Bibliogryphon

Faith No More

In the Deathlist 2014 thread I actually pinned the 7th November. I think this was my most recent post on the subject so I will stick with it.

Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901. Therefore there are only 16 Victorians left who are verified the youngest of whom is Opal Thompson who was born on 13 January 1901. Not even enough for a DDP team.

The Duke of Marlborough dies aged 88 This means that the 12th Duke is Jamie Spencer-Churchill, formally the Marquis of Blandford who has led a less than clean living life.

Are there documented victims of this curse?

I have just drafted brief biogs for my 2015 DDP picks who were not picked this year. Expect eight deaths to blow my work out of the water.

Then again, if he stays out do we want to get excited about the life expectancy of his current girlfriend? There you go shooting off again...

You dipstick

Is there any indication about when that photo was taken?

I don't think we should get too excited by this headline about Oscar Pistorius because I suspect it means he won't be going to prison

I am not going to Quote because it takes up too much space. But to answer your previous point I have not seen that ephitet used for RTD and would never use that myself but my thoughts on the new series are as such: I was sceptical when it was annouced it would come back and I kept my distance but one day in 2005 Radio 4 played a trailer which just has the TARDIS noise and a clip of the themetune and I suddenly found myself genuinely excited. I watched the first series and I thought Christopher Eccleston was brilliant but when I went back to watch the episodes again (as DW fans do) I realised he was too good and his performance papered over the cracks in the writing. What RTD was doing was emasculating the Doctor things happened and tended to be resolved by deus ex machina rather than the Doctor doing something and he spent a lot of time justifying the villans. I think this is a personal agenda thing but I won't go there now. When David Tennant took over this became more obvious and I mostly gave up although there were a few genuinely good episodes such as Blink. I decided to give it a go again when Matt Smith took over because I trusted Stephen Moffett as a writer and his first two seasons were very good but the third series and this later series you end up with stories that are either to rushed and incomprehensible or very, very basic and fit within the 50 minute episode length. I like Peter Capaldi's performance but am still waiting to be wowed by the stories. However there is a bit of The memory cheats whilst classic DW is better paced about 25% of it is awful, 25% is brilliant and 50% is solid family entertainment. A good party trick is to get two or more fans together and try to get them to agree on which episodes fit in each category. I know that recently I have allowed myself to be dragged into a lot of long conversations but I put this down to distinct lack of action on the Death front.

Ehh........ he only used an X-ray so it's not like he was employing cutting-edge stuff just for this purpose. Also, people have been going to lengths to either protect of verify valuables for yonks. You're just picking on this guy because it's Star Wars. Which is fine by me, carry on. I do have to be careful here glasshouses and all that. Some people might suggest that someone who owns over 300 Doctor Who books shouldn't criticise collectors of Star Wars figures. Some people might suggest you didn't have to tell us that. *backs away slowly while muttering "God I hope they're just paperbacks"* Yeah they are paperbacks and have been read not hermetically sealed in plastic bags. Hypocrisy is still hypocrisy even if no-one knows it. Hahaha good......., thought so. Had no fucking idea they've made that many books though...... There's way worse stuff than Dr. Who fandom IMO anyway, even as much as I don't like the show. And I get a "likes the old version more than the new" vibe from you so you get a pass or summat. I used to enjoy watching the old show a bit but I dislike the new one so much it's soured it for me. I have plenty of dorky stuff too of course but I keep it in the wrestling thread mostly. Everyone is an anorak of some kind these days FFS. You seem to have read me right

Ehh........ he only used an X-ray so it's not like he was employing cutting-edge stuff just for this purpose. Also, people have been going to lengths to either protect of verify valuables for yonks. You're just picking on this guy because it's Star Wars. Which is fine by me, carry on. I do have to be careful here glasshouses and all that. Some people might suggest that someone who owns over 300 Doctor Who books shouldn't criticise collectors of Star Wars figures. Some people might suggest you didn't have to tell us that. *backs away slowly while muttering "God I hope they're just paperbacks"* Yeah they are paperbacks and have been read not hermetically sealed in plastic bags. Hypocrisy is still hypocrisy even if no-one knows it.

