A good mix of celebrities kicking the bucket over the last week, strangely I believed some of you had Carl Reiner, but it turns out none of you did. Must have been a leftover from a list or two from years past. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Johnny Mandel, 94, American composer (“Suicide Is Painless“, “Emily“).
• Carl Reiner, 98, American actor, comedian, film director and writer (The Dick Van Dyke Show, Ocean’s Eleven, The Jerk).  
• Louis Mahoney, 81, Gambian-born British actor (Omen III: The Final Conflict, Doctor Who, Captain Phillips).  
• Dan Hicks, 68, American actor (Evil Dead II, Darkman, Intruder), cancer. 
• Reckful, 31, Israeli-American Twitch streamer, suicide.  
• Earl Cameron, 102, Bermudian-born British actor (Doctor Who, Pool of London, The Interpreter).  
• Scott Erskine, 57, American serial killer, COVID-19.  
• Rubble, 31, British cat, world’s oldest cat. 

In Other News

Robbie Williams and his wife Ayda Field were threatened with being beheaded while doing charity work in Haiti. The entitled “Rock DJ” singer visited Haiti with children’s charity Unicef in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, which left an estimated 250,000 dead and 1.5 million without homes. Speaking about the trip on Field’s Postcards from the Edge podcast, Williams recalled the incident, saying: “I got threatened to be beheaded in Haiti. We were going out there to help! “I was like, ‘Should we go to the next street then?’, and looking back, it was scary.” Not to be outdone, Field, who has four children with Williams, added: “I was with you. I too was being threatened to be beheaded as well.” In an interview at the time, Williams discussed seeing the magnitude of the earthquake, saying: “As we walked around Jacmel on the first day, it’s hard to explain in words the massive and devastating impact that the earthquake clearly had – it’s a whole different league from what I had imagined I would see. “It was almost unbelievable, like a movie set. Cars completely crushed – some still poking out from underneath the buildings that have fallen on top of them.”  

Thanks to Nickie for bringing this one into my radar, as you might have noticed above, a Twitch streamer called Byron ‘Reckful’ Berstein committed suicide this week at the age of 31. Apparently he was a legend in the World of Warcraft Twitch community. As an avid WoW player since its inception in 2004 myself, I’d never heard of the chap. Which now begs the question of how loosely do we consider someone to be a ‘celebrity’? I think we have a good rule that they have to have a Wiki page to be considered for point scoring, but does someone who records himself playing a computer game that barely 100,000 people worldwide follow, make a celebrity that is worthy of a Wiki page? Most murderers on Death Row don’t make it and their actions will have made them national, if not international news stories! I believe we have reached peak media saturation, or maybe I’m wistfully dreaming of times when we only had three TV channels and the cinema to choose from.  

Bradley Walsh was warned that he was at risk of dying from heart disease, which has made him a ‘ticking time bomb’. The Chase host, who has just turned 60, is at high risk of getting the deadly condition as his own father Daniel died of it when he was just 59-years-old. After getting the dire warning from his cardiologist he was shocked into quitting booze and carbs, which has helped him lose 10 lbs. He told us: “I was a time bomb. I produce too much cholesterol. It;s a silent killer. My heart guy said, ‘Look, Brad, you need to get fit.’” Bradley revealed that he gets his heart tested every couple of years. He has a carotid artery test which he says tell you how much furring you’ve got in the artery. This is an “accurate predictor” of whether you’ll then have furring in your heart. Tests found that he had too much cholesterol in his blood and he was motivated to get healthy. Bradley added: “I had a hang-up because my father, Daniel, died at the age of 59. “I had it in the back of my mind that I just had to get past my dad’s age. So turning 60 was a bit of milestone.”    

On This Day

• 1687 – Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.  
• 1841 – Thomas Cook organises the first package excursion, from Leicester to Loughborough.  
• 1937 – Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.  
• 1946 – The bikini goes on sale after debuting during an outdoor fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris, France.  
• 1954 – Elvis Presley records his first single, “That’s All Right,” at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.  
• 1975 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title.  
• 1996 – Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.  

Deaths

• 1833 – Nicéphore Niépce, French inventor, created the first known photograph (b. 1765)
• 1948 – Carole Landis, American actress (b. 1919)
• 2007 – George Melly, English singer-songwriter and critic (b. 1926)

Thank You NHS!

