Be Excellent To Each Other

I found out in the morning, then went to watch a band at the watering hole that evening. It was very warm and we sat outside rather than watch the band.

I woke up, turned on my computer and went to IRC. That's how i found out Diana's passing. Yes, i'm that old school.

IRC? Where's that?

Beex has IRC: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=92&p=522#p522

One of the things that annoyed me most is that Radio 1 stopped their normal programs for two days or so "as a mark of respect". I was driving a tractor around a field during those days, and it was about five songs (the same five songs) with no words over and over again, and then a repeated news announcement telling everyone what happened, and then Newsbeat.

Want to relive it? The Internet has got your back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zumTOb6Z47Q

I had recently won a Euro 96 pager at a Virgin Megastore by being good at Actua Soccer or some such thing. It worked as a normal pager, but it also gave football score updates for the Premier League and international matches, as well as transfer news.

Sometimes my friends would send me pages that were just designed to wind me up, saying Aston Villa had signed some terrible player, or that our best player had broken his leg or whatever. So when my pager went off to tell me that the football schedule for the day was cancelled because Diana was dead I thought someone was taking the piss.

I got out of bed and went downstairs to find some of my housemates still up from the night before. They had been drinking and smoking weed since the previous day, and had seen the news, but we're absolutely convinced that it was an extended Chris Morris spoof announcement (the previous year he had done one announcing that Noel Edmonds had murdered Clive Anderson).

So we were all sat around thinking it was a hoax, until we realised that actually it had really happened. Which was a weird way to come to a realisation.

Great ending.

It's a reverse "it was all a dream" plot!

So you didn't think that it was a bit of a coincidence that your mate decided to play a hoax on you that happened to be exactly the same subject matter as the spoof show your housemates were watching?

That would have involved him thinking.

Well, yes, that's how we realised it. You have to realise that they were absolutely wankered/high, and I had just woken up.

The odious but endlessly entertaining Brian Sewell will now be telling God how wrong he/she is about everything. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26924911

I remember watching him some years back on TV; he was a Rolls Royce car owner and was incredulous and disgusted in equal measure that some "trader from Southend could spend his week tarring roofs and then drive around in his 'Roller' over the weekend to 'pull the birds'" (he almost spat the last words out!)

I laughed long and loud at that, not least because I identify strongly with 'trader from Southend' types. RIP mate.

Denis Healey has popped his clogs at the age of 98, which I believe is generally referred to as 'a good innings'.

Decent obit at The Guardian, fills in quite a lot of detail about the financial problems of the 70s (it's not fair to blame Labour for everything, would be a reasonable summary, including that oft-quoted 'cap in hand to the IMF' stuff), seems to have been a pretty fine chap overall - including five years of proper fighting in WW2. Also 65 years of marriage and three children, solid family unit. (Marriage ended when Mrs Healey died in 2010.)

Healey brows out.

(I pinched the 'brows out' from DeathList.)

Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34760060

Jonah Lomu! 40!

Just came to post this. Fuck!

What a great man and player

He must have been very well known, as even I knew that he was a rugby player, and I can name three: him, Jeremy Guscott (sp?) and, well, actually two - I know of three but have forgotten the third's name, but he was having maybe sex with... Princess Di...a..n...a... Actually, am I making that up?

A rugby player is currently married Zara Phillips, if that's what you're thinking of.

Wasn't Will Carling doing some sort of rucking with the People's Princess?

Will Carling was linked with Di

It was certainly rumoured.

That's who I was thinking of: Will Carling. He had a short head, dark curly hair.

Scott Weiland: tributes paid to rock star following death at 48 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35003719

Jimmy Hill http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/35141430

Lemmy?

Lemmy, so Facebook says.

There was that thing at Glasto this year where he played entirely the wrote song for a while, so I guess he wasn't well.

@DavPaz - Yes I believe so, nothing on the official news yet that I can see though.

It's confirmed.

Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters has slammed his last dunk.

Gutted

Pavel Srnicek - 1998 - 2000 Wednesday goalkeeper

Gosh. He was a young goalie wasn't he?

David Bowie now.

Aye, there was speculation it was a hoax, but his son has seemingly confirmed it:
https://twitter.com/ManMadeMoon/status/ ... 3648212992

Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all. pic.twitter.com/Kh2fq3tf9m

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 11, 2016

Well, that sucks

I might have to get his back catalogue..

I've got his entire back catalogue. I think there was a year or so that I listened to nothing but Bowie, and it was amazing as there is so much variety and scope that it doesn't feel like a single artist (though you an very much argue that it encompasses various acts).

I'm not sure I ever really understand why everyone rushes to listen to or buy music from a recently deceased artist if they normally wouldn't. Not that there's anything 'wrong' with it, just that my instinct is to do the opposite as it makes me feel too sad. The same is true of an actor that I might really respect the work of: I have to avoid their films for a while as otherwise I feel too sad at the loss of their talent.

we just about managed Aladdin last week or so, for example.

I like his stuff, I just don't own any

That's a shame. He did turn out some pap over the years but given the depth and breadth of his work that's only to be expected I suppose. (And the bad stuff is massively outweighed by the good and the fantastic.)

Cancer seems to be killing a lot of people. I'm not a fan. Someone needs to work out a cure for that shit.

It's a common reaction. I used to work for HMV and artist death was a big money-maker. I've known more than one manager to get quite over-excited at potential sales when a musician or actor death had hit the headlines. I understand the wish for branch sales against targets, but the excitement bordering on glee was quite nauseating.

That is a bit odd..

When I worked in a record shop, the hardest part when George Harrison died was spending a day explaining to almost every customer that Traveling Wilburys had been unavailable for years and we weren't able to get them copies.

It's not, really. It's perfectly understandable if your wish to surpass sales targets as a manager who is proud of their job is important to you. However, when those sales are driven by an outside factor then the amount that can be attributed to you and your staff is questionable, apart from the merchandising aspect by making potential sales targets prominent. However, unlike a sunny day that sells strawberries, it sits a bit distastefully when the outside event is death.

I wouldn't begrudge the manager making sales (in a way they are making readily available the items that the customer wants) but trying to gee up staff with motivators such as 'right! David Bowie is dead: let's push all those CDs to the front of the store and bring out copies of The Labyrinth and try and find that old Bowie standee in the back office, and let's really PUSH those Bowie sales today and make the most of this opportunity' really made me feel a bit awkward.

I think from many consumers' points of view it just reminds them that they should listen more often, then there is a period of 5-10 days where it's blaring out of cars and open bedroom windows, then everyone forgets again and the sales fade down.

The news has made me put on his new record, Darkstar, this morning. It's fucking weird as shit - I love it.

Me too. Shame he had to die for me to bother listening to it because it's really good.

Properly gutted about Bowie, I'm not usually that upset when famous people die but for me this is like when John Peel died. Someone I somehow thought would always be about, doing their thing and now they're not.

I added it to my library on release but I hadn't got around to it yet.