msc

He didn't look a well man as a talking head on the BBC a few months ago, and there was unconfirmed rumblings on forums about cancer. Rangers forums (ta) seem to be doing a Lorimer style lock down on posts for now.

Not in Scotland, where the rector is the elected representative of the students to the uni board. The head (or chief executive) is the Principal. Entirely different roles. Worth noting as in Ulitzer's example, its the former, not the head position.

That's from my original rules and is a clumsy way of saying "we don't have 16/32/64 players for a straight knockout, so there needs to be byes into Round 2"...

Was going to correct you, only to double check and find I dropped him for 2021 after having him on my 2019 and 2020 teams.

One of those televangelists who are sadly ridiculously popular. This one had supporters throughout Latin America iirc.

Being less flippant, I'll read most of the main page threads, just some with more care than others. Even on things I have no personal interest on (cricket for example) sometimes the posts can be interesting, if that makes sense. Mind you, there are also the university presidents who are not interesting in the slightest. The covid death rate game I skip over as quickly as possible, ditto the Gooseberry pregnancy thread. The ten million posts about the royal family since last week on the other hand are enough to make one run out of whisky...

DL pick in a year or two and he'll be on a decade of those, imo...

Apparently this is now the Meghan Markle forum. With occasional celebrity deaths.

Ah I found out about Quiros on this forum and just keep forgetting to add her to my long list. Until now. (Cue her dying tomorrow...) By 1914 there's still a fair few going (Norman Lloyd, Muazzes Cig to name just two). But just looking at the long list now, its quite noticeable the big drop off from 1919-20 to 1917-18, and then to 1916 and earlier... And the oldest DL worthy name - ignoring the Beverly Cleary debate - is probably Lovelock. And apparently Marie Clarke (US trade union leader) died in January 2020 and I never noticed because some of the centenarians noted down are really obscure!

There was 5 of them a week ago too! Pahor had a BBC doc for Christmas 2019. It was very grim (he's a Holocaust survivor, so done bloody well to get to the age he has) but yeah, he'll get a BBC obit when he goes. If you ignore the probably fraudulent Fauja Singh, I think there's 3 left from 1911 too (Ash, Simonot, Marchand)?

Trevor Peacock dead. Mirror obit.

Oh @Ulitzer95 of little faith. Build them and they will, err, keep dying. http://www.derbydeadpool.co.uk/ddp-2021-list-of-the-lost/ http://www.derbydeadpool.co.uk/ddp-2021-list-of-the-missed/ Probably names missing but they can wait till next time...

No, I don't. Mate, you really don't get how much most of these people hate each other. SNP on SNP rivalries are more bitter than their hatred of other parties even. They wont hold together because they'll be trying to destroy each other so they can be the ones in charge.

Ian Bleasdale is on Pointless Celebrities. I haven't seen Casualty in years and iirc he left it ages ago, but blimey, he's 71 now! One of the more popular characters (Josh) during the shows 90s heyday.

Actually if the last week has shown up anything, it's that the SNP, far from being Fianna Fail, are a ragtag bunch of groups and cliques who hate each other and their non-indy related politics. Should they ever get independence they'd crumble afterwards, and we'd have some form of right wing, centrist and centre left choice like most of Europe.

She's allegedly a SF fan (she "intervened" in the 1950s when parliamentary figures wanted the BBC to cancel their repeat of the Nigel Kneale 1984 adaptation) and this is apparently a true story so it's not completely left field. Just mostly. *for "intervened" read "said aloud she was a fan, at which point they all were too!"

There's also the Union factor - the old Scottish Tory heartland went back to them as the Unionist vote. In Glasgow, on the other hand, a Unionist voter trying to keep out the SNP would vote for another party... But there are many facets to the vote. North Lanarkshire problematic for SNP as well as Labour as its an area very much run by political cliques and huffs. (They lost a seat in 2017 because the MP sided with the wrong person in an interparty argument and their campaign support was cut off!) Yes, I am aware someone from Glasgow looking down on that is a bit glasshouses/stones... (There is of course the other possibility that the Scottish electorate are now in fact actually addicted to exciting election night coverage after the last decade, and so all seat bets are off...)

