Dead Pool 1st September 2019

Yay! Points!!! Sarai correctly guessed Valerie Harper would pop it this year, but also listed her as her Woman, so 170 points, Paul C and Laura also listed her and got 70 each. Quite a points haul for Sarai, instantly propelling her to third place and Paul C strengthening his leadership. Well done all of you. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Timothy Bell, Baron Bell, 77, British advertising and public relations executive (Bell Pottinger).  
• Jessi Combs, 36, American racer and television host (Xtreme 4×4, MythBusters, Overhaulin’), jet-car crash.  
• Jim Leavelle, 99, American homicide detective, police escort for Lee Harvey Oswald, heart attack.  
• Franco Columbu, 78, Italian bodybuilder and actor (Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator), Mr. Olympia winner (1976, 1981), heart attack.  
• Valerie Harper, 80, American actress (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Valerie), multiple Emmy Award winner, leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.  
• Hans Rausing, 93, Swedish businessman, Chairman of Tetra Pak (1985–1993).  
• Anthoine Hubert, 22, French racing driver, GP3 Series champion (2018), race crash.

In Other News

Pope Francis has apologised for arriving late for his weekly prayer in St Peter’s Square, saying was stuck in a lift in the Vatican. The 82-year-old pontiff said he had been trapped in the lift for 25 minutes because of a power outage before he was freed by firefighters. We all know what can happen in broken down lifts! “I have to apologise for being late,” a smiling Pope said at the start of the Angelus address. He then asked the crowd for a round of applause for the firefighters. Addressing the crowd, the Pope said there had been a “drop in voltage and the elevator stopped”. “Thank goodness, the firefighters arrived, and I thank them so much, and after 25 minutes of work they managed to get it started again,” he said. Television networks in Italy which broadcast the prayer live had been concerned the unprecedented delay might have been due to health reasons, AFP news agency reports.  In his address, the Pope announced that he would create ten new Roman Catholic cardinals next month, like we needed any more…  

Colin Baker, who starred as the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, admitted that he had to wait nine-and-a-half hours to be seen in A&E while he was suffering from a mystery illness. The ex-Time Lord star recalled “A fortnight ago I was sent by my GP to A&E in Stoke Mandeville where (I was told) the orthopaedic team were awaiting my arrival. I spent nine and a half hours being in a corridor. “My problem was not life-threatening, but I had a very high temperature and felt unwell. “I was admitted, put on an antibiotic drip and discharged thirty six hours later. “Forty-eight hours after that I was back in A&E for an eight and a half hour wait, with an even higher temperature. “Six hours in, I was left in a side room, where I dozed off and woke at 2am and went in search of help. “I was presented with an irate nurse, demanding crossly to know where I had been.” Colin explained: ”They had a bed for me and couldn’t find me. The doctor had apparently not told her where they had taken me. Fortunately, Colin was later discharged from hospital and recovered completely within five days, but as we know, these things tend to flare up now and again.   

Charlie Webster – the Radio 5 Live favourite – admitted she will have a kidney problem “for the rest of her life” after a battle with malaria damaged her organs. The former Sky Sports presenter revealed doctors have now told her they “don’t know if her kidneys will last”. The 36 year old presenter opened up about her health fears after suffering a near-fatal experience with malaria three years ago. Revealing how the disease has impacted her internal organs, Charlie explained: “The one thing I’ve got as a long-term thing is I’ll always have a kidney problem.” She admitted doctors are currently unsure about whether her kidneys will continue working. She added: “I have to keep an eye on it and see a consultant for the rest of my life, because they don’t know if my kidneys will last and that really upset me.” In spite of the frightening diagnosis, Charlie insisted she is trying to avoid “constantly worrying” about it. Charlie was diagnosed with malaria back in 2016 after spending two weeks in a coma. She was told by doctors she was dying after contracting the mosquito-borne disease, while also suffering from other diseases including pneumonia. Reflecting on when she began to feel unwell during a work trip to Rio, the campaigner said: “I started not feeling well and pushed and pushed and I could hardly stand up. “I was even bleeding through my bum and going to the toilet all the time. Moral of the story, get your jabs or get mentioned on this newsletter. 

