Dead Pool 22nd March 2026

What a week it’s been, and what a week to be alive, which is more than can be said for the people listed below. Meanwhile, somewhere in the cosmos, God is presumably checking his insurance policy now that Chuck Norris has apparently decided to make things personal. The smart money, as always, is on Chuck. But the real hero of the week? Step forward Dave, who has waltzed off with 53 points by plucking Len Deighton from the dusty corner of his Waiting Room. Len Deighton. Not your obvious answer. Not your safe answer. A choice that required either extraordinary foresight or an extremely specific magazine collection. Either way, Dave, the points are yours and the rest of us can only stare at our own picks and quietly question our life choices. Well done that man. Well done indeed.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Jordan Wright, 33, British reality television personality (The Only Way Is Essex, Ex on the Beach). 
• Matt Clark, 89, American actor (In the Heat of the Night, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Jeff Foxworthy Show), complications from spinal surgery. 
• Len Deighton, 97, British spy novelist and illustrator (The IPCRESS File, An Expensive Place to Die, XPD). 
• Rainelle Krause, 37, American soprano. 
• Tom Georgeson, 88, English actor (Between the Lines, A Fish Called Wanda, Notes on a Scandal). 
• Dame Jenni Murray, 75, English journalist and broadcaster (Woman’s Hour). 
• Chuck Norris, 86, American martial artist, actor (Walker, Texas Ranger, Missing in Action, The Way of the Dragon). 
• Nicholas Brendon, 54, American actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). 
• Robert Mueller, 81, American lawyer, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California (1998–2001), deputy attorney general and director of the FBI (2001–2013). 

In Other News 

In news that has prompted an outpouring of absolutely zero public sympathy, Gary Glitter, the man who spent decades demanding we remember his name, is apparently finding that prison life at 81 isn’t quite the glamorous rock and roll lifestyle he once enjoyed. Glitter, born Paul Francis Gadd, is currently residing at HMP Channings Wood in Devon, where he is serving a 16-year sentence for abusing three schoolgirls. He is reportedly deaf, can barely move, and is largely unrecognisable, which, given the circumstances, one might argue is the least the universe could do. A source has revealed that fellow inmates and prison officers believe he is “on his last legs, with his body giving up.” We shall pause here to allow the world’s smallest violin to finish its performance. Remarkably, and one must admire the consistency here, Glitter is apparently regarded by fellow prisoners as “arrogant,” which is a quite extraordinary achievement in a wing full of people who are themselves not exactly pillars of the community. He must be working very hard at that. For his own safety, Glitter is kept on a Vulnerable Prisoners Unit and spends up to 23 hours a day in his cell, which does raise the philosophical question of whether a man who spent years destroying the childhoods of others is perhaps not owed a great deal of sympathy about his recreational time. Lest we forget the greatest act of his post-prison career: upon being released in February 2023, having only served eight years, Glitter managed to last precisely six weeks before using a mobile phone to access footage of young girls on the dark web from a bail hostel. Six weeks. The man couldn’t even make it to half time. He was promptly returned to prison, where he has since been refused parole not once but twice, in February 2024 and again in June 2025. The Parole Board, displaying what might be described as a firm grasp of the obvious, noted that their decisions are “solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released.” Given that Glitter used his first six weeks of freedom to immediately violate his parole conditions in the most predictable way imaginable, one can only admire the Board’s gift for understatement. He is, the source assures us, spending his days in considerable discomfort, largely ignored, and universally disliked even by the people locked up alongside him. Rock and roll! 

The Only Way Is Essex star Jordan Brook, 31, revealed he’s been diagnosed with both viral meningitis and encephalitis. He insisted to his followers to not listen to rumours online, as he’s caught wind of speculation on his health as he spoke in the video shared on his Instagram page. Jordan, who is expecting his first child with Sophie Kasaei, remains in hospital and is receiving round-the-clock care and is being monitored for seizures. He spoke out sharing details around his current health battle in a candid video from his hospital bed. He is seen sat up in his hospital bed in the clip as he begins: “This is the first time I’ve really been able to speak strong enough about what’s going on. There’s been a lot of speculations as to why I’m here and what’ going on and there’s a few comments and people saying things that this is my diagnosis that I got yesterday. I’ve been diagnosed with not one but two joining viruses that are attacking a similar part of my body. I have got viral meningitis and encephalitis together. That’s the inflammation of the brain and the lining around it.” He added: “So this isn’t something small or minor.” According to the NHS, Meningitis “is an infection of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord (meninges).” However, it can be very serious if not treated quickly as meningitis can cause life-threatening sepsis and result in “permanent damage to the brain or nerves”. Meanwhile, the NHS states that encephalitis “is an uncommon but serious condition in which the brain becomes inflamed”. The condition can be life-threatening and requires urgent treatment in hospital. Jordan continued to explain the extensive tests he’s had as he said: “I had CT scans, MRI scans, lumbar punctures. With round-the-clock care since I’ve been in this hospital. I’m on IV drips, everything antiviral, pain management, physio, seizure monitoring, to minor seizure risk at the minute. But unfortunately the swelling on my brain is getting worse. It’s really, really tough. Even the simple day-to-day activities and normal things that aren’t easy right now so this is what I’m dealing with day-today. I’m on day 11 of treatment and I’d like to reach out to everyone and say just be careful what you read online and be conscious of some things that people are writing. Commenting this isn’t like a joke or people are writing that I’m a lot worse than I am and there’s big C-words being dropped and things like that – it isn’t that – but there’s swelling on my brain it’s really bad they’ve upped my meds, my steroids to try and get the swelling down. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be in hospital. My focus right now is simple I need to get healthy. My Sophie’s been amazing and she’s growing my precious baby boy. I just want to be a young, healthy dad, home for my family, with my baby – that’s the goal. This won’t beat me. I will get out of this,” he added before sharing thanks for support he’s received. “Thank you to all my family and my friends, everyone’s messages that have been coming through and keep the support going.”   

