Octopus of Odstock

Tragic, but inevitable.

I didn't miss anyone - those were all the names given on "The Comedians" website. If there's any missing, the site is to blame. Though it is easy to overlook Collier as a "comedian", I grant you.

Sad double bill of news States-wise. Mike Magill, ex-Indy 500 racer has died, aged 86 & Len Sutton, another ex-Indy 500 racer, is suffering from an advanced form of cancer. I hope he pulls through, I know Len personally & his stories & memories themselves are little treasures.

It was sheer hell just researching it. Well, it's taught me one thing. I'm never going to go on a cruise. One or more of the above will bound to be the "star" comedian and there will be no escape. I stand by my reunion & bomb comments.

The IMDB list hardly covers any of it. Typical US bias. After doing some quite basic research, the following:- Russ Abbot .... ALIVE b. 1947 Lennie Bennett .... ALIVE b. 1938. Had a h/a in 1994, but now recovered. Stan Boardman .... ALIVE, sadly. b. 1940 His daughter, Andrea was pretty though. Jim Bowen .... ALIVE b. 1937 Jimmy Bright .... b. 1950, still performing. Duggie Brown .... ALIVE, b. 1940. Sister Lynne Perrie died earlier this year. Roy Walker .... ALIVE - say what you see, say what you see, b. 1940 Charlie Williams .... Alan Brady ?? Mike Burton ?? Dave Butler - ALIVE. Still performing Kenny Cantor - ALIVE. Still performing Jackie Carlton ?? Frank Carson - ALIVE. b. 1926. Still performing. Paddy Cassidy ?? Mike Coyne ?? Colin Crompton Steve Faye ?? Ray Fell - ALIVE. Still performing Eddie Flanagan Stu Francis b. 1951. Still doing panto. Syd Francis (died earlier this year, with barely a mention, MPFC) Alan Fox ALIVE - still performing Mike Goddard - ALIVE. Another cruise comic. Ken Goodwin - ALIVE - still performing. Jackie Hamilton - ALIVE. Later a BBC comedy producer. Jerry Harris ?? Dennis Jones ?? Bobby Knoxall - ALIVE. Got an MBE last year. Still performing, but nearly died 2 years ago due to blood clot in stomach. b. 1934. Bernard Manning - ALIVE, sadly. b. 1930. In poor health lately. Jimmy Marshall Paul Melba - ALIVE, still performing Pat Mooney - ALIVE, still performing Johnny More - still ALIVE, performing. Better known as an impressionist, really. Hector Nicol Tom O'Connor b. 1939- ALIVE Bryn Phillips - ALIVE & performing Colin Price - ALIVE & performing Mike Reid - ALIVE, b. 1940 George Roper Tony Stewart ALIVE - still performing Sammy Thomas ?? Johnny 'Goon' Tweed ?? Johnny Wager - ALIVE & still performing. Jos White ?? Stu Williams ?? Sheps Banjo Boys - all still performing, all ALIVE. Johnny Carroll - ALIVE. Still performing Bob Curtiss - ALIVE. Still performing Ivor Davies - ALIVE Charlie Daze - ALIVE, b. 1938. Still performing Vince Earl - ALIVE - more famous for being in Brookside. b. 1944 Bobby Kaye - ALIVE - still performing (In Colwyn Bay on Saturday, apparently) Mike Kelly - ALIVE - still performing George King - ALIVE Bobby Knutt - ALIVE b. 1945 Mick Miller - ALIVE b. 1950, still performing Hal Nolan - ALIVE. Still performing. Harry Scott - ALIVE. Still performing Paul Shane - ALIVE, sadly, b. 1940 Kenny Smiles - ALIVE. Doing cruises. Paul Squire ALIVE Pat Tansey - ALIVE, still performing, mainly corporate functions Lee Wilson - ALIVE. b. 1938. Still performing. Lenny Windsor - ALIVE, apparently living in Florida. Still does performing on the cruises. The Comedians You know, if they were at a reunion & the reunion meeting place got bombed, I doubt few tears would be shed. Most of these will not get obits, apart from the most famous ones already mentioned. In other words, don't put many of these on your DP lists in the future & concentrate your efforts elsewhere. This lot ain't worth it.

If you read it properly, Tempus wasn't saying that they weren't famous, MPFC, just not likely to die soon.

Dammit, seeing this thread raised my hopes, only to be brought cruelly crashing down. I'm hoping it won't make it till 2007, but I concur with Tempus, that if anyone is making an early shortlist for 2007 that Monsieur Papon is a contender for it.

Frantic activity in the DDP stakes, and the DDP guys are really on top of their game right now. I see our very own Slave in the Grave is in trouble on the front page.

Yep, I knew he had both Parkinsons & dementia, probably a legacy from his footballing days. Having said that, largely as he was under 80, he wasn't as high in my list as I thought when I checked - 88th. Shame. Didn't think much of him as a comic, but he was a nice chap & to have Parkinsons & Alzheimers together is no way for anyone to live their last days out, especially not a happy chap as himself.

The oft-controversial Lionel Pickering, former chairman of Derby County & journalist & publisher, has died of cancer.

DDP list or another one? I'm not sure he would've been a good pick for the DDP due to his non-fame in the UK. Not that it matters now anyway. EDIT - I was forgetting the Guardian, of course, who sure enough have given him an obit. So, apologies, it might well have been a good choice. Again, not that it matters now.

de Klerk back to work I think he's going to pull through, meself, and shouldn't be a contender for DL 2007. But I could be wrong..

