snafuI am the one who started this thread and I am the one making the majority of the posts (but thank you all who have posted and let others know – I am certainly not claiming ownership of death announcements!) and, for the most part I would prefer that out of respect for those who have died (even animals) there was little ‘bantering’ type of posts, but I do feel that discussion regarding the people who get mentioned is welcome.
My criteria for mentioning someone/thing is that they were interesting, mentioning them draws attention to their passing since not everybody gets mentioned on the national news media, that it makes a passing of a certain event or era (Lawrence Colburn, above, for example), that my post does not clash with something similar on Historic or possibly other forums here (which I doubt, but I have it in mind all the same) or it brings a smile or maybe gives you the opportunity to possibly raise a glass for the passing of a piece of history.
Ok, I understand that some of you might not agree with what George Michael did, who he was, the way he sang, the things he said or what he represented. Fine. I was not a fan of his music and his antics over the last decade or so will have not endeared him to many (driving under the influence of whatever he was smoking, sniffing, swallowing or injecting – who knows), but he was well known and he does have a range of songs from which to populate a show to his memory; of course so did Rick Parfitt, along with similar methods of getting intoxicated, and I must admit I would prefer listening to some Quo tunes than back-to-back George Michael/Wham songs, but maybe that is a topic for a different thread and maybe a complaining email to Radio 2.
I do feel that bringing up his toilet arrest was a little below the belt and it does remind me of something I heard about a long time ago: in the 1950’s a man was arrested in a gentlemen’s convenience for the same reason. The reason I mention this is that this man was one of ‘The Few’ and had a distinguished service history behind him – before you ask I now don’t know who he was, can’t remember (I was told in a roundabout way, over 25 years ago, by a former copper) but when this man died (and I imagine he has long passed on) would we mention that he served with this squadron, was involved with this battle, shot down this, was damaged there, was awarded that medal and, oh yeah, was charged with performing an indecent act with anther man in a public toilet 10-20 years later? It is part of the story, but do we really have to slip that low and draw upon distasteful events? Or how about the case of one of the soldiers who distinguished himself in the Battle of Mogadishu (famous as Black Hawk Down) who, six years later, was court martialed for sexually assaulting his daughter – need this be mentioned in passing whenever the battle or film are discussed?
George Michael apparently had a habit of doing good things for people who had no other recourse and were certainly not expecting such assistance from anybody, let alone a former ‘boy band’ singer: he gave a woman money to pay for IVF when she failed to win enough in a TV quiz. In addition he regularly worked in charity shops and on charity phone lines, he performed fundraising concerts and did shifts in AIDs wards and cancer hospices. Funny how his personality kept these deeds hidden to allow some people to remember him for that one incident…
And it has just been announced that the actress Liz Smith has died.
Betty Gleadle, MBE (11 December 1921 – 26 December 2016), known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an English character actress, known for her roles as Annie Brandon in I Didn’t Know You Cared, Bette and Aunt Belle in 2point4 Children, as Norma Speakman in the BBC comedy The Royle Family, Letitia Cropley in the BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley and as Zillah In Lark Rise to Candleford.
snafuFor good or bad he is/was regarded as the soundtrack to some people’s lives, they grew up with these noises playing and whether they liked them or not then it is a solid thing for them now: look at the rise of nostalgia radio stations and how the sales of best of compilations from old artists (how many have Queen had, for example?) are doing, or how through the peaks and troughs of popularity with the modern karaoke-esque, here-today-gone-tomorrow production-line, 15 minute wannabes there is a strong showing from yesteryears popular acts in the streaming charts.
2016 has been a year that has had an effect, as far as the obituaries – for the people you will have heard of – are concerned, on just about everyone. Everyone gets older (especially now Elizabeth Taylor really is that age every year) and that means that every day brings you one day closer to your own demise. And the same is true for celebrities: they die, just like everyone else. I am not telling you something you don’t already know, it is just that (for some people) celebrity equals immortality – and in some way these people will live on, just not in the flesh. Some seem to have been ‘stolen’ early, others lived on well after you believed them long gone. Yes, most of these people will have had little influence on the majority of you, maybe even brought feelings of disgust or (at best) apathy to mind but, as I said above, they were the ones who made the soundtrack for some people’s own personal movie, the music that they danced to at the school disco, maybe had their first kiss to, possibly more.
On R2 there have been a few moans that there haven’t been many Status Quo songs played in memory of Rick Parfitt; I guess that is true, but I cannot imagine many people admitting memories of Status Quo at the school disco – from the 80s, anyway – and then there is the seeming blanket of Quo songs that apparently sound the same, the infamous three chord riff, which is something always commented on, but I guess that George Michael’s songs were not all the same and appeal more to the ‘housewives’ that famously make up the traditional listenership of daytime Radio 2, even on Boxing Day.
snafuIndeed – his death even knocked the Queens Christmas speech off the top of the midnight news on Radio 4.
snafuWhile I am here.