Robert Liston was a pioneering Scottish surgeon. Liston was noted for his skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival. Liston’s legacy comprises both that which has made its way into the popular culture, and that found primarily within the medical fraternity and related disciplines. His biographer Richard Gordon describes Liston as “the fastest knife in the West End. He could amputate a leg in 2 ¹⁄₂ minutes”. Indeed, he is reputed to have been able to complete operations in a matter of seconds, at a time when speed was essential to reduce pain and improve the odds of survival of a patient; he is said to have been able to perform the removal of a limb in an amputation in 28 seconds. Gordon described the scene thus:

He was six foot two, and operated in a bottle-green coat with wellington boots. He sprung across the blood-stained boards upon his swooning, sweating, strapped-down patient like a duelist, calling, ‘Time me gentlemen, time me!’ to students craning with pocket watches from the iron-railinged galleries. Everyone swore that the first flash of his knife was followed so swiftly by the rasp of saw on bone that sight and sound seemed simultaneous. To free both hands, he would clasp the bloody knife between his teeth. 

Although Richard Gordon’s 1983 book pays tribute to other aspects of Liston’s legacy, it is his description of some of Liston’s most famous cases which has primarily made its way into what is known of Liston in popular culture. Gordon describes Liston’s four most famous cases in his book, as quoted verbatim below. 

• Removal in 4 minutes of a 45-pound scrotal tumour, whose owner had to carry it round in a wheelbarrow. 
• Argument with his house-surgeon. Was the red, pulsating tumour in a small boy’s neck a straightforward abscess of the skin, or a dangerous aneurism of the carotid artery? ‘Pooh!’ Liston exclaimed impatiently. ‘Whoever heard of an aneurism in one so young?’ Flashing a knife from his waistcoat pocket, he lanced it. Houseman’s note – ‘Out leaped arterial blood, and the boy fell.’ The patient died but the artery lives, in University College Hospital pathology museum, specimen No. 1256. 
• Amputated the leg in 2 ¹⁄₂ minutes, but in his enthusiasm the patient’s testicles as well. 
• Amputated the leg in under 2 ¹⁄₂ minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he died from fright. To this day the only surgical operation with a 300% fatality rate! 

Last Weeks Birthdays

Edie Falco (56), Huey Lewis (69), Blu Mankuma (71), Eva Marie Saint (95), Post Malone  (24), Gina Lollobrigida (92), Neil Morrissey (57), Ronni Ancona (51), Tom Cruise (57), Connie Nielsen (54), Patrick Wilson (46), Kurtwood Smith (76),  Yeardley Smith (55), Margot Robbie (30), Lindsay Lohan (34), Saul Rubinek (72), Larry David (73), Jerry Hall (64), Peter Kay (47), Liv Tyler (43), Pamela Anderson (53), Olivia de Havilland (104), Dan Aykroyd (68), Jean Marsh (86), Geneviève Bujold (78), David Prowse (85), Jamie Farr (86), Debbie Harry (75), Marton Csokas (54), Vincent D’Onofrio (61), Mike Tyson (54), Katherine Ryan (37), Cheryl Cole/Tweedy/Fernandez-Versini?(37), Gary Busey (76), Amanda Donohoe (58), Aleks Paunovic (51), and Katherine Jenkins (40).

Alas no points this week, but plenty of missed chances to score! Let’s see what next week brings us.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Steve Bing, 55, American entertainment executive (Shangri-La Entertainment), screenwriter and film producer (Kangaroo Jack, Rules Don’t Apply), suicide by jumping. 
• Joel Schumacher, 80, American film director (The Lost Boys, Falling Down, Batman Forever), cancer.
• Liam Treadwell, 34, English National Hunt jockey.
• Margarita Pracatan, 89, Cuban novelty singer.   
• Erminia Bianchini, 112, Italian supercentenarian, nation’s oldest woman (since 2020). 
• Dumitru Comănescu, 111, Romanian supercentenarian, oldest living man (since 2020). 
• Kelly Asbury, 60, American animator and film director (Shrek 2, Gnomeo & Juliet), abdominal cancer

In Other News

Yet another young ‘inspirational’ online influencer, who became a millionaire at 15, has died. Russian Anastasia Tropitsel, 18, suffered head injuries when she crashed on her Kawasaki on the Indonesian island of Bali. Her bad influence boyfriend Viktor Maydanovich, 30, who was on a bike next to her said she began to ‘wobble’ at around 60 mph and lost control, colliding with a roadside fence. Footage shows her last moments just before she set off on the bike as she filmed herself in the vehicle’s mirror and the surrounding beach views. Anastasia had been a blogger since the age of 12 and bragged about how she ‘became a millionaire at 15’ from her successful internet presence, although her fame and money didn’t bestow upon her enough common sense to not ride a powerful motorbike whilst using a phone. She told her million-plus young followers: ‘I inspire you to do what you can’t.’ Like buy a £10k Superbike and crash it straight away! Tropitsel – whose real name is Anastasia Zubrina – died soon after buying a new Kawasaki Ninja 250 motorbike and immediately following a public row with her doctor father who warned her that her online success story was turning to failure. She had stayed in Bali for lockdown after a trip to the island to boost her Instagram. Everyones a winner!   

