RIP Erich von Däniken. Finally.
RIP Bob Weir (https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/10/entertainment/bob-weir-grateful-dead-dies) of the Grateful Dead.
Quote from: Maladict on January 11, 2026, 12:23:46 PMRIP Erich von Däniken. Finally.
God, I fucking hate that asshole.
Quote from: Maladict on January 11, 2026, 12:23:46 PMRIP Erich von Däniken. Finally.
Ancient Aliens theory fans in mourning. :P
Was briefly into him in my teens. Even attended one of his lectures when he came to town. I still like the ancient astronauts idea as a fictional setting.
Scott Adams.
Quote from: Syt on January 13, 2026, 10:36:46 AMWas briefly into him in my teens. Even attended one of his lectures when he came to town. I still like the ancient astronauts idea as a fictional setting.
Same here. Made its way into Japanese cartoons (Albator for Viper). :nerd: :)
I also see Aldrich Ames has died.
I guess the ivermectin didn't cure his prostate cancer. And Joe Biden still going strong
(https://newsfeed.time.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2012/11/bidensun.jpg?w=360&h=240&crop=1)
Quote from: Razgovory on January 11, 2026, 03:20:22 PMQuote from: Maladict on January 11, 2026, 12:23:46 PMRIP Erich von Däniken. Finally.
God, I fucking hate that asshole.
Why would you hate him? Harmless crackpot with fun ideas.
Yeah. Crackpots are no longer fun. Too many people believe them and make them cabinet secretaries.
Catherine O'Hara, at 71 (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/arts/television/catherine-ohara-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IVA.GZyT.p_qDU7dMuInu&smid=url-share)
:(
:(
Shame. Great performer. I had thought she was so much older just because she was active since the 80s.
:( loved her since SCTV
Oh RIP - one of the greats :(
:(
71 is hardly a ripe old age. RIP. :(
James Van Der Beek, 48, cancer.
He'd been sick for a while. I met him once when he was filming on location. Him and his groups couldn't figure out the freight elevator so I was the bell boy for a bit.
Quote from: Razgovory on January 19, 2026, 11:35:18 PMQuote from: Caliga on January 19, 2026, 11:07:53 PMQuote from: Razgovory on January 11, 2026, 03:20:22 PMQuote from: Maladict on January 11, 2026, 12:23:46 PMRIP Erich von Däniken. Finally.
God, I fucking hate that asshole.
Why would you hate him? Harmless crackpot with fun ideas.
Lots of people believe him.
Enough that this group got a mention in David Brin's Uplift series
RIP Robert Duvall
And now Jesse Jackson
Oh - RIP both :(
:( :(
:(
:(
At lot of lazy reporting in UK papers of Robert Duvall's death, a easy photo of a five minute film appearence seems to satisfy them.
Obviously a lot more to him than that, like the oscar I think he should have had for the godfather.
Jesse Jackson has gone to the great beyond.
RIP Reverend Jackson
Rest in peace, you little beacon of hope for Europe's leftie's during Reagan's misrule.
Quote from: mongers on February 17, 2026, 08:15:04 AMAt lot of lazy reporting in UK papers of Robert Duvall's death, a easy photo of a five minute film appearence seems to satisfy them.
Obviously a lot more to him than that, like the oscar I think he should have had for the godfather.
He should have gotten an Oscar for
The Great Santini, as well.
While I loved "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now!", I think now, in maturity, the performance in the serial "Lonesome Dove" was Duvall at his finest.
Don't believe me? Fine.
Bill Mazeroski. Best known for hitting the home run that won the World Series in 1960 for the Pirates (he was wearing #9 and hit the home run in the bottom of the 9th at a score of 9-9 :nerd: ).
Quote from: Syt on February 21, 2026, 08:22:07 AMBill Mazeroski. Best known for hitting the home run that won the World Series in 1960 for the Pirates (he was wearing #9 and hit the home run in the bottom of the 9th at a score of 9-9 :nerd: ).
Yeah. This is the best way to go. Once a major national celebrity, hardly anybody outside of baseball history nerds still remembers him. RIP Maz.
