what's more to know about the US Postal Service shitshow?

 

Comrades,

It comes as no surprise that the Orange Guy from Twitter should order his henchmen to strangle the time honoured US Postal Service of funds to commit widespread voter disenfranchisement across every one of The Great 50 states. Never mind that the Post Master General is a "Trump mega-donor" in the form of the bald, beady-eyed, cat's-arsed Louis DeJoy. A third rate apparatchik who wouldn't know which way is up on a postage stamp. Anyone who's seen that first class movie about voting, Lincoln, will know that that particular Republican President wasn't averse to flinging the odd Post Master's comfortable life-time sinecure in the way of wavering voters in Congress on the slavery question. So if "The Party of Lincoln" has been into vote buying from day one, why should vote denying be any different? And this was back in the day when the Post Master General was a cabinet position, on the same level as say, the Secretary of War. It wasn't until 1971 that Richard "Tricky Dicky" Milhous Nixon decided that the PMG would no longer have a seat in the inner circle. Until now.

Everyone knows at least a little of the storied history of the mail in America - the Pony Express and all that - but never mind that the USPS is now a gargantuan, no doubt Byzantine, bureaucracy. The accusations by acolytes of The Donald that there is too much waste and mismanagement are probably true. How can there not be with 30,000 post offices, half a million posties, and a mind boggling 142 billion items delivered last year? Show me any other vast, complex public service that doesn't have the same problems. But to rob it of $25B in the Time of Corona is not only plain mean & vindictive, but the Fascista don't even bother to disguise the fact that it's all been carefully designed to prevent as many Black Democrat voters as possible from having their valid votes counted. Electoral hanky-panky knows no bounds, but this one's close to taking the biscuit for bald faced blatancy and bastardry.

And it's never been easy to vote in The States. Ever. Election day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November after all. Schemes for voter disenfranchisement have been around since the Miracle of Democracy kicked off in the USA, it's all part & parcel of the caper. Every state has different rules. Some allow anyone to cast a "mail-in ballot", in other states (like Australia) you need a valid excuse to lodge a postal vote, while in six states postal voting is all but impossible because of the number of flaming hoops you have to jump through to get an exemption from turning up on the day. It's the same for in-person pre-poll voting - different everywhere. Voting in person is no less difficult - not enough polling stations is a common complaint. Sometimes the booths are all but inaccessible - you have to more or less hike there. Some Supervisors of Elections who may or may not be on the take indulge in simply not printing enough ballot papers for the number of registered voters - so polling stations close early when they run out. In some states you need photo ID to vote, others you don't. And, you can also casually roll up on the day only to find you have been struck off the electoral roll for not paying a fine or some other kind of minor misdemeanor, or indeed for no discernable reason at all. Some states even routinely pull tens of thousands of voters off the rolls simply because they haven't voted for a while. You have to be eternally vigilant that you haven't been rubbed out, as there's no obligation on the state to tell you.  Gerrymandering is rife and who knows how much ballot stuffing goes on - but the one thing that everyone knows is that co-ordinated postal vote electoral frauds are extremely rare. Vlad The Impaler of the Kremlin certainly swung a helluva lot more votes the way of his best pal DJ Trump! in 2016 than any postal voting scam will ever deliver to Uncle Joe in 2020. And in any case, it wouldn't come close to the 176,000 names (and counting) of Covid19 victims who are now very conveniently unable to vote on account of their deceasedness. Then again, dead people have been voting in elections since the Dawn of Time. What a shitshow.

And of course, there is nothing more to say about that dead-set opportunist snake and former Master of the Dark Arts, Steve Bannon, being yanked off a luxury yacht owned by some billionaire Chinaperson bobbing somewhere around the coast of Connecticut mid-week, and being cuffed for wire fraud by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Fraud? Nice irony. For the love of Sweet Weepin' Jesus Upon The Cross it couldn't have happened to a nicer fraud.

It doesn't need to be this hard, but "it is what it is" - for every person, man, woman...

 

never again

Comrades,

Amid the panic and confusion of a world wide pandemic, it's very easy to forget that today is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima. My dear departed father, an RAAF fighter/bomber pilot at the time, went to Hiroshima in the early 1960's simply because he wanted to have a look. He held no animosity against the Japanese whatsoever, but certainly knew all about the power of a bombing run. He never spoke openly about the war, because I think as he got older he rejected it and was uncomfortable with his role in it. And they were still atmospheric testing at Maralinga when I was born in 1957 just 700 miles away, for Chrissake.

My views on The Bomb are well known - fascinated and repulsed by it, perhaps in equal measure. I've been banging on about it in these pages for decades. Someone was once looking at my bookshelves at home and asked me "I know you are utterly opposed to nuclear weapons and war in general, so why do you have so many books about it?" I replied "Know your enemy".

Of course, the horrors of Hiroshima - and then Nagasaki - were small beer indeed compared to what followed - the development of the H-bomb, 2,476 known nuclear tests, and of course the biggest muthafukka of al time...the Russian test that got way out of control...Tsar Bomba on 30 October 1961. That shocked the world into the realisation that "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) was right here, right now - and the concept of the end of the world at the push of a big red button would be with us forever.

Tsar Bomba was really beyond imagining at 1,500 times bigger than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, and 10 times more powerful than all the munitions expended during World War Two.

Nuclear disarmament will never be achieved in my lifetime, but there was great joy for me when the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons."

Of course the Yoof of Today have no idea what it was like in the Cold War and have no fear of these things, but back in the day (late 1970's) when there were actually demo's calling for the world to be rid of this hideous scourge, I used to march proudly under the DRINKERS FOR DISARMAMENT banner as it was a natural fit for a reformed Trot and notorious pisspot. And even in my current teetotal status, I remain a fully paid-up member. I'm in there somewhere...

Hiroshima. Never again. Ever.

"clinging to the floating debris"

Comrades,

"Oh, my dear old Donald, what is it that you've done this time?" DJ Trump! is having paroxysms after being told he can't postpone his own re-election...I'll give him one thing, tho' - the Master of Spasticity is quite mesmerizing, which probably accounts for his enormous popularity:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/5c06b05cde6b1f2431a599918b864366/d54f502d9c2dde5e-a4/s640x960/6d90e0024f141e5a19d9aabdf8ca4d897a85a289.gif

It's a lucky thing for the Miracle of Democracy that the putrid red herring the Trumpotus threw out there was viewed with distaste on both sides of the aisle, who rejected out of hand the unprecedented - now there's an overused word in these uncertain and difficult times - idea of postponing a US Presidential election. Let's face it, it doesn't matter how crooked! rigged! fraudulent! dishonest! ridiculous! the poll is. In the all the history of all the world, all elections are, in one way or another. Vote buying, ballot stuffing, bagmen on the take, polling stations burnt to the ground, no ballot papers to be found, a legion of dead folks voting, strong arm tactics, ballot boxes found in dumpsters, endless arguments about counting irregularities, stand over men, one-armed voting machines, my God! even just the concept of mail-in-voting and every other electoral hanky panky in the book - and much more - are all par for the course here, and the Bozo in Chief knows it. At least there's no shady preference deals in this one, but it all goes way back. Even Ol' George Washington lost his first run for elected office, a seat in the Virginia Assembly in 1755, because he failed to provide enough booze to lure the required number of punters to the polling stations. He didn't make that mistake again, delivering 144 gallons of rum, punch, cider and wine to the booths the next time round, winning a vote for about every half gallon of lunatic soup. That's not to mention other candidates who were allegedly heard to thump tubs and shout "free hams for everyone!". So what if the pure fantasy of millions of people voting while ineligible comes true? There sure as hell are millions of eligible voters who can't/couldn't-be-fucked-to/won't-on-principle cast a ballot, with voter turnout historically pushing it to make 50%. It's trite to say that Uncle Joe will win in a canter, if only he can turn out the "black vote". We've all heard of Jim Crow, but ask any voter of colour in The South just how difficult it is to register and then find a way to get to and then be allowed into a polling station let alone anywhere near a ballot box, even to this day - widespread systematic black voter disenfranchisement is institutionalised in The South. There is no such thing as a Federal Electoral Commission, it's all down to each individual state while the actual mechanics of voting are handled on a county level of which there are 3,141, and they're all different. The POTUS has zero control over it. In theory. Chaos theory. And The Donald loves nothing more than chaos and control. The time-honoured divide and rule principal.

Never mind "Build That Wall", the Orange Bloke from Twitter campaigned in 2016 on a "jobs and growth" platform which has now long exited the poop shooter in a grand fashion and glooped down the s-bend due to the current difficulties. In a perfect world The Donald would be cactus three months out from the election, just on the strength of tens of millions of unemployed alone, who unfortunately for the DJ! - do still have the vote. By rights, a Drover's Dog could be the next President of the US if the 'Never Trumpers' had their way. But don't count yr chickens - stranger things have happened - and we all know what they are. Hillary? Is anyone listening to the deplorables? Fanatical supporters of The Donald are rusted on so hard even WD40 won't shift 'em. But it struck me the other day just how far up shit creek the paddleless incumbent is, with death, misery, and deprivation all around him when a news flash came through on the Bush Telegraph in the corner of the lounge room with the ticker-tape reading that California had become the first state to register more than half a million novel corona virus infections. To put it in perspective, Australia's only just gone past 18,000 cases. California has a population of 40 million, Australia 25 million - you do the math. If the great city of Melbourne, in all its glorious squalor and godlessness, is now considered a "disaster zone", what then of America? Pushing a quarter of a million fatalities by the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November? That's not at all fanciful thinking given the exponential nature of the plague. It's a massacre. The Boomer Remover has well & truly replaced the Grim Reaper. 

Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture, 19 July, 2020.

too much confusion

Comrades,

It may just be me, but I'm fully befuddled over the internal plague borders - not to mention the borders within borders - that have come into effect since EOFY.

As far as can be ascertained, The Athens of the South, Victoria, Victorians, and anyone who has had anything to do with Victoria - ever - are now persona non grata. The gibbering premier of NSW, the Hon. Princess Ruby, has said of Victoria "just don't go there" and of Victorians "just don't come here". The fact that the joint is a hotbed of pestilence is beyond question, so it's best that we leave Dapper Dan to get on with belting the bandicoots over the head as they pop up out of the ground. Queensland won't have 'em, and South Australia won't have anyone. Nah, they have generations of experience at thumbing their noses and cocking their snoots at Victorians. What's more the Crow Eaters have taken great delight in fucking-up Melbourne footy, with whoever is left after all the sackings at AFL HQ pulling the hair out of their heads in great tufts and that becomes its own peculiar nightmare. Queensland remains leery, but under enormous pressure from the FNQ tourist trade, Beautiful One Day/Perfect The Next will welcome all - with not so open arms - later this month, except for the scabrous Victorians of course, who remain strictly banned until further notice.

