Dead Pool 9th April 2023

POINTS!!! With the death of Nigel Lawson, Paul G scores 59 points! Well done that man! Hope you’re all enjoying your bank holiday weekend! 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Bushwhacker Butch, 78, New Zealand professional wrestler (WWF, WWC, PNW).  
• Max Crabtree, 90, English professional wrestler and promoter (Joint Promotions). 
• Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, Russian blogger, explosion. 
• Andrew Laing, British drummer (Cockney Rejects).  
• Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, 91, British politician, MP (1974–1992) and member of the House of Lords (1992–2022), chancellor of the Exchequer (1983–1989). 
• Bob Lee, 43, American tech executive, founder of Cash App, stabbed.  
• Bill Butler, 101, American cinematographer (Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Grease). 
• Paul Cattermole, 46, English singer (S Club 7).   
• Nicola Heywood-Thomas, 67, Welsh broadcaster and journalist. 
• Norman Reynolds, 89, British production designer (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire of the Sun), Oscar winner. 
• Ian Bairnson, 69, Scottish musician (The Alan Parsons Project, Pilot, Kate Bush). 
• Rachel Pollack, 77, American science fiction writer (Unquenchable Fire, Doom Patrol), Hodgkin lymphoma.  
• Gareth Richards, 41, British comedian and radio host, injuries sustained in a traffic collision.

In Other News

Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is being treated for a type of chronic leukaemia, hospital doctors in Milan have confirmed. He was rushed to intensive care on Wednesday with breathing problems and doctors said he was suffering from a related lung infection. The four-time prime minister and media mogul, Mr Berlusconi, 86, still leads his party and is an elected senator. But he has had repeated health problems since he contracted Covid-19 in 2020. Colleagues have expressed hope that he will still be able to return to front-line politics as he continues to lead Forza Italia, a centre-right junior partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition. “We want to be optimistic,” said Antonio Tajani, Italy’s foreign minister and one of the most senior figures in Mr Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. As Italians waited for more details, the billionaire media tycoon’s younger brother, Paolo, told reporters the family was now feeling confident: “We’re more relieved, there’s an improvement.” Mr Berlusconi also took phone calls from the prime minister and fellow coalition ally Matteo Salvini, reports said. He has combined politics with a business career at the helm of a media empire. He last served as prime minister in 2011, although his latter years in power became overshadowed by sex and corruption scandals. He was elected to Italy’s upper house, the Senate, last September but has repeatedly required hospital treatment. He returned to hospital in Milan on Wednesday only six days after he was discharged following days of check-ups. His personal doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, said his lung infection was related to a chronic blood condition that he had borne for some time but that it had not yet become acute. Earlier reports said he had begun chemotherapy to fight the leukaemia. “He’s stable. He’s a rock. He’s going to make it this time too.” said his younger brother Paolo Berlusconi earlier. His return to hospital has caused concern in Italy and politicians from across the spectrum have wished him well.  

A “drunk” skier has plunged 130 feet to his death in the French Alps after crashing through the window of a gondola. The 29-year-old and another man, aged 23, were filming themselves in the ski lift as they came down the mountain at the Deux Alpes just before it closed on Saturday evening, said Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant. During the 12-minute journey, the older man, who was 6ft 2in tall and weighed more than 100 kilograms, smashed through the plexiglass window and fell to his death. “One option is that he was completely drunk and running for fun against the windows of the cabin,” French police told The Flying Monkeys. The Grenoble prosecutor’s office also confirmed reports that the man landed on a piste marker, and said it had asked police to investigate his death. “Two young men aged 29 and 23, drunk, were messing around in the gondola and the 29-year-old crossed the plexiglass wall and fell 40m to death. The scene was filmed by his friend with his phone,” said Mr Vaillant, in a statement issued in French. The gondola will be examined by investigators, Mr Vaillant said, as the resort’s director denied any responsibility for the incident. “These cabins are designed for 20 people!” said the director of the Deux Alpes resort, Fabrice Boutet. “If there’s movement caused by abrupt braking or something else, the entire cabin is designed to withstand any shocks that may occur … this stupid accident was caused by him gaining momentum and throwing himself against the plexiglass.” The man fell from the Jandri Express 1 ski lift, according to Grenoble-based newspaper Le Dauphiné libéré, which broke the news of the incident. The gondola was built in 1985 and is capable of carrying up to 1,800 people an hour as it travels nearly a kilometre to a height of 2,603 metres above sea level. Les Deux Alpes is France’s highest ski resort, boasting a summit of 3,600 metres. A total of 12 people died in the French mountains during the 2021-22 ski season, according to the French National Mountain Safety Observation System. More than 45,000 people were treated for injuries while emergency services attended around 50,000 incidents. Research by insurance firm Direct Line in 2019 suggested that more than 1,000 British people per day injure themselves on skiing holidays after consuming alcohol, with 3.8 million people reporting alcohol-related injuries on the slopes in the five years prior. You just can’t cure stupid! 