RIP Rob Grant :(
QuoteRob Grant, scriptwriter and author who was co-creator of the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf
He described Red Dwarf as 'Steptoe and Son in space', and collaborated with his writing partner Doug Naylor on bestselling spin-off novels
Telegraph Obituaries
Published 27 February 2026 6:24pm GMT
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2026/02/27/TELEMMGLPICT000466642154_17722141118570_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqdfhOCyCv4tVMdoC8f2tC5xa306WnPHVE_UdBq2uCdwc.jpeg?imwidth=1920)
Rob Grant: he wanted to write a sitcom 'with no cardigans and no formica' Credit: Grant Family
Rob Grant, the writer, who has died aged 70, was the co-creator of one of Britain's most popular and enduring television comedies, the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf.
He devised Red Dwarf in partnership with Doug Naylor, his best friend from the age of nine, with the aim of shaking up the British sitcom in the era of Terry and June. "What we wanted to do," Grant recalled, "was a comedy with no cardigans and no formica. Something that was a bit different. Steptoe and Son in space."
First broadcast on BBC Two in February 1988, the series starred Craig Charles as the uncouth Lister, a technician on the 21st-century mining spacecraft Red Dwarf, who is put into suspended animation as a disciplinary measure and wakes up after three million years to discover that he is the last human left in the universe. However, he still has to endure the company of his pompous, fastidious supervisor Rimmer (Chris Barrie), who survives in the form of a hologram. Grant and Naylor took the name Rimmer from a patronising prefect at their school.
Other regular characters were The Cat (Danny John-Jules), a humanoid evolved from a pet cat Lister had smuggled aboard the ship, the deadpan computer Holly (portrayed by Norman Lovett and later Hattie Hayridge), and the Jeeves-like android Kryten (Robert Llewellyn). Although viewing figures were unspectacular for its first two series, Red Dwarf began to take off when Grant and Naylor took over production, under the aegis of their company Grant Naylor.
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2026/02/27/TELEMMGLPICT000466732017_17722156384540_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq_015gmpDOnvmuD2JZwtarq1UDbDdk-JPjedL466dDsg.jpeg?imwidth=960)
The cast of Red Dwarf: Danny John-Jules, Craig Charles, Hattie Hayridge, Chris Barrie and Robert Llewellyn Credit: Everett Collection/Alamy
"The programme has improved since the early days," declared The Sunday Telegraph's Noel Malcolm in 1989. "The combination of wacky humour and groan-inducing old gags is just right now, and in addition this whole episode was based on a massive conceptual joke (they had landed on a version of the Earth where time ran backwards) which has never been worked so cleverly before... The producers of this show are geniuses." That episode, entitled "Backwards", saw a rare cameo in front of the camera from Grant, who played a man "un-smoking" a cigarette.
Red Dwarf became one of the BBC's most successful exports, and in the US it won an Emmy Award in 1994. Grant and Naylor also collaborated on a number of best-selling spin-off novels.
Having spent his whole career writing with Naylor, Grant yearned to pursue solo projects and left Red Dwarf after its sixth series. He observed that watching subsequent series, written by Naylor in collaboration with others, was "like watching a video tape of your ex-wife's next honeymoon".
Grant did not want to relinquish his stake in the characters, however, and a long-running legal dispute between Grant and Naylor was only resolved in 2023. Grant recently completed Red Dwarf: Titan, a prequel novel co-authored with his new regular writing partner Andrew Marshall, to be published in July.
Robert Grant was born in Salford on September 25 1955, the son of Robert Grant, who was in the Royal Navy, and his wife Lilian. He "grew up around the corner from the street originally used for the Coronation Street exteriors".
Rob won a scholarship to Chetham's Hospital School, where he befriended Doug Naylor. They both went on to study psychology at Liverpool University; during this period, they recalled, Grant was "the one with the distinctly non-regulation flared trousers and Peter Wyngarde sideburns", Naylor "the one with the plastic Chelsea boots and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. polo neck".
Grant spent so much of his time fruitlessly sending comedy scripts on spec to the BBC that he was kicked off his course. He and Naylor went on to live together in a flat above a supermarket in Manchester ("it became an utter pit... I'm convinced that flat was the birthplace of the SARS virus") and both worked in the computer department of a mail order warehouse "picking up boxes of paper and putting them down somewhere else" while continuing to bombard the BBC with sketches.
