Dead Pool 24th July 2016

Let me apologise for the lack of deaths this week, it’s a shit week when the most famous deaths are a Swiss clown and a Tibetan beauty queen. One would think that the heatwave would have culled a few, but alas we’re left twiddling our thumbs.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Garry Marshall, 81, American director, producer, writer and actor (Happy Days, Pretty Woman, Murphy Brown), pneumonia.
• John Pidgeon, 69, British broadcaster and writer.
• Tsering Chungtak, 30, Tibetan beauty queen, Miss Tibet 2006, heart attack.
• Dimitri, 80, Swiss clown.

In Other News 

In what could have been poetic justice, a plane carrying Boris Johnson was forced to make an emergency landing at Luton airport last Sunday evening. The Foreign Secretary was travelling on board an RAF passenger jet to Brussels, for the first foreign trip he has been on since his appointment. The aircraft began experiencing mechanical difficulties, possibly with the hydraulics. All other flights were temporarily grounded while the issue was investigated. Eyewitnesses at the airport reported seeing numerous emergency services vehicles in the area around the time of the incident. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “There was a technical issue on the RAF flight on Sunday afternoon carrying the Foreign Secretary and his officials from London to Brussels that required the aircraft to land at Luton Airport. “The Foreign Secretary thanked the RAF crew for their professionalism and was grateful to Luton Airport for the brief, unscheduled welcome.

The sports scientist Stephen Dank has been  discharged from hospital after he was wounded in what appears to be a drive-by shooting. The 52-year-old sustained a minor head injury when shots were fired into his Ascot Vale home about 2.20am on Saturday. Photos from the crime scene suggest at least three bullets were fired into Dank’s house, shattering one of the windows. The biochemist reportedly told Fox Sports News he and his partner were angry but refused to be intimidated or leave their home. He has a black eye and a badly cut nose, after a bullet grazed the bridge of his nose, Fox Sports News reports.

And finally, an American woman took her dead husband’s body on road trip in Alaska, using ice from local canneries to keep the corpse cold, police have said. Officers responded to a call last week to find the body of a 78-year-old man inside an aluminium transport casket. Ketchikan police chief Alan Bengaard told the Ketchikan Daily News that during the journey, which took place over several days, the woman stopped at canneries for ice to put in the truck bed during the “rolling wake.” Bengaard told the Juneau Empire that the body was supposed to be en route to the mortuary, but “for some reason she decided to not go directly to the mortuary and had been driving around with him for a couple days.” “My understanding is kind of — leading up to the events of the last couple days — there’s been a rolling wake or viewing. It was pointed out to me that, evidently, she had stopped at a couple of the canneries and got ice and filled the bed of the truck with ice to keep the body chilled.” The woman is not facing any charges, police said. The man had died of natural causes.

On This Day

• 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
• 1911 – Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, “the Lost City of the Incas”.
• 1950 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
• 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.

Deaths

• 1862 – Martin Van Buren, American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (b. 1782)
• 1962 – Wilfrid Noyce, English mountaineer and author (b. 1917)
• 1980 – Peter Sellers, English actor, singer, director, and screenwriter (b. 1925)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Donald Sutherland (81), David Hasselhoff (64), Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (69), Vin Diesel (49), Kirsten Bell (46), Richard Branson (66), John Glenn (95), Jared Padalecki (34), Benedict Cumberbatch (40), Kim Carnes (71), Louise Fletcher (82), Danny Glover (70), Don Henley (69), Willem Dafoe (61), Rhys Ifans (49), Selena Gomez (24), Woody Harrelson (55),  Alison Krauss (45) and Daniel Radcliffe (27).

The Last Word

I’m in no pain. No pain. Don’t cry for me, Rahaman. I’m going to be with Allah. I made peace with God, I’m okay… Rahaman, how do I look? – Muhammad Ali

Next week peeps!