Janet Street-Porter has revealed that she’s been diagnosed with a form of skin cancer. The outspoken Loose Women panellist said on the show that she originally thought she’d been bitten on the nose by a mosquito over Christmas when she went to Australia. “I showed this tiny spot on my nose to a dermatologist and he immediately referred me to a consultant and they said I’ve got a basal cell carcinoma, which is a form of skin cancer,” she said. “If untreated it could grow. It has to be removed otherwise it’s going to get bigger and bigger. Also, I could be left with a very big scar. “I was about to have it removed then lockdown happened three days before I was supposed to have it removed.” The 73-year-old added: “I’ve spent the whole of lockdown getting more and more anxious about it. “Although it doesn’t look any bigger on top of my skin, this kind of cancer grows under the skin. You can’t see it and that’s what they’ve got to cut out.”  

Roberto Duran, the Panamanian six-time boxing world champion has been hospitalised after testing positive for coronavirus, his children have said on the same day that Panama hit a new record of daily cases. “Test results have just arrived for my dad, and they confirm he is positive for COVID-19,” the legendary fighter’s son Robin Duran said on Instagram. “Thank God for now he doesn’t have symptoms beyond a cold. He is not in intensive care nor on a respirator, just under observation,” he added. Robin Duran had posted hours before that the 69-year-old had been hospitalised as a precaution for a “respiratory virus,” which turned out to be COVID-19. “We just spoke to the doctor who told us that his lungs are fine and there are no indications of severe (illness),” Robin Duran said. “We continue to have faith that everything will be OK.” Duran fought in 119 bouts between the ages of 16 and 50 — with 103 wins and 16 losses. He was knocked out four times, but did the same to his opponents 70 times, earning him the “Hands of Stone” nickname. Duran is a national hero in Panama as one of the country’s most famous athletes along with former New York Yankees baseball player Mariano Rivera, former Olympic long-jump champion Irving Saladino and former soccer players the late Rommel Fernandez and Julio Dely Valdes.

On This Day

• 1838 – Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.  
• 1846 – Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone.       
• 1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is captured at Glenrowan.  
• 1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo; this is the casus belli of World War I.   
• 1969 – Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.  
• 1987 – For the first time in military history, a civilian population is targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht.  
• 1997 – Holyfield–Tyson II: Mike Tyson is disqualified in the third round for biting a piece off Evander Holyfield‘s ear.

Deaths

• 1889 – Maria Mitchell, American astronomer and academic (b. 1818)  
• 1914 – Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria (b. 1863) and Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg (b. 1868)  
• 1975 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1924)  
• 2018 – Harlan Ellison, American writer (b. 1934)

Last Meals

It was the great flash point of the 20th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: two World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb. Yet it might never have happened–we’re now told– had Gavrilo Princip not got hungry for a sandwich. 

We’re talking the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of course—the murder that set the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire on a collision course with Serbia, and Europe down the slippery slope that led to the outbreak of the First World War a month after Princip pulled the trigger on June 28, 1914. More specifically, though, we’re talking the version of events that’s being taught in many schools today. It’s an account that, while respectful of the significance of Franz Ferdinand’s death, hooks pupils’ attention by stressing a tiny, awe-inspiring detail: that if Princip had not stopped to eat a sandwich where he did, he would never have been in the right place to spot his target. No sandwich, no shooting. No shooting, no war.  

It is the summer of 1914, and Bosnia has just become part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A handful of young Bosnian-born Serbs decide to strike a blow for the integration of their people into a Greater Serbia by assassinating the heir to the Austrian throne. Their opportunity comes when it is announced that Franz Ferdinand will be making a state visit to the provincial capital, Sarajevo.  

Armed with bombs and pistols supplied by Serbian military intelligence, seven conspirators position themselves at intervals along the archduke’s route. The first to strike is Nedeljko Cabrinovic, who lobs a hand grenade toward Franz Ferdinand’s open touring car. But the grenade is an old one, with a 10-second fuse. It bounces off the limo and into the road, where it explodes under the next vehicle in the motorcade. Although several officers in that car are hurt, Franz Ferdinand remains uninjured. To avoid capture, Cabrinovic drains a vial of cyanide and throws himself into a nearby river—but his suicide bid fails. The cyanide is past its sell-by date, and the river is just four inches deep.  

The bombing throws the rest of the day’s plans into disarray. The motorcade is abandoned. Franz Ferdinand is hurried off to the town hall, where he is due to meet with state officials. Disconsolate, the remaining assassins disperse, their chance apparently gone. One of them, Gavrilo Princip, heads for Moritz Schiller’s delicatessen, on Franz Joseph Street. It’s one of Sarajevo’s smartest shopping destinations, just a few yards from the bustling through road known as Appel Quay. 

As Princip queues to buy a sandwich, Franz Ferdinand is leaving the town hall. When the heir gets back into his limousine, though, he decides on a change of plan—he’ll call at the hospital to visit the men injured in the grenade blast. There’s just one problem: the archduke’s chauffeur, a stranger to Sarajevo, gets lost. He swings off Appel Quay and into crowded Franz Joseph Street, then drifts to a stop right in front of Schiller’s. 

Princip looks up from his lunch to find his target sitting just a few feet away. He pulls his gun. Two shots ring out, and the first kills Franz Ferdinand’s wife, Sophie. The second hits the heir in the neck, severing his jugular vein. The archduke slumps back, mortally wounded. His security men hustle Princip away. Inside Schiller’s deli, the most important sandwich in the history of the world lies half-eaten on a table. What sort of sandwich the killer ordered? (Consensus answer: cheese.) 

Last Week’s Birthdays

John Cusack (53), Kathy Bates (71), Mel Brooks (93), Alice Krige (65), Felicia Day (40), Elon Musk (48), Courtney Ford (41), Tobey Maguire (44), J.J. Abrams (53), Meera Syal (58), Nick Offerman (49), Ariana Grande (26), Chris Isaak (63), Ricky Gervais (59), Carly Simon (75), Peter Weller (73), Iain Glen (59), Nancy Allen (70), Mick Fleetwood (73), Selma Blair (48), Frances McDormand (63), Joss Whedon (56), Bryan Brown (73), Meryl Streep (71), Bruce Campbell (62), Lindsay Wagner (71), Kris Kristofferson (84), Stephen Chow (58), Tim Russ (64), Prunella Scales (88), and Cyndi Lauper (67).

What a week! The Evil Flying Monkeys didn’t disappoint! It’s the first week in what seems like ages that some well known celebrities have bitten the dust! And a very big hitter for us: Vera Lynn! With her sad passing I can award the following 47 points each: Neil, Gwenan, Paul C, Lee, Laura, Shan, and Dave! Also Big Three points of 147 to Ron, Martin, Christine, and Paul G. Well done all of you and a bit of a change at the top of the leader board too. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Willie Thorne, 66, English snooker player and commentator, leukaemia.  
• Luce Douady, 16, French climber, world youth champion and European championships bronze medalist (2019), fall.  
• Dame Vera Lynn, 103, British singer (“We’ll Meet Again“, “The White Cliffs of Dover“).
• Sir Ian Holm, 88, English actor (Alien, Chariots of Fire, The Lord of The Rings), complications from Parkinson’s disease. 
• Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 55, Spanish novelist (The Prince of Mist, The Shadow of the Wind, The Prisoner of Heaven), colon cancer. 
• Katie Hopkins’ Twitter Feed, 13, Hive of hatred and nonsense, killed by Jack Dorsey for malicious abuse and hateful conduct. 

In Other News

Alex Zanardi, the ex-Formula One driver-turned Paralympic champion who lost both legs in a motor racing accident 19 years ago, has been taken to hospital by helicopter after being involved in a serious accident. The 53-year-old Italian was airlifted to a hospital in Siena, with police confirming that he was involved in a “serious accident” with a “heavy vehicle”. A Carabinieri police official in Montepulciano confirmed that it was Zanardi involved in the accident, and that he believed the Italian was still alive. Zanardi, a two-time Champ Car champion and 41-race F1 driver, was competing in the ‘Obiettivo tricolore’ national road race for Paralympic athletes on hand-bikes on Friday when the accident occurred. Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports that Zanardi was travelling on Highway 146 between Pienza and San Quirico at the time of the crash. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Zanardi was descending down a hill when he lost control of his hand-bike and veered into oncoming traffic. Emergency services were able to attend the scene after his fellow competitors helped to raise the alarm of the accident. Zanardi won the 1997 and 1998 CART Championship, which earned him a return to F1 with Williams in 1999, but following a disappointing season that included 10 retirements he returned to American open-wheel racing the following year. However, Zanardi had both of his legs amputated following a horrific crash during the 2001 American Memorial CART race at Lausitzring in Germany, though in 2005 he was able to resume his motorsports career in World Touring Cars and the Blancpain Endurance Series thanks to modified hand-controlled vehicles. His finest sporting achievement came outside of motorsports though as he won four gold medals in hand-bike at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics. 

