blonde poker forum

I have been musing on this for a while, & the longer I think about it, the more contenders I find.

I ended up with a list of 20 or 25, but I don't want to list them all or it ruins the thread before it starts, but I'll kick off with these three...


Watergate. Whatever way I look at it, the best ever.

9/11

COVID.


Just missing out were the assassinations of JFK and Lennon.



Go on, try & beat those, list your Top 3.

Top of my head without much thought.

Cuban missile crisis. We were literally minutes away from global annihilation. Think about it.

The tsunami.

Donald Trump becoming the most powerful man in the world

Fall of the wall.


I could do 20 easily

True, very hard to narrow it down to 3.

Trump is a great shout. I may have to reconsider.

The first tragedy registered in my mind just before my 8th birthday. I think because the victims were mainly children. 1966 the Aberfan disaster.

I remember walking in to a bar in Spain on Boxing Day and the tsunami was being reported on Sky News. I'm a frequent visitor to Thailand now, but hadn't yet travelled there.

Good times watching Muhammad Ali on TV live via satellite.

Pol Pot

Vietnam war.

There are just so many.

You must be ~10 or 12 years younger than me, I seem to recall I had been working 2 or 3 years when it happened, & it was definitely on my long short list.  

Vividly recall Harold Wilson visiting the scene a day or two later. And the then Chairman of the NCB (National Coal Board) Lord Robens handling it all so terribly, & denying responsibility.  

Kev makes a good point. Some stories are of more interest or significance to different people.

Cave rescues. Challenger disaster. Apollo 13. Chernoby.

I remember seeing it on the news, black and white TV still then. Just do very sad.

I'm 67, just a bit younger than that old fella Red Dog.

Flight MH370.

Am I getting too broad for this thread?

Lol. I've been 68 for 2 days.

Tom only last week I watched a documentary film about the Thai cave rescue. The Rescue on Netflix, very goid indeed.

Oh I'm a lot younger then, not 68 until October 🤣

Americans invading Afghanistan.

Americans leaving Afghanistan.

Death of Princess Diana.

I have to stop, I'll be here all day.

The Russians had a bash at Afghanistan in the late 70's didn't they? Am I right in thinking they left with their tail between their legs?

It was a total shit show Kev





Afghan–Soviet War https://share.google/QQTLqeiv30c67VU4Y

Oh yes, another great story.

Not too broad at all, it's interesting (to me) how we all choose differently.

That's the idea though, & the essence of it - you can only choose three.

These are the 3 News stories that immediately spring to mind. Not the definitive 3 "biggest"-but ones that stick in my mind. In date order:-

1. The 1970 World Cup. It had pretty much everything. Quite possibly the best English team ever. In Brazil, quite possibly the best team ever. Great football, scandal...

2. The Miners Strike. The impact on our economy cannot be underestimated. From the Unions, to the abandonment of Heavy Industry and whole Communities, to the posturing of 2 rather similar people in Thatcher and Scargill

3. 9/11. Just got home with my Wife and new-born 2nd child. Went upstairs, turned on the Computer, and watched with a mixture of fascination and horror

OJ mtfkin Simpson!

Oh my, yes. Absolute classic.

Knock, knock
Who's there?
OJ
OJ who?
You can be on the Jury

1970 World Cup - was that when there was the Bobby Moore Bogota bracelet thing?

Miner's strike. What a memory. Hard to imagine Mr Scargill & Lady Thatcher agreeing on a single thing whilst sat across a negotiating table. Real immovable force meets immovable object stuff. We had electricity on ration, 3 days on, 3 days off (or was it hours?) if memory not deceiving me? Imagine that happening now. WOT, NO TELLY?

The Bobby Moore bracelet thing.
The Banks wonder save, and the extraordinary sportsmanship from Pele afterwards
The mystery of why Banks missed the Quarters, and the unfair treatment of Bonetti and Ramsey
Jairzinho. Carlos Alberto. Inspired a lifetime love of Sport

Scargill always believed he was the opposite side of the same coin as Thatcher. He was. Similar strengths. And similar weaknesses

The troubles in Ireland. Scary time for our family as we had 2 soldiers (my Uncles) over there at the height of the conflict.

Greatest news stories?

The Bible
The Quran
The Tanakh

Or are we not including works of fiction? ;)

In my lifetime my top 3 would be -

9/11
The death of Diana
The SAS ending the Iranian Embassy siege  

All of those kept me rivetted to the TV for hours

OK. This is my 3 in reverse order.

Post Office scandal. I mean, what the actual fuck?

911. Watching it unfold as it happened. The entire world came to a standstill. Everyone everywhere was glued to a screen, any screen, totally gobsmacked. The aftermath produced a thousand stories of tragedy and heroism. The world was changed forever in an instant.

Trump. My number one and it's not even close.
Since he was first elected in 2016 I have followed his antics every day. I am astonished that a man with so little knowledge of the world and its history can become a world leader.
A man so totally devoid of diplomacy can occupy the post of top diplomat.
A man so vain as to ASK, almost demand, the Nobel peace prize but at the same time blow fishing boats out of the water, the crew convicted and sentenced to death without trial.
The self appointed head of the Peace Board who orders the killing of leaders he doesn't like, and, he does it without consultation.
A man who will stand before an audience of heads of state and spout utter drivel laced with insults.
A man who doesn't realise that you can't reduce the price of something by 600% or that you can't inject people with bleach to cure covid.
A man who demands that he be given a country because, "What right do the natives have to it?"
A man who  pardons insurrectionists because they wear hats with his slogan printed on them.

Everything he has done, and continues to do, is solely for his own gratification.

What a story.

Think that was Heath's miners' strike. Thatcher had coal imports lined up and "scab" road hauliers to get it to the power stations.  Mining was a horrible, dangerous job that no one could seriously have liked doing, so it was a bit ironic that it was the last stand against de-industrialisation.

I remember a left wing figure, might have been the eloquent Jimmy Reid, saying that those receiving redundancy payments should consider that the jobs aren't theirs to sell, but belong to the community (or words to that effect). In my first school summer job, in a swanky clothes shop, a group of pissed-up steel workers came in to buy new suits etc with their (in those days) pretty substantial dunny pay-offs - so Jimmy's words fell on very deaf ears.


 

So difficult but here goes in no particular order.

The death of Princess Diana 1997

9/11

The Tsunami 2004

All shocking events, brought to us in our homes by the news channels from around the world.

Epstein Starts WW3

Kennedy's Assassination

The Profumo Scandal

Ha, very good Ralph.

Unbelievable drama, & right in the middle of the World Snooker Final on Telly on Sunday night. Alex Higgins & Thorburn?

For me the greatest news stories in MY life time all centre around the time i was in the Army

1) Russia pulling out of Afghanistan as a teenager i always thought i would be Rambo (not a nerdy, drunk my army life turned into)
2) The Berlin Wall coming down, Night Rider David Hasselhoff standing on top of it, Nov 89. I was Based in a garrison called Osnabrück,
the whole country was buzzing at the time and the months after. I got confirmation that was going to be able to tun the Berlin marathon
1990 the first one to run both sides of the old border. Unfortunely i lost an argument with my mate's bike and i was not fit enough to run it.
3) Iraq invaded Kuwait. Was just back to Scotland for rehab.

One of the best headlines  , believe it was the Sun newspaper …

Paddy pantsdown

Chilean trapped miners, that was a big story with an amazing outcome.

Salisbury novichok murders.

Bhopal disaster.

Yorkshire ripper.

Like the Sam Fox leaving headline.

Thanks for the Mammories

1) The death of Elvis (The 1st and only time I saw my Dad cry)

2) 911

3) Covid (more the aftermath, rather the actually period during)

My lifetime:

- Death of Princess Diana

- 9/11


Asked my dad the same question. He said:

- Moon landing

- JFK assassination

- Churchill's funeral.

- 9/11

- Fall of the Soviet Union

Blatchgate

Elvis dying was very sad day. I was going on 19, came in from the pub to find my Mum and sister in tears. Luxembourg 208 played Elvis songs all night.

Boldie's trip to Vegas

Elvis was a spent force when he died. I was far more affected by Hendrix going and he had so much more to give.

 rotflmfao

I was weened on Elvis, Mum was a huge fan. That's why it was a sad time in our household.

Yeah, I get that.

Like many I could have had a bigger list.

Aberfan - the first big news story that stuck in my memory. I was 8 years old.

9/11 also the death of Osama Bin Laden. 

Chernobyl

1986 Challenger
1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
2008 Financial crash

1966 - I was 12 and away at Boys’ Brigade Camp. Took the ferry to the Isle of Wight and kept my radio to my ear. When Hurst scored the goal that put us ahead in extra time I ran up Ryde Pier and slipped on the damp boards nearly losing my radio over the side.

