Dead Pool 30th August 2020

This weeks big news is without doubt the untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman; who’s illness was alluded to in one of our reports back in April. Just goes to show that those who pay attention and read the articles have a better chance of making a winning list. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

In Other News

Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding has been diagnosed with breast cancer, which she says has spread to other parts of her body. Writing on Twitter, the 38-year-old told fans she was diagnosed with the disease earlier this year. Harding explained she then received the “devastating news” this month that the cancer had spread. “I’m currently undergoing weekly chemotherapy sessions and I am fighting as hard as I possibly can,” she said. She thanked NHS staff, her family and friends for support, adding that she was “trying to keep positive”. Harding said she had decided to go public with her diagnosis after being seen in hospital last week. Her Girls Aloud bandmate Cheryl responded to the news by posting a superficial broken heart emoji on Twitter. Harding shot to fame in 2002 as a contestant on Popstars: The Rivals – an ITV talent show which aimed to find both a new girl band and boy band. She made it to the final and was voted into the group which became Girls Aloud, alongside Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh and Cheryl Tweedy. The group went on to have several UK hits, including Sound of the Underground, The Promise, Love Machine, Jump and Call The Shots. They split in 2013. Harding has since taken on several acting roles, including appearances in Run for Your Wife, and St. Trinian’s 2. In 2017, she won Celebrity Big Brother.   

R Kelly has been attacked by another inmate in prison, his attorney has claimed. The singer was allegedly attacked on Wednesday (26th August) at Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Chicago, where he is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to dozens of state and federal sex crime charges. Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg made the claims on Twitter as he demanded that the “musician” be released from jail ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to begin in New York in September. “We received conflicting reports as to the extent of Kelly’s injuries,” Greenberg wrote. “We have not been provided any information from the jail, nor has Mr Kelly called. We are hopeful that he was not seriously injured.” “The government cannot ensure his safety, and they cannot give him his day in court. We should not incarcerate people indefinitely because we cannot provide them with due process!” Kelly, 53, was originally due to face trial on 7th July, but his trial date was pushed back to the end of September due to the coronavirus pandemic. He is facing charges for multiple offences, including sex trafficking, child pornography and racketeering, in New York, Minnesota and Illinois. Earlier in August, three men were charged with threatening, intimidating or attempting to silence Kelly’s alleged victims, with one accused of setting fire to a vehicle outside the residence where an accuser was staying. 

On This Day

  • 1916 – Ernest Shackleton completes the rescue of all of his men stranded on Elephant Island in Antarctica.  
  • 1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.  
  • 2008 – In a bad day for the pilot, a Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing everyone on board.

Deaths

  • 1979 – Jean Seberg, American actress (b. 1938)  
  • 2003 – Charles Bronson, American actor and soldier (b. 1921)  
  • 2015 – Wes Craven, American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor (b. 1939)  
  • 2019 – Valerie Harper, American actor (b. 1939)

The ‘Horror Movie’ Island

There is an island off the coast that hardly anyone talks about. And you definitely wouldn’t want to go there. You’ll find it opposite Queenborough in Sheppey and its probably one of the most haunting spots anywhere, situated as it is just off the River Medway. It’s local name sounds like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean – it’s dubbed Deadman’s Island, a name it earned after recent investigations found it littered with human remains. More than 200 years ago, the island was used as a burial ground for convicts who died aboard prison ships, and rising sea levels have caused the lost bodies of the ‘prison hulk’ boats just off Sheppey to be uncovered. 

Coastal erosion and lower tides mean that in 2020, wooden coffins, aged skulls and fragments of bones stick out from the six feet of mud that once blanketed the area. Usually the island is completely out of bounds to the public. But a Dead Pool roving reporter was among some of the only visitors who have been allowed to Deadman’s Island in recent times as all others have been banned due to its bird breeding and nesting site. Natural England owns the land which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is recognised to be of international importance under the Ramsar convention. Television crews have been drawn to this spine-tingling location to explore its hidden secrets, with the BBC’s Inside Out team unearthing some harrowing sites on the forgotten island. Director Sam Supple previously told the Sun: “It is like being on the set of a horror film. “It looks so surreal, it’s like an art department has designed it. There are open coffins and bones everywhere.” Presenter Natalie Graham added: “What I saw there will stay with me forever. “This is a really strange sight. I would imagine there can’t be anywhere on earth like this.” It’s not just visitors that are prohibited, no-one lives on the island and so it remains untouched by modern civilisation. This in turn has spurred ghostly folklore about it. 

Locals have warned travellers of hounds with glaring-red eyes that ate the heads of buried bodies, a skin-crawling atmosphere and ‘an island solely occupied by the dead’. And ‘Coffin Bay’ greets anyone who enters its perimeter with, you guessed it, open coffins accompanied by scattered remains along its banks. Floating prisons were former warships which housed inmates, including young pick-pockets, awaiting the death penalty in Australia. If prisoners were not healthy enough for the journey they would be left in the underbelly of the ship until they died, possibly of cholera. They were then buried in unmarked graves on the island so the disease did not spread further, causing an epidemic. Many have wondered whether the bodies at Deadman’s will be re-buried, but experts have admitted this would be a difficult task. This is because the constantly changing seascape threatens the durability of the bones, washing them out to sea. Coincidentally, researchers also found more human remains of a similar nature in Chatham. These were from many French prisoners who were held during the Napoleonic wars – those who died were buried in nearby marshes. When the bones of these prisoners were revealed by erosion they were exhumed and reburied on St Mary’s Island. Later, when this land was needed for redevelopment they were moved to St George’s Church at Chatham Maritime. 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Cameron Diaz (48), Michael Chiklis (57), Warren Buffett (90), Emily Hampshire (38), Carla Gugino (49), Rebecca De Mornay (61), Elliott Gould (82), William Friedkin (85), Jack Black (51), Brian Thompson (61), Billy Boyd (52), Shania Twain (55), David Soul (77), Aaron Paul (41), Peter Stormare (67), Paul Reubens (68), Barbara Bach (73), Peter Mensah (61), Reece Shearsmith (51), Chris Pine (40), Melissa McCarthy (50), Macaulay Culkin (40), Blake Lively (33), Alexander Skarsgård (44), Sean Connery (90), Rachel Bilson (39), Tim Burton (62), Joanne Whalley (59), Tom Skerritt (87), Gene Simmons (71), Billy Ray Cyrus (59), Claudia Schiffer (50), Jared Harris (59), Steve Guttenberg (62), Rupert Grint (32), Jennifer Lien (46), Dave Chappelle (47), and Stephen Fry (63). 

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