en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2012

80% of the names on it are unknown to me, but it's useful for learning about deaths which otherwise would have got little or no coverage in this part of the world . . . such as this guy or this guy or this woman, all of whom have bitten the dust in recent weeks.

Reminds me of my mum, who would always pick up the Bolton Evening News and go straight to the deaths, in case someone she knew was listed.

I do the same thing with the Before the Bench section of the Salford Advertiser whenever I'm back home.

Not to see if people have died obviously, but to see if they have been up to mischief.

The death notices are all that keep most local papers in Ireland going.

Ahhhh shit. Harry Harrison died.

I hadn't heard about Shenglia (we seem to have lost an unusual number of those Golden Age Georgians), but both Hamlisch and Ride were big news over here.

I saw a picture of Shengelia playing in a veterans' match last year. His face was totally grey. He had ballooned to about 20 stone and was unrecognisable. It was probably something to do with that.

The life expectancy for males in the former USSR dipped below 60 for a while in the 2000s, and a lot of their 1970s and early 1980s players are now gone. Almost half of their squad at Mexico 70, for example, are now dead.

Stumpy Pepys wrote:


Old people do this. my mother always updates me on who from the village has fallen, always with (I feel, perhaps harshly) a certain relish. As in 'It's no me!'

My grandfather, then in his eighties, used to do the same, always noting the amount of the estate.

' Look, Joey Soap, dead at 75. Left £50,000. Why?'

He didn't see the point in leaving anything. However, being a heavy smoker and drinker, he reckoned he wouldn't make it much past 65 so spent it all by then. Lasted, pretty fit, to 85.

There is a lesson in there somewhere but i don't know what it is.

My mother also likes to give me grisly details of other peoples operations. I always tell her I'm not interested but had to actually shout at her recently when she launched into a detailed account of her elderly neighbour's testicle problem.

I tell her nothing about my own testicle issues.

you have testicle issues?

Sad to see the MP for Stockholm County has died. Stockholm County is, of course, the Swedish parliamentary constituency nearest to the Mersey.

Erskine Bridges wrote:


What's this about? They quote the amount of estate you've left? Why? And how do they get this information?

My old man only found out that his Mother had died when my old dear read about it in the Liverpool Echo death notices.

It didn't half come as a fuckin shock to him I can tell you.

Jimmy Bignutz wrote:


As ever with Jimmy, the line between genius and shitness is a thin one.

WOM wrote:


It used to be quite common, quoting the amount of the estate in death notices. It must be public information.

Holy fuck, that's a depressing page.
And Scott McKenzie gone too?

Were you under the impression that people weren't dying in their millions every day?

Apparently, 267 are born and 108 die worldwide per minute which is actually more worrying.



I know. I mean, I had to do my usual half-second hesitation as to whether it was him or Scott Walker by brother is named after but I heard nothing of that.

I initially thought that an addiction to that to be mad but I could spend ages on it. Shame about that Mitchell Todd

Bored of Education wrote:


Yeah, but it's not something you want to think about, really.

That statistic is more worrying though.

This could get morbidly addictive.

I assume that you are all going to tell us now that you don't have a clue who Phyllis Diller was.

I'd heard of her, albeit only because someone described Alexi Lalas at USA 94 as looking like her.