Dead Pool 2nd June 2019

Who are these dead people? Are they even Z list celebrities? Who  knows… One thing is for certain, no points have been awarded this week! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Carmine Caridi, 85, American actor (The Godfather Part II, Bugsy, Summer Rental), pneumonia. 
• Peggy Stewart, 95, American actress (The Fighting Redhead, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, That’s My Boy)
• John Tidmarsh, 90, English broadcaster and journalist (Outlook).
• José Antonio Reyes, 35, Spanish footballer (Sevilla, Atlético Madrid, national team), traffic collision.

 In Other News

Father Christmas… Sorry, Julian Assange was too ill to appear at his court hearing in London on Thursday, his lawyer said. The WikiLeaks founder, 47, is fighting against being extradited to the United States over charges related to leaking US government secrets. He had been due to appear at his case management hearing via video link from Belmarsh Prison but lawyer Gareth Peirce said he was “not very well”. According to WikiLeaks, Assange has been moved to the medical ward in jail. A spokesman for the whistleblowing website said it had “grave concerns” about Assange’s health. “During the seven weeks in Belmarsh his health has continued to deteriorate and he has dramatically lost weight,” the spokesman said. “Defence lawyer for Assange, Per Samuelson, said that Julian Assange’s health state last Friday was such ‘that it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation with him’.” The five-minute hearing on Thursday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court was the second in the Australian’s extradition case. The US Justice Department has charged Assange with receiving and publishing thousands of classified documents linked to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Thursday, chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot set the next hearing for 12 June and suggested the hearing could take place in Belmarsh, adding: “It may be more convenient for everyone if it’s there.” Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012. He is currently serving a 50-week sentence in Belmarsh Prison in south east London for bail violations. Earlier this month, Swedish prosecutors reopened their investigation into rape allegations against Assange, which he denies.  

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington has checked into a “wellness retreat” in the US, reportedly for stress. The actor – who’s known for playing Jon Snow – began getting treatment several weeks ago. His publicist told Radio 1 Newsbeat that Kit was working on “some personal issues.” In a recent interview Kit spoke of “a huge heave of emotion” after filming the final scenes of Game of Thrones, which he worked on for eight seasons. In a different interview – the 32-year-old actor told Esquire what it was like filming Jon Snow’s final scenes. He said: “The final day of shooting, I felt fine… I felt fine… I felt fine… Then I went to do my last shots and started hyperventilating a bit. “Then they called, ‘Wrap!’ And I just… broke down. It was this onslaught of relief and grief about not being able to do this again.” A documentary about the end of Game of Thrones called The Last Watch was released on Sunday. It showed Kit crying when he learned about his character’s ending. Kit – who was in Game of Thrones from the first episode until the last – told Variety about the effects of working on such an intense show for a long period. “You have these in-jokes, and these relationships that thrive for eight years,” he explained. “That’s a long time for those jokes to be going, and they never felt old or tired. In the last season, I was like, these are getting tired now. “And I think they got tired because we could see the end coming. “That’s a way of emotionally detaching from something: relationships very slightly starting to strain, just on the edges, just frayed.” Must be awful knowing your career is over at such a young age…. 

Nepal’s tourism authority has denied accusations that the rise in Mount Everest deaths is solely due to overcrowding. The department’s  director general Dandu Raj Ghimire said other factors including adverse weather conditions had also contributed. Ten climbers have been reported dead or missing this season. Photos of long queues near the summit have been widely shared as record numbers ascended the mountain in May. Mr Ghimire said 381 people had ascended Everest this spring but as periods of fine weather had been short, the number of people on the routes had been “higher than expected”. A local tour organiser told AFP that one of the climbers, Nihal Ashpak Bhagwan, died of exhaustion after being “stuck in traffic for more than 12 hours”. Mr Ghimire offered “heartfelt condolences to those who’ve passed away and prayers to those who are still missing”. “Mountaineering in the Himalayas is in itself an adventurous, complex and sensitive issue requiring full awareness yet tragic accidents are unavoidable,” he said. Basically, they don’t give a fuck, just pay your royalty fee of $11,000 and take your chances. 

And finally, there was an empty seat in the front row when Good Omens had its world premiere in London on Tuesday. But that’s not because organisers had trouble filling the gigantic (and newly reopened) Odeon in Leicester Square – quite the opposite, the event was packed out. In fact, a seat was deliberately kept vacant for Terry Pratchett, the co-writer of the original novel, who died in 2015. As a tribute, his trademark hat was placed in the front row as the premiere got under way. According to Gaiman, one of Pratchett’s last requests was that the novel be adapted for the screen. “[Pratchett said] ‘You have to make it into television because I want to see it before the lights go out,'” explained Gaiman at the premiere. “I said OK, figuring I had six or seven years of Terry left. And then he died, which suddenly turned into a last request.” Gaiman took on the task of adapting the story himself – giving the project a stamp of approval that helped it attract some stellar names to the cast. 

On This Day

• 1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to be tried for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged.
• 1910 – Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.
• 1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
• 1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.

Deaths

• 1990 – Rex Harrison, English actor (b. 1908)
• 2008 – Bo Diddley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1928)
• 2009 – David Eddings, American author (b. 1931)
• 2012 – Richard Dawson, American actor, tv personality, & gameshow host (b. 1932)
• 2017 – Peter Sallis, English actor (b. 1921)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tom Holland (22), Morgan Freeman (81), Brian Cox (72), Jonathan Pryce (71), Amy Schumer (37), Rene Auberjonois (78), Heidi Klum (45), Robert Powell (74), Alanis Morissette (44), Clint Eastwood (89), Colin Farrell (43), Lea Thompson (58), Brooke Shields (54), Tom Berenger (70), Sharon Gless (76), Stephen Tobolowsky (68), Mark Sheppard (55), Colm Meaney (66), Duncan Jones (48), Keir Dullea (83), Harry Enfield (58), Leigh Francis (46), Jennifer Ellison (36), Annette Bening (61), Danny Elfman (66), Mel B (44), Kylie Minogue (51), Julie T. Wallace (58), Michelle Collins (57), Paul Bettany (48), Joseph Fiennes (49), Rachel Parris (35), Helena Bonham Carter (53), Pam Grier (70), Bobcat Goldthwait (57), Lenny Kravitz (55), and Stevie Nicks (71).