dead Freddie Laker

[Guest iain]

top business tycoon Sir Freddie Laker has died tonight at 83.

[Guest iain]

been confirmed now

[Tempus Fugit 214]

Does he really need his own thread?

 

If it's true then one DDP hit for "Condi's Ill-Considered Probabilities"

[Canadian Paul 97]

Does he really need his own thread?

"The answer, is no."

 

--Leonard Nimoy

 

 

[Topics merged -- MH]

[Posts moved back-- MH]

Edited February 13, 2006 by Magere Hein

[Octopus of Odstock 2,215]

top business tycoon Sir Freddie Laker has died tonight at 82.more details to follow

Well, I've seen this on Wikipedia too, but only Wikipedia - no other news reports yet. (23.30pm GMT). Mind, I said the same about Heinrich Harrer, so by the time I've finished me other jobs tonight, I'll check again.

[Octopus of Odstock 2,215]

Just as I was off to sleep, it's come through, from Reuters.

 

Source: Laker dead

[VSBfromH 74]

Just as I was off to sleep, it's come through, from Reuters.

 

Source: Laker dead

God, OOO, you must be important for Reuters to be wiring you!

[Octopus of Odstock 2,215]

[/url]

God, OOO, you must be important for Reuters to be wiring you!

 

Sorry, I rather DID give that impression didn't I?

Basically, I just put "Laker" into "google news" search to see if anything came up & lo & behold it did.

[Guest Guest]

Here's the BBC news link about Laker ..... guess you can say he's got his wings ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4699372.stm

[Dr Hackenslash 25]

It's a shame to hear about Freddie Laker, but I thought I would share a few stories about him with you all.

 

I went to the same school as he did, in Canterbury, Kent - although a few years later.

 

His name was on the honours board but no-one really talked about him, which seemed a bit odd. So one day we asked why.

 

It turned out he was a tear-away at school and was kicked out at 13. Just before he left, he was called into the headmaster's office.

 

The head told young Freddie that he had thrown his life away, and asked what he was going to do with himself.

 

Freddie replied: "I am going to make a million pounds."

 

The head snapped and threw him out for not respecting his elders. The last thing he shouted was "you'll never amount to anything, Laker!"

 

Of course, he made the first chunk of his money in a pretty controversial way, it must be said.

 

When the RAF were desperate for planes to take part in the Berlin air-lift, Laker held them to ransom and charged them ludicrously high amounts to use his aircraft as they couldn't refuse.

[Josco 49]

I held Sir Freddie in high esteem. I would dearly have liked to meet him. In fact I feel the idea for a thread here.

 

What would you have asked a deceased celebrity if you had had the chance whilst they were still alive?

Edited February 10, 2006 by Josco

[Lady Die 63]

What would you have asked a deceased celebrity if you had had the chance whilst they were still alive?

I'd have asked Princess Diana "Why are you getting in that Mercedes with that pisshead driving?"

[Guest death valley]

I would like to know had Freddy Laker been considered by the deathlist team to go on the list this year, or had he simply slipped through your fingers and not been considered at all.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,366]

What would you have asked a deceased celebrity if you had had the chance whilst they were still alive?

I'd have asked the late Jesus Christ, how exactly he did turn that water in to wine. I might have been on to a nice little earner there.

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

It's a shame to hear about Freddie Laker, but I thought I would share a few stories about him with you all.

 

I went to the same school as he did, in Canterbury, Kent - although a few years later.

 

His name was on the honours board but no-one really talked about him, which seemed a bit odd. So one day we asked why.

 

It turned out he was a tear-away at school and was kicked out at 13. Just before he left, he was called into the headmaster's office.

 

The head told young Freddie that he had thrown his life away, and asked what he was going to do with himself.

 

Freddie replied: "I am going to make a million pounds."

 

The head snapped and threw him out for not respecting his elders. The last thing he shouted was "you'll never amount to anything, Laker!"

 

Of course, he made the first chunk of his money in a pretty controversial way, it must be said.

 

When the RAF were desperate for planes to take part in the Berlin air-lift, Laker held them to ransom and charged them ludicrously high amounts to use his aircraft as they couldn't refuse.

plus he got one of the Los Angeles basketball teams named after him

[Guest iain]

I would like to know had Freddy Laker been considered by the deathlist team to go on the list this year, or had he simply slipped through your fingers and not been considered at all.

another slip up im afraid!

