msc

I think we're all glad Shivakamura Swanjii never made the Drop 40. But yes, every little help to the part of the team actually coding your teams into the game engine helps!

Yeah, we're fucking awesome, mate.

Family wasn't really covered but we'd ask some common sense to come in there ie Richard Williams or the Kardashian clan or someone reasonable known is fine, but someone's hitherto unknown sibling or great granny who winds up in a hospice, maybe look to another pick. (We're spoilt for choice as it is.) As with any rule, the 2022 Cmme (which I wont be a member of) can tweak any bits of the rules that have piss taking. (See the stricter theme team league...)

Allow this guide to help: 1. Are they notable for anything other than being ill, at least at a local level? GOOD TO GO. 2. If not, they mostly notable for being ill? GO TO QUESTION 4 3. Are they not notable at all? REJECT 4. Have they achieved anything of note in spite of their illness? (ie did they raise shitloads for charity ala Jane Tomlinson, or now work for the BBC ala Deborah James, or got an OBE for their work ala Kate Granger, or helped topple a government ala Vicky Phelan). OK FOR NOW 5. Have they failed Questions 1, 3 and or 4, and thus aren’t in the slightest bit famous, even in some godforsaken heap like Detroit or Glasgow? REJECT 6. Are they known solely for articles in The Mirror or the Sun or what not saying “Terminally ill young mother faces final Christmas” or words to that extent? GONNAE NO DO THAT.

My favourite is the circa 2002 CNN leak when they accidentally put up skeletal obituary drafts of 100 people based on their Queen Mum obituary, which meant it had the likes of Dick Cheney and Pope John Paul II with headlines citing them as "the nation's favourite grandmother".

They are both Drop 40 contenders so will naturally die before January 1st to give Grim and Reptile panic attacks.

Jamali, Orkies, Auriol, Bhatnagar all seem in a race to be first. So naturally Leslie Philips will die overnight...

Yes, blame the editor. For 2019, read 2021. I thought I'd caught most of those!

tbh I forgot about a team name right till the sending email bit and just came up with Pan Breed (ie "deid"!) on the spur. 9 years later... Enjoy. It will only be damaging if you pick 20 DQ'd Mirror sob stories, I promise. Please don't pick 20 DQ'd Mirror sob stories...

A knighthood = OK. The rule is designed to axe all of those "last Christmas single mum with deadly cancer" type picks which are completely odious. Obscure but vaguely notable names, and all those oldest people in the world (who are their own penalty, being worth so few points) remain OK to pick.

Ok, apologies, gremlins in system and some folk got non-BCC emails. Mostly folk with A and B starting emails before Grim twigged and fixed the error. This is quite regular with circular emails in general business, I find, but if this happened to your email and you are fucked off - as with the last time this happened in the DDP - I can only offer a thousand apologies.

Debenhams dead. Another victim of the Arcadia collapse. Still, Sir Philip Green probably made a nice profit in his own bank account.

Vasquez was President of Uruguay and thus a bit too famous... Says the guy who just googled "diagnosed with covid" in 5 seconds and took the first non-FFBI name. Glasshouses, stones, etc etc...

My shortlist is going to look so unoriginal at this pace...

Covid looking over this years list like:

Divya Bhatnagar

tbh* I'm opposed to leaving her off again. She'll be 95, she's A++++ famous, and at the age where a simple cold taken the wrong way could finish her off. There's 50 spots and they love their lingerers - a bunch of them died so room for Queenie. *Yes, LFN with full knowledge nothing said on here matters to the actual list, but ya know, for sake of argument...

The man whose goal against France turned me into a football fan. RIP.

Me just there - Bit early, I'm not starting the DDP thread till 1st December... *me casually glancing at the date in the corner of the screen* Me - Oh shit that's in 2 days.

Damn, this disguise got a good run though... tbh the least likely bit there is Clarkson getting a knighthood...

In that story, after Weldon overdosed, her husband found her and instead of getting help, waited for her carers to show up later that day. Blimey.

Off sick all week and changing medication as his tumours are getting bigger.

tbf to Reptile (who is fully supportive of the FFBI ban - it was a unanimous decision) he legit thought this chap had far more notoreity than he actually did. It happens. With a ban on FFBI the name would have been looked into and turned down (unless he had some albums out but no one is rushing to correct me on that one). I know who my eyes are on to ban, and there'll be zero tolerance on those picks. For example: these types of stories are fucking off for good and anyone who tries to get them past the Cmme will be mercilessly mocked. (You don't need to click on that link, obviously, Toast - I know you know what we don't want. It's for anyone playing hard of thinking...) All of these people are obviously not going to be banned, or newspaper editors, Guardian rent-a-cynics, those no name royals everyone loves etc etc. Just saying before I get PMs. "I picked the former Education Secretary, is he still allowed?"

Tbf if folk are daft enough to buy it...

They can see Cleary now De Hav is gone?