Dead Pool 21st September 2025

As we mourn the death of free speech in the US, perhaps we should start listing American  journalists next year? After all, I’m pretty sure we’re only a few months away from a second Night of the Long Knives…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Stephen Luscombe, 70, English musician (Blancmange) and songwriter (“Living on the Ceiling“, “Don’t Tell Me“). 
• Robert Redford, 89, American actor (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) and film director (Ordinary People). 
• Sonny Curtis, 88, American musician (The Crickets) and songwriter (“I Fought the Law“, “Love is All Around“).
• Matt Beard, 47, English football manager (Burnley F.C. Women, Liverpool F.C. Women).
• John Stapleton, 79, English broadcaster (Nationwide, Watchdog) and journalist, complications from Parkinson’s disease.

In Other News

Steve Martin has canceled two comedy tour stops over the weekend after contracting COVID, the Only Murders in the Building star shared on Instagram. He and co-star Martin Short were set to continue The Dukes of Funnytown! Tour. “Dear Virginia Beach and Richmond. Sadly, I have come down with Covid. I can’t possibly do the shows that you deserve. So Marty and I must cancel tonight & tomorrow. But we will return under better circumstances.,” Martin wrote on Instagram yesterday alongside a photo of his pup looking weary. In a separate joke. Martin and Short were recently at the Emmys this past Sunday, after which they attended The Walt Disney Company’s Emmys bash. This is now the second time one of the veteran comics’ contraction of COVID has forced a tour cancellation or rescheduling. Earlier this year, it was Short who contracted COVID after attending the star-studded weekend-long celebration that was SNL50. “Maya Rudolph]had Covid. Marty has Covid. I wonder why? The SNL 50th Covid curse is real,” Martin wrote on Instagram in February. As a result, The Dukes of Funnytown! moved its Tennessee and North Carolina stops to mid-October.  

Morrissey has cancelled two shows in the US after receiving a death threat ahead of a concert in Ottawa, Canada. A 26-year-old Ottawa man was released on bail after allegedly uttering a threat to kill the singer, whose real name is Steven Morrissey, ahead of his performance at a music festival last week. The event went on as planned, but the singer later cancelled two shows in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Morrissey was the front man of the rock band The Smiths, but left the band in 1987 to pursue a solo career. He is known for being outspoken on issues such as animal welfare and politics. In 2006, he refused to tour in Canada in protest at the annual seal hunt. After the threat against his life in Ottawa last week, he cancelled Friday’s show in Connecticut and one in Boston. “In recent days, there has been a credible threat on Morrissey’s life,” said a statement from the Boston venue on Instagram. “Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of both the artist and the band, tomorrow’s engagement at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway has been canceled.” 

Springwatch icon Bill Oddie has confessed to struggling with his health in recent years after an “almost fatal” ordeal that left him “very ill”. The Goodies star, now 84, was diagnosed with lithium toxicity in 2020 which left him “very confused”, admitting he “didn’t know” if he would ever return to his former self. The BBC presenter said “Just so you know, I have been very ill most of this summer. Lithium toxicity. Almost fatal! I am still here but very confused about most things! But then aren’t many of us. It fuddles my brain. Confusion. Will I return? I really dunno. I hope so. Please wish me luck.” According to the NHS, too much lithium in the blood can cause serious side effects – causing confusion, drowsiness, blackouts and blurred vision. Used as a mood stabiliser, he was prescribed lithium after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Bill plunged into a spiral of depression after being axed from Springwatch in 2008, and attempted suicide twice. He explained it took “10 years” to get a diagnosis of bipolar disorder after years of mood swings – excessive energy and over-confidence followed by sudden dark periods. He explained: “It happened to me. It’s happening to others right now. “It could be fatal. You don’t know what to do except sleep. So you take a couple of sleeping pills, and then you take another until they’re all gone,” he said in 2017. The star added: “A producer said, ‘People are scared of you. You’re abrasive’. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have accepted that I was going through a manic phase. When my GP watched The Goodies he recognised I was bipolar.” Oddie was “in and out of hospital” in 2009, branding it his “lost year”. He was admitted to a private clinic in London – the same one that treated Amy Winehouse – but said it was “like being medicated in a hotel”. He told the Flying Monkeys: “I really was suicidal. I took too many sleeping pills, twice. I can only say the feeling wasn’t, ‘I want to kill myself’. It was, ‘I want to go to sleep and just blank out’. But I did take risks, a couple of times.” Bill also suffers from musical hallucination, a form of tinnitus where instead of a ringing or buzzing noise, sufferers hear music that isn’t really there. He explained that the music is “only in his right ear”, explaining: “At first, I thought it must be outside but when I closed the windows, the volume stayed the same. I started moving from room to room, looking to see if there was a radio on somewhere, but there wasn’t. It really was quite confounding.”

