UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

It looks like Harper Lee has the first entry. Announced that she died today, aged 89.

I loved To Kill a Mockingbird.

Sad news, another talent gone.

(Good idea to keep the place tidy Geoff, only one place to visit for celebrity family notices)

I was very sad to hear this, it seems a different celebrity every week this year. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite books. Might buy Go Set a Watchman and read it this year

Anita wrote: "Sad news, another talent gone.

(Good idea to keep the place tidy Geoff, only one place to visit for celebrity family notices)"

It was something that Elle reminded me that we were talking about a few weeks ago.

Add in Umberto Eco, who died yesterday.

Stopping to think about it, it's an inevitable side effect of us getting older. The people who make an impact on us seem to be those who're twenty or less years older than us. Close enough in age to be a 'similar' generation (relate more to us than our parents) and yet older enough to do the interesting stuff before we get round to it.

And when you're sixty, the people you were impressed by are eighty and dying.
We weren't really that impressed by people sixty or more years older than us. I can remember Churchill's funeral, he was a great man and I knew he was a great man because people told me that he was. I didn't know he was a great man because I'd lived through his life time and watched him grow and seen in my own life the consequences of his actions

So this would be the mourning thread?

Jim - I was thinking about the same thing. Excuse me while I lapse into geekiness ...

There might be a demographic bulge at work here. We had a huge increase in the number of celebrities when we started to get global media - cinema, radio, television, internet. The sixties and seventies in particular saw a massive jump in the number of people that we would consider to be celebs, as more and more households got a television.

Because we have more celebs getting famous around the same time, it stands to reason that they will start to drop off at similar times.

I've seen this demographic bulge at work in my day job in transport. Before the 1960s, relatively few women learned to drive. Cars were expensive, so there was usually only one car per household. And that tended to mean that mostly it was the men doing the driving. This all changed with the much cheaper cars of the sixties and seventies. From the 1960s onwards, more women learned to drive.

We're now seeing a secondary impact of this. The young women (aged 17+) who learned to drive in the 1960s are now retiring. But where the previous generation of older women were largely non-drivers, the current generation have been driving all their adult lives.

This is having an effect on the bus companies. In the middle of the day, their buses used to be full of mostly retired women because they never learned to drive. Now those retired women are increasingly ignoring the bus and carrying on using their cars.

Odd that something that happened more than 50 years ago is only now starting to have an effect.

We may also be in a random cluster. Sometimes random events do crop up close to each other. It's how probability works - random events are not evenly spaced.

Either that or there is a new Spectre going around bumping off celebs as part of some mwhahahaha plan to take over the world.

Jim wrote: "Stopping to think about it, it's an inevitable side effect of us getting older. The people who make an impact on us seem to be those who're twenty or less years older than us. Close enough in age t..."

I think that is very true. Just thinking about the recent rock star deaths brought it home rather starkly. We think about them at their Prime, not as old men and women. To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the few books I actually enjoyed when we did that horrible reading round the class thing in school. I used to read on ahead silently then get into trouble when it was my turn and I had got lost.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "So this would be the mourning thread?"

Good idea :)

Let it be so.

Jim wrote: "Stopping to think about it, it's an inevitable side effect of us getting older. The people who make an impact on us seem to be those who're twenty or less years older than us. Close enough in age t..."

Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Add in Umberto Eco, who died yesterday."
Yes I read that this morning. My Auntie bought me Name of the Rose,mooned up a huge new selection of books for me, still got my copy.

Much as I don't want to agree Jim, I do, we are rapidly becoming the older generation with all that goes with it. If I don't stop nattering and get a shower I will be a smelly old dear too !

You expect to hear about the very elderly dying, but it's the more recent ones who have died of cancer or some other illness, all of a sudden, that shocks you. Or young people committing suicide or have died in accidents.

My 90+ neighbour was a lovely man. We used to go and have a rum and black with him and his stories were really interesting. One night he was very low and said he'd had to stop reading the obituaries, we assumed it was his friends' obituaries that had bothered him. No he said, he'd outlived most of them, it was when he saw their children going that upset him.

Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "I was very sad to hear this, it seems a different celebrity every week this year. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite books. Might buy Go Set a Watchman and read it this year"

You might want to preserve your good feelings for the author and TKAM by NOT buying GSAW.

At least please read what it is (an unedited first draft of TKAM set twenty years later) and a bit about the controversy. You can't unread things.

I love TKAM, and believe Miss Lee was very badly served. I won't read GSAW. Ever.

