Dead Pool 3rd January 2021

Here we are folks! We made it through 2020!! Thank you all who have contributed to The  Cause, you have been very generous indeed! We’re fairly close to the goal, in fact the closest we’ve been to breaking even ever!!! I suppose we’d better get on with it! 

Look Who You Could Have Had 2020:

Look Who You Could Have Had 2021:

In Other News

Eighteen care home residents in Belgium have reportedly died after contracting coronavirus, following a visit from a man dressed as Santa Claus, Ho ho ho! Scores were infected at the nursing home in early December, with an outbreak emerging in the days after the visit. The visitor was reportedly among the first to test positive after his trip to the Hemelrijck home in Mol, a town in Antwerp province. It is yet unclear whether his visit was the cause of the outbreak, which authorities are still looking into. The city council said on Christmas Eve that 13 residents had died at the care home, after being infected with coronavirus. Five more people have since died at the nursing home, Mol’s mayor Wim Caeyers said. On Christmas Eve, Mol city council said a total of 121 residents at the Hemelrijck nursing home had tested positive for Covid-19, and the number showing serious symptoms was increasing. Six members of staff had also tested positive for the virus. “The residential care centre will face a very difficult period in the next seven to ten days,” the council said in a statement on Christmas Eve. After the outbreak emerged following the Santa visit, a company spokesperson told us: “The team is very shocked by what happened, but that also makes them very motivated to get the virus out again.” In hindsight, one wonders who thought it was a good idea to bring a Santa to see a bunch of geriatric non-believers in the first place??  

YouTuber Grace Victory’s family has shared an update on her condition after she was placed into an induced coma by doctors on Christmas Day. On 30th December, the family shared a second post on her Instagram page, saying: “Grace is currently stable and responding well to treatment.” They also thanked fans for their support and well wishes: “We as a family are truly overwhelmed by the amount of Love and well wishes sent to our Grace and we want to thank each and everyone of you for casting a light of hope our way. The 30-year-old influencer delivered her first child on Christmas Eve, much earlier than her due date of February, due to Covid-19 complications. After the birth, Victory, who is from High Wycombe, was then admitted to intensive care as a result of breathing difficulties. Her family shared a post on 28 December detailing what had happened. “As you guys know, Grace gave birth on Christmas Eve to a beautiful baby boy, who is currently doing so well, he’s incredible. We love him so much. Grace developed Covid-19 two weeks ago and although her symptoms were mild at first, they worsened as the days went on. Which meant they had to deliver the baby as soon as possible, as she was just too unwell to carry on with the pregnancy.” The family explained that despite the successful delivery of her son, Victory was then placed into an induced coma to “give her body the rest it needs, in order to recover”. Victory has over 200,000 YouTube subscribers and 224,000 Instagram followers. She has focused her career on body positivity, mental health and holistic healing.  That went well for her then….  

Voice actor Tom Kane, best known for his roles in Star Wars films and TV series, has suffered a stroke. According to a Facebook post by Kane’s daughter, Sam, the stroke occurred around two months ago, and left Kane unable to “efficiently communicate verbally, nor read or spell”. “Our family wanted to share why my dad has been MIA,” she wrote. “About two months ago he had a left side stroke that gave him right sided weakness and damage to the speech centre of his brain. “He is still competent and very much himself, but can only get out a few words right now… My dad still remains in good spirits and his extreme stubbornness has helped him already show improvements in speech. He is fully on board with me sharing this and he will see anything you guys post.” A prolific actor, Kane, now 58, voiced Jedi master Yoda in the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars, returning to the role in other productions. He also voiced the cult franchise favourite Admiral Ackbar in Rian Johnson’s 2017 entry Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, and has appeared in other roles in several Star Wars video games and series. Outside of Star Wars, Kane has appeared in animations including Archer, Powerpuff Girls and Robot Chicken. In the Facebook post, Kane’s daughter revealed that his neurologist told him he may not be able to act in voice-overs again.

On This Day

  • 1833 – The United Kingdom claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. 
  • 1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London left two dead and sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.  
  • 1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities. 
  • 1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates our old friend Fidel Castro. Castro still lived a full life and probably didn’t even notice. 
  • 2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralised payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.  
  • 2015 – Boko Haram militants raze the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria, starting the Baga massacre and killing as many as 2,000 people!! 

Deaths

  • 1795 – Josiah Wedgwood, English potter, founded the Wedgwood Company (b. 1730). 
  • 1903 – Alois Hitler, Austrian civil servant, father of Adolf (b. 1837). 
  • 1946 – William Joyce, American-British pro-Axis propaganda broadcaster (b. 1906). 
  • 1967 – Jack Ruby, American businessman and murderer (b. 1911). 
  • 1979 – Conrad Hilton, American businessman, founded the Hilton Hotels (b. 1887). 
  • 2003 – Jimmy Stewart, Scottish racing driver (b. 1931). 

