Twelvetrees

I pipped you at the post, old bean. Perhaps, but IMHO he belongs here rather than in some extra-curricular backwater. The man was a living legend, and besides, having checked the records, he is the first scorer to have died of Legionnaire's Disease in a January since Maurice Stump-Oliphant in 1873. Without intending to have a pop at a fine poster such as yourself, TT, this thread is a glorified wikipedia deaths page for those too lazy or unimaginative to acquaint themselves with and utilise these fora's infinitely interesting highways and byways. IMHO. Long live the 'backwaters' and down with The Dead - the spiritual home of iain. Hmmmm...I can tell that my weak attempts at humour have failed you, and I feel as though I have never been damned with fainter praise. By the way, if you are going to use Latin (the use of fora, which I applaud), you may wish to acquaint yourself with English and the correct use of the possessive pronoun. You should, of course, have said foras'. This may not have translated easily, so perhaps a better suggestion would have been "the highways and byways of these fora". Not that I wish to be pedantic - just that I am by nature.

I pipped you at the post, old bean. Perhaps, but IMHO he belongs here rather than in some extra-curricular backwater. The man was a living legend, and besides, having checked the records, he is the first scorer to have died of Legionnaire's Disease in a January since Maurice Stump-Oliphant in 1873.

The cricket statistician and Bearded Wonder Bill Frindall has died at the age 69 after contracting Legionnaire's Disease.

You might be interested in David Frith's book 'By Their Own Hand - a Study of Cricket's Suicides'. Some tragic tales to cheer you through the Winter evenings.

The Dear Leader appears to have named his youngest son, Jong Un, as his successor. Given that the lad is but 24, maybe he is giving a message that he intends on hanging around for a while. However, reading the article it might also seem that his other sons are simply not up to the job, and he may be pre-empting an imminent power vacuum.

I'm a bit late on this...2008 wasn't a great year. Anyway my gf and I, both fans of modern art and me a member of the Tate, popped in to the Turner Prize exhibition after seeing the Francis Bacon one (various pictures of ugly meat). At the end, there was a room with two large tables strewn with daubed paper - evidently it was a room where you could record your opinions of the exhibition. Both of us independently thought it was one of the entries. In my opinion, it should have won. In case you think I'm pandering to the populist vote, I went to the Cy Twombly exhibition three times - loved it and even bought the t-shirt.

Great...another competition I can lose! Team name Wake Up and Smell the Coffin, in alphabetical order (oh yes) Licia Albanese Milton Babbitt Inge Borkh Merce Cunningham Lisa Della Casa Billy Graham Ted Kennedy Oliver Knussen Dai Llewellyn (joker) Wendy Richard Bobby Robson Cesare Siepi Rise Stevens Patrick Swayze Giuseppe Taddei John Tavener Blanche Thebom Wayne Thiebaud Doku Umarov George Whitman

The Irish politcian, journalist and diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien has died at the age of 91.

Re:- Wendy, heard the other day that someone with bone cancer lasted 4 years. I plumped for Ted. Yes, but Wendy did seem in a rush - and media releases can often presage death. In the meantime, from the list, Swayze will be doing the dirty dance soonest.

Neither are deathlist material, but I have to mention two cricketers. The 19th century English batsman of possible Scottish-Jewish ancestry Israel Haggis, and the teenaged Indian batsman Napoleon Einstein; I'm guessing his relatives have no theory of hubris.

Martha 'Sunny' von Bulow has died after 28 years in a coma. So she never found out who John Ross III's father really was, then...

Former Australian batsman Paul Hibbert has been found dead at the age of 56, beating his Test best score by 43.

