Vinegar Tits

Really sad news about Shane Briant. I used chat with him on Twitter quite a bit around eight years ago and he was lovely. He was also *stunningly* gorgeous when he was young. RIP.

Sad news about Lorrae Desmond. I always liked her in A Country Practice. I had my eye on her purely down to age (though she seemed spritely on her 90th birthday) and was considering her for next year.

I adore Annie Nightingale - I'm of the Request Show/revising for exams era - but she does sound like she wears exceptionally ill-fitting dentures these days.

Second one is Martin Bell.

I wasn't much of a Bay City Rollers fan (I was 2/3 at their height), though used to watch Shang-A-Lang religiously, and I was always a Derek fan (yes, I know, a bit problematic...) this is really, really sad news and yet another piece of childhood gone. "Died suddenly" sounds like a heart attack to me. Anyway, RIP.

The last time I saw the Duchess of Kent was when Jana Novotna died. She looked frail but well. Admittedly this is now over three years ago so her health may have deteriorated since.

I thought she wasn't getting any more corgis/dorgis due to her age? EDIT - two new pups, Fergus and Muick. Aww.

I don't care how shameless they are, they wouldn't dare. It would look appalling for both the Met and the government. Being heavy handed at a murdered woman's vigil was bad enough and rightly garnered a lot of ill feeling, but they couldn't get away with such action with this.

As tends to be the case with generations, The Queen at 94 seems as spritely as the Queen Mum (Gawd Bless 'Er) was at 80, and has had fewer fish bone mishaps too. To beat her mum she's got another eight years to go which, given it's nearly 10 years since the Olympics and that was like *yesterday*, will fly by. A sobering thought. The last thing the UK needs at the moment is for her to go too. Long may she reign and all that!

Reminds me of the Kitty quote: "And what has China ever given the world? Can you really respect a nation that's never taken to cutlery?"

Absolutely. Unlike Diana, his death has not come out of the blue. For those of us who like the minutiae of such things it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Cripes! Sad if not unexpected news. Genuinely sorry for The Queen. State funeral I presume? And with lockdown ending I guess there'll be crowds. Actually, I can see people gathering round Buckingham Palace now - would the police really threaten to arrest them on such an occasion? And good to see the DL servers have not crashed this time - they did when Thatcher died, EDIT - FFS, just noticed I didn't have him in my DDP. Still, not many points...

"Seems" like Brian's having a breakdown? He's been a bit, umm, odd for a while - conspiracy stuff, all the stuff Danniella Westbrook is calling him out over.

Babes In Toyland were big in alternative and indie circles in the early/mid 90s and toured extensively in the UK. I expect Kat will get an obit in somewhere like The Guardian, especially due to her links to Courtney Love (who famously nicked her style).

I'd heard she was in a hospice. Sounds pretty grave to put it mildly. Met Lori (and the rest of the band) numerous times back in the day, Lori in particular was always super nice. I've got loads of old photos - I'll dig some out when the time comes.

Haven't got proper confirmation other than this Reddit thread but Babes In Toyland guitarist-singer Kat Bjelland has stage 4 liver failure and is not eligible for a transplant. Really sad news. They were always phenomenal live, and also were responsible for my first - and last - stagedive and the only time I've been properly assaulted at a gig (some arsehole thumped me right in the face at Reading 1993).

So many? I think I could manage 10 max at the moment.

See also Almaty, Colombo and Lagos. I'M TOO OLD TO BE LEARNING NEW CAPITAL CITIES

I have too many Dutch friends to call NL 'Holland'...been there, done that, had people hissing through gritted teeth "Holland's a province". Saying that, you rarely hear the Dutch football team being referred to as 'The Netherlands'. Odd.

Me and Kate Bush quite liked Theresa May and had hopes for her. Your point? And before anyone pipes up "Tory!", lest we forget Kate wrote (admittedly in jest for a Comic Strip film) 'Ken'.

Bollocks. Bollocks. The Queen or Paul McCartney, probably. I'd say Cliff but there'll be too much snide and snark when he goes, sadly.

That's my opinion too. He was just someone who happened to get lucky that his charity walk went viral and ballooned. That's it. Plus he was of the generation that fought in WW2 - I stress I don't know the full details and only going by Wikipedia, but while I can't imagine serving in Burma was a bundle of laughs, I can't find anything that suggests heroism above and beyond the call of duty, nor was he a POW. Though it can be argued all those who fought in the war were heroes, there's nothing to suggest he was anyone special. Just a nice, ordinary man who got lucky late in life with a news story that blew up. All that said, RIP. Sad news, but not unexpected.

Granted Aung San Suu Kyi is by far the most famous person from Burma, but Richard Beckinsale was famously half-Burmese (and so Kate and Samantha are also part-Burmese). Also the radio reviewer/writer Sue Arnold is half-Burmese - I wish I'd known she was more-or-less blind when I worked with her as it used to drive mad trying to type what she was dictating, I thought she was just making it up on the hoof. Oops.

I still use Burma and Rangoon too. Mind you, I still say Calcutta and apparently Bangalore was renamed 'Bengaluru' in 2007! No, me neither. My main problem with 'Myanmar' is that I'm not sure how to pronounce it - I've heard both Mee-anmar and My-anmar on the BBC, which is normally a good arbiter on such things.

I'd go with Diana Rigg for September too. I know Ruth Bader Ginsburg was important but she didn't marry James Bond or kick ass in The Avengers, did she? As for August - I'd go for John Hume (I'd say Benny Chan but his death got surprisingly little coverage considering the films he made). I genuinely have little idea who Chadwick Boseman was as I have zero interest in the Marvel franchise.