Dead Pool 11th May 2014

Fuck me! Harry Potter died, for real! Click the link below to find out out who and what. So, another pointless week, I must say this year is a very slow one and my amazing talent for filling dead news is being stretched to the extreme! But I’m not one to be put off with the lack of celebrity deaths, I find fun and amazement with the various illnesses that this week’s other news brings. Hallelujia!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Elena Baltacha, 30, Ukrainian-born British tennis player, liver cancer.
• Dick Ayers, 90, American comic book artist (Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider), complications from Parkinson’s disease.
• Al Pease, 92, British-born Canadian Hall of Fame racing driver (Formula One).
• Bill Dana, 83, American NASA test pilot (X-15 rocket), complications from Parkinson’s disease.
• Jimmy Ellis, 74, American boxer, WBA heavyweight champion (1968–1970), dementia.
• Colin Pillinger, 70, British planetary scientist, brain haemorrhage.
• Nancy Malone, 79, American television producer, director and actress (Bionic Woman, Melrose Place, Naked City), complications from leukemia.
• Harry Potter, 72, Australian television journalist (Network Ten), cancer.

In Other News

Ronnie O’Sullivan escaped unscathed from a car crash as he travelled home from defeat in the world championship final. The five-times world champion and his six-year-old son, Ronnie Jr, (naming your own son after you, so chic) were travelling in a two-seater Audi R8 sports car (posh) when it spun out of control on the M1 near Leicester at around 1.30am (not so posh). Neither suffered serious injuries but they were understood to have been left “shaken like a Bond Martini” after pulling themselves out of the wreckage. It came just hours after the overconfident 38-year-old lost the world final to Mark Selby (woo!) by 18 frames to 14 at the Crucible theatre in Sheffield.

Miley Cyrus has denied reports that her recent stay in hospital was caused by drugs. “I didn’t have a drugs overdose. I took some antibiotics that a doctor gave me for a sinus infection,” she said. She spent two weeks in hospital after suffering an allergic reaction to the medication… (yeah) “I’ve been laying in a hospital bed connected to IVs. I’m on a bunch of good vitamins and doing lots of yoga trying to get myself back together.” She previously cancelled shows in Amsterdam and Antwerp as a result of her ‘illness’. “My immune system was already low because I had a death in my family and was already down. “What doesn’t make it better is that people were online saying I’d done it with drugs but it’s all good. I’m okay and I’m here,” the singer added. Cyrus, who rose to fame as Disney’s Hannah Montana, said being bed ridden had been the “most miserable” two weeks of her life. Wait ‘til you’re 23 years old my dear…

Her aides have always insisted she is not slowing down, but The Queen made an unexpected change to a major public appearance the other day after deciding a steep flight of steps would be too much for her. Her Majesty had been due to take part in an ancient installation ceremony for knights of the Order of the Bath at Westminster Abbey, an event she only attends every eight years. Dressed in a cumbersome robe with a train, worn over an evening dress, the Queen, 88, would’ve needed to descend a short flight of steps to approach the altar in the Abbey, then make her way back up the steps to her throne. But after a dress rehearsal on Thursday, which the old hag didn’t attend, aides decided the monarch should not go ahead with that part of the ceremony. The Prince of Wales will deputise for her instead. Lets hope the big nosed cunt trips down the stairs. 

From Sheezus to ‘queazus’, Lily Allen has been undergoing tests after being taken to hospital with a mystery illness, possibly due to a bout of food poisoning. The illness comes as the singer’s new album flies high on the charts, fuck knows why… A spokesperson for the singer would not comment on whether Allen would cancel forthcoming appearances, which is a great shame, as I for one would love to miss each one. Lily Allen’s latest single, ‘Our Time’, is currently at No 43. Well done her!

And finally, a group of coal miners from the western province of Xinjiang, had an unbelievable surprise when the gallery they were excavating opened up on a section of an old mine that was abandoned 17 years ago after an earthquake that caused some large sections of the tunnels to collapse. While they were exploring the galleries, they stumbled upon Cheung Wai, a 59-year old survivor from the 1997 accident, obviously in a rather bad shape. The poor man had remained trapped underground with the bodies of 78 of his dead coworkers, after an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.8 hit the region. He managed to survive thanks to an emergency stash of rice and water, stored in an underground depot. Even though he was suffering from great physical and mental stress, he managed to give proper burials to all of his comrades, spending almost a year in this great selfless act. Personally I’d have eaten them. 

On This Day

• 330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but it is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.
• 868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it oldest known dated printed book.
• 912 – Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1310 – In France, fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics.
• 1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London.
• 1820 – HMS Beagle, the ship that will take Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, is launched.
• 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
• 1985 – Bradford City stadium fire: Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in a flash fire at Valley Parade football ground during a match against Lincoln City in Bradford, England. And yet they don’t go on about it like the Scousers do…
• 1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
• 1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
• 2010 – David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form the UK’s first coalition government since World War II after elections produced a hung parliament. And Britain has never recovered since…

Deaths

• 1778 – William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1708)
• 1871 – John Herschel, English mathematician, astronomer, and chemist (b. 1792)
• 1889 – John Cadbury, English businessman and philanthropist, founded the Cadbury Company (b. 1801)
• 1960 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1874)
• 1981 – Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bob Marley and the Wailers) (b. 1945)
• 1985 – Chester Gould, American cartoonist, created Dick Tracy (b. 1900)
• 2001 – Douglas Adams, English author and screenwriter (b. 1952)

Eurovision is dead (for the UK) by Nickie

I have just spent the last five days on Eurovision countdown, bigging up the UK entry because it seemed (for once) that someone had studied all possible factors and produced a decent entry. We came 5^th from last and lost to a bearded woman that looked like the love child of Rylan and Nicole Shitslinger, or as I like to think, Tranny Jesus! (ed).  I think it’s time we stopped buying our entry into the final and either compete properly like the British ought to or bow out gracefully before we die a complete death like Jeminii.

So the UK entry died a death (yet again) but this is about real deaths!  At the time of writing none of the Eurovision winners have died in extreme circumstances (miserable bastards) and only one has died of natural causes  – Teddy Scholten from the Netherlands. 

There’s only two less fortunate Eurovision entrants who have reached the end of their mortal coil that are worth writing about. There isn’t a lot of horror or gossip but these two should keep you going.

Remember “Wheelchair Kerry” from the 3^rd series of X-Factor?  She popped her clogs after a battle with cancer but not many people remember that she came 2^nd (in the national finals) to Katrina and the Waves with the catchy number “Yodel In The Canyon Of Love”

Next there is the Danish Eurovision entrant from 1991, Anders Frandsen.  Being placed 19^th in the contest (with only 8 points) obviously had an adverse effect on him because regardless of his TV career he disappeared from public life and was found alongside the very extinct 2011, attempting a suicide BBQ in his bedroom. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  

Here are my Eurovision recommendations for The Dead Pool 2015: Engelbert Humperdinck, Nana Mouskouri, Katie Boyle and Daz Sampson.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Traci Lords (46), Enrique Iglesias (39), Don Rickles (88), Candice Bergen (68), Rosario Dawson (35), Billy Joel (65), Bono (53), George Clooney (53), Adele (26), Michael Palin (71), Will Arnett (44), Randy Travis (55), Lance Henriksen (74), John Rhys-Davies (70), Craig David (33), Chris Brown (25), Gary Glitter (70), Albert Finney (78), Glenda Jackson (78), Donavan (68) and Linda Evangelista (49).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!