Dead Pool 24th August 2014

Welcome all, alas, after the highs of last week  we are  dumped to another low. No   points to be awarded and no superstars have committed suicide. But, as always we have plenty of news for you to peruse, plenty to talk about.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• James Alexander Gordon, 78, British radio broadcaster (BBC Radio 5 Live).
• Don Pardo, 96, American radio and television announcer (Saturday Night Live, Jeopardy!).
• James Foley, 40, American photojournalist, beheading.
• Brian G. Hutton, 79, American actor (King Creole, Last Train from Gun Hill) and film director (Kelly’s Heroes, Where Eagles Dare).
• Candida Lycett Green, 71, British author, pancreatic cancer.
• B. K. S. Iyengar, 95, Indian yogi, founder of Iyengar Yoga, heart attack and renal failure.
• Gerry Anderson, 69, British broadcaster (BBC Northern Ireland).
• Lyndam Gregory, 59, Indian-born British actor (The Archers, Coronation Street, EastEnders), lung cancer.
• Jean Redpath, 77, Scottish folk singer-songwriter, cancer.
• Albert Reynolds, 81, Irish politician, Taoiseach (1992–1994). 

In Other News

Authorities in New York have denied parole to the man who shot dead musician John Lennon in 1980 for the eighth time. Mark Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in 1981 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Chapman, now 59, shot Lennon four times outside a Manhattan apartment block. Just goes to show, if you shoot an international superstar, you will rot in jail forever, but kill and rape a couple of kids, you will be free after a few years.

Dead Pool favourite, Paul Gascoigne, 47, who has a  long history of problems with alcohol, is believed to have been admitted to Poole hospital last Thursday after being found pissed outside his home. Some of you may have seen the shocking pictures showing a prematurely aged and haggard Gazza being led into the back of an ambulance, a pale shadow of the footballing hero he once was. Could this be his last trip in an ambulance? Let’s wait and find out! 

New figures have shown that terminally ill Britons now make up a nearly one quarter of users of suicide clinics like Dignitas in Switzerland. Only Germany has a higher numbers of ‘suicide tourists’ visiting institutions to end their own lives. Roughly 25 Britons a year make the trip, which is 25 less bodies to scrape off the pavements or 25 less traumatised train drivers, so that can only be a good thing. If you ever feel the need to help someone along in Britain, remember that the 1961 Suicide Act makes it an offence to encourage or assist a suicide or a suicide attempt in England and Wales, fuck knows about Scotland, nobody there lived long enough to try. Anyone doing so could face up to 14 years in prison. So remember when you see someone teetering over the edge of a motorway bridge, shouting ‘Jump’ could mean you end up with your bedmate being called Big Hairy Barbra and you chewing the pillow for a long time! 

Snooker player, Ali Carter is making a rather disappointing recovery from lung cancer. The two-times World Snooker Championship runner-up expects to be back playing soon after finishing an intensive course of chemotherapy. The 35-year-old was diagnosed with lung cancer in May, less than a year after resuming his career having recovered from testicular cancer. Carter also suffers from Crohns disease but is upbeat about his future. Fair play to him. 

Pope Francis has publicly broached the prospect of his own death for the first time, light-heartedly giving himself “two or three years”. The 77-year-old says he may ‘soon be off to the Father’s house’ and would retire if he could no longer perform his duties. While the Pope has not spoken publicly before about when he might meet his maker, a Vatican source said he had previously told those close to him that he thought he only had a few years left, which is only good news to many of you taking part in the Dead Pool. 

In a sure sign of impending doom, the veteran screen star  Debbie Reynolds is to be given a lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild. The 82-year-old, whose credits include Singin’ In The Rain and TV sitcom Will and Grace, will receive her accolade at the SAG awards ceremony on 25th January, let’s hope she lasts until then. Reynolds, mother of Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher, has been in showbusiness for 66 years and kick-started her career at the age of 16 by winning the Miss Burbank competition with the hope of winning a blouse and a scarf. Can’t see many girls doing that nowadays, much easier to purloin them from TopShop.

On This Day

• 79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash.
• 1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.
• 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim the English Channel
• 1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
• 1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
• 1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
• 1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
• 2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term “planet” such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.

