DevonDeathTrip

Seeing as you mentioned him, here's his signature, before and after he was tortured.

Not that I'd want to be seen to be going out of my way to defend Rolf Harris, but it should be noted his conviction for assaulting Wendy Wild was quashed upon appeal. The evidence for this particular offence was tenuous at best and almost resulted in Harris' other convictions against different victims being quashed as well, because his defence team argued that Wild's false testimony had turned the jury against him. In the event, the other eleven convictions were upheld. The Mirror have removed the story describing Wild as a victim from their site.

So, I was reading about American cyclist Lawson Craddock, who broke his shoulder on the opening stage of this year's Tour De France. This would be enough to make most mere mortals quit the race on the spot, but pro-cyclists know how to suffer and Craddock has kept going, in agony, through nine stages and is still in the race. This made me think of other examples of sportsmen battling through adversity. For example rugby's Wayne Shelford didn't let having his scrotum stapled back together stop him completing a match. Not did Japanese Olympic gymnast Shun Fujimoto consider a broken knee any good reason to deter him from taking part in the rings exercise, achieving a perfect dismount from eight feet above the ground. Anyway, I thought I'd start a thread about sports men and women who, for better or worse, fight their way through the pain barrier. Feel free to post contemporary and historical examples here.

June Spencer is 100 today She was interviewed just now on R4 and says she has no plans to retire.

Worrying that I might not get many more opportunities, I've just taken the plunge and booked tickets to see John Prine in concert on Sept 6th, so I hope his dodgy lungs continue to function for at least that long. Edit - I decided to make a Prine thread, just because I can and because I think he's brilliant For the uninitiated, here's an 80s performance of Speed of the Sound of Loneliness. Apart from the song, the pained look he gets from bassist/vocalist and soon to be ex-wife Rachel right at the end is something to behold.

Alan 'Hownling Laud' Hope, 77, de facto leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, might be worth keeping an eye on. He was unsuccessful in his latest attempt (his twentieth!) to become an MP at night's Peterborough by election, but of interest to us is something I heard on the radio about him being unwell and not able to manage much campaigning these days. He tends to pop up at any by election of note, so if he doesn't stand at the next one, it might indicate something serious about his health.

The author Kate Figes, a DDP pick, has been ominously quiet on her Twitter and Facebook pages for several weeks now. Although, to be fair, most of her Twitter output consisted of retweeting pro-Remain twaddle, so she might have given up on the fight for European solidarity rather than the fight for life itself.

I've been following the trial of Carl Beech, aka 'Nick', this week and note that the former head of the armed forces, Lord Bramall, 95, who was falsely accused by Beech of being part of a gang of sadistic child abusers, will not be giving evidence due to his declining health and frailty. As an aside, if Beech is found guilty, the chances of him topping himself might be fairly high.

Yep, he played in a dire Exeter side towards the end of his career and once got into an altercation with a linesman, threatening to tear off the happless assistant's ear during a dispute about an offside decision. I kind of admired his passion, given we were three nil down at the time.

Retired Croatian music teacher Frane Selak, the world's luckiest (or unluckiest) man, is going to be ninety next month. So far Selak has survived seven near death experiences, five marriages and a lottery win. From his Wiki page:

A truly godforsaken place if ever there was one.

You sure that wasn't your breathalyzer reading?

Pretty sure it's going to be one of 4-Real, Dodi, Gazza, Osama, or Remain.

A very Cornish demise to report: Death by Obby Oss?

I'm quite proud of my record of once staying awake for just a few hours short of a week. (Was at a techno festival and wanted to get my money's worth)

Mack Vann, 83, one of the last surviving monoglot Cherokee speakers. Wikipedia list of last speakers of languages here, some of whom are still living...

Posts moved to correct thread. RIP Edward Kelsey, a quite brilliant actor who I will miss terribly.

Perhaps you could think about why? I mean really think about it for several minutes.

Former President of Peru, Alan Garcia, in an 'extremely serious condition' after shooting himself in the head.

Some of Elton John's backing band - Davey Johnson (guitar), Nigel Olsson (drums) and Ray Cooper (percussion) - have been performing with him for the best part of fifty years and are probably all highly obitable in their own right. No idea about their health though. I can't say I'm a great admirer of his work, but am guessing he must be a good boss to have inspired such loyalty from his troops.

Máire 'Baba' Brennan, 94, mother of Enya and three of the five members of Clannad - the other two were her brothers - is 'nearing the end', according to a folkie podcast I was just listening to...

Good stuff. I like it when Deathlisters report back after seeing potential candidates in person. No better way of studying the form IMO. Interesting Garfunkel isn't doing the whole of Bridge Over Troubled Water anymore. That oxygen sapping last verse could induce a heart attack all by itself...

Some useless trivia, Babs and Bobby Fischer were in the same class at high school and they used to eat lunch together. (I know this because I'm currently reading End Game , Fischer's rather excellent biography)

On a lighter note, I see that the infamous Neil Horan has his own peculiar take on the Brexit debate.

I quite like the idea of the sharp shock as a result of No Deal and then watching as society recalibrates itself. If the unfolding catastrophe is as bad as some have predicted (it won't be) then I maintain that a subsequent election will deliver us a left-wing rather than a right-wing government. Indeed I can see some parallels here with Labour's landslide victory of 1945. There will be blood on the streets if we end up subverting the will of the people by cancelling Brexit. There is nothing wrong with giving the Establishment a good kicking every now and again and I'm afraid I don't have much time for a rather shrill minority of Remainers who seem to have temporarily eschewed the very notion of democracy in order to loudly dictate what should happen next. That said, I do recognise that this is a subject which continues to raise strong emotions and I have some sympathy with those who are upset about the referendum result. Their experience seems to me to mirror the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance...this clamour for a new referendum looks distinctly like the bargaining stage to me. Sadly, I fear it may be a very long time before many progress to acceptance.