No one has heard anything from across the Nullabor recently, as Western Australia is a law unto itself. Don't be surprised if the the long running secessionist movement in the Golden West makes a comeback. The way it is now, they could leave the Commonwealth and no one would even notice with the arse having fallen out of the mining boom - they're just too far away from civilisation anyway, and Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. And they're very happy to stay that way. Northern Territorians are too busy getting on with the job of being alcoholics, letting off firecrackers, and going troppo to worry about a thing. The NT has always been a place for people wanting to hide or run away from something anyway. Not a single squeak has been heard out of Tasmania for weeks, but a closer look at their Govt. propaganda reveals that Tassy has no intention of letting anyone - not even Taswegians - back into the Apple Isle in the foreseeable future - if 'foreseeable' is even still a thing. There is no planned date for the island state to readmit anyone of any race, creed or colour in order to maintain their squeaky clean image. Nobody cares what the ACT is up to. In the famous words of DJ Trump! "it's a shithole".

Too much confusion. Federation is a wondrous thing, aint it?

The bumbling, stumbling New South Govt. has got mixed messaging down to such a fine art it should be put on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Never mind pubs being able to admit as many drinkers as they goddamn like from today (as long as they stay away from each other) - getting on the frothing viral beer taps right now is both an act of faith and a cry for help. In my lengthy and comprehensive experience, achieving "drunken distancing" is no easy feat. But as of today up to 10,000 spectators are permitted to attend sporting fixtures in NSW, and yet 'outdoor social gatherings' are still limited to 20 persons. Really? WTF? What are the pointy heads thinking? Utterly pointless. In any case, anyone intending to go to the football this weekend in Sydney with those sorts of crowds are not only fools to themselves and a burden on the community - they're out of their cotton pickin' minds. But heck, the Honky Dollar still does the talkin' (for now), and the show must go on.

The fishwraps are also saying that "hundreds of people" arriving on international flights today will be diverted from Victoria to other parts (if anyone will have them). That only begs the question - who the screaming bejesus are all these wally's? Where have they been, what have they been doing, and why do they want to come back now, when everyone who was an expat or on-tour was told months ago that they must repatriate immediately? Do they just decide "oh shit, I'm bored over here now, so I think I'll go home"? I thought international travel was banned? I thought 98% of the planes had stopped flying? Do they come by boat? Beats me.
 
As far as the Miracle of Democracy goes - or even applies at the minute - well, it's very problematical. The border closures mentioned above are clearly in murky legal waters as, prima facie, as they prevent free trade between the states as the Founding Fathers intended. There was a tremendous brouhaha when they tried to close the VIC/NSW border during the 1919 Spanish Flu Pandemic, and they never succeeded. The relevant words from Section 92 of the Australian constitution read "customs, trade, commerce, and intercourse among the States, whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigation, shall be absolutely free". There's no mumbo jumbo or mixed messaging there. Perfectly clear.
Gawd, save us.

the stargates have re-opened as we return to karmic equilibrium...

Comrade Boffins,

It seems the Chinese Communist Party has got a bit antsy with Canberra lately, after ScoMo's knee-jerk backing of The Donald's demand for an independent international inquiry into the source and spread of the China Virus. Gone very quiet on that one now, haven't they? Not satisfied with cocking their snoots at our barley for their beer, it seems the Commies have gone in below the belt now, telling their citizens and students with give the Wide Brown Land a wide berth on account of the high risk of being attacked by seething mobs of rabid racists. Confucius say "it's not just the blacks, you know, mate". And these people are well used to being told what to do. Chinese tourists accounted for about a quarter of all visitors to the Land Down under back in the glory days of 2019 spending roughly $12B. Two hundred and sixty thousand (260,000) Chinese students used to be scattered about in various Ivory Towers on the Big Island every year, again generating revenue of about $12B. Without them a clutch of heavily exposed universities and the Great Barrier Reef will go broke. In simple terms, $24B is a lot of lazy cash, with another Great Depression looming. Don't they know down Canberra way it's the Mighty Yuan and not the Honky Dollar that does the talkin' from now on? Joisus. Didn't think that one through and got all muddled in the brain department in the midst in a global pandemic, didn't they? And because of these political amateurs running the show, there's now no furious backpedalling option left, because whenever DFAT gives Peking a ring, they won't even pick up the phone. That's really clever Foreign Affairs. I'm looking at you Marise. You should get out more, instead of poking the bear.

There seems to be a general consensus that The Corona turned up in a bushmeat market in good ol' down town Wuhan and a blood-sucking bat was probably to blame somewhere along the food chain. Bats have always had a bad press, so that's very convenient. But the Trumpotus White House believes that's just obfuscating hocus-pocus, and in all seriousness, The Covid was developed out of thin air in a sinister plot in some Frankenstein style laboratory, and then very quickly weaponised. Others have suggested it was merely the bloke who ate that armadillo he found somewhere in Hubei province that kicked things off. Or was it that freak who was caught fooling around with a pangolin and was sent off for re-education? It's even been floated that Patient Zero is that dude who fucked-that-goat in Mexico, but that theory has now been widely discredited.

No. It's none of those. Here's the most conclusive proof yet that 5G is without a shadow of a doubt the cause of The Covid spreading willy-nilly around the globe and killing more people than you've had hot dinners.  It's just like the well established undisputed fact that the houses are communicating with each other through AM radio waves while you and me are oblivious. No inquiry required. Simple. You know it makes sense...the stargates have re-opened as we return to karmic equilibrium...

what would Jesus do?

Comrades,

What would Jesus do?

Why of course he'd gas a bunch of dudes standing around holding placards, light 'em up with exploding chalk pellets and spray 'em with rubber bullets to clear a path for the Secret Service - who by this stage are freaking right out of their minds big time running around like chooks with heads cut off screaming "what the fuck does the Mad Muthafukka think he's doing now?" - so the Trumpotus can go steal a copy of the Holy Book and wave it around for the camera's in front of the 'Church of The Presidents', which has all the stained glass windows boarded up. The Donald then throws himself upon the mercy of The Lord, repenting his multitude of evil sins, so he can be graciously granted the ever-lasting eternal life of a martyr. Never mind the horror, what a fantastic, magnificent, hugely awesome photo op! A photo op like you've never seen before! In history. A God Fearing Commander-of-Nothing proudly on display, lined up with his Cronies-in-Chief, is just what the world needs now. Hooly Dooly! What crazy bat-shit is this? Having now, after three and a half years as Leader of the Free World, finally and beyond reasonable doubt reached The Mad Emperor stage, what next? Dropping the Big One? The nuclear solution?

At the risk of being labelled a pretentious up-himself know-all, when I came out of the hospital I had a prescient book waiting for me to read that I'd ordered in on the basis of trying to get some historical handle on the "interesting times" in which we live - and this before the plague and pestilence settled on the globe and the USA fractured down centuries old fault lines to find itself a once powerful nation now 'very weak' and spiralling in an out-of-control free fall to 'third world' status.

The hefty tome in question? Mark Kurlansky, 1968 - The Year That Rocked the World, (Random House, New York, 2005), 437pp.

Sure as hell some wild, weird and crazy shit went down that year - the Tet Offensive (25 thousand American casualties), the Prague Spring ends in a Soviet invasion, New York explodes in race riots in May and there's Bloody Monday in Paris, student protest movement in Poland brutally crushed, Martin Luther King Jnr takes a bullet, Bobby Kennedy gets shot up ans shot out of the US Election campaign, Chicago riots savagely repressed, Black Panthers at the Mexico City Olympics, Nixon wins the White House etc etc etc. And we think the current political difficulties are unprecedented? Think again. History repeats. Even at the tender age of 12, I remember '68 well, and it turned me into a committed Trot age 13-15. As everyone knows, I am now a nice well-mannered reformed Pinko watching the globe spinning on it's way to mayhem and catastrophe, while waiting for the New Great Depression to show up, which it surely will when we arrive at "the cliff" in September. What joy awaits. My current read? Studs Terkel, Hard Times - An Oral History of the Great Depression, (The New Press, New York, 2005 - 1st published 1970), 462 pp.

You'd have to fear for the Miracle of Democracy in the current climate. Despots the world over are using the plague as a pretence to crack down hard on dissent - just take a look at Honkers, Brazil and other joints folks have hardly ever heard of...it's a global phenomenon. Traditional election campaigning in the US has been killed stone dead by the plague, and in any case Democrats traditionally do poorly at the polls after race riots. Republicans are much better voters anyway; they turn out in droves at the ballot box, while the Dems for some reason always have trouble turning out the vote - never mind rampant voter suppression, disenfranchisement and outrageous wholesale gerrymandering against them. None of that really matters in the denouement. If the Presidential election result is close - and it will be - in favour of Uncle Joe, there is no way DJ Trump! will just graciously concede defeat. Why would he, when his entire agenda fully revolves around a single issue - his own self promotion and agrrandisment? Losing to him is worse than death, much worse. The Donald will claim voter fraud, vote rigging, ballot stuffing, he'll say millions of illegal immigrants somehow voted, dead people voted, federal felons and innocent black people voted, aliens in flying saucers were involved in making great bundles of ballot papers disappear and the illegal mail-in conspiracy was especially designed to engineer his fraudulent defeat. The Trumpotus will simply refuse to accept the result, stay put in the White House, shut down Congress with the stroke of a pen, and get the Supreme Court to confirm him as the Tyrant-in-Chief. We aint seen nothing yet. That'll be no ordinary Constitutional Crisis, its the template for Civil War Mk II, right there. Mr Ping of China and Vlad The Impaler of the Kremlin are having a quiet chuckle, knowing they need do nothing other than just watch the show, while quietly working out who gets the spoils of the New Word Order. So, the Donald worries the Commies might win? Well, sorry to tell you, son, but they already have.

hooly dooly

Comrades,

Hooly Dooly...here it comes...mass unemployment, widespread poverty, and food insecurity.

Never mind the New World Order or the clear and present danger to the Miracle of Democracy....The States is shattered. Monthly US unemployment figures are due out later today, and according to the NYT, it's expected 30 million jobs will be gone. Vanished. The worst month during the last recession was 800,000 jobs lost. And the worst ever on record was two million in September 1945, and that's only because there were that many men coming home from war with no work to go to. Did I read right - 30 million?! Yes I did. Real unemployment in many states - mostly in the God forsaken south - is now widely thought to be at least 25%.

Found myself quite taken aback on seeing roughly 30-40 folks in the queue at the Marrickville Centrelink when I went by this morning, and with socially acceptable distancing it snaked around the block....here's just the start.

And this in an area full of yuppies that's been gentrified-to-fuck. WTF?

In the meantime, the cascade of horrors knows no end. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says food prices fell 4.3% in Feb, all of it driven by lack of demand. Sugar was down a whopping 19%, vegetable oil 12%, with cereals, dairy and meats taking smaller hits....deflation here we come. Yet another classic hall mark of the Great Depression. Economic growth dies in the arse, it feeds into more unemployment, and upends stability in the food chain - not for weeks, or months, but years. In other words, unmitigated woe.