On This Day

• 1921 – A storage silo in Oppau, Germany, explodes, killing 500–600 people. 
• 1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing more than 3,000 people.
• 1937 – J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is published for the first time.

Deaths

• 19BC – Virgil, Roman poet (born 70 BC).
• 1327 – Edward II of England (born 1284).
• 1998 – Florence Griffith Joyner, American sprinter (born 1959).

When The King Met Ethel

King Charles paid a special visit to the world’s oldest person, Ethel Caterham, who entertained him with her memories of how “all the girls were in love with you and wanted to marry you”. 

The monarch travelled to see 116-year-old Mrs Caterham at her care home in Lightwater, Surrey, on Thursday, shortly after bidding a formal farewell to US Dickhead in Charge Donald Trump at Windsor. 

Mrs Caterham became the oldest living person in April after the death of Brazilian nun Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas at 116. 

She chose to celebrate her latest birthday in August quietly with just her family – but it was revealed at the time that she would have made a concession for the King. The monarch duly obliged just a few weeks later by travelling to see her in person. 

Charles held Mrs Caterham’s hand at the start as he introduced himself. Then, sitting in an armchair next to Mrs Caterham, who was wearing gold fur-lined sequinned slippers, a patterned sage dress and a pale pink shawl, the King listened intently as she told him: “I remember when your mother crowned you in Caernarfon Castle.” 

The King expressed delight at her recollection of his 1969 investiture as the Prince of Wales when he was 21, saying “oh yes” and adding to others in the room: “You see, fascinating.” Mrs Caterham continued: “And all the girls were in love with you and wanted to marry you.” 

The remark prompted a hearty laugh from the King and a raise of his eyebrows. 

One of Mrs Caterham’s granddaughters, Kate Henderson, added: “You were saying that the other day, weren’t you? “You said ‘Prince Charles was so handsome. All the girls were in love with him’. A true prince – and now the King.” 

Charles, who responded with a playful grimace, quipped: “Yes well, all that’s left of him anyway.” 

The pair also spoke about Mrs Caterham’s fond memories of a Buckingham Palace garden party she attended in the 1960’s. 

On the table between the chairs was a previous birthday card from Charles and Camilla, one from the late Queen Elizabeth II, and a framed, signed letter from the King congratulating Mrs Caterham on her 116th birthday and becoming the world’s oldest living person. The cards were just some of the 17 she has received from both the King and the late Queen Elizabeth II to mark her birthdays since turning 100, including the one marking her centenary. 

In 2023, Mrs Caterham featured on the monarchy’s official Instagram when she was filmed receiving a card from the King in the post to mark her 114th birthday. She was joined by three granddaughters, Kate, Julia Pauling and Lucy Robinson. 

Mrs Caterham was born on August 21st in 1909, in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, five years before the start of the First World War, as the second youngest of eight siblings. 

She is the last surviving subject of Edward VII, who died in May 1910. 

In 1927, aged 18 she travelled to India and worked as an au pair to a military family until she was 21. 

She met her husband, Norman, who was a lieutenant colonel in the British Army who died in 1976, at a dinner party in the UK in 1931. They lived in Salisbury before being stationed in Gibraltar and Hong Kong and Mrs Caterham set up a nursery school while in Hong Kong and raised two daughters, both of whom died before her. 

One of her sisters, Gladys, lived to be 104. 

Mrs Caterham drove until she was 97 and enjoyed playing contract bridge in her centenarian years. 

She survived Covid in 2020 aged 110. 

The title of the oldest person ever is held by French woman Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122 years 164 days, according to Guinness World Records.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Bill Murray (75), Stephen King (78), David Wenham (60), Alfonso Ribeiro (54), Ricki Lake (57), Jon Bernthal (49), Sophia Loren (91), Moon Bloodgood (50), George R.R. Martin (77), Twiggy (76), Jimmy Fallon (51), Danielle Panabaker (38), Jeremy Irons (77), Christina Chong (42), Patrick Schwarzenegger (32), James Marsden (52), Jason Sudeikis (50), Keeley Hazell (39), Babs Olusanmokun (41), Jada Pinkett Smith (54), Tim McInnerny (69), Danielle Brooks (36), Ella Purnell (29), Cassandra Peterson (74), Bruce Spence (80), Mickey Rourke (73), Madeline Zima (40), Jennifer Tilly (67), Amy Poehler (54), Nick Jonas (33), Danny John-Jules (65), Tom Hardy (48), Tommy Lee Jones (79), John Bradley (37), and Jimmy Carr (53).