Deaths

• 1217 – Eustace the Monk, French pirate (b. 1170)
• 2001 – Jane Greer, American actress and singer (b. 1924)
• 2013 – Mike Winters, English comedian and actor (b. 1926)

Four Diseases You Should Be More Afraid Of Than Ebola by KoA

The current outbreak of the Ebola Virus in West Africa is the largest in history, and has already killed over 1200 people. Of course, when the disease threatened to take to America, a cure was miraculously found, but let’s not get into that argument, we know how racist the States are, even stealing a bottle of pop will ensure a black man will end up with nine bullets in him, two to the head, execution stylee. But if you think Ebola is shit scary, look closer to home. Check out these 5 diseases that could easily cause a global health emergency:

Influenza 

Around 3-5 million people around the world will become severely ill due to the flu virus every year, resulting in 250,000-300,000 deaths. That’s an incredible amount of people, even though the mortality rate is fairly low. However, this is just the seasonal flu, what about those seriously nasty strains we’ve all heard about, like H5N1 and H7N9? These strains of bird flu are highly virulent and have a 60% mortality rate in humans, luckily they don’t spread readily from human to human, yet, but a small mutation is all it takes!! 

Diarrhoea 

Remember that bout of the shits you had, wasn’t too pleasant was it, and that was just a little spat, probably caused by the kebab and 8 pints of wine you had. But diarrhoea is the number one cause of death in children under 5 around the globe. It affects over 1.7 billion people each year, resulting in the deaths of 801,000 children alone. Diarrhoea depletes the body of necessary fluids and salts and if this is left unchecked, the infected will die of severe dehydration. The main cause of diarrheic disease is rotavirus in children and norovirus for adults, though there are other bacterial and viral causes as well. Cholera, Salmonella, Nipah virus, and hemorrhagic fever including Ebola, Lassa, and Marbug are all noteworthy sources of highly infectious diseases that cause diarrhoea.

Tuberculosis 

TB is a bacterial infection that affects two billion people a year, resulting in 1.3 million deaths. Once exposed, an individual might not become sick right away. In fact, the bacteria can remain dormant for several years before causing illness. Though TB doesn’t spread while in this latent phase, it can become an active infection at any time. Once symptoms begin, the lungs are the primary affected organ. What might begin as a nagging cough or fatigue can easily turn into sharp chest pain and coughing up blood. If TB affects other parts of the body, it can lead to joint pain, impede liver or kidney function, cause meningitis, or fatal inflammation and fluid buildup around the heart. But we’ve all been inoculated as kids, I have the scar to prove it! Unfortunately, this airborne bacterium is on the rise due to those stupid Anti-vaccers and many strains are now becoming resistant to most treatments. The mortality rate for drug-resistant TB is about 80%. As drug resistance continues to grow, TB could affect even more people and result in even more deaths.

Antimicrobial Resistance 

Antibiotics have been one of the best advancements in medical history, but irresponsible use has turned this blessing into a curse. When not taken correctly, the medication can’t kill all of the bacteria. The ones that are left have now been exposed to the drug, but didn’t die from it. By not taking the full course of antibiotics, that mutation that confers resistance has been selected for, and those bacteria will continue to proliferate. When they go on to cause an illness again, they are not so easily defeated. That has basically been the story of how things like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have become the problems that they are today. Over two million people develop a drug-resistant infection each year, resulting in over 23,000 deaths. The World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report in April 2014 stating that “a post-antibiotic era, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century.” Traditional treatments are meeting resistance for a number of infections and diseases including (but most definitely not limited to) urinary tract infections, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, influenza, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), and gonorrhoea. In fact, there have been reports in several countries that gonorrhoea has even become resistant all forms of treatment. So be careful if you fuck around!

Last Week’s Birthdays

Robert De Nero (71), Belinda Carlisle (56), Sean Penn (54), Robert Redford (78), Denis Leary (57), Christian Slater (45), Edward Norton (45), Kevin Dillon (49), Matthew Perry (45), Bill Clinton (68), Robert Plant (66), Kenny Rogers (76), Kim Cattrall (58), Carrie-Anne Moss (47), Hayden Panettiere (24), Usain Bolt (28), Tori Amos (51), Ty Burrell (47) and Kirsten Wiig (41).

2013 League Table

[confidential]

Next Week peeps!