On This Day

• 1860 – On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the oldest known recording of an audible human voice.
• 1969 – The first British-built Concorde 002 makes its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford.
• 2017 – After refusing to give up his seat on an overbooked United Express flight, Dr. David Dao Duy Anh is forcibly dragged off the flight by aviation security officers, leading to major criticism of United Airlines.

Deaths

• 1978 – Clough Williams-Ellis, English-Welsh architect, designed Portmeirion (b. 1883).
• 2011 – Sidney Lumet, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1924).
• 2021 – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921).

How to Live Beyond 100

Ever fancied living to be a supercentenarian?? Seems that living a clean life and staying off the fags and booze doesn’t make much difference. 

In a new scientific study, centenarians may possess a unique immune system that remains functional in extreme old age, helping them achieve exceptional longevity.

This rare population of individuals who reach 100 years or more have a distinct composition of immune cells that provides them with highly functional immune systems, said researchers, from the Boston University School of Medicine.

Previous studies have shown that one of the defining characteristics of ageing is a decline in the proper functioning of the immune system.

Immune cells are behind important mechanisms to recover from disease, promoting longevity.

In the study, published recently in the journal EBioMedicine, researchers performed single cell sequencing to assess the molecules in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) – a broad category of immune cells circulating in the blood – taken from seven centenarians. The centenarians were part of the New England Centenarian Study, one of the largest studies of individuals in North America who have lived longer.

Researchers then used advanced computational techniques to analyse how the proportion of different cell types and their internal activities change with age.

They identified cell type-specific composition and function changes that are unique to centenarians, reflecting normal immune response with age.

“We assembled and analysed what is, to our knowledge, the largest single-cell dataset of centenarian subjects that allowed us to define unique features of this population that support the identification of molecular and lifestyle factors contributing to their longevity,” explained study senior author Stefano Monti.

“Our data support the hypothesis that centenarians have protective factors that enable to recover from disease and reach extreme old ages,” said Tanya Karagiannis, another author of the study.

Scientists said that as people are exposed to infections and recover from them over their lifetime, their immune systems learn to adapt. This ability, however, usually declines with age.

“The immune profiles that we observed in the centenarians confirms a long history of exposure to infections and capacity to recover from them and provide support to the hypothesis that centenarians are enriched for protective factors that increase their ability to recover from infections,” said senior author Paola Sebastiani. 

Researchers believe the findings provide a foundation to better understand the mechanisms driving immune resilience with age – a factor that likely contributes to extreme longevity.

“Centenarians, and their exceptional longevity, provide a ‘blueprint’ for how we might live more productive, healthy lives. We hope to continue to learn everything we can about resilience against disease and the extension of one’s health span,” study senior author George J Murphy said.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Kristen Stewart (33), Elle Fanning (25), Dennis Quaid (69), Mark Pellegrino (58), Cynthia Nixon (57), Katee Sackhoff (43), Patricia Arquette (55), Robin Wright (57), Dean Norris (60), Russell Crowe (59), Ed Speleers (35), Jackie Chan (69), Francis Ford Coppola (84), Zach Braff (48), Paul Rudd (54), Michael Rooker (68), John Ratzenberger (76), Billy Dee Williams (86), Lily James (34), Mitch Pileggi (71), Pharrell Williams (50), Natasha Lyonne (44), Robert Downey Jr. (58), Hugo Weaving (63), Xenia Seeberg (55), Graham Norton (60), Sofia Boutella (41), Amanda Bynes (37), Paris Jackson (25), Eddie Murphy (62), and Alec Baldwin (65).