Dead Pool 29th May 2016

Alas no points this week, although I could have sworn that one of you had Burt Kwouk, perhaps it was last year! So the league table remains the same for the time being. I’m rather hesitant to send out the flying monkeys, it seems rather greedy after so many stars have died of late, so for the time being we’ll just coast along with the ‘B’ List celebrities.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Lewis Fiander, 78, Australian actor, stroke.
• Buck Kartalian, 93, American actor (Planet of the Apes, Cool Hand Luke, The Rock).
• Burt Kwouk, 85, British actor (The Pink Panther, Last of the Summer Wine, Goldfinger).
• Nancy Dow, 79, American actress (The Ice House) and model, mother of Jennifer Aniston.
• Peggy Spencer, 95, British dancer.
• Angela Paton, 86, American actress (Groundhog Day, American Wedding, Lolita), heart attack.

In Other News

Calvin Harris says he feels “lucky and grateful” following his car accident last week. Last Friday, Harris, who was travelling as a passenger in a Cadillac, was involved in a collision on the way to a Los Angeles airport. He was hospitalised and has been resting on doctor’s orders since. Harris, who is the highest earning DJ in the world, was forced to cancel a number of gigs and appearances following the crash. On Thursday, a statement on his Facebook page announced he would not be performing at his Las Vegas residency on Friday night as he is still “recovering from the injuries sustained in the car accident”. On Friday, Harris returned to Twitter saying he was felt “lucky and grateful”. He also thanked fans for their well-wishes and apologised for the cancelled concerts. Following the crash, a Los Angeles police department spokesperson said a Volkswagen Beetle had collided with Harris’ vehicle. “In the other vehicle a juvenile was ejected from the vehicle for not wearing a seatbelt and suffered a broken pelvis.” According to reports from celebrity gossip site TMZ, the driver was a 16-year-old girl. Following the crash, a spokesperson for Harris, whose real name is Adam Wiles, said he had “sustained a number of injuries” from the “serious collision”.

The former BBC presenter Sian Williams has revealed she underwent a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Speaking to Woman & Home magazine, Williams explained how she felt the chances of her having breast cancer were so “improbable” that she went to get the results from a mammogram alone, despite having a family history of cancer. The 5 News at 5 anchor said: “The week after my 50th birthday I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I thought I was healthy. I did all the right things – I was a green tea drinker, a salmon eater, a runner. “My aunt died of breast cancer, and I’d lost my mum to liver and bowel cancer – and I gradually began to realise how bewildered and scared I was.” Williams described how the shock of her diagnosis impacted upon her relationship with her husband, saying she was “horrible” to him at times as she struggled to discuss her fears.

Gordon Downie, the lead singer of Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. In news that has devastated fans, The Hip confirmed Downie, 52, was diagnosed with cancer in December. A founding member, Downie has performed with The Hip for over three decades and released three solo albums. The band told their fans in a Facebook post, in which they also announced plans to tour again in his honour. “A few months ago, in December, Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Since then, obviously, he’s endured a lot of difficult times, and he has been fighting hard. In privacy along with his family, and through all of this, we’ve been standing by him. “So after 30-some years together as The Tragically Hip, thousands of shows, and hundreds of tours… We’ve decided to do another one. This feels like the right thing to do now, for Gord, and for all of us.

The Scottish do-gooder nurse who survived  Ebola has said she has been left with permanent weakness in her leg and will probably never run again. Pauline Cafferkey, 40, from Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, was hospitalised three times, at great expense to the NHS, after contracting the virus while working in Sierra Leone in 2014. She told BBC Radio Scotland that she was now “Ebola negative” and her health had come on “leaps and bounds”. But she said there were long-term issues, such as numbness and dizziness. Speaking on Radio Scotland’s Stephen Jardine programme, Ms Cafferkey revealed that her case was the highest viral load of Ebola ever recorded in a survivor. However, she added: “I’ve still got swelling at the base of my spine, which is very painful and dizziness – my balance isn’t too good.” Paying tribute to her medical team, she added: “Although I am negative Ebola, I still have some remnants there as a result of it. But on the other hand, I am alive and I have received the best care in the world, *for free*.”

And finally, a Thai man is recovering in hospital after a 3m (10ft) python emerged from a squat toilet and sank its teeth into his penis. Attaporn Boonmakchuay said the python was “yanking very hard” as he and his wife tried to wrestle it off. Doctors said Mr Attaporn, who lost a lot of blood in the ordeal, was making a good recovery. Workers dismantled the toilet and extracted the python which had slithered through domestic plumbing. It was released back into the wild. The incident happened as Mr Attaporn, 38, went to the toilet at his home in Chachoengsao province, east of Bangkok, before leaving for work on Wednesday. As he used the toilet he said he suddenly felt a sharp pain. “I felt as though my penis had been severed. The snake was yanking very hard,” he said,  according to the Bangkok Post. As the python tried to pull him down, he called for his wife and neighbours to help him, the post reported. Mr Attaporn told Thai TV that his wife tied a rope around the snake and he prised its jaws open before passing out. Thai media published images of Mr Attaporn’s blood-spattered toilet. Doctors said Mr Attaporn was recovering well. “He has a really good attitude… even though his own wife and children were in shock. He’s been smiling and giving interviews all day from his bed,” said Chularat Hospital director Dr Chutima Pincharoen. Mr Attaporn said he planned to replace the squat toilet with a sitting one.

On This Day

• 1913 – Igor Stravinsky‘s ballet score The Rite of Spring receives its premiere performance in Paris, France, provoking a riot.
• 1919 – Albert Einstein‘s theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.
• 1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra record Irving Berlin‘s “White Christmas“, the best-selling single in history.
• 1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay’s (adopted) 39th birthday.
• 1985 – Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine association football fans die and hundreds are injured when a dilapidated retaining wall collapses.
• 1988 – The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
• 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

Deaths

• 1951 – Fanny Brice, American singer and comedian (b. 1891)
• 1997 – Jeff Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Gods and Monsters) (b. 1966)
• 2010 – Dennis Hopper, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1936)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Morrissey (57), Naomi Campbell (46), Ginnifer Goodwin (38), Joan Collins (83), Marvin Hagler (62), Tommy Chong (78), Bob Dylan (75), Priscilla Presley (71), Jim Broadbent (67), John C. Reilly (51), Eric Cantona (50), Ian McKellan (77), Frank Oz (72), Mike Myers (53), Anne Heche (47), Stevie Nicks (68), Bobcat Goldthwait (54), Lenny Kravitz (52), Helena Bonham Carter (50), Louis Gossett Jr. (80), Sioxsie Sioux (58), Paul Bettany (44), Denise Van Outen (42), Jamie Oliver (41), Gladys Knight (72) and Kylie Minogue (48).

The Last Word

General John Sedgwick (1813-1864) – “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”.

Next week peeps!