Imelda

At this point Harold Bishop might be in with a shout...

A dated statement, no visuals. Only proves he's still (probably) alive. A lot of people can still talk in coherent sentences shortly before keeling over. Or in Hawking's case, get a computer voice to do so for you. If we see him high-fiving Alexis Tsipras in the next few months I might be a bit less cynical...

It's great that newsrooms all round are packed with anal types who bought albums and probably smoked a few big ones to them back in the day. The range of stuff you can hear in TV docs etc is amazing. Re-watched a BBC documentary about IK Brunel yesterday (yeah the one for the Greatest Britons series but it's actually rather good) and it had slabs of Pete Namlook and Aphex Twin in it. Someone somewhere was having a laugh, but it actually all works rather well in context, certainly the use of Rhubarb as background for the tragic failure of the SS Great Eastern and Brunel's death. The BBC of course do not have to pay for any music they use, so the aural world is their oyster.

One for the 'surprised he was still alive' thread. Will get out Abigail's Party DVD tonight and give the big beardy bugger a toast.

My first hit of 2015! Couldn't even gloat this morning as my work blocks this as a 'bad taste' website. The cheek! And an interesting article, Crime and punishment: Islamic State vs Saudi Arabia http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/crime-and-punishment-islamic-state-vs-saudi-arabia-1588245666 For those who can't be arsed to click the link, the gist is that they're pretty much the same.

The dead can't sue - so it's open season if there genuinely is anything remotely fishy. In amongst all the Saville stuff are probably things that may well not stand up in court (rightly or wrongly) but there's no person (or inclination) to prove otherwise now.

Enjoyed the first series but it all went a bit downhill after that. Oddly enough I had a fleeting thought about putting her on my longlist over Xmas...

Interesting to speculate whether a similar chain of events would have taken place about signing for a club if it wasn't Evans and instead someone of rather higher stature. I suspect not.

http://www.etonline.com/news/154476_watch_michael_douglas_sneak_up_on_his_legendary_dad/ - from November. This is not someone who looks to be shuffling off anytime soon.

89! Wow, she's still going strong as well. I think she'll be with us for a while yet.

Done. Hope this doesn't start everyone wanting the word Not in front of their name ;-) Thanking you

Given the increasing popularity of the DP in the Nags (and the fact that I am not in any way connected to the place beyond being a way-too-regular regular) it'd be best if could change my name to NotTheNagsHeadReading - thanks

Watched the documentary last night - it was an exemplary example of the genre, IMO: http://www.bbc.co.uk...ics-and-frauds. Absolutely worth 85 minutes of your time - much more than just a run-through of his exposés of frauds and charlatans. It's incredible to think that people are so desperate to keep on believing even now despite the fact that he showed - time and time again - that it's all bunkum. Reminds me of how a lot of senior management works at places I've jobbed in... The highlight: When he was still a young man appearing in Toronto nightclubs and pretending to predict the future, Randall Zwinge created what he hoped would be his greatest trick. Each night before he went to bed, he wrote the date on the back of a business card along with the words “I, Randall Zwinge, will die today.” Then he signed it and placed it in his wallet. That way, if he were knocked down in the street or killed by a freak accident, whoever went through his effects would discover the most shocking prophecy he ever made. Zwinge kept at it for years. Each night, he tore up one card and wrote out a new one for the next day. But nothing fatal befell him; in the end, having wasted hundreds of business cards, he gave up in frustration. “I never got lucky,” he told me.

Worth reviving this after watching the really rather good (read: not taking the viewer for a dribbling Heat-reading moron) BBC4 documentary on the Soviet side of the space race: http://www.bbc.co.uk...-the-space-race Many of those early pioneers who are still with us (on both sides) are well into their 70's now and quite a few are obit-worthy, certainly any space-walkers and moon-landers.

Gazza is pretty much a cert for 2015. But as Dr. Zorders, says, it's depressing. If he'd have been at an enlightened club back in the 80's/90's who recognised and understood his mental health issues and got him referred properly, would things be different now? Were there any though?

Dropped her from my list a couple of years back, didn't even make my reserves this year. Damn. RIP Dora.

Not quite. *snort*

Rik Mayall - shocker http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-27770266

Finally hit number 2. Been a slow start this year.

Who you gonna call? The morgue, sadly.

Top Shirley Temple quote: "I stopped believing in Santa Claus at the age of six when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph."

No chance - the man's a narcissist.

Roger Lloyd-Pack AKA Trigger just gone... http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-25762006 Cheerio Dave

http://www.theguardi...odhead-teaching There are few giants in education as big as Chris Woodhead. Love him or loathe him, his tenure as chief inspector of schools was full of incident and drama. His rows with the teaching profession were legendary: the claim, just months into the job, that 15,000 teachers were incompetent and should be sacked set the tone of his relationship with the profession. His rows with the then education secretary, David Blunkett, were just as memorable. He left in 2000. And if you trust Wikipedia (though most it matches up with my memory): OFSTED Woodhead was appointed head of the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), the schools inspection service, in 1994. Woodhead is particularly associated with support for "traditional teaching methods" and for taking a scornful view of "progressive educational theories" introduced into English schools from the 1960s onwards. Supporters claimed that Woodhead was a radical reformer willing to tackle the failings of the education system and only encountering the defensiveness of the educational establishment. Critics argued that he was generating poor morale, rarely identified successes in schools, and that the "progressive teaching" he attacked was a straw man, with little resemblance to actual classroom practices. Woodhead most prominently identified weaknesses in schools with poor teaching and repeatedly asserted this view. Amongst his controversial remarks he claimed there were "15,000 incompetent teachers" and "I am paid to challenge mediocrity, failure and complacency". His blunt approach gained him many enemies, especially in the teaching profession. When the Labour government came to power in 1997 there was much political pressure to replace Woodhead, either immediately or when his initial term expired in 1998, but instead he was retained and his appointment renewed by Education Secretary David Blunkett. In 1999 Woodhead came under immense pressure to resign when it was claimed by his ex-wife Cathy Woodhead (they divorced in 1977) that whilst working as a teacher he had had an affair with a pupil, Amanda Johnston.[7][8] His version of events is also hotly disputed by some former colleagues.[citation needed] However Woodhead stood firm with the support of Blunkett. Woodhead and Johnston insisted that although they had met while he was her teacher, the relationship (which lasted for nine years) had only developed several years later in Oxford after they had both left the Gordano School, near Bristol. He was Head of English at the school from 1974-6. In February 1999 Woodhead addressed an audience of trainee teachers and was asked for his views on legislation to ban sexual relationships between pupils and teachers. His response was that such relationships, while regrettable, could be "experiential and educative on both sides",[9] a remark for which he later apologised. Resignation On 2 November 2000 Woodhead announced his resignation. In February 2005, The Guardian obtained information[10] using the Freedom of Information Act, which confirmed that in 1997 Woodhead had overruled a unanimous decision by his own inspectors, and a subsequent inspection visit by HMI inspectors, in order to declare that Islington Green School was failing and required special measures.[11] According to the head of the school at the time, "the consequences for staff and pupils were catastrophic".