Bibliogryphon

Listening to the Today programme this morning there was an interview with Jens Stoltenberg and I wondered how many Secretary Generals of NATO were still alive. The answer is 7 and our Peter is the oldest. Peter Carrington (b.1919) Willy Claes (b.1938) Javier Solana (b.1942) George Robertson (b.1946) Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (b.1948) Anders Fogh Rasmussen (b. 1953) Jens Stoltenberg (b.1959)

Horribly Detailed

I lived in Cheltenham and hated Gold Cup week. Drivers leaving the race course had no respect for cyclists and horse racing punters were unable to distinguish the different functions between public phone boxes and public conveniences.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is an excellent comedy.

Rather reduced my hope that Kate Wilhelm gets a mention.

Jim Bowen my 5th hit here.

That means that I am going to have to resort to bombarding the Guardian obits twitter feed with covers of her books. I might add in Julian May and David Fisher just to make a point about anti SF snobbery.

Does the LA Times count for Kate Wilhelm?

Good day to bury bad news.

Hugo Award Winners (Best Novel) Years Won Name born 1971 Larry Niven 1938 1976, 1998 Joe Haldeman 1943 1979 Vonda N. McIntyre 1948 1981 Joan D. Vinge 1948 1982, 1989 C J Cherryh 1942 1984, 1988 David Brin 1950 1985 William Gibson 1948 1986, 1987 Orson Scott Card 1951 1990 Dan Simmons 1948 1991, 1992, 1995, 2004 Lois McMaster Bujold 1949 1993, 2000, 2007 Vernor Vinge 1944 1993, 1999, 2011 Connie Willis 1945 1994, 1997 Kim Stanley Robinson 1952 1996 Neal Stephenson 1959 2001 J.K. Rowling 1965 2002, 2009 Neil Gaiman 1960 2003 Robert J Sawyer 1960 2005 Susanna Clarke 1959 2006 Robert Charles Wilson 1953 2008 Michael Chabon 1963 2010 Paolo Bacigalapo 1972 2010 China Melville 1972 2012 Jo Walton 1964 2013 John Scalzi 1969 2014 Anne Leckie 1966 2015 Cixin Liu 1963 2015 (TRANS) Ken Liu 1973 2016, 2017 N K Jemisin 1972

Both Ken Dodd and Roger Bannister are prime contenders.

Guardian Journalist and environmental campaigner George Monbiot joins the latest line of people to reveal they have Prostate cancer

Larry Niven is now the oldest and earliest winner of the Hugo award for best novel. The only one born before 1940. I have the complete list if any one is interested.

Michael Cashmen met 92 year old former colleague and fellow leftie, Leonard Fenton, outside Denville Hall and took a selfie.

Try Sir Robert Stephens

Another A DDP theme team hit for me but I gave her up in 20/20

Today is day 68 for the year. In two of the past five years we were at four deaths by this stage but for last years record breaker. The third hit did not come until 20th March.

That man is a menace.

I have just completed my annual cross reference of my 1000 name long list against the DDP. My long list excludes picks that are on my main game list ~500 who would be the more common names. The following 20 people have not been DDP picks in the years I have been carrying out this cross reference. William McPherson – Judge (b.1926) Babs Chinnery – Beverly Sister (b.1927) Tony Soper – Naturalist (b. 1929) Lynne Reid-Banks – Writer (b. 1929) Jack Higgins – Writer (b. 1929) Les Vandyke – Songwriter (b.1931) Mona Hammond – Actress (b.1931) Brian Trueman – Presenter (b.1932) Antonia Fraser – Writer (b.1932) Ray Cooney – Actor/Director (b.1932) Shirley Conran - Writer (b.1932) Michael Frayn – Writer (b.1933) Dianne Fienstein - Politician (b.1933) Annette Crosbie - Actress (b.1934) Sheila Steafel - Actress (b.1935) Gary Player - Golfer (b.1935) David McKee - Writer (b.1935) Michael Eavis - Farmer (b.1935) Susan Cooper - Writer (b.1935) Jan Pienkowski - Illustrator (b.1936) It probably says more about my long list than about the DDP but there are a couple of interesting names in there.

Wow that takes me back a bit. You never hear that on the radio do you? I remember going to see that film at the old ABC cinema in Leicester. Which was so long ago the building that replaced it is now probably going to be demolished.

Yes I said Town Franklin's Gardens is in the region of the town known as St James. The year after we went to Franklin's Garden we held the conference at Sixfields that was even worse.

Presumably that nickname Saints for Southampton comes from Southampton Town but they also play/played at St Mary's. Northampton Town play at St. James's. I once went to a conference there. It was awful.

A new definition of Stranger Danger.

Please no. I am surrounded by Northampton Saints fans here but everyone knows the best Rugby Union team is/was Leicester Tigers.

On Twitter Toby Hadoke when he did an obit for Peter Wyngarde was asked about David Fisher and his reply was I can only do what I am asked to do.