msc

One of the great "how the fuck are they still alive?" names of the last decade. Would have assumed picked by someone tbh! And I can see why - dropped by One Century is Enough Madam after 3 consecutive years!

I've achieved an Alt Obit rarity. A List of the Lost-er. The game runner allowed Tahir Mughal who died with nowt but Cricket World noting his death.

Budge Patty - but his fame was 70 years ago, not so much today. (Still going btw, for deadpool watchers out there.) Btw as the person to originally make the DL gag about tennis being good for longevity I clearly meant 80s, which a lot of the 50s/60s stars are now reaching, and obviously Trabert achieved that.

Doctor Who fandom produced two (not counting Andre here) in the 80s/90s. Kevin Stoney was announced as having died in the 1980s in Who fanzines. This was a similar misunderstanding to Clive Dunn on the DL - Stoney made his career playing older roles so the fans with magazines assumed he was a lot older than he was. Stoney responded to rumours by showing up at a major convention to prove he was still alive, and went on to live into his late 80s. The other one was Peter Pratt, Gilbert and Sullivan stage actor who also played The Master in The Deadly Assassin. Doctor Who Magazine printed a premature obituary of Pratt in late 1994, only for the next issue to have a letter from Pratt himself stating he was alive and well! Life being full of sods law, Peter Pratt went and died of a heart attack weeks later!

And an old pal. She had been quiet for a while on communicating though. Damn.

Just the domestic moggy. Tigers are cool. And it's a one-way dislike too. There's a house party and the house cat walks into a room of cat lovers? Guaranteed its going to ignore all of them and make a beeline to try and catch my attention. This has happened a lot.

Pretty much you give money to the WWF itself and unless its for a specific appeal (ie their current snow tiger one) it goes to where they want to use it. Which given they are the world wide fund, is only fair imo (and perfectly legal too, its in their print). But people do give them money for their mascot.

There is a similar argument around conservation, actually. Lots of people - Chris Packham for example - think that the money spent on saving pandas could go to less sexy projects like axolotls and other amphibian conservation. (Athough for the record, axolotls are great too.) But it misses the point that the general public fucking love the panda - it's cute (TM), it acts like a drunken toddler, in a good mood it interacts well with humans. They give shitloads of money for pandas, far more than is ever needed (it is in fact one of the most successful conservation projects in the world, the giant panda is no longer in the critically endangered wildlife column), and those millions go to preserving the environments of all those endangered animals with less PR. There's also the umbrella effect where preserving the panda's environment also saves thousands of other species that co-habit but don't do sneeze meme videos. What I'm basically saying is that even if he didn't intend to, Captain Tom still raised a lot of useful dosh for the sorts of areas the NHS needs money in but doesn't get in as much, because its not as sexy as breast cancer or big expensive machinery used once a year. (For example, the Nye Bevan trust what got some of the money funds trains new medics, others as you point out paint the reception areas, others fix dodgy windows etc etc). Sort of an umbrella effect caused by an old guy walking round a garden? In other words, he was their panda. The pandas outlived him, mind you...

And one of them is G Gordon Liddy, "one of my favourite Watergate judges" to quote a clearly pished out her tiny Joan Rivers at Wrestlemania 2!

Yes, he was one of the big underachievers of the DDP along with Derek Draper. Whereas Rob Burrow, Willie Nelson, Bobby Charlton and Norman Lloyd (!) all came within 3-4 teams of Drop 40 status.

Tbf if you saw them trailing the Greens in some recent YouGovs its appears you aren't the only one!

Happens quite a lot with MPs in their 80s/90s. Dick Taverne for example is a pretty big name in Commons history (he left Labour over Militant insurgency in his seat, beat them at a general election, and was an inspiration for the eventual SDP) but he's been picked 4 years in the DDP, 3 of them thanks to me! (Including this year - he may need to be picked till death at this rate of disinterest.)

Woodward

2021 killing off the plot threads from 2020. Ah he was just a frail old man who loved the NHS (it having saved his life months before covid hit) - I don't think he was in full compos mentis understanding of everyone else from family to government running the Captain Tom thing as meme.

tbh if Octopus started a thread about chefs hurt "while BBQing", I'd naturally assume it was just and reasonable thread based on the thread starter.

Was considered for my "bung 'em on the DDP" team but in the end I didn't pick her, and nor did anyone else...

You say that, but just wait till they win the DDP... He was the comic relief on a kids TV sitcom popular in the 90s but like many child actors struggled with the whole adulthood thing.

My mums the same. Not had this in over a year thanks to covid and lockdowns... Mum once came over to see the wean with what turned out to be a sealed container of enough mince and tatties to feed a small army as "she'd made too much, sorry, is it OK to give you some for dinner?" - to which the answer was obviously YES!!!!!!

So far this year, the curse of the DDP front page news bar: - Quip about Floyd Little. Dies. - Replaced by reference to Siegfried. Dies. - Replaced today by reference to Diamond. Dies. I am open to money bribes to reference peoples jokers next...

Sounds like a job for a PI.

On the general note, Mike Campbell of The Heartbreakers is 71 today!

He also didn't like the music of Peter Sarstedt, showing no compassion for future DLers who'd only have heard of Zizi Jeanmaire thanks to it. No, wait, he was right there. As you were...

More old school actors on Pointless- rather younger than above, mind you. Philip Franks (64) off Darling Buds of May. Philip Jackson (73) and Hugh Fraser (76) off lots but here for Poirot.

I can confirm this as your local friendly asthmatic who gets the flu jag and is prone to winter bugs.

Sounds like he's struggling for breath as he speaks too. Got the dying old man look and voice.