1968 - the first English team to win the European Cup. Yes, I am aware that Celtic did it the year before and that too was memorable.

2001 - my daughter rang me to say that a plane had hit a skyscraper in New York.

There were any number of others but the first two were joyful memories and we need more of those.

Well if the passing of Elvis gets in, then I'll have to add the murder of John Lennon. One of those "I remember where I was when I heard the news" things.



Also, Grenfell.

Elvis: Went to see my now wife, then fiancé and found her crying her eyes out.

Lennon: I was 25 and on my way to play a snooker tournament. I heard it on the radio in my truck and was devastated the needless tragedy.

Such a waste.

Lennon, what a terrible waste of a talent and decent human being. Been passed away now longer than he was alive.

So difficult only choosing 3 things on this thread. It's like being asked your favourite 5 songs, just impossible.

Favourite five songs is easy

Get Back
Sympathy for the Devil
Heroes
Common People
Learn to Fly

It’s so easy that I can do it again tomorrow

Great choices there.

I think music is mood dependant. I could choose 5 today and a totally different 5 on another day. I couldn't even do a top 5 singer/group, just impossible for me.

Jimmy Saville, and I suppose  in the same genre, Gary Glitter, Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, and Max Clifford.

I agree Kev, totally depends on mood. I don't think mine would be the same 5 bands for weeks, maybe months.

That list makes you shudder. A friend of mine worked in the prison where Harris was detained.

Have you seen the drama where Steve Coogan played Jimmy Savile called "The reckoning"? Coogan was eerily impressive as Savile.

It's 30 years since Dunblane. Another tragic news story. 😪

That was pretty much my point. Tomorrow’s 5 will almost certainly be different, even if only by one song. Although all 5 could be different.

The Savile saga produced more and more revelations as it progressed and I don’t think we will ever know the full truth about who knew what and when.
I wonder if he could have got away with it for so long had the internet existed when he was active.

Anyone remember John Stonehouse?

Was a Government Minister in the 70's who faked his death via drowning & ran away to Australia under a new name with his mistress.

It eventually came out on top, though when he was first arrested the Australian police thought he was Lord Lucan (another great news story) who had disappeared just 2 weeks earlier.

He was deported back to the UK, but astonishingly, he never initially resigned his seat in the House of Commons.

Eventually he was charged with a range of frauds, as well as spying for the Czech Republic as it then was, and at his Trial he conducted his own defence in comical fashion, & was sent to Prison for 7 years.

I sometimes think Stonehouse was the inspiration for the Reginald Perrin TV series with Leonard Rossiter.  

No chance.

I guess we should add Lord Lucan, for the more senior blondes.

Madeline McCann.

If ever a story was overdone, it was that. To this day it still generates headlines, & the Police still waste endless amounts of money on investigating false trails.

As to who was responsible, that's a story in itself, and it's quite surprising the parents never faced any charges.

dads army  pulling off the hatton garden heist was fun to read about , unless you were an owner of said deposit boxes

Another classic Sun headline during The Falklands War:

Stick It Up Your Junta

Sun headline when he lost the election to a landslide Thatcher victory.

MICHAEL PHUT.

From the Wikipedia page on said series
At the end of the first series, Reggie fakes suicide by leaving his clothes on a beach in West Bay, Dorset and running into the sea. Coincidentally, MP John Stonehouse faked his own death in this manner shortly before the book was published, although neither was inspired by the other; the novel was written before Stonehouse's faked suicide in November 1974, but not published until 1975. The phrase "do a Reggie Perrin" did enter the vernacular, however, assisted by the Stonehouse affair.

The canoe guy from Seaton Carew nor Hartlepool who turned up in Panama may have been inspired by one or both

If we are doing headlines, I always thought this one was pretty good. It was, of course, in a Murdoch paper;

Headless body in topless bar

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/shaun-ryder-admits-confronting-killer-36902722

When Caledonian Thistle beat Celtic in a cup match-Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Caley_go_ballistic,_Celtic_are_atrocious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Caley_go_ballistic,_Celtic_are_atrocious)
edit-I'm talking about great headlines although I'm sure the result was special for some.

Ian Watkins

Nadia Comaneci, Montreal 1976, aged 14, she was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games.

Torvill & Dean, 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics: Won gold with a groundbreaking, artistic "Bolero" performance, securing perfect
 scores from every judge.

Everyone glued to the TV screens.