Celebrity Death List MMXI / The Death Thread 2011 (II)

[Guest]

Although it's never good when someone dies young, recent events in Norway are far more tragic. I'm struggling to think of a worse gun massacre carried out by a single individual.

[Allan D]

Although it's never good when someone dies young, recent events in Norway are far more tragic. I'm struggling to think of a worse gun massacre carried out by a single individual.

He's certainly gone to the top of a dubious league table, putting Port Arthur and Virginia Tech in the shade. 166 were killed and 308 injured by multiple terrorists at Mumbai in 2008.

Top 5 Individual Gun Massacres

[Lara Lara Laughs]

I'm 50-50 on this thread.

On one hand I think, cor, this is a crass thread. Playing a game with people's lives. Damn, if only there were some celebrities amongst the Norweigan kids, some of you would have won a point. While we're at it, why don't we pick some children we think are going to get raped in the next year. It'll be more difficult but just as rewarding. Newspaper clippings for proof please.

On the other hand, I suppose it's just names on a forum. Just a prediction game and no pleasure is derived from it by most. So I don't really know.

On another note, those that that are calling Winehouse selfish (and the rest) clearly don't understand addiction or the severe problems some people have. Everyone's different and f*cked up in their own ways. I read somewhere that telling a severe addict to "just give up" is like telling someone with bipolar disorder to "cheer up". I don't think people should be spewing out grief and sympathy for a privileged celebrity who they didn't know but we really don't know the first thing about her and what made her use.

But yeah, carry on. Let's have a good old judge. Judgey judgey judge judge.

[Allan D]

You're right up to a point, Lord Copper, but at the same time we are not automatons totally guided by our impulses but free to choose and rational enough to anticipate the consequences of our actions. All our relationships are to some extent judgmental, even the one we have with ourselves, otherwise we could find an excuse for doing anything. We could say that the nutcase in Norway is addicted to killing people and so can't help himself but that's not a view many would share, I think.

[Zat]

I'm 50-50 on this thread.

On one hand I think, cor, this is a crass thread. Playing a game with people's lives. Damn, if only there were some celebrities amongst the Norweigan kids, some of you would have won a point. While we're at it, why don't we pick some children we think are going to get raped in the next year. It'll be more difficult but just as rewarding. Newspaper clippings for proof please.

On the other hand, I suppose it's just names on a forum. Just a prediction game and no pleasure is derived from it by most. So I don't really know.

On another note, those that that are calling Winehouse selfish (and the rest) clearly don't understand addiction or the severe problems some people have. Everyone's different and f*cked up in their own ways. I read somewhere that telling a severe addict to "just give up" is like telling someone with bipolar disorder to "cheer up". I don't think people should be spewing out grief and sympathy for a privileged celebrity who they didn't know but we really don't know the first thing about her and what made her use.

But yeah, carry on. Let's have a good old judge. Judgey judgey judge judge.

You know what's in the thread before you even open it. The title's pretty f*cking obvious. So don't get all moralistic. You don't want to be offended by it, then DON'T READ IT. Pretty simple really...

As for your 'if only there were some celebs in the Norwegian massacre' comment... Excuse me for asking WTF? The only person who seems to have expressed anything remotely close to that sentiment is you.

And while I am sure Ms Winehouse's friends and fans are saddened by her death, it wasn't really surprising, was it? And let's face it, while she was alive she and her 'people' were willing to trade on the whole drink. rugs, rehab, drink, drugs, rehab, drink, drugs, rehab cycle.

So there you go, you've been Judgey judgey judge judged. And found well and truly wanting.

[Basil]

I'm 50-50 on this thread.

On one hand I think, cor, this is a crass thread. Playing a game with people's lives. Damn, if only there were some celebrities amongst the Norweigan kids, some of you would have won a point. While we're at it, why don't we pick some children we think are going to get raped in the next year. It'll be more difficult but just as rewarding. Newspaper clippings for proof please.