She fell to earth, 33,000ft without a parachute – and survived…
Vesna Vulovic, an air stewardess who survived the highest ever fall by a human being after her plane broke up at 33,000ft (10,000m), has died aged 66.
State TV in Vulovic’s home country of Serbia said she was found dead in her apartment in Belgrade. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Vulovic was working on a Yugoslav Airlines Douglas DC-9 on 26 Jan 1972 when a suspected bomb brought the plane down among mountains in Czechoslovakia.
All 27 other passengers and crew died.
According to investigators, Vulovic was trapped by a food cart in the plane’s tail section as it plummeted to earth in freezing temperatures.
The tail landed in a heavily wooded and snow-blanketed part of a moutainside, which was thought to have cushioned the impact.
snafuStatus Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt has died in hospital in Spain aged 68, his manager has said.
He died from a severe infection after going to hospital on Thursday following complications to a shoulder injury.
Parfitt’s musical partnership with Francis Rossi, which spanned five decades, made Status Quo one of British rock’s most enduring acts.
He had been due to launch a solo career with an album and autobiography planned for 2017.
Have to say he had been going, in stages, for many years…
snafuMore viewers than UKIP.TV – number of viewers: 3. (You, Nigel, and Nigel checking it when he sobers up)
snafuJohn, Channel 4 appear to have chosen someone for whom 2016 had an effect on their life.
I am sure you are stamping your little feet in a camp huff that they didn’t choose Farage Gump, but there you go. Nevermind, you can moan about it all over Crimbo until next Friday when you can grind your gnashers flat about him not getting noticed in the New Years Honours.
snafuYou want Brendon Cox to effectively and politically side with his wife’s murderer?
snafuA former tour manager for Thin Lizzy, with a strong link to the season…
Frank Murray, who managed the Pogues for many years, has died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 66.
He always claimed it was his suggestion that the band write a Christmas song – which they did withFairytale of New York– and that he was responsible for getting singer Kirsty McColl to duet on it with Shane McGowan.
A life-saving doctor…
He’s credited with saving thousands of people from choking to death, thanks to the method he popularized in 1974. Now comes word that Dr. Henry Heimlich has died at age 96.
An actor who suffered at the hands of drunks…
A dwarf, who shot to fame in 2011 after being cruelly tossed by a rugby fan in a bar, has died aged 42.
Martin Henderson, who played a goblin in Harry Potter, was left with serious injuries following the prank by a stranger while he was out celebrating his 37th birthday.
A seemingly breathless man with big glasses, heaven-sent for impressionists…
Former BBC weather forecaster Ian McCaskill has died aged 78, his daughter has confirmed.
Kirsty McCaskill said her father had been living with dementia for the past five years and passed away on Saturday.
The last of the men who stopped the My Lai massacre in 1968, shamefully branded traitors by those in authority…
Lawrence Colburn was the last surviving member of a U.S. army crew that ended the My Lai massacre of March 16, 1968. According to accounts, pilot Hugh Thompson landed the helicopter between unarmed villagers and American troops and ordered Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta to cover him.
Thompson then persuaded members of Charlie Company to stop shooting. The company’s soldiers had begun shooting that day even though they hadn’t come under attack, authorities later said. They added that it quickly escalated into an orgy of killing that claimed as many as 504 civilians — most of whom were women, children and the elderly.
The third Briton to go into space…
British-born astronaut Piers Sellers has died of pancreatic cancer, aged 61, Nasa has said.
Born in Crowborough, East Sussex, Dr Sellers began working for the US space agency as a scientist in 1982 before joining its astronaut corps in 1996.
The climate expert made three Space Shuttle flights to the International Space Station, between 2002 and 2010.
snafu1801 – inventor Richard Trevithick, one the most important figures of the industrial age, takes seven of his friends for a test ride on his Puffing Devil, also known as Puffer, the first steam-powered wagon.
1818 – Silent Night, composed by Franz Xavier Gruber, is sung publically for the first time at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria
1865 – a group of US Confederate army veterans form a secret society that they christen the Ku Klux Klan.
1974 – former UK government minister John Stonehouse is found alive in Australia after faking his own death in Miami, Florida.
1979 – the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, under the pretext of upholding the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978.
1980 – former German naval commander and last leader of Nazi German Karl Dönitz dies of a heart attack at the age of 89.
snafuTry and get this up and running again. Please feel free to add your own on this day.
962 – troops, under the future Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, stormed city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist, as part of the Byzantine-Arab Wars.
1524 – Vasco da Gama, the first westerner to reach India by sea (in 1498), died of malaria*three months after being made Indian viceroy in residence.
1888 – in a fit of dementia, Van Gogh threatened his friend Gauguin with a knife before turning it on himself and mutilating his own ear lobe, which was then apparently wrapped up and given to a prostitute at a nearby brothel.
1948 – former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo is executed for war crimes in Tokyo, along with six other top Japanese leaders.
1986 – experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first non stop flight around the globe, in nine days and four minutes, on one load of fuel.
