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

Ha! Just what I said over on the Death List thread. Careless Whisper is very good, as were others of his later ones which I can't remember for the minute. People that don't do crazy things just aren't so creative. Being out of the ordinary and doing extraordinary things goes with the job. But dying at 53 shouldn't be one of them.

Douglas died at 49; Freddie Mercury at 45; and George Michael lived to be almost twice as old as all those in the 27 club (Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin et al). Peter Cook and (57) and Eric Morecambe (58) weren't much older, and Peter Sellers was 54.

No, I don't have an obsession with death

Ah, now this is one that makes me sad.

Liz Smith
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38440648

Her role as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared always seems to get overlooked, as it does in that piece, even though it was a BBC -produced and broadcast sitcom, which I think is a disservice to both the cast and the writer, Peter Tinniswood. The Guardian is less forgetful about it in their report of her death. It's one that I can watch over and over again, leastways the first two series, and have done.

She gets remembered mostly for Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family, but bloody, there can hardly have been a British actor or actress who was more versatile. I mean, her first job was in one of Mike Leigh's improvised plays/films - Bleak Moments (which is very, very bleak, by the way).

I didn't know her name (shame on me) but I'm sad about Liz Smith. But 95 is a grand old age and she worked a long time so that tempers the sadness.

George Michael wrote some great pop songs (c'mon - you don't sing aong to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go?). His first solo album (Faith?) was excellent, as was Praying for Time (I think that's the song title) and he did some quiet good work (concerts for nurses etc)

He suffered from his rock 'n' roll lifestyle (suffered as in died early, rather than didn't enjoy it). In fact I think he was vilified so much because he enjoyed the trappings of fame (more sex 'n' drugs than he could shake a stick at). And of course he suffered from society's tendency to reject men who don't conform to what can only be referred to as the ideal of Toxic Masculinity.

SorryNotSorry for the mini rant there

George was a master of the pop song, both with Wham! and on his own. He was the perfect pop star in so many ways, but he also, it seems, had that kind of personality that loved its indulgences and gave his own indulgences free reign. A bit like Freddie Mercury or Amy Winehouse. Some can handle it, some can't.

Its gona be easier soon to just write a list of who's left alive and yes, you are obsessed with death!

It's a fair cop, guv, but society is to blame.

As most of you know, I reserve this conversation for people who have meant something to me or been important in some way that's relevant to me. That's not strictly the case with the these two, but they have had a tangential interest to me.

Carrie Fisher
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38448352

Really, the only thing I know her for is Star Wars (and being the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher), but I am a big fan of Star Wars.

Richard Adams
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38446309

I've never read Watership Down, never saw the film, and I can't stand that bloody Art Garfunkel song But his success just goes to show how much money you can make from royalties. All you need is one book, or one song, or one anything, that becomes immensely popular and/or a standard/classic that sells or gets played for years to come. I may have mentioned before that the bloke who wrote Star Trekkin' made so much money from it that that he was able to take off for California and sit on a beach writing new age music. And think how much money the writer of Without You (Harry Nilsson) must have made from just that one song. Or Reg Presley (The Troggs) from Wild Thing, which Jimi Hendrix covered, and later from that bloody Wet Wet Wet song.

Or Noddy Holder from Here It Is Merry Christmas, or Douglas from Hitchhikers Guide, or... or...

I heard one person say that getting royalties is like having someone stuffing five-pound notes through your letterbox 24 hours a day.

Piers J. Sellars, UK/USA dual national astronaut.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/us/piers-j-sellers-climate-scientist-and-astronaut-dies-at-61.html?_r=0

I know the name but little else about him so he doesn't have any relevance to me, and therefore is out of place here.

Debbie Reynolds
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38455777

I remember The Debbie Reynolds Show being on... early Saturday evening? I think so. Around the same time they scheduled The Monkees. And I seem to remember there being something bizarre about it, maybe, like The Monkees, a sort of sign-off bit at the end when they were out of character that looked like it might have been ad-libbed but was probably scripted.

Or I might be dreaming the whole thing.

I don't think I recognise her name at all maybe she was famous and on Tv etc before I was watching TV....

She was also in one or two rather well know films

Though the first of the Debbie Reynolds movies I saw was "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", I think I liked her best for the "Tammy" movies.

http://youtu.be/p2OjuM9lL7Y

There's been so much talk about the great number of celebrity deaths this year, and it's strange how few of them have meant anything to me at all. I'd never even heard of most of them.

Richard Adams, yes. A strange writer, but a good one.

TRiG.

I loved Watership Down even while it frightened me as a child. But Adams' far better book was The Plague Dogs.

I read them all - starting with Watership Down. When I went to do the Goethe Institut Certificate exam (which was about equivalent to A level, but I thought the Goethe Institut qualification would be more useful when applying for jobs in Germany) the passage we were given to translate was from Watership Down, so afterwards I had to read the whole book, to find out what it was about. I also discovered a book called Duncton Wood - a similar story about moles, by some other author - which I liked more.

The Plague Dogs and the Girl on a Swing I can't remember - Shardik made the greatest impression on me.

William Christopher
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38484032

I haven't watched MASH for years, and frankly, I don't know if I ever will because I always found Hawkeye's self-righteousness irritating, but I enjoyed any appearance of Father Mulcahy.

I would like to see Radar again though.

If you decide to watch it again, watch it without the laugh track if possible. The laugh track on that show, for some reason, is especially intrusive and grating.