Ehh........ he only used an X-ray so it's not like he was employing cutting-edge stuff just for this purpose. Also, people have been going to lengths to either protect of verify valuables for yonks. You're just picking on this guy because it's Star Wars. Which is fine by me, carry on. I do have to be careful here glasshouses and all that. Some people might suggest that someone who owns over 300 Doctor Who books shouldn't criticise collectors of Star Wars figures.

Is it me or is using high tech scientific equipment to see which Star Wars figure is in a box the height of decadence

Sad. I have to admit I have never watched that one but everyone speaks very highly of it. As a kid, I had the Dr Who Technical Manual and I was absolutely fascinated by the design of the villain's spaceship in this one. It looks great! It is one worth seeking out Douglas Adams' script is very witty and the whole cast are on top form. They use location filming in Paris gratuitously. The good news for DW book fans is that Gareth Roberts adaptation is released next year following his excellent take on Shada.

At least, Chemberlain was in a position to go to war against Germany if he wanted to, although he knew well that it wouldn't be easy or advantageous to Britain, so he had good reasons to try to avoid the inevitable. On the other hand, from a practical point of view, Australia is no match for Russia. The world's second most powerful nuclear superpower vs. a lesser NATO member that doesn't even have an independent foreign policy. Maybe the economic sanctions will hurt them? Oh well, the bilateral trade accounts for less than 1% of the total for both countries; Russia does have investments there, but overall they are moderately important trade partners for each other. (Of course, the Ukraine is even less important for the Aussies, so that's why they should've kept to business as usual (and shouldn't have meddled in Russian affairs). Isn't Mr Abbott's beef about the responsibility the Russians have for the Deaths of Australian citizens aboard the Malaysian Airlines flight. Although I haven't heard the Dutch Prime Minister make similar threats.

Doctor Who director Michael Hayes has died. Directed The City of Death which is considered to be one of the best episodes ever.

Does this count as an obituary for Jane Baker? No vested interest she was not my pick.

I was surprised that no-one picked up on this recent snippet of news to suggest that Tony Blair might have more to worry about than his own messianic peace crusade. Once a target always a target?

They were probably both doing their annual phone rounds to get inside information for their DDP teams.

This is so frustrating. It is over a month since Paisley went and at the time I thought we were on a roll after two deaths in August. There is so much potential on the list all of the top 10 could keel over at any moment. But even the deaths that are happening off-list are either relatively obscure or complete shocks (like Lynsey de Paul).I am waiting for a big one.

Ah, you'll love this. This topic started as a Doctor Who topic and there was an 'other UK scifi' one. They got merged. regards, Hein I think that is a reasonable answer.

The logical choice would be Nimoy. But he might deposit his katra somewhere and come back from the dead again! At least Shatner's Kirk has stayed dead (up until now, any rate.) Just one other point on Trek in general: I have learned over the past few years that its popularity fluctuates dramatically from country to country. Here in Australia (and I think the UK would be similar) the early Trek films were considered, by most kids and causal viewers, to be more or less on a par with the Star Wars films. In other words, a Star Wars film would come out one year, then a Trek the next and so on, with Trek's popularity culminating with the aforementioned Voyage Home. After that, people lost interest and it has never really regained its appeal. Even the Abrams films were greeted with half-full cinemas here, despite the presence of Eric Bana in the first one. In the US however, Trek apparently had a huge stigma due to the cult of Trekkies and a lot of JJ Abrams' effort in the recent films has been an attempt to make the series cool. In the non-English speaking world, Trek has never been popular in many markets at all and is barely known, compared to the immense popularity of Star Wars. They did some surveys when the Abrams films came out and compared them with the recent X-Men and Wolverine films that were out at around the same time. Whereas X-Men and Wolverine had a nearly 50-50 split between domestic US and international box office earnings, Abrams' trek was something like a 70-30 split. Star Trek Into Darkness did better and started to gain traction in markets such as Mexico and parts of Asia but it has a long way to go until it is considered a mainstream franchise. In mainland Europe, it still has virtually no traction. (As mentioned above, one interesting market is Germany: because of TNG's success, more people went to see Insurrection and Nemesis at the box office than went to see either of the Abrams' films). Conclusion from all of this: the non-English speaking world has good taste. Where I work may not be represntative of the rest of the UK but I know some hard core trekkies. Including someone high up in the official Patrick Stewart fan club.

Genuine question. Should this forum be split into Doctor Who and another one for everything else Blake's 7, Starcops, Sapphire & Steel etc?