Dead Pool 22nd May 2022

After last weeks readathon, this week is slightly shorter. So without further ado….  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Maggie Peterson, 81, American actress (The Andy Griffith Show, The Bill Dana Show).  
• Kay Mellor, 71, British actress and writer (Children’s Ward, Families, Fat Friends). 
• John Aylward, 75, American actor (ER, The West Wing, The Way Back). 
• Vangelis, 79, Greek musician (Aphrodite’s Child) and film composer (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner), Oscar winner, heart failure.  
• Bob Neuwirth, 82, American singer-songwriter (“Mercedes Benz“).  

In Other News

Danniella Westbrook was rushed to hospital with septicaemia, according to reports, which can be life-threatening if not dealt with quickly. The former EastEnders star, 48, was bedridden for several days while unwell, but is now recovering at home after having hospital treatment. A representative for the actress told The Flying Monkeys: ‘Danniella suffered a sudden health shock. Thankfully the issue was caught early and dealt with by medical professionals. Danniella has been released from hospital and is home recovering with the support of close family. We are grateful that Danniella hasn’t suffered from any major risks. Danniella appreciates everyone’s immediate support and we will be sure to issue updates on her ongoing recovery accordingly.’ Septicaemia, also known as sepsis, is a potentially life-threatening reaction, when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection and starts to damage its own tissues and organs. Although the symptoms can be hard to spot, and include confusion, pale or blotchy skin, a rash that does not fade with a glass rolled over it and breathlessness among other signs, urgent treatment is required. A source close to Danniella confirmed to the monkeys that it was caught in time and ‘all necessary precautions were taken’. Danniella recently appeared on the red carpet for a Celeb MMA party at the start of May, after having undergone surgery on her nose. She is currently undergoing operations to rebuild her face, including having a rib implanted in her face after her former drug addiction left her with crumbling bones and a collapsed jaw and cheekbone as well as damage to her nose.

Vladimir Putin is “increasingly ill” and is “constantly accompanied” by a team of doctors, former British spy Christopher Steele has claimed. Mr Steele, who wrote a dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 US elections, had earlier stated that the Russian leader was “quite seriously ill”, although the “exact details” of what ailed him are not known. The latest remarks come amid mounting speculation on the Russian president’s allegedly deteriorating health and rumours that he is suffering from cancer. “He’s constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors,” the former spy told LBC radio. He also claimed that Mr Putin’s key meetings have to be divided into sections so that the president can take breaks in between to receive treatment from his doctors. “Meetings of the security council that are shown to supposedly last for a whole hour are actually broken up into several sections… he goes out and receives some kind of medical treatment between those sections. And so clearly he is seriously ill, I mean how terminal or incurable it is not clear, we can’t be entirely sure,” Mr Steele said, adding that this health is affecting the governance of Russia. Mr Steele’s remarks on the 69-year-old president’s health come after an oligarch with close ties to Mr Putin was reportedly recorded saying that he is “very ill with blood cancer”. The unnamed Russian oligarch alleged in the recording that Mr Putin had surgery on his back linked to his blood cancer shortly before ordering the invasion of Ukraine on 24th February, according to the US-based New Lines magazine. There have been mounting concerns over Mr Putin’s health after videos circulating on social media showed him “shaking uncontrollably”. In April, Mr Putin was seen clutching a table for the entirety of a 12-minute video clip of a meeting he had with his defence minister. The Russian president also appeared frail at public events, including Victory Day celebrations on 9th May. Recently, video footage of Mr Putin from a meeting with his Tajikistan counterpart Emomali Rahmon showed the Russian leader fidgeting and twisting his foot. “There’s increasing disarray in the Kremlin, chaos in fact, that there’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin who is increasingly ill, and that in the military’s terms the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should,” Mr Steele told the radio station. 

Dead Pool favourite and all-round smarmy cunt James Corden has admitted he only washes his hair once every two months, after residents of Los Angeles have been advised to cut down their shower time by four minutes to help preserve water. ”I use soap, but I don’t wash my hair. I wash it every two months. That is a true story,” he said during an episode of The Late Late Show. “I don’t think we’re nasty… We’re trying to protect the planet. You know, there is no planet B!” Corden says his average shower lasts three minutes. So not only is he a total waste of space, he probably smells too. 

