Life, the universe and everything. Politics, geekery and adapting to life in Yorkshire. With occasional outbursts of intelligence.
To vote in polls and comment easily, either use your OpenID or create an account.

Jazz legend Lyttelton dies at 86

Humphrey Lyttelton 1921 - 2008

Humph died peacefully with his family and friends around him on April 25th at 7.00pm following surgery.

There are no words I can say.

RIP Humph.

Undoubtedly my favourite author as a teen, and still someone I like to remember now (and who I'll doubtless bring up the reread list now), AP reports that Arthur C. Clarke passed away earlier today. He already had his own tag on here and deservedly so, not only did he predict satellite communications, mobile phones and similar, but he also proved that magic does exist and wrote some of the most iconic moments in SF film history ever. If you haven't watched 2001, do so, I suspect you'll get a chance very very soon. If I get to live to 90 and acheive half what he managed, I'll be fairly happy with my lot.

RIP Sir Arthur.

ETA: ( More linkage. ) Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

I never did get into Dungeons and Dragons. This might seem weird to a lot of you, who either know me through gaming, or know that I am (or at least was) a gamer, but ultimately by the time I tried AD&D I'd played many many much better games (Blood Bowl being my first and favourite "gamers game"), so despite the efforts of friends such as draich_goch and Duncan, I never did actually manage to get into it.

Having said that, the news that the games creator, Gary Gygax, has died does sadden me a little, for although I didn't like his game, I did like the many many (better) games that came after it. Indeed, I spent 5 years working full time and 7 years working part time for a company that would never have existed if he hadn't created that game. Sure, odds are, someone else would've come up with something similar eventually, but they didn't—he did it first.

theferrett is doing a tribute post of all the best quotes about his death, from Salon's "final quest" to the huge variants of "failed his save", although I do agree with pickwick, the best one is undoubtedly Gary Gygax was finally gotten by the gazebo. A joke that either cracks you up or makes you go "huh". I'm not even sure I can explain it to a non-player (here's an attempt), if anyone wants to give it a go in the comments feel free.

Of course, the best heroic(ish) fantasy RPG was WFRP, as anyone knows, and the writer of one of the best adventures there is does I think the best tribute:

Gary Gygax created modern gaming ... The class-and-level system dates explicitly to Gygax’s work ... By today’s standards, after thirty-five years of refinement and polish, the original edition of D&D looks incredibly clunky. But if you look beyond ... what’s astonishing is how much of the game is right. It wasn’t the concept of roleplay in D&D that birthed the genre, it was the way the rules encapsulated the core ideas behind it

Can't say fairer than that. Extra: Order of the Stick has a nice special episode as well.

Gary Gygax. Boat Barge sunk this day, 4th March, 2008. RIP.

John Peel Gravestone

Steve points us at The Guardian's gravestone meme inspired by the news that John Peel's grave has a line from an Undertones song on it. The mind boggles as to why the Telegraph had a picture of the actual stone but none of the other media sources did, I assume stupidity? Anyway, the questions:

1) Which lyric would you have on your tombstone?
2) Which song has been the soundtrack to your life?
3) Do you have any suggestions for the pop-music epitaphs of world figures?

I answered on his post but, y'know, I was going to link the picture anyway because, well: Dude! John Peel!

And it is a most excellent gravestone. So I guess you want my answers, right?
( Tribute to John Peel meme )

---

Ah well, any more takers?

My paper of choice for the best part of 15 years was The Independent, started getting it when I was 17 and took GCSE Politics to go alongside my A Levels. I got in trouble in a politics class once for sneakily reading Miles Kington's column when I was suppoed to be debating something.

The small point that I was winning the debate anyway was only a little lost on the teacher. I stopped reading his column in later years (and now rarely if ever buy any print newspaper), mostly because they kept moving it around and it stopped residing in the Comment section where it belonged. Mostly always amusing, and I normally enjoyed his radio shows as well (although he could be annoyingly BBC-smug at times). So this headline isn't cheering:
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Newspaper columnist Kington dies

Ah well, 66 is a bit young, only twice my age. Scary, innit.

Jennie and I met because she and ginasketch came down to London to attend a recording of the News Quiz, a show we were all fans of. Suffice to say I've a little soft spot for the show that inspired Have I Got News For You and is always worth a listen. So these headlines aren't really welcome.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Broadcaster Alan Coren dies at 69
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Obituary: Alan Coren

RIP mate, you made me laugh many many times

There are times when you don't even know how great someone is until you read their obituary. Sometimes, it's a name you've never heard before, and then you find out what they did. It's weird, but reading a list of the theme tunes that Ronnie Hazlehurst wrote was just so evocative, they came to me, and I don't normally remember music on tap. My childhood, in so many ways. Here's an edited highlights:

# Are You Being Served?
# The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
# Last of the Summer Wine
# To the Manor Born
# Yes Minister

And, because, y'know, TV tribute time, I bring you the three best (in my opinion, and hey, my journal, so that's what counts.YouTube - Yes Minister Intro: ( Yes Minister )YouTube - BBC Are you being served? 70s intro:( Are you Being Served opening credits )
YouTube - Last Of The Summer Wine:( Last of the Summer Wine theme and tribute )
Yes Minister obviously an all-time great show, but the credits to each of the above are so memorable they good in and of themselves, regardless of your opinion of the show. What struck me in the BBC PM tribute was how varied they were. Ah well.

Robert Jordan died yesterday. I'd had him filed under "really must get around to reading" for ages, never quite got around to it. But enough people I know were fans to figure there's something there worth it.

So I guess the questions are: Are the Wheel of Time books good, should I try to read them, how far from completion were they, and will someone else be hired to finish things off?

These days, with the Body Shop owned by L'Oreal and a Lush on every High St, it's hard to recall what a major change the chain was when it started out. (Mostly) ethical products, campaiging against animal testing, good quality shampoo that didn't make me itch all over. Oh, and mostly cute staff friendly staff as well.

Then there was the whole putting your money where your mouth is thing, and the outspoken campaigning she put in. That she was ill was known, didn't know she was as ill as she was.

My humanism believes that the impact you have on the world and the legacy you leave is how you should be measured. By my measure, the cup floweth over.

Rest in peace Dame Anita.

*is reading friends list*

I'm guessing that at some point someone will post something that isn't celebrating the death of the stupid bigotted lunatic?

Oh, wait, I'm doing it to. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, and I'm also a proper liberal who believes in free speech and letting the lunatics be bloody stupid. As long as they don't harm me. But he thought he was right. If he was, and there is a hell?

Rot in hell Jerry Falwell