Did rather like this paste-up seen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this week - replicating the slogans on health & hygiene posters seen in that city during the 1918-19 Spanish Flu Pandemic.

"in politics, stupidity is not a handicap"

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap"

Napolean Bonaparte (1769–1821)

the fear, the phugoid cycle, and the price of onions

Half a million kilograms of Idaho onions being prepared for burial, 8 April 2020. Photo: Joseph Hayeberle/New York Times

Comrades,

This "flattening the curve" thing is nonsense, and whoever came up with it now has the false hopes of a nation resting on their shoulders. It won't be no curve at all, it will be more like a phugoid cycle (a fancy aviation term for the nose of an aircraft pitching up and down at a more or less constant altitude, which if uncontrolled, results in the flying machine going into an irretrievable nose dive, ending in a spectacular crash & burn). I aint no witch doctor, that's for sure, but as far as restrictions on human activity and contact go, it will be a case of relax, suppress, relax, suppress, relax, suppress ad infinitum - which is pretty much what happened in the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19, until effective herd immunity was achieved through the loss of tens of millions of lives and the virus died out. Given that the Boomers selfishly in their hoity-toity lofty high-mindedness object to that many of us being wiped out by the Boomer Remover, the end game only comes with an effective vaccine or therapy.

That 12-18 month time frame will end up looking like chicken feed in comparison to the tremendous economic and social fall out, which a little birdie has been singing privately will be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930's (which lasted for about two and half years) and could be more akin to the Panic of 1890 which devolved into the Depression of 1893 - that whole shooting match with unemployment rates peaking at 25 per cent ran for a full eight years, producing untold misery. Then, suddenly, everything was different. Flight was invented and motor cars replaced the horse. Students of Economics 101 will tell you that for every minute the economy is effectively closed, the "knock on" and "trickle down" effects will multiply exponentially just like a virus, and we'll be staring not into the abyss, but a life-sucking black hole. Whatever happens, it's a history making world changer.

Everyone is scared shitless of the Big "D" word, with good reason. But no-one at all is seriously talking in public about how we are all meant to live through this looming Great Depression that will dog us for years to come. All the economic boffins, from the IMF down, will only concede is that there will be some kind of "deep recession". Oh, really? Come on, guys. Fess up on this one. Or perhaps they don't want to alarm the population too soon in their cabin fevered stir crazed state. (Perhaps the best 'tweet' on this one: "Bored at home? Really? It's your place, you made it that way"). But soon enough there will be truth telling. If there are any journo's left to do the telling. Of course Snap Back ScoVo and his "National Cabinet" of entirely useless badass Tory ministers of the Crown and utterly hopeless state premiers way out of their depth, should be more appropriately called The Cruise Ship of Fools. Even Blind Freddy could see the Australian and US economies have been a charade of "let the good times roll" for years now. For us, that's only been possible with entirely stagnant wage growth for a full decade since the end of GFC, and exporting coal, to put it in its most simplistic terms. Treasury has been warning about this mirage for a long time now, and the Arch Conservative Govt. has done less than jack shit about it.

Perhaps a true indication of the sheer horror to come is the very sound prediction that up to 75% of small and family-run restaurants in the US of A will cease to exist. That's the end of an American institution - the diner. It's also the end of the national dish of America - the menu. You don't need me to tell you that in times of crisis, food - pure and simple - becomes the paramount consideration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_on_the_restaurant_industry_in_the_United_States

The New York Times has been running disturbing photographs of huge tonnages of vegetables being moved by front-end loader into mass burial trenches, simply because Americans consume far more vegetables when they are dining out than they ever do eating at home - where it's all meat and carbs. So there is no market for them. And it's not exclusively an American problem. Wholesale onion prices in China have fallen by 70% since February. It's the same everywhere in the developed world. Producers, wholesalers, retailers go broke, left, right and centre, creating classic conditions for food shortages. In the short term, prices will go up, but as less and less money is being spent due to mass unemployment, deflation will set in, and prices will start to fall in a vicious cycle. No amount of printing free new money will help that, because there will be nothing to spend it on. Neither will near zero interest rates, as no one in their right mind will want to borrow or lend cash. "The Market's" hate uncertainty and instability. They are not only spooked; they have The Fear. The capitalist hurdy-gurdy knows no other way. God save us all, but here in Sydney, where the price of real estate is often the only topic of conversation, folks are totally screamingly terrified by talk of a slump in house prices of 20+%. And why shouldn't they be with horrifying mortgages in the millions? Credit crunch, anyone? Negative equity is where the GFC started after all, for Chrissake. When someone finally pushed the "panic!" button marked pandemic and they unilaterally closed all the pubs and called off the footy - three weeks and two days ago - Wall St. plummeted by a gob-smacking 10% in less then a week, and a brief price war in a massively over supplied market saw the arse fall clean out of oil. That might give you a couple of pointers to what's cooking in the "going forward" era. Bugger the virus, the number of lives ruined will be untold. The number of folks who die alone and uncounted in hungry abject poverty caused by this will far exceed any viral fatalities.

And that's just the 1st world. The poor joints with marginal food security as it is will wind up thoroughly rat-fucked. The entire existing food chain will come under severe challenge, and in the denouement will change forever. Never mind the big smoke, everything west of the Divide is under threat too. How are country towns meant to survive this? The monied will be no better off either, Lord help them. Fine dining - barely profitable at the best of times - will no longer be an option, so they might as well just pulp all the Good Food Guides and forget altogether about chef's hats let lone the constellation of Michelin stars. How miserable. People will have to find other ways of "having the long lunch". Restaurant chains were going broke at a rate of knots after illegally underpaying their workers for yonks just to survive, well before all this blew up, and many many more will now bite the dust. The huge international fast food conglomerates may just survive in considerably reduced circumstances, as their usual clientèle will no longer be able to afford to gobble their execrable offerings anyway. The closing of pubs and bars is another kettle of fish altogether, but it will see a major shake out in the craft and small batch brewery business at a bare minimum. Gastro pubs and obscure IPA's will vanish. Pokies will proliferate. There is no such thing as going broke graciously. Ironically, prepare for a return to times of yore; cottage industry pulp paper mills turning out the rolls and a boom in home brewing and the illicit distilling of moonshine. Amid all the doom and gloom, you have to find your jollies somewhere.

Perhaps it's worth remembering that during the 46 month Siege of Sarajevo (1992-96), only two businesses managed to remain operating on every single day without interruption: the radio station and the brewery. That was isolation and desolation on an epic scale, all the time being shelled by artillery fire. And we think things are dire? Never mind the war crime, there were a few long winters of bitter discontent involved there.

Lion Cemetery, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2016. A former soccer field, now the final resting place of most of the 13,952 killed in the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-96)

The Donald does a first class impression of Nero - fiddling while Rome burns

Comrades,

Last word on the plague, promise. At least the bell tolling, anyway. Who knows where the Miracle of Democracy is going now? Democratic Pinkoness seems to be all the rage at the minute, so maybe there is hope for a more equitable future where the capitalist running dog is no longer bowed down to in reverence.

When everything old is new again - something look familiar here? Seven weeks of greatest prevalence, Spanish Flu outbreak on the east coast of the USA, August-September 1918.

(Source: Philadelphia Public Library)


This too shall pass, but eradication is terribly difficult, effective vaccine is the only long term solution, and then you've got a Great Depression to live through. That's unmitigated disaster. Just ask New York City.

Everything was changed and different after 1918-19 too, so bring on the Roaring Twenties! The well regarded Woodrow Wilson was POTUS at the time until ill-health forced him out of the 1920 election, and was succeeded by the dead-set hopeless Republican, Warren G. Harding - consistently ranked among the worst US President's, ever. Harding was a filthy pantsman and as corrupt as buggery (like someone else currently occupying the Oval Office), and served only one term. History might just well repeat on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2020. Who knows. Anything and everything is a day to day proposition at the minute. Time for re-imaging the world will come during the years-long Depression.

News is now only emerging via the New York Times that DJ Trump! was warned by his trade adviser Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil.” That was Jan 29; New York City is now a war zone, and the South is about to blow up, not to mention Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles all going to hell in a handbasket. In the meantime, The Donald does a fantastic impression of Nero - fiddling while Rome burns.

Who knew that your life could be turned upside down by a single sub-microscopic virion cell? Sneaky-as-fuck they are.
Shit happens - in this case - explosively.

relief of distress

Comrades,

The current Pando got me to thinking this must be the just about the first time they've closed all the Sydney pubs in the 222 years of white settlement?

Well, not quite.

Seems it's a one in 100 year event. They closed all the pubs back in February 1919, re-opened them in March, and then shut them again in April through to the end of May, to deal with the "Spanish Flu" pandemic. They even show down all the Sydney race tracks, heaven forbid! Then they closed the border with Victoria, which produced a Constitutional outcry and shit-fight over the right of free trade between the states: "that's not what we signed on for!" cried the Mexicans. After successfully herding the incoming infected into the North Head Quarantine Station for a few months producing 49 corpses, 'Patient Zero', known as "S.L." arrived unannounced in Sydney on 24 January 1919 and the last NSW town to report the appearance of the disease was Dorrigo on 27 September 1919, according to the NSW State Archives. That's a long time between drinks. More than six thousand died in NSW alone, when the white population of the entire continent was about where Sydney is now - five million. This, after Australia had just lost 60,000 war dead.

The current Great and Glorious Leader of the Great State of New South Wales, the Hon. Gladys Berejiklian, has been less than inspiring in her public appearances and utterances to date and of little, if any, practical help to anyone at all. (In all the acres of old growth forest that have been felled to fill the vast number of advice pages that have suddenly sprung up to give you no end of terrific ideas on how to do idling and go about biding your time - while panicking and going slowly insane at the same time - nothing's been written along the lines of "Tips from the 30's! How to live through a Great Depression! Survival of the Fittest!". That'd just be scaremongering.)

With everyone now furiously scrambling to heavily back the horse called Self Interest, don't know if the Preeemier of NSW has any flow charts, or even white-board mud maps going on this one, but Glad surely would sure be glad of one of these blueprints - whipped up by the Public Service back in '19...

CLICK TO ENLARGE (NSW Govt, Organizational Chart, Pneumonic Influenza Epidemic, 1919. Source: NSW State Archives.)

The arch-Conservative Fed Govt has suddenly become remarkably Pinko, giving away stupendous quantities of free, brand new, freshly printed cash left, right and centre and they're now even moving to effectively nationalise the country's payroll. In Canberra, that must feel like a cheese-grater being run all over the 'every man for himself while we look after our business' ideology of ScoVo and his pack of Capitalist running dogs. Next thing, they'll introduce a Universal Basic Income. Christ Almighty! Menzies is already revolving at 78rpm in his poor, shallow grave.

