msc

So, Geoff Fox has been blogging about his ill health. So far, he's had his Whipple procedure postponed twice, because they discovered one of his major arteries was blocked and he had to have a stent put in. Also, the cancer is blocking his bile duct. Whipple now schedule for 11th October. He doesn't come across as the healthiest chap.

Sorry to hear that. We used to keep gerbils, cancer is quite common in rodents - one lived a year and a half "terminally ill" (but he was a right character - genuinely liked him more than most of my inlaws), but the others went downhill very rapidly.

Now here's one I certainly thought was long gone: Alf Ramsey's widow. Makes me wonder about the other pre-1990 England manager widows: Lady Ann Winterbottom, b. Feb 1923 - alive as of April 2013. Norah Mercer d. 2013 Elsie Revie d. 2005 Lucy Greenwood - outlived Ron but has kept a low profile since, think she's still about but unsure. Elsie Robson - still going, born circa 1937. Lady Winterbottom and Lady Ramsey will certainly obit.

I didn't have Prince on my team, but I will gladly take 58 extra points if they are on offer.

On the other hand, it's got a lot of tottering people, so the 2017 list will probably do very well. 2008 comes to mind, a record equaling year where 5 ill cases from 2007 stumbled into the new year and became hits. Or in 2012, where seven of the hits were folk from the 2011 list.

His avatar is an actual photo. Given he died in 2013, he's looking not too bad, I think we can agree.

List updated and brought forward. Wolfgang Suschitzky dead, as reported here. https://forums.deathlist.net/topic/8294-the-100-club/?p=277782 Get Carter is his big film, but I am quite fond of Theatre of Blood. Vincent Price gets to ham up Shakespeare and bump off a variety of theatre critics from Michael Hordern to Arthur Lowe. Also, Diana Rigg is in it.

One of my inlaws has been contemplating his own mortality since he found out he terminally ill a decade ago. He's still with us. Tutu is probably having one of those "Christ, I'm 84 - how did that happen?" moments rather than trying to tell the world's he's away imminently. (I'd keep him on the list anyhow.)

Deathrace fodder: Trent Hills, Ontario Mayor Hector MacMillan is seriously ill with pancreatic cancer. Nabeel Qureshi, a Christian author, has advanced stomach cancer. Japanese TV presenter Mao Kobayashi has advanced breast cancer. Unlikely to trouble DDP obits, as things stand, but certainly good to go candidates for Maryport's show.

Sometime in July, aye.

Watching the Yes Minister/Prime Minister repeats on BBC2 has reminded me, so far, that Sydney Lotterby (b. 1926), Arthur Cox (b. 1934), Moray Watson (b. 1928), Andre Marrane (b. 1926) and Oscar Quitak (b. 1926) are still with us, and all highly obitable. Amusingly, Quitak plays a Trident opposing adviser in YPM, and later shows up as a nuclear sceptic science advisor in A Very British Coup. I wonder if the latter was an in-joke.

Leah Bracknell (b. 1964), who appeared for sixteen years in Emmerdale as Zoe, alleged to have inoperable Stage 4 lung cancer, via a Gofundme page asking for money for experimental treatment in Germany. If legit: I don't watch soaps, but I ran her name past my wife, who said "Oh, her!" in a sad voice, which is my fail-proof test for someone being a household name or not. EDIT: Genuinely, about 30 seconds after I posted, the Mail have it as breaking news.

Imagine that being in place on the main DDP this year - we'd think its all over, than the news on Christmas Day will be: "Al-Baghdadi droned, confirmed by both sides." Suddenly there's 40 point bonus heading Devons way (or 150 odd if its compound interest, of course)!

Guido Fawkes blog suggests someone punched Woolfe....and then goes on to say that UKIP's defence spokesman Mike Hookem MEP is currently unavailable for comment I put a post in DDP name reject thread this morning which could be a headline tomorrow if he dies: The Kipper and the Corpse. It's TMIB's DDP team name, no?

He always struck me as a Deathlisty name one of these years.

"Mumsnet without the bile" - now there's a PR handle.

Challenge accepted! Just to say, if he comes up with Shameless 2: Shamelesser due to this, I am so not taking responsibility.

Well, there's the slight flaw there: 115 might be the average final barrier, but the fact there are outliers above it (like Emma Morano and Ms Calment) does sort of suggest its a surpass-able barrier, and not a ceiling. There was also Sarah Knauss, I believe she got to 120.

We even have multiple Jags fans on here. I didn't even know that was possible. How tragic...

I don't see the point in that. Can you honestly ever see someone score 20/20 in the DDP and not win? I can't. As for obitability, I refer to the Sir Creep rule. Apart from on people like Robert Dorr, that was a bullet dodged. Of course, it was worse for Dorr himself, I guess... It's funny, when I axed Fekete and Esterhazy from my final 25, it was primarily obit worries, and at the time, I did actually think to myself "It's me we're talking about here, its hardly likely to be a title changing decision if they died..."

That, it is!

Diane James quits as UKIP leader after...18 days. Rumours on twitter its to do with her husband being ill. It might be to do with the usual political stuff, but apparently she has an ill husband called James. Possibly.

Is it generally know that they're in poor health or has the name not come up at all? If it's already out there I'd almost definitely mention that they've taken a turn for the worse. If not I'm not sure, I'd probably share info on physical health but never on mental health. It's been publicly announced, but not in the papers. I've much sympathy with Toast's view point above. I'll have a think... err, if this wasn't a hypothetical case, of course.

Ah, we always get these winnowing of the fields from October onwards. I think a half dozen of my long list snuffed it in the last fortnight. These things happen.

So, this seems a useful thread for an open question to people. Purely hypothetical, you understand. Say you were a poster on the Deathlist forums, and you found out that a family friend who had been poorly for many years, not a household name but a certain obit, had now taken a turn for the worse and wasn't expected to live much longer. Say you were unwilling to pick this person in any deadpools as a result. Would you let the forum know their name?