Dead Pool 3rd December 2023

What a week for deaths! The first real cold snap of the year and it seemed like they were dropping like flies! 

Let’s award some points! With the passing of Henry Kissinger, 50 points to the following: Dave, Paul C, Shân, and myself. However Nickie had him down as her Cert, so an amazing 150 points go to her tally! 

But let’s not stop there!!! With Shane MacGowan’s death, I can award 85 points to each of the following: Neil, Abi, Martin, Nickie, Debbie, and Lee. 

Which means Nickie has toppled Jamie from the top the leader board, with only a few weeks to go! What excitement!!!! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Les Maguire, 81, English musician (Gerry and the Pacemakers).  
• Mary L. Cleave, 76, American astronaut (STS-61-B, STS-30).  
• Henry Kissinger, 100, German-born American diplomat and politician, national security advisor, secretary of state and Nobel Prize laureate.  
• Dean Sullivan, 68, English actor (Brookside), prostate cancer. 
• Sticky Vicky, 80, Spanish dancer and illusionist (Benidorm).  
• Alistair Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, 70, British politician, chancellor of the Exchequer, MP and member of the House of Lords, cancer. 
• Shane MacGowan, 65, English-born Irish singer (The Pogues) and songwriter (“Fairytale of New York“), pneumonia and encephalitis.  
• Brigit Forsyth, 83, Scottish actress (Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Boon, Still Open All Hours). 
• Sandra Day O’Connor, 93, American jurist, associate justice of the Supreme Court, complications from dementia and respiratory illness. 
• Glenys Kinnock, 79, British politician, MEP, member of the House of Lords, and minister of state for Europe, complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

In Other News

The grieving family of Benidorm legend Sticky Vicky have described the performer’s last moments in hospital before she died of heart failure aged 80 last week.  The mother-of-two, 80, passed away at the Villajoyosa Hospital near the Benidorm resort where she rose to international fame. Her daughter, María Aragüés Gadea, said Vicky sadly died on her 42nd birthday, adding it was a day she will ‘remember for the rest of my life’. ‘My mum was in hospital for the last 12 days of her life and as a family we’ve been with her and have been able to say goodbye to her. I was by her bedside when she died this morning. She passed away as they were changing her morphine bottle,’ she told The Flying Monkeys. ‘She has gone, surrounded by her family, with all of our love. I thank God for being able to always be by her side, I am left with a broken heart. Vicky retired from her act in 2016, aged 72, after stunning generations with her X-rated tricks that made creative use of household objects including ping-pong balls, razor blades and beer bottles. She endured health complications as she got older, fighting cancer and undergoing at least two hip replacements. Maria, who took over her mother’s act after her retirement, confirmed two years ago that her mother had ‘won her fight against cancer with radiotherapy and chemotherapy’ but had since been diagnosed with dementia. Born in 1943 in Tenerife, Victoria María Aragüés Gadea, a trained ballet dancer, became an icon in Spain’s touristic city of Benidorm thanks to her exotic, x-rated performances of her vaginal magic show. The mother-of-two moved to the city in south-east Spain in 1980 where she became a legend of the holiday hotspot visited by millions of British tourists. Her show – which ran for move than three decades – involved pulling a variety of objects from her vagina, including ping pong balls, razor blades, eggs, handkerchiefs and machetes. It would end with the lights dimming and her producing a lit light bulb. An estimated six million people saw the show – which she would invariably perform six times in a night, six days a week – since she started it in the mid-1970s. And she once marked the third series of ITV’s comedy show Benidorm starring Johnny Vegas by officially opening Mel’s Mobility Shop before it caught fire. She was once described by a guide to Benidorm as such a ‘must-see’ that leaving without experiencing her show would be like buying fish without chips. Vicky finally retired in 2016 aged 72 after she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. 

A mortuary worker was left horrified after a 90-year-old woman appeared to come back to life in a body bag. Norma Silveira da Silva was gasping for breath when the worker found her hours after she was pronounced dead at the Sao Jose Regional Hospital in Brazil on Saturday. He rushed her back to her hospital bed to recover but tragically she died just a day later. Norma’s friend and caregiver Jessica Martins Silvi Pereira, 30, said the family plans to sue the hospital. She said: “It’s a case of neglect that I would not wish on anyone. When he opened the bag she was breathing very weakly. And, as she was no longer conscious, she couldn’t ask for help, she tried to breathe and couldn’t. I mean, from 11.40pm until 1.30am she was inside the bag almost dying asphyxiated.” Norma’s second death certificate, seen by local media, suggests she died of sepsis — a deadly reaction to an infection. Doctors initially listed an infection as the cause of death on her first death certificate before she was taken to the mortuary. After her horrific ordeal in the morgue, she was taken back to her ward. Jessica told local media: “On Saturday afternoon, I went to visit her and she opened her eye. She didn’t have much stimulation, but she managed to open her eye and saw that we were there.” Tragically she passed away the following day and Jessica said Norma’s family have still not been told what her cause of death was. Her case will be investigated by Brazil’s Medical Ethics Committee and the Death Commission, according to local media. The Regional Council of Medicine of the State of Santa Catarina said it “was aware of the situation and will institute appropriate procedures to monitor the case”.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is expected to survive a stabbing attack he suffered while serving time for the 2020 killing of George Floyd. Chauvin was attacked on Friday at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages. A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office told the Flying Monkeys over the weekend that the convicted former law enforcement officer is expected to survive the injuries he sustained, but declined to elaborate on Chauvin’s condition. An earlier press release by the correctional facility stated that guards had initiated life-saving measures upon finding the victim at around 12.30pm on Friday and that the inmate was later transported to a hospital. Prosecutors who successfully pursued a second-degree murder conviction against Chauvin at a jury trial in 2021 condemned the attack. “I am sad to hear that Derek Chauvin was the target of violence,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement on Saturday. Chauvin’s mother Carolyn Pawlenty told us that she had learned about her son’s stabbing on the news. Visiting at the facility, which has about 380 inmates, has been suspended in the aftermath of the stabbing.

On This Day

• 1697 – St Paul’s Cathedral, rebuilt to the design of Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London, is consecrated. 
• 1942 – During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. 
• 1982 – At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. 
• 1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed by police in Medellín. 
• 1999 – The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive following the Good Friday Agreement.  

Deaths

• 1814 – Marquis de Sade, French philosopher, author, and politician (b. 1740). 
• 1982 – Marty Feldman, English actor and comedian (b. 1933). 
• 1986 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-American actor, singer, and television producer (b. 1917). 
• 1993 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord (b. 1949). 
• 1997 – Shirley Crabtree, English wrestler (b. 1930). 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Brendan Fraser (55), Amanda Seyfried (38), Julianne Moore (63), Daryl Hannah (63), Ozzy Osbourne (75), Lucy Liu (55), Lesley-Ann Brandt (42), Britney Spears (42), Connie Booth (83), Nelly Furtado (45), Zoë Kravitz (35), Riz Ahmed (41), Sarah Silverman (53), Bette Midler (78), Ridley Scott (86), Kaley Cuoco (38), Ben Stiller (58), Woody Allen (88), Mandy Patinkin (71), Gemma Chan (41), Diane Ladd (88), Jeff Fahey (71), Don Cheadle (59), Gena Lee Nolin (52), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (39), Alan Ritchson (41), Karen Gillan (36), Ed Harris (73), Judd Nelson (64), Martin Clunes (62), Ellie Taylor (40), Armando Iannucci (60), Jon Stewart (61), Fisher Stevens (60), Sharlto Copley (50), and Robin Givens (59).