Dead Pool 23rd March 2014

Welcome once again my morbid minions to the weekly edition of the Dead Pool Newsletter. This week we have a dirge of deaths but no points to award, a new feature for your perusal, and of course, the usual hilarity that ensues from the demises of the famous.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Clarissa Dickson Wright, 66, English celebrity chef and television personality (Two Fat Ladies).
• Oswald Morris, 98, British cinematographer (Fiddler on the Roof, The Guns of Navarone, Oliver!).
• L’Wren Scott, 49, American fashion designer and model, suicide by hanging.
• Fred Phelps, 84, American pastor and anti-gay activist, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church.
• Mickey Duff, 84, Polish-born British boxing promoter and manager.

In Other News

Dame Vera Lynn is to celebrate her 97th birthday and 90 years in show business by releasing a new album. The ‘Forces Sweetheart’ will release her new opus in June and it will contain some previously unreleased material and a few old favourites. I’m sure you’re all itching to hear “We’ll Meet Again” in a digital Dolby Surround 5.1 THX remastered version. I know I am!!

Another Dame who is causing a few surprises this week is Dame Angela Lansbury! Yes, I thought she was dead already too. The 88 year old actress has been lavished with praise by critics upon her return to the West End stage as Madame Arcati in The Blythe Spirit. In her first stage role in over 40 years, Lansbury is said to be in ‘sparkling form’ and her depiction of the dance and trance scene is a ‘wonder to behold’.  Almost makes me want to go the theatre…

In one of those amazing and accurate studies, its been found that one in ten people will die during their time in hospital and that death is the ‘core business’ of hospitals. Well, I’m not one to punch holes in an official study, but isn’t the reason that people go to hospitals a huge factor in these results? Guess what, they found that older patients were more likely to die, especially those in the over-85 age bracket! They even based their study in Glasgow, last time I checked only 3 people reached the age of 45 up there due to the copious amount of deep fried pizza they consume on top of the Tennent’s Super and intravenous nicotine patches.

Not to be outdone, another bunch of scientists have discovered that saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease while so-called ‘healthy’ polyunsaturated fats don’t prevent cardiovascular problems. So, in contrast with decades old nutritional advice, researchers at Cambridge University have found that giving up fatty meat, cream or butter is unlikely to improve your health. They even found that supplements had no benefits whatsoever. So, I have to retract my statement about deep fried pizza in the previous article! I’m off to stuff a pound of butter in my face…

On This Day

• 1801 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael’s Castle.
• 1857 – Elisha Otis‘s first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
• 1888 – In England, The Football League, the world’s oldest professional Association Football league, meets for the first time.
• 1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
• 1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
• 1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan).
• 1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States‘ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
• 1989 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.
• 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashes in Siberia when the pilot‘s fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
• 2001 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Deaths

• 1964 – Peter Lorre, Slovak-American actor (b. 1904)
• 2011 – Elizabeth Taylor, English-American actress (b. 1932)

Death Row Prisoners Last Meals

Ever wondered what inmates about to fry in the chair ask to eat for their last meal? No, I didn’t either. However, I’m going to share a meal or two with you from time to time as I always find it hard to come up with new meal ideas.

Remember old John Wayne Gacy? He was an American serial killer and rapist, also known as the Killer Clown, who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980 but spent a further 14 years on Death Row before he was executed by lethal injection at Statesville Correctional Centre in 1994.

Gacy’s last meal consisted of the following:

• 12 Fried Shrimp
• A bucket of original recipe KFC
• French Fries
• 1 lbs of Strawberries

Prior to being convicted, Gacy had managed three KFC restaurants, which sort of shows some professional pride in his work.

Tasty eh? I sure wouldn’t mind chowing down on this last meal given the chance, but I think I would have been a bit pissed that my strawberries weren’t in a separate bowl. Plus, where are the sauces and dips??

Following his last meal, Gacy was taken to be executed by lethal injection, however due to the inexperience of the Death Row officials the chemicals used solidified in the IV tube, so his death took 18 minutes. His final spoken words were ‘Kiss my ass”. To add insult to injury, they even took out his brain for investigation, finding no abnormalities.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Jerry Lewis (88), Bernado Bertolucci (73), Erik Estrada (65), Patrick Duffy (65), Kurt Russell (63), Gary Sinise (59), Rob Lowe (50), Brad Dourif (64), Irene Cara (55), Vanessa Williams (51), Queen Latifah (44), Ursula Andress (78), Gelnn Close (67), Bruce Willis (59), William Hurt (64), Spike Lee (57), Theresa Russell (57), Holly Hunter (56), Michael Rapaport (44), Timothy Dalton (68), Gary Oldman (56), Matthew Broderick (52), Rosie O’Donnell (52), William Shatner (83), M. Emmet Walsh (79), Andrew Lloyd Webber (66), Matthew Modine (55) and Reese Witherspoon (38).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next week peeps!