Their first broadcast sketch was a Raymond Chandler parody, which earned them £49 – "my entire earnings for the year", Grant recalled. They "managed to wangle" an office at BBC Manchester, and they were soon writing radio shows for veteran comics such as Ken Dodd, Bob Monkhouse, Roy Hudd and The Grumbleweeds.
In 1980 the pair wrote an offbeat comedy for Radio 4 called Wrinkles, set in a retirement home and starring Tom Mennard and Ballard Berkeley. In the Telegraph Gillian Reynolds reported that Wrinkles had sparked a "great national debate on whether or not [it] is the comic find of the year or a total disaster... Someone told me the other day he'd had to stop driving while listening to Wrinkles because the surreal quality made him lose concentration."
Grant and Naylor went on to write the sketch show Cliché (1981) and its sequel Son of Cliché (1983-84). On the latter they were struggling to complete one script at 2am with the show due to be recorded at the Paris Theatre the next day: "Then suddenly, out of this emotional cocktail of panic, hysteria, exhaustion and terror, we write a sketch called 'Dave Hollins - Space Cadet'. It concerns the plight of a lone space traveller and his computer, the rest of the crew having been wiped out by a strange, chameleonic alien."
Despite both writers being so tired at the recording that they both fell off the stage into the orchestra pit, the audience laughed harder at the Dave Hollins sketch than anything else, and he became the show's most popular regular character. They suggested to the BBC that the idea be expanded into a TV sitcom, but despite initial enthusiasm Red Dwarf took five years to come to fruition.
In the meantime Grant and Naylor moved from Manchester to London to write for Jasper Carrott's television series Carrott's Lib (1982-83) and went on to be leading writers on Spitting Image. They provided the lyrics for The Chicken Song, a merciless send-up of nonsensical hit novelty songs such as Agadoo, which proved so popular after debuting on Spitting Image that it went on to top the singles chart for three weeks.
After leaving Red Dwarf Grant wrote Dark Ages (ITV, 1999), a sitcom starring Phill Jupitus and Alistair McGowan set in 999 BC, and The Strangerers (Sky, 2000), another amalgam of comedy and sci-fi. He also published a number of successful comic novels, including Incompetence (2003) and Fat (2006).
Latterly he teamed up with another veteran writer, Andrew Marshall (the creator of 2 Point 4 Children) to write two popular series for Radio 4: the sci-fi comedy Quanderhorn, a pastiche of Quatermass; and the sketch show The Nether Regions, in which Grant also performed. The latter offered gems such as what The Shipping Forecast sounds like to non-sailors ("Dover, Sole, Haddock, Vikings, Dolphins, Plusnet, East Acton").
With the fruits of his success Grant brought himself a "country pile" in Dorset, but missed city life so much that within two years he had sold up and returned to London.
Rob Grant is survived by his wife Kath, whom he married in 1989, and their son and daughter.
Rob Grant, born September 25 1955, died February 25 2026
:(
Legendary College football coach and sportscaster Lou Holtz, at age 89. :(
Quote from: grumbler on March 04, 2026, 05:09:51 PMLegendary College football coach and sportscaster Lou Holtz, at age 89. :(
RIP a great coach who overcame the debilitating disability of once coaching Arkansas. An inspiration to us all.
Oh and had an awesome team in 1988.
RIP Len Deighton :(
One of the great spy novelists - from my perspective arguably basically him and Le Carre. And also, more surprisingly, the man who introduced British men to French cooking.
:( I think that I read everything he wrote, bar the non-spy stuff.
They had Simon Schama on the radio giving him very warm praise. I had no idea that he was so highly regarded, though admittedly spy thrillers are not really my thing. But, since he is that good I will pick one up asap.
SS-GB is a strong novel, along the lines of Roth's The Plot Against America. Deighton was first, though. Rest in peace! :bowler: :cry:
Less regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 18, 2026, 03:19:25 PMLess regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.
Taking real steps to prevent the population bomb.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 18, 2026, 03:19:25 PMLess regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.
That's an oddly uncharitable statement from you, what did he do that was So bad?
Some of the topics he worked on needed to be debated?
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 18, 2026, 03:19:25 PMLess regrettably, I see Paul Ehrlich has died.
Starved to death?