Another great write-up of the man in action & his illness. It comes from the Independent and because articles can later turn into subscription only, I'm posting it below. It is from the 20th August. George Melly, Brecon Jazz Festival, Powys Still smokin' By Phil Johnson Published: 20 August 2006 When at last he began to shuffle on from the wings, George Melly appeared, very satisfyingly, to be wearing full female drag: straw sun-hat and red crushed-velvet dress, with striped trackie-bottoms visible underneath. Looking rather like a cross between the eccentric bandleader Sun Ra and his beloved Bessie Smith, Melly then began to shuffle off again, having miscalculated his cue. As he told us, once safely settled into the Rowley Birkin-ish leather armchair from which he performed, the part of his brain that deals with time no longer functions. Cruelly - and as a dedicated Surrealist Melly would appreciate the cruelty - you could say that there's not much else left that functions, either. As he fumbled with the microphone, knocked over a glass of whiskey, and, through deafness, struggled to communicate with the band (Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen, a whole, increasingly strained, hour's-worth of whom we had already sat through), Melly looked a very pale shadow of his former jaunty self. Indeed, this performance was sometimes closer to Krapp's Last Tape than to good-time entertainment. The biggest cheer of the night came when, as the band played on, George insouciantly lit up a cigarette, fagging-it in the jaws of death. But just when one feared the worst, everything started to get better: George, perhaps primed by whiskey and fag, warmed up. His voice, hitherto terribly underpowered, recovered some of the old bellow, and his introductions (always as important a part of his act as the songs) grew longer and funnier. By the time he got round to the dirty version of the Storyville brothel-song "All the Girls Love the Way I Ride", standing up and turning his back to the audience the better to demonstrate correct riding-posture, we were all in an uproar. And it's important to remember that this wasn't any old gig, for Melly is loved in Brecon as a favourite son. With his wife Diana, for many years he owned a tower nearby, where friends such as Bruce Chatwin would come to stay, and he topped the bill of the first Brecon Jazz Festival in 1984. Now in his 80th year (a birthday he celebrated on Thursday), and in obvious poor health, this show was a typically brave, transgressive act by one of the most treasured figures in British cultural life of the last century. By the end, as George popped his eyes theatrically at the ample curves of the charming vocalist Jacqui Dankworth, with whom he was meant to be singing a duet of "Ain't Misbehavin'", it felt like the conclusion of a truly marvellous occasion. Which it wasn't, entirely. But so loved is George that you wouldn't begrudge him anything, especially one last ride.

Economy class, that is.

Chavez visits "improved" Castro or for the Miami Cubans: Raul names rival to cabinet. I think the idea the Miami Herald is pushing is that Fidel must be dying as Raul has made decisions by himself. Seems to me that Raul has to do something to cover his brothers' absence, but I'll let you make up your own minds.

Hah! I wish! I even have to pay my own way to Silverstone I don't really know that many well enough to hang out with, but I'm nodding terms with a few. HJ Stuck is probably the best known, I guess, Ian Stewart (ex-GP & sportscar driver) the closest, I suppose.

God, no. What I'd do, as she loves publicity so much, is to send her to a deserted island where she cannot contact the media at all. And Wank Wank would go to another island, same scenario. I certainly don't want her around OOO Towers. Besides, the motor racing is only a sideline. I have a more mundane job as my main role. Motor racing doesn't pay very much unless you're a top driver.

To mark my 1000th post on DL, I am putting a new avatar up. Hopefully it will stay up for the next 1000 posts* but we shall see on what Jane Tomlinson decides to do. *I am aware that GGOTS was not the avatar for all previous 1000 posts but was pretty darn close. 1,000 posts. Where has my life gone?

I've only heard of four - Rolf Harris, Laurence Llewyllen Bowen, Frank Lloyd Wright and Bryn Williams. Three of them as their Welsh link is slight, and Bryn Williams cos of F1, but he's a photographer. and I'm Welsh. I agree. Art isn't our thing. Stick to singing, rugby, sheep, getting drunk, coal mining & narrow-mindness.

Deal. And I'll use the most sickly sweet one I can find too.

Not only that, but says in the article that if the pain is too much he might go to Holland & enthunaisa. If that counts as a suicide point, and he's under 80, then that's what.. 10 points. Seems reasonable to me. In goes Allen Carr Out goes.. hmm.. maybe Davidson/Ford or Ian Smith.

Hmmm.... sounds like a fake to me. Born in France. (How convienent, so no-one can find your birth certificate in the records) Grew up in an orphanage. (so no-one can check your real name) Was in the desert. Why would he be in the desert in the army in 1925?? (hmmmm) Doesn't have a proper first name. (again, so no one can double check) I reckon he's 80 and is a publicity whore. Dammit, I'm far too cynical. By the way, though, look at that guy in America who retired on his 100th birthday. looked well, people were happy etc etc. Dead within a month. As for the title thread, tell me about it. Bloody Gloria Stuart

Well, she's done well to do it, ill or not ill. But, lets put its this way. This bike ride has taken a lot out of her, as it would anyone. If she is terminally ill (and 6 yrs ill too), then her death shouldn't be too long in coming 'cos she hasn't got anything else to aim for & her body is wrecked. Therefore she should die within 6 months. I bet she won't. Seriously - I'll make a bet on here, similiar to Millwall's Heath bet, that Jane Tomlinson will still be alive in 6 months from now (1 March 2007 - my birthday as it happens - how apt). If she does, I will happily eat humble pie and hang my head in shame.

Likewise your DL football team idea thread. Unless you merge them both together and cheer on Dunstable. (who, as it happens, have made a solid start to the new season)

Not to mention a much better position in the scoreboard as well.