On This Day

• 1715 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years, which is the longest of any major European monarch. Our Queen is coming up to 68 years.
• 1923 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 105,000 people.
• 1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people, the UK Conservative Party try to emulate him in 2019. 
• 1958 – Iceland expands its fishing zone, putting it into conflict with the United Kingdom, beginning the Cod Wars.
• 1985 – A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
• 2004 – The Crisis in Beslan commences when armed terrorists take schoolchildren and school staff hostage in North Ossetia (Russia); by the end of the siege three days later more than 385 people are dead (including hostages, other civilians, security personnel and terrorists).

Deaths

• 1715 – Louis XIV of France (b. 1638)
• 2006 – Kyffin Williams, Welsh painter and educator (b. 1918)

 Last Meals 

Charles Frederick Peace was an English burglar and murderer, who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy. After killing a policeman in Manchester, he fled to his native Sheffield, where he became obsessed with his neighbour’s wife, eventually shooting her husband dead. Settling in London, he carried out multiple burglaries before being caught in the prosperous suburb of Blackheath, wounding the policeman who arrested him. He was linked to the Sheffield murder, and tried at Leeds Assizes.

In 1854, he was found guilty of multiple burglaries and sentenced to four years’ penal servitude. In 1859, he married a widow named Hannah Ward. Soon afterward, he committed a major burglary in Manchester, nearly killing a police officer who came to arrest him, and was sentenced to six years’ penal servitude. Another burglary in Manchester earned him another eight-year sentence. For a while after this, he seems to have concentrated on his picture-framing business, before working on the North Eastern Railway, from which he was sacked for absenteeism. After moving to the Sheffield, Peace made the acquaintance of a civil engineer called Dyson, which would prove fateful in due course. During this time, Peace fatally shot a policeman but managed to escape in the darkness, two brothers, John and William Habron, living nearby, were arrested and charged with the killing of Constable Cock. John Habron was acquitted for lack of evidence, but William Habron was sentenced to death, later commuted to penal servitude for life. Peace had made a point of attending the trial, to confirm that he was not a suspect, before returning to Sheffield.

In the meantime, Peace had developed an obsessive interest in Dyson’s wife, though it was never established how far she may have returned his feelings. On 1st July, Peace approached Mrs Dyson and threatened to blow out her brains and those of her husband. Dyson took out a summons against Peace, and moved to a different suburb. On their first day in the new house, Mrs Dyson was accosted by Peace, who said “You see, I am here to annoy you, and I’ll annoy you wherever you go.” That evening, a little after eight o’clock, Peace observed Mrs Dyson coming out from her back door and entering a nearby outhouse. When she duly emerged, he confronted her with a revolver, shouting “Speak or I’ll fire.” In terror, she retreated to the outhouse, and her husband came out to investigate. Peace fled down the passage, where Dyson followed him. Peace fired twice at Dyson, the second shot passing fatally through his temple. As Mrs Dyson cried “Murder!”, Peace escaped and made his way by train to Hull, where his wife kept an eating-house. There was an immediate hue and cry, with a price of £100 on his head. Peace was finally caught. On 10th October 1878. During his trial Peace denied all allegations against him, but the evidence against him made it clear he was a bad ‘un. The Judge passed a sentence of death for the murder of Dyson. Having nothing more to lose, Peace made a full confession to the murder of Constable Cock, in order to exonerate William Habron, who was later given a free pardon and £800 compensation. Peace re-asserted that Mrs Dyson had been his mistress, but she strenuously denied this, calling him a demon, “beyond the power of even  a Shakespeare to paint”.

On the morning of his execution, Peace ate a hearty breakfast of eggs and salty bacon, and calmly awaited the coming of the public executioner, William Marwood, inventor of the “long drop”. He was escorted on the death-walk by the prison chaplain, who was reading aloud from The Consolations of Religion about the fires of hell. 

Peace burst out “Sir, if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!” 

Peace was buried in Armley Gaol. He was 46 years old.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Richard Gere (69), Chris Tucker (47), Todd Carty (55), Cameron Diaz (46), Michael Chiklis (55), Warren Buffett (88), Carla Gugino (47), Rebecca De Mornay (59), Elliott Gould (80), Jason Priestley (49), Jack Black (49), Brian Thompson (59), David Soul (75), Shania Twain (53), Aaron Paul (39), Peter Stormare (65), Barbara Bach (71), Paul Reubens (66), Reece Shearsmith (49), Melissa McCarthy (48), Chris Pine (38), Macaulay Culkin (38), Alexander Skarsgård (42), Sean Connery (88), Tim Burton (60), Rachel Bilson (37), Tom Skerritt (85), Gene Simmons (69), and Claudia Schiffer (48).