He was wrong and never really accepted that or reckoned with it - and he was influential particularly through technocratic, Western dominated organisations. I think he's basically the equivalent of an unapologetic eugenicist - even if some of that work was subsequently useful in studies of genetics.
From Charles Mann (total aside but a fantastic writer - I loved 1491 and 1493) for the Smithsonian Magazine:
QuoteIt is true that in the book Ehrlich exhorted readers to remember that his scenarios "are just possibilities, not predictions." But it is also true that he slipped into the language of prediction occasionally in the book, and more often in other settings. "Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born," he promised in a 1969 magazine article. "Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come," Ehrlich told CBS News a year later. "And by 'the end' I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity."
Such statements contributed to a wave of population alarm then sweeping the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council, the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund, the Hugh Moore-backed Association for Voluntary Sterilization and other organizations promoted and funded programs to reduce fertility in poor places. "The results were horrific," says Betsy Hartmann, author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, a classic 1987 exposé of the anti-population crusade. Some population-control programs pressured women to use only certain officially mandated contraceptives. In Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan, health workers' salaries were, in a system that invited abuse, dictated by the number of IUDs they inserted into women. In the Philippines, birth-control pills were literally pitched out of helicopters hovering over remote villages. Millions of people were sterilized, often coercively, sometimes illegally, frequently in unsafe conditions, in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
In the 1970s and '80s, India, led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay, embraced policies that in many states required sterilization for men and women to obtain water, electricity, ration cards, medical care and pay raises. Teachers could expel students from school if their parents weren't sterilized. More than eight million men and women were sterilized in 1975 alone. ("At long last," World Bank head Robert McNamara remarked, "India is moving to effectively address its population problem.") For its part, China adopted a "one-child" policy that led to huge numbers—possibly 100 million—of coerced abortions, often in poor conditions contributing to infection, sterility and even death. Millions of forced sterilizations occurred.
(https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/PjEo1kAczor5MGeays_Tw6yqmdY=/fit-in/1072x0/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/5d/0c/5d0c1d0d-7956-48bf-8f3b-53a9703173fb/janfeb2018_o99_populationbomb.jpg)
5w Infographics; Sources: World Peace Foundation, Tufts; Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N.
Ehrlich does not see himself as responsible for such abuses. He strongly supported population-control measures like sterilization, and argued that the United States should pressure other governments to launch vasectomy campaigns, but he did not advocate for the programs' brutality and discrimination.
Equally strongly, he disputes the criticism that none of his scenarios came true. Famines did occur in the 1970s, as Ehrlich had warned. India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, West and East Africa—all were wracked, horribly, by hunger in that decade. Nonetheless, there was no "great increase in the death rate" around the world. According to a widely accepted count by the British economist Stephen Devereux, starvation claimed four to five million lives during that decade—with most of the deaths due to warfare, rather than environmental exhaustion from overpopulation.
In fact, famine has not been increasing but has become rarer. When The Population Bomb appeared, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, something like one out of four people in the world was hungry. Today the proportion of hungry is about one out of ten. Meanwhile, the world's population has more than doubled. People are surviving because they learned how to do things differently. They developed and adopted new agricultural techniques—improved seeds, high-intensity fertilizers, drip irrigation.
And to the very end - literally within the last five years - he was still saying the same thing.
Context is required for Ehrlich's work. The Green Revolution was just starting, and in the late 60s it was still unclear it would be the solution to world hunger. And some have argued the Green Revolution has come with its own problems while not actually solving world hunger - it just created unequal access to cheap food, while creating permanent damage to otherwise rich soils.
The unthinkable happened.
Chuck Norris, martial artist and movie legend for some, 86.
RIP
Unpossible!
As if death could defeat Norris
We should wait and see if he's really dead.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2026, 09:34:59 AMAs if death could defeat Norris
I will always fondly remember that early 2000s internet meme. The internet was fun then.
Quote from: Valmy on March 20, 2026, 11:10:49 AMQuote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2026, 09:34:59 AMAs if death could defeat Norris
I will always fondly remember that early 2000s internet meme. The internet was fun then.
:cheers:
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on March 20, 2026, 09:30:01 AMThe unthinkable happened.
Chuck Norris, martial artist and movie legend for some, 86.
