Stephen Gately is dead at 33

[Si Hunt]

My God.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091011...a-6323e80.html

Si.

[Antony Cox]

Good God - that's awful news!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

That is awful - too young.

[Rob McCow]

How the heck has this happened?!

[SiHart]

It's really sad to hear.

Si xx

[Darren]

This is shocking! It seems so random, what caused it?

[Andrew Curnow]

So shocking, I saw it on the news this morning and couldn't actually believe whaat I was hearing. Poor guy, so young, and his poor partner and family and friends must be devastated.

[Pip Madeley]

What a dreadful shock! I wasn't Boyzone's biggest fan but I acknowledged he had talent and was much loved... wow. RIP.

[Simon R]

33 is so young. I always thought he seemed like a very sweet natured guy and was only watching him and the "Boyz" on "Ghost Hunting With..." a few weeks ago.

From the official website:

Ronan, Keith, Mikey & Shane have said...

"We are completely devastated by the loss of our friend and brother, Stephen. We have shared such wonderful times together over the years and were all looking forward to sharing many more. Stephen was a beautiful person in both body and spirit. He lit up our lives and those of the many friends he had all over the world. Our love and sympathy go out to Andrew and Stephen's family. We love you and will miss you forever, 'Steo'".

[Si Hunt]

I've thought about him a lot today.

I wasn't his greatest fan - I didn't like "Boyzone", I didn't think he was a great singer and so on.

But 33, two years older than me, is a shocking age to go. It's just devastating. I almost hope drugs were involved as otherwise, it has no meaning. Was it just "his time" - but 33 years on this Earth is no time at all. Quite recently I have been really feeling that I'm going to enjoy life - not because it's short, but because I know that fortune can vary. So you should get as much out of the good times as you can, while they last. The news today has given me another reason to believe this - you always think of pop stars as being somewhat luckier than you - with the money, the houses, the career and so on. But what's it all worth to him now? I bet if he could look down, he'd trade it all for what we've all got - a life.

Stephen was a pop star, but more importantly he was of my generation. Most girls, and quite a few boys, of my age will have fancied him, perhaps even felt they knew him. And he's gone, before his time.

A huge, huge shame. Rest in peace.

Si.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

But 33, two years older than me, is a shocking age to go. It's just devastating. I almost hope drugs were involved as otherwise, it has no meaning. Was it just "his time" - but 33 years on this Earth is no time at all. Quite recently I have been really feeling that I'm going to enjoy life - not because it's short, but because I know that fortune can vary. So you should get as much out of the good times as you can, while they last. The news today has given me another reason to believe this - you always think of pop stars as being somewhat luckier than you - with the money, the houses, the career and so on. But what's it all worth to him now? I bet if he could look down, he'd trade it all for what we've all got - a life.

Yeah when you think of it, it reminds me a bit of the scene in the Commitments where they're rattling off all the music tallents gone too early. I could try and make a list, but it'd be endless. Usually the Rock'n'Roll way is that it's death from excess, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I know we live in a society where it's hard wired into us we have to be successful and rich to be happy. But look at people like Donald Trump and Alan Sugar, and they're miserable sods.

At the end of the day the only commodity which really means anything is time. If you were to get 500,000 pounds, you'd make all kinds of plans on how to spend it. There are 500,000 minutes in every year, how do you plan to use them?

What a tragic death like this reitterates in all of us is that we can't count on tomorrow being there, so maybe we shouldn't put off today saying and doing the things that really matter.

[Mr BHT]

The news today has given me another reason to believe this - you always think of pop stars as being somewhat luckier than you - with the money, the houses, the career and so on. But what's it all worth to him now? I bet if he could look down, he'd trade it all for what we've all got - a life.

Absolutely spot on. If you've got your health you've got everything.

Not a Boyzone fan at all here - in fact Ronan Keating could join Mariah Carey as the absolute pits in music for me. It would be hard to choose between them. But Stephen did come accross as charming and sweet whenever I saw him in interviews and I always enjoyed his performance in Horror of Glam Rock - one of the few 'new' McGann audios I can stomach to listen to repeatedly.

RIP doesn't do him justice - it's not fair that anyone should die at that age for no apparent reason. Like I say it teaches us all to be grateful to be living, and breathing. It wakes us up. Being alive is enough.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I can't remember now - but did I read somewhere he'd been diving the day before? [I know it's an activity which does horrid things sometimes]

[Si Hunt]

The Sun's sensitive headline this morning is "Stephen Dies After 8 Hour Binge". But what does an "eight hour binge" actually mean? Eight hours is just a long evening. So it just means he'd gone out for the evening and drunk, as most of us do now and then. Someone tell me when and how it becomes a "binge"? Why do the papers have to make absolutely everything sound sordid?

Si.

[SiHart]

They make everything sound sordid so that they sell a few more papers Si. Sad but true.

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

I thought that was pretty disgusting too. A good night out can easily last eight hours, particularly if you're on holiday! I'm sure the editor of The Sun has been out on longer binges.

Boo The Sun!

[Si Hunt]

Why do people buy it though. Why?!?

Si.

[Mr BHT]

It's easy reading, full of scandal and as a clincher it's got pictures of naked girls in it. There's a brilliant line in the 80's series 'Hot Metal' in which the editor of fictional tabloid The Daily Crucible says 'tits sell newspapers, fortunately for us they also buy them.' No one ever went broke treating the masses like simple exploitable fools, sadly.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Thing is at the moment we don't know what has caused this. For all we know the binge drinking statement might be backed up by some eyewitnesses. Although reading the story in the Sun it smacks of someone doing a quick "I saw trashed Stephen on tragic night out" sell-your-story.

[Pip Madeley]

Boyzone star Stephen Gately died of natural causes, a court official on the island of Majorca said.

The official said a post mortem had established that the singer suffered a pulmonary oedema, an accumulation of fluid on the lungs. This would appear to confirm speculation that the star, who died after a night on the town on the island, choked on his vomit.

At a brief court hearing in the island's capital Palma, a judge said Gately's body could be taken home.

The 33-year-old was found dead on Saturday. He was discovered on the sofa in his apartment in Port Andratx after a night out partying with his partner Andrew Cowles.

A sad end.

[Captain Tancredi]

Not the first and probably not the last. I've no real interest in Boyzone (I'm 37 and predominantly straight, so what do you expect?) but he seems to have been good at what he did and coming out when he did probably made things a little bit easier for young gay people in Ireland, which is traditionally conservative about such things.

[Stuart Wallis]

A man came into the library today and borrowed a Boyzone CD. He told me that he'd been introduced to Steven by his, as it happened, gay nephew; and he found him to be a very nice, polite young man. It doesn't surprise me in the least to learn that.

[Si Hunt]

The court spokesman has claimed the fluid on his lungs "had nothing to do with any consumed alcohol", according to tonight's Evening Standard.

Si. :mobile