On the other hand, I suppose it's just names on a forum. Just a prediction game and no pleasure is derived from it by most. So I don't really know.

On another note, those that that are calling Winehouse selfish (and the rest) clearly don't understand addiction or the severe problems some people have. Everyone's different and f*cked up in their own ways. I read somewhere that telling a severe addict to "just give up" is like telling someone with bipolar disorder to "cheer up". I don't think people should be spewing out grief and sympathy for a privileged celebrity who they didn't know but we really don't know the first thing about her and what made her use.

But yeah, carry on. Let's have a good old judge. Judgey judgey judge judge.

Not everyone who posts on this thread, partakes of the fun and games of nominating famous people to cark it. But when someone in public life dies - they die as they lived, i.e. in a blaze of publicity - that is always going to invite comment. In this case - she was a walking coffin.

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Zat-

Erm, I haven't read most of it. Just made a comment on it. I've read a few posts in the last 2 pages as I thought people might mention Winehouse. Besides, whether I've read it or not, I can still have an opinion on the premise. Anyway, as I said, I don't know what I feel about it, either way. No need to get so angry. Just my thoughts.

I haven't said that anyone mentioned the Norway massacre/celebs thing either. I was trying to show how crass winning a point when someone dies is, and how it applies to anyone's death, whether they be celebs or anyone else.

I didn't say her death was or wasn't surprising either.... I said that calling her selfish when we know nothing about her, her mental state and her motivations is pointless and judgemental.

[Growler]

Lara, first things first - of course you're entitled to express an opinion on any thread you see fit, and I'm certainly not acting as the posting police or trying to moderate you.

That said, we have the right to challenge your opinion, and I think your posting is wrong on a few levels.

First, it is not "playing a game with peoples lives". If anything it's a p'raps less tasteful version of say "who'll be the first player to 500 runs or 25 wickets" in the current Test series. Two lads racing down the high street at closing time is playing a game with peoples lives.

Second, I can accept your remark about celebs in the Norwegian massacre as a poor joke with no real offence intended. However, I can't say the same regarding your line about children being raped. Of the nominees on the list, the majority are well past the biblical "three score and ten years of age" and will die of old age sooner rather than later, or suffering from illness which in likelihood will kill them prematurely.

To suggest that knowing that a youngster has been molested would be "rewarding" is a truly horrible thing to say - and not the kind of sentiment I'd have expected from you. I'm truly shocked by it, as I think will be most others.

Third, I feel certain that the winner won't be going for a celebration meal early next year, and that no loser will feel bad for losing.

Fourth and last - can you see the irony of the last line of your original post ? Your whole post was a judgemental verdict on about 20 forummers participating in the game, none of whom (as far as I'm aware) you actually know in person.

I'm not poking you for that ..... being judgemental is human nature. We all do it without a second thought. We did it with Amy W, you've done it with us ........ shall we just say "watch the windows " ?

[embee]

It's easier to tell her she's just a stoopid pommy chick ...

[Bradman]

So did anyone pick the stupid bint?

[Zat]

So did anyone pick the stupid bint?

Who, Laura? She's still posting...

[Allan D]

I didn't say her death was or wasn't surprising either.... I said that calling her selfish when we know nothing about her, her mental state and her motivations is pointless and judgemental.

Maybe, but to compare Amy Winehouse's death, which appears to be self-induced and a consequence of her pattern of behaviour (although obviously that has to be confirmed by the post-mortem), with the deaths of those in Norway and call them both "tragedies" seems to me to be a complete travesty. One case is brutal murder, the other is (or at any rate appears to be) suicide by pills and/or booze.

I had a friend once who was a reformed alcoholic who, whether out of boredom or guilt, killed himself by going on a bender. I'm not sure what his motives were. I know he'd had a difficult life with lots of problems but had managed to rise above them and owned and ran a small hotel in the Isle of Man. One thing I do know. He committed suicide as surely as if he had taken a gun and blown his brains out except choking to death on your own vomit would not be my choice if I wished to shuffle off this mortal coil.

