msc

Radio 3 has paid tribute to her on air. Unfortunately, it has to be in print for the DDP!

OK Magazine with an exclusive earlier. Queen is actually a hibernating bear. Who knew?

Well, we'll be putting that last bit on my shortlist to the test now... 1. Belinda Sykes – 56 – terminally ill since 2019, on the BBC and DI thinks she’ll QO.

There you go, @Ulitzer95! Worth noting that Old Bexley is the 296th most at risk Tory majority. Shropshires the 290th. Which is to say, both are safer than an safeway, and if they were even close in the by-election it would be a sign of electoral annihilation on the cards. Amersham was merely the 186th most at risk. The former too are, iirc, within the top 100 safest seats in the entire Parliament.

I stand by my earlier comments. That said, the Sontaran one was fun so well above his usual standards. Sundays episode was a complete and utter fucking mess though. Also I thought I was replying to LFN's TV watching, and I appear to have done it in the wrong fucking thread...

Discounting those who keep very busy working (ie Tennant, Jones, Shaw) the obvious one to keep an eye on here is Michael Gambon, who was having memory issues pre-pandemic (he retired from the stage due to them). Julie Walters has cut her career down significantly since cancer. Warwick Davis was looking unwell at the tail end of his Tenable run and we know the rumours there. Not named (unless I missed her) is Zoe Wannamaker, who almost certainly wont show up as she had an almighty argument with the producers and quit the series after one film, hence why the games mistress disappears from the films.

EAST FOR EDEN 15/50 15th November 2021 Former spouse of the Prime Minister, Clarissa Eden, has died aged 101 to give The Crowdsourced Deathlist another success. The niece of Winston Churchill (dunno if you've heard of him), Clarissa spent her teenage years in Paris and London society, surrounded by the likes of Josephine Baker and future spies Burgess and MacLean. She studied at Oxford and helped decode German ciphers during WW2. Post-war, she worked as the fashion reviewer for Vogue and as a film assistant for Alexander Korda. However it was her work during the war where she became close to the then Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden, considered one of the most able politicians at the time. Eden divorced his wife and married the Bohemian girl in 1952, in a wedding which was both attended by Liz Taylor and publicly popular. (Who knew you could divorce you wife, move in with someone a quarter of a century younger than you, and become Prime Minister? Wouldn't happen these days!) She gave charm and appeal to the somewhat bookish Eden, and was to prove crucial for the rest of his life. In 1955, he finally got the job nearly everyone in Westminster felt he deserved - that of Prime Minister. Unfortunately, this was not the Anthony Eden of 1945 or 1935, it was the Anthony Eden who had just undergone life saving surgery and was now given vast quantities of a new wonder drug painkiller. Yes, he spent the rest of the 50s stoned off his tits on Benzedrine. Clarissa Eden looked after her husband during his ill health, and protected him from much Tory party criticism but was unable to stop the self-inflicted disaster that was the Suez Crisis overcoming both of them. Sir Anthony died in 1977 after a long period of ill heath, and Clarissa explains it all in a tell very little memoir. She did however authorise several biographies which focused less on the drug addled Egypt invasion and more on the peace treaties and world wars, helping to rehabilitate her husbands reputation as a statesman (if not as Prime Minister). Clarissa Eden, who remained popular with politicians and their spouses who called on her advice until recently, was remarkably longlived. Not only did she outlive her husband, and 5 of her successors as Prime Minsterial spouses. She also outlived her autobiography editor, as the biographer Cate Haste, with whom From Churchill to Eden was written, died of cancer in April.

Yes, but on the bright side, how often do we get to see reincarnation these days?

The Nolans continue to be the bane of my DDP teams!

You make it sound like one of the weans tricks! "Cough cough cough (fake coughs) I am clearly too ill for school, Dad. Cough cough cough"

Thistle legend. Sad news if true.

I've had to pull out of speaking engagements on the day before because of utterly KOing migraine attacks. Which are not the early signs of stage IV brain cancer.

Richard Franklin survived his latest major surgery but is expected to remain in hospital for the rest of November. Can I say that I suspect cancer here given the limited news, or has Crem jumped that shark?

I've lost count tbh.

Catching up on the last series of Dark Side of the Ring. There's a doc about Luna Vachon and her stepdad Paul Vachon (a renowned pro-wrestler) shows up, struggling to breath and talk. To be frank, he's not going to be around in 18 months time.

He was also iirc on the pitch when Eriksson had his life saved at the Euros. That Euro rum cements an obit I feel was already likely.

He was going to be picked again in 49 days or so.

I count 7 I'd have DQ'd on the spot (Bell, Griffiths, Sisson, Barrett, Sinclair, Griffin, Last) this year and a few others that would have been down to Reptile's deciding vote, but not quite 20. I like to think we've not sacrificed the obscure notable picks to get rid of the outright unfamous ones.

Hopefully the website gremlins will have fucked off by then. Updating the main page, when it actually allows and doesn't just crash, is like treacle this week. (It appears to be a host error rather than at our end, annoyingly.)

Slightly long for a DDP team.

He's on my shortlist of 40. He ain't going to make 2022.

28th October 2021, due to complications of Parkinsons and cancer, apparently. That's why my low level Times account is for, clearly, checking obit dates! Can't help on Bettin, though he was one of the main roles in one of the biggest kids films in my childhood - The Great Mouse Detective, oft repeated on TV at the time - so I am stunned there hasn't been a single reference anywhere of note.

It did occur to me it was niche. But I knew you'd get it. And the idea of someone who doesn't watch Dr Who thinking "man, that was unusually harsh about Biblio" amused too tbh.

With 4 hits in as many months, you could say of Biblio that he's finally getting something done!

I figured, it just amused me, given one was a musician who mingled in US acting circles and the other was a somewhat forgotten low ranking actor from Glasgow!