msc 18,498 Posted November 22, 2022 Hmm, not really looked much into this yet of course. A few bits and bobs to keep the brain distracted from events, but anyway, you know those picks you stumble across, 50/50 for an obit or death at best, which you are really tempted on as an "exciting pick"? One day I will learn to ignore them and go for the slow but steady surefire Drop 40 name instead. Also, my longlist of Notable Oldies was long enough, and now I've stumbled across a very notable person surprisingly alive (they were interviewed) and much older than I thought, and even more surprisingly, has never been picked in the DDP before. Almost too good not to use, that one. Oh, and one lost thing just to annoy the 10 people who will now Google for 20 minutes trying to work out who it is. Turns out one of my Deathrace only names is likely the Isabel Torres QO-lock of 2023 instead. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YoungWillz 21,090 Posted November 22, 2022 5 minutes ago, msc said: Also, my longlist of Notable Oldies was long enough, and now I've stumbled across a very notable person surprisingly alive (they were interviewed) and much older than I thought, and even more surprisingly, has never been picked in the DDP before. Almost too good not to use, that one. Cue a Gooseberry Crumble spoiler pick.... 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Banana 859 Posted November 22, 2022 On 20/11/2022 at 02:36, An Fear Beag said: I greatly admire the dedication of players who keep longlists during the year and start working on shortlists in November. I usually start drawing up a shortlist the day before I submit the team. It normally gets up to about 30 names that I have scavenged from a quick hunt through my previous year's team, the previous year's top-10 teams, and a quick perusal of this site. Then I spend about an hour trimming down the team, and a year regretting my decisions! It will probably never be a winning strategy, but it's done ok so far. But major kudos to those of you who work hard at this - you have my utmost respect!. Personally, I just maintain a master list and give all picks a priority and likelihood of QO'ing. Every other month or so I'll go through and update priorities as needed. Then when it comes down to the wire, I'll ignore those who I don't think have a chance at QO'ing then I get a decent crop of picks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Banana 859 Posted November 22, 2022 6 hours ago, msc said: Oh, and one lost thing just to annoy the 10 people who will now Google for 20 minutes trying to work out who it is. Turns out one of my Deathrace only names is likely the Isabel Torres QO-lock of 2023 instead. I'm like 90% positive I know who you're talking about. I think a lot of people will have them under the radar. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arghton 6,789 Posted November 23, 2022 Not sure yet if I'm going to participate in a lot of pools atleast in a "serious" way in 2023 due to personal reasons . However I know of a few names who are very ill or ill and old and aren't popular picks... • Religious leader, former DDP pick as far as I know last picked over five years ago and a large enough name to obit, BBC have done some stuff on him, strong rumors around that he's dying for a while now. (I intend to either pick or mention the name somewhere before 1 Jan) • Artist who "worked on" a very popular character known by likely everyone here for a pretty long time. However, as far as I know never picked or even mentioned anywhere here but I assume he could obit. Very old and suffered a health problem this year that I doubt anyone can recover at that age • "Oh, still alive?" name, quite well known relative (former spouse) of a controversial political personality who left a lasting mark on many countries, frail and seemingly in ill health. • Not from the UK but failed to attend the Queen's funeral and increasingly frail, name that will definitely obit. (Not Constantine II, the ruler of Kuwait or King Salman) • Ill British murderer but not one of the ill British murderers everyone is talking about. • US politician who has declined a lot during the last ten months and judging on how fast it has been I assume he's terminally ill. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Great Uncle Bulgaria 1,298 Posted November 23, 2022 My attempt at a serious team has yielded fewer hits than both my Theme teams so will revert to basically having three of the latter again. I shall as ever do very little research, confine myself to people I have heard of and reuse most of the people who have failed to deliver this year. Lessons learned from this year 1. Don't use people who are big in Early Music, it seems they are not big with any of the QO sources. 2. Ditto principals with D'Oyly Carte Opera (the professional Gilbert & Sullivan opera company that toured the UK for 48 weeks a year until its demise in 1982) 3. Don't pick people because they have amusing/rude names (e.g. M Fuks), this is in itself insufficient to gain a QO. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
msc 18,498 Posted November 23, 2022 41 minutes ago, Great Uncle Bulgaria said: 3. Don't pick people because they have amusing/rude names (e.g. M Fuks), this is in itself insufficient to gain a QO. Tears up shortlist with German football legend Otto Pfister. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YoungWillz 21,090 Posted November 23, 2022 Dick Pound must be a contender... 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Toast 16,171 Posted November 23, 2022 3 hours ago, msc said: Tears up shortlist with German football legend Otto Pfister. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Hemlock 746 Posted November 23, 2022 I'm more of a casual player on here than most. I more or less have my DDP teams set for next year. I have to admit, I'm looking for some uniques that will make @Death Impends have to go to greater lengths of creativity when writing an obit. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Hemlock 746 Posted November 24, 2022 13 hours ago, Great Uncle Bulgaria said: My attempt at a serious team has yielded fewer hits than both my Theme teams so will revert to basically having three of the latter again. I shall as ever do very little research, confine myself to people I have heard of and reuse most of the people who have failed to deliver this year. Lessons learned from this year 1. Don't use people who are big in Early Music, it seems they are not big with any of the QO sources. 2. Ditto principals with D'Oyly Carte Opera (the professional Gilbert & Sullivan opera company that toured the UK for 48 weeks a year until its demise in 1982) 3. Don't pick people because they have amusing/rude names (e.g. M Fuks), this is in itself insufficient to gain a QO. Well, I did score with John Wockenfuss this year. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gcreptile 10,997 Posted November 24, 2022 14 hours ago, Captain Hemlock said: I'm more of a casual player on here than most. I more or less have my DDP teams set for next year. I have to admit, I'm looking for some uniques that will make @death impends have to go to greater lengths of creativity when writing an obit. Those are also actually fun to add into the game. More so than, say, "Amazing Race Australia/USA/Canada Season 6/12/8 contestant XYZ". 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Death Impends 8,012 Posted November 24, 2022 29 minutes ago, gcreptile said: Those are also actually fun to add into the game. More so than, say, "Amazing Race Australia/USA/Canada Season 6/12/8 contestant XYZ". All the effort I put into the second Survivor guy's obit probably speaks to how fun I find those picks! My personal favorite "didn't know them before, but wow, what a fascinating life" hit this year has been Tim Page. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JQW 283 Posted November 24, 2022 I've now dropped one of the three picks who recently left a post, as they've evidently found something similar elsewhere. I've not made any progress as to what's happening to the other two. I've also found a photo of one of my other picks on the website of their local newspaper, looking unrecognisable, so they're staying. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RadGuy 1,614 Posted November 26, 2022 Spent the past two days browsing the dark corners of the Internet for news on a potential unique of mine (who probably won't even QO), trying to figure out more info on their seemingly advanced cancer, only to find out that it was stage 3a and in remission. There's always room for Bob Barker... 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JQW 283 Posted November 27, 2022 The acquaintance who tipped me off that Mark E Smith was in a bad way after attending what turned out to be The Fall's last ever gig has just notified me of someone else in a similar state after attending one of their gigs outside of the UK yesterday. I'm now mulling over whether to add them or not, as they may not get a QO. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gooseberry Crumble 5,347 Posted November 27, 2022 A little bit of serendipity in my family home dovetailed nicely with a media interview in recent months that popped up on my YouTube recommended to watch suggestions a few days ago. Nicely and elegantly leading me to drop one name of my shortlist and replace it straight away with a new one. Makes me feel this new name was destined to be on my list and its extremely likely to be a unique. So my lists are coming along a lot better than I'd expected. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chel 376 Posted November 27, 2022 I only have Siamese twins. Please advise which branch to place them in. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Perhaps 1,425 Posted November 30, 2022 By the looks of it my main DDP team for next year will either be a bloodbath, or I've misjudged the possible demises of a good 80% of my list a year too early. Hard to tell this year. I find September-December diagnosis reveals can be quite difficult to judge whether they'll topple in the upcoming year or will cling on for the year after. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YoungWillz 21,090 Posted December 1, 2022 Ah, December 1st. The day I begin fully compiling my teams in anticipation of the annual e-mail. Good luck to the Committee as usual, and in particular to @Banana in his new role. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Joey Russ 7,241 Posted December 3, 2022 I feel like your daily mail FFBI articles have been getting much less clicks recently due to the FFBI ban because now I’m seeing multiple cases where they put an actual name in the headline only for it to turn out that they are a complete fucking nobody. So annoying really 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Spade_Cooley 9,571 Posted December 5, 2022 I have one (1) solitary should-be-a-QO name that hasn't been reported on any major news sites, and I'm 95% sure they'll drop dead by January 1st. Still, it's a start. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Banana 859 Posted December 5, 2022 This should be a real interesting year for DDP. Seems like there's an abundance of terminal cases to choose from. As for AO, I have a preliminary roster. Over half of my names are either fringe/non-starters. Even after that I still feel like my replacements make up a pretty good team. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YoungWillz 21,090 Posted December 6, 2022 No struggles. My main team and Comedy Team are complete. I have 17 names for the TOTP team, before researching a single name. That might change, of course. Did you know that Andy Taylor had left Duran Duran by the time they reached the charts in 1987? Lawdy, lock unlocked! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gcreptile 10,997 Posted December 6, 2022 I wonder if the abundance of terminal diagnoses is the predicted cancer wave post-corona. But then many of the names in circulation have had the cancer for years, so it would not be cases of missed diagnoses, but rather neglected treatment. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites