msc

Just mentioning I appreciated the joke, in case someone wanders in and thinks I was a right heartless bastard liking this part.

The DL conclave never came back to us on that one.

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy. And TB. I never thought that that would be an issue while reading, but maybe growing up poor in Argentina, he had it... Either way that lung capacity can't be too good. My great uncle had one of his lungs taken out due to TB as a teenager. He got to 77. This new chap is 76. Long term appointment, clearly.

Was doing some research on pneumontomies. Seems like it's only done to remove lung cancer. If he's 76 and a cancer survivor, this could be a spicy papacy. And TB.

She's dead, apparently.

Hmm, you're right, Wiki is minus Hammonds DOB, though I seem to recall reading years back it was 1929 or there abouts. If Poole is the Random House writer, they seem to think she is still with us.

I'm only... sixty two points behind OoO just now. Mind you, just wait till those unique Tories start giving up the ghost in the winter months, it'll be the greatest comeback since Lazarus. Ali, I didn't pick Chavez either, but thats because I seem to be one of the few people who thought they were exaggerating his health issues...

Congrates DDT. You are awfie good at this listing people who are going to die lark. Should I ever wind up on one of your lists, I'd have to make sure my will was in order. And sounds fine MPFC - indeed, next year I think I'll put in a Tarnished Twenty instead of the DDP list, given how my DDP seems more content to be a marathon instead of a sprint!

Goodness, Penelope Lively's still going? Just about everyone I know covered The Ghost of Thomas Kempe at school.

I'm dead? As Hilaire Belloc once wrote in a card he sent to a friend who had just passed, "Sorry to hear you died".

I'd heard before new year his cancer had slowed down considerably, his daughter is in high spirits that he'll be around a few more years, and his vocabulary increasing columns for the Telegraph are still going. Course he could fall to pieces within hours of me writing this, but I think Clive will be around for the 2014 list.

Erich Priebke.

Not only that, but Wilde would have been right in the midst of a generation of comics and writers growing up who idolised him. He'd be Peter Cook.

I am lulling everyone into a false sense of security in this, honest...

Kissinger.

So Ric Flair's big Japan match got called off as he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg. Flair refuses medical treatment on this, and aims to keep wrestling and flying with said blood clot. I think most can probably tell how this story is going to end.

I thought he was having us on, myself.

Yes, but you have everyone on your list.

I wound up with 5 unique picks. Thatchers cabinets are dropping like flies recently, so I tried thinking outwith the regular suspects for Jopling and Edwards, Kirwan (who I'm surprised is unique) has been in poor health for a while, and Mark Eden (best known from being hit by a tram in Corrie, possibly) is starting to show his age - 85 in February - so is a punt pick. Former TV director/actor Derek Martinus on the other hand would do very well to see the year out. In very poor health (v frail with Alzheimers and other stuff) and a cert to get an obit due to his Doctor Who connection.

Pincher isn't really deserving of much thread activity.

His Ireland series for the BBC was alright. Oh, and Falk mention within 5 posts...

A Trigger's broom band these days though. So are a lot of bands when they've clocked up 30+ years. The Dubliners finally split up recentky and they had none of the original members left! None of the originals alive even. Though I suppose you must have a hit if your band keeps going six months after the last of the founding members dies...

Not a fan of many Australian leaders, but Whitlam comes across as one of the better ones, even with his shortened term.

Its a case of many low hangers being too shy to be the one who goes first, surely. Once one falls, many others will fall in their wake. (Or at their wake)

Not as yet (too inexperienced in my field and hopefully too young and healthy!). Maybe in sixty years if its still up and running...