As for the purpose of this thread and whether it is playing games with death as Zat says you don't have to read it. For my own part I feel this is not so much the Celebrity Death List as the Death of Celebrity List. It proves that however rich or famous you are the Grim Reaper will call for you in the end as he will for all the rest of us and to use the popular aphorism

You can't take it with you

or as someone of a more lyrical turn of phrase once wrote:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

I think there is a dangerous tendency to sanctify and beatify the dead, especially the famous or noteworthy dead and I think this thread offers a useful antidote. What harm is there in drawing some cheap entertainment from the obituary column? It is always full every day and the inhabitants, unlike the other sections of the newspaper, can feel no pain at being ridiculed.

Let us not be morbid or po-faced or, worst of all, reticent about death. As Ms Winehouse and the Norwegian tragedy illustrate (and the only thing they illustrate) death is in the midst of life and it can happen to you or to me tonight or tomorrow or next week and there is nothing we can do about it except perhaps not be too eager to extend an invitation. I know when I looked upon my mother's body in the hospital mortuary and later in the rest home that she had left that particular habitation some time before. Whether she had disappeared for good or found a better place to live I have no way of knowing but I know that residence had become an unfit place to live and had not served her well in the last few years.

We cannot cheat death, but neither should we respect or fear death either. An alumnus of my old college expresses it far better than my poor prosaic power to do so and provides the best rationale for this thread:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

So while you may choose to think of this thread as ghoulish and wallowing in human misery I think it celebrates, or at least enjoins, "fate, chance, kings, and desperate men". After all, once we cease to fear death what have we left to fear?

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, thy victory?

as the Tentmaker from Tarsus told us.

It is strange that now we live in a secular age that has lost its faith in an after life and so regards death as the great finality, the end of all things with the consequence that we have rejoined the Victorians in regarding death, if not sex, as the Great Taboo which must be spoken of in hushed tones whilst those that "pass away" are memorialised as saints and martyrs.

Bugger that for a lark. I have only one thing further to say. Hosni Mubarak!

BOO!

Give me my point so I can win this thing and do something useful for a change, you sand-shuffling bar-steward.

[Growler]

I think there is a dangerous tendency to sanctify and beatify the dead, especially the famous or noteworthy dead and I think this thread offers a useful antidote. What harm is there in drawing some cheap entertainment from the obituary column? It is always full every day and the inhabitants, unlike the other sections of the newspaper, can feel no pain at being ridiculed.

Crikey, that question reminds me of a play I watched on TV donkeys years ago.

It was based around a couple of ancient gentlemen - coffin dodgers in the true sense of the term - who, if memory serves me true were residents of a home..... if they weren't it isn't really relevant.

My abiding memory of the play though, is the 15 minute ritual which was the highlight of their day. It was the reading of the obit columns in the papers, and they had a "gentleman's bet" between them.

One of them took "peacefully" and the other one "suddenly", and they kept a tally as to how many folk had carked it to either description .

[Zat]

I think there is a dangerous tendency to sanctify and beatify the dead, especially the famous or noteworthy dead

I think that's one thing that doesn't happen (much) in this thread. Likewise there is very little of the talking down of some of those who have left (or hang grimly onto) this mortal coil. (Like the Lockerbie bomber...)

[taipan]

I'm 50-50 on this thread.

And it took you almost 3 years to come to this conclusion. Let us know when you make your mind up.

[embee]

...as soon as she's finished her poo...

[sets badger trap]

[Big Dog]

I read somewhere that telling a severe addict to "just give up" is like telling someone with bipolar disorder to "cheer up".

Unlike people with bipolar, junkies have a choice. Not to take the stuff in the first place & give it up when they get hooked.
She gets no sympathy from me.

[taipan]

Drugs and Sex and Rock n Roll.

Frankly its a miracle so few died over the years.

