h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've never known a year like it.

For a while here I went by "SonofRojBlake", partly because I'm a geek and partly because, with hilarious consequences, my actual father's actual name was Roger Blake, known to his friends as Roj. Oh how he laughed in 1978, probably, I wouldn't know.

Well, now the actual Roj Blake out of off of Blake's 7 is gone.

I'm appealing to the Grim Reaper at this point to please give it a rest for the month of May.

Susan Death might be willing to relay the message.

It has been somewhat of a massacre on the 70s/80s celeb front hasn't it.

Ronnie Corbett, Paul Daniels, Gareth Thomas, Cliff Michelmore etc.

I could personally have lived without one of my old close friends from my Uni days at Brum dying a couple of weeks ago - at the far too young age of 50 That's only 5 years older than me - which makes one think a bit.

Yeah, stop it please.

My best friend from College is on life support and will likely be disconnected tomorrow. The chemotherapy for his cancer might have given him another year, but heavy smoking destroyed his lungs.

I haven't listened to the episode yet, but I heard a trailer for "More Or Less", the Radio 4 show that goes behind the stats. One of their questions this week is "Is 2016 unusual in the number of celebrities who are dying?", and stated in the trailer that obviously numbers depend on who you class as a celebrity. But even in the trailer, they say, even accounting for all that - that the answer is YES, 2016 is an unusually bad year, already. So there's that. I'll certainly be listening the show, or possibly the podcast, for the details, but it's good to know that it's not just me.

As I posted elsewhere, in the last 24 hours we've lost the folks who gave us the phrases "Let's ... Play ... Darts!" and "Mind The Gap!"

Anyone else famous for a 3-word phrase? If so, don't go out!

I haven't heard the former and don't know who that is... Tony Green?

Umm, this might be a Duhrrrr moment- Jim Bowen?

No, it was Martin Fitzmaurice:

http://www.dartswdf.com/2016/04/14/martin-fitzmaurice-has-passed-away/


Never mind, let's see what you could have won...

"Anyone else famous for a 3-word phrase? "

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gerard Butler better stay in.
Heath Ledger's already gone.

When they disconnected the life support, my friend started breathing on his own. He even managed to talk.

"It has been somewhat of a massacre on the 70s/80s celeb front hasn't it."

My theory is that the actual number of entertainers etc dying probably remains fairly constant. It's society that has changed, and more particularly the increasing popularity of TV and the wider audiences these people have reached.

The young pioneer presenters and entertainers that I saw as a child in the 60s and 70s learnt their audience skills in the Forces or the variety shows, with audiences of several hundred at a time. Then the new TV shows took the very cream of these people, those who knew their craft already. When there were only 2 or 3 channels the shows reached into homes of millions, people who might never have made it to a variety show in their life, and we all talked about them the next day.

These people were all much the same age in the 60s and 70s, and of course are all much the same age now. But without TV, most of us wouldn't have heard of them.

Hope your friend pulls through Paulh - my mate died of a second heart attach that came only a week after he had double bypass surgery following a first. No coming back from that.

My friend is extremely weak. He's apparently conscious and lucid. His wife has stuck by him through thick and thin. They love each other very much.

I found out last week that an old schoolfriend of mine had passed away in November, she was 61. My classmates and yearmates have regular get-togethers and official reunions with invited teachers, so it's like extended family. Still, we didn't get to know of her illness in time to visit her in hospital or attend her funeral. I have posted a lit candle in the local paper online condolence page, with a message for the family, but it doesn't feel adequate for the loss I feel. These types of events hit me harder than deaths of actors or celebrities, especially if they're my age or younger than me.

GB

And off toddles Victoria Wood http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36094827

I've never seen her in anything, but I can picture her as the tea lady in "Mr. Toad's wild ride."

She was a very british comedian, I guess she never made it across the pond. You've probably seen her more famous friend and sidekick Julie Walters I guess. She's in lots of mainstream movies.

Julie Walters was a very fine Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter films. Last year she did a fine job as the woman who ran a rooming house in "Brooklyn."

Her best performance was in Educating Rita.