Last Meals

In the weeks after the Second World War broke out, the crackly sound of a clipped English accent spouting Nazi propaganda began to filter through the wireless sets of Britain in a desperate attempt to sap morale. Radio critic Jonah Barrington was the first to brand the anonymous plummy voice he heard with the nickname “Lord Haw-Haw”. He wrote scathingly: “I imagine him having a receding chin, a questing nose, thin yellow hair brushed back, a monocle, a vacant eye, a gardenia in his buttonhole. Rather like PG Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster…” The moniker would stick when the anonymous voice was revealed as belonging to William Joyce, a scar-faced Anglo-American traitor who had begun broadcasting fascist propaganda. Over the next five years, Joyce would go on to become the scourge of the airwaves. It is estimated that, at his peak, six million Britons regularly tuned in to his transmissions.  

Now, over 80 years on from Joyce’s first broadcasts, the story of how he was finally captured and brought to justice, was, ironically, by a Jew who had fled Hitler’s Germany. 

Born in 1906 in New York to an Irish father and English mother, Joyce’s family moved to Ireland where, as a young man, he dabbled with working for British intelligence. He went on to study English at the University of London, became a teacher and once said: “From my earliest days, I was taught to love England and her Empire.” But by the 1920s, Joyce began to fall under the spell of fascism and in a spat with communist sympathisers, he was slashed from his earlobe to mouth leaving him with a distinctive scar across his right cheek. Joyce was soon giving speeches for the British Union of Fascists but believed its leader Sir Oswald Mosley was too moderate and formed his own pro-Nazi and anti-semitic organisation. 

In 1939, Joyce was tipped off that he was about to be arrested and fled for Germany with his wife Margaret just a week before hostilities broke out. He was quickly recruited by the Nazis, keen to use his background to help them wage a propaganda war through the radio. Although Joyce was of ordinary stock, he had developed a nasally, upper-class English accent that the Nazis believed would give their message credibility and authenticity. His sarcastic and sneering short-wave transmissions from Hamburg would always start with “Germany Calling” before a tirade of arguments designed to convince his British audience to surrender. The Third Reich’s head of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, would describe him as “the best horse in my stable” and Joyce was rewarded for his treachery with German citizenship.

Many Brits, bored by the stodgy wartime BBC output, admitted they listened in not because they sympathised with Haw-Haw’s message but to have a good laugh at his haughty tone. But as the Second World War began to turn against the Nazis and British resolve hardened, Joyce’s power began to wane. As the Allies closed in on Berlin, Joyce gave a final, drunken, rambling broadcast on April 30th 1945, before signing off with a final defiant, “Heil Hitler and farewell”. Joyce and his wife then went into hiding near Flensburg, on the Danish border.  

A month later, on May 28th, a dishevelled figure was spotted gathering firewood by two British soldiers, Captain Bertie Lickorish and Lieutenant Geoffrey Perry members of T-Force, the unit tasked with securing Germany’s scientific and industrial assets. They had begun to engage the man in conversation in English when Lieutenant Perry had a lightbulb moment. He knew Haw-Haw was rumoured to be in the area and thought he recognised the distinctive accent of the man in front of them. He asked him: “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be William Joyce would you?” In response to the question, Joyce reached for his pocket. Believing that he was going for a weapon, Lieutenant Perry shot him in the buttocks. In fact, Joyce didn’t have a gun, he had been reaching for his papers drawn up in the fake name of Wilhelm Hansen. 

The captured Joyce was sent back to Britain to stand trial for high treason because of his British passport. In September, he was found guilty at London’s Old Bailey and hanged by the famed executioner Albert Pierrepoint, on January 3rd 1946, at Wandsworth Prison, making him the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom. He was 38. Sadly we don’t know what his last meal was but Joyce’s unrepentant last words are said to have been: “May the swastika be raised from the dust.” 

The scar on Joyce’s face split wide open because of the pressure applied to his head upon his drop from the gallows. As was customary for executed criminals, Joyce’s remains were buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of HMP Wandsworth. In 1976 following a campaign by his daughter, Heather Landalo, his body was reinterred in Bohermore, Galway, Ireland.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Mel Gibson (65), Florence Pugh (25), Victoria Principal (71), Dabney Coleman (89), Sarah Alexander (50), Tia Carrere (54), Kate Bosworth (38), Cuba Gooding Jr. (53), Frank Langella (83), Li Gong (55), Anthony Hopkins (83), Val Kilmer (61), Ben Kingsley (77), Jane Badler (67), Eliza Dushku (40), Tracey Ullman (61), Fred Ward (78), Tiger Woods (45), Michael Nesmith (78), Jude Law (48), Jon Voight (82), Ted Danson (73), Lilly Wachowski (53), Danny McBride (44), Bernard Cribbins (92), Marianne Faithfull (74), Denzel Washington (66), Maggie Smith (86), Noomi Rapace (41), Sienna Miller (39), Joe Manganiello (44), John Legend (42), and Nichelle Nichols (88).

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