On This Day

• 1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine”.  
• 1915 – Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.  
• 1927 – Near Xining, China, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake causes 200,000 deaths in one of the world’s most destructive earthquakes.   
• 1960 – The Great Chilean earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hits southern Chile, becoming the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, between 1,000 and 6,000 killed. 
• 1967 – L’Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, burns down, resulting in 323 dead or missing and 150 injured, the most devastating fire in Belgian history.  
• 2017 – Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.  

Deaths

• 1885 – Victor Hugo, French novelist, poet, and playwright (b. 1802). 
• 2004 – Richard Biggs, American actor (b. 1960). 
• 2019 – Judith Kerr, German-born British writer and illustrator (b. 1923). 

The Next Big Thing! 

Just as you thought it was safe to go back into the water, Covid now just a distant dream, unless you didn’t get the vaccine, a handful of cases of monkeypox have now been reported or are suspected in Britain, Portugal, Spain and the United States. 

The outbreaks are raising alarm because the viral disease, which spreads through close contact and was first found in monkeys, mostly occurs in west and central Africa, and only very occasionally spreads elsewhere. 

Monkeypox is a virus that causes fever symptoms as well as a distinctive bumpy rash. It is usually mild, although there are two main strains: the Congo strain, which is more severe – with up to 10% mortality – and the West African strain, which has a fatality rate in about 1% of cases; as opposed to COVID-19 which has a fatality rate of 1.8%. The UK cases have been reported as the West African strain. 

“Historically, there have been very few cases exported. It has only happened eight times in the past before this year,” said Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who said it was “highly unusual”. 

Portugal has logged five confirmed cases, and Spain is testing 23 potential cases. Neither country has reported cases before. The United States has also reported one case. 

The virus spreads through close contact, both in spillovers from animals and, less commonly, between humans. It was first found in monkeys in 1958, hence the name, although rodents are now seen as the probable main animal host. 

Transmission this time is puzzling experts, because a number of the cases in the United Kingdom – nine as of May 18th have no known connection with each other. Only the first case reported on May 6th had recently traveled to Nigeria. As such, experts have warned of wider transmission if cases have gone unreported. 

The UK Health Security Agency’s alert also highlighted that the recent cases were predominantly among men who self-identified as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, and advised those groups to be aware. 

Scientists are now carrying out genomic sequencing to see if the viruses are linked, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this week. 

One possible scenario behind the rise in cases is increased travel as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. 

“My working theory would be that there’s a lot of it about in west and central Africa, travel has resumed, and that’s why we are seeing more cases,” said Whitworth. 

Monkeypox puts virologists on the alert because it is in the smallpox family, although it causes less serious illness. 

Smallpox was eradicated by vaccination in 1980, and the shot has since been phased out. But it also protects against monkeypox, and so the winding down of vaccination campaigns has led to a jump in monkeypox cases in areas where the disease is endemic, according to Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at UCLA in California. 

She said urgent investigation of the new cases was important as “they could suggest a novel means of spread or a change in the virus, but this is all to be determined. This isn’t going to cause a nationwide epidemic like COVID did, but it’s a serious outbreak of a serious disease,  and we should take it seriously,” said Whitworth.

Experts urged people not to panic!!!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Maggie Q (43), Ginnifer Goodwin (44), Graham Linehan (54), Naomi Campbell (52), Judge Reinhold (65), Noel Fielding (49), Mr. T (70), Jack Gleeson (30), Cher (76), Louis Theroux (52), Owen Teale (61), Grace Jones (74), James Fox (83), Tina Fey (52), Miriam Margolyes (81), Chow Yun-Fat (67), Toyah Willcox (64), Paul Whitehouse (64), Andrea Corr (48), Megan Fox (36), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (32), Pierce Brosnan (69), Danny Trejo (78), Debra Winger (67), David Boreanaz (53), Janet Jackson (56), and Stephen Mangan (54).