What's missing, of course, is leadership - let alone a Central Authority, so why not devolve the relief effort to a Superintendent of Relief and the Joint Local Committee's of Relief? You know it makes sense. It may sound a bit Commo, but it's not rocket science, and it works. It certainly made the authorities sit up and take notice of the true extent of existing poverty and destitution in Sydney back in 1919. Not a lot has changed. And as far as compo for businesses went in '19, only a fraction of the money set aside was actually paid out, while the rest were dealt with by a mysterious "adjustment for loss" achieved through creative book-keeping, and God-only knows there's a whole lotta that going on right now. They'd learnt their lesson from The Panic of 1890, which led to Australia's worst depression ever, lasting nigh on a decade. The economic set back from Spanish Flu was not terribly long lasting for that reason - but we don't learn, because no-one ever listens.

the global battle against The Fear of Covfefe

Comrades,

In these interesting times of confused mixed messaging it's hard to know whether a "lock in" or a "lock out" policy is in force at the minute. Never mind self isolation or social distancing, there is no time like the present to build a wall. Keeps the perilous plague-ridden yellow hordes out, and keeps the terrified, panicked local population in. In any case, it stops people from running around like chooks with their heads cut off. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

So, when the going gets tough, the tough get wiping; sanitising with the ever reliable Pine O Cleen (kills 99.9% of all germs) is a given...as everyone knows, all trace of turd must be expunged in the first instance. And here's the ideal equipment, worth it's weight in 24-carat rolled gold.

(Rough translation on the DJ Trump! quote bubble: "this is the wall you are going to pay for")

It didn't take long for the arse wipe industry to ramp up production to meet the stratospheric demand, so it's now very comforting to know that the Trumpotus is also ordering in some extra supplies in the global battle against The Fear of Covfefe...God knows, we all need some medical elements in our lives right now, don't we?

and that's even before the very likely event that the White House will be officially declared a hotbed of hideous diseases, and The Donald takes off on yet another 17 day "working lock-down vacation" at the heavily disinfected Trump National Bedminister, New Jersey, where they say it's nice at this time of year and a quite lovely round of spring time golf is in the offing.

And if worse turns to catastrophe, then there's nothing for else for it but to sit back and await your fate, while you pack up your troubles in your old kit bag (and smile, smile, smile) as you suck on one of these quart bottles of The Cure.

Good night, and good luck

the sinking of the General Belgrano

Comrades,

The first time I ever wandered into a commercial radio newsroom in 1982, there it was. A telex machine with a continuous roll of paper constantly chuttering out of the thing, and then folding itself - flip flop flip flop - into a neat pile on the floor. It was the AAP news wire. It was the middle of the night, and I was pulling the weekend graveyard shift in my first real job as a DJ, presenting the popular Country Music Hour from midnight-1am, then five tracks in a row of easy listening interspersed with ads, then a station ID and a time call, repeat until dawn. You could walk away from the microphone for 20 minutes at the time and the station would play by itself after you'd set up the tape cartridge machines to trip themselves off. I soon worked out how to read the wire - in it's grey coloured Courier New font - rip the paper off for the latest news, then pick it up like a scroll, and sift through the dross until you find what you want. And believe me, there was so much dross. How many reams of paper that telex machine used every day is anyone's guess, but it was plenty.

The AAP wire was the news. The be all and end all. And it was endless. The telex never stopped, ever, even when there was no news. It was the rock solid foundation of every news bulletin I ever read for the next 19 years.

A few months after I started, the Falklands War blew up and as it was on the other side of world, it happened overnight on our island. Listeners demanded to know what the fuck was going on. The AAP wire delivered. It also carried the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence-France Presse wires, so it was calling all the shots as the battle went on, and it was full of it. Mobile phones, let alone lap tops or an internet of things were fantastical dreams of science fiction, still. So it was no get stretch to start off reading mid-dawn rip'n'read news bulletins on the hour every hour, using AAP copy as it was. I had zero training in this, so not a red pencil went through it. The sinking of the General Belgrano in May was big news, if memory serves - Exocet missiles were all the rage back then - and month later it was all over as the Poms liberated a tiny bunch of sheep farmers in Stanley. But I continued to plough on with the rip'n'read service as I'd got the bug. Just threw together overseas news as it happened on the AAP wire. The breakfast news team loved me for sorting the wheat from the chaff. In down town Medellin, rival drug lords were quietly setting off car bombs in the car park's of the opposition's supermarkets, where they laundered their money. Nice way to scare off customers. Good old fashioned terrorism made for good news copy back then, and they slaughtered hundreds of innocents. From that point on I was hooked on news and never looked back.

The AAP wire was always the go to for "breaking news". I vividly recall sitting at the slot in the 2UE newsroom in Sydney on a very slow news day - Sunday 28 April 1996 - when the AAP wire chattered through a single line "Tasmanian ambulance service report responding to shooting near Hobart. Possible casualties. Unconfirmed. More..." That turned out to be a day and half as the world as we knew it exploded, but without the AAP wire, we would never have known, and neither would you. They seemed to have freelance reporters called "stringers" everywhere, and indeed they had. When I found myself working as an on-the-road reporter for the best part of a decade, anywhere anything was happening, you would always run into an AAP reporter; the only one holding a microphone without any signage on it. In Canberra, AAP had the minutiae of politics nailed down flat, with the sole reporter snoozing through late night sitting sessions. No one would have noticed the Independent member for Oxley, Pauline Hanson, making her maiden speech to an empty chamber, also in '96, if it wasn't for AAP. One year I covered a Federal budget. Afterwards lobby groups of every description line up to have their say into a phalanx on microphones, but time was of the essence. The AAP reporter sat on the floor with a stop watch, and after 30 seconds called "Time!", and that spokesman for whatever organisation was hustled out the way mid-sentence by another reporter from AAP to make way for the next. If you didn't have your sound bite ready, you were gone.

The AAP wire didn't come cheap but it was worth it's weight in gold, and many times it was out there in platinum territory. When I fell into a job running a little newsroom in Newcastle broadcasting integrated local/state/national news bulletins, the station owner was always onto me about the cost of the wire; 25 grand in '92 would have easily employed another journo. "Do you really need that fucking telex machine, Craven? You know the newsroom is the only department in this radio station that doesn't bring a penny in through the front door!". "Of course I need the fucking wire, without the wire, there is no news, none, we don't go to air, OK? Now go away". He did. Only ever worried by money, he couldn't be bothered with "editorial interference". AAP was an institution that commanded great respect in the trade as a straight down the line no nonsense scrupulously by the book reporter of accurate news. They only dealt in the truth - here's what happened - you make head or tail of it. Delivered to your plate, it was up to you to decide what tasted the best in that fuzzy but at the same time precise umami known as "news value". It was only ever rarely wrong, and corrections were always issued post-haste. The one, and most times the only constant in the bustle and churn of an ol' style newsroom. You know, when Olivetti typewriters were the tool of trade. Surely I can't be so old as to remember such a thing?

The AAP wire loomed very large in my working life, so it was deeply saddening to hear yesterday that facing insurmountable competition from the ramshackle make it up as we go along Google/Facebook fake news peddling duopoly, they are going to close - with 180 journo's to be thrown out onto the ever increasing pile on the scrap heap, as well as a back office of 120. To say it's the end of an era understates it. As an old hack and "blowie", it was like hearing of the death of a long lost former loved one. Things change, nothing ever remains the same, but there's a big chunk of decades of me making a living out the game right there, now forever consigned to the lil' history books.

After 85 years, it's finally the end of real news, as I came to know and love it. End of an epoch more likely.

you do the math

Comrades,

While I've been sidelined for a bit, news has been filtering through from Stateside that the President of the United States is on the rampage as campaigning starts to heat up in earnest for the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in November. He doesn't believe it when Mrs "I pray for you" Pelosi barks "Once impeached, always impeached!". [Just ask Uncle Bill Clinton, he'll tell ya]. It matters diddly-squat in Universe Donald. Acquitted in a charade of
a Senate trial over the Ukrainian brou-ha-ha where no witnesses were called and no evidence was adduced before a decidedly disinterested Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who was eager to do his level best to do
nothing. Got off Scot free along partisan lines, thanks to the good ol' Grand Old Party. Just what the Founding Father's would have envisaged as they put quill to parchment and scribbled out the hallowed Constitution.

Don't you know if you've ever seen Daniel Day-Lewis doing a star turn in the motion picture Lincoln (described by one critic as 'a very good movie about voting' - which it is), but in the entire 150 minute fillum, the Lincoln character only raises his voice once, as he thumps a fist on a table and says "The President of the United States has tremendous powers! And I intend to use them!" Aint that the truth?

The Donald has taken that advice on board big time since his acquittal, announcing to the world that he is now "America's Chief Law Enforcement Officer". It's like saying "The Law? What Law? I am The Law!" Despots love that sort of trash talking to bits. And dictators also have a penchant for getting rid of anyone who has ever gone after them - which is exactly what the Trumpotus has done, firing anyone and everyone in the Justice Dept. who's ever had anything remotely to do with the "Russian Hoax Investigation", or just making their positions untenable, which ever is easier. Never mind his Attorney General saying one thing when he means another and quietly stacking the lower Federal Courts with ultra-conservative reactionary judges, once that's out the way, then you can go about using the unfettered Presidential power of pardoning and commuting the jail sentences of your criminal mob mates, and various other lackey's, crony's, toadies, suckjobs, arse lickers, parasites, grovelling hangers-on, apparatchiks and running dogs who've found themselves on the wrong side of the scales of justice for simply doing The Donald an honest favour. It seems he was told it would be good grace to also pardon some hard-done-by common or garden criminals just for balance and appearances. For Gawd' sake. How miserable does it get?

But never mind any of this currying of favours - DJ!'s use of the tremendous powers of the Presidency is no more apparent than when it comes to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Take for example, the brilliant campaign stunt he pulled off at the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Staged at the Daytona International Speedway (seated spectator capacity 101,000) at beautiful Daytona Beach, Florida, it's America's biggest motor race outside the Indy 500. The Trumpotus thought it might be a good idea to drop on by, given that Florida has a long and tortured history as an electoral battle ground state with dodgy one-armed bandits counting the votes (just ask Al Gore - he'll tell ya). Of course, DJ! has zero interest in motor racing, but he knew full well his audience would be on the redneck side in a goodly majority. So, here's how the brief visit trackside unfolded. The Presidential plane - the highly modified and mighty Boeing 747-200 Jumbo - did a low level pass over the speedway, before Air Force One arced into a sweeping loop and landed at the Daytona International Airport, which just so happens to be right next door to the race track. As the The US Air Force Thunderbirds did an aerobatic display in their super-charged F-16's, the Trumpotus was couched into the waiting Presidential Limousine, which soon enough appeared on the circuit itself, doing a full lap of the 2.5 mile race track, followed by his entire entourage of Secret Service vehicles. Some of the crowd, according to the Reuters report, started chanting "four more years! for more years!". The Limmo then stopped at the podium, the Donald with the shy and retiring First Lady clambered out and mounted the dais. The Trumpotus then "briefly addressed the crowd" before, in his role as Grand Marshall, said the time-honoured words: "Gentlemen, start your engines". (There are currently no lady drivers in NASCAR). The race cars then lined up behind the Presidential armoured vehicle known as "The Beast" and they all did another lap, before the Limmo pulled off and exited the speedway taking the creaking buffoon's carcass with it. Now, you can only do that if you're the President. Scotty from Marketing would be having wet dreams about it. The race cars then did yet another parade lap, and finally, they were off and racing! However, after 20 laps, it started raining heavily and the race stopped. Oh no! (it's not possible to drive at speed on wet, banked, oval tracks). As the glorious Florida weather set in, the race was postponed, and it was then run and won the next day, Monday. Never mind. Or call it an omen, if you want, but it's probably too soon to get out the crystal ball.