In what can only be described as the most shocking non-event of the century, the self-proclaimed peak of human physical perfection, Donald J. Trump, who once assured us all he could do press-ups until the cows came home, was spotted yesterday performing the Herculean feat of walking down some stairs. Badly. The footage shows America’s self-declared healthiest president gripping the Air Force One railing like it personally owes him money, descending at the kind of pace that would have a sloth checking its watch. The internet, naturally, lost its mind, not because it was surprising, but because we’ve all been watching this slow-motion car crash for years and nobody in a position of power will acknowledge the windscreen is missing. This is, lest we forget, the same man who had his personal doctor declare him the healthiest human being to ever occupy the Oval Office. The same man who threw a tantrum every time anyone suggested his cognitive or physical health deserved even a cursory glance. “Nobody is even close!” he boasted, which makes the white-knuckle stair descent all the more spectacular to witness. A separate video from the day before showed Trump gripping a table with both hands just to lower himself into a chair, his face contorting in what supporters will insist was steely presidential determination and absolutely nothing else whatsoever. The man who mocked Hillary Clinton for having pneumonia. The man who made Joe Biden’s age a cornerstone of his entire campaign. That man. Gripping furniture to sit down. Commenters online were, shall we say, not entirely sympathetic. “It’s time to come clean about his health,” wrote one optimist who still believes honesty is something this administration is capable of. Others were somewhat more direct in their assessments, though we shall draw a tasteful veil over those. His defenders, ever reliable, rushed to point out that walking carefully down stairs is completely normal and that everyone grips railings sometimes and that short clips can be misleading, all observations that were notably absent from their vocabulary between 2020 and 2024 when a different elderly president was the subject of such scrutiny. Trump will reportedly spend the weekend in Florida, returning to Washington next week, presumably via elevator, golf cart, or whatever mode of transport requires the least navigating of steps. His schedule, we are told, remains unchanged, because acknowledging anything would require a level of transparency that this particular administration treats as a communicable disease. The healthiest president. By far. Nobody even close.

On This Day

• 1312 – Vox in excelso: Pope Clement V dissolves the Order of the Knights Templar.
• 1933   – Nazi Germany opens its first concentration camp, Dachau.
• 1960 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser. 
• 1963 – The Beatles release their debut album Please Please Me.
• 1972 – In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the United States Supreme Court decides that unmarried persons have the right to possess contraceptives. 
• 1978 – Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope suspended between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 
• 1995 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space. 
• 2024 – At least 145 people are killed and 551 injured in a bombing and mass shooting at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia.

Deaths

• 1144 – William of Norwich, child murder victim.
• 1978 – Karl Wallenda, German-American acrobat and tightrope walker (born 1905).
• 2001 – William Hanna, American animator, director, producer, and voice actor, co-founded Hanna-Barbera (born 1910).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Reese Witherspoon (50), William Shatner (95), Matthew Modine (67), Lena Olin (71), Carter Wong (79), Gary Oldman (68), Matthew Broderick (64), Timothy Dalton (80), Scott Eastwood (40), Rhys Darby (52), Sonequa Martin-Green (41), Rosie O’Donnell (64), Holly Hunter (68), David Thewlis (63), Ruby Rose (40), John de Lancie (78), Theresa Russell (69), Freema Agyeman (47), Bruce Willis (71), Glenn Close (79), Ursula Andress (90), Harvey Weinstein (74), Brad Dourif (76), Queen Latifah (56), Kurt Russell (75), Rob Lowe (62), Morfydd Clark (37), Gary Sinise (71), John Boyega (34), Patrick Duffy (77), Alexandra Daddario (40), Alan Tudyk (55), Jerome Flynn (63), Erik Estrada (77), Jimmy Nail (72), and Aisling Bea (42).