RIP Davy Jones, Whitney and Donna Summer - but Keith Richards is sill alive

2012 once again demonstrated the brittleness and fleeting nature of human existence. You can be a once time diva with the world at your feet like Whitney Houston and still end up dead in a bathtub.

You can be the queen of Divas and hot stuff like Donna Summer and still miss a beat on the big disco dancefloor.

You can wear the world's tightest pants like Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees but fail to wrap up your own mortality.

You can even transcend the Earth itself and walk on the moon like Neil Armstong, but the earth will get you in the end.

The death of Davy Jones of the Monkees caused quite a stir stateside. I had always been indoctrinated by my parents into the notion that the Americans created the Monkeys as a transatlantic rival to the Beatles. While it's true that the Monkey were one of the first manufactured boy bands, and as such have a lot to answer, for I just found out Jones was actually British.

Other high profile deaths included Andy Griffith, who I confess didn't mean much to me, but appears to have a cult following in sections of American society. I've since watched a few clips and am scratching my head about what's funny about this guy.

The older you get the more depressing the death list seems to be become because you find yourself losing cultural icons that made up your past. Dallas may not have been high culure but few Saturday nights in the 1980s were complete without the garish theme tune and the wide gates of Southfolk Ranch populated by evil oil magnate J.R. Ewing.

A large part of my adolescence seemed to go south west with the death of Larry Hagman.

Still it's not all doom and gloom. Despite ingesting every harmful substance known by man and quite a few yet to be discovered, Keith Richards of the Stones remains alive.

Happy New Year.