This week's More or Less on Radio 4 had me interested from the start because it discussed a question that's been bothering my colleagues at work, on and off, for weeks.
In fact it's been an out-and-out 'hot topic' there: Why is it that so many celebrities are dying this year?
In fact it's been an out-and-out 'hot topic' there: Why is it that so many celebrities are dying this year?
Of course, More or Less wanted to know if there was any statistical basis for this popular intuition that our beloved celebs are dropping like flies at the moment...and counting the number of full-length obituaries posted on the BBC News website, the programme revealed that there does seem to be something going on here.
The number of obituaries (covering the same January-to-now period for each year) rose from roughly a handful around 2011, leapt dramatically in 2014 to around the mid teens (and rose a little bit more in 2015), and then leapt again into the high 20s in 2016.
So, yes, it does seem to be true that our favourite celebrities are starting to drop like flies at the moment.
And the reason, according to More or Less?
Well, it's all because the pop charts and popular TV grew up in the 1950s. Before then 'the famous' largely amounted to famous movie actors and actresses, and they were small in number. From the 1950s though, a huge number of the pop stars and TV personalties began to appear...
...and, alas, given their dates of birth and life expectancy, a lot of those people (and those who achieved fame in the 1960s) are now reaching the point of no return (even some of the ones in their late 60s).
From this I drew the conclusion that our celebs are going to keep on dropping like flies from now on and we'd better get used to it.
I won't name names for the next candidates though as that would be in very bad taste (not that I didn't join in the predictions at work. One name kept cropping up. And, no, it wasn't Elton John or David Furnish.)
