msc

28 Althia & Donna – Up Town Top Ranking 24 The Buggles – Video killed the radio star 24 Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights +4 20 Brotherhood of Man – Figaro 20 ABBA – Take a chance on me 20 Brian & Michael – Matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs 20 Bee Gees – Night Fever 20 Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta – You´re the one that I want 20 The Commodores – Three times a lady 20 10CC – Dreadlock Holiday 20 Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta – Summer Nights 20 The Boomtown Rats – Rat Trap 20 Rod Stewart – Da ya think I´m sexy 20 Boney M. – Mary´s boy child / Oh my Lord 20 Village People – Y.M.C.A. 20 Ian Dury & the Blockheads – Hit me with your rhythm stick 20 Blondie – Heart of glass 20 Bee Gees – Tragedy 20 Gloria Gaynor – I will survive 20 Art Garfunkel – Bright eyes 20 Blondie – Sunday Girl 20 Anita Ward – Ring my bell 20 Tubeway Army – Are “friends” electric 20 The Boomtown Rats – I don´t like Mondays 20 Cliff Richard – We don´t talk anymore 20 Gary Numan – Cars 20 Police – Message in a bottle 20 Lena Martell – One day at a time 20 Police – Walking on the moon 20 Pink Floyd – Another brick in the wall 8 Dr. Hook – When you´re in love with a beautiful woman -6 8 Boney M. – Rivers of Babylon / Brown girl in the ring Goddamn Dr Hook, get some self-respect or trust for your other half!

My laptop has been utterly @drol'd. Based solely around internet algorithms/cookies, my browser home screen just suggested I might be interested in this book:

She was the main actress on the biggest American sitcom of the eighties. But she never really kept that stardom level, turning down roles due to her Scientology beliefs. She was the only major Cheers star not to make an appearance in Frasier, due to real life heat between her and Kelsey Grammer.

Damn, I had my suspicions from the October updates about getting confused, but Janet would know so that confirms it.

Sometimes, grandparents die before we're born. Which is a sod. But nature and families abhor a vacuum. Someone else fills the grandparent role. An older sister of your deceased gran. Your gran in all but name. She'll look after you from your first breath. Help raise you. Encourage you. Become a friend as much as a relative as you get older and become a parent. They will still be trying to protect you with sage advice about a pandemic, even as their own health declines. A pillar of the family, of life, ever present. Always a phone call away or a visit away, no matter your troubles, or just to say hi. It was her funeral this week. She lived a long, long life. Older than Bush Sr, not quite Jimmy Carter. My heart is immeasurably besieged by grief, though I'm aware that's just because we really, really loved her. And that, if she wasn't dead, she'd have the perfect words ready to get the rest of us through this event.

74 Baccara – Yes Sir, I can boogie 74 Donna Summer - I Feel Love 72 ABBA - The Name of the Game 62 ABBA – Knowing me, knowing you 49 ABBA - Fernando +4 16 Rod Stewart – I don't want to talk about it / The first cut is the deepest 13 ABBA - Mamma Mia -6 There we go - and tbh, I'd much rather save Fernando than Knowing Me Knowing You.

That's a shame. I'll always remember him as he was, referring a match between the Exorcist demon and The Undertaker from WWE in claymation! Commentator: The Undertaker appears to be summoning up the Gates of Hell! Mills Lane: I'll allow it! Apparently, he had a top-class sports career too, I knew him best (only) for his straight man role in cult animation 90s comedy show Celebrity Deathmatch!

I like George Wendt though, so I'm glad. Good sitcom actor. Not so good Columbo murderer, mind you, but we can't have it all! PS He feels like a future DL front pager sooner than later, in the Eddie Large style of picks.

It was either Jim Lea or Dave Hill's mum who basically ordered them to write a Christmas song as "those sell every year" and then spent the next 20-30 years telling her (at the time sceptical) son "I told you so"!

Christ I'd be absolutely fucked! Russell IS on my punt pool. I told TQR the guy was an absolute HA cert. I think that deadpool started about three centuries ago now....

Even Norm is still with us!

Aye, Noddy Holder said he thought the song was rubbish and cheesy until he saw his royalties and then he thought it was amazing! Ladbabys Boris's mate so probably.

