Dead Pool 20th December 2015

Welcome all, to a points ridden edition of the Dead Pool. Lets start off with the only one who’s died this week, Jimmy Hill! Wendy had him down as her Cert, so 163 points, well done!! Now onto the housekeeping. Those pesky names I missed throughout the year. Luke had Ingeborg Sjöqvist, so 47 points. Barry had Denis Healey, so 52 points. Lee had Nicholas Winton, 44 points and he had Stuart Scott, 101 points. Martin also had Stuart Scott, 101 points. So there’s some movement on the leader board.

Do I need to remind you that there is only 11 days left? Which means that you have that much time to submit your list for 2016, best get your arses into gear!

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Kathy Secker, 70, British television presenter. (body discovered on this date).
• Patricia Brooker, 80, British reality television personality (The Only Way Is Essex).
• Peter Dickinson, 88, British author.
• Jimmy Hill, 87, English footballer (Fulham), manager, trade union leader (Professional Footballers’ Association) and TV presenter (Match of the Day), Alzheimer’s disease.
• Greville Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, 87, British politician, Member of Parliament for Leicester North West and later Leicester West (1970–1997), Alzheimer’s disease.

 In Other News

England’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks has revealed he is suffering from kidney cancer for a second time. Having lost one kidney to the disease 10 years ago, Banks, 77, is receiving chemotherapy after blood tests showed the other is now affected. He told the media: “Last year we went on our annual holiday to Florida. A week later I couldn’t sleep and then I couldn’t even stand due to the pain. I was sent straight to hospital where they told me I had cancer. I was so shocked when they told me it was my kidney. “The last time I had the cancer it was very large but they were able to remove the kidney and take the cancer away with it. We hope medication will make this cancer small enough for them to operate and carry out electrical treatment to break it up. But if it grows they will have to remove [the kidney] and I’ll need a replacement.”

Marc Dal Maso, who was in charge of Japan’s scrum during Eddie Jones’s time there, has revealed he has Parkinson’s disease and believes the blows he received during his career as a hooker are the cause. Dal Maso, who played for France 33 times, will not be part of Jones’s England regime as he resumes a consultancy role with the Highlanders in Otago in the new year. He said the illness was diagnosed in 2012 but he did not tell anyone, including Jones, until now. “The problems started when I was 30 and still playing,” said Dal Maso, who is 48, in an interview with a French newspaper. “I was not feeling well, tired all the time, and my sister, who works in medicine, suggested I had tests. A scan revealed Parkinson’s disease and I am on medication morning, noon and night.

Actor James Woods has narrowly avoided serious injury after being involved in a major car accident. The three-time Emmy award winner tweeted on Monday that a man driving “75+ in an ice storm” spun out of control. In a dramatic report of events, Woods said he “hit right wall to avoid him, spun 180, hit left wall sliding backwards going 60 mph.” “Huge drop 100 feet into river below, but the guardrail held. I managed to pull out and slide down out of oncoming traffic. Six car pileup.” The Nixon actor said there were no deaths but his car was “wrecked”. “Good to be alive. Glad everybody survived.” Woods was driving in the US state of Colorado in a 4WD jeep he described as an “old tank”. “That Jeep saved my life,” he tweeted. He also said police officers told him he was the only driver involved who didn’t hit anybody. Woods said he had only a “little concussion”. “God smiled on me today. I am so happy to be alive.”

Wilnelia Forsyth has revealed she feared for the life of her husband, Sir Bruce, after he had surgery following a fall, but said he was getting better. The veteran television presenter underwent keyhole surgery on an abdominal aortic aneurysm in mid-November and is still in recovery, forcing him to pull out of hosting the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special. The aneurysm was discovered in October after a fall, which left him in hospital with a minor concussion and abrasions on his face. The 87-year-old entertainer has been recovering at home and his wife said it had been an emotional time. She told the Daily Mail: “I’m not ready to lose him yet. This has scared me to death, particularly waiting in that hospital when he was having his operation. That felt like an eternity. Because of Bruce’s age there are so many risks involved. “You think: ‘My God, will he come out all right?’ But you have to trust the doctors. The alternative – not having surgery – was worse. It’s like you’re in a corner. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, because this is such a fatal thing.” The 58-year-old said the surgery and recovery had been “very, very hard” for her husband, who was a “proud man”. But she said: “We’ve been told with this kind of operation it will take one or two months for him to fully recover. Seeing my husband getting better is like having an early Christmas present.”

