Snooker referee Alan Chamberlain RIP.
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https://www.irishnews.com/sport/gaafootball/2021/09/21/news/jim-on-anto-2454526/
MND is absolutely frightening. Are they any closer to find a cure/treatment?
They reckon they are in the States. Rob Burrows volunteered for a few treatments, heâs lasted longer so far than what he was given.
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There was a very chilling thing done on the BBC with Stephen Darby, Rob Burrow and and Doddie Weir.
They were interviewed together in February 2020 and again 12 months later and their deterioration was scary.
My grandmother had it. Itâs an awful thing. A slow death sentence
Do they know what causes it? A horrible disease
No, no clue. Mam had it too, same as Burrows. 10 years on and no real change just in the technology to communicate.
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Famously told Fergal OâBrien to hurry up in a match. A legend for that.
Influential is too small a word here.
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I met one of his old bandmates (Chris Watson) once years ago. Didnât clock who he was until later on 
RIP
Did he know who you were?
I knew he was Chris Watson but it didnât dawn on me til later in the day it was Chris Watson from C.V.
He wouldnât of known who I was
Sheffieldâs own Kraftwerk: how Cabaret Voltaire and Richard H Kirk put the steel into synthpop
As awkward as he was innovative, the late electro pioneer forged a sound that influenced several generations of pop stars
ByEd Power21 September 2021 ⢠5:35pm
Richard H Kirk (right) and Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire photographed in 1984 CREDIT: Getty
The future could never arrive quickly enough for Richard H Kirk, the guiding light behind groundbreaking electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, who has passed away aged 65.
Forged amid the brutalist architecture and social tensions of post-industrial Sheffield, Cabaret Voltaire were among the most influential artists of their generation. And of several generations to follow. They were South Yorkshireâs Kraftwerk, restless innovators whose pioneering synthpop paved the way for Throbbing Gristle, New Order, Depeche Mode and the rave scene of the late Eighties.
Cabaret Voltaire achieved all this whilst cultivating a fiercely defiant independent streak. As Sheffield contemporaries the Human League and Heaven 17 rushed to cash in their chips in the Eighties, Kirk and his collaborators were always suspicious of chart success.
They clocked up their share of old-fashioned hits â most notably, the mesmerising James Brown and Sensoria in 1984. Yet their engagement with the mainstream was always on Kirkâs terms. And so when he revived the Cabaret Voltaire âbrandâ several years ago, it was with the caveat that he would only play new material. He even turned down a massive payday to bash out his greatest hits at the Coachella rock festival in California. An awkward customer to the end, for him Cabaret Voltaire was always and only about art rather than commerce.
Kirk also left the world at least one masterpiece, 1981âs Red Mecca. It was clattering, claustrophobic fever dream, full of horror-show rhythms and haunting melodies. The LP was Kirkâs response to the inner city riots that swept Britain that year â and which he believed were a response to heavy-handed policing.
âIt was made against a backdrop of civil unrest,â he told me last year, when promoting a new Cabaret Voltaire album, Shadow Of Fear. âPeople were going out and having to fight back against the coppers who were brutalising a lot of the black community.â
âPeople say that The Specialsâ Ghost Town was the soundtrack to the unrest of that year. But a lot of people alternatively think that Red Mecca was the sound of that,â Kirk had explained to the producers of BBC documentary Synth Britannia in 2009. âInsurrection in the streets found its way into the music. We took some heart from the fact some people were kicking backâŚalbeit in quite a crude manner, and were prepared to take on the police.â
Kirk and Cabaret Voltaire had themselves earned a reputation for standing up to the system. Inspired initially by Roxy Music, they were named after the Zurich nightclub which spawned the Dadaist moment â a confrontational celebration of ânonsense, irrationality and anti-bourgeois protestâ. And where the Dadaists had been pushing back against the banalities of âbourgeoisâ art, so Kirk was kicking out against a UK rock scene which, in the mid-Seventies, had little to say to working class kids from Sheffield.
âWe thought there was nothing for us,â he told Synth Britannia. âIt was all bloated supergroups and progressive bands who werenât even from the same social backgroundsâŚ.Once you started to discover the German bands [Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! etc] you realised there were entire albums that were made of electronica.â
Cabaret Voltaire in 2008 CREDIT: Redferns
âCabaret Voltaire were way, way ahead of their time,â said DJ Magazine of their influence on music in 2013. âCreating a challenging sound that soaked up electronics, dub, found sounds and scuzzy punk, their sonics were hugely influential on the creation of industrial, house and techno.â
Kirk started the band in 1973 with Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson. Initially, they were a full-frontal assault, as Joy Division fans discovered in 1978 when Cabaret Voltaire were invited to open for Ian Curtis and company. Cabaret Voltaire, drawing on the musique concrète idea of art as ordeal, were an onslaught. At one gig, a punter waiting to hear Transmission and Atmosphere lost control and lobbed an unidentified object at Mallinder, who nearly parted ways with several teeth.
âWhen we started, we wanted to do something with sound, but none of us knew how to play an instrument,â Kirk revealed to the New York Times. âSo we started using tape recorders and various pieces of junk and gradually learned to play instruments like guitars and bass.â
Kirk, like all great artists, was constantly shapeshifting. Slimmed down to a duo with Mallinder, by 1984 Cabaret Voltaire were signed to Virgin Records and cooking up skewed pop such as MTV hit Sensoria. Die-hard fans were appalled at this dalliance with the corporate music industry. Kirk wasnât for turning. âA lot of people said it was rubbish,â he told me. âFortunately, I think it has stood the test of time.â
Cabaret Voltaire had become defunct by the late Eighties. Kirk, though, was a long way from finished. Forming the early techno outfit Sweet Exorcist with Richard Barratt, he had the distinction of putting out the first official album release on Sheffieldâs Warp Records (he continued to release pummelling techno, under a dizzying variety of aliases, through the decades to follow).
Warp would build on Kirkâs vision of unpromising art that also happens to sound utterly rollicking on the dance-floor. Indeed, a clear line can be drawn between his maverick sensibility and that of Warp artists such as Squarepusher, Autechre, Boards of Canada, and, in particular, the Aphex Twinâs Richard D James, whose compositions swerve from eerily beautiful to scorched-earth terrifying.
And when Kirk dusted down Cabaret Voltaire in 2009, that searing devotion to quality control endured. Shadow Of Fear, released last November to rave write-ups, was hallucinatory, brooding and brimming with beats. It confirmed Kirk as one of the true visionaries of British electronic music â an artist whose seismic influence is destined to echo on through future generations of synthpop.
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Is this Lorraine Dempsey a bit of a grief junkie, she hasnât stopped tweeting and social media posts since her husband died (Carl up on Croagh a week or so ago). Itâs pure cringe
Ah chill out mate. Everyone deals with grief in different ways. She lost her husband suddenly.
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I am chilled out I just find it incredibly odd behaviour
It seems to be more of a thing these days. Iâm not sure why, but my timeline regularly has people tweeting about grief/deaths at what would strike me as odd times. A lot of people look at their social media circle as their friends and she probably takes comfort in the replies.
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Itâs only been a few weeks in any case