RIP
He just move on and took up death's mantle. People everywhere will now be having near-chuck experiences!
One of the articles on his legacy noted that unliked Schwarzenegger and others, he didn't lace his action films with humor. That writer was obviously ignorant of his best film, "Firewalker".
Best film, Firewalker? :lmfao:
Even Forced Vengeance had better humour.
If I forced to pick out one Chuck Norris film to watch in his honor right now, and would likely enjoy, that would be my choice. :sleep:
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on March 20, 2026, 12:26:18 PMQuote from: Duque de Bragança on March 20, 2026, 09:30:01 AMThe unthinkable happened.
Chuck Norris, martial artist and movie legend for some, 86.
RIP
He just move in and took up death's mantle. People everywhere will now be having near-chuck experiences!
Death waits for us all, but now Chuck Norris for us.
Quote from: Tonitrus on March 20, 2026, 02:16:08 PMIf I forced to pick out one Chuck Norris film to watch in his honor right now, and would likely enjoy, that would be my choice. :sleep:
If lame attempts at humour is what you like, go for it.
Best film of his for me is Code of Silence, originally a script for Clint Eastwood, directed by Andrew Davis, where Chuck Norris actually acts or looks like an actor, if you will.
Andrew Davis also pulled it for Steven Seagal.
Quote from: Tonitrus on March 20, 2026, 02:16:08 PMIf I forced to pick out one Chuck Norris film to watch in his honor right now, and would likely enjoy, that would be my choice. :sleep:
I would struggle to even name one, although I did watch them back in the day.
The Octagon
Delta Force. One of the earliest movies my parents recorded on VHS off the telly. Defining movie of my childhood, along Two Champions of Shaolin. :D
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2026, 02:49:58 PMThe Octagon
The Yardies had to win the respect of Chuck Norris.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 20, 2026, 02:49:58 PMThe Octagon
Also known as how Chuck Norris launched the '80s ninja craze. :)
Nicholas Brendon has passed. We were talking about the Buffy reboot being canceled. Wonder if it's related.
Quote from: HVC on March 21, 2026, 12:43:16 AMNicholas Brendon has passed. We were talking about the Buffy reboot being canceled. Wonder if it's related.
I believe he was himself canceled.
Robert Mueller died, age 81.
Quote from: viper37 on March 21, 2026, 03:03:14 PMRobert Mueller died, age 81.
Trump posting online, his shocking no one:
"Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!"
Quote from: Syt on March 22, 2026, 09:46:55 AMQuote from: viper37 on March 21, 2026, 03:03:14 PMRobert Mueller died, age 81.
Trump posting online, his shocking no one:
"Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!"
It really is stretching the definition of "innocent".
RIP Afrika Bambaataa (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/arts/music/afrika-bambaataa-dead.html)
I saw him perform once at the Movement Electronic Music Festival about 20 years ago. Even then he was one of the few acts there who still used turntables; everyone else was rocking their Mac computer.
Slightly surprised that there's no obituary in the Times or Guardian - but RIP Lord Robert Skidelsky. His parents were of Russian heritage (Jewish and Christian), which he said informed his later viewpoints as all sides of his family would have suffered under the totalitarianisms of the 20th century. I think he said that shaped his interest in Keynes (I also think it might explain some of his fairly pro-Russian views on foreign policy, spheres of influence etc).
He was an economic historian who wrote a (surprisingly sympathetic) biography of Oswald Mosley, which prompted him to be commissioned to write a biography of Keynes. This ended up being three volumes and, from what I understand (I haven't read it - but will), it's considered up here with Caro on Moses and LBJ or Deutscher on Trotsky. It's a massive intellectual achievement and on the list of masterpieces in biography as a genre.
Interesting political journey too given that he ended up in the House of Lords. He started in Labour and then moved to the SDP (backing David Owen - can sort of see a bit of a Mosley crossover there) and staying in the Owenite continuity SDP, moving to the Tories under John Major before leaving all the partes. I think he entered the Lords as a crossbencher, then sat with the Tories before returning to the crossbenches - but was in the last ten years actually a pretty strong backer of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, or at least very sympathetic to it.
Anyway RIP Lord Skidelsky (a prompt to probably start reading the Keynes books :ph34r:).