Forever the showman and carnival spruiker, The Donald might be as dumb as a fucktard, but he's not stupid - he knows how to campaign - had plenty of practice back in '16 he did, and the rules are very simple. Appeal to the lower appetites and the baser instincts and always, always, back the horse called called Self Interest, because that's the only thing 95% of the American electorate is interested in. And after all, this bizzare Yankee self-boosterist par excellence has always relied, as it was neatly put mid-week by the Associated Press, on "the audacity of hype". Never mind the Donald's posse of Masters of the Dark Arts busily rigging the Electoral College once again, or them damned Ruskies already having their grubby little fingers in the campaign, with their army of bots currently flooding yr Soshul Meejah promoting the living bejesus out of the now front-running Democrat candidate Senator Sanders better than his own campaign does. Just doing The Donald an honest favour. Vlad the Impaler down in the Kremlin knows full well that an ageing self-confessed Agrarian Socialist from rural Vermont who runs on campaign slogans like "Not Me. Us" and "The Real Revolution Starts Here" has two chances of beating the Trumpotus in a general election - none and Buckley's, you might think. Who knows? But as Daytona showed, it's why the tremendous value of incumbency is beyond pure gold and into platinum territory in the American Miracle of Democracy. There have only been three one-term Presidents since the Great Depression, and just six in the 130 years before then. You do the math.

Photo's courtesy the Associated Press.

exploding fireball

Comrades,

While everything is Peachy in DC, the rest of the world thinks the entire continent of Australia is an exploding fireball.

Never mind the ins-and-outs of the above, or the brouhaha over blatant high-level Federal-style corruption and/or world class Pork Barrelling - depending on your brand of spin - perhaps it's best not to waste a thousand words and just sum up current proceedings in The Miracle of Democracy in a few plain speakin' dank memes...

CRAZY CRAVES TOP 130 OBITUARIES 2019

It's that time of year again, folks. While not exactly within the bailiwick of this blog, at least 16 politicians and eleven other dudes somehow mixed up in the Miracle of Democracy called stumps and gave the game away in 2019.

I've got absolutely no idea where my long standing obsession with obituaries comes from. I've always imagined the ideal Saturday morning as a quick flip through the papers and "a slow read of the obituaries with a glass of cheeky Chablis". Suppose taking a passing interest in the twig droppers is just one way to pace out the ruthless, relentless march of time. I've been doing these nostalgic lists of deadun's for far too long now - and even after some judicious editing - they're now also getting ridiculously long. My tribute to those who have permanently left the departure lounge continues to balloon out - but who can you omit from of this eclectic, idiosyncratic bunch of clock punchers? The only criteria is that those listed as no longer with us may or may not have been famous, may or may not have led interesting lives in interesting times, or the manner and cause of death may or may not have been somewhat unusual. So there's a big range of those who have fallen from their perches, from some very ordinary types to out and out crack-pots and whack-jobs, and three animals and even an inanimate object also get a guernsey this year. And there's been something of a changing of the guard at the end of the decade, with a seeming preponderance of some really old snoozers who've shuffled off this mortal coil, including no less than ten centenarians, and three who fell a year short of triple figures before finally pegging out.

Having personally come face to face with the Sausage Creature more than once and still wondering if I'm immortal, obviously I don't subscribe to the latter part of John Donne's sentiment from Meditation XVII of 1623:

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

So, just sit back and relax with a cheeky...


CRAZY CRAVES TOP 130 OBITUARIES 2019


† JANUARY †

George, c.14, January 1, Honolulu, Hawai'i. Last known surviving specimen of the land snail species achatinella apexfulva, endemic to the Hawaiian islands, now believed extinct. Died in captivity. Extreme old age.

Mungau Dain, 27, January 4, Port Vila, Vanuatu. ni-Vanuatu movie actor. Played lead role in Australian produced local language feature film Tanna [2015]. Known as "the Brad Pitt of Vanuatu". Sepsis due to untreated leg infection.

Annalise Braakensiek, 46, January 6, Sydney. Australian fashion model, "Instagram influencer, wellness guru, and vegan cook". Ambassador for RU-OK suicide prevention organisation. Suicide.

Jimmy Hannan, 84, January 7, Bellingen, New South Wales. Australian television legend of the 1960's and 70's, entertainer, comedian, singer. Appeared on In Melbourne Tonight and then his own shows Tonight with Jimmy Hannan and Saturday Date. Retired to the countryside at 50. Short cancer-related illness.

Babs Simpson, 105, January 7, Rye, New Jersey. American journalist and art collector. Fashion editor for Vogue magazine [1947-68]. Long time collaborator with photographer Irving Penn. Renowned for having "a chic all her own". Extreme old age.

Carol Channing, 97, January 15, Rancho Mirage, California. American actress, singer, dancer and Broadway musical theatre legend. First came to prominence in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [1949] and cemented her Hollywood stardom in Hello Dolly! [1964]. Continued performing until the age of 93. Complications of stroke.

Masazo Nonaka,113, January 20, Ashoro, Japan. World's oldest man to that date. Outlived all seven siblings, his wife and three of their five children. Credited longevity to eating sweet things, watching sumo wrestling on TV and bathing daily in hot mineral springs. Extreme old age.

Michel Legrand, 86, January 26, Paris. French film composer, arranger and jazz pianist. Wrote more than 200 film and television scores. Three times Academy Award winner. Died a week ahead of scheduled series of jazz concerts in Japan. Sepsis due to viral respiratory infection.

† FEBRUARY †

Albert Finney, 82, February 8, London. British stage, film, and television actor. Leading figure in British 1960's "new wave" cinema, and later a Hollywood heart-throb. Five Oscar nominations in illustrious career, never won. Refused both a CBE [1980] and a Knighthood [2000]. Declined to write a biography, and shunned fame. Kidney cancer.

Betty Ballantine, 99, February 12, Bearsville, New York. American literary editor and publisher. Along with husband Ian, created the first mass-circulation "paperback" at Penguin Books in New York [1939], selling millions of literary classics at 25c each. The first promoter of science fiction as a mainstream genre with Bantam and Ballantine Books. Extreme old age.

Leonard Casley, aka His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I of Hutt, 93, February 13, Geraldton, Western Australia. Australian eccentric, wheat farmer, shyster, shonk, raconteur, pretender, self-styled prince, and notorious vexatious litigant. Suceeded his 75 sq km property at Hutt River from the state of Western Australia in dispute over wheat quotas [1970]. Briefly declared war on Australia [1977] in a long running tax dispute, before declaring unilateral sovereign independence as a principality under absolute monarchy. Abdicated in favour of 61-year-old youngest son Prince Graeme [2017]. Recognised by no-one. Died owing the Australian Tax Office three million dollars. Complications of emphysema.

Karl Lagerfeld, 85, February 19, Paris. Flamboyant German-born French fashion designer. Creative director of fashion house Chanel for 37 years until his death. Claimed his controversial persona was a sham, and bequeathed his considerable fortune to his two cats. Pancreatic cancer.

Michael Murphy, 66, February 21, Sydney. Australian criminal. Sentenced to life without parole along with five others including his two brothers for the rape and murder of Anita Cobby in 1986. Died in jail. Cancer related illness.

Peter Tork, 77, February 21, Mansfield, Connecticut. American pop musician. Best known as the bass player in the original boy band, The Monkees. Adenoid cystic carcinoma.

Tom Ballard, 30, February c.24, Nanga Parbat, Pakistan. British mountaineer. First person to complete climbs of all six major north faces in the Alps in the same season. Died with companion Daniele Nardi while attempting ascent of the “Killer Mountain”, the ninth highest mountain in the world. His mother, Alison Hargreaves [the first woman to climb Mt Everest unassisted by oxygen], died while climbing nearby mountain K2 [1995]. Accident. 400m fall.

André Previn KBE, 89, February 28, New York. German-born American composer, conductor, and impresario. Chief conductor at London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras. Jazz pianist, recording dozens of jazz albums. Won four Academy Awards for his film scores. Received honourary British knighthood [1996]. Married five times, seven children. Flamed out.

† MARCH †

Mike Willesee AO, 76, March 1, Perth. Hard-drinking Australian journalist and television personality known for his critical political coverage. Hosted ABC's Four Corners program [1969-1971], and later appeared on the Nine, Ten and Seven Networks in 30 year current affairs career. Re-embraced Roman Catholicism in later life and produced popular documentaries in the US on so-called "miracles". Throat cancer.

Les Carlyon AC, 76, March 4, Melbourne. Australian journalist, editor and historian. Former editor of the The Age newspaper, and editor-in-chief of The Herald and Weekly Times. Two Walkley awards and lifetime-achievement gong. Wrote six books on Australian sports and war history. Cancer-related illness.

Keith Flint, 49, March 4, Dunmow, Essex. Outrageous British post-punk front man for electro-pop band The Prodigy [1997-2019], selling 30 million+ records world-wide. Motorcycle racing team owner and publican in later life. Suicide.

Kelly Catlin, 23, March 8, Stanford, California. American Olympian and professional cyclist, engineer, violinist, artist. Silver medalist at Rio [2016] in Team's Pursuit and three times World Champion. Suicide.

Julia Ruth Stevens, 102, March 9, Henderson, Nevada. Adopted daughter of American baseball immortal "Babe" Ruth. Major boosterist of the Ruth legend, appearing as guest of honour at ball parks across the US until the age of 100. Extreme old age.

Edmund Capon AM OBE, 78, London, March 13. Eccentric English born Australian art director, curator, author, historian, PhD in Chinese Art. 33-year-long Director Art Gallery of New South Wales [1978-2011]. Tripled the size of the gallery collection, creating the Gallery's Asian art wing. Paid $A16.2 million for a Cézanne [2008]. Biggest regret the still unsolved theft of million dollar 17th-century Frans van Mieris painting on his watch [2007].Chevalier, Ordre des Arts des Lettres. Complications of melanoma.

Birch Bayh, 91, March 14, Easton, Maryland. American politician and broad-acre farmer. Democrat Senator for Indiana [1963-81]. Principally known as the lead author of the 25th and 26th Amendments to the US Constitution. Advocate of abolition of the Electoral College. Pneumonia.

