strange_complex | Entries tagged with celebrities

The Year of Augustus is officially over at last, and it's time to wish you all a happy and healthy 2015! May it be full of goodness and satisfaction for you all.

I spent my New Year's Eve this year seeing Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) at the Hyde Park cinema with

ms_siobhan (both of which I shall write up separately), before returning to my place where we were joined by

planet_andy and Mr. & Mrs.

ZeitgeistZero for champagne, canapés, a cosy fire and lots of wicked laughter. It was a lovely evening, and has only left me feeling moderately delicate today, so all in all just right.

Under strict instructions from

glitzfrau, we made sure to compile the annual Death List and Scandal List, which we do most years and which I have occasionally published here (example), but which I don't think we got round to last year. The rules are that if anyone on the list dies or becomes embroiled in a scandal in 2015, we all get 10p, though I'm not sure from whom - ourselves, probably. Also, it's fine for people to be on both lists. Re the Death List, some people are on there in hope, others as a protective charm (since people on the list very rarely actually die), and some out of pure pragmatism, but I will leave it to you to guess which. And re the Scandal List, we have suggested specifics in some cases, in which case we get double points if those come to pass, but we still all get our statutory 10p if those people are involved in any kind of scandal, even if it's not the one we predicted.

So, without further ado, and in the utterly random order we wrote them down last night while drunk, here goes:

2015 Death List
Prince Philip (who has now taken Mrs. Thatcher's traditional place at the head of the list)
John Craven
Ex-Pope Benedict ~~XIV~~ (oops!) XVI (natural causes)
Current Pope Francis (suspicious circumstances)
Elizabeth Butler Sloss
Beryl Bainbridge (ah - actually, just looked her up on Wikipedia now, and it turns out she died in 2010. So nul points for us there I think.)
Katie Hopkins
Michael Heseltine
Kirk Douglas
Terry Pratchett
Alan Bennett
David Hockney
Mark E. Smith
Paul McCartney
Ken Dodd
Rolf Harris (in prison)
Stephen Hawking
Clint Eastwood
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran
President Muhammad Fuad Masum of Iraq
President Assad of Syria
George Bush Snr
Bruce Forsyth
Jimmy Tarbuck
Mickey Rooney
Maggie Smith
Paul Daniels
Any current Blue Peter pets
Mike Lee

2015 Scandal List
Justin Bieber (glue sniffing)
Nigel Farage (auto-erotic asphyxiation and / or found with an orange up his arse)
Boris Johnson
Katie Hopkins
Bono
Gary Barlow
Ed Miliband (turns out to be a LARPer)
Richard Dawkins (converts to Islam)
Jeb Bush
Jedward (it's possible that at this stage we were drifting into playing word association)
Any male BBC news reader
Lorraine Kelly
Neil & Christine Hamilton
Noel Edmonds
George Lucas
Damien Hirst
Paul Daniels
The McCanns
Noddy Holder

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Well, here's wishing you a very happy New Year, oh denizens of livejournal! May it be one of good health, happiness, fulfilment and success for all of you.

I spent the last hours of 2011 chez moi, having a splendid time in the company of the lovely

ms_siobhan,

planet_andy, a roaring fire, some silly games and a great deal of champagne and canapés. At the start of the evening we played a QI board game which I'd got for Christmas, and all agreed that the best thing about the game by far was the red plunger-button that came with it, and which made the sound of the dumb-obvious-answer QI klaxon when you pressed it.

By the time we'd finished that, we were ready to move on to this year's death and scandal lists. We did quite poorly last year - on the scandal front, George Osborne did have to look a bit contrite about his cocaine-snorting habits, but still seems to be resolutely in-post. On the death front, Jimmy Savile (whose name I see I spelt incorrectly last year) is of course no longer with us, but that seems to be about it. So our approach this year was to take a scatter-gun approach to the death list in particular, basically just shoving anyone who is getting on a bit on there, along with a scattering of wild-card younger types. We typed it up directly this time, rather than scrawling it on bits of paper, so here it is exactly as we produced it last night, complete with our wild veerings backwards and forwards between celebrity entertainers and foreign dignitaries:

( Death list )

On the scandal front we have been more restrained, and also much more specific. We reckon the rule is that we can cash in if any scandal affects the people listed, but that we get bonus points if it happens as we have envisaged:

