msc

Implied by the fact I am yet to pick him for anything!

That was more to do with money! But in general, he's been on my longlist for a decade now for a reason.

I was thinking Ta Ta, Tata myself but to be fair, whenever I've had a stressful work day, I just remember that once an obit was posted up here for a man called Dick Trickle, and immediately start giggling like a loon, so glasshouses, stones.

Meanwhile Book is going "de fault, the two greatest words in the English language!"

Sidney Noel Wiltshire, George Cross awarded soldier in the 1930s, died in 2003. When he was 20 years old the plane he was in crashed and he went back into the fire to save the life of another man, being badly burned in the process. He got an award for courage which was upgraded to the George Cross in 1944. Here he is!

He's got a pacemaker, a dodgy liver and still drinks heavily. Paul Merson (an alcoholic prone to fallen off the wagon) called him out for this on one of ITV's fluff football shows and it caused a genuine scene which they kept in the finished programme. No way Ruddock sees 60 imo.

Imagine having to travel from Govan to Fort William to lose a cup tie!

12 hours makes it sound like one of the serious ops like the Whipple or the one to slow mesothelioma tbh. Some brain surgeries too. One to watch.

It was wooden and didn't stand up to the amount of people traversing it. Also, it was smaller than the Old Stirling Bridge (pictured below) which has stood since 1500, and that is bloody tiny. Waiting for some of the English to cross this unstable bridge slowly and then bump them off one at a time was a tactical masterstroke, unusual for Scots to show tactical nous in battle. (See our football team.) Just as well the English were bloody minded though, history could have changed if they went "Sod this, we'll just see you at Aberfoyle instead!" "Aww naw, no the Aberfoyle Bridge, I didnae think of that one!"

Ah, just in time for a Winter of Discontent too!

Did you know Mel Gibson spent millions erecting a monument to William Wallace in Stirling so that the locals could appreciate their historical hero. In Stirling. Where there's about a dozen Wallace memorials. The historical ones get the genuine respect you'd imagine. The Gibson one is a common target for vandalism!

As usual with most things TV at the time, Sydney Newman was right. The Pilot has a far gruffer take on the Doctor, dressed in a suit and tie and barking at everyone. In the actual episode, Hartnell plays his lines more distrustful of strangers than evil kidnapper, and adds in his traditional "hmms" "haws" and giggles. The Susan character was drawing Rorschach hexagons on paper and amping up the weird alien stuff too. Plus, shitloads went wrong - from boom mics appearing to, yes, wobbly sets. It's a curio, but the decision to refilm it with the characters written as friendlier, and the thing sharper, was 100% the correct decision. Else we wouldn't be talking about it nearly 60 years later.

Is that a hint?

Btw, Whale and Jerry are already on the DL this year. So it's 17 names. The rest of the top eight I expect on next years list if alive.

The rest of the staff also didn't notice the new games teacher, Mr B Wayne, was famous either, but did appreciate the mysterious cuts in crime numbers all the same.

It's easily in my top 10 too. (And among many other things to enjoy about it, I do like how it broke the Hays Code and got away with it... because the powers that be didn't notice!) Jimmy Stewart's another favourite but then he is in many of the films I love - Rear Window, Harvey, etc.

LFN flagged her up recently too - nursing home with dementia, so probably a good shout.

The Times is genuinely great. They have some great writers on a variety of topics - that''s the one I regret taking out of the budget.

I have hidden depths! (I used to be a regular reader of it, as between that and the leftier papers you could get a decent gist of the news from where they agreed, despite their biases. But all of them have gone downhill so badly in the last decade. I've not renewed in some time.)

@Toast cough cough, excuse this nasty cough...

Ah, you're back to talking about Phyllis Diller again, then?

Hah. I can assure my grandparents were adults then. In fact, my grandfather scheduled his Saturday job so he could be home to watch Doctor Who. He loved shows like that. Only person I know who saw the first episode for sure (because it was brought up a lot in the Radio Times and he thought it'd be interesting, but I don't know if this was on the 23rd November 1963, or the repeat a few days later due to the Kennedy assassination) - but he's long gone now, alas.

So am I! But then my oldies team only has 20 spots and about 120 contenders.

@Toast are all these "Nah, I wasn't born at the time" posts making you feel any better? I have my doubts!