One of Britain’s top pole dancers has died suddenly at the age of just 27 after posting that she was finding lockdown ‘so hard’. Jess Leanne Norris, from Bolton in Lancashire, was a two-time winner of Miss Pole Dance UK. Details of how Ms Norris died have not been revealed, but last year she launched a fundraising drive in aid of mental health charities. In April she also put up an emotional post on Facebook saying she was finding lockdown ‘so so hard’ and that a lot of us are feeling ‘stressed, lost and lonely’. The post on April 4 read: ‘I myself am finding this so so hard…it always takes me time to adapt to ‘change’ mentally as I’m one to need structure to cope with mind! ‘A lot of us are all feeling stressed, lost & lonely… but please don’t feel alone… We’re all in this together.’ Ms Norris also has a separate ‘health and wellness’ Facebook page called ‘You Matter’ where she posted about her depression and anxiety as well as sharing quotes about mental health. Friends said she had a huge influence on the pole dancing industry, setting up her first pole dancing studio at the age of 15.  She won her first Miss Pole Dance UK title in 2011, and claimed the crown for a second time in 2015.     

The pet that inspired the book series and film A Street Cat Named Bob has died aged 14. James Bowen met Bob in 2007 during his battle with  drug addiction when he found the cat abandoned and injured and decided to look after him. He began taking the ginger cat, often seen wearing a scarf, with him when busking or selling The Big Issue in London. Bowen then wrote a book about their relationship, titled A Street Cat Named Bob, which became a smash hit and was made into a film in 2016 in which Bob played himself alongside six lookalikes. In a statement on the official Facebook page for Bowen’s books, the author said Bob had saved his life. He added: “It’s as simple as that. He gave me so much more than companionship. With him at my side, I found a direction and purpose that I’d been missing.” He said the success they found together was “miraculous”, adding: “He’s met thousands of people, touched millions of lives. “There’s never been a cat like him. And never will again. I feel like the light has gone out in my life. I will never forget him.” 

On This Day

• 1734 – In Montreal, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of the city.  
• 1919 – Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I.  
• 1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.  
• 1982 – John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.  
• 2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
• 2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards.

Deaths

• 1377 – Edward III of England (b. 1312)
• 1652 – Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen’s House (b. 1573) 
• 1954 – Gideon Sundback, Swedish-American engineer, developed the zipper (b. 1880)
• 2001 – John Lee Hooker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1917)  

The Rise of Non-painful Execution 

Trends in most of the world have long been to move to private and less painful executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of the 18th century, while Britain banned hanging, drawing, and quartering in the early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long drop “hanging” where the subject is dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, Shah of Persia (1896–1907) introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun (close-range cannon fire) as quick and relatively painless alternatives to more torturous methods of executions used at that time. In the United States, electrocution and gas inhalation were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging, but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection. A small number of countries still employ slow hanging methods, decapitation, and stoning.

A study of executions carried out in the United States between 1977 and 2001 indicated that at least 34 of the 749 executions, or 4.5%, involved “unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner”. The rate of these “botched executions” remained steady over the period of the study. A separate study published in The Lancet in 2005 found that in 43% of cases of lethal injection, the blood level of hypnotics was insufficient to guarantee unconsciousness. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 (Baze v. Rees) and again in 2015 (Glossip v. Gross) that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Chris Pratt (40), Juliette Lewis (46), Lana Wachowski (54), David Morrissey (55), Lana Del Rey (34), Nicole Kidman (52), John Goodman (67), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (30), Miles O’Keeffe (65), Lionel Richie (70), Brian Wilson (77), Zoe Saldana (41), Aidan Turner (36), Kathleen Turner (65), Paula Abdul (57), Richard Madden (33), Carol Kane (67), Isabella Rossellini (67), Paul McCartney (77), Jodie Whittaker (38), Will Forte (50), Arnold Vosloo (58), John Cho (48), James Bolam (85), Helen Hunt (57), Courteney Cox (56), Neil Patrick Harris (47), Ice Cube (51), and Jim Belushi (66).