[Tempus Fugit 214]

I would like to know had Freddy Laker been considered by the deathlist team to go on the list this year, or had he simply slipped through your fingers and not been considered at all.

another slip up im afraid!

Not sure about that, I don't think he'd been reported ill or anything.

 

Unlike Rugova and Shelley Winters, now they were real misses.

[BrunoBrimley 86]

plus he got one of the Los Angeles basketball teams named after him

Not even close........

The Lakers began in the days of the BAA and back then in the 1940's were the Minneapolis Lakers which makes sense when yu think of Minneapolis MInnesota and Minnesota is the land of a thousand lakes and land of Lakes butter and so the Lakers. Big George Mikan ruled the floor and the boards back then and helped create basketballs first dynasty as the Lakers won several connsecutive championships.

 

 

Around 1960 The Minneapolis Lakers headed west and landed with Elgin Baylor in Los Angeles and soon became the Los Angeles Lakers.

 

 

 

At no time did Freddy have a share in Lakers basketball. Laker was actually terrified of basketball because in certain lighting and from a particular angle his head looked like a basketbaLL and so any time he was near a place where basketball might be played he was in a panicked state that some big basketball player would mistake his head for a ball and try to slam dunk it into the basket.

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

plus he got one of the Los Angeles basketball teams named after him

Not even close........

The Lakers began in the days of the BAA and back then in the 1940's were the Minneapolis Lakers which makes sense when yu think of Minneapolis MInnesota and Minnesota is the land of a thousand lakes and land of Lakes butter and so the Lakers. Big George Mikan ruled the floor and the boards back then and helped create basketballs first dynasty as the Lakers won several connsecutive championships.

 

 

Around 1960 The Minneapolis Lakers headed west and landed with Elgin Baylor in Los Angeles and soon became the Los Angeles Lakers.

 

 

 

At no time did Freddy have a share in Lakers basketball. Laker was actually terrified of basketball because in certain lighting and from a particular angle his head looked like a basketbaLL and so any time he was near a place where basketball might be played he was in a panicked state that some big basketball player would mistake his head for a ball and try to slam dunk it into the basket.

Not true. Back in the '40's, a young Freddie Laker was looking to expand to the lucrative US market. Because of Prohibition, a foreigner wasn't allowed to own an airline, but he could have a sports team. Laker knew he had to be in LA - New York was run by the Mob back then. Everything was need to know, you scratch mine, and the like. There was no room for Joey Colangelo or the Baretti brothers, much less a Brit on a wing and a prayer. But owning an LA team would be too much. Too soon. Might raise suspicions. So J. Edgar Hoover fixed it that Freddie would get a nice, safe Midwestern franchise. There were lakes nearby, so the name sort of fit, but think about - there's no such thing as a "laker", is there?

 

Freddie was told to cool his heels, lie low, not ruffle the wrong feathers. His time would come. And it did. First with Mikan, illegitimate child of Franklin Rooseveldt and the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Lead by the eight foot gentle giant, and his patented "hoop" shot, the Lakers were barnstormers, taking on all comers, once playing before two hundred thousand in Yankee Stadium. And Freddie raked it in. The gate receipts, home and away. Concessions, TV rights, the lot. All Freddie's. And he shipped most of it back to Britain in a trunk.

 

When Freddie became too big for Minnesota he was allowed to head for the coast. Once there, he set up Hughes Air West and within five years controlled all flights in and out of LAX. Foreign and domestic. It's a little-known fact (at least to Mr. Brimley, apparently) that to this day, the estate of Freddie Laker still has the final say on all basketball decisions for the Los Angeles Lakers.

[BrunoBrimley 86]

Your facts are all made up Rommie. It's knowen that Laker was nobodys child, he was hatched in an alien space garden from cross pollination between two alien beings (one of whom may have been Janet Reno). Laker touched a basketball once and became deathly ill and was forced to fly solo on Qantas.

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

OK, BB, you got me. Congrats on your soon to be 1,000th post. I just went through 500. Felt not bad.

[Tempus Fugit 214]

OK, BB, you got me.  Congrats on your soon to be 1,000th post.  I just went through 500.  Felt not bad.

Congratulations to both of you bullshitters.

[Guest Peggy Pureheart]

It is not as if you are offering anything of substance yourself T.F.