En Passant

Aye, I had an idea that may have been the case but was too lazy to check it . Even so, that didn't stop the press and mejia banging on about Zowie Bowie. There's more than one case of it around though, Geldof, Mr humanitarian, Mr fathers rights, yes I'm looking at you... start at home eh? Ok, it's just a name, but it's not the parent that has to live with it. My only conclusion as to why they do it, is an ego the size of a planet. It bugs me that's all.

These people should be shot. Self satisfied egotistical pillock, change your own damn name to Maggie. (um, that's him not you phantom...). "He can change it if he doesn't like it when he's older"? With any luck, he'll be the one that shoots you. Whilst there is all this hand wringing about Bowie going on, for all his qualities he was guilty of this too, no wonder the director of "Moon" refers to himself as Duncan Jones. Yes it's not sexual, but I'd still call it child abuse.

He played Penny's ex-husband in Just Good Friends. (Sylvia Kay is still alive.. Just sayin) So, the only 2 roles we can recall, he was, basically, a "bit of a chump" in then. I used to think they were just being "luvvies" when they worried about typecasting, maybe there's something in it after all....

Hindsights wonderful innit? Are we going to be calling "big" (huge, enormous, unforgiveable oversight....) on every famous person that carks it that isn't on the list?

What an awful word, obitability* surely... *For the avoidance of doubt this is no more a word than the other one.

Edit: That postimage.org wasn't playing ball earlier, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Tried with microsofts one drive doodad, but the direct way of linking doesn't end .jpg so was disallowed here. Tried another way... ok, I'm falling asleep with the tedium of this...

Without wishing to further bore lardy or massively prolong the 'feck all to do with gazza' off topicness, I always understood rounding, either up or down, as being the removal of inconsequential fractions for the purposes of clarity (it may have other more specific uses if one is a statistician or mathematician, however I am neither, as spotted by hein), however rounding 50% to 100% (or 0%) isn't exactly inconsequential.

Seems I should have added a bit more or had more thought before I posted earlier My Parents, grandparents, and their siblings all died over 80, the eldest 93. I can't imagine living another 10 let alone 40. And I express my condolence to family, friends, and fans of Motorhead legend Ian Lemmy Kilmeister. I partied with him as well Bollocks. And it's Kilmister. Thanks for the insightful thought provoking reply. I have always liked intelligent conversation. To be fair, Lardy, Lemmy must have partied with loads of people, so some of them are bound to crop up. Can semi confirm he wasn't in the slightest elitist either, was at a gig they did way back when in what iirc was at the time "The Music Machine" in Camden Town. I was a wet behind the ears late teen, so oh 1980 or so I guess. Before the gig the man was playing "winners stays on" or the like with the punters at the pool table by the bar.

Feek peak? So good you have her twice Mary. and Zsa Zsa.... Probably me misunderstanding the rules though, I keep considering entering these comps but by the time i figure out who I want in it, its about January the 17th, oh wait....

How on earth is it any different from Lardy's joke a few posts above about the guy boning his dog and his wife tasting the evidence? What is it about sheep that got you so riled? because he had to show me images of the sheep fucking. Avert your eyes then. The fact that this so offends your sensibilities does not mean everyone else should be barred from having a laugh at it. NB. I'd have thought that simply taking the time to register on this site and taking part rather than sniping as "Mr Appalled Guest of Croydon" was the sign of an open mind, apparently not.

They weren't even on my radar, love.

The time prior to my birth didn't bother me in the slightest, I don't expect the time subsequent to my departure to concern me much either. The method of transition is however a matter of concern.

Spoilsport, I'll just have to go and look it up now. Anyway, in that case, rounding a "percentage" from 50% to 100% makes no sense to me.

Too dense, still don't get it. Particularly with regard to percentiles, 50% rounded to 100% makes an absolute mockery of using a percentage in the first place to my eyes.

Nobody, and for the same reason as Mary and EF. NB. Didn't they try and curve ball us about this elitist by birth thing by handing out gongs to milkmen and the like to show how egalitarian it all was? Instead of taking the logical option and binning the whole thing.

Why would you round 50 to 100? Don't follow that at all. Besides, it appears that the dictionary people already say it is OK to use it, I'm simply being recalcitrant, contrary and perhaps overly stubborn in my dislke of it.

Yeah, I agree, almost unique is not unique, just like an almost fatal incident is not fatal, or almost identical dresses differ in something. Since I studied a bit of mathematical analysis, "nearly infinite" feels way worse to me. One can define the concept of being "near" a number (like zero or one), and sometimes one has to use that when dealing with limits etc. But you can't be near infinity unless you like non-standard analysis. I've been thinking about this a bit in the depths of what passes for my grey matter (yes that's sad, I know, I know....) What happens if you apply this mathematical analysis to two of something? Surely if there are two of something then one of them is now only 50% of those in existence, and 50% isn't almost or even nearly 100%. (Perhaps I should find a member whose views I vehemently disagree with and insult them, it seems to make for far more interesting reading for third parties..).

I'm glad he was able to keep it quiet if that's what he wanted. A fuck you to the corpse chasing media and indirectly to wankers like us. I reckon there's a few dozen would get similar coverage if they died unexpectedly like Bowie: Prince Mick Jagger Jimmy Page Brian May Paul McCartney John Lydon Ringo Starr Bob Geldolf Bono Tina Turner Bob Dylan Bruce Springsteen Surviving Bee Gees Madonna Billy Joel Lars Ulrich Stevie Wonder Lionel Richie Leonard Cohen Bruce Dickinson Elton John Any member of Pink Floyd Roger Taylor (or any member of The Who) Cliff Richard Any member of Abba what about the two greatest artists of all time Roger Waters and David Gilmore of pink Floyd.Any one member of U2. Bono, edge and er...... Alice Cooper, Janet Jackson, Dolly Parton, Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, Steven Tyler, Eric Clapton, Grace Jones, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Morrissey...to name few Oh come on, Dolly Parton was never in U2.

I'd be content as a starter with "what" is a low rate alcoholic?

What's wrong with it, at least in my view is, if there's another one, it's not unique and that's that. Doesn't really matter what the item in question is, coins, planes, anything. Two of them and unique is out of the ballpark. Sure in common usage everyone understands this as "extremely rare" and trying to find superlatives to convey the meaning of "almost unique" possibly isn't that straightforward, hence its use, but to me, it sounds as bad as "nearly infinite", which is yet another can of worms. Oddly enough I'm not really a grammar nazi (my own english isn't up to that close an inspection for a start), just some common uses grate a little. Edit to add: I did look up your linky, and whilst I cannot argue that they do have almost listed, I still do not like it

It's very fatal without the needle though. Argh, I can't stop myself.... You cannot have "very fatal". It's either fatal, or it isn't. See also...."nearly unique".... Ahhhh, that's better.

I see, we'll have a brand new Alan Rickman thread because he deserves one (agreed) and it's such a surprise, so he didn't have one before (agreed). Then fill it with blather about hobnobs (disagree, and puhlease).

On the offchance there is anyone who hasn't already seen Ed Byrnes near legendary slating of the lack of any actual irony in this song....its here. Personally my new years resolution has just become "Do all my xmas shopping before September (and subsist on canned food for 3 months)" simply to avoid having to hear Wham's "Last Christmas" ever again. Or, now I come to think of it, "Do they sodding know its bloody christmas" or "Merry farking christmas everybody" or "A (presumably drunk and lost) spaceman came travelling..." or, or, or, or well you get the gist. I cannot tell you how much sympathy I feel for anyone working in retail over the xmas period, I'd be suicidal/homicidal.

I had always considered "the list" to be people the average resident of the uk would have heard of, have I been labouring under a misapprehension? I appreciate that Sir C and a number of others are not uk residents, however calling someone relatively unknown in the UK a "big miss" for a UK centric list seems inappropriate. Likewise folks famous in baseball, gridiron, basketball, nascar etc. aren't people most in the UK will be familiar with. We aren't likely to know much about aussie rules either (as an example) and nobody that I've seen has suggested we should. I always considered this quite separate from "obitable" and thus a good pick for a personal team. Now, I may well not be even close to "average" but I'd never heard of Pat Harrington Jr.