msc

From a personal POV January - Brian Clemens February - Leonard Nimoy March - Malcolm Fraser April - Ben E King May - BB King June - Charles Kennedy/Christopher Lee/Dusty Rhodes/Patrick Macnee (tie) July - Roddy Piper August - Frances Kelsey September - John Guillermin (he directed The Towering Inferno) October - Denis Healey November - Jonah Lomu December - Jimmy Hill

2011 - Dr Sree Sree Swaniji, Johan Van Hulst, Clare Hollingworth, Mary Carlisle, (4/50) 2012 - Penny Marshall, Harper Lee, Peregrine Worsthorne, Manuel Noriega, Clive James, Mary Wilson, Leslie Philips, (7/20) 2013 - Robert Mugabe,Judy Blume, Nicholas Edwards, Danny Kirwan, Bob Dole, Joao Havelange, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jopling, Mark Eden, Ryan Buell, Freddie Starr (11/20) 2014 - Asa Briggs, Ryan Buell, Liz Dawn, Helen Fawkes, Valerie Harper, Wilko Johnson, Chris Moncrieff, Pat Rice, Joost, Ian Watkins, 10/20 2015 - Martin Crowe, Helen Fawkes, Kate Granger, Eric Lubbock, Joost, Seumas Milne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Glen Campbell, Jacques Villenueve Sr, Vojislav Seselj, Mary Wilson, Asa Briggs, Peter Sallis, Peter Sutcliffe, Caroline Aherne

Joey Feek will obit. I've counted 14 articles in the Daily Mail on her...from the last month. There's much more in the time since diagnosis. That's more than there has been in the last year about Dennis Skinner!

Yes.

Apparently when The Wombles pop group appeared on Blue Peter, John Noakes's dog Shep ran over and bit the drummer on the arse. True story.

Surely anyone that is terminally ill and obit-worthy is Deathlist material? Christopher Hitchens and Ronnie Dio disagree with this.

He might not be considered Deathlist material. I know Chris Woodhead was, but without knowing the committee personally, who can say.

John Underwood struck me as more of a 2017 pick, so yes, I'll be annoyed too.

I know you were pessimistic about your chances last night, but that team looks like another one to go far. Naturally, I think nine of them are, in particularly, very wise. The only query would be on John Wicks and Suzanne Wright getting qualifying obits. They're certainly sick enough.

Are there two Ian St John's then as he appears to be at number 40 in the list. I'm not being sarcastic as I don't know anything about sports or sports commentators. It was only last year I realised that Jimmy Hill and Jimmy Greaves were different people. For those wondering I've used my crowd source list as my alternative 50 with the exception of Louise Plowright who I replaced with Peter Sarstedt so you can see for yourself how bizzre or otherwise my picks were. I thought I'd made a terrible error there, but not to worry, a quick glance over the list suggests I forgot to take out the former listing for some folk after I had tallied up the last voter's votes. So yes, the "just missed out" Ian St John is an imposter, as the last 27 points got him on the list itself. I'll edit the "near misses" post.

Of the 50, or entirely? Of the 50, I am at a loss to describe Sinead O'Connor's popularity. Suicide is too risky to take a punt on (see the continued breathing of so many in that category) and if we were going unstable Irish, I would assume Shane McGowan was right there. Entirely, it would be hard to beat the inclusions of Mick McManus and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They didn't qualify, both because not enough people voted for them, and due to the unfortunate ability of having died a few years ago. That's what happens when you blindly write down people from the "People with Alzheimer's" category on Wikipedia to pad out your list... I wasn't going to name you! It can happen to the best of us.

Gina Lollobrigida was very popular, finished about 20 points off qualify. She also changed gender midway, as the first two teams to suggest had her as Gino in a spelling error. Lys Assia got over 100 points, and apparently won Eurovision in the 1950s. I had heard of neither. For off the wall, I did like that someone plumped for double digit points on Dave "Fit" Finlay.

Of the 50, or entirely? Of the 50, I am at a loss to describe Sinead O'Connor's popularity. Suicide is too risky to take a punt on (see the continued breathing of so many in that category) and if we were going unstable Irish, I would assume Shane McGowan was right there. Entirely, it would be hard to beat the inclusions of Mick McManus and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They didn't qualify, both because not enough people voted for them, and due to the unfortunate ability of having died a few years ago.

Yeah, I saw his Go Fund Me page on a quick google of "Luke Halpin cancer" and he does sound fecked. And Garn posts to confirm the only person I thought might be unique if the cards went right isn't - David Tennant's dad. Still, I think uniques and their worth are overestimated by the also rans from 30th place downwards.

People who made it as far as post-Christmas for being in contention, but were later dropped: Monty Brinson, Mary Wilson (Pan Breed favourite), Douglas Slocombe, Clare Hollingworth (this was in case every terminal case died in December and I needed a quick fix), Gordon Aikman, Gregory Hudgens, Peter Esterhazy, Bob Ellis, Ian St John, Thomas Fekete, Elliot Ward, Randy Romero, Rick Davies (think he'll see 2017), Fabian Bolin, Juliet Ace (obit worries), Errol Christie, Mark Czarnecki, David Fisher, Fernando Ricksen, Richard Smith (BMJ editor), Gordon Banks, Aki Hintsa (seems to be doing ok), Robert F Dorr (no chance of an obit), Vera Caslavska (has had major surgery).

