JQW

Apparently within the past hour BBC Scotland's television coverage of Nicola Sturgeon's testimony was suddenly cut to archive footage of Prince Philip. Has he pegged it?

Chris Barber, aged 90. RIP Chris Barber (1930-2021) – News, reviews, features and comment from the London jazz scene and beyond (londonjazznews.com)

Perhaps there's not really much wrong with Philip, and it's all just a ruse to delay the broadcast of Megan's interview with Oprah Winfrey scheduled for this weekend?

If it's the one I think it is it's just a dull sport interview.

Does that mean he'll be bringing back his Hitler Moustache tour?

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue producer Iain Pattinson dies, aged 71. https://twitter.com/pbjmanagement/status/1361324797087657987

He's well known in England too. He used to appear in a couple of inserts within Grandstand each week - one previewing the upcoming Scottish games, and the other offering a match report during Final Score.

Music biographer Johnny Rogan, aged 67. Johnny Rogan, leading music biographer, dies, aged 67 (irishtimes.com)

I got 32 points in 2018 when my joker TT racer William Dunlop crashed in a minor motorcycle race. The following year I purposely picked for my joker another TT racer whose birthday happened to occur during TT fortnight - only for all racing on that day to be cancelled due to bad weather.

Alf Patrick certainly did serve - he was in the Royal Engineers.

Frank McDiarmid, cartoonist behind Cheeky Weekly, 85: In Memoriam: “Master of Cheekery”, comic artist Frank McDiarmid – downthetubes.net

Circus owner Gerry Cottle, 75. Gerry Cottle - Wikipedia

Choice one never made the final cut in the end, although I may keep them for next year if things get worse. I found some info on them in late December which seems to indicate that they're not in a really bad way at the moment. Choice two was indeed Robert Powell. I noticed him making a charity appeal during one commercial break, and he looked awful. I've not seen that commercial since, and they may have pulled it as broadcast regulations prevent commercials airing if anyone appearing in it has recently died - (or at least they used to). Choice three is Dave Edmunds. He was missing from a BBC4 documentary on a recording studio that aired early last year, despite making a major contribution to the workings of that studio. I assumed something was wrong, so decided to add him. I've already spotted someone suitable for next year - they've stopped doing voiceovers for something all of a sudden. Of course it may simply be that their contract expired at the end of last year, or they've been prevented from doing so due to lockdown/shielding issues. I've got 11 months to find out!

Just checked my list, everything seems to be in order, with 5 unique picks. There's something seriously amiss with the Arthur's Theme Theme Team with many duplicate entries.

I'd go for the skier Hanni Wenzel. She won two gold medals and a silver at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Submitted my entry at least. Had to make several more changes over the past few days, dropping one good pick until next year.

Grammy winning songwriter, Geoff Stephens, aged 86. There's currently no citation for his death. Geoff Stephens - Wikipedia

There's some rumours flying around that's he's died, but it won't be announced until the weekend. It's most probably nonsense.

None of those four picks I thought wouldn't last have yet died, although one of them is barely clinging on at the moment and I still feel that they might not make it. However another one of my picks did pop their clogs earlier this week - I'd even got as far as filling in the spreadsheet with their name, and was considering sending it off, when news emerged.

I've some doubts over one of my picks - a terminally ill sportsperson. They don't seem to be as big a name in their sport as they claim, and could be considered more as a Famous For Being Ill person who used to do some sport on the side, and therefore won't count. Furthermore there's been no updates on their various social media pages for some time, and they could have already died.

He featured in a segment a few minutes earlier, along with the three members of the England 1966 World Cup winning team.

Well, as least three of my picks were in hospital as of yesterday, and another has been moved to a hospice.

I wont be submitting my entry just yet - I've three or four picks who may not make it to the end of the month (or even week!). I don't want to go through the palaver of assigning extra reserves, so I'll wait to see what happens to them. No doubt I'll submit my list in two weeks time, only for one of them to peg it on the 31st!

You've obviously never had to use an Amstrad PC, then! Horrible cheap nasty plastic rubbish that wasn't quite fully PC compatible.

Charley Pride, aged 86, of Covid-19 complications: https://twitter.com/kurtbardella/status/1337854988694020098