Charlie Whiting, 66, March 14, Melbourne. English motor racing engineer and official. Chief Steward [Race Director] for FIA in Formula One [1997-2019]. Started every F1 race for 21 years. Died suddenly the day before the start of the 2019 Australian F1GP. Pulmonary embolism.

Dick Dale, 81, March 16, Loma Linda, California. American musician and sound engineer known as "The King of the Surf Guitar". Collaborated on creation of the first ever 100 watt guitar amplifier. Released five surf music albums [1962-64], regular on the Ed Sullivan Show, before making a comeback in the 90's. Congestive heart disease, renal failure.

Bruce "Roo" Yardley, 71, March 27. Kununurra, Western Australia. Australian test cricketer. Off-spinner, playing 33 tests for 126 wickets. International Cricketer of the Year [1981-82]. Called by umpires twice for throwing in Jamaica [1978], with the tour ending in a spectator riot. Bowling coach in later life and credited with inventing the "doosra" for all-time test wicket taker, Muttiah Muralitharan. Short cancer-related illness.

† APRIL †

Lloyd McDermott, 79, April 6, Brisbane. Australian indigenous lawyer and rugby union footballer. Mununjali and Waka Waka man. First aboriginal barrister in Australia, and former Wallaby. Best known for refusing to tour South Africa with the Wallabies in 1963 due to the country's apartheid regime. Short illness.

Richard E. Cole,103, April 9, San Antonia, Texas American Air Force pilot. Last of "The Doolittles". Final surviving crew member of the16 strong squadron of B-25's that bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942. Extreme old age.

Jim Daniher, 90, April 12, Ungarie, New South Wales. Australian farmer and progenitor of the famous Daniher Australian Rules football family. Four sons, and two grandsons all played AFL for Essendon. Old age.

Paul Greengard, 93, April 13, New York. American neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate. Won Nobel Prize for Medicine [2000] for work proving the chemical links in brain cell communications, paving the way for the development of a new generation of anti-psychotic drugs. Old age.

Alan García, 69, April 17, Lima, Peru. Peruvian politician and two-term President of Peru [1985-90, 2006-11]. Leader of the Peruvian Aprista Party. Shot himself dead during police raid to arrest him on bribery and corruption charges. Suicide.

Lyra McKee, 29, April 18, Derry, Northern Ireland. Northern Irish investigative journalist and author. Specialised in covering historic unsolved murders during The Troubles. About to publish the first of a three book deal. Shot during a riot. Unsolved murder.

Les Murray AO, 80, April 29, Taree, New South Wales. Australian poet and literary critic. Published 30 volumes of poetry over four-decade career. Longtime literary editor Quadrant magazine. Chronic illness.

Peter Mayhew, 74, April 30, Boyd, Texas. English-born American character actor, children's author. Best known for his role as Chewbacca [1997-2015] in the Star Wars cinema franchise. Cardiac arrest.

† MAY †

Mike Williamson OAM, 90, May 2, Melbourne. Australian sports journalist and colourful Australian football media identity. Decades long career in radio and television becoming a household name with Channel 7 from 1959, broadcasting football, cricket and tennis. Delivered immortal line in the 1970 VFL grand final “Jesaulenko! You beauty!”. Old age.

Doris Day, 97, May 13, Carmel Valley, California. American singer, actress, and Hollywood superstar. Recorded more than 650 popular songs. Became a 1960's Hollywood box office hit with a series of romantic comedies. Following film career, starred in own TV series The Doris Day Show [1963-72]. Retired from the screen 1973. Later became involved in animal rights activism. Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom [2004]. Four times married. Requested no funeral or gravesite. Pneumonia.

Grumpy Cat, 7, May 14, Morristown, Arizona. American calico cat with feline dwarfism. The original "internet cat". Lived out her life as a 'viral sensation'. Urinary tract infection.

Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC, 89, May 16, Sydney. Australian trade union leader and politician. ACTU President [1969-79]. Australia's longest serving Labor Prime Minister [1983-1991]. Statesman, consummate politician, consensus builder, charismatic leader, national icon, history maker, showman, raconteur, Rhodes scholar, ladies man and gentleman. Son of a Congregationalist minister, lost his Christian faith [1952] and became agnostic. Set beer sculling world record [1956] while at Oxford. Self-admitted alcoholic, stopped drinking for 11 years [1983-1994]. Separated from wife Hazel [1995] and married his biographer Blanche d'Alpuget. Legend and folk hero of the Australian Labor movement. Old age.

I.M.Pei, 102, May 16, New York. Chinese-born American architect. Designed landmark buildings around the world. Won Pritzker Prize [1983] considered the Nobel Prize for Architecture. Extreme old age.

Herman Wouk, 103, May 17, Palm Springs, California. American popular fiction novelist, radio writer and WWII US Navy veteran. Largely shunned by critics, authored several run away best sellers, notably The Caine Mutiny which sold three million copies and won the Pullizter Prize [1951]. Extreme old age.

Niki Lauda, 70, May 20, Zürich, Switzerland. Austrian racing car driver and motor sports super star. Three times Formula One World Champion [1975 and 77 - Ferrari, 1984 - McLaren]. Severely disfigured by burns in near-fatal accident at Nürburgring [1976]. Achieved greatest success post accident. Ran his own airline Lauda Air [1997-2013], briefly returning to F1 [1982], and later became involved in the ownership and management of Formula One teams. Double lung transplant recipient ten months before death. Complications of kidney failure and long term respiratory damage.

Judith Kerr OBE, 95, May 22 German-born British children's author, illustrator, novelist. Best known for the best selling The Tiger Who Came to Tea [1968], part of her 17 volume Mog series. Short illness.

Murray Gell-Mann, 89, May 24, Santa Fe, New Mexico. American physicist and Nobel laureate. Known as the "Father of quantum mechanics". Won Nobel Prize for Physics [1959] for his work on sub-atomic elementary particles. Work on cosmic rays proved the existence of "quarks". Chronic illness.

James S. Ketchum, 87, May 27, Peoria, Arizona. American army psychiatrist who experimented with the hallucinogenic drug LSD on 5000 volunteer soldiers at at Edgewood Arsenal Chemical Warfare Facility in the 1960's, aimed at determining its possible debilitating effects on enemy battle field groups. US Army cancelled the program after ten years, declaring it "impractical" .Drifted off.

Leon Redbone, 69, May 30, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Cypriot-born American guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor, comedian, raconteur. Best known for his vaudevillian jazz and tin pan alley stage shows. Recorded 18 studio albums. Dementia.

† JUNE †

Malcolm Rebennack aka "Dr John", 77, June 6, New Orleans, Louisiana. American R&B musician, singer/songwriter, entertainer over 40 year career. Best known for theatrical stage shows based on the "New Orleans sound" and recorded 30 studio albums. Six Grammy awards and inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame [2011]. Cardiac arrest.

Peter Batey OAM, 85, June 14, Coolac, New South Wales. Prolific Australian playwright, theatre producer and impresario. Founding member of Melbourne Theater Company, and inaugural artistic director of the South Australian Theatre Company, directing/producing more than 130 plays. Best known for founding the Bald Archy competition, a satirical take on the Archibald Prize. Single-car motor crash.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne, 98, June 15, Melbourne. Australian leader of the doomsday cult The Family [1963-87]. Claimed she was Jesus Christ incarnate, and accused of the imprisonment, drugging and beating of children, but never faced justice, despite being extradited after fleeing to the United States following a police raid. Dementia.

Franco Zeffirelli KBE OMRI, 96, June 15, Rome. Celebrated Italian film maker, opera director and politician. Best known for Oscar winning film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [1968]. Elected to the Italian Senate [1994-2001]. Honourary British knighthood [2004]. Old age.

Mohammed Morsi, 67, June 17, Cairo. Egyptian politician, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and first democratically elected President of Egypt [2012]. Deposed in a coup d'tat less than a year later. Already convicted of murder on thin evidence and sentenced to death, collapsed and died in the dock during trial on espionage charges. Cardiac Arrest.

Bill Collins OAM, 87, June 20, Melbourne. Australian film critic known as "Mr Movies". Worked on all three commercial television networks, presenting Bill Collins' Golden Years of Hollywood on Channel Ten for fifteen years. Brief illness..

Judith Krantz, 91, June 22, Los Angeles. American pulp fiction novelist and magazine journalist. Wrote ten runaway best selling steamy romance books, publishing her first at the age of 50. Sold an astonishing 80 million copies in more than 50 languages. Old age.

Dave Batholomew, 100, June 23, New Orleans, Louisiana. American jazz musician, composer, arranger, producer. Best known as long time collaborator with the legendary Fats Domino producing more than 40 hits in the 1950's. Congestive heart disease.

George Rosenkranz, 102, June 23. Atherton, California. Hungarian-born American scientist, leading steroid researcher and co-inventor of the first chemical female birth control, known as "The Pill" [1964]. Grand master of the contract bridge card game, writing ten books on the subject. His wife Edith kidnapped for ransom, and released unharmed [1984]. Extreme old age.

† JULY †

João Gilberto, 88, July 6, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazilian singer/songwriter known as "The Father of the Bossa Nova" along with long-time collaborator Antônio Carlos Jobim. Musical superstar in Brazil, but died in debt. Three children by three women. Dementia.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho aka Pak Topo, 49, July 7, Guangzhou, China. Indonesian public servant and media celebrity. Chief spokesman for the Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Much loved communicator of disaster relief operations, providing honest and direct emergency reports on the ground. Directed Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami media efforts from his hospital bed eight months before death. Lung cancer.

Ross Perot, 89, July 9, Dallas, Texas. American electronics billionaire and would be politician. Twice ran for President of the USA [1992, 96] as an Independent, garnering 19% of the popular vote in 1996. Leukemia.

Rip Torn, 88, July 9, Lakeville, Connecticut. American stage, screen and television actor. Oscar nominee.1956 for film debut in Baby Doll, leading to a successful bit-part Hollywood career. Worked in television comedy in later career. Retired 2009. Famous for on-set brawling and a reputation as a "hell raiser". Given suspended jail term for burglary and carrying a loaded weapon while intoxicated (2010). Three times married. Complications of chronic alcoholism.

Fernando Corbató, 93, July 12, Newburyport, Massachusetts. American computing scientist and engineer. Best known for inventing computer passwords with his development of the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in the late 1950's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Won the Turing Award [1990] for lifetime achievement in computing. Complications of diabetes

Pernell "Sweet Pea" Whitaker, 55, July 13, Virginia Beach, Virginia. American Olympic boxing gold medalist [Los Angeles 1984] and winner of professional boxing World Championship belts in four different weight divisions. Alcoholic in later life and did jail time over cocaine possession. Made millions but died poor. Accident. Hit by car.

Justice John Paul Stevens, 99, July 16, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Former US Supreme Court judge, retiring at age 90 after 35 years on the bench on appointment by President Gerald Ford, leading the "liberal wing" of the court. Stroke.