Indeed, its being a Head of State (for the ruling monarch) and their closest ambassadors for all sectors of society. One of the historical moments I'd love to have known is what went through the current Queens head when she realised she had become heir to the throne and not third in line going on 4th/5th as had been expected. (Well, that, and which Doctor Who is your favourite, ma'am? ) But in general, the interview stuff seems like that. So I can't see it lasting long. The spares go wild but they return to the flock.

if she does quit, an open seat makes it even likelier, yes. (Also, note the double incumbency theory when it comes to some of the seats that changed hands in 2019.) As for Scotland, well, yes - if they expect to win back 41 seats and then some more as in 2010 (spoiler alert - some of them do measure that as the short term success plan) they are in for a long wait. But, in words which are difficult to type (because how often do you write "Jeremy Corbyn" and "successful electoral route" in the same sentence without a negative?) ...of all people, Jeremy Corbyn showed there was fertile territory for Labour in Scotland with their 2017 more square deal/focus on security type manifesto and campaigning. It won 7 seats (it should have got between 10-20 but their campaign up here was a complete and utter shambles, which led to near misses all over the central belt they would have won with anything near competence or an on the ground campaign). Of course, he then buggered it all up by being Jeremy Corbyn, and pissing over the student vote block, but lets take that bit as read. Essentially, there are seats which are gone for a generation, and that is a good chunk of them. (Chris Laws seat in Dundee, any of their seats in the borders/Ayrshire, and Mhairi Black's going to prove difficult to shift, as three examples, are done for Labour.) There's seats which they can't win, but the SNP/Lib Dems can (in terms of a UK general election). And then there's about 12-17 SNP held seats just now in which the swing seems less reliant on their SNP MP's capabilities and more on the UK wide Labour performance. But this brings us back to East of England, picking up odd seats here and there in unwelcoming territory, and full circle to the old appealing to working class voters and not just giving up. Anyhow, not trying to start a debate either but was worth (hopefully) clarifying that when we say theres possibilities for Labour in Scotland, we dont mean status quo, and as long as they hold onto their dreams of the old status quo reappearing, they'll remain pretty much as they are.

The Americans seem to have a completely different idea of the royals (see the Globe magazine) and she clearly never watched a single Diana documentary. Admittedly all of those are shite. If you thought you were getting an American style big celeb marriage and instead were Fergie, I can see that being a culture shock. We all know what Harry was getting out of it. "I'm shagging an actress, grandpa!" "Hmm, is she hotter than Zsa Zsa Gabor?"

Just watched Raymond van Barneveld lose to some Scottish guy I'd never heard of (admittedly not much of a stretch for me and darts). But the ITV folk said something along the lines of van Barneveld being "away from the game for a while for his health"... anything us casuals should take note of?

Indeed, though they did win it back during the Blair years (along with a host of entirely unlikely places!). My point was more Harlow was endangered in 83 but the split made it inevitable. You are right, East England is very Tory friendly now - 44 of those seats you mentioned are safe as houses. Of those that didn't change in 2017/19, Chloe Smith is fighting gravity long term and Colchester could be close next time round, but yeah, thats about it. I don't think Scotland is irreversible gone for them either, but they wont do anything until they learn their lessons in defeat, and they still haven't done that up here after 10 election losses to the SNP in 14 years...

One of the many MPs who lost in 1983 as a result of the Labour>SDP/Alliance vote shift in seats where the Tory vote stayed relatively similar to 79 and they won. Foot would have still lost for obvious reasons but the SDP split lost them seats like Harlow above, turning certain defeat into a landslide.

Given they brought in Robbie Coltrane as one of her brothers, I'm pretty certain it was a gag.

Well, that makes one of us.