I'm not shocked tbh? Nearly picked her in the punt pool. Always struck me as the type to try and cure cancer with prayers and that bleach water.

A thread it gives me no pleasure to start for one of my favourite actresses. Brilliant DL worthy actress in poor health earns her own thread, in my book. Jean Marsh is the one actress in the big six (Dench, Smith, Atkins, Marsh, Philips, Syms who were all born within 18 months of each other and dominated British TV and stage through the 60s and 70s) not to have a Damehood, allegedly at her own choice in the past. You might recognise her from Frenzy, or Upstairs Downstairs (which she also co-created), or Return to Oz, or 3 different Doctor Who appearances, or The Eagle Has Landed or countless other films and TV shows in the last 60 years. Alas, Jean Marsh is no longer in good health. She suffered a severe stroke in 2011 (which would have killed most people, despite her downplaying it in that interview linked) but managed to recover and return to acting. A second period of ill health in 2014 forced her retirement from acting. Last year I heard she was unable to appear in a documentary due to her failing health (and had suffered a big heart attack too), which I mentioned on the forum. (The latter bit is also telling as Jean Marsh was on record several times as loving fan mail - especially the saucy ones - and replying to as much of it as possible over the decades. This stopped around five years ago.) Unfortunately looking into it, she appears to have declined further since then. According to the head of the International Wizard of Oz fan club (see Return to Oz above) she is now in such frail health that even simple email questions dictated by an agent (which is a route folk regularly get interviews with very old actors!) isn't possible. This backs up what I've heard from several other good sources about Marsh being in dire health now, so as she's famous enough and sick enough for the DL front page, here is her thread. It's an Eagle Has Landed cast 2 for 1 with Donald's yesterday, although tbh it was that thread that inspired me to check up who she was doing.

Morocco 0-1 Spain Portugal 1-0 Switzerland Rangers B 2-0 East Kilbride

Not his first heart attack related ICU trip either. Had one about a decade ago, and his life was saved by his brother-in-law (IRS of course) who found him and got him to the hospital.

Jiang Zemin was in 30th place when he died. Doddie Weir was in 39th place. Ned Rorem was below 200th place. Robert Clary was picked by one person. Six names subbed to date. As nearly half of your top thirty are currently "could go anyday now" picks, this wont be the last substitution update!

72 Baccara – Yes Sir, I can boogie  72 ABBA - The Name of the Game +4 66 Donna Summer - I Feel Love 64 ABBA – Knowing me, knowing you 59 Rod Stewart – I don't want to talk about it / The first cut is the deepest 35 ABBA - Fernando 23 ABBA - Mamma Mia -6 13 The Four Seasons - December 1963 (Oh, what a night)

Japan 0-1 Croatia Brazil 3-0 South Korea Yellow cards - 4

27 more days, is all he needs.

Well done Drol. Expert timing!

72 Baccara – Yes Sir, I can boogie 63 Donna Summer - I Feel Love 61 Rod Stewart – I don't want to talk about it / The first cut is the deepest 60 ABBA – Knowing me, knowing you 48 ABBA - The Name of the Game +4 41 ABBA - Fernando 37 ABBA - Mamma Mia 27 The Four Seasons - December 1963 (Oh, what a night) 8 Elton John & Kiki Dee - Don`t go breaking my heart -6 7 Hot Chocolate – So you win again

According to the rules, yes. Just as well, as the Guardian have been really lax with their musical obits of late.

Wooooo! Enjoy retirement, @Grim Up North - you were an absolute star setting up the Cmme, dealing with the spreadsheets and data entry, telling me off when I got too Glaswegian with the punters. This whole thing would have died a death in 2019 without him. Good luck @Banana - you've been vetted by the best so I have full faith!

We all knew Ryuichi Sakamoto was very ill. His throat cancer has spread to both lungs. Of note for the DL Cmme and probably the Drop 40, Sakamoto reveals in the build to his likely final public performance (already recorded in advance months ago), that he was given a prognosis of around six months to live.... in early May 2020. (DI pointed out the cancer diagnosis was before Playing the Piano 2020, not 2022.)