Justice David Hunt AO QC, 84, July 19, Sydney. Former New South Wales Supreme Court justice and Chief Judge at Common Law. Presided over the trial of infamous backpacker killer, Ivan Milat, sentencing him to life in jail, with no parole [1996]. After retirement served as a judge on the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and later the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Complications of dementia.

Shelia Dikshit, 81, July 20, New Delhi. Indian politician and long-time Chief Minister of New Delhi [1998-2013]. Chief architect and promoter of the New Delhi Commonwealth Games [2010]. Congestive heart disease.

Peter McNamara, 64, July 20, Sonthofen, Germany. Australian tennis player. Doubles specialist who won Wimbledon twice with long time partner Paul McNamee [1980, 82] forming "The Two Macs". Appeared for Australia 21 times in Davis Cup rubbers and reached No.7 in the world in singles. Long time pro-coach following retirement [1987]. Prostate cancer.

Paul Krassner, 87, July 21, Desert Hot Springs, California. American anarchist, journalist, prankster, and co-founder of the Yippie movement along with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Published satirical political magazine The Realist [1967]. Alzheimer's disease.

Margaret Fulton OAM, 93, July 24, Sydney. Scottish-born Australian cook, journalist, author, television personality, raconteur. Food Editor "Woman's Day" [1960-79], where she was renowned for her encyclopedic knowledge of cookery. Her first book The Margaret Fulton Cookbook [1968], sold more than 1.5 million copies, becoming a culinary "bible". Credited with bringing international cuisine to the Australian plebeian. Old age.

Mohamed Essebsi, 92, July 25, Tunis, Tunisia. First democratically elected president of Tunisia [2014-19]. Died in office five months short of the end of his term. Wife died at 83 two months later.. Sudden illness.

Russi Taylor, 75, July 26. Glendale, California. American voice actor principally known as the voice of Minnie Mouse for 30 years. Married to the voice of Mickey Mouse, Wayne Allwine, for 18 years until his death in 2009. Also voiced Strawberry Shortcake and Pebbles Flintstone. Work in television spanned the "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to the "The Simpsons" in 45 year career. Colon cancer.

Doris Goddard, 89, July 29, Sydney. Australian hotelier and cabaret performer. Colourful Sydney identify, worked in cabaret in Europe and Asia in the 1950's, then owned various pubs in Balmain and Newtown, before buying the Hollywood Hotel, Surry Hills in 1977. Well known for serenading front bar patrons until her death. Brief illness.

† AUGUST †

Damien Lovelock, 65, August 3, Sydney. English-born Australian musician, author, raconteur, sports commentator, and Ryoho yoga teacher. Front man for cult punk band Celibate Rifles, later career as a television soccer commentator and yoga master. Short cancer-related illness.

Toni Morrison, 88, August 5, New York. Revered American novelist and Nobel Laureate. Best known for her trilogy of novels Beloved. Awarded Pulitzer Prize [1987], Nobel Prize for Literature [1993], Presidential Medal of Freedom [2012]. Pneumonia.

Kary B. Mullis, 74, August 7, Newport Beach, California. American biochemist, author, raconteur and Nobel Laureate. Won1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry [1993] for developing simple and inexpensive analysis of DNA, paving the way for major advances in medical diagnostics, molecular biology and forensic science. Well known proponent of the use of LSD and other psychotropic drugs and active believer in extra-terrestrial beings. Pneumonia.

Malcolm T. Elliot, 73, August 8, Lismore, New South Wales. Australian broadcaster. Long-time Sydney radio announcer [2UE, 2GB, 2UW, 2KY. 1972-2004]. Pioneered the madcap breakfast radio formula. Survived major emergency heart surgery [2004]. Died homeless and destitute. Complications of multiple chronic illnesses.

Jeffery Epstein, 66, August 10, New York. American merchant banker, financier, philanthropist, convicted child sex offender. Suicide. Hanged himself in jail while on remand on sex trafficking charges.

Nignhali Lawford, 52, August 11, Edinburgh, Scotland. Walmadjari woman. Indigenous Australian film, stage and musical theatre actor. Best known for roles in Rabbit Proof Fence [2002] and Bran Nue Dae [2009]. Sudden death while on international tour with Sydney Theatre Company. Asthma attack.

Graham "Polly" Farmer MBE, 84, August 14, Perth. Legendary indigenous Australian Rules footballer. Unique ruckman, star of the WAFL [1953-61], then played 101 games for Geelong in the VFL [1962-7]. Later career in coaching, but lost life savings in a failed motel business. Widely credited with opening the door for other Aboriginal players at the top level through the Polly Farmer Foundation.. Awarded MBE [1971] the first royal honour for an Australian Rules footballer. Inducted into Australian Rules Hall of Fame as a "Legend" [1996]. Alzheimer's disease.

Peter Fonda, 79, August 16, Los Angeles. American actor and cinema screenwriter. Began as a 'counter culture' actor, nominated for Academy Award for screenplay of cult movie Easy Rider [1969], and went on to appear action movies in the 1970's and 80's. Son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridgett Fonda. Lung cancer.

Tim Fischer AC, 73, August 22, Albury, New South Wales. Australian politician, statesman, soldier, diplomat, farmer, author, railway enthusiast, scholar and gentleman. Former National Party Leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister in Howard Govt [1996-99], Ambassador to the Holy See [2009-2012]. Conscripted into Australian Army and wounded in Vietnam War. Suffered life-long autism. Acute myeloid leukemia.

David Koch, 79, August 23, Southampton, New York. American industrialist billionaire, philanthropist, and secretive right-wing political donor, with brother Charles, owning petro-chemical empire Koch Industries. 11th richest man in the world at death with a net personal worth at $50B. Prostate cancer.

Al Haynes, 87, August 25 Seattle, Washington. American commercial airline pilot. Pilot of United Airlines Flight 232 "The Miracle of Sioux City" in 1989. Lost all hydraulics after tail engine explosion in a DC10. Piloted essentially uncontrollable aircraft for 44 minutes, before crash landing at Sioux City airport, Iowa, en-route Chicago-Denver. Among 184 survivors, although 111 on board died. Kept flying after accident and had later career as an aviation safety expert. Brief illness.

Jim Leavelle, 99, August 29, Denver, Colorado. American homicide detective. Escort guard for JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot dead by Jack Ruby at Dallas police headquarters [1963]. Cardiac arrest.

† SEPTEMBER †

Robert Mugabe, 95, September 6, Singapore. Zimbabwean politician, freedom fighter, dictator, tyrant and despot. Liberated Zimbabwe from white rule [1980] after 15 year civil war, then became a brutal authoritarian dictator for 27 years, until deposed in military coup d'tat [2017]. Chronic cancer-related illnesses.

Abdul Qadir, 63, September 6, Lahore. Pakistani test cricketer. Arguably the best leg spin bowler of his generation. 236 wickets in 67 tests for Pakistan [1977-90], becoming a mentor for slow bowlers who followed. Cardiac arrest.

Robert Frank, 94, September 9, Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada. Swiss-born American photographer and photo-journalist. Best known for 1958 book The Americans, documenting everyday life across the USA. Lived as a recluse for his last 45 years after the death of his daughter age 20 in a plane crash. Old age.

Danny "Spud" Frawley, 56, September 9, Millbrook, Victoria. Champion Australian rules footballer, coach and legend. Played 240 games for St Kilda, nine seasons as captain. Coached Richmond to preliminary final [2001]. Later career as a popular radio and television personality and pundit. Single vehicle motor crash. Suicide.

B.J."Pak" Habibe, 83, September 11, Jakarta. Former Indonesian President [1998-9]. aeronautical engineer, politician, author. Took power after Suharto resigned after 30 years in office, and called early elections, which he lost. Allowed referendum on East Timorese independence to go ahead ending the first 24 years of armed hostilities, and enhanced Indonesian economic competition and expansion. Supporter of press freedom. Licenced aeronautical engineer, honourary PhD. Established Indonesian aircraft manufacturing industry [1976]. Subject of two popular feature films, with a third in the making. Congestive heart disease.

Paul Cronin, 81, September 13, Melbourne. Australian television actor, radio personality, Australia Rules football administrator. Came to prominence in police drama Matlock Police, star of long running soap opera The Sullivans [1976-83], also appeared in other soapies Homicide, Division 4, and The Flying Doctors. '1980 King of Moomba'. Led consortium with Christophe Skase to establish Brisbane Bears AFL Club, President [1986-7]. Five silver Logies, never won gold. Short illness.

Charlie Cole, 64, September 13, Ubud, Indonesia. American freelance photojournalist. Best known for the single photograph Tank Man from events surrounding the Tienanmen Square Massacre while on assignment for Newsweek magazine, winning the 1990 World Press Photo award. One of only four foreign press photographers on the scene. Retired to Bali at age 50. Cardiac arrest.

Ric Ocasek, 75, September 15, New York. American singer/songwriter, artist. Lead singer of The Cars. Six sons by three wives, divorced for the last time a year before his death. Took up painting in later years. Congestive heart disease.

Samiuela ʻAkilisi Pōhiva, 78, September 12, Auckland. Tongan politician. Incumbent Prime Minister of Tonga [2018-19]. Died in office. Pneumonia.

Nancy Beaumont, 92, September 18, Adelaide. Australian mother of the three infamous Beaumont Children, who disappeared without trace in Adelaide [1966], in one of Australia's most enduring unsolved mysteries. Old age.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, 83, September 19, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 19. Tunisian politician, dictator, despot. Former President of Tunisia [1987-2011]. Ouster in military-backed popular uprising inspired the 2011 "Arab Spring". Fled the country and died in exile. Prostate cancer.

Bob Oatey OAM, 77, September 17, Adelaide. Champion Australian Rules footballer. Played 301 SANFL games for Norwood and Sturt. The last of the long term player-coaches [1968-1973]. Played nine games for South Australia in the sixties.. Later career as television football commentator. Cancer related illness.

Davo Karnicar, 56, September 16, Zgornje-Jezersko, Slovenia. Slovenian downhill skier, mountaineer and daredevil. Only person to have climbed then descended from Mt Everest on skiis [2000]. Skiied down the highest mountains on seven continents, and three of the main peaks in the Alps. Tree lopping farm accident.

Barron Hilton, 91, September 19, Los Angeles. American multi-billionaire hotel magnate, casino operator and aviation enthusiast. Inherited Hilton Hotels from his father and rapidly expanded the chain as Chairman Hilton Hotels Corporation [1966-2007], to almost a million rooms. Co-founded the break-away American Football League [1960], briefly owning the Los Angeles Chargers. Twice failed in attempts to fly around the world by balloon. Piloting recreational aircraft and gliders until age 84. Old age.

Jimmy Nelson, 90, September 24, Cape Coral, Florida. Pioneering American ventriloquist of the 1950's and 60's. Created the arch-typical ventriloquist's dummy Danny O’Day, and Farrel the Dog, both becoming television stars. Also recorded a series of "how to" albums, paving the way for ventriloquist's who followed. Stroke.