Just read that Paul Daniels has terminal cancer. So another loss is on the cards then. Hope he doesn't suffer badly before the inevitable.

That's awful Vanessa. How many more ?

Vanessa (aka Dumbo) wrote: "Just read that Paul Daniels has terminal cancer. So another loss is on the cards then. Hope he doesn't suffer badly before the inevitable."

Paul Daniels - cards? I hope that was accidental.

Oops, yeah it was.

I know a few people - me included - who used to sit in their cars in the works car park and leave going in until the eight o' clock news came on so they could listen to a last bit of Terry Wogan's whimsy before the real day started. I was so sad to hear of his sudden death.

This is why, if you're going to write, better get on with it. Time flies.

The death has been announced of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown. He was one of the most successful test pilots of all time. He flew 487 different aircraft, made 2.407 deck landings at sea and took 2.721 catapult launches. All records that, to quote the Telegraph, are unlike to be beaten.

Brown flew every major combat aircraft of the Second World War including gliders, fighters, bombers, airliners, amphibians, flying boats and helicopters. This included Allied and German aircraft (the latter for evaluation).

I saw a documentary on him last year. Very unassuming aviator.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu...

Edited to add Telegraph obituary.

Alicia wrote: "This is why, if you're going to write, better get on with it. Time flies."

Mm - given how long it has taken me so far, I just need to live until I'm 107. Returning to WIP now.

Elizabeth wrote: "I know a few people - me included - who used to sit in their cars in the works car park and leave going in until the eight o' clock news came on so they could listen to a last bit of Terry Wogan's ..."

Quite agree, Elizabeth. I've just used my monthly piece in the Derby Telegraph to write a bit of a eulogy about him because I think there was no-one better at radio presenting and the world is a little poorer for his passing.

Elizabeth wrote: "Alicia wrote: "This is why, if you're going to write, better get on with it. Time flies."

Mm - given how long it has taken me so far, I just need to live until I'm 107. Returning to WIP now."

Same here - I try not to waste writing time, as it is hard to get. Wish my brain weren't so slow.

Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "The death has been announced of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown. He was one of the most successful test pilots of all time. He flew 487 different aircraft, made 2.407 deck landings at sea and took 2.72..."

What a man! He lived a wonderful life.

A small part of my personal history died today.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainme...

The film The Commitments is very much a Dublin film, I know many of the locations, and my next door neighbour was in it.

Great film, and 'Joey' was brilliant.

Aw! Love The Commitments!!

Just can't believe so many have gone in the past few weeks ! It seems to hit hardest when these people have been around all our lives.

Elizabeth wrote: "Alicia wrote: "This is why, if you're going to write, better get on with it. Time flies."

Mm - given how long it has taken me so far, I just need to live until I'm 107. Returning to WIP now."

I know the feeling!

Alistair brownlees funeral tomorrow, not a lot of people will know him bet a true legend on Teesside lovely bloke true gentleman, broadcasted for boro for about 30 years, great tribute at the match last night.

I thought you meant Alistair Brownlee the triathlete, I wondered what I had missed!

yes a few have thought that same name different person, but still a champion.

Hiya Eastwood, how you doing ?

Fine Anita how are you

We are fine thank you. I hope things have improved where you live, as much as they can anyway.

Well if you mean the town, they british steel lads are trying to get jobs we are currently training some in our college as plumbers but the be all and end all is jobs there is none.

goodness knows how they are supposed to move on and all the retraining won't help when there aren't jobs for them to go too.

To be honest our jobs are under threat through lack of funding we could go under as well unless we amalgamate with other colleges.

I am so sorry to hear that. This should NOT happen, what has happened to this " wonderful " Country of ours that so many people's lives can be destroyed ?

Yes it's pretty bleak round here at the moment but we will bounce back we did it before.

I'm sure you will, it's not much but I know so many people who are thinking about you all, long after the news cameras have left.

You are so lovely thanks for that x

Drink! Feck! Arse! Girls!
RIP Father Jack.

That would be an ecumenical matter!

I heard it on the news at lunchtime. A great shame.

Apparently Dermot Morgan died 18 years ago today. I can't believe its that long!

eastwood (do you feel lucky punk,well do ya) wrote: "You are so lovely thanks for that x"

Only saying what most people round here are saying Eastwood.

Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "Apparently Dermot Morgan died 18 years ago today. I can't believe its that long!"

Strangely, I thought it was a bit longer than that. Thought it was 1992.