Sadly the evil flying monkeys failed to find a massive celebrity for us, they’re still hiding from the virus. However, a few ‘oh, I vaguely know them’ stars are listed below. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Corey Fischer, 75, American actor (M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller), complications from a brain aneurysm.  
• Bonnie Pointer, 69, American singer (The Pointer Sisters), cardiac arrest.  
• Paul Chapman, 66, Welsh rock guitarist (UFO, Lone Star).  
• Michel Bellen, 74, Belgian serial killer.  
• Ricky Valance, 84, Welsh singer (“Tell Laura I Love Her“).

In Other News

If anybody gives a shit, the royal family has been paying tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh on his 99th birthday. While Prince Philip’s birthday celebrations are likely to be low-key this year due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown, several members of the family have publicly marked the milestone occasion by posting online tributes. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were among the first to share a message of celebration on their Kensington Royal social media accounts. “Wishing a very happy 99th Birthday to His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh!”, Prince William and Kate Middleton wrote alongside two photos of them with the royal. The duke’s eldest son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, also shared a tribute to his father on social media. “Wishing The Duke of Edinburgh a very happy 99th birthday!” a message from the Clarence House Instagram account read. In a recent interview Prince Charles said he was missing his family and revealed that he hasn’t seen his father for months. “Well I haven’t seen my father for a long time. He’s going to be 99 next week…it’s terribly sad,” Charles said. We’re not sure why he thinks his father turning 99 is sad, maybe he’s still pining for that throne. To mark Prince Philip’s birthday, the royal family released an official photo of the duke and The Queen posing side-by-side outside Windsor Castle. The portrait was the first public image of the duke for nearly six months as he was last seen leaving hospital on Christmas Eve following a four-night admission for an undisclosed but “pre-existing condition”.    

BBC journalist George Alagiah has confirmed his bowel cancer has spread to his lungs. The 64-year-old newsreader, who joined the BBC in 1989, was first diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014 and later said it spread to his liver and lymph nodes. After 17 courses of chemotherapy and five operations, it appeared the cancer had cleared – but it returned in 2018. He revealed doctors told him at the end of April the cancer has now spread to his lungs in an interview with The Times. Mr Alagiah also spoke about testing positive for coronavirus after he developed a fever on 17th March. “My doctors have never used the word ‘chronic’ or ‘cure’ about my cancer,” he said. “They’re never used the word ‘terminal’ either. “I’ve always said to my oncologist, ‘Tell me when I need to sort my affairs out’, and he’s not told me that, but what he did tell me is that the cancer is now in a third organ. It is in my lungs.” Mr Alagiah said his previously low dose of chemotherapy has been increased to “the grown-up stuff”. “I said to my doctor, ‘You’re going to have to do the worrying for me’. I don’t want to fill my mind with worry. I just know that he’s a clever guy, doing everything he can.”    

Shaun Ryder has opened up about his cancer scare after he discovered a painful growth in his testicle during lockdown. The Celebrity Gogglebox and The Happy Mondays frontman, 57, immediately thought the worst after finding the uncomfortable lump. It turned out the sudden growth was non-cancerous. But in spite of the good news, the medical issue has left Shaun in constant pain amid the coronavirus pandemic. Due to health service restrictions, the star has been unable to receive surgery to remove the growth which is situated in his testicle. Instead, the much-loved star has had to put up with the pains it has caused him over the past number of months. Shaun admitted he wasn’t too worried as he can have the lump removed when hospitals revert to normality again. He told us: “This non-malignant growth in my testicle is pressing on a nerve. It’s like having really bad toothache in your b***s. “I can have the growth chucked out but I should’ve gone before lockdown started.” Despite the ongoing pain and the shock of his circumstances, his cancer scare has made Shaun realise the value of life. The star – who became famous for his love of sex, drugs and rock and roll – has been hit with the reality he is not invinsible. Father-of-six Shaun admitted that he’s not afraid of dying but he is afraid of leaving his young children behind. “I now think I’m not invincible. It doesn’t worry me about dying, it’s just that because I’ve got young kids. I don’t want to go because of them. That’s what I panic about the most.” The Celebrity Gogglebox star has suffered a long list of health problems over the past number of years. Shaun has dealt with fighting severe pain due to arthritis, as well as battling a thyroid problem and enduring panic attacks.

On This Day

• 1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,600 mi) journey in an open boat.  
• 1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.  
• 1962 – The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.   
• 1966 – The Vatican announces the abolition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“index of prohibited books”), which was originally instituted in 1557.