Jacques Chirac, 86, September 26, Paris. Former French President [1995-2007], two-time Prime Minister, and Mayor of Paris. Gaullist center-right politician; became the most unpopular President in French history during second term. Convicted on corruption charges, and given two year suspended sentence. Vocal critic of the Iraq War. Grand Officier Légion d'honneur. Complications of stroke and pneumonia.

Jessie Norman, 74, September 30, New York. American opera singer. Dramatic soprano and superstar with world's leading opera companies over 50 year career. Awarded National Medal of Arts [2009], Fellow Royal Academy of Music, Chevalier Légion d'honneur, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Complications of spinal cord injury and multiple organ failure.

Victoria Galbraith, 52, September 30, Augsburg, Pennsylvania. British born American biological scientist and author. Professor of Animal Behavior and Cognition at time of death. First researcher to prove that fish feel pain. Pancreatic cancer.

"George", The Talking Clock, 66, September 30, Melbourne. Accurate automatic telephone audio time teller since 1953, with three pips counting down to every ten seconds. Final version voiced by Richard Peach [d.2008]. Number 1194 discontinued as incompatible with modern technology, despite getting about two million calls a year. Talking Clock stopped at midnight 30 September. Killed off.

† OCTOBER †

Peter "Ginger" Baker, 80, October 6, Canterbury, England. British rock musician. Formed power rock trio Cream [1966] selling 10 million albums, and the first "supergroup" Blind Faith [1968]. Drummer who pioneered using two bass drums. Chronic heroin addict, relapsing 29 times. Four times married, three children. Known for his outrageous, volatile on and off stage personality. Rare heart disease and complications of a fall.

Alexei Leonov, 85, October 11, Moscow. Russian cosmonaut. First human to 'walk' in space. Exited the Voskhod 2 space capsule in orbit for 12 minutes, on 18 March 1965. Beat the first American to walk in space, Ed White, by less than three months. Awarded Hero of the Soviet Union [twice]. Chronic illness.

Reg Watson AM, 93, October 11, Melbourne. Australian screen writer, director, and television producer. Created soap opera, Neighbours, the longest continuously running show on Australian television [1985-present]. Also co-created other popular soaps, including Prisoner, The Young Doctors, and Sons and Daughters, with executive producer Reg Grundy. Began career in the UK, creating "the first true British soap opera" Crossroads. Long illness.

Harold Bloom, 89, October 14, New Haven, Connecticut. Eccentric American academic, literary scholar and critic. Published more than 40 books. Best known for the Western Canon, a survey of literary works since the 14th century. Photographic memory. Claimed to be able to recite all of Shakespeare by heart. Taught last class at Yale University four days before his death. Sudden illness.

Choi Jin-ri aka "Sulli", 25, October 14, Seongnam, South Korea. Musician, K-Pop star, actor, model. Member of the hit all-girl K-Pop outfit, f(x) [2009-14], followed by successful solo career. Outspoken critic of societal expectation and image presentation in the K-Pop industry Suffered from severe clinical depression. Suicide.

Elijah E. Cummings, 68, October 17, Baltimore, Maryland. Long serving American politician, congressman, orator, social justice and gun control advocate. Elected to 13 consecutive terms to the US House of Representatives for Maryland, Baltimore (7th District). Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Reform until death. Became frail and wheelchair bound in his final years; died in office. Complications of "long standing health issues".

Marieke Vervoort, 40, October 22, Diest, Belgium. Belgian paralympian [London 2012, Rio 2016]. Wheelchair racer, author. Sufferer of reflex sympathetic dystrophy since age 14, losing the use of both legs and inducing intense pain. Euthanised at assisted suicide clinic.

Ivan Milat, 74, October 26, Long Bay, New South Wales. Australian serial killer. Murdered seven European backpackers who went missing between 1989-92, whose remains were found in the Balanglo State Forest. Convicted after long-running trial in 1996, and sentenced to seven life terms. Never admitted guilt. Died in jail. Stomach and esophageal cancer.

Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi, c.46-47, October 26, Barisha, Syria. Iraqi Muslim extremist and military commander. Elusive leader of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] from 2013 until his death, leading rapid expansion of the fundamentalist ISIS 'caliphate' [2013-14]. Survived numerous assassination attempts. Blew himself up during raid by US Special Forces. Suicide.

† NOVEMBER †

Yvette Lundy, 103, November 4, Épernay, France. French WWII resistance fighter. Forged identity papers for Jews and helped Allied airmen shot down over France escape detection. Arrested by the Gestapo [1944] and survived two concentration camps. Concealed war-time experiences until age 42, and then began teaching in schools. Awarded Grand Officier Légion d'honneur at age 101. Extreme old age.

Bob Smithies, 72, November 5, Sydney. English-born Australian rugby league footballer. Played at fullback for the Balmain Tigers in 1969, starring in that year's famous Grand Final victory. Later career as a school teacher. Chronic illness.

James Le Mesurier OBE, 48, November 11, Istanbul. Former British army officer and humanitarian. Founder of the Mayday Rescue group which helped train the White Helmets brigade for the rescue of wounded civilians in the Syrian Civil War. Balcony fall at his home. Suspected/disputed suicide.

Harrison "Bones" Dillard, 96, November 15, Cleveland, Ohio. Champion American athlete. Only man to have won an Olympic gold medal in the 100m [London 1948] and the 110m hurdles [Helsinki 1952]. Worked as a major league baseball scout and school administrator in later life. Stomach cancer.

Bill Waterhouse, 97, November 22, Sydney. Celebrity Australian bookmaker and former barrister. One of Australia's most notorious bookmakers, renowned for taking on some of the country's biggest punters. Implicated in "off the book" SP betting, and involvement in the horse substitution racket "Fine Cotton Affair" [1984], resulting in being 'warned off' racetracks "for life". Regained bookmaker's licence in 2002 to ostensibly teach his grand-son Tom the trade. Old age.

Iman, c.25, November 23, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Last known surviving Eastern Sumatran rhinoceros [dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni] in Malaysia. Female spent last five years in captivity in unsuccessful in-vitro breeding program. Species now believed extinct in Borneo. Less than 60 survive in the wild on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Cancer.

Goo Hara, 28, November 24, Seoul. South Korean singer, actor, and former K-Pop star. Open critic of the K-Pop star system. Suffered from clinical depression. Close friend of Sulli, who took her own life five weeks earlier. Suicide.

Clive James AO CBE, 80, November 24, Cambridge, England. Australian author, critic, poet, novelist, biographer, raconteur, television personality, famous ex-patriot. Moved to England at age 22, and never left. Attended Cambridge University. First job as a television critic for The Observer, then wrote literary criticism, poetry, novels and travelogues. Moved to radio and television; known for dead-pan humour, eventually hosting two simultaneous daily television programs in the UK. Wrote five volumes of memoirs. Diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia [2012], as well as emphysema and eventual kidney failure. Multiple chronic illnesses.

Sir Jonathan Miller KB CBE, 85, November 27, London. British theatre and opera director, academic, television producer/presenter, humourist, medical doctor. First came to prominence in comedy show Beyond The Fringe [1960], later career in academic medicine, television, theatre, and opera production/direction. Alzheimer's disease.

Pim Verbeek, 63, November 28, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Dutch soccer coach. Coached the Australian soccer team to the 2010 World Cup. Also coached Japan, Korea, Morocco, and Oman. Known as a gentleman of the game. Cancer related illness.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, 101, November 29, Tokyo. Japanese politician and former Prime Minister (1992-87), promoting nationalism and privatisation. Member of the Japanese Diet for more than 50 years. Served as a Navy paymaster during WWII. Oldest living former state leader in the world at time of death. Extreme old age.

† DECEMBER †

Andrew "Greedy" Smith, 63, December 1, Sydney. Australian musician, singer/songwriter, artist. Founding member and frontman of cult Australian rock band Mental As Anything. Cardiac arrest.

Bob Willis MBE, 70, December 4, London. English Test cricketer. Fast bowler with extravagant long run-up, taking 325 test wickets. Played 90 test matches for England, (1971-84), 18 tests as Captain. Played a pivotal role in the famous 1981 Ashes series. Later career in cricket media commentary. Known as a 'demon' on field, and a gentleman in the pavilion. Prostate cancer.

Carroll Spinney, 85, December 8, Woodstock, Connecticut. American puppeteer and voice actor. Operated and voiced the iconic puppets Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch on long-running children's television show Sesame Street, for 50 years, working on the first series in 1969 until retirement aged 84. Complications of late onset dystonia.

Jill Emberey, 60, December 12, Newcastle, New South Wales. Australian radio journalist and broadcaster. Long-time regional ABC presenter. Spent final years as an advocate for cancer research. Ovarian cancer.

Sir Peter Snell KNZM OBE, 80, December 12, Dallas, Texas. New Zealand Olympian and champion middle-distance track athlete. Won the 800m at the 1960 Olympics (Rome), and gold in the 800m and 1500m at the 1964 Olympics (Tokyo), the only runner to ever do so. Set a new word record for the mile in 1962. Retired from the track in 1965 aged 28. Moved to the USA in 1971, working in sports science and becoming a permanent resident. Cardiac arrest.

Ward Just, 84, December 19, Plymouth, Massachusetts. American journalist and novelist. Prominent Vietnam War correspondent for the Washington Post. Wounded in Viet Cong mortar attack (1966), but later returned to the battlefield. Later career as an author of a dozen political novels. Anti-war activist. Lewy body dementia.

John Cain, 88, December 23, Melbourne. Australian lawyer and politician. Longest serving Labor Premier of Victoria [1982-90]. Ended 27 years of Conservative rule in Victoria in 1982, re-elected twice. Most popular Victorian Premier by electoral success during first two terms. Known as a no-nonsense straight-shooter, scholar and gentleman. Stroke.

Richard Alpert aka Baba Ram Dass, 88, December 24, Honolulu, Hawaii. Author and 1960's 'counter-culture' leader with Timothy Leary and Allan Ginsberg. Best known for writing Hippie "bible" Be Here Now. Advocate of LSD and other psychotropic drugs, later taking up Sufism. Later life as an advocate for the rights of the ageing. Complications of stroke and a fall.

Bill Ryan, 97, December 25, Sydney. Australian soldier and political activist. WWII veteran of the Kokoda Campaign. Vocal critic of the Vietnam War and the South African apartheid regime. Serial protestor. Arrested seven times for civil disobedience. Later embraced environmental activism, supporting school climate strikes. Last seen protesting on the streets of Sydney a week before his death. Short illness, old age.

Neil Innes, 75, December 29, Toulouse, France. British comedian, musician, stage and screen writer, children's author. Known at "the 7th Python", writing sketches and songs for the Monty Python Show [stage, TV and film]. Founded the Bonzo Dog Dooh-Dah Band and Beatles spoof band The Rutles. Best known for Monty Python song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". Cardiac arrest.