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej has made a rare public appearance, amid concerns for his ailing health. In television footage released on Monday by the palace he is seen swearing in judges at a Bangkok hospital where he has been staying. He has received treatment for a number of ailments including a lung infection. The health of the 88-year-old monarch is of public concern as he is widely revered and seen as an arbiter in the country’s divided political arena. The king, who is the world’s longest serving monarch, was last seen in September in a video released by the palace. He missed his birthday celebrations for the second consecutive year on 5th December. The event was marked by a cycling event last week in Bangkok led by his son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Palace officials did not give any further details of the king’s health on Monday.

The former BBC broadcaster, Stuart Hall, has survived and been released from prison after serving half of his sentence for sexual abuse. The former It’s a Knockout presenter, now 85, was jailed in 2013 after he admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls, one as young as nine, between 1967 and 1985. He was sentenced to 15 months, which was doubled when the court of appeal ruled the original term “inadequate”, and received an additional 30 months in jail in 2014 when he pleaded guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a teenage girl. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said it was unable to comment on individual cases, but added: “Public protection is our top priority and offenders automatically released on licence at the halfway point of their sentence are subject to strict controls. Either way, lock up your daughters!

And finally, the doctor of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he is in “excellent” health and has had no significant medical problems. Mr Trump had been under pressure to release his medical history after several other candidates had done so. The 69-year-old real estate tycoon would become the oldest president to be elected in US history. However, his physician said he would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”. New York City-based physician Harold Bornstein said his physical strength and stamina are “extraordinary”. Promising to release it a few weeks ago, he tweeted that his medical report would show “perfection”. “I am fortunate to have been blessed with great genes,” Mr Trump wrote on Facebook. “People have been impressed by my stamina, but to me it has been easy because I am truly doing something that I love.” Mr Bornstein writes in a note that he has been Mr Trump’s personal physician since 1980, and that in 39 years, he has had no major issues. His blood pressure and laboratory tests are “astonishingly excellent” and he has lost 15 pounds (7kg) in the past year, according to Mr Bornstein. He said Mr Trump has had no forms of cancer, or joint surgery, and does not smoke or drink alcohol.

On This Day

• 1192 – Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the Third Crusade.
• 1946 – The popular Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life is first released in New York City.
• 1951 – The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity. The electricity powered four light bulbs.
• 1955 – Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom.
• 1987 – In the worst peacetime sea disaster, the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).
• 2007 – Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.

Deaths

• 1862 – Robert Knox, Scottish surgeon and zoologist (b. 1791)
• 1968 – John Steinbeck, American author, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
• 1973 – Bobby Darin, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1936)
• 1996 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist (b. 1934)
• 2010 – Brian Hanrahan, English journalist (b. 1949)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Dick Van Dyke (90), Christopher Plummer (86), Steve Buscemi (58), Ted Nugent (67), Jamie Foxx (48), Taylor Swift (26), Vanessa Hudgens (27), Don Johnson (66), Michelle Dockery (34), Billy Gibbons (66), Ernie Hudson (70), Eugene Levy (69), Bill Pullman (62), Milla Jovovich (40), Laurie Holden (46), Pope Francis (79), Keith Richards (72), Stephen Spielberg (69), Leonard Maltin (65), Ray Liotta (61), Christina Aguilera (35), Steve Austin (51), Jennifer Beals (52), Kirsty Swanson (46), Alyssa Milano (43) and Jake Gyllenhaal (35).

Next week peeps!