Deaths

• 1927 – Jerome K. Jerome, English author (b. 1859)  
• 1928 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English activist and academic (b. 1857)  
• 1946 – John Logie Baird, Scottish-English physicist and engineer (b. 1888)  
• 1977 – Alan Reed, American actor, original voice of Fred Flintstone (b.1907)

Execution Styles

To be hanged, drawn and quartered was, from 1352, a statutory penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, (Boris?) although the ritual was first recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces). His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the monarch’s authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment. Although some convicts had their sentences modified and suffered a less ignominious end, over a period of several hundred years many men found guilty of high treason were subjected to the law’s ultimate sanction. They included many English Catholic priests executed during the Elizabethan era, and several of the regicides involved in the 1649 execution of Charles I.

Although the Act of Parliament defining high treason remains on the United Kingdom’s statute books, during a long period of 19th-century legal reform the sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering was changed to drawing, hanging until dead, and posthumous beheading and quartering, before being abolished in England in 1870. Sadly, the death penalty for treason was abolished in 1998, so lying to The Queen won’t get you into trouble Boris… 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Will Patton (65), Donald Trump (73), Yasmine Bleeth (51), Boy George (58), Alan Carr (43), Steffi Graf (50), Chris Evans (38), Ally Sheedy (57), Stellan Skarsgård (68), Malcolm McDowell (76), Richard Thomas (68), Tim Allen (66), Simon Callow (70), Kathy Burke (55), Shia LaBeouf (34), Joshua Jackson (42), Hugh Laurie (61), Peter Dinklage (51), Adrienne Barbeau (75), Jane Goldman (50), Elizabeth Hurley (55), Jürgen Prochnow (79), Johnny Depp (57), Natalie Portman (39), Michael J. Fox (59), Eddie Marsan (52), Griffin Dunne (65), Nancy Sinatra (80), and Kanye West (43).

A quiet week again! Not much of a pandemic this one, too many celebrities are actually surviving! I’m opening the cage, the evil flying monkeys will reap someone of note this week! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Chris Trousdale, 34, American actor and singer (Dream Street), COVID-19.  
• Dan van Husen, 75, German actor (Salon Kitty, Nosferatu the Vampyre), COVID-19. 
• Steve Priest, 72, British bassist and singer (The Sweet).  
• Rupert Hine, 72, English musician (Quantum Jump), songwriter and record producer (The Fixx, Howard Jones), cancer.

In Other News

The White House has released information about President Donald Trump‘s annual physical, including him experiencing no side effects while taking anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure against Covid-19. Lumpy Trumpy weighs 17½ stone and stands at 6ft 3in tall, according a summary of the annual physical. The president made an unannounced visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in November for a little over two hours to perform tests necessary for the physical. Subsequent tests then happened later at the White House. “Sadly there were no findings of significance or changes to report,” Dr Sean Conely, the president’s physician, wrote in a memo about the president’s physical. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany described Mr Trump as “healthy” after the summary report was released. After Mr Trump’s first physical, it was indicated the president had a common form of heart disease, CNN reported. The president’s doctor recommended a higher dose of medication that would help lower his cholesterol and lifestyle changes. The latest annual physical showed Mr Trump’s cholesterol was now at 167 with an LDL, low-density lipoprotein, below 100, indicating a healthy level. Results are still pending on his psychological tests.  

Australian actress Cate Blanchett is lucky to be alive after a DIY accident with a chainsaw at her country estate in East Sussex, England. The two-time Oscar winner, 51, took a ‘little nick to the head’ while using the mechanical saw, but fortunately avoided a serious injury. She casually revealed her brush with death in a podcast interview with former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week. Cate mentioned the incident in passing, telling Gillard it wasn’t very ‘exciting’. She said: ‘I’m fine. I had a bit of a chainsaw accident yesterday, which sounds very, very exciting, but it wasn’t. Apart from the little nick to the head, I’m fine.’ Gillard replied: ‘Be very careful with that chainsaw. You’ve got a very famous head, I don’t think people would like to see any nicks taken out of it.’ Cate, who was born and raised in Melbourne, lives in a $6.25million manor called Highwell House near Crowborough, about an hour south of London. Obviously can’t afford a gardener…  

Bhad Barbie has entered rehab to seek treatment for childhood trauma and prescription pills abuse, her management has confirmed. The “These Heaux” rapper, real name Danielle Bregoli, has been in the facility for several weeks now and sources told TMZ that they expect her to stay there for 30 to 90 days. In a statement, Bregoli’s management said: “We are very proud of Danielle for recognising that she needed help and seeking it out.” A further statement on her Instagram read: “Danielle has been working hard for the past few years and made a positive decision to take some much-needed time off to attend to some personal issues. “For the past weeks, she has been in a treatment centre receiving and continuing to receive professional support. “She loves her fans, and has promised to return better, and healthier than ever.” Bregoli has been quiet on social media lately, which caught the attention of fellow rapper Chika who called her out for her silence on the death of George Floyd. 