1992 – the Queens infamous annus horribilis pre-recorded Christmas day speech text was leaked by The Sun, word for word. How they came by it has never been made public.
snafuI’m thinking about 4,000 innocent souls brutally murdered by Islamic fanatics since 2001. This statistic continues to shape my thoughts concerning the actions of our politicians in bringing this about. Brendan Cox should not make any excuses, they should be repeatedly condemned.
The death of MP Jo Cox was as repellent an act as any of the above.
Yes, her death was just as much a tragedy as any – but Farage didn’t acknowledge that, did he, because of her politics probably. Too busy making fatuous soundbites and seeking out publicity wherever he could.
And only 4,000? I am sure it i much more than that – it can’t be far off that number accidentally killed in ‘friendly fire’ incidents by drone and fast jets in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.
Why should Brendon Cox be making excuses anyway, and for what? You want him to apologise for the death of his wife and all the other ‘4,000’ innocent souls? For why – to get Farage off the hook?
And since you and slippery Nige share the same view (or maybe its a Farage press briefing pack) then maybe you can explain exactly what it is that Hope Not Hate are supposed to have done that means that anyone who favour them over UKIP’s former leader is in league with ISIS?
snafuFifty percent correct isn’t bad.
Are you insisting that ‘Mat is not condemning the Berlin killings?
snafuFirst the Independent, now Charles Wales, few read or listen to either. You are scratching desperately! You’re at it again – second guessing ! You do yourself a mischief. I like a bit of literary creativity but yours is becoming excessive. How easily the buzzwords of the extremist liberals flow from you.
Now it’s my turn. I’m guessing that you have a conscience. A conscience that is all embracing and not limited by your political horizon. Let us all hear how your conscience condemns the barbarians responsible for the massacre in Berlin. No equivocation; an outright condemnation of these foul murders and a hint that your opposition might just have a point to make.
If that happens, I’ll believe in Santa.
I fully condemn what happened in Berlin.
No one has the right to kill purely on the grounds of race, creed, colour or religion, not even US cops.
Yet terrorists do what the name implies – we should expect them to do what most brings fear to our hearts. Britain has endured a long period of not knowing yet expecting bombs to go off – thankfully the IRA didn’t go in for suicide martyrs – so we should by now know that branding all who spoke with an Irish accent did not a bomber make, although it did help to turn a few who initially did not have their sympathies in that area. In addition, letting the army go fully automatic was not very wise either; Bloody Sunday and the like helped fundraising in the US no end.
Maybe opening the gates and allowing all those refugees through was also not very bright, but it happened and we all have to live with it; we can sit and moan in our comfy armchairs but that is not going to make a spits worth of difference. We can get on social media and generate views by badmouthing the minorities here for encouraging their friends to rush the borders – does reading that make you feel big, John? – your mate Farage is big on the Britain for the British theme, like lil Forrest Trump, but who do you think that sort of rhetoric is appealing to?
The elderly who are convinced by every word the Daily Mail puts out about evil foreigners.
The timid middle classes who believe it when the Daily Express forgo another Diana conspiracy frontpage for one about illegal immigrants stealing our jobs.
The man in the street knuckle-dragger types who believe it when Murdoch has his lackeys at The Sun tell us that Europe wants more money from us whilst lying to us that Brussels is making us change the name of Bombay mix to Mumbai mix, outlawing cleavage on barmaids, bans on excessive curvage on bananas, forcing on us the one-size Euro condom, banning the traditional British biscuit, making using the imperial measurement a criminal offense and forcing us to use latin names when buying fish.
The Independant had a letter, I naturally assumed that your political bias would not let you find it naturally. Prince Charles (who might one day be king, you know) might not be read or listened to by many – unless his thoughts are rebroadcast by those parts of the press for whom it gives joy to rubbish his ideas; are the things he says dangerous to you and your political compadres?
Now where, oh where is the Nigel Farage condemnation of the killing of Jo Cox by a right wing, white supremacist, English nationalist murderer? I can’t find it. Can you, John?
snafuKind of hoped you had been holding your breath in the hope that St Nigel of Looney didn’t put his foot in it for a while, but what with Brendon Cox giving the Channel 4 Christmas day speech, donations rolling in to drag ‘dear old Nige’ (sarcasm) to court, and even Prince Charles casting doom, gloom and despondency on the rise of extreme politics and comparing it to the 1930s (which has got the Daily Mail so churned up you nearly expect them to recommend charging the palace with flaming torches and pitchforks, severed head on a pike time), I am guessing it will not be long until he sobers up just enough to issue another blundering missive in his ongoing attempts to be king of the front page.
And then, John, I guess you will be singing his praises to the skies once again – until it is shown that he has (once again) pulled a fast one on you and verbally leaped into the black hole of social media without looking. Again.
There was a letter in The Independant on Wednesday advocating denying Farage the oxygen of publicity, since his words encourages bigotry and hatred. His is the accepted face of xenophobia. The writer goes on to suggest going back and utilising something that the grand witch Thatcher tried to drop on us – taking away the voice of the extremist. What on earth would Farage Gump do if he could no longer drop his divisive words on Britain?
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