( Scandal list )

By the time we'd done all that it was pretty much midnight, so we got out the Piper-Heidsieck champagne, watched the count-down with Big Ben on the telly, and toasted in the New Year to a stereo display of London fireworks on the telly and local ones outside the window. After that, we turned our attention to sillier games - principally

ms_siobhan's Spongebob Squarepants clam-catching game, which is chuffing brilliant, especially after a few glasses of bubbly, and prompted much laughing, shrieking, dastardly cheating, and exclamations along the lines of "I've put it in a different hole!" (as, of course, the Bishop said to the actress). Here are

ms_siobhan and

planet_andy locked in a deadly clam-catching duel:

Then it was on to Jenga-with-the-giggles, playing with a remote-controlled Dalek whose failing batteries made him seem comically elderly, and plotting possible epic journeys to Northumberland. All in all a great start to the year, and I hope it continues as merrily as it began. :-)

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Question meme from

kkjxx:

1. Elaborate on your default icon.
Essentially, it's me doing something I love in spite of the weather, on a particularly significant New Year's Day. The full story is here.

2. What's your current relationship status?
Single and with no desire to change that.

3. Ever have a near-death experience?
No, and I don't think I've ever really been in serious danger of dying, either. I've been pretty ill a couple of times, including one quite dramatic entry into hospital, but that's all.

4. Name an obvious quality you have.
Not doing too badly in the brains department.

5. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now?
Er, not too sure. I think it's an instrumental section from something by Handel, but I only really have one tiny phrase in my head - not enough to work out the rest of it.

6. Name a celebrity you would marry:
I think Stephen Fry definitely fits the bill there! I'm pretty sure it would be a non-sexual relationship by mutual agreement, but just generally getting to live with him and spend lots of time talking with him would be ace.

7. Who will cut and paste this first?
I'm not sure anyone will. Maybe

captainlucy?

8. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?
I was once compared to Siouxsie of 'The Banshees' fame - although that was ages ago, and I had black back-combed hair and was wearing black and purple PVC at the time. Then again, I've also been compared to Charles Hawtree... :-( If anyone has any more up-to-date / flattering suggestions, I'm listening!

9. Do you wear a watch? What kind?
Yes, a beautiful sparkly one covered in Swarovski crystals, which a lot of people don't realise is a watch at first, and think is a pretty bracelet instead. It looks like this, except that the crystals inside each link are lilac instead of clear.

10. Do you have anything pierced?
Yes - three holes in one ear, four in the other and one in my belly button.

11. Do you have any tattoos?
No, and don't want one. There's just no one symbol that means so much to me that I want it permanently engraved on my body - especially given that even the best tattoos do look kinda dodgy after 20 years or so.

12. Do you like pain?
Not for its own sake, no.

13. Do you like to shop?
I like the things I get by shopping, but don't particularly enjoy the actual process.

14. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?
An orange juice while out shopping on Saturday afternoon with Cie.

15. What was the last thing you paid for with your credit card?
My shopping in Sainsbury's this morning. Although strictly, that was a debit card - I don't actually have a credit card, because it's an extortionate way to borrow money, and a debit card offers the same convenience.

16. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone?
Dad yesterday afternoon, about flat-buying stuff.

17. What is on your desktop background?
Lord Summerisle, speaking his "A heathen conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one" line in The Wicker Man.

18. What is the background on your cell phone?
Alessandro Moreschi, aged c. 25 - the second picture from the left on my colour bar, except not orange.

19. Do you like redheads?
Well, yes - if they're nice people. Not just because their hair is red, though.

20. Do you know any twins?
Er, I can't think of any just now. I've a vague idea that I know someone who has a twin, but I don't really know the twin. Obviously it's not had much impact on me, though, since I can't even be sure who that person might be.

21. Do you have any weird relatives?
Not outrageously weird - just normal-human-being weird.

22. What was the last movie you watched?
Farinelli: il Castrato, which BBC4 showed recently in connection with their documentary on the castrati. I'd seen it years ago and remembered it being dreadful, but thought I'd give it another try now that I know so much more about both Farinelli and Handel (who appears as a character in the film). My verdict? What a pile of unadulterated tripe - I was right about it first time round!

23. What was the last book you read?
A Short History of The British School At Rome by Peter Wiseman. Excellent book, really enjoyed it.