2016 deaths and climbing

[Techno]

Leon Russel. 

Cheers - Phil

[fsn]

Is it awful that I've never heard of him?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/11/04/lieutenant-colonel-bob-montgomery--obituary/

Led the demo teams at St Nazaire.

[fsn]

Shame. We have a dwindling number of these heroes.

[Ithoriel]

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral ... " - T.S. Eliot "East Coker"

[FierceKitty]

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

(Far better poet, imffho)

[cameronian]

Have you heard Richard Burton narrating 'Under Milk Wood' ?

[FierceKitty]

Yep. That was my first encounter with Thomas.

[cameronian]

.... flying like black flour

Wonderful.

[Ithoriel]

I'd take Eliot over Thomas any day of the week but still rate Thomas as an exceptional poet.

"I burn my candle at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes,
and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light." -   Edna St. Vincent Millay, "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920

That's the version I was originally taught though I believe the proper first line is "My candle burns at both ends" - I prefer the version I first heard.

May the candles of all those here burn long and burn bright!

[Nirnman]

has anything happened to Stephen Hawking? I was trawling throught my FB pages and a sid note flashed a bout a sad day for science with a pic of Hawking forgot to check it out but can find no recent update for him.

[Techno]

Been nothing on the news.

Nothing to do with all the false/mistaken death notifications that FB posted a few days ago ?
Even Mark Zuckerberg was declared 'dead'...along with another two million or so folk, who weren't.....apparently.

Cheers - Phil

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

 Castro, aged 90

[Sandinista]

Dodged how many assassination attempts to die to old man 

We could do with a few more like him

Cheers
Ian

[FierceKitty]

Ah, well, a former Cuban friend of mine will be delighted. She said her country had been completely subordinated to a cult of personality.