JQW

The guest count will be the number of active sessions currently in the session table, which will start to drop shortly when the sessions begin to expire. Guest will still be logged, but won't be able to get beyond the main screen so should go away.

The guests could possibly be many instances of a mis-configured search engine's bot indexing the site. Board software like this usually detects bots and handles them appropriately, often by comparing them with a list of known bots. However, occasionally they're not detected, and are treated as multiple active guest user sessions instead - but it's usually an easy task to add a new bot to the list and have it automatically detected.

Well, there's Humphrey Smith, the miserable sod who owns the Sam Smith's brewery. There will be a lot of celebrating, particular in Tadcaster, when the old scrote finally pegs it.

Various high strength Christmas themed guest beers in a local pub - can't remember their names, and can't be bothered to head back to the bar to find out. Incidentally one of my former DDP joker picks in in here too. Still very much alive, but he has crashed out of the Isle Of Man TT twice, so it's only by luck that he's still here at all!

I've had two entries on my shortlist die in the past week. I've also learnt that the reason behind someone's absence from the thing they regularly do has nothing to do with health reasons, so they've been dropped from the list too.

Steve Halliwell has died - just announced on ITV's 1:30pm news.

Nigel Starmer-Smith to be revealed during SPOTY to have died earlier this year off-radar.

Mine is down to about 40 picks, plus the names on my current list. I've identified a couple of definite QOs who seem to be seriously ill, and who weren't picked by anyone last year. There's a couple of others who may have already passed on, too - I may find out more when the end-of-year lists come our later. I've also got a few picks whose QO chances are slim who may not make the cut. As for theme teams I may only enter the jazz one this time. It's had a few hits this year and I can easily find more entries to add to it.

It's also now too late to guarantee that such legalisation will pass through the House Of Lords before a General Election. The Parliament Act can be used to force a bill through the Lords, but needs a 12 month delay, and there's simply not enough time for a bill to pass all other stages before then.

Not sure which section this goes in, so putting it here. Geoff Davies, founder of Liverpool record shop Probe Records, and its spin-off label Probe Plus (home of Half Man Half Biscuit until 2021) has died.

He was competing in the Tour of Britain which ended on Sunday, helping his Jumbo-Visma team-mate Wout Van Aert to the title. Jumbo-Visma are also competing in the Vuelta a España, currently holding the top three places after 16 stages.

I was unlucky enough to catch an early 1980s variety comedy show named Funnybone whose star attraction was the new comedy duo Cheese & Onion. They were dreadful, the show never made it to a second series, and they split up a couple of years later.

Cliff Richard and Lulu had their own Saturday night shows, and they're still with us.

In 1949, Sonny Rollins was one of the five musicians who took part in a Bud Powell recording session for Blue Note, which later appeared on the first side of the album The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1. Rollins is not the only musician from that session still alive, as drummer Roy Haynes is also still with us. The trumpeter on that session, Fats Navarro, died back in 1950.

Theakston's Old Peculier. Hic!

John Gibson, programmer of many games over many decades, reportedly dead. https://twitter.com/JazRignall/status/1683130749648764929

I almost want to unblock Diego.

He was on his show last night, apparently. Byline Times deliberately launched the article just after his show started.

They could of course be well-known for something else other than their position as a TV presenter.

He could be some local radio presenter or regional news host. Or someone whose role as a presenter is somewhat slight. I can recall a news story from a few years ago, pertaining to a musician of some sort who got sent down for sexual offences. One of the right-wing newspapers labelled him as "BBC Man" as he was once part of an orchestra that appeared on a single BBC TV show.

If I've remembered it correctly, he played a few dates with the band in December 1960 after their first return from Hamburg, prior to McCartney switching to bass.

He's touring the western United States with his All Starr Band starting in about two weeks time.

Possibly unrelated, but Putin was seen heading at speed in a convoy to the Kremlin about an hour ago, at around 10pm Moscow time.

QO For Kenneth McAlpine. Kenneth McAlpine obituary | Motor sport | The Guardian