2026 Feet Under

[Chili]

Ya know I've never read any Winnie the Pooh, Astrix or Tintin. That's not a boast, more a realisation.

[Chris B]

At some point, someone's going to die and really bring this thread down.

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, Chris B said:

At some point, someone's going to die and really bring this thread down.

Alright Eeyore.

[Devon Malcolm]

I liked both Asterix and Tintin. I read pretty much all their books when I was a kid. I liked the more detective, mystery based stuff of Tintin and Asterix brought the comedy.

[Carbomb]

12 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I liked both Asterix and Tintin. I read pretty much all their books when I was a kid. I liked the more detective, mystery based stuff of Tintin and Asterix brought the comedy.

Yeh, despite the flippant nature of my original post, I did like both. Also had a couple of the original Smurfs/Schtroumpfs books too! Those stories are a bit eerie, because they play closer to the more sardonic and satirical nature of French dessins, rather than the light-hearted, kiddy nature of the cartoons we grew up with.

 

 

 

Anyway: death, eh? Can't live with it, can't live without it. Er...

[westlondonmist]

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

At some point, someone's going to die and really bring this thread down.

As long as it's not one of the two Asterix writers still alive I'm sure we'll be fine. 

[Jazzy G]

I'm pretty sure they're both dead.

Goscinny passed in 1977, and Uderzo in 2020 but I don't think they announced it at the Tim... 

[Retro Red]

27 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

I'm pretty sure they're both dead.

Goscinny passed in 1977, and Uderzo in 2020 but I don't think they announced it at the Tim... 

Uderzo stepped back in 2009, there have been 2 more writers since then.

[Jazzy G]

They're not great books either from what I hear. 

[Scratch]

On 1/7/2025 at 1:37 PM, BomberPat said:

reminds me of one of my favourite jokes;

"Why does Rupert The Bear wear checked trousers?"

 

  Hide contents

"Because he's a cunt".

 

My all time favourite joke. Also works for “Why does Noddy have a bell on his hat?”

[King Coconut]

Sam of Sam and Dave has left us at 89. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

7 minutes ago, King Coconut said:

Sam of Sam and Dave has left us at 89. 

I always get the two of them mixed up. Was he the one who was shot in the leg by a jealous husband or the one who shot his wife in an argument?

[Rossman]

Dave shot his wife and then Sam wanted nothing to do with him. Sam sang the lead on the majority of their hits. He released a couple of singles on their label, Atlantic Records and was starting a solo career. Then in 1970, his album got canned when his producer King Curtis got murdered. So he started Sam & Dave again. The 70s and 80s was basically them splitting up, fighting and then getting back together again and then repeating the process. In the end Dave got a new Sam to tour with, and restarted Sam & Dave, as the New Sam & Dave.

That period between 1965 to 1970 though, S&D were banging out the hits. Most of them written by Isaac Hayes & David Porter, supported by the Stax house band. (Booker T & the MGs. And the Mar-Kays (they do the Bottom theme) Creating the "Memphis Sound."

The main artists on Stax Records came over to Europe in 1967 for an overseas tour, for the first time. Booker T & the MGs, and the Mar-Kays are the backing band whilst a rolodex of Soul stars perform to a predominantly white crowd with a smattering of black people mixed together. Something completely foreign to the performers who would have performed to segregated crowds in Deep South, Memphis. Not to the same scale but a reverse of the Beatles going to the US for the first time in 64.

Sam & Dave were seen as the star performers, living up to their nickname of Double Dynamite. Pipping the main event, Otis Redding who would sadly die, 7 months later.

Outside of Sam & Dave, Sam contributed backing vocals on Bruce Springsteen's Human Touch album and also his soul cover album. Only The Strong Survive. And was a strong advocate of keeping the history of Stax Records alive, with performances into his late 80's.

This is footage from the Stax Soul Revue tour in 67. Sam & Dave are at 10:20. But all of it, is sweet Southern Soul.

 

 

 

[BomberPat]

Yoshio Kō died last month, aged 87.

Not a name known to many, and I only discovered he'd died in passing while researching something I was writing about him last night, the news hasn't troubled many of the profiles of him online. But he's a profoundly weird guy. I could've posted about him in On Topic, or the Forteana thread. 

He was an events promoter in Japan; he brought Sonny Rollins, Tom Jones and Elvis Presley to the country for the first time, and he was one of the promoters and money-men behind Antonio Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali. After that, he attempted to promote, with Inoki, a match between Antonio Inoki and Idi Amin, potentially with Ali as special guest referee. In Haiti - because nowhere else would allow him to - he attempted to stage a fight between a tiger and a karate champion, until animal rights groups got involved and put pressure on them to cancel. I've read a few accounts suggesting that Kō never seriously intended to go ahead with it and just wanted the publicity, but it got serious enough that there were US governmental memos issued about it.

Outside of insane combat sports spectacles, he claimed to be working with Evel Knievel on training a Japanese stunt-rider to do a jump over the summit of Mount Fuji. He published an underground alternative magazine called "Blood and Roses" with Yukio Mishima, who allegedly introduced him to an anonymously published novel named Kachikujin Yapoo, or Yapoo The Human Cattle; several people have come forward and claimed authorship, but Kō claimed that, as sole literary agent for the work, he was the only person who knew its true authorship, and that it was written by a collective, including some of the people who had taken credit, and other extremely prominent figures in Japanese society. That may all be bollocks. He allegedly palled around with Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995; he claimed that they met because Asahara was an avid reader of his magazine, and dined together semi-regularly after that.

There was a manga comic written about him, by the creator of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and his plans to promote Oliver, a chimpanzee that was speculated to be either the "missing link" or a human/chimp hybrid, and to offer a cash reward to any woman willing to have sex with Oliver - again, it seems to be that he just wanted the publicity, and never had any intention of going through with any of it. 

One of the many company names he promoted under was "Seven Adventures Promotions", because he claimed he wanted to embark on seven adventures in his life. The first was with right-wing politician Shintaro Ishihara; they took an amateur expedition to find the Loch Ness monster, and were hopelessly ill-equipped, but, as ever, got a ton of publicity for it. He was interviewed by the BBC, and variously claimed that if he could capture the Monster he would tour it around the world, present it as a gift to the Queen, or give it as a birthday present to Princess Anne. If there turned out to be multiple monsters, he would reserve two as gifts for Emperor Hirohito and Chairman Mao. He recently appeared in a documentary, Loch Ness: They Created A Monster, that's currently available on iPlayer.

I don't know what the other six adventures were; one might have been his thwarted expedition to find the resting place of Noah's Ark, apparently called off because of the first Gulf War.

In his late 70s, he became an actor. At 84, he became a YouTuber, and a play was produced about his life.

 

Yoshio Kō, the maddest bastard you never heard of.

[Chris B]

Tony Slattery just passed. While I have many issues with Hadley Freeman, I'm glad her interviews with him brought him back to public attention and reminded him how enjoyed he was.