But some people turn the illness into a surrogate career. So - for example - Jane Tomlinson went on for ages and gained high profile publicity, and still kept people guessing so well that she survived some deadpool nominations in the years before she died. Why does it matter how a person became famous? They're either famous or not. Should we discriminate against those who became famous for criminal activities, e.g.? It's not a morality play, just a game to predict which celebrities will die. Does Paris Hilton "deserve" to be a celebrity any more than Terry Schiavo? Quite right. Famous people have feelings too... Kent Brockman's Two Cents says...yes, Jane Tomlinson became famous by dealing with adversity - she battled her illness through nationally recognised (OED spelling) achievement, thereby, IMHO, hurdling the fame barrier. The bar, however, does have to be drawn somewhere - and some terminally ill yokel, however sad their plight, who appears in the Trowbridge Presdigitator, does not limbo. Octopus has to set the bar, and I will happily conform to his decision. Peace. But, with Jane Tomlinson, the fact remains that she was not famous before becoming ill, so by that token she would not qualify if that was the criteria. Not that I care, I'm rubbish at this bloody game. Criterion. Apart from that I agree entirely, I was just pointing out that I'd rather not be in any of Odstock's four pairs of shoes. And I'm even more useless than you as my current DDP performance shows - however I put that down partly to the fact I'd never choose a self-diagnosed target myself - it's the moral equivalent of stalking the cancer ward for free grapes. Cheer-oh!

But some people turn the illness into a surrogate career. So - for example - Jane Tomlinson went on for ages and gained high profile publicity, and still kept people guessing so well that she survived some deadpool nominations in the years before she died. Why does it matter how a person became famous? They're either famous or not. Should we discriminate against those who became famous for criminal activities, e.g.? It's not a morality play, just a game to predict which celebrities will die. Does Paris Hilton "deserve" to be a celebrity any more than Terry Schiavo? Quite right. Famous people have feelings too... Kent Brockman's Two Cents says...yes, Jane Tomlinson became famous by dealing with adversity - she battled her illness through nationally recognised (OED spelling) achievement, thereby, IMHO, hurdling the fame barrier. The bar, however, does have to be drawn somewhere - and some terminally ill yokel, however sad their plight, who appears in the Trowbridge Presdigitator, does not limbo. Octopus has to set the bar, and I will happily conform to his decision. Peace.

The fomer leader of Taiwan, Chen Shui Bian has been hospitalized (yes, that's the correct English spelling according to the OED) whilst on hunger strike. It's just a cry for help.

Klugman. Left field choice.

A vicar books into an hotel and says to the receptionist "I trust that the pornography channel on my television is disabled". "Not at all, sir." she replies "It's just regular porn, you sick bastard."

Just a couple of thoughts. Regarding The Guardian. Yes, it has become lazy, but as it is a site that carries obits. that others may not, I think it worth persevering with, and it's not as though AP feeds are uniformly grossly inaccurate. I would add The Torygraph to those mentioned, I guess it's there by default, but as it tends to carry more military obits., it may be worthy of mentioning in dipsatches. Would you also consider naming the International Herald Tribune for our ex-colonial entrants? I don't care, but in a kind of hands-across-the-ocean-please-don't-let-Sarah-Palin-anywhere-near-a-nuclear-device kind of way, it might be nice. As someome who managed to pick seventeen unique picks this year, I wouldn't care to see extra points just for choosing them. It's a dead pool, not a selection contest. I took the gamble and lost. I don't need charity, just a global cold snap in the next three months.

The avant-garde composer Mauricio Kagel has died at the age of 76. Born in Argentina, he emigrated to Germany in 1957, thereby reversing a recent trend.

Reports are around of the death of former Laotian President Nouhak Phoumsavanh at the age of 94 (rather than the 98 quoted in the IHT article). I mention it only because I am desperate for some DDP points.

Peter Glossop, the great British baritone of the 1960s has died at the age of 80. Perhaps the thought of this was too much for him.

The mystery deepens. Kim (or his double) failed to appear at one of those interminable weapons parades so beloved of Communist regimes. I mean, if something was going to tempt him into public, surely standing still for hours saluting missiles would have done it?

OOOFF! A man I met several times, mainly at Fortean Times Unconventions. A presence that could fill a room etc etc. Didn't know half as much as he made out about mystery animals, mind. But he was a great showman, Mary - I too remember him from Unconventions, where his nasal half-demented monologues were the highlight of the weekend for me (were you there for the gastromancy lecture with a young woman by the name of Mouse, a bucket of foamy water and a funnel?). I also submit that his translation of Macbeth into pidgin improved significantly on the original. A sad loss.

John Esmonde, who with Bob Larbey co-scripted The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles has died at 71. Looks like another excuse for repeats on the BBC, then.

Only where you have been before, time and time again. This is me getting off your roundabout.