On This Day

• 1692 – Port Royal, Jamaica, is hit by a catastrophic earthquake; in just three minutes, 1,600 people are killed and 3,000 are seriously injured.  
• 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Nationalist government creates the  Yellow River flood to halt Japanese forces. Five hundred to nine hundred thousand civilians are killed.
• 1977 – Five hundred million people watch the high day of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II begin on television. Kids enjoy a street party where mugs are given out. Yay!

Deaths

• 1329 – Robert the Bruce, Scottish king (b. 1274)  
• 1937 – Jean Harlow, American actress and singer (b. 1911)  
• 1954 – Alan Turing, English mathematician and computer scientist (b. 1912)  
• 1970 – E. M. Forster, English novelist, short story writer, essayist (b. 1879)  
• 1980 – Henry Miller, American novelist and essayist (b. 1891)  
• 2015 – Christopher Lee, English actor (b. 1922)

The Youngest British Executions

Alice Glaston was an 11-year-old English girl from Little Wenlock who was hanged in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. She is likely the youngest girl ever to be legally executed in England. The crime for which she was hanged is unknown, but she was hanged with two other people. A note of the incident from 1545 in the parish register of Sir Thomas Butler, vicar of Much Wenlock in Shropshire reads: 

Here was buried John Dod of the parish of Little Wenlock, who was hanged here, as also Alice Glaston, 11 yrs of age, of the parish of Little Wenlock, and Wm. Harper, a tailor. Three Convicts buried one a girl of 11 years old. 

However, this is not the youngest reference to a child who was hanged, a John Dean from Oxfordshire was not even 10 when he was executed for arson: 

At Abingdon assizes Feb 23 1629 before Whitlock justice one John Dean an infant between eight and nine years was indicted arraigned and found guilty of burning two barns in the town of Windsor and it appearing upon examination that he had malice revenge craft and cunning lie had judgment to be hanged and was hanged accordingly. 

But, such cruelty can be topped! The Guernsey Martyrs were three women who were burned at the stake for their Protestant beliefs during the Marian Persecutions, in 1556 Guernsey, Channel Islands. The execution was carried out on or around 18th July. All three were burnt on the same fire; they ought to have been strangled beforehand, but the rope broke before they died and they were thrown into  the fire alive. John Foxe recorded that one of the women was “great with child” and that “the belly of the woman burst asunder by the vehemence of the flame, the infant, being a fair man-child, fell into the fire”. The baby was rescued and laid on the grass, taken by the Provost to the Bailiff, Hellier Gosselin who took the advice of Roman Catholic priests nearby who said the boy should burn due to having inherited moral stain from his mother, Gosselin ordered that “it should be carried back again, and cast into the fire”.  Burn Baby Burn, 1556 Disco Inferno! 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Karl Urban (47), Liam Neeson (67), Anna Torv (40), Michael Cera (31), Lance Reddick (57), Bill Hader (41), Helen Baxendale (49), Iggy Azalea (29), Jason Isaacs (56), Paul Giamatti (52), Robert Englund (72), Sandra Bernhard (64), Josie Lawrence (60), Mark Wahlberg (48), Mel Giedroyc (51), Angelina Jolie (44), Bruce Dern (83), Noah Wyle (48), Sean Pertwee (55), Russell Brand (44), Geoffrey Palmer (92), Bradley Walsh (59), Imogen Poots (31), Penelope Wilton (74), James Purefoy (56), Clive Mantle (63), Bill Paterson (75), Suzi Quatro (70), Morena Baccarin (41), Awkwafina (32), Jewel Staite (38), Justin Long (42), Zachary Quinto (43), Dominic Cooper (42), Liam Cunningham (59), Dana Carvey (65), Sally Kellerman (83), Tom Holland (24), Morgan Freeman (83), Brian Cox (74), Jonathan Pryce (73), Amy Schumer (39), Heidi Klum (47), Alanis Morissette (46), and Robert Powell (76).