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Lara, first things first - of course you're entitled to express an opinion on any thread you see fit, and I'm certainly not acting as the posting police or trying to moderate you.

That said, we have the right to challenge your opinion, and I think your posting is wrong on a few levels.

First, it is not "playing a game with peoples lives". If anything it's a p'raps less tasteful version of say "who'll be the first player to 500 runs or 25 wickets" in the current Test series. Two lads racing down the high street at closing time is playing a game with peoples lives.

Second, I can accept your remark about celebs in the Norwegian massacre as a poor joke with no real offence intended. However, I can't say the same regarding your line about children being raped. Of the nominees on the list, the majority are well past the biblical "three score and ten years of age" and will die of old age sooner rather than later, or suffering from illness which in likelihood will kill them prematurely.

To suggest that knowing that a youngster has been molested would be "rewarding" is a truly horrible thing to say - and not the kind of sentiment I'd have expected from you. I'm truly shocked by it, as I think will be most others.

Third, I feel certain that the winner won't be going for a celebration meal early next year, and that no loser will feel bad for losing.

Fourth and last - can you see the irony of the last line of your original post ? Your whole post was a judgemental verdict on about 20 forummers participating in the game, none of whom (as far as I'm aware) you actually know in person.

I'm not poking you for that ..... being judgemental is human nature. We all do it without a second thought. We did it with Amy W, you've done it with us ........ shall we just say "watch the windows " ?

What?

Mate, I don't know how you've managed to get this ^ from my post. I really don't. I will reply when I've finished my poo (work).

[Growler]

Lara, on revisiting your original post, I think I've been overly harsh and have read far more into your posting than you actually intended.

In answering the main thrust of your post, I overlooked the bit where you said

"On the other hand, I suppose it's just names on a forum. Just a prediction game and no pleasure is derived from it by most."

That sentence counters my first three criticisms, for which I apologise.

On point 4, to accuse you of hypocrisy would be way OTT, as I don't think you're a hypocrite. However, I do still think your "judgemental" remark was a bit of a "glass houses" moment.

On a point of principle, if you concede that one then I think honour would be satisfied all round, so to speak.

[Allan D]

I think there is a dangerous tendency to sanctify and beatify the dead, especially the famous or noteworthy dead and I think this thread offers a useful antidote. What harm is there in drawing some cheap entertainment from the obituary column? It is always full every day and the inhabitants, unlike the other sections of the newspaper, can feel no pain at being ridiculed.

Crikey, that question reminds me of a play I watched on TV donkeys years ago.

It was based around a couple of ancient gentlemen - coffin dodgers in the true sense of the term - who, if memory serves me true were residents of a home..... if they weren't it isn't really relevant.

My abiding memory of the play though, is the 15 minute ritual which was the highlight of their day. It was the reading of the obit columns in the papers, and they had a "gentleman's bet" between them.

One of them took "peacefully" and the other one "suddenly", and they kept a tally as to how many folk had carked it to either description .

Yes, who was it who said that he would read the obituary column first thing every morning and would only get up if he wasn't in it? Obituary writing is a special skill and there is a glossary of euphemisms as long, if not longer, than the one at the top of this forum e.g.

"confirmed bachelor": homosexual
"enjoyed entertaining": alcoholic
"enjoyed female company": kept mistresses
"enjoyed taking risks"; compulsive gambler
"financially straitened circumstances": made bankrupt
"disappeared from society": sent to prison.

[CT]

amy winehouse spawn the talents of adele and duffy and gin wigmore.

well she was always destined to go early.

[WideWally]

RIP Margaret Olley

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/artist-margaret-olley-dead-20110726-1hxxr.html

.

[skully]

RIP her.

But alas for CDL 2011 the closest anyone came to Olley was Zog with Mary-Kate Olsen.

[skully]

Jebus, for all the high and mighty "tsk tsk"ers, this little thread has p!ss-barrelled along. Not 7 months old but about to split into CDL2011 (II). Seems we are an amusingly morbid bunch.

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