakes...

I saw Nigel Lawson on TV last week and he did look ropey I must say...

Been missing your pithy contributions LFN, but sticking "Mandela" and "cunt" in the same argumentative point is fearless no nonsense of the highest order, or summat. Certainly would have been if he said a year ago...

Yeah, Brendan Rodgers...

Then get rid of them! Schimples...

John Lennon died today in 1980 aged 40...

I have sent an email off but I'll put it down here in case people don' get the email: IS hostages are to be treated as death row inmates facing execution and therefore IS HOSTAGES ARE BANNED FROM BEING CHOSEN. Any teams that have IS hostages in their lists will have to replace them. Thank you.

I've just read an email asking about the eligibility of IS hostages and whether they will be accepted as nominations for the DDP. This is a tricky situation, so I'm going to cogitate on the matter and I'm open to any suggestions or solutions before coming up with a definitive stance on the subject.

You are allowed a "maximum" of three teams in any combination (1 regular, 2 theme or 3 theme or you get the general idea). I'm going to be flexible about teams as it all depends on the amount and flow of the teams that come in...

List of acceptable British obits:

Now the Procedure:

Therefore I should NOT have given extra bonus points for the chap shot by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981!

Trash talk already. We could be in for quite a year...

The problem with a reduced time limit for entries is that it gives me less time during and afterwards to add in the teams. And the main the problem with a limit is knowing when that limit is breached as many emails have multiple entries and it would take time to go through them, particularly when there are 200+ on NYE... However, now that I have a system in place that I'm satisfied with and that works well, maybe it's best not to try and make things easier only to make them harder. I have free time this Xmas (which may not be the case next year) so best to make the most of it. A lauch date of 10th January 2015 seems not unreasonable and it may even be sooner, depending on how many teams come in...

I'm thinking an overall team limit of 500, with the additional caveat of 2 teams as suggested. If so, then it might be better to reduce the window still further to three or even two weeks so as to still leave it until the last moment for the contenders...

The answer to 1. is that nobody is! I will be getting some help for some of the heavy lifting (namely biogs and picks) and I'm planning to allow contributions to the updates from special "guests" (although I'm not sure whether to let them get on with the writing and I update or they do both tasks as it's technically still a bit fiddly). But it's pretty much business-as-usual. From tonight, the nomination period begins and I as usual will be doing the inputting, but I don't mind this so much because I have my routine nailed-down and it will provide suitable "tuning up" for the job I'm starting (fingers crossed) in January...

My apologies for being presumptive, DDT...