The Pete Best of Monty Python? He was the chap who started off with what became the Python lot at uni, but swiftly decided academia was a better pursuit. They replaced him with a far more famous person: Gilliam perhaps? I'm not much of a Python buff.

Surprisingly (to me), the only one of those I didn't know was ill is Luke Halpin. Must say something about doing even a modicum of research or something. Brinson/Christie/Ellis/Fekete were all cut from my final list of forty or so. Brinson due to a choice of candidates, Christie because I couldn't find out how bad his cancer was, Ellis because there was rumours he's doing better.

Last year I finished in the top 40 for the first time ever, so let's see what I can do with this team. Pan Breed 2016 1. Joey Feek (joker) 2. Rene Angelil 3. Martin Crowe 4. Jenny Diski 5. Rob Ford 6. Eric Lubbock, Lord Avebury 7. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson 8. Joost van der Westhuizen 9. Mark Farren 10. Bonnie Brown 11. Rowena Kincaid 12. Howard Marks 13. Rev Sandy McDonald 14. Steve LaTourette 15. Keith Farnham 16. Andrew Smith (basketball) 17. Nobby Stiles 18. Dr Mark Sims 19. Phil Gartside 20. Kate Granger Esterhazy is the man I dropped at the last minute (he's even on the Deathrace version) so, expect obits for him anytime soon. Decided to risk a Mail obit for Smith, the Mail covered the US politicos so hopefully they'll come in well for me there. I had originally planned to go with Richard Smith, the British Medical journal's former editor, as my joker. However, as the deadline drew closer, I decided, while he might be unique, I had the gut feeling he might have exaggerated his condition earlier in the year so he could play devils advocate with his cancer articles. He still seems quite busy. Still, there shall be loud swearing from the direction of Scotland if he dies in 2016.

I like most of the folk dropped, though sods law will naturally dictate that this is the year that Valerie Harper and Doris Day now die. Not so sure about Tommy Chong or Paul Gascoigne. They seem like wasted picks. As for Rad Guy's game, exact dates are too specific for my liking, but as a general feeling: February: John Noakes March: Peter Sallis April: Martin Crowe April: Herman Wouk July: Vera Lynn August: Joost van der Westhuizen October: Kirk Douglas October: Leslie Philips November: Prunella Scales December: Joao Havelange December: Olivia de Havilland Which would give us 11. But then, who knows? There are a lot of very low hanging fruit on the list. Well over half of the list I could easily see not reaching 2018. Time will tell.

Noakes, given the recent propensity for public figures who looked suddenly frail in public the summer before dying in late January or early February.

Nah, he'll die, probably this year. This forum is littered with threads dedicated to old terminal cancer sufferers, and in each one there's people who think, because the person has outlasted their dire life expectancy prognosis, they'll be on the mend before we knew it. The common thread is that nearly every single one of them die in the end.

Something I was curious about - there is a reason why Zsa Zsa and friends appear in the Drop Forty and Deathlist every year. Without checking my notes, I believe you were.

Here is the top 50 in one place for folk to keep tabs on: Zsa Zsa Gabor 613 Billy Graham 598 Martin Crowe 591 Clive James 436 Prince Philip 415 Olivia de Havilland 407 Joao Havelange 388 Jimmy Carter 385 Kirk Douglas 378 Bhumibol 373 Nancy Reagan 372 Muhammad Ali 367 Helmut Kohl 355, Peter Sallis 324 Howard Marks 321 George Bush Sr 319, Tony Booth 314 Fidel Castro 311 Vera Lynn 303 Rob Ford 301 Herman Wouk 256 Denis Norden 226 Valerie Harper 217 Leslie Philip 215 Joost van der Westhuizen 209 Stephen Hawking 195 Sumner Redstone 193 Ian Brady 190 Glen Campbell 183 Mary Tyler Moore 175 Robert Mugabe 173 Liliane Bettencourt 165 Gorbachev 158 Johan Cruyff 152 Jenny Diski 140 Joey Feek 136 Desmond Tutu 135 Sinead O’Connor 129 Pope Benedict XVI 126 Ian St John 125 Liz Dawn 123 Bruce Forsyth 120 Jake Lamotta 118 Cliff Michelmore 117 Vera Caslavska 115 John Noakes 113 Prunella Scales 113 Bob Dole 113 Fernando Ricksen 111 Nobby Stiles 109 Thanks for voting everyone - good luck!

3rd place - Martin Crowe, cricketer, 591 points 2nd place - Rev Billy Graham, Bible guy, 598 points 1st place - Zsa Zsa Gabor, 613 points Who else could it be?

10th Place King Bhumibol 373 points King of Thailand, grumpy and seemingly permanently invalided with maladies. 9th place Kirk Douglas 378 points Spartacus actor - but does he have skeletons in his closet? 8th place Jimmy Carter 385 points Voters kept faith with Jimmy, despite the farmer's recent alleged recovery from terminal cancer. 7th place Joao Havelange 388 points Former FIFA president rung in Hogmanay, with more corruption allegations. Will he ring in 2017 as a footnote on the tribute videos? 6th place Olivia de Havilland 407 points Actress. Deathlist favourite. 100 in June. 5th place Prince Philip 415 points Everyone's favourite accidental racist, who wouldn't know PC if it had a keyboard. 4th place Clive James 436 points The top three were somewhat adrift of everyone else however...