This wretched year

[jeremyp]

This has been a year to forget as Humph puts it:

This wretched year aint finished with us yet 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rick-parfitt-dead-aged-68-spain_uk_585e91e7e4b0f24da6e798ae?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D1398575850_uk

The Queen is not looking too clever either. Just sayin' ...

[splashscuba]

This has been a year to forget as Humph puts it:

The Queen is not looking too clever either. Just sayin' ...

OMG, Charles ......

[Hope]

Yet some of the performances and events have been no less breathtaking and inspiring than the sad ones.  It can be too easy to concentrate on the negatives.

[Keith Maitland]

And here is another thought:


In 2016 when toxic masculinity reigned, it is devastating to lose Prince, Bowie & now George Michael, who showed there's no one right way to be a man.

[Brownie]

You are right.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

George was a genuinely talented man, who was modest enough to publicly admit that part of his success was down to sheer good luck in that his career took off in late 1982 at the end of the New Romantic movement, a year later he would have been out of place.

Yes he did a few silly things (driving his car whilst drugged up, and worse still his bizarre facial hair arrangements), but far worse than him have walked the planet . RIP.

[Hope]

The BBC have run 2 'In Memory' items (30 minutes each iirc) during today's and yesterday's (Christmas Day) BBC Breakfast.  It is amazing how many we seem to have missed - one that struck me as I watched today was British dramatist Arnold Wesker, whose 'Chicken Soup with Barley' I remember studying whilst I was at college.  He died back in April.

[Bubbles]

OMG, Charles ......

2017 the sequel    ..............bwhaha!

[Anchorman]

2017 the sequel    ..............bwhaha!
[/quote




If Chuck gets his mum's job, it'll be the start of the end of the Windsor pantomime - with any luck.
Still, on the bright side, I missed Lizzie's speech for the fourteenth year in a row yesterday.
So it's not all bad.

[ippy]

2017 the sequel    ..............bwhaha!

Never mind Rose at least we decided to leave Europe this year, that should offset a lot of the bad bits.

There's always a bright side to everything.

ippy

[Hope]

Never mind Rose at least we decided to leave Europe this year, that should offset a lot of the bad bits.

There's always a bright side to everything.

ippy

Quite agree, ippy, the falling sterling value, the rising cost of fuel, the rising cost of imported goods such as food.  Then of course there'll be that massive advantage of business uncertainty and lack of confidence, attempts by other nations to take over our trading opportunities and EU leaders' determination not to let us off lightly, lest other EU members try to 'escape'.

Can't even begin to list the massive benefits all this will have to us.

Sorry, there is one - we'll be shot of the whinging Scots   

[ippy]

Quite agree, ippy, the falling sterling value, the rising cost of fuel, the rising cost of imported goods such as food.  Then of course there'll be that massive advantage of business uncertainty and lack of confidence, attempts by other nations to take over our trading opportunities and EU leaders' determination not to let us off lightly, lest other EU members try to 'escape'.

Can't even begin to list the massive benefits all this will have to us.

Sorry, there is one - we'll be shot of the whinging Scots   

Ye of little faith Hope it'll all be for the better; we can't rid ourselves of that cross border banter with the Scots, just think of how much of the support for our England football teams we could be losing, if Scotland goes.

ippy

[ad_orientem]

Quite agree, ippy, the falling sterling value, the rising cost of fuel, the rising cost of imported goods such as food.  Then of course there'll be that massive advantage of business uncertainty and lack of confidence, attempts by other nations to take over our trading opportunities and EU leaders' determination not to let us off lightly, lest other EU members try to 'escape'.

Can't even begin to list the massive benefits all this will have to us.

Sorry, there is one - we'll be shot of the whinging Scots   

 

And if you think an alteady struggling European economy is going to snub the UK out of spite, you're mad. It can't afford to. Who they're going to do business with who they aren't already. Russia? Hah!

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Hello Everybody

We already have a thread on this subject 

[jeremyp]

Hello Everybody

We already have a thread on this subject 

Where?

[Humph Warden Bennett]

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12832.0

I don't think that Ippy intentionally tried to derail, but we can discuss Brexit elsewhere.

[jeremyp]

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12832.0

I don't think that Ippy intentionally tried to derail, but we can discuss Brexit elsewhere.

This thread is about the wretchedness of 2016. I started it with the deaths of famous people in mind, but Brexit and its consequences can certainly be classed as part of the wretchedness.

[ekim]

This thread is about the wretchedness of 2016. I started it with the deaths of famous people in mind, but Brexit and its consequences can certainly be classed as part of the wretchedness.

With, on average, 150,000 deaths a day on the planet and if you multiply this by, say, 10 to represent grieving friends and relatives, that's a lot of grief building up daily.  I suppose you could say every year has its wretchedness.

[Brownie]

It certainly does, ekim, and the good bits which are often buried.

It's just that, this year, it seems that so many people of whom a lot of us have heard, have died.
Of course, many others have died that we won't know about.

However, has there been another year in recent memory with so many dead high profile/media people?
Seems to me that 2016 has been particularly noticeable for that.

[Harrowby Hall]

However, has there been another year in recent memory with so many dead high profile/media people?
Seems to me that 2016 has been particularly noticeable for that.

Old Harrowby Hall's Almanac Prediction:       You'll be saying exactly the same thing this time next year.

[Jack Knave]

I think it's been a good year, and next year could be even better. 

[jeremyp]

With, on average, 150,000 deaths a day on the planet and if you multiply this by, say, 10 to represent grieving friends and relatives, that's a lot of grief building up daily.  I suppose you could say every year has its wretchedness.

Yes, I was reading a thread on another forum about Carrie Fisher in which it was pointed out that many people were mourning Princess Leia, not Carrie Fisher whom they didn't know and it occurred to me that I didn't lose any friends or family in 2016 which is not something I can claim for 2014 or 2015 and is sadly unlikely to be true for 2017. So in the entirely narrow context of my own life, 2016 was not a wretched year.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Yes, I was reading a thread on another forum about Carrie Fisher in which it was pointed out that many people were mourning Princess Leia, not Carrie Fisher whom they didn't know and it occurred to me that I didn't lose any friends or family in 2016 which is not something I can claim for 2014 or 2015 and is sadly unlikely to be true for 2017. So in the entirely narrow context of my own life, 2016 was not a wretched year.

I think of this year as being the year when those of us who like to think that we have some empathy with other inhabitants of the world were outvoted by those who boast of having none. I will be raising a glass at midnight on Saturday to celebrate the end of an awful year.

[Harrowby Hall]

I think of this year as being the year when those of us who like to think that we have some empathy with other inhabitants of the world were outvoted by those who boast of having none. I will be raising a glass at midnight on Saturday to celebrate the end of an awful year.

You have put my sentiments into a very concise form. Thank you.

You might find the link below of interest:

blog.dilbert.com/post/126589300371/clown-genius

[Hope]

I'm simply putting these ideas out for discussion as I'm not sure whether they hold water or not.

1)  Could the death toll, amongst celebrities, be a result of the increasing pressure from social expectations as expressed through social media and other international media

2)  could it be the inevitable result of the increased abuse of substances overe the years?  I appreciate that alcohol played a large part in the lives and often demise of many celebrities in the past, but has the pharmaceutical 'experimentation' that has been so prevalent since the 60s been a factor in the relatively young ages of so many deaths.