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Bibliogryphon

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Posts posted by Bibliogryphon

  2. Posted

    For those who miss the excitement of predicting which cast member of Last of the Summer Wine will not make it to the end of the series the BBC allows more elderly Northern folks onto our screens with a full series of Still Open All Hours

     

    I didn't see it myself but heard it wasn't up to much. The reason it scored such a high rating was partly nostalgia and the fact it was on Boxing Day, a time when most people are sat vegetating in front of the tv

     

    It was an easy watching piece of TV whimsy but the thing that everyone seemed to think was how much everyone missed Ronnie Barker.

     

    The new series will need to establish something more than just characters coming on and saying all their recognisable lines otherwise it will end up like the later series' of Allo, Allo.

  4. Posted

    On January 30 1649, King Charles I of England was beheaded for "treason". The monarchy was abolished and some tight-arsed bloke called Oliver Cromwell took over for a few years (the monarchy was restored 11 years later).

     

    347px-King_Charles_I_after_original_by_van_Dyck.jpg

     

     

     

    Also, on this day in 2008, British prankster/TV host Jeremy Beadle died aged 59.

     

    beadle.jpg

     

    A barrage of tasteless and cruel jokes about his deformed left hand (and also, messages just generally calling him a twat) soon appeared all over the internet, presumably because so many people around my age(ish) were embarrassed that they felt they "wasted" their childhoods watching his show "Beadle's About" which consisted of elaborate pranks on unwitting members of the public who had been "volunteered" for the pranks by their friends and family, or the show "You've Been Framed" which he presented, in which people sent in home videos of their relatives falling over garden furniture or falling off skateboards or accidentally knocking over a wedding cake or similar "bloopers" like that...

     

    Although there's probably plenty of people who hated the guy's guts at the height of his fame too, but I'll have to defer to some of the older British DLers on that.

     

    Jeremy Beadle was one of the people that inspired me to start deathlisting. His death came as such a surprise we started talking about 'who would of predicted that' and our workplace competition came into being it was several years later that I discovered this site.

     

    JB was very annoying on TV and introduced that sort of game show/public interaction telly that has now come more popular but he had serious opinions and made things happen.

  6. Posted

    First month almost over and no hit in the top 50. This is going to be a frustrating year. Another obvious one missed...

     

    If so obvious, why didn't you have any of the misses on any of your lists?

     

    Picking just 50 people and knowing which one will and will not is a delicate skill. I have a spreadsheet with over 1400 names on it all of whom have some (even if very small) reason for inclusion. If Seeger was so obvious why was he not in the top 40 of peoples DDP teams. When there was discussion over who to drop at the end of last year a number of people said drop Seeger, myself amongst them. The committee have to take decisions, for everyone they include they leave someone out sometimes they make back the wrong hearse but it is their decision. I didn't see many people on 02nd January saying "This is a rubbish list cos Pete Seeger isn't on it"

     

    In my work's game, with 42 players, of people born before 1920 Pete Seeger had the second lowest number of picks behind Sheila Mercier.

  9. Posted

    Paul McCartney and Ringo looked healthy on the Grammys last night.

    They might not be spring chickens these days but they hardly qualify to be included in the 'worlds oldest people' thread :huh:

     

    No but Ringo was photographed with Yoko Ono, who may not be one of the worlds oldest people but she looks like she is.

  11. Posted

    Bernie Madoff has end-stage cancer? Is this new news?? OJ, now Bernie. Does anyone think these guys are just faking to get compassionate release?

     

    They just need a couple of pints of Guiness and everything will be OK.

     

    Er.... eh?

     

    Ernest Saunders...

  12. Posted

    Bernie Madoff has end-stage cancer? Is this new news?? OJ, now Bernie. Does anyone think these guys are just faking to get compassionate release?

     

    They just need a couple of pints of Guiness and everything will be OK.

  14. Posted

    I was recently trying to think of 80s (or older) sitcoms where everyone is still alive and was surprised that Howard and Hilda from Ever Decreasing Circles are both still with us, meaning all the main cast from that are still with us.

     

    Well that's not true now obviously. Did anyone else catch this on BBC4 earlier? It still holds up quite well. So what is the oldest sitcom where all the main cast are still with us? Red Dwarf maybe?

    It might be stretching the definition of sitcom, but The Goodies began in 1970 and all 3 principals are not only still with us but all are still working.

     

    Definitely in the sitcom bracket is Love Thy Neighbour, which began in 1972; all four leads are still with us (Jack Smethurst, Kate Williams, Rudolph Walker and Nina Baden Semper) though the support cast (Tommy Godfrey, Keith Marsh & Paul Luty) have departed.

     

    Not sure I can compete with Love Thy Neighbour but To The Manor Born has its three main leads (Penelope Keith, Angela Thorne & Peter Bowles) and a fair number of bit parts still present as well.

     

    Thought I better get this in before Gerald Sim died.

  16. Posted

    Went to see The Desolation of Smaug at the weekend.

     

    I have now decided to re-read The Hobbit to remind myself what didn't happen in the book.

     

    Know the feeling. For a start, Legolas wasn't in the book. That'll be because Tolkien hadn't thought him up yet. But his presence makes perfect sense.

     

    Whilst I could just about cope with the presence of Legolas as a marketing tool and a link to the LOTR films, the presence of Tauriel and her imagined interspecies romance with Kili is unforgivable.

  18. Posted

    http://www.dailymail...les-throne.html

     

    Prince Charles is slowly being readied to take over . Is she i'll or just wants retirement, maybe as so many people have said on here including me she and Philip will die within a year of each other.

     

    He needs to take over now. I'm getting so bored of the annoying cow who has only lasted this long by being a faceless opinionless diplomat, I want a guy who is willing to have a moan about things....... like bloody carbuncles......

     

    This is missing the point. Charles has the freedom to express his opinions because he is not the monarch when he inherits he will be expected to be constrained by his constitutional role.

     

    These were the shutters referred to previously!

  19. Posted

    In a recent copy of Metro that I picked up I noticed that there is an advert inviting people to apply to be in the studio audience for ITV's unholy resurrection of Surprise, Surprise with Holly Willoughby.

     

    There is a lot of TV that I don't like but my reaction to that is not to watch it but SS I really hate. It is so emotionally manipulative and cringe worthy that I feel angry that everyone else seems to think it is so lovely.

     

    I still think a Deathlist show would be less tasteless.

     

    The only consolation is that I almost dislike HW as much as I dislike SS.

     

    Emma Willis is much better on The Voice than HW but who thought that replacing Rastamouse with 20% (w/w) of JLS would be a good idea is sorely mistaken.

  20. Posted

    Is George Alagiah suffering from anything? I saw 6 O'Clock news on BBC last night and thought he looked terrible. I can find nothing on the web to suggest he is but if not why does he look so bad?

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    I had to tell my 8 year old son off today (with a slight smirk) for visiting the DDP website at school to, in his words, "see how my Dad's teams are doing." It wouldn't be so bad but, as a school governor, I'm expecting a sarky (if not slightly concerned) comment from the head at our next meeting.

    Still, if they will teach kids to use the t'internet at school what do they expect..? :-/

     

    You should highlight the educational benefit of the Deathlist in ensuring that the youth of today know the significance of figures such as Denis Healy, Jimmy Carter and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

     

    Only not the last one....

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

     

     

    Patrick Murray ended up as a homeless alcoholic and now lives in a hotel with Brian "Superstars" Jacks, fwiw.

     

    That bit of information is the sort of thing that might mean he would be worth a pick but with the exception of David Jason I wouldn't be putting any of these on a list in the next two years.

     

    I even